Day 33 / 104 - Enjoyment at my Dining Room Table

Last night, I participated in a local homeschool mom's time where I listened to several others share what homeschooling looks like in their home.  This is one of my favorite things to do.  I enjoy homeschooling.  And, I love to hear how others organize and structure their day while fulfilling their role in providing education for their children. 

One of the presenters happened to be yours truly, so I (hopefully) entertained the others with this picture of my dining room table.  My dining room table looks like this at least four days a week.  However, I have posted before how I will never have a school room.  For a variety of reasons, we discovered that our learning works best around this table, and we have gladly accepted the fact that we will eat standing up at the kitchen counter several days a week.  It works for us.

Homeschooling can be difficult.  Everyday I'm with my children.  I have very little free time.  I have quite a bit of chaos and clutter.  As my children age, their work load becomes more demanding.  Some days, I'm rather tired.  Some days, none of us get along.  Some days, I don't really want to do what I need to do in order to make this entire operation work.

However, as I collected my thoughts for the evening, and as I listened to others, I was reminded again and again how much I enjoy my children.  I am beyond thankful for the opportunity that I have to educate them at home daily.  It is a great privilege.  There's nothing else I'd rather be doing.  I enjoy homeschooling, and I desperately want others to enjoy it also.

Posting pictures of her life and her home, my friend Gina encourages others to find beauty in the day-to-day.  Coupled with that thought, and fresh with my vision of how much I enjoy my children, I snapped this picture this morning of our dining room table.  It doesn't look much different from the link posted above.  However, in less than five minutes I challenged myself to find five enjoyable moments around this educational explosion.  Easily, I could have identified a dozen.  My goal has always been to keep my blog posts brief, so I'm attempting to share my enjoyment with you as quickly as possible.

1.  The glue-gun, feather, ribbon, sequence concoction is a result of my daughter planning the craft time for our American Girl co-op class on Friday morning.  Before I left yesterday evening, I asked her, "Can you figure out how we can make this?" Naturally, she far exceeded my expectations.  I long to show you what she actually created, but I'll save that for class on Friday.  Her design of the craft and her ability to communicate that to others ministers to me more than you can imagine.

2.  The same Gina from above taught my daughter a math game in her Essentials class called Shut the Box.  My daughter has played this for at least six hours in the past two days.  Seriously.  The game requires two dice, but only one shows up in the picture.  The other one is most likely buried underneath something else on the table.

3.  My son is learning Latin.  On his educational journey, we have worked harder at this than any other subject thus far.  It takes time and effort.  I have helped him make mental connections, and I have witnessed him have a-ha moments independently.  All this is enjoyable.  Last Friday he said, "This is probably my favorite subject yet."

4.  For his Science strand this year, my son is learning how to research.  (I'm anticipating posting more about this in the future.)  Each week he is assigned a topic.  He is required to write a paper, draw a picture, and prepare a presentation on that topic.  He loves this and takes great pride in his work.  This week it is on the Bald Eagle, so there are several Bald Eagle resources floating around that area of the table.

5.  My son is reading a beginner's weightlifting guide on how to squat properly.  We love this.

My dining room table is no longer a mess.  It's a hotbed of enjoyable educational activities shaping my children into the people they will one day become.  Finding enjoyment in the chaos and clutter makes homeschooling worthwhile.  I encourage you to do it, too.