It Happened without Me

Sometimes I think that it would be so encouraging if I could trace all of the wonderful moments in homeschooling and parenting back to the great things I've done, taught or prepared.  But then all the pressure would be on me to keep them happening, wouldn't it?  And so, today, I am rejoicing in what happens without me and how God brings beauty apart from any doing on my part.

I shared here about our very simple schedule.  There are so many things I wish I could include.  But knowing my own personal limitations is the name of the game right now.  So we do what we can and we leave the rest to the Lord.  And this is what He does with it.

Last night at dinner, we each received a ticket ...

Preparations were under wraps.

A crowd gathered, anticipating the grand opening.

There was artwork, as at any gallery opening ...

But how many gallery openings have you visited that included an art history read aloud by the artist?

A generous supporter of the arts even made a purchase.

She was on cloud nine.  I  must admit that I was, too.

Do Over

This is the sixth part in a series based on this cost/benefit analysis.  Here you can find Part 1:Scoping out the Sequence, Part 2: Making the Grade, Part 3: Unscheduling, Part 4: Why DIY? and Part 5: Race to the Finish.  Next I want to talk about this "plus" for us in letting go of our math textbooks:

• A LOT less time spent explaining work and correcting (and re-correcting) work.

I want to say up front that what I'm comparing here isn't really, purely, textbooks vs. no textbooks.  What I'm comparing is the way we used to do math vs. the way we do math now.

Before:

"Math" every day was sitting with one kid at a time and explaining to him what to do on his math assignment.  It went something like this:

"See, they're showing you that in order to divide by a fraction, you just flip it upside down and then  multiply.  Does that make sense?  Here, try this one.  Exactly! Good!  Got the idea?  OK, so you are going to do these five problems about that.  And then how about if you do one of these ... and one of these ... one from each of these sections ... and a word problem and, sure you can do all the Roman numerals.  OK, go get your sister and tell her it's her turn."

So, basically, it was like math, minus all of the best parts of math.  There was no exploration.  No wonder.  No awe.  No lightbulb moments.  No connecting the concepts.  No conversation.  Like a Dementor had kissed our homeschool math.

Maybe we can get into all that some day, I'd tell myself.  Some day when I didn't have to spend 15-20 minutes x 4 kids just telling them what they had to do on their worksheet for the day.  Someday when I wasn't exhausted by all of the exertion of the "management" of six other people while I tried to spend an hour meeting with each of the least destructive ones individually.

And what about quiet work time in the afternoon?  It went something like this,

"Good, all of your Roman numerals are correct.  Oooh, sorry, your long division problem is wrong, so you'll have to do that over.  Stop grumbling; math is supposed to be challenging.  And, oh, wait.  Yikes!  You weren't supposed to flip BOTH of the fractions upside down.  Only the second one.  Oh dear.  I guess I didn't really explain that very well.  OK, maybe I can go over this with you tonight and you can do all these over tomorrow along with tomorrow's math."

Good fun, right??  Can you tell why the kids and I all dreaded math?

Now, all of the exploration of new concepts happens together in a group.  There is still some "people management" - there always will be - but usually the oldest four are engaged (they are either hands-on or answering with their dry erase "slates") and the younger two are coloring, which is their version of "doing math".  And quiet work time?  Sure, they still get problems wrong.  And there are still corrections to be made.  But not as many because:

1. They are only doing review work - not work on new concepts.
2. There are only five problems.
3. There is only one problem per topic, so no more discovering that they've done eight problems in a row wrong because they didn't understand one concept.

I've gotten some questions about what "family math" looks like these days.  I promise to write a post on that when I'm finished with this series (almost done!) but I have to say up front: we've been doing this less than two months!  I can tell you what it looks like so far, though, for what it's worth.

Pruning the Dead Branches

Thought about and searched for this tonight ...

Spurgeon's Morning and Evening: Morning for April 29th

"Thou art my hope in the day of evil." --Jeremiah 17:17 

The path of the Christian is not always bright with sunshine; he has his seasons of darkness and of storm. True, it is written in God's Word, "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace;" and it is a great truth, that religion is calculated to give a man happiness below as well as bliss above; but experience tells us that if the course of the just be "As the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day," yet sometimes that light is eclipsed. At certain periods clouds cover the believer's sun, and he walks in darkness and sees no light. There are many who have rejoiced in the presence of God for a season; they have basked in the sunshine in the earlier stages of their Christian career; they have walked along the "green pastures" by the side of the "still waters," but suddenly they find the glorious sky is clouded; instead of the Land of Goshen they have to tread the sandy desert; in the place of sweet waters, they find troubled streams, bitter to their taste, and they say, "Surely, if I were a child of God, this would not happen." Oh! say not so, thou who art walking in darkness. The best of God's saints must drink the wormwood; the dearest of His children must bear the cross. No Christian has enjoyed perpetual prosperity; no believer can always keep his harp from the willows. Perhaps the Lord allotted you at first a smooth and unclouded path, because you were weak and timid. He tempered the wind to the shorn lamb, but now that you are stronger in the spiritual life, you must enter upon the riper and rougher experience of God's full-grown children. We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to prune away the dead branches of self-reliance, and to root us more firmly in Christ. The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope. [emphasis mine]

 Tonight I am giving thanks for pruning.  It's never fun.  It's never easy.  But looking back and seeing some of the things that have been dropped (or ripped away?) from our homeschool as of late, and how much healthier we are, how much more good fruit is coming from those few things we are left to focus on - even from the things in which I play no direct part except observation and delight - I am in awe at the beauty and sovereignty of my God.  Would I ever have made these choices and changes if we weren't under "duress"?  I don't know.  But I see where we are now and I am glad.  I am at peace.  At least tonight.  And so, tonight, I give thanks.

Little Points of Light

Sometimes when I read blog posts or look at pictures that show the amazing things other homeschool moms are doing with their kids, I hate those moms just a little bit.  I imagine that they are better than me and that they look down on me.  I want to argue and defend myself and explain what life is like here right now and beg them to be understanding and to know that I'm really doing the very best I can right now, here in this moment.  Foolish, right?

But what if that's not why moms share things on social media?  What if it isn't to prove they are better than everybody else?  What if they share things for, well, for the same reason that I do?  What if life is hard.  What if there are lots of scary, dark corners and lots of messy problems.  What if there are many moments of discouragement, frustration and sorrow.  What if there is a fight against bitterness, resentment and ingratitude.  And then, in the midst of that, a spot of light breaks through the darkness.  A little point of light like the tiny points of light I could see through the paper my son pierced over and over with the point of a compass.

And it is such a relief, such a moment of refreshment and feels like an oasis in the desert.  And you just want to share because you are overflowing with joy that, in the midst of this chaos, the baby has yummy, chubby legs.  And the four year old curled up and fell asleep in the fort his brother made for him.  And your daughter is teaching herself to knit.  And your first grader drew a picture about mixed fractions when you didn't even realize she was listening in to that discussion!



And so, on that very note, could I share?  Things are hard here.  Energy is at a premium.  Days are hit or miss.  Weeks ago my husband had asked for the day off yesterday so that we could go to Colonial Williamsburg during their "homeschool days".  We had to pay for the tickets in advance.  But energy is a limited commodity these days, so we really couldn't know until the morning of whether we would actually be able to go.  Yesterday it was freezing cold and wet.  But thankfully we were able to do our Saturday stuff yesterday and move our reservations to today.


And today, there was energy in abundance.  Like a rainbow after the rain.  A mercy I don't deserve, the Lord granted the perfect day for our little homeschool bunch.  So may I share it with you?  It isn't impressive.  But it just felt so good to be able to make this happen today with my kiddos, and I am tearfully rejoicing as I thank the Lord for his favor and blessing.

In the gift shop with my three costumed characters.

As you walk the foot path from the Visitors Center to the Revolutionary City, these little "notes"
in the sidewalk take you backwards in history.  Luke read this and then explained to his sisters,
"You didn't have to pay taxes!  And there were no police!"

Authentic Colonial Animal Cracker Snack

The Cobbler's Shop

Of course, Sutherlands have to try out the Colonial Board Games.

Standing Guard

Why DIY?

This is the fourth part in a series based on this cost/benefit analysis.  Here you can find Part 1:Scoping out the Sequence, Part 2: Making the Grade and Part 3: Unscheduling.  Next I want to talk about this "plus" for us in letting go of our math textbooks:

• I get to create the lessons and activities myself.

I've said this before many times, but I want to stress again that this series isn't meant to be an objective argument against the use of textbooks, or textbooks for math.  It is simply an exploration of why that choice has "fallen for me in pleasant places".  So if you read the above "pro" for going without textbooks and you think "Why on earth would anyone want to create things from scratch when they could be purchased already done?" then by all means, purchase them ready-made and don't give it a second thought!

I have a dear friend who is constantly knitting things for her children.  One Christmas she made her boys really cool real-looking "chainmail" with yarn!  She makes baby gifts (several for us!) and all kinds of other wonderful, cozy homemade treasures.  For the longest time I felt intimidated.  I saw all of the things she was doing and I thought to myself, "This is what good, dedicated mothers do - they knit.  Knitting is such an essential homemaking skill and it is frugal and it is such a wonderful, productive kind of busy.  If I was a good mother, I would do this, too."

I did try learning to knit, but I wasn't very good at it (maybe just because I didn't give it much of an effort) and I was disappointed in myself.  I thought, "My friend is so diligent and has so much good will power and self-control.  Why don't I have that?  Why don't I make the time to do this important thing?"  And then you know what I realized?  She doesn't knit because she's convinced it is a morally superior way to nurture her family or because she has the self control to "do hard things".  (She would probably laugh out loud if she knew that's what I was thinking.)  She knits because she likes to knit.  She knits because it quiets her soul.  She knits because that is where she finds peace and relaxation.  She knits for the joy of knitting!

And that, my friends, is why I love to make up my children's math work myself.  Please hear me. When I say "love" that is exactly what I mean.  I don't mean "I feel frugal," I don't mean "I feel diligent" and I don't mean "I feel educationally superior" I mean "I just like doing it".  When the children are in bed and I sit down with a stack of fresh notebook paper and a spreadsheet (just another thing that I love, because I'm a dork like that) it isn't a duty thing.  It just clicks with how I am wired.

The other day, I needed to make an activity for my six year old in sequencing numbers.  She's been working on place value to the hundreds, so I was going to ask her to order these numbers from least to greatest:

102
201
101

But just for fun, I also included

½

This isn't something most first graders would come across in their math books.  But she has been having fun with fractions recently.  At Sunday lunch she was given two cookies.  She carefully bit off half of a cookie and then held them both up together and said "Now I have a mixed number!"  I knew she could handle ordering a fraction in with whole numbers, and she loved it!  It just stirred my soul to get to make those choices myself.

Have you ever bought a used item of furniture or clothing with great plans to pull it apart and remake it just the way you wanted to suit your particular purposes?  And then at some point, did you come to the realization that using the bits and pieces of the pre-made item had actually become more complicated than scrapping it all and starting from scratch?  Well, that's how it was for me with textbooks.  Even after I had made changes in how we did math, I tried using textbook pages (because I still have four half-used consumable textbooks that are sitting on the shelf).  I was surprised at how hard it was to find one page with five problems that fit what each kid most needed to review.  Making the problems myself was just quicker and easier.

And, just to make sure you don't leave this post saying, "She is so good and diligent.  If only I could be a dutiful mother like her" (pardon me while I laugh myself to tears) I want to assure you that it's not all that complicated.  First, it's only five problems a day per kid.  And secondly, remember, I have  a handy spreadsheet (which I did not create myself) that helps me to pick what kind of problems to make.  It might sound intimidating to just make up five math problems.  But what if I said "Write down a three digit subtraction problem that requires borrowing."  You could do that, right?  That's all there is to my job.  It's just that I love doing it!

For me, it was a huge relief to drop slogging through pages of a pre-made textbook and instead much more energizing to make the problems yourself.  So what's the take-away?  The take-away for you is to know how you "tick" and to understand that using that as one of the factors in choosing how to homeschool isn't selfish or lazy - it's just a smart use of limited resources!

For more encouragement on the freedom to choose the method(s) of schooling that works for you, definitely read Teaching from Rest or check out Julie Bogart (founder of Bravewriter) Scoping about the "divide" between structured and unstructured learning.

And just for fun, head on over here and check out Mystie Winkler's page on your Homeschooling Personality Type.  You know what mine says?  Here are some relevant snippets:

The ENFJ ... loves to put together a plan just right for her family. 

• Strengths: mentoring, teaching, relationship-investment activities like read-alouds and family vacations
• Struggles: people-pleasing, her own intensity, anxiety and inner conflict
• Style: whatever she feels allows for the best development of her children; she will prefer an eclectic approach that follows her gut.

I don't believe that personality tests are perfect or that they dictate choices.  But it was pretty fun reading through that list and identifying some of my friends and their gifts and loves and seeing that there is so much variety in how we each are wired and how we homeschool.  That's a good thing, guys!!

I don't knit, but she does.  To each her own!

Unscheduling

This is the third part in a series based on this cost/benefit analysis.  Here you can find Part 1:Scoping out the Sequence and Part 2: Making the Grade.  Next I want to talk about this "plus" for us in letting go of our math textbooks:

• I can school without the parameters of a "school year" or a "work week".

Textbooks are designed to be used by schools and to meet the needs of a school schedule. And so they should be; this is not a criticism.  They generally plan for students to have 32-36 weeks of lessons and to complete lessons five days a week.  They intersperse new material and review material to round out the appropriate amount of assignments needed.  But couldn't a family use a textbook and still choose their own schedule?  Absolutely.  Here are some of the ways I've adapted our various subjects to fit with our own schedule.

• Our on-line History program has 32 topics with 5 "lessons" per topic (4 lessons and a test).  We do the test along with the fourth lesson so that we have four days of history instead of five per week.
• Our Latin textbook has 32 chapters of material, but interspersed along the way are review chapters.  Sometimes we skip the review chapters or sprinkle the review material in with other chapters.  Also, we often don't have a chance to complete all of the activities per chapter since we don't school 5 days a week.
• Our Math textbooks contain 170 lessons each.  In some grade levels, the textbook authors expect you to have a test (in a book you purchase separately) either every 5 or every 10 lessons (presumably every Friday or every other Friday).  I've never used the test materials and we've been skipping over those lessons that are only review with no new material presented.

So yes, you can use textbooks and make them work on most any schedule.  In other words, if I were trying to compile an objective list of reasons why one ought not to use textbooks, this one wouldn't really fit.  And even in a list of my own personal cost/benefit analysis, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it was a secondary benefit rather than a driving cause.

See, in my imagination, our school culture would look something like this.  We would be a home where learning was part of the normal activity of the household.  We would study a variety of topics and read a variety of things.  We would wholeheartedly engage with what was in front of us, explore further if we wanted to, read extra, do some more problem solving or spend another day on it if needed.  And, when we had a need or an opportunity for a break, we would take it.  And when we had refreshed ourselves through a break, we would get back to the business of learning whatever was next.

And yes, this is doable with a textbook.  But when (for other reasons as well) we moved to going without the math textbooks, a wonderful benefit was realized in terms of the increased freedom to break when we need to and begin again when we are ready (which, at this point, has mostly included sick-days and broken arms!).  Perhaps, in the final analysis, this "benefit" speaks more to my own personal hang-ups over loose-ends and tidy finishes than to any objective characteristics of textbooks.  But if what we're doing is an individual cost/benefit analysis, personal hang-ups carry weight, too!

Scoping Out the Sequence

Back here I gave a rough outline of my cost/benefit analysis of going without textbooks (at least in math).  Since I've gotten some questions about the the reason behind them, I'd like to do a brief post expanding on each of the items I mentioned as "pros" for us.

• I'm not constrained to a particular scope and sequence (order of topics) and can order them based on learning opportunities, whole-family instruction and the developmental abilities of each child.

I want to stress (again) that there isn't anything wrong with purchasing curriculum with a scope and sequence or following one.  As mothers, our resources are limited.  It is not a cop-out to choose materials that take some of the work off of our plates!  However, at this point in the life of our family, the scope and sequence in our textbooks felt more like a restraint than a help.

As I looked through the children's textbooks (grades 6, 5, 3 and 1), I realized that there was a great deal of overlap in topics - at varying degrees of complexity, but related to the same general ideas.  However, these topics were not presented in the same order in each grade.  My first impulse was to tear all of the pages out of each of the (consumable) books, rearrange them by topic and use binder clips to clip together all of the pages that fell under the same general concept.  The problem with that idea was that since I'd be teaching the topics out of order (according to each individual textbook) and since an Abeka math page is about 25-40% work on the current topic and 60-75% review, the children would potentially be assigned "review" problems for concepts they had not yet learned.

Sure, I could create a system for keeping track of what each kid had already learned and then assign or skip over review problems accordingly.  But if I am going to keep track of those details and have that close of a handle on who needs to review what, the limited options offered on each math page actually become more of a restraint than a boon.  More on this when we talk about ...

• I get to create the lessons and activities myself.

A Smile Doesn't Have to Mean You are Happy

Sometimes we smile as a demonstration of what we are feeling inside.  Sometimes we smile as a reflection of what we see outside of us.  Both are true, genuine and valid.

A smile can say ...

"Good morning.  I hope you have a lovely day."

"I am so glad to see your face."

"I am thankful to be your Mama."

"That outfit looks great on you."

"Don't worry.  You are going to be OK."

"I am so proud of what you accomplished."

"It is good to be in church today.  This is what my heart needs."

"I feel comfortable and safe in your company."

"I appreciate how you have served my family."

"Thank you for letting me cross the street in front of your car."

"What you said was witty and amusing."

"I love what you made/brought me."

"I'm not upset that you were standing in front of the celery I was reaching for."

"Thank you for your hospitality."

It is alright to smile even when you are not feeling peaceful, fulfilled and happy in every sense.  It's not being fake.  It's giving of yourself in a way that blesses others - even strangers.  In fact, sometimes the greatest acts of love are when we give from our lack, rather than our abundance (Mark 12:43-44).  When you have nothing else to offer, you can often still give a smile.

Of course, the flip side of this is to remember that we can't always read those we love by how many smiles they have to share.  A person who struggles with emotional highs and lows learns how to continue on with life, how to encourage and comfort those around her, even if she doesn't feel encouraged and comforted inside.  She knows that her feelings may or may not reflect the reality around her and she learns how to reflect in her face what she believes to be truth, rather than just simply how she feels about it.

She smiles at a toddler with a scraped knee to say, "Don't worry.  We'll get you all taken care of.  You don't need to be afraid" even when she would like to cry from sheer exhaustion.  She smiles at a child and says "I am so glad that you are my son and I am your mother.  I am living the life I always dreamed about" even if she can't figure out why her emotions haven't seemed to get the message.

So please, take time to ask good questions and be ready to listen.  She who smiles much gives much of herself.  And maybe, just maybe, she might be in need of some re-filling.  It's not necessary (or sometimes even possible) to "make her happy".  It is only necessary to ask, to listen and to affirm that what she is doing is good, beautiful and valuable.  And to reassure her that you are a safe place where she can talk, cry and be refreshed in order to go back into the world and smile one more time.

A Very Simple Schedule

At the beginning of the week, I felt a moment of crisis because I knew that I needed to spend more one-on-one time with my new reader and my struggling reader.  The schedule already felt packed and scary and the thought of adding one more thing was daunting (to put it mildly).  Monday evening, I attended Part 2 of the Focus and Align class at the Read Aloud Revival and the beginnings of some ideas began to percolate.  We had two hard, rough days, followed by two good, smooth encouraging days, followed by one more hard, low, rough day (as viewed from my internal perspective, only).  And here, in retrospect, is what I think has settled out to be our new schedule*:

• Breakfast (sometimes while listening to a recorded book or story)
• Morning Chores, Joseph (1) to nap
• Read the Bible
• Talk about Math
• Talk about Language
• Meet one-on-one with Luke (10) and Robyn (6) to practice reading skills
  Emma (9) and Ruth (8) take turns doing things with Henry (4) and Hazel (3)
• Lunch
• Quick Straightening, Hazel (3) and Joseph (1) to naps
• Quiet Work Time (Math 5-A-Days, Latin and some silent reading)
  On Tuesdays this is replaced by "Latin Class" with another family
• Play Outside
• Final Clean-up
• History (on-line course the kids do as a group) while Mama fixes dinner

That's it.  That is all we can do in a day.  And some days we don't accomplish all of that.  If you look closely, you'll probably notice things that aren't included.  I bet your list wouldn't be even a third of the things that are on my mind.  But I'm setting that aside for right now.  Let tomorrow worry about itself.  This is what we can do right now.

* We do school Monday-Thursday.  Fridays are for laundry, housework and maybe projects.

The Next Thing

One of the things that I have recently found to be a crushing burden of homeschool (for me, for now) is the feeling of needing to "finish" something in a given time.  I fear that if I don't finish it, my kids will be "behind".  I fear that if I don't finish it, I will have wasted the money I invested in it.  I fear that if I don't finish it, I'll miss out on that break I was hoping to take when it is all done.

For some (and even for me, in other phases of life) the structure is helpful.  It's nice to have someone else plan out what a year's worth of work includes, how much to review when and what should be included in a day of work or practice.  It feels very tidy to have five days worth of activity and begin again on Monday.  When we are able to get it done, it brings a sense of completion and closure.  But those days are getting much fewer and farther between.

Perhaps I'm less able to accomplish something that would be good to accomplish.  Perhaps the new pressures and constraints of life at this moment are revealing "shoulds" that never should have been "shoulds" and I am now releasing myself from them.  But whatever the case (and in some ways, it really doesn't matter) there is only this: what can we - at this stage, with this present grouping of children and this present, tired mama - accomplish in one day?  That is it.  What has God given us to do on this day?  Let's do it.  Let tomorrow worry about itself.

And what if we get to the end of the day and it wasn't all done?  Then not all of those things were things God meant for us to do today.  Yes, maybe there was time wasted.  Maybe we could have been more efficient.  But on this day, at this moment, whatever the causes, the task is still the same - trust to the Lord what wasn't accomplished and wake up tomorrow to start on the next thing.

As much as possible, I have moved away from organizing our subjects such that they must be done on a daily or weekly schedule in order to "work".  I've tried to avoid setting up things such that if we miss a day we are "behind" and have to try to cram two days worth of work into one (or three into two).  Instead it has worked much better for us if Mama has a general sense of the next thing(s) she'd like to teach or work on with the children.  When we come to school time, we do the next thing.  And if we don't get to it, it is tomorrow's next thing.

Didn't read a chapter of our read aloud book?  It will still be there tomorrow.  Talked about place value but they didn't fully "get" the concept?  Talk about it some more tomorrow; try another approach.  Time to start school but not all the morning chores aren't complete? They can wait until the next slot of time for getting a little work done.  (Or, do a little more housework and some school things can wait until later.)

The only way to make this system a reality has been, as much as possible, to unchain activities from each other so that each piece can move forward (or not!) independently.  Since our math discussion and written practice are no longer directly linked, we can do one without the other, if needed, on any given day.  Since the children's Five-A-Days are all things that we have already covered and they are just reviewing, we can take more time than I expected to work on our current concept without interfering with the Five-A-Day work I picked for them.  Or, conversely, if we didn't get a chance to complete the Five-A-Days, they can wait for the next day and our morning math conversations can keep happening.

This week, my oldest was only able to finish three out of the five problems on his Five-A-Day one afternoon.  Rather than requiring him to "catch up" on those two and do five new ones the next day, I simply took those two problems, added three more and they were his Five-A-Day for the next day.  If we've determined that five problems in a day is what we can manage, then why plan to do seven?  There will always be more good things to discuss and practice.  What do we gain by "doubling up"?  What are we racing against?  More and more, for us, the answer is: nothing!

Note: The two subjects that still "need" to fall into a weekly pattern are History and Latin.  And for now, I'm going to let them stay that way.  I'm not at all convinced that Latin is something all homeschoolers must do, but I have a degree in Latin and, quite frankly, it's something I love to teach.  Plus, our pastor's wife and her two youngest come over on Tuesday afternoons to do Latin with us, which is a big plus in the be-with-people category (perhaps even more for Mama than for the kids!).  We began three years ago with Song School Latin and are now working through the Latin for Children series.  We are on Primer B out of C, so after next year we'll reevaluate what to do next.

Though it is not absolutely essential, our history program works best done in five-lesson-a-week rotations because every five lessons covers one topic.  I absolutely love the Veritas Press History for many reasons.  Content-wise, it covers history, including Church History, map skills and lots of historical context.  Each era of history has its own song which helps the children to have a mental framework for the order and relationship of historical events, as well as some key dates.  Another plus is that it is on-line, very interactive, and the kids can do it on their own (mostly) while I watch and listen from the kitchen as I make dinner.

Beginnings of a Beginning

These ideas still need time to percolate, but before I headed to bed I wanted to jot down some of the helpful bits of wisdom I've gleaned at tonight's class that I think will move us in the right direction.

1. Make a schedule "for now" not "for forever".  The schedule can be revisited again later.  Not including it in the schedule now doesn't mean not including it in the schedule ever.  Still hard to see some things sit out.  But it's time to face reality.
   
2. You don't need to study all subjects every day.  You don't need to study all subjects all year.  Sarah breaks her year into "terms" (six weeks of school followed by a one-week break).  She only plans for one "term" at a time because it takes the pressure off.  I like that idea a lot.
   
3. 30-45 minutes one-on-one time with each school-aged kid.  Sarah has a neat way of scheduling this ... but she also has three bigger kids (the youngest of whom is as old as my oldest child) and only three who are school-aged and need to meet with her.  Worth looking into, though.
   
4. Looping.  This isn't something Sarah spent a lot of time talking about tonight, but she covers it in her book.  I've been meaning to write a whole post on it at some point.  The basic idea is that instead of scheduling things on a particular day of the week, you schedule them in a loop.  When you come to that slot of the day, you just do the next one in your loop.
   
5. The Six-Minute Journal.  The last page of the handout from the Focus & Align class was a journal page to give time for reflection each day.  It includes these prompts:
   
   
   Each Morning Before School:
   
   
   1. Three things I am grateful for ...
   
   
   2. One way we'll live our Rule of Six today ...
   
   
   3. One way I'll practice my Words to Live By [words that describe how you'd like your children to look back and remember their homeschool childhoods] today  ...
   
   
   Each Night Before Bed:
   
   
   1. A win from today:
   
   
   2. Noticing each of my children [lots of white space after this one]:
   
   
   3. Tomorrow I will ...
   
   Looking forward to using these prompts to reflect on some in the days to come.  And even now, thinking about a "win" from today reminds me that on the ugliest days, all is not lost.

This was a hard, rough day.  I won't burden you with a long play-by-play, but let's just say that Daddy came downstairs (thankfully he was working from home due to snow) at lunchtime and found me crying on the sofa, where I had been tucked in by a three year old who was telling me (her own, spontaneously created) Curious George stories and letting me hold her stuffed cat.  And yet, even on a day when I look back and see a landscape littered with the gray, twisted mess of emotional train-wreckage, even on this day, I see things that can fit into the category of "a win from today".  Starting with the Curious George stories and the stuffed cat.

The Good, The Hard and The Ugly

I said early on in this blog journey that I wasn't here to share "answers" but to share the journey, the questions.  Well, today is one of those days where the answers seem very far and outnumbered by the questions.  While Math is in the process of being re-worked and other things are fair game, a new card was tossed onto the table last night.  I was on the Read Aloud Revival forum reading a post from another homeschool mom.  It was titled "Late Reader or something more ..."  In it, the author shared how she discovered her son's dyslexia.  I replied to the thread.

Oh. My. Thank you for sharing this.  My 9, 8 and 6 year old daughters all love to read.  They will curl up and read in a corner just for fun.  They beg to read aloud to the younger kids.  My 10 year old son, not so much.  I have been telling myself all the things you mentioned above.  “Well, he’s a boy.  Let him learn at his own pace.  Some day it will ‘click’ and he will love to read, etc.”  The more I read from your post and the more I read on the website you mentioned (thank you!!) the more I wondered if this wasn’t exactly what we were dealing with.

He was sitting here in the room with me, so I asked him about some of the things I was reading.  This is what he said, “You know how in Chinese, there is one character for each word?  Well, that’s how I read.  I know the shape of each word.  And if I don’t know the shape, I don’t know the word.  Or maybe I try to think of another shape I know of that looks like the shape of that word.”  He also said “When I am reading, the letters seem to fall out of order.  I will read the first part and then when I read the second part, I forget what the first part says.”  When asked if he found reading exhausting, he said “YES!” – not with a tone of complaint, but with a tone of relief that someone finally asked!

On one hand, I am thrilled (impressed, actually!) that he is so clearly able to articulate what he experiences when reading and to help me to understand it.  I feel like it gives me a new direction to consider and that brings a sense of relief and hope. BUT I am also fearful!  I started out this school year SOOO overwhelmed and reading Teaching from Rest (and the Focus and Align class) have been so helpful.  We’ve experienced SUCH a positive change and a relief.  Now, I must admit, I’m fearful about discovering that I have a child who is going to need some mommy-time-intensive help!

But thank you for sharing!  Now I’ve got something new to research and think about. :-/

I have to be honest, this feels very heavy right now.  Very hard.  The work I've been doing to change how we do math, to streamline the process?  Yea, that was an effort to make this job feasible ... not to make margins, not to get free time, just to make it all fit.  I keep telling myself that as the older kids get older they will transition to more independent work, that as new little ones come on to the official homeschooling stage, the older ones will have more ability to work on their own.  I want to do right by Luke.  I want to invest the time needed to help him to read comfortably.  But I also have a 6 year old who is learning to read, and so far I've averaged about 2-3 times a month of actually getting to sit down with her and read one-on-one.

I am tempted to stew right here in this blog post and list for you all of the things that I want to have in our schedule, that I wish were in our schedule that aren't even waiting in the wings right now.  They are downstairs in prop storage somewhere gathering dust.  But I am going to hold off on that for the moment.  In another half an hour Part 2 of the Focus and Align Master Class on the Read Aloud Revival is starting.  Last week (even in the midst of flu) it was such a balm.  Such a welcome relief.  So, trying not to despair as help might be right around the corner.

Flu and Freedom

After Hazel's surgery, Matt got the flu.  And then he kindly shared it with each of us in turn.  I thought I had the worst of it Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  I was wrong.  Tuesday was so bad I had to ask Matt to stay home from work.  Yesterday I was just barely well enough to be the grown-up in charge.  And it was a wonderful day.  Not in every way.  But in some ways of good, long-term importance.

Sarah Mackenzie, author of Teaching from Rest also has a blog and a podcast.  (See ... that's why I didn't want to read her book.  What kind of normal mother of six children can do those things?  Plus in her blog pictures, she looks perky.  And showered.  Clearly she is in super-woman territory and I don't fit in that category.  But I digress ...).  The same friend who finally convinced me to read Teaching from Rest has also been "pestering" (and I use that term in the nicest possible way) me to check out Sarah's podcast.  There is a members-only side of the site that includes author events, extra resources and what she calls "Master Classes".

So, because I was stuck in bed and needed encouragement even more than I needed physical healing (which is saying a lot) I decided to take the plunge.  After all, I am forever grateful that I finally gave in and read Teaching from Rest.  So the chances were good this friend knows me well enough to know what will bless my soul.  I took a Master Class she recommended (and was also taking) called "Focus and Align" and it was UH-mazing.

Sarah led us through several steps in considering our particular family, our gifts, what works for us and what is important to us.  For example, in one of the exercises, Sarah asked us to imagine that our children were sitting down to a meal with friends some 20 years from now and someone asks "So, you were homeschooled. What was that like?"  What words do I hope will come to mind?  What are the things that I most want my children to remember as their experience of childhood and homeschool?

These activities helped to take me beyond the ground-level focus on "math" and "handwriting" and more towards the goals, practices and atmosphere of my home.  We then used this thinking and exploration to create our family "Rule of Six" - six things that are foundational to our family and which we hope to do every day.  Here is how ours turned out.  (And below it are two other prettier versions from my Sarah Mackenzie-pushing friend that she fancied up for me!)

I completed this activity Tuesday evening.  By Wednesday, when I was on my own again with all the kiddos, somehow, "homeschool" seemed more manageable.  If these were the six most important things to do every day, in big, broad brush strokes, then I could adapt them to something I could do from the bed as well.  In fact, we opened our homeschool day by talking about our new "Rule of Six".  The kids were excited.  Tonight at dinner we talked about what we did yesterday and today that involved each item on the list.  It may seem like a small thing, but it reminded this Mama that good, important and grace-infused things are happening right here, every day.  Even on flu days.

P.S. Our assignment was to make up our own Rule of Six and share it on social media, tagged #RARruleof6.  If you want to see what other folks have come up with, check out that hashtag.  What is so beautiful is that they are all different!  There is not one "expert version".  We are each the experts on our own homes and our own children!

Day 7: Failure or Flexibility?

Because I stayed up (too) late the night before working on the math spreadsheet ... and because the person I was sleeping next to spent the night dealing with fever and chills, I was a tired, tired girl in the morning.  I hadn't made any Five-A-Days for the kids. So, here was the true test.  Our experiment met its first big trial-by-fire.

I do have a tendency to procrastinate.  Sometimes I choose not to work because the work seems overwhelming.  But sometimes I choose "fun" work (like getting a spreadsheet up and running) over less fun work (like writing out Five-A-Day questions).  The night before I was telling myself I'd get up early and do them before the children woke up (which I have done several times over the course of this experiment).  When that didn't happen, I told myself I'd find a time somewhere to fit them in during the morning, since the kids didn't have to do them until the afternoon.

The result was that everybody had Math 5-A-Days, but nobody had any language.  So, was this a failure of the system (or a proof that I don't have the character qualities for a system like this)?  In hindsight, I truly think not.

First, the night before, what I had spent about three hours doing was setting up the review-topics section of the spreadsheet for each individual kid.  Yes, this was fun (for me).  But just because I'm enjoying my work doesn't necessarily prove I'm being lazy, selfish, weak or [insert other pejorative character trait].  This was good work that needed to be done.  And it was one-time kinda work.  Maintaining the spreadsheet on a daily basis will take moments, compared to the hours the initial set-up process took.  (Good thing I enjoy that kinda work, right?)

Secondly, because the math spreadsheet was fully up and running, and the language one wasn't (still isn't) it gave me a great chance to compare the process of making 5-A-Days with and without a fully functional spreadsheet!  Getting math set up was fun and easy - look down the list of topics that need review, pick a few and make questions to fit.  Language, on the other hand, was daunting (and so never got done) because it was more of a mental effort.  Not as much of the planning was laid out for me.

So, in the end, I think Day 7 was a great success.  We did morning school smoothly.  And I had a chance to see what a great resource and tool the spreadsheet is!  Gives me even more motivation to get another (others?) up and functional!!

Morning School Time and Personal Limitations

Here I talked about what got me thinking about changing up our Math curriculum.  And here I talked about hearing of Teaching from Rest but being afraid to read it.  And then it was fall. And it was time to start.  One small change I made last fall which did a great deal to smooth the schedule was to move as much learning as I possibly could to "morning school time".

 We established "morning school time" way back.  As a matter of fact, we used to call it "singing time" because when the children were smaller, we sang everything we possibly could.  If you need recommendations on history songs, skip counting songs, science songs, geography songs, songs on the Westminster Shorter Catechism ... you name it, we sang it.  I loved that.  I really did.  It was so fun.  They enjoyed it.  I enjoyed it.  We learned, we talked and we all enjoyed it!

But as some of the children got older and began to have more "serious school work" more and more was taking place in the afternoon in the form of written work.  As in, things that Mama has to check and return for corrections.  And more checking.  And more corrections.  And things left undone and hanging over my head until the next day.  Slog.  Dread.  Drag.  Kiddos and Mama alike.

So this year I determined that we'd do as much as we possibly could together, out loud, discussion-format, assessment via conversation.  We were already doing history and science together (more on those in another post).  Instead of buying the "activity books" to go along with their Latin curriculum, I decided just to subscribe to the activity website and do the practice games together during morning school time.

But still, language/reading skills and math skills were something that seemed they should still be done individually because, well, weren't those developmental types of things that kids of different ages couldn't learn together?  So those activities continued to be afternoon paper-and-pencil lessons.

However, there was now so much stuffed into our day that  our schedule felt overwhelming.  The minute my feet hit the floor in the morning, I felt like I would have to take off running and not stop until bedtime.  Enough to make a girl want to swing her legs right back into the bed and not attempt it at all.  For me, a schedule detailed down to the fifteen minute inverval sounds about as appealing as volunteering for slow death by strangulation.

You see, for so long, I have lived as if the progression goes like this:

1. Figure out what a "good mom" is supposed to do.
2. Do it.
3. Suck it up and don't complain.

True confession: I never was very good at that process.  Well, I was pretty good at Step 1.  In fact, I think I have an unhealthy, overactive imagination for Step 1.  Steps 2 and especially 3, not so much.

But what if that's not really how it works.  What if what a mom is "supposed" to do is to know herself (and her kids) to know her personal limitations, to know what really sparks her enthusiasm (and therefore overflows to her children) and to makes plans and choices accordingly?  "But,"I would ask myself, "if my 'personal limitations' are affecting what I'm able to do for and with my kids, isn't that bad?  Selfish?  Weak?  Lazy?"  And then one day my mom said to me (in a conversation on an unrelated topic, but still very applicable) "It sounds like you're not OK with the fact that you have personal limitations."  Bingo.

And just this morning I read a post a friend sent me on the topic of "breaking busy".  This line jumped out at me and nearly made the tears flow.

Having a limited capacity is not a flaw in my character. It is by glorious design and for an incredible purpose: to realize my need for Him.

And also ...

And that means letting our lives be about what we are meant to do,

what God created us to do,

and not just what we think we ‘should’ do.

My husband always says, "I don't want my kids to turn out like [insert name of amazing family]'s kids."  And when I exclaim in shock and confusion, "You don't?!?!" he says, "I want my kids to be Sutherland kids.  If God had wanted our kids to turn out like [that family's] kids, he would have given them to [that family]."  So wise.

So, perhaps you could say that this blog is about exploring what a "Sutherland kid" is.  Happy Friday, y'all!