.Homeschooling Goals.

Summer is rapidly falling away and will soon reveal the vibrant colors of autumn. And with the rolling in of autumn uncurls a new school year in our home. The excitement is building for this new season - both autumn coming and school starting. I have planned and organized and prayed and discussed Cadi's upcoming first grade year at great lengths. I have poured a lot of myself into this school year already. God has been gracious and good and kind with me. I feel differently about homeschooling this year. God has been impressing so much upon my heart, and His Spirit has really guided me in being thoughtful and intentional with Cadi's first grade year.

For the first time, I have thought through our homeschooling philosophy , and have found a real peace and freedom in moving forward with that as a guideline for education in our home. I am surrendering my perfectionism in homeschooling and desiring to be less of a critical teacher and more of a gracious teacher. I pray that I grow in my weaknesses and strengths, and understanding them better I have found a new approach to aid in this. I am very much looking forward to the community of homeschoolers that God is joining us with in Classical Conversations. We have orientation on August 15th, and I am giddy over it! Curriculum for this year has been thoroughly prayed over, thought through, and researched with a fine tooth comb. (I finally bit the bullet and got everything purchased, and it is almost all here!) And on August 29th, Cadi officially begins her first day of first grade. Our chore packs have been perfected, and activities for the boys have been thought through. I have worked through a routine for our day (trying hard to move a bit a way from my strict schedule) and brush stroked plans for the year, but there is one thing left to do.

Each school year I want to pray over and come up with a few goals for my children for that particular year. The goals will complement our homeschool philosophy, but be more concrete and specific. I want something measurable for each year. Since Cadi is my only child in school right now (although maybe I should come up with goals for my boys, too - hmmm) these are the goals I have for her.

Luke 2:52 Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

This verse describe four areas in which Jesus grew and developed: intellectually, physically, spiritually, and socially. These are the four areas I will focus on as goals for Cadi.

Intellectually: I desire for Cadi to increase in her speed and accuracy in reading as well as develop in critically thinking through what she has read and show increased reading comprehension. We will work on developing a deeper understanding of phonics rules. I want for Cadi to understand how to apply phonics rules to spelling. I would like to see an improvement in her fine motor skills especially when it comes to the area of handwriting. I desire for Cadi to understand the addition and subtraction math facts and have them become automatic this year. We will work on applying math skills to real life. I desire for Cadi to gain a basic knowledge of US History and geography and understand geography in a concrete way and as it relates to her. We will work through understanding the human body for science, and I hope that Cadi obtains a basic understanding of the wonderful way God created the body to function. I hope to see Cadi develop a love for the creative gift of music and art, and gain more understanding into the lives of specific artists. I also desire for Cadi to learn to tie her shoes this year.

Physically: We will work on teaching Cadi to be proactive and take responsibility with her hygiene and personal care - specifically taking full responsibility in caring for her teeth and bathing - especially washing her hair. I desire for Cadi to begin to gain a basic knowledge about her body and how God created her to be uniquely feminine (I will be using this book to help guide me in this). I desire for Cadi to gain continued understanding in the importance of proper nutrition.

Spiritually: I desire for Cadi to improve in the areas of perseverance and self control. We will also continue to focus on compassion and contentedness. I desire for Cadi to memorize Scripture and understand how it applies to her life. My hope for Cadi is that she grows in visible ways in her relationship with God, and I will begin to foster in her an understanding in the importance of having her own quiet time with God each day. We will encourage her gift of encouragement in various ways, and continually impress upon her kindness towards others.

Socially: I will encourage Cadi in her ability to communicate thoughtfully with her peers in guiding her to weekly write to her pen pal. I hope to foster in Cadi a servant's heart towards the people in her life. We will develop her love for people by involving her in activities inside our home and outside our home. My prayer is that Cadi will develop deeper, lasting friendships, and that she will become confident in sharing the love of Jesus with everyone in her path.




Above everything else my goals for Cadi this year are to help her increase in loving God with all of her heart, soul, and might. (Deuteronomy 6:5) If we succeed in that, this year will be counted as a success.

We are just about ready to kick off this school year! Now to intently prepare my heart and mind. I know I have a lot of growing to do this year, and I am just about ready.

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.Preserving their Innocence.

I have been thinking a lot lately about preserving my children's innocence. Now I do not want to get into a deep theological debate here, so let me be clear with that statement. Yes, I believe that my children were born into this world with a sin nature. No, I am not claiming that they are innocent in that sense. I am referring more to innocence in the way of "unknowing".

I talked a little bit about media here. I didn't delve into specifics too much, though. So today I am going to. Because I don't know about you, but as a mommy to two children, I am fed up with it.

I have to be honest with you first. In the post mentioned above, I said that we were cancelling our cable. That is where we were getting the funds to sponsor Gerlie - our child through Compassion International. Well, to make a very long story short - we didn't cancel. Our phone and internet are included in our cable package. We found out that if we canceled cable, we would have actually been paying more - ridiculous. We are sponsoring Gerlie. This was our second month supporting her. We have had no trouble accruing the funds to send to her - praise God! Cadi thinks that we do not have cable. We have not told her otherwise. So the children never watch it. I never turn it on during the day, and I seldom ever have. I would prefer to spend any down time another way. Anyway, I just wanted to get that out in the open.

Back to media.

Back to preserving my children's innocence - keeping them pure.

I am just struggling with knowing how to raise these two precious children in such a media driven, perverse world. Have you seen the immodest clothing that is already being pushed on our little girls? My husband is very sensitive about what our daughter wears, and I am so thankful for his wisdom and discernment in this area. I wasn't always so thankful. I didn't understand what we were up against at first. I remember when Cadi was a baby thinking that the itty bitty baby bikinis were so adorable, but Jim would not allow that on his daughter. I thought it was harmless and cute. However when I stopped to really think about it, I knew he was right. A bikini has been a sex symbol for years. We would not allow our teenage daughter to dress in a bikini, so why would we let our infant daughter, or toddler, or preschooler? And if you do allow your little girl to wear a bikini, I am not judging you, this is what we do in our family to preserve innocence.

It goes beyond clothing even. It seems as if the world/media is pushing our daughters to grow up faster and faster. Have you noticed? Have you seen the movies, the TV shows, the music pushed on our little girls? What is the harm? What gets sacrificed? Our children's childhood!! That is huge. I want to preserve my daughter's (and my son's) childhood for as long as I can. They only get it once. Why not make it long and sunny? (I have a whole post on this drafted up for Raising Homemakers. I will let you know when it publishes.)

I want to preserve Scotty's innocence by keeping him away from the images of scantily clad women that our culture is saturated in. So at 20 months he doesn't watch cable. But what do I do in "the real world"? I saw on The Duggar's show one time where they had a code word for the boys/men when out in public. If the women/girls saw another female dressed immodestly they would say this word, immediately the males would look at their feet and keep walking until they were told all is clear. Sounds a little extreme. Or does it? I am still mulling this over. I have a friend that does this with her son and husband.

What bothers me the most is the way we, as Christians, have been brain washed into thinking this loss of innocence is just normal and going to happen. That immodest clothing for little girls is cute, that inappropriate movies are funny, that sex education needs to be taught far too early, because we want them to hear it from us first etc. I have fallen prey to it before myself. But I am choosing to be more aware, to put my guard up, and to protect these children in my care. I am not going to concede to our society. I am not.

I believe that I have a God-given role in the life of my children to preserve their innocence. I am still working out exactly how. I do not want my children to be defenseless in our culture, but the Bible also tells me to dwell on what is pure, true, lovely.

Philippians4:8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.


I think my children's childhood should mirror this. The gift of innocence is a beautiful thing I can give to my children.



I do not want to stir up controversy, but I would love some discussion.
What do you do to preserve innocence in your children?
Have you thought about it before?




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.With No Intended Purpose.

I decided to free write today. If you are not familiar with free writing it is an exercise in which one writes whatever comes to mind for a predetermined amount of time and doesn't go back and read it or correct the grammar while writing. I used to love doing this in my journal. It emptied my head, as I basically spewed it all onto paper. Graphic, yes, but true. I have not done this in awhile, and I have certainly never done this on my blog. I was inspired by MckMama who has been writing several posts titled "stream of consciousness" lately. Basically they are free writing posts. I wanted to give it a try, so bare with me. Here I go. Time (5 minutes) starts now.

The rain kind of follows my mood today. Bleak. dreary. I am in a mood. Grumpy. I told Jim I needed a break today, and he gave me one. He taught school to Cadi. I felt guilty. Jim, unintentionally, made me feel guilty. He asked me "Isn't this life you always wanted?" Yes, it is, but Mommy still needs a break. I don't ask for them often. I drank my coffee, read my Bible, and wrote. Then I cleaned. I feel better - sort of.

I still don't have window treatments on my kitchen windows. Why? The fabric is right here in the kitchen - sitting on my dryer. I cannot get motivated to sew them. I think it is because I think I do not have enough fabric. That stinks. It will really stink if I start sewing them and run out of fabric.

My Christmas decor is still up. Oh my word. This is the longest I have kept it up. My mom's is still up too. She has a real tree even. I can remember the tree being up at Valentine's day when I was a girl. Mom denies that, though.

I don't want to run today. I ate way too many homemade wheat thins for lunch. I am in the middle of my period and feeling it - bleck. Jim kept dreaming I was pregnant this past week. I'm not. No, we were not trying. I am trying to get down to 110-115 pounds before trying for another. Is that selfish? Is that self-absorbed? I probably won't get there anyway. Not if I keep eating homemade crackers anyway! Ha!

We take Cadi to the eye doctor's this afternoon. I have noticed her holding her books really close to her face when reading. And she puts her head close to her papers when coloring and writing. I really hope she does not need glasses. If she does I hope we can get her a really cute, trendy pair. Wow, I am sounding shallow today.

This week is Jim's last paycheck for camp. We will go the entire month of February with no pay. I am scared and excited. I wonder how God will provide? I know He will.

Mmm, I really wish I could have just one piece of coffee cake, but then I would have to run an extra mile. It's good coffee cake, but not that good!

Times up. That went by really fast. I could have written for another five or ten minutes! You should give it a try. Write a post with no intended purpose. If you do, leave me a comment letting me know that you did. I would love to read it!

Have a blessed day!