Freedom Homestead
Family Portraiture in Topeka KansasLife lived together is a learned life. Life lived intentionally enriches the soul for growth, purpose, and identity. Homeschooling, for me has become one of the most richest experiences of my life. I absolutely adore having my children home with me and learning right alongside them. I learn something new every day from them; everything from a challenging concept to a new way of disciplining them that brings a fresh perspective to my motherhood journey. Our homeschooling is still so raw and vulnerable. We are each gathering ways to join together as a team in understanding what works and what doesn’t work for us. It’s not perfect, but it’s genuine and filled with grace. Grace upon grace is my life-blood. I’m constantly running to the Father to shower more and more of His grace into my life. I am nothing without Him.
This is just a small glimpse into our homeschool day, and I’m wanting to be better at recording ‘us’ and this adventure we are on in our Freedom Homestead.
We start our morning’s with our morning chores that consist of using the restroom, making our beds, brushing our teeth, changing clothes/diapers, feeding and watering the kittens(yes! we have THREE kittens), and watering the plants. After that is done I send the two older girls on their morning run. We have three acres, so they run up and down the meadow twice. They love it! The little’s, I’ll have run up and down the hill in our front yard. It’s quite the scene 😉 Once that is over we’ll come in and sit down for our Morning Time Tea, where we’ll have scrambled eggs, fruit, bread of some type, and of course, tea!!
Morning Time Tea is my favorite time with my children. As they eat, I read out loud to them from a few different books, we recite our poem(s), and we sing our hymn of the month. This time is very flexible, as I have 2 under 3, but typically our Morning Time Tea last’s about 45min. to an hour. This time is for enrichment of minds, hearts, and souls. I have zero expectation from them during this time, but oftentimes Izabella and Lucille will ask questions about certain things I read which leads to great conversations! Also during this time, while I read out loud from Little House On the Prairie or one of Grimm’s Fairytales, I’ll have the two older girls do copy work of a poem or verse they are studying. This helps keep little hands busy, yet voices stilled 😉 At this point in our Tea Time, Annette and Lewis are either playing with clay or off making a mess in the living area. **My children are no angels and I’m only one mama** 🙂
Morning Time Tea gets done around 9 and the girls clear the table and unload and load the dishwasher, then they have 15-20 minutes to go outside and play. I prepare the table with their workbooks or chase sweet and salty around until they’ve had their fill of belly laughs. 9:30 we begin our ‘formal’ study time with a few breaks here and there, but so far we’ve accomplished everything by 12:00!! During quiet rest time, I’ll work one-on-one with Lucille in learning how to read. After that our typical school day is complete and we use the outdoors as our classroom for the rest of the day!
Every bit of this I love and I know the Lord is redeeming so much of my motherhood with each new day! Thanks so much for stopping in and I hope this post encourages and inspires.
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![homeschooling daughter holding flowers](https://jaqmarie.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/McClurg-7.jpg)
![homeschooling girls saluting the American Flag in front of home](https://jaqmarie.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/McClurg-8.jpg)
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Jacqueline, Loved reading your blog! You and Kyle are such great parents and teachers to your adorable children! If you want to have a field trip some day to come and do sing alongs with my parents, they would love it! They love kids and company! Just let me know. I also would love to come and see all of you and the kittens! Oh, and my mom loves kittens too, if you can bring one with you sometime if you can all come visit! I also have flowers I want to bring to you sometime this fall! God’s blessings to you and your family! Love you, Tammi
So glad you are settled into a routine that fits your family. While the decision to move was a hard one, I know, seems like it was a GREAT one. Think of you often.