August 1-2

While Nana and Baba were seeing off the family we were out and about ourselves on errands and the like. I had a fun finish on the 1st – a pair of SHARK SLIPPERS I had commissioned by a twin mom for another twin mom. We are all in the same egroup and have been for ages! They are such a silly thing but turned out so lovely! I was glad to be able to get them in the mail before they needed to be taken across the border to Canada for a visit!

We did stop at a fun park while I sewed the eyes onto these. The kids have fully embraced the sunny days, though the heat can be rather stifling and make for shorter play times.

The twins assured me that after all that play some quiet tv time was in order.

The 2nd was the first Saturday of the month and so HOME DEPOT day…

Pencil boxes

But we made the day doubly exciting by being registered for a program at the Alexander Ramsey House (HERE). They do a once a month time capsule on the first Saturday and have a walk through of the house with a tour leader. It is so much fun! Limited photo taking opportunities but we did have a blast. And each of the kids ended up with a time capsule with little pictures of things they learned about in our tour. We plan on going again in October!!

Such a beautiful house!

And the kids got to get involved in the kitchen making hardtack (HERE)! Very cool!

Miss Trinity came home to a good bye present from Gabbi – a backpack and matching blanket that she is utterly in love with.

And I had an amazing gift – a drawing of the crochet items I gave her for her birthday. Thank you sweetie!

And a few more from the house…

Thank you to a friend on a homeschooling egroup from back home AND to Brave Writer on Facebook (HERE) for this terrific list of Homeschooling mom advice. 

1. Fill a sink with warm soapy water. Soak all dirty dishes gathered from the four corners of the house while you do the other stuff, like homeschooling your children.

2. Ask for help, from your kids or your best friend or your spouse. Set a timer for 5 minutes and tackle the pile of laundry or the cluttered desk or the dog-hair-covered carpet. Then get back to what you need to do: homeschooling your children.

3. Turn off the computer. Don’t turn it on again until you have… homeschooled your children.

4. Take a shower before breakfast, then put on clothes, then lace up comfortable shoes… Now get outside, take a walk, and homeschool your children outdoors.

5. Pick a place to keep all math books (and any other daily use books). Do not pass go, do not eat cookies, do not leave the house, do not go to bed until all the books that go in that space (cubby hole, top of desk, under coffee table, foot locker, pantry shelf) are in that space. Every day. So tomorrow you can… homeschool your children.

6. Brush your teeth in the morning, and brush your children’s teeth in the morning. Let toothbrushing signal the start of your homeschooling day…. every day.

7. Keep your pencil sharpener near your pencils. Use old tin cans for pencil holders (decorate if you’re that motivated). Put these in the same place every day. Restock pencils regularly (check weekly before shopping to make sure you have pencils/pens ready to go). Buy fun ones, not just work-a-day sorts. These make it easier to homeschool your children.

8. Buy a printer that scans and photocopies. Install the drivers on the weekend, make sure all computers in the house can print over wifi. Hire someone to do it for you if you must. Don’t put it off for some day. Use the machine every day, keep back up ink stocked in your desk. Printer-copiers make it easier to homeschool your children.

9. Overstock folders, lined paper, notebooks, page protectors, card stock, markers, Prismacolor pencils, watercolors, stickers, composition books, hole punchers (several), three-hole punches, rulers (clear wide quilting ones work great!), scissors that are for both righties and lefties, scotch tape, glue stick, pipe cleaners, polymer clay, paint brushes… all at once, before you get going. Never having to drop everything to run to the store helps you homeschool your children.

10. Put a list on the refrigerator that everyone can add to titled: Stuff I wish I could do today. Then everyone adds to it any time they think of anything. Then when you are bored, frustrated, suffering from PMS… look at the list and do one, so that you continue to homeschool your children.

11. At the start of the year, pick 5 places you want to take your kids. Put them on the calendar (at least pick the month if not the date). Schedule them. Do them. Invite friends, but go alone if you must… so that your homeschooled children have adventures!

12. Wear lipstick. You’ll be nicer and smile more… while you homeschool.

13. Wear sexy/feminine underwear so you remember that you’re a woman, not just a mother… because there is life after homeschooling.

#3 is a bit of a puzzler as more and more we implement our computer into our schooling, like with the dinosaurs and Emanuel… or the videos we hunt down to supplement or even answering random questions the kids come up with. So instead I see it as not closing myself off in a corner to do personal internet things. I can have my email or Facebook open… but it is secondary or rather LAST in line for attention. I cannot tell you how many headaches it has saved me to be able to suddenly turn and hunt down some random information or a colouring page for an impatient little one.

I would like to add a #14… Be flexible… sometimes a tangent is so much more fun, educational and relevant than your prepared lesson! 

I would love to hear YOUR added advice!!! Please leave a comment!

Keep the learning going!

I am sure that each and every homeschooling parent and even some public school parents have had to defend, explain or deal with the concept of the appropriate amount of “socialization”. What I have noticed is that more and more children are pulled out of public schools due to bullying and anxiety, issues with crowds, with not fitting in… issues with their PEERS.

This brought me to the point where I felt the need to examine my OWN peer group. Who do I hang out with on a regular basis (or did as right now I am rebuilding a social life after all)… are they all my own age? Are we together 5 days a week? Now I know that does not equate the experiences a child has but at the same time I wonder… who are our peers?

If a child/teen/etc feels anxiety in their own age group who could be their peers? Their support? Well, who makes them happy? Could a peer group not be a combination of ages, genders and circumstances? Who do you want around yourself and your children? Who makes you happy, feel safe, makes you become the best person you can be? These are all more important questions, in my mind, than are they in your grade and your age.

Another mom on my local Egroup had a great post that she is allowing me to share portions of regarding her hunt to find friends for her kids. Thank you Amy for the permission to share these bits from your email! I know that for many people it is not so much growing up homeschooling as we have with the kids but pulling them out and starting anew… anyway…

“…For many kids when their friend’s life and schedule change, they don’t transition with him/her. Making and keeping good friends is an on-going challenge for us and I’m sure for lots of other homeschooling families. A few years ago, my daughter and I made a Venn diagram of friends who were safe, fun, and available and realized that we had zero friends who met all three criterion. Yikes! This realization shaped our decisions about which communities to join and where to invest our energies and led us to changing churches, joining a homeschool co-op, starting new hobbies, and now several years later to a significant reorganizing of priorities in time, money, and effort. We are always on the look-out for ways to cultivate relationships which nourish us…

…Are there any ages or situations in which she feels more comfortable? Does she like babies or seniors or mentally-challenged people? Does she like to garden or train dogs or play board games? Maybe rather than looking for traditional “peers” maybe she’d like to make friends with people of diverse ages and interests. My 6 year-old invited all teenagers to his birthday party because “they don’t make a fuss.” My 11 year-old daughter loves to square dance and partners with a variety of people, including a number of grampas who delight in her pre-teen enthusiasm. Maybe a coffee and tea date with another homeschool mom and her daughter would be a nice start. Or maybe she loves to run so she could look for a jogging partner. Or maybe connecting with a mentor.

Brainstorm with your daughter about her interests and passions and think outside the box. Sometimes befriending people in a different season of life brings a fresh perspective rather than everyone being in exactly the same place, struggling with exactly the same challenges. Including kids in all the interesting bits of life with all the happy, fun, well-adjusted people is one of the joys of homeschooling.

Being a homeschooling mom can be quite daunting as we shoulder so much responsibility for the ebb and flow of our kids’ daily lives. I encourage you both to lean into change, knowing that finding good friends is partly luck and partly hard work and won’t be rushed. I tell my kids that you won’t catch a fish every time you go fishing but that you for sure won’t catch a fish if you don’t put your hook in. There is a mystery and serendipity to friendship that can’t be forced.

What your daughter learns from you about respecting herself and her limits, about working with herself rather than against herself, about the process of being friendly and making good friends, about disappointment and choosing and releasing and walking on- all of that is priceless for her future happiness. Each of us has to learn to tolerate the consequences of being ourselves and coaching our kids through that process is so valuable.“

What I take away from Amy’s email is a rather amazing concept… instead of forcing friendships with an age group lets create a social network of peers that include that age group and beyond. Lets surround our family with mentors, with people that we know are a  good influence… lets focus less on quantity and more on quality.

There is an excellent blog entry on the site Schoolhouse Review Crew that deals with levels of socialization. You can find that entry: Socialization and Homeschool: Finding a Good Balance right HERE. The main point I took away from that entry is that kids require different levels of socializing. Some are happy with one dear friend and some need many. Just like any of us, our needs differ! So we need to fulfill the needs of our children not the needs of society’s opinion.