Back to School!

The first 2 days back to school have been wonderful as well as hard work! Mixed with all the hard work though there have been lots of laughs & some goofing off! While eating lunch we played Monopoly... Austin & I are both Monopoly fanatics! That has been both Austin & my favorite part of the day.

Actually we got off to a little bit of a rough start yesterday morning... I think Austin is depressed about not being in school with his friends so he got a little emotional but I hpe we worked through that. I told him we'd invite his friends over for something sometime... a play-date or something. That seemed to make him smile! Actually he has commented several times that he likes it so far... staying home to school!

Yesterday school ended at 2:30 & today at 3:30! We're still working out the kinks though, considering this is both of our first year at homeschooling. I have just decided today that instead of trying to do grammar, creative writing, vocabulary, & literature every day we are going to divide it up a bit. I thought we'd do creative writing on Tuesdays & Thursdays & literature on Mondays & Wednesdays leaving grammar & vocabulary to do every day. I think this will work much nicer for us.

Here's our *loose* schedule...
7:00 – 7:30 Breakfast/Free time
7:30 – 8:00 Morning chores
8:00 – 8:10 Prayers/Morning devotional
8:10 – 8:55 PE
8:55 – 9:40 Bible
9:40 – 9:55 Break
9:55 – 10:40 Grammar, Vocabulary, Creative writing (Tues & Thurs), Literature (Mon & Wed)
10:40 – 11:25 Mathematics
11:25 – 12:05 Lunch/Recess
12:05 – 12:50 History & Geography
12:50 – 1:00 Break
1:00 – 1:45 Science
1:45 – 3:00 Study Hall/Free time

We obviously don't follow the schedule EXACTLY or we would have ended by 1:45 today & yesterday. Actually the Bible/Christian Worldview class has taken longer than expected but mostly because it has generated some wonderful discussions between Austin & I. I am so proud of Austin... I actually asked him the question, "What is truth?" and he said God!!! YES, that's my boy!!! I really feel like God is going to do great things through Austin!

Actually both Austin & I are very excited (can't believe he IS excited but he is ) about this particular worldview curriculum. It really looks interesting & fun... there are videos to watch (we actually watched 2 videos today & discussed), movie clips from some very popular movies (such as The Matrix, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, etc) to watch, as well as the traditional bookwork to do.

According to the book (our worldview textbook, Lightbearers)...

The main point is this: those who understand how to think well about life will have the opportunity to influence the ideas that rule the world.
...
The goals for this curriculum are twofold. The first goal is defensive: to keep you from being deceived by anti-Christian worldviews. The second goal is offensive: to train you to actively live out the truth of Christianity in a culture of relativism & confusion.
...
Christian students renounce their faith in college: ...the percentage of Christians who no longer claim to be "born again" by their senior year is as high as 59%!

This sums up nicely why I am so excited about this curriculum, besides the fact that I heard about the curriculum publishers (Summit Ministries) through James Dobson's radio show Focus on the Family, that is! I hope to solidify Christianity within Austin, as well as to give me the worldview training I never received growing up. I absolutely can not wait to finish this curriculum & am very much enjoying it so far!