The Teacher Becomes The Student

I had great plans for our first week of school. We were going to sail smoothly into this school year. It's year #4 so I should have it all down. I planned out our schedule and it looked like a beautiful dream on paper. But in real life it was a nightmare. We had a rough few first days. As I kept trying to figure out what was going wrong and why our academic school day was taking soooooo long. Then I was gently reminded by my dear friend that even though I may plan our daily schedule the day doesn't really belong to me it is God's.  Maybe what I thought needed to be done wasn't what He had planned.  Maybe even sometimes the teacher is actually the student. It was a great reminder that I need to yield my day to The Lord. that I need to give my plans to him to use to teach us to depend on him. So with that attitude in mind I look forward to a new week of school where God is the teacher. 

On a side note:  It was such a blessing to see Jesslyn love on her big sister this week.   Leandra was have a particularly hard day. Jesslyn was sad to see her sister struggling and upset. So she wanted to make her sister happy. Jessie and I had a talk about how it isn't her job to make Leandra happy and that Leandra had to choose that for herself. To that Jesslyn said "Well I want her to know that I love her and it will be ok. Can I make her something?" So she made her 2 extra chocolate carmel indoor s'mores. Jessie took the s'mores into Leandra's room and said "I love you, I hope you feel better. "  Leandra then invited her in to share the treat.  

Back to school. Back to the blog!

Today we began our 4th year of homeschooling. I can't believe it. Time has gone so fast. I was looking back over this poor abandoned blog and my eyes filled with tears seeing my precious girls 5 years ago,  remembering our fun, slower paced, life back then. 

Now that I am trying to kick my Facebook habit. I thought I'd resurrect the blog so my mom can still feel connect    and those friends that want to hear about our homeschooling adventures can. I thought it might also be fun to hear from Leandra and Jesslyn from time to time. I will try and post something once a week. Most likely on Mondays when I am sitting on the cold hard gymnastic bleachers for 2 hours. 

Back to the happening of today. We started back to this school thing that we do. Well sort of. We eased into it. Spending most of today getting ready for our first day of school pictures.  The girls made their first day of school shirts. We tie died with wilton food coloring. I think they turned out ok. My hands look like Easter eggs. The girls set their goals for the school year and we looked through our new books and started our read aloud book for this week The BoxCar Children. Jesslyn was loving it! Then before we had to rush off to piano and gymnastics we went out for our traditional first day of school frozen yogurt.  It was a great start to a great new school year. 

The new do

This year we had been growing Leandra's hair out for Locks of Love. At the beginning of the school year one of her teachers was recovering from cancer and shared about losing her hair and what Locks of Love does for children who loose their hair. My kind and compassionate 5 year old wanted to give what she could. So after 9 and 1/2 months we cut 10 inches off her hair and transformed her from a preschooler in to a Kindergartner.