simplify

I just read a packet that  friend gave me about Thomas Jefferson Education.  I won't get into all the details of that now, but one piece of advice really hit home for me and I spent the week applying it.  And here it is:

The three greatest destroyers of motherly mentoring are cleaning, cooking and chauferring.  Yep, that sounds about right!  Some days I feel I'm spending the entire day cleaning and cooking and managing the house - and it's still a mess!  How many times do my kids actually ask me to read them a book and I say, not now, I need to do this or that - dishes, laundry, straighten up, you name it.  Something is wrong with that picture and I can say my homeschool is definitely suffering because of it.  Here are a few more quotes:

You need to choose between your stuff and your education. 

Too much stuff in the home clogs up the education of everyone who lives there.  Managing your stuff takes time, effort, resources, space, and above all brain cells to keep track of it all - even unconsciously.  Lighten your load and free up those brain cells - we need every brain cell we've got!

Extra stuff around the house consistently and very silently robs energy, time and focus from your education and time with kids. 

Great education is greatly impacted by its surroundings, and cleaning them up will open relationships and learning pathways that are now dormant.

With much less things cluttering the home - you can spend less time cleaning.

So this week I did a major clean up and simplifying in our home.  Instead of academics we focused on cleaning, chores, and training the boys how to put their things away and help keep the house in order. 

It feels really good and manageable now - like a weight lifted off.  I'm happy with the results and am spending more time with the boys.

The boys enjoying their new study space

Have you simplified lately?  What were your strategies?

Why I've backed off

Because this is what I find at the end of each day.  Piles and piles of books spread around the house.  All evidence of what Kai has been up to.  In this stack is a mix of readers, science books, chapter books, even a random Abeka book.  When I stop dictating what he needs to read and stop loading him down with vocabulary and spelling words each week, he follows his interests and ends up doing more than I would ever require of him. 

I love those moments when he's reading and he stops to ask me what a word means.  Often it's a book that I know he has read over and over again, and so it's interesting to me that he hasn't asked before about the definition of an unknown word.  But for some reason, at the moment he asks, it has become important to him.  I can watch his face as I tell him the definition and I know the new word is sinking into his vocabulary.  No need to test or drill - he's got it.  When children learn because they need to know something, that knowledge will stick.   To see those moments of true learning happen is the very reason I've backed off. 

I try to really value his questions, too, and let that direct our learning.  If he wants to know something I usually say - remember that question and we'll google it.  (95% of the time I do not know the answer myself!)  We end up watching videos of how things are made or how things work or different animals online and the whole family is into it!  Well, there's your science class! check!  It is so much easier to teach something he wants to know, with his full interest and attention, then something that he's bored with or not interested in.  That's the kind of learning that stays with you for life.  I have to hold back to allow my children to make discoveries.

In saying this, I'm not saying I've dropped all required work.   What I am saying is that I've noticed, as I hold back and create space for Kai, his natural curiosity is leading us in an exciting way.  And in those moments I see in him such an intense expression and amazing focus.  No lesson I design could ever create that moment or produce that depth of learning.

Tonight I had an incredible moment with Ezra that amazingly I captured on film.  I have not worked with him at all, so everything he's learning is through osmosis.  Tonight after his shower he asked if we could get out the letter blocks.  So we sat on the floor to play a little bit and he just sat there and began to make words and sound them out all on his own.  I didn't ask him to do that, or show him how, he just did it.  You can see on his face the joy he is finding in making and sounding out a word on his own.  He is able to concentrate and focus even with his brothers playing all around him. Some of the words he makes are not real words, but they're still fun to sound out. 

I don't think this moment would have happened like this if I had been pushing him and drilling him to learn letter sounds, making him sit and do workbook pages.  That type of work just kills the wonder and joy, especially at this age. 

Seeing that moment is like seeing the joy of learning before my very eyes.  I will do anything and everything to keep that joy and excitement alive. 

Emotions in kids

I'm working my way through, Playful Parenting, and journaling some of my experiences.  I thought I would share straight out of my journal with you this week! 

Scenario 1:

Today we went to our neighbor's birthday party.  Kai was invited to stay over longer with the bigger kids after the party.  Ezra didn't notice until we got home and he asked, "Where is Kai?"  I explained to him that Kai was invited to stay.  Ezra proceeded to burst into tears and sob and sob.  He wanted Kai to come home and play with him; he wanted to go back over, too.  I think deep down he just wanted to be included.  "I NEVER GET TO DO WHAT I WANT!"  Tears and sadness. 

I was in the middle of cleaning the kitchen.  I wanted him to just stop and play with Jude who was happily playing with cars.  His crying and fussing was so irritating to me.  "I don't want to play with Jude!!!"  I wiped my hands and sat on a stool and pulled Ezzy onto my lap.  I held him and scratched his back while he cried and cried.  I echoed his feelings to him and told him I understood how he felt.  Keeping myself calm and comforting while wondering, Will this crying ever stop?

All-of-a-sudden he stopped crying and looked at me with bright eyes.  "Let's bounce a ball on a blanket!  Like one of our soccer balls!"  I suggested a beach ball.  His face lit up.  "Oh yeah!  That would be better!"  he went to get the beach ball.  I got a blanket and roped in Jude and Scott.  We all stood there laughing and bouncing the ball around, for only a few minutes.  Then Ezzy and Jude drifted off to go play together. 

"Many people will do anything to get the crying to stop:  bribe, threaten, tease, plead, scold, send the child away, give in to unreasonable demands.  If we just accept the feelings and let them flow, they don't cause half as much fuss.  And after the tears are really done, everyone feels better."

"Tears are good.  When we release grief and loss and sadness through crying, we generally feel much better, think more clearly, and recover.  These benefits are especially true when we cry with someone who is caring and empathic."

Scenario 2:

Almost time to go out the door - change clothes, eat dinner quickly.  I'm going to my Bible study.  "Why do you always have to go?" says Kai in a very whiny voice.  It feels like such a selfish question.  It's the one thing I do - the only time I ever leave them.  And Kai - the oldest - is fussing about it.  I'm trying to make dinner quickly and Kai starts crying.  Arrgh.  Ok, Leslie, Stop.  Deep breaths.  He's crying - give him comfort - he feels sad.  I remind myself of this because I don't feel very compassionate about his tears at that moment.  So I go in his room and hold him on my lap, just hugging him.  He's so stiff and not very snuggly - but he needs it as much as the others.  Finally through the sobs, it comes out - it's not really about me leaving, it's about something else that happened in the day.  We talk it through.  Now he's fine, ready to hop off and play.  I hold on a little longer - make sure it's all out.  And he's fine again - happier than ever!

"Emotions don't come from nowhere.  It is presumptuous for us to decide which tears to be compassionate about and which ones to dismiss."

"We can cry alone, but it is so much more healing to cry on someone's shoulder.  That's why I recommend that parents not send their children to their rooms to cry alone, or leave them alone to cry themselves to sleep.  It is more time-consuming to stay with them, to help them let out their feelings of loneliness and sadness, but those feelings don't just go away because we shut the door on them."

"If I limit myself to one piece of advice to adults about children's crying, it is this:  Please do not send them off alone to cry.  Tears can be a tremendous opportunity for strengthening a connection between any two people, but especially between parent and child."

the elusive schedule

Creating a workable schedule is one of the biggest challenges of homeschooling.  It's difficult because a huge benefit of homeschooling is the flexiblility you have.  But at the same time, children thrive with structure as well.  So it's up to me, as mom, to order our days together.  I've tried several different schedules, but finally feel like I'm in a good groove now with Kai. 

Initially, to make our current schedule I sat down with Kai and we listed all the things he'd like to include in our day - this was his chance to say what he would like to happen.  For instance, he wanted to have a time set for soccer, for helping with Koa, for play, snack, free reading, etc.  Those things are important to him and it means a lot to him to be able to see that on his daily schedule.  And that's just fine!

Also, to make it less intimidating, I lumped together all of his seat work and called it "Table Time" on his schedule.  I did this instead of listing separately:  math, writing, and other required work.  I also added "Read with mom," which covers read-alouds, history and science alternately. 

Where other schedules have failed me, this is working great for us.  It's just relaxed enough to retain the flexibility and freedom we love, but has enough structure to make sure we cover our required stuff.  It has enough things that Kai loves and chose for himself that he's willing to do the difficult "table time," which is where our battles were coming from. 

I feel like this year I keep adjusting and readjusting - learning, observing, making changes.  Slowly but surely finding my way through this first year of homeschooling.

Developing character in our kids

Do you ever see a negative character trait expressed in your child and just cringe?  I believe that part of my job as mom is to help my children in their character development.  In the midst of dealing with difficult behaviors, I have to take deep breaths and remind myself to have grace.  Change is a process.  I have to pray about how to best address these things.  And I have to be diligent and not give up, even though it can be an exhausting process.

It helps to reflect, too.  The hard ages for me to deal with seem to be ages 4&5.  I remember going through a really difficult time with Kai at these ages.  I had times where I wondered if I would ever see results?  Would he ever get it?  "It's ok to be angry, but it's not ok to hit, scream, etc."  I repeated this phrase over and over and over again.  I can look back now and honestly say, he got it.  He did learn and he has gained a good measure of self-control over his emotions.  That's what I have to remember as I deal with Ezra and Jude who each turned 3 and 5 and seem to have entered into new phases with new challenges.

I'm working on teaching them about Honor.  According to this book, honor means: 

Treating people as special

Doing more than what's expected

Having a good attitude

I really like that. 

Kai's Poem

I woke up this morning and found a poem sitting on the table, evidence that Kai was busy before I was even awake.

Mik

My Mik can bring and

he has a ring

and he can sting

and he is a king.

It's written in purple marker with an accompanying illustration.  Wow, it really brought a smile to my face! 

Counting Blessings on a Monday

198.  A relatively successful church attendance for the family.
199.  The way Kai takes charge and organizes his day, filling it with fun and productive activities.
200.  Play-fighting with lots of laughter.
201.  The silliness of these boys.
202.  Prayers and advice at women's Bible study.
203.  Hide and go seek at the park.
204.  Writing in my journal consistently again.
205.  Your powerful majestic lightning and thunder.
206.  bookshelves
207.  re-arranging furniture.
209.  benadryl
210.  Walking with my neighbor.
212.  My neighbor starting to homeschool.
214.  Provision
215.  rain, rain and more rain.
217.  Our awesome backyard.
219.  Getting our brakes fixed on the car so quickly.
221.  Christians in Jaco.
222.  Our amazing hermit crabs that are somehow still alive.
223.  Never having to even think about trash or stress about dishes because my husband is so on top of it.
225.  Feeling a flow with homeschool.
226.  Finally, a flexible schedule that Kai likes and sticks to.
227.  Little boys washing dishes.
228.  Koa learning to swim.
229.  Finding a little soccer club for Kai and he loves it.
230.  One-on-one time with Jude.

Cheap Thrills

math struggles

The last two weeks have seen Kai and I seriously struggling to get his math work done.  His eyes glaze over, he says he's "soooo tired," and resists in every way.  I've been trying to push through with the Horizon curriculum we purchased because it was expensive.   Honestly, I was expecting it to be something totally different than it is - which is basically just a set of workbooks with a teacher's manual.  I've also been sticking with it because I don't have the confidence to really know which direction to go with math.  And somewhere in the back of my head there's this little nagging thought, "Is he behind other children?" and "Is he where he needs to be?"   The curriculum has been a crutch for me to lean on to give me that security of knowing that I'm headed in the "right" direction.  But it's not working.  Kai is unhappy.  I am unhappy.  Our relationship becomes strained as I push him to do something he doesn't want to do.  My joyful, happy, curious boy is becoming whiny and grumpy.

Something clicked on Friday when he looked up at me and grabbed his head, "My brain is getting too fat," he said.  "It's too filled up than it's supposed to be." 


I really had to pause and just listen to those words, to really grasp what he was trying to communicate to me.  It was a description of a painful situation for him.  It's time to re-evaluate what I'm doing and make changes.

I spent time this weekend reading through some of my books and exploring articles and blog posts about math.  And crying some, too, just feeling bad about how things are going. 

Here's a few quotes and thoughts and things I'm thinking through.

These are from The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook

"Your curriculum should be tailored to your child and provide him much more time to pursue his interests than your workbooks.  For many parents a good curriculum provides feelings of security.  But parents need to learn how children develop and learn." 

"Why struggle with and push our children to learn something when they don't want to?  'To everything there is a season,' wrote King Solomon.  The wise parent, we have discovered, patiently waits for 'springtime' and 'harvest' rather than forcing something prematurely.  When we find ourselves pushing, we back off and try a new tack."

And from The Three R's by Ruth Beechick


"Practically every item in the first grade curriculum can be taught using real-life methods.  In fact, they are better taught in real life, including games, than in daily sit-down arithmetic lessons.  ...As a homeschool teacher you do not need a workbook and daily written assignments such as a classroom teacher might use.  Your one-on-one teaching can accomplish more.  But if your child likes it, occasional use of a workbook is all right."

And this really interesting article:  Kids Learn Math Easily When They Control Their Own Learning

And this one:  Just Do the Math

As I'm reading all this Ezzy and Jude begin to argue over some toy monkeys.  They each want the set of three monkeys.  So Kai says, "Well, if we had 6 monkeys they could each have three."  The Ezzy says,

"What if Koa wanted three too?"

"Then we would need 9."

"And what if mommy wanted three?"

"12."

And they went all the way up to 21 calculating if our whole family and God each wanted three monkeys.  Kai said each answer without missing a beat.  I looked at him in wonder.  If I had written 9 + 3 =  on a piece of paper and asked him to solve it, he could do it but he would agonize over it.  But here in a real life situation that was interesting for him it was very easy.

This is what Ruth Beechick talks about when she says, "Don't throw away your opportunity by imitating school too closely.  Use real life for teaching."

"...use real-life situations to teach bits of arithmetic and to build a 'need' to know arithmetic."

"Most arithmetic should be mental.  It happens in conversation, not in written assignments."

The last thing I want to do is kill his curiosity and spirit of adventure and joy in learning through a series of workbooks which are ineffective.

Way behind...

I've been counting my way to 1,000 gifts, taking time to give thanks each Monday. I got waaaay behind on my list in the last month or two, but I've been doing some in my journal and thought I'd get back to gratitude on my blog. What a difference it makes to give thanks!

56. Whirring of fans.
57. Freshly cut grass.
58. Spontaneous scissor projects.
59. Sandbags ready for the next big rain.
60. Tax Return!
61. More bike riding and less driving.
62. Homemade get well cards when I'm sick.
63. Chubby baby legs.
64. The way the afternoon rain cools things off.
65. A wrist roll tan line.
66. Geckos in the house.
67. The thrill of a hermit crab changing shells.
68. Kai's soft, high singing voice that is amazingly on key.
69. Leggos - what a great toy.
70. A cool shower after a long, hot day.

71.  Trusting my husband.

72.  Extended baby days with this one.

73.  The way an iguana can captivate their attention so fully.

74.  This face.

75.  The incredible kid he's becoming.  Those moments when I look at him and I'm just amazed.

76.  Older brothers loving and caring for their baby brother.
77.  Fitting into non-maternity clothes - finally!

My mom sent me this article, which lead me to this blog, and this post (watch the video - it had me in tears!) - all with some great thoughts on gratitude with our children and science of the amazing difference this can make in the lives of parents and children.  The Bible exhorts us many times to "give thanks" at all times, in all circumstances.  How amazing to find science that backs this up.  God in his goodness doesn't command us to do things with no reason, but because of His great love for us and because He wants good things for us.  And so it is with giving thanks. 

proud mommy moment!

So, I've been feeling a little, no I should say a lot overwhelmed lately.  I got kind of sick and I've had some trouble shaking it off.  It just kind of seems like things that were relatively easy for me (i.e. making dinner, laundry, basic tasks) are really hard.  My homeschooling has been falling waaaay behind.  I just feel like I can't get things together.   For instance, by the time breakfast is made, served, cleaned up, baby fed, showered, clothed, back to bed for morning nap, it's already 10:00 a.m. and half the morning is already gone.  It just goes on from there, the day slipping through my fingers.  Throw a two year old with a painful ear infection into the mix and you can just imagine.

In the midst of all this I've been observing Kai.  He goes busily about his day doing things that technically would qualify as "school."  He reads books, he makes his own little projects, he does his handwriting.  I'm pretty amazed actually.  Without direction from me, he continues to learn, create and grow in his own way.  Is this "unschooling???" I have no idea, I need to read more about that.

Anyways, yesterday I took some time to just get things organized for him a little bit.  Recognizing the way my days are going, I thought if I can get Kai set up to accomplish some of the things in our curriculum independently it would be great.  So I made the above chart and went over with Kai what he could do for each subject on his own and check off on his own with a dry erase marker.  Later, when I can get the other kids settled, he can show me what he's accomplished in each subject.    

Today was the first day with the new chart.  I cannot tell you the relief I felt to see those little check marks and the completed work he did all on his own.  Not to mention how proud he felt of himself.  Isn't there just a wonderful feeling of accomplishment when you can check things off a list?  By 9:30 a.m. I was able to sit with him and do some math together.  How amazing to know he had already accomplished 4 subjects by that time! Now this is not ideal, I do hope and strive to do the subjects with him.  But I think this is a great thing to have in place for those mornings when things are spiraling out of control - at least one family member can stay on track!

Gratitude

I'm lifting my heart in thankfulness and finding the gifts - sometimes obvious, sometimes hidden - in each day. Counting my way to 1,000....

23. the sound of distant thunder rumbling.
24. a cool breeze.
25. A great time processing with a friend who came from very far away to help us. So thankful for the input in our lives.
26. Thankful that I had a very helpful friend stay with me this weekend while Scott was away.
27. My husband who helps me get perspective when I have a stinky attitude.
28. Kai is doing so great with his writing we're able to move forward with copywork and math.

Gratitude community is here

I love this

My sis-in-law sent me stacks of readers at Christmas and Kai is just eating them up!

Now I keep finding scenes like this all throughout the day and I have to sneak and take a photo of the moment. I absolutely love it! Kai is reading to his brothers!

I can't pinpoint exactly what happened to spark this love of reading, but Kai (7) is insatiable now. He is reading constantly. I wish I knew what it was that caused this to happen so I could ensure that it happens with the other three boys too. I don't know if it's just part of his nature and personality or what? All I do know is I totally love it and as a mom it makes me very happy.

help for writing

Since starting homeschool I realized pretty quickly that Kai is struggling with writing. He's not very confident and handwriting is a source of frustration for him. He avoids writing anything at all costs. This hinders a lot of areas of school, so I know it's something we need focus on. So we've been practicing writing in different mediums - rice, cornmeal, even oatmeal. Well, I got this idea from my friend, Sarah Dawn's blog in the comments section and had to give it a try. The comment suggested writing in different mediums that are fun to eat - like chocolate syrup. I knew my kids would go nuts over this!

We started with a blob of chocolate syrup on a big plate.

Dip fingers in, make some swirls...

and lick!

More swirls...

...more licks! Can you tell Jude's having fun?

Kai works on his spelling words...

with a smile!

Ezra draws and licks too!

The best part is licking the plate when they finish!

yum!

This is another fun one we tried. We whipped up a batch of whipped cream.


Put a glob on a plate...

...and let the fun begin! Ezzy practices making circles and sticks, which is great preparation for writing.

Kai does his spelling and writing practice

All these activities may look like just too much fun, but I am seeing some huge results. All this practice in different mediums is boosting his confidence and skill, which leads to...

this! Real writing on real paper with a real pencil!

No tears and no fuss.

Very careful, neat work.

It feels so good to do a nice job!