Pluggin' Along

I think in the ‘in between’ times it’s easy to forget the moments that make up the every day.  Since unpacking and ‘settling’ into our temporary home last month and before heading out on our first homeland ministry road trip (just over one week away!), we have been filling our days quite full!   And since we used to tell our student friends that ‘if you don’t get a picture of it or write it down, it didn’t happen,’  this post is an endeavor to record some of the ‘every day’ so we can remember that it did indeed happen!

After sending out our big print mailing (which consumed most of the first week of the month between design, writing, edits, and updating our database), Nathan has been able to work part time for my parents doing farm work.  

After picking corn on Monday, yesterday they unloaded a lot of the wagons into storage. I caught a few photos yesterday as they were finishing up and removing the auger. The kids can't get enough of watching all the action!

This part time work has been helpful for covering groceries and we’ve had enough in our mission account to cover health insurance, so God’s been providing for our needs and we thank Him (and many of you) for that! 

I’ve been filling my days as homemaker and teacher (in spite of the fact that I'm not in these photos, you'll have to take my word for it).  This is going to jump into homeschool talk here so you can skip this unless it’s something that interests you!



Last year the decision to homeschool Ellie was such a last-minute choice that we decided to do a simple ‘plug and play’ option by enrolling Ellie in an online school.  It was probably the easiest form of homeschooling but came with drawbacks -- the first being that I had no idea from one day to the next what Ellie would be studying, which made preparing for complementary activities very difficult. 

I’m one who likes to look at the table of contents in each textbook to get an overview of the year – that wasn’t possible online either (probably to protect their intellectual property rights in a format where theft would be very easy).  There were also limitations to the way one can instruct when you can teach online so that while I think she learned a lot of ancillary “information” by way of videos in science, social studies, health and Bible, the curriculum was really weak on the CORE elements of phonics, reading, and math, hence, we’re repeating first grade.  Since we had been on the fence about promoting her to first grade last year, this wasn't a difficult choice for us to make.  We want to make sure she has a good grasp of the fundamentals.  

Finally, it was just a LOT of screen time – and we all know that kids get enough of that as it is!  We found ourselves just trying to clock in our minimum time to get through her complaints and whining instead of finding ways to engage the material for her learning style. This year we’re going the Beka route and I’ve been happy with it.  The teachers manuals make it easy for me to teach her in a way that I know is sound, and the worksheets are colorful and give us a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day.  The way the days and lessons are planned out in numbered fashion is easy for me to follow. We are supplementing math with Math U See, taught mostly by Nathan when he's available.

Math Dice are available on Amazon and our kids love them!  A great way to memorize addition facts!

Honesty moment:  teaching Ellie is hard.  She gets frustrated very easily.  Then I get frustrated. We've had many tears on both our parts.  She HATES writing/holding a pencil or even a crayon (we avoided much of this last year because so much of her school was internet based, but it's typical of kids on the autism spectrum).  Something like copying a spelling list takes F.O.R.E.V.E.R.  We try using a marker board or iPad as an alternative to writing on paper, but she really NEEDS to learn to write and that only comes from practice, practice!  About a week and a half into school, I decided to totally forego the cursive training.  It was way beyond her ability to learn and something I didn't learn until 2nd grade so I figure I'm not hurting her.

If something is too hard, she doesn’t want to try.  If something is too easy, she gets upset that we don’t think she’s smart enough.  She has not arrived yet at the point of doing independent work.  Most every problem involves supervision and guidance.  Even as her parent it’s hard to gauge what she ‘gets’ because she is so good at ‘faking’ – this is where the whole expressive language skills exceeding her reception language skills complicates matters.  It also reinforces, though, why a traditional classroom setting won’t work for her, and why we have to do this for HER, regardless of how much work it is and how much time it takes. 

I’ve been praying for joy in this task and God is helping.  A lot of what we’re studying reminds me of when I was in first grade and how much I wanted to be a teacher then.  What I need prayer for is discipline to find the time to do this in the mornings as this is a better time for her to engage than afternoons (though Reni's naptime is distraction-free and easier for me) and for discernment to gauge her comprehension. 

Our boy Reni is doing great. He continues to be his happy, affectionate self! He is refusing to wear his prosthesis so I'm dreading our Shriner's appointment on the 12th (kind of like showing up for piano lessons when you've obviously not put in your practice time). Reni loves all things about farm life and wants nothing more than to play in the dirt with his toy tractors.  I don't know where he got this idea but girls are NOT allowed to drive tractors.  He doesn't believe that his Gigi could possibly ever have driven one of those big machines.  While he continues to eat all sorts of things (except peanut butter, go figure), his preference for bread has grown more pronounced.  If you're eating a salad, expect him to swipe all your croutons (with a charming smile, of course). Potty training is going so-so. He wants to be very independent, which isn't always the easiest to clean up after (that's all I'll say). Not sure how traveling will impact this!  We are just grateful for the mini-Winnie and not having to use public restrooms off the interstate!

Finally, we've been blessed to be scheduled to speak in three different churches this month.  Preparation for these engagements also takes time, but we feel like we're hitting a stride and have all of our promotional materials now (which we didn't have one month ago).  As I've written here before, meeting new members of the body of Christ which have a passion and interest in missions is a fuel that sustains us!

Thanks for hanging in there during this extra-long post!