Dear Boys

August 20, 2015August 20, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 6 Comments

My Dear Boys,

You are a tsunami. A massive wave of sound, dirt, legos and crumbs, headed towards me with maximum destruction in mind. You have wreaked utter havoc on my life. You have annihilated my peace. You have tossed my career goals out the window. You have brought utter ruin to my waistline. Our bathroom is an unspeakable horror.

I am more than ok with all of the above.

In fact, I thank you for it, wholeheartedly.

Thank you, for ruining my life….so that I could have LIFE.

The stuff listed above …that is just the tip of the iceberg…..want to know what you really broke?

You broke my selfishness in pieces.

You shattered my vanity.

My pride? I don’t even know where you left it…but last time I looked at it, pride was gasping for breath.

Self righteousness?

My need to judge others silently in my head?

Greed?

Oh sweet boys, I tucked those in jars years ago and hid them deep in the darkest crevices of my heart. You found them. You brought them out. You smashed them to pieces on the ground. The foul odor of them rushed up to greet me and I could not escape them. You stood there watching me, wondering what I would do with the mess you uncovered.

I looked in Bible and saw good and evil. I understood what sin was. But I never knew the depth of my sin, until I saw it reflected back to me from the blindingly bright mirror of my children.

Wether it was the morning at the museum when one boy let out an exasperated, “DAMN IT!” or when another scolded a toddler at the library in an all too familiar tone, “FOR PETE’S SAKE JUST SIT STILL FOR TWO MINUTES AND DON’T MOVE ANYMORE.” Or that time when I sat you boys down to discuss sharing the gospel with others and not a minute passed before one of you asked, “Do you do that too, Mom? I’ve never seen you do that to anyone.”

No matter how hard I tried to focus on you boys and your hearts and your upbringing, you always turned it around. Flashed the mirror in my face. Forced me to look at myself.

You forced me to surrender the ugliest parts of myself to Jesus.

Thank you.

When I graduated from college I had a few books in mind, things I would write and ways I would change the world.

I didn’t do any of them.

Instead of bringing change….I am changed.

When I tried to impress God’s words on your hearts, you turned around and impressed them on my heart.

When I wanted to parent you from a corner of fear and anxiety, you broke free and taught me to parent you with courage and bravery and trust in God.

You….

and you….

Being your mother, is one of the greatest honors of my life.

If all I ever do is serve you.

Wash your feet.

Be brave alongside you.

Love Jesus beside you.

Well, thats more than I ever dreamed of.

Being my ugliest before you has led me to the beautiful freedom of grace and mercy—and that makes it all truly lovely.

Love,
Mom

This piece was written for our original blog Nest to Nest in April of 2013.

The Real Distraction

August 19, 2015September 22, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 17 Comments

The desperate questions we homeschool moms toss back and forth amongst ourselves. I’ve asked them one hundred times before, “What do you do with your little ones while the older ones are learning? How do you stay organized? How do you get anything done?”

We ask it in our communities and co-ops, over the dull roar of one hundred kids with biblical appellations. One Mom is shouting, “Hosea Jeremiah! Don’t you dare!” and three unrelated children have turned in response to the sound of their name being called. We lean in closer, “Seriously, what do you do!?! EVERYTHING is falling apart.”

We ask in the quiet sanctuary of our local Chik-fil-a’s, yoga pants parked on the pleather booth seats, while we sip milkshakes and watch the lineup behind the plexiglass window go berserk. “What do you do? What should I do? I feel like a disaster, oh no, am I a disaster?”

With a meager 4 years of homeschooling under my belt that no longer fits, I can say with some confidence that there is no infallible 7 step Plan to Peaceful Perfect Homeschooling. This is because our homeschools contain gaggles of progeny made up of tiny sinful humans comprised of all our worst faults and annoying habits in all their second generation glory. (Don’t even get me started on the leadership!) We cannot organize our humanity away. Homeschooling is a joyful, wonderful, messy, chaotic thing. Oftentimes it comes with toddlers attached, so multiply the previous statement by a million.

Its hard to teach with littles around. You had set goals, you had a schedule, you printed such lovely things to use. You pinned that picture of a gorgeous montessori space with the delicate shaft of light flowing through the room <insert children, outrageous expectation and false hopes here>. You read that terrific book by that homeschooling mother of thirty seven children who always does laundry on Monday no. matter. what. It was all going so well until you stopped planning it and tried doing it. Your family showed up and ruined it. You yelled and then you cried. Then the toddlers picked up the mangled corpse of your expectations, colored on it with permanent marker and then flushed it down the toilet.

On the eve of my first day as a homeschooling motherload of awesomeness, I wrote out that oft touted John Trainer, M.D. quote, “Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” I taped it to my planner as my rallying cry for my first school year.

Children.

Children required organic meal plans, schedules, mommy and me classes, vitamins, story time, heaps of books and lots of laminated chore charts. Children are the most important WORK. I was a Stay at Home Mom. Lets get a big schedule together so I can show my WORK. I proceeded to hush my tasmanian toddler and fussy baby so my older children could learn. I spent months in a downward spiral of frazzled nerves and empty bottles of whiteout until I landed in a motherload of awfulness.

Then one day I gave up.

I threw out the expectations and invited happiness back in. We made messes. We tossed out the schedule and adopted a rhythm that worked for our family. We didn’t do the laundry every single Monday. I stopped combing blogs for one size fits all answers for our home. Instead they became springboards of encouragement for greater research into the ever changing chemistry of our family. I stopped comparing and started caring. As the elder children advanced in their classes, I stopped treating my toddlers like distractions by scheduling distractions for them. Instead, I invited them to come and learn alongside us. I encouraged their wonder and curiosity.

And you should know that this is never perfect, far from it. Team A has learned that school always involves Team B. Math goes on even if the toddler is in full on tantrum mode. The blocks of time that make up our day press on. Language Arts could very well happen next to a giant pile of laundry. I was thankful when our first grade curriculum called for “Science with Water” because I knew we’d finish science every day, even if it was in the bathtub.

The preschoolers get the chance every day to learn alongside their big brothers. The big brothers get the chance every day to die to self and understand that they are not the center of the universe. They know that family takes commitment and love and sacrifice and ear plugs. The other day our six year old commented, “Being a Dad will be the hardest and best job in the world, I think.”

As our school days get longer, it takes a firm resolve to preserve wonder for my children. There are days when I have to renew the commitment to take things slow with my little ones. To ignore the constant calls for perfection from the world around me. The four year old doesn’t care about big brother’s latin homework. He cares about stories on his Mama’s lap. The two year old does not care what the house looks like. He cares about kisses and cuddles and jumping in puddles. My soul does not care what the daily agenda is. My soul cares about spending time in God’s word.

There will be bad days. Very bad days. Days rife with opportunity— the chance to get on my knees and humbly beg forgiveness from my children for letting my pride get in the way of my loving them well.

We are in this for the long haul. This road where life, love and learning mingle together, inseparable. And still I am tempted to ask the questions. Because for me, those questions have little to do with a truly peaceful home and a lot to do with perceptions of myself as a mother, homemaker and teacher.

This crazed rush to prove ourselves as homeschool moms? THAT IS THE REAL DISTRACTION. Its not crying babies, or laundry, or curious toddlers, or whining children, or endless To-Do lists. Its that devil dialect that drums a tattoo pattern of doubt across our days, tricks us into thinking we are insufficient, lures us into dissatisfaction and blind desire for optimal conditions.

I’ve stopped looking for perfection. I am content to practice. We practice a lot.

We practice habit training. We practice loving each other well. We practice forgiveness and laughter. We practice balance and second chances. We practice patience with tiny people hell bent on ruining our morning. We practice learning together. And failure? Failure is just an opportunity for more practice.

MFW Adventures: Benjamin Franklin & Layers

August 13, 2015August 13, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

We get a lot of lightning storms. This time of year, we have them almost every day! Our study of Benjamin Franklin coincided nicely with the weather. Last night, the bad weather rolled in just as the sun was setting.

It was overwhelming. Soon after the evening meal, the inside of our home suddenly turned a brilliant golden pink. We ran outside to see what was going on! We were greeted by brilliant colors, the rumble of thunder and powerful lightning bolts transecting the sky’s rosy palette. A great way to end a week of lightning watch. Thanks, God!

If you’ve been following our blog, you know by now that I am a bit of a book junkie. I hyper focus on books all. the. time.
So I am taking a page out of Ben Franklin’s personal book of improvements and finding ways to improve the way I ~~do laundry~~ homeschool with books. Book overload is not a good thing. I am learning to cut back on book volume and instead of grabbing copious amounts of literature repeating the same information ad nauseaum, I am choosing a few solid books that are well written and beautifully illustrated. I am trying to make sure that our book basket has variety and sustains high interest levels. Do I really need 6 books on Benjamin Franklin that all present the same biographical material? No. For example, we picked up “A Picture Book of Benjamin Franklin” by John Alder at our local library last week. This book is fine but not necessary for our week because it parrots back all the information we received through other sources. We ended up slipping that particular book, along with a few others, back into the library bag.

Benjamin Franklin Book List:
1. Benjamin Franklin Young Printer by Augusta Stevenson We read a few chapters from this biography every night before bedtime. The boys loved hearing stories about Benjamin Franklin as a child. In fact, he simply became “our pal Ben” during these evening readings. How fun to step inside the Franklin family banter! Ben made tough, deliberate decisions even as a child–this captivated my boys.
2. Now and Ben by Gene Barretta We loved this book! Bright and engaging. Parallels our world today with the innovations created by Franklin way back “Ben.” The four year old always came sniffing around when this book was pulled out.
3. The Amazing Life of Benjamin Franklin by James Cross Giblin The pictures alone are enough to draw a crowd.
4. Electric Ben by Robert Byrd My boys read this one back and forth to each other.
5. Ben and Me by Robert Lawson Another great chapter book read. This was our lunchtime book and my children are so hopeful for their own Amos.
6. Whats the Big Idea Ben Franklin? by Jean Fritz My second born has chosen to read this book on his own. He is 3/4 of the way done and I am excited to hear his “report” when it is finished. I love that he is interested enough to pick up a book on his own.
7. Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares by Frank Murphy Simple enough for my son to read by himself. He came running into my office, waving the book and begging for help so that he could make his own “magic squares.” He made magic squares all week long.
8. Benjamin Franklin by Indri D’Aulaire Our primary resource (outside of The Story of the U.S.) Beautiful, informative, incredibly engaging.

Our Beautiful Feet study has now synced up perfectly with MFW Adventures. We read the D’aulaires book, “Benjamin Franklin” each morning while coloring in the free pages provided by bfbooks.com.

One of our favorite chapters in the book, “Ben Franklin, Young Printer,” describes Josiah Franklin’s undercover methods of educating his children. Josiah and Abiah would invite guests over for dinner and through carefully crafted questions, lead the guests through a series of informative conversations that would edify their children and open the world to them while their little feet remained planted under the dinner table.
Now on his return trip home, Uncle Captain David stopped by for pizza and brought along his sea charts. Once the pizza was consumed, the chart was placed on the floor, measuring instruments were brought out and my children were soon learning how to plot courses around buoys, shipwrecks and shallow water.

My eldest remarked later, “I think we should do this kind of Franklin School Style more often!” We are so thankful for a wonderful visit with our dear friend and for his willingness to sprawl out on the living room floor and talk to our boys about the things he is learning.

I would have loved to spend our week outdoors doing fun Ben Franklin Activities as originally planned; but the heat, lightning and mosquitoes convinced us otherwise. The great outdoors are a great misery right now. I didn’t want the kids bouncing off the walls all week. (This summer we are averaging 3 nose bleeds a day thanks to wrestling, wiggling and plain-old “not watching where you walk”). How to have a fun week learning about Ben Franklin with minimal outdoor time while also avoiding meaningless handouts? Hmmm…

Dare we try lap-booking?

Confession: I never really fancied myself a “lap book” kinda gal. They seemed like an inordinate amount of work for Moms with mixed reviews on how much kids actually learned. The endless copying, card stock, glue, coloring, assembling–yay! More “Things to Do.” I wondered what percentage of these books were actually put together by children? Also, anything that feeds my Type A personality in a negative way is something I tried to avoid. Lap books just seemed like the homeschool version of crystal meth for my personality. (RUN AWAY!) Anyways, my boys have loved Ben Franklin for many years (devotion to the point of attempting non-sanctioned haircuts in B.Franklin’s money style) and they wanted to do a BIG PROJECT when we reached our pal Ben during Adventures. You know whats coming….

We finished a lapbook.

Or rather, THEY finished a lapbook. Yup, we took the plunge. As you can see from the cover page, I was not in charge of coloring. I certainly did the majority of the assembling, but these boys took charge!

Homeschool in the Woods lap-pak study of Benjamin Franklin was incredibly fun and meaningful. The instructions are clear and precise. The Benjamin Franklin book we assembled was lovely and I am so thankful that it came with Audio accompaniment. I was able to leave Team A coloring, cutting materials and listening to audio, while Team B and I sorted laundry on the other side of the house.

I was a bit worried that we would overload on the Franklin family if we integrated this lap-pak with our MFW study, but it complemented everything quite nicely. The boys were always looking forward to the next small project. If they did not have such a high degree of interest then the lap-pak thing just would not have worked for us. But these boys wanted more! And the lap-pak delivered.
Leather apron trades, inventions, timelines, contributions, documents, etc. Kudos to Homeschool in the Woods for this thoughtfully prepared material. My eldest loved getting to set the type for his own name with all the letters placed backwards and then seeing it close down on his name with the letters facing the right way. The second-born loved reading about Ben’s inventions and setting up the printing press diorama.
Once we assembled the books, I carved 10-15 minutes out my day with each son so they could walk me through their lap-pak. They were so proud of their hard work and eager to relay as much information as they could.

“See this armonica? Mozart liked it so much he made music for it. Thats how awesome Ben Franklin was. I want to build an armonica because you can’t get them in a store. They are in museums now.”
“All the printer’s type go in backwards because when it presses down then the letter go the right way. Its a mirroring thing, you know?”
“Just think about how important the Treaty of Paris was, you know Mom? And Ben Franklin helped write it and sign it! He was already pretty old by then so he had to use the bifocals he invented.”
“This is all the stuff he did. This line right here stops right before he’s your age Mom, which means he did all this before he was your age!”
“Ben Franklin practiced these 13 virtues. My favorite is Temperance but really I think we could all use more Silence.”

If Ben Franklin is just another week for you, proceed as planned. But if your kiddos have a special interest in him and would enjoy something “extra” then I recommend this lap-pak with two hearty thumbs up. (PS. Its geared for grades k-2). The boys learned a lot about the life of Ben Franklin and the importance of following directions. I learned that I am a lap-book “once in awhile” kinda gal and am in no danger whatsoever of becoming addicted.

Last but not least, SCIENCE.Lots of Magic Schoolbus over here! Beep, beep! We love reading Faith McNulty’s “How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World.” Its one of our favorite books to read on a fairly regular basis.

This year I deliberately included Gail Gibbon’s “Planet Earth/ Inside Out.” This book uses evolution and big bang terms throughout. I walked the boys through the basics of each theory using the book. We looked at the creation account (even browsed through our old MFWK Creation books) and then reread “Planet Earth/Inside Out.” Plenty of discussion and great questions. I had to look up a few things and the boys followed along as I researched. The second born was fascinated by Robert Ballard’s current research of the biblical flood’s impact on an ancient shoreline at the bottom of the Black Sea. My eldest wants to research the possibility of pangea’s existence before the flood and the subsequent break up as a result of the flood. I love that he is wondering about that. I am glad that he is sorting through questions about creation and evolution while at home. I went to an evangelical college with a lot of kids that were taught nothing but creation at home and then went through major crises once they arrived in science class and began learning all these theories. I love that homeschooling provides platforms for researching and asking questions together about the beautiful mysteries of the universe our God so lovingly created.

How fascinating is our earth? The boys resounding question was “But how do scientists know this FOR SURE?” They are hungry to learn more about the scientific method and the history of science in general.
I made a pretty ~~ugly and haphazard~~ basic felt puzzle for the boys to play with. They loved sorting the layers of the earth and labeling the various pieces, all the while asking for MORE INFORMATION! Something tells me that our high school science years will be quite the doozy!

Next week we begin our study of my eldest son’s all time favorite person ever: George Washington! We may be taking more than a week to finish our study, we plan on enjoying it to the fullest!
Happy Adventuring, friends!

Pin it! Maps—Hands on Geography for Everyone!

August 1, 2015October 2, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 4 Comments

When we first started homeschooling, teaching geography was quite the achilles heel for me.

Like all new challenges, I started slow. We began by building our vocabulary of maps and legends. We would pull a laminated map out each morning, the minute we sat down at the table, and the boys would begin tracing states, continents, etc.

Soon we progressed to drawing maps with tracing paper, eventually adding in some blob mapping by the end of the year. I would ask the boys questions as they worked, “Show me Augusta, Maine?” or “Tell me what this body of water is?” It worked well for us but it was hard to gauge our progress at times.

Then during a playdate, a friend pulled out a gorgeous (and frightfully expensive) Montessori map. It came with pins for the different national flags so the children could mark the countries they knew. My boys loved playing with this map. I thought it was lovely…just not $150 lovely.

You can imagine my excitement when we discovered Pin it! Maps, which was founded by a wonderful, Montessori-loving Mama who decided to make affordable pin maps.

And she did not stop with national flag pins! She included labels for land and water forms, country capitals, islands, lines, etc. These maps are extensive and a tremendous bang for the buck!

Our World Map set included:
(1) large pin map (18 x 24)
(2) control maps (12 x 18): continents & oceans, land & water forms.
69 color coded flag labels
Flag poles and bases
Scotch tape

Our Central America map set had a similar layout but also included national flag pins for each country in Central America & the Caribbean.

Our maps arrived in a sturdy package, no bent corners for us! We purchased the actual pins from our local JoAnn Fabrics. Assembling the completed pins took three half-hour sessions. The perfect scotch tape of corresponding width was included in the package. The assembly process was simple but definitely required some time. First take a pin, place it next to the flag and secure with the appropriate size tape. Fit the pin with a tiny plastic pole and base. Repeat many, many times and then, Voila! Finished! I corralled all the pins into a plastic box with a lid for storage. The labor was worth the final product.

The seven and six year olds were the first to tackle these maps. We set our pin map on its styrofoam backing and then propped a control map up behind it. The boys took turns reading out the labels and finding the locations on the map. They loved getting to see how much they already knew without referencing the control map. They also enjoyed racing to see who could find the answer on the control map first.

Their curiosity was stirred by the elements we had yet to study. The World Map Set includes a beautiful legend with pictures of various biomes. The legend itself promoted whole new discussions about biomes that stay consistent within their latitude across various continents.

Here are some of the comments made while using their Pin it! Maps:

~”Hmm, I’ve traced that area lots of times and I had no idea there was a volcano there!”
~”I never knew the Tropic of Cancer ran through there!
~”Sometimes on a regular map, all the words get mish-mashed. Look here! I can tell what all the words are now and it doesn’t get mixed up in my brains.”
~”Look at all the deserts in Africa. This country is almost all desert. I didn’t know that.”
~”Look at all these flags, Mom! Can you believe that is how much I know? And look how much I have left to go!”

All around, a fantastic tactile experience for the boys that provided a great visual progress report.

The four year old was up next. We used the control map of the continents as a play mat. He placed different animals on the 7 continents. We sang through our songs about oceans and continents. I had not planned on busting out the pins for him until he asked to use them. I pulled out pins for the seven continents and read each one aloud before surrendering the pin for placement. He did a wonderful job and best of all, he had a great time placing the flags and repeating everything back to me. After a few sessions with this routine, I will add in water and landform pins, building his repertoire as time marches on. Younger children will require careful explanation of these materials and the care they require. I plan to build the care and maintenance of this set into our habit training lessons.

I am impressed with these maps, affordability did not mean compromising on quality. I love the clearly marked legends and lines. Sturdy bases and poles, unique pin points to help with identification, lovely colors, and thoughtful details throughout each set. It really felt less mass-produced and more thoughtfully crafted. These are maps my children can grow up with. I deeply appreciate investing in resources that are not one-season wonders. These maps are a lifelong tool.
We will be using various map sets for our personal home study as follows:

Classical Conversations Cycle 1: Africa Map set, Asia Map set, Central America Set
Classical Conversations Cycle 2: Europe Map Set, South America Map Set
Classical Conversations Cycle 3: North American Map Set
MFW 1st: Asia Map Set
MFW Adventures: North America Map Set
MFW Exploring Countries & Cultures: World Map Set (No national flag pins in this set! National flags are in the continent specific sets!) and the Landforms Map Set.

(note: Pin it! Maps does sell map bundles with all continents included!)

If you like what you see, Pin it! Maps has graciously extended a promo code for all our Farmhouse/Schoolhouse readers.

10% off with the code: farm

This offer expires 10/31/2015.

Happy Pinning!

___________________________________________________
I purchased one map set and received another in exchange for this review. All opinion expressed above are completely my own and were not influenced by any outside sources.

MFW Adventures: New Netherlands + Wiggle Room

July 31, 2015July 31, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

Lots of new growth on the farm this month! Pineapples, bananas, watermelon, and avocados. What a great boost of encouragement for us as we lay out plans for our big fall garden.

We have wrapped up the unit on New Netherlands. Confession: I had no idea how to plan for this one. Not too many activities lurking around pinterest for this one. A trip to the library yielded a scant six books. I decided to keep the planner as bare as possible for the week. You know, keep a little wiggle room? I was tempted to take advantage of this “slow” week by adding extra geography or art, but I restrained myself. Instead, at the end of each session, I would turn to the boys and ask, “Lets play what we learned! What should we do?”

Well, these boys have zero problems being creative. They loved being in charge of our activities for this unit! We planned out settlements with our lincoln logs. We colored in maps of Old Boston and made a town meeting diorama.

We built windmills, sea port dioramas and Dutch step homes. We played with them during activity time.

We took the loom out to the backyard and did some weaving while we “watched the sheep.” We had to bring our rifles along in case the wolf (our west highland terrier) showed up. We pretended to take long sea voyages while huddled in bunk beds.
Then we had this conversation:

Six year old: “Sooo how come you never make those crazy snacks that go with our Adventures stuff? Like that little cookie bear driving a covered wagon made out of marshmallows and graham crackers.”
Me: “Because toddlers.”
Six year old: “Can I make a cool snack for us?”
Me: “Sure, what do you have in mind for Dutch Pioneers?”
Six year old: “I was thinking crescent rolls stuffed with gummy worms. Ya know, for the moldy bread?”
Me: “Not bad kiddo. You should write out a line up for the whole year!”

Not all ideas were approved. For example, the suggestion: “Lets invent a Separatist’s Diarrhea Bucket for sea trips! You go mix some mud for the diarrhea…” was met with, “Hmmmm, lets rethink this game a bit.”

So we went on a very long sea voyage while summer rain pounded down on the roof of the farmhouse. Whenever lightning flashed we’d roll about on the bunk beds and pretend to be seasick while someone shouted out “Day 42!” or “Day 127!” The boys excel at feigning sea sickness, so I can check that off the list, “Things the Boys should learn in 2nd Grade.” We sometimes read aloud from our book basket to pass the time during the voyage. Then the six year old began to direct things, “We’ll eat this moldy worm bread and Mom, you can be Trinka the cow. Go hide in the closet with the other cows and let out a sad, seasick, ‘Mooooo’ every once in a while.” (I have grown so much as an actress this year between my turns as Goodwife Misery and Trinka the cow). The six year old became a little overbearing and at one point my four year old rolled his eyes and said, “Ugh! You are such a Duke of York!” Guess the preschool gang has been absorbing more than I thought they would…

Have I mentioned how much we love ” American Pioneers and Patriots?” We are quite thrilled with it! Hands down our favorite part of Adventures so far. These stories about children throughout history make my sons wonder about their own place/story in history. Here are a few other books we read this week:

James E. Knight books—so much information relayed through these engaging stories!

We are also plodding our way through Betsy Maestro’s book: The New Americans: Colonial Times 1620-1689. We began last week during Pilgrims and we read a bit more this week about the colonists in New Amsterdam. The book does describe plenty of the violence between the settlers and the Native Americans. I am still not sure how much of the book we will finish in weeks to come. As always, I must balance informing their minds while still taking their young age into consideration and protecting their hearts. The fragility of their innocence is both humbling and terrifying sometimes.

We watched Magic School Bus, baked bread and finished our yeast experiments. We churned butter and kept working on our handicrafts.

We completed our Beautiful Feet study of “The Courage of Sarah Noble,” well ahead of the MFW schedule, which allows us to read “The Matchlock Gun” next week, during Michigan Pioneers. We snuck in “Sign of the Beaver” during our noon reading. “Sign of the Beaver” carries many parallels to “The Courage of Sarah Noble,” but replaces a young heroine with a young hero. The boys were thrilled at the thought of being abandoned in the wilderness with only Indian neighbors for company. They are currently wondering which part of the farm they can run away to and how long they might survive there. Many votes have been cast in favor of “somewhere near the chicken coop so we can eat eggs!” We also managed to squeak in a few chapters of “Misty of Chincoteague.” I had not planned to read this book at all for our Adventures year, but our language arts book, Writing With Ease, used it this week and the boy’s collective curiosity was piqued. After all, “American Pioneers and Patriots” featured animals brought over on ships to New Amsterdam. What other voyages did European animals take to come to the New World? My eldest is considering penning a small children’s book for his baby brother about just such a journey. Whether or not he ever does it, I am pleased that he is thinking about storytelling.

This unit was 40% pretend play, 40% read alouds and 20% science experiments. Does it sound like we read a lot? Well, we do. If your family does not read out loud much, don’t feel less than. I love reading and it has naturally flourished in our home because I make a huge effort to read out loud as many times a day as possible. We suffer greatly in other areas because of that single minded effort (read: LAUNDRY). I encourage you to do what you can with where you are in life. Even if its just ten minutes a day. Don’t feel guilty, just start somewhere and be consistent!

The boys always keep their hands busy while I read. The preschool gang made use of our sensory bins during story time. Mostly water beads, kinetic sand, corn and playdoh. They have learned to play quietly and are quite absorbed in what they are doing when measuring cups, magnifying glasses, scissors and toob figures are involved. Its taken training over the course of many weeks, but the stretches of quiet play are getting longer and longer each day!

This week we used the book “Colonial America.” It provided the patterns for the projects listed earlier in this post. Dutch step homes, windmills, etc. This book was more challenging than the Pilgrims History Pockets book we used the week before. The boys had no trouble coloring in and cutting out all the pieces, but they were only able to independently assemble 2 out of the 8 projects we finished. I would not recommend this book if you are looking for independent work, unless your child is especially deft at constructing these sorts of models.

Our favorite project was probably the “Look Inside Log Cabin.”
The boys loved seeing how simple these log cabin homes were. “No room for toys inside…so that means the outside world was where the kids played all of the time!” They seemed to be inspired by this prospect. During our Mom’s group playdate, my second-born eschewed the splash pad at the park in order to climb our family’s favorite giant banyan tree, far away from the group.

When I asked him about it he responded, “I am a pioneer boy in my heart today. I want to only be in this tree with my thoughts and imagine whatever I want. I think its the best way to play.” Little by little, his brothers joined him. When we arrived home, they quickly changed clothes and headed outdoors again; eager to collect eggs and mushrooms, scouting for places to build a log cabin, gathering pinecones and jasmine flowers to trade with neighboring Indian villages.

These imaginative adventures are made of rich stuff, my friends.

Nature Walks & Our Hike Pack

July 26, 2015July 27, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 9 Comments

Nature hikes and nature journals. Two parts of homeschool life that are growing in importance over time. In fact, it has become essential to our life as homeschoolers.

When we first started homeschooling, I assumed that the scheduled “Nature Walk” portions of our curriculum were just a “get them out of the house” option. And while these scheduled walks do get them out of the house, they have become so much more than that to our family.

Nature walks have given us an abundance of time. When we are at home I always feel like the days are slipping by and the children are growing too quickly. Out in nature, everything slows down. Time seems to multiply. Details, thousands of details, spring up all around us. We begin to discover and wonder aloud. We start naming, classifying, drawing and jotting down notes of things to look up later. We sit quietly and reflect. We are lost in a canopied cathedral, where worship and wonder mingle and flow unconstrained.

This year we have been keeping more formal notebooks of our time outside. Seasons, times, sightings, sketches, thoughts, ideas. The six year old loves making tree rubbings against the bark of the biggest trees he can find. My seven year old is quite keen on sketching hawks. The four year has been content to draw bats over and over and over. Guess what? He’s getting quite proficient at drawing bats! His drawing skills improve through this repetition. We are starting to find our bearings a little quicker with practice. Before the compass is pulled out we each take a guess. Which way is North? Over time the guesses have become more accurate. Where is the closest body of water? What are the names of the trees in this forest or park?

Today, I finished reading “Keeping A Nature Journal” by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth. It has inspired me to keep my own journal and quit overseeing my children’s journals.

Summers are difficult where we live. Extreme heat and extreme bugs make outdoor time a misery. The majority of our outings are to parks and the beach. If we rise particularly early, then we are able to go out for a hike in the local preserves. The rest of the year is gorgeous perfection and we are often outside rambling around the farm or in the pine woods nearby. We make great effort to get outside every day and once we are there, I leave the boys up to their own devices for awhile. Its amazing what stories they come home with.

I keep a backpack, stocked and ready for these hikes.

Included in our Hike Pack:

1) (4) 2 x 3 rugs from IKEA
2) Pencil case stocked with pencils (HB, 2B and 3B) erasers and a few colored pencils.
3) Pocket knife
4) Badger Sunscreen and Bug Spray combo
5) Take Along Guides
We use: Caterpillars, Bugs and Butterflies by Mel Boring
Trees, Leaves and Bark by Diane L Burnes
Tracks, Scats and Signs by Leslie Dendy
6) Nature Journals
We use: Classical Conversations Nature Sketch Journals for 7 and 6 year old.
Run of the mill composition journals for myself and the 4 year old.

Also in the pack but not pictured…

7) Diapers + wipes
8) Flashlight for checking tree burrows
9) Cell phone w full battery
10) First Aid Kit
11) Compass

Before we leave for the Nature Walk we usually read a passage from an adventurous book my boys have expressed fondness for. For example, “Wild Animals I have Known” by Ernest Thompson Seton or any of Thornton Burgess’ Animal stories. We make sure we are wearing the correct footwear and that we have been sprayed and lotioned in order to fend off ticks and UV Rays. We grab our water bottles and the boys usually arm themselves with binoculars and wooden rifles. Then, we set out to find the spectacular ordinary and the beautifully mundane. We do not go looking for tigers or elephants. We walk quietly in the nature that is part of our space and time and we try to get to know it a little better and in doing so we know ourselves and each other better.

Boys love to collect things. I am forever turning pockets inside out before loading the wash. I’ve had a few terrified lizards leap out at me and once or twice a wriggly worm. Usually, the pockets are stuffed to the brim with seeds and rocks and bits of twine.

This is quite wonderful for us. On rainy days or unbearably hot days, we pull out those little treasures and sketch them. I have also found these small acrylic boxes from Oriental Trading Co. to be quite useful!

We can enclose paper wasp nest fragments, snake skins, fragile exoskeletons or decaying leaves inside. It is then passed around so the boys can examine their finds without crushing or mangling them.

The clear view from every side is perfect for studying our specimens up close! The boys, inspired by Teddy Roosevelt, have decided to curate their own small museums. We are preserving their best finds each school year and then displaying them in shadow boxes. The boys will be responsible for curating their specimens, labeling them and pinning them in place.

I asked my son the other day, “What is your favorite thing about Nature Walks?” He responded quickly, “Its the biggest space for me to wander and think about all I am learning and all the stuff I still don’t know. Everything feels taped together. I feel really small and really big all at the same time. Mostly, I just like looking at all the wonderful things God took the time to make.”

MFW Adventures: Pilgrims & Constellation Fun!

July 25, 2015July 25, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 2 Comments

Its the end of week/unit 5 and I am pleased as punch that we decided to use MFW Adventures this year. What a fantastic curriculum!

We started the week with a classroom switch up. I try to rotate things every 4 weeks to keep the preschoolers from rebelling.

Our reading corner has a new location away from the play stand, or as it was known the first four weeks of Adventures, “The Launching Pad.” After repeated collisions and head trauma, I figured it was time to rearrange things.

Puzzles (Target dollar spot finds) and toys were swapped out too. I never keep more toys out than they can clean up within 10 minutes. We clean the classroom at the end of each day and I am not a fan of spending more than 10 minutes doing so. I’m glad we started the week out with a fresh feel in the room. I rotate the toys to keep the little guys interested and engaged.

I really needed hands skillfully occupied this week. We kept last week’s Native American sensory bin and also added a sensory bin filled with water beads. The boys had a few tiny ships in there at one point and launched several journeys to the new world across a sea of colorful beads.

Lots of rain and thunderstorms this week meant no great outdoors for us. I chose my flexible version of the Pilgrims unit since we would not be making tiny Plymouth plantations out of sticks and mud in the great outdoors as previously requested.

The boys were still not over last week’s Native American study when we began on Monday. We definitely had a lot of thematic carry over. The boys made a few more necklaces and even started a line of Indian pottery fashioned from modeling clay. Squanto is cooler than Ironman around this house.

I don’t believe I have ever read a book about Pilgrims in the middle-end of July. Usually, such books are read in the coolness of a dry November, under a shady tree, after a large dinner. How strange to read in this blazing heat and pouring rain. We did not feel very Thanksgiving-ish. I am ok with that. We have a Thanksgiving Unit included in our MFW package which I will gladly use in November. To be honest, there is so much more to the Pilgrims than just Thanksgiving. I’m a bit glad all the cliche stuff was out of the way!

Our Beautiful Feet study led us through “Pilgrim Stories” by Margaret Pumphrey; “Squanto: Friend of the Pilgrims” by Clyde Robert Bulla; and “The Pilgrims of Plimoth” by Marcia Sewall. These books are rich and deep and thought provoking. My boys asked many difficult questions that led to very hard conversations about persecution. “Pilgrim Stories” was very informative but quite long to get through. The boys colored through a 3D map, coloring pages from pinterest and completed activities from a colonial history pockets book to pass the time as I read aloud. We would pause after each chapter to discuss storyline and ask questions.

We loved our book basket this week! “If you sailed on the Mayflower in 1620” absolutely captivated my boys. It asks a new question on each page and then provides a detailed but brief response. Since it was not one long continuous narrative, we were able to go through a few pages each day that pertained to the storyline in our other chapter books. It all unintentionally worked out.

“You wouldn’t want to Sail on the Mayflower” was also quite the crowd pleaser…

But the real winners were a quartet of books from the library about colonial trades. My boys were thrilled with these!

They expressed interest in opening their own individual blacksmith trades and we made signs for their respective shops; “Sharp the Gizzard” and “The Hunter’s Blacksmith.”

Lots of imaginative play around the farmhouse this week. The boys were quite struck by all the strange Puritan names in the books we read (Love, Fear, Patience) and dubbed me “Goodwife Misery.” I was told that as a mute I could not comment on the living conditions. I basically sat in a chair while they brought me various household items. They would go hunting and gathering. They “planted” corn (yellow construction paper bits) in the couch. Later when I went to clean up, I found a can of tuna wedged alongside it. I am grateful that it was a sealed can of tuna. I love this kind of play that points to deeper learning. These stories are staying with them beyond the classroom.

We took up a new craft this week!

The loom is from Melissa and Doug. We were able to snag it for $10 with a coupon. All of my boys have loved giving the loom a try and we have two completed products so far. Weaving isn’t just for the little gals!

We watched library videos about Miles Standish and Plymouth Plantation, along with Drive Thru History’s episode on Plymouth. I managed to find my childhood favorite “The Mouse and the Mayflower” for free on youtube.

The lovely MFW blog, Chaos meets Creativity, shared a link for a very cute Mayflower game. Unfortunately, the boys were not very interested in playing by the time I finally got around to pulling it out because they wanted CONSTELLATIONS!

Our library had nearly every book on the MFW recommended book basket list for science this week. We read them all, along with our favorite well-worn copy of “A Children’s Introduction to the Night Sky” by Michael Driscoll. I love that book! We all wished we could go outside this week with the telescope, alas, certain death by mosquitos just was not worth it. Ah, life in the tropics.

I printed out Montessori cards, lacing cards and set out black squares of construction paper along with little star stickers so they could build various constellations.

We even made constellation tubes!

Yup…45 minutes of work to put those puppies together and the two eldest had zero interest in them. ZERO.

Truth is, I spent tons of time laminating, coloring, punching holes, wrapping, organizing, etc; and my kids just wanted to spend time making their own constellations THEIR way. You don’t always have to be fancy. Simplicity seems to be the recipe for flourishing around here. Complication almost always backfires on me. (I’ll learn the lesson one day, right?) Child-crafted constellations were popping up everywhere. Leaving soggy cheerios on the dining room table in the shape of Cassiopeia; connecting the freckles on your brother’s face with a pen to find Andromeda; arranging the Little Dipper in the schoolroom abacus, building your own constellations is quite a marvelous undertaking!

My personal favorite is simple and sweet– a boy with some sidewalk chalk and a bucket of rocks to mark the stars with.

Isn’t child-led play a wonder? I love it. These boys taught themselves more about constellations this week than I did with my sad little basket of internet offerings. This is as it should be. Way to go, boys!

Planning a Homeschool Year

July 22, 2015July 23, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 6 Comments

Over the last two or three weeks, we have been flooded with questions about planning.

How do we plan a homeschool year? How do we plan with multiple curriculums and multiple children? How do we make sure we get everything in?

The response is simple. We plan with grace in mind.

You can find a hundred and one free planners, organizations tips, bedazzled homeschool room tours and end-all-be-all lists of curriculums. You will not have any trouble finding “answers” for planning a school year. If you are looking for a post that lays out a fool proof plan, you have come to the wrong place.

Planning is hard work. The thought of shuffling it up each year with some massive layout is exhausting to me. So we use the same rubric each year, eleven things we plan on.

Farmhouse Schoolhouse recommendations for best laid plans….

1. Plan on constant changes.
No two school years are ever the same, make that ‘month’, no two months are ever the same. The children are growing! Personalities and learning styles are evolving. New needs arise each month. Last year felt like roller coaster: #1 needed extra help with phonics and then #2 needed lots of attention in the math department, and then it flip-flopped and… wait…oh, it flip flopped again! We started school five weeks ago and the pattern has continued. It keeps me on my toes. Pay attention, you need to keep adapting! An iron-clad, year-long schedule would end up as scrap paper around this schoolhouse. We don’t schedule, we do rhythms. And that rhythm is really more of a framework, that somehow becomes both looser and stiffer with time. We know the goal of each hour but what occurs in each block depends on the ever-changing pattern of our days.

2. Plan on saying “Not right now”
What worked last year may not work this year– and that is ok! One of my favorite activities last year no longer works for our family because my youngest has sensory issues that require more of my time and energy. We’ve had to add new elements into the mix which necessitated a departure from our previous schedule. I’ll admit, it was hard to let go of something that had worked so well for us. But in the end, saying “not right now” and cutting back, opened the window for some truly beautiful things in our lives. You don’t have to say “no.” No is a pretty loud closed door that can isolate communities and friends. “Not right now” says “We’ll get back to you some other time.” I love saying, “Not right now.” It leads to so many other possibilities! I can say “YES” toddler, lets read that book! My eldest children have time to decide what they would like to do next. Unscheduled play. Freedom! Time to be artists, explorers, discoverers. Time is one of the greatest childhood gifts. Its good to have spare time, isn’t it?

3. Plan on not fitting EVERYTHING in.
When we first started, I knew absolutely nothing about this enormous world of homeschooling. I knew I wanted to be with my kids and that I did not want them anywhere near our modern school system. I began to research and soon fell in love with Montessori, Charlotte Mason and Classical Christian Education. As I tried to gain my footing in understanding these approaches, I began to get some heat about our decision to homeschool. Suddenly, my kids and I were in a position of having to prove that homeschool was working. The pressure was on to pull out the organ grinder and call the crowd in, “Look everyone! They are not jumper-clad freaks AND they can read by age 4! Dance, little monkey, Dance!” (Disclaimer: not a single one of my kids read by the age of 4).

I started adding things in and handing out worksheets. 3 weeks into this insanity, my eldest, four years old at the time, looked up and said, “These papers are hurting my heart. Mom, will you run away to the woods with me so we can play?” I had turned my homeschool into everything I wanted to get away from. Why? I was scared of missing out on something. I was scared that my kids would not get the best education possible. I was worried that I could not do it all. I did not like the way people said, “Homeschooling??? Why???”

Truth is, I can not do it all. No one can. It is impossible to teach someone every single available piece of information out there. We made a list of things that were important to our homeschool. Every piece of curriculum, book, handout, etc that comes into our classroom needs to meet those standards. If it doesn’t, we don’t need it. We don’t worry about EVERYTHING; we celebrate our Big Fifteen! We teach from a place of rest.

4. Plan on Toddlers
Like most homes, the first set of toddlers received lots and lots of attention. I was pretty obsessed with them. What they ate, what they played with, what they learned, what their poop looked like. The second set came along and it was pretty much, “Go forage in the pantry for your snack and don’t break anything please!” Last year, while schooling my eldest children, I caught myself shouting at #3 “PLEASE! We have a zillion toys in here, just go and play with something and leave me alone with your brothers so we can finish!” It hurt him. I could see it in his eyes. He didn’t want to go play with a toy. He wanted me. He should get to have me. Trying to plan out a school year with toddlers in tow is like trying to dance a tarantella blind-folded while someone follows you around yanking on your arm and dribbling yogurt down the side of your leg. Its a demanding, frenzied whirlwind. My littlest guys deserve wonder and curiosity and discovery and confidence-building habit training. They shouldn’t have to settle for entertainment or mindless occupation. Is it difficult? Yes, its incredibly difficult. To be honest, I needed to repent of my selfish heart and lazy attitude. I needed to die to self and read “Blueberries for Sal” a hundred times because this is the only chance I have to do that. Mere months from now the opportunity will have vanished. That is what it comes down to: toddlers are an opportunity, not a distraction from older children’s schoolwork. This year I am putting on my big girl panties, mustering up the last dregs of my excitement and energy and pouring everything I can into my youngest kids. I need to plan spaces of emptiness. Pockets of time that belong to them. Then I need to prepare myself to include them outside of those time blocks so we can all join them in their wonder at any given time of day.

5. Plan on sickness.
We organize our curriculum with manilla folders. On the outside of these folders I write down all the possible resources, pinterest ideas and activities that we could use on that given week. However, I never expect that we will complete everything on the list. Because tiny people get sick. If its a bad case of the sniffles, I adjust accordingly. We scratch that big outdoor walk or the trampoline game or anything extra snot-inducing. If they are projectile vomiting we will scrap that whole kitchen experiment series or save it for another week. I never write down dates in ink. No way will I commit to the planner, “Finish Unit 8 by Sept 8.” That is just asking for failure and days of self loathing and doubt. We adjust, we scale back. The kids pick what interests them. We are always learning, but there is never any pressure to learn it all. Ten years from now they may not remember everything they learned on that healthy week 16, but they will have many memories from that difficult week 17. #2 often reminds me, “Remember that once upon a time when I was sick and you wrapped me up in a quilt and gave me a mug of soup and read me all those books about animals? That was my favorite day.” We didn’t do arithmetic or science that day. Ah well, who cares? He remembers coziness, hot soup, the soothing comfort of good books read by the voice of one who loves him. To me, that is the greater lesson and a memory to cherish. Learning that drips down to the very core of who he is.

6. Plan on flexibility!
If its in ink, I am in trouble. I have tattooed my failures, now memorialized in a spiral-bound book I paid $15 for. One of the greatest boons of homeschooling is the flexibility, yet most of us are determined to schedule it away! Flexibility is a homeschool mother’s gift of grace to herself and her home. Please don’t plan yourself into a hard place that, weeks down the road, will make you feel less-than. I think goals are wonderful! Please, write down things you are aiming for this year. How lovely to look back and see what was accomplished. But if your planner is a relentless task master that only works as a whipping post for your sense of worth, scrap that sucker and run to Jesus! If He has called you to homeschool, He will equip you. I believe that with my whole heart. Pray about your school year. He cares about it! Talk with your spouse. Make a tentative plan and inject it with grace and flexibility. Leave room for mistakes.

Schedule GRACE DAYS so that you have entire days devoted to getting back on track. If you have stayed on track, use the grace day as a celebration day or day of thankfulness!

Your identity as a person is not the planner. Put the planner down and back away slowly, please. Don’t plan on perfection. Plan on flexibility. My hubby repeats it at least 9 times a week, “Have some grace for yourself.” I am really hard on myself. I shouldn’t be. This is not the time for my house to look like a magazine cover. Expect legos everywhere. Expect dirty dishes. Expect irremovable stains from science projects. Invite friends over, even when the house is a mess. Take a few extra days to really explore something your kids really enjoyed.

7. Plan on learning alongside them.
I spoke with a group of mamas at a recent homeschool conference and we all agreed: We are susceptible to overcompensating our children’s workload, because of our own perceived academic insecurities. We see the gaping hole in our own education and there is this visceral reaction to run out, find some beefed up program, and shove it at our kids. Take a deep breathe and accept the fact that you suck at math (or whatever your achilles heel is. If you have no achilles heel and are a paragon of academia, congratulations, move on to #8 but know that our chances of being friends just decreased by about 15%). Accept your weakness, then humble yourself and get ready to learn alongside your child. Don’t respond by cramming your schedule with something you are terrified of or loathe unto death, in a blind attempt at insuring your child’s academic perfection. Guess who is currently working her way through Saxon 2? Me! Yup, second grade math. I’m rocking it right now, but in a few short years I will be knee deep in a pit of “Have mercy, Jesus!” Yes, my kids will see me ~~miserable~~ working hard to learn something I failed to learn before. Maybe it will encourage one of them to press on with something they don’t like. Or hey, maybe they won’t learn a single lesson from my sufferings, but at the very least I will finally learn some math! The answer to my insecurity isn’t to blitz my kids with math worksheets today, its to start working hard alongside them now so I can demonstrate that learning is possible.

8. Plan on gratitude!
Maybe last year wasn’t a banner year at your house. Maybe you couldn’t afford to get the curriculum you really wanted. Maybe you didn’t have the budget for a classroom makeover. Maybe it was a bit more serious than all the above…maybe it was a devastating year. Loss of loved ones, life-altering illness, depression, cross-country moves, upheavals in your home church, problems in your community, job loss, foreclosures. Life is hard. Homeschoolers get to face the hard all day long, all together. I’ve known some hard. Hard is hard to plan for because it usually creeps up with all the subtlety of a tornado. And disappointment is rich fodder for that bitter root to take hold and spread fast, tangling up the whole family in its life-sucking thorns. So make room for gratitude in all circumstances. It is breathtakingly difficult at first. But once that gratitude leads to unexpected, life-giving joy over something seemingly insignificant and small in your day, that very gratitude becomes necessary for your survival in the hardest of places. Be grateful for the resources you were blessed with. Thank the Lord for that shabby dining room table your children gather round each day to learn about the God of the universe. Find gratitude for the tiniest things in the midst of overwhelming grief and darkness. Gratitude is a game changer.

9.Plan on going outside
Go outside. Go outside often. Nature should be a part of everyone’s childhood. If you are urban locked, find a park and make it your special place. The best part of my boys’ day is when the door swings outward and the world is opened to them.

10. Plan on self care.
POOF. Where did Mom go? Do your little ones a favor and disappear. You need a break once in awhile. You need time to yourself. Even if all you do is wander around Target alone looking like the lone survivor of a zombie apocalypse, get thee to Target! You don’t have to spend money. Go sit on the seashore. Climb a tree and sit up there by yourself with the squirrels (totally did that once). Sit in a coffeeshop. Leave the kids with your spouse, sister, friend, grandparents, whatever. Leave the kids and GO! And if at all possible, claim a few days of the year for a personal retreat. Not a romantic getaway with hubby (those are important too) I am talking about time just for yourself. Don’t wait to hit rock bottom before you ask for help. Take care of your own health. Schedule your yearly exam. Get your blood work done. Get that funky mole checked out. Take care of yourself. GO ON A PERSONAL RETREAT. If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy, right? Get happy. Get time with Jesus. Get peace and quiet for a few days. You, your hubby and your kids will be the better for it.

11. Plan on fun!
I have a picture of my two eldest children taped on the wall of our classroom. They are tiny little tots, seated at an old play table, scribbling away. I look at it every day. It reminds me that time moves quickly and now is their only chance to be little. Whenever I am tempted to overwhelm their lives with academic nonsense, I look up and remember to keep it simple and let them play. Read lovely books aloud, for the minutes are ticking by. Let them build the transcontinental railroad out of legos instead of filling out a meaningless worksheet. After all, they are only 7 for one dazzling rush around the sun. Yes, lets make a mess. Yes, lets go for that walk. YES. YES. YES. Let us have fun together. You can plan on it!

MFW Adventures: Jamestown & Reevaluations

July 4, 2015July 4, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 8 Comments

There are times when my children prove with resounding flourish that there is an art to gentle learning. This was definitely one of those weeks. These kids kept slowing me down! I wanted to press on and they dug in their heels and demanded a slow walk through the unit. They wanted to savor their learning like a delicious meal. It was a good reminder to only give them the very best. Even though I found 12 books on Jamestown at our local library, I only gave the children 4 to look through. Good, true and beautiful is the standard.

After years of careful, parent-led gleaning, they are starting to filter through things a bit for themselves. “This book is….not that great. What are they trying to tell me? It doesn’t seem like its anything good or true or useful,” my eldest mused. He can’t put many words to his assessments yet, but he can decipher richness from twaddle. This is incredibly encouraging to me!

“Jamestown is mighty good fun, Mom! Lets study it again and again!” said the second born.

We spent the majority of the week in just this way; boys coloring pictures or building forts out of lincoln logs, while I read aloud from books.

This was so pleasurable for everyone, it almost felt like a vacation!

In some ways we are on an eternal vacation from school. Those strict regulations are being stripped away as I become more and more unschooled and we are left with the brilliant truth that learning is living and abundant and pleasurable.

The boys learned so much from their Beautiful Feet Books—Pocahontas and Jamestown, New World Adventure. We are just thrilled with their Early American History Guide thus far. We colored in our next 3D map and built a model of Jamestown (pictured above) which we found in a free sample lesson from Homeschool in the Woods.

Then came the unexpected punch in the gut from my eldest.

“Mom, I loved school this week. It was so nice to not feel stupid.”
“WHAT? You have felt stupid? Why? When? You are not stupid, not in the least!”
“I am such a slow reader and no matter how hard I try to remember what I learned, I just cant. It doesn’t make sense when I look at it and I never know which way things are facing. My heart beats really fast and I feel kind of sick.”

Yeah.

MFW 1st grade phonics was a huge hit with my 6 year old. He’s a duck in water when it comes to reading. Everything clicked. It all made sense. It was all so incredibly effortless. He is reading chapter books on his own now. He is always reaching for something new to read.

My eldest did not do well with MFW 1st phonics. He struggled. It was painful to watch and miserable to teach. We added in Explode the Code halfway through the year and he improved a little bit. But here we are on the threshold of second grade and it feels like he is regressing.

Do I press on? Do I stop all together? Do I hold the six year old back until the seven year old gets a more solid foothold?

I felt overwhelmed by all these questions at first. Then I remembered to be thankful for them. We are so blessed to homeschool. We can stop if we need to. We can slow up or speed down. No matter what, we have the opportunity to do what is best for our children without worrying about someone else’s timetable. What incredible freedom! What a gift to our children!

We are sticking with MFW and Beautiful Feet as planned but with expectations adjusted for each child. I have taken out a few of our tougher language arts books for now. We will resume Writing With Ease once we’ve had time for remedial reading work. We will continue using First Language Lessons along with our Spelling program. We have ordered All About Reading and will commence with this program once it arrives. My eldest will work on this program with me in the afternoons. We are hoping AAR will help him decode words and build his confidence! The second born will use this time to read books and make new vocabulary lists to record in his composition book, which we have titled “Discovery Dictionary.” He jots down all unfamiliar words throughout the course of the week and we look up their meanings on Friday afternoons.

We will keep using lots and lots and lots of read aloud books.
We had torrential downpours all week long.

The backyard fort is infested with mosquitos.

Studying Jamestown gave these boys fort fever! So we built forts with pillows and blankets. We built forts with crackers and cheese. We built them with paper and toothpicks and glue.

The boys really melted into their play this week.

I believe with all my heart that there is no better learning than that kind of deep, engaged play. I’m glad we cut back on the unnecessary busyness in our life.

I see our schoolwork transforming into lifestyle.

Books start informing their play. Projects start melding with their dreams and ideas. Chores link up with character studies.

Even if the house is a bit chaotic and I am not using even a tenth of all the great ideas I had scribbled down while planning our Adventures year, learning is seeping into every minute of our day. I see the transformation from those once “busy hectic days” into “full rich days.”

Hard weeks can bring rich blessing into our lives. I am grateful for the revelation my son gave me and for the chance to slow things down and help him. I am thankful for God’s mercy in showing me all the ways these loose threads of many years are coming together to make something lovely.

MFW Adventures: 1492—go with the flow.

June 27, 2015June 27, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 1 Comment

Christopher Columbus!

I always love the way June Allyson, as Jo March in Little Women, lets that expression fly.

I ended up saying it all week…

i.e. “Christopher Columbus! There’s an armadillo in our yard!”
I have lived in Florida for the majority of my life and never once met an armadillo in the wild. To be fair, this armadillo has presumably lived its entire life in Florida and never encountered me once. We kept our distance out of respect for Mr. Armadillo’s wild nature and all around creepiness. Hooray, nature walk! Always exciting when something other than birds, bugs and/or types of bark, happens.

And that is not the only strange thing that happened around here….

My boys asked to do multiple crafts.

Multiple.

Crafts.

They made a pirate ship (Not what Columbus sailed on but I’ll take it), three maps, bead necklaces to trade for Indian gold and a flaaarrllaarggllaar made out of popsicle sticks. Ok, even after it was explained to me three times by my exasperated six year old, I’m still not quite sure. I believe it was some sort of navigation tool. I said “ooooo” and “aaahhh” whenever he paused for approval during his explanation. A flarrrrllaarggllaaar you guys! All on his own!

Ah, Columbus. He really wanted that trade route.

He wanted the route and I really wanted the boys to hit certain goals this week. Halfway through I realized that they were going in a completely different direction than I.

Just like Columbus, I had hit an unexpected barrier. Pesky ol’ South America kept Columbus from finding Asia (and months of madness, possible mutiny, starvation and eventual death in the middle of the Pacific). I decided to respect the road blocks my kids were putting up, lest I meet with disaster, and follow their lead. Last week, they were up for long discussions about Leif Ericsson. This week, they wanted hands on experiences and in-depth play about Columbus. In other words: “stop talking Mom and play with us!”

We enjoyed the MFW materials in this unit–especially American Pioneers and Patriots. This became one of our favorite read alouds during our Literary Lunch hour. When the rains came, we hid in the boys bunks. Catalina, Pedro and Martin, riding out the storm. (We did not wedge any knives into the door)

Our Beautiful Feet book study continues to delight the boys. While I enjoyed “Leif the Lucky” more, it was great to add in “Columbus” for a few great comparison discussions. The boys have learned so much about diligence and self-control in these last two weeks of BF study. We press on, eager for more great living-book learning!

The younger set of siblings had a great time tagging along this week. Every time the elder boys asked to draw maps or star charts, the younger boys would jump in on the fun. Lots of paint everywhere. Truly, a fantastic mess. They were so happy!

The boys are still loving their manipulative maps from Interactive 3D Maps: American History. Its probably our favorite resource this year!

We also enjoyed watching the Drive Thru History episode about Columbus. We asked for the series last Christmas and its been great fun so far–we highly recommend it!

After days of reading and mapmaking, the boys were itching for some adventure. When an afternoon rainstorm rolled in on Friday, my eldest stood at the window and watched the powerful winds shake the trees in our orchard.

“Can you imagine this kind of fury in the open unknown sea?” he asked.

“It must be terrifying,” I said.

“Mom, is it too late in the world to have an explorer’s heart?” he wondered.

“Never.” I assured him.

“Thats good. I am a kind of boy thats made up of courage and exploration but with safety too because, well, you’re my Mom and I love you,” he grinned at me.

I’m glad I went with the flow. Forcing them to do everything on my agenda, well, they may as well matriculate into our local school system for all the good it will do them as independent, creative learners.

I love watching them develop a love of learning.

I love that studying about Columbus and Viking Explorers has left my boys with a heart for exploring and a yearning for discovery, instead of an ache from sitting down all day staring at a textbook.

I read a passage this week about the unfurling of a mighty white sail from its massive yardarm. The boys were listening attentively, faces smiling and eyes alight with wonder. I’ve spent the last years hoisting their sails onto yardarms, tacking everything down and tying everything in place. Now the sails are beginning to unfurl, the wind may not have caught yet, but the sails are starting to stretch out and its a breathtaking experience.

Book List for Columbus (I found nearly all of them at the library)
1. Explorers Who Got Lost by Diane Sansevere Dreher
2. The World of Columbus & Sons by Genevieve Foster (this is an upper level BF book. We just looked through it)
3. Who Was Christopher Columbus by Bonnie Bader
4. Christopher Columbus by Stephen Krensky
5. Animals Christopher Columbus Saw by Sandra Markle
6. Pedro’s Journal by Peter Koeppen
7. Into the Unknown by Stewart Ross
8. Great Ships by Patrick O’Brien
9. Columbus by Ingri & Edgar d’Aulaire
10. Land Ho! Fifty Glorious Years in the Age of Exploration by Nancy Winslow Parker (This was a great read for any kiddos wanting MORE explorers!)