The expansion of learning

We are five weeks in to our new school year.  Emmeline is in seventh grade and Lena fifth grade this year. Phoebe has begun kindergarten. We began gently with a few field trips to the shore and to the zoo with many a hike and backyard tent village.  This year our learning seems to be overflowing and the girls are excited to be studying Beethoven and Shakespeare's Cymbeline. We are studying Phocian in our Plutarch study, Chemistry, and Albrecht Dürer for our artist this term. History is the Industrial Revolution into the World Wars and the girls are already asking so many good and hard questions.  Map drills, Latin, German and French at dinnertime, narrations, archery, ballet and choir, cello, violin and piano, nature studies, handicrafts, math, grammar, spelling and geography round out our subjects. But the real learning comes in the in between moments where we learn to engage our minds and hearts, to be still and listen, to watch and wait and pray.  I've seen this already as these little women grow - they are growing in mindful habits and discipline, in prayerful awareness of a broken world and a suffering Savior. Phoebe begins her official schooling with a Beatrix Potter curriculum that focuses on a story each week. These match a character trait and Scripture passage she will learn and it is sweet to watch another beginner hungrily put letters together to read words.  Phoebe is also so excited to learn piano and recorder and to watercolor like her big sisters.  This is all quite new to the little man in our house, who seeks to undo most of what we set out to work on by dumping pencils and baskets of books.  We try to invite him into our learning and he is learning oh so quickly, working on his colors, his ABCs, his french and matching pitches.  (At 18 months no less!) The parents too begin again, as we do each day, to learn to trust in Jesus, for each day.  We learn to trust for the big things, and look expectantly for joy in the fringes of each day, because our Savior cares about those moments too.