Last December, during advent, I realized that I was failing at getting my family around the dinner table regularly. It made me feel guilty and sad. I mean, there are only about a bazillion studies that prove how important a family dinner ritual is.
It's not that we didn't have the desire...but life is busy you guys.
I also realized that we were spending a ton of money to eat food that wasn't even being served on our own kitchen table. Like way too much money. I'm not even going to tell you how much money we spent each week eating out….it was embarrassing. And come on...there are FIVE OF US. You can't even go to McDonald’s and spend less than 30 bucks for crap food. If we go to Applebee's it's an easy 75 bucks.
So I started to think about this problem. I'm not gonna lie...homeschooling is kind of labor intensive. It really eats up a lot of time. And the kids have lots going on. Further, we have friends who we like to hang out with too. And also...I'm not a great multi-tasker. I started to daydream. How cool would it be to have a cook? Like, you know, a Downton Abbey type of cook who plans meals and gets the food and makes it and is kind and endearing and loveable?
But, hello, we aren't rich people. And let's be honest. ..I'm a stay at home mom..I'm not running an estate in the English countryside. Hiring a cook would be pretentious. And my mother in law would probably faint. Besides, all of my pinteresty mom friends manage to make THEIR families meals. Heck, one of my best friends runs a FARM; she’s also a labor and delivery nurse and she makes homemade meals with food that she grew in her garden or raised by herself in the barns that she also mucks and shovels and paints.
All that is true. And yet, none of it was putting a meal on our table every night.
One week I sat down and started doing math. We were spending X amount of money a week eating out. It was enough money (from my calculations) to buy almost a whole month’s worth of groceries to make meals at home. I started to wonder if I could split that money each week between groceries and a cook. Would it be enough to hire a cook and give her a weekly grocery budget?
I told Ryan my idea. I knew I could save us money if I just cooked the meals every night myself but look, I told him, clearly that's not happening now which is why we eat out all the time. We figured it would be healthier to eat home cooked meals than eating out and it also would make life easier. I wasn't sure if we would be able to find someone who would want the gig but we put out a classified ad and crossed our fingers.
I was surprised at how many applications we received. A lot of the applicants were chefs at really well-known restaurants around here. We had a hard time narrowing down the pool but eventually we chose three candidates to interview. We asked them to make a sample menu and weekly grocery budget. We met them each at a local coffee place for interviews. They were all really nice but two of them just didn't seem like a good fit. The third was perfect. She was so funny and easy to talk to and she had made a menu that was kid friendly but also interesting. ..more than anything though, Ryan and I just kind of clicked with her. We offered her the job the same day we interviewed her.
She's been cooking for us since last January. We love her. I don't know how we survived without her. She makes up the weekly menu, shops for the groceries and comes to our house each night to make our dinner. She has, on occasion, cooked for our friends and family when they are here for supper and she handles a large party like it's nothing. She will also cook low carb, paleo, whatever we request. It's changed our life for the better and now every night we get to eat a meal together around our own table.
It's okay to not do it all. Let me be the first to reassure you on that point. I don't care if people think I'm a bad wife. You shouldn't care what people think about you either. I like that we are modeling to the kids that it's okay to delegate some things to others. We are always in awe of our cook. She is so good at what she does. She has blessed us with her cooking, and the kids know the value of hiring people who are good at what they do. We respect her and make sure she knows we appreciate her. Those are good things to teach your kids. The better moms than me may never need help getting dinner on the table, and that's awesome. I wish I was like that. On the other hand, I am bleeping good at finding and hiring the best cook. I mean, we all have our talents.
I published a blog post last year when we were in the beginning of our first full year homeschooling our two youngest kids. Since then we've really found our groove. I'm happy to report that our first full year of schooling with both kids was a resounding success and that we are still going forward with our little home classroom for a second year.
People are always curious as to how homeschooling works, and when we first started I combed the interwebs for blog posts that gave a peek into the day of a homeschool schedule. So I thought it would be fun to share what our day looks like, and take a little peek at what we are doing.
First things first, we now have a 5th grader and a 2nd grader. For what it's worth, that means very little in the homeschooling world. For the most part we only loosely stick to grade level for math, but even that is flexible. For instance, this year my second grader is doing the 3rd grade level of math in our chosen curriculum. I think he could do the 4th grade level comfortably, but we don't want to get too crazy. I'll go through our stuff more in depth below, but just know that when I'm picking curriculum I'm more worried about seeing it and looking inside of it, than I am with what level it says it is on the cover. I've noticed that when it comes to 'grade level' standards, as set by our state board of education, that aside from math, most things will hit it regardless. For instance, if a state standard says that a 5th grader should be able to describe the 'scientific method', a 6th grade book will do that too; that's because every elementary science curriculum hits on the scientific method. In fact, to go further with that, every elementary science text I've looked at, from 1st grade through 5th grade, basically covers the exact same thing year after year...the vocabulary just gets more rigorous in the upper elementary grades.
Basically, our school day contains these subjects:
Math
English/Language Arts
Science
History/Geography
Memory Work
Art
Music
Latin
We do math, English, Science, Latin and History every day. We do Art on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Geography on Wednesdays and Fridays. Music happens with piano lessons every Wednesday morning and piano practice every day. The kids also have just added choir on Wednesday evenings as well. PE happens with a mandatory recess each day (45 mins) and whatever else we add in..sometimes it's organized sports teams they play with, or me taking them for swimming lessons or something like park days or trampoline park days. We do typing and computer skills too, but I have programs that they use as a fun thing to do when they aren't doing a lesson with me.
And now I present, our day to you.
8:30 a.m.- Wake up sleepy heads!
9:00 a.m.- School begins
Subject 1:
5th grader does math with me. We are using Saxon Math and today she does a lesson on renaming fractions. Along with this lesson is a 100 problem fact sheet of various multiplication problems. Saxon Math likes repetition. She can do this easily and complains but I say "tough luck buttercup" and make her do it anyway. In three lessons from now she's going to have a fact sheet on simple addition. It seems silly when she's learning fractions right now but Saxon believes that you need to constantly review concepts...even simple ones, to ensure they are committed to memory. She has 25 problems that go with her new concept for 'homework' but I'll let her do those later when I'm working with her brother.
9:30 a.m.- I've switched kids and now I'm doing math with my 2nd grader. While his sister was working on her math he was completing the stuff I've given him to do in his morning folder. I'm not gonna lie...this is busy work stuff, although he still has really crappy handwriting so the handwriting pages aren't totally useless. Mostly this is stuff he likes to do...like writing in his journal and drawing a picture to go with it. This kid inexplicably loves math so I give him insane amounts of math worksheets that he seems to think are fun. Whatever kid...go to town. Anyway, it's his turn for math so he pulls out his book. He is also in a Saxon math curriculum but today he's learning about angles. We use a geo-board to show these shapes and angles. If you don't know what that is then consider yourself lucky because what they really are, are tiny weapons that send itty bitty rubber-bands catapulting through our classroom. We hit his sister once, and she gives us a dirty look. We apologize. He finishes his lesson and I give him the worksheet from the workbook that goes with the lesson I just taught him.
10 a.m.-
The kids switch spots. 2nd grader works on his math homework and the 5th grader brings me her English stuff. Today we are doing writing instead of grammar. She pulls out her book and we start writing a rough draft of a paper she started outlining yesterday. It's an overview of the Middle Ages. She doesn't need much help with this but I slash some adverbs with my red pen and tell her to show me instead of telling me. She hates it when I say this. She complains that she likes the word "fetidly" and I tell her that she can keep it if she takes out one more LY word. She does it. I tell her to re-write the rough draft in pen. After that she pulls out her spelling workbook and we do a quick rundown through her words and she defines a few of them with help from a dictionary.
10:40 a.m.-
Kids switch again. 2nd grader grabs his English book. Today we are learning about helping verbs. I make him repeat the definition of a verb and I make him place emphasis on the 'shows a state of being' part. His grammar lessons are short but really good. We use First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind, and I can't say enough good things about it. After he is done with that we grab his spelling stuff and he does a crossword puzzle with those. I realize he doesn't know how to do a crossword puzzle and feel like I'm failing in all things homeschool. I give him a quick tutorial and we are back in business. Sometime around now the puppy starts barking in the family room, from inside his crate and the 5th grader jumps up to go let him out. I know it's because she doesn't really want to finish the paper she's working on. But I let her, because no one has time for poop in the crate.
11 a.m.
I keep the second grader because 5th grader is still in the backyard with the dog. He grabs his science book out and we read the lesson together. He reads one page, then I read one page and so on and so forth. I like to make him do this because it kills 2 birds with one stone. I changed up our science curriculum this year because I wanted a regular ol' science text book. This is one thing that I have discovered about myself...I am not a fan of most homeschool science curriculum. I will say that buying text books that were published for public schools costs a small fortune. Grace's book alone was 125 dollars. That didn't even include the teacher's edition. Grant's was cheaper but that's because I inadvertently ordered the California edition. We finish his lesson which included a wonky experiment where we cut paper towels into the shapes of leaves and then soaked them in water to see which leaf shape would dry faster.
11:30: 5th grader returns and manages to do everything but finish her paper, and now it's her turn for science. 2nd grader is reading Sideways Stories from Wayside School to himself in a bean bag in the corner of the room. 5th grader and I review what we learned in the last lesson about organelles in animal cells. We look at some animal cells under a microscope. 2nd grader wants to see animal cells. 2nd grader joins our lesson. We get off topic and wonder why animal cells don't have cell walls so 2nd grader googles it. It's because cell walls need to keep the leaf stiff. Cool. 2nd grader wants to look at his spit under a microscope. We look at it. It looks like a rainbow. 5th grader wants to look at dog drool. We look at that. Still looks like a rainbow. I tell her she needs to do the lesson review questions at the end of her science lesson. She hems and haws and says she will do them later. I relent. It's lunchtime and I'm hungry
12-1p.m.- Lunchtime and recess.
12:50.
We go to a movie theater because we are seeing Pete's Dragon with another homeschool mama and her kiddo. I would have felt guilty about this last year. I don't this year. AT ALL! On the way home we listen to all our memory work for the week that goes along with Classical Conversations, which is a homeschool program we belong to. Memory work is just that...memory work. It is not connected to anything else, but they commit it to memory for future use as they progress through school. They sing the history sentence over and over which goes like this:
"Eleanor of Aquitaine and her son, Richard the Lion-Hearted, fought the Turks for Jerusalem,
during the time of the Crusades,which occurred from, 1095 to 1291"
3:30:
We get home and do history. We use Story of the World which is phenomenal. I have absolutely nothing but wonderful things to say about it. It is that good. It has no negatives except that it has an ending. That is the only negative...it's not a book that never ends. This year we are doing volume II, the Middle Ages. Today we are learning about how Augustine came to England to be the first Archbishop of Canterbury. Then we learn about a monk who is making furniture in a monastery. The monk becomes the main character for a little while and tells the reader about how they copy the book by hand.. Grant remarks that it was a good thing Gutenberg invented the printing press. Grant is obsessed with Gutenberg bibles. We all know this but we still listen to him tell us about his dream of buying a Gutenberg bible. I let him fantasize for three more minutes before I tell him it's time for art
4:00-5:00:
We re-watch part of a new documentary series I bought on the advice of a super smart friend, called HOW ART MADE THE WORLD. It was produced by the BBC so you know it has to be good. We are learning about how the human form has often been portrayed in extreme or outlandish ways throughout history. We are focusing on the time period when the ancient Greeks started sculpting statues which were supposed to show the human body in a state of perfection. We draw our own version of a perfect human. We talk about how magazines try to make women look perfect and ultra skinny and how that makes girls and women feel. Grant says his wife doesn't have to be perfect and he will tell her she is perfect anyway so she doesn't feel bad.
Evening: Complete homework that wasn't finished and practice piano
8:36 p.m. I realize we forgot Latin today. It's totally because of the movie. Still don't feel guilty.
Right Carol? We are winning at momming.
Anyway, if we'd remembered to do Latin we would have done a lesson from SONG SCHOOL LATIN BOOK 2. We used level 1 last year and loved it. It comes with a CD with songs to help memorize the different grammar and rules and it goes right along with our Latin memory work from Classical Conversations. We like it a lot.
So that's it in a nutshell. That's what our day looks like. It's not glamorous but we are doing okay. I don't think I've screwed them up....yet. I still like to read about all the better moms than me who have been doing this a lot longer than us and don't forget things like doing a whole subject. However, maybe someday some newbie will find this and realize that "Hey, I can totally do that!" and yes, you totally can too.
(We finally finished our paper sans "fetidly"...thank goodness for small miracles).
The last post I wrote was about our decision to start homeschooling, and I haven't had time to write anything else since then! One thing I quickly discovered about homeschooling is that it's truly a full time job!
I thought I'd do a check in for 2 reasons. 1. People have been sending me messages asking how it's going and 2. the state tells me to keep a portfolio that shows what we are working on or have done, and I thought this would be a good way to keep a secondary 'online' portfolio of sorts.
We started school on the same day the public schools started, (mid August). We are also part of Classical Conversations as well, (a coo-op of sorts), but that didn't start until later in the month. I homeschooled Grace for the second part of last year, but adding Grant this year was a new thing. I was a little nervous about having two to educate, but it turns out I was needlessly worried. It's actually been easier than I thought, and a lot more fun to have two in our homeschool 'class'.
Every Monday is spent at Classical Conversations from 9am-3pm. The other 4 days a week we are at home. Each of those 4 school days at home has two parts. The first is our non CC curriculum. Both kids have their own individualized Math, Science and Language Arts curriculum. They also both have grade leveled spelling programs. On top of those things Grace also does a 4th grade geography/history curriculum, and typing. Together they both do a full Latin curriculum, but since they are both new to Latin, they both use the same texts and workbooks which allows me to lead Latin for both of them at the same time. I do math, science, and Language arts/Spelling with them everyday. We do Latin twice a week.
I work with them individually on their grade level subjects. It works out well because I finish math with one, send them off with math work, then do math with the next. Then I switch and do English and spelling, and then science. While one is working with me, the other is working on an assignment that goes with the lesson I just did with them one on one. We come together for Latin. The only thing Grace does totally independently, is history and geography, (and also typing). Her history curriculum is set up with a reading assignment and then questions and essays that go with it. We talk about the lesson once she has read it, and I use the Teacher's guide to lead her through a discussion, but for the most part, that subject is independent, (which is great prep for high school courses and college classes).
We start school around 9 each morning and it takes us until about 12:15 to get through those core subjects. After a lunch break we come back together and do memory work together. Memory work is the core part of Classical Conversations. Each week they have something to memorize in Math, Latin, Science, English, History, the history timeline, and Geography. All ages memorize the same things each week, but they are grouped by ages into regular looking classes. Older kids can go deeper into things than younger kids, but they all are learning the same core material. Grace also does a full English grammar/writing curriculum in CC, which is totally separate from the memory work and her other Language arts curriculum, so in actuality she has 2 English programs. (YAY ENGLISH!) The memory work in CC changes each week. For really little students, memorization is enough. For older kids, you can add some context. After lunch we practice our memory work for the current week and then review some previous weeks. This takes about 30 mins.
After that we pick one of our CC memory work subjects, (Such as history) and learn more about it together. Sometimes we watch a documentary, or we read a play from that time period. For science, we look up the topic, read about it, and maybe do a sketch of what we are learning about, (like a conifer seed) etc. It's not our core curriculum for any of the subjects, but we can often incorporate into our core. For instance, we learned about the Age of Imperialism in CC a couple of weeks ago, and it flowed right into what Grace was learning about Great Britain in her core history. Sometimes we can even incorporate CC things into art concepts. When we are at CC all day on Mondays they also do a fine arts class, music class, science experiment, and map work. At home I try to incorporate the music and art that they are learning into other things. If we are learning about symmetry in fine arts, then I will have them integrate that into a drawing of something historically related. We also use some art curriculum that is tutorial based and teaches art concepts such as perspective, use of different materials, etc.
We are usually finished each day by 3. I use after school hours for the P.E. requirement. Right now Grace is in a Basketball league, and we also will be starting a 2 hour a week swimming class soon. I feel like P.E. is the one area where it's easier to sign them up for structured classes instead of just trying to do it at home, (music too). They get music instruction at CC, but we will be joining an orchestra group next year to start learning violing. Overall it's amazing how much more you can accomplish outside of a traditional school setting. We just don't have the lost time between classes, recess, and other things, so we can speed right along. By the end of the day they are tired though, and ready for a break, (me too)!
I have seen some really awesome progress, especially in math and language arts. It has been a great journey so far.
Pro's and Cons I've found for homeschooling at this point are:
Pro's
1. Academically I can go a lot deeper with them at home. I know we are doing more rigorous work then what they'd get at school, not because school is inferior, but because I just have that flexibility.
2.They are well rested (this is actually kind of huge). When I know they are really tired I let them sleep later and just adjust our day accordingly. I know that everyone has to learn to get up and get going in the real world, but the American Academy of Pediatrics is always telling us that sleep is important for kids, so I let them. I don't know if it's anecdotal or not, but they haven't gotten the normal numerous colds that the school year usually brings. We are still around a lot of kids all the time, so I'm thinking getting enough sleep might actually be making their immune systems more effective.
3. They are learning a foreign language, which is awesome.
4. They are progressing faster than they would at school. This is especially true in math. I've discovered that math levels mean nothing. If a 7 year old has already memorized the multiplication tables he can start division. I am totally ignoring the grade level markings on math curriculum. You logically should progress to the next step in math when you are ready. So, Grant is halfway through the 2nd grade math book even though he is only technically in 1st grade. At first this freaked me out, now I don't care.
5. You can slow down a concept until they perfect it, which actually helps them progress faster. Last year Grace didn't have her multiplication totally mastered when I pulled her. I slowed her back down until she could get there. Slowing her down gave her confidence. Once she mastered it, she sped through division so fast that I blinked and she had gotten it. We went through that part faster than she would have at school and are now ahead again. This only happened because I was first able to slow her down.
6. The kids have no stress. They love getting up and going to 'school'. They love their school day at CC on Mondays. They have the best of both worlds. They get a day with a teacher who isn't me on Mondays, a class full of friends who they have to get along with. And recess, lunch together etc. The rest of the week they just get to focus on their work without worrying about anything else. So far, they are loving it.
CONS:
1. THIS IS A LOT OF WORK
2. I haven't figured out the happy medium of letting them do fun things like field trips. I know how much I can get accomplished in a day and it seems like a waste of a day academically to go out and do something with them. But this is misleading because we should be taking advantage of this perk..sometimes. I plan to give them a little breathing room soon. This is just me being paranoid and making sure we are getting it 'all done'. There are so many cool home school activities happening around here and I need to participate in those more.
3. Non Homeschool people constantly quiz your kids to see if they are 'learning anything', which is the most annoying thing ever. Would you ask a regular public school kid to recite the multiplication tables for you out of the blue? How about just shooting random spelling words at them? No? Then why do people do it to homeschooled kids? It's annoying and I feel like people are constantly wondering how far behind my kids are falling. I'm trying to start letting these things roll off my back, without getting upset.
4.You can't get lazy. I don't get to have a day where I say, "I don't feel like being your teacher today." I have to stay on top of what we are doing to make sure I'm prepared to keep giving them what they need. which goes back to the number 1 CON: THIS IS A LOT OF WORK
5. PAPER. SO MUCH PAPER. I AM DROWNING IN PAPER THINGS. Worksheets, art projects, papers, drawing, etc etc. IT IS EVERYWHERE. I can't just send it home with them because, THEY ARE ALREADY HOME.
6. THIS IS A LOT OF WORK ;)
I'd like to do a review of Classical Conversations in the next few weeks too. Especially how that day is laid out, and the Essentials of Grammar and Writing class that Grace is a part of. It's a really interesting program and there is a lot to discuss about it.
But that's all from me today. Because, I'm tired. And I have a lot of paper to stuff into quickly diminishing hiding places.
I'm going to include a few pictures of things they've been working on, and a video showing us doing some memory work.
I think we are getting the hang of this homeschool thing! Would I do it all over again? Right now my answer is ABSOLUTELY!
Grace has been doing a lot of diagramming and parsing in English. She loves diagramming!
Grace Science
Grace Geography/History, currently learning about the Opium Wars.
Grant is learning about different properties and states of matter in Science.
We continue to learn new Latin nouns in this first unit. We will be learning some verb conjugations next.
Depending on how you know us, what I’m about to tell you may
shock you.You’ll either think we’re
crazy or maybe you’ll think we’ve seen the light.Maybe you will just be confused because you
have no frame of reference for the crazy thing we’ve done.That’s okay.I’d have thought the same thing as little as 4 or 5 months ago.
Before I get into this I want our close friends and family
to just remember one thing.For the most
part, I know that you trust us.I know
that you think that we generally have it together and, up to this point, that
we haven’t screwed our kids up too much.(If the previous statements don’t apply to you and you think we are
screwed up, and our kids are too, well then, you’ll have more ammunition in a
moment). I want you to remember the fact that you think of us as competent
individuals before you let your mind roam into the “THEY’VE FALLEN OFF THE DEEP
END” zone. Give us the benefit of the doubt.
Deep Breath
About a week before spring break we initiated stage one of a
two stage process which is going to dramatically alter our family
lifestyle.We pulled our middle child
from public school, (3rd grade).Stage two will be complete at the end of this school year when our
youngest graduates from Kindergarten.He
won’t be going back in the fall.
We aren’t doing private school.We are homeschooling.Yes, it’s true.
But why would we do such a thing?How could we make this decision….did we think
it through? How can we possibly provide every aspect of a complete education at
home?What about socialization?How can we be more effective than trained,
certified teachers?
I’m going to answer these one by one, because I think this
will accomplish two things.1. I won’t
have to keep answering the same questions over and over, and 2. I want you all
to know that we are taking this seriously.I also want everyone to know that I’m not looking to convert anyone
else, or, to go on a rant in which I tell you all that public schools are
horrible and that you are a bad parent if you don’t educate your kids the same
way I do.I’ve encountered attitudes
like that and they bother me.So here we
go.
1.WHY WOULD WE DO SUCH A THING?
Well, that’s a complicated question.Part of it is that we’ve watched our oldest
navigate the waters of public school for the last 10 years.He’s done great!In fact, he’s staying where he is.And we believe that’s a good thing.However, we have also watched a lot of things
happening in the schools he’s attended which have worried us.Some of the things he has encountered are
great and some not great, and looking to the future, we think that with
personality differences in our kids the other two might not handle some of
those not so great things as well.We
aren’t running away from the not so great things, but rather weighing them
against the negatives of other choices available.Once we weighed them all, the negatives of
other options seemed less numerous.No
education option is perfect.And we don’t
think it’s fair to say that there won’t be downsides to what have chosen.But we will face them as they come, and make
other choices if we decide it’s necessary.What are the negatives within the public schools?Well, our answers might not apply to where
you live, or, maybe they don’t even apply to your child even if they exist in
your schools.So, it doesn’t really
matter if I list them all our or not.We
can also say, with relative certainty that after studying lots of different
models of education that our younger kids have learning styles that seem better
suited to things like the Classical Model, or Charlotte Mason Model, which
allows kids to learn in smaller environments.This allows the child to quickly move ahead in curriculum if need be,
or, focus on a skill in a more vigorous way until it is fully mastered.We’ll touch on this whole ‘different model’
thing in a bit.
2.DID WE THINK THIS DECISION THROUGH?
We can say that we have absolutely thought this
through.We both poured over research,
academic journals, and published studies.In addition to that we browsed literally dozens of web forums in which
parents talked about the pros and cons of pulling their kids out of school and
how it worked out for them.We tried our
best to shuffle through, and weed out, propaganda that was either blindly pro
homeschooling or anti homeschooling.If
you’re wondering, there is no shortage of inflammatory articles or rants on
both sides of the issue.What we found
was this; homeschooled kids, in general, have a lot of academic success.When parents home school with structure, they
are actually more likely to have higher success than kids who go to public
school.The trend continues through
college.Does this mean we think our
kids wouldn’t have had the same success in school?No.We
are engaged with our kids and their educations, and honestly, we’d help them succeed
no matter where they were.But, with
that being said, we also recognize that we have the ability to do MORE outside
of a traditional model of education……we have no restrictions. And when your
kids are bright and capable and you suddenly see the possibilities available
when those restrictions are removed, it gets kind of exciting.So yes, we have thought this through.If you’re interested in some of the research
we based our decisions on I will post a selection of them here:
3.HOW CAN WE POSSIBLY PROVIDE A COMPLETE EDUCATION
AT HOME?
This is a great question.One I would have asked 6 months ago.The answer is simple.You,
yourself, all by yourself cannot.Or, in
other words, homeschooling, the way WE are doing it. Is not isolated.We are not trying to do all of it all by
ourselves.Which brings in one of the
first big negatives of homeschooling.It
can be pricey.I recognize that some are
able to do it very economically by writing their own lessons etc., but that’s
not the way we are opting to do it.We
have bought complete curriculums for almost every subject.And by complete, we mean complete.They are structured with a script to lead
every single lesson.Really well done
and easy to teach.As the kids get older
the curriculum changes.However, we have
also joined an organization for next year called Classical Conversations which
is a pretty cool thing.I’m not going to
explain the whole thing here, but you can visit their website if you want to
learn more.Basically, we are following
a “Classical” education model.This
means the emphasis is on core subjects, (Math, Language Arts, Science, History,
Art, Music and Latin).It’s a holistic model
in which it all kind of connects together.For instance, in history this week we learned about Richard 1 of England
and the Crusades, while in Art we learned about icons and illuminated
manuscripts…they all go together seamlessly.With Classical Conversations we are guided through a very rigorous and
structured outline for each subject each year in cycles that rotate.Classical Conversations has different age
levels all the way through high school, during which time the kids start doing
both their regular school work as well as dual college credit.The classical model follows the Trivium of
education which is the Grammar Stage, Dialectic Stage and Rhetoric stage.It’s really interesting and I encourage you
to research it if you’re interested.But
back to the question.We are pretty
evenly equipped with backgrounds…one of us with science/math and the other with
English/Lit/History.Our degrees will be
very helpful although I don’t think they are absolutely necessary to
homeschool.A private music teacher is
giving a music/voice/and piano lessons to both the kids once a week.Special home school PE classes are available
in our city during school days, as well as art classes, dance classes,
orchestra, sports teams and pretty much any elective or club you’d find in a
public school.When you homeschool you
have to pay for these out of pocket, but there are a ton of options
available.And honestly, it would be
easy for a homeschooled child to be OVER scheduled in my opinion because there
is just the potential to sign up for too many extra things.But that’s a good problem to have going into
the next question…
4.THE ‘S’ WORD….SOCIALIZATION
Ahhh….I am very guilty of muttering this about homeschoolers…”they
are going to be weird and unsocialized..”I admit it, I thought it.You are
probably thinking it too.Luckily, the
research shows that this fear is absolutely, 100 percent, unfounded.Are there some weird homeschoolers?Oh yeah.Are there some weird kids in public school?Oh yeah.
The truth is, the kind of socialization that we think our
kids need to have to be normal isn’t actually always found in a public
school.But it can be.It can also be found in a homeschool, and in
the classes, clubs and groups that homeschoolers join.Research shows that a huge majority of homeschoolers
test psychologically normal in all the categories that pertain to friendships,
peer relationships and social settings. In addition to that, homeschooled kids
are more comfortable socializing with a wide variety of people and ages. In fact, some of the articles I quoted above
show that homeschooled kids are more likely to be involved in social clubs,
civic groups and even more likely to vote as adults.I’m not sure why this is, unless it’s because
they are more likely to be exposed to these kinds of things as kids because of
super-involved parents. Rest assured, if I see my kids turning into strange
hermits who prefer talking to the cat instead of humans I will re-evaluate
things.Ha!In all seriousness though…the research right
now shows that kids who come out of public school are increasingly likely to
carry emotional baggage that follows them well into adulthood.Not every kid…but some.And that baggage affects their earning
potential, their higher education level, their relationships and a host of other
non-savory things later in life.I’m not
saying it’s every kid, or that MY kids would have had that happen….but if we’re
looking at the possibility of kids turning out weird from homeschooling than I
have to point out that there’s an equal or possibly higher chance that they’d
come out of public school screwed up.So
I think we can agree that this worry is pretty much negated by the alternate negative
possibilities of other options.
5.HOW CAN WE DO A BETTER JOB THAN TRAINED,
CERTIFIED TEACHERS.
Well we probably couldn’t if we were comparing apples to
apples.If I was standing in front of a
class of 20 kids for 7 hours each day I would definitely fail miserably
compared to a certified teacher.They studied
the philosophy of how to teach kids in a traditional classroom.Luckily, I’m not teaching in a traditional
classroom.Actually, what I’m doing isn’t
even really the same thing.Basically it
boils down to being a private tutor.I
think we can all agree that there’s a huge difference between being a tutor and
a teacher.A tutor sits with one
student, one on one, and only focuses on them.There is a reason why monarchs and royalty in the ‘old days’ hired
private tutors for their royal offspring.Tutors work.Most of those
articles I listed above touch on this.Homeschooled kids don’t have high academic test scores because their
parents are geniuses who teach with superhuman skill.It’s because their entire education comes
through private tutoring which we KNOW, 100 percent, without a doubt, is
superior to any other kind of teaching method.But it’s clearly not a feasible model for public schools to follow.They can’t hire a tutor for every kid.Imagine what that would cost.However, what do schools do when a child is struggling?They send them to a resource teacher who does
what?One on one tutoring.In most traditional school models tutoring is
reserved for kids who need extra help.But imagine if your entire education had consisted of one on one
tutoring?Imagine how much more you
could excel in those areas that you excel at? Imagine how much more you could
excel in areas you struggle?Homeschooling is really one on one private tutoring.When it’s done in a structured way with
awesome curriculum it gets really amazing results.So no, I couldn’t teach as well as a trained,
certified teacher.But luckily, I’m not
teaching a class full of kids.I’m
tutoring two kids, one on one.
In closing, I just want to say how excited and happy we are
to give this a go.The kid we’ve already
pulled out is just flying through her work.She is loving Latin and is already translating and writing full sentences
and conjugating numerous verbs.She has
discussed and memorized classic poetry, studied feudalism, the crusades, the
fall of the Roman Empire and poured over the amazing notebooks that Leonardo da
Vinci left behind.I’ve already seen her
master topics in math that she told me she hated and didn’t ‘get’, and we are
diagramming complex sentences and learning about science in a way that is much
more hands on than she could have ever experienced in a regular classroom.Next year when we go to stage 2 and start
with Classical Conversations we will have one regular school day a week, field
trips, and tons of opportunities to connect with peers and experts who are all
available to make homeschooling so much more accessible and feasible than it
has been in the past.It’s also important to
add that there is more than one way to homeschool.I’m sure we would be considered HIGHLY
structured.Some people are probably a
lot less structured than us.I don’t
want anyone to think I’m saying our way is the only way…it just fits us best.
And, if at some point we think a different choice would be
better for our kids we will do that with no reservation.We’ve only got them for a little while, and
while we’ve got them we’ll do our best to make that time count, wherever that
may lead us.
So that’s it in a nutshell.We are homeschooling.And don’t
fret, we’ve got this.(I think). ;)
I’m writing this post today for a mom out there who might
stumble upon it. It occurred to me, after
reading this letter written by a woman to the unborn child she was planning on
aborting, that maybe, just maybe, someday a mom might stumble on my blog when
she needs it most. I don’t know if it’s
too late for the mom who wrote that gut-wrenching letter or not. It is probably too late. But, it might not be too late for
another. And so today, I’m writing this
letter in the hopes that someday, someone like me will find it.
I’m not going to debate abortion. I’m not writing this to shame anyone who has
chosen an abortion, or to try to convince people to change their political
position. No. That’s not what this is about.
This is just a letter from one mom to
another.
Dear mom to be,
I was you once. Long
ago on a college campus in Iowa when the leaves were just beginning to change
from green to gold to red. I remember
the smell of the leaves that day, because my sense of smell, like everything
else, was heightened. And not in a good
way. Everything smelled awful to me…food,
perfume, smoke, even my own strawberry shampoo.
And those smells made me throw up…a lot.
I didn’t know it yet, but it was because my hormones were raging. I was pregnant. I was also unmarried, clueless, and probably
pretty irresponsible.
But the smell of the leaves did not bother me that day. The wind was crisp, the world around me was
gold and red, and I was invincible.
And then I wasn’t.
Just two little lines on a test stick…..two little lines
that changed my world forever.
I know what you are feeling.
A fear that rises up inside you like a cold winter wind. It inches through every crevice of your body
and settles into your heart where it churns violently. Regular pregnant women…those who conceive in
marriage and who are met with hugs of joy when those two little lines appear…those
pregnant women know nothing of the fear that we feel.
Everything that you have planned in your life up until now seems
meaningless. Everything you have planned
for the future…that feels meaningless too.
The fear and the worry that are consuming you will wrap all those hopes
and dreams into a black void that is untouchable. Nothing anyone can say, (if you have mustered
up the courage to tell someone), will make the fear subside. It won’t even make it manageable. The fear has become another live thing inside
of you. It is growing, alongside that
little life in your belly, and soon, that fear may devour you to the point that
the only conclusion you come to is that in order to get rid of one you have to
get rid of both.
Choose wisely.
I have a very happy ending.
But it was almost not so. My then
boyfriend and I almost sabotaged that happy ending. It was a close call. I almost chose to get rid of the wrong thing;
thinking that the fear could not exist if the little life was removed from the
equation. That was almost my
choice.
But then, someone who I trusted very much pulled me
aside. She pulled me out from a bustling
school building where I’d been working a part time college job….pulled me into
the warm Autumn day with the gold and red leaves fluttering from the sky. She grabbed my hands and said to me.
“You are stronger than fear.
Fear comes from within and it can be destroyed from within. I believe in you.”
It sounds so clichéd…so….cheesy. I realize as you are reading this you must be
thinking that you are wasting your time. Please, don't stop yet.
Maybe you have no one who will support you through
this. Maybe the man who is the father of
the little life inside you is out of the picture, or, maybe you don’t even want
him in the picture.
Perhaps your family will disown you if you tell them the
situation that you are in. Or, maybe,
you are just too ashamed to tell anyone…even though there are people in your
life who would help you get through this.
Maybe all of these things are true. But listen to me now. You are stronger than fear.
Choices are funny things.
It’s easy to believe that because you can make a choice, that doing so
must be an act of free will. But it’s
not true. A choice made out of fear is
not free will. That’s being driven by
something other than your own wisdom.
Remove the fear.
Close your eyes and think about your situation. Now take the fear away. If you had nothing to fear, what would your
choice be?
I am not going to tell you that you are wrong or right. I’m not going to tell you that you are a
terrible person if you choose what I did not.
But I will tell you this.
9 months from now, or maybe a little less, the fear will be gone. Either you will have no fear because you make
a choice now, to remove the little life inside you, or, you will make a choice
to let it grow. In either case, you will
be looking at the world, 9 months from now, through a lens devoid of fear.
At that point, the ramifications of the choice you make
today will be clear.
Being a parent isn’t always easy. No, it is not. Further, I can only imagine the heart ache of
giving a child up for adoption…something that I have never experienced. I don’t know you, or your situation. And I don’t know that you will have a happy
ending the way I did. I am not writing
this letter to tell you that your life is going to be easy and free of pain or
worry. No one can guarantee that.
But I know this. You
are about to make a decision because of fear, and that is not a choice.
If you weren’t afraid, you wouldn’t be here. If you were so sure that what you are going
to do is the right thing, you wouldn’t have googled something, looking for
answers…justification…or hope, that ultimately brought you to my blog.
Let me offer you this.
I chose to not let the fear overtake me. It meant that, for a little while I had to
live with it. Every day I had to live with the fear, push things around inside me to let it find a place to live..temporarily. I feared the unknown for
nine months. I feared my own
capabilities. I feared the reaction of the world. I feared what my family and friends would
think. I owned that fear for nine months
because nothing anyone can say or do will make that fear completely go away. But I lived with it because I am strong. And so are you. How do I know that? Because you are here. You are already facing it. You are already a great mom, whatever choice you make.
Let me pull you out into the warm autumn day, where a canopy
of red and gold hang above your head. A
reminder that in a few months, when the winter winds give way, all will be
green and beautiful and new again. We
just have a few dark days to get through...just a few.
They won’t last forever.
Give me your hands.
You are stronger than fear. Fear
comes from within, and it can be destroyed from within. I believe in you.
It's almost that time of year again!... Time to go shopping at Target, buy cheap toys, and prove to the world that we are kind and generous.
I got an email from my kids’ school the other day. It was about identifying families who might
want to apply for the holiday assistance program. It seems early to be thinking about the
holidays, but I suppose it takes a while for families to apply and be accepted,
etc.
I’m
sure that in a month or so, there will be fliers sent home that ask us to start
thinking about helping to ‘adopt’ one of these families. Every year when this happens I start to get
really bleepin’ pissed. I can’t help
it. And every year, I shout about how
pissed I am to anyone who will listen…and it NEVER MAKES A DIFFERENCE.
I
actually blogged about this once a few years ago, and a lot of people read
it. But, not enough. And it certainly
didn’t do anything to change this horrible system. I’m going to try again this year.
So
first, I’m going to put this declaration out there: I know that people want to feel good about
helping other people. I get it. I also get the fact that we want to teach our kids how to help others, and we get a high when we see them enjoying
it. I get it. But it doesn't change the fact that what we are doing is ridiculously demeaning.
So, at
our school, and I’m pretty sure in thousands of other schools across the
country, parents will get a list sent home in November. The list will say something like this:
FAMILY
243
Mom-
Size M, Shoe size 8, wants: Mystery Fiction Novels, a blue sweater, socks,
underwear..
Dad-
Size XL, Shoe size 12, Wants: Leather Work Gloves, A sweatshirt, socks,
underwear
Girl 8:
Shoe size 1, Wants: A bike, Craft Kits,
A Disney princess doll, socks, underwear..
We'll
get this list and say, “Hey, I can buy some stuff! And the kids can help me pick it out! We will feel great about ourselves!”
I love that I bought the most expensive gift on the list because I get to call the PTA president and tell her to cross it off. I am a hero.
And
then we'll go shopping, pick it out, wrap it up in paper we picked out, let
our kids put it in the box for Family 243 and we will feel so bleepin good about
what we just did.
We are bleeped up.
The most outrageous programs will even let the 'giver' put THEIR NAME on the gift tag. I can't go so far as to say there is a special place in hell for these offenders, but let's just say it's a good thing I'm not in charge of the 'up' or 'down' department.
I
wonder, if you can imagine for a moment, what MOM, ( Shoe size 8), feels like
when she is watching her daughter open gifts on Christmas morning that she didn’t
wrap. In paper she didn’t pick out. And she might not even have any bleepin’ idea
what is actually IN the package. I’m sure she
feels grateful that her daughter has something to open, but can you imagine how
truly undignified this whole scenario is?
Think about your own Christmas. How
many of you post on Facebook that you are “BUSY WRAPPING GIFTS! GOT MY HOT COCOA AND MICHAEL BUBLE CHRISTMAS
MUSIC ON!” I’ll tell you how many….
BLEEPIN ALL OF YOU! Because choosing
gifts for the people you love and then lovingly wrapping those gifts, is part
of the experience of Christmas. You like
to anticipate the moment that your kids will open up the gifts you so carefully
chose. When charities let you take the Christmas
list for Family 243 and give you the power to choose presents and wrap them,
they aren’t just indulging your need to give yourself a narcissistic high…they
are TAKING AWAY DIGNITY from the family they are helping.
Let me
ask this question. If charities decided
that instead of actual gifts from an actual list, that they’d instead ask you
for gift cards to a certain store, like Target or Walmart…would you still feel warm
and fuzzy about donating? If your answer
is no, than you have proved my point. If
you only go shopping for these families so that you can get some ridiculous
rush from picking out their gifts…then you aren’t doing it right. If you’d rather give a Disney princess doll
instead of dignity, then you need to reexamine your own priorities and world
view.
I can't think of a witty caption here. Satire can only do so much.
I’ve
heard all the arguments. “THEY’LL BUY
BOOZE AND CIGARETTES”. To which I say, “Shut
the Bleep up”. Do you realize the
screening process these families go through?
And further, a shopping trip with a representative of the organization
would be an easy fix to any potential problems.
Let mom and dad pick out gifts for the kids and each other. Let them buy wrapping paper and bows. Let them listen to Christmas music and
imagine the delight on the kids’ faces when they see what mom and dad picked
out. LET THEM GIVE THEIR KIDS A CHRISTMAS.
I don’t
understand how not everyone "gets" that this is about dignity. I don’t understand why every year when I yell
about this I am met with blank stares and frowns. This isn’t about you. Giving is never supposed to be about
you. It’s not supposed to make you get a
high. It’s supposed to be about giving someone
else a high.
Kids are much smarter than we give them credit for. We don't need to take away someone else's dignity to teach our kids about giving. Talk to your kids about this. Tell them that you want to help a mom or dad be able to go Christmas shopping for their kids. Ask them which they think the mom or dad would rather experience; handing their child a gift you pick out or picking out those gifts themselves. If you are of the Christian faith like my family is, read about how Christ wants us to go about our giving. It is in this example that we will truly understand that giving secretly, is the right way to go:
Matthew 6:1-4
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."
Far be it from me to try to put words in the mouth of Jesus, but I'm guessing that Jesus was really trying to teach us that giving is not giving if it takes away dignity. Jesus never once, in all His ministries, treated the poor or the less fortunate with any less dignity than He did anyone else. You don't have to be Christian to understand that this example is one we should all follow.
A
better mom than me would know what to do to fix the fake giving that happens
every year around the holidays. I wish I
was that mom.
