Back to School Traditions

Last week was our first week of school for the new year.  It is our sixth year homeschooling, and our first with all three boys in grade school.  We have a 1st, 3rd and 5th grader this year!  Six years ago, when it was time to send the oldest to kindergarten, I knew I was excited about homeschooling, but still unsure about what he might be "missing".  All those first day traditions, riding the school bus for the first time, carrying a lunch box, meeting his sweet kindergarten teacher who would read "The Kissing Hand" or one of those other "back to school" first books.  I began to search for some back to school traditions for homeschoolers - I found lots of ideas, but I'm not real crafty, so our traditions became what was realistic for me and seemed the most like "us".   I also wanted it to be something pretty simple - no need to be elaborate, because it is harder to sustain elaborate.  I wanted whatever we chose to be something we could do every year.

Breakfast!
We always have a fun breakfast, usually a special request from the boys or a "treat" like waffles with whipped cream and strawberries.  This year it was french toast and bacon, by request.



Music!
We are a music loving family, so I usually have a song picked out to play to start our school day and call everyone to the couch to start our day with the Bible.  This year our first week song was "Put on Love" from Seeds Family Worship.  You can hear it here.  It is a fun setting of Colossians 3:12,14a. 

"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience... and above all these put on Love!" 

Here are the two youngest, "puttin' it on"...

School Supplies!
It's always fun to get new "stuff"... so I save the fun school supplies for a surprise.

Oh, and a little treat, too.  (Pop Rocks, with an silly note!)

First Day Pictures!
Every year we take pictures by the same tree in the backyard, so we can see how the kids grow.  This year, since they were going on the blog, we used some "disguises" because I decided I don't really like to post individual pics of the boys on the blog for just anyone to download.

These are all pretty simple traditions, but it is fun to at least give the school year a little bit of specialness to start off.  Of course, each year has it's unique traditions too - sometimes we have a field trip the first week, sometimes a special outing or activity.  This year, we ended our "first week" with a pizza party, ice cream and movie night - celebrating our accomplishment!  (No one was very excited about starting up this year, so we needed to celebrate that it was a good week and not as bad as everyone expected.  Some years are like that.)

Your turn.... 
What traditions do you have to celebrate back-to-school?

I'm linking up today with iHomeschooling Network's "Not-Back-To-School" Blog Hop.

 

Schoolroom Panic Attack

Last week I spent the week cleaning and purging our school room, moving furniture and re-stacking bookshelves with new books and school supplies.  Somewhere in the middle of all the clutter, I had a minor panic attack.  You see, like many of you who may be visiting from the "Not-Back-to-School-Blog-Hop", I have seen lots of blogs with really cute ideas of how to organize a school room - some complete with matching furniture, cute posters, tons of craft supplies and creative learning space.

I sat looking at all my mismatched desks and bookshelves, faded couches, plastic bins and dust bunnies and desperately tried to figure out how to make it look "cute" or "functional" ....or maybe just "clean".  I was suddenly overcome with discouragement.

No matter how many times I rearranged the desks, I couldn't get one corner to accomodate what I had in mind for my desk and not only did I feel my lack of appropriately sized furniture, I felt my lack of ability at working with 3-D space.  (I'm not much of an interior designer.)  I called my husband at work and much to his surprise, started sobbing... not over our lack of space or our lack of stylish furniture, but MY lack... of talent, creativity, spacial awareness, housekeeping, and decorating skills.  Have you ever had one of those snow-ball days?  Well, it didn't end there, the blizzard of self-doubt and self-pity had just begun.  (As usual when I unload my burdens on my husband, he listened empathetically and said he would help me out however he could when he got home.  Poor guy, it's hard to deal with an avalanche of feminine emotion when you are at work!)

In the past when I have had emotional meltdowns over all of my imperfections, unmet expectations and self-critical evaluations, I have eventually tried "talking to myself" using various strategies to try and crawl out of the pit.  It usually sounds something like this...

"You should be thankful for the things that you do have, think of all the people you know who don't even have a school room and wish they did."
 
"You should be proud that you aren't like all those other people who have to have 'fancy' things to do their school - you are thrifty, a good steward of your resources."

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, you should just go take a bath, or eat some chocolate, or splurge at IKEA - you deserve it!"

"You should remember that it isn't about the stuff you have but the stuff you learn that makes a good homeschool."

All of these answers have a little bit of truth to them, and some of them are definitely more "spiritual sounding" than others.  The problem is, none of them do anything to fix my wandering heart.  I may be thankful today, but my heart is prone to wander again.  Is my measure of thankfulness really the solution to the problem?  Being thrifty may be a valuable quality, but don't you think I sound a little prideful about my frugality?  Then there is the self-gratifying indulgence of my chocolate or buying binges - probably not a good long term solution.  And how long is the last argument going to last when it comes to the end of the year and I start assessing what we have learned?  I sense a whole new panic attack coming along... I'll need to get some new coping strategies... 

So where is the hope for me?  What do I really need?  I need power to change my idolatrous heart, not just more "shoulds"... laws that I can't ever live up to.  I don't need more "thankfulness", I need a Savior!  It is not the measure of my thankfulness for my "stuff"  that makes me acceptable to God, or that will make me more content.  It is the measure of Christ's sacrifice that makes me acceptable to God and it is the power of the Holy Spirit that opens my eyes to seeing CHRIST as more beautiful and more valuable than all this world and all the best school rooms have to offer.

So, I WILL be thankful, but not in my relative abundance, or in my humble lack....
I will be thankful for the gospel...  the GOOD news... will you rejoice with me?

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord, Jesus Christ.  Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character, and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. 
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.  For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.  More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

(Romans 5:1-11)

Thanks be to God!

As for the school room...

It's still hodgepodge, a little less dusty, a little more organized...

...and brightened by some beautiful flowers that my husband brought home for me that day. 

Not a rebuke, a lecture, a quick fix, a to-do list.
 

Just flowers.
 

Undeserved love and grace -

just like Jesus.
 

That's what they remind me of.

Praying for You and Your School Year

This is my prayer for my family as well as yours as you begin (or continue) your school year this year...

"...we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.  May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

(Colossians 1:9-14, ESV)