There’s no school like Jo’s school!

It is sometimes hard to fully embrace the roll of being a Mum and difficult to find a sensible balance between motherhood and wanting your own identity or “me time”.  As I check out Facebook, eBay and type away on my blog simply enjoying my adult time, I also know that God’s plan is for me to be a Mother to my children and I am supposed to be embracing the blessing rather than hiding away behind my laptop at any opportunity.

Fortunately, I’ve been inspired recently by a number of interesting TV programmes, clever websites and passionate mothers and the way they use ‘play’ and God’s Word to ’teach’ their children all the things they‘ll need in life…..from learning how to interact with others and using good manners; to expressing emotions and have a jolly good time of rough-and-tumble.

Therefore, and this may sound strange to some, I’ve created a timetable.

It’s more for me that the children, but designed in a childlike way, as my creative skills are naff.  It sets out each day encouraging me to have productive play and fun times of teaching with my children.  It’s not something I stick to completely, as things come up and I need to be flexible, also I am not hard on myself if I miss a session or need some ‘time-out’ from the routine.

Daily Timetable

Enjoying the sea air….yes, if I could get rid of the pink buggy I would!

Fun with squirrels and pigeons

Cheeky little monkey

Learning about being happy and sad

Tracing the letters

Painting a picture

Painting a picture

Taken just before it all started to get a bit too messy

Sleeping bunnies

“Point to the ceiling, point to the floor, point to the window, point to the door…..”

Button necklace and sticking

It all starts to get a little silly.

Having this timetable has been great, it’s helped me focus and instead of thinking “it’s 3:00pm, only 4 hours until their bedtime, what shall I do? Oh I’ll quickly check my emails while they watch TV”, I can actually see that at 3:00pm we could be learning about ‘our world’ followed by shared chores at 4:00pm.

It is still in the early stages and I’ve discovered that you need to be fairly organised and prepared the day before, which isn’t always easy.  Also, it has been hard for me to find something that is interesting for both Charlotte and William………mind you anything outdoors or that involves a lot of paint or mess seems to work terrifically well!

I’ve been taking some tips from Impress Your Kids, which is fantastic.  They live by this wonderful verse from Deuteronomy 6:5-9

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

If you have any similar stories or ideas you’d like to share please post below, I‘d love to hear from you.