Tears Happen

I really didn't think it could happen to me.  I've read that it happens to other moms.  I've heard rumors that it happens frequently when you homeschool. I really didn't think that I would actually break down and cry--especially in a public place.  But I did.

I think some days and weeks just make you cry.  It's easy to get overwhelmed.  You try to follow curriculum and realize that your child is on a different week's lesson (or year) for each subject.  It gets confusing. Then you realize that the assigned reading book is really boring.  Then you skip reading for a couple of days.  And then you start brainstorming who else is going to spend hours of their day listening to your kindergartner grader read these boring "classic" books. Seriously, I was thinking about taking my son to the retirement home by our house so that the older people could listen to him read! 

Then on Sunday during the sermon it occurred to me that I must be a horrible mom, a terrible teacher, and a lazy person.  The last few weeks I've felt that I live in a combat zone.  I might as well be throwing a mortar shell when I ask my son to complete his phonics pages.  The day that I had the audacity to request that my pupil take an afternoon nap, he literally started launching projectiles down the stairs.  I'm not kidding when I say that school has been nothing short of war.  So when the pastor starting preaching on Sunday about how a godly woman is a peaceful woman, I started to cry.  Is it possible to homeschool in peace?

After my sobbing episode on Sunday, someone offered to substitute for me on Monday.  This gave me time to reflect on my predicament and my lesson plans.  A wise person pointed out that my lesson plans have been pretty demanding for a kindergartner.  Since I'm not regularly around other kindergartners, it's easy to lose sight of how easy and breezy kindergarten can be!  Most kindergartners are not studying the Assyrian empire, fractions, and binomial nomenclature.  Yet, the fact that my son understands these concepts and can quote all of his weekly memory verses is a pretty good sign that I'm not failing as a teacher.  I just need to learn how to relax and enjoy the process and maybe not be quite so ambitious.

I obviously haven't gotten this whole homeschooling thing entirely figured out.  Truth is, with three kids who have three very different personalities, I may never figure out the magic formula for perfectly balancing my mommy and teacher roles.  In fact, there may be more tears in the future.   And it's okay. I just keep telling myself that sometimes God allows us to cry for tears to clear our eyes so that we can see the good things ahead (author unknown).

Teaching Music

Learning music is like learning a foreign language.  It stretches you.  It takes time.  You may never use it professionally later in life.  But it's worth the effort to not be illiterate in an international language that crosses cultures, continents, and classes.  It's worth opening your heart and mind to an art form that requires high levels of brain function and emotion at the same time.  Martin Luther (the theologian) once said, "Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world."  So why not share that treasure with our children?

The concept of teaching basic music is not new.  In fact, way back when I was in elementary school, basic music instruction was a part of the curriculum.  Every week, my class would head to the music hall where we would have a class in basic music theory.  Then, by the time we were in 3rd or 4th grade, we knew enough music to be able to play the recorder (this is an instrument).  It may have seemed like a waste of time to some, but having this hour of music each week made school more interesting and taught me musical concepts that I still use today.  If you don't get music instruction at school, where else are you going to get it?

Needless to say, our kindergarten curriculum involves learning music.  We decided to start music instruction with piano lessons.  Boy Wonder is a little young for piano lessons (when I taught piano lessons, I preferred having my students start in 1st or 2nd grade), but since he has a good grasp on math, I figured we might as well forge ahead into the world of music.  As expected, after only a few weeks, we're at the point where we can combine music with our math or spelling curriculum and create a hybrid lesson.

The best part about hybrid lessons is that it's not difficult to come up with these kind of problems if you know any musical theory.  If you don't know musical theory or are too busy to create your own worksheets like me, there are some great resources on the internet.  For example, I found this wonderful website, http://funandlearnmusic.com/ that has free downloadable music math pages which are way cuter than any I would create on my own.  This website has quite a few worksheets that address both basic and more advanced theory concepts in a fun way. 

Hybrid lessons work for just about every subject in school.  Music Math is kind of awesome. It forces the student to learn and memorize music concepts while allowing them to practice their math skills.
Similarly, Music Spelling with the A-G alphabet reinforces basic spelling with note recognition.  For kiddos who struggle to identify the lines and spaces on the grand staff, Music Spelling can help. Aside from musical theory, there are tons of opportunities to use music in our Bible, Social Studies, History and Science lessons as well.  In fact, I will never forget my pronouns or helping verbs because my middle school English teacher used music to help us memorize all kinds of concepts!  Who knew that music could be so educational?!

Music might be the best tool that I've got in my homeschool mommy shed.  It's a language that I know well and understand. It's a subject that lends itself to any situation or setting.  It's an avenue to praise our Heavenly Father.  And hopefully my children will come to discover that music is a friend for life.

The Spelling Test

It finally happened.  I went from being the cool mom to suddenly being the Wicked Witch of the West.  All because of a spelling test.  Apparently, only mean mommies expect perfection in spelling.

Since Boy Wonder isn't going off to a classroom where he is graded and ranked among his peers, it's been a little challenging to explain the concept of grades.  Other than the fact that he likes getting ice cream when he produces perfect math homework, he doesn't seem to understand the importance of not getting anything wrong.  Hence, it's been a challenge to get him to memorize his spelling words. 

I discovered that Boy Wonder enjoys "guessing" on his spelling tests, but it completely defeats the purpose of spelling if he's not going to learn the words.  As a problem-solving, game-loving person myself, I can understand why he enjoys the "guessing tests", but they are completely wasting our time.  They worked when we were spelling easy words with short vowel sounds, but they don't work anymore. I know he can memorize, because he memorizes his Bible verses every week in 1 or 2 days!  He just has no desire to memorize a list of words.

So I got creative.  I tried to incentivize him by telling him that we can stop the spelling tests as soon as he spells all of the words correctly (like when my teachers said that those who aced the Wednesday tests didn't have to take the Friday test), but he wasn't buying this tactic.  Thus, last week there were tears, heated mother-son conversations, and frustration on both sides.

Then Daddy stepped in.  Daddy explained to Boy Wonder that spelling is important.  He explained that just about every good job requires employees to be able to spell.  And there are expectations that employees will spell correctly.  He also explained that misspelling words in the documents that he drafts for clients could, and probably would, get him fired.  Daddy very cleverly demonstrated to Boy Wonder that we must all spell with perfection if we want to be successful in life. 

Voila! The next morning, Boy Wonder aced the test.  No problems. Not only did he ace the test, but he was able to spell similar words that followed the same phonetic rules.  And when retested later, he still spelled all the words correctly.

Grades don't have the same magical, motivating factor for homeschoolers that they do for many in the classroom setting.  Motivating a homeschooler to learn is different from engaging an entire classroom or creating a competitive atmosphere.  Thankfully, Mr. Wonderful is an amazing motivational speaker.  Plus, he's a daddy (and everyone who could care less about making mom happy always wants to please daddy, right?).  I can never underestimate the power of having Daddy involved in the homeschool process.  It's a secret weapon that most school teachers don't have.  It's the secret weapon that I discovered, all because of a lousy spelling test!