Goals

I can't say we dragged our feet this summer.

After spending a wonderful summer of playing, working, gardening, cottaging, growing, whining, and trying to stop drinking so much juice, we ended the summer with a bang.  We tagged along on a tour of our beautiful province - full of lush green trees, beautiful clean blue fresh waters, diverse people with storybook lives, and well, I love our province.  We stayed in lots of different hotels, travelled many different directions, and watched Chris take aerial video of beautiful places for an upcoming Tourism Ontario campaign.  And we tried not to lose the sippy cups.  

We packed it in.  We made it count.  We cried.  We explored.  We laughed.  We learned.  We loved.

But oh boy.  I am glad it is over.  I am happy to be home.  I am thankful for the calm.

But most of all, I am excited about our newest adventure - homeschooling.  Homeschooling happens in every home.  Our children are learning all the time.  Learning from us, learning, from others, learning from playing, and yes, learning from the television.  Whether kids go to "real" school or do school at home, they are always learning.

This year, we have decided to do the school at home thing.  We are giving it a shot.  Malana was so excited to wake up this morning and start her first day of official homeschooling.  She was thrilled because she got to wear her new clothes start learning to read.  We have formed a flexible daily schedule that includes some "book" learning and lots of playing and being together.  I am thankful for the community support available in Oshawa for homeschooling families - lots of people to know and be friends with.

So here we are - starting something foreign to me and unknown to my little family.  Learning materials are organized, desk is set up, and my little kindergartener is eager.

But I have to stop myself.  There is a plethora of material on the internet to overwhelm to most capable - blogs written my homeschooling moms who sew their kids' clothes and lead women's ministries at church and cook soufle for dinner and have all the "right" curriculum, and yes, even clean their washrooms.  It is far to easy to get caught up in thinking that what we are doing is not enough.

So.  To ease my conscience and feel like I am on a pathway to at least somewhere, I have formed a list of goals for the 2013/14 school year.  Here is goes, in no particular order.

1.  Help my children see other people as unique, valuable, irreplaceable, and important members of God's family, and their own.
2.  Convince Malana to try fruit.