Visitors

    We had an awesome time with some friends over the weekend.  Kevin met a great guy at work, and invited his family over.  They brought a friend and her daughter.  A wonderful time was had by all.  We had 14 kids under the age of 16.  Fun!

   One of the ladies lives in a big city and she was amazed at our land.  I take it for granted WAY too much. We've lived here for 10 years and having 5 acres of land seems normal.  She said a park near her home is smaller than our front yard.  Yes, Lord, thank you for our big house and our land. We are blessed.

  Our back 3 acres are full of bugs and chiggers, so I don't go back enough.  We went for a walk, all of us, and it was gorgeous back there.  Kevin keeps a path mowed but the rest is wild. I need to take a picture of it.  Lots of wild flowers.

  

   Naomi carried Rose around the back.  Naomi is 100 lbs and Rose is 20 lbs so...that's a lot of weight for Naomi. She's definitely getting her exercise.  Rose was happy.

On Public and Private School

Ok, another possibly controversial post. You've been warned.

Our children are homeschooled and we intend to homeschool them through graduation, unless the Lord steps in with thunder and lightening and a still small voice, and says not to.

There are many reasons we homeschool, but one of the biggest for me is that the current public school system seems unnatural to me.  In more than one way. But let me address TIME.

Because for most children, during the school year, school dominates life.

The child goes to school for 6 to 7 hours. Often the children have to get up ridiculously early to catch a bus (there are buses picking kids up before 7 a.m., which seems crazy to me!)    After school, many children then do some kind of after school activity associated with the school (like sports or drama). THEN, the child comes home and does as bunch of homework.

I honestly, truly, look at that scenario and wonder -- how did we get here?  How did we get to the point, as a culture, that we are peaceful with our children's lives revolving almost exclusively around school?

Even YOUNG children are coming home with homework now. I have heard from so many parents that evenings are a stressful and unhappy time as the parents have to sit on their kids and work with their kids and nag their kids to get through a bunch of homework.  Many children (and teens) are not getting enough sleep because they don't have enough hours in the day to go to school, do those requisite activities, and then do homework.  And around the edges, they fit in eating and bathing and, who knows, actually spending some time with their families?

And maybe that is the very crux of it for me. We want to spend time with our children, and we certainly don't want to spend that time bugging them about homework.  We want our children to spend time with EACH OTHER.  We have plenty of quarrels and crankiness around here at times between the siblings, but our kids play together and work together and make amazing creations together.  They are friends.  I really doubt they would be friends if they were spending the vast majority of their time apart.

I read about pioneer days and I read about my grandmother's day and I know the culture has shifted.  Laura Ingalls Wilder was a very accomplished scholar (her husband less so), and both of them didn't spend much time IN school under the age of 10.  Public school orbited around family life, not the other way around. Children were frequently excused from school to help with harvests.  The school year wasn't as long.

My great-uncle wrote a book about his life growing up on a Michigan farm in the early 1900's.  The school year was longer than in Laura Ingall's Wilder's day, but school still broke for weeks in fall so the children could help with the potato harvest.  My great-uncle also wrote that there was rarely any homework sent home.  GOOD!  I hate homework, especially for young kids.  Research shows it doesn't help them.  So why do it?  Why swallow up MORE time.  Let the kids play!  And read for fun!  And create!

I realize we live in a different era and there are different, and probably more, things to learn, but there seems to be a push push push for more hours of school and more homework, and the data doesn't support that it is helping.   The public school day isn't very efficient either, as children spend a lot of time moving from one classroom to another, teachers deal with discipline issues, etc.

I realize I've been out of school a very long time (I graduated in 1987 from high school) but I missed 12 days of school that year due to illness (yes, I was sick a lot) and easily achieved a 4.0 that year.  I liked to learn and I was a good student, and I could just read the books and do my work in, probably, 2 hours a day.  I realize not all students can learn without much teaching since my learning style is visual and word based BUT...I really really question how much time is spent in the classroom, and believe much of it is wasted.

Many parents choose not to homeschool, and I understand that.  Many parents cannot homeschool. Homeschooling has taken off as an educational option, but it is still a rare choice.

Since most kids are in a public (or private) school, I would love it if parents and teachers and administrators and politicians would dialogue about how to best serve these precious little souls in public school care.  Instead of pushing for more hours and more days in the school year, could we pare DOWN the time in school?  Could we focus on the basics of academics and drop so many of the (to my way) insignificant extras?

Could we move back towards family life being a vital center of a child's life?

I'd like to see that.

Exercise Regimen for Naomi

    I won't say our little one is spoiled, but she certainly has it GOOD.  Naomi is now putting Rose in the backpack and marching up and down the driveway and around the house and up and down stairs...well, you get the idea.  Rose thinks it is great.

    Naomi is just a tad over 100 lbs, and Rose + backpack is probably close to 25 lbs.  So yeah, good workout for Naomi!

Kitchen tidal pool

I've always loved tidal pools. I love how the tide sweeps in, and then sweeps out, leaving various creatures clinging to rocks and stranded in tidal pools.

I feel like that about our kitchen counter sometimes.  The tide sweeps in and sweeps out, leaving a litter of dirty cups, miscellaneous dishes of food, and the occasional library book.  For your amusement, here are 5 pictures of our kitchen counter, taken over the course of a few days.

And...We're Off!

Homeschooling, that is.

We took a 2 month break but August 3rd was our official start date.

Let me talk about "starting school."  

I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever feel ready to start school.

My personality is such that I want to be totally organized, with all my ducks in a row, before I start school for the year. 

But...I never have all my ducks in a row.  They are, in fact, running all over, hiding under bushes, and jumping into mud puddles.  Metaphorically speaking.

I have learned through the years that I need to pick a date and start.  If I don't, I can delay forever, waiting to feel totally organized and ready.

So I picked August 3rd. I also decided, based on past experience, to start very gently.  August is basically our "ramp up" month. I'm assigning relatively little to the kids (except for Naomi, who is the eldest and is, among other things, charging through Driver's Ed online).  But just getting into the habit of working on school is valuable, and I'm also discovering where some glitches are.

For example, Kevin spent hours over the weekend upgrading most of our computer to Windows 10. That is a good thing, long term, but there have been some glitches and I may have found a new one today in that Timez Attack, a wonderful math practice game, isn't working on one of the computers.

So yes, we are starting another exciting year of homeschooling. The older 6 are officially in school, and Sarah (age 4.5) is doing a little casual learning. She is excited about letters and even reading, though she can only read her name, Mom, and Dad at this point.  She doesn't know how blend sounds together, but she is very close to figuring that out.

Monopoly Craze

  When I was 9 years old, I lived in Bolivia, South America, on a missionary base where my parents were serving with Wycliffe Bible Translators. I had a few female friends close in age, and I distinctly remember our long Monopoly games in my bedroom.  It was SO fun.

  When our eldest children were the same age, I never played Monopoly with them. Because ya know, Monopoly tends to be a LONG game.  And I never have time for long games.

 BUT, Kevin and I cleverly provided a host of siblings and if memory serves me, Naomi and Lydia played some Monopoly back when they were that age.

  Now, they are teens, and they can really run things efficiently and well, and we're experiencing a healthy and fun Monopoly craze.  The older 6 kids have played at one time or another.

  Monopoly is actually a pretty good fit for a group of siblings who are a range of ages.  There is a ton of luck involved in the dice rolls, so if a younger child has a good day, she can indeed win against her older and wiser siblings.

 But isn't all dumb luck.  Our kids have played a fair amount of War as well, which is 100% luck. They enjoy it, as I did when I was a child, but it is totally mindless.  Monopoly does involve strategic planning, not to mention working with numbers.

 So yeah, fun game, and even a bit educational.  I'm enjoying this season of life where the kids can play games together.

Switching Math Curricula

Many years ago, I went to a local homeschool convention with one goal: to pick the best math curriculum for our children.

I spent the day wandering through the vendor hall, sampling this and that.  There were 2 that appealed to me quite a bit: MathUSee (video based instruction) and Teaching Textbooks (computer based instruction).

I finally decided on MathUSee.  It came with manipulatives and was very straight forward.  It was fairly successful. The kids weren't dancing around with excitement about it, but most learned math concepts well from the videos and manipulatives.

Fast forward many years, and I've decided to sell off all my MathUSee and buy Teaching Textbooks.

Because...because...in the past years we've added many children, and I cannot find time to grade math properly.  Teaching Textbooks is a computer based curriculum and all problems are graded by the computer, immediately.  If a child misses a problem, TT will show a step by step solution of every single problem.  TT then tabulates how the child is doing in a particular lesson, and the parent can check how they are doing on the computer.

Financially, this is a tad painful.  Each TT computer program is more than $100.  Today I spent $240 for 2 grades of TT, which will meet the needs of 3 of my kids because 2 kids are on the same level.

One painful thing about homeschooling is that sometimes, a curriculum doesn't work out as well as hoped.  MathUSee was a good guess and it worked Ok for years, but I realized last year how much struggle I was having with grading.  And if I fell behind grading, a child could be doing problems incorrectly for too long before I caught on.

So yeah...money "wasted"...yeah.  But that is life.  It is good to realize I can make mistakes.

One of the best pieces of homeschooling advice came from my friend Debbie, many years ago.  She said that a mom can become obsessive about picking the best curriculum.  It is wise to not be obsessive but to pray for wisdom, look around, and pick something.  If it doesn't work out, gracefully change.  That has helped me so much in a world with TONS of curriculum.