31 January 2013

Before We Start Back to Home Educating ~ Encouragement

I've had this post sitting here since early January ... I decided I'd better just add the links and post it .
We () were discussing, in real life, about how to start out encouraged in a new learning year and I thought I'd create a post to share here too .

Before we start back to home educating I like to ensure I start out encouraged.
A mum with a blue funky, ho-humish attitude is not a good basis for a full year ahead of teaching, or facilitating,  our educational goals for the year - for the children, or myself  - so I intentionally indulge in some favourite audios and books before we crack open our new schedule.
Often I'll go back to the same items year after year. 
Here are a few of the tactics and tools I use to encourage myself:
  • Lorrie Flem's Just Say No   &  Attitude Adjustments  (2017, sadly Lorrie's site is not working )
  • Listening through the next relevant level of Susan Wise Bauer's A Plan for Teaching Writing
  • Jessie Wise If I Could Do it All Over Again
  • Sip read through favourite portions of Diana Waring's Things We Wished We'd Known
  • A new listen this year is (now was)  The Long Haul  by Cindy Rollins (her topic resonated with me since utilising our book basket is a long enjoyed homeschooling move of ours.  THANK YOU to the mom that brought this talk to my attention) 
  • Reading through the goals, both long term and short term, we hope to achieve in our home educating family.  We typed these up a few years back and it's encouraging to see some of those goals being realised as we go along.
  • I love quietly reading through encouraging favourite scriptures I've noted down, including those scriptures that are directly related to my calling of womanhood as a wife, and a mother.  
  • Flick through favourite excerpts which I've jotted down in my thoughts journal, collected from books and lectures over the years.
  • I have a folder jammed full of encouraging and interesting articles/blog posts/write ups which have been written specifically for a wife and mum/mom that is living in the educating at home role  -  again, these have been collected over a few years.
  • And one of our best ever (!!) tactics which I'll just note briefly here: ensuring we maintain our continual, intentional habit of praying and quietly pondering over various areas in our academic education, in other life areas, and looking honestly at the character qualities we are expressing. 
One mum mentioned she likes to have a solid home educating book to read through for encouragement - I do too, but later in the year. 
I guess for me, since I'm technically in 'break' mode, post Christmas, I want to take a rest from reading an entire 200+ paged book about home educating ..... until we have restarted the academic side of our life again. 
Sips of encouragement seem to work best for me during the summer break space.

How do you encourage yourself before you start a new learning year?

2 comments:

DeliveringGrace said...

Your list has several resources that I ought to check out. RC Sproul Jr's book "When you rise up" is always a challenge to me about true priorities.

Chelle said...

"True priorities" ... nice word useage.
I'll have to check out your book recommendation for a during the learning year read ;-)