Embracing change

Well, we are wrapping up this year's home school adventure. Never in my teaching days, in schools or when I started homeschooling, has a school year been this tough. I literally had to pray and ask if this was indeed what I should be doing. So what changed this year? I have been using the same curriculum since Autumn was two. I have loved this curriculum so much. This year it just wasn't working. They had made some changes, but honestly it was just my kids and me changing as well. So about half way through (we school on a funky schedule), I began praying for answers. I knew we couldn't afford a new curriculum and scraping what we had. So I knew we had to plow through this one, and prepare better for the next one.

I take a month off in December. It is such a busy month and cramming school in then is just stressful. Since we start school in July, it gives me flexible time. In December, I started reading to my kids daily. It was something that was placed on my heart and so I did it.  I read all kinds of books. The time we spent together was one of my favorite times. It healed parts of my heart to be able to enjoy time with them, and not be fussing to get school complete. It was during this time that I figured out some things about my kids, Mitch especially. Mitch is a great reader, but he was struggling with some of the more complicated words. By reading to him, when we started back to school it was like there was never an issue. He read better than he had read before Christmas. I also noticed that Autumn began writing more. Her stories made more sense and she loved writing. So I began to look for a curriculum that might possibly encourage those things,

I found one! I am so excited to place the order and get this stuff in. It is a nontraditional schooling that is literature based. Basically, I need to get out of teacher mode, and think outside traditional school type work. I know my kids will flourish with this curriculum, if anything it will be changing my mindset that will cause me the most issue. I know this is what God wants me to do though. I love that our new curriculum places importance on missionaries. I love the way that the Bible is taught, and how we connect other subjects to God's word as well. I love that I will get to spend time reading with my children. I love learning along with them, yes I still learn with my kiddos. (This may only work for a certain season, so I am also more flexible now to changing out curriculum.)

Most of all, I love learning to embrace change. I haven't always embraced it but I have learned that God has different plans for different seasons. I have learned to never get to comfortable with a season, because soon a new season will come. Change is beautiful, and I am so happy to see some changes in me as well.