The Non-Distractors

After last week, I decided that something had to change. Maybe you know what I'm talking about, or maybe I'm the only homeschooler who wonders what it would be like to get through a lesson without "distractions". What are these distractions of which I speak?

My younger children.

I know. I'm terrible.

It seems that sometimes I have a mindset which causes me to sometimes view my younger kids as hinderances to the older ones' learning, because they sometimes "interrupt" our studies. Granted, there are times when Ashlyn needs to work alone to keep from being distracted, but this week a light bulb came on in my head. This is nothing new to many homeschoolers, but I finally realized (after much prayer) that the beauty of home education is that my children can (and should) learn together!

We have started doing some studies together--even including Jacob, who has trouble sitting still, but is picking up on all kinds of stuff. It's been really fun doing this, and we are actually looking at a new curriculum for next year that is aimed at teaching all children together!

This week I sort of rearranged things in the schedule and made a greater effort to make sure that everyone truly participated in the morning Bible reading/study.

It paid off Thursday, when we had been reading about Lazarus being raised from the dead (about which, by the way, after I said that Lazarus might have even already started to stink, Emily proclaimed, "God made him smell good!") Jacob decided he wanted to "read" from his Bible. He opened up his little New Testament and very emphatically stated, "God made stuff! He made airplanes, rockets and helicopters!" I laughed, because that's where he is right now! Every time we have discussions concerning Jesus, he says something about the things that God made. I know that he really is gleaning information not only from Jason and me, but from his sisters as well.

This has made me feel so refreshed with our school days. I feel like I can relax a bit and instead of say "It's time for school!", I can say "It's time to learn!" and my precious little "distractions" become welcome contributors.

I don't know what took me so long to figure this out...