This is what my desk looks like during Lesson Planning Week… revolving stacks of books and resources piled up, planned and prepared, put away and replaced with the next stack… over and over until all 52 lessons currently in our homeschooling schedule are thoroughly planned.
I do this once every 6 weeks, and there is a moment each time that I look around at the piles around me and am presented with the choice of viewing these hours that I’m investing as a) overwhelming and needlessly challenging or as b) stewardship of the monumental task of facilitating the education of human beings.
I’ve continued to include dozens of lessons in our schedule and to plan every single one intentionally for a decade now, so obviously I choose the latter.
I SEE it as stewardship because it IS stewardship.
I’ve continued to lesson plan in this way through pregnancy and a newborn, through moves, through a 5 year court battle, through deaths and losses, through different seasons of ministry and working, through every age and stage and grade, through my own chronic illness, and through so much more of life.
And, I’m certainly not saying that everyone should do so- life, and homeschool, comes in seasons, and seasonal shifts are wise and should be individually determined.
But, homeschooling in the way that I do requires a hefty investment of planning and preparation and for ME personally, that has never been a wise or reasonable seasonal shift.
To homeschool with Communal Learning and Variety as nonnegotiable priorities means that I am using (literally) hundreds of books and resources at any given time.
Any given lesson on our schedule could be constructed of little bits of up to a dozen books and videos and articles and notebooks.
And, even for the subjects which I’m using a single resource or I’m largely using as written, I still open it to every page that we will utilizing over 6 weeks and put my eyes, hands, and heart upon it before writing it in my Lesson Plans.
Why?
Because it is stewardship.
It is intentionality.
It is investment.
It *could* be simpler and it *could* be easier, but that just simply isn’t my aim.
I do this once every 6 weeks, and there is a moment each time that I look around at the piles around me and am presented with the choice of viewing these hours that I’m investing as a) overwhelming and needlessly challenging or as b) stewardship of the monumental task of facilitating the education of human beings.
I’ve continued to include dozens of lessons in our schedule and to plan every single one intentionally for a decade now, so obviously I choose the latter.
I SEE it as stewardship because it IS stewardship.
I’ve continued to lesson plan in this way through pregnancy and a newborn, through moves, through a 5 year court battle, through deaths and losses, through different seasons of ministry and working, through every age and stage and grade, through my own chronic illness, and through so much more of life.
And, I’m certainly not saying that everyone should do so- life, and homeschool, comes in seasons, and seasonal shifts are wise and should be individually determined.
But, homeschooling in the way that I do requires a hefty investment of planning and preparation and for ME personally, that has never been a wise or reasonable seasonal shift.
To homeschool with Communal Learning and Variety as nonnegotiable priorities means that I am using (literally) hundreds of books and resources at any given time.
Any given lesson on our schedule could be constructed of little bits of up to a dozen books and videos and articles and notebooks.
And, even for the subjects which I’m using a single resource or I’m largely using as written, I still open it to every page that we will utilizing over 6 weeks and put my eyes, hands, and heart upon it before writing it in my Lesson Plans.
Why?
Because it is stewardship.
It is intentionality.
It is investment.
It *could* be simpler and it *could* be easier, but that just simply isn’t my aim.
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