New Jersey State History Fair

After much frustration trying to "pin" this webpage, I decided to put in on my blog for reference!  Here is a link to New Jersey State History Fair.  See website for complete list of events, including meeting Martha Washington and Walt Whitman!  Sound like a great family fun day, and it is all FREE!

Explaining the Death of a Planet to Your Child

My eight year old son was upset I whited out Pluto from the solar system coloring sheet that he requested (weird effects of homeschooling- apparently he thinks it super fun to color the planets himself). I need to read aloud "How I Killed Pluto, and Why It Had It Coming" (by Mike Brown) to him. Tried so many ways to explain why Pluto is NOT a planet.

The book is very entertaining to read.  It reads like a story, but has a lot of science in it.  I have only gotten half way through, but I found it fascinating.  Just ordered it again from our library, maybe I will have the time to finish it this time.

Getting a Child Who Hates School to Love School

Or at least do their schoolwork with out a struggle. Recently I wrote a post about when a child hates school and some advice from my friends. This is my follow up post.

School is conducted in peacefulness now thanks to some changes. Here is what worked for us:

• Writing a list of each assignment. This alleviates the anxiety of endless amounts of schoolwork and provides a sense of accomplishment when your child crosses it off. My friend gave me the idea of color coding assignments green for independent work and red for work with mom. This way, if you are caught up with another child, they can still move ahead.
• Adding a fun hands on, educational activity to start our school day. It may be spelling word with our Lego letter blocks or a puzzle, but it is done quietly, seated at the table with the rest of us. I pick something my son will enjoy because I want to show him learning can be fun. It sets a good tone for our school time. Also, I give my younger son a parallel activity as a form of peer pressure.
• Academic Probation. This was my husband's idea, every night he would work with my son on his school work. My husband's reasoning was that my son looked forward to that time to play with his Dad, and missing that special time would motivate him to get his act together. During our normal school time, my son would be given educational tasks and complete some non-battle producing school tasks. Eventually, we were able to do all of his schoolwork during normal school hours.

Three simple changes, but it fixed our school problems.

Math Battle or Teaching Textbooks

Ok, my husband has gently mentioned before that I seem heavy handed in my posts about the struggles of homeschooling, he is right. After this I will try to think of a positive posts, but here is one more:

Next year I was thinking about getting an independent math or language arts program, so I will have time to teach the boys their reading and math. Though, I have felt concerned over the scholastic level of the independent programs. I do not want something that will make my kid a lemming or pencil resistant (hates learning). So, I felt concerned, torn and had a lot of questions.

However, math time has gotten so bad with my oldest, I think I need to switch now. She has a hard time learning math skills, and so hates math. I think doing math actually gives her a tension headache. Teaching Textbooks seems like it may be a great solution for us, though it is a grade or 2 behind in grade level. My daughter is behind anyway, so it might be a good fit for her. She enjoyed the on-line sample lesson, you can find them on their website.

Here is a really good review on Teaching Textbooks by a math tutor:

Time used: one year

Your situation:
started homeschooling middle of last year, went through all the popular math currics, none work for my 10 yr old who is diagnosed with dyscalculia, this year we also decided to homeschool our 8 yr old.

Why you liked/didn't like the book:
I will give the good first, this computer program has worked well for my 5th grader. We used the 4th grade cdroms. My son would cry at school during a math lesson and once we started homeschooling with Saxon and other like that he started banging his head on table, just pulling out the math book sent him into a major melt down. I am confident that this program is a perfect fit for my 10 yr old. 5 days a week he completes one lesson on his own without a fight. I did have to sit beside him for about three months everyday before he was confident on his own. I highly suggest this for kids that seem to have problems with math computations or have anxiety when you pull out a math book.

Now the bad, and this is really bad. I am a math tudor for several public school stundents. This program claims to be the best homeschool math for the 21st century, yet it is a good 2 yrs behind. When I called to ask about this, the lady just blew me off and laughed, "Our program follows state standards." I let her know that I am a math AND standardized tudor for 3 states. I explained that I loved their product; however they need to add so much. If you do use this product, contact your local school district and request a copy of their math standardized test prep. Each state gives each child a s.t.p workbook that has one or two questions that are required for that year. If you only use these product your child will not be considered grade level if you had to put them back in school or wanted them tested, for most homeschool families we are not concerned with "keeping up" with public school. I think those test prep workbooks are only helpful to children if you take time to go over each concept. All my students say that their teacher spent on day on several pages, one page can have up to 5 different concepts. If you can get one of these workbooks, talk your time, use the Teaching Textbooks for "happy time" math everyday and take one concept from the state standard workbook, go over it until your child really gets it. Homeschoolers are not slaves to government produced standards. We have learned that children and ready when they are ready, enforcing concepts too soon, too fast can change a child forever. My 5th grade students are doing stem and leaf proability graphs, which is not explored in this product. Also 5th grade students are required to know mode, median, average. This product has this in their 7th grade program.
To sum it up, my 5th grade LD student is doing the 4th grade lessons, my 2nd grade student is also using the 4th grade lessons. As with any homeschool product, it's not going to fit the perfect mold with state standards. If state standards worked for our kids, we would put them back in school.

Any other helpful hints:
Know what is important to you. Do you want your child to pull out their laptop and do their math lesson on their own, then you can go back and check the grade book
or
do you want to keep up, keep up, until your child is banging their head on the table?

stacey
Review left February 12, 2010

When Your Child Hates School

Homeschooling has been really hard lately because my son hates doing his school work. This really is not a homeschooling problem, kids who are sent to school have the same issue. Maybe you have a similar problem or maybe it is homework time that is a battle. Even though you have consequences in place, they take forever to get their work done. However, the battle is not because it is too hard for them, they are smart kids. They would just rather play than do work. It is a combination of laziness and personality. While girls can have this problem, it is very common in boys, especially the 2nd born.

There is not time in our day to take 3 hours to do 1 hour worth of work. Crying out to my homeschool mom friends, I asked for some wisdom. One friend, Stephanie suggested to give my son a little more time, since his just turned seven. She suggested doing an educational activity he enjoyed, like a math game. Adding this to our school day did help. Yesterday, my son spelled words using our lego letter blocks, and love it. However, I am not an unschooler and I feel that this is just going to get worse if Iet this go. Therefore, I am still going to do Bible, math and language arts from his curriculum.

In between this, my husband stepped in with a brilliant idea. He would school him at night after dinner. Since my husband only gets at best 2 1/2 hours with them, this was a big sacrifice. My son's school should take him about an hour, probably even less, so it could work. Also, my husband thought this would motivate my son to get his work done on time because he would not want to miss his play time with his Dad. During the day, I try to lighten the load by doing the parts my son enjoys like math and Bible. He is also given an educational activity to build his ability to stay at the school table and to show him learning can be fun.

Another friend, Michelle wrote a great list of points. They were very helpful too, so I wanted to pass them along.

Okay... so here are some ideas from another mom who has a boy who doesn't want to do school- only mine is in 3rd grade, not to discourage you or anything, but he has never been a huge fan of school. He enjoys some aspects of it, but he has consciously decided to not enjoy certain aspects of school. These are things that have worked for me and might be worth trying if you haven't tried them yet.

1) Identify his learning style. Your child's learning style may not be your teaching style as was the case with me. Once kindergarden came with my son, I knew I had to adapt and enhance school to teach him. My perspective had to change.

2) Don't compare him to other siblings. His older sister is a teacher's dream. She was the easiest experiment, uh I mean... student...;) for a first time homeschooling mom. My son introduced me to the "real" world of homeschooling. He is a smart kid, but he does not respond the same way to the same things. Work on building his confidence with his school work by encouraging him when he's doing something well- even if it seems like a small, silly thing.

3) Give him incentives. Yes, sounds like bribing, but for my son LOVES to do projects that involve making a mess and creating things. IF he gets his work done, he gets to do something that he wants to do- that's still learning. Or my son's favorite activity on a nice day: he gets more outside time. That's a HUGE motivator for him. Find out how to motivate your son to show him that you are willing to work with him. Also, mix up the day. If my son is done a portion of work on a nice day that involves a lot of writing, I say quick get your helmet- you have 15 minutes to ride your bike. Getting his energy out helps both of us! Or on a rainy day I may give him 15 minutes on the Wii Fit half-way through the morning. He is a wiggler. Also, chewing sugar free gum is excellent. My son is a "tapper" and "wiggler." He doesn't know it, but the gum gives him a rhythm in his head while doing writing. I don't tell him why I offer him gum so he doesn't depend on it, but I offer it to him when he's doing a lot of writing.

4) Hands-on activities are also great to have around like Stephanie said. My son really embraces hands-on activities. For example, he does math wrap-ups or we play the "pet shop" game (learning center from Lakeshore.) There are a lot of hands-on stations/ folder centers that you can create on your own. Google it.

5) My son feels that school will go on and perhaps never end. His concept is tainted as I do not think there are enough hours in the day. Giving him a schedule so that he knows what's ahead for the whole day comforts him. When he doesn't know what's coming up, he gets frustrated thinking that the work coming his way may never end. So, write down his assignments on a dry erase board (so he can erase them when he's finished) or on an index card (so he can passionately scribble them out when he's done- this is my son's preferred method ;) )

6) Do remember that he is only in 1st grade. Though I am not an unschooler, Stephanie made an excellent point! I have found that my expectations are almost always higher than what my son can actually accomplish, because in part they are based on what my daughter was able to accomplish at his age. So, it is an encouragement for me to lower my expectations a little and adapt with hands-on activities/supplements- even at the 3rd grade level, and your son is two years behind him. ( Don't tell him if you are lowering expectations at all- I read in a great homeschooling book that mothers need to keep tough fronts while homeschooling their boys, still loving but tough. Mothers are a lot of times tougher on their girls -guilty here at times myself!- and soft on the boys when in fact girls usually need more sensitivity while boys need more discipline at these young ages because of how they are wired.... this is an in depth convo I will save for another time. ;) )

7) Relax! We are always harder on ourselves that we should be! You are an excellent mother and teacher, but we all have bad days. In regular schools, we just don't hear about the teachers' bad days, bad weeks, bad months, or bad years. They have them too though!! Seek the Lord. He will direct you on this matter, and take it one day at a time.

O.K., I will admit it, I LOVE to read about educational philosophies, so this video was right up my ally. This was very interesting video on eduction, for as much as what it said, as how it was done:

Well, the way our blog is set up, you can't view the entire screen of the animate. Just click on the gray RSA Animate to view the entire screen on U Tube.

January Burn

Does anyone else feel it this time of year?  This year, I feel particularly burned out.  While I am not sure, the cause is probably my heavy load of schooling with a 4th, 1st grader (who doesn't want to do school), and a preschooler.  A person can only work so hard, so long, before they become burned out.  In the past, I have been very unwise by working too hard, so hard that it leaves me with a feeling of never being able to refresh myself again.  In order to do the jobs God has set before me, I need address this problem because when we are burned out, everything suffers.  We are in danger of abandoning our dreams and goals.  Not to mention, it is not a fun place to be.

The reason January is so hard is the lack of sunlight and fresh air, but it is also because it follows December.  A month with filled with heavy demands and a flurry of fun-filled activities. Once it is all over, it leaves us very drained. The chances are if I fill this way, my children do too.  Just as we need that summer brake to restore ourselves, I am thinking we may need a winter break too. 

My first thought at this is, I must be crazy.  Wouldn't I want to take the opportunity of less activities to get a load of homeschooling work done?  Wouldn't spring be a much better time to have off because of the beautiful weather?  The answer would depend on your situation.  It also depends on your children, mind usually happily play between breakfast and lunch with no structured activities, other then a simple daily schedule.  Since our curriculum (MFW) has outside time built into our lesson plans,  I know we will have time outside in spring.  Also, while I do not have co-op, I do still have to take my daughter for violin lessons Friday morning. So, I am wondering if this crazy idea will work?  

One popular break is to take the month of December off, so the household can focus on preparing and participating in the Christmas season.  This works very well for some people. Now, this might sound like a scrooge, but sometimes I get concerned with the overwhelming attention we give Christ's birth compared with attention we give Christ's resurrection.  While I LOVE Christmas traditions, it is my goal that our Christmas celebrations are more symmetrical to our Easter celebrations.  This will not be completely realistic or for everyone, but I would like to try.  Thus, I cannot take off December unless I plan to take off April.

While I cannot try out my idea this school year, I plan to try it next year.  It seems for us that doing school this time of year is such a battle between winter moods and post Christmas fog. Winter is a great time too for getting inside house projects done.  By getting the house tidy, it gives us so much more time, makes our chores easier, and is much less frustrating.  Personally, I find I need those big blocks of time in summer and winter to get my household in order and bust some of those many little sources of frustration.  

One of the things that I truly dislike is not getting to put an idea into action right away.  Ok, so I have a good idea for NEXT year, but what do I do about now?  Since we end up doing 39 weeks of school*, I am going to cut myself some slack and do a week or 2 of light school days. On these days my 4th grader will not do language arts or any of the extras like Rosetta Stone or New Jersey History(this is in addition to MFW social studies), and my 1st grader will stay the same.  This should save us 1 and 1/2 hours a day, but they are still getting 36 weeks of "complete" school days.  Any other ideas to combat winter burn out?

*Here is the brake down of the 39 weeks: 34 weeks MFW curriculum, 4 weeks Co-op, 1 week IWOAS testing.  That doesn't even include field trips!  That leaves me 3 weeks of light schools. Do you know the public school down the street from me calls it a full day if they feed them lunch?  While I do think Co-op and IWOAS count as school days, there are just so many weeks in the year and I want to finish our curriculum. 

It is the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

This is one of my favorite times of the year. There are no activities to drive the children to, homeschooling is on brake, and my husband is home - at least for a few days. With their new toys in hand, my children readily give up their old, un-played toys to bless others. I can clean clutter with speed. After my initial panic attack at the mounds of new toys, I enjoy fining a spot for each new toy, as well as a storage spot for some older ones in our toy library.

The coming new year feels like a new start, and the recent Christmas leaves me with a refreshed sense of hope. Not only is less more, the idea seems attainable.

Post Holiday Chaos: Transition Days

Teaching your kids after a holiday brake is enough to drive you insane. Everything is messy from the holiday rush. We are all off our schedules. The kids are hook on the expectation of fun and exciting days, where not much of anything is required of them. Those days pale in comparison to the highly focused work of homeschooling, which while shorter then public school, is much more intense. Not to mention the change of Daddy not being home, that alone can make us all a little grumpy.

During my 5 years of homeschooling, I have never believe in teaching the children on days when they were not going to learn anything. I might be able to check it off my lesson plan that I taught such-and-such, but I know that very little, if any, information stuck to them. Today is such a day.

Today was my husband's first day back after Thanksgiving weekend, and I should have know better than try to do school today. So instead of going crazy, I stopped, and went over the basics of our daily schedule. The reason being is that without the children meeting certain basic responsibilities, like getting breakfast or brushing their teeth on time, we cannot get our school work done on time. Also, I did have them do some light school work, but very little. Of course, our general rule of no screen time before lunch.

For our homeschooling day to be successful we need to have our rhythm, when holidays, sickness or vacation throw us off our rhythm, all of our spinning plates drop. It takes a day to set aside to focus only on getting all those plates up and spinning again, to get our rhythm on the right beat. It is well worth the time, and is nothing to feel guilty about.

Improvement Reading

Being a stay at home mom, books offer "a peace offering to a hungry mind." I need more than just laundry and wiping noses. Maybe that is why I like homeschooling, because I am using my brain and diving into great books with the kids. Not that there is anything wrong with wiping noises or washing clothes, I am happy to do it. What I am saying is that I personally need more then just those things.

The Well-Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer is a treasure trove for me. I actually found myself salivating over her book lists in the second part of her book. Looking forward to reading them, as well as, remembering those I have read. Sometimes we tell ourselves, that this is not our season for such things, but that is not really true. It is just like all the other things in our lives, we have to carve out the time to do it.

I have always struggled with the "nose wiper" job description, leaving my honors behind me. Would my professors be disappointed in me for choosing full time motherhood? It is not that I think it unimportant, but that I miss the intellectualism of a university and motherhood is not usually cast in that sort of light. I suppose that is why I found The Well-Educated Mind's theme of self-education so encouraging. Of course, always remembering that I serve God, not man, helps me to sustain my mom post too. In God's eye's, it is probably one of the best uses of my education and a good reason to continue it in self-study. My faith gives me liberty from the world's good opinion, and lets me focus on the parts of life that have eternal significance, like disciplining my children.

While my faith gives me great purpose in motherhood and homeschooling, I still have to fill that need for intellectualism. For one, finding like-minded moms has helped. In homeschooling circles, I do not have to look far to find another mom who is listening to A Tale of Two Cities while working around the house too. I can find the intellectualism I long for where I am now, if I look for it.

Besides all the "great" books that Bauer suggests, there is the greatest book of all times - the Bible. While wanting to read the works of Charles Dickens is great, studying my Bible must be a higher priority. If I have the yearning for well written works, then I need to seek out books that will increase my knowledge of God. There is such a desire to roll up my sleeves and deeply study His Word. I should remember to make time for it. It will not happen other wise.

Finding the Source of Burn Out

Lately, I have been feeling so burnt out. Perhaps it is being too busy, not having enough help, or unmet expectations. By removing certain possible stress sources, I could see if it made me feel better or worse. We took a week off of school, and that was not it. I took a brake from couponing, and had a week with fewer activities, but neither of those seemed to be the source.

I noticed that I felt better when I was out, but when I was home, I felt overwhelmed and stressed. From here I realized it was the messy build up in the house. There are piles and piles of items to go through, organize, and get rid of. While I am not a neat freak, bad messes bother me. Finding the cause of my burn out helps me figure out my priorities and helps me to focus on the issue.

Also, it helps to learn where I went wrong to get to this point. First, you need refreshment to keep from getting burnt out. Our summer was too busy and our vacation was not relaxing. Second, a homeschooling mother needs help, and I was too cheap to hire any during out summer brake. While I cannot do anything about the last vacation, we are planning our next vacation to be about relaxing and making memories. As far as help, I have decided to hire a sitter and part with my money. You can be too thrifty. What is the use of stockpiling money for our adoption if I have a nervous brake-down in the process. I feel hiring a sitter for 2 or 3 hours a week will give me time to tackle the out of control clutter. Having too much stuff is not apart of the simplistic lifestyle I want to live.

On the bright side, school is going well. Perhaps I will get around to posting about the changes I made this year that have really helped to make a productive and happy school day.

American History, Snoopy Style

"This Is America, Charlie Brown" DVD went well with our year in American history. It was a fun way to review some of the facts we learned. Here is a list of topics covered:

Mayflower Voyagers
Birth of the Constitution
Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk
NASA Space Station
Building of the Transcontinental Railroad
Great Inventors
Smithsonian and the Presidency
Music and Heroes of America

This DVD is out of print so to speak, so we checked it out of our local library.

Gift Ideas for Tots and Preschoolers...

Hi Friends,

Our sweet Abby just celebrated her 2nd birthday and she LOVES the toys she received so much that I just had to recommend them. We've been really into classic wooden toys lately (love Melissa and Doug!) as well as old fashioned educational toys. Fortunately, we have a wonderful parent-teacher resource center in the area where we can borrow toys and educational products. Whenever I borrow something she loves, I just add it to her Amazon wishlist and send it out to family members for birthdays and around Christmas time.

She loves these toys and she is able to play with them independently (yes!) while I work with Rachel on something more academic or while I'm simply reading her a story.

~Catherine

A Laminator for a GREAT Deal!

Hi Friends,

I just had to tell you about this super deal that I saw over on Amber's blog. I've had this laminator in my Amazon shopping cart for a long time.  I finally bought it today because it's on SAAALE for a great price!  When you buy the laminator and a pack of 50 laminating sheets, you can send in a $20 rebate!  After the rebate, you get both items for only $21.49!!!  That's an amazing deal!  The offer is good until July 31.

I personally think that everyone should own a laminator... especially teachers and homeschoolers.  It's kind of addicting making all your papers shiny, don't you think?  Ooo, the possibilities!

The Narrow Path: Sheltering vs. Legalism

There is a fine line between legalism and sheltering, but how can you tell where that is? Who exemplifies sheltering and who is just being legalistic? Of course if God calls you to live a certain way, you should. I guess it starts to become legalistic when the "rules" get too complicated and inflexible, and you start to impose those rules on others. When Scripture is stretched, and then it definitely becomes legalistic when one states you must live exactly this man made way to be considered righteous.

I am all for bringing my walk with the Lord to the next level, getting rid of what ever is going to hold me back. However, on the other hand, I do not want to become a Pharisee either. Both extremes worry me, I do not want to fall into either pit. One might look better than the other, but a pit is a pit. More over, who did Jesus show most disdain for thieving tax collectors or Pharisees? Maybe walking a Christian life is not only a narrow path because few, truly choose it, but also because it is very easy on a narrow path to step off the path. A little to the right or a little to the left, and you find yourself off the path before you even realize it.

Jesus talked about the Pharisees, as

"They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden." ~ Matthew 22:4 NLT **

Sometimes I wonder whether, especially in homeschooling circles, that we become too legalistic, making high demands of holiness. If you go far enough in sheltering, you end up in legalism. Also, if you continue that verse above, it speaks of the Pharisees behaving this way for the good opinions of others, self-righteousness. It is dangerously easy to slip into self-righteousness the more you shelter. So, we must be careful the way we speak of it, to bring the glory to God and not ourselves, nor judgment on others. After all, it is our heart God is after.

Instead of hard and fast rules, use the Biblical sense in each unique situation. For example, instead of throwing out the TV, use it sparingly, only watching shows you would watch with Jesus sitting next to you. After all, God is always with us, though we forget that much of the time. In our case, we do not have cable, I mean not even basic. Since the switch to digital, we only get a few channels, and that is with the converter. Not only is this cheaper, it protects us from things we do not want in our home. We must sift through all these things with prayer and abiding in God's Word. Apply the Bible to each show, instead of just chucking the whole idea of TV. This way we are teaching our children how to navigate through the world, living in the world, but not of it. It is sort of like Sleeping Beauty and the spinning wheel, wouldn't it have been better, if at an appropriate age, the king and queen taught their daughter about the spinning wheel and not isolated her away from it.

After all, where will the rules end? No TV, no video games, and well, cheese doodles and french fries have caused many people to become gluttons, perhaps those should be banded as well. They are not edifying to the spirit, they do not improve our relationship with Christ. Any small amount of poison is still poison right? The one thing these items have in common is none of them are mentioned in the Bible. So how do we know exactly how to handle them with consistency?

Instead of being like a totalitarian government like North Korea, our sheltering should not resemble isolation*. Nor should we leave our children exposed to all of the world, that would be foolish and dangerous. Sheltering is a must for every Christian parent. We need to, at a reasonable level, protect them while preparing them to live in the world and not be of it. Not isolating, not exposure, but insulating. Never failing to tell them, that ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

If you are a homeschooler, do not be beat up by the legalism of others. If there is something that is not honoring to God in your life, by all means feel that conviction. But do not follow man made rules. Do not let others make you feel guilty when there is no sin on your part, they probably do not want to make you feel that way in the first place. As homeschoolers, lets not run so far away from sin, that we run right through God's shelter and into sin again. While homeschooling is not for everyone, it is a truly great way to insulate your children!

*Some of my ideas on involving some parts of this post where learned and inspired by a workshop by David Hazell titled, "Exposed, Isolated, or Insulated." Not anything about the Pharisees, but only in regards to the ideas referred to in the workshop title.

**There is plenty of scripture on Pharisees, but I assume you have read them. So I do not list additional verses or explanations about the Pharisees.

Here is another post about sheltering from Leading Little Heart Home BLOG.