Planning | Heart of the Matter

August 5, 2010 By AngelaP 7 Comments

It is that time of the year to begin again. That is if you take a break in the summer. The beauty of homeschooling is that you get to choose the best schedule for your family. For our family we choose to take most of the summer off. However, learning is a lifestyle for us so we are always schooling, we don’t “officially” count it through the summer though.

I have struggled trying to pick our curriculum for this fall.

Our two children are very different in their learning styles. So for the first time ever I have pieced together a curriculum that will be what we need.

I really had to pray this through. These children belong first to God. He knows exactly how they are made and exactly what they need. This year it ended up to be a mixture of this and that. I think I will like it better this way.

I decided to use Switched on School House for a couple of subjects with my oldest. I will be doing Singapore Math with lots of manipulative tools for my ADHD learner. I am also going to use the skip counting memory work from Classical Conversations. We will be doing The Story of History volume 1. We will be using the Cycle 2 Science from Classical Conversations and build on that. We will be with La Clase divertida for our Spanish again and Prima Christiana for our Latin. We are using Spelling plus for Spelling and Handwriting without tears. We will be doing lots of hands on field trips to aid in this process. For Bible I am not sure yet what to do. The thing I know for sure is it is how we will start our day. I am thinking we will be studying a lot about unity this year. We will be doing lots of reading individually and read alouds. My picks for this year so far are The Hobbit, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and Alice in Wonderland.

Thankfully in our fourth year of doing this I am finally feeling a little more confident. God has given us all we need. We are fully equipped to do every task He gives us to do. This includes homeschooling. After four years I am finally feeling this. I hope this means we are set for a great year.

I really want to know what you are all up to this year. What suggestions do you have to help others feel confident in this large task? When is your school year starting? What curriculum have you planned? Let us hear from you!

Angela Parsley, of the international ministry Refresh My Soul Ministries, is a wife and homeschooling mother to her 2 young daughters. Angela is also a contributing author to a devotional book entitled, “Standing on the Promises of God” and Radical Revolution, a devotional site for teen girls through Proverbs 31 Ministries.

April 8, 2010 By Nikowa Lee 1 Comment

When we teach our children life lessons, most of the time it’s usually lessons in hindsight.

“See, if you would have placed your shoes where they go, you’d know where to find them now.”

“Saying those things are hurtful. Remember the Golden Rule?”

See what I mean? But we must not forget to also teach our child(ren) life lessons in foresight.

Planning is crucial to life. You plan before you go shopping. You plan what to pack before leaving to go on vacation. You plan out your budget every month. You plan out your schedules, your lesson plans, your holidays and much much more.

You know that without foresight life could be a lot more chaotic, right? Anyone ever forgot to pack their toothbrush to go on vacation?

So teach your child to make a list (and not forget where you put it). Teach your child to think about what they’d need on a trip to the beach versus a trip to the ski lodge. Teach your child to budget what they have and to plan for emergencies. Teach them to save for what they want. Teach them to spend their time wisely and give freely.

Don’t forget to teach your child foresight. After all, they are our future.

Nikowa is a quirky homeschooling mom to a special needs son, co-schooling mom to a son that’s a handful, foster-to-adopt parent, Cub Scout volunteer, music lover, frugal lifestyle livin’, 2x cervical cancer surviving wife. She enjoys social media, photography, knitting, gardening, reading, cooking, and teaching. You can visit Nikowa at The Adventures of a Quirky Mom.

January 3, 2010 By LeslieW 4 Comments

The trees and ornaments are all securely packed away. Wrapping paper, ribbons and bows, returned to their bins and closets, are slumbering until next winter when they’ll reemerge for the next all-night wrapping party. The festive china is stacked neatly in the cabinet and will go unused until the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Our Christmas break has come to a glorious close and it’s time again to transition our lives and homes to the familiar every day kind of living.

The table will begin to transform from the dining table/baking surface/holiday treat-making area to the learning area/science lab/arts and crafts center. The Advent calendar is replaced with the daily calendar and weather chart and world map. Christmas cards and family photos are exchanged for artwork and handwriting practice and math drill sheets. Stacks of boxes and bags become piles of books and athletic equipment. Instead of glitter, the floors are littered with eraser remnants and pencil shavings.

We mothers expend so much energy making the Christmas season a magical and memorable time for our children. We carry on our favorite traditions, we visit with our neighbors, we go carolling, we spend extra time with family, we take time to say the things we need to say, we read special stories. And every Christmas the children declare that this Christmas was the best ever. What I need to remind myself is that the routines of daily life need not be less magical, less filled with tradition.

Learning is fun and a wonder-inducing activity for children: there is so much to see ad experience and understand. As Bill Waterson notes in one of my favorite Calvin & Hobbes strips, “There is treasure everywhere!” I don’t want us to miss it. Indeed, each year of learning can be better than the one before it.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Jim Elliot, missionary who died carrying the gospel to the Auca Indians of Ecuador. He said, “Wherever you are — be all there.”

Being present is one of the most difficult things for me to do because my mind tends to move ahead to the next thing and I miss the moments.

I am guilty of rushing the children through Bible so we can do math. Then I rush through math so we can do history. I rush through history so we can go to co-op. I rush from co-op to the grocery store to home so that I can get dinner on the table. We have to rush through dinner so I can get the kids in bed on time so that we can get up early and do it all again.

My regular response to, “How was your day?” tends to be, “I can’t even remember the day.” As I’ve heard southerners often quip, “That ain’t no way to live.” Well, I don’t want to live that way in 2010.

Here are 10 things (in no particular order) that I hope will help me create a few magical moments and find a little more daily treasure.

1. Plan
I’ve heard that failure to plan is planning to fail. I have a simple plan for us to finish our school year. I only need to execute the plan.

2. Practice living in the moment.
The only time I’m guaranteed is happening right now. I need to stop thinking about what I could be doing or what I’m hoping to do next, or what I regret from yesterday.

3. Preserve our days in a journal.
I do enjoy maintaining a personal journal, but this year I’m going to add a line or two that documents something positive from our home school day. I have four children and I want to remember something special about each one of them from each day.

4. Photograph
I want to take my camera with me more this year. I missed so many memorable moments because I didn’t have my camera. I also need to remember to pack extra batteries. A photograph each day will be a great way to document what we did this year. My challenge will be to take pictures of the frustrating moments. By the time 2010 ends, whatever it was that seemed bad one day may be what makes me laugh in 2011.

5. Participate
So many times I just stand back and watch or make an excuse for not getting involved. I’m going to go to the next Mom’s Night Out. I’ll join the next co-op picnic and play date. This is going to require me to step out of my comfort zone — always a challenge — and grow new relationships. The people in my life are a treasure and I’ll be a happier woman for opening my heart up to them. Why continue to sit back and watch everyone else have all the fun?

6. Pray
I need to pray more that God will bless all my planning. For far too many days, I have put my faith in my plan rather than in the Lord. I probably don’t need to explain to you how far my plans carried us last semester — think lead balloon.

7. Pick it up
To help me enjoy the next day, I’m going to have to get in the habit of filing away all of our work from the current day and cleaning up the messes before they turn into mountains. Many a morning last year I walked into our school room only to be overwhelmed with all I needed to put away before we could get started. This teacher needs to take better care of her classroom so that she can enjoy home schooling.

8. Praise
I want to praise my children more this year. I worry that I’m too negative during our school day, and I want that to change in 2010. I want to give them more than, “Good job!” I want to be specific with my praise and tell them what I think is good. Sometimes it’s okay to give praise that isn’t attached to a certain achievement. I want them to know that I think they’re wonderful just because they are who they are.

9. Play
I say, “No,” too much when the kids want me to play with them. I have their attention during school time, and they want my attention during play time. I need to remember that my children need me to be “Mom” after I remove my “Teacher” hat.

10. Pamper myself
I’m not the kind of woman who goes to the salon for a massage and a mani-pedi. I have many friends who do, but that is not my kind of pampering. I like to take a hot bath in my favorite bath salts or bubbles at the end of the day, read a novel, have a cup of coffee or tea, bake and eat my favorite cookies for dessert, or go for a walk with a friend. I also like to read through my encouragement folder. My encouragement folder is for those days when I feel like throwing in the towel. You know, those days when I will have to steal a moment to cry in my bathroom? In my folder I have placed my favorite home schooling magazine articles (to remind me why I’m home schooling), encouraging Bible verses and quotes, and a home school mom devotional. It’s important to take care of my heart and mind when the days are tough.

What would you like to do this year to mine your daily treasures and make 2010 your best year of school yet?

Leslie Wiggins has been home schooling her four children for five years. She is currently teaching fifth, fourth, second and first grades. She enjoys writing and blogs at Alabamenagerie (http://lesliewiggins.com).

June 3, 2009 By Beth 7 Comments

Last month at the GHEA homeschooling convention, I was delighted to meet Michele Zavatsky. Along with her husband George, they are the family-loving authors of the Kids Love Travel Guides. They were both blessed to grow up in families that love to travel. For over a decade, they have been passing on that love to other families by making it easier to create memories with the assistance of their easy-to-use state guide books.

Meeting Michele Zavatsky at GHEA

Do you find planning interactive field trips and spontaneous daycations a little overwhelming? Is it hard to get the creative juices flowing on where to go next? Wouldn’t it be nice if someone came to your state, and purposefully visited every known and unknown attraction, critiqued it, “kid-tested” it, and then gave you all of that info in an organized chart right at your finger tips? How cool would it be to benefit from 1,000 hours of state specific research that another homeschooling-minded family had put together with your family’s pleasure and learning in mind?

The first thing I noticed upon opening my state specific book on Georgia was how well organized it was. I liked that you could quickly see everything in your region on a chart. Also, in the back of the book are places listed by theme. This makes it easy to quickly see everything in your state that is Science or history related. What makes these guides so helpful to families is that it puts all of the information you need to plan a successful trip right at your finger tips. Our field trip director was able to plan out a whole year of field trips for our homeschool group using the Georgia guide in less than a day!

What the “Ultimate Field Trip Bible” has to offer:

Quick Tours of Hand-Picked Favorites – to help you choose, if you have a limited time frame
Day Trip Zone Categories – makes it easy to locate multiple activities in the same area
Educational Downloads and free lesson plan links
Quick View Charts – organized by city
Detailed Descriptions – including pricing, hours, overview, and insider tips
Separate Activity Index – to locate attractions by theme i.e. Science, Arts, Sports
Seasonal Listing of Events - ensures that you don’t miss that annual hot air balloon race (My personal favorite!)

Are you going somewhere this summer that you are unfamiliar with? Would you like to know what all that region has to offer? Recently, my mom surprised my sister-in-law and I with plane tickets to Williamsburg, Virginia. This is the home of Jamestown, the first permanent colony, and Yorktown, where the American Revolution ended. But with only a week to plan what do you do? Thankfully, I had just discovered this series and I was so impressed with how well the information was laid out and organized that I contacted Michele to order a second book. By reading the quick overviews, it was easy to map out how we wanted to spend our sacred 2.5 days there. Within 30 minutes, we solidified what we didn’t want to miss and had the tools to know how we would fit it all in. Thanks, Michele for saving us hours of internet research! The Virginia guide book was just what I need to plan our trip quickly and easily.

You can find out more info and order your state specific guide by visiting their website at www.KidsLoveTravel.com.

Beth discovered how fun learning can be when she began homeschooling in 2003. She considers homeschooling to be a treasured blessing.On the path with her are her 2 boys and husband John, who is her biggest supporter and fan. Somehow she has enabled her frog loving outdoor boys to love tough subjects like Latin, Writing and Grammar. (She is not kidding!) Now if she could only get them to eat all their vegetables. Beth loves capturing life’s precious moments with her camera and decorating them with Photoshop. You can visit her blog at Pages of Our Life.

April 26, 2009 By Tiany 5 Comments

Is there one best way to schedule and plan out your homeschool day?

I don’t think so, but I do believe we should have some kind of direction, plan and or schedule laid out for the days activities.

“He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life… But where no plan is laid… chaos will soon reign.” -Victor Hugo

The days where I have not taken the time to set out a plan or use our schedule quickly become chaotic, stressful and unproductive! A well-ordered homeschool day (even loosely ordered) brings peace and a sense of accomplishment.

My first attempt at scheduling (a few years back) started out with a 15 to 30 minute interval scheduling plan, by the end of the week I was ready to pull all the hair out of my head and throw “scheduling” out the door for good! My scheduling woes were not for a lack of trying but more so for a lack of “fit”. The scheduling plan I was using was not the right fit for my family for the time and season of our lives. I felt as though I was constantly rushing and as if I were punching a clock.

I may revisit that form of scheduling in years to come but for now I am using a very simple block schedule. Block scheduling is very conducive to a home with lots of littles, which means lots of little interruptions! Block scheduling has allowed us to have a calm, unhurried homeschool day, one where we really can enjoy the journey and not get stressed by time-lines that are not being met.

We simply break our day down into 2 to 3 hour blocks, Block 1 starts at 7am, Block 2 starts at 10am, Block 3 at 1pm and so on…

Our schedule is the map for our day but as with any map there is more than one way to get to our destination! We can always take a surprise turn or veer off the road for unexpected detours. We do attempt to stick to the schedule as often as possible and our boys know the schedule, so there is no squabbling or whining about what to do when.

A few helpful tips for successful scheduling…

There are many reasons why our schedules fail us… lack of discipline, disorganization, procrastination, laziness, over scheduling, under scheduling, and or no motivation. Unfortunately, I have learned this through my own personal struggles.

I believe many fail to plan primarily due to pure frustration and the feeling of defeat from previous attempts.
Be sure to work some flexibility into your schedule. Be flexible!
Don’t set yourself up for failure with unrealistic expectations.
Examine your day and seek the Lord for direction, allowing Him to order your days.

“Let all things be done decently and in order”. 1 Corinthians 14:40

If you are new to homeschooling and and trying to find a plan or schedule that works for your family, don’t give up! Achieving some order during your homeschool day is a very real possibility with a little prayer, perseverance and planning.

The last tip I would like to share is one that helps me accomplish a great deal throughout the day’s many stumbling blocks… keep moving!!! Make your schedule work for you by going about your day with a skip in your step and joy in your heart!

When I start to slack, feel lazy and/or lose motivation, I think of this poem…

From an old English parsonage, down by the sea
There came in the twilight a message to me;
Its quaint Saxon legend, deeply engraven
Hath, as it seems to me, teaching from Heaven.
And on through the hours the quiet words ring
Like a low inspiration – “DO THE NEXT THING.”

Many a question, many of fear,
Many a doubt, hath its quieting here.
Moment by moment, let down from
Heaven, Time, opportunity, guidance, are given.
Fear not tomorrows, Child of the King,
Trust them with Jesus, “DO THE NEXT THING.”

Do it immediately; do it with prayer;
Do it reliantly, casting all care;
Do it with reverence, tracing His Hand
Who placed it before thee with earnest command.
Stayed on Omnipotence, safe ‘neath His wing,
Leave all resultings, “DO THE NEXT THING.”

Looking to Jesus, ever serener,
(Working or suffering) be thy demeanor,
In His dear presence, the rest of His calm,
The light of His countenance be thy psalm,
Strong in His faithfulness, praise and sing,
Then, as He beckons thee, “DO THE NEXT THING.”

(Author unknown)

If you’re planning on revamping your schedule mid-year, I pray the Lord will give you the wisdom and direction to fulfill his perfect plan for your family!

Tiany Davis is a homeschool mom to 4 little boys ages 8, 6, 4, 2 and wife to her best friend Troy for 14 years! She is an LSU Tiger fans living in Louisiana and founder of The Homeschool Lounge. You can also visit Tiany at her blog, Less of Me, More of Him.

March 14, 2009 By Belinda 13 Comments

I’ve started with the annual start of school fever. I’m finished buying curriculum, minus a book or two. Planning gives me the same energy that shopping gives some women. Even the kids got excited this year about getting new planners. I guess I can say that this was one idea for ordering our day that was tremendously successful. As for my own planner, I definitely fell for packaging in buying my new Mom’s Plan It. This planner has tear-out grocery lists, a huge plus for me. However, as a scrapbooker at heart, I think what I really fell for was the opportunity to use these stickers:

As I got home and started to play with my new toy, I couldn’t help but look in more detail at the stickers, and about the larger implication of what is deemed important to today’s Mom:

Parties, birthday and otherwise (27 stickers)
Lunch dates (18 stickers)
Dinner dates (an additional 18 stickers)
Haircuts (18 stickers)
Games (school-related—18 stickers)
Phone calls (9 stickers)
Play dates (9 stickers)
Weekend getaways (9 stickers)

There were 54 total school-related, non-game stickers, including school events, class parties, no school and half-day stickers, open house and field trips. However, I couldn’t help but think, what does this allocation say about the new millennium mom? I don’t begrudge anybody a hair cut, but sadly, the message seems to be that a “busy mom” might be busy because she’s far more consumed with self interests/indulgences than with any higher callings of wife and motherhood. This is echoed in current feminist agendas that look upon the stay-at-home mom with disdain.

I know personally I’d be a lot wealthier if I had a dollar each time someone looked at me and asked something along the lines of, “Do you work at all?” Translation: Is staying at home with your kids all day all you do? What’s even sadder to me is my own emotions as I answer the question. As I continue to grow more comfortable in this relatively new skin, I find that I, somewhat proudly, respond with a detailed list regarding my work history and current income-bearing pursuits (I always state first that we homeschool—hooray for some level of redemption).

I am convinced that as a community of women, we’ve bought—hook, line, and sinker—into a lie that says that something is wrong with a woman whose primary goal in life is to minister to her family. There is even a television show—the 1,000,000th reality show—featuring stay-at-home moms who decide that they want to “see what they’ve missed out on” for a time. I’ve never watched it; having worked “a real job” and then coming home to the “real-est” job I ever had, even the commercial preview bothered me. I would love to ask them, what do you think you missed? Your interests and passions being sucked right out of you with all kinds of organizational policies and politics that have nothing to do with why you’re there in the first place?

I’m thankful that most of these stickers will land in the notebook of a soon-to-be 5-year-old. However, the stickers I used were the ones that are most important—to me and to God. They deal with the uplifting of family, of ministry to them and to others. Every drop of water I pour, every nutritious meal I prepare, matters to Him. May He bless my efforts to serve Him in my own small way.

belinda Belinda Bullard is a wife and homeschooling mother of three, Belinda is an author and the owner of A Blessed Heritage Educational Resources, a literature-based history curriculum featuring African-American presence in history, as well as the contributions of other races to American history. A chemical engineer by formal education, she also serves as adjunct faculty for college distance learning programs.

February 24, 2009 By Beth 14 Comments

Mommy Meltdown:

aka tightening of the chest, slowness of breath, a lack of desire to tackle the world, extreme hyper focus on the unaccomplished and uncontrollable things in life, an overwhelming urge to jump on the nearest plane and escape reality as you currently know it.

You know you are about to have a mommy meltdown when….

1. You are getting ready to pay your bills and realize that for some reason the online payment did not go through last month when your internet crashed, which means you now owe $490 instead of $245.

2. You realize you have to explain it to your very understanding husband.

3. You head out to the freezer in the garage to get meat for dinner and notice that you still haven’t unpacked a bazillion boxes of who knows what even though it’s been a year since you moved in.

4. While you are carrying the frozen meat, you realize that your writing class is tomorrow and you still haven’t prepared for it because you sacrificed your planning time to go to a very important unplanned event.

5. While the meat is thawing you check your email and the sweet librarian has emailed you that those 49 books you checked out are all overdue. Hmmm….

6. But you don’t have time to calculate your fines because you also just realized that your dinner plans have been foiled because that very important ingredient you desperately need is not in your pantry.

7. And your husband is already on his way home.

8. While you are scrambling to find a substitute ingredient the phone rings and its bad news.

9. The head of the volunteer program you work for has just resigned and they need you to fill in but it’s only for a short time they assure you.

10. As you hang up the phone you realize it’s that time of the month and for some reason you forgot to write down unmentionables on your toiletries list when you went to the grocery store.

We have all been there. We have all experienced moments in life when the snowflakes of stress can suddenly snowball. Instead of being able to enjoy life we find ourselves at the bottom of a hill watching as the huge snowball prepares to take us out.

Recently, I was there. Just before the snowball took me out I realized that some of the best things in life and the greatest victories come with a stressful price tag. Just because something is causing us stress does not mean that it is bad or that we should shrink away from it.

Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty,

but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest. Prov 14:4

Simply stated oxen poop. They smell and create a huge mess. The farmer knows that but he is willing to clean up after his oxen because he knows the price of his reward far outweighs the stress he is now experiencing.

So, the next time your feeling a little ”covered up” and things don’t smell just right in your home. Grab the nearest shovel and start digging! And while your digging put a smile on your face because this is one of the benefits of reaping an abundant harvest.

My meltdown stopped when I realized that all of my internal stress was coming from good things. Things I am thankful for. Things I gladly invest myself in because of the abundant harvest that will come from it. When I focused on this truth the rolling snowball suddenly stopped and I survived the mommy meltdown.

February 5, 2009 By Belinda Leave a Comment

When I began homeschooling, I followed my nature and planned. I didn’t write separate notebooks for each child, but I planned for me. As an aside, I have my own self-developed planner now which I incorporate into the large notebooks I receive from a curriculum vendor, but a bought planner that I particularly enjoyed was the Corebook developed by Tanglewood Education. I wrote long-term goals, vision statements, 5-year plans, annual goals, and daily plans. My homeschooling friends laughed at me, and maybe I’ll look back and say that I was a bit too methodical, but as of today, I’m glad I took the time to document—for myself—what our days would look like. What that rather extended activity did was to expedite our homeschooling routine. I’ve gathered peace where I once felt guilt about leaving our children at the table after Bible study and read-aloud time.

There are a number of planners available, either store-bought or developed from homeschool-specific vendors, for logging your student’s assignments. You can also develop a form that works for your school. These can be very economical (and sometimes free!), and the obvious benefit of filling them with upcoming assignments is that they allow your children to work independently, freeing your day to complete other activities. Personally, however, I’ve seen and heard an immediate disadvantage of the child-specific planner: it depends on you as the parent to list the assignments, one more thing on the list to do.

Although the routine has had some variance over the years—an extra workbook here or different teaching element there—we have pretty much stuck to the same schedule and basic subjects each year. Without additional prep work (besides my own), our children know what is expected of them each day of the week. Unless we have an interruption (a field trip, travel, or unplanned event), they can sit with books and complete their work whether I’m around or not. Only once in our time at home was I too sick to get out of bed, but I stood astonished and thrilled that the kids came downstairs and did everything they were supposed to do, only consulting me if they had questions.

Routines are just what the name suggests—routine, boring, and monotonous. I can, however, offer the carrot in front of this ho-hum horse. As a college instructor, I reach out to students each day who are having a less-than-successful start in post-secondary studies. In some cases, they are simply not college material. However, in many cases, they are bright learners who could have an academically successful experience but they lack the skills to be good students—discipline, time management, and concentration. As much as we hate to admit it, these are the roles we often play as parents in the homeschool.

So the question becomes, how do we transition them to do these things themselves? Cutting them off cold turkey after 12th grade doesn’t work in many cases, so we have to create an environment for certain habits to form. Moreover, those habits must form in us first. We can’t lead where we aren’t willing to go; how dare we expect children who can manage themselves when we present ourselves as flighty and undisciplined! School can still be filled with love and laughter, but think about and certainly pray about making it boring enough for your children to learn to discipline and manage their own lives.

Belinda Bullard is a wife and homeschooling mother of three, Belinda is an author and the owner of A Blessed Heritage Educational Resources, a literature-based history curriculum featuring African-American presence in history, as well as the contributions of other races to American history. A chemical engineer by formal education, she also serves as adjunct faculty for college distance learning programs.

February 2, 2009 By Julie 4 Comments

It wasn’t in my lesson plans.

I didn’t have it scheduled for that summer.

Heck, it wasn’t even on my radar.

But after 15 years of living in my beloved Oklahoma, the summer of 2005 brought change on a major scale.

We were moving.

I’d had my share of moving as a kid, following the space shuttle program as my father-the-rocket-scientist (for real) followed his career goals from the West to the East Coast with some stops in between. So I felt I had pretty much checked that life experience box a few times, particularly that stretch that included me attended three different high schools.

Good times.

Marriage and babies had only further facilitated my goal to never, ever, never move again. And I didn’t. For a decade and a half.

And I’ve been paying for that sabbatical over these last five years.

We’ve lived in two new cities in four different residences over the last 55 months. The last move occurred when I was five weeks away from delivering the twins. Boxes, moving vans, changing utilities, exploring new churches, new phone numbers, fresh tears, adjustments.

Oh…and schooling.

Had we not already been homeschooling through this gypsy season, life would have been far more complicated. Our housing would have been more difficult as we would have struggled to stay within particular school districts. We would have been separated more as a family in trying to keep the traditional school calendar.

But schooling while in transition is certainly not a feat for the faint of heart. The learning curve for the Moving Mama has been steep and rocky at times. But it can be done, embraced, even, with a little advance work and a whole lot of grace.

1. Be very, very clear about the homeschool laws in your new home state. While homeschooling is legal in all 50 states, some states are much more friendly to our kind. We actually turned down a couple of very promising offers because the states in which those jobs were located would have made our homeschool experience more complex.

2. Do some early homework on the homeschooling community in your new town. While you may ultimately not end up involved in the co-ops or play groups, you can at least get a feel for what may (or may not) be available.

3. Purpose to spend the first couple of weeks in your new locale making field trips to the new sights and attractions your nouveau city has to offer. We very much enjoyed the new museums, natural parks and other venues our new towns boasted. It’s a great way to incorporate the history of this unfamiliar place you are now calling home. It’s also an opportunity to teach how to read maps, follow directions and navigate to new places.

4. Consider adopting a more convenient curriculum for at least the first semester following your move. Our moves ended up being difficult, with sluggish housing markets and the necessity for the kids and I to travel back and forth to check on real estate. While I have always loved unit studies, switching to workbook based curriculum was a life-saver. We could pack our studies up in a backpack per kid, bringing only the workbooks on which we were presently working. This effectively eliminated me having to locate faux dinosaur bones, Pilgrim costumes and pipe cleaners from my stash of unit study materials buried somewhere in boxes.

5. Try to establish a routine as quickly as possible. In the first few months of our protracted first move, our schooling was the one thing that seemed familiar. To gather at the table in the morning, whether we were back in Oklahoma or gathered at the card table in the lease house on the island, was a true blessing. We had a sense of normalcy in those study times that was transportable. In those transitional months, our school routine lent structure and comfort to a tumultuous time.

6. Give yourself lots and lots of grace. And then give yourself some more. Whether your move is much desired or hotly contested, moving is tough. Determining the flow of the new residence, finding all the items necessary to run a household, even just navigating a new grocery store, all conspire to sap emotions and energy. And your kids may have some struggles of their own, particularly if they have left dear friends or family behind. But that experience of making it work as a family, of relying on each other and being each other’s best friends can build tremendous family dynamic.

Through it all, you may find an amazing thing happening. You started homeschooling out of a desire and passion to give your kids a quality education and to have the daily time to help them build strong character. And in the crucible of transition and change, the occassion for new experiences and the practice of heading into the unknown with a confident outlook provide exactly that.

Even if no one can remember in which box the crock pot is packed.

Julie Carr, aka Octamom, has been steering her homeschool ship while falling behind in laundry for over 12 years now. A mother of eight children ranging in ages from 18 years old to 20 month-old twins, Julie enjoys a slightly obssessive relationship with photography and writing. Be sure to follow her blog at Octamom.

January 23, 2009 By Suzanne 12 Comments

Confessions of a Beginning Homesteader

Although my daddy grew a garden every year and my mama canned at the end of each summer I was a mall-goin’, car cruisin’ kind of girl. When I got married all I brought to the table was my ability to make macaroni without having to look at the directions on the side of the box.

But I have a secret. I want to go green.

Bake my own bread. Can my own produce. Make my own soap. Sew. Mend. Darn (as in socks, right?). I was so gung-ho. When my mom brought over all of her old canning equipment and even a few “vintage” how-to books I did a little dance and got giddy over how my cabinets would look full of beautiful jars, how much money I could save, and how wholesomely my family would eat. All by my own hands.

I dream big.

But I fear bigger. So I stashed those canning supplies in a cabinet set aside just for them and kept telling myself I would tackle that challenge soon. My excitement grew stale and my defeat found roots before I’d even begun.

“I can’t do this.”
“I have no idea where to start.”
“I can’t even keep one house plant alive, much less feed my family from a garden.”
“If I don’t have a garden, then there’s no point in learning how to ‘put up’ my own goods.”
“I can’t afford a deep freeze, I might as well just keep doing what I know.”
“My days are full enough without having to add more stress.”

I closed the door on that cabinet and allowed life to happen. Feed those little mouths, wipe those little bottoms, change nothing, risk nothing, fail at nothing. I can’t do it all, after all. It’s overwhelming to know exactly what to do. Studying all of the must-have’s, just-so’s, best way’s put my perfectionist heart into a stand still.

But each time the toddler opened those doors and pulled out those jars and pans and lids to play with them – I would dream again.

I decided if I wanted to really do this and make it a lifestyle that I needed to make one small change at a time. I accepted that I could not transform myself from Consumer Extra-ordinaire to Producer Supreme in just a few months.

I started smaller than small.

Baking bread seemed so intimidating. So instead I went to my regular grocery store and found a pack of 3 loaves of bread in the freezer section. I still had to let it rise but I started the process a few steps ahead instead from scratch. I spent one-third the money I spent on the regular bread aisle. And I pulled from the oven golden mouth-watering confidence. I did it! I baked bread for the first time ever! I focused on that success instead of the lingering “but I still don’t understand those little yeast packets and all that kneading stuff.” I continued to bake that kind of bread until it was “normal” –just something else I cooked in the kitchen. That allowed me to conquer one fear before moving onto another. And each accomplishment is one more habit that becomes a part of our every day life.

I say all of this to say, this is not a how-to. I’m no expert. Please know: I don’t have the foggiest idea of what I’m doing. But I’m trudging forward. I’m willing to learn. And I really want you to join me – everything new is easier with a friend, plus, I’d sure like to share some fresh-baked bread with you!

Join me, as I keep you updated on the progress of my currently ungreen thumb and the rescuing of my cabinets from that brightly colored parade of store-bought labels. Email me at suzanne@heartofthemattermagazine.com with ideas of what you’d like to see me try next. And by all means, please keep the suggestions, links, and encouragement coming.! Just remember, living off our own land is attainable. We only have to start… somewhere.

Suzanne is wife to one and mama to four. She “eclecticly unschools with lapbooks the Charlotte Mason way.” In other words, she doesn’t have the slightest clue what she’s doing, but does it anyway. She lives in a world where there are few absolutes. The dishes don’t stay cleaned, the laundry doesn’t stay put away, and the children don’t remember what she told them yesterday. But in their chaotic lives they have found joy. Visit her at www.thejoyfulchaos.com.

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