Laying the Foundation - Charlotte Mason's Home Education (Volume 1)

Today we're going to bounce back to the beginning of Charlotte Mason's Home Education.   You can read the first post in this series here.  

Part I is titled simply "Preliminary Considerations".   This is the introduction to some the rest of the thoughts and suggestions that she makes in the rest of the book, which are primarily her ideas on the education of children under the age of 9.   There's a lot here (this is why you need to go download and read her books for yourself...so much meat that I could not possibly tell you all).  But a few thoughts that particularly struck me:

"The period of a child's life between his sixth and ninth year should be used to lay the basis of a liberal education and the habit of reading for instruction.  During these years the child should enter upon the domain of knowledge, in a good many directions, in a reposeful, consecutive way..."

 ~from Home Education by Charlotte Mason, Part I

Let's take this apart and think about this a bit.

• Laying the foundation: It is a great relief to me to remember that these early years are for laying foundations.  It is OK if we don't cover every little detail of every little thing. I don't know about you, but I love researching curriculum ideas and seeing what other people are doing.  While I think exchanging ideas is definetely a good thing, it can also be a bad thing.  I know that, as the result of comparing our homeschool with what I have seen others doing, I have been guilty of trying to stuff more into our school time than is reasonable to expect from my young children.  I need to remind myself frequently that right now we are laying the foundations.  We have 18 years to prepare our children to live their own lives in the real world...it's not necessary (or possible) to do everything by the end of first grade!  Don't know about you, but that's a huge relief to me!
• Reading for Instruction: Reading excellent books is the cornerstone of a Charlotte Mason education.  During the early years we ought to prepare our children to be able to feed themselves from the books that they read.  How do we do that?  The way I look at it, there are three things we can do:
• Teach the child to read, and allow enough practice time for reading become fluent and comfortable.
• Pique the child's interest in books and the world around him by reading to them regularly and liberally from books on a wide variety of topics.
• Allow the child to develop the skill of narration - that is telling back what they they have read, which requires the child to assimilate what they have read and make it their own.  (That's a whole other subject for another day!)
• Entering the Domain of Knowledge...
• ...in a good many directions... Charlotte encouraged a broad, generous curriculum right from the beginning.  She likened this to spreading a feast.  Even while a child is gaining the skills needed to educate themselves (the basics like reading, writing, and math) we should simultaneously be feeding their minds with great ideas from literature, history, nature, art, music, and the Bible.
• ...in a reposeful.... Se reposer is the French verb that means to rest.  While Charlotte recommended a generous, full curriculum, she also recommended short, focused lessons that leave lots of time in the day for pondering, exploration, and free play.  Let's not exhaust our children by stuffing their lives too full of 'good things'.
• ...consecutive way... A Charlotte Mason curriculum is most definitely a literature-based curriculum.  Rather than reading little, disconnected snippets from here and there, Charlotte recommended reading straight through whole books - one after another - and doing so at a pace that allows the child to ponder and reflect and form his/her own relationship with the book. 

These ideas were summed up well in When Children Love to Learn by Elaine Cooper, et al:

The goal for a first grade classroom is to whet appetites so students will grow to love books and desire to feed themselves.

~No longer sure if this is a direct quote or my paraphrase of it...

Am I teaching my children to love learning and giving them the skills they need to be able to learn for themselves?  Ultimately, that should be my goal in educating my young children. 

Next time: Preliminary Considerations 2 -  Offend not, Despise not, Hinder not the Little Ones.

How we do...Preschool, Part 1

Lately I've gotten some questions about what sort of activities I do for 'preschool' with James, who just turned 4.  But, before I tell you what James and I are actually doing for 'preschool', I want to preface this with a bit of my philosophy about preschool.  Why?  Because, despite the fact that James and I are doing a bit of 'real' school work together, I don't really think that it is necessary to do a ton of directed work with preschoolers.  This goes against a lot of what you might see out there both in the conventional schooling world as well as in some parts of the homeschooling community.   I don't want to send you off over the internet to look at some of the materials that we are using and start to feel horribly guilty because your 3 year old can't read yet, or you don't print 20 printable activities for them to do everyday or do tons of messy art projects, or have a new theme of the week every week complete with a bulletin board and shelf of themed toys, or have a house filled from floor to ceiling with every new "educational" toy available.   Because, really, not doing these things isn't going to harm your child at all.  And as a matter of fact, keeping things simple in the early years may help them out in the long run by promoting their natural curiosity and not dampening their love for learning by giving them too much too soon.

Why do I give this disclaimer?  Because when I started out, I really didn't know any better myself.  I had never really considered homeschooling until my oldest was 3 and I realized that conventional preschool wasn't going to be a good fit for her personality and stage of development.  I ventured out onto the internet and found tons of "fun" activities to do with her at home, spent far too much money on a workbook-based preschool curriculum that was going to teach her kindergarten skills when she was still 4, and voila within a year both Michelle and I were already on the verge of burnout.  I don't want that to happen to you.

Here's one from the archives - Michelle at age 3-1/2 or so.

Thankfully, this was about the same time I stumbled on to the Charlotte Mason philosophy, which was the breath of fresh air I needed.   Finally, I was given permission to relax and take more of a 'slow but steady' approach to our schooling.   Want to have a look at the series of articles that was the turning point for me?  Right here on the SCM Blog.   SCM also publishes a fantastic Early Years Book which I can highly recommend as follow up if you like what you read on the Blog Series.  (Nope, not a paid advertister, but I really love just about everything that SCM has produced.)

Anyhow, the bottom line?  What it all boils down to?   These are the things that I would consider essential for your children's 'preschool' education:

•  Establish good home routines and good habits with your kids - obedience, attention, orderliness, etc. You will be grateful to have already begun establishing these kinds of habits in your home before you are ready to start formal schooling at age 5 or 6.
• Let your child help you with household tasks and begin passing on a few independant chores to them as they show they are able.
• Read aloud daily from a wide variety of high quality children's literature on a wide variety of topics - Bible stories, nature, stories from other cultures and countries (geography), beautiful picture books... Don't be afraid to start into some chapter books as well.  Avoid "twaddle". See my Favorite Read-Alouds tab at the top of the sidebar to see some of our favorites for the 6-and-under crowd.
• Spend time outdoors as much as the weather and your living situation allows.  Allow them to run and yell and generally 'be kids'.  Gently direct them to observe God's creation in nature.
• Keep your home stocked with a small collection of classic, open-ended toys and give your kids time and freedom to play.  Enjoy watching what their imaginations come up with!   Trust me when I say that less is more in the toy department.  We have moved internationally twice in the last 2 years, and getting ready to do so again next year, so we've only been able to keep a pretty small portion of our kids' toys.  They are none the worse for this.  Specific items we have dragged around the world with us: Duplos, a few puzzles, play silks, cars and a 'road' playmat, play dishes and felt food, art supplies (markers, crayons, tape, paper, etc), and one doll or stuffed animal per child.  Other items we have enjoyed but were too heavy to move overseas as airline baggage include wooden blocks, train sets, and dress-up clothes/props.
• If you have older, school-age children, include your little ones as tag-alongs as much as they are interested.
• Limit the amount of television and computer time you let your young children have.

Another shot of Michelle around age 3, since I'm on an archive kick...

And honestly, that's it.  Charlotte Mason talks about giving our young children a "quiet, growing time."  Train them in good habits, feed their minds with ideas that will pique their curiosity and feed their desire to learn more, and the time, space, and materials to explore the world around them.

That all said...some kids are ready sooner-rather-than-later to do a bit more.  Maybe they have taught themselves the alphabet and are begging you to do more with them.  Maybe they watch their older siblings getting to do school with mom and want to have their own 'school' to do as well.   Maybe they are just in need of a little more focused one-on-one time with Mama (as was the case with James!)   Next time, I'll share some of the resources and ideas we are using for alphabet, pre-reading, and numbers with James.

Family Reading #1

Trying something new this week...I don't have time to write a detailed school update post as often as I'd like (and who knows, maybe those bore y'all to death anyhow), so I am going to try and share shorter tidbits here and there.  And since reading is is huge part of both our school life and our family life,  I will try to pop in with some highlights of what we are reading every now and again.  =)  Enjoy!

Reading on the train ride to Paris

Picture Book Highlights
We got James a couple of picture book missionary biographies for his birthday: What's in the Parcel?, Could Somebody Please Pass the Salt, and Does Money Grow on Trees?   I am really liking these!  They are interesting anecdotes which highlight the faith of each person, the way God was at work in their life, and/or the importance of sharing Jesus with other people.   They are simple and very appropriate for little ones - a great introduction to Christian heros. There are others in the series which I think will appear on the next birthday list. =)

Michelle's Reading (age 6-1/2)
Her hands down favorites right now are the Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel.  I love that she is enjoying these classics from my own childhood.  I purposely did not use them as read-alouds when she was younger because I wanted her to be able to read these on her own.
Featured School Book
For part of our "character development" subject, we are reading SCM's new reader Hymns in Prose for Children.  Written on approximately a 2nd-3rd grade level, these lovely little essays help to inspire thought of God.  Michelle reads the passage outloud to me, then we talk together about what we learn about God, what He has done and/or what He desires from us.   We are also using the accompanying copywork book.  Michelle copies about 2 sentences at a time into her copywork notebook, we talk a bit about the mechanics (capitalization, punctuation, etc), and then she illustrates  it.  (So yes, we are getting character development, reading practice, handwriting, grammar, and drawing all in one go!)

Bedtime Read-Aloud
Raggedy Andy Stories by Johnny Gruelle.  Raggedy Ann Stories is one of Michelle's most often requested audiobook choices, so she is enjoying the sequel.

Mama's Reading
Oh goodness gracious, I always have my fingers in a bit of everything these days, but I have really enjoyed a couple of the narrative children's history books that I have pre-read so I can decide how and when I will use them for school.   Usually this means just a few chapters to get a feel of for the book, but I was so drawn in to Our Island Story by Marshall (history of England from ancient times through Queen Victoria) and The Story of the 13 Colonies by Guerber that I just kept on reading.  Does that make me a nerd if I read history for fun?  No, don't answer that please. =)

What about you?  Has your family enjoyed any good reads lately?

Paris, Through the Eyes of a 6 Year Old

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago...we took a real family vacation to Paris.  There were some moments that were rather interesting as is always the case when travelling with toddlers, but I was so very pleased with how much Michelle, age 6-1/2, got out of the experience.  We are keeping a journal to record our year in France, so I thought that rather than telling you about our trip in my words, I would share her words about what we saw in Paris.   Without any further ado, Michelle's Paris travel journal, as dictated to Mama...

Notre Dame

Notre Dame is an old cathedral - it is 850 years old.  My favorite thing that I saw were the stained glass windows.  [James'] favorite thing that he saw in Paris today was all the cars and the pigeons (and chasing the pigeons away.)  Papa's favorite part about Notre Dame was the detailed architecture.  Mama's favorite part was all of the intricate carvings and stained glass windows.

Arc de Triomphe

The Arc de Triomphe is big and tall.  It had curly steps.  They were very curly.  We saw the Eiffel Tower from the top of the Arc de Triomphe.  We went in the tunnel underneath the street.  Before we were walking in it we went down the steps.  Papa got the tickets to go up in it. We took turns going up in it.  Papa and [James] went up in it first.  Then Mama and I went up.

Louvre

The Louvre had beautiful paintings.  It has this painting of Jesus turning water into wine.  It had the Mona Lisa and everybody was trying to take a picture of it because they think it is the most famous painting, even Papa.  But when everyone else was looking at the Mona Lisa, I was looking the other way at this painting.  It liked this one because it was Jesus turning water into wine and it was big.

Eiffel Tower

It is big and tall.  Papa, [James] and [Elizabeth] went to the tippy-top.  Mama and I stayed on the second floor. {Mama's note: the second floor was plenty high enough, thank you very much!!} I drew pictures while we waited for them to come back down.  We ate a big lunch.  I spotted the Arc de Triomphe.  I liked going to the Eiffel Tower.

Musee d'Orsay

We saw paintings.  Some of them were from Claude Monet and some were from the other artists.  We saw the blue ballerina picture that we saw in the Katie book.  We also saw Monet's poppy field painting from the Katie book - the poppies were red like red roses.  We also saw an ocean painting by Manet that had medium brush strokes and I like medium brush strokes the best.

Batobus

The Batobus was oval shaped, it was so funny.  It was fun to ride the Batobus because I got to see the Seine River out the window.  We went to the Musee d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre on it.

C'est tout!  Hope you enjoyed Michelle's 'guided tour' - now you will know what to look for in Paris!

Charlotte Mason's Home Education (Volume 1) - The Divine Life of the Child

Well guess what folks, I finally finished reading the first book in Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series - Home Education.  It took me almost a year...longer if you count the fact that I started over about a quarter of the way through because there was SO MUCH rich stuff in the book that I wanted to get a notebook and take notes on all I was reading.  But it was so, so worth it!   While there are many fantastic summaries and applications of CM's methods available in book and web form (see my Charlotte Mason Resources link in at the top of the side bar), there is really no substitute for reading her actual thoughts as she presented them.  This particular volume contains her thoughts on the education of young children up to the age of 9 - both in an academic and character/spiritual sense.   There is much here for parents in general even if you don't homeschool or are using a different philosophy to guide your homeschooling endeavours.  And in order to whet your appetites a bit, I would like to do a series of posts over the next few weeks, as time allows of course, to share some of the things that particularly stood out to me as I read.  In no particular order.   (And if you are inspired to read more, did you know you can get all of CM's works for free on your Kindle right here?!)

Anyhow, I digress.  I am actually going to start at the end, since that's what I just finished and it is still freshest in my mind.  Part VI of the book is titled "The Will, The Conscience, The Divine Life".  I'd like to focus on Part III, the Divine Life of the Child.   After spending some time discussing how to train a child's will and conscience, Charlotte turns her attention to the spiritual training of our children, which is really the foundation for all the rest.  We need to remember that we don't want our children to learn to be good just for the sake of being good, but as an extension of our love and gratitude towards our Saviour, and by the help of the Holy Spirit working in us.   Obviously we as parents cannot save our children by our own strength, but we can do much to introduce our children to our Saviour.  Charlotte likens this work to a bee pollinating a flower:

"...it is his part to deposit, so to speak, within reach of the soul of the child some fruitful idea of God, the immature soul makes no effort towards the idea, but the Living Word reaches down, touches the soul - and there is life; growth and beauty; flower and fruit."

We are seed planters, and God provides the growth.  Charlotte urges parents not to preach at our children and to carefully find  a balance between regular, progressive, direct Bible-teaching and overdoing our Bible teaching to the point that our children start to tune us out.  She urges us to avoid moralising over everything or turning God into a judge or taskmaster, but presenting the Lord as a living and personal Saviour worthy of our adoration.   How can we do this?

•  Teach from our own hearts - present those ideas that we have taken into our own souls not merely as head knowledge, but as living ideas.
•  Live out our loyalty to the King in all areas of our lives, not in word only.
•  By dependence on the Holy Spirit:  "It is as the mother gets wisdom liberally from above, that she will be enabled for this divine task."

This was where I received a healthy dose of conviction.  I don't know about you, but I find myself guilty of spending a lot of time looking for the perfect curriculum or devotional materials to use with my kids.  I also find myself focusing more on the moral aspect of their training, easy to do when their behavior is right in your face day-in and day-out!   But what picture am I painting of God for my children?  Do they see in my life that He is worthy of love, worship, devotion?   Am I relying on a carefully laid out program to teach them, or depending on the Holy Spirit to help me respond to the teachable moments that present themselves?   If I am honest, I would have to say no.  All the 'programs' in the world can't replace living out an authentic Christianity before my children.  I am reminded that cultivating my own relationship with the Savior is of utmost importance even in these busy, busy days of little ones, homeschooling, housekeeping, and language learning.  I cannot pass on to my children what I don't have.   It is my prayer today that I would fall ever more deeply in love with the Lord and that that love for Him would overflow to those around me...starting right here at home.

All quotes taken from Home Education, Volume 1 in Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series, Chapter VI, Section III. 

Month in Review: 27 May 2012

Okay...I know it's been longer than a month.  (Insert sigh here.)  Since my last "month in review" we have had approximately 6 weeks of school, with a variety of days off in between.  May was a bit of a strange month with 4 public holidays and we took a week of family vacation time as well.  But this coming week we get back to our daily grind again so it's time to stop and evaluate how we're doing....

Bible and Character Development

- Scripture Memory: We finished Psalm 139!  We have now been working on the verses that go along with each of the virtues covered in Doorpost's Put-On Study and have also picked up again the Catechism for Young Children.

- Hymns: We have learned several hymns - currently "Nothing but the Blood of Jesus"

- Family Bible Reading: I recently came across a new devotional guide called Long Story Short by Marty Machowski that we are really enjoying.  It walks through all the Old Testament stories with readings from the actual Bible (not a Bible Story book) with a brief commentary on how each story points to Jesus and some discussion questions.   We are really enjoying it!

- Character Development: We are working through Doorpost's Put-On Study (we do lessons from this on the weekend during our family devotional time since Long Story Short is set up for readings 5 days of the week.)   This goes through all of the virtues listed in Colossians 3:12-14.  We have covered compassion, and now moving on to kindness.  We spend about a month on each virtue.  Additionally, Michelle reads to me weekly from Hymns in Prose for Children - a lovely, vintage reader reprinted by the folks at SCM - which inspires thought of God.

Circle Time

- Poetry: Nursery Friends from France (English translations of French Nursery Rhymes with lovely illustrations and little cultural notes sprinkled here and there.)...although not as often as I like.  I either need to pick this up again, or just choose a different poetry resource....

-Aesop's Fables - read and narrate. These are excellent practice for beginning narrators to develop their skills in a non-threatening way. They are short and often amusing, so it takes only a few minutes to read them. I'm pleased with how Michelle's narration skills are developing.

- God's World News: Early Edition

- Calendar Time in French

Table Time (The Basics)
- Cursive: Through letter U, with several review and practice lessons in between. Michelle is doing really well with cursive.

- All About Spelling Level 1: Completed Steps 18-22 - spelling words ending in LL,FF,and SS, when to use -ck or -k at the end of a word, NG and NK and the end of the word, and compound words.  I am pleased with the way the that the phonics based, word segmenting approach is giving her greater confidence it both reading and writing.

- Math: We flew through Lessons 1-6 of Math-U-See Alpha fairly quickly, and slowed down when we hit lesson 7 - the +2  facts.  We spent a little extra time doing some simple games and timed-tests to get the +2 facts really solid. (I had avoided timed-tests for a long time...but turns out Michelle actually likes them! Go figure!)  We also covered lesson 8 - Solving for an Unknown and are mid-way through Lesson 9  - the +9 facts.  The more we go through this the more I really like the way that concepts are presented in Math-U-See and am seeing true understanding and fact mastery from Michelle.

-Copywork: At my last update, I was hoping to become more regular with our copywork and I am happy to report that we have been successful.  Because it is something that Michelle can do more or less independently, I have started assigning her copywork daily while I do a little bit of preschool work with James.  We rotate between copywork of my choice (taken from this Aesop's Fables copywork book or the Hymns in Prose copywork book), copywork from one of her narrations that I have written down, and something of her choice that she takes from something we've read.  She usually copies about 2 sentences.  We also talk briefly about grammar and mechanics as we come across them - why and when we use capital letters, the different types of ending punctuation, quotation marks, etc.

History, Geography, and Culture

- History: I am so, so pleased with how our History studies are going. Michelle seems to have really connected with the stories we are reading and even a week or 2 later can give me a sentence or 2 that she remembers about the characters we have read about. 

- Geography and Culture: We enjoyed reading, narrating and illustrating Chapters 9-13 of Collette in France and looking up the various places mentioned in the story online.  We also took a family trip to Paris!  More on that soon.  To prepare for going to Paris we used sections of this unit study on France....we may add in other bits and pieces from this study as we go on.

Science and Nature

I've posted about our nature study adventures here .   We've also done a dandelion study that I haven't had time to post on yet...most interesting little tidbit we learned from that?  Dandelions got their name from the French phrase "dents de lion" (teeth of the lion) because the ridged leaves look kind of like sharp, lion's teeth.  Fun, huh?  We have not been reading from Outdoor Secrets or any of our other nature books as often as I'd like.  Thinking about how to remedy that....

Art and Music
Since we've wrapped up our study of Monet, we are taking some time to focus on composer study for awhile.  We are using the Classics for Kids series on Debussy, and I also plan to do some guided listening activities.  More on that soon.

French

We continue to read French books from the library regularly, and watch an occasional French cartoon on YouTube.  Additionally, Michelle has been working with The Learnables Level 1 software 3 days a week (working on Lesson 5 now), and watching these videos the other 2 days (we've watched 1-10 so are repeating them now). The littles aren't required to do anything, but they are fascinated and they love following along with what Michelle is doing also.  

What the Littles Did
James started preschool!  I will do another post (hopefully soon!) about how we are approaching preschool with him, but suffice it to say that he is flying through his letter sounds (a, b, c, h, m, n, s, t, u) and numbers (we have mastered 0-6 and are working on 7-9).  Michelle likes to play "school" with him too, and she's not a bad little teacher. =)

Family Reading

- Picture Books Highlights: The Frances books (by Russell Hoban) continue to be perennial favorites.  They also love having French books read to them, surprisingly, and pick these often too.

- Michelle's Reading: Michelle finished reading Busy Times and has moved on to More Busy Times - several times each week out loud to Papa or I, depending on who is home.  On her own, she reads just about any of our picture books (often out loud to her siblings) and has also enjoyed the Amelia Bedelia and Frog and Toad series.  We finished Little Town on the Prairie and are now reading together from These Happy Golden Years as time allows.

- Bedtime Read-Aloud: We finished reading The Betsy-Tacy Treasury, which we all enjoyed, and also read Mr Popper's Penguins - another new favorite.  We just started reading Raggedy Andy Stories.

Some Goals and Plans for the Coming Month

Overall, school is going really, really well for us, so there's not a lot that I want to change. A few goals for the next few weeks however:

- I recently stumbled across this website which seems to have some really good language learning ideas. I'd like to take some time to read through things on this site a little more thoroughly and chose some of the ideas to implement into our French study...still need to follow up on this...sigh.   I also have a possible lead on someone who may be interested in doing a French-English language exchange with her kids that sounds like a fantastic possibility...we'll see what happens.

- I want to get more nature-themed reading into our school time.   I see some schedule tweaking in the works....

- Posts in the works: How we do Preschool, Art and Music Study, and our trip to Paris!

For more details about the specific curriculum resources we are using, please visit the Goals and Curriculum link at the top of the sidebar.

Daybook: The "I'm still alive, despite the fact that my blog doesn't show it" Edition

 

Outside my window... The weather this spring has been totally schitzophrenic.  One day it's sunny and 80.  The next day it's cold and rainy.  Makes it very difficult to plan outings or decide what to wear...

::Listening to... My sweet hubby scrubbing the kitchen.  Yes, it's true.  He has basically taken on all the major housecleaning to help lessen some of the home-load since I am in school 16 hours/week, still do most of the meal planning and cooking, and homeschool the kids.  I am a blessed woman.

::Giving thanks for... Increasing confidence in speaking the French language. Many opportunities for fellowship. The fact that there have been three public holidays in as many weeks this month, and that we are now on a vacation week. =)

::Pondering... Last night I went to a friend's house (one of our missionary colleagues, not a French friend) for a ladies' night.  In addition to the wonderful time of fellowship, it was also a time for some of the families that are leaving over the summer (sniff, sniff) to start cleaning out and passing along their things.  There were heaps of clothes and toys for the taking.  On the way home, I was chatting with my neighbor about cleaning things out, minimizing, discerning what is really important to keep and take with you when you are going to be living in Africa, being prepared for the possibility that you might have to walk away from everything, and how to help young children understand this.  I realized that one of the things that 10+ years of overseas living and 3 international moves in as many years has taught me is that we need to build our family culture around things that aren't tangible. We need to hold loosely to stuff...we need to hold loosely the never-ending to-do lists [thinking here about all the things I stressed about NOT doing to our house in PNG when we ended up selling it anyhow...so did any of it really matter in the end?] and focus on the things that are lasting - our relationships with each other and with the Lord.  Those are the things that will keep our world from crashing to pieces even if we have to walk away and leave our home and stuff behind us yet again.  Don't know if I'm making much sense here....but it was a powerful reminder to me of where my priorities need to be.

::Living the Educational Life... We've taken school at a much more relaxed pace because of all the days off this month and that has worked really well.  We are making good progress and having good fun.  James loves feeling more included in our time together.  My goal for our next "term" after our vacation is to start incorporating more French into what I'm doing with the kids.  I have lots of ideas...just need to implement them. (Check out some great Charlotte Mason inspired foreign language posts written by other homeschooling expat families here, here, and here.)  I hope to get a school-update post up soon.

::Preparing in the Kitchen... I have resisted for much too long planning our lunches.  I plan our dinner menus, we have a simple breakfast rotation that works for us, but lunch....sigh.  Sometimes I wish God created our bodies not to have to eat at midday.  Anyhow...I finally sat down last week and made a 4-week lunch rotation.  I didn't plan daily lunches because I never know if we will have leftovers or not...but rather chose 4 simple things to pick from on those days when I don't know what we should have for lunch.  So far, so good this week.  If the plan works out for us....I'll let you know. =)

::Following These Links... This was excellent - on raising children in Africa.  There was a lot of food for thought (on mission statements and knowing yourself) here too.

::Turning Pages... We started using a new devotional resource with the kids this past week and think I may have finally found a child-friendly devotional that I actually like.  Most of the others I have stumbled across are either just twaddle or still over the heads of my little ones.  The title is Long Story Short by Marty Machowski.  Basically it goes through all of the stories of the Old Testament - read from the actual Bible - and gives a brief commentary/related passages to explain how the story points to Jesus.  Apparently there is a sequel that goes through the New Testament coming out later this year.  It is written in such away that my 6 year old connects with it (and even the 3 year old, kind of), but in the lesson on Genesis 1 we've been doing this week, I've been reminded anew of the greatness of God, even the midst of a familiar story.

::Finding Rhythm... Ah...the ongoing quest.  Currently reworking my early morning routine.  Bottom line: I need to get up earlier.  And stay off the internet more. Sigh.

::Kiddos this week... Have been fun and helpful and enjoyable to be around, in general.  As much as I love little babies, I really love that mine are getting older.  I especially love that Michelle is old enough to be excited about going to Paris next week (yes, we are going to Paris!) to see the Eiffel Tower and a real Monet painting in a museum.   Toddlers just don't do things like that, ya know?

::Praying... For wisdom in evaluating my priorities and using my time well, and senstivity to the Lord's guidance as I go through each day. Praising the Lord that we've finally starting to have opportunties for French fellowship and language practice.  Praying that we can find someone who would be willing to help the kiddos likewise....

::Planning the week ahead... next week we are going on vacation. A real one - as in travelling somewhere just because we want to go there and playing tourist for several days and not for work, visiting family, speaking, medical reasons, or errand running. Shoot, we aren't even going to "play tourist" - we're going to be real-honest-to-goodness tourists!  In Paris, no less!  We travel, yes. But we don't vacation.  Hence why this is a big deal.   Watch this space for an update....

::Capturing a moment...