Homeschooling Lessons Every Parent Neds to Learn

Perhaps some of you home-educators will find this helpful,

or at least familiar.

Hopefully I'm not the only one who has had a crumby HORRIBLE day with the children!

Having homeschooled for ten years now,

I feel like I have a good grip on what works, what does NOT,

and what it takes to keep everything spinning as it should.

However,

there are bad days.

Sometimes, REALLY BAD days.

Enter, Thursday.

My schedule for that day was such that I would do some bulk baking

early in the morning for orders I had to fill, then start school around 9:00.

But since Lucy saw me puttering in the kitchen, she asked if she could PLEASE

do her schoolwork while I worked.

Now, that sure sounds like a very warm and fuzzy scenario, it does.

But the red flags were flying wildly in my brain, knowing it would NOT be

warm and fuzzy in the least.

And it was not.

Long story short, Lucy needed my help, which I couldn't give her at THAT moment,

and the little honey-bunny refused (REFUSED) to work on anything else that she didn't need

my help with.

And then the drama began.

THE. DRAMA. BEGAN.

Cast of characters,  Lucy and me.

Suffice it to say that I felt all my 20+ years of parenting wisdom being

literally sucked out of my brain, as I stood in disbelief watching this little very human-being 

fall completely apart.

And then, it was my turn.

To fall apart.

No, not an anger-filled rant, coupled with a screaming lecture.

I just cried.

She was crying (SCREAMING, actually), and I was crying.

I tried to explain to her WHY I was so busy baking...and that we WOULD sit

together and do school work LATER.  

(It was only about 8:00 in the morning, for goodness sake!)

She didn't budge.  She was totally out of control mad.

And I felt completely defeated.

And I was.

I let this little person dictate to ME how our morning would go.

And I knew better.

Poor Isaiah, such a little man!

He apologized to me.

Though he owed me no apology, of course.

Little Peace-Maker.

Lucy and I later had a long talk about it all, when we were calmer.

My point is, as homeschoolers (or even non-homeschoolers!), we are ALL going to have rotten days.

But so much can be avoided if the big person stays in charge!

And that's the simple lesson I learned this week.

Clearly I'm a slow learner!

Below is a really great article that I encourage you to read.

So helpful!

Cider, Cats, and a New Job

Here's what I did on Friday

(pay close attention to the end):

The little kiddos and I got up early and headed out for a field trip!

First we went to the cider mill.

Here are Lu & Saiah watching the "old lady", as Isaiah called her, making cider donuts

at the apple cider mill.

Not picture, for obvious reasons, the old lady.

Though let me assure you, she only had about twenty years on me.

I in no way consider that old.  I'm sure you'll agree.

Isaiah got his mouth washed out with soap once we got home, don't you worry.

(Kidding!) 

Cider donuts.

Sooooooo yummy!

And THIS was the biggest deal of it all, to ME.

A big giant pile of apples being washed and prepped to be made into cider.

The delicious smell in the air was intoxicating!!

But what did my little kids think of this?

Yeah, so what?  Apples.  Lots of apples.  Who cares.

Gahhh!

Moving on.

Then...... just ten minutes down the road from this locally famous cider mill,

a cat conservatory!

Lucy and Isaiah have been reeling with excitement over this for a week.

SO happy and stoked for this day to finally come!

Lions and tigers and....well, no bears.

Just cats.

(Well, and two wolves.)

And this pretty much sums up what the kids REALLY thought of it all, in the end:

(Please do notice the lion and lioness in the background!)

Yes.  As we were finally leaving, Lucy told me she was disappointed because

she didn't get to play with any kitty cats, which was what she was

really looking forward to.

(I need not tell you how many kittens we have birthed right here

on the homestead for the kids to witness.)

Really?

Needless to say, I will take great care to fully explain

future field trips so that expectations are realistic.

******

Then.....THEN!

To top the whole entire day off, I started a new job.

I STARTED A NEW JOB!

Yes, I am now employed, part-time, as needed. 

I wish I could explain to you fully what I'm doing, 

I'll just tell you this.

I am a working as a server at a very unique eating establishment.

(NO, it's not Hooter's.  Not that I would even qualify!)

Haha!

Anyway, all I can tell you is, I have never worked so dang hard in all my life.

Good heavens.

From mid-afternoon until pretty near midnight,

I WORKED MY TAIL OFF.

It was fun, exhausting, and CRAZY.

I literally laughed out loud at myself as I was balancing trays of food and beverages,

wondering how in the world I got myself into this mess!

Oh, goodness.

All my customers were so darn sweet.

And one little old couple even told me I should be a stand-up comedian.

I thanked them for noticing that.

Anyway, we'll see if this OLD LADY can keep up.

(It is questionable at this point.)

Because I KNOW I'll have a gob of good stories for you if I can!

Have a super great weekend!!!

homeschool {ten years later!}

I haven't done a homeschool post in a good long time.

But I did a quick calculation in my brain today,

and as it turns out, I have just entered my TENTH year of homeschooling.

One decade.

What, what?!!

That's just crazy.

Mostly because I still feel like such an amateur.  

But YET, when I take a good look at the entire picture,

I think I've got a good grasp on this thing.

1.  I am militant.

I don't take any excuses for laziness.

And I expect and enforce HARD WORK.

2.  I can contort any math, spelling, or language arts lesson into a life lesson.

AND make it a stand-up comic act, if necessary.

Oh, yes I can.

3.  I can coerce and convince any child that he/she is amazing and that

doing extra work will turn them into a super hero.

(Or something like that.)

4.  I can come up with the most amazing motives and rewards that would make

even Donald Trump feel like a million bucks.

You know what?  I'll stop there.

Because if I go on, I'll be flat on my FACE tomorrow.

And believe me, I'm there OFTEN.  

Here's the thing about homeschooling.

You can be on Cloud #9 one minute, and the very NEXT minute,

plotting how you'll throw your kids onto the next yellow bus that passes your driveway.

I'm there, as I said, OFTEN.

The key to it ALL is, reminding yourself FREQUENTLY, why you're doing this.

As for us, TODAY, it just happened to be a VERY GOOD DAY.

Like, these kids were ROCK STARS.

They worked HARD, FOCUSED, and GOT. IT. ALL.

And in the end, I said to them,

"Hey, guys...how do your hearts feel right now?  You worked super hard,

you paid attention and you got your work done.  Doesn't that make your hearts feel HAPPY?"

They said, YES.

They got it.

Another LIFE lesson learned!

And then I pulled out all the stops and implemented a game I saw on Pinterest.

They thought it was THE coolest thing since Pacman.

Or something like that. 

Taking paper towel thingys (or as we call them here, hoo-hoo's),

or as I improvised in this situation, toilet paper hoo-hoo's,

and blow cotton balls across the kitchen table into a cup secured 

onto the other side of the table.

It was SO fun!

 They did this for HOURS!  No kidding.

And I'm going to let YOU in on a little secret.

These kids were ALL OVER that table.  Feet, butts, arms, legs, the whole thing.

And I completely, COMPLETELY, forgot all about it and just set the table

for dinner, as if nothing had happened.  

It's our little secret, okay?

It's all about immunity, right?

We're building strong immune systems here.

That's it.

And in keeping with the cotton ball theme,

I do a little incentive program.

For every good day the kiddos have...(and other favorable behaviors),

I give them a cotton ball in their assigned jars.

Once their jars are filled up, they get a prize.

Of some sort!

I have no idea what yet!

Hahaha!

No really, I'll reward them, I will.

They will deserve it, if they ever get their jars filled.

And at the pace they're going, they'll be filled in in NO TIME.

In conclusion:

I am super thankful for our freedom to homeschool!

I pray that that freedom is PRESERVED.

And I am super thankful for these little humans who keep me going,

and who keep learning and learning.

AND LEARNING!

They are so smart, I can't even believe it.

And tomorrow will probably be a completely opposite day than today.

I'm braced for it, man!

how to deal with stress {according to lucy}

Lucy came home from her homeschool group last week with this:

And then she posted it on my calk board.

MY chalk board!

What the heck?  

Does she think I'm stressed-out or something?

I have no idea where she got that idea.

This isn't stress, it's called, EVERYDAY LIFE.

Okay, fine.

Maybe I'll work on a few points on her list.

:)

things i did today

Here's what I've done so far today:

1.  Kicked off our 2013-14 homeschool year!

2.  Made two loaves of French bread.

3.  Made a blackberry pie.

4.  Made a fabulous BBQ chicken pizza for the lunch.

5.  Milled some grain.

6.  Enjoyed the rain, for the 147th day in a row.

7.  Changed the sheets on my bed.

8.  Found a rabbit head in my garage.

9.  Caught my oven on fire.

10.  Finally wrote a blog post.

Not that I should really need to explain, but just in case you are new here,

I live in the country, and the rabbit head was a gift from my dog.

He consumed the rest for himself.

Oh, it's just so symbolic of my entire life.

And thank goodness for my second oven in the garage, otherwise I never could

have done #2 & 3 after the unfortunate incident with #4.

(But the pizza was saved, and boy was it delicious!)

(The oven on the other hand...I'm not sure about.)

As far as #1 goes, I will tell you this.

These two little kiddos of mine are all-in.

But I will also say this.

Isaiah has the attention span of a Kansas fence post.

So it's my crafty job to cram in as much as I possibly can in a

very short amount of time.

And believe me you, this kid is LEARNING.

And he's super smart.

And I'm very proud of him.

And it's times like this that I'm very happy to be homeschooling

because I have no doubt that if he was in a classroom

all stinking day long, he would never make it.

And they would slap some sort of label on him and recommend 

some sort of horrific medication.

So I'm just super thankful for homeschooling.

Here are some pictures o' the day:

This is my summer uniform.  T-shirt, stretchy sorts, WITH pockets, so I can
carry my phone and timer with me.

Because I almost always have something in the oven.
And I need my timer...because I WILL forget whatever is baking if I don't have a reminder.

French bread.
Gah!  So delicious.

It is my greatest desire to *someday* make a pretty pie.
Some day!!!

I hope your day has been every bit as adventurous and productive as mine!

the symphony!

We had such a fun Valentine's Day!

We went to see Peter and the Wolf put on by

 the Kansas City symphony.

Here are my two little rascals just before we left the house.

Seriously, isn't Lucy stunning?

And Isaiah, the cutest little guy ever?

Here we are at the Kauffman Center,

waiting to be seated.

It is SUCH a gorgeous building!

This is my good friend Mary's daughter, Allie.

And Lucy!

Look at my charming little man!

He can never seem to wear his boots without at least one of

his pant legs being half way tucked in.

I love that.

Some woman is going to have a lot to undo someday,

because his mother let these things go uncorrected.

Heeheehee.

Again, the gorgeous Lucy.

And the spectacular Kauffman Center!

Look how excited Isaiah was before the performance started!

Exactly one hour after this photo, 

he was writhing in his seat from painful boredom.

Here is the orchestra!

It was truly fabulous.

I am so amazed at such talent!

Here is my dear friend Dawn and half of her crew.

Here is my friend Mary and a third of her crew.

And here I am with a third of my crew.

(All three of us have six children each, how cool is that?! We are such fertile ladies.)

As you can see in the pic above, Isaiah was still in shock from this cultural experience.

And he even said to me on the way home,

"I would have rather stayed home and done schoolwork all day long!"

Again, some lucky lady will thank me for this little man some day.

homeschoolers extraordinaire!

Remember back to our first day of homeschool this year?

From that very day forward, my goal was simply, to make PROGRESS

with my little dude.

And I gotta tell ya, progress we have made!!!

He is actually starting to READ now.

Hot-diggity!

I am successfully teaching yet another human being to READ!!

Progress, indeed!

And not only that,

here's a pictorial of our day today.

Just an average day here at our homestead homeschool.

So sad that my little homeschoolers are so sheltered and boxed into
a classroom without any real-life experience.


Homeschoolers extraordinaire!

homeschool

Hello, friendly friends!

Getting back into the swing of homeschooling-things since Christmas

has been a struggle.

We nearly fell to pieces last week.

There was crying.

Weeping.

Whining and thrashing-about.

And the kids were out of sorts, too.

But this week I put on my strict-old-schoolmarm hat and

got serious.

We mixed up the routine a bit and it worked fairly well.

And after feeling convinced a week ago that I would send these darlings

off to boarding school next year,

I do think we may stick this homeschooling thing out for another year.

Hooray!!

But we'll see.

So now I'm in the mood to start planning and figuring out

what curriculum (or hodge-podge thereof) we'll use.

And I'd love YOUR help!

Well, those of you with proven expertise, that is.

Right now we're having great success with A Beka.

That's probably what I'll use for Isaiah, since I already own a lot of

what I need for him.

But for Lucy, I'm thinking of throwing in something different,

at least for a subject or two.

She's a worksheet-kind-of-girl...but I think something on the computer,

or completely outside the box (whatever that would be),

might be fun for her.

She'll be in third grade.

Tell me your thoughts!

math noodles

Statement #457 that only a homeschooling mom would ever say:

"Stop eating your math noodles."

TGIF, people.

what a day!

Yesterday was one crazy day.

Along with my bee fiasco, here's what else happened:

It was Brenden's final day of his fall break, 

so he helped me home school the little children.

Take a look.

My math-major college son,

helping my rascally kindergartener with...math.

And the look in B's face genuinely speaks volumes.

And then he helped Lucy with a word problem.

It left both of us dumbfounded.

We never did figure it out.

Darn that 2nd grade math!

And then later,

Brenden headed back to school.

Lucy has a hard time with that.

And so do I.

But THEN!

We celebrated Macy's 17th birthday!!!

Wow, what a day!