All and Everything

One of the things that has begun to bother me more and more the older I get is the idea that ALL children should be straight A students, attend college, and excel at EVERYTHING they take their hand to. In order to make this happen parents spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and even more hours pursuing the ALL and EVERYTHING dream. Once upon a time a student could pursue career goals outside of college in fields such as woodworking, car mechanics, and other trades during his high school years. Most of those programs are now defunked so that dollars could be extended to academic subjects. The only thing superseding the academics is the athletic department where every child is being trained for the Olympics, NFL, and NBA.

Schools are overwhelmed with the needs of its students so parents have begun outsourcing. When they realize that their student is not performing at grade level they hire tutors and spend endless evening hours agonizing over home work. When those efforts do not produce the desired grades, they will mortgage their house to a private company to perform tests and fix the problem. The same outsourcing has occurred in sports. While playing sports for your school is great, you will still need to spend hundreds of dollars on private trainers and camps. As parents we believe that if we just spend enough money and time then our child can and will have ALL and EVERYTHING. This is not reserve for the public school and secular peoples however, it is more and more the view of home schooling parents.

When the home school movement began it was based on a desire for families to raise Godly children with solid Christian world views. They felt called by God to home school and HE was the center of their home school. There were many criticisms of the home school movement. Children would not be socialized. How could a mother with out a teaching degree possibly educate her children at home? As it turns out, the proof was indeed in the pudding and today we find that neither of the issues were valid concerns. Home school children are more likely to serve their communities, be involved in politics and their churches than there public school peers. Home school students win national spelling bees, get accepted to Harvard, and generally out perform their peers on standardized tests. The focus was so intent on proving society wrong that while we have won that battle, we have caved into and bought the worldly standard for education and outside activities. The pressure is immense, not just on us as moms who home school but on our children as well.

The reality is that not all kids are wired to be a superstar valedictorians. Some kids are wired to be average. When did average become bad? Have we forgotten who wired our children in the first place? Why are we not seeking God's face for our children's future instead of running from one thing to the next trying to be "good" enough. The ALL and EVERYTHING for our children should be JESUS! HE certainly did not meet the worldly standard for a King of Kings!

Little Red School House

The little red school house officially began the 2011-2012 school year on September 6th. Enrolled 1 Junior, 1 freshman, 1 preschooler, 1 toddler, and one very cute baby. Our graduate has moved home and is living with us full time for the first time in five years. We are so enjoying having her here!

Junior is taking; Notgrass Economics, Abeka English 11, Math U See geometry, Rossetta Stone Italian Level 2, Harp, and Art. For science we are writing our own curriculum as we go which we are calling A Year In The Garden.

Freshman is taking; Notgrass American History, Abeka 9 English, Saxon Algebra 1, Rossetta Stone Italian Level 2, Apolgia Biology, continuing piano and playing football for a local Christian school.

Preschooler: We are following theme weeks. For example September was scarecrows, the harvest, apples and autumn. We will be going on a field trip to an apple orchard after the apple unit. I am also using Little Hands to Heaven and The Preschool Calender. Toddler is participating with preschooler as much as she can. Can I just say that I love preschool! Its so easy and the kids enjoy it so much!

Without co-op, without my nieces to babysit, and without an April travel schedule this year I was able to plan in flex days. If we don't use them we get a weeks vacation every four weeks. Of course we used our first one the second day of school to take a field trip to a living history museum.

Monday May 9, 2011

Outside my window: it is going to be a sunny and warm day. I am looking forward to getting out into the sunshine today!

From the learning room: Its back to the books.

From the kitchen:

Friday: Pizza

Saturday:

Sunday:

Monday: grilled chicken and rice

Tuesday:

Wednesday: camp fire supper

Thursday Walking taco's

I am reading: CJ Mahony The Cross Centered Life

I am hearing: pancakes cooking and children eating.

I am praying for an important foster care meeting on Wednesday.

One of my favorite things: Home school camp! We are really looking forward to going this week. I am not looking forward to packing up the troops!

A few plans from the rest of the week: pack, pack, organize, shop, pack and go to home school camp! So excited for three days of FUN at camp! Then its unpack, wash, wash, wash, wash!

April Recap

April flew by without a weekly update and now we are into May so I thought I had better catch up on the past month so I could have a fresh start on the new one!

It was a month of travels for the older kids and Mr. They were gone almost 3 out of the 4 weeks to horse shows.

In an effort to maintain my sanity with the little ones we did lots of fun things while the rest of the family was traveling including a trip to the zoo. I bought a zoo pass last year and it has more than payed for itself. The zoo is under major construction which was dissapointing. The majority of the zoo was not open but we look forward to all of the improvements.

This photo captured everyones personalities pretty well!


Little Man reached in and actually fed the goats!

First time in pig tails! She looks so big!

A PROUD MAMMA MOMENT
This is a picture of the girls ensamble from our church. They earned a first in the TFC choir competition. They sang so beautifully but more important they all honored Christ. From the practices, to their conduct that day Christ was glorified.

At the end of the month our oldest daughter was home for 5 days. It was quite the trip; down a mountain, a ferry ride, a taxi ride, three airplanes and an unexpected 7 hour delay before her much awaited arrival. We skype, and text, and talk on the phone but there is something about being able to touch her and look at her in person that does this momma's heart good! It will be 4 months before we see her again. I was so happy that preschooler and toddler responded well to her visit. They were thrilled to see her and sad to see her go. She got to meet the baby for the first time.

The two young adults in our house participated in the Easter Cantata. It was named "The Call" and performed by our church's youth group. We are so blessed by our youth pastor and his wife! The Cantata was wonderful and I was so proud of our children's participation! Unfortunatly I was unable to get any good pictures to post. My hands were full with the baby and toddler.

School was on hold for the month due to the kids travels and our oldest daughters visit. I met with both of the kids last week and we figured out what goals were needed to be able to wrap up our school year by July 1. Meanwhile I am planning for next year and looking forward to our homeschool conference in June!

A million and one little goals accomplished in April including renewing my drivers liscence.

A Handy Husband!

With 6 people now living in our home, laundry has become a large issue. It seems like I am doing 3 -4 loads every day. Some of this will calm down after basketball season but it will continue to be a big job everyday. I was really struggling with staging the clothes. I would carry them all the way to our bedroom and then try to fold them on the bed and redistribute them. Sometimes I would try to utilize the kitchen table or the counter in the kitchen but there is never any guarantee that those spaces would be free and clear. Usually I just tried to fold and stack them on the washer as they came out of the dryer. This meant a lot of shifting clothes out of the way. Then I remembered that we had a wall table in storage. With a little bit of effort, Mr. got it installed last night and wala.... a handy work surface just where I needed it! The table folds flat against the wall to get it out of the way if needed.

Dissection

For 9th grade Apologia Biology there are four dissection labs to be completed. A worm, Crayfish, frog and perch. DMD has not been looking forward to this section of curriculum ever since the box of dissection materials arrived. DYS who is considering vet school offered to do the hands on portion of the labs and for fun we invited some friends who use the same curriculum over to participate. Their son also wanting to get his hands into the dissection. It started out well enough but DYS was overcome by the formaldehyde having his face close to the worm immediately after opening it and

through the initial stages of the worm dissection. He ends up getting sick and throwing up in the yard. To late I realize we should have opened up the house and had fans blowing, maybe even face masks to help us with the strong smell. Our friends son hung out a little while but decided he was not interested so that left the two girls, neither of whom really had wanted to do the dissections. I never had to say a word. They stepped right up to the plate and got to work. Our friends daughter leading the way. By the time they had finished the worm and were working their

way into the crayfish, DMD had gloves on and was right in there. DYS eventually did recover and rejoin but the girls handled the rest of the dissection and did an awesome job! It was interesting and held all of our attention. The frog and perch are yet to come.

One year off - A book review

One Year Off by David Cohen is a book about the Cohen family, who sell all of their worldly possessions and travel around the world together for a year. The book is based on emails sent to family and friends during this year. Mr. Cohen focused quite a lot on the relationships in the family and that made the story more interesting than if it had been simply a travel dialogue. While Mr. Cohen and his wife had worked from home and in the home before beginning this adventure, spending a year together and with their children in such close intimacy was rightly understood to up the anty of their relationships. Before even beginning the journey this area of relationships was seen as one of largest concern. They were so concerned about their marital relationship and lack of alone time for a year that they took along a nanny so that they would be able to be together occasionally. They began their journey driving from California to Arizona. This was the first "car" trip for the children and it had all the drama and irritation of any family road trip. The children fought and the parents were thinking maybe they were crazy for considering a year of it! Fortunately, the parents adjusted and so did the children.

There are several laugh out loud moments. Two of my favorites occurred in the first part of the journey to Arizona. With all the fighting between the children and tension in the car the parents struggled to come up with a plan. One of the ideas was that they would purchase a big bag of candy at the beginning of the day with a promise to the children that they could have the candy at the end of the day. Any time they children fought they would then take a big handful of the candy and throw it out the window. They decided against this for two reason. The first was out of concern that they would be arrested for throwing handfuls of candy out the car window and the second was because no parent in their right mind would give their kids a big bag of sugar at the end of the day. They eventually settled on a different idea. The other moment of hilarity occurred once they settled into their hotel after having seen the GRAND CANYON. The parents decide to go out to eat and to leave the children with the nanny for the evening. The oldest daughter dramatically exclaims, "You never take me anywhere!".


At one point in the book David Cohen articulates that, " it struck me that popular culture - even good popular culture has so thoroughly pervaded our lives that it's now practically impossible to experience new places and adventures without immediately comparing them to something we've seen in a movie or on television. Fortunately, Kara and Willie don't have this problem at least not yet. Whey they were four and five years old, Devi enrolled them in Waldorf preschool. The school asked parents to insulate their children from television and movies and not to buy them clothes festooned with cutesy media characters. Initially, I thought these rules were elitists nonsense a sort of cultural superiority but in the end I realized that they kept the delicate garden of a child's imagination from being weed whacked by violent action figures or the latest Disney confections. Because of this early training, I believe that Kara and Willie can still encounter new places and experiences with imaginations that are largely unsullied by seductive preocessed Hollywood imagery. " PG 63-63 I am always fascinated when non Christians understand this concept at its fundamental basis in a clearer and more articulate manner than Christians.

The family intended to home school during their year traveling the world. They took their books with them and it is mentioned twice. Once when they were in a house boat floating down a river in Germany and again when they reach Australia. They specifically chose to settle in Sydney because they were feeling that "it had become imperative" to get their children, "proper schooling." There are many reasons they felt that this decision was the right one. They felt like they had failed. They felt like they did not have the patience and eventually decided that professionals existed for a purpose. "We decided that we didn't want to ruin our once-in-a lifetime trip with two hours of pure hell each day." Even if they had never cracked a single book in that year the children would have received an education. In fact they received a much broader and more liberal education than would have taken place in any set of textbooks. Reading a book is a wonderful thing. I love to read books, they take me to places and thoughts that I might never be able to see or experience first hand. Seeing them first hand, experiencing them in real time will create in our minds something no amount of imagination or books ever will. In the end they returned home and when asked if they would do it again he replied, "In short, we shared an experience that Kara, Willie, Lucas, Devi, and I will remember for the rest of our lives, an experience that will always bind us together as only shared experiences can and one that will always make our lives feel special. I don't know what that's worth - but I think its probably priceless."

A mothers work is never done

Tuesdays is the main cleaning day at our house. Everything except the bedrooms get the once over with dust cloth, vacuum and mop. It is also laundry day for everything except bedding. Needless to say, that's a lot of work. What struck me as amusing today was that no sooner had I finished a task then someone came along and undid it! I had just emptied the pencil sharpener when my son zoomed past to sharpen not one but a whole handful of pencils! The trash can by the computer was emptied for all of five minutes before I noticed that there was trash back in it. The white rug just vacuumed and looking all floofy was met with a stack of books that smooshed the fibers back down. I had no sooner finished wiping off the kitchen counter when a science experiment was begun. The kitchen floor and breakfast cleaned up when it was time for lunch! No, my work is never done. Even more amusing is when I do this to myself. I had already cleaned the landing and vacuumed when I realized that I had not watered the fern. Water the fern always results in a profusion of dead leaves falling onto the carpet which in turn requires me to vacuum! The age old adage

Let the Fun Begin

When parents say that they can't home school or that we must be "special" to do it, they really aren't talking about the school work. They are talking about the nitty gritty of being with their children 24 hours a day, seven days a week with potentially very few breaks. Don't get me wrong. The school work can be a challenge. I am learning things everyday that I never learned in school. It stretches me and challenges me as much as the kids some days. Okay, some days more then them. But as I explained to my DYS yesterday, I do have the answer key! It is not the demands of school work that scare these moms off, it is the relational aspects that they do not think that they can deal with. The relationship between the husband and wife, the relationship between the parents and the children and the relationships between the various children have to be right in order for school to happen.

The majority of mothers all across this country breathed a sigh of relief last week when their kids headed back to school. They managed to survive the summer and that was about it. Their kids fought with each other, demanded constant entertainment, and wore mom out. Several families we know dealt with this by sending their kids to one camp after another, week after week. The day to day challenges have nothing to do with school work and everything to do with discipline and attitudes. I am not talking solely about the discipline and attitudes of your children. As moms we set the tone for our homes. Everyone is familiar with the saying, if momma ain't happy, nobody is happy! Even on our best days, putting our best foot forward, not everyone is going to cooperate. It is not the outright defiance it is instead the little slump of the shoulders, the down turned mouth, the silent yet clear message they send that articulates better than words that my children are not happy with the decision I made for them. Day in and day out this attitude is wearing. It is pretty easy to discipline when a child tells you no to your face, or throws a schoolbook, or has some out and out physical or verbal reaction to you. The sutleness is both what makes it easy to ignore and hard to discipline. Surliness is a bad habit, an attitude of the heart that must be dealt with.

The answer to this is not to send the kids out the door to school. When my kids were little and began fighting with each other it was always because they had spent to much time with other friends. They no longer "needed" the relationship with their siblings and took less care of the their feelings than if they were depending on them. Fighting was always my cue that they needed to spend more time together not less. There is a great article on this very subject at www.heartofthematteronline.com/absence-makes-the-heart-grow .

Staying at home

One of my favorite things is just spending time in my home. In the past 2o years our home has been well loved, under continued construction and development much like our relationship to Christ and each other. Everything in my home is here because I chose it to be. The picture frames, lamps, chairs are all sitting exactly where they are sitting because I thought they appeared lovely and created an expression of who we are. I have poured my soul into my home. It is not about cleaning (although I do love to clean) or laundry or chores. Being at home is about being. Its about creating a place where everyone in your family can look forward to returning to. The atmosphere of the home is intangible and yet the people who live there and the people who visit are able to identify it.


I believe that we learn to love our homes and families by being in our homes. I believe this because God tells us in Titus 2: 3-5 that we should be workers at home. We are also told that if we do not work at home that the very word of God will be dishonored. God has given us our sphere of influence and if we shirk that, if we turn away from it then God's word is shamed. We cause others to look upon scripture and the bible as something irrelevant, something to be ignored because we do not give it the honor and relevance that God wants us to. This is a serious thing! As woman we have a calling on our lives to be workers in our home. To put our time, talents, and energies into developing not just the physical surroundings but the people and relationships. The famous Proverbs 31 woman was not a woman who was stuck at home doing menial tasks, unappreciated and undervalued. Her worth is far above jewels! The center of her life is in her home. In proverbs 31 we find many of the benefits of being at home. Her husband trust her. She is not afraid of the snow. She is able to smile at the future. Her children and husband bless her and praise her. She is praised. Verse 29 says that many daughters do nobly but this woman excels. I believe she excels because she has obeyed God's calling on her life. Beth Moore has said that, "Obedience to God always means his very best for us". Many of us choose good things but God wants the best for us! Proverbs 14:1 tells us that a wise woman builds her house. A foolish woman tears it down with her own hands. Gods word also tells us that a fool is a person who says that there is not God or acts as though there is not a God. How foolish we would be if we dishonored God's word.

There are many blessings to being a keeper at home. One of the things Mr. appreciates is my physically being at home. It worries him when I am out and about. He feels that my safety is secure in our home. When he needs me, he knows where to find me and he knows where to find his children. At times when I worked away from home, it was difficult for him to rest easy. This does not mean that he does not want me to run errands or spend the day shopping with friends. I do lots of both. It means that he rests easier while he is away working if he feels that I am safe while he is away from me. It is easier today with cell phones to keep in contact but before we had those I can remember a time when if he called home and I did not answer the phone it would bother him. It has taken me awhile to understand that Mr. is my protector and that he takes this seriously. I am protected from many things by staying at home. If I spend my days out shopping instead of working in my home, then my spirit will be pulled toward materialism and I will be dissatisfied with what my husband is providing. I am protected from predators when I keep myself busy at home. I have watched many women be sucked into affairs; emotional and physical because they are spending their time with men other than their husband. Many times as wives at home we don't feel appreciated and often taken advantage off. It presents a real threat to our marriage when we start getting appreciation from people outside of our families. This includes the church. Many woman "stay at home" but manage to never actually be at home. They will pour all of their energies into activities outside the home. By staying home our priorities are kept in line. I am protected from becoming a malicious gossiper and someone who takes to much wine. Proverbs 7:11 says that a boisterous and rebellious woman does not keep her feet at home. Staying at home prevents us from becoming boisterous and rebellious!

Staying at home is a blessing to others. If I am at home I can immediately meet the needs of my family and I can reach out to my community as needs are presented. If all of my time is scheduled away from my home, I will not be available for the people who need me the most. There is nothing worse than having Mr. ask me to do something for him having to respond that I can not because I have no time. When I work at home, my home is clean and maintained. I don't have to worry about someone dropping in unexpectedly to a mess. I have the time to practice hospitality. The number one reason people feel that they can't practice hospitality is because they don't keep their homes clean and their fridges stocked. Being able to practice hospitality is a blessing of being at home.


My family lives and thrives in a well organized home. There is order and a rhythm to our daily lives that provides structure and boundaries that transmits our values. If I am at home, I am able to fulfil Deuteronomy 6 that says that I should teach the commands of God to my children at breakfast, lunch and dinner. I can teach my children to honor their parents not because I deserve honor but because Gods word says that children who honor their parents will live long, prosper and go well with them. I am able to educate my children in the knowledge of Christ and create for them a distinct Christian worldview. I can not do this if I am out of the home the majority of my time and my children are being raised by someone else. The church looses its children by the end of its college years. Sunday school does not work. Youth groups do not work. What works in God's economy is the home. Children who are schooled at home and live with imperfect parents living out their faith stay with their faith. My family sees everyday that they are my priority as they witness everything that I do. If I live out my life at home with joy and contentment then the word of God is honored in our home. They see the work of the Holy Spirit in my life and they know that God is real.

There are more personal benefits to staying at home. I have found and developed more skills and gifts from my home than I would ever have had time to explore if I worked out of the home. I am seldom "stressed" out by the demands of my home. It is when I begin adding in demands from outside with the needs of our home that my stress level increases. We have all laughed at the saying, "if momma ain't happy, nobody is happy". How true that statement is. If I am stressed, never at home, and looking good according to the worlds standards than my family will not produce the fruit it could have because I will not have been obedient.

Getting ready for high school

Its that time of year when I start pulling out curriculum catalogues and evaluating what will be needed for the next year. Yes, I am a long range planner, who doesn't like surprises and who likes things decided before I ever set foot in a curriculum hall. It is also helpful when looking for used materials as spring is when people begin selling what they have finished. In this area I have found that it pays to plan ahead! High school has loomed in front of me, since dmd's 7th grade year, as something of a monster to be tackled. I have felt the weight of responsibility in preparing her academically to succeed at wherever God is going to plant her. She has already felt a strong determination to be a wife and mother and plans to spend her time preparing to be such. We fully support this while realizing that four years from now she might want to take college classes. I could not do less than prepare her thoroughly. I have always been eclectic in our curriculum's. I have settled with Math U See and stuck with them all these years. We love Apologia Science! I would never even try another Foreign language curriculum beside Rosetta stone. It was beyond worth the money! We have used Christiana Latina for the last three years and found it to be a wonderful. Next year we will move onto Henle Latin. History is more of a challenging subject. For the last three years I have used the Famous Men series and we have made lap books, time lines, and read numerous G.H. Henty and Rosemarry Sutcliff books. We write several book reports and do a major research project. The only difficulty we have encountered with this is that we don't progress very rapidly. We find something interesting and then camp out on it to long! With that in mind I determined to purchase a high school history curriculum for history. After looking at the scope and sequence of several prepackaged curriculum's I have discovered the reason our country is so historically illiterate. They are not being taught history! What a waste of time. I am still trying to work through this. For seventh grade we had used Introductory Logic. My daughter progressed through this quite easily without the DVD supplement and had very little trouble with it. For 8th grade we proceeded onto Intermediate Logic for which I purchased the DVDs and after two months we stopped trying to figure it out. The answer key assumed knowledge that I did not have and made it completely ineffective as a tool for us. When she got stumped I was not able to figure out if she was doing it right or wrong let alone why. Now I am trying to determine what if any curriculum I could switch to and am concerned that if I start at the introductory level she will spend a full year in review but if we go to a new intermediate level of a different curriculum we may not have all the knowledge that is required. We definitely want to study world views at some point during high school but I have not yet begun the search for the perfect fit. Latina Christiana has been an enjoyable curriculum for the last three years. We shall be moving onto Henle Latin 1. My head is a whirl!

I determined my system for tracking grades this last year. I am still a little unsure as to what to do about credit hours for transcripts. I assume I will use the Carnegie unit. How I will track that I am still unsure about. Now all we have to do is finish out this year!

Another one Bites The Dust

A fellow homeschooler approached me the other day with news that they had decided to send their daughter to public school next year. The daughter and mother are struggling in their relationship and there are many tears and angry words between the two. Mom is tired.

I can relate. My middle daughter has always been home schooled and is now 13. The past year has had plenty of tears and attitude. (Not just her, but me as well!) School is harder and more time consuming. Hormones are entering into the picture. She wants control, I want control. Some days, I am banging my head on the floor. I have already raised one daughter who is now a junior in college and almost 20 years old. I have survived these young adult years once already. I understand that now at the tender age of 13 md needs me just as much, if not more than she did as a toddler. Toddlers and young adults are very similar. Both are exploring boundaries and learning for the first time where the lines are drawn. They are exploring new worlds, some safe and some uncharted and frightening. They NEED their parents to be the hedge of protection, to guard them until the time where they can safely navigate on their own. A two year old can not judge for themselves if it is safe to cross the road. A 13 year old can not navigate the deep and treacherous waters of public education and the hedonistic culture that we live in without there be some consequences. Ray Comfort in his book Humanism: A New Religion said, "Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school's meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the five day program of humanistic teaching?" If your child goes to public school they most likely leave your home around 7:30 in the morning. Depending on activities and clubs, they may not return home until 5 or 6. You can feed them supper and then expect at least two hours of homework. Your total time spent in meaningful conversation is under a half an hour. What is your half an hour in comparison to 8 hours a day, five days a week of humanistic teaching.

The same reasons that we started homeschooling are the same reasons to continue homeschooling. The primary reason that we are sacrificing so many things in order to home school is that we want our children to understand the world from God's perspective and to know that God is the one who created all that we are learning and exploring. Through our education we are learning and growing closer to the creator. There is no way for this goal to be accomplished in public school. In fact public school will do everything it can to undermine those very ideas. Even if the school does not out right attack those beliefs the absence of acknowledgement of God make him irrelevant to education. I know many people that claim to home school on a year to year basis. I have heard people say that they felt called to home school for a season but that God released them from that calling. How can that be? Scripture is always true. If God's calling to us as parents is to home school than that calling is not dependent on our children's ages. It does not end when we get tired, when there is conflict, or when we don't think we can take it anymore. If home schooling was Gods plan for your family, God is not the one who changed.

Homeschool Children Have An Unfair Advantage

My husband had an opportunity to talk with the head of our churches awana program. A new boy had joined my husbands group and had taken the program by storm, memorizing whole sections each week. My husband noticed that all of the other boys who were normally apathetic towards their memorization were perking up and making efforts on their own to memorize more. As my husband shared this with the gentleman he was more than a little surprised by the reaction he received. Instead of being excited at a positive event the leader said, "Home school children have an unfair advantage because their parents make sure they do the verses and often use the awana book as a curriculum." In other words, home school parents are dedicated to their children learning Gods word (a goal of the awana program) and are actively involved in making sure that their children memorize and come prepared. I could not help but laugh a few weeks later at the awana award ceremony when awards were given out and the recipients were all home schooled.