Another school year is HERE and I am so excited! Every year truly gets better and BETTER and I cannot wait to see what this year will bring.
This will be our THIRD year homeschooling – WHAT! I remember so vividly the anxiety and uncertainty of starting our first year and we have come so far. Doing school in our home is such a blessing and I am unbelievably grateful that we were led down this path.
Ever since we started this “journey” we have started the year with a Back to School Feast. I got this idea from Stephanie Nielsen {Do you follow her?! Because if you don’t – you SHOULD! She is incredible and inspires me in so many ways} and I have loved having it become a tradition in our home.
We usually do our Back to School Feast the weekend before we start school but it ended up being best for our schedule to do it a week before. This year our menu was homemade chicken pot pie with a side salad. Followed by chocolate pudding cake and ice cream! YUM!
The night usually progresses like this. We have our “feast” with all of the goodies and then I have laid out each of the kid’s school stuff for the year for them to look at. In a perfect world I would love for this to be an entire surprise for them, but they see me prepping things and such but I DO try to not let them look at it too much so it still is mostly a surprise.
We talk about all of the fun things we are going to learn that year and it really gets us all so excited.
Then we move onto our theme for the year. I have really loved this. A couple months before our Back to School Feast, Mark and I begin to think about what we want our family theme to be for the year. I have really loved this experience every year. It has always been very powerful and I’ve always felt like I have gotten a lot of direction from the Spirit.
This year I just kept going back to a scripture in the New Testament:
Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.
Luke 18:22
Throughout this year, we have been studying the New Testament as a family. This has transformed me individually and has blessed our family tremendously. It has felt like I’ve been reading it for the first time.
In John 1:38 Jesus asks, “What seek ye?”. I asked myself that question at the beginning of this year and wrote down what I was hoping to find during my study of the New Testament this year. It has been beautiful and strengthening – which was something I would need more than I thought this year {with an unexpected job loss, move to a new state, new baby, etc.}.
We talked with the kids about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. We explained that each and every one of them can be a disciple of Christ. That “being a disciple means giving our whole souls to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. We progress in our discipleship as we identify what we lack, change, and seek to more fully follow Them.”
We brainstormed some areas where we may be lacking as a family in our discipleship and what we can do to change and be stronger. It was a special night.
We will place our new theme in its place of honor in our school room where we will see it each and every day.
The ending to our night was Mark giving Jacob, Sarah, and myself a blessing. This was the highlight for all of us. The kids loved it and it made them feel so special.
My biggest hope for my children is that they will choose to follow our Savior. And this year {and every year}, I hope I can be an example of what it means to accept the invitation to follow Jesus Christ.
It is going to be a beautiful year.
Click here to find what we use to study the New Testament in our home.
