mid-year musings and celebrations

We are officially more than halfway through our school year.  It is so rewarding to look back to where we were on the first day of school and think about how far we have come.  I will never get over the privilege I have to spend time with my children in this season of their lives and to have a front row seat to their learning and their own personal growth!

 

 

This little guy is like a sponge, soaking up everything I can give him.  I just wish the sponge had a seat belt attached to him sometimes!  Josiah loves school but there are certainly challenges there...things need to move quickly for him or he tends to get overwhelmed.  It seems like every time I turn around I have seen ways God is providing for us...someone graciously sent us a weighted vest that helps him with focus, another friend lent us her chair pads and weighted turtle that have helped him stay planted in his seat.  But mostly, Josiah loves to listen to me read, and he especially loves his science books.  He seems to be a very hands on learner, so we will be making some adjustments in the coming weeks to provide more of those kinds of activities. Today we ventured to Sugar Grove for a class on worms.  Josiah was in his element!!

 

 

Working with Rachel this year has been such a blessing, and she has come so far.  Right now we are knee deep in her favorite period of American history--Lincoln's presidency and the Civil War.  We were a week ahead in our schedule so this week I added an extra Lincoln book and history readings that would have otherwise been skipped over in our curriculum.  She officially graduated from Math U See's fraction book to the one on decimals.  I see pre-algebra being a distinct possibility in the near future, but we'll see how long it takes to move through decimals.  We recently did some academic testing with her and were amazed to hear how well she did with math!  The person who tested her told us that homeschooling is probably the best thing we could possibly be doing with her right now.  It does seem that the quiet environment and one on one has given her a new confidence and new insights into how God made her.  I marvel over the creativity and dramatic skills I see in her...mostly because they are so foreign to how I am wired.  It makes me appreciate how uniquely God has formed each one of us!

 

I miss the read aloud times that I shared with both older kids last year, but am thankful we had one year together before breaking Micah off to do his own thing apart from Rachel.  He has really learned to take on more responsibility in his schoolwork this year; not perfectly, but it is coming.  It seems the bigger the challenge, the more enthusiasm he has to meet it.  Whatever God leads us to do next year for high school, he will be ready to embrace it!  To realize that one year from now this boy will be taking driver's education is enough to make me have little shivers go up and down my spine.  How does the time go so quickly?  He is growing in the Lord as much as in his studies, and growing in his willingness to serve.  This has been such a valuable season in life to homeschool with him.

 

Onward we shall go!  I am looking forward to see how God's hand leads us through the second half of this school year.