A Place to Learn

Our official start date is the week of labor day.  I plan to use that week just to celebrate school, do some fun little projects, introduce the books to the kids, and begin a couple of our books that have much needed introductions. I  honestly have a problem!

I have boycotted our cluttered dining room as a schoolroom.  I have demanded above demands for a shed to school in our backyard. Please look, couldn't you just imagine a learning sanctuary in one of these (with AC and electric, of course).


My demands were not given into though.  I have hit a truce with my dh that for this year, we will  convert a bedroom into a schoolroom. Well, I have been pining since June, with a completion date of September.  Although we are only a third of the way into August, the future homeschool room does not look as though it will be move in ready by September.

I do not know what to do.  I know I can make the dining room work in a pinch, but I cannot wrap my brain around it to get things ready.  I am so overwhelmed with the crowded conditions that I am afraid I will not be able to start on time.  I guess all I can do is pray!

I started this post about a month ago.  My dining room is a mess, but we are getting it done.  September is coming to an end, and that bedroom is not close to ready.  My husband made a comment that he has until December to finish the new room for us to even move out of the potential school room.  See "potential" is now sneaking into my vocabulary.  Seriously, He will then have the other room move in ready for school? What January?  Hmmm, I am having a baby in January.  There is no schoolroom set up in January, so what February?  So I am going to set up shop in a room that we can only use until June.  February to June, 5 months.

I think we are stuck at the dining room table eating around all these books. please tell me I am not the only one?
~trish

To Approach The Approach

Sorry for the absence and that's all I have to say about that.

It is another homeschool year to begin.  I feel like an old hat at starting and still a inexperienced fool at finishing.  Sadly, of the 3 years we have begun homeschooling, we have finished in a public institution.  Mostly from the results of self doubt, frustration, and lack of support.  Always while preparing or what I like to call overloading my senses with way too much information, I come across a mission or purpose statement.

Why do this? To put it in writing, because I want to.  I have wanted to and knew I would since the day I was planning my wedding.  This is what my intention was, goal, the envision of my future, prodigy, etc.   I AM that mom.  At the end of each year, I would feel defeated, why am I not.  

I know why we stopped, but the frustrating part is within the public institution even within 2 weeks, there was no sense of satisfaction with their product.  It was just that at least I am not the one failing them, I will allow the institute to fail them, just as it failed me. Yes, they would read better and add better, but the missing part that was not being provided was thinking.

Where was I going wrong? I feel as though I have touched on every type of learning style and approach.  I have tried a few.  I have done workboxes twice now.  I have tried to keep it simple, kept it fun, and have stuck them on the computer.  I have child centered myself to a tizzy.  The reality is I have 4 children in a small house.  I must live and eat and let them play in this space that we school.  The least bit of chaos and disorder sends the world we know of into a tizzy of fret and despair. I have uncluttered and sorted and organized, to the point of enough.  For us this enough is just barely enough for us and way too much for the house.   What is a mom to do!

I can say that, as always, I excitedly started my kids back to school right after I picked them up from their last day.  Well, maybe the following Monday.  Mentally, I knew they needed to be deprogrammed, but in practice I just couldn't do it. Let's say, forethought and planning was at a maximum, Just enough!

I must be eclectic. As summer progressed, I would boast, oh, we are eclectic. The reality was we would do a collection of stuff on Monday and then maybe again 2 more times a week.  Combing the pins, I just knew if I could make a workbox system, everything would really flow together.  Cleverly, I used the milk crates and vinyl folders and cute labels.  Instead of doing school a few times a week, we now accomplished it just on Mondays.  I must not be doing something right!!!!!!!!

As I mentally torture myself through this whole administration aspect and planning portion of homeschooling, I actually got the blessing to overhear a conversation on several topics of reading and writing. The lasting statement I heard from another mom with older elementary children was  I wish I would have read this book before I ever would have taken them out of school. What is this book, I have to know! Invading myself into the conversation, I learned for the first time about Susan Wise Bauer and the well educated mind.  I was given just a name and I went home in a mission.  It was fine, I had plenty of time, I wasn't schooling as it was.

I got home and found http://www.welltrainedmind.com/ and was amazed with the information.  Now, we are expecting #5 at the first of the year and I am just tired on top of it all.  So I printed up a few articles, got a highlighter, and crawled into bed. Immediately, it was like my mind had been on a 2 year celery diet and I was just been given a steak dinner. I had to chew it, but it was remarkable.  It spoke to me, this is what I have been searching for.  I found it.

I have purpose! I homeschool my children through thick and thin, because I want to educate them to think and learn on their own.  I want them to be prepared for any university to continue to explore and discover, without the hurtles of being ill prepared for general education.  I refuse to allow my children to have the substandard education that was available to me and is still available to them.


Focus, now, focus. At first, let just say, the book is complete from birth to senior year on equipping  you with the knowledge of resources and very heavy.  As I read, I was jotting every bit of information down. After 3 days of reading, collecting, and organizing, I realized!  The method is actually very simple. My brain can stay focus.  Focused, because reading material is in lined with history.  Full pictures are being painted, not partial.  Best of all, the book provides listings of references, reading list, etc. to help you narrow your choices that will maintain the method.

By default, I started planning the year's schedule, the weekly layout, all the way to the daily expectation, a first!  For the first time ever, we will begin school at home the Monday after Labor day.  until then, I am preparing them to use their brain in a new way, so we a cutting TV down to 1 hour a week and we are filling them with audio books.  I want their minds to feed off language, not images.  I want them to create their own images.  These next weeks, will give us plenty of time to train in being responsible around the house.

I love you for visiting and commenting.  I look forward to sharing our adventures as always.
~trish

and that was enough of that..

I can tell you with much excitement, we entered the world of possibility and within two days, eagerly went back to what is right for us.  I really knew that it wasn’t our fit, the night before the first day. So with that, we are back to homeschooling.

The biggest problem that I ran into was that it was just about everything I was trying to do from home, except is wasn’t home.  See I want to be selfish.  And as a mom, this is my only time in life that I can.  Yes, they will grow up and leave one day, but I got 12 years before the first one does, so why make it any sooner.  Besides, in 10 years, I will never have these days again. 

So here are a few reasons why home is the best for us.

• I can delay the length of time that my kids think their mom is cool and knows everything.  Face it, give a kid a teacher and for some reason the teacher knows everything and the parent knows nothing.  If I am both parent and teacher, I am golden!
• Keep the siblings together constantly, creates a sibling bond that is tight. (I really assume that this bond is unbendable, but I have no evidence. Yah, they bicker, but they play so much better when they are not subject to being surrounded by other children all day.)
• Like it or not, you are back in the rat race of life.  I am selfish, I am not sitting in the parent pickup line for my kid!   They are mine and I want them now!
• I hate schedules and school calendars.  If the weather is right, I want to take a trip, not wait for a school break.
• Most of all, my house was just too quiet without them.

So we lasted 2 days in the system and then we came back home. And that was enough of that.  Like every day in homeschooling, you have some rough patches.  I often remind myself as I play teacher, maid, nurse, chef, driver, and mom that it is a ton of work and stress, but I would rather be miserable and stressed than to miss the blessings from these days that I have with them.

So on we march.

~trish

Things just happen to go differently

This is our bible verse for this week’s spelling.  I find that I really need to turn it into a self centered verse to really hear what the Lord is telling me.  By the way, yes, I am using my fridge as a white board.

So changes are taking place.  By the grace of God, we were just introduced to a brand new charter school that is project centered and unschooling in style.  So we went and checked it out and loved the entire progressive/democratic education method.  I took the evening to think about it and weigh the pros and cons and decided.  It would be better to take the opportunity to try this for our family, than to regret not doing so when we had a chance and not be able to get it.  See when you have several kids and enrollment is a lottery system, you would have to be willing to let some go, while others can’t. Couldn’t do it.

So what makes this charter worth it:

• unschooling style
• project center learning
• students progress at their pace, not the standard
• teachers are mentors
• mixed grade classes, so mine will be together in the K-2
• close attention to national academic standards and the progression of the student
• agriculture and sustainable practice focus
• 4H
• family and community involvement in the school
• family participation is a requirement, so we will be there alot.

There are a bunch more reasons, but these meant the most to me.  I decided that it was worthy the giving up of my own schedule and my direct lead on their education, in order to take advantage of all the resources that will be available to them.  I will say that I will be there, and I am protective.  If I feel as though my children’s best interest are not be taken care of, we are back home, once again.

I look forward to all of the new experiences that we will get to enjoy.  Please do not consider this the end of homeschooling chaos.  I look forward to sharing their projects and other studies that we still do at home.  The focus we have had for the last few weeks has been a series of unit studies that all have to do with self-sustaining urban homesteading.  See why we are so excited about the school.  So I will soon be posting our worms farm and our bread making.

~trish

Our homeschool Space

      

In some ways, I would probably would never post about our homeschool space, mostly because we barely have one.  We have our homeschool space a little here and there. And of course, we have changed it around.

We first began with this shelf. It sits in a corner of a side room that my husband and I have our desk in.  So really we currently use the room as a den. The thing is this room has the only backdoor, so you have to go through it all the time. 

Well, he managed to pick up a wire basket thing! So we moved the shelf to where our front door is.  I say this reluctantly, because we really have to use every inch of the house.

It must be a God thing, because this bookshelf is the only thing that fits into closet of an entryway that I have.

What truly counts as our schooling space is this awesome table and chairs.  I picked them up at our school surplus store for under $50.  I only have 3 chairs, so I keep checking for a fourth.  I found the wooden thing at goodwill and I use it to hold our markers, scissors, gluesticks, pencils, dry erase markers, and colored pencils.

 

Call it what you want, den, disaster, free for all, the beginning of hoarding, but this is our space where most of it lives and then some.  You are missing the view of my husbands desk as I am standing at the back door.

The wire shelf holds baskets.  I have a basket for each kid, to store their curriculum.  This way I can pull out what I need.  I have basket for supplies, math games, crafts and so on.  The other table is my desk and my computer sits on a tv tray. I sew and coupon mostly on my desk.  And trust me it is always a mess.

In fact there is never one time that the entire house is straight.  I have someone always willing to make a mess!

As for decorating our school space.  NOPE.  Mostly because I can’t.  My entire house is the lived in look.  I would love to decorate it, but I am somehow missing that touch.  Then I really want to do some renovations and it seems like a waste to decorate then destroy.  At the same time, I have been waiting years to renovate.  So maybe it is just not in our time line, yet.

For those of you that live small, I hope this lets you know, you are in good company.

~trish

Changing the method before starting

So the chaos has begun, before we began.  Haha!  Well, after so much effort on gathering my supplies and curriculum, I am throwing it up in the air. So we did our first few days, kind of winging it.  I thought I had it ready, because I had the books, so we just would do the workbooks, page by page. Easy Peasy!  Not so well!

Unit Study by Netflix!

So first indicator was at the library.  I had an awesome plan, book list and all that jazz to do a bird unit study.  I felt like I had spent a semester prepping for an algebra test, to realize I was taking a history exam.  Yikes!  So at the library, the influence of Netflix reeked havoc in my plan.  The nature documentary of crocodilians and the fact that crocodilian books are for some reason filed in the dewy decimal system next to the birds, landed us into a crocodilian unit study. 

Not really prepared, but I figured we could wing it with a lot of ready.  Let’s just say, I have done a lot of reading about those things and we still have more books coming on loan.  We can safely say, there are no crocodilian books left in our branch of the library.

Workbooks Shmurkbooks!

Next, we are having a small issue with our workbooks.  My darling son, precious #2 HATES them.  Our reading program is sinking has sunk.  He refuses.  No interest, eyes glassed over.

Math also seams to mean nothing on paper to my children, they are hands on. The 3 year old wants to do her school work and the 1 year old trashed the house.  On a positive note, speech is good as long as the list of words for him to say is not bound in a book and I have stickers. 

Unschooling, hmm.

I think we are naturally just unschooling homeschoolers.  Now that is a scary thought.  I have to have a plan.  Or unschooling approach is that we will know the topics to cover, we will use our library and do it, until we get it.  I am thinking we are more of a Charlotte Mason approach.

What flies well around here is reading aloud, manipulative, notebook paper, stickers, and games.  So I need to keep things simpler to be effective.

New Plan!

So new plan with a daily routine built within.

1. Chores. I know this might sound crazy, but the house is out of control.  We could spend all day swimming through books, coloring, exploring, but it doesn’t give use clean underwear in the morning or dinner ready for us to eat.  So chores must come first, besides these are some very important life skills. 

I just learned a new life skill today. Dora is the perfect amount of time to keep the laundry flowing.  After every episode, the washer and dryer was checked and rotated if needed, the dried load was folded and put away before we start the next.  The amazing part was all I had to do was start and load the washer and fold.  The kids did all the moving the laundry around.  Can we have an OHH YEAHH! in the house.

2. School. Simpler is better.  We will simply do a devotion, phonics, penmanship, math, unit study time. I am not covering anything else, nor will I get myself distracted by pretty workbooks, curriculums, or whatever those other homeschool families are doing.

We will also be involved in a weekly homeschool coop, and a monthly one.  I have plans to have the kids join a gardening 4H club (another monthly meeting). Of course, we will do the weekly AWANAs program at our church.  The kids will also take swim lessons 1-2 times a week starting this fall.  Hmm, who ever said homeschool kids are not socialized.  I hope I am up for all this.

3. Play. Then we can play.  Play outside, in the house, as long as it is not a mess in my chore list.  Game on.  I am really thinking we would use this time to garden, cook, sew, woodshop (thanks so much www.anna-white.com). Play!  No TV.

4. TV.  More specifically Netflix.  Once we are exhausted and hot, then the tv can come on.  Of course it will probably just entice the next unit study.  See my children watch the educational stuff and the older movies.  Like tonight, when I was crying my eyes out over  Where the Red Fern Grows.  I think between swamp people and this last one, I might have to get my son a few more pairs of overalls, he is acting as if it is his uniform.  I am also loving all the Christian movies available. NICE!

So I will get into the specific on our new “curriculum”. I am going to say curriculum lightly, since we really will not have a formal one.  We will essentially have topics and progression for reading, writing, arithmetic, and responsibility; those are my Rs.  Well, maybe we will add in relationships.

Pray for me, I need it!
~trish

Homemade donuts

   

My kids love donuts!  When I am shopping at midnight at Wal-mart, I will give the bakery shelf a look, but none look worthy my money.  I guess I was ruined with the Krispy Kreme at the corner of the university and going in at 9 pm for hot fresh donuts to prep me for a night of cramming.

I used to make these donuts when I was camping, but now as a mom charming my children, I make them about every 2 weeks.  I usually have everything I need; canaster of biscuits, oil, powdered sugar and milk. 

I quarter the biscuits and then fry them.  I make sure the oil is deep enough to cover the dough.  Here they are frying away. 

I then pile them on a plate.  I used to cover them in icing, but we love them warm and the icing would slide off them.  So anymore we just have the icing on the side and dip them.  This makes for a lot less mess.

And then they are gone.

~trish

Compromising with The Publix Ballerina

As I am letting go of this idea of perfection, apparently time management and priorities are leaving with it.  Hmm, I might be digressing in my maturity.

So I was so excited to get picked for the Breakstone Sour Cream House Party!  Gave me a reason to invite some peeps.  I got vouchers for sour cream, dip bowl and so much more.  See.

Nice, right!  But before all this could happen, I had to go get the sour cream.  Well, as a couponer, I have been on hiatus from it for the past week.  So the night before at about 2am!  I realized everything I needed to do, before for my mommy pals would show up.

All of the morning’s calculated schedule was based on the fact that Publix opens at 7am. So when you are loading 4 littles out the door, there will be compromises you have to make because of pure procrastination!

Here was mine!

The beloved ballerina bathing suit.  She wore it to Publix at 7am.  The nice part of shopping this early in the morning is no one is awake enough to cause too much of a problem and the kids weren’t too bad either.

So this momma had a baby strapped to here, 3 children tagging along behind in loud and crazy way and I do believe no one in the store was awake enough to notice.  SWEET! 

~trish

What is my chaos?

Hmm. It can be many things.  I live in a tiny house with 4 littles.  I plan to homeschool the 1st grader and kindergartener with a 3 year old and a 1 year old at my feet.  I have my 2 middle children needing articulation therapy.  So against all worldly reason, I am withdrawing my kids from public school and therapy to keep them home.

Many of you will be following me from my first blog.  I have ended it, because it is just not my focus anymore.  Although I write this at midnight, I am no longer a midnight crafter.  I am a 5:15 am, I hope I can get an inch of quiet time before they wake up.  Why I am a wake right now, is beyond reason and mostly because I miss reaching out.  I have put so much of my crafty stuff up, for a time when my house can handle it.  My house handling it, has more to do with space, than management.  I am sure if I was a great Martha Stewart kind of chick, I could orderly contain, use, and put away.  But I am not.

So for the past 6-8 years, I have been entranced with this simple, orderly living.  The magazines have actually led me to believe that people can live this way and I am not living up to potential by having a cluttered house.  But these people in this house can not live in that much order, so we are rebuking the system. We will live in the make the best of it mentality.

So schooling in this chaos, will probably have more to do with schooling me.  You will laugh, you will be in shock, and hopefully you will be inspired.  Inspired that you don’t have to or did not get stuck with, what ever it is I ended up doing for some unknown reason.

I have been a SHAM for almost 4 years now.  I am perfectly capable of getting lost in my own ideas.  I have an uncontrollable need to try, learn and test things.  Mentally, I usually have a great sense of order, even if I live in clutter.  Currently, I have no order.

So I plan to share with you, my adventures of homeschooling my littles.  My progress and trials of providing speech therapy for 2 of my children.  My slow, but hopefully progress in creating some order in my life.  My progress on being a home manager and a Fly Lady drop out.  and of course, share my uncontrollable quest for knowledge on any adventure I attempt to take.

So I hope you can handle the craziness of it all.  Hopefully, you may be a kindred spirit in the chaos and we can be a shoulder to lean on, or you might just be laughing hysterically and I enjoy a good laugh, especially at myself.

We will see how it goes!

~trish