Why Do I Do What I Do?

 

I was excited when I realized that the "Why" of home school was the topic for this week's blog hop. Some weeks, when it seems I'm trying to achieve an epic fail, it's important to remember why I do the things I do.

However, I can more easily spout off the reasons for which I did Not choose to home school. I did not choose home schooling for any of the below reasons:

• My children are geniuses.  
• Public school children are horrible.
• We live in a cave surrounded by guns and are waiting for society to collapse.
• I am a genius.
• We have so much money that I thought home schooling would give me more shopping opportunities.
• Other people's children have cooties.
• My children have cooties.
• I have tons of patience.
• I am incredibly disciplined.
• We don't have enough money for private school tuition.

The reasons we initially choose to home school are so complicated and varied that it would take book to explain; but none of the above reasons were in the original decision making mix.

However, the reasons we keep home schooling are:

• It works for us.  My kids are learning and growing- academically and emotionally and socially.
• It strengthens relationships within our family.
• It allows me the opportunity to teach to each child's learning style.
• It allows the children greater flexibility to work and travel with their Dad without being tied to a calendar.
• It has allowed my older children more time to focus on their particular strengths and interests.
• It gives me the freedom and the time to instruct our children in Biblical studies.
• My chronically ill child can continue learning without the many absences and additional illnesses attending school would invariably entail.

Most of all, home schooling gives me time with my children. Time for them to experience life in a thoughtful way.  Time for me to know them and answer their questions.  Time for them to annoy the snot out of me.  Time for us to all practice Love.

Community Gardening

I used to garden every year- until we moved to our little suburban postage-stamp of a yard about 6 years ago.  I sooooo miss fresh tomatoes picked early in the morning and eaten for breakfast.

My friend, Hope, offered us and a few other families garden space on her 17 acres.  This is the view of the soon-to-be-worked spot for my family.  

Hope always wears the prettiest smile; she only adds the funky blue boots when she's working outside.  The dog is a bonus feature. 

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This is Hope's section- already disked but not yet plowed.  See how fun it is to run across?

One of the benefits of gardening with Hope is that her teens and my teens are already friends. My Littles think nothing is cooler than getting a ride (a very, very slow one) with a pretty girl on a 4-wheeler.

This gardening venture is going to be incorporated into our home school.  We plan to research and work and grow with learning and eating in mind.  One of the things I'm going to have my children do is keep a careful accounting of how much we spend in money and in time on this project.  

We have a lot of work ahead of us!  Join me each Monday as I post our progress.  If your family is doing a vegetable garden together let me know.

Who Pushed Fast Forward?

I can't believe we are already into March.  It makes my heart race a bit to realize how fast the year is going because my oldest graduates in May!  Stunning.  

Speaking of my oldest.  He's working fast and furious on his film festival entry.  He won't let me post anything from his project until the night of the festival- March 27th.  I hope I at least get to see the final version before he hands it in.  

Remarkably and fabulously there was no gnashing of teeth this past Monday.  Somehow my 13 and 15 yo studied and finished all their work and made A's on all their tests.  They really have figured out how to pace themselves and work independently. Maturity is an oh-so-wondrous-a-thing.

 

My 8 yo has reached a frustrating plateau with his reading.  As a break from his regular reading work I've been writing silly paragraphs for him that emphasizes sounds that he seems to always forget.  

My 13 yo evidently thought my stories were not clever enough so she started writing short stories for him too. Her stories all star my 8 yo son and all end in rather grisly ways.  Today's story involved him falling out of a hot-air balloon and being eaten by sharks.  My 8 yo laughed his head off.  I'm not sure whether this is sibling bonding or future therapy bills...

My 10 yo is enjoying a new book on geography.  Well not new, but newly found.  One of the benefits of home schooling for a while is that you forget about titles that you already have on your shelves.  She's also enjoying the fact that I've finally figured out how to check out audiobooks from our library via the computer.  Watching her listen while she knits makes my heart happy.

My two littlest boys enjoyed making sugar cookies several times this week.  They've wanted to for months but I've held off until I found a recipe that matched their dietary restrictions. 

Christmas cookies in March.  Smells good to me.

Introducing Shakespeare

I do a literature based approach with my home school. Shakespeare was on the top of the list of literature I wanted to expose my children to.

Normally I don't choose abridged books; but early on I bought Edith Nesbit's, Stories From Shakespeare, and Lamb's, Tales From Shakespeare. Both books are well written, though sometimes Lamb's version reads a bit cumbersome.

About a year ago I discovered a series of picture books by Bruce Coville that retell some of Shakespeare's plays. They are absolutely wonderful. -They are beautiful picture books but they are not aimed at young children. My tween daughter adores them.

I have found that by using one or the other of these three authors before we see one of Shakespeare's plays enables my younger children to enjoy the play more. My older children have moved onto Shakespeare's original works with no difficulty.

In fact the oldest two have been reading Hamlet this past 6 weeks. They have been enjoying how funny Shakespeare is- even in his tragedies.

It's What Works For Me

This was not a paid endorsement, I'm just opinionated.

Blatant Self Promotion

Only vaguely related to home schooling, in that most home schoolers are by constitution typically out-of-the-box sorts:

I guest authored a post on The Adventures of a Somewhat Crispy Mama's blog. It's my first guest-post ever. I'd love for you to hop over and comment. The topic was birth options, The Final Installment, and I shared a bit about my experiences with everything from an emergency cesarean to home birth.

The End of February

It was a busy week with lots of irons in the fire.

• I worked on basic politeness issues with my 2 yo this week. He was not as excited about this as I was.
• My 3 yo learned to dress himself from head to toes. Yes, I know he should have been doing this for a long time. Somehow with his hospitalizations last year I started babying him a bit too much. After some initial resistance he's very excited about his new independence.
• 8 yo worked on math drills with basic facts. I'm very unhappy with the math curriculums for his age group so I've decided to strike out on my own. He's working on subtracting double and triple digits, time and money right now. I've just been writing problems for him in a composition notebook each day.

• 10 yo continued her work on the Beatitudes and did a lot of reading and drawing this week.
• 13 yo squeaked by with the minimum of work this week. I foresee gnashing of teeth on Monday morning when she has to take her tests and turn in assignments. She was the photographer at her brother's video shoot. Her pictures turned out fabulous and she blogged a few of them.
• 15 yo was given "Superior" marking at her piano jury on Saturday. She was extremely pleased. Thankfully her teacher was hard on her during this week's lesson- and she has enough homework that she'll have no time for a big head. I foresee equal gnashing of teeth this weekend because she and her big brother have to perform a scene from Hamlet on Tuesday in front of her tutorial classmates; yet neither have their lines memorized as of yet.
• 17 yo entered Full Moon Film Festival. He spent the week writing a script, organizing a group of friends, and shooting the video. I'm praying he wins- scholarship money is always welcome! He also had me cut his hair, but only one side. He wanted to win a stupid hair contest. I think he did.

My Weekly Wrap-Up is linked to the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Cold Rainy Indoor Days

Cold days with drizzly sleet for days on end make for a cranky mommy and hyper kids. Here are few things we do to get the wiggles out.

Some are loud:

House Tipping- You and the kiddos pretend that the house is a boat and that it is tipping over in a storm. This game involves a lot of rolling around on the floor, grabbing onto siblings and furniture. Not for the faint-hearted. I suggest starting the game and then pouring a cup of coffee and sitting in another room, preferably eating chocolate.

Burrito Babies- Take your children's comforters and roll your children up in them. Teen-aged big brothers especial enjoy facilitating the rolling.

Then let the races begin.

If you need a quieter and more contained activity and you don't mind sweeping, find tweezers,

and fill muffin tins with corn or beans. I think this only works if you use beat-up muffin tins; but maybe that's just because all my muffin tins are beat-up.

If tweezers are too hard, weird looking scoops are fun too.

Old medicine droppers make for some easy to contain water play. My 8 yo likes me to add food coloring and then he gets out an old science set of beakers to play "Mad Scientist."

Of course there's always dress-up, boy style. Just call him Sir Daniel Boone.

It's some of what Works For Me on Wednesday or any other rainy day.