A Smooth Day

Today was a smooth homeschooling day.  We are winding down for the majority of the school year.  Tired, and a bit burned out, I am ready for a break.

I am being very careful not to have a lot of pressure going on right now.  I read a lot to Laura.  We read some short stories together from Laura's Salute to Courage book.  Still haven't read the other readers.  I also read Laura's science lesson with her.  She retains a lot of information when we read the books together. 

On her own, Laura has been reading an abridged version of Little Women.  I picked up a bunch of Illustrated Classics and Young Readers Christian Library books from a resale shop.  Laura was curious about Little Women and began reading it over the weekend.  She asked today if she could use her reading time to read that book instead of her ACE Children's Missionary Library book.  I am happy that she is wanting to read, so I agreed. 

All in all, I feel a lot less stressed.  I think Laura enjoyed the school day too.  I want to feel guilty or something because I've resorted to using a couple text books and readers... but I don't.  The Science book I am reading with Laura isn't boring.  (At least not the part we read today.)  We read two lessons and were done in 15 minutes, and she liked what we covered.  The Salute to Courage book, I feared, was going nowhere fast a couple months ago.  I loved the stories in it, with all the solid Christian themes and morals.  Laura wasn't really getting into it, however.  Yet, when I read a couple to her today, she was suddenly full of questions.  We read the story called The Matchless Pearl.  Suddenly Laura had all these questions about pearls.  It was amazing!

I've been an idiot.  Why did I stop read aloud time?  I know the love Laura has for it.  All I can say, in my defense, is that I've allowed my life and schedule to be totally overwhelmed the last couple of months.  I've let myself get frustrated and burned out to a point where I wasn't sure what to do.  I DO NOT want to send my child... any of my children back to public school.  I have to find a balance in this homeschool.  I didn't purposely decide to stop read aloud time.  It was just the first thing to go when things got crazy.  I am remedying this issue right now.