On school and writing and such

It's hard for me to believe, but Andrew will be in 3rd grade next year. Personally, I really don't think I'm old enough to have a third grader, but apparently that's the case.

Third grade is serious stuff. School work becomes more critical. It's more involved. More independent. Harder.

Despite the impression that my latest homeschooling post may left you, most days I doubt my ability to do justice to my children's education. It's true...the whole "expert" analogy had much more to do with shaping hearts and minds according to the character of God than it did about academics. While the statistics are, by and large, in the homeschooling arena's favor in the academic realm, we are far more interested in our children gaining a heart of wisdom. That's the goal: children who will love God with all their being, who will know how to rightly use the Word of Truth. I'm sure many parents manage to achieve this goal while their children spend most of their waking hours in the godless public school system, but we're not ones to push our luck.

That being said, third grade is looming in my mind. That, and the fact that getting Andrew to write anything is like pulling teeth Andrew is a reluctant writer. It's hard to develop good writing skills, when there is no writing with which to work. Yes, he keeps a journal. No, he doesn't enjoy writing in it. Yes, he has done quite a bit of writing this school year. No, it is not a strong point, and certainly not strong enough to tackle third grade.

In mulling over this dilemma, I came upon a possible boon. Andrew loves the computer. He loves taking pictures. He loves looking at our blog. I'm sure you're with me already: Andrew has started a blog!

Now please don't expect too much here. This is coming from a mom who can barely keep her own blogs going, let alone helping her reluctant writer keep up with his. Our goal is one post a week, and we're working with a new paragraph-writing model that he likes...the latest (of two!) post used the new "Sandwich Writing" model (I may have created it...I'll tell you more about it in another post), that I think will help streamline and encourage his writing, as well. Today we started another "sandwich," and I think he'll be able to post it by Friday!

So, if you have a spare moment when you notice in my sidebar that our boy has finally posted, please stop by and leave him some encouragement! Head on over to check out "Andrew's Life" at http://andrewwritesablog.blogspot.com.

Thanks! I'm off to pluck out some "contemplating third grade"-induced gray hairs.