Why we homeschool

I get asked almost on a daily basis why we homeschool our kids, and you know, most of the time, people are surprised with my responses. It seems that most people think we homeschool because we want our children to only learn about a Christian worldview or because we want to shelter them from nearly everything or because we have some kind of religious view against school systems. When in reality, we have many, many reasons we homeschool, not just one, and none of these reasons are what people tend to expect. It's pretty difficult to remember and to list all of our reasons, since there are so many, and each day it seems I come up with another one, but, since there are so many questions that come at me about our choice to homeschool, I thought maybe I should try to explain a bit here. We really have three reasons that always seem to come to the top of the stack for homeschooling, and here they are:

1. Hours in the day. Goodness gracious. These kids are pretty amazing, and I love being around them, and I believe that they gain much from spending most of their time with their family, specifically with the parents who are hoping to guide them as they grow into their individual self and to master the gifts they were given. And you know, my kids are young. They go to bed at seven, and not because I make them, but because they don't nap, and they are done at seven, and so we like the idea that we spend more than several waking hours together a day. And don't get me wrong, my kids are not locked in the house all day, never seeing anyone outside their immediate family. No, we are a part of a large homeschool group that meets for a day of school each week, the kids are in dance lessons, violin lessons, piano and art lessons, and we go to parks, museums, the library, and even to a local coffee shop as part of their educational plan each week. And when it comes to hours in the day, it isn't just about what the kids are doing, but what they aren't doing. By having an individualized school day, the kids can work through lessons efficiently. There's little time spent waiting, bathroom breaking, being quiet while others are disciplined, or sitting around while others are finishing up work. Of course, with our growing family, there is always going to be some waiting for turns, but not on the scale found in a school. And I'm not saying waiting is bad for kids; waiting is a part of life. I'm just saying, that it is kind of nice to not have to work on school work for 7 hours a day, since the time it would take for lunch, recess, waiting, and moving between classes is not such an issue at home. We love having more time for extra-curricular activities, too. As someone who has worked in the field of the arts, I have to say that I value their music lessons just as much as their math lessons. (Hours in the day is one of my top three reasons, but for my husband, this is definitely reason number one).

2. Academics.  I am passionate about challenging my children and packing them with as much knowledge and skill as their little minds can happily handle, which is a great deal. I have high standards for the education of my kids, and I really do believe that their young minds are capable of learning high level facts, operations, and grasping the wealth of wisdom and inspiration to be found in so-called  upper level literature, art, science, geography, history, and mathematics. We do have fun around here, baking and creating and coloring, but for the most part, most of our time is spent memorizing and listening, reading and sharing, and not so much on following the same directions on worksheets over and over again, or on crafts that are designed by someone else and ready to be put together, and definitely not on testing and box checking. It's exciting to see a five year old talk about Joan of Arc and the parts of speech and the different types of stars. Goodness, what is she going to be talking about during her lessons when she's twelve? That's an exciting thought.

3. Traveling Family. I grew up in a family that loved to travel. I was blessed with parents who thought it was important, beneficial, and fun to see the world, and to teach their children about the places visited. I am a history nerd, and when I think back to the times I learned the most about history, many of those times were spent at Williamsburg, in Colorado, in the Natural History Museum, at Yellowstone, and all sorts of other places far from home. My parents encouraged questions, and made sure our souvenirs were educational. I loved a book on first ladies purchased at Gettysburg, and read it so often as a child, studying the pictures and dates. I don't think the book would have been as special to me as a little girl, if it has been purchased through a catalog. There's something about being in the place where the event happened that really brings history to life for a child, and of course, this concept doesn't just go for history, but for all subjects. I never liked science all that much, but most of what I learned and held on to, I learned from hands on museums and planetariums. We have the freedom with homeschooling to just pick up and go somewhere if there is something we want to see that corresponds with our learning, and our kids won't be missing a beat, because we shape things around what we want to do. Our school comes with us. And having the freedom to travel as a family also makes for stronger sibling bonds. My brother and I were not always the sweetest of friends as kids, but on trips, we found a way to work together and get along, and I want that for my kids. I want them to learn to share the backseat, to share their souvenir money, and to share their school projects.

So there they are: our biggest, clearest reasons to homeschool out of a sea of a million little reasons. But most people I know who homeschool would have a different list entirely. I'm in a world full of homeschooling families at this point in my life, and it is so cool to me how everyone has a different story, a different purpose, and a different inspiration. We're all just trying to be great parents, and we all believe that teaching is a part of parenting and that you can't separate the two, because whether mothers and fathers claim it or not, we are our children's teachers. They do learn from us, good or bad. And that looks like something very different from family to family.

Before wrapping this up, I wanted to include some other voices, some other reasons. I've asked some friends to contribute to this post and have a few responses from fellow homeschooling moms included below. I hope this helps to show why some of us do what we do. And if you have another reason for homeschooling, then please share it in a comment if you'd like. Let's take away some of the mystery that seems to be out there. And thank you to my friends for their responses. If you have the time, please read on to see what some great homeschooling mothers have to say.

"It gave me the opportunity to cater to my child's strengths and weaknesses. To allow my child to go at their own pace. Some subjects or concepts may have required a bit more time for my child to grasp where in a classroom full of kids they must move on. And allows my child to move at a much quicker pace on subjects or concepts that they grasp quickly while not having to wait on a classroom full of kids to catch up. It also allowed my family to form lasting relationships with each other and in this fast pace world those are the relationships that count. Mostly it allows me the privilege of choosing my child's curriculum and peers. That is one of the things I valued most about homeschooling. There were times we changed curriculum midway. Not because of content, but because the style of teaching or format was just dragging my child down, and changing curriculum brought us a welcome relief. "

  -Donna

"We homeschool for a variety of reasons.  God gave me these children to raise.  Deuteronomy 11 says "¹⁸ Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ¹⁹ Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ²⁰ Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates."  I have more time with my children while they are young to teach them God's Word and prepare them for life in the world.  We pray each year about whether to homeschool and God impresses it on our hearts to continue this journey.  There will come a day when my children would rather be with their friends than their parents.  While they actually want to be with us I feel like we should spend the time with them.  Our boys are three years apart which means they would be in separate schools/classrooms and have separate lives and friends.  They're brothers and friends.  They fight but they also love one another fiercely and have a great time playing together.  The time they have at home together is so precious.

Our first son stayed home with me until he was four.  I'd received a lot of pressure from our friends and family to put him in school so we gave it a try for VPK.  There were some positives but mainly it confirmed our suspicions, our son would learn best at home.  He was miserable in school and I knew more school would make him hate learning.  We're able to tailor the education of our son to his unique academic needs.  If he's flying through math then we let him.  He needs more help with writing and spelling so we carefully and gently develop those skills.  He's an auditory learner so I can read story after story and he just soaks up the information.  His little brother is an auditory learner as well (what a blessing) so at three he's spelling like a kindergartner.  He just listens to older brother's lessons and soaks up bits and pieces.  We learn division through cooking and experience world geography through food.  I choose the most meaningful activities that will teach/reinforce skills the most efficiently.  I don't particularly cherish the drama associated with dragging two children out the door early every morning for school.  There's a lot of rushing around and stress.  If we have a sick day we just make up the work later or snuggle on the couch with our school books.  School fits our lives instead of our lives fitting school.

The final reason we homeschool is so our children will be well socialized.  I know most people are so worried that homeschoolers will turn into weird hermits but I argue that there is nothing natural about putting a group of children the exact same age together.  Seven year old boys think bodily functions are the funniest thing in the world.  I don't see how spending all day with a roomful of kids who think that way is quality socialization.  Well socialized children should be able to talk to adults and children, make eye contact, and make new acquaintances.  Homeschool field trips have taught my shy son to make new friends.  He rarely sees the same children each time we go somewhere so he has learned to get acquainted with whomever is there and find a common interest.  He still has his best friends over for playdates and we have a regular group at Lego club, Bible study, Awana, and Sunday school so he has to learn to function in a group but what I love about several of those groups is that they are multi-age.  Two of his more recent "new friends" are three years older than him.  The one room school house has merit - the older children look out for the younger ones which teaches leadership and the younger ones see empathy and patience modeled and learn to be nurturers themselves.  I would say that out of my 30 closest friends, only four are my age.  The majority are older and several are younger.  That is the real world and that is what I am preparing my children for."

-Nicole

"Where to start!  There is so much I could say about homeschooling.  I have NOT always known I would homeschool.  It was only recently that I really began to know how important the freedom to homeschool my children was to me.  I am realizing that I have already taught them so much before we even started "school" formally.  In fact, I teach them every day.  My choice to homeschool is just a decision to be intentional about it and the result of a question to myself.... Who will ever have my child's best interest more at heart than I will?  As we approach one of our most important milestones..... learning to read..... I am so amazed that "teaching" really is as simple as talking and practicing and exploring with my child every day.  Working with them makes me proud of my children and gives me confidence in the innate ability I have as a parent to learn my child's abilities and learning styles.  I certainly don't take educating my children lightly and it is certainly not always easy but I hope to teach my children things I never learned in school and open the world to them because they are the most important parts of my life."

- Quote from a friend

Either I'm engaged with them or I'm not: Cell Phones and Mothering

I have been putting off this subject for a while because I don't want to sound preachy or unrealistic, and I also don't like stepping on my own toes all the darn time, which I always seem to be doing. BUT, its a new school year for us, our second year homeschooling, and in the spirit of starting fresh and being optimistic about the fabulous environment I can create for my children this year, here goes: Cell Phones are a busy Mama's little helper, especially if you're a mom like me who tends to get lost on the road all the time. They help us multi-task, making it possible to get in a quick call to the insurance company while making our coffee in the morning, and then again in the afternoon. YET, do I really want my children to live in a world where their mama may drop them at any moment to pick up the phone, turn away from them while holding up a serious "Wait one minute while Mama talks on the phone" finger, and then chat away with the same old darn insurance company or maybe even with a dear Mama friend of mine? I'm not saying that I want to drop my friendships or stop taking calls from family and from well meaning businesses, BUT I am saying that cell phones have changed the telephone game, and as a stay-at-home-mom, I am not going to play by the new rules any longer. I want to go back to the days when people called a telephone in order to reach me, rather than people calling me. Cell phones make it possible for our phone to be a part of us, rather than a thing we can connect to on our own time and when we are available. When I was a kid, if my parents were busy, then they weren't around to hear the phone ring or couldn't usually get to it on time. Board game time and bike riding time were not interrupted by phone calls. But now, who cares if we're busy or engaged with someone; the cell phone is in our back pocket, so let's pull it out and do two things at once.

It is easy to say there's something wrong when a family goes out to eat together, and all of them are playing on their phones, rather than talking to each other. But that's the extreme, the extreme-norm,  but still the extreme, I think. But what about taking it a step further? What about the family who is driving down the road together, and the kids are in the back seat, maybe on tablets or watching a movie, while the parent driving the car is carrying on a conversation with a friend. We can all reach our destination without ever having to actually talk to the people we are buckled in next to or in front of. How sad is this? And I have to say here that I am guilty. I have three little ones, who are pretty close together in age, and we are at the point in life when the easiest parenting moments I have, my biggest break, might very well be when they are all buckled in to car seats and can't be making messes or getting in each other's personal space, and so it is pretty tempting to grab my phone the second I get in the van, dial up a friend, put it on speakerphone, and then chat away (free handed....) because my kids are contained. I get it. I have lived it, but now I'm trying to break the habit of dialing up a number the second we pull out of the driveway and then chatting away like I'm all footloose and fancy free, because I'm not footloose and fancy free. My kids are in the car, and we'd all do better to be engaged in an actual conversation or listening to something together. Two things have shown me a new perspective on this. The first being that we now use CD's in the car to learn memory facts for homeschool for the week, and not only do I want to learn history, science, English, math, geography, and Latin facts with the kiddos (I am supposed to be their teacher, right?), but I also want to be a part of leading the learning process, pausing when we need to stop for explanation or to remind the girls to listen to the lessons on CD instead of only chatting it up in the backseat the whole time. The second thing was simple and humbling: my oldest daughter said, "When you talk on the phone all the way to where we're going, you don't hear me ask for the song I want to hear." Okay, so while she was probably mostly upset about not getting her song, as a mother who takes this mothering deal seriously, I hear, "You're talking to other people instead of listening to us and giving us what we need. You're ignoring us. We're invisible the whole time we're in the van." And maybe that may seem a bit dramatic to some, but ya know, sometimes the drama my girls and I exhibit stems from true feelings, and so I refuse to write off her comment and my interpretation of it as not too serious when it probably is a pretty serious problem in our mother/daughter relationship.

So, where does this leave me. On most days, it leaves me with a van full of kiddos, lots to talk about, bunches to learn, tons of questions and complaints and jokes to listen to, and a cell phone sitting on the seat next to me with a speaker phone function just waiting to be used so I can connect with a friend instead of being in constant kid world 24/7. And I'm learning to choose the best option for this situation, and to just say no to the desire to ignore the backseat noise and chat about something grown up the whole way. Or some days I am left with a full day of homeschooling and lessons to get through and attend, while my phone rings off the hook (huh....old phone saying from before the days of cell phones...). I don't want to ignore the people calling, but I also know I would be pretty unhappy if my kids' attended public school and their teachers were taking phone calls in class. So, why would I, their mother, interrupt their lessons for a call? So, I usually leave my phone in a different room or turn the ringer off when I'm really engaged with the kiddos.

And man, this is hard, and sometimes, on those days when I feel way, way, way far away from super mom, it is even more difficult to tune in to the little dears in the backseat. But they're my little dears, the ones I have and hope to be an all the time mother to, and so, the phone is just gonna have to wait. And ya know, when I need to get a quick question into the medical insurance company or to the cell phone company, or to check in with my husband, or to call up a fellow Mama for a little daily encouragement to help me through, then these smaller portions of my day can serve to teach my kids to be patient and to wait and that sometimes Mommy has to talk to another grown up, BUT, they'll also learn that sometimes isn't all the time, and that the people in front of me do not always have to take a backseat to the people on the other line. And don't get me wrong, 9 times out of 10 I know and love the people on the other line, but ya know, most of those people are Mamas, and they get that sometimes your hands are full and your mind is more full, and they love me and my kids and know that we're all trying to do the best we can. We always find a way to stay in touch.

And anyway, this is the kind of thing that happens when I step away from the kids to answer the phone. Doorways get covered with stickers, and really, this is best case scenario.

Yes, that's a real needle my 6 year old has there.

So, if you know me, you know I get pretty excited about so-called old-fashioned pastimes. Ipads and ebooks may be life-changing and all, but what really gets me excited is a musty-vanilla smelling, hundred year old book, or a family sewing or playing music around the living room after dinner. I know, I know. I am ancient on the inside, and I am absolutely okay with that.

Anyway, I've been hearing from homeschooling friend-Mamas about unschooling a lot lately. At first I wasn't a big fan of that word: unschool. Is that really a good thing? I thought the point was to SCHOOL my children at home, right? Why would I want an un in there? And then I thought, read about, and considered the concept more, and it finally and slowly clicked that it is a pretty great concept, and not at all a bad word. I mean, the word is unschool, right? Not unteach or unlearn or undo. So without pretending to be an expert on unschooling or making this post turn into a thirty page thesis on unschooling, let me just say that what I like to take from the concept of unschooling is this: education at home does NOT need to mirror, compete with, or imitate the learning and routine of the school systems around us, AND education can be effective, challenging, and competitive by being child-led. And no, that doesn't mean that my children are in charge of our days or our home or our schoolroom, but it does mean that rather than sticking to a lesson plan or some state's standards, it can be very effective and pretty darn beneficial to look to our children's passions, interests, strengths, and weaknesses for a guide to what we are learning about and focusing on in our learning time. That said, if you have an interest in or questions about unschooling, then I encourage you to research it. There's some great, inspiring, and even some cautionary tales about unschooling out there. It can be a great thing to stray from the path. Now that doesn't mean that I am bashing schools here at all. I hope you all know that I am not homeschooling my children simply because I don't like schools. That is not the case.What I am saying here by discussing unschooling in a positive light is this: If I am going to teach my children at home, then I want to get away from constantly looking to the school systems for standards, plans, and a guideline for my day. If we are going to do this thing ourselves, then let's do it our way. Otherwise, what's the point?

Now I need to take a sec and read back a bit of what I just wrote to remember where I was going with this. Brittany's on a soapbox again.

Okay, I was going to talk about so-called old fashioned pastimes and unschooling, specifically, letting my children's interests spark and guide our learning time, which leads me to art. So, my oldest daughter, the one I have referred to over the last year as Kindergarten Gal, saw some examples of cross-stitching, and she also has a love of all things Pride and Prejudice and all things Caroline from the American Girl Series.

Please note: I am currently believing that she really likes these things, and doesn't feel she has to just because I do. I mean, her other sisters don't tote around heavy, antique hardbacks. This is her, not me, right? End note.

She recently decided she wanted to take up embroidery, like her favorite literary characters, BUT since her Mama doesn't know much about embroidery, we started with cross-stitching, which I had a brief stint with as a kid myself, so at least I know where the cross-stitch aisle is in the store. Long story short: the kid is a cross-stitching maniac. Score. Our home art time is going to be full of stitches next year. And that, my friends, is a small piece of what unschooling is about to me. I didn't say, "No, no. We are going to make Easter bunny crafts and splatter paint this year in art." I said, "Alright, kid, let's go get some more thread and some needles." Kindergarten Gal was ecstatic, and so, so very proud of herself as she saw the first signs of an image appear on her material. She is using a real needle, which seems to spark interest with passersby when she takes her hobby out in public. But this is another example of what I think of as our society dumbing things down for our kids. It amazes me that some people freak out a bit when they see she has a real-life needle. Is a play plastic needle really necessary? Why couldn't she use a real needle? She is calm, patient, and determined. She would sooner have a nasty fall on a playground than poke herself with a needle. Little girls have been sewing for generations, why not her now?

So then we have our soon-to-be Kindergarten gal who is going through a little sister "me too" stage. She wanted to have a "grown up" craft or hobby too, so I steered her away from cross-stitching (so she can have her "own" thing) and let her choose from knitting, crocheting, quilting, etc.., and she was all about the knitting aisle, and like Sister Bear in one of the Berenstain Bear books, she found a knitting spool to help her learn the craft. Knitting is much more her kind of thing, since it is bigger and flashier than her sister's stitching, And she is finishing up her first knitting project: a cute little knitted butterfly. She's four. And while I would like to claim she is a prodigy since she is my child, I have to be honest and say, she is a four year-old, and four year-olds can do these things. They can knit, they can sew, they can clean up their rooms, they can look adults in the eye and say hello, and they can write letters. We as parents and as a society just need to start trusting them to learn these things, otherwise they'll miss the window of mastering skills at a young age and enjoying them and/or using them throughout their lives. They're smarter and much more capable than we think them at times, and whether they want to spend their time learning about and using old-fashioned skills like stitching or knitting (which I would not really think of as old-fashioned myself, but, ya know...) or if they want to take apart an old radio and put it back together again, why not let them do it? I can't think of a reason.

Summertime means one who wants to make laundry detergent and granola in between puzzle working, one who wants to be read to without reading herself, and one who wants to please, please do all of her Kindergarten work before fall starts.

So this year was an adventure. I thought I would be ready to say that I have a year of homeschooling my children wrapped up by now, but really, I feel like we haven't wrapped anything up, and I am wondering if this is normal. (Not that "normal" has ever really been something I care to strive for, but ya know...) So if any of you readers out there are from a homeschooling family, then please let me know your experience of thoughts on what I have to say here. While normal isn't my main concern, it's always helpful to hear about others' experiences with a similar lifestyle. I don't really feel like there is a clear division between the school year and summer break. Of course we aren't waking up these days and doing a set amount of school time or following a lesson plan, BUT I do feel a bit like an old dog who can't be taught to transform our routine totally into the new trick of a summer break. It just seems like so much wasted school time to me! My poor kids....

But it is funny to me to watch how each of them are reacting to our relaxed and flexible summertime routine. Those who know me won't be surprised to read this. I tend to get pretty excited about the varying interests and personalities of my kiddos.

So far, my graduated from Kindergarten gal has proclaimed that summer break means she doesn't have to do school work, but being the book lover she is, she refuses to put away her paperback friends, but instead wants to be read TO everyday, rather than reading herself. Hmmm.... How do I say no to a six year old who wants to cuddle up next to me and listen to me read about Laura Ingalls. Seriously? But the kid needs to keep reading on her own too, lest she forgets what she knows. Sigh.

And then there's the soon-to-be Kindergarten girl, who refuses to acknowledge summer break and asks me if she can please, please, pretty please do a worksheet or a project, please please please, and she'll promise to clean up her room if I'll let her do some school work and get into some Kindergarten....please. Ummm, okay?

And now let's move on down the line to Little Bit, the soon-to-be preschooler. All this kid wants to do over summer break is exactly the same as all she wants to do during the school year: this little girl wants to bake and make in the kitchen and also work puzzles. The difference between the school year and summertime for her: there's much more time in the day for puzzles and baking. She especially loves to help Mama make laundry detergent. All the kids really love this activity, of course none as much as Little Bit, but it is lots of fun all around and worth taking a moment to share.

We buy the soap pre-grated and the ingredients pre-measured from a farmer' market, so this is easier than it sounds.










 I have to say that this is probably my very favorite activity to do with the kiddos. There's measuring and learning to follow directions, very little kitchen mess, the house is left smelling fresh afterwards, and we end up with a bunch of inexpensive laundry detergent free of harsh chemicals and dyes. And the detergent looks a lot like lemonade and brightens up our laundry room shelf. Lots of wins here.

And an activity with multiple wins is not something to take lightly around here where the kids get smarter, and louder, and more expressive by the day, especially in the summertime.

So, what about your summers? Seriously, I am looking for some support, guidance, ideas, or thoughts. Should I be looking for less of a gray area here...? Should our summers be more summer break-like? And if you think so, then why? I gotta say, I see great arguments for our schoolish version of summer and also great arguments for a summer with less pencils.

Thanks for reading.

Abstract Parenting

I have been planning on writing a blog post about some of the the cool things my kiddos have learned in school this year, and of course, I wanted to throw in a thing or two that I learned myself, but instead, I am totally calling myself out on some seriously impatient teaching. Sometimes my kindergarten student knows more about her school work than I do. Seriously. In short, I have learned to listen, ask, wait, consider, and be open before I start judging, critiquing, or correcting. And the sad thing is, that seems like a pretty basic concept to me, something I thought I knew, but, ya know, I found myself to be quite the rashly critiquing Mama on several occasions, only to find out I should have waited to understand what my kid was working with. My most recent lesson on judging my children's effort quickly and poorly?...

Our favorite reading and writing lesson around here is to work with comprehending, copying, and narrating living books. So, my kindergarten student was copying a quote from her favorite scene in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis and drawing a picture of what she thought that scene might look like. I walked away from her for a few minutes, then came back to see an odd drawing swirled and scratched onto her page.
Well, I was pretty frustrated and disappointed. This was her writing journal, not some loose piece of scratch paper. This could not be erased and redone for goodness sake! (Well, it could have been redone, but you know, I was dramatic Mama in that moment...) I took a deep breath while contemplating my first words, trying to decide if I believed her main struggle there to be laziness, impatience to complete her work carefully, or indifference, but thankfully, before I began a lecture of some sort, I found some small piece of motherly wisdom hidden somewhere behind my frazzled imperfection and asked her about her drawing, (of course I was thinking that maybe she could see the error of her own ways without me pointing out that she wasn't even thinking about or caring about her work). And then, the little amazing creation of a kid says to me, "It's abstract art. So you can't understand what I was doing, but I can because I'm the artist, so I'll explain it to you." And then she continues on with an explanation of every little detail in the picture and why she made it a certain way and what it made her imagine and think. Okay, so wow. Taught me a lesson to always assume a student is lazy or indifferent just because the assignment was not completed exactly how I thought it would be. She followed all directions. She had a good attitude, and she even applied her last art lesson to her reading lesson, which is always cool to see subject lines crossed. And ya know, for all the doubters and funny people out there, maybe, just maybe she did speed through the assignment and then came up with a quick response later on, which was actually true and applicable. Well? Either way....planned or unplanned, I am totally impressed with this abstract illustration and the explaination I received. And with my attitude?...I was totally unimpressed. Yet, I know there is another day, and I know that I learned something from my child that day and look forward to applying a wait and see method more often than not with my children's education in the future.  I'm so glad she was in a situation that day which gave her the time and opportunity to explain to me that sometimes I don't understand everything and need to have it explained to me by the artist herself. 

Honey, I want to say to her, that's just like my parenting; it doesn't always seem to make sense, but I''ll do my best to explain it to you. I think I'll store that example away for our next stormy day.:)

And thank you to my kids' fabulous art teachers for opening up a world of creativity to them! They are listening and retaining. Great work!

Beautiful Day Bag of Tricks

So one thing about a great routine and a good schedule is that it is such a special treat to break away from it once in a while. Spur of the moment changes and activities become rewards or exciting field trips or projects, rather than chaos in the life of a family with a routine. Recently we had a fabulous spring day around here. I mean it was one of those beautiful, bright, sweet-smelling days when all of a sudden you see green all around you again, and flowers, flowers popping out everywhere. We had plans for that day, but thanks to a few wrenches thrown in our wheels, we had to scratch our plans and work something else out. But before I reached for our lesson plan book and pulled out some worksheets and pencils, I decided we would enjoy the day first. I told the little lovelies to get on some bright spring clothes, put on some shoes, grab a book, and get in the van. Mama was reaching into her beautiful day bag of tricks.

If you spend much of your time caring for young children, whether you realize it or not, you usually develop a bag of rainy day tricks. You have go-to activities you pull out when things get boring or kids get stir crazy when stuck inside. Maybe this is an actual bag full of good stuff, or maybe this is just a group of ideas. Maybe when it rains, your kids get to play with special toys you keep hidden on most days, making the toys more exciting on those grey days, or maybe rainy days at your house mean making cupcakes or a tea party (you know rain  must equal a tea party at our house...as does sunshine and snow and windy days and pretty much any day there's some kind of weather coming our way...). Anyway, you get what I mean by a bag of rainy day tricks. Well, once spring sprang this year I  wanted  some go-to ideas for not-so-rainy days, too.  And now I am the pleased owner of a not-so-real bag of beautiful day tricks. Okay so they aren't exactly "tricks"' but it seems, for whatever reason,  I am stuck on that phrasing today. Anyway, when the weather is absolutely stunning, we get all prettied up and we go out into the day, books in hand of course, because, as my children are told on a regular basis (the poor dears), you never know when you're gonna want a good book with you.

So back to that first stunning spring day: first out of the bag was a trip to the coffee shop, for so many reasons. One being that Mama needed a little organic iced  coffee with agave and too much cream. Mmm. So good, and honestly, I'm not sure if the energy/mood boost comes from the caffeine in the drink or from that fabulous first taste that transports me to a happier version of my morning. And another reason being that we were able to bring in our books and read them together, while soaking up the sunlight and lovely view of a little stream and new spring growth right outside the shop. The girls shared some ginger cookies and discussed their books. They were a little book club in training, complete with a few moments of disagreements and seemingly aware that literature often brings out strong and differing opinions in a group. All in all, this was a great start to our day. And their book choices weren't too shabby either. Which leaves me wondering: Will it happen soon that I can pull my own book out of my bag and sit and read quietly while my girls do the same? Seriously, I am asking you seasoned mothers out there, even if your answer is that I should already be able to do this...

After the coffee shop, we buckled up in the van, rolled down the windows, put on some good music and then went for a drive in the country. We took some unexpected back roads and looked for spring blooms we had been learning about. How many redbuds could we find? Pear trees? Dogwoods? And then we spotted a new waterfall, which is always a treat for our family. We love waterfalls.

One trick we didn't do after our coffee shop and waterfall excursion is a new favorite art project of ours. We're looking forward to incorporating it into a spring day theme soon. It's a pretty cool project because it helps us to use up crayon pieces we might not have used up with regular picture coloring. As you can surmise from the photo, we've been making our own crayons. Which is fun on its own, but incorporating it into a seasonal lesson is my new idea. After spending time outside and taking in the colors of the season, we can come inside and reach for our mason jars of broken or used crayon pieces, we will peel off any remaining wrapper, and then each kid will be given a muffin wrapper to fill up with colors she saw outside. We'll then place them in a muffin tin and melt at a low temperature in the oven until they melt down into a cool new crayon to remember the day by. So simple, so useful, so easy, so not messy, and so fun. The kids loved every part of crayon making from picking out colors to coloring with the new, funny shaped crayons with ridged edges and smooth centers. And on upcoming spring days, the pictures they will color with these will become a snapshot of each of those beautiful days. So many project possibilities here!

And a third trick I want to mention from my beautiful day bag is this: We can enjoy the day in the morning when I have the most energy, the kids are ready to do something new and exciting, and when the temperature is nice and sun isn't too impressive on the skin, saving the classroom time for the afternoon. I wouldn't want to do this often, but every now and then it is kind of nice to mix it up. And we have discovered that school in the afternoon works pretty great for the kids when they are a little calmer and a little more in need of some one on one time with parents. Not to mention, the timing of afternoon school sets us up for preparing supper as part of a math lesson, to be followed up by a little extra reading practice at bedtime story time. In the life of a mother of young children, the little things like good timing for small tasks and a neatly wrapped up end to the day can really bring on some happiness, and happiness is something we try to require around here.

Happy Spring.

I think we're just going to go ahead and read the story.

We've always been those crazy parents who read to their children straight from big books, really big books like classic novels and histories. And when we read to them from the Bible, we read straight from the Bible, like from the big leather-bound, grown-up looking book straight off the nightstand.
And you know what, we're gonna keep on being those crazy parents, because what started out as an inkling and a cool idea in our home, has turned into a way to educate our kids, based on hundreds of years of experience of people throughout western civilization. That sounds exciting, right?

I'll back up here a bit and try to say what I'm saying. Over the last  few years, I've been thinking a lot about why young kids nowadays aren't always taught the same level of things kids were taught decades and centuries ago. Why were kids once trusted to learn two and three languages before the age of ten, not to mention straight, not watered down, history and literature, along with scientific theory and math facts and equations before? And why are kids generally not trusted with these concepts, subjects, and experiences now until they are much older? I am really asking here. I don't have the answers. I know there are a lot of answers to this, and some of them have things to do with advancement in education and the creation, production, and marketing of super fun and useful workbooks, manipulatives, and instruction manuals. And some of the answers may be good answers like trying to teach kids things they are interested in, so they will grow up and love to learn. The answers go on and on and on, I'm sure. But thankfully, these answers really aren't what I have to deal with finding right now. All I am trying to focus on here is what style to use when educating my kids this next school year. It's getting close to curriculum ordering time! I need lessons plans and material, not answers to all of the random, nerdy life questions I have.

So what I've been doing is a whole bunch of late night reading on classical education and modern education. I have a desire to take advantage of this "sponge" period my children are in, before they grow out of it. Young children have an amazing ability to memorize and to grasp onto new languages and facts in a way that people rarely hang on to as they grow and start moving into different developmental stages. So, we are moving more towards the classical end of the spectrum in our home. We are using books, riddles, rhymes, and songs to teach what has started to be known as only higher level education. We are bringing in more language study, more poetry and classic literature, more histories, and we are going to work more theories and facts into our study of science, math, art, and music, so that when our kiddos get older, and move away from the "sponge" or grammar stage and into the logic or "now what do I think about or do with all that stuff I learned as a tot" stage, they will be filled up with stuff, and not have to bother with square one of learning everything, at the same time when they would rather be thinking "why, how, what, and Oh!....Now I get it!"

So, I know this is a little ambitious and probably a little vague. I guess I could sum up this whole post by saying: we are excited about next year and all of the knowledge we hope our kids will be exposed to and hold on to. There are so many educational theories and styles out there, and I really don't think there is only one right or good way to go. In addition to classical education, I am a big fan of Charlotte Mason's teaching style, and I find a lot of cool ideas in Waldorf curriculum. Classical isn't the only good choice. But when you make the decision to homeschool, you also need to decide how you're gonna do it, so you get the daunting and exciting task of choosing the path your children will take as they learn. There are so many paths to take, and I think it is important to choose a great fit for your children, for your family, and for the teacher. There's my disclaimer to all of these strong points I'm making about our choice to go in one specific direction.

We are going to set the bar high and not work with too much "twaddle", as Charlotte Mason would call some of the reading material and kids workbooks of today. Kids don't always need to be spoon-fed little teeny bits of things we want them to learn later, sometimes we can just teach them the things now, while their minds are young, and their memories are at their best. Kids have done it before, so why not my kids now? Again, I'm seriously asking. And don't get me wrong, I love a good children's book as much as the next Mama, but they don't all have to have pictures and simple sentences, do they? How about a good princess picture book as a simple treat at bedtime, and then the next morning is full of quiet listening to history time. We have been running a little test around here to see how this will work out as we shape our curriculum around classical education next year, and so far, we are blown away by the bits of knowledge kids keep with them. They can understand big words. We don't have to stop reading a book to a child to say, "This big word mean this....". I mean, this isn't how we taught them the small words, no we just spoke the words and then they understood them in context, which is much simpler and much more effective. So, we can go ahead and just use those big words! They'll catch on, and they'll understand much more of the stories we read to them if we aren't always stopping to explain this and that to them. Just read the story.

20 minutes to make our day

I found myself becoming guilty of one of the things I said I would never do as a parent, and I'm not referring to driving a minivan, though I am guilty of that, too. What I'm referring to here is that I became a barking, angry, stressed out parent in a world of chaotic breakfasts and bag forgetting and orders to get your shoes on NOW again and again. No matter how early I got up in the morning, it seemed that those last five minutes until we had to get out of the house in the morning on our way to preschool, to a homeschool  trip, or even on our way to the homeschool room in our own house by our early scheduled start time turned into a rush. And a rush was not a good way to begin our day. It left my kids confused, disappointed, stressed, tired, and it left them with their needs not met well from their mama at the very beginning of a busy day, and chaotic mornings left me feeling defeated and tense, before any schooling or cleaning even got underway. That was not for us, so we stopped doing that and tried something different.

And now what we have is 20 minutes of bliss. We don't have perfect days. We don't always go according to plan. And we certainly don't do everything all sweet and proper and correct, but we do our best around here to get a calm, quiet start to the day now. At first, this was a bit of a challenge, as a new routine often is with small children, but after a couple days, we began to begin our days in a much better way. After teeth are brushed, beds are made, breakfast is cleared away, and we are all dressed for the day, I set a timer for 20 minutes, and the four of us all go to different parts of the house to do something quietly and calmly on our own. Everyone gets to choose what they do, but I give them suggestions and tell them that electronics (other than tag reader pens) are off limits; television and video games make my kids way to jittery and/or spacey in the morning to be a good idea before school.



Morning quiet time choices include reading quietly to yourself (a good book that teaches you something), writing or copying a letter to a friend or relative, working a puzzle, playing a board or card game (yes, kids can do this by themselves....quite creatively, actually...), playing with blocks or manipulatives, sitting doing nothing, or working on an art project. And I have to say that a little organization goes a long way with kids' games.



We put our broken game boxes in the recycle bin, put game pieces in labeled zippered bags, and then used address label stickers to label the boards of games. Now it is more reasonable to keep the kids accountable for only getting out one thing at a time and then putting it away neatly. Sigh.

I use our 20 minute morning alone time to lesson plan for the day, catch up on letters or emails, and really, just to breathe in my favorite room in the house with a cup of something warm. This doesn't mean the kids don't have access to me. Of course they come to me with questions about a word in a book or for help with a puzzle piece or even for a hug, but in theory we are all doing something on our own. I think it is good for them to have time to be alone, but not entirely alone. I'm right there if they need me, and they know that, and I think they even like that a little.

So when the timer goes off, we start our school day relaxed and ready to join back up together. The kids actually all look forward to doing something together again. Imagine! A little quiet can go a long way. I don't think it is necessary to homeschool children in order to make morning a time for meeting kids' needs and preparing them for their days by filling them up with calm and love and security, but the decision to homeschool the kids has certainly made it easier to slow down our mornings. I'm sure there are many great mothers out their who keep their cool in the morning when heading out the door on a tight schedule, but for me, it was difficult on many mornings to be sweet and chill when the clock was ticking and there was a kid who was panicked about not being comfortable in her shoes, while another was in need of a new diaper at the last minute, and yet another was needing to talk about something super important to her in that moment. So for us, we made our mornings work better with a clear early morning schedule and 20 small, sweet minutes. And I hope this time is a step towards our kids learning how to spend time with family in a home, while not always doing the same thing. Quality time doesn't have to be all or nothing, as in we are either talking to the person next to us or we are ignoring the person next to us and talking to a friend on the Internet. How about just sitting and enjoying someone's company without always feeling a need to fill up the silence with something? I know I am pretty old-fashioned and probably have a silly, dreamy view of after-dinner time with my family, all the girls sitting in different parts of the room, one embroidering a pillow, while one plays cards with her daddy, and another reads a book of poetry.....BUT even if we can't go back in time to a slower paced world and my girls may never learn to embroider seat cushions like Jane Austen characters, we can still learn to share a house and enjoy each other's company, whether we are doing something together...or not. Clearly I have big hopes for what our 20 minutes in the morning will teach us as family. Not sure if they will all pan out, but for now the 20 minutes are working out pretty well for our mornings, and good mornings tend to make good days. Right?

Three Kids, a Volcano, and Blueberry Muffins

We learned about rocks in our kindergarten class last week, which for little kids means: time to collect rocks and time to talk about HOT LAVA! I expected kids to get a kick out of picking up rocks and talking about their similarities and differences, but what always surprises me about my dear, sweet little girls is their fascination with lava. They love to play "Don't Step on the Hot Lava", and this is a pretty serious game since apparently there is a whole bunch of lava on our living room floor on most days. And I thought they were so unique to have come up with this game all on their own, but ya know, it's everywhere. Kids love this game. Real kids play it. Book character kids play it. Television show kids play it. And so, what did we just have to do as part of our rock week? We had to make a volcano. And let me tell you something: this took me back to my second grade class. Oh the smell of baking soda, vinegar, and clay all mingled together was like being eight again. Except now it was my kitchen that stunk.





We had a sweet homeschool friend join in on the volcano fun. Many hands made light work. I was pretty impressed with how well three kids got along as they worked to make one shared volcano. Isn't it great when moments of sharing and team work happen? Sigh.

And we ended up with a volcano that was not only solid, but also fabulous. Can you tell girls made this?

So since we were going to be working in the kitchen that day anyway, my oldest child (the one with a love for the Food Network and the cookbook shelves at the public library) wanted to do some baking for an after school snack. We went with stone ground whole wheat blueberry muffins (they look healthy, are pretty healthful, and they were so very, very good). Thank you to two sweet fellow mothers and friends of mine for picking up the blueberries at the store for me. You can see we put them to use. Isn't it funny how something as simple as someone picking up something at the store for you can brighten up your day? Motherhood is absolutely amazing and sweet and wonderful, but it is also hard and even lonely at times. I hope I can always make time for other mothers to catch up over coffee (either in person or sometimes over the phone...), help each other clean up toy room floors, and pick up blueberries at the store for each other. It really does make a difference in my day, and hopefully in my friends' days. What a great way to end our rock and volcano unit week: with muffins that look like rocks, but taste great. 

CrockPot Math Post taken over by rant. Sorry.

One of the topics I've read about in homeschool articles and books is the idea that the time of the genius and prodigy is disappearing in many school systems. The idea behind this is that many schools (not all...) are set up to create well-rounded jack-of-all-trades students who graduate having a grasp on all subject matters, which is great, right? I mean, what can be more useful in life than having a solid understanding, if not a mastery, of all subject matters? Well, okay, but what about the kid who has a special gift for, let's say, understanding light and shapes and has the ability to work towards creating artistic masterpieces to inspire the world, not to mention to support her future family in a job created around her passion?...should that kid have to spend hours upon hours trying to learn, let's say...advanced algebra, if algebra, beyond its basics is uninteresting, frustrating, and stressful for that particular student artist? Can hours spent in algebra tutoring, when the child could be painting and studying style and art history instead, really be worth it? There are only so many hours in the day, and if a child or older student has a desire and a real gift in one particular area, why are we pushing that child to give up time which could be spent working on that gift and asking her to put the time towards dabbling in all subject matters? And why can't a 16 year-old be trusted to know, declare, and prove to her parents and teachers that she is a gifted scientist and should be allowed to invest most of her time and educational resources into excelling in that field? Does a chemistry whiz kid really need to spend more than half of her school hours on other subject matters? Certainly there are reasons for her to spend some time learning about grammar and social studies and such, but more than half of her learning time? Is that really the best choice for her? (Clearly, I am really passionate about exploring these questions...you know, the girl who loves to write but spent her high school career obsessing over a need to excel, which meant, for me, that I wanted to get A's in not just English and History, but in all of my classes, and all of my classes included Chemistry and Algebra. No where did I get the idea that it is okay to not be the best at everything. Either I was a straight A student, or I wasn't one of the best students, in my childhood mind (and I'm betting my childhood mind didn't come up with that on my own, although I do only have myself to blame for even caring if I was "one of the best"). I don't use all of those subjects now. I don't. I know we all hear, "You're gonna need this someday." But, ya know what: Ten years out, and I haven't needed to work with the periodic table yet. But, I have been sad when I think back on the time I could have been writing, reading, learning about the craft that I love, live, and work with everyday. It's sad to me that I spent so much time stressing and banging my head against my palm as I stared at my chemistry book, while trying to get Scarlet O'Hara and her world out of my head. And, I was no genius at all, and certainly no prodigy, so when I consider what that would be like, to be put in a world of required classes when all you want to do is work with an amazing gift and ability, something to share with the world, well that is just a tragedy. I think so anyway. Of course there are kids who enjoy learning about many different things and want and need to work with all subject matters equally. Not everyone only leans towards one or two particular areas, and that is great, pretty greater than great, actually. That is a gift in itself.  And not everyone knows what they want to do at a young age, and those kids should not be forced to choose before they are ready. What I'm saying here is:  Education shouldn't be one size fits all. I look at my three kids and am amazed at how different they are, and the idea that they could all be made to fit into the same course load and curriculum is pretty astounding to me. This thought makes me so thankful for those teachers out there, other moms, and members of the "village", who take an interest in children as individuals and help them to identify and work with their particular gifts. How cool are those people? I know I'll never forget certain teachers for encouraging me to step outside of the box and be heard. I cannot tell you how much I hope my children have that kind of encouragement, and it's gonna start with me. I'm pretty sure I will fail at many things in my life as a mother, but I sincerely hope that embracing the variety in my children and their educational needs will not be one of them. Matching socks and never getting annoyed at bedtime....yep, I'll fail at those every now and then for sure, but hopefully I won't fail in embracing the differences in my children.

Wow. This was not what I was planning to write about at all. I was planning to write about my five year old not liking math, and how we are encouraging her to learn math in fun ways. I was going to talk about how important it is for kids to learn everything, even the things they don't love, and there I ended up going the total other direction. So, let me say this, just to pull the two poles together here and make myself clear: It is important to me that my kids learn about all subject matters. Just because they may not love math, doesn't mean they don't have to work to understand it. Math is important. And if one of my children turns out to be a grammar hater, well, she is still going to need to learn how to write and speak intelligently and clearly. HOWEVER, one of our reasons to homeschool is to allow our kids to work with their natural abilities, gifts, and interests. Their education can be shaped around what they enjoy and do well. We can push them and challenge them toward greatness, I hope.

Um, yeah, so here's what I would have said before the rant took me over:

Our Kindergarten gal loves to cook. So, her math time has been all about cooking lately. Our girls especially love fun cooking tools, like these adorable tea cup measuring cups. We're still all about all things tea party around here. We're learning about measuring, addition, subtraction, and greater than and less than all through cooking. And this works much better for her than a worksheet. It works much better for me too, because once math time is over in the morning, we tend to end up with dinner cooking in the crockpot. Our three girls especially love when I let them "invent" their own meals. Last week, they made up something called "Favorite Dish". Each girl put in one favorite ingredient in the crockpot during a math lesson. We ended up with butternut squash, apples, and country ham.

We threw in some honey, cinnamon, and butter, and let me say, considering the kids picked out the ingredients, it could have been a lot worse. Math tasted pretty good that night.






Whew. My fingers are tired. Thank you for making it to the bottom of this page. Really. :)

We're gonna need a bigger table, more patience, an extra jar of peanut butter, more games, an upgrade on our ability to laugh at life, several more puzzles, and a peppermint mocha every now and then, for starters.

Okay, so I started this little blog to share all about our neat little year of homeschooling our eldest, our kindergarten gal, our first little student, the one to ease us into the whole homeschool journey. But here we are, doing what we do. We're adapting, we're growing, and we are trying our hardest to go with the flow of doing what works for our family. Long story short: our youngest two are now homeschooling with us. That's right. Here we are a-homeschooling two preschool gals and a kindergarten gal. We've got us our own little academy.

So here's what I know so far about teaching more than one kid and on more than one learning/grade level: it's a lot of work. Man, it takes time, and it takes focus and patience, love and creativity. It takes ideas and organization....and.....AND it takes letting something else go sometimes. Last week it was my schedule, and this week, well, so far it looks like it's the laundry's turn to take some time off.

But, I'm glad to report that we are learning. Our kindergarten student is learning about the War of 1812 (her choice, not mine), and she's learning that just because she knows how to write doesn't mean she can now chicken scratch her way through her writing lessons. (Yes, I just said chicken scratch....just like a real life teacher....). Our pre-k student is learning that it is okay if everything is not perfect. She's learning, or beginning to learn that mistakes don't always have to go into the trash can or go flying through the air on a balled up wad of paper; they can be corrected, fixed, or sometimes adapted into something way cooler than what she began with. And our teeny preschooler is practicing taking turns (not her favorite), improving her sign language skills, and learning sounds made by each letter in the alphabet.

Usually the kids have their individual school time, but sometimes we all learn around the table together, and some of those times, we even find a way to do this without chaos. And those times are pretty great.

Everyday's a Field Trip (or can be)

When people ask me why we homeschool, I have a super hard time trying to respond. Because for us, there are so many reasons that I guess the only good answer is: I can't think of a reason not to. No, no that's not the best answer. The best answer really is: It works for our family, and we are confident, confident as can be, that it will work out amazingly for our kids' futures. But this is never a clear enough response for the curious, and I totally get that. It is vague, and it is not really all that helpful in helping others to understand one of the good reasons for instructing kids outside of our society's school systems. So here's one of my very favorite reasons for homeschooling: We can take this show on the road whenever we want. When I look back on my childhood and on my education, I can say with confidence that I learned more about history on family trips to Williamsburg and to Mayan ruins, and even to a wonderful little local museum than I ever learned in a classroom. Of course, it helped that my mother loved to get her children involved in hands on activities while learning, and my dad is an excellent teacher and a closet history geek, but it also helped to see history. Our family trips to a hands on museum helped this self-proclaimed science novice to get excited about the oft times cold and yucky subject matter. A classroom is not always the best way to learn, and it is pretty cool to not have the obligation to put my kids in one five days a week. Of course, most days my kiddos are in our little schoolroom, but ya know, just having the option to pile into the car or put on our boots and go for a nature hike any ol' time we want is pretty inspiring in itself.

So we've been on a trip. Our second big trip of this school year, and we've found a pretty even balance between well-laid plans giving way to chaos and well-laid plans falling into place in a neat little package. I can tell you that our biggest challenge of doing school on the road is not exactly completing kindergarten lessons, but it is entertaining the two little sisters and finding them ways to grow and learn while worksheets are completed and reading lessons are worked through. I want this trip to be enriching for all of the kids. I want them all to learn. 

So we have been very creative, and very, very messy at times. I have had to learn to let it go when toys and craft supplies are strewn across the hotel bed. Playtime and art time is good for the littles, and that is much more important than me keeping our space clean and organized at all times.

For this trip, my goal was to keep a good even mix of desk work and learning from the environment. We went on nature walks and learned about the local trees, flowers, and wildlife. And because these were all things my kids were not used to seeing back at home, there were so many questions. Some of which I knew the answers to, and others we had to jot down for research later. Out of all of our activities on this trip, I think our nature walks taught the kids the most. At the end of the day, we try to make a habit of discussing what was learned that day. I love this time, when it happens, because it tells me, in their own words, what my children took in that day, what they really took in, not just what I think I taught them. And this week, they feel they are experts on St. Augustine grass and cows. Random, but pretty fun.