Celebrate the Blessings of Homeschooling!
Today I have two questions for you :
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Did you ever think of celebrating your homeschooling as a family?
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Do your kids know the reasons why they are doing homeschool?
I’m sure every family has their own reasons, and as parents, you know exactly why you made this choice, be it based on one important reason or a whole list of them. But what I’m asking now is: did you ever sit with your children in a relaxed setting and happily talked about your family’s choice of doing school at home, the advantages, what they like about it and why not even what they don’t like?
I know homeschooling can be a challenge. But are we forgetting to be thankful for all the blessings and for the privilege it is to be able to homeschool?
Well before asking you I asked myself those questions and as a result, I decided this time of the year was a good time to celebrate our homeschooling.
After the holidays, the fun with the cousins, the outings to go ice skating or see manger scenes as it’s the tradition here in Italy, getting back in the normal routine and to school was hard. A tired mommy didn’t really help inspire the kiddos. I had used all my ideas to do fun school projects in December while waiting for Christmas. We seriously needed something to rekindle our light! Remembering why we chose homeschooling and celebrating this privilege really gave us a boost of inspiration and energy. It is my hope that doing so will do the same for your family.
So how did we do it ?
The first step was to take a day off our “normal school and declare it officially our “homeschooling celebration day!” I had hanged a few balloons, prepared a special snack and after reading a fun story about a “Grumpy-ville and Thankful town” reviewing a few bible verses about thankfulness, we pulled up a board, colorful papers, and a few markers. We took turns writing and pinning all what we liked and were grateful for about doing school at home. The more we wrote the more kids where happily finding ideas. But we didn’t want to end the celebration just now! That was just a start. We decided that if homeschooling gave us those opportunities, we needed to enjoy those opportunities as much as possible. That led us to our next step. We took a calendar and planned to have some days where we would have “special school days” dedicated to focusing on enjoying each blessing more.
I’ll give you a few examples of what we put in our calendar for the next few weeks to give you some ideas, (some of the days we already enjoyed some are scheduled for soon…)
Celebrating blessing 1
“No rush in the morning”
To do :
- sleep in and read a story snuggled in bed ,with a little healthy snack .We can even take turns to read (here we have our reading practice and comprehension for the day )
- Late breakfast and bible study at the same time, followed by a little time to Praise God for our family and school at home.
- Little play time (Mommy makes sure she doesn’t stress over all the cleaning there is to do )
- Then everyone gives a hand for the chores and we continue with Math games.
Celebrating blessing 2
“We have lots of time with our brothers and sisters”
This one is a very important point for them. They would absolutely hate to spend all day in different classrooms. It’s so beautiful to see them having fun together and developing lifelong strong bonds.
To do:
1- write little notes to tell what we appreciate about each other.
2- projects and lessons that can be done no matter what grade they are in:
- Geography lessons that include discovering a country with documentaries, story, drawing maps and a treasure hunt about that country.
- Action games to review math facts and spelling ( questions adapted to ages )
Celebrating blessing 3 and 4
“We can play games for school time”
“We can have lots of fresh air and play outside, and flexible schedule”
To do :
School day with only games indoors and outdoors.
You can visit my blog for some ideas of games and free printable here :
Je joue, tu joues, nous apprenons . free printables
Celebrating blessing 5, 6 and 7
“We can learn by interest and progress at our rhythm”
“We can study Creation science”
“We have more time to study Gods word”
To do :
- Start learning about something that each child would like to know about (Geology, archeology and the Bible, birds, drawing on computer and dancing )
- Get (or mommy will prepare ) new materials and books for deeper Bible studies
There were quite a few more points on our board and we continued listing and planning ideas to celebrate, from hiding notes in Italian under Daddy’s plate to thank him for being our Italian teacher to planning a special excursion because and having a special dinner as a family talking about all what we learned lately.
OK, I’m sure that by now you’re getting lots of Ideas of your own on what are the special blessings of homeschooling in your family, and now it’s your turn to find your own ways of celebrating!
And if you’d like, I’d love to hear a few words about how you celebrated your homeschooling!
If you don’t have time for planning any events for celebrating or if you would like to continue the celebration the whole year around without any need of long preparation check out this free printable “everyday is special cards”, print, cut , and pick one every morning to add a special touch to your days”
Download your Freebie Here!
You will be added to the Outmatched Mama and jejoue-tujoues-nousapprenons mailing list! 🙂
Rachel is a stay at home mom of 3 wonderful kids . She grew up in the French Alps, studied and taught music, traveled around a bit and taught in some schools and orphanages in Africa and Ukraine . She settled down in Italy with her awesome Italian husband. She is homeschooling her 9 , 8 boys and 4 year old little girl and started her blog jejoue-tujoues-nousapprenons.com one year ago to share with other moms educative material that she creates . Her favorite teaching approach is games and stories. She loves Jesus, and wants to serve Him. He’s put in her heart to care for and feed His little ones, one way being by sharing inspiring resources and hopefully soon kids’ books on her blog.
Meet her on her Blog jejoue-tujoues-nousapprenons.com
or on her Facebook page
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Tiffany
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