Please welcome this week’s Featured Homeschooler Jane from Prairie Girls

Tell us about your family.
A family of four: mama of two wonderful daughters and the happy rib of my Sweetie for 15 years.

Bookworm (14) is our over-achieving perfectionist. She loves reading, farm life, and preforming — violin, theater, and history re-inactments. A painting in the book, “Amber on the Mountain” best depicts her…wearing a prairie dress and reading a book while riding her horse bareback.

Ladybug (11) is our “girls just want to have fun” girl. She inherited a double portion of her mother’s wacky sense of humor. An animal lover extraordinaire, who is a fun-loving girl of action and non-stop play, yet surprises me with her culinary skill and dedication to teaching herself piano.

My dear husband spends his weekdays at the office of a Fortune 500 company just to bring home the bacon, but much prefers being outdoors — an avid (bi)cyclist and lover of the great “up north” ~ hiking, canoeing, and camping. He keeps our farm up and running and is a wonderful daddy and husband.

Me? Oh, nobody special – just a 49 year old (feel like 23) Christian homeschool/homesteading mama living my dream life. A late bloomer – not marrying until I was 34, but soooo very thankful for the family God has blessed me with. You can find me at www.homeschoolblogger.com/PlainJane.

And did I forget to mention the rest of our family, currently…a Boston Terrier, 3 cats, 3 Angora goats, 3 horses (the “3″ has no significance at all – it just happened that way), and an assortment of roosters, hens, and baby chicks.

What’s your favorite extra curricular activity?
Well, like most homeschoolers, I enjoy buying books ~ sometimes I actually find time to read one. I also like antiques, decorative painting, gardening, playing with our horses and other animals, swimming, cooking/baking, organizing, blogging, and I’m a trained storm spotter.

If you could have any Homeschool material(s), what would you choose?
Good question! I’ve been waiting for the last 9 years for the perfect curriculum (for me), and there just tain’t none. I’m very eclectic, taking the best from a legion of sources and always writing my own — I keep toying with the idea of writing a published curriculum someday. At any rate, I’ve always had a real passion for a truly Biblical education, where the Bible is the center text and perhaps some other books as reference tools and living books; not the other way around with the Bible tacked on as a separate subject or a few verses smathered throughout. I have always been working towards the goal of using the Bible as pretty much my sole text and I think this coming school year we will be closer to that end than ever before. This fall I will be combining two fairly little-known curriculums — Student of the Word (SOW) and Bedell Curriculum. Both take you and your students through the entire Bible, Genesis through Revelation, in chronological order, but each has their own focus — one on Bible and language arts and the other on Bible with science and history. Together they compliment each other quite well. And since I have so many great books, I will also be adding several of them along the way. But of course, my dream curriculum would also include a nicely organized weekly teaching schedule similar to what Sonlight or My Father’s World offer — that I will still have to write myself. I’m very excited about this coming school year.

Has homesteading always been your lifestyle?
Oh no. As an only child, I grew up in the ‘burbs and our family moved a lot. (not sure why) We sometimes had a big garden and my mom would can – - much of what I know is from what I observed & remember. But I often dreamt of being a farmer’s wife and like many little girls, I wanted a horse. In my single days I put my dreams on hold and got caught up in the corporate world just to make a living. I was a Legal Assistant/Office Manager specializing in Commercial Real Estate Law for a number of years and drove a little red sports car and carried a briefcase in a big city ~ but it was never my dream. My husband is not a farmer, but we shared the same dream of one day living “out in the country.” To make a long story short, we bought 10 rolling acres and built our own little house on the prairie 11 years ago. We started organic gardening the next summer and put up a barn just five years ago and got our Angora goats and horses the next year. We love country living and keep learning and working towards a sustainable lifestyle & farm.

Your family has a farm. Is it difficult keeping up with farm work and homeschooling too?
Home educating does take up a large chunk of our day, no doubt about that, as does the farm work. I believe our little farm has just enriched our homeschooling all the more; caring for and observing our animals as well as other wildlife that crosses our property is such a wonderful Lifestyle of Learning. We are training our horses in Natural Horsemanship, which is huge — we learn about safety, the prey/predator mentality, and what an equal balance of love, language, and leadership means when handling a horse or any of our animals, which principles can in turn apply to child training and our girls being loving, patient, and the Lord willing, effective mommies some day. Additionally, giving the girls hands-on experience in the garden and with the harvest teaches them more than they realize. And of course, having animals can teach procreation & life lessons naturally without stressing out the parents too much. Anyone can do it, on any scale – even just caring for a single plant and a small pet can reap such rich educational rewards.

Your daughters are advanced in education and that’s a great achievement! How do you keep your children enthusiastic about learning?
We’ve always home schooled and always will – it’s a very strong conviction around our house. First of all, God gets the glory for any success we have experienced. Placing God & His Word first and seeking His guidance make all the difference in the world.

Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you.”

I take that quite literally, that if we put God first, including in our educational endeavors, He will add knowledge and wisdom and even the kind of success in life that matters most – reading, studying, and memorizing God’s Word are of top priority. Secondly, I love to make learning fun with a sense of humor and a playful spirit. We do all kinds of goofy things while learning with fun crafts, lapbooking, notebooking, time lines, field trips, games, drama — we’ve wrapped each other up in toilet paper like mummies, and stomped gra
pes with our bare feet. But even though we have a lot of “kid-like” fun, I never teach/talk down to the girls. I multi-level teach (now 6th & 9th grade) most subjects together at higher grade levels. Generally speaking, children in times past were more mature and highly educated than their peers of today. Setting high standards, more children are up for the challenge than we give them credit for. Additionally, all children learn by example. My husband and I love educational field trips, books, seminars, etc. – learning is contagious at our house from what is modelled! We pass on a Love of Learning by our example. And lastly, what we teach has to be practical! Both my husband and I are very practical people. I don’t waist my time or our daughers’ time teaching about stuff they will never use. We don’t bow down to the peer pressure of the government school “standards”. Einstein may have just been joking when he said “I never remember anything I can look up”, but it is sooo very true. There is too much to learn out there and there will always be learning gaps – no one knows everything there is to know about everything except God. I am constantly reevaluating where our girls’ gifts & interests lie and gently guiding & teaching in accordance to their individual bents – outside of the Bible, the basics, and their interests – they can “look it up.”

What sort of animal do you wish you could have?
LOL. My husband says I have enough! Well, right now my horse is only a year old – born on our farm last spring. It would be nice if we could fast forward past the immature stage and I could just jump on his back and ride off into the sunset any time of any day – but that only happens in the movies. I keep toying with the idea of getting a couple of Nubian dairy goats, but then the thought of having to milk those babies twice a day in -20 degree winters brings me back to reality.

What’s your day-to-day activities look like?
We always take the summer off. Minnesota winters are too long (I hibernate) and we want to be outside enjoying the warmth as much as possible. But our usual school year runs according to the agricultural season ~ starting after most of the harvest/canning is done (day after Labor Day) and most of it ending around May 1 (planting season). Here’s how a typical (wink) school day might look this fall…

My day always starts at 4:35 a.m., getting hubby’s lunch together and kissing him good-bye. Then I’m feeding the indoor animals, getting ready for the day, having morning devotions, and fitting in a bit of computer time. All is quiet. If the girls sleep in, I need to be out at the barn no later than 7 a.m. to turn the horses out (to pasture) and let the chickens out of the coop to free range.

The girls rise & shine at 6:30 a.m.. They have personal devotions, dress, and we head out to the barn for early morning barn chores of mucking out the stalls and making sure everyone is fed and there is plenty of clean water. The girls do most of the work; I’m just there on safety patrol. After that we are ready for breakfast; they then finish getting ready for the day; and I clean up the kitchen. They then come down when ready and it’s a half hour of house work – trying to keep the house company-ready at all times.

Next it’s school time. We will read 1-3 chapters from where ever we are at in the Bible, discuss it, work on our Bible memorization, and have prayer and hymn singing time. Then depending on the Scripture read, we will outline or lapbook that portion, make a map, do an archaeological, vocabulary, topical, and character study of it, plus a commentary and/or creative writing. This will probably take a couple of hours. Then we also do History and Science – all based on Scripture. Each of the girls will then do their own math work – Bookworm starts Math-U-See Stewardship this year and Ladybug has Teaching Textbooks. Ladybug still has additional Spelling, English, Health and Maps to do until she is done with 6th grade. Both also have vocabulary, typing, art, and music. And Bookworm has Christian Light Education Home Economics. A very full schedule ~ plus we have to squeeze in lunch and a bit of free time somewhere. If time permits, we also will read-aloud some literature pertaining to our Scripture study. By the time all that is done, we may have a little free time, but it’s soon time to get dinner going ~ each girl takes turns helping cook or setting table & with clean up. Our days vary – we also have our bi-weekly Ruby Girls Proverbs 31 Bible Study that we started and other ministry opportunities – mileage may vary.

After dinner, it’s a lot of free time, which usually includes playing with (training) the horses, family time, evening barn chores, and family devotions. Bedtime is at 9 p.m. for all of us. The girls often read for a while, while us older’s value our sleep.

Interview by:

Nikowa is a 2nd year homeschooling mom to two boys. (Ages 8 and 5) With her “learning never ends” philosophy, they have an eclectic year-round approach to learning. When she’s not teaching, she enjoys photography, organizing, cooking, reading, and knitting. She is a #1 LOST fan and watches UGA football too! (Go Dawgs!) You can visit Nikowa at Knowledge House Academy.