Staying Motivated and feeling like your doing something...

I have had many conversations as of late with people who are concerned about if they are doing enough when it comes to homeschooling. Between not doing enough and staying motivated these seem to be a couple of areas many homeschooling parents struggle with.

As far as asking yourself if you are doing enough. There are many styles of homeschooling and just because "susie" uses a curriculum and you don't doesn't mean she is doing any more or less then you are. Children learn in different ways. I know that if I was to do just work sheets with my daughter I should just forget it. It won't work she would be totally bored to tears and be difficult to teach. I have chosen a literature based curriculum because after doing much research and sitting back and watching my daughter I realized that it was the fit for her and so far so good.

Just because one child learns one way doesn't mean the rest of your children will learn the same way. That is the beauty of homeschooling you can customize the curriculum to fit the child. Something that can not be done in a public school.

I have been homeschooling my daughter for about two months now and it is going well, we do have times when we dont' get done everything I want to in a day but I still walk away at the end of the day knowing we did accomplish things whether it was just a walk and talking about nature or baking something.

So staying motivated is harding than feeling like you have done something I think anyways or maybe they go hand in hand. You will still be motivated or will be motivated period if you know you are accomplishing something every day. Look at the little things. Keep a list of the things you do throughout the day so that you can look back at it at the end of the day and see that you have accomplished something. That would probably be a good start.

I will try to post more on this subject in another post. I have to get ready to start my day here this morning and set up things for my daughter and I.

Easter Lapbook and Teachings

Right now I am trying to get things together for a Lapbook on Easter and looking for some creative ideas for teaching my daughter about Easter. If you have any ideas please share them.

I came across this Resurrection Egg game with printable PDF file. The kids go through the house finding the eggs and have to match or find the clues which also can be hidden. We won't be hiding the clues as our daughter is to young but that would be fun also.

I also found some devotions for Easter on Christianity Today. This is for the week leading up to Easter.

Decorate Easter Eggs with Attributes of Jesus: Faithful (1 Corinthians 1:9) Righteous (1 John 2:1) Holy (1Peter 1:15) Forgiving (Psalm 86:5) Loving (Romans 8:35-39) Merciful (James 5:11) All-Knowing or omniscient (John 1:48) All-Present or omnipresent (Psalm 139:7-12) All-Powerful or omnipotent (Matthew 28:18) Eternal (Genesis 21:33) Full of Truth (John 14:6) Full of Wisdom (Isaiah 11:2) Compassionate (Mark 1:41) Just (Acts17:31) Kind (Ephesians 2:7) Gentle (Matthew 21:5) Unchanging (Hebrews 13:8) Creative (Genesis 1:26) Infinite (1 Kings 8:27) Sovereign (Jude 4) Goodness (John 10:11) Trustworthy (Psalm 19:7) Generous (2 Corinthians 8:7-9) From Focus on the Family

This is what I have so far and I will update this as I come up with more ideas. I have to get things together for the lapbook. The St. Patrick's Day one really isn't going to work out most of it is a big too hard for my little one this year. So on to Easter we go.

My thoughts on homeschooling so far....

Well where do I start... at first I felt very overwhelmed with information and trying to figure out what is the first way we are going to try. It can be very overwhelming let me tell you. But in the end I just decided that we were going to go with lapbooks on a subject that interests my daughter and that seems to be working out the best. She is almost 4 years old I might add. But so far so good.

Now that I have just dove into homeschooling I am totally loving in and I realize that I am going about it the best way for my daughter currently. I think we are going to pretty much use the Ambleside website when she reaches year 1 and use lapbooks... right now we are using Letter of the Week ... my daughter is very crafty. She must get that from her mother. Anyway I thought I would post some of my thoughts on what is working for us and how much I am enjoying teaching my daughter.