Ordinary Things

"The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children. "

I recently read this quote by G.K. Chesterton and thought how appropriately this applies to our ordinary, everyday, homeschooling lives. We don't get to see flashy test scores or receive standing ovations or applause from a crowd for being faithful in little things but these little things do add up over time and I think we all need to be encouraged to be faithful.


So, here are some ordinary, everyday things that we have been faithful with in our home school. I want to keep a record for myself so we can look back and be encouraged.

1. We are really enjoying reading this selection of poetry from Ambleside Online (apart from Little Boy Black... ). I appreciate the compilation and the variety of poets rather than one single poet. It's a nice change.





I got the idea from Celeste at Joyful Lessons to hang them all up together. It's fun to see the collection grow!

2.  Our weekly watercolor narrations are still getting done! I had a goal at the beginning of 2018 to have the girls watercolor one narration each week and it's been happening, thanks to a regularly scheduled time. 


3.  We are finally following a solid grammar program (Winston Grammar) and I really like it. The girls love the hands-on part of it and they are becoming very confident in their grammar skills. 


4.  Teaching Textbooks (math) has been such a blessing to me this year. I love that the girls can have a patient, knowledgeable teacher every day and that it doesn't have to be me! Seriously, I think this is the best thing for our mother/daughter relationships while homeschooling. Math was becoming such a beast to contend with and a huge strain every day. Louisa actually enjoys math... who knew?


5.  Shakespeare continues to be a weekly favorite around here. The girls LOVE to read Shakespeare, even Julia insists on reading a part. My goal is to read two plays a year. We recently finished A Midsummer Night's Dream and are now reading Much Ado About Nothing. They love the comedies, but we are planning to read through Julius Caesar next year which will be different for sure.


6.  Speaking of Julius Caesar, we are all three reading Plutarch's Julius Caesar together, which is new for us. Usually Kailyn does her own Plutarch reading and Louisa had been reading an abbreviated version of his lives, but the group reading is going well so far. Louisa loves to keep track of the cast of characters and diligently writes them down. :)


7.  We finished memorizing Psalm 139 and are now working on John 1. Julia memorized Psalm 139 with us and knows it by heart. She doesn't appreciate our new verses yet and wants to review Ps. 139 every day instead. 

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