Enrichment | Heart of the Matter

September 3, 2010 By Montserrat Leave a Comment

This past week as we cleaned out our school closet I came upon some treasures. Books written by my two oldest!

Several years ago when we were struggling with language arts I stepped away from our regular curriculum for a while and encouraged my daughters to write books instead. It was a memorable experience.

My oldest, who was 11 at the time, decided to write a book about our family. Each one of us had our own chapter. It was very fun to read her views on our personalities, likes, dislikes, attributes, etc. She was extremely observant!

My second oldest, who was 10, decided to write about her grandmothers and great-grandmothers. She wrote a chapter on each one telling stories that occurred to them throughout their lives but particularly when they were little like her. She called her grandmas asking them for stories and giggled so much she got the hiccups! It was a wonderful bonding experience for all of them.

Here’s a run down of what my children did when writing their books.

1. Chose their topic.

2. Did their research.

3. Wrote, wrote, wrote! I had them hand write their drafts but reluctant writers may enjoy using the computer instead.

4. Corrected grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors.

5. Took lessons on using the thesaurus. Five neats in one paragraph are a little much, don’t you think?

6. Typed the final draft on the computer.

7. Published a few copies by printing them off and having them bound at a copy center.

We gave their books as gifts for Christmas that year. They were a huge hit! As I prepare for school to start again in a few short weeks I’ll be adding in “writing books” as part of our schedule. It’ll be a great process for my children to apply what they have been learning. And it will create more treasured keepsakes too!

Montserrat Wadsworth is completely devoted to her wonderful husband, Joseph, and their eight children (seven girls and one boy!). They live on a 4,000 acre alfalfa farm nestled in a small Northern Nevada valley. They’ve been homeschooling for 11+ years. Montserrat enjoys, photography, cooking, crafting, chocolate, and sloppy goodnight kisses. She strives to live each day as God would have her do following Mary’s biblical supplication, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” (Luke 1:38) You can find her at her blog Chocolate On My Cranium.

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August 31, 2010 By Christine 4 Comments

As a music teacher, I’m always getting questions about private lessons and ensembles to join, especially for homeschoolers. And while I do recommend a child’s involvement in formal music training if they are interested and show innate ability, it is not the only way to create a love of and appreciation for this fine art.

Children are naturally drawn to music. Even before they are born they can hear and respond to music, and classical music especially is known to calm fussing babies, focus young children and bring out creativity in people of all ages. To successfully add music to your homeschool, you need only to build off of this inherent love in your everyday life.

Since my husband and I are both classical musicians, music is a part of our life that can’t be separated from who we are. We don’t sit down with our children and show them written quarter notes and eighth notes, or formally analyze a piece of music with them. Truthfully, that would kill the joy already present.

We simply fill their environment with good quality music and opportunities to learn and discuss (even the toddlers!) what they are hearing.

Stock up on music CD’s
Classical music CDs are among the cheapest you can find. It is easy to stock up on the classics for a modest sum of money and have them playing in the background while you eat, play, or work in your home and in the car. Choose a variety: choral, orchestral, opera, different instrument combinations, different languages and time periods. Some good, accessible composers to start with are Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Grieg, Holst, Vivaldi, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Schubert, Debussy, and Dvorak.

Discuss, using adjectives
To make the most of your and your children’s listening experience, talk about what you hear:

“Wow, that was a really loud section!”
“Did you hear how fast that was? How did they play so fast?”
“I think I heard a flute. Did you hear any other instruments?”

Fast and slow, high and low, short or long, joyful or sad. So many adjectives can express the music, and there’s no wrong way to hear something. Before you try to make a foray into music in any kind of structured way, spend months listening and let your children surprise you with their experiences.

Play simple music games
When children feel musically that they have something to say, move from there into simple musical games. Buy a number of varied percussion instruments (these are relatively cheap and can be found online at websites such as www.musiciansfriend.com for a better price than your local music store) and allow them to experiment. Here are a few examples of challenges for them:

Ask your children to play their name in rhythm- “My name-is Chris-tine” (long short-short long long), “My name-is An-tho-ny” (long short-short short-short long)
Choose a dynamic poem or story and have them come up with a way to tell it using only instruments.
Have a dinner when everyone is only allowed to sing and not speak. Opera-style “Please pass the buuuuuuutttttteeeeeeer!” can be a hoot for the whole family.

Attend concerts
Another important aspect of creating a music-appreciate family is to attend concerts in your area. Local universities and colleges often have free recitals and concerts at the music school. Our local community orchestra recently had a Star Wars themed concert with a multimedia element of pictures from the Hubble telescope and people dressed in costume. These gems are often marketed well, but sometimes not. Keep your eyes and ears open especially for these types of fun concerts to attract reluctant attendees.

Listen to Kindermusik
If you have very young children, I would highly recommend Kindermusik CDs, even if you can’t swing the classes. You can buy them on ebay or other swap-type sites. It is crucial for good musical and vocal development to have quality vocal models that young children can learn from and Kindermusik has a wonderful reputation for pleasing recordings and varied arrangements with many instruments involved. My children have also gotten a great deal of musical “tidbits” from the Disney show “Little Einsteins”! When your child can recognize a Dvorak song on the classical station, it’s pretty impressive!

Adding music to your homeschool need not be an intimidating undertaking. Not every child will be apt to study privately for years, but every child can and should be encouraged to express themselves musically. The process of creating and appreciating music is a wonderful way to share creatively with your family. And the musical world can always use more enthusiastic audience members!

Christine Hiester is a Christian, homeschooling mom to three boys and a girl, ranging in age from 9 to 2 years old. She is a musician by trade, eclectic in homeschool style, and continues to grow and learn along with her children in this journey of life and discipleship at home. Visit her blog at Fruit in Season.

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August 31, 2010 By Christine 3 Comments

Listening with Purpose, Part I

A lot of us…allow music to be a background to what we do and because of that we forget that listening is an active challenge to the brain. There’s so much auditory material in the background of our lives and it has made us lazy.
-Graham Sheffield, chairman, Royal Philharmonic Society

Classical music is everywhere. Not just in elevators as the phrase suggests, but in restaurants, buses, supermarkets, and commercials. We are taught by the sheer fact that our everyday life is saturated with it, to ignore it. We are conditioned to let music in general and classical music especially, take the role of background noise. What then are we missing in the process?

Helping our children listen with purpose requires our own ears to first be opened. Chances are that it has been a long time since you have listened to a piece of classical music with a critical and focused ear. How many instruments can you pick out? What’s the main melody and who has it first? How does the tempo (speed of the beat) affect you? What mood is being conveyed? Is the piece primarily legato (smooth) or marcato (marked and accented)? Lots of questions? Yes, there’s a lot to learn!

Even the youngest of children can attain aural discrimination with little effort and time. Of course, this means that classical music must be in their environment. The car is a perfect place to play listening games. Everyone is in the same place by necessity, and usually everyone can hear equally well. A bit of prep work will go a long way to making car trips fun and educational. After all, what homeschool mom or dad doesn’t appreciate logging in some school hours on the way to and from their many activities?

Some important areas to focus on while teaching your children (and yourselves!) to listen to classical music are instrumentation, pitch and rhythm, style and mood, and form. In this article I will focus on the first two topics.

Instrumentation:

When you have a bit of time to explore, visit the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s instrument page and choose one or two instruments from each family. Listen to each example and come up with adjectives to describe the sound. Flutes might sound smooth and “hooty”; harpsichords sound sharp and bouncy; cellos sound mellow and flexible. Don’t make value judgments on your children’s choice of adjective, just get them thinking. Very few words are meant to just describe sound, so music borrows terms from visual (bright and dark) or physical properties (light and heavy, big and small). Allow them to use whatever analogies fit for them.
Once you have explored a number of instruments, find music that isolates different families of instruments. Giovanni Gabrieli wrote wonderful brass music in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Mendelssohn’s Octet for strings is an accessible and fun piece for all ages and has a lovely melody that is easy to remember. Chanticleer is an excellent choral group that has dozens of CDs to their credit. African music often has isolated percussion sections.
After listening to music for each family, listen to symphonic works with all of the instruments playing simultaneously (Some good ones to start with are Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Overture or Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony and you can easily find some history to go with both of these pieces to round out their lesson). Make up bingo cards with pictures of all of the instruments you’ve studied and see who can identify all of them first. Have them pantomime the way to play each instrument in a game of Musical Charades. Before long, your children will surprise you in the grocery store by shouting out, “Mom! I hear an oboe!”

Pitch and Rhythm:

Pitch refers to the frequency of vibration of the sounds you hear, the relative high or low of the notes, and rhythm refers to the orderly (or sometimes disorderly) structure and organization of the sounds in relation to time. These concepts are a bit more intimidating, but with some time can prove to be rewarding ones to study.
The best way to begin pitch experimentation with your children is by getting them to sing themselves. Young children (up to 2nd grade or so) have very limited ranges, especially on the lower end of the spectrum. Visit this online piano and after clicking on the word “scales” at the top right side, click the play button for the C scale. (Just in case you’re wondering what a scale is, watch this.) The C scale, beginning with middle C on a piano, is the main range for a young child. There are exceptions, but you will find that most children will not be able to match pitch much below or above those pitches. Adults have much lower ranges so what’s comfortable for you probably will not be comfortable for your children. Try out some recordings of children’s choirs to get an idea of the range your children can use.
Purposeful listening for pitch can include the high and low of the music, the concept that smaller instruments make higher sounds (tie in some science and acoustics while you’re at it!) and larger instruments make lower sounds, the contour/shape of the melody (I like to have my children “paint” the line in the air with a paintbrush, or even their finger- up when the notes go up and down when they fall), and the consonance or dissonance of a piece (whether the notes sound like they blend well, or grate on each other).
The best way to begin teaching rhythm is to find the beat. Whenever you hear music anywhere, tap the beat on your children, or have them tap it themselves if they are older. I used to tap when I held the babies in the snugli, or bounce with them and dance around the room. March with them to the beat, have them jump, give them pencils to use as drumsticks. Does it get faster or slower, or stay the same? Kids naturally feel the structure in music and you’d be hard pressed to have them not respond physically. As long as they’re not in danger of wrecking your furniture (or harming a sibling!), let them!
To further work on rhythm, have them divide the beat. Tap the main beat of any piece that you hear, then break that in half and tap double the speed. Can you triple it? Quadruple it? The key is to help focus your children to stay even and steady with their beat. Give them a pencil and ask them to conduct. (Have them watch this to see what a conductor does.) With concentration, they can learn to feel it rather than hear it. That is when the music really gets into their gut.
Some classical selections that are wonderful for the study of pitch are Mozart or Rossini arias from their operas. The melody lines are beautiful and have interesting contour. For easier pitch matching, choose more women singers than men but be sure to use a variety overall. Mozart’s Requiem also has a wonderful piece called the “Confutatis” that has juxtaposed sections of rhythmic, low parts sung by men against high, legato (smooth) lines sung by women. Copland’s Appalachian Spring has wonderful melodies and solo lines for different instruments. Any music can be analyzed for pitch study and you will be surprised by what your children notice when you ask them to really listen.
Likewise, any piece can be used for finding the beat, or talking about rhythm. Try Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain or Pictures at an Exhibition. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is rhythmically exciting, while Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring is rhythmically simple and fluid.

Once you begin practicing focused listening, you won’t be able to stop. Every piece of music you hear will have nuggets of beauty that stand out and those jewels you find will go with you throughout your life. Sharing this gift with your children will give them lifelong appreciation for The Finer Things.

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August 31, 2010 By Lee Leave a Comment

It’s kind of twisted, really.

I love science, but I really don’t like art! As a nurse, I have a science and math background. Those are my favorite subjects! When we did microscope work, I would find myself going back again and again to look through the microscope by myself!

But art…That was a completely different story.

Art was a weak area in my homeschool. It was one subject that we all had to work at, or it wouldn’t get done. If we didn’t set aside time for art study it would never happen! It may sound strange to some, but we never had that problem getting math or science done. Just art. You could say that instead of art being a “delight directed” subject, it was simply a “directed” subject.

But I was determined to provide a well-rounded education, even if it meant including this most obnoxious subject. I carefully scheduled art a few times a week for two hours at a time. I figured that should be just often enough, and provide enough time to get something done. Even so, it sometimes didn’t happen.

Here is the problem. Art is messy.

I’m tidy by nature, and art is messy by nature. We are a mismatch from the beginning. Art could get my house covered in so many crazy colors. Art makes a mess. Art caused stress because my kids just didn’t “get it.” And art takes so many materials! You have to buy so much stuff just to paint one thing! The problem for my kids wasn’t so much the mess. They had NO problem with the mess. It was just that every minute spent on art was one less minute doing what they loved; namely, math, science, chess and economics.

We all have weaknesses

I know for certain that art is my nemesis. I tell parents that when you identify your weak area, that’s what you do FIRST. It’s the first thing you spend money on when you buy curriculum. It’s the first thing you consider purchasing again when necessary, if your first choice doesn’t work. It’s the first thing you do each day. It’s the first thing you get done before going out to a fun event.

Finding the Spark

I never really sparked a love of art. My boys were simply not interested. I thought I had it all figured out when we tried pottery. After all, wouldn’t boys just love playing in the mud? But no, pottery was also merely tolerated. At least the mess (I mean “fun”) wasn’t in my house, but still the art idea didn’t take. I tried teaching art with games: The Impressionists Art Game and the Parker Brothers game called Masterpiece. They enjoyed playing it because they love to compete against each other, but I’m not sure a purist would call that “art.”

Teaching Art

I knew I would really have to force myself to teach art. Others may be able to provide art “experiences” but as a true art klutz, I didn’t know how to do that. For me and my homeschool, I needed curriculum to help me teach that dreaded subject. When the children were younger, we used the book “Art Fun” the first year. My children were much more interested in reading the books than actually doing the projects. Slightly older, I used the curriculum “Feed My Sheep.” In high school we used “Draw Today.”

Art Defined

One year I realized that colleges wanted to see one year of Fine Arts on a high school transcript. As an art klutz, I had to go to the dictionary and look up “fine arts” to see what they meant. The Fine Arts are music, art, theater, and dance. You don’t have to do it all, and you don’t have to do it every year.

My children don’t enjoy drawing, but they tolerate music. One year I purchased a 10-CD pack of great composers. Each CD was a different composer. My idea was to have a “composer of the week.” We would just play a CD during lunch and maybe during math. I found portraits of the great composers on the web, that I would print. We read about them, sometimes online and sometimes from library books. In high school we studied music appreciation with “How to Listen to and Understand Great Music” by The Teaching Company. It was our favorite lecture series. The teacher has a wonderful vocabulary, and my boys would take college level lecture notes in real time, while listening to the wonderful music content.

Do it vs. Study it.

If your kids just “do” art, then maybe you don’t really need to “study” it. We needed to make art a subject, because my kids would never do it otherwise. We used books and curriculum for art history, perspective, and art appreciation. If you aren’t a modern day Michelangelo, don’t despair. You can give your children a perfectly acceptable appreciation for the arts. You don’t need to destroy your home or convert the hallway into the Sistine Chapel. The key is to be flexible and willing to see “Art” in creative (dare I say artistic?) ways. You can still emerge at the other side with balanced students who will appreciate (if not necessarily create) fine art.

Amazing!

I guess it worked. Fine Arts was my “great failing” in homeschool high school. I tried to expose my kids to art during high school but, honestly, it was a pretty pathetic effort. Fast forward two years. According to Facebook, here is what my son did one weekend at college:

Alex loved “The Marriage of Figaro” yesterday, went to the Seattle Art Museum today, and is going to “Rhapsody in Blue” at the Seattle Symphony tonight. The pattern is starting to damage my street cred.

Apparently it was successful. I’m amazed that someone like me, who is “artistically declined”, can raise someone who enjoys the arts so much!

Art klutz parents of the world, unite!

Lee Binz is a veteran homeschooling mother of two and the owner of The HomeScholar, “Helping parents homeschool for high school.” Get access to her free one hour training webinar on homeschool credits, grades and transcripts. She has a free minicourse called “The 5 Biggest Mistakes Parents Make When Homeschooling High School”. You can sign up for her free email homeschool newsletters, The HomeScholar Record and get your daily dose of wisdom via e-mail from her Christian homeschool blog, The HomeScholar Helper. Get homeschool high school transcript help with her Total Transcript Solution. Get comprehensive help with high school homeschoolers as a member of her Gold Care Club.

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August 30, 2010 By Melinda 7 Comments

It’s time for an exhortation, my friends! This is a call for all homeschoolers. If you are starting a new school year, on your first day back to school go buy yourself some flowers. I started this tradition for myself years ago, and since then I have been urging my fellow homeschoolers to join me in starting out right each new school year by buying some lovely fresh flowers to commemorate the onset of another year of homeschooling.

Please join me in this tradition even if it is your first year of homeschooling or you are an “empty desker” with grown-up homeschooled children. All are welcome! I began this tradition to help myself get excited and enthused for another school year. Having a son and daughter who struggled with numerous learning challenges, school was never an easy time for us. I have friends whose children basically taught themselves to read. That sure never happened in our home school. As the “Back to School” specials and commercials increased in frequency during August and school supply sales had started as early as July, I found I had to take deep breaths and tell myself, “It’s going to be all right, Melinda. You’ve made it this far. You know this is the right thing to do, and you can do it. One day at a time. One lesson at a time.”

While other moms in my neighborhood were counting down the days until school started again and were making plans to meet for coffee the first morning school was back in session, I knew that my work would just be picking up again at that point and I would not be included in the neighborhood back to school social gatherings. In my community, very few people choose to homeschool. In fact, in all the years I have been homeschooling there have only been a handful of other homeschooling families in our area. I made up for this by talking to myself while drinking my coffee as we started our homeschool day. You can call it a parent-teacher conference if it makes you feel better!

I actually homeschool year round, but we have a much lighter schedule during the summer months. The onset of a new school year meant getting back up to a full schedule, and I admit if I thought about it too much it was more overwhelming than exciting to think what the next year would bring. It didn’t seem right to begin the homeschool year feeling a bit sorry for myself, so I made myself coffee and decided to celebrate the new school year with my own homeschool style kickoff.

I started buying myself flowers on our first official day of school for the year. I would select a nice bouquet and a card for my children to sign for me. At this point I have to confess that one year I was especially dreading the onset of school because the previous year had been so rough. If you have a struggling learner or family challenges and you homeschool long enough, you come to realize that not only will you have “on” days and “off” days, you sometimes have “off” years. During one particularly hard year, my son hit a growth spurt and grew two inches in about six months. Unfortunately, it seemed like that was all he did, because the physical changes affected him so greatly that as far as we could tell all we had to show for our time was his big feet and dangly arms but not much had happened in the academic realm.

The coming year held no guarantees that things would be any less challenging, so when I picked out my flowers I selected a “With Deepest Sympathy” card for my children to sign. With their impulsivity issues, it wasn’t until after they had scrawled their names on the card that they noticed the “With Deepest Sympathy” part at the top of the card. Then I heard cries of “Mo-om!” and we all had a good laugh together. I think it’s o.k. for our kids to know that sometimes homeschooling is hard for us, too. It’s absolutely worth it, but we do make sacrifices and face challenges at times.

One year my daughter who graduated from our homeschool in 2006 bought me the flowers and picked out a card. Perhaps this will lead to an even better tradition where the children mature and decide to buy you flowers! In the meantime, please join me in buying yourself fresh flowers and having your children sign the card for you. Be sure to
share this idea with your homeschooling friends as we embark on another school year. I’d love to hear about your “Back to School” flowers.

Melinda Boring has been married to Scott for 25 years and has three homeschooled children. Her 22 yr. old son and 21 yr. old daughter graduated from home school in 2006, leaving Melinda an “empty desker” of two along with her 17 year old daughter who will graduate in 2011. Two of her children and her husband have been diagnosed with AD/HD. The children also deal with auditory processing disorders and sensory processing challenges. The name “Boring” just doesn’t fit this family, and Melinda shares many humorous moments in her speaking and writing endeavors. Melinda is the author of Heads Up Helping and has been a contributing author to multiple publications. She is a workshop presenter with a passion for helping struggling learners and providing practical strategies, compassion, and understanding for those with special needs. Melinda is also a speech/language pathologist with over 25 years experience and the owner of Heads Up, a company with products for those who learn differently. You can find her blog at the Heads Up website, where she writes as “Heads Up Mom”.

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August 13, 2010 By Jimmie 4 Comments

Need something unique for tomorrow’s lesson? Here are two easy to assemble, stand-up papercrafts that can be adapted for most any homeschool topic.

Project 1 –Tower with Flaps

This first one, a tower with flaps, is perfect for material that can be divided into four parts (or three parts plus a title “page”). Any size paper will work, but 11″x17″ (A3) size gives you plenty of drawing and writing space.

First step

Fold a one inch tab on one short end of your paper.

Second Step

Fold the other short end up to the fold line you created so that the paper is now folded in half (minus the tab).

Third Step

Fold each newly created half in half again.

Now you have a paper with a one inch tab and four equal panels.

Test it out and see if it will work standing up.

Fourth Step

Affix the tab to the back of the panel on the other short side so that your tower comes to life. We used double sided tape, but you can use your favorite adhesive.

Fifth Step

Flatten the tower back down and mark along each crease an equal distance from the bottom of your tower. We chose 8 centimeters, but you can make your flaps as short or as long as you like.

Sixth Step

Cut along each crease up to the mark you made. Do this for each of the four creases. You’ll be cutting through double thickness on one crease where you glued the tab. Don’t worry; that’s no problem.

Seventh Step

Fold each flap up.

Eighth Step

Adjust the creases and make your tower stand neatly.

Now you have four flaps and four sides to decorate. The flaps can be captions for the pictures on the sides. Or the flaps can be headings for the main ideas you show on each panel. There is no right or wrong, but encourage your children to think logically about how they can organize their information using the tower.

Remember to lay the tower flat as you work on it. In the same way, you can lay it flat for storage.

I asked my daughter and her friend to create a sample tower to show you. They chose to tell the story of Pumpkin, the (glittery) hamster who escaped from her cage and went down the air conditioning pipe. She was rescued with the help of a pair of (glittery) chopsticks. (As amazing as it seems, this is a true event — minus the glitter.)

Project 2 — Pyramid

This 3D papercraft is also very versatile. You start with a square of any size. I do recommend cardstock because it will stand up better than regular copy paper.

First Step

Fold the square in half on both diagonals so that you’ve got an X-looking fold through the center. Then simply cut on one fold, stopping at the center point.

Second Step

The new slit is where you will overlap two of the triangles. Glue them together.

I made a quick vocabulary pyramid as an example. My heading is on the bottom and my main ideas are on the two vertical panels.

Another variation is to affix multiple pyramids together for an even larger project. Let your material decide how many you need — two, three or even four can be joined together. Although it’s not easy to fold for storage like the tower, it is easy to hang up from the top point. Just punch a hole and tie on some yarn.

Another option is to flip the pyramid and use the three outer sides instead of the hollow space. Multiple pyramids can be strung together vertically to make a mobile.

Consider using the tower or the pyramid

to narrate a lesson
to outline main ideas in a chapter
to create a 3D graphic organizer
to illustrate a series of events in chronological order

So, are your ideas flowing? What will you use the pyramid or tower for this week? If you’re not sure, but you think your children would like making these papercrafts, then teach them how to make them, and ask them when they would like to use it.

Jimmie is a former public school teacher turned homeschooling stay-at-home-mom. A sense of humor, faith, and creativity keep her “pressing on” in her unique situation — living and traveling abroad with an only child in a bilingual environment. Visit her blog at Jimmie’s Collage.

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August 12, 2010 By Debra 9 Comments

I’m thumbing through a full composition book packed with notes, lists and ideas that date back to the very first days of homeschooling my firstborn son. It spans 8 years of conferences, the bullet points of 4 different states’ homeschooling laws, and grade level ideas for Preschool through 6th grade.

It’s my very favorite resource to turn to for ideas and encouragement and for recalling what I set out to do in the first place.

Do you have a notebook like this? A book full of nuggets of wisdom, planning, scribbles, notes to yourself, lists of books to buy or skip, and memories – lots of memories?

Before I move into a new notebook this month I take time to review the contents of the first one and remember the feelings and challenges I had at every stage: as I began, persevered and then customized our homeschooling.

Thumbing past the very first page – the list of the alphabet and how we would cover each construction paper letter with things that started with that sound — and glancing through my lists of early reading activities, curriculum to explore, and educational books to buy (including Tobias, Bennett, Duffy, Klicka and Quine) I find the notes from my first conference in California in 2003.

This SCOPE conference was where Jessica Hulcey asked me point blank, “What is your philosophy of education?” I looked at her blankly and said, “Well, my son is only four. I don’t really know.” She snickered and excused me from answering the question and asked another workshop attendee who sweated out an answer. I took copious notes from Jessica who said, “You’re teaching a child, not a curriculum,” “Growing brains are shaped by experiences,” and “Cover the bases in the morning.” At the same conference, Jennifer Steward inspired me in the way of Unit Studies. She said, “If it’s there and natural, teach it,” and I’ve never looked back.

Next in the notebook I find the first unit I ever planned (kittens), ideas for teaching about the Fourth of July, literature units, and a failed attempt at tracking with Five in a Row (I returned it to the publisher). At my second conference, this time in Oregon, Greg Harris and Carol Barnier were the featured speakers. Carol said, “take writing out of everything but writing,” and that I needed to “find the way his mind works.” I’ve been doing just that ever since.

A turn of the page brings me to Sono Harris’ workshop and, due to her recent passing, I pause here to re-read her wisdom. She identified some of the negative feelings homeschool mom’s encounter: loneliness and isolation, weariness, frustration and disappointment. She said to “let our difficulties be opportunities for God to work for and through you.”

Sono said that “parent/child relationships are not for ease and happiness but are the context for the change God works in and through us… God is working in you and you may not be cooperating yet.” I can still feel how my toes felt (gratefully) stepped on by her gracious message.

The pages reveal my angst over my son’s “glitches” based on the copious notes from Judy Russell who spoke on neurodevelopmental methods that could help him. My feelings of relief are all over my notes from Becky DeVelle whose IEW vendor workshop wowed me with the reality that “It’s okay to tell them what to write.” And Diana Waring obviously inspired me with her creative, learning-style sensitive approach to teaching history because I barely took any notes, enraptured by her magnetic and warm personality.

The notebook goes on and on with field trip ideas, books for me to read, a phone number for my homeschooling friend Hillary (how have you been?), “drawings” from my second two-year old son, and thoughts on how school will change in our move to Colorado. It is filled to the end with notes from Doug Phillips, Joyce Herzog, more Diana, Jay Wile, Todd Wilson, Jeannie Fulbright, Voddie Bauchum, more Carol, Jan Bloom, Andrew Pudewa and more.

If you don’t have a notebook like this, I encourage you to start one. Get everything in one place so you can turn to it again and again and see how your journey has progressed, how you have grown, and how God has met your every need as you’ve plodded forward.

As C.S. Lewis wrote in Out of the Silent Planet, “A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking… as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing. … What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure.” Take joy in where you’ve come from because it’s gotten you where you are. Then, keep listening for the words of wisdom yet to come and take note of them.

Debra Anderson has three sons ages 11 and younger. Her passions are education, mentoring, her husband, writing, church ministry and missional living — not in that order. She has her seminary Masters degree in Christian Education, is married to her pastor-husband of 16 years, and resides in their newish home in Denver, CO. In spite of moves between four different states, she has always home educated her boys — even on the hard days. She maintains a blog at www.emergent-homeschool.blogspot.com.

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August 10, 2010 By HeatherW 8 Comments

Recently, as I was planning some school time with my daughter, I decided it would be fun to bring back The Year of the Dollhouse. Perhaps some of you know about my blogging friend Lynn and her idea to play and make a homemade dollhouse with her daughter everyday for a year a few years ago now. My daughter was 7 then and we did make some renovations to her house and did some playing, but it faded away. As I thought about what would make this school year special, I asked her if she thought doing another Year of the Dollhouse might sound fun. Now that she’s 10 my plan is to teach some home making skills through our creating and playing at the dollhouse. I pulled out a journal and began some dialogue with her. The journal is for us to plan and talk about our activities with the dollhouse and she loves it. Grammar correction is off limits in our journal allowing her to be free to communicate with me without a critique.

After hearing about the journal and the time I was going to spend with my daughter, my 8yo son wanted in on it too. Only I convinced him that maybe the dollhouse adventure wasn’t for him. Instead I suggested, the Year of the Adventure. His first question was, “Do I get to keep an Adventure Log?” And that is how journal time with him has begun. He and I will be reading Treasure Island and some of his favorite Jules Verne books and trying out our own adventures together. He loves his compass and binoculars and is an all American Adventure Boy.

Of course I wanted to find a way to have an adventure with each of my children. I gulped hard and offered to adventure and journal College Football with my 11yo son. He is a HUGE college football fan and I thought this would be a great way to connect with him throughout the season and I could give him challenges as we chat about team rosters and the National Championship front runners. Of course his absolute loyalty to the Virginia Tech Hokies would be prominent.

But, he surprised me by asking for a Redwall adventure instead. So, he and I will be discussing all things Redwall. He has in mind to make meals and write to the author Brian Jacques. I think he is secretly hoping that once this year ends, I’ll have enough planned to teach a Redwall co-op class.

And finally, my 5yo son requested some stories and after further probing, it turns out he’d like to draw pictures and tell me stories that I will write for him and read back to him. What a great idea for my Kindergartner who is too young to journal otherwise. He and I will enjoy time together and he tells a great story!

These, of course, are a version of the Adventure Boxes I shared with you all last summer. I had wondered then if doing adventure boxes and following a passion right during the school year rather than waiting for summer would be a fun idea. The kids won’t be totally immersed in an adventure at the expense of everything else, but it will allow them time to focus on something special they enjoy while getting extra time from my husband and me through journaling and activities.

I’m certain that we will look back with fondness at the memories we’ll make through our Journaling Adventures. What about you? Are you ready to make some memories with a Journaling Adventure?

Heather is a homeschooling mom of four kids ranging from middle school to preschool and wife to a handsome chemical engineer. Before raising a family, she taught middle school science (with a BS in biological sciences) and has a masters degree in curriculum and instruction secondary education. Now teaching at home means the chance to provide the extraordinary for her children. She’s been homeschooling five years and you can read about those adventures on her blog, Blog She Wrote.

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August 6, 2010 By CarolB 13 Comments

“I called the Betty Ford Clinic! They still have an opening. Heh heh heh.” My husband is so pleased with himself and his running joke.
“Yeah, honey…you’re terribly funny. You got me again.”

One of my husband’s favorite chuckles is to poke fun at my addiction. No, I don’t have an alcohol or drug problem. (Caffeine notwithstanding). I don’t gamble or display typical compulsive behaviors. I am, by all generally accepted measures of mental health, a reliably stable person. But yes….there is a problem.

I collect books.

That sounds rather harmless, don’t you think? When I say it that way, it sounds like a quaint hobby. She collects tea doilies. He collects antique glassware. And Carol? Oh, she collects books. But such a sweet pronouncement doesn’t really do justice to the questionable intensity of activity that actually accompanies her “collecting”. To make matters worse, now that she homeschools (I prefer to speak ill of myself only in third person) it almost puts a noble face on her addiction. Well….don’t homeschoolers always need more books? Are there ever enough books when one homeschools? Why can’t we put shelves up in front of that fire exit?

Over my years of homeschooling and speaking I’ve walked the aisles of many a vendor hall. In the beginning it was a painful experience. I saw so many wonderful books and materials that I wanted….I longed for…books that I was certain would radically revolutionize our schooling until my children were such prodigies they would make appearances on Jay Leno to amaze America with the wonders of homeschooling. But now, after so many years, after so many vendor halls, after so many used curriculum sales, local library sales and garages sales….now I walk those same halls, looking like a lost bag lady, scanning the many books being offered and muttering under my breath…

“Got it. Got it. Already got it. Got that too. Whoops. Got two of those.” (Big sigh).

I am, after many long years, finally feeling a slowing in the drive to find, obtain and hold books. In fact, as I wander the aisles now, my mind travels in a different direction. Now that I’ve seen every book that was ever written for homeschoolers, (Really. I’m pretty sure about this) I can indeed make the profound announcement…there are some books you will simply never find in a homeschool vendor hall.

Isn’t that amazing? Even with all the thousands of offerings, I have come to the conclusion, that though we are a diverse group of folks with a multiplicity of needs, wants and characteristics, there are still some books you will never see in our halls.

In just such a spirit, I offer some possible titles:

* Creating Great Tattoos Using Things You’ve Probably Got Around the House!
* 22 Ways to Encourage Social Workers to Come Over for Tea.
* NEA’s Book of “Why YOU Should Homeschool”
* Keeping Your Hired Domestic Staff Motivated and Happy
* Harry Potter….A Unit Study for the Whole Year
* Getting Expelled From Your Support Group…and other Ways to Liven Up Meetings
* Dr. Seuss’ Version of 10 Commandments. (I DO NOT want my neighbor’s cow. I DO NOT want it then or now.)
* There are Absolutely NO Absolutes….Post-Modernism-Truths…er..um…suggestions ….thoughts…well, you know.

I can safely proclaim, you’ll not be seeing these. (Although I secretly think the Dr. Seuss book has great merit and potential). Nonetheless, my mind continues to wander…and wonder. What other books might we be missing and not know it? In fact, are there books that we actually could use that have not made an appearance? I pondered this a bit and sent off to my publisher a list of possible titles that could, indeed, come in handy for a homeschooler, but are as yet an untapped market.

* Making Usable Furniture from Unused Curriculum
* Mini-Van and Paper Mache: How Will You Find Your Van in a Conference Parking Lot?
* Coon Skin Caps from Road Kill — A Thrifty Mom’s Story
* Some of My Best Friends Use Public Schools – The New Face of Tolerance
* Keeping the Heart of The Children Who Will One Day Choose Your Nursing Home
* Pot Holders, Pup Tents, and Other Great Uses for Those Old Denim Jumpers
* Local Support Group’s Launch New 12 Step-Recovery Program
* “He’s One Stone Short of a Temple”. . .and other Ancient Hebrew Jokes
* Our Weapon of Choice: The Glue Gun
* “I’ve Been Called for Jury Duty”– 55 Great Ideas for Getting Dad to Teach Today.
* I ONLY Have 3 Children! – and Other Embarrassing Homeschool Confessions
* How to Win National Spelling Bee, Geography Bee and Quilting Bee in 5 Easy Lessons!
* Creating a Walk-Through Digestive Tract (and other Science-Alive Moments)
* “I Wasn’t Sleeping– I was Meditating on our Family’s Mission Statement”: Quick and Believable Responses When Caught Dozing.
* Classical–Shmassical: Whatever Happened To Recess?
* Dust Bunny/Cheerios Sculptures: Creative Ways to Get YOUR Kids to Tidy Up.
* “I Just Can’t Get That Tomato Out of My Head!” One Mom’s Courageous Battle with Veggie Tales Abuse
* Boundaries and the Deadbolt Solution: Finally Going to the Bathroom Alone

So far, I haven’t heard from my publisher. But I can only assume that he’s shopping these titles around with marketing executives. The possibilities are just staggering. The spin-offs are endless. The energy is infectious! Then again, perhaps it’s time to feed that other addiction and get my morning cup of coffee.

Carol Barnier is a fresh, fun and popular conference speaker unlike any you’ve heard before. Her objective is to have the wit of Erma Bombeck crossed with the depth of C.S. Lewis, but admits that most days, she only achieves a solid Lucy Ricardo with a bit of Bob the Tomato. She is a frequent guest commentator on Focus on the Family’s Weekend Magazine broadcast, has been a guest on many radio programs and is a speaker to conferences nationwide. She’s the author of three books about dealing with (or possessing) a non-linear mind in a linear world: How to Get Your Child Off the Refrigerator and On To Learning, If I’m Diapering a Watermelon, Then Where’d I Leave the Baby?, and The Big WHAT NOW Book of Learning Styles. Her main websites are CarolBarnier.com and SizzleBop.com. You can also find Carol at her blog for moms with distractible kids at SizzleBop. And for fun, see her church humor blog at CarolBarnier.

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August 6, 2010 By Aubrey Lively Leave a Comment

My husband died last week in a shoot-out with Shoshone Indians on the Oregon Trail, and while it doesn’t seem to be bothering anyone else (including my husband), I find myself brooding over the situation as I put away laundry and wash dishes.

We were approached by six Shoshone Indians on horseback. There were seven of us, and we panicked. Well, the kids did. One of them wanted to start shooting right away. The other convinced him to call their grandparents.

The reasoning was quite rational. It went like this: you can’t outrun them. You’ve got oxen and a wagon. If you try to talk to them, and they’re “fierce,” you won’t have a chance to get to your guns. So the safest, most logical thing to do was shoot. And they did.

Yeah, we were pretending. But my kids still chose to shoot at innocent strangers rather than talk first. They were caught up in the simulation, I know. In real life we don’t even own any guns, and we never shoot strangers. I’m taking it too seriously, I’ve been told.

But I played the simulation with my husband before the kids began. I knew that the situation could be gotten out of with a friendly conversation and a gift. Like most things in life, if we will use our words, we will have less trouble.

The “guns” we shot were just rolls of the dice. The Indians were make-believe. Nobody got hurt, not really. “But,” I asked them, “who were these men you killed? Brothers? Fathers? Husbands?” And even now I want to weep. Because I know that these imaginary people in a history simulation represent real people who were killed just as senselessly as my sweet children rolled the dice.

Yes, it seemed safer to just shoot. In many ways, it often seems safer to just shoot. Then we don’t have to worry about understanding other people, being hurt, risking ourselves in an attempt to cross the chasm between one human heart and another.

But I believe in stepping away from my guns and risking my life to cross the prairie to a stranger, hand held out in friendship. It doesn’t sound like much, not shooting strangers for fear they’ll shoot you first, but sometimes…when you’ve run out of food and outrun cholera and winter’s approaching…sometimes life is hard, and it’s easy to think only of survival. In those difficult, stretched-to-the-point-of-breaking times, that’s when we really choose Who to follow, and survival was not a message He preached.

My husband and I have a strict policy of non-intervention with this simulation. We let them buy the snake oil from Professor Thaddeus P. Farnsworth and get sick trying it. We let them bring the silverware and every spare part a wagon could need, even though that meant bringing less food. We giggled but said nothing when they decided to buy oxen instead of donkeys, since that meant they wouldn’t have to bring donkey food. We knew those oxen would come to places where the grass was too scarce to eat, would pull the wagon too slowly and leave them fighting blizzards and avalanches.

We let them decide to shoot the Indians, too.

The simulation does not teach you what to think. It’s merely fact, choices, odds, dice. If you try to outrun the Indians, they’ll ride beside you and laugh. If you try to talk to them, they’ll trade with you. If you shoot them, they’ll shoot back. The impetus to give meaning to these outcomes is on us as teachers.

I’ve told the kids what I think: they killed innocent people. But you can see in their faces that the information does not register, not really. They think they went left when they should have gone right, made an error of judgment. They don’t see the deeper significance. They don’t see that these six characters represented real people.

So we’re reading about Native Americans for the next few weeks. We’ve learned that the Hopis are a subgroup of the Pueblo Indians, and my son is fascinated by the pueblos they built. We’ve read If You lived With the Sioux Indians and learned about some of the things they made from bison. We’re working our way around the continent with crafts from More Than Moccasins, books, and films that are on hold at the library now.

My son said to me this week, “Wow. The Indians are really interesting. They’re like real people!”

Almost all my kids knew about Native Americans came from Little House on the Prairie, and I failed to realize it sooner. I’d dutifully pointed out the racist passages that that book contains as they were reading through it, we discussed them, and we kept reading.

When presented with a group of Shoshone Indians, though, and grandparents who suggested they might be “fierce,” I asked them, “Are they? Are these Indians ‘fierce?’”

My daughter quoted Ma’s objections to Indians and my objections to Ma’s racism.

“So what does that mean?” I asked.

“That means I don’t know,” she said.

We will be reading about the Shoshone next week and about Sacajawea and her baby, her joy over being reunited with her older brother, a relationship my two take very seriously and so will relate with deeply. When we do, then they will know, and then they will weep. Because then they will know who they killed at Independence Rock.

Aubrey Lively is a homeschooling mother of four, ages 9, 7, 3, and 2. She has a BA in Literature and an MEd in Teaching and is currently surviving seminary with her husband of ten years. Visit Aubrey online at http://aubreylively.blogspot.com.

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