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?