When a review through the Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s Review Crew came up for Preschoolers and Peace, I was pretty excited. I’ve read other material by author Kendra Fletcher and really appreciated the perspective, so I had high expectations for her PDF Preschoolers and Peace: Homeschooling Older Kids with Success While Loving the Little Ones at Your Feet.
Since this comes as a PDF, I downloaded it to my Kindle. It made for an easy way to read the 40 pages, although if my Kindle would offer the highlight feature on PDFs, I’d be grateful. There was a lot to highlight in here! My favorite quote was this:
Our little ones need to be told too. They need to begin to see all of God’s Word as one beautiful redemption story, and they need to feel the grace of the gospel poured out over them, saturating their little lives and creeping into every crevice. They need to know that when the produce something beautiful, all glory goes to their Creator. They need to understand that when they fall, there is always the heaving hope of redemption because of what Christ already did for them at Calvary – we teach them about consequences and training and repentance, for sure, but never those things divorced from the gospel.”
Amen!
The PDF was about making this work. It talked about teaching your older ones while parenting your little ones. Schedules and routines are much discussed, since they are core to maintaining the chaos. Mrs. Fletcher is the mother of eight children and has much wisdom to share regarding maintaining all the ages of your children… it’s teaching algebra to your middle schooler while nursing an infant – and keeping the three year old supervised, loved… and even, imagine, learning.
This is what my world is all about. With three four and under, and four ages six to eleven, homeschooling elementary ages and occupying toddlers is my world. I love her schedule – and, best of all, that it wasn’t really a schedule. It was a routine. First, your five things to do when the day begins (think breakfast and teeth brushed) then Circle Time – a concept I’ve written a review on once before. That involves the littles with the bigs and keeps unity in the family. Older children working with younger ones is something I’ve just recently implemented, and I was glad to see it mentioned in this ebook. She mentions her older children merely have a school list – a list of what they must accomplish, and how and in what order that happens is up to them. Older children working independently, I’m finding, keeps me sane.
Quiet time with the Lord is mentioned and encouraged – and then understanding that reading the Bible to the kids over breakfast may just be the extent of quiet time that happens some days. It’s grace offered, poured out over mothers just trying to get through the day without anything major skipped. Some days school is all that happens… and some days we’re still working on school when supper’s timer beeps. But with a bit of work in creating a routine, things will go smoother, more will get done, and chaos will loose it’s foothold. More than anything, I found this eBook to be a bit of encouragement that this task I’m attempting to accomplish really can be done… and even, done well.
This PDF eBook is available for $2.99.
Find author Kendra Fletcher and Preschoolers and Peace on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google +, and YouTube.
For more reviews on Preschoolers and Peace, check out the linky on the Review Crew Blog.
