The fourth winter & your child's progress.

It's winter #4 over here in the midwest. And it got me thinking... our winter 1 - spring 1 - winter 2- spring 2 - winter 3 - spring 3 - summer 1 - winter 4- spring 4 cycle is a good metaphor for how kids learn.

As the midwest weather does not go from winter to spring to summer, so humans do not learn in a directly linear fashion.

Learning isn't like the left graph... it's much more like the right. Remember, "school" isn't a checklist of tasks to be completed by a certain age. School stems from the Greek word, scholā, meaning "leisure, a place of learning & discussion."

Home sounds like a pretty good place for schola to me.

One kiddo started tackling prealgebra concepts this year... it's truly 2 steps forward, 1 step back. An "ah ha" moment one day, totally forgotten 2 days later.

But 3 days after that, another "oh yeahhhhh I see" moment that sinks the concept in a little more deeply.

The same is true for a child who is learning to read or subtract or play a sonata. (And for an adult who is learning to teach children or walk with Jesus.)

Don't be discouraged when your child totally forgets something that you thought they'd mastered!! Put in the work a few minutes each day, notice the "ah has" and expect that things will be forgotten and relearned along the way.

Do not worry. Just let them take the time they need.

Game Changing Meal Plan Idea 🙌

On a completely different note, I have spent the last 6+ months trying a variety of meal plan systems with 3 goals:

• Simplify dinner prep
• Spend less money
• Eat pretty healthy

This felt like no small feat when you consider the food prices these days. Not to mention the fact that the circus at our house seems to come fully alive around 4:30 pm when I'm trying to think about how to feed all the animals precious children. 😉

After months of experimenting, I finally found a system that's working really well for me and I want to share it with you, even though it's a tad off track from my normal homeschooling topic... everyone has to eat, right!?

I'm Doubling and Freezing + using Chat GPT. This system is saving me so much time & money. Plus the meals are tasty & healthy. Here's a free mini guide I created that has a quick explanation of how it works AND 4 delicious recipes to get you started.

The Rest of Romans 8 🎉

If you use our Cycle-based memory work programs, you know Romans 8:1-8 is one of the Bible songs in Cycle 1. ​

Well, a few of my songs are on Youtube and a church found the Romans 8:1-8 song. Their whole congregation memorized it together and someone reached out and asked if I'd be willing to finish the chapter. (How cool!!)

It's a work in progress, but I plan to finish the whole chapter in 2025, Lord willing. It'll probably be 3-5 songs.

And all the Romans 8 songs will be on Youtube. Yahoo!

Here is the original Romans 8:1-8 (for those of you who don't have the cycle-based programs or app).

And here is the newest song: Romans 8:9-15... this one is a bit longer than average but I promise you and your kids will still be able to memorize it. And if you learn it to song, you'll know it for life.

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Happy homeschooling!

-Renee

p.s. New blog post: I never thought we'd homeschool.

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