Lazy Days of Summer?

I have never really been sure of the origin of that phrase, but it does not fit our lives at all. So far this summer we've worked. First there was the fireworks stand. (A great lesson in patience and getting along.) 5 people in a camper for 11 days in the middle of an empty field with nothing to do is definitely character building. Learning to step outside of your anxiety to talk to strangers, having to borrow and carry on the fly to get totals for customers, and not having everyone available to "do it for you" or just some of the lessons learned by the royal offspring.

After that it was time for Princess K to head to Camp Half-blood. If you've read any of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books, then you know what I'm talking about. Two weeks in the scorching heat learning to fence, throw javelins, march, dance, and a myriad of other Greek skills, keeps you hot and tired...but having fun :0)

Now its time for the Queen to set up the school year again (DIDN'T WE JUST FINISH?!?!?) I learned of a new system called Workboxes (see info on the book here) and we're really excited to get started. I'll have to post pictures when I get things set up.

Faith Steps...

Hosted here this week.


"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."
~Martin Luther King Jr.

Being a visual learner, stepping out in faith has always been a struggle for me. Even though I know in my heart that God has always provided everything I need, my head gets scared very easy when I can't "see" where everything is going.

Homeschooling is like this for me. I have three "wild cards" so to speak. I trust that they are learning and that God is helping me in all the areas I lack. I can see progress as we go, but not being able to "see" the finished product is a bit frightening.

Questions like "what if I forget something?"or "what if they forget everything I teach them?" plague me at times. Odds are, I probably will forget something, but it will be OK. I've forgotten things I learned in school..is all hope lost? No, I go look up what I need to know.

Its all going to work out because I do trust God. I step out of my fear into my faith in him. He holds my hand as I climb that staircase and I'm looking forward to seeing just what is at the top.

homeschooling in TX...

Just when you think your life can't get any closer to a stereotype, you look out your kitchen window and see how wrong you are. I'm giving them points for the safety equipment but I may deduct a few for toting the school desk outside. On second thought, it does show problem solving skills...I guess they can keep the points. :0)

First Day of School

It's here, It's here..the first day of school. Don't they look so happy?!?! It's 10 AM and only three meltdowns so far. I must be loosing my mean streak.. LOL

Moments of Joy

I don't know about you, but I often wonder if I'm doing this right. I wonder if anything I try to teach my kids is ever going to amount to anything other than "doing the time", and that's not what I want my children to take away from this schooling experience. Somehow, in the midst of the pity party I was having, my child presented me with an opportunity to see into "the future"...figuratively, of course.

I lost my mother in March. My dad, trying to be helpful, brought me all her sewing things knowing that I would want them when I was ready. Well, I wasn't ready. They have been sitting in a pile in the corner of the living room and I walk past and ignore them daily...until today. One of my girls is wanting to learn to sew and asked if she could have Gramma's machine if I wasn't going to use it. So, we got it out, cleaned it up and made sure it was working. Then she wanted to explore the boxes of treasures as well. Most of it was not worth saving because it had been in storage too long. When we got to the bottom of the box, we found patterns to make Barbie clothes. I couldn't believe my mother had kept them, but I couldn't help smiling. We sat and laughed at how funny the clothes looked (I was a 70's child..) and I told her about how I would sit and look through the scraps pile to pick the material for the clothes. What started out as getting ready for a school subject I wasn't looking forward to, quickly became a time to share old memories and make new ones.

Never underestimate the power of your influence on your child. You never know when what you may think is a small, inconsequential moment of your time will turn into a memory. A memory that brings joy, and remembrance of things you taught, to future generations. Enjoy home schooling your children, you're doing great!

#4982

Reason #4982 to home school.

Cops: 3rd-graders aimed to hurt teacher

My children have never plotted to harm their teacher. The only "attack" perpetrated on myself is the dog-pile on Mommy's bed to smother her with hugs and kisses. I'm so glad I'm raising nice kids. :0)

Where's the off switch??

I think one of my favorite things about homeschooling is seeing the "light come on" and watching the royal offspring get excited about learning...until around 9 PM that is. Why is it, that as my brain is beyond tired and just wants to go to bed, theirs seems to gear up with questions, ideas , inventions and a million other things? How insane does it make me look in their eyes to encourage free thought, looking up everything you want to know and solving all the world's problems with wacky inventions guaranteed to make our lives better all day long, only to beg them to be quiet and go to sleep as the sun goes down. After all, (and I quote) "IF God wanted us to go to bed at dark, why did he let us invent lights?" My answer of course, was "Lights were invented by Satan to give mom's more time everyday to work themselves into an early grave."

Some one find my Mommy owner's manual, I need to turn off the lights....

Sharing some humor

OK, after reading this on my friend's blog, I just had to share. While, I'm not bitter about homeschooling or the curiosity it raises, I do get a giggle at some of the responses. There are times when I'd like to give a smarty pants response too, but find myself holding my tongue. Never hurts to giggle bit though right??

The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List
By Deborah Markus, from Secular Homeschooling Magazine, Issue #1, Fall 2007
1 Please stop asking us if it's legal. If it is — and it is — it's insulting to imply that we're criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it?

2 Learn what the words "socialize" and "socialization" mean, and use the one you really mean instead of mixing them up the way you do now. Socializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you're talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet, and you can safely assume that we've got a decent grasp of both concepts.

3 Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize.

4 Don't assume that every homeschooler you meet is homeschooling for the same reasons and in the same way as that one homeschooler you know.

5 If that homeschooler you know is actually someone you saw on TV, either on the news or on a "reality" show, the above goes double.

6 Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you know, know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by homeschooling. You're probably the same little bluebird of happiness whose hobby is running up to pregnant women and inducing premature labor by telling them every ghastly birth story you've ever heard. We all hate you, so please go away.

7 We don't look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear they're in public school. Please stop drilling our children like potential oil fields to see if we're doing what you consider an adequate job of homeschooling.

8 Stop assuming all homeschoolers are religious.

9 Stop assuming that if we're religious, we must be homeschooling for religious reasons.

10 We didn't go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing of options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling just to annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision, tailored to the specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of our being homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your own educational decisions.

11 Please stop questioning my competency and demanding to see my credentials. I didn't have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don't need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can't teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there's a reason I'm so reluctant to send my child to school.

12 If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please understand that you're calling me an idiot. Don't act shocked if I decide to respond in kind.

13 Stop assuming that because the word "home" is right there in "homeschool," we never leave the house. We're the ones who go to the amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in the off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and holidays when it's crowded and icky.

14 Stop assuming that because the word "school" is right there in homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every day, just like your kid does. Even if we're into the "school" side of education — and many of us prefer a more organic approach — we can burn through a lot of material a lot more efficiently, because we don't have to gear our lessons to the lowest common denominator.

15 Stop asking, "But what about the Prom?" Even if the idea that my kid might not be able to indulge in a night of over-hyped, over-priced revelry was enough to break my heart, plenty of kids who do go to school don't get to go to the Prom. For all you know, I'm one of them. I might still be bitter about it. So go be shallow somewhere else.

16 Don't ask my kid if she wouldn't rather go to school unless you don't mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn't rather stay home and get some sleep now and then.

17 Stop saying, "Oh, I could never homeschool!" Even if you think it's some kind of compliment, it sounds more like you're horrified. One of these days, I won't bother disagreeing with you any more.

18 If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class, you're allowed to ask how we'll teach these subjects to our kids. If you can't, thank you for the reassurance that we couldn't possibly do a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a better one.

19 Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child's teacher as well as her parent. I don't see much difference between bossing my kid around academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else.

20 Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.

21 Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she's homeschooled.

22 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I homeschool my kids.

23 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I homeschool my kids.

24 Stop talking about all the great childhood memories my kids won't get because they don't go to school, unless you want me to start asking about all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because you went to school.

25 Here's a thought: If you can't say something nice about homeschooling, shut up!

What I learned today...

My children never cease to amaze me, and oddly enough, I learn from them more often than from a book. Today, I learned its OK to see the world diffrently. So what if the assignment doesn't match the work turned in? Isn't art suppose to be an individual thing? Is it really art if you do it exactly like the book tells you to?

When I think about it, homeschooling is quite an "out of the box" way of thinking to begin with. Should I be surprised when my lovely Princess A takes an assignment and tailors it to fit how she sees the world? No, I think I shouldn't. Independant thought is one of my ultimate goals here.