Last night we had our back to school feast to get ready for the school year ahead and introduced our theme for the year "...to learn with joy..." (Jacob 4:3) It's always hard to pick out the one that will serve all my kids equally, as they all have different needs. But we've been talking a lot about the joy of learning, and being excited and grateful for our minds and the chance we have to learn and grow and experience new things, even if they are hard or boring at first. We talked about how when we go into learning something new with a joyful attitude versus a frustrated attitude, our brains are actually apt to retain and learn more resiliently and we are more likely to succeed than if we are sulking or indifferent. We talked about how God wants us to have joy and he gave us this whole wide world to learn about and to develop skills to serve others and contribute to the world around us. We talked about how math is hard but when we have a positive attitude about it, it can become really fun! Overall success!
Every year it seems like our family adopts some kind of motto, mostly informal, and one that gets repeated a lot. But it's usually something for maybe one child, or for a certain situation. (Last year it was "You can't FREAK OUT and FIX A PROBLEM at the same time." (So, just fix the problem, and skip the freak out) Although, that might be a running theme for a while:) These family themes are good to draw back to when the excitement of routines wear off, or when I need to point to something on the wall, rather than say something over and over again:) It really brings the family together.
Feel free to download your own if you'd like. I've made it 11x14" but you can scale it down to fit your printer. Or take it to a printing place and print larger or whatever you'd like.
Happy first days of school everyone!
xo
Sarah Jane