Creating Unit Studies for Kindergarten through Highschool

Creating lesson plans are a passion of mine.  I love to learn and I love making learning fun.  It just takes a lot of time and effort, so I haven't done much of the creative lesson planning in the last couple years.  Something about having littles makes it that much more challenging.

For our science curriculum this year we are going a non-traditional route.  I'm taking the perks of homeschooling and running with the flexibility to customize our learning!  My girls gave me a list of what they wanted to learn and how they wanted to learn it.  So I've taken their input and am putting together a unit study.  We are going to be studying Marine Science/Oceans, Zoology, Weather, and Historical Geology.

We're going to start with Marine Science and Oceans.  I've purchased two books as "spines" for our foundation.  The "spine" of a unit study is often a reference/text book that acts as a guide for the course of the unit study.  We're young earth creationists and in the realm of science, finding non-evolution based information can be a challenge.  Our two spine books focus mostly on the current knowledge of the oceans and creatures therein, with very little said about the "history" of where they came from.  A few of our supplemental books do have some evolution in them, but it is a good thing for the kids to know that there are other viewpoints to a degree.  

Our first book focuses on information and separates the different ocean zones, creatures and ecosystems with beautiful pictures.  Our second book is full of hands-on activities (crafts, science experiments, and cooking projects).  I am putting together a lesson plan using these two books and taking into consideration that I have a kindergartener, middle schooler, and high schooler to teach.

As we cover the information to learn, I am incorporating hands-on activities.  For example, when I introduce the different oceans, I have a full page coloring sheet of the world for my kindergartener either to color or paint as I read about the different oceans.  He will get to listen to the information that I'm reading as he decorates his map.  For my older kiddos, they have the same map on a smaller scale that they can label with space below to take notes about each specific ocean.  We'll get out our globe and find the oceans and use post-it notes to label the oceans.  We'll build a water molecule, do a water density experiment, and bake some cookies to decorate as our earth to show the percentage of land vs water.  And that is just the 4 lessons!

I've found documentaries I can stream and fun educational tv series that teach about ocean animals and ecosystems too.  I want to do some sort of field trip, but I'm waiting to see what homeschool field trips come up this fall since regular entry prices are so high these days. 

Lesson planning is so much fun.  I hope the kids enjoy our learning as much as I'm enjoying putting it together!

It's Okay.

Sometimes it is okay to not look for that next thing to keep yourself busy or productive.

Sometimes it is okay to just stop.

Stop the process.  

Stop the mental pressures.

Grant yourself the grace and permission to put it all away for the night.

Pick yourself up.

Put yourself to bed at a decent time.

Maybe not because you want to.

But because you can.

Goal Adjustments

Back in October, I posted about striving to wake up earlier to have some "me" time.  Five months later, and I have still not figured out how to get to bed earlier.  It happens on occasion, but I'm realizing in this season, it just isn't going to happen.  My time is not my own with young children in the house.

The Lord has been good to remind me that the ultimate goal is to spend time with Him on a daily basis, to spend more time seeking Him.  It doesn't necessarily have to fit my idealistic bible time to myself where I can cuddle up on the couch with a warm blanket, bible, and journal.  In truth, the last time I was able to do that regularly was before I had children.

So, I am trying to be flexible and give myself grace.  I am doing pretty good at making time to read my bible and pray every morning.  Sometimes I get up 15 minutes earlier than I expect my kids to be up, other times I bring it out to the living room with me while my boys climb over me as they play.  Sometimes I have the opportunity to have extended prayer time and other days I write a sentence or two before motherhood calls.

My kids get to see me reading my bible and writing in my prayer journal.  They know that it is something I do every day.  If kids truly learn by watching, perhaps the Lord is using these moments to impact them for eternity.

Finding our Rhythm

 We had a relaxing Thanksgiving break and took a full two weeks off from school, one for the holiday and one for a birthday.  Amazingly our jump back into a full school schedule has been really smooth this week.

We are learning to adjust to the chaos of living through a remodel.  We were able to refinance our home with the lower interest rates available and use some of our home equity to finish our basement too.  It is coming along nicely and I'm looking forward to finally having our home complete and able to organize and fully unpack our things.  I haven't had a true office space for my school things for two years now!

Christmas preparations are also underway.  The kids took over the decorating and although I felt a little put out by not getting to decorate my own home, I know someday they will be grown and I will have all the decorating to do myself and then I will miss their crazy ideas and decorations.  They begged for outdoor lights this year, so I bought a strand of lights that we used to decorate our tiny front yard tree.  It compliments our other simple decorations from last year and they were quite pleased.

Our shopping is nearly complete and it feel so good to have that stress done and over with.  We've been able to relax and spend our time focusing on other more important things.  All of our normal extended family gatherings have been cancelled and I'm enjoying the peacefulness of keeping the focus here at home.

We've been reading our "Shepherd on the Search" devotional each evening and I've started teaching my littles about the nativity story of Jesus' birth.  It just feels like we're beginning to find our rhythm and how to live well together in this season of life.  

Holiday Break!

Happy Thanksgiving!  It feels like an effort this year to think of specifics to be thankful for.

Yes, the Lord has blessed me in many ways.  I'm in a place where I am feeling a little detached emotionally...that's the best description I can come up with right now.  If I listed all those blessings, it would feel more robotic than sincere heart-felt thanks, even though I appreciate them all.

I am most grateful for the time I have with my children at home, the opportunity I have to reach them and pour into their lives.  I am grateful for the few hours of sleep I do get vs. lamenting the hours I don't get.  I am grateful to have a break from the normal routines, and I hope/pray that I have a chance to find my footing again before it ends.

I'm realizing in my wise-older-age...nearing 40...everyone has their struggles.  It doesn't matter who you are.  We all have our struggles.  Comparisons don't do any good, we're all just people doing the best we can with what we have.  I'm thankful for what I have and happy for others for what they have.

God's Call. Missions. Living for Him.

Sometimes I wonder to myself, what is God doing in my life?  

I have been trying to focus my perspective on Him more than ever before, it is hard to do with the many distractions of daily life sometimes.  And at the same time, it is even more so important to focus on Him because of this busy season of life.

My first desire for my future self that I can remember (aside from playing mommy), was to become a missionary and care for others.  It never was a "career goal" because I didn't know how that worked.  We've been reading a lot of missionary stories in school and I like pulling out the different character traits (strengths and flaws) of the missionaries and the ways that God works with those and around them sometimes.

I reflect on my life and where I am now.  My career passion was and still is children and their families.  Except I don't have a desire to go back to the early childhood career path.  I love where I am now in the chaos and busyness of motherhood. 

Mission work is anywhere and everywhere God leads.  He has led me home, and home is my mission field.  Caring for my husband, striving to be a godly wife and the example we as a couple are to those around us.  Raising and schooling our children, focusing on character building and the skills and challenges each faces.  Our impact on our little neighborhood as a family with our interactions and behavior.  

Not to say that any of this is done with perfection by any means.  In fact, many times I teach -and most often learn through my many failures and I pray for humility to be the wife and mother, the woman of God that I am called to be.

Rough Times Require Adjustments

 Being the mom, the homemaker, the cook, the wife, the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none...

I've been realizing too slowly that I need to make some adjustments to be able to manage this season of life.  I need to take more time for me, to take care of me.  I need to take charge and make the structure happen that I need for our family life to function.

I've been praying about decisions and where/what God wants me to cut or adjust.  Firstly, I had to start going to bed earlier.  I hate going to bed without my hubby, but in this season, our needs are different.  He's hurting too badly to lay down for an entire night.  I'm up early with our littles and sometimes throughout the night too.  I'm not functioning without enough sleep.

School has been stressful too.  I hear a lot of complaining throughout the day and I need to nip it in the bud.  I have been praying to be able to discern what complaints are sincerely areas I need to address and which complaints I need to correct my children for.  I find that I inadvertently enable my kids to complain when I provide a listening ear without a careful discerning of the reality of the situation.

Health & Nutrition is another biggie.  One of my worst areas of stress.  Our family has so many individual special food needs/limitations that I have trouble finding the items we need at one store.  Lately I've been shopping 3-5 stores, even with pick-up orders it is a lot to manage.  I've really been praying hard about what items we might cut or switch to try and decrease the shopping stress.

And lastly, finding time to care for me.  I got my hair cut finally, something I've been wanting to do for about a month now.  I like the shorter length and almost wish I would have tried it a bit shorter.  Tonight was my "work night" for getting school curriculum stuff done, but I treated myself to a warm bath first and then focused on our school routine for tomorrow and tweaked it to include some recess time and structured my day to hopefully allow it to flow better.  Self care is self preservation. :0)

The priorities I have listed on the refrigerator also help me to remember what is most important:

God, Marriage, Family, Home, School.  

When they aren't focused on in the correct order, things start to fall apart. Staying in tune with God keeps my focus on the right things in the right ways.