I almost always need to Adapt to some unforeseen circumstances and Adjust my plans! This is an important part of my homeschooling philosophy — to embrace the necessity for adaptation. After I have prayerfully formed my plan for the day by selecting certain experiences/activities, I often need to be flexible in how we implement this plan as I react to what happens in the passage of the day that is upon us. I may need to adapt and adjust based on a variety of factors, which usually encompass one of the following: 1) the interaction of relationships — such as when my teenager is grumpy and my 10 year old hasn’t had enough sleep; 2) external happenings — maybe my mother needs to be driven to a doctor’s appointment or a close friend needs advice on an urgent matter; 3) the nature of the activity itself — if it is harder or easier than expected, I may need to spend more time helping one child understand or do the activity, or find a more effective or exciting way of learning a particular concept; or 4) our own creative connections — perhaps a spontaneous idea comes up that is tangential to what we are currently studying, but leads to us to explore something very interesting in greater depth. I used to feel dismayed when I couldn’t check off many (and maybe not any!) of my very specific “to dos” on a particular day, but what a sense of relief when I finally decided to give everything to God — especially my well-laid plans and the specific content of so many things I wanted us to read and talk about! If I trust that God leads and guides us in our family’s homeschooling mission, then I know that He will also use everything we have to give Him — even if it is “incomplete” or “different than planned” — to transform us and prepare us for the big and little missions He has for each one of us today and tomorrow.