It's a Wonderful and Crazy Life: March 2012

Monday, March 12, 2012

What Homeschooling "IS" and "ISN'T"

Before I started homeschooling, I was plagued with the idea's in my head of what every day would look like. I thought I might be standing in front of a white board for 6 hours a day, teaching them like a school teacher might. Or preparing lessons long into the night, every night. But as I've progressed just a little in my journey I've learned a little bit more of what homeschooling is, and what homeschooling isn't.

Homeschooling is:

1) Teaching my kids to LOVE to learn! This I believe by far is the greatest joy.

2) Teaching my kids to be self initiators, and to be self governed.

3) Teaching my kids to be flexible.

4) Learning that doesn't end with the closing of a book.

5) Teaching my kids to work together, help each other, play together, and learn together regardless of their age difference.

6) Being able to teach my kids using their own learning styles, which are all different.

Homeschooling isn't:

1) Bookwork from 8-3. Usually it takes my kids 2-3 hours total, that includes breaks to play, and snacktime.

2) Traditional learning in the sense that my kids sit in desks all day.

3) Boring! There is never a dull moment.

4) Easy :) It's just a lot of multi-tasking.

5) Letting my children be lazy.

6) Teaching my kids to be anti-social (I love this one, contrary to popular belief homeschooler's are very social, and know how to interact appropriately in society).

Currently I'm homeschooling a 2nd grader, 1st grader and a Preschooler. A few of you have asked me about my curriculum, so this is what is looks like for each of them.

Easton - 2nd Grade

Horizons Phonics and Reading Grade 2
Horizons Spelling and Vocabulary Grade 2
Horizons Math Grade 1 (finishing from last year) and moving into Grade 2 this week.
Lots of Reading: Horizon's Readers, Magic Tree House books, Step 2 Readers

Natalie - 1st Grade

Horizons Phonics and Reading Grade 1
Horizons Spelling and Vocabulary Grade 1
Horizons Math Grade K (finishing from last year and moving into Grade 1 this week.
Lots of Reading: Horizon's Readers, Magic Tree House books, Step 1 Readers, and lots of Dr Suess books.

Adam - Preschool

BrainQuest Workbook Preschool and Kindergarten

These are the subjects we do everyday. But, we do have days that are exceptions, a break in the routine, which is what I believe is one of the greatest things about homeschooling.

Sometimes there are days filled with tears where nothing is clicking. Sometimes, I push them to overcome their "I can't," but other times I put their books away, and we try something different. And those are usually their favorite days.

I love being able to be flexible. One of my kids has a hard time with bookwork, the other doesn't. And while I make them both do it, I love that I can be sensitive and flexible to help them learn, and love what they are doing. Instead of making school time a drudgery, and source of frustration, I'm able to help them understand the way they learn.

Kids are smart. Period. But how they learn is all different. When we put kids in our own little boxes of how we think they should learn it does more damage than we may think.

We have lots of tactile games, phonics games, and math games that we pull out during these occasions. If counting dollars and cents is challenging, we pull out lots of money and play store. If spelling and phonics is frustrating, we pull out our Silly Sentence game.

Aside from doing the bookwork, which like I said is usually done before lunch if the kids are efficient. We have time to explore and learn a plethora of other things that interest them.

My daughter is learning to cook on her own, and starting to sew. She also spends at least 2 hours daily drawing, she loves to draw!

My boys play Lego's for hours every day, in addition to making squirrel houses and forts outside when its not raining. They do lots of building, and problem solving.

In addition to the things we do at home, the kids are all involved in gymnastics and piano once a week.

And on days when we have one or more sick kids, we often just turn on a movie and snuggle on the couch. I love those days too.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Life Lessons from Scrabble

It goes something like this . . .

It's five turns into a heated game and I've had nothing but words like "bug" and "mad". In fact I'm starting to get mad because every time I pick my letters I get nothing but one more "i" to add to the other 4.

And then my moment! I pick my letters, put them in my holder and stare at them for a few seconds. And then I see it! I actually have an amazing word! It is a great word! I can actually use up all my letters! And they are not all one point letters! It's a rare occasion and it's going to be so sweet to see the look on my opponent's (aka husband's) face when I play it. I'm already dreaming of my huge score.

I just have to find a place to put it.

I'm staring at the board, looking at all the possibilities. I think to myself, I'm okay if I don't get a double word score, I'll still be okay. Maybe there is at least a triple letter score I can find. Still looking, and looking. Okay, maybe a double letter score? It can't be this hard, I mean, this is a great word. At this point I'd settle for just a spot, no extra special scoring. There has got to be a place for this. I mean this is a great word!

But my time is up and there is no place for my word.

It's tragic. It's truly devastating. The thought of pulling my word apart is painful. I have to play some simple word like, "run" or "fun," and break up the biggest word, the best word I've had in the history of my Scrabble experience.

But I have to let it go, or I lose.

Okay, okay, maybe I exaggerated a little bit :) I'm not sobbing over a Scrabble game, but I'm sure I've groaned a few times, maybe hit the table.

Like my Scrabble game, there have been a good many moments in my life where I've had to painfully let go of my plans, and my ideas, or my expectations of life. It's like letting the pieces of that AMAZING word fall through my hands. I either let "it" go, or don't let "it" go. As the Lord was reminding me so gently the other day :)

Either way, life is just not going to be the way I planned or expected. But in the first scenario I'm embracing life with joy, and in the latter I'm closing up, refusing the change, and letting depression and fear ruin what could be the greatest joy.

So I choose joy today, however hard it may be.

To be continued . . . . . . . . .

Thursday, March 1, 2012

The Beach

I love the Ocean. I've loved it for as long as I can remember. The moment when you walk through the sand, to the place where the water meets the shore and hear the roar of the sea. It's always constant, relentless, and majestic. I always feel the closest to Jesus at the sea. Even though I know he dwells within me, I sense His awesome presence, His majesty, His unrelenting love. He is HUGE!

Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
mightier than the breakers of the sea.

The LORD on high is mighty.

Psalm 93:4

My sister is getting married! Currently we live about 4 hours from each other, but come summertime, she is moving to Oklahoma to begin her new life with her husband. We miss her so much already, but we are so excited for her new adventure. We wanted to have some time with her, so we stole her away to our favorite little beach town, Seabrook, WA. We had a blast. I think we wore her out. She is not quite used to being around 4 kids all day. It wasn't really a restful "vacation." But it was special none the less.

If you ever get the chance to visit Seabrook, you won't be disappointed. It's about 3 hours from Seattle, and worth the drive. You feel like you are in another world. http://www.seabrookwa.com/