Go, listen, and learn! 
Coal In My Stocking?
Santa says, “You better watch out, don’t be naughty or else!” A jolly old man who uses guilt and threats against children who know deep down that being good even for a week is an impossible task. He looks bright and cheerful, magical even, but under it all Santa is kind of a jerk, but we forgive him because he brings presents to all the good little boys and girls.
The Savior was born because we were naughty not nice, a gift to be offered for all the bad little boys and girls, because there was none righteous not even one. We couldn’t have any of the presents, like eternal life, fellowship with God, the true purpose and meaning of life, God’s happiness and real contentment. God’s plan was always to solve that problem and Jesus the messiah was the answer. “For God so loved the world that He gave His uniquely born Son that whoever believes in Him (trusts in and relies upon for salvation) will not perish (be stuck without God and all the presents for eternity) but have eternal life” The Lord Jesus doesn’t say “Be good or else!” He is begging mankind to accept the gift of Himself because he wants to give us all the presents. Jesus took naughty and nice out of the way and offered us Himself as an alternative. No guilt, no threats, just a free gift for anyone who will accept it.
Merry Christmas!
Filed under Ideas
Another School Year
This last year has gone by so fast. With doing school and going to Bible conference in Tucson, moving, and getting settled in TX it’s been a crazy year and it’s not over yet. We move again to our permanent duty station in CA at the beginning of Oct. I just found out yesterday when we would be able to move. We are looking forward to CA since I have some family there and of course all the great things to do in CA, especially seeing the ocean.
School has started again and my Workboxes are working wonderfully and making a big difference. The kids plow through all the drawers they can do on their own and it leaves me lots of time to do the “teaching” when necessary. I still haven’t figured out how to keep up with all the housework too but I think a perfect house is a lost cause during the school year. I’ll take going to the park over cleaning the toilets anyday! This year we are still using Prof. B math along with Saxon + the Dive Teacher, Noeo Science, The Phonics Road, Homeschool in the woods O.T. lapbook, Typing Instructor (which my son commented was fun because he likes the games and collecting things), Student Writing Intensive (IEW), and also the spelling program from The Institute for Excellence in Writing and an American History series I’ve thrown together myself. We don’t do all of this every day but when I split it up over the week it works just fine.
It will be interesting to see how things go with moving.
Keep Sailing,
Mary
Filed under Ideas
Perseverance In The Moment
The disaster, the betrayal, the bad driver, the late app, the minor inconvenience, they all send me right over the edge, trying desperately to control and fix and manipulate or worry things back to the way I want them and when that doesn’t work, maybe some cursing and yelling and throwing a grown-up fit will help, or at least make me feel better. When I sit in Bible class and learn about the sure confidence I can have in the plan of God, in His promise to work all things together for my good, Rom 8:28, I nod my head in agreement. I am sure in that moment that the next time I face an unexpected difficulty I will easily recall to mind that God has everything under control, everything is for my benefit and just relax. Only, that pretty much never happens, the very next time things go wrong, I freak out. I’ve been thinking a little about why that is, and I’ve come up with a couple of reasons. First, I react and get out of fellowship with God. Secondly, I think I’m going to lose out on something. All the available data from the unhappy circumstance says that I’m going to be worse off because of whatever is going wrong. Either I’m going to suffer, (Noooooooo!) or my living circumstances will go down in some way (ensuing pity party). Thirdly, the appearance of the circumstance usually looks like it has no end in sight, so as far as I can see, everything will be bad forever-more. Once I start thinking like that it’s hard to remember any doctrine. Many times I have faced a sudden difficulty, thought that it would last forever, or that there was no way out and sure enough God fixed the problem and I felt foolish later. Then again sometimes there has been a prolonged period of suffering, God chose not to “fix” everything and in the end I learned things about God and grew in my relationship with Him in ways I never could have otherwise. What I want to get at is, that sometimes things are meant to look bad, hopeless, or endless so that I can learn not to look at the things that are seen but the things that are unseen and see things from God’s perspective or at least remember that He has a perspective I can’t see, which glorifies Him and benefits me. He promised that nothing can happen in my life that He didn’t first approve and that includes other people’s evil decisions, which affect me. It also includes my own bad decisions that hurt me too, and circumstances simply designed to challenge the mental attitude. Just a little perseverance when things look bad could go a long way.
Keep Sailing,
Mary
Filed under Ideas
Homeschool Workboxes And Settling In
I finally feel like we are settling in here in TX. I started back up with homeschooling a couple of weeks ago and I have been swamped with that and the housework ever since. I’m finding that a smaller space is much harder to keep up with and not having a dishwasher makes for twice as much work, though I don’t hate it. I’ve been busy most days from morning till night going and going. It’s not all work though, we do spend a lot of time at the park.
I also discovered “Workboxes” about 2 weeks ago. I heard another mom on my homeschool email group talking about it and couldn’t resist looking it up. The whole idea has changed homeschooling for me in a very positive way. I may have mentioned a few times that teaching can be overwhelming, while I love it, there is a huge amount of information I have to keep in lists or in my head, I have to be able to direct one of my children to work on an assignment while I’m working with the other and keep prompting them with what is next. The workboxes idea has cut that down to half, at least. I saw the best presentation of different workbox ideas at this website http://www.squidoo.com/workboxes I went with the roller carts which I will explain in just a moment. The idea is to enable your children to work independently and have their entire day’s worth of assignments arranged in one place. This is how the idea is working for me; Each assignment or project is placed in a different box (drawer in our case) and a removable number is attached to each drawer with work still in it. Once the child has completed the drawer, turned in the work and put away the book/supplies, the drawer is finished and they get to take the number off the drawer and place it on a chart that holds all the numbers. When all the drawers are empty they are finished for the day. Some people, I noticed, placed snack time or play time in some of the drawers. I have found that I might put some “went to the park/Library/Field trip” cards in a spot where they can exchange them for work in the drawers if our day gets interrupted (which happens often) so for example if we decide to go to the park, I can allow them to skip an assignment since the time got cut short. On the top of the roller carts I have a file box where I prepare all the work a week in advance so that I can simply fill up the boxes each night without a lot of prep. So far this is working very well. The first week, I assigned too much work in my enthusiasm. This week is going much better now that I have a sense of how much work is realistic. The kids seem to like it too because they know what is expected of them.
Picture number 3 shows the file box where I put all the work. Picture number 2 shows a couple of assignments in the drawers. We do a lot of work on the computer so I often just have to put a note in the drawer. Picture number 1 shows the workboxes about half full with the numbers and charts. I hope this all makes sense. The Workboxes idea has made my life SO much easier!
Keep Sailing,
Mary
Filed under Homeschool
