One major thing I felt God leading us to this year with Allie was preparing for womanhood. Allie will be eleven years old in the fall. Although she's not yet showing signs of puberty, I know it's just around the corner. I've been burdened by how common it is for young adolescent girls to dread their periods, even disdaining their own bodies and what they go through each month. I'm convinced that it's 99% how their mothers handled these changes and how they prepared (or didn't prepare) them for it. I think now is the time to start discussing the glorious cycles of womanhood with Allie so she can a) give God the glory for how He made her feminine body, and b) be prepared for what lies ahead. I found a wonderful curriculum online at http://www.blessinggodsway.com called "Maidens by His Design" for mothers and daughters to work through together. We'll be discovering how God designed a woman's body to menstruate, ovulate, impregnate, lactate, and go through menopause. Or, as the book puts it, it gives our daughters "a Christian worldview of their cycle". I'm super excited about it. Also along the lines of becoming a woman, we're studying Anatomy with Apologia Science and going through some other books, including "How to be a Lady" that I found at http://www.visionforum.org
We're doing the fifth grade Saxon Math, the sixth grade Shurley Method for Language, a great Alabama history curriculum I found online that was put together by a woman in Birmingham when she was homeschooling her daughters (I'll share more about that later), and Greek. Yes I know, I know. But Allie really wanted to learn Greek. Really. So I ordered "Hey Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek!" at http://www.greeknstuff.com and we're going to do our best to learn some Greek. A possible birthday gift for Allie will be a Greek/English Interlinear Bible and concordance so she can discover the "true" meanings of some of the Bible verses she's learning. In addition, she's joining the Huntsville Youth Orchestra as a beginning violinist and learning piano at home. Thanks to our WONDERFUL friend Kelly Penn, Allie has some great beginner piano books, violin books, and even a very nice clarinet that of course, Allie has already pretty much mastered. That girl has a ton of talent. Now at our home, we have a harmonica, a tambourine, a drum, a keyboard, a piano, a violin, a clarinet, and a ukelele. I'm most pumped about the ukelele. :) Until I get my own drum of course. :) Allie learned some sewing and crosstitching techniques last year that she's still honing, and last night she met a neighbor of ours who showed her how to spin her own thread. She gave Allie some samples of sheep and alpaca hair and her own beginners wheel to start practicing. Oh to have such a wide open world of opportunity at her age! To quote Dr. Seuss, "Oh, the Places She'll Go!" :)
Maggie is also very anxious to learn to read, write, and do math. I lucked up on some used Saxon K math books and FREE Scholastic Phonics Reading stuff recently that I think, coupled with my own creativity :), will do for her right now. She's so curious and interested in learning that it won't take much on my part. I'll just sit and watch her learn. :)
Let me get to the lesson planning. . . and Bible studying. . . during this precious time of rest. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment