Blogger Friend School Assignment 2

Assignment: This would be a good week to tell about your worst struggles with a lifestyle of homeschooling. Tell about something you’ve struggled with and how God’s mercies gave us the strength to get past it. Also, share any curriculum/homeschool methods that have been a relief to you, i.e., a particular Teacher’s Manual or Homeschooling method that’s been easier for your family. Talk about how you felt when the burden was lifted and Oh, What a Relief it is!

Our worst struggles with the lifestyle of homeschooling....hmmm. For our family it has to be the previous two years for a variety of reasons which I will list for you instead of rambling on for paragraphs about each one:
1. They were the first years of homeschooling our oldest and we were getting our feet wet.
2. I was working full-time outside of the home the opposite shift of my husband (me days, him nights).
3. I would write lesson plans and he would teach them while I was gone (so I missed out on all the learning).
4. I was pregnant and delivered twice within those two years, and both pregnancies were physically difficult and very painful (but both babies were very healthy!).
5. We had other children at home all under the age of 4.
6. My husband was in school full-time while working full-time.

People often have asked me how we did it: homeschool, both work full-time, DH was in school full time, by the end of the 2 years we had 5 children ages 6 and under! My only answer is that God was merciful to us and was guiding us along during those crazy years. I never wanted to work outside the home, it was something that came out of necessity for a period of time. Thankfully in March of this year, the Lord provided my husband a full-time pastoral position at a church which required an out of state move for our family. Because of his new job, I was able to leave the workplace and stay home full time with my kids. What a blessing! Now I am with my children all day and I actually SEE my DH outside of the "Hi" "Bye" lifestyle we had for so long.

A verse that my DH and I have held fast to throughout our marriage is Ecclesiastes 3:11 "He has made all things beautiful in its time". We have found this to be true time and time again in our life. We actually have this verse printed in our living room and it reminds me multiple times daily how wonderful it is to serve our loving God. He does know our every need and he does "work all things for good for those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose." The beauty of the Ecclesiastes passage is that it states He HAS made....meaning it is already done! We are just waiting for our own eyes to see what He has already done for us. Therefore we need not worry or be anxious. 8-)

As far as the second part of the question regarding a curriculum choice etc. that has helped us, we definitely have been a family who has bounced around between curriculums! And our oldest is only in 2nd grade!!!!! One resource that has GREATLY helped us is The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. I cannot recommend this book highly enough! We had tried several different phonics programs before this one and the others all burnt out my DD with the amount of handwriting/workbook pages to complete. I love that this one is orally done, has very short lessons and is thorough in its instruction.

My second recommendation is for My Father's World. We switched to MFW this year and have LOVED it! We are currently completing their Adventures program with our oldest and we have the Kindergarten program as well for DD #2 (although we have held off on starting it so far this year, she's only 4). The days are planned for you so it is "open and go" but there is still a great deal of flexibility within the plans if you would like to add/subtract according to your child's needs. I also like that if you purchase the packaged curriculum ALL of the required reading materials (living books) are included in the package price. They also provide a supplemental reading list to add to your study each week but NONE of those books are required to complete an accurate study of the topic you are focusing on. For me this is a huge blessing, I love to use the library but it was always a frustration to be searching for the book you *NEED* and find it unavailable - (I'm speaking from our history with various OTHER curricula) and I just don't have the time to plan around inter-library loan etc. MFW has been a great blessing to our family!