Mentoring

A woman at church called me today with that desperate sound in her voice.  Could I come over today and help her figure some things out that weren't working with her homeschool?  In twelve years of homeschooling I can't tell you how many times I have done this.  I must admit though I always leave feeling like I haven't really been much help.  Oh, I go over curriculum and offer suggestions and encourage them that some of that stuff can be dropped out and yes it is ok to skip this or that and it is ok to be at different levels in different subjects.  But in the end there simply is no substitute for prayer and time.  How do you tell a struggling mom to drop to her knees and plead with the Lord for guidance?  It just doesn't feel immediate enough.  How do you tell her that it takes time to overcome your own preconceived notions of what school looks like?  Note that I didn't say education.  How do you tell someone that is just starting out that in twelve years you too will see things so differently than you do today?  It is constantly intriguing to me that God created us in such a way that I cannot put what is in my mind and heart into someone else's mind and heart.  They must learn for themselves.  So tonight for me mentoring is not about a transference of knowledge, but about  lifting the hands that hang down and strengthening the feeble knees.  And I am happy to tell other moms that things get better, you get better at judging what is really important and what can be let go, you get better at understanding your children, you get better at listening to the Lord and following His guidance, you get better at making learning a lifestyle and not a curriculum choice.  So tonight as I head to bed I will remember her in my prayers and hope that the Lord through His grace strengthens her as He does for me.

Validation

I came across this article today on my Facebook and I loved it!  I loved it so much I bought the book!!  Sometimes I feel like a lone voice crying that we need to be tougher and raise expectations for our children.  They can do better than what most of them are doing.  As I read this article I remembered the day when my oldest son was in his freshman year of college.  He called home to fuss at me a little :)  He had written a paper, I don't even remember for what class, but he said he didn't do a good job on the paper and I would have given him maybe a "C" and made him re-do it.  The teacher in his college class gave him an "A" on the paper.  He said it wasn't fair that home school was harder than college.  I gently reminded him that I am his mother and I know full well what he is capable of doing and I expected him to do his best, and besides wasn't he happy that he could write "A" papers in college!  He grudgingly admitted that he was happy he knew how to write, but still!!!  Why, oh why, do we think that our children are so weak that they can't be held to high standards?  If Mary and Laura Ingalls could stay alone for a full day at 9 and 7 and even manage and out of control cow, then why can't our children work hard and be exceptional.  They are really no different from children 100 years ago except that back then kids were held to high standards and today we just keep lowering the bar afraid that we are going to hurt their fragile egos.  Well, here stands one lone real life home school mama who is holding the bar high and expecting great things from her very real life every day kids!!!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304213904579095303368899132.html

Homeschooling in Crisis - Lessons Learned

I have been absent of late.  As a family we have faced a new crisis.  On August 1st my husband was told that the company buying his company was not going to keep the Biostatistics department and that his last day would be August 3rd.  So all my plans of homeschooling through the summer have fallen by the way as we emptied Jeff's office and he came home to look for a new job.  I have heard people talk about homeschooling through a crisis, but minus having a baby I have never really done it.  Now I have!  Some people say to keep homeschooling some say to just stop until the crisis passes.  I'm not sure I have a specific choice, but I have definitely learned a few lessons along the way.

First, we did keep at least putzing away at schooling.  We had no idea how long Jeff would be out of work so the thought of stopping all school was a little too scary especially with a high schooler.  Putzing for us usually means math, reading and some writing, but everything else drops out until things get back to normal.  I did lose all my summer plans which was ok.

Second, I can't share office/work space with my husband.  I have been married to this man for 25 years and we have shared everything, but he and I cannot work in the same space!  He seems to know this instinctively.  He has never wanted to work from home and on the rare days that he does he is miserable.  He just gets more done at work.  I, on the other hand, being a mom and having very little control over my life am more flexible and go with the flow of events.  You know if you homeschool how this is.  Mom's who homeschool recognize that even the best laid plans can be blown apart in the  matter of minutes with a sick child or broken appliances or whatever else decides to blow up today.  My sweet husband does not know how to "go with the flow"!!!

Third, I learned that even in trial the Lord holds us in the palm of His hand.  Jeff ended up with three job offers in less than a month.  One of the recruiters he worked with told him that this is unheard of - if you are lucky you get 1 job offer in the first six weeks of unemployment.  We were able to stay in North Carolina and Jeff has the same commute as before with almost the same salary.  Jeff was unemployed for five weeks and we had to pull very little money out of savings.  We feel very blessed and know that it is the Lord who is blessing us.

Fourth, things eventually get back to normal.  We are back to normal school days, except of course that both boys have colds and my 97yo grandmother is dying so I am making multiple trips to see her.  OK - maybe there is no such thing as normal! :)  But learning continues anyway even when things are less than ideal.  I am so grateful to be able to homeschool my children.  I am grateful that they see that life isn't perfect and doesn't revolve around them.  I am grateful to watch them pick up the ball and work where needed and comfort where needed and then on their own study and work even when things aren't ideal.  They are amazing people and I am so grateful to be their mother and to spend so much time with them.  Even on my most tired days there is no other way I would have it!

My Annual Planning

So today starts the beginning of my annual planning marathon, and, of course, I am writing about it instead of doing it.  My 16yo son is away at church camp and my 10yo is ensconced in his room with an audiobook and Legos.  In my twelve years of home schooling I have usually followed an annual plan with what I call structured flexibility.  Meaning I make a plan and then am flexible when things go awry as they are apt to do or when we need to slow down for mastery.  I also do not go crazy when I have to tweak the plan for the above reasons.  I have also had years when I didn't make a plan for whatever reason and those always end up being bad years.  I love the first chapter of Genesis because the first thing God teaches us is that there really needs to be a plan.  He created the earth from a plan and took chaos and organized it into a world.  So to with us.  We need to make a plan and take chaos and organize it.  I know many people aren't good at organizing, but when it comes to educating children working with a plan is always better than not working with a plan- at least for me!  Pictures of my chaos to follow - just so you see what real life looks like at my house!

Common Core vs Classical Literature

So Dwane at Visual Latin posted this on his Facebook the other day.  I have spent a good amount of time (in between driving to swim practice) these last couple of weeks reading about Common Core.  And yes, this is going to affect homeschoolers very soon so if you are thinking this has nothing to do with you think again.  As I have been reading, I am so saddened by the deletion of classic literature from the curriculum.  In high school, the reading is 70% non-fiction to 30% fiction.  Some of the recommended readings are EPA reports and White House Executive Orders.  Forget Dick and Jane killing an entire generation of readers.  This will kill all the rest!!  I know I am old fashioned, but some days I long for the time before technology when real entertainment was family reading after the chores were done, and when teachers took time everyday to read aloud to students of all ages a really good story!  Thank heavens for homeschooling where the teacher can still read aloud everyday those very good stories.


http://www.earlytorise.com/where-the-real-secrets-are-found/#

Why I homeschool year around!

It sounds dumb, but I am feeling very defensive this summer.  People keep asking why I homeschool year around and they keep telling me we should all take a break so I am writing out my reasons for schooling year around mostly for myself, but also for anyone else who feels they have to defend why learning should be a daily affair all year long.  My first reason for schooling year around is that I love to travel and so do my kids and we love to travel in spring and fall so while other kids are sitting in classroom wishing they could be out in the spring sunshine we are out in the sunshine.  This past year we were able to go to Denmark to pick up my oldest son as he was finishing his mission for our church.  This was a guilt free trip since I had schooled almost all summer.  My second reason is that we live in the south!!!  Summer is our winter and my red-headed lily white kids don't like to be out in the heat, and sun, and bugs.  So instead of having them sit in the house in the air conditioning doing absolutely nothing, I do school with them at least part-time.  Another reason is that I like to shift gears in the summer.  This summer I am doing a fine arts summer with the boys.  Matthew still needs one fine arts credit for high school so I bought Christine Perrin's Art of Poetry, and Carol Reynold's Discovering Music and we are spending a good chunk of our school time doing these two programs.  BTW, I love the Art of Poetry.  Poetry is hard for me, but Christine does a great job of breaking down the elements of poetry and giving poems with examples underlined so you can start to make the connections.  Joshua is finishing his Artist pin for Webelos and doing a lot of sculpting. I never seem to get around to fine arts during the year, but summer is a perfect time to slow down and do some different kinds of things.  I also like to continue math all summer even if I shift gears and do different kinds of math and lots of review.  By doing math year around good students can test out of the first third of a math course that is review for students who have lost months of math skills over the summer.  My oldest daughter got a whole extra year of math in doing this.  On the other hand, children who are struggling get some extra time to master concepts and facts that they need a little extra time to master.  So for everyone who loves to take a break in the summer - take a break and enjoy and for those of us who hate the heat and want learning to continue let's keep at it and look forward to fall travel, cooler weather, and a summer of learning.

PS - I saw this today (6/28/2013) by Christine Field and it is really good.

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Homeschooling High School

I have been working on finishing this post for two weeks now and today is the day!  We are in the middle of summer swim season here in beautiful NC and that means we are swimming or at swim meets or trying to keep our house clean between all the swimming for what feels like every minute of the day.  Every year I think I can get it all done and catch up on some chores in June, but mostly I end up hanging on for dear life and getting further behind!  So here is the post on high school.

I recently spoke at the LDSHE Conference on high school recording keeping and I was reminded how very scary it is to home school high school.  I remember well the day when my now 22yo son was finishing 8th grade and told me he didn't want to go back to school.  I was overwhelmed and scared and I had no idea if I could teach him at a high school level.  I was shaking in my boots and really that feeling didn't go away until he was accepted to college.  Fast forward eight years.  I have now been homeschooling high school for 8 of my 12 years of homeschooling and although I don't know if I am any better at it I do know I am much more relaxed.  I know homeschooled kids can get into college and I know how to keep records to show what we have been doing all this time and I know that different kids home school high school differently and that's ok.  I also know that our Heavenly Father helps us all along the way.  I have been blessed to interact with some wonderful people in my journey of homeschooling high school and Heavenly Father has given me help in the very hour that I needed it.  My children have had wonderful people who have been willing to tutor them, teach them and share their knowledge with them.  It has been a wonderful blessing to watch my children grow up and become amazing adults.  So for those wonderful ladies who were in my class and anyone else who is overwhelmed with the thought of high school here are some of my favorite resources in no particular order:

A Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer (also any of her CD's - Susan has some great talks on independent learning, high school and record keeping).  Now lest you freak out, I do not do everything in WTM, but she lays out how to do a high school education that is thorough and rigorous so you can get a good idea of what needs to happen in those four years from her book.  I especially love her literature and history reading lists.  She has a fabulous resource section in the back and she covers testing and gives you lots of websites for further research.  I also love A Well Educated Mind also by Susan that helps with the literature study.

Teaching the Classics by Adam Andrews (this is a teach the teacher program for literature - we are more math/science at our house, but Adam and Missy make it pretty straightforward and yes you really only need a library card and their program although we bought all the books our kids read so they could start their own classics library).

Tapestry of Grace by Marcia Somerville (this is a great classical program with lots of teacher helps covering history, lit, geography, government, fine arts and philosophy - I don't use everything here, but the program is great).

My math preference is Jacob's Algebra and Geometry.  I have ruined one child with Saxon math the next did just fine with it, but when my third was struggling with Saxon we gave it up in favor of Jacob's and things are going better, but we are still tweeking here.

I have only used Apologia for high school science so I have nothing to compare it to, but my daughter who took 5 Apologia science courses is a junior in college majoring in physics and she has no complaint about her high school science education.

For government studies we loved the 5000 Year Leap and the Making of America both by Cleon Skousen.  I also used A Patriot's History by Larry Schweikart.


Here are some elective things my kids have really enjoyed:

The Uncle Eric books by Richard Mayberry
Personal Finance by Dave Ramsey
Secrets of Great Communicators by Jeff Myers

I have farmed out foreign language for all three of my high schoolers.  I speak a small amount of German, but not enough to teach high school and I found the CD programs to be pretty worthless even though they were expensive.  Tutors are very expensive, but it is the best way to actually learn a language and have someone who is able to explain the intricacies of the grammar of another language and speak to the child and help them correct mistakes as they are learning.

I also have a wonderful art teacher here that I really love.  She is super cheap and amazing - did I mention that Heavenly Father gives us blessings! :)

One of my favorite finds was Lukeion.  They are a husband/wife team that teach ancient history, ancient lit,  Latin and Greek.  My oldest was a total history buff and he quickly out paced me so I had to supplement him somehow and that is when we found Lukeion.  The Barr's are amazing and William loved them.  They are both retired college professors who are homeschooling their own children.  They do online classes that are interactive.  They meet at the same time each week and you have to be "in" class at that time.  Their classes are very well done.  I highly recommend them.  Did I mention that Heavenly Father blesses us in the very hour of our need?  I have used their College Research Writing class for all my high schoolers even the ones who didn't like history.

I hope this helps all you wonderful moms out there who are struggling with the idea of home schooling high school.   I hope it also helps to know that a very ordinary mom with no particular training just a strong love of the Lord and of her children has been able to home school two children all the way to college and has one more only two years away.  May God bless you in your labors!