Why does life seem to get busier when September comes? For me that's when "school" begins and we settle down to books. The reason I put school in quotation marks is because we try to create an environment in our home where learning is happening all the time. But we do focus in on the academics when September rolls around.
We do not use the conventional method of textbooks and workbooks so life isn't laid out in this neat package for me. We tutor our sons according to their personal needs. This takes a lot of searching and prayer on the part of the tutor..... who happens to be me. (See the previous post for one unconventional method of learning.)
So mornings consist of making breakfast and packing lunches first of all. This is no small task. We have a family of big eaters. This morning I made a ham and cheese omelet roll and a fruit salad with apples, pineapple, bits of banana, pear, and peaches robed in yogurt for breakfast.
We packed no lunches because there was a wintry mix falling and the day seemed unpredictable. The men went out to meet a truckload of doors that needed to be unloaded and I am wondering what adventures they are having. Soon after they left the mix turned to mostly snow and there are a couple inches on the ground now around noon. At least they have 4 wheel drive trucks.
But any other day we would either put some leftovers in a crock pot for them to take or if it's soup they prefer to have the slopping mess contained in Thermoses. Then we add to the lunch cheese, fruit, veggies/salad, a pastry, milk or something down that line. Not all of these every day.
We sit down for a bit of a devotional, kneel for family prayer, send the men off to earn the living and then tackle what needs to be done here. I often sit down with a cup of coffee after clearing the food away and listen to scripture for awhile while doing something with my hands. I listen to ten chapters a day. Getting up early is a pill for me so this time to sit, rest, listen and unwind is helpful.
Then I call the two youngest who have been reading, whittling, playing with cats, building with Legos, playing in the woods, killing a groundhog or doing some other thing of interest and we sit together to study the Bible. We are currently doing a study of 1 & 2 Timothy & Titus. We get into some interesting discussions.
After the Bible study we read a story book, taking turns reading aloud. One of the single most important ways of learning is to read aloud. Try it. You may discover many words you don't know how to pronounce or you might not even know what they mean. Reading aloud forces you to know.
After reading, we are ready to tackle some house & animal chores. The dishwasher needs to be unloaded and reloaded. Laundry needs to be started. It takes a daily doing to keep up with the piles of laundry. After reading of Laura Ingall's life, I think it would cut out a lot of work if we each had only two sets of clothing! And bathed once a week. And did the washing once a week. But ...hmm ...shhh ... whispering, "I wonder how they smelled?"
The animals need to be tended. Water for the cattle. (The cow gets milked before breakfast.) Water and food for the chickens. Water and food for the dog and cats. The fire needs to be tended and the wood box filled. Meal prep for the evening may need to be done. This morning I put a turkey in the oven for tonight and I want to make a cranberry jello salad. (Find my recipe in this lengthy post.) I'll make sweet potato souffle later on.
We have some more free time around lunch and thereafter until I get my bearings and know how to proceed. The boys might get a list of things to do together or they might each get their own list. Or we will all work together on a project. One day last week we washed all the windows on the outside. Another day we deep cleaned a room. Yet another day found us working on the wood pile, splitting, hauling and stacking wood. Okay, you know I wasn't splitting wood, don't you? I should be maybe, but I wasn't.
Does that sound like a day full? Till next time! Blessings to you.
This is a website review. (I do not get reimbursed for anything on my blog. I only give honest reviews of whatever I like!)
The search for a good way to educate children led me to NotebookingPages.com. Don't ask me where I first heard of this website. Several years ago they offered a lifetime membership and I bit. I've never regretted it and have often been grateful for this wonderful site.
Have you ever wondered what you learned in school? Have you wondered what to do with all the school books your mother stored for you? What about all the workbooks your children fill out? Should everything go in the trash? All that labor? Should you store it? To what purpose?
How about allowing your children to build their own memories? Make books for your shelves that are worth re-reading? Wouldn't that be a better option?
That is what we've found. Reading through textbooks where others have done all the research and are telling you what to learn is both boring and ineffective.
Reading from the sources of information and writing your own "book" will cement information more firmly in your mind. And it will give you a beautiful book to look back through, full of memories that you created yourself.
Write down what you learn rather than being tested to see what you don't know. How would we adults function if we were constantly told that we're less than we should be because of all we don't know?
Oh, the world is full of so much to learn. Let us give our children the joy of learning it in their own way and time! As we ourselves do.
We did a little of that at Kid's Club this year. I wish we would have done more. If we only lecture, tell stories and etc., the retention is nearly zero percent. But if a child knows she must fill out a paper with facts (written or drawn) from the evening's lesson, she will listen more carefully.
The girls are great artists. These papers come from Notebooking Pages.
Then the thing I really, really like is their Notebooking Web-app. I designed the papers below with the app. They recapture many of the stories we went over this year.
Borders were already there and I did everything inside the borders. You can see how a child could write and pull in clip art to create pages with beautiful memories.
There are lots of free pages available at NotebookingPages.com for you and your child to print off and enjoy.
With the Web-app (which you must purchase) you can also design and make greeting cards. Or use their ready-made designs.
Be sure to listen to Debra tell how she decided to use this method of teaching her 10 children.
Get ready for fun learning with your own child(ren).
Oh, I think spring is my favorite time of the year! Sunday morning there was a surprise snow covering everything. But the rest of this week has been warm or warmer.
I love the bird songs this time of year. And the spring peepers. The flies and mosquitoes aren't quite so welcome.
The daffodils are beginning to bloom.
The boys are doing their lessons outdoors.
The anemones are blooming.
Crocuses.
The boys had an extra brother a few days this week. Their cousin Mervin stayed here while the rest of his family went to Ohio. They worked together on everything. And slept outdoors even though there was frost on their pillows one night.
The boys enjoy cutting, splitting, hauling and stacking the wood we got recently. Hopefully they can get it off the grass before it kills it. You don't even have to ask them to do wood. Somehow they enjoy it more than other work.
We were nearly out of wood and kept wondering when this promised load would come. Now that it's here we don't need it. Well.... maybe we will yet. But we haven't needed a fire for a few days now.
Song of Solomon 2:12
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land
Hebrews 6:7
For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God:
What is an entrepreneur?
What does nuance mean?
What are forbs?
What is an ungulate?
What is scintilla?
These are a few questions that arise in an evening as we read this and that. The love of learning has not been diminished by stuffing noses into textbooks and workbooks. When the Field and Stream magazine author uses words that are above my son's understanding he wants to know! What do they mean?
That's true learning, friends.
Not poring over textbooks looking for answers to fill in the blanks.
Not answering questions that someone else asks.
True learning occurs when I want to know! When I am the one asking the questions and finding the answers.
Not when the test I took has a grade of 50% and I must do it over.
True learning happens when I read to discover what I want to know. Not what someone else wants me to know.
I read this from the DEN website- "Dyslexics are 10% of the population, 35% of entrepreneurs and 41% of prisoners."
Having a dyslexic son, we celebrate his unique strengths. Why are so many prisoners dyslexics? To be honest, our wholesale method of teaching all children by the same methods and from the same books, leaves dyslexics feeling like hopeless failures.
Enough said. There is joy, joy, JOY in homeschooling! Joy for the parents, joy for the child and joy for the community who has one less potential prisoner.
Hopefully you can follow the thoughts of my weary (10 pm) mind.
I would love to hear your thoughts and questions on the subject.
Do you homeschool? Why or why not?
