Category Archives: Homeschooling

Preparing Our Hearts and Schoolroom

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Moving books from one shelf to the other; hanging maps, and cleaning some other shelves; checking our list of books, making lesson plans and buying binders, notebooks and pencils all must be ready for a new school year.

So our hearts must be ready.

I was thinking about this while cleaning our schoolroom; what about my heart is it ready for a new school year? Am I preparing myself to be the Christian example my children need?

The only way to keep on doing this great task of homeschooling, is to stop and see what an impossible task it is; and it is only through God’s grace that we will be able to do it. The moment we start trusting on ourselves, the moment we hear ourselves saying that we can easily manage our children’s souls, that is the moment to fall on our knees and ask for repentance, because we are not trusting anymore on our Father but on our own selves.

Let us go in prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to search in our hearts, and prepare us to …

Serve our children by love,
To be always ready to edify their souls.

To be able to choose beauty and lead them to it.
To live pursuing those things that are lovely and of good report.

Let us ask in prayer,
that the Lord will help us live the religion we profess amiable and inviting;
always with zeal but full with love.

Let the Lord prepare our hearts so that we won’t forget
that we must reach our children’s hearts.

That we may not lose our temper, that we may hold our tongue
that we may fight our sinful nature and live serving them.
that we may live in a way that might say at all times:
“Come with me, journey with me, follow me,
I am On My Way to Heaven”

Only the Lord, can help us to be prepared to all the changes and trials
and uncertainties of life, giving us a content heart, a praying heart.

Let us pray as the Puritans,
“May I be in character and conduct 
like the dew of heaven,  the salt of the earth,
the light of the world, the fullness of the fountain”

Let us pray so that our hearts be well prepared to
see all things in the light of the Scripture,
always working hard, never wasting our lives,
redeeming the time.

Let us prepare our schoolroom, but most of all let us prepare our hearts.

Let us clean our schoolroom, but most of all let us clean our hearts with the Word of God.

Let us not forget that all we do is because of Him, through Him, and for Him. To God be all glory.

Lord, help me fulfill the great end of my being-
to glorify thee and be a blessing to my children.

Planning Ahead -More about Homeschool-

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We know those days will certainly come, those days where you are sick, or one of your children needs to be taken to a doctor’s appointment, or your husband asks you to go with him somewhere in the middle of the day, or your parents visit you from out of town.  (Hopefully those days do not happen very often!)

So here is one idea, as you plan ahead your school year…

Plan ahead which subjects can’t be put off, what is priority for you.

Math has always been for me a priority because I do not like it, (and my children do not love it either). They had to work Math 5 days a week if one week day was missing they had to work on Saturdays.

What about reading? Children can keep up with their reading even in those days, maybe you will let them not write an essay about it, but the reading must be completed.

With little ones, specially, it is very important to keep up doing math and reviewing their memory work during summer, so what I am doing this summer vacation, (in August we will be out of our country for  a month) I will be taking her review math cards, for Math and Bible, it will take us only ten minutes per day to do this, and it will be a good thing to do.

Another note about Math. Consider extending your Math work all year round, extend their math through the summer, this will  help them keep up with all they have learned. Three month without math is way too much. You will certainly feel frustrated at the beginning of the new school year as you find out that they forgot their multiplication tables!

I remember, with sadness, that at a certain point in our homeschool, when my older children were all in grammar stage, I put aside some times our early morning devotions, at least I would make them shorter, because there was so much to do. The Lord was merciful and chastened me, and since that day, giving  preeminence to God’s Word has been on my top list of priorities. I do not want them to learn that they can put away, or make shorter, their devotions because of time. If something needed to be changed, then it was the waking up time, not the length of our Bible reading and praying every morning. (If you are wondering where is my husband in all this…he leaves home very, very early)

If you want to do a nice Home Planning Notebook, visit this place. I think I would love to have one!  (but to be true, I am not doing it, I am all happy and settled with my journal!)

Well, I am off  to finish (hopefully today) rearranging some book shelves.

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Tomorrow, don’t miss visiting this place, my friend Diane who blogs at Theology for Girls, will be my guest blogger. She is a lovely lady with a passion for our Lord and sound doctrine. I am very happy and humbled that she accepted my invitation. She will be sharing about prayer. (Summer has been all about prayer in our home)

And for the next coming Fridays, I will have a different guest sharing about prayer, as well.

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Our Homeschooling Goals

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 This time of the year is planning time for Moms who homeschool, but most of all, I think Summer should be a time for us to make an effort to examine our motives, (obviously this is best when done with your husband, the headmaster of your homeschool!)

Why are we homeschooling our children?
What keeps me up and going every day?  

There is one book in particular that I have read many, many times now, always in the summer, and it helps me focus on what I believe is the heart of homeschooling, it is entitled When You Rise Up. a Covenantal Approach to Homeschooling, by Dr. R.C Sproul Jr.

If you are homeschooling and haven’t read this book, I would love to encourage you to read it, it will be like honey to your soul.

Besides reading and searching my heart, and praying, and organizing shelves with books  and shopping online for more, and register my children for new online classes, I take the time to go through the goals our husband and I  have set  for our homeschool.

So here they are, from the archives (September 17, 2009) some have been added later.

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My husband and I drafted some of these goals in the year 2006, we have been updating them since then; now I want to share them with you.

Maybe you are thinking about starting to homeschool, or maybe you are weary after some years of doing it and need to be reminded of all the goals, that I am sure , you set before your eyes one day. I am sure I will come back many a  days to add more goals as my children keep on growing.

May God help us achieve them!

1. Raise men and women who honor God and fear his commandments.

2. Raise men and women with godly character qualities, virtue, honor, responsibility, truth, love, faithfulness, honesty, hard workers, merciful, generous.

3. Raise men and women who will know by heart the Scriptures, that can make them wise unto salvation.

4. Raise men and women prepared to make right  decisions and stand firm on them.

5. Raise men and women who marry Christians, and build godly families.

6. Raise men and women who  love to study, read, learn; capable of teaching.

7. Raise men and women able to love and appreciate aesthetics; music, arts, literature.

8. Raise men and women capable of expressing clearly  their thoughts and defend their beliefs, both, verbally and  written.

9. Raise men and women who will leave a heritage of godly principles to their children and   grandchildren.

10. Raise men and women who’d love their Mom and Dad until the day they’d be taken away to their home in Heaven.

11. Raise men and women who will be able to understand that God’s Sovereignty has shaped our world and our history up to this day.

12. Raise men and women able to communicate in more than two languages, to be able to share the gospel in different places, and different circumstances.

13. Raise men and women willing to serve others, willing  to live with open hands, always ready to give.

14. Teach our children that their best friends will always be at home.

15. Teach them to be godly fathers and mothers. Our young men need to be taught how to be providers and our women need to be taught how to be homekeepers.

16. Love the elderly and come to them. Be wise enough to listen to them and take their advice.

17. Do not walk in the way of the sinners.

18. Be able to discern sound doctrine from false teaching.

19…

 What are some of your main goals when raising your children? 

Please share!