The Smelly Science Lesson

Week 3 of kindergarten is almost done! All we have left for this week are tennis lessons and some math pages. I can't believe that school is going so smoothly.  For months I fretted about how homeschooling was going to work.  But somehow, the school part of life seems to have just worked out.  I think if we approach everything as a learning opportunity (some would call this living an educational lifestyle), we can have quite a lot of fun.  That's what happened this week. 

Somehow, I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to top today's science lesson.  But come on!  When you see a news headline that reads: "Cow Farts Cause German Barn to Explode" you just have to go with it! And thank you Discovery Channel News people for making a video that provides a fascinating and entertaining explanation of how cow flatulence can cause an explosion.  My 5 year old was almost in tears from laughing so hard at this video:

Generally, I try to avoid body function humor.  I strongly discourage body function sound imitation.  And I frequently censor brotherly discussions concerning said functions.  Sadly, I'm finding this is harder and harder to do with the male wing of my house.  Plus, Daddy and Grandpa are no help on this subject either!  So, when I decided that we should learn about Cow farts today, Mommy really did something bold.  For just one afternoon, I joined "the dark side" and giggled with my son.

If you need a laugh as you head into the weekend, be sure to check out the news story posted above. This surely isn't a conventional science lesson.  And you won't find it in the state-approved textbooks.  But I think it does go to show that it might just be true that homeschoolers do have more fun!

Chapter Books

 

This afternoon I finished reading I Survived the Japanese Tsunamis, 2011 to my boys.  I had no intention of reading the entire book in two days, but once we got rolling, there really weren't too many places to stop.  Maybe because the book was intended for audiences that are a little more mature than 3 and 5 years old.  I'm thinking that the scary and realistic scenarios might have been intended for late elementary or middle school students.  But after Boy Wonder begged me to teach him about tsunamis and earthquakes last week, I knew that this was a must-read. It was intense, but worth the time spent reading.

We've made it through two weeks of homeschooling and I'm realizing that I've been missing out on so much by not reading to my boys.  It's not that I didn't read to my boys, but I never tried reading lengthy chapter books with actual plots and developed characters.  In the past, getting them both to settle down to listen to the stories has always been an ordeal.  So I just figured that neither child was interested in a book that lacked illustrations.  Boy was I wrong!

Even though the beginning of our reading sessions can be a little chaotic (think 3 yr old pinching big brother while little sister is crying), after a few minutes, everyone seems to settle down and become attentive to our story.  They even got so involved in our book yesterday that the boys got upset when I stopped reading halfway through the book.  (There may or may not have been tears.)  They actually enjoyed it and didn't want me to stop. 

Boy does this open a new door of opportunity!  The possibilities are endless as to what we can read and explore in literature together.  We certainly won't be skipping out on the dozens of children's books that I've collected, but we'll definitely be able to dive deeper into history and fantasy worlds as we enter the realm of chapter books.

Morning Praise

from www.graphics18.com

My life has gotten pretty hectic.  I've been having flashbacks to January 2011--right before I started this blog.  I was over-committed, over-worked, overwhelmed, and I just walked away from as much as possible and spent the next six months on my knees.  Fast forward to today, and I'm certainly busy again.  But this time, I have absolute confidence that the tasks given me are the tasks that God wants me to accomplish.  Thus, I know that He will help me handle my schedule.  In fact yesterday, someone from church promised to pray that I would specifically be productive in my job, and miraculously I was able to carve out 6+ hours to work at my desk--in addition to homeschooling my 5 yr old, working in the church nursery last night, and making dinner for my family.  Plus, I was in bed before midnight and actually slept all night!  Praise Jesus!

During these crazy days and weeks, it's nice to be able to start my days with more than coffee.  Lately, I've subscribed to the free Days of Praise newsletter/e-magazine from the Institute for Creation Research.  The daily devotionals written by Dr. Henry Morris have been so refreshing.  Ironically, he formats these devotionals in the same way that I used to format my blog entries.  First, a Bible verse, and then the text.  Unlike a number of other daily e-mail devotionals that I've gotten over the years, I actually enjoy and look forward to opening Days of Praise.  Not only do the devotionals focus on the awesomeness of God every day, but they're also a little "deeper" than the average e-devotional.  The late Dr. Morris wasn't afraid to take a hard stand on issues like Creation or the Old Testament or the inerrancy of Scripture (and no, he does not talk about Creation every day!).

As a coffee dependent adult who often stays up late, long morning Bible studies tend to put me to sleep.  I mean, I would have never studied for a college class in the morning, so I don't see why I should attempt an in-depth Bible study early in the morning either.  For me, study time must take place after I'm fully awake during the day or in the evening when I sit down with my decaf coffee and am completely focused.   That said, I like having some Bible time in the morning, and Days of Praise has been a wonderful way to give me something to meditate on all day long!

To subscribe to the Institute of Creation Research's daily Days of Praise (and other publications)  go to: Institute of Creation Research.

Note: Dr. Henry Morris past away in 2006.  His devotionals can be purchased as books on Amazon, but getting the daily blog posts with his writings is way more fun.

There's No Crying in Homeschool

Week 2 started out swimmingly--tears and all!  Although Monday was a holiday for most school children, we opted to continue with our classes since Daddy was home to participate.  It was a great idea until we all slept in.  I think classes officially started a little before noon, and halfway through his to-do list, my son was demanding food.  So when all was said and done, after Mommy explained to Daddy what needed to get done, and after Daddy taught Boy Wonder his lessons and forced him to finish his homework, we were well into the middle of the afternoon.  It was a long day.

Then, to make matters worse, Mommy made the mistake of visiting the classroom a few times.  It was during those visits when I discovered that Boy Wonder was hurrying through his numbers and copy/sketch activities.  Granted, the child hates the redundancy of the practice pages.  But today, when I called him out on sloppy "3's" he told me I was being mean and picking on him.  (As if I have nothing better to do?!)  Then he followed up this dramatic scene with tears.  Part of me believes that they might have been real, but I still think the tears were targeted at Daddy with the hope that he would tell Mommy to go away.  Didn't work.

So then we had to have a long family conversation about how important it is to do our work well the first time.  Every chance I get, I reiterate that he must continue to practice until he masters his work.  We want excellence in all we do.  Failure to produce excellent numbers means that he gets to continue to write numbers until the powers that be are satisfied.  And that would be me!

Sure enough, after a logical and encouraging pep talk, the "3's" turned from alien-like blobs to legible numbers.  Something apparently clicked. 

Thank goodness we got that behind us.  Hopefully the tears are out of the way for the week.  Generally, I'm not a sucker for tears.  Sympathy is earned when it is deserved.  Tears associated with eye-rolling do not fall into the deserving-of -sympathy category.  (I am convinced that Dante meant to write about a special level of hell for eye-rollers, but just forgot. I mean, eye-rolling is the rudest and most disrespectful act!)  I'm hoping that we've nipped the tears and manipulation in the bud for now.  But if it persists, I must find a way to teach Boy Wonder that there is no crying in homeschooling.

Getting to Know All About You

 

Week 1 of homeschooling is finished!  I learned so much this week about my son--his strengths, his weaknesses, and his familial tendencies.

This week I learned that Boy Wonder is a perfectionist.  If he can't do something perfectly, he doesn't want to do it at all.  I've always considered myself to be a perfectionist, but  I'm the kind of person who will practice until I get something perfect.  But not Boy Wonder--he's like his daddy.  Doing things well comes naturally to him and when they don't, he goes into avoidance mode.  This makes handwriting/copybook time rather stressful for both mommy and child.  I explained to him that refusal to "practice" his letters would result in more work.  I told him that my curriculum came with pages for slower kids who don't get concepts as quickly as he does.  Failure to do the assignments I give will result in getting extra slow-kid pages.  Okay, I know this sounds horrible, but appealing to his ego certainly worked!

I also learned that while neat handwriting skills are taking longer to achieve, I seriously underestimated Boy Wonder's ability to do math.  For a few months now, we've been practicing math skills while watching ballgames on TV.  Boy Wonder has this amazing gift of being able to add and subtract multiple digit numbers in his head in order to calculate point differentials during ballgames.  Silly me didn't realize that this gift was legitimate, and that first grade math would be well below my not-yet-kindergartner's ability.  (Seriously?)  Needless to say, when we got to day two of studying the number "0" he was completely bored.  By Wednesday, I picked up our pace in our math book and my son has opted to get ahead by doing math on the weekends as well.  His choice.  And how is this a bad plan?

I also accidentally discovered that my son not only listens to what I teach, but he comprehends it as well.  One afternoon he decided he wanted to play tsunamis with his brother.  In order to do that, he had to successfully teach my 3 year old what he had learned about tsunamis.  It was amazing how accurate and simple his explanation of a tsunamis was!  On another day, my boys decided to act out their history lesson together (my 3 year old had been listening too).  In chapter 1 of The Story of the World, volume 1, the main character was living as a nomad and searching for food.  She found a lizard, which her mother was going to cook into a stew for dinner.  Sure enough, that afternoon, my little Texans found a gecko in our backyard that they corned and attempted to capture for dinner.  (I'm pretty sure he lost a tail in the debacle.)  And no, I did not make lizard stew for dinner.

This week has been loads of fun.  I'm thinking about allowing Mr. Wonderful to substitute teach on his day off next Monday just so that he can appreciate the experience as well.  I had no idea that homeschooling would be such an interesting way to get to know my children better.  In the process, I'm finding that I'm getting to know myself better as well.

Footnote: The Story of the World series is pretty great.  It was designed for older elementary and Jr. High students, but it is so well written that my 5 year old is hooked!  You can order the audio version or the books online at Amazon.

My New Obsession is a Blessing

Find more at www.thehairbowcompany.com

Somehow, I think I finally nipped my obsession with headbands and hair bows in the bud.  Of course, my daughter MUST still wear her adorable hair accessories.  Hence my motto, "No bow, no go."  But  my obsession with searching for the perfect bow has finally been replaced by a new obsession. 

They say that certain personalities get on these "kicks" where the person dives head first into something new until they find something else to attract their attention.  I think I have those tendencies.  I seem to get a little carried away with things at first, and in time realize that I can take a chill pill and still perform well without being obsessive compulsive.  I'm the perfect person to bring on if you want some energy infused into a project.  But be prepared, because I don't do things 50%.  Thus, the fact that Baby G was probably the best dressed baby of 2013.   She's still well-dressed, but over the last 12+ months I've figured out how to keep her well-dressed without draining my budget.  It just took me a 18 months and a lot of money to get to this point.  Thank goodness Mr. Wonderful understands my psychological issues.

These days I seem to have moved on from hair bows to teacher things.  I've transformed from crazy girl-mom to enthusiastic teacher.  Although I never wanted to be a teacher, somewhere in my DNA, my mother must have passed on her teacher tendencies to me.  And now instead of drooling over $50 headbands, I get goose bumps from National Geographic readers and laminators.  Yes, I bought a laminator!  (Surely it will come in handy at some point, right?)  I've been told that I will have completely lost my sanity when I find myself frequenting Teacher's Tools.  I haven't been there yet, but at the rate I'm going it won't be long. 

All I can say is that God is good in making me this way.  When we first decided to homeschool I wasn't sure I was ready to join the world of denim-jumper-wearing mothers who believe that a woman's culinary skills are more critical than her choice of make-up.  At the time, I felt so disconnected with this new community!  All I could do at the time was pray that God would open my heart to this new adventure and get me excited about it.  And He did. 

Not long ago I was completely overwhelmed by the idea of teaching handwriting and phonics.  Yet now, I get all giddy when I head upstairs to my classroom in the mornings.  Only God could do that. 

Don't Homeschool in a Bubble

"You can't homeschool in a bubble."  I've heard that phrase quite a lot.  Typically, this is what people say when they are trying to get you to join a homeschool support group or a co-op.  They say that you do yourself a disservice (and unknowingly do your child a disservice) if you don't surround yourself with other homeschoolers. 

While I agree that you shouldn't homeschool in a bubble, I disagree with the concept that you must surround yourself with other homeschoolers.  Too often, when homeschoolers do this, they stay in a bubble.  There's just more people in their bubble. 

Okay, so how do you homeschool without getting stuck in the homeschooler bubble (this is the bubble that encompasses not only one family, but the like-minded and homeschool exclusive families as well.)?  Obviously, I don't have a lot of experience with homeschooling and probably can't provide the most educated answer to this question.  But the one thing I do know is that every homeschool mom needs an expert to go to--a teacher with real classroom experience who can guide them through the teaching process.  They need someone who can kick them in the pants when they start turning into homeschool zombies (yes, we all know these people), and someone who can pull them out of a hole when the lesson plans aren't working.  They need someone who can offer creative solutions when the going gets tough or the lessons get boring.

I have been blessed with two relatives who are elementary teachers.  For years, my mom taught in Christian schools, and for the past 5 years, my sister-in-law has been teaching in public schools.  Both teachers have been excellent about answering my questions, looking over curriculum, offering advice on how to plan and evaluate my son's progress, and recommending books or tools that have worked in their own classrooms.  Having real-world experience for me to rely on has been invaluable.  Personally, I prefer having these teachers guide me (and provide constant reassurance) as a teacher rather than relying on other parents to teach my kids in a co-op.  I am aware of my deficiencies, and I love being able learn from "experts" in the educational field. 

Other homeschool parents are a great source of information too.  But I'm slightly tortured by the idea of listening to other parents share their ignorance about education with each other.  Maybe some of the people are super great and know what they're talking about.  And maybe some are not.  How do you sort through the world of homeschoolers to get unbiased information?  Maybe finding someone outside the bubble really is the solution-- someone who doesn't have a stake in the game; someone who can objectively tell you the differences in what various curricula offer; someone who can tell you what they've seen as opposed to what they are doing.

I guess I'm afraid of jumping into a bubble and getting sucked in.  I don't want to turn into a homeschool zombie mom.  And I don't want to drink the juice and lose my creative mojo.  Maybe in time I'll be mature enough to join a group and discern smart from stupid.  But for now, I'm going to have to rely on my "outside sources" to keep me grounded and outside of the bubble.

Chasing Rabbit Trails

We're two days into our home education experience and so far all parties seem happy, satisfied, and are cooperative--which is miraculous in and of itself considering that my son and I both share the same strong personalities.  Somehow, I think learning together is actually good for us.  Because he's so much like me, I "get" him.  What interests me, appears to be interesting to him as well.  For maybe the first time ever, we're actually bonding over shared interests and I couldn't be more relieved.  Keeping Boy Wonder's attention might not be as hard as I thought. 

Yesterday I noted that it can be quite easy to breeze through curriculum with one student if the teacher and student are literally and figuratively on the same page.  Today, I discovered that it's also easy to chase a rabbit trail with one child.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you never know where a lesson is going to end up if you take trails. For example, our enrichment study of the Radetzky March, by Johann Strauss, turned into a 30 minutes discussion of the 2004 and 2011 Tsunamis. 

How did we get from Vienna's favorite New Year's tune (in which the audience actually claps) to watching YouTube videos of Tsunamis waves in Thailand and Japan?  It's Wikipedia's fault.  And mommy's fault for not editing Wikipedia.  So, my son might not remember too much about Field Marshall Radetzsky, but he now knows the warning signs that a tsunamis is coming (and hey, according to Nat Geo, a girl from Britain saved her vacationing family in 2004 when she remembered geology class's reference to receding waves!)

Oh well. The point of studying music is for enrichment.  And we were certainly enriched today as we talked about water displacement, earthquakes, and 130 foot waves!  For your own personal enrichment, check out the YouTube video below of the Radetzky March.  My son might not have understood the significance of the audience's clapping, but it's pretty cool to see the audience participation in what has become the traditional last song of every New Year's concert in Vienna--except for 2005, as they were showing respect to those lost in the Tsunamis (hence the rabbit trail).  And just so you know, I personally enjoyed this video, because attending a concert at the Musikverein in Vienna is on my bucket list!  What a fun way this would be to start a new year.

Day 1

I almost feel like I should be singing It's the End of the World as We Know It.  I mean it is, right?  Once your child starts school it's not like they ever stop the educational process until they're old enough to be out of the house.  Thus, family life as we know it now involves school!

That's right--school has begun.  Okay, I admit that we almost chickened out this morning, but we did have our official first day of school.  My son was a little leery at first, so I went through our schedule backwards and started with the history story.  That was the hook.  My son enjoyed our history lesson so much that he was almost begging to start phonics, math, and everything else on our agenda.  Woohoo!  I think the mom-the-teacher and son-the-student thing is going to work.   And as an added bonus, my nosy little three year old sat in on half of our lessons and enjoyed them about as much as his brother.

What surprised me the most about our classroom time was how quickly my son whipped through our schedule.  The classroom setup is not completely foreign to me.  I have substitute taught in an actual classroom and I am a teacher's kid, so I have some frame of reference for how to plan a day.  But I had no idea that the one-on-one schedule was so different. 

For example, I was expecting our recitation portion of the day to take about 30 minutes.  We were supposed to have our opening prayer, recitation of the alphabet, and discussion of the letters in the alphabet.  When we actually did our recitation this morning, it only took us 3-5 minutes.  In a real classroom it would have taken that long to get everyone to stand up together and get quiet.  This extra time allotment is so exciting.  It just means more time to learn!

The best part of our day was the fact that my son is already excited about tomorrow and can't figure out why I'm going to make him wait until Friday to do our tree discovery walk.  Now I'm just hoping and praying that I can keep up his enthusiasm until he's in college.  And for that matter, I'm hoping that I will be enjoying my days with him as much then as I am now.

Quote of the Week

I'm not a D-I-Y girl.  I'm a B-U-Y girl!

~Courtney Kerr on Courtney Loves Dallas

 

Thanks for this awesome quote Courtney!!  So nice to be reminded that there are other girls out there who love pretty things that they didn't make themselves! I guess some of us were just born to shop.  Thank goodness for the rest of the girls who were born to create.  They give us shoppers something to appreciate.



Who's Nervous?

I had an interesting conversation with my oldest son today.  We're scheduled to start kindergarten on Monday, and I though I should see how he feels about school.  When I asked him about school, he informed me that HE was nervous.  Of course I would never admit it to him, but I'M the one who should be nervous, right? 

My son told me that he was a little afraid that when we started school that he would have too much work.  Apparently, he was under the impression that I am expecting him to read ALL of the books that I have collected over the past months.  I had to explain to him that at some point he would probably read all the books, but until he learns to read, I'll be reading the books to him.  I also told him that we would have a new topic each week based around one book.  Plus, I explained that homeschooled kids don't really have homework since all their work can be done during school time. This seemed to make him feel a little bit better.

It's funny that I've spent months praying and doing whatever I could to prepare and psych myself up for the homeschooling process. It never occurred to me that my son might need the same amount of psyching up (although this shouldn't be a shocker since he's so much like his mother!).

It looks like the fun is going to begin on Monday morning.  I know it's not the traditional time of year to start school.  I know that it's not the norm to be educating my child at home.  And I know that I've taken on an enormously huge task.  But that's the beauty of being able to do school at home.  I'm not bound by institutional norms or political agendas.  Instead, I can do what works for me and for my family.  And legally speaking, I'm doing what is in the best interest of my child.  Also, I'm discovering, that the possibilities are endless...

Not Quite the Week I Had Planned

How has it been a week since my last blog post?  I really wanted to do a better job keeping up-to-date with my posting.  Although this was not a resolution, I was hoping that as we started the homeschool process that I could document as I went.  But then life happened.

I should have known that I was in trouble when Boy 1 and Baby G both had fevers on New Year's Eve.  They seemed perfectly fine on New Years' Day, but by last Thursday I could tell that something was wrong--at least with the boy who was running a temp of 103.  So I took Boy 1 to the pediatric urgent care and discovered that he had strep and walking pneumonia.  This discovery prompted Mr. Wonderful to pick up the other two kiddos from Grandma's in order to get strep tests.  Sure enough, despite the fact that Boy 2 didn't even have a fever, all 3 tested positive for strep.  So Thursday, I spent about 6 hours dealing with doctors and pharmacists and fevers.  That was only the beginning of things...

The next morning, I noticed a text from my mom that had been sent around midnight.  Apparently, my grandma, who was visiting from out of state, had to be taken to the ER due to shortness of breath.  As it turned out, she ended up having a heart attack.  This prompted a trip to the cath lab.  And the heart cath prompted the doctor to schedule her for an open-heart bypass on Monday morning. 

As all these events were underway, our relatives in Indy were getting snowed-in, church activities and meetings were getting set, work picked up, and somehow I'm supposed to start homeschooling on Monday!!!  I'm actually considering taking Excedrin just thinking about my January calendar.  Thank goodness I didn't make any resolutions, because I would have already failed.

What an interesting year this may be!

Relinquish

Happy 2014! I've decided this year to NOT do the typical routine.  I'm not making resolutions.  I'm also not going to make any earth-shattering goals for this year.  And I'm not going to make any predictions.  Instead, I'm going to take this year a day at a time.  If you could see my calendar for the month of January, you might understand.  There's no point in trying to guilt myself into adding more "routines" into my life. 

I have a full plate already.  We've got tennis lessons, museum school, t-ball, Mission Friends, Sunday School, Small Group, Kindergarten, Worship Team, church committees, litigation meetings, lots of upcoming discovery and trial settings, and all of the unexpected future activities in addition to everyday life with a family of five.  (And did I mention that my children are all under the age of 6!)

Instead of resolving to be a better person this year, I've decided to relinquish control and to trust that by the grace of God, we will have a beautiful 2014.  That's really all I can do.  I can't be the perfect wife, mother, musician, church committee leader, lawyer, kindergarten teacher, and friend.  But I trust that God will allow me to fulfill my roles as best I can in such a matter as to be sufficient for the situation.  If there's one thing I've learned over the past couple of decades, it's that my resolutions are pretty meaningless.  I can rarely fulfill what I want to fulfill on my own.  But I can accomplish what God wants me to accomplish if I let Him take control. 

And with that, I would like to wish you all a bright New Year!