This is my first official fall homeschooling and I am discovering how much I love, love, love being able to gear our lessons around seasonal fun, like ripe apples and changing fall leaves.

We just started incorporating an official “recess” time because Natalie insisted this was her favorite part of our Wednesday Co-Op day.
I have to say it’s a win-win. The weather is gorgeous and I get a few free minutes to myself to finish my coffee, which at this point has been reheated approximately 3.2 times.

We both share a love for leaves. This one was amazing.

Right now it is so easy to find additional resources to reinforce what we may cover during ‘usual school time’, although I am learning that our family doesn’t really  have a very clear cut school schedule. It really allows our week to flow pretty organically with so many great options, from fall-themed episodes of the kids’ favorites shows that wouldn’t normally get super educational, but I can be intentional to bring in some reminders from our lesson, to trips to the local fruit stand to check out the apples and pumpkins, to all the fall activities at the local churches. Love. (Side note:This is a new insight for me, that I like a more organic, unplanned approach.  I would have bet my life that I would have a very consistent, structured school week cut out for the kids. Turns out I avoid the same routine after about a week. What?! Who is this crazy free-spirit that would just rather see what the day leads to? I’m learning SO much about myself as we homeschool. It’s actually been pretty cool to see how God is really leading our homeschool – He always has, but sometimes when I’m in ‘super planner mode’ it’s easy to think that I’m the one pulling it together. But each day it becomes more and more clear that He’s got this and I’m learning to hand over the reins.)

Our current two curriculum choices have synced up beautifully, focusing on A for Apple (Unit 4 of My Father’s World-Kindergarten) and all the festive fun of “In the Orchard“(Mother Goose Time), which just so happens to be focusing on the letters A,O, and R this month along with the obvious overlaps of fall fruits.

I love that there are resources each month, like the banners and phonics cards, that we can reuse. It’s really helped this new homeschooling mama to collect some really great resources quickly.

We have spent this past week sampling different varieties of apples (Natalie choosing Fuji as her apple of choice, Peter voting for Granny Smith for the win), playing with seeds and ‘picking fruit.’

This activity had the kids “picking fruit” off the branch, and then sorting into pie tins.

These two actually worked together, after a little encouragement, to take turns picking their choice of fruit and sorting it into the correct pie tin.

They enjoyed it so much that they asked to do it again, and I have seen my daughter replicate the exercise on her own time later (although this time choosing to not include her brother).

We also added fruit to our tree (provided materials in Day 4’s bag).

This is Peter’s work. He tends to group stickers together a lot, especially similar ones, in order to “match them.” It will be interesting to watch this tendency, to see if he outgrows it or continues to like groupings.

This was Natalie’s page. She wanted a very realistic tree, with the fruit hanging from the branches, as well as a few falling apples. And of course, she had to feed the bird. I even think the caterpillar is trying to get a bite.

I then gave the kids an option of adding more fruit with our Dot-to-Dot markers. Following suit, Peter choose to group his fruit.

Natalie added a good bit of more fruit. Not Pictured: the final version that ended up having paper flowers glued on as well. She had a lot of fun developing this project.

We wrapped up the week this evening reading Johnny,

letting the kids free-play with the scene and characters,

and then digging into the seed collection, part of this month’s manipulatives pack.

Peter was not interested in the tweezers and Natalie decided they were not efficient enough for her sorting process and soon set them aside.

We are really looking forward to the rest of the month’s focus on fruit and fall critters, incorporating a fun field trip to the fruit stand (Nat’s fav)! As if the curriculum wasn’t great enough, the kiddos even love the box.

 

 

 

 As an official Mother Goose Time Blog Ambassador,
I receive curriculum in exchange for posting about our honest and authentic experiences with the curriculum.
Click here for more information on Mother Goose Time.

A while back, a friend encouraged me to surround myself with meaningful things, objects that would remind me of what God has been speaking to me, as well as reminders of what He had spoken and done in the past.  I had resigned from my full-time position at a local church to be home with my babies, stepping into the role that God has been preparing me for who knows how long. (well, He knew)

So I had found myself at home, full-time.  Like in my house, a lot.
Duh, right.
Kind of part of the package when you’re a SAHM (Stay-At-Home-Mama for those of you not up to date with our super cool mom lingo).
And I found myself surrounded by things, just things.
Home decorating and pretty much home anything has never been my strength. And my house reflected that. It pretty much looked like it did when we originally furnished it 7+ years ago, pre-kids, minus a few baby/toddler accessories.

In the past, home was purely for rest. And my rest, I mean sitting on the couch, vegging in front of the TV or sitting on my bed, reading. Or for my husband, sitting in front of the computer, gaming. We were both previously in full-time ministry, and a lot of our time was committed to things outside the home, which included most of our energy as well, physically and mentally. So being at home was not about investing time and energy into my surroundings. It was for rest and survival. And we appreciated that.

But different seasons call for different things. And it was apparently early on after coming home that I was not going to thrive in our current environment.

So back to the conversation with my friend. She knows me. (Aren’t you so thankful for people that know you, like really get you. Not just stuff that you’ve told them, but information that they’ve gathered from time spent with you and piecing together the unspoken exchanges as well.) And she knows that I love meaningful things. And so to be surrounded by things that had just filled our home, because that’s what you do, right, when you buy a home? You fill it with some tables and lamps and a couch, etc. I had never looked at my home for much more than that, let alone really questioned functionality for us.

As I’m typing this, I realize how absurd this is, and I probably fall into a very small percentage of people that will relate to this approach. But for those of you that do, hi! How are you? Make yourselves at home and it’s good to know that there is someone (possibly just one person) out there that gets it personally, too.

Anyways, so my friend challenged me to not just find new things for my mantle, because that’s what you do – put things on your mantle. But to find items that really meant something to me, that whispered personal and maybe even secret reminders to me as my eyes fall on them. And of course, I adored this idea. It was so much like my approach to gift giving (my love language), really studying that person and finding out what would be significant or encouraging or bring joy to them. And now I could do this for myself and my family.

So – the point. I promise I’m getting there.

I’m not going to share each piece and why I chose what I have (most of that isn’t even pictured below since I have my fall goodies out). That is reserved for conversation over coffee on my couch, when you can tell me similiar things in your life that remind you of what God has done in your life, or what brings you joy and recognizing God’s design in that. But there is one piece that I want to share because it represents so much of my personal journey with the Lord over the past several years.  A story that needs to be shared, the testimony of God’s grace and pursuit of me.  Sometimes God does something in your life and you can’t help but share it, because of the freedom and healing you experience. It compels you to share. That is where the Lord has brought me.

“My soul will sing You have done great things.” –Great Things, Elevation Worship

So the piece is this serving tray. I felt like it was  a Holy Spirit inspired idea, a way of the Lord personally reminding me of some really important lessons, and something that could continue to speak to me, and hopefully others.

Yay for Target’s Dollar Spot with fun, inexpensive fall decor!

First, it tells me that the very best I have to offer others is Jesus. So when I hold out my service – whether that is leading a Bible Study, homeschooling my kids, cleaning my home, cooking dinner, getting to know my neighbors, what I am doing is holding out Jesus. Because as the Lord has revealed and started to break the chains of my struggle with perfectionism and legalism, He has started showing me that the very best I have to offer anyone is Him. It’s not about a perfected Jenny that others need, which is what I have believed for so long. That my ‘perfected’ life would be the testimony of what God can do, and signs of weakness or struggle somehow reflected poorly on Him. I’m sure you can guess the weight of deception and shame I lived under for so long, and how exhausting it was to always try so hard to be different, better.

But what the Lord showed me it was really about is an imperfect and dearly loved girl who has a really awesome Savior. That despite my imperfections and weaknesses and tendency towards sin, He still pursues and redeems and restores and loves me. That is hope right there. That we can just be, knowing that we’re never going to fix ourselves, and that we don’t have to. He will, in time, bring all things back to perfection. But in the meantime, I am loved and forgiven and free.

So the tray tells me that I am to offer people Jesus. And as I’m sure you can tell from the picture, it’s a pretty imperfect painting job. (again, not my strength) BUT that is actually one thing I adore about it, because it represents how imperfectly I am going to offer Him, too. Because I still really want my own way, and get distracted, and am really, really selfish. But even if I offer Him imperfectly, His perfection will make up for the gaps in presentation.

So I imperfectly offer a perfect Jesus to others.

And then it also reminds me that He is the one I am serving. Because my other choice of bondage in the past has been to people, desperately wanting to be accepted and approved of and appreciated. And so for a long time, even in my best attempts at pure motives, my service was still muddied with the desire that what I was offering others would somehow guarantee that I got what I wanted in return. Enter unrealistic and awful expectations, selfishness, resentment and bitterness. Because it was looking to others for things God never meant for them to offer me. My service was to be for Him, holding up my hands to offer what I have, emptying them for Him. And in return, He would choose what to put back into my hands – a sense of true identity, grace, rest from my crazy attempts to belong, peace, forgiveness, healthy friendships – things that would truly bless and fulfill me, not ensnare me all the more.

And so I imperfectly offer a perfect Jesus to others and am reminded that He is really the One I am serving.

He is the Portion and the Recipient.

My Portion:
“Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.“

“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.” – Matthew 26:26

“The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup” – Psalm 16:5

“I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” – Lamentations 3:24

 

The Recipient of my service:
“And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’” – Matthew 25:40

“Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

“Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people” – Ephesians 6:7

 

As I mentioned before, we’re doing a unit on leaves right now with Natalie’s My Father’s World Kindergarten curriculum. And it just so happens that Day 5 of our October “In the Orchard” theme for Peter’s Mother Goose Time curriculum is on leaves! I love it when things come together!

So tonight we had a good time exploring one of the activities for Day 5 based around the Very Hungry Caterpillar story.

 

Surprisingly I couldn’t find the book in our local library system, but good ‘ole youtube came through again, and read by Eric Carle himself.

 

Then we headed into the school room, otherwise known as the kitchen, to make our own little hungry caterpillars.

 

These were the all the needed supplies provided in Day 5’s bag.

Both of the kiddos were quite focused on threading their beads onto the pipe cleaner to make their caterpillars.

Someone is getting a little excited about Halloween this year, so we pulled out the shirts early.

Once we finished our caterpillars, they started their snack lunch of leaf right away.

Peter though this was a blast! He enjoyed making the caterpillar pop through the leaf.

Natalie, slow and steady and precise as usual.

Daddy joined in the peek-a-boo fun.

Look at these sweet faces?! Seriously? This is considered school work? We had a lot of fun as a family enjoying each other while learning about critters and leaves.

 

Once our caterpillars had eaten enough leaf to their liking, we pulled out our “A” apples. We practiced with the three-hole punch making some more holes for our caterpillar to eat through.

Wheeee!

October has turned out to be a pretty full month for us – a visit to Nanny’s house to give us a change of pace during the ‘rain season’ of Hurricane Joaquin, a field trip to Disney on Ice,  a fun night at the fair – and it’s only 11 days into the month. This can leave things feeling a little crazy when it comes to trying to homeschool and keep up with consistent lessons for the kids. But with the two curricula that we have chosen this year for our kiddos, I’ve been so pleasantly surprised and thankful with how easy it has been to enjoy the flexibility of fun activities and opportunities as they arise, which is definitely an upside to being at home with the kids and getting to choose our own schedules. I’ve been able to do this because of how well organized and put together both of these choices are, which means that I don’t fall behind in planning when we do take an impromptu overnight trip to my mom’s house.

Mother Goose Time especially is SO thorough when it comes to organizing and laying everything out so that you can literally just pick up the Teacher’s Guide and a Day’s bag and go if you want to. For those of us that enjoy a little bit more pre-planning, it allows for you to quickly peruse the lessons and then if you want to, to add any additional activities or ideas that you may have. But if it’s been a full month, like ours, it is already done for you. I SO appreciate that as a new homeschooling mama whose main goal right now is the find a good rhythm with her kids and be able to enjoy each other this year. If we’re in this for the long-haul, I want us to have a good foundation because we were connecting and building relationships with each other, without me worried about planning or distracted by all the prep that I need to do. There may be a season when we opt for more of that, but for now, these two curricula are great fits for us and I’m loving it.

As an official Mother Goose Time Blog Ambassador,
I receive curriculum in exchange for posting about our honest and authentic experiences with the curriculum.
Click here for more information on Mother Goose Time.