How Chocolate Saved The Day

      "...He desperately wanted something more 

     filling than cabbage
and cabbage soup.   
     The one thing he longed for 
more than      
anything else was ...
CHOCOLATE."

  

-Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

...And this is why I love studying Classics.  According to Oliver Demille,  "A classic is anything worth reading and re-reading again,  every family has their own classics."  Roald Dahl is one of my favorite authors, he is definetely on our list of family classics, we have had so much fun reading his books. I remember my teachers reading his books as a young girl and I loved them.  So I want to share these books with my kids.

I had a really bad day with very little sleep the night before.  I love my kids and I love homeschooling, but sometimes it is just plain hard.  The morning came and I prayed, not knowing what to do and feeling so uninspired. The thought came to me in the morning after I had been up all night.  "Why not learn about Chocolate?"

I am trying to implement a lot of the principles found in the Thomas Jefferson Education Model and one of the principles is to share what's yours with your kids in the morning for a Family School or Kids School.  Chocolate is definetely mine. Not in the sense that you would think.  I love chocolate, but most of all I love my younger years of going to Mexico and picking the cocoa bean plants off of the trees in the jungle of Chiapas, Mexico.

My Mom is from Mexico and at least every other year growing up we spent some time at her house in Mexico on the border of Guatemala.  I have so many fond memories of adventures that we had as kids visiting this different and extraordinary place.  

This thought of sharing chocolate saved me. I was about to give up.  Feeling that I had nothing left to give.  Then I realized  I have so much more to give.  

We began reading "Charlie and The Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl.   We talked about the Mayan Indians who are our ancestors.  We looked at the jungle of Guatemala and called my Mom to have her tell us stories of our Great Grandma Ana Maria who was a Mayan Indian who escaped from the jungles of Guatemala and fled to Mexico.  We watched how Cadbury makes their chocolate in a factory and learned how to crush our own cocoa beans.  Oh, and we even made a volcano hot chocolate explosion!!  All because of Chocolate. Wow! I bet you didn't know you could learn so much from Chocolate. 

 I am so grateful that the 
Lord shows His tender mercies to me through 
small and 
simple things, 
He does let me struggle and then 
he gives me 
HOPE
and tells me
I can do this.

This is how chocolate saved the day ...    

Here is a picture of my two little munchkins on our walk later on that day.  What a day!!