Homeschool Schedules Versus Freedom

I have been using my sick time to ponder that strange balance between schedules, plans, and “getting it all done” versus freedom to explore your interests. In my homeschooling career, I have been at both extremes at different times.

When Ditto was five, I started homeschooling him in the best school at home fashion. We had a typical box curriculum and a daily “to do” list that a high school student might have found daunting. All this with little Pookie tucked under one arm, no less! Ditto was up for the challenge and was smart enough to figure out how to work his curriculum beautifully. Notice I didn’t point out how much he was learning FROM that curriculum! Okay, lesson learned. I ditched the formal curriculum and started concentrating on math with lots of manipulatives, systematic phonics and Bible stories all handled with short lessons. Ditto started learning at a record pace and I found myself slowly being converted to a Charlotte Mason mindset.

At the other extreme… After the birth and first year for Puddleglum, Eaglewood was working away from home 60% or more of each year. When he was “at home” he was actually in the office and/or on call and waiting to be sent away at any moment. The children had reached the point of real resentment and I was starting to look at Eaglewood and think “who is this guy, anyway?”. Our solution? Well, after considering all of our limited options, we packed up the children, their school books and a very large cooler and went on the road with Eaglewood. In the span of about six years we had gone from “school at home” to no easily definable school location! The children each carried a book bag and a Rubbermaid container of school supplies under their van seat. We learned while in the van, we learned while in the hotel rooms, we saw historic sites and even a tourist trap or two! We also saw a LOT of bathrooms. You just cannot travel with that many children without getting a bathroom tour of the states. :op We also learned how to scour a Wal-mart for learning experiences and unique craft supplies, and how to cook a meal for six in a hotel room using just a dorm refrigerator and those tiny microwaves. Since cooking with only a tiny microwave means preparing meals in stages, our children learned a great deal about patience and waiting their turn. We visited many a used book store and found many a bargain. Our eldest three children learned to swim in hotel swimming pools. Because we traveled with him, Eaglewood had the opportunity to teach them instead of just hearing about their accomplishments over the phone. He also had the opportunity to teach many a history, science and math lesson along the way. Our family became more tightly bonded than we had ever been. We HAD to! Were our experiences “normal” homeschooling ones? Probably not. Most people don’t wrap up their study of Vikings (much of which happened while driving from place to place) by making battle axes from cardboard, tape, tin foil and paint stirrers (bought earlier that day from Wal-mart, of course) and staging a mock battle for their dad. I cannot help but wonder what Eaglewood thought of us greeting him with battle axes! It was fun, it was different, and we learned a great deal. Don’t get me wrong, though. It was hard, too. We lived out the very extreme of learning freedom. Schedules and routines easily fell by the way-side as we were presented with once in a lifetime opportunities on the road. We got into each other’s way. We interrupted each other’s big “ah ha” moments. Traveling as a family and homeschooling on the road was one of the greatest experiences our family ever had. The children still talk about our experiences. Would I want to do it again? Well, I would have to really think hard about that one! I happen to like routines and predictability!

These days, we live in a balance between the two extremes. We fall closer to the structured side on most days, but not too close. It is a balance we stop and re-evaluate from time to time. Too much freedom can mean that little or no learning is getting done, or that what is being learned may not ever be terribly useful. ;o) On the other hand, too much scheduling can suck all of the joy of learning right out of our lives and be counterproductive. I am glad that in the end, we live in G_d’s mercy and grace, and that He is the G_d of second chances. We sure have needed a lot of them.

Justine's Book Meme

Arielle tagged me with this a couple of weeks or so ago. I haven’t felt very well lately and haven’t worked on it much. In the interest of posting it sometime this century, I am just going to post what I have so far. Sorry to keep you waiting so long, Arielle!

Five favorite fiction authors:
Jane Austen
L.M. Montgomery
J.R.R. Tolkien
Sigmund Brouwer
Linda Nichols

Five favorite non-fiction authors:
Ruth Beechick
Cindy Rushton
Catherine Millard
Jonni McCoy
Cynthia Ulrich Tobias
Luanne Shackelford

Five favorite children's writers:
Elizabeth Enright
C.S. Lewis
G. A. Henty
Eleanor Estes
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Louis Sachar
Robert Lewis Stevenson
James Herriot
(I could go on and on and on… Frankly, in this category, you are lucky that I used this much restraint!)

Favorite book read in 2005:
“Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven” by James Bryan Smith

Book(s) you're looking most forward to reading in 2006:
“Hearts and Minds: What the Bible Says about Education” by Ruth Beechick
“After the Flood” by Bill Cooper
“When You Rise Up: A Covenantal Approach to Homeschooling” by R.C. Sproul, Jr.
(There are plenty of others, but I really AM trying to control myself here!)

Five books on faith that you would recommend:
The Bible
(I don’t read a lot of books on faith.)

Five books that made you laugh out loud:
“Flabbergasted” by Ray Blackston
“Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams
“The Magician’s Nephew” by C. S. Lewis
(That’s all I can think of right now.)

A fictional character you would like to emulate:
I cannot think of any. Sorry.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? If yes, which one?
Probably. I read enough that I have a hard time remembering specifics, though.

The best biography you've ever read:
I don’t know. I can’t choose any reasonable number to list.

A book you love with a short review:
I must love ABC books because I seem to read more of them than anything else lately. Puddleglum has a particular fondness for them for some inexplicable reason. Forgive me if I don’t sum up the plot line for you!

Our Personalities and Learning Styles

I don't know why, but years ago when I tried to imagine what having children would be like, I always seemed to imagine them being somewhat like me. Was I ever wrong! For the record, I did come rather close with my eldest who shares both my entirely mixed modality of learning styles and also my odd sense of humor. All four of the children bring their fair share of challenges when it comes to homeschooling. All four of them also bring a great many blessings and have taught me more than I could ever imagine teaching them.

While my eldest son, Ditto, is evenly mixed in his learning styles like me, we do not learn the same types of things using the same learning styles. At least we share an off-beat sense of humor about all of the mistakes and false starts this has caused in Ditto's educational career. He is mostly a visual and kinesthetic learner, but needs to talk about everything he learns.

Pookie, bless her heart, is a mostly visual learner. I guess this should be expected of a child who was once functionally deaf. Pookie is one who likes to take her books and just go learn stuff. Over the years, she has become just auditory enough to really need to talk about everything she has learned in order to really cement it in her mind. I should also add that she is very like her dad, Eaglewood, and the two of them relate to each other really easily.

Sneefert is auditory. I knew he would be from the time he said his first word at just five months old. Educating Sneefert has been an adventure and a challenge for me because I am not particularly chatty, and this child NEEDS me to talk! I never have to ask him if he has any questions about what he is learning. He always does, and many of them show some remarkably unique perspectives on things and send me scrambling to help him find the answers! If there is a possible question that is absolutely not covered in his books, he will find it! Just to make life a little more challenging, Sneefert is also very kinesthetic. He is always touching and moving and running while asking all of these unique questions!

Puddleglum is Mr. Kinesthetic. He is a doer and a toucher. We sometimes call him "Take Apart and Destroy" for his amazing ability to dissect almost anything! He is a bundle of fun and action just waiting to take over. Fortunately (or un), he is also very visual. If he sees something, he usually wants to try it for himself.

Having these kinesthetic boys is pretty funny right now, since in my rapidly advancing state of pregnancy, I'm about as quick and agile as your typical garden slug. :op

If learning styles were the only issue, I think we would still be relatively unchallenged. However, every one of us also came fully equipped with a personality which also affects how we approach challenges and how we learn.

Personally, I'm a watcher. I tend to be rather quiet, preferring to observe the world around me more than I participate. I would rather listen to others than talk. When it comes to my family of talkers, this may be a blessing. ;o)

In addition to having a lively sense of humor, Ditto is also known for being my walking accident. He has managed to absolutely astound emergency room doctors with his incredibly creative injuries! This is the child for whom I once wrapped the entire living room in quilts. Trying to protect him that way turned out to be futile. He's just too creative with his injuries! This alone makes me glad that he is more of a talker and less of a doer when it comes to learning!

Pookie is my social butterfly. She loves people and talks to just about everyone. She is girly in the extreme and also very crafty. Pookie is the family artist and has the emotional artist temperament to go with it. She is also one of the most compassionate people I have ever had the privilege to know.

Sneefert is easily the most emotional person in our family. He is the one who taught me to truly watch everything I say. He is also a non-stop talker so we never have to wonder what is on his mind. ;o) Sneefert is also starved for knowledge. He is extremely curious and is a natural born scientist. He asks the questions and goes in pursuit of the answers before you have time to kick your brain into gear. Sneefert’s knowledge quest has been the cause of demise of many a beloved toy for his siblings, and consequently, more than a few family squabbles. He is someone who can spend hours entertaining and educating himself with just a pair of magnets. Of course, he will come up with more questions than answers no matter what he is doing! Sneefert is also a natural math whiz. He likes math and can use our manipulatives to figure out how to do just about anything.

Puddleglum is usually a happy, busy guy. He is quick to laugh, and can find a joke in almost anything. He is cuddly, and talkative unless he has something on his mind, or is busy getting into something.

So, how do we go about educating this group?

Ditto pretty much just takes his text books, reading assignments and whatever else he needs and educates himself. With him, my main problem is getting him to slow down enough for me to be able to document what he has accomplished. After years of Charlotte Mason style education, he DOES talk about everything he is learning! If I walked around with a tape recorder and a stenographer’s pad every day, I would probably have a much easier time recording his accomplishments. The downside of this independence is that he occasionally goes through a lazy streak and getting him motivated again can be challenging.

Pookie needs to see things. She needs demonstrations. If she can see it, she can do it! She will generally tell me a bit about what she is learning. Unfortunately, even though she is good at math, she will go to dramatic lengths trying to avoid it. ;o) Other subjects go pretty smoothly. Educating Pookie seems to fall into an easy show and tell method for almost any subject.

Sneefert can be a challenge to educate because his is such a quick thinker. He sometimes forgets to listen to answers because he has already moved on to the next question! Fortunately, the key to getting Sneefert to sit still and listen seems to be just picking him up and sitting him in my lap. Reading lessons go well as long as he is getting lap time. With everything else, we use action and manipulatives!

Puddleglum is similar to Sneefert, but not quite the same. He also needs lap time, but he also needs to have plenty of demonstrations. Puddleglum likes science videos. He is a watcher AND a doer. We have to be especially careful about what this one watches because he will always want to try out the things he sees for himself! Puddleglum isn't much of a talker unless he has a reason to talk. When he is silent, everyone goes looking for him to see just what he is getting into!

In other words, educating my two little guys means action. They are doers! Science and math are the favorite subjects as they require more action, but sitting in my lap and listening to stories is good, too. Too bad my lap is shrinking these days…

If you are paying attention, you have probably noticed by now that three out of four of my children need to talk about what they learn each day. This can make for some lively discussions and even pure chaos! My husband and I (usually) enjoy it thoroughly. It is one of those things that we didn't anticipate, but that make homeschooling our family so much fun! Also, learning to wait his turn and listen to his siblings gives Sneefert so many more things to think about and to ask questions about, not to mention more people to ask questions of! ;o)

'Tis the Season (Catalog Season, That is!)

As a homeschooler who is interested in several crafts and also gardening, my mailbox runneth over from Thanksgiving until mid-summer. Those inviting little seed catalogs have begun to arrive. This year's selection of homeschooling catalogs has begun to arrive and will continue to come in with increasing frequency until after this year's last homeschool convention. Somewhere along the way, I ordered a crochet catalog or two and also started getting scrapbooking catalogs and advertisements. I think I'm becoming a catalog junkie! I'm hoping there is some wonderful recovery program out there with my name on it. :os

Still Here (sort of)

I'm sorry that I haven't been around much lately. Well, not really. The truth is, my children needed me this week.

My eldest, Ditto, who really should and does know better, somehow managed to place his hand on a hot burner. This, not surprisingly, resulted in some burns complete with a dramatic array of blisters. I feel incredibly blessed to report that it isn't as bad as we originally thought, and that our son is a very quick healer. We even have hopes now that he will be able to avoid scarring. In the meantime, I obviously need to spend more time telling my younger children, "don't touch that. It's HOT!"

Sneefert caught a cold and decided to share it with me. Thanks Sneef. While Sneefert has managed to recover pretty quickly, my head cold turned into a minor infection with a nasty cough, sore throat, and lots of sneezing. I'm so sore I can hardly stand to sit here typing this. The good news is that our yet to be born baby (whom we have affectionately nicknamed "Wiggles") seems to be doing fine. For now, when my little guys sit in my lap, they are being given instructions like "Try not to breath too hard, Sweetie. It hurts Mommy's ribs". :o/

Puddleglum decided to top off our week of "fun" by absentmindedly running face first into a corner while playing. He now has a very impressive bruise on his forehead. He doesn't seem bothered. Of course, being a mom, I'm thinking ice packs and possible brain damage...

The good news is that Pookie's sprained knee has pretty much recovered. How do I know this? Well, I keep seeing her sprint past, and her older brother just reported that she has figured out how to climb our fence.

Excuse me, I think I'm going to go and wrap everything in my house and yard in foam rubber, and unplug our stove.

Things People Don't Tell You When You Are Starting To Homeschool

I've noticed that in homeschooling circles, there is a slight tendency for homeschooling advocates to paint an entirely sunny picture of what the homeschooling lifestyle is like. There are some downsides. No really! Just as a public service, I thought I would list some of the ones I have encountered in the past ten years or so of homeschooling.

1. Your house keeping will suffer. It's really hard to mop floors that have children and books sprawled all over them. Ditto for vacuuming. The only solutions seem to be to mop and vacuum at really odd times, or to hand those jobs over to the sprawling children.

2. You may never see your coffee table and/or kitchen table(s) again. Books multiply there. Library books, school textbooks, those odd little workbooks that you pick up here and there, even recipe books... It doesn't seem to matter what kind of books you set down there, when you come back there will be at least a dozen more! For some reason, I think they are also multiplying under my family room sofa. I'm afraid to look (it might discourage them!).

3. Science experiments sometimes get out of hand. They can leak into the bottom of your refrigerator, explode all over your kitchen and/or bathroom, and even wind up as pets. We once had a tank of frogs go on a family trip with us because Pookie had grown too attached to them! As for the rest, learn to stock up on both cloth and paper towels, and always keep your mop handy!

4. Those science kits you buy for your children look really neat, but can be used to do all sorts of things that their designers' may never have thought of. Use caution.

5. Your older children will teach your younger children things. This doesn't sound bad, but can cause severe mental whiplash when you leave a child working on subtraction while you run to the bathroom and return to find that his bored older brother has been teaching him the basics of multiplication and division (true story!). Unfortunately, not everything older siblings can teach younger siblings will be good or even useful.

You have been warned.

What Homeschooling Your Children Is REALLY Like

This is one of those things that all of you homeschoolers will understand perfectly! The rest of you can just bear with me and try not to smirk.

We homeschool year round (because I lost my mind somewhere around the birth of my first child, that's why). For reasons of convenience and in order to match my shopping seasons with the homeschool event and catalog seasons, I break our school year down into three semesters. Guess what? January marks the beginning of one of them! Oh, fun. My point? Well, it finally occurred to me yesterday that I was on the verge of getting behind and had best gather together the children's school books, my plans, and whatever else I could remember to grab and start reviewing and preparing for another semester. First challenge... we are still recovering from Christmas around our house (projects, games and tents everywhere) so work space is at a premium. No problem. I just load the pack mule (that would be me) down with all four children's books and head for my bedroom where I spread books all over and be as messy as I want to without any problem right? Wrong.

That brings me to the second challenge... children! I no more got books sorted into piles on my bed when Ditto came by wanting to talk to me about something. When Ditto talks, he also flops. Flopping is bad for book stacks. So, while Ditto is talking, and I'm trying to answer semi-intelligently (remember, I am his teacher as well as his mother so the pressure here is high), I'm re-stacking piles of school books. Sneefert, who hates feeling left out of anything, decides to put in his appearance and see what I am up to. Unfortunately, Sneefert is a fellow bibliophile, and starts taking all of the really interesting books out of his stack and others to look at, or look at again. It's really hard to stack school books when your book stacks are disappearing! Puddleglum, apparently realizing he was the only boy left out of this little party, decided that he REALLY needed to come kiss Mommy and jump on her bed. Having a four-year-old jumping on your bed is not conducive to neat book stacking.

In the end, I did manage to keep my bouncing, disappearing stacks in place long enough to realize that Sneefurt and Ditto have both pretty much finished their math books and will be needing new ones. Ditto, of course, had gone through yet another history book, and also needed a new science book, along with a new language arts text (ouch, my poor bank account!). Ditto is my hardest one to keep up with because he has the annoying habit of reading (or devouring) science and history texts, and classic literature just for fun and relaxation. I don't actually teach him so much as I just try to keep up with documenting what he's teaching himself. Pookie jumped a grade just before the holidays and is in all new books, anyway. Not too bad. I think we may need to spend a little more time on cause and effect (i.e. If you jump on Mommy and Daddy's bed while Mommy is sorting through school books there, you are probably going to cause books to fly all over the room), and possibly even embark upon a formal study of logic. I'm also going to combine Ditto and Pookie's Latin and Greek root word lessons so that they can quiz each other (Okay, I'm cheating and taking the easy way out. What's your point?). We also need to find some sort of Bible study or studies that we can do as a family, or that will at least let me group some of the children. Any suggestions?

PS The only reason Pookie didn't join this festive little bed bouncing, book flying party was that she had experienced a tragic skipping collision (yes, really!) a couple of days before and sprained her knee. She was sitting around resting her knee happily oblivious to all our "fun".