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Exploring Countries and Cultures MFW

MFW ECC: Getting Ready!

MFW ECC: Intro Week 1

MFW ECC: Intro Week 2

MFW ECC: United States Part 1

MFW ECC: United States Part 2

MFW ECC: Mexico

MFW ECC: Canada

MFW ECC Brazil

MFW ECC: Norway 

MFW ECC: France

MFW ECC: Germany

MFW ECC: Kenya

MFW ECC: Middle East

MFW ECC: India

MFW ECC: China

MFW ECC: Japan

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@Farmhouse_Schoolhouse

We’ve been “chasing the spark” around here for years. It’s still our favorite way to learn. If they start asking questions, if they dig up knowledge on their own, in the wise words of Charlotte Mason, “it becomes their own possession.” My older boys (11&10) received their first MEL Chemistry box from @melscience this month. (You can watch our first experience in my saved stories) They were thrilled to find REAL glass and chemistry tools and to see all the ample WARNINGS of danger on every box and experiment set. My second born assured me, “Knowing how to navigate the rules in the face of possible danger and disaster is a great part of being a scientific explorer.” 👨🏼‍🔬 Each box contains enough supplies to repeat each experiment. It was amazing repeating the experiment a day later and hearing them explain what was happening each step of the way. I was relieved to see clear concise visual instructions on a laminated card and on the app! 💁🏻‍♀️ But the best bit, the part I loved most as a homeschooling mama, was seeing their curiosity ignited! Yes, we grew Tin dendrites and watched Tin hedgehogs bloom, but the real joy was hearing questions like, “who discovered tin? Can we look up the story of tin? Where do people find it and whats it used for? What is electrolysis?” I opened our MEL app and we made use of their suggestions for taking the experiment further. We read through all the disposal rules and even that sparked important conversation about how we use and dispose of materials. One little brother walked in and saw our tin hedgehog and immediately said: “those grow in our backyard!” So now they are researching burs and snowflakes and hedgehogs and wondering how spikey structures form in nature. From beginning to end, this is a learning experience that produces a chain reaction of questions that draw children farther into the world of chemistry. I can’t wait to discover more alongside the boys this year with and through their kits from @melscience. I have a long list of books to search for at the library now so they can gather more information. 😂 cheers to chasing the spark!!! 🔥
Friends, I have made many, many mistakes as a mother. I have yelled and wounded my children. I have apologized and been forgiven. I have days and moments recorded in my brain that I wish we could all forget. Today my second born ran through the kitchen, stopped, ran back, and dropped a quick kiss on my cheek and said “thanks for the hot cocoa and the stories, Mom. You’re so good at loving us. I appreciate you.” He ran off. I stumbled into the library & lowered myself into a chair, overwhelmed. Today my son modeled something I have been doing in our home for many years but never verbalized. He caught it anyway, no long lectures needed. Around the time this picture was taken (8 years ago!) The Lord encouraged me to not just notice the things my children were doing incorrectly. I listened. Whatever energy I put into noticing deficits in habit or character, I determined to pour twice as much into nurturing the good they were doing and the talents they already possessed. This gave me our 1-2 rule. For every character or habit we are working to correct or instill, we have two that we are nurturing. This makes the whole business of growing up far less exhausting and demoralizing. I knew noticing wouldn’t be enough though, I needed to speak the good I saw right back at them and into their hearts. How does this look practically? I try to give each child several moments of encouragement throughout the day but this is hard to do every single day. To make sure no one slips through the cracks, I have a special routine in place. Say I have a child born April 9th (which I don’t) every 9th day of the month (I set reminders📱) I seek them out and carve some quiet one on one time with that child in whatever capacity speaks the most love into their heart and then I praise the heck out of them. I bombard them with love and noticing. I talk about who I see them becoming. I ask about their dreams and then we dream together and they leave knowing that I see them and I’m cheering them on. Today my boy ran by and looked passed my mistakes. He noticed me, saw my heart, and cheered me on. Today God reminded me that He is greater than my mistakes. He floods motherhood with grace. 🌊
We’re taking time to process all the difficult hurdles with our adoption and face the hard truth that our baby won’t be with us this Christmas. We’re praying hard each day for friends who are battling illness, friends who are mourning loved ones and sweet friends who are waiting for their son to pass from this earth and join his older sister in heaven. A few weeks out from Christmas I felt the weight of these on my heart and knew we needed a quiet advent. I started saying “no thank you” often and without excuse. All these “no thank you” moments have added up to a glorious YES. Yes to a mostly empty calendar full of space for rest and renewal and rejoicing. Yes to filling our tanks so we can pour out more next year. Yes to loving our Florida Christmas, which looks nothing like the scenes we see laid out in our picture books, but which blesses us with hours and hours of outdoor play each December. Yes to tiny violins screeching “hark the herald angels sing” at 8AM every single morning. Yes to hot cocoa and German pancakes and 5lbs of extra weight on my backside. Yes to imperfect cookies and cheesy decorations no magazine would have on its cover. Yes to the only December we’ll ever see with boys aged 10,9,8 and 6. Yes to letting ourselves feel sad and experience grief at Christmas. We are weary. We rejoice. We are met with hope. Today we painted our annual stained glass nativity diptych and I marveled at how tall the boys are now and how little they needed my help. “What should the stain glass say this year?” My boy didn’t miss a beat, “‘Gloria, Gloria.’ It should always say that. ‘Gloria, Gloria’ out of the darkness and into our hearts.” This year I am the third shepherd from the left. I have sunk to my knees, my face is lifted to the sky, my arms are wide open. I am waiting with hope. Gloria! Gloria!
Son: “Mom, you know what? Nature taught me more about math and art and music and poetry and literature and science than anything else we’ve done so far.” Me: “How so?” Son: “Because it got my eyes and heart and mind and skin and soul ready to understand what people were saying in my books.” 😭😭😭 ———————————————— I had to share this post from last January again because in the last week I’ve had so many people ask why we spend so much time in nature when we “could be in class learning.” This conversation came to mind immediately. Then I thought of my eldest son sharing earlier this fall, “when I’m out in nature my dyslexia isn’t something I’m fighting, it’s something that’s shooting me forward and helping me understand what’s around me in the best ways!” I thought of the look of wild joy on my little one’s face whenever he runs up a trail. He never looks like he wants to escape when he is outside. He never cringes out in the wild. He leans into the wind and breathes. We bring nature into our learning and we bring our learning out into nature. For us, Nature has never been an extra curricular activity. Nature has been a foundation. Back in 2012 my eldest was working away on a little worksheet and he gave a huff of indignation, “School is so weird, I think. Why are we always coloring pictures of things when we could just go outside and see them or count them or play with them? I don’t like that kind of paper! I don’t want to circle all the pine trees, I want to visit them outside!” In many ways, this became the first piece of educational philosophy in our home: “why circle things in a worksheet when you can go outside and be with them instead?” ❤️
On the days when I am the worst version of myself, they give me grace when I need it most. This never stops feeling like a miracle. They grant forgiveness when I apologize. Sweet joy and relief! They welcome me back with open arms and open hearts. This is one of the things that makes our homeschool life together work so well. We are free to repent. This leads to grace and forgiveness for everyone at the table, parents included. Last week I had a horrible homeschool meltdown. It was so bad that I threatened to send them to public school! Before all was said and done everyone was shut up in their respective rooms crying. A few hours later we were back in the library, drinking tea, talking about what went wrong, forgiving one another and then finally, diving back into our current read aloud after deciding to call classes off for the rest of the day. It struck me later that night how so many things stay the same in our learning habits throughout our lifetime. My six year old will spend several minutes sounding out a word and then, one mere sentence later, act like he’s never seen the word before. This is enough to send my blood pressure though the roof until I remember that as a mom I am learning the same things over and over again too. How many times do I need to learn those lessons on high expectations or drawing deep margins in my schedule? Evidently, the answer is often. Sound it out Elsie... M-A-R-G-I-N. 😂😂 I’m getting better at sounding things out and identifying situations accurately as they come up, but in many ways I’m still figuring this all out as seasons change and birthday candles are blown out over and over and over again. I’m learning to look through those wispy curlicues of smoke and really see the faces gathered round the table as they change from one year to the next. I’m so thankful for our life together. Even on the hardest heart-wrenching days, there is nowhere else I’d rather be. It is my joy to live and learn and create and love by their side. ❤️
If I could go back to the beginning, I’d tell myself, “Before you worry about math curriculums or language arts programs or anything else, think about the relationships and consider their hearts.” I didn’t do this at first, but I thank God that He showed me the importance of it early on. If there is one thing I will never ever regret about our homeschooling years, aside from reading aloud early and often, it is the amount of time spent working on our relationships. I go into each new term asking myself if I am really SEEING each individual child. I think about their hearts, their dreams, their characters, their struggles. I think about how I can hear them better. I think about the things they cannot articulate yet and I try to find ways to build in stories and conversations to help give them a voice. I let them know, in every way I can imagine, that they have a voice and a place in our home and that we need and appreciate what they have to offer. I think of ways to speak life into them. What can I commend them on? What gifts am I seeing and how can they be nurtured? How can I encourage their hearts? I find ways to show them that I am in their corner and that we are a team. I’m not schooling them, we are learning together. What are their dreams RIGHT NOW and what steps can we start taking now to get them there? Where have I made mistakes and need to apologize? How can I work in more one on one time with each child so I can really see and hear them? The answers to all these questions form the foundation I build from at the beginning of each term. Once that foundation is in place, then I can move on to the academic. Because the truth is, who the heck cares if they can conjugate Latin verbs if our relationship is in ruins? Our best terms have been the ones when I have spent more time seeing them and meeting them where they are, than the ones spent planning for where I expected them to be without really seeing them first. My favorite thing about homeschooling? By far, it is the relationships we have formed. Yes, relationships are hard! It’s not all roses around here, but we are together in needing and giving grace, and that’s what matters most. 📷 @apoolephoto

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