I'm feeling rather accomplished at the moment. I've kept up the discipline and made the Pillowfight Fairy do her schoolwork when she would rather be playing. We have now completed nine weeks, which in a 36 week school year equals one fourth. She is learning. She is making progress. For one thing, she is getting more comfortable with writing longer sentences. She is also getting more comfortable about risking misspellings if the word she wants to use is long and/or complicated. I see this as definite progress for a little perfectionist. She has developed the habit of checking the spelling in a book where she knows the word is used, to help her when she is uncertain (that was her own idea).
In literature, we have read many Aesop's Fables, Some Egyptian Myths, a tamed down and shortened version of the Epic of Gilgamesh as well as a pretty good section of the book of Genesis. She has worked through nine lessons of basic spelling words successfully. She has memorized two poems. We have covered the differences in common nouns and proper nouns. I had intended to get her to write letters once a week. But, I have discovered that she has more writing assignments than I had originally realized and so we haven't done that yet.
In math, she has covered the basics of single digit addition and subtraction, measuring, telling time, money and fractions. We are still practicing those. She has just recently started double digit addition (without carrying) and adding a list of three numbers.
In history, we have covered early nomads, Ancient Egypt, Sumer, Akkadia, Babylon, and the Assyrians. My husband reminds me to say that this is not an exhaustive study. We have touched on these areas of history to give her a familiarity with it. First graders do not study history in exhaustive detail. This is an introduction to help her start to put the pieces together for future understanding. In my parents' last visit, my Dad was surprised to hear that we were teaching her history already. I realize that first graders don't usually get a lot of history. Usually it is social studies more along the lines of family relationships, neighborhood "helpers" and major holidays. In the classical method we are using, the framework is history. First graders start to learn about the world from early times to the present. Seeing as she is already getting the other "social studies" in our everyday life, I don't see this as a problem. My hope is that it will help her develop a bigger perspective.
In science, We are still covering the animal kingdom. Twice a week we do reading on a different group of animals. Then she has to tell me something she has learned and write it down.
In the fine arts, she is studying art and piano. Once a week she has a lesson regarding art technique. Once a week she studies an historical piece of art. The rest of the week we have fun art (sometimes connected to a lesson, sometimes not). For piano, her Daddy is giving her lessons from a piano instruction book. She is still in the "I don't want to practice" stage, but she is making progress even so. We'll see how she feels about it as she gets better.
I mentioned her religion instruction in the literature section, since it has mostly been reading through the Bible. I keep the readings very short. We have only skipped a few things that I thought were too complicated to explain to a first grader. We are currently in the story of Joseph. She also gets classes at church on Sunday mornings, and Wednesday nights.
For exercise we walk about 1.2 miles every day.
So, what are my impressions of my first year of full homeschooling so far? Well, it's a lot of work. The lessons are not difficult and she learns very fast so I'm not having to work hard at teaching. The work is actually to keep myself disciplined so that lessons don't slide, to keep her focused when she doesn't want to do her work (which is most of the time), and to keep on top of the paperwork and check her progress (so mistakes get caught and corrected). There is also, filing away the work she has done and preparing for the next day. I find that I have to know what I'm covering for a day's schoolwork the night before, otherwise there are too many distractions to keep it all straight. Despite some of the daily frustrations, I think this is working out.
Another thing that I'm proud of is that I started doing phonics work with the Adrenaline Junkie this past week. Just a few minutes a day is all we do. She is enjoying it and doing well. She is getting better at sounding out words and even wanted to play the sounding out words game this evening before bed.
The Happy Boy is still a little frustrated that Mommy can't always give him attention when he wants it, but I console him with books and puzzles in my available times. He is getting pretty good with his letters and numbers. Now if we could only get him to say more words.
If we stay on schedule, we will finish 36 weeks in late April. I do have more planned for the year, but the rest is more along the lines of filler to keep her in practice and not forgetting what she learned. Of course we haven't been hit with the winter sicknesses. That will throw things off. But, with one quarter done, the rest of the year looks possible. That's a good thing. If you have visited my husband's site recently, you may have seen that baby number four will be coming sometime in May. I hope we can get most if not all of the year's essential work done by then. After all, I'll need some of the time after the baby comes to plan next school year for not just one but two kids.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
A Well Deserved Rest
As of last week we finished our first six weeks of school. We have kept on schedule and didn't have any missed days (excepting the important holiday of Mommy's birthday). The Pillowfight Fairy has been making steady progress, so to celebrate we are taking a vacation week this week.
Her writing is improving. I have determined that she has neater writing on the smaller lined paper (1/2 in size) rather than the big stuff (1 inch?) used for young learners. She has done well enough with the written narration pages that I've upped her from one sentence to two sentences on topic. If she finds the reading interesting, she is usually wanting to compose the sentences herself. If she isn't interrested enough to compose, Mommy comes up with them and she gets dictation practice. She also has shown me that she does better verbal narrations when she has done the actual reading herself instead of listening to me read it. (I understand that some people do better the other way around, go figure.)
She is right on schedule with her math work. Which reminds me that both with her math work and her spelling work, she now has tests. Every ten lessons in math (once every two weeks by our schedule) and twice a week in spelling, she has tests. She is having to learn to follow the instructions exactly without reminders and do her work without Mommy checking it until she is done. That is a bit challenging since she likes to do things her way and prefers immediate feedback, but even so she has done excellent work.
The new subjects this year are History, Science, and Bible. She seems to have mixed feelings about history. She gives the impression that she isn't interested most of the time, but later on she will say or do something that tells me that she did pick up some of it. I keep reminding myself that she is a first grader. The object is to introduce these facts and ideas to her now so that they can be built upon later. I suspect that she actually has very good retention for a not quite six year old.
In science, we have been learning about animals by reading through an animal encyclopedia and any science books I can find from the local library. One book series that her Daddy and I find annoying, but she enjoys immensely is the Magic School Bus. So far we have checked out one that talks about bees and one that talks about Ocean life. She rereads them several times a day when she has them and can tell you all you want to know about bees. The one covering ocean life impressed her more with the plot line of the story than all the animals it talked about, but she can still talk about many of the animals listed. So now every time I go back to the library, I check to see if they have a magic school bus book on a topic we are covering.
In her Bible studies we are reading through the Bible starting at the beginning. I've tried to keep the readings small, so that it would be simpler to do narrations. I haven't left much out. I was concerned about how much to read in some of the stories since the Bible doesn't hold back on some of the nasty stuff people do. Also, as my husband has pointed out in his blog, the version we are using is at a third grade reading level making the text understandable at a third grade reading level. I finally decided to use a simple rule of thumb. If I can't explain something to her with a simple, quick explanation, it is probably better to leave that story (or part of the story) for another reading when she is a little older. As a result, she is reading about all sorts of villainy that is easy to explain. I've only held back on just a few stories because they dealt with more complicated villainy than usual. Still, I've noticed that you can't leave too much out because those stories are referred to later on. The biggest gap so far has been a few paragraphs in the Sodom and Gommorah story and the story of Lot's daughters after they all fled to the hills. It is still an exciting read even so. She liked the story enough to illustrated a picture of it along with her usual narration page.
We do have a pretty full schedule, but she can usual finish most of her work by lunchtime if she stays on focus. My biggest challenge is to juggle keeping The Pillowfight Fairy going with schoolwork (sometimes with me, sometimes on her own) while keeping the Adrenaline Junkie and the Happy Boy going with appropriate activity. Some days that works just fine and some days the house is a disaster area at the end of "school-time." There are usually a few times when I can read to the other two or play with them. They can also play on their own at times. But, I need to find a way to get a consistent time with the Adrenaline Junkie so I can start working on her reading skills. She is right at the prime time for learning to read. She is interested. She knows her letters and the sounds they make. She can even write most of her letters. She has learned how to sound out simple three letter words that don't have anything tricky about them. With practice and a little teaching, she will be well on her way to reading. But I need to find some time every school day to spend time with her doing it.
The Happy Boy is sort of in his own category right now. He wants Mommy's attention. He wants Mommy to read any book he wants repeatedly ad infinitum. If left to himself he would climb into off-limit places and cause havoc. He is also in the midst of teething his last four molars and eats everything. Tim wants to change his pseudonym to the Omnivore. I'm holding off, because I think he'll grow out of it. He is now eighteen months old and seems to be entering the terrible twos a little early (all of ours hit it about this stage). He gives the biggest tantrums of our three kids. I think that part of it is fed by frustration. He hasn't learned to say very much yet. He laughs for "yes" and he shakes his head for "no." He is making sounds like he is attempting to say things and gets close enough for me to recognize it in context. But, no one would call what he says understandable talking. Added to it all, his wishes are getting more complicated than he is able to communicate. This causes frustration and big tantrums. Ironically, he has fallen in love with our videos that teach the Junkie reading skills. He knows his letters and their sounds already. He is acting like he would like to learn to read before he has finished learning to talk. So, I keep trying to encourage him to try to say simple useful words. He's made some progress, but the same sound can mean half a dozen things. Some day I'm sure the switch in his brain will flip and he'll start talking in full sentences. In the meantime it is frustrating for all of us.
After writing that, I realize that I will probably get people saying "don't worry about it, lots of kids don't talk until two or after." Yeah, I know that already. I'm not worried about it. I'm frustrated because he is hard to understand and he's frustrated because Mommy isn't reading his mind. You see, I never had a kid this age and this stage not talking yet. Both of his sisters were earlier talkers than this. The oldest was saying perfectly pronounced words at ten months. The second was starting to say her first words around one year (less understandably). So, this is a new experience for me. It is unusual to me to have an eighteen month old who can't verbally tell me what song he wants or which book he wants or what food he wants, but who has all the same preference levels that his sisters had.
So, this is our vacation week. I've decided on a break roughly every six weeks. That seems long enough to make progress, but not so long that we get burned out. So what do we do for our vacation break. We play more, we read for fun, watch an extra video a day, we play our video games. The Pillowfight Fairy still has piano practice. We still go for our morning walk. But the schedule is just a lot more flexible for doing fun things. When I told the Fairy that we were taking a week off from school work she said "I don't want a vacation!" (this from the child who complained nearly every day that she didn't want school work). So, whether the Fairy wants it or not, Mommy gets the vacation. Would you believe that on the first day of our vacation all three kids were showing signs of a variety of mystery illnesses (one cold, one fever, two with intestinal issues). So much for the vacation. At least the illnesses are currently mild, so we can still have some fun. maybe the worst will be over by next week and we can pick back up with work again.
Her writing is improving. I have determined that she has neater writing on the smaller lined paper (1/2 in size) rather than the big stuff (1 inch?) used for young learners. She has done well enough with the written narration pages that I've upped her from one sentence to two sentences on topic. If she finds the reading interesting, she is usually wanting to compose the sentences herself. If she isn't interrested enough to compose, Mommy comes up with them and she gets dictation practice. She also has shown me that she does better verbal narrations when she has done the actual reading herself instead of listening to me read it. (I understand that some people do better the other way around, go figure.)
She is right on schedule with her math work. Which reminds me that both with her math work and her spelling work, she now has tests. Every ten lessons in math (once every two weeks by our schedule) and twice a week in spelling, she has tests. She is having to learn to follow the instructions exactly without reminders and do her work without Mommy checking it until she is done. That is a bit challenging since she likes to do things her way and prefers immediate feedback, but even so she has done excellent work.
The new subjects this year are History, Science, and Bible. She seems to have mixed feelings about history. She gives the impression that she isn't interested most of the time, but later on she will say or do something that tells me that she did pick up some of it. I keep reminding myself that she is a first grader. The object is to introduce these facts and ideas to her now so that they can be built upon later. I suspect that she actually has very good retention for a not quite six year old.
In science, we have been learning about animals by reading through an animal encyclopedia and any science books I can find from the local library. One book series that her Daddy and I find annoying, but she enjoys immensely is the Magic School Bus. So far we have checked out one that talks about bees and one that talks about Ocean life. She rereads them several times a day when she has them and can tell you all you want to know about bees. The one covering ocean life impressed her more with the plot line of the story than all the animals it talked about, but she can still talk about many of the animals listed. So now every time I go back to the library, I check to see if they have a magic school bus book on a topic we are covering.
In her Bible studies we are reading through the Bible starting at the beginning. I've tried to keep the readings small, so that it would be simpler to do narrations. I haven't left much out. I was concerned about how much to read in some of the stories since the Bible doesn't hold back on some of the nasty stuff people do. Also, as my husband has pointed out in his blog, the version we are using is at a third grade reading level making the text understandable at a third grade reading level. I finally decided to use a simple rule of thumb. If I can't explain something to her with a simple, quick explanation, it is probably better to leave that story (or part of the story) for another reading when she is a little older. As a result, she is reading about all sorts of villainy that is easy to explain. I've only held back on just a few stories because they dealt with more complicated villainy than usual. Still, I've noticed that you can't leave too much out because those stories are referred to later on. The biggest gap so far has been a few paragraphs in the Sodom and Gommorah story and the story of Lot's daughters after they all fled to the hills. It is still an exciting read even so. She liked the story enough to illustrated a picture of it along with her usual narration page.
We do have a pretty full schedule, but she can usual finish most of her work by lunchtime if she stays on focus. My biggest challenge is to juggle keeping The Pillowfight Fairy going with schoolwork (sometimes with me, sometimes on her own) while keeping the Adrenaline Junkie and the Happy Boy going with appropriate activity. Some days that works just fine and some days the house is a disaster area at the end of "school-time." There are usually a few times when I can read to the other two or play with them. They can also play on their own at times. But, I need to find a way to get a consistent time with the Adrenaline Junkie so I can start working on her reading skills. She is right at the prime time for learning to read. She is interested. She knows her letters and the sounds they make. She can even write most of her letters. She has learned how to sound out simple three letter words that don't have anything tricky about them. With practice and a little teaching, she will be well on her way to reading. But I need to find some time every school day to spend time with her doing it.
The Happy Boy is sort of in his own category right now. He wants Mommy's attention. He wants Mommy to read any book he wants repeatedly ad infinitum. If left to himself he would climb into off-limit places and cause havoc. He is also in the midst of teething his last four molars and eats everything. Tim wants to change his pseudonym to the Omnivore. I'm holding off, because I think he'll grow out of it. He is now eighteen months old and seems to be entering the terrible twos a little early (all of ours hit it about this stage). He gives the biggest tantrums of our three kids. I think that part of it is fed by frustration. He hasn't learned to say very much yet. He laughs for "yes" and he shakes his head for "no." He is making sounds like he is attempting to say things and gets close enough for me to recognize it in context. But, no one would call what he says understandable talking. Added to it all, his wishes are getting more complicated than he is able to communicate. This causes frustration and big tantrums. Ironically, he has fallen in love with our videos that teach the Junkie reading skills. He knows his letters and their sounds already. He is acting like he would like to learn to read before he has finished learning to talk. So, I keep trying to encourage him to try to say simple useful words. He's made some progress, but the same sound can mean half a dozen things. Some day I'm sure the switch in his brain will flip and he'll start talking in full sentences. In the meantime it is frustrating for all of us.
After writing that, I realize that I will probably get people saying "don't worry about it, lots of kids don't talk until two or after." Yeah, I know that already. I'm not worried about it. I'm frustrated because he is hard to understand and he's frustrated because Mommy isn't reading his mind. You see, I never had a kid this age and this stage not talking yet. Both of his sisters were earlier talkers than this. The oldest was saying perfectly pronounced words at ten months. The second was starting to say her first words around one year (less understandably). So, this is a new experience for me. It is unusual to me to have an eighteen month old who can't verbally tell me what song he wants or which book he wants or what food he wants, but who has all the same preference levels that his sisters had.
So, this is our vacation week. I've decided on a break roughly every six weeks. That seems long enough to make progress, but not so long that we get burned out. So what do we do for our vacation break. We play more, we read for fun, watch an extra video a day, we play our video games. The Pillowfight Fairy still has piano practice. We still go for our morning walk. But the schedule is just a lot more flexible for doing fun things. When I told the Fairy that we were taking a week off from school work she said "I don't want a vacation!" (this from the child who complained nearly every day that she didn't want school work). So, whether the Fairy wants it or not, Mommy gets the vacation. Would you believe that on the first day of our vacation all three kids were showing signs of a variety of mystery illnesses (one cold, one fever, two with intestinal issues). So much for the vacation. At least the illnesses are currently mild, so we can still have some fun. maybe the worst will be over by next week and we can pick back up with work again.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Thoughts on Teaching the Bible
After my husband published a post about the dilemma of reading all of the Bible to a five year old during our homeschooling lessons, he received a few comments back that definitely show different people's approaches. I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I definitely have some opinions about teaching the Bible. Before I start spouting off on one or more of my soap box issues, it would probably be good to give a little background. That way you might be able to see a little bit of where I'm coming from.
I have a fairly conservative Christian upbringing. My parents raised me in the Church of Christ. One thing about the Church of Christ that many people (even some who belong to it) sometimes mistakenly overlook is that although many congregations appear to be the same, the reality is that there is no official connection to keep them all in cookie cutter unity. Each congregation is in control of its own affairs and tries to follow the Bible or get off track in its own way. The church I grew up in was a bit of a trend setter (at least during my childhood and high school years) that was usually middle of the road or slightly liberal leaning within "the brotherhood" of Churches of Christ. My parents' faith experiences also colored my religious background. My Dad grew up in the same faith background that I did. However, my Mom grew up going to any church that the most available family member with a car went to that week. She had a big extended family and they went to every church on the map. With that background, she helped bring a little perspective to what I grew up with.
When I say "conservative Christian," I know that many people will want to stop reading right there. And others, who have had bad experiences with my denomination, will want to stereotype me there. To that I can only say, if you wish to remain ignorant of another person's faith journey, so be it. Stereotypes are just that, stereotypes. They can't tell you about a specific individual. I think that it would be accurate to say that although I have encountered closed minds, faulty logic, and hypocrisy among my fellow faith travelers, I have also encountered plenty of open minds, well refined logic, and sincere faith among many of them, too. So, please give us a chance. I was raised to know the Bible. I was raised to follow God and my conscience to the best of my ability. I was encouraged to think critically and be well educated.
As a result of this background, I entered a long college career that took me to four colleges and four majors in completely different subjects. The one that applies to this post is my last one. I was a Bible and Theology major. For a variety of reasons relating to family responsibilities, work responsibilities, social life and such... I didn't finish my degree. I was about five classes away from my 2nd Bachelor's degree in Bible and Theology. I make no claims to be a famous scholar. I never even took Hebrew or Greek. But, I still think that I probably have a better religious education at the college level than your average person off the street. The education I have does impact some of my thoughts on teaching the Bible.
When we started homeschooling our daughter she was preschool. The Bible classes she got at church were fine. Then she was Kindergarten and I tried to supplement her classes by following up on the Memory verse work and asking her questions about her lesson. I could write another post solely on my opinions of church Bible classes. I did quickly determine that my daughter found the memory verse work so easy she was bored with it. And she was more interested in the crafts than the stories (unless they were "icky" stories such as those my husband mentioned in his post). In talking with the people in charge of the curriculum to know what was to come in the grades 1-6, I learned that they didn't start a systematic study through the Bible until second grade.
We didn't start homeschooling for religious reasons, but we are religious. And our faith is important enough to us that I knew that one class a week on Sunday morning was not going to be good enough for us. So I decided to add religious studies to the schedule when I was planning for this year. We are following a historical structure in our studies so, she will learn about world religions as we encounter them in history. In fact, we our learning some of what the Ancient Egyptians believed, in our current studies by reading some our their myths. But, for our own family's faith, we are reading the Bible since that is the core of our religion.
Some people think that collections of Bible stories are most appropriate for young children. I agree up to a point. I've been reading Bible stories to her from numerous books of compilations since she was interested in being read to. She knows all of those stories, but she is lacking in context. And all of those convenient compilations are paraphrases. They are not actual translations of scripture. On the plus side, they eliminate most of the scandalous violence, the breaking of sexual taboos, the grievous misdeeds of the heroes of faith, and the difficult to explain passages about God himself.
I have a strong bias toward reading primary source material. Don't slice and dice my literature, history or even religion please. There is so much to gain by listening to an author as he or she intended to be heard. So, I made the decision that if I am teaching our daughter world history and literature in first grade, then I will be reading her an actual translation of the Bible. This gives her the context for those stories she has learned. She learns the order that things happened. She learns a lot more about how God interacts with people, than the cut and paste version served up in story books.
In addition to this, she learns that there is usually more to the story than she has ever heard before. Some of that story causes me my dilemma of whether to read absolutely everything. I mean... she's only five after all. She doesn't need to hear about everything does she? So, since I make a detailed lesson plan, I started reading through the Bible trying to divide up the readings in appropriately sized chunks.
I was a little nervous about including Noah getting drunk (remembering some of the interpretations of that story that I've heard through the years), but It went OK. It helps that I went out and got a translation that aimed at a third grade reading level. Some of the more difficult phrases to explain become euphemisms. The next problematic story was the story of the visitation of the angels to Sodom and Gommorah. I haven't got to that one yet, so I can't tell you how I'll handle it yet. Either I will edit my reading to give the gist of the story (it is a major story that is revisited many times later and therefore necessary to my eyes), or I will read it straight and deal with any questions from my daughter as they arise.
Of course there are all the long genealogy passages... I'm reading them. Genealogies were important to the people of that time and you can learn the occasional tidbit from them. Then there are the long passages in Exodus where God describes in detail to Moses how to build the Tabernacle, then Moses describes in detail to the people how to build the Tabernacle, then the people build the Tabernacle and it is described in detail. Whether or not that section takes up half of the book of Exodus, it feels like it does. I'm planning on editing that down to give her the highlights and give her an idea of what Israelites were told to do in their religious practices. Then later on there are all of the Levitical laws about how to do the various sacrifices, how to do the various feasts, the day to day legal issues, cleanliness laws, etc. I will try to give her some of it, but not too much. These laws are brought up later. Every time I considered skipping something, I would be reminded how it is brought up later with the assumption that it is no longer new information. Yes, much of it is deadly dull to us. Yes, some of it is downright icky. But, I found that in small chunks, it didn't look so bad and the few sections that I had the most problem with probably should be skipped for attention span reasons. She is only five!
I do not feel guilty leaving out a few things. You see, I'm leaving most of it in. Very few things hit my don't read threshold. And those are mainly because of her age. This will not be the only time we read the Bible. As she gets older, we will read every bit of it. By the time she is in high school I expect reading the whole Bible to be at least an annual activity. We are going slower this time through. I plan to be most of the way through Numbers by the end of the school year.
Another consideration is that we are following an educational approach that encourages exploration of facts and information for the youngest kids. It is not to gain mastery at the beginning. It is to lay foundations for further study. I learned from my Master's program (Library and Information Science), that people learn things better if they have already been exposed to that information. But, the young age level is not necessarily very good at analyzing what they read. It's the older kids that wrestle more with why and wherefore. So I feel comfortable with providing a much bigger slice of the picture than most kids her age get, with the idea that the small bits I've left out, will fit better when she is old enough to handle a little bit more heavy-duty mental wrestling that some of those passages prompt.
One commenter at my husband's blog made the helpful suggestion of starting with the New Testament in our reading. I appreciate the helpfulness, truly, but the suggestion undercuts a basic premise in my teaching of the Bible. That premise is that it is almost impossible to get a full understanding of the New Testament without a firm grounding in the Old Testament. I'm sure that steps on a few toes, because I have known many people who think that the New Testament somehow overshadows the Old to the point of making it obsolescent. In my mind, reading only the New Testament is like reading the end of a story but not the beginning. Have you ever flipped channels on your T.V. and been sucked into a movie only to find out that you watched only the last 15 minutes. Yeah, you saw the climax and the way it ended, but you are completely oblivious to what put the characters in their situation to begin with. You didn't see the character development or the trials and victories that came before. And remember, the people who wrote and read the New Testament when it was new, thought of the Old Testament as their scriptures. The Old Testament was their Bible.
So...I suppose I should report on how it is going. After all, we've been doing Bible readings for the last three weeks. Well, I have found that by Genesis chapter 15, I have not had to edit anything out. My daughter likes some of the readings but not others. I can tell how much she likes it based on how eager she is to come up with a sentence for her narration page and whether she wants to illustrate the passage (this last being completely optional). Some of them are pretty bland, but some are hilarious. For instance, the story of Cain and Abel. She never mentions the fact that Cain killed Abel (the obvious point for most of us). Instead she was impressed that Cain farmed, so she wrote "Who likes crops?" and had a picture of a very happy-looking stick figure of Cain showing off a platter of vegetables. I keep all of her work in a binder to document her progress. But even without that motive, The Pillowfight Fairy's work shows a very amusing view of the Bible.
I have a fairly conservative Christian upbringing. My parents raised me in the Church of Christ. One thing about the Church of Christ that many people (even some who belong to it) sometimes mistakenly overlook is that although many congregations appear to be the same, the reality is that there is no official connection to keep them all in cookie cutter unity. Each congregation is in control of its own affairs and tries to follow the Bible or get off track in its own way. The church I grew up in was a bit of a trend setter (at least during my childhood and high school years) that was usually middle of the road or slightly liberal leaning within "the brotherhood" of Churches of Christ. My parents' faith experiences also colored my religious background. My Dad grew up in the same faith background that I did. However, my Mom grew up going to any church that the most available family member with a car went to that week. She had a big extended family and they went to every church on the map. With that background, she helped bring a little perspective to what I grew up with.
When I say "conservative Christian," I know that many people will want to stop reading right there. And others, who have had bad experiences with my denomination, will want to stereotype me there. To that I can only say, if you wish to remain ignorant of another person's faith journey, so be it. Stereotypes are just that, stereotypes. They can't tell you about a specific individual. I think that it would be accurate to say that although I have encountered closed minds, faulty logic, and hypocrisy among my fellow faith travelers, I have also encountered plenty of open minds, well refined logic, and sincere faith among many of them, too. So, please give us a chance. I was raised to know the Bible. I was raised to follow God and my conscience to the best of my ability. I was encouraged to think critically and be well educated.
As a result of this background, I entered a long college career that took me to four colleges and four majors in completely different subjects. The one that applies to this post is my last one. I was a Bible and Theology major. For a variety of reasons relating to family responsibilities, work responsibilities, social life and such... I didn't finish my degree. I was about five classes away from my 2nd Bachelor's degree in Bible and Theology. I make no claims to be a famous scholar. I never even took Hebrew or Greek. But, I still think that I probably have a better religious education at the college level than your average person off the street. The education I have does impact some of my thoughts on teaching the Bible.
When we started homeschooling our daughter she was preschool. The Bible classes she got at church were fine. Then she was Kindergarten and I tried to supplement her classes by following up on the Memory verse work and asking her questions about her lesson. I could write another post solely on my opinions of church Bible classes. I did quickly determine that my daughter found the memory verse work so easy she was bored with it. And she was more interested in the crafts than the stories (unless they were "icky" stories such as those my husband mentioned in his post). In talking with the people in charge of the curriculum to know what was to come in the grades 1-6, I learned that they didn't start a systematic study through the Bible until second grade.
We didn't start homeschooling for religious reasons, but we are religious. And our faith is important enough to us that I knew that one class a week on Sunday morning was not going to be good enough for us. So I decided to add religious studies to the schedule when I was planning for this year. We are following a historical structure in our studies so, she will learn about world religions as we encounter them in history. In fact, we our learning some of what the Ancient Egyptians believed, in our current studies by reading some our their myths. But, for our own family's faith, we are reading the Bible since that is the core of our religion.
Some people think that collections of Bible stories are most appropriate for young children. I agree up to a point. I've been reading Bible stories to her from numerous books of compilations since she was interested in being read to. She knows all of those stories, but she is lacking in context. And all of those convenient compilations are paraphrases. They are not actual translations of scripture. On the plus side, they eliminate most of the scandalous violence, the breaking of sexual taboos, the grievous misdeeds of the heroes of faith, and the difficult to explain passages about God himself.
I have a strong bias toward reading primary source material. Don't slice and dice my literature, history or even religion please. There is so much to gain by listening to an author as he or she intended to be heard. So, I made the decision that if I am teaching our daughter world history and literature in first grade, then I will be reading her an actual translation of the Bible. This gives her the context for those stories she has learned. She learns the order that things happened. She learns a lot more about how God interacts with people, than the cut and paste version served up in story books.
In addition to this, she learns that there is usually more to the story than she has ever heard before. Some of that story causes me my dilemma of whether to read absolutely everything. I mean... she's only five after all. She doesn't need to hear about everything does she? So, since I make a detailed lesson plan, I started reading through the Bible trying to divide up the readings in appropriately sized chunks.
I was a little nervous about including Noah getting drunk (remembering some of the interpretations of that story that I've heard through the years), but It went OK. It helps that I went out and got a translation that aimed at a third grade reading level. Some of the more difficult phrases to explain become euphemisms. The next problematic story was the story of the visitation of the angels to Sodom and Gommorah. I haven't got to that one yet, so I can't tell you how I'll handle it yet. Either I will edit my reading to give the gist of the story (it is a major story that is revisited many times later and therefore necessary to my eyes), or I will read it straight and deal with any questions from my daughter as they arise.
Of course there are all the long genealogy passages... I'm reading them. Genealogies were important to the people of that time and you can learn the occasional tidbit from them. Then there are the long passages in Exodus where God describes in detail to Moses how to build the Tabernacle, then Moses describes in detail to the people how to build the Tabernacle, then the people build the Tabernacle and it is described in detail. Whether or not that section takes up half of the book of Exodus, it feels like it does. I'm planning on editing that down to give her the highlights and give her an idea of what Israelites were told to do in their religious practices. Then later on there are all of the Levitical laws about how to do the various sacrifices, how to do the various feasts, the day to day legal issues, cleanliness laws, etc. I will try to give her some of it, but not too much. These laws are brought up later. Every time I considered skipping something, I would be reminded how it is brought up later with the assumption that it is no longer new information. Yes, much of it is deadly dull to us. Yes, some of it is downright icky. But, I found that in small chunks, it didn't look so bad and the few sections that I had the most problem with probably should be skipped for attention span reasons. She is only five!
I do not feel guilty leaving out a few things. You see, I'm leaving most of it in. Very few things hit my don't read threshold. And those are mainly because of her age. This will not be the only time we read the Bible. As she gets older, we will read every bit of it. By the time she is in high school I expect reading the whole Bible to be at least an annual activity. We are going slower this time through. I plan to be most of the way through Numbers by the end of the school year.
Another consideration is that we are following an educational approach that encourages exploration of facts and information for the youngest kids. It is not to gain mastery at the beginning. It is to lay foundations for further study. I learned from my Master's program (Library and Information Science), that people learn things better if they have already been exposed to that information. But, the young age level is not necessarily very good at analyzing what they read. It's the older kids that wrestle more with why and wherefore. So I feel comfortable with providing a much bigger slice of the picture than most kids her age get, with the idea that the small bits I've left out, will fit better when she is old enough to handle a little bit more heavy-duty mental wrestling that some of those passages prompt.
One commenter at my husband's blog made the helpful suggestion of starting with the New Testament in our reading. I appreciate the helpfulness, truly, but the suggestion undercuts a basic premise in my teaching of the Bible. That premise is that it is almost impossible to get a full understanding of the New Testament without a firm grounding in the Old Testament. I'm sure that steps on a few toes, because I have known many people who think that the New Testament somehow overshadows the Old to the point of making it obsolescent. In my mind, reading only the New Testament is like reading the end of a story but not the beginning. Have you ever flipped channels on your T.V. and been sucked into a movie only to find out that you watched only the last 15 minutes. Yeah, you saw the climax and the way it ended, but you are completely oblivious to what put the characters in their situation to begin with. You didn't see the character development or the trials and victories that came before. And remember, the people who wrote and read the New Testament when it was new, thought of the Old Testament as their scriptures. The Old Testament was their Bible.
So...I suppose I should report on how it is going. After all, we've been doing Bible readings for the last three weeks. Well, I have found that by Genesis chapter 15, I have not had to edit anything out. My daughter likes some of the readings but not others. I can tell how much she likes it based on how eager she is to come up with a sentence for her narration page and whether she wants to illustrate the passage (this last being completely optional). Some of them are pretty bland, but some are hilarious. For instance, the story of Cain and Abel. She never mentions the fact that Cain killed Abel (the obvious point for most of us). Instead she was impressed that Cain farmed, so she wrote "Who likes crops?" and had a picture of a very happy-looking stick figure of Cain showing off a platter of vegetables. I keep all of her work in a binder to document her progress. But even without that motive, The Pillowfight Fairy's work shows a very amusing view of the Bible.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The First Week of School
I suppose I should share how our first week of school went. It actually went very well. A while back my husband shared an overview of what we planned for this year and we got a lot of feedback saying that we were taking on too much, our daughter would be at her schoolwork too much of the day and that I would burn out in no time. After just a little over two weeks into it, I think we planned well and that the doomsayers are wrong (so far).
Our daily schedule looks something like this:
I have noticed a few things in the past week and a half that will have a bearing on the future:
First, we took a holiday for Mommy's birthday and it threw off the schedule. I noticed that other homeschoolers have mentioned that they plan by week instead of by day. My schedule was by day. The problem with this is that skipping a day in a carefully crafted week's schedule is that you either shift the whole week by one day, wrapping around to the next week, or you shift the work to other days, or you skip those lessons. While some lessons are not urgent in and of themselves, skipping lessons is not my first choice. I first thought that we would just shift the work by a day, but that was grating against my orderly personality. Besides, we have carefully planned library days that have to happen at their scheduled time. So I decided to shift the work of the extra day over the course of three days to catch up. That seems to have worked without putting an undue burden on my daughter. This will be an issue as we proceed since sickness and other needful interruptions will occur. We will just have to play it by ear. I hesitate to make my schedule less detailed, since I find it easier on me to have the preparation work finished to that level. I merely have to look ahead every two weeks to make sure we have the appropriate library books and craft supplies. Then I lay out the next day's work each evening and double check that I understand the teaching that I need to do.
Second, It will take a while for my daughter to get the hang of narration. At this point, I'm asking questions to get her thinking, but if she isn't in the mood to think, we stall pretty fast. I don't want to get in the habit of answering the questions for her. Nor do I want to reread the passages to help her learn what she missed. The point of narration is that she needs to learn to use her memory on one reading. It is a skill that takes some time to learn and she will need that time to learn it. Fortunately, I have experience that tells me that she will get it eventually. When I was a young whippersnapper (High school age or early college age), I annoyed my family by asking them questions about the Sunday morning sermon over Sunday lunch. You see most people forget the sermon almost immediately even if they liked it. At first, my family was simply annoyed that I kept pointing out to them how short their memory was for something they ought to be remembering. But, within a month we were having lively lunch conversations about the morning sermon. I'm looking forward to some lively conversations with my daughter about what she is being taught.
Third, It will be a challenge working more schooling for my younger daughter into the schedule. We have done some, but not to any set schedule. I have also taken time to read to my son. Both of the younger kids get some of Mommy's attention while the oldest is working mostly independently on some of her work (especially art). But, for the most part the younger two play the whole time and the room is a mess at the end of our appointed school time. On the plus side, the younger kids are playing independently or learning to play with each other without a lot of interference from Mommy. It is nice that Mommy does not have to do everything for them all the time. As they get older, I expect it will get a little easier to juggle teaching two kids set lessons.
Forth, I might want to reconsider the time of year that I start school. I've been in the midst of a nectarine harvest that couldn't wait. Traditionally, school started after most of the harvesting was over. A month ago we were drowning in plums. For the last two weeks it has been nectarines. The peaches are showing signs of being ripe any day now and the golden plums will probably be ready sometime soon as well. I've barely been keeping up with daily tasks and staying up late to preserve fruit. I have fruit frozen in the freezer for a more convenient time to make jams and jellies. I've sliced probably 200 nectarines for dehydrating and made fruit leather from nectarines and plums (3 gallon bags of fruit rolls; 3 quart bags of fruit chips). Our fruit loving kids are tired of the fresh plums and nectarines and we were giving the fruit away. Even if I don't plant a vegetable garden next year (although I do plan to), I still will have oodles of fruit from the trees alone.
Fifth, the purpose of all of this is to teach our daughter. Some useful questions may need to be asked. Is she learning anything? I think so, but the learning process is so gradual at times it can be hard to see. Is she enjoying her schooling? Yes, she was eager to get started and even plays school when she isn't actually doing it. Do I see evidence that she is maturing in her abilities? Yes, she is taking more responsibility for doing things herself. She is helping her sister by reading to her and teaching her. She is very proud of the fact that she is a "first-grader" and is thankfully oblivious that her skills are more advanced than her peers in many areas. She has an incredibly intense competitive spirit and would be an annoying braggart if she were aware of the differences. She has a way to go to get her social and emotional levels to match her academic ability, but I have confidence that a homeschooling environment is a more nurturing environment to work through the tough spots there. Having been in a similarly disjointed academic age/emotional age situation myself, but in a public school, I don't want her to have to go through some of the painful stuff that I had to go through. It took me about a decade to work past some the the emotional scars I got in public school (and that was in good schools, with good teachers, and generally good kids). And lest anyone thinks we are not "socializing" her, let me assure you that she is not isolated. She has classroom experience in church with her age peers. She has community involvement through the local parks and rec. programs. She is not shy and will often speak her mind to strangers to my mild embarrassment (as I am very introverted).
My conclusion is that we are not overworking our daughter. She has an appropriate amount of schoolwork. As it gets more challenging, she will probably spend more time on it, but at this point I have no concerns about that. There is room for improvement, but if there weren't our job would be done. It is sometimes hard to juggle it all, but that is because I have chosen to do so many things all at once. I am trying to be realistic and keep perspective on what is most important.
Our daily schedule looks something like this:
- 7:30 am Get up/breakfast/etc.
- 8:30-9:00 am Go for daily walk/stroller ride (the earlier we get out the better as the weather is hot right now).
- 9:30-10:00 am Start schoolwork (Bible reading, narration page, illustration page, math page, read an Aesop's fable, narration page, illustration page, spelling assignment, grammar lesson (3 days a week), Short history or science reading, narration page, illustration page, memory work (maybe once or twice a week), art lesson or free art time.)
- 11:30-12:00 am School is over.
I have noticed a few things in the past week and a half that will have a bearing on the future:
First, we took a holiday for Mommy's birthday and it threw off the schedule. I noticed that other homeschoolers have mentioned that they plan by week instead of by day. My schedule was by day. The problem with this is that skipping a day in a carefully crafted week's schedule is that you either shift the whole week by one day, wrapping around to the next week, or you shift the work to other days, or you skip those lessons. While some lessons are not urgent in and of themselves, skipping lessons is not my first choice. I first thought that we would just shift the work by a day, but that was grating against my orderly personality. Besides, we have carefully planned library days that have to happen at their scheduled time. So I decided to shift the work of the extra day over the course of three days to catch up. That seems to have worked without putting an undue burden on my daughter. This will be an issue as we proceed since sickness and other needful interruptions will occur. We will just have to play it by ear. I hesitate to make my schedule less detailed, since I find it easier on me to have the preparation work finished to that level. I merely have to look ahead every two weeks to make sure we have the appropriate library books and craft supplies. Then I lay out the next day's work each evening and double check that I understand the teaching that I need to do.
Second, It will take a while for my daughter to get the hang of narration. At this point, I'm asking questions to get her thinking, but if she isn't in the mood to think, we stall pretty fast. I don't want to get in the habit of answering the questions for her. Nor do I want to reread the passages to help her learn what she missed. The point of narration is that she needs to learn to use her memory on one reading. It is a skill that takes some time to learn and she will need that time to learn it. Fortunately, I have experience that tells me that she will get it eventually. When I was a young whippersnapper (High school age or early college age), I annoyed my family by asking them questions about the Sunday morning sermon over Sunday lunch. You see most people forget the sermon almost immediately even if they liked it. At first, my family was simply annoyed that I kept pointing out to them how short their memory was for something they ought to be remembering. But, within a month we were having lively lunch conversations about the morning sermon. I'm looking forward to some lively conversations with my daughter about what she is being taught.
Third, It will be a challenge working more schooling for my younger daughter into the schedule. We have done some, but not to any set schedule. I have also taken time to read to my son. Both of the younger kids get some of Mommy's attention while the oldest is working mostly independently on some of her work (especially art). But, for the most part the younger two play the whole time and the room is a mess at the end of our appointed school time. On the plus side, the younger kids are playing independently or learning to play with each other without a lot of interference from Mommy. It is nice that Mommy does not have to do everything for them all the time. As they get older, I expect it will get a little easier to juggle teaching two kids set lessons.
Forth, I might want to reconsider the time of year that I start school. I've been in the midst of a nectarine harvest that couldn't wait. Traditionally, school started after most of the harvesting was over. A month ago we were drowning in plums. For the last two weeks it has been nectarines. The peaches are showing signs of being ripe any day now and the golden plums will probably be ready sometime soon as well. I've barely been keeping up with daily tasks and staying up late to preserve fruit. I have fruit frozen in the freezer for a more convenient time to make jams and jellies. I've sliced probably 200 nectarines for dehydrating and made fruit leather from nectarines and plums (3 gallon bags of fruit rolls; 3 quart bags of fruit chips). Our fruit loving kids are tired of the fresh plums and nectarines and we were giving the fruit away. Even if I don't plant a vegetable garden next year (although I do plan to), I still will have oodles of fruit from the trees alone.
Fifth, the purpose of all of this is to teach our daughter. Some useful questions may need to be asked. Is she learning anything? I think so, but the learning process is so gradual at times it can be hard to see. Is she enjoying her schooling? Yes, she was eager to get started and even plays school when she isn't actually doing it. Do I see evidence that she is maturing in her abilities? Yes, she is taking more responsibility for doing things herself. She is helping her sister by reading to her and teaching her. She is very proud of the fact that she is a "first-grader" and is thankfully oblivious that her skills are more advanced than her peers in many areas. She has an incredibly intense competitive spirit and would be an annoying braggart if she were aware of the differences. She has a way to go to get her social and emotional levels to match her academic ability, but I have confidence that a homeschooling environment is a more nurturing environment to work through the tough spots there. Having been in a similarly disjointed academic age/emotional age situation myself, but in a public school, I don't want her to have to go through some of the painful stuff that I had to go through. It took me about a decade to work past some the the emotional scars I got in public school (and that was in good schools, with good teachers, and generally good kids). And lest anyone thinks we are not "socializing" her, let me assure you that she is not isolated. She has classroom experience in church with her age peers. She has community involvement through the local parks and rec. programs. She is not shy and will often speak her mind to strangers to my mild embarrassment (as I am very introverted).
My conclusion is that we are not overworking our daughter. She has an appropriate amount of schoolwork. As it gets more challenging, she will probably spend more time on it, but at this point I have no concerns about that. There is room for improvement, but if there weren't our job would be done. It is sometimes hard to juggle it all, but that is because I have chosen to do so many things all at once. I am trying to be realistic and keep perspective on what is most important.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Gardening thoughts
We have lived in our home almost five years and this was the first year we have put in a garden. We have been adding trees little by little, but this is the first year that I feel like our garden is up and running so to speak. I guess it would be more accurate to say that it is in full production. This is an update on how our garden grows and what thoughts gardening has reminded me of.
We already have a decent fruit orchard: red plums, golden plums, cherries, nectarines, peaches, asian pears, standard pears. We also have a decent section dedicated to berries: blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. This spring, we planted a variety of herbs, salad greens, radishes, cabbages, carrots, onions, and brussel sprouts. Of those only about half germinated. We got a large crop of lettuce (two kinds), radishes, and carrots. We are still waiting on the brussel sprouts. They are currently forming the little edible sprouts, but it is taking a lot longer than we expected. We only got one cabbage, which sprung up where I didn't plant them.
Once we harvested most of these foods, we planted the summer crop: Sunflowers, pole beans, peppers, pumpkins, zucchini, crookneck squash and a cherry tomato plant. We also planted four grapevines which will be a permanent part of the garden. I'm planning on training them into a fountain form instead of the traditional way. About the time we put in the summer plants, we also put in a drip irrigation system. The plants did better at this point.
All of this gardening has prompted a variety of thoughts:
We already have a decent fruit orchard: red plums, golden plums, cherries, nectarines, peaches, asian pears, standard pears. We also have a decent section dedicated to berries: blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. This spring, we planted a variety of herbs, salad greens, radishes, cabbages, carrots, onions, and brussel sprouts. Of those only about half germinated. We got a large crop of lettuce (two kinds), radishes, and carrots. We are still waiting on the brussel sprouts. They are currently forming the little edible sprouts, but it is taking a lot longer than we expected. We only got one cabbage, which sprung up where I didn't plant them.
Once we harvested most of these foods, we planted the summer crop: Sunflowers, pole beans, peppers, pumpkins, zucchini, crookneck squash and a cherry tomato plant. We also planted four grapevines which will be a permanent part of the garden. I'm planning on training them into a fountain form instead of the traditional way. About the time we put in the summer plants, we also put in a drip irrigation system. The plants did better at this point.
All of this gardening has prompted a variety of thoughts:
- Food grown in your yard tastes better than what you get at the store. The flavors of everything, even the most hum-drum foods, are stronger.
- We spend a lot less on produce these days. One of our daughters thinks she can't go a meal without fruit and our son is starting to think the same way. We used to buy a lot of produce, not anymore.
- When you decide to plant food crops, and land, water, and sun are sufficiently supplied, God will provide an overabundance. I'm inclined to believe that this is because He is generous. I am also inclined to believe that he expects us to be generous with his bounty. Thus some of the food should be given away. Unless you are selling it for a profit, this is a necessary activity if you don't want perfectly good food to go to waste. I'm pretty good at using and saving, but we can only eat and preserve so much. I've got a quart ziploc in the fridge filled with fresh green beans ready to use or preserve. I've made apricot jam (from a neighbors donation). I've made two blackberry pies. I've made dried plum chips (not exactly prunes). I'm making plum fruit leather (my first try at this as I'm desperate to use a huge supply). I've made plum pie (rather tart, note to self... use more sugar). We're having trouble keeping up with the strawberries despite the children's fondness for them so strawberry jam will be made in the next few days. I'm contemplating drying some of the green beans to use in soups this winter. I am so glad my Mom gave me her dehydrator. Thankfully, the blackberries, cherries and plums are finishing up or done. But the Nectarines are starting to ripen. The tree is full. One branch broke the other day and we lost 50-100 nectarines. That was a small portion of what is still on the tree. We will have to work harder at thinning the fruit earlier in the season.
- Gardening helps me refocus on time in a different way than we are accustomed in our culture. You prepare the ground at the right time of year. You plant the seeds when those seeds need to be planted. You water and weed without any sign of growth for weeks. Only then, with patience, do you get the new plants sprouting. You tend and watch them grow. All you can do is water, weed and wait (some people add some fertilizer). You can't make plants grow faster than they do. You can't rush the new fruits or vegetables to form at your convenience. They are ready when they are ready. Once it is time to harvest, you harvest or lose it. Once you harvest, you use it, give it away, or preserve it for later use. If you don't let the garden guide your time-table, you will be doing the needed things at the wrong times and therefore getting a bad result.
- Farming is hard work. I already knew this and I'm not considering myself a farmer. Both of my parents grew up on farms and I visited my grandparent's farm on many occasions. I do not have an idealized view of farming. It is hard work. It is hard on the people working in the fields. It is hard on the people processing the food for later use. You have to be the right kind of person to thrive in this setting. My grandpa was one of those people. He loved being a farmer. He loved trying new crops, working with the animals, keeping bees, going fishing in the pond. It was harder on my grandma, but she managed to run the kitchen, raise six kids, and help sell some of the food to the neighbors (she also learned to paint and became a income tax preparer in her later years). Having a big garden like we have, I understand better what my grandparents were doing with their kitchen garden (about the size of our entire backyard). They fed themselves all year with what they grew in that garden. The field crops were for market. Besides the honey, milk, meat and eggs that they got from the animals (of which they kept only a small portion for themselves and sold the rest), the kitchen garden was what they lived on. My Dad remembers that they would supplement with wild berries and a few fruit trees in the summer. I remember my grandparents had a huge pecan tree in their front yard. They would send us a box of pecans at Christmas time which would last us most of the next year in my Mom's baking of desserts. I realize that we could create a similar kitchen garden to help us lower our food purchases. However, such a garden is a full-time job throughout the growing season. As the kids get older, it is more feasible to do this. Right now, it is just an intense hobby.
- My kids are learning about plants and where food comes from. A garden is a great way to teach botany. The kids can help plant, water, weed and watch the plants develop. They also get to taste the results of the work. Young kids like ours, don't have a lot of patience for the everyday stuff like watering and weeding. But they are fascinated with planting and harvesting. The Pillowfight fairy loves to help me harvest berries. She has plenty of patience for that since she loves to eat them. I'm glad that I'm passing along some of what I learned when my family had a garden when I was a kid. Maybe, at least some of my kids will show an interest in growing some of their own food as they grow up. I will try not to expect them to love it as much as I do.
- Being outside in the garden and just outside in general, is good for us adults. In many ways, our backyard is becoming a little oasis from the cares of the world. That is a very worthwhile thing.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
When should the school year start?
If you didn't have any outside influences making up your mind for you, when would you start the school year? Now we all have some outside influences that help us make this decision, but since we homeschool, we don't necessarily have to follow the public school schedule. For instance, we finished up most of our school-work back in May. Right now we are very casually finishing up a few things that were left undone, but could be considered busy work, since they are not vital to her schooling. So how do we answer this question?
Well, one way to find an answer is to ask if our child is ready to start her new year of school. The answer to that one would be "yes." She has seen the new books. She has seen Mommy making plans and shopping for supplies. Oh yes! she is ready! She has on occasion asked to look at her new text books for the fun of it.
Another way to find an answer is to ask if the teacher (that would be me) is ready to start teaching. The answer to that one is "not yet but soon." I have always loved the start of school, but I also see the need for a little bit of a break before diving in to a new year (especially since we have a lot more planned for this year than last year). I also have to consider how to plan around other summertime activities. Last week was day camp week. This week and next are swim lessons. Both of these things had us completely shift our family schedule to accommodate them. After swim lessons are over, we are free to start a new year whenever we please.
Are there any other influences that might determine when we start? Well, yes. The society around us does influence us some, even though we are relatively out of sync from it. As far as I'm concerned the labels "Kindergarten," "First grade" and so on are artificial constructs and we are teaching our kids where they are. But, our children do interact with other kids (yes, homeschoolers do know other people) who are in public school and to whom such labels matter. Therefore these things matter to our kids. Our oldest has already started telling people that she is a first grader even though we haven't actually started her studies yet. The summer always was an awkward time where you always have to clarify whether you are finishing a grade, in it currently, or about to start it. I generally have liked the idea of year round school, but you still need to have some kind of starting and stopping point to be able to easily talk to others (especially non-homeschoolers). In our life, those other people we spend the most time with are at our church. Our kids are in classes divided by age or grade level as appropriate. This is where they get their "classroom" experience. So when does our church start the new year? July 6th of all things. I think this is actually because it allows the year to be divided up into relatively neat quarters for planning of classes. As a result most of the kids start their new grade long before they start school for fall. So we could start about the same time and be in sync with the church classes or we could do our own thing (whatever that is).
Another consideration is convenience. I had hoped to be pregnant by now so that the early months of pregnancy (when I generally am in a sleep-deprived fog) would be out of the way before starting the school year. Sometimes, that which is convenient doesn't happen and you have to make do with a more inconvenient alternative. Having no idea when said pregnancy might happen, it wouldn't do to delay our kid's education for it.
There is also the fact that this is the first year that we have to satisfy bureaucratic rules. Since we live in California, we will have to file our affidavit as a private school to exempt our daughter from compulsory attendance in public school. But that doesn't need to be done until October. Still, we have to figure out if we are going to join a homeschool support group (probably), decide on legal representation (since you never know), and watch what is going on in the court case that might change everything (probably no news until September).
So, have we come up with an idea of when we will start our new year?
We probably will start in early July. I don't want our break to be too long or our daughter will start forgetting last year's stuff and may decide that she doesn't want to go back to her school work. We will be in sync with her church friends. And we can do all the bureaucratic stuff as needed along the way. Though I may wait until after my birthday. :-)
Well, one way to find an answer is to ask if our child is ready to start her new year of school. The answer to that one would be "yes." She has seen the new books. She has seen Mommy making plans and shopping for supplies. Oh yes! she is ready! She has on occasion asked to look at her new text books for the fun of it.
Another way to find an answer is to ask if the teacher (that would be me) is ready to start teaching. The answer to that one is "not yet but soon." I have always loved the start of school, but I also see the need for a little bit of a break before diving in to a new year (especially since we have a lot more planned for this year than last year). I also have to consider how to plan around other summertime activities. Last week was day camp week. This week and next are swim lessons. Both of these things had us completely shift our family schedule to accommodate them. After swim lessons are over, we are free to start a new year whenever we please.
Are there any other influences that might determine when we start? Well, yes. The society around us does influence us some, even though we are relatively out of sync from it. As far as I'm concerned the labels "Kindergarten," "First grade" and so on are artificial constructs and we are teaching our kids where they are. But, our children do interact with other kids (yes, homeschoolers do know other people) who are in public school and to whom such labels matter. Therefore these things matter to our kids. Our oldest has already started telling people that she is a first grader even though we haven't actually started her studies yet. The summer always was an awkward time where you always have to clarify whether you are finishing a grade, in it currently, or about to start it. I generally have liked the idea of year round school, but you still need to have some kind of starting and stopping point to be able to easily talk to others (especially non-homeschoolers). In our life, those other people we spend the most time with are at our church. Our kids are in classes divided by age or grade level as appropriate. This is where they get their "classroom" experience. So when does our church start the new year? July 6th of all things. I think this is actually because it allows the year to be divided up into relatively neat quarters for planning of classes. As a result most of the kids start their new grade long before they start school for fall. So we could start about the same time and be in sync with the church classes or we could do our own thing (whatever that is).
Another consideration is convenience. I had hoped to be pregnant by now so that the early months of pregnancy (when I generally am in a sleep-deprived fog) would be out of the way before starting the school year. Sometimes, that which is convenient doesn't happen and you have to make do with a more inconvenient alternative. Having no idea when said pregnancy might happen, it wouldn't do to delay our kid's education for it.
There is also the fact that this is the first year that we have to satisfy bureaucratic rules. Since we live in California, we will have to file our affidavit as a private school to exempt our daughter from compulsory attendance in public school. But that doesn't need to be done until October. Still, we have to figure out if we are going to join a homeschool support group (probably), decide on legal representation (since you never know), and watch what is going on in the court case that might change everything (probably no news until September).
So, have we come up with an idea of when we will start our new year?
We probably will start in early July. I don't want our break to be too long or our daughter will start forgetting last year's stuff and may decide that she doesn't want to go back to her school work. We will be in sync with her church friends. And we can do all the bureaucratic stuff as needed along the way. Though I may wait until after my birthday. :-)
Teaching to the Test
You know... one of the things that I like as a homeschooler is the ability to concentrate on comprehension and mastery without having to "teach to the test." There is a freedom in this. There is quite a debate in our society right now about how to teach kids and how important testing is. I tend to be on the side of those who say teaching to the test isn't the right approach.
That is why it is so ironic that I find myself "teaching to the test."
Why would I do this? Because my daughter wants to participate in our Church's "Bible Challenge." It is a Bible knowledge quiz (handled much like a spelling bee) that they have every year at the end of summer. It is open to kids who have finished kindergarten through sixth grade. They divide the kids up into age groups for appropriately challenging questions for that group. For every correct answer they earn a ticket to redeem for prizes. Everyone who completes the challenge without missing an answer gets a trophy. My daughter really, really, really, wants to do this. So we have the list of questions that they handed out in June for the quiz in August. The idea is to encourage Bible knowledge, not to try to trip the kids up with surprise questions.
So, this week I have been teaching to the test. We have been reviewing the questions. I was happy to see that the questions didn't cover anything that she was unfamiliar with (with the possible exception of how many books are in the Bible). She knows all the stories mentioned in the questions, so I'm happy that she knows the context of what the questions are talking about. She also knew most of the answers. However, I have needed to encourage her to stick to the answers they expect the kids to give. Restating an answer in your own words is fine as long as it is accurate and doesn't confuse the issue (she has been fond of riddles lately and has sometimes tried to answer questions with riddles).
Now I have to try to find a way for this review of questions to stay fresh or she will get bored and not put effort into it. It would be heartbreaking for our little perfectionist to miss an answer in this much anticipated contest. (Heartbreaking for her that is, we are OK with it).
Which brings up another question: Are perfectionists that way all their life? Are there any recovering perfectionists out there? I've never seen evidence that this personality trait changes. Not being a perfectionist myself, I've never seen much point to it. My husband is one (that must be where she gets it), but he manages to use it to give himself the drive and endurance to work until he gets right whatever he is working on. That is an adult form of perfectionism. In our five year old, it tends to work more like "If I get something right the first time, I love it and want to do it constantly until I get tired of it. If I get something wrong the first time, I hate it and I will fight every attempt to get me to do it again." Anybody got ideas on how to move this stubborn perfectionist from point A to point B? I've just been making her do things anyway, until she gets it right (then I can't stop her). Nobody said parenting was easy. Parenting and teaching can be twice as hard sometimes.
So anyway, I am teaching to the test this summer as a favor to my daughter. How is that for a twist?
That is why it is so ironic that I find myself "teaching to the test."
Why would I do this? Because my daughter wants to participate in our Church's "Bible Challenge." It is a Bible knowledge quiz (handled much like a spelling bee) that they have every year at the end of summer. It is open to kids who have finished kindergarten through sixth grade. They divide the kids up into age groups for appropriately challenging questions for that group. For every correct answer they earn a ticket to redeem for prizes. Everyone who completes the challenge without missing an answer gets a trophy. My daughter really, really, really, wants to do this. So we have the list of questions that they handed out in June for the quiz in August. The idea is to encourage Bible knowledge, not to try to trip the kids up with surprise questions.
So, this week I have been teaching to the test. We have been reviewing the questions. I was happy to see that the questions didn't cover anything that she was unfamiliar with (with the possible exception of how many books are in the Bible). She knows all the stories mentioned in the questions, so I'm happy that she knows the context of what the questions are talking about. She also knew most of the answers. However, I have needed to encourage her to stick to the answers they expect the kids to give. Restating an answer in your own words is fine as long as it is accurate and doesn't confuse the issue (she has been fond of riddles lately and has sometimes tried to answer questions with riddles).
Now I have to try to find a way for this review of questions to stay fresh or she will get bored and not put effort into it. It would be heartbreaking for our little perfectionist to miss an answer in this much anticipated contest. (Heartbreaking for her that is, we are OK with it).
Which brings up another question: Are perfectionists that way all their life? Are there any recovering perfectionists out there? I've never seen evidence that this personality trait changes. Not being a perfectionist myself, I've never seen much point to it. My husband is one (that must be where she gets it), but he manages to use it to give himself the drive and endurance to work until he gets right whatever he is working on. That is an adult form of perfectionism. In our five year old, it tends to work more like "If I get something right the first time, I love it and want to do it constantly until I get tired of it. If I get something wrong the first time, I hate it and I will fight every attempt to get me to do it again." Anybody got ideas on how to move this stubborn perfectionist from point A to point B? I've just been making her do things anyway, until she gets it right (then I can't stop her). Nobody said parenting was easy. Parenting and teaching can be twice as hard sometimes.
So anyway, I am teaching to the test this summer as a favor to my daughter. How is that for a twist?
Friday, June 06, 2008
Confirmation that the Happy Boy is acting older
Over the past few days, I've been retiring old baby toys and generally removing some of the clutter of toys from our living room. As a result of this, I saw little change in my son's activities. So far, so good. I was removing toys that he didn't play with. Today, In the process of helping my girls clean away some unneeded items from their room, I decided to move the playmobile toys to the living room to be shared toys. These are the playmobile toys that are appropriate for 1 1/2 year-olds and up (fewer moving parts). I figured that he has only 2 more months to go to meet the age limit and he already loves to play with them every time he has managed to get in his sisters' room.
The result of this experiment? All of the kids play with the playmobile toys more. However, the Happy Boy is in heaven. He is playing with these toys for an hour or so at a time, with no complaints (except from his sisters if they are playing at the same time, he tends to act like Godzilla). The clutter is back in the living room, but it is a clutter from a different kind of toy. It is also the clutter of a well played with set, rather than the pick-up and drop five seconds later scenario we had before.
So what kind of play is this boy doing? The usual pretend play. He helps the playmobile people go down a slide. He puts them in cars. He puts them in and out of houses. This is pretty standard, I realize. But it shows that he isn't that far off from playing like his sisters do. It gives me hope that in about a year, they might actually be able to play together (all three) at times.
How are the girls handling the changes? Quite well actually. I've moved toys and books around and had them help me select which stuffed animals to keep. They know that many of the toys are going to be given new homes. It doesn't seem to bother them a bit. I'm sure that it will bother them the next time they want a particular toy and we don't have it anymore. But, that too is part of learning about life and the consequences of one's decisions. As for their play habits, I noticed them doing something new the other day. They were playing "Cinderella." They would take turns being Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother (or Fairy Grandmother according to the Adrenaline Junkie). They acted out the key events of the story in a whirlwind short version that took no more than five minutes. I think their Daddy's wish that they get involved in drama will probably come true because every time they finished, they would switch off roles and do it again. They entertained themselves like this for at least an hour straight.
Let me tell you...any time kids these ages can entertain themselves for an hour straight, it is a blessing from God. If I hadn't been suffering from a cold this week, Life would have been perfectly blissful. Well, OK, they did cry and complain and whine a little this week too. But they always do that. I'm trying to count my blessings.
The result of this experiment? All of the kids play with the playmobile toys more. However, the Happy Boy is in heaven. He is playing with these toys for an hour or so at a time, with no complaints (except from his sisters if they are playing at the same time, he tends to act like Godzilla). The clutter is back in the living room, but it is a clutter from a different kind of toy. It is also the clutter of a well played with set, rather than the pick-up and drop five seconds later scenario we had before.
So what kind of play is this boy doing? The usual pretend play. He helps the playmobile people go down a slide. He puts them in cars. He puts them in and out of houses. This is pretty standard, I realize. But it shows that he isn't that far off from playing like his sisters do. It gives me hope that in about a year, they might actually be able to play together (all three) at times.
How are the girls handling the changes? Quite well actually. I've moved toys and books around and had them help me select which stuffed animals to keep. They know that many of the toys are going to be given new homes. It doesn't seem to bother them a bit. I'm sure that it will bother them the next time they want a particular toy and we don't have it anymore. But, that too is part of learning about life and the consequences of one's decisions. As for their play habits, I noticed them doing something new the other day. They were playing "Cinderella." They would take turns being Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother (or Fairy Grandmother according to the Adrenaline Junkie). They acted out the key events of the story in a whirlwind short version that took no more than five minutes. I think their Daddy's wish that they get involved in drama will probably come true because every time they finished, they would switch off roles and do it again. They entertained themselves like this for at least an hour straight.
Let me tell you...any time kids these ages can entertain themselves for an hour straight, it is a blessing from God. If I hadn't been suffering from a cold this week, Life would have been perfectly blissful. Well, OK, they did cry and complain and whine a little this week too. But they always do that. I'm trying to count my blessings.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Change happens in very little time
It is striking me once again, how fast a baby grows up. About a month ago, my son was mobile and into everything. I could barely do anything but follow him around to keep him out of trouble. Now, he actually follows directions (like "sit down on the chair, you aren't allowed to climb on the table.") He is getting better at pointing at what he wants, since he isn't saying much at all. You can only communicate so much with grunts, squeals, giggles, and wails. Fortunately, he has also begun to like me to read his picture books to him where we name the pictures. I'm consciously putting more time into that to help him learn the names for things, in hopes that he will start to say the names. A few weeks ago, he would run off having no interest in books at all.
I remember this time with my girls. When the Pillowfight Fairy was this age, she was also barely containable and I was pregnant with the Adrenaline Junkie. I remember at the grocery store, asking mothers of a toddler and baby how far apart in age their kids were. I was all the time trying to figure out how one manages two kids with very different needs while still doing the necessary errands. I needn't have worried so much. Once the Fairy turned 18 months, she began to turn into an older child who was easier to manage. I saw the same thing happen with the Adrenaline Junkie when I was pregnant with the Happy Boy. This time I'm beginning to see it with the Happy Boy (perhaps noticing it earlier, since it is a familiar thing now). He is still a handful, but I'm seeing the beginnings of a new life with an older child.
I suppose it is a tendency that all people have: to see what the present circumstances are, and assume the future continues on in that fashion. The reality is that change happens and it happens quickly.
The Adrenaline Junkie showed no interest in letters at the same age as her sister. She had different interests, but then we got a leap frog video teaching the alphabet and she had the letters and their sounds mastered in no time. She was never as interested in drawing as her sister. Her Sunday craft papers were barely scribbled for the longest time. She was too busy running around to sit down and draw. Then a few months back, she decided that scribbling was a fun thing to do. Then suddenly one day, she was drawing recognizable people figures and writing mostly legible letters of the alphabet. As my husband noted in a recent post, she is starting to sound out words. She is beginning to be ready to read at age 3 1/2 just like her sister. I would never have guessed it. She always seemed to be less interested in academics and more interested in climbing and running. Now she wants school work, too. She still has a tendency to wiggle off her seat, so I'll have to keep any teaching to just a few minutes at a time at first.
The Pillowfight Fairy has been changing, too. But in her case it has been more subtle. It has to do with her making choices to do group things (like Christian Day camp) when she has a very strong loner tendency and has often complained about how she doesn't get along with the other kids. She is also becoming more aware of her surroundings. It is like she is starting to pick up a small amount of perspective. She is more aware of the passage of time. She is more aware of the fact that people buy and sell and she would like to do some of that to get what she wants. She complained bitterly about schoolwork, and now that it is over she keeps wanting to get started on the new year of books. Her craft projects have demonstrated her increased mastery of words and art and numbers.
In each case, I see a little glimpse of the future in my children. So now that I've mostly got the next school year planned out. I need to turn my attention to a late spring cleaning and getting ready for the next phase. I can see it coming around the corner. It's trying to sneak up on me. The youngest is outgrowing his changing table. He is wanting to do big kids stuff like coloring and looking at books with thin pages. The middle child wants to be like her older sister and use glue, tape and scissors. The oldest wants to do all sorts of things she hasn't even thought of yet, but as soon as she knows about them, she's all for it. I need to sort through everybody's toys and thin out what isn't played with anymore. I need to start rearranging what toys are in the living room to be shared by everyone. I need to make room in each bedroom. For the girls, they will eventually need room for more older kid stuff, that their brother still can't play with. For the Happy Boy, he will need a new bed by the time he turns two next February. Since we are trying to have another baby and since any such baby would be sharing a room with him, we can't remove all the baby furniture yet. But we will need to make it more workable for an older Happy Boy.
Now, I love planning what needs to be done. I have always planned for the future (usually long before it is needed). But, This kind of planning, where one tries to balance the different needs of so many people when they are all in a state of change, reminds me of juggling. The attention is drawn to the most immediate action needed, but you can't completely ignore the other items yet, since they are on an incoming path, too. There is multi-tasking and then there is multi-tasking. This is some heavy multi-tasking. Hopefully, I can get the basic outline of a plan set up before I start the new year of school with the girls. Isn't summer just a wonderfully relaxing time of year (said with heavy sarcasm). I find myself looking forward to fall when I can get into a regular routine.
I remember this time with my girls. When the Pillowfight Fairy was this age, she was also barely containable and I was pregnant with the Adrenaline Junkie. I remember at the grocery store, asking mothers of a toddler and baby how far apart in age their kids were. I was all the time trying to figure out how one manages two kids with very different needs while still doing the necessary errands. I needn't have worried so much. Once the Fairy turned 18 months, she began to turn into an older child who was easier to manage. I saw the same thing happen with the Adrenaline Junkie when I was pregnant with the Happy Boy. This time I'm beginning to see it with the Happy Boy (perhaps noticing it earlier, since it is a familiar thing now). He is still a handful, but I'm seeing the beginnings of a new life with an older child.
I suppose it is a tendency that all people have: to see what the present circumstances are, and assume the future continues on in that fashion. The reality is that change happens and it happens quickly.
The Adrenaline Junkie showed no interest in letters at the same age as her sister. She had different interests, but then we got a leap frog video teaching the alphabet and she had the letters and their sounds mastered in no time. She was never as interested in drawing as her sister. Her Sunday craft papers were barely scribbled for the longest time. She was too busy running around to sit down and draw. Then a few months back, she decided that scribbling was a fun thing to do. Then suddenly one day, she was drawing recognizable people figures and writing mostly legible letters of the alphabet. As my husband noted in a recent post, she is starting to sound out words. She is beginning to be ready to read at age 3 1/2 just like her sister. I would never have guessed it. She always seemed to be less interested in academics and more interested in climbing and running. Now she wants school work, too. She still has a tendency to wiggle off her seat, so I'll have to keep any teaching to just a few minutes at a time at first.
The Pillowfight Fairy has been changing, too. But in her case it has been more subtle. It has to do with her making choices to do group things (like Christian Day camp) when she has a very strong loner tendency and has often complained about how she doesn't get along with the other kids. She is also becoming more aware of her surroundings. It is like she is starting to pick up a small amount of perspective. She is more aware of the passage of time. She is more aware of the fact that people buy and sell and she would like to do some of that to get what she wants. She complained bitterly about schoolwork, and now that it is over she keeps wanting to get started on the new year of books. Her craft projects have demonstrated her increased mastery of words and art and numbers.
In each case, I see a little glimpse of the future in my children. So now that I've mostly got the next school year planned out. I need to turn my attention to a late spring cleaning and getting ready for the next phase. I can see it coming around the corner. It's trying to sneak up on me. The youngest is outgrowing his changing table. He is wanting to do big kids stuff like coloring and looking at books with thin pages. The middle child wants to be like her older sister and use glue, tape and scissors. The oldest wants to do all sorts of things she hasn't even thought of yet, but as soon as she knows about them, she's all for it. I need to sort through everybody's toys and thin out what isn't played with anymore. I need to start rearranging what toys are in the living room to be shared by everyone. I need to make room in each bedroom. For the girls, they will eventually need room for more older kid stuff, that their brother still can't play with. For the Happy Boy, he will need a new bed by the time he turns two next February. Since we are trying to have another baby and since any such baby would be sharing a room with him, we can't remove all the baby furniture yet. But we will need to make it more workable for an older Happy Boy.
Now, I love planning what needs to be done. I have always planned for the future (usually long before it is needed). But, This kind of planning, where one tries to balance the different needs of so many people when they are all in a state of change, reminds me of juggling. The attention is drawn to the most immediate action needed, but you can't completely ignore the other items yet, since they are on an incoming path, too. There is multi-tasking and then there is multi-tasking. This is some heavy multi-tasking. Hopefully, I can get the basic outline of a plan set up before I start the new year of school with the girls. Isn't summer just a wonderfully relaxing time of year (said with heavy sarcasm). I find myself looking forward to fall when I can get into a regular routine.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
The Realization That Homeschooling Is Changing My Life
It dawned on me recently that my homeschooling was more than a side issue in my life. It is more than a hobby. It is more than something I can do in my free-time. It is an honest to goodness new lifestyle choice. We are all used to hearing people talk about lifestyle choices. Sometimes I agree that they have a new and different lifestyle and sometimes I think they are trying to make something out to be more grandiose than it actually is. This time I think I've hit on one of these new ways of living.
Let me do a quick historical summary to illustrate what I mean. Until relatively recently in history, people married, had kids, raised their children and made a living as a family unit. The whole family (sometimes a whole tribe or community) all traveled, worked, learned, entertained, ate, slept, did every major life activity together. On occasion one member of the family had to leave (such as going to war or going off to hunt), but even then this was done as a group activity and those left behind were continuing the usual activities as a group. With the industrial revolution, it was more common for member of the family to "go to work" and then come home to the family. The raising of the kids, education and all those other things people do became a separate thing from "work." In recent memory, family sizes have dwindled and more and more women have gone to work in addition to the men who have been in the main workforce longer. You still get people hashing out the "Stay-at-home Mom" vs. "Working Mom" dilemma. There are more options now. You have "Stay-at-home Dad," "Work at home," and "Part-time work." There are extended families that work out the various needs in a family for the division of labor. We currently live in a world that allows for great variety of solutions for how to have, raise, and support a family.
O.K. the history review is over. I started thinking about this recently as I've been homeschooling a preschooler, then a kindergartener, and in the coming year a first-grader. At first, homeschooling was just helping my kids learn (as I've done since they were born). Then it was a little more than that. It was more academic learning than it was before. It took a little more time and a little more need to understand learning styles, methods of teaching, and patience to discover what works best for my kid. Now as I'm starting to look at a new school year where I will be teaching more subjects and spending probably about twice the time we currently spend on "School-work." As I've been making plans and gathering the resources we will need, I've realized that I'm a teacher. Really! I'm not pretending! I'm not a wannabe! I really do the job of a teacher.
This was a bit of a shock to me, you see. I had declared mightily during my college years that I was not going to be a teacher. Every teaching assignment I've had through the years (either volunteer or in my career), I always said that it was temporary. "I'm not a teacher!" I would declare. But, in the past few years, I've been exercising those teaching skills and here I am.
I have found myself in a new lifestyle where I'm a "Stay-at-home Mom", but I'm also a "Working Mom" at the same time. I "Work-at-Home"and also "Take my kids to work." I'm not sure how to answer questions anymore when people ask me what I do without going into more detail than the question intended. Usually people want to know what category do you fit into. Somehow, the former categories no longer contain all that I do.
I suppose the term homeschooler is supposed to cover it, but somehow that doesn't help put me into a specific category for easy communication. After all, there are so many different ways to homeschool. Then of course, there are all the mistaken stereotypes out there. Even among homeschoolers you can't just say "homeschooler" and be completely understood. You have to detail what methods you follow or other details of what your homeschooling experience is like to understand similarities and differences.
So, all that being said, I'm stuck with the idea that maybe this is a new lifestyle for our modern world. A way to get some of those traditional and historical family duties and relationships into our modern world. Our modern world is somehow shaped differently and we needed to find a new way to do those old things.
Let me do a quick historical summary to illustrate what I mean. Until relatively recently in history, people married, had kids, raised their children and made a living as a family unit. The whole family (sometimes a whole tribe or community) all traveled, worked, learned, entertained, ate, slept, did every major life activity together. On occasion one member of the family had to leave (such as going to war or going off to hunt), but even then this was done as a group activity and those left behind were continuing the usual activities as a group. With the industrial revolution, it was more common for member of the family to "go to work" and then come home to the family. The raising of the kids, education and all those other things people do became a separate thing from "work." In recent memory, family sizes have dwindled and more and more women have gone to work in addition to the men who have been in the main workforce longer. You still get people hashing out the "Stay-at-home Mom" vs. "Working Mom" dilemma. There are more options now. You have "Stay-at-home Dad," "Work at home," and "Part-time work." There are extended families that work out the various needs in a family for the division of labor. We currently live in a world that allows for great variety of solutions for how to have, raise, and support a family.
O.K. the history review is over. I started thinking about this recently as I've been homeschooling a preschooler, then a kindergartener, and in the coming year a first-grader. At first, homeschooling was just helping my kids learn (as I've done since they were born). Then it was a little more than that. It was more academic learning than it was before. It took a little more time and a little more need to understand learning styles, methods of teaching, and patience to discover what works best for my kid. Now as I'm starting to look at a new school year where I will be teaching more subjects and spending probably about twice the time we currently spend on "School-work." As I've been making plans and gathering the resources we will need, I've realized that I'm a teacher. Really! I'm not pretending! I'm not a wannabe! I really do the job of a teacher.
This was a bit of a shock to me, you see. I had declared mightily during my college years that I was not going to be a teacher. Every teaching assignment I've had through the years (either volunteer or in my career), I always said that it was temporary. "I'm not a teacher!" I would declare. But, in the past few years, I've been exercising those teaching skills and here I am.
I have found myself in a new lifestyle where I'm a "Stay-at-home Mom", but I'm also a "Working Mom" at the same time. I "Work-at-Home"and also "Take my kids to work." I'm not sure how to answer questions anymore when people ask me what I do without going into more detail than the question intended. Usually people want to know what category do you fit into. Somehow, the former categories no longer contain all that I do.
I suppose the term homeschooler is supposed to cover it, but somehow that doesn't help put me into a specific category for easy communication. After all, there are so many different ways to homeschool. Then of course, there are all the mistaken stereotypes out there. Even among homeschoolers you can't just say "homeschooler" and be completely understood. You have to detail what methods you follow or other details of what your homeschooling experience is like to understand similarities and differences.
So, all that being said, I'm stuck with the idea that maybe this is a new lifestyle for our modern world. A way to get some of those traditional and historical family duties and relationships into our modern world. Our modern world is somehow shaped differently and we needed to find a new way to do those old things.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Miscellany floating about my brain
Between my being busy doing the stuff of life and my husband being a more prolific blogger than myself, I haven't posted much lately. I couldn't quite narrow down a topic this time, so I decided to touch on the various things that have been of interest to me lately.
- I think our garden is a success. OK, so we've mainly been harvesting lettuce, spinach and radishes so far. But the carrots and brussel sprouts have been coming along nicely as well. I've recently replanted in our empty areas (where previous plantings didn't take) such lovely things as 7 Zucchini plants, 3 crook-neck squash plants, 6 bell pepper plants, 2 serrano pepper plants, 1 sweet banana pepper plant, and a "baby girl" cherry tomato plant. Several green bean plants are also sprouting in addition to some pumpkins and sunflowers. I think that this group of plantings will be easier plan out drip irrigation lines so I won't have to rush outside to water the garden as frequently. (And, yes I know how prolific squash plants are, I plan to do a lot of preserving for later use).
- I have successfully made home-made butter and buttermilk and I am quite proud of myself. I remember seeing my grandmother do it, and it is very satisfying to have done it myself. I think this falls into the category of Tim's survivalist urge, but I just like to think I might be able to pass down some knowledge to my kids of how people used to live, instead of letting the knowledge die out.
- The Happy Boy is growing fast. At 15 months old, I'm moving him into his 24 month/2T wardrobe. He can reach most things on the dining room table and has just this week learned to climb up and sit in the chairs. So far he hasn't actually climbed onto the table, but it wouldn't be a huge leap of logic. His sisters are not sure how to handle this new turn of events. He still doesn't say much but he obviously understands a lot. I remember with the girls how the increasing mobility just seemed to keep getting to be more and more of a problem until about 18 months, then it got better. I hope that is how it is going to be with him.
- The school year is coming to an end and we have survived it. The Pillowfight Fairy has made progress. We have just a couple more weeks of planned lessons and then we will be reviewing areas she had difficulty with and just doing fun learning games and workbooks. It will give her the variety she craves. The repetitive nature of much of her studies was irritating her lately. She still loves to use creativity whenever possible. She loves to read and has been begging me to let her look at her new books for next school year. She has been prolific with her art and writing. She is definitely ready for next year's challenge. Fortunately, much of the increase in work will be reading and writing about what she read. Both of those things are strong areas for her.
- The Adrenaline Junkie will be ready to read soon, so I need to figure out how I'm going to handle her lessons in addition to her sister's. She is about the same age as the Fairy was when the older one started reading. She knows all her letters and the basic sounds that they make. She has a rudimentary idea of how they go together to make words. She likes to look at books and pretend that she is reading them (or rather memory read them as she looks at the pictures). She just has the attention span of a gnat (like most 3 year olds) and doesn't quite have the desire to sit down and work on it yet. Yet, she has got to this point faster than I expected. She just seems to come to it from a different direction from her older sister. So, I need to start getting my ideas together. After all, we can't do it the same way we did for her sister. We have to correct all our mistakes and make new ones. :) I'm thinking a using the Blue back speller as a starting point for lessons. Specifically, using the syllabary to teach the letter sounds in a context she will encounter when putting together words. There is still plenty of planning room to adjust what we need to do for her. I figure that I will let her come over and listen in on the readings we do with her sister whenever she is interested. She has also become very fond of Mother Goose rhymes. We have a very good collection of Mother Goose where she loves to look over the pictures.
- I wonder sometimes if I am insane to want a fourth child. Maybe I am. But if so at least I'm willing to put in the extra work that extra child means. So for now, we hope and wait for what God has planned for us.
- It has finally dawned on me that I'm a working mother. Yeah, I know a stay-at-home Mom works. I've known that for a long time. But, this revelation is that I am a working mother (putting a certain number of hours in) working as a teacher. I am not paid, but I am definitely putting in the time with planning lessons, teaching, correcting, revising, etc. In all methods of measurement, except pay, I am a working Mom. This is a little ironic, since I kept telling people back in my college days that I was not going to be a teacher. Ah well, we are all entitled to change our minds.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Another loss
A couple of weeks ago I felt another loss. This time it was the father of a good high school friend. But, that description doesn't seem to do him justice. Our families were close as far back as I can remember. In fact, his two boys stayed the night with us when their sister was born. He and my father served together as elders for decades. We camped together. I sang on the praise team with his wife. I went to college with his son, who I considered one of my few really good friends from high school on. I hung out at their house nearly every Saturday night for three or four years straight.
Although I didn't have a super-close relationship with this man, our lives were lived in close proximity. He was like a second father or an uncle. I was completely comfortable to be myself in his presence as if I were in my own family. Some people get uncomfortable around "The Elders", but I tended to see them as just my Dad and my old family friends. This particular man, who had the memorable name of Browning, was not just an Elder, but chairman of the Elders. He cared about people deeply. He had the gift of hopitality, teaching, administration, and service. He was active in church service at the time of his death. He is sorely missed by family, friends, the whole church he worked with, and untold number of people who were touched by his life.
Browning was not all that old by my reckoning (of course that changes as I age). He was about 67. He had a few chronic health issues, but you wouldn't know it by looking at him. His death was a surprise to everybody. Usually, we expect people to have obvious failing health, a retirement from active involvement in the business of life, and then death comes after some lingering illness. We don't expect it to come so suddenly.
I haven't been able to figure out if I'm feeling his loss more because I cared about him that much, or if I am hurting for my friend who has lost a father, or if I am realizing that this is another of my parent's generation to go and I begin to miss my own parents already. It is probably a little of all of the above. I've been to more memorial services in the past couple of years than I ever had in my previous ten (which included the deaths of my own grandparents). Maybe I'm just realizing the fragility of life a little more personally than I used to.
Whatever the reasons, I will miss seeing Browning's smile the next time I visit my home church. He was a good man, and I'm glad that he was a part of my life.
Although I didn't have a super-close relationship with this man, our lives were lived in close proximity. He was like a second father or an uncle. I was completely comfortable to be myself in his presence as if I were in my own family. Some people get uncomfortable around "The Elders", but I tended to see them as just my Dad and my old family friends. This particular man, who had the memorable name of Browning, was not just an Elder, but chairman of the Elders. He cared about people deeply. He had the gift of hopitality, teaching, administration, and service. He was active in church service at the time of his death. He is sorely missed by family, friends, the whole church he worked with, and untold number of people who were touched by his life.
Browning was not all that old by my reckoning (of course that changes as I age). He was about 67. He had a few chronic health issues, but you wouldn't know it by looking at him. His death was a surprise to everybody. Usually, we expect people to have obvious failing health, a retirement from active involvement in the business of life, and then death comes after some lingering illness. We don't expect it to come so suddenly.
I haven't been able to figure out if I'm feeling his loss more because I cared about him that much, or if I am hurting for my friend who has lost a father, or if I am realizing that this is another of my parent's generation to go and I begin to miss my own parents already. It is probably a little of all of the above. I've been to more memorial services in the past couple of years than I ever had in my previous ten (which included the deaths of my own grandparents). Maybe I'm just realizing the fragility of life a little more personally than I used to.
Whatever the reasons, I will miss seeing Browning's smile the next time I visit my home church. He was a good man, and I'm glad that he was a part of my life.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Don't you hate it when you feel God correcting you?
Several times in the last week, I have been feeling God correcting me about a personality flaw. I have joked about it and taken an unbecoming pride in it and now I need to work at changing it.
I have a mercy problem. That is I need to work my mercy muscles so that they can do the work God has me to do. I began to realize this in the past week when the Pillowfight fairy was starting to show problem behaviors as a result from anxiety, and I was trying to force her to push through it and toughen up. I suppose I felt the need to push, because I am an adult and I can see no good reason for her fears. But, when I look back to my own childhood, I see myself as an equally fearful kid. I remember the terror I had at things that were perfectly ordinary and the frustration the rest of the family had with me. I was labeled a "sensitive child" by my teachers and a "Cry-baby" by my peers. I wanted to give my daughter a different road, and in the process, I didn't see that she is a sensitive child and I need to be understanding instead of playing the meany.
I remember hearing a variety of stories (I think one of them is in Anne of Green Gables) where someone acknowledges a flaw of theirs but tells the person they are talking to that "that's just the way I am, you'll have to get used to it." The other person replies that such an attitude is crazy. Whether the habit is outbursts of anger, tactlessness, or in my case a lack of mercy when it is needed, the proper response is to try to change for the better. I have no right to hold on to hurtful habits out of selfishness. So I am going to try to turn over a new leaf and learn to show mercy to my children more. I will try to learn to use gentleness in getting around problems as much as I can.
Lately, the Pillowfight Fairy seems to be needing more one-on-one time with Mommy, so I will start there. I will do more of our daily activities with her instead of sending her off to do things on her own (freeing me up for other stuff). It is tempting to try to rush her growing up for my own convenience, but although she looks old enough to be seven or eight (because of her height mostly), she is only five and needs the gentleness that most five year-olds need. I remember that I was always tall for my age and so was mistaken for an older child. But, I was really slightly behind in my emotional development. I suspect my oldest girl is the same way. I'll try to remember what it was like to be that age a little more as I help her navigate the ups and downs of her life.
I have a mercy problem. That is I need to work my mercy muscles so that they can do the work God has me to do. I began to realize this in the past week when the Pillowfight fairy was starting to show problem behaviors as a result from anxiety, and I was trying to force her to push through it and toughen up. I suppose I felt the need to push, because I am an adult and I can see no good reason for her fears. But, when I look back to my own childhood, I see myself as an equally fearful kid. I remember the terror I had at things that were perfectly ordinary and the frustration the rest of the family had with me. I was labeled a "sensitive child" by my teachers and a "Cry-baby" by my peers. I wanted to give my daughter a different road, and in the process, I didn't see that she is a sensitive child and I need to be understanding instead of playing the meany.
I remember hearing a variety of stories (I think one of them is in Anne of Green Gables) where someone acknowledges a flaw of theirs but tells the person they are talking to that "that's just the way I am, you'll have to get used to it." The other person replies that such an attitude is crazy. Whether the habit is outbursts of anger, tactlessness, or in my case a lack of mercy when it is needed, the proper response is to try to change for the better. I have no right to hold on to hurtful habits out of selfishness. So I am going to try to turn over a new leaf and learn to show mercy to my children more. I will try to learn to use gentleness in getting around problems as much as I can.
Lately, the Pillowfight Fairy seems to be needing more one-on-one time with Mommy, so I will start there. I will do more of our daily activities with her instead of sending her off to do things on her own (freeing me up for other stuff). It is tempting to try to rush her growing up for my own convenience, but although she looks old enough to be seven or eight (because of her height mostly), she is only five and needs the gentleness that most five year-olds need. I remember that I was always tall for my age and so was mistaken for an older child. But, I was really slightly behind in my emotional development. I suspect my oldest girl is the same way. I'll try to remember what it was like to be that age a little more as I help her navigate the ups and downs of her life.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
How do we talk to our children?
A chance comment from a fellow shopper at the grocery store Saturday got me thinking about how my husband and I talk to our kids. She said "I love how you talk to your kids. It's so cute." Ever since, I've been trying to reconstruct our conversations in the produce section that prompted a stranger to tell me that. I'm still a little mystified.
I usually consider myself not terribly great about how I interact with my kids. I hear my kids talk to each other or to me and hear echoes of the bad habits I have influenced them with. They are soooo good at getting that annoyed tone of voice that I have used on them. The oldest is getting pretty good at my "I mean business" way of barking orders. I tend to beat up on myself about how I need to be better about how I talk to them.
In my defense, I do try to talk to them about everything that we do and let them know what I'm doing. If problem topics come up, I try to talk about them using truth and simplicity at the age level they need. I try to use good manners myself in hopes that they will copy me in that. I make a point of telling them that I love them several times a day.
So what was going on at the grocery store that was notable? Well, first of all, the whole family was there. Usually I go by myself or with just the baby so that it isn't nearly so chaotic. Tim usually stays home with the older kids. But last Saturday, we had a different schedule and decided to try it as a family for a change. To our oldest two, who don't get to come as often, it became a great adventure. I think what the stranger in the store saw was both Mommy and Daddy talking with our kids as we got things from our list. They only things that I can think of that might have been noteworthy were the fact that our kids were giddy with delight at being there, that the girls were actively helping us shop and that they were making suggestions about what we should buy(I think we should get some more grapes, Dad!). We were all having an adventure and enjoying it.
I will try to come up with some lessons to take away with this:
Ahem...
I usually consider myself not terribly great about how I interact with my kids. I hear my kids talk to each other or to me and hear echoes of the bad habits I have influenced them with. They are soooo good at getting that annoyed tone of voice that I have used on them. The oldest is getting pretty good at my "I mean business" way of barking orders. I tend to beat up on myself about how I need to be better about how I talk to them.
In my defense, I do try to talk to them about everything that we do and let them know what I'm doing. If problem topics come up, I try to talk about them using truth and simplicity at the age level they need. I try to use good manners myself in hopes that they will copy me in that. I make a point of telling them that I love them several times a day.
So what was going on at the grocery store that was notable? Well, first of all, the whole family was there. Usually I go by myself or with just the baby so that it isn't nearly so chaotic. Tim usually stays home with the older kids. But last Saturday, we had a different schedule and decided to try it as a family for a change. To our oldest two, who don't get to come as often, it became a great adventure. I think what the stranger in the store saw was both Mommy and Daddy talking with our kids as we got things from our list. They only things that I can think of that might have been noteworthy were the fact that our kids were giddy with delight at being there, that the girls were actively helping us shop and that they were making suggestions about what we should buy(I think we should get some more grapes, Dad!). We were all having an adventure and enjoying it.
I will try to come up with some lessons to take away with this:
Ahem...
- We as parents need to lighten up.
- I was so obsessed with the bad behaviors, that I wasn't seeing the good behaviors.
- Kids like to live like life is an adventure. We grown-ups are the party poopers too much of the time.
- I definitely need to take advantage of every hint of helpfulness my kids display.
- I also need to enjoy those good times because they all come to an end. By the time we were going down the last aisle before checkout, two of the three kids were in tears and we were getting sympathetic comments instead.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Spring means renewal
I like spring. Spring is a time of renewal. When I was a kid I liked summer better. I could play outside most of the day without any school. But now, Spring is the season I like best. Where we live, the trees are blooming the allergens are wafting on the breezes and the home improvement stores and plant nurseries are packed with people ready to get going on the projects they have in mind for good weather.
We are always busy, but it has seemed busier than usual this sping. We just mailed off our tax returns, so that is done. We finished out our new garden this weekend by putting in supports and planting snow peas and grapevines. The garden looks mostly like a muddy mess right now, but I've started to see tiny radish seedlings poking up (they are always the first ones, right after the weeds). We are all well again after a three week bout of illness which put all plans on hold. I don't think my husband will mention it, but he got a promotion and raise. It is always nice to be appreciated by one's employer.
Between the return of sunny weather, the garden, and life seeming good right now, It feels strange to be saying that the school year is running down. I can see the end of our currently scheduled work in just a month or two. We also do some kind of schooling pretty much all year, so it feels strange for that reason too. I have had trouble in the past being in sync with the traditional academic year. Somehow our daughter seems ready for something new long before fall, so for the past two years I have started her new school year in the first week of August. We are usually well finished with what I had planned by May, so June and July become a very light schooling time and we spend more time going for walks, playing outside, and doing fun things. That time becomes my planning time to get ready for the new school year.
This year however feels like a bigger challenge. Although I've been homeschooling for two years now, it has been preschool and kindergarten. Our daughter is above average in reading ability at this age so her reading skills are probably a grade or two advance. Still, This coming year is first grade. This fall she will be required by the state of California (based on her age) to be enrolled in a legally accepted educational situation. If you follow my husband's blog, you know that their is a current court case that has the homeschool community stirred up about whether homeschooling is legally recognized in our state. I will let him worry about that for now. What worries me is that I expect so much of myself in homeschooling our kids and this year was the year that I was going to be adding probably twice as much work as we currently do. In addition, my next daughter is probably ready to start working on some pre-reading skills.
I have heard numerous times from homeschoolers that the first year is the hardest. I think it was true for us (at least so far) because we were feeling our way and our daughter was so young that many curricula were just mismatched to use with her. This past year has felt easier. We had our plan of action, it worked relatively smoothly, and we made steady progress. I was pleased with the curriculum materials we had chosen. We covered language arts appropriate to a Kindergartener (reading practice, writing practice, memorization, vocabulary words, and spelling words), beginning math skills (using Horizons Math published by Modern Curriculum Press), Piano and lots and lots of art.
Next year we are adding formal grammar, history, and science. My first challenge is to finalize our plans about what we will be doing and what curriculum we need for what. We are planning to follow a classical education plan (for those of you who are familiar with educational theory). We still have not decided about when to introduce a non-English language and which language that would be.
Since we are winding down on our current school year with what we had planned so far, and since my daughter always seems to be ready for something new when everybody else is taking a break, I am tempted to try something new. I am tempted to take our year-round school literally and slowly add new aspects that we plan to cover next year a little at a time. I know that she is ready for more formal grammar instruction for example. Why don't I go ahead and get that started and keep up some form of reading and writing practice like we already do. Maybe I could just do the reading and writing in a new way to keep it fresh for her. We could do more math play during the late spring and summer to keep her from forgetting it all before I start her in the next level. It would also help reinforce her understanding of the facts she has covered so far. I already know she needs more work on learning money and measurements. Those are both best learned by hands on practice. Once she has had the added work for a month or two, I could try adding history or science. That way when we start school up in the fall as a first grader, It won't all hit at once and feel overwhelming.
I suspect it would be easier on me that way, too. I know I don't like feeling like I've had extra work dumped on me either. And whether I like it or not, teaching children in the early grades requires a lot of one-on-one attention. I keep hearing that the older they get the better they work independently. I know that my daughter can work steadily for hours without help if she loves it (art is like that for her). But however good she is at other subjects, she needs someone right there to remind her what she should be doing.
So I am in the process of figuring out how to renew our homeschooling for another year. Let's hope the court case allow us to do this for many years to come.
We are always busy, but it has seemed busier than usual this sping. We just mailed off our tax returns, so that is done. We finished out our new garden this weekend by putting in supports and planting snow peas and grapevines. The garden looks mostly like a muddy mess right now, but I've started to see tiny radish seedlings poking up (they are always the first ones, right after the weeds). We are all well again after a three week bout of illness which put all plans on hold. I don't think my husband will mention it, but he got a promotion and raise. It is always nice to be appreciated by one's employer.
Between the return of sunny weather, the garden, and life seeming good right now, It feels strange to be saying that the school year is running down. I can see the end of our currently scheduled work in just a month or two. We also do some kind of schooling pretty much all year, so it feels strange for that reason too. I have had trouble in the past being in sync with the traditional academic year. Somehow our daughter seems ready for something new long before fall, so for the past two years I have started her new school year in the first week of August. We are usually well finished with what I had planned by May, so June and July become a very light schooling time and we spend more time going for walks, playing outside, and doing fun things. That time becomes my planning time to get ready for the new school year.
This year however feels like a bigger challenge. Although I've been homeschooling for two years now, it has been preschool and kindergarten. Our daughter is above average in reading ability at this age so her reading skills are probably a grade or two advance. Still, This coming year is first grade. This fall she will be required by the state of California (based on her age) to be enrolled in a legally accepted educational situation. If you follow my husband's blog, you know that their is a current court case that has the homeschool community stirred up about whether homeschooling is legally recognized in our state. I will let him worry about that for now. What worries me is that I expect so much of myself in homeschooling our kids and this year was the year that I was going to be adding probably twice as much work as we currently do. In addition, my next daughter is probably ready to start working on some pre-reading skills.
I have heard numerous times from homeschoolers that the first year is the hardest. I think it was true for us (at least so far) because we were feeling our way and our daughter was so young that many curricula were just mismatched to use with her. This past year has felt easier. We had our plan of action, it worked relatively smoothly, and we made steady progress. I was pleased with the curriculum materials we had chosen. We covered language arts appropriate to a Kindergartener (reading practice, writing practice, memorization, vocabulary words, and spelling words), beginning math skills (using Horizons Math published by Modern Curriculum Press), Piano and lots and lots of art.
Next year we are adding formal grammar, history, and science. My first challenge is to finalize our plans about what we will be doing and what curriculum we need for what. We are planning to follow a classical education plan (for those of you who are familiar with educational theory). We still have not decided about when to introduce a non-English language and which language that would be.
Since we are winding down on our current school year with what we had planned so far, and since my daughter always seems to be ready for something new when everybody else is taking a break, I am tempted to try something new. I am tempted to take our year-round school literally and slowly add new aspects that we plan to cover next year a little at a time. I know that she is ready for more formal grammar instruction for example. Why don't I go ahead and get that started and keep up some form of reading and writing practice like we already do. Maybe I could just do the reading and writing in a new way to keep it fresh for her. We could do more math play during the late spring and summer to keep her from forgetting it all before I start her in the next level. It would also help reinforce her understanding of the facts she has covered so far. I already know she needs more work on learning money and measurements. Those are both best learned by hands on practice. Once she has had the added work for a month or two, I could try adding history or science. That way when we start school up in the fall as a first grader, It won't all hit at once and feel overwhelming.
I suspect it would be easier on me that way, too. I know I don't like feeling like I've had extra work dumped on me either. And whether I like it or not, teaching children in the early grades requires a lot of one-on-one attention. I keep hearing that the older they get the better they work independently. I know that my daughter can work steadily for hours without help if she loves it (art is like that for her). But however good she is at other subjects, she needs someone right there to remind her what she should be doing.
So I am in the process of figuring out how to renew our homeschooling for another year. Let's hope the court case allow us to do this for many years to come.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Sordidness
I've been tagged for an internet meme by my beloved husband. My link to his blog is on my sidebar. By participating in this meme, I am to reveal 5 sordid things about myself. "Sordid" for this game is to be defined as: adj. wretchedly poor; filthy; morally degraded.
The rules are:
The rules are:
1. Link to your tagger, and post these rules.Before I start, let me address the debatable merits of participating in such a game. Anyone who reveals 5 truly sordid things about themselves which would come back to haunt or hurt them, is too stupid or naive to be using the internet. I am assuming this is a game to be done in the spirit of fun. the fact that the rules also use the description "wild and crazy facts" gives a lot of leeway. Also, since I have not had an outrageously sordid life, my facts will be too tame to be used for gossip or blackmail. I have gotten beyond my embarrassment of them and they now are simply whom I have been, am currently or possibly may be in the future. Nor am I a perfectionist in any form or shape. My hope in life is in God's grace. So, with no further ado....
2. Share five wild crazy facts about yourself.
3. Tag five people at the end of your post, and list their names, linking to them.
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.
- I have cleaned my toilets on average once a year since we have had children. I was raised with much cleaner standards of hygiene than this, so it is still something I hope to change in the future. But in my current reality, it is what it is.
- Besides the fact that I was raised in this country as an English speaking person, went through very good schools all the way through graduate level, and (I like to think) am a contemplative person who thinks before I speak, I have produced some uses of the English language that are truly wretched and thoroughly amusing. I am constantly making my husband laugh on nearly an everyday basis on my strange and ill-starred word choices. It doesn't come out nearly so bad in print.
- As a librarian I have what in the profession is almost considered a moral deficiency in that I can toss a book in a trash can with no compunction at all. To those of you outside of this profession, I must explain. You see the library profession tends to attract bibliophiles (that is people who love books). In fact many of these people are so extreme in their love of books that they have a physical revulsion of discarding in any way any book. They may try to save their consciences by trying to find the book a loving home by way of book sales, book swaps or donations to other groups, but eventually some books for a variety of reasons just need to be tossed on the garbage heap. The dislike of having to take responsibility for such a decision and actually doing it is such that some libraries have to hire an outsider to come in and do the dirty deed. It has crossed my mind that I could swing that as a part-time job if I get the right connections.
- I have punished my children for things that were not their fault and treated them harshly when they were needing extra compassion. There is not one parent on this planet that hasn't done that at some time or another. It helps keep us all humble.
- I lied to my second grade teacher about finishing my math workbook so that I could go play the cool math games that some of the faster students were doing. I don't think I ever finished that workbook and my subsequent troubles with the multiplication tables may have been a direct result of my trying to skip ahead before I was ready. I reaped the consequences of my error and finally got back on the straight and narrow learning my math properly and managed to go all the way through calculus before I decided I had enough. Looking back on this I now see that although I idolized this teacher at the time, she wasn't that great of a teacher. She did not deal with her students justly, she was petty and lazy. This doesn't excuse my behavior, but it does explain how a second grader could get away with not having her work checked.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Light at the end of the tunnel
The wave of winter illness struck us almost two weeks ago. The first two kids to get the virus that causes fevers for up to seven days, have now got their appetites back and are merely drippy nosed. Those two happy ones are the Adrenaline Junkie and the Happy Boy. Somehow they managed to get sick on the exact same day (unless I misread symptoms). Now the Pillowfight Fairy is sick with the fever and off her feed. So far, Tim and I have not come down with it. I've been fighting something like a cold the whole time. As of today, however, I'm beginning to think that it's Spring allergies.
It's not easy going through a wave of illness like this. I'm grateful that this time the parents were well, during the bulk of the kid-sickness. We are still on the brink of a serious case of cabin fever, however. At least we have had nice weather for the last week. There were a few days when we were able to get outside for walks or playing in the backyard (hence my suspicion of allergies) and that seemed to help us a little. The trees and flowers are blooming and it feels like spring. Day by day we are getting closer to being well... the light at the end of the tunnel.
My husband is planning on doing a post on our project today as we took turns taking care of kids while the other parent worked outside. I will summarize from my perspective. We planted a vegetable garden. Yesterday, Tim moved around dirt to level things out, killed a bunch of weeds with Round-Up, and mowed. Today he roto-tilled the garden area for me. Then I raked it level, divided it up and made rows. Then I bought seeds and planted. It doesn't look all that big when you see it in context with our huge backyard. But, it is really a very big garden.
I've waited four and a half years to plant that garden. It is an early spring garden, so I've planted cooler weather vegetables: carrots, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, radishes, onions, chives, parsley, basil, and brussel sprouts. Next weekend, we hope to get supports in so we can plant grape vines and snow peas. We decided that a spot in our small orchard would work for our compost pile. We have almost finished our backyard. Once again a light at the end of the tunnel.
I'll be spending a little time every day watering, weeding, and eventually picking fresh veggies. There will be a lot of weeding. The weeds have spread widely since we've moved in. We keep underestimating how fast the weeds go to seed, and kill them after they've gone to seed. As a result, we have more weeds. So much of this coming growing season will be a fight against the weeds. We will need to eradicate them from several large sections of our yard and then put down ground cloth and wood chips. In the garden, I expect that I'll be pulling weeds nearly every day.
Since finances have been a little tight after the big project from last year and several unexpected expenses, we don't think we will be finishing up all the landscaping just yet. But to make the patio area pretty, I think I'll sow several packets of wildflowers that I already have.
Getting outside and making things look nice again has been really satisfying. I'm sure it will take a few seasons yet before everything is just the way I imagined it. But, it is getting there.
As for the sick days we have had recently, I've had a lot of "light at the end of the tunnel" thoughts. Our oldest child is five years old. Five-year-olds are still fussy and clingy when sick, but they are much easier to work with than a three-year old or an infant. The three year old is super fussy and clingy when sick, but at least she can talk and communicate how she feels, if she's hungry, or if her food is about to come up. The baby (or I should say toddler, since he's walking) is as hard to figure out as ever. If he's not happy, something is wrong.
I realize that sick days will only be getting better as the kids get older. The Pillowfight Fairy is ten times better as a sick child now than when she was three. I have wondered how many of those people I know who decided to stop having kids after one or two, decided this after a bad bout of sickness while the kids were preschool age or younger. I know it crosses my mind on those really tough days.
Somehow, as my kids get older I am seeing another light at the end of the tunnel. We still hope to have another child, but even so I'm not going to be having pregnancies much longer. I'm forty. If we are blessed again, it will be our last I think. Eventually, the baby years will pass. The Toddler years will pass. Preschool years will pass. I will get to rid myself of spare toys and baby clothes, maternity clothes and bottles. Some day we will no longer need booster seats at the table. I am looking forward to the older kid stages.
It's not easy going through a wave of illness like this. I'm grateful that this time the parents were well, during the bulk of the kid-sickness. We are still on the brink of a serious case of cabin fever, however. At least we have had nice weather for the last week. There were a few days when we were able to get outside for walks or playing in the backyard (hence my suspicion of allergies) and that seemed to help us a little. The trees and flowers are blooming and it feels like spring. Day by day we are getting closer to being well... the light at the end of the tunnel.
My husband is planning on doing a post on our project today as we took turns taking care of kids while the other parent worked outside. I will summarize from my perspective. We planted a vegetable garden. Yesterday, Tim moved around dirt to level things out, killed a bunch of weeds with Round-Up, and mowed. Today he roto-tilled the garden area for me. Then I raked it level, divided it up and made rows. Then I bought seeds and planted. It doesn't look all that big when you see it in context with our huge backyard. But, it is really a very big garden.
I've waited four and a half years to plant that garden. It is an early spring garden, so I've planted cooler weather vegetables: carrots, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, radishes, onions, chives, parsley, basil, and brussel sprouts. Next weekend, we hope to get supports in so we can plant grape vines and snow peas. We decided that a spot in our small orchard would work for our compost pile. We have almost finished our backyard. Once again a light at the end of the tunnel.
I'll be spending a little time every day watering, weeding, and eventually picking fresh veggies. There will be a lot of weeding. The weeds have spread widely since we've moved in. We keep underestimating how fast the weeds go to seed, and kill them after they've gone to seed. As a result, we have more weeds. So much of this coming growing season will be a fight against the weeds. We will need to eradicate them from several large sections of our yard and then put down ground cloth and wood chips. In the garden, I expect that I'll be pulling weeds nearly every day.
Since finances have been a little tight after the big project from last year and several unexpected expenses, we don't think we will be finishing up all the landscaping just yet. But to make the patio area pretty, I think I'll sow several packets of wildflowers that I already have.
Getting outside and making things look nice again has been really satisfying. I'm sure it will take a few seasons yet before everything is just the way I imagined it. But, it is getting there.
As for the sick days we have had recently, I've had a lot of "light at the end of the tunnel" thoughts. Our oldest child is five years old. Five-year-olds are still fussy and clingy when sick, but they are much easier to work with than a three-year old or an infant. The three year old is super fussy and clingy when sick, but at least she can talk and communicate how she feels, if she's hungry, or if her food is about to come up. The baby (or I should say toddler, since he's walking) is as hard to figure out as ever. If he's not happy, something is wrong.
I realize that sick days will only be getting better as the kids get older. The Pillowfight Fairy is ten times better as a sick child now than when she was three. I have wondered how many of those people I know who decided to stop having kids after one or two, decided this after a bad bout of sickness while the kids were preschool age or younger. I know it crosses my mind on those really tough days.
Somehow, as my kids get older I am seeing another light at the end of the tunnel. We still hope to have another child, but even so I'm not going to be having pregnancies much longer. I'm forty. If we are blessed again, it will be our last I think. Eventually, the baby years will pass. The Toddler years will pass. Preschool years will pass. I will get to rid myself of spare toys and baby clothes, maternity clothes and bottles. Some day we will no longer need booster seats at the table. I am looking forward to the older kid stages.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Third in a series
I'll try to make this short, since I'm already up too late.
Today's topic is "Why are we so dissatisfied with everyday life that we feel the need to do special things as a nearly everyday thing". In reading my Dad's memoirs and remembering stories my Mom told of her growing up years, they had a whole lot of everyday life without the special stuff. When they did have special times, such as holidays or special trips, they were much simpler than we would make them. On holidays, they would have a nice meal. This consisted of a little more than what was served everyday with maybe a special dessert that was only made for that holiday. If it was an occasion where presents were given, they would have received only one or two gifts. Eating out was a picnic, a potluck, or a meal at another person's house. A meal in a restaurant was rare. Special foods that were savored, were ordinary foods that you only got when they were in season.
I find that I am tempted to try to make too many special things in my life. Some of it may come from our advertising culture that tries to make you think that you aren't satisfied with what you have. But, I think some of it is from my own inner child wanting to do the special stuff for my benefit. Christmas is a good example. How many family traditions did you have growing up? Didn't your spouse have some traditions they want to pass on to your family? Have you heard of family and friends doing things that sounded to you as a good idea? Before you know it you are drowning in an avalanche of special things to do for Christmas. After all, if every day is special, it doesn't really stand out against the experiences of every day life. I find myself doing something "for the kids" that is really all about me. They might enjoy it, but I can't keep doing special things all the time. I have to somehow get the message across that it is special and no we aren't going to do it every single day.
I have a recent example from my life. I have fond memories of baking special things at Christmas. So, in my mind, I would like to repeat this for my children. But, since I'm going to be doing something special, why not go all out and pick something new that I've never done before. I decided to do popcorn balls and a Gingerbread house. I should have known better. Christmas is my craziest time of year. I need a simple quiet time, not more activity. Well, this year was a little bit crazier than most and the popcorn balls and the gingerbread house didn't get done. Looking back I was quite disappointed about that. Then one day at the grocery store I noticed all of the Valentine's day candy showing up in the store. I had an idea! Who says a gingerbread house is only for Christmas time? We can do one for Valentine's Day!
It took about a week of interruptions and delays, but we finally completed the gingerbread house today
The girls did enjoy the process. They helped me do the gingerbread recipe. The Pillowfight Fairy helped me roll out and cut the dough. They watched me make the icing glue. They both helped me decorate it with candies. I'm very happy about how it turned out. I must say, anyone who has put one of these things together can be considered a wiser gingerbread architect than when they first started. As much as the kids liked doing this, it was still Mommy's project. I didn't want to let other people interfere with my vision. Although, I did ask advice from my husband since he had worked with a group of people to build a gingerbread castle once. I finally had my special Christmas baking experience that turned out to be a belated Valentine's Day experience when it was all said and done.
How does this tie in with where I started? Well, I was trying to graft on a tradition into my family so that we would have one more special thing to remember. Even though we don't really need anything more added to the other special things we were doing. There is nothing wrong with special things or events. I am even a little proud of the fact that I adapted this bit of confection to a different holiday than is traditional. However, I am newly keen to the idea that this takes a ridiculous amount of work. Nearly every special thing or event in our lives takes extra work. This was true for my parents in their family's growing up and it is true of my family today. They didn't have a lot of special things or events in their lives. There was a whole lot of sameness from day to day. I think that they tried to give my brothers and I more than they had growing up. In turn I am trying to do even more for my kids.
I hope my kids remember some of the special things that we do. I hope they remember that their Mom would try something new from time to time. But, I don't want them to think that a day without something special is a substandard day. I think I want to be picky about the special things that we do. I don't want to get too elaborate or we won't be able to afford the special things in time, effort or money. I don't want them to be too frequent or we might think that they are necessary to our lives and can't be done without. But, I don't want to go to the opposite extreme. I don't want to make our special family times ordinary.
I guess it all comes down to priorities. When celebrating a birthday, what do we want to remember as special? The event or the person? When celebrating Christmas do we emphasize gifts, the nativity, music, or family? What will be the special part for us? When we choose a field trip, do we plan carefully to match exactly what we are studying in school or do we take the opportunities as they arise? We probably need a little of both. It is possible that we can fill our lives with so much that none of it makes an impression anymore.
By the way, my parents revel in doing special things now. They enjoy tremendously giving their grandkids an overflowing generous measure of special treatment. They travel all over the country in an RV and enjoy doing things they never got to do earlier. I think they treasure those memories of special times when they were young, but they know that those simpler times were simple out of necessity. What will I treasure as I look back? What will my kids treasure? I don't know. I hope I will treasure some of the simple things as special along with some of the more elaborate things.
Today's topic is "Why are we so dissatisfied with everyday life that we feel the need to do special things as a nearly everyday thing". In reading my Dad's memoirs and remembering stories my Mom told of her growing up years, they had a whole lot of everyday life without the special stuff. When they did have special times, such as holidays or special trips, they were much simpler than we would make them. On holidays, they would have a nice meal. This consisted of a little more than what was served everyday with maybe a special dessert that was only made for that holiday. If it was an occasion where presents were given, they would have received only one or two gifts. Eating out was a picnic, a potluck, or a meal at another person's house. A meal in a restaurant was rare. Special foods that were savored, were ordinary foods that you only got when they were in season.
I find that I am tempted to try to make too many special things in my life. Some of it may come from our advertising culture that tries to make you think that you aren't satisfied with what you have. But, I think some of it is from my own inner child wanting to do the special stuff for my benefit. Christmas is a good example. How many family traditions did you have growing up? Didn't your spouse have some traditions they want to pass on to your family? Have you heard of family and friends doing things that sounded to you as a good idea? Before you know it you are drowning in an avalanche of special things to do for Christmas. After all, if every day is special, it doesn't really stand out against the experiences of every day life. I find myself doing something "for the kids" that is really all about me. They might enjoy it, but I can't keep doing special things all the time. I have to somehow get the message across that it is special and no we aren't going to do it every single day.
I have a recent example from my life. I have fond memories of baking special things at Christmas. So, in my mind, I would like to repeat this for my children. But, since I'm going to be doing something special, why not go all out and pick something new that I've never done before. I decided to do popcorn balls and a Gingerbread house. I should have known better. Christmas is my craziest time of year. I need a simple quiet time, not more activity. Well, this year was a little bit crazier than most and the popcorn balls and the gingerbread house didn't get done. Looking back I was quite disappointed about that. Then one day at the grocery store I noticed all of the Valentine's day candy showing up in the store. I had an idea! Who says a gingerbread house is only for Christmas time? We can do one for Valentine's Day!
It took about a week of interruptions and delays, but we finally completed the gingerbread house today
The girls did enjoy the process. They helped me do the gingerbread recipe. The Pillowfight Fairy helped me roll out and cut the dough. They watched me make the icing glue. They both helped me decorate it with candies. I'm very happy about how it turned out. I must say, anyone who has put one of these things together can be considered a wiser gingerbread architect than when they first started. As much as the kids liked doing this, it was still Mommy's project. I didn't want to let other people interfere with my vision. Although, I did ask advice from my husband since he had worked with a group of people to build a gingerbread castle once. I finally had my special Christmas baking experience that turned out to be a belated Valentine's Day experience when it was all said and done.
How does this tie in with where I started? Well, I was trying to graft on a tradition into my family so that we would have one more special thing to remember. Even though we don't really need anything more added to the other special things we were doing. There is nothing wrong with special things or events. I am even a little proud of the fact that I adapted this bit of confection to a different holiday than is traditional. However, I am newly keen to the idea that this takes a ridiculous amount of work. Nearly every special thing or event in our lives takes extra work. This was true for my parents in their family's growing up and it is true of my family today. They didn't have a lot of special things or events in their lives. There was a whole lot of sameness from day to day. I think that they tried to give my brothers and I more than they had growing up. In turn I am trying to do even more for my kids.
I hope my kids remember some of the special things that we do. I hope they remember that their Mom would try something new from time to time. But, I don't want them to think that a day without something special is a substandard day. I think I want to be picky about the special things that we do. I don't want to get too elaborate or we won't be able to afford the special things in time, effort or money. I don't want them to be too frequent or we might think that they are necessary to our lives and can't be done without. But, I don't want to go to the opposite extreme. I don't want to make our special family times ordinary.
I guess it all comes down to priorities. When celebrating a birthday, what do we want to remember as special? The event or the person? When celebrating Christmas do we emphasize gifts, the nativity, music, or family? What will be the special part for us? When we choose a field trip, do we plan carefully to match exactly what we are studying in school or do we take the opportunities as they arise? We probably need a little of both. It is possible that we can fill our lives with so much that none of it makes an impression anymore.
By the way, my parents revel in doing special things now. They enjoy tremendously giving their grandkids an overflowing generous measure of special treatment. They travel all over the country in an RV and enjoy doing things they never got to do earlier. I think they treasure those memories of special times when they were young, but they know that those simpler times were simple out of necessity. What will I treasure as I look back? What will my kids treasure? I don't know. I hope I will treasure some of the simple things as special along with some of the more elaborate things.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)