a better week (homeschool journal)

In our life this week...
We celebrated an anniversary and a birthday, which meant is was an automatic day off of school. :)

What worked...
Changing our schedule around. Previously, I had been doing math and LA in the morning which left Luke and Ben mostly to themselves and led to a lot of mischief-making on Ben's part ;). This week, I stuck with math in the morning (and decided to gate Ben into a room with Luke for play time), but incorporated a read aloud time and our Australian unit study in the morning. Much better. It felt like Luke and Ben were more a part of our school day and the gate helped me maintain focus with Brie and Reese.

I also finally was able to do school with Luke in the afternoon while Brianna and Reese worked and Ben choose to play or sit with us at the table.

Craziest thing I did this week...
Held a mini-version of boot camp.

The return of rainy and colder weather and the anticipation of Luke's birthday meant the kids were bouncing off the walls and antagonizing one another. When I could take the door-slamming and giddiness no more, I send the three biggies outside to do a few laps up and down our street (it wasn't raining then).Yes, I live on the wild side.

Although there were complaints and dramatics of hurting sides, all three completed the laps...surprisingly Luke finished first while Brianna did more than her share because she was encouraging Reese to complete his (he was trying to hold out on me ;) ).

This best thing about this whole "exercise," was they way God used it to teach me a lesson in discipline.  Running laps wasn't a harsh consequence, but I hadn't exactly sent them out there with love emanating from my heart. I had sent my children out there because I was frustrated with their behavior and pent up energy. I sent them out there because I was annoyed.

As I watched them run and started to encourage them on, and then saw Brianna do the same with Reese, I began to see the purpose of discipline as God sees it. It's not meant to be a tough, punishing thing coming from a God who is angry and annoyed with us. It comes from a God who loves us and is trying to teach us how to direct us in the places He wants us to go. Yes, we might not like it, and, yes, it might be uncomfortable. But in the end He knows this training will bring us to a better place and prepare us for similar situations in the future - ones where we will know what to do because He's shown us how.

Oh, how good He is!

So I was in a much better place yesterday when I felt the silly energy meter begin to rise. This time, because it was raining, I asked them to do jumping jacks, running in place double time, sit ups and push ups. Ben even joined in. There were lots of giggles, followed by a snack and a story. And there was a mom who was grateful that her God was teaching her about Him.


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