Plan in Action

So here's how it's all going, four weeks into our new school year.


In the first place, it's much harder to do school in the summer months here than it was in SC. Back there we tended to spend the months of July and August (oh, and June and probably even May...and September, too) just wilting from the heat, and since we were inside most of the time anyway, I felt we might as well do schoolwork. Here, I felt like we still needed to get back into the swing of things somewhat and not take all summer off, but there's so much more to do, and we can even do some of it outside, here where they call 90 degrees a heat wave. I joke with Dave that when it gets down to 90 in the summer in Lexington, the meteorologists talk about a cool front. I'm only partly joking - I think that really happened once. To be fair, there have been some genuine scorchers - hot is hot, no matter where you are. But until the past couple weeks, it really hadn't been that bad, and the kids have been going to a very cool program one of the local park districts has, where they go for the morning (all of them except Scarlett, of course), and enjoy outdoor games and crafts. I'm not turning that down so we can stay inside and do math! They also have quite a few more neighborhood friends here than they ever have, so it's too much to ask them to slave away, chained to desks, when friends come to call. At least, that's what they tell me.


So we've had an adjusted schedule in which we've tried to fit some things in the afternoon, when it genuinely is pretty hot and everyone wants to be inside. They don't particularly want to be doing schoolwork, however, and it's made me think that we might have taken too big a chunk off in June and early July. It was only about six weeks, but trying to get them back into things has been something of a struggle. It seems they forgot that this is just what they have to do at this point in their lives. I know this is where my dear father might insert a comment about how kids should enjoy the "lazy, hazy days of summer." Well, as far as I know, he's never mentioned any tips for 1.) how mothers are supposed to enjoy these days, with bored kids bouncing off the walls, or 2. how to keep everyone from forgetting everything they learned the previous year. So, unless he has suggestions on those two points, he need not comment. :-) But anyway, I'm working on reminding everyone that this is just life, and we can make it as fun as they would like to make it, without, as one child began to put it, without doing away with things like grammar altogether.



Another thing we're struggling with, however, is the first point of my last post - chores. We have a very large white board in the hallway upstairs, on which I listed all the things that have to be done on a given day to keep the household running - grouped by morning, afternoon, and evening. Then I put their initials beside the chores I want them to do, asking them to write their initials on the other side when they complete them. On the right-hand side of the board, I listed a summary of what each child is responsible for. I thought this was pretty straight-forward, but it hasn't been working very well. For the first couple weeks, I felt like I was doing twice as much work, because I was now dragging them along each and every step of the way, directing them, hounding them, all but taking their hands and walking them through each step. Then for the next week, I tried giving them one warning each day, then just doing the chores myself, then having them do as many of MY chores as they could that Saturday, in order to illustrate the point. It didn't seem to work, and just made for a horrible Saturday, which brings me to one of my main problems - I don't quite know what to do when they don't do the work. When I try getting really tough about this, I feel like I'm just punishing them all the time, or if I try to put a positive spin on it, I feel like I'm dangling a carrot a carrot on a stick. In either case, the chores might get done, but not very well, and I've never been very sure what to do about that, because I'm never quite sure if my expectations are reasonable. So...the bottom line is we're still working through this one. They are doing basic chores for themselves, but I haven't yet struck on how to give them responsibilities for the entire household.



As to the second point, which was prioritizing Bible study, I feel like that's been going fairly well. We've been going through the Veritas Press Bible cards, starting with Creation, and I really like them. I think the kids do, as well. Pretty soon I plan to start doing catechism questions with them again, which is something we do periodically, but not always consistently. Still, they all know the basic ones, and those will stick with them a long time. (My sisters probably experience the same thing I do when they hear questions like, "What does it mean to repent?," and a voice in their head automatically says, "It means to change your mind.") If I can get through the whole set of questions I have, they should have a decent understanding of the faith. The older ones are also doing Bible quizzing this year, and I'm super excited about that. I plan to explain it more later, but the upshot is that it will provide us with a way to saturate them with Scripture, and there are no downsides to that.


The third point was better planning, and I think I've been as successful with that as I could hope to be. Aimee thinks I could be better organized, bless her - she didn't know me when I lived by lists and organization, and she doesn't realize that now, extreme organization would mean a loss of flexibility and spontaneity in her life. That's if it were even possible, which, with just a baby alone, it isn't (see post on "Mothering Through Breastfeeding!"), and adding three boys and their different learning styles to the mix makes it even less likely. So if she can find a way to schedule her every minute when she has a family, good for her. But I for one find it both too difficult on the one hand, and not all that desirable on the other. Flexibility means that we can take an idea and run with it, rather than being stuck to only doing a certain thing on a certain day, and it means we can forgive ourselves when we get somewhat "off-track." I did, however, write out a rough sketch of what I wanted to accomplish for the first six weeks, week by week, and that's been going pretty well. The tricky thing for me is keeping track of what three kids are doing throughout the day, and whether they're getting to the important subjects, as well as the "fun" ones. So this past week, instead of letting them choose which subject at any given time (yeah, I know - mean Mom), I decreed that we were going to go through them in alphabetical order. Sometimes this means everyone is one the same subject, and sometimes I make minor adjustments when I need them to be on the same subject, but it doesn't matter if they aren't - it just seems to help that I know each one is going down the list of things they need to do. If they don't get through all the subjects in one day, we start where each one left off and go from there. I think that went rather well, and I intend to keep it up, although one of my children complained that it seemed as though we were doing art all the time this week. Even though I know better than to respond emotionally, I looked at said child incredulously, and said, "Aren't you the one who usually complains that we never do art? Are you serious?" Methinks said child just doesn't like not being completely in charge.

As to point number four, I'm going to break that up into segments, or this post would be even more incredibly too long!

Correction

Gues what? I can't find the first "Taking Stock" post I mentioned in my last post. Somewhere there's something like it, in which I talk sum up our previous school year, but maybe I'm just imagining it! Oh well.

Taking Stock - Looking Ahead

This post is so named because I've had it in mind for a couple months, ever since I wrote the first "Taking Stock" post - I just haven't had time to write it, and now that we've actually started school, it's not quite accurate. But, having evaluated and come to terms with the previous school year, I wanted to set down my hopes and goals for the coming year. My next post will be on how it's actually turning out!

Back in May, after Dave and I had watched the season finales of some of our favorite shows, I remarked, in reference to the way these shows always seem to end each season,"Wouldn't it be awful if once a year your life came to a dramatic climax, with some kind of huge change or major event?" He said, "Um...you mean like the way our life has gone pretty much since we've been married?", to which I replied, "Oh. Right." Because indeed, it has seemed that each year we've been together, our life has been marked by exactly that - some kind of huge change or major event. Babies, moves, job changes, family drama...and, in one fantastically memorable year, a baby, a move, a job change, and family drama all at once. Smashing! But each year I persist in planning for something decidedly less exciting, in the hopes that someday, we'll have just a "normal," predictable sort of year. And each year, I typically watch as the plan train derails in spectacular fashion, exploding in a ball of flames and burning everything in the vicinity to ashes.

Ahem.

Last year we had to get things done around a baby born at the beginning of our school year, and a move smack in the middle of it, so things were rather helter-skelter most of the time. That's ok, and as I've mentioned, I've come to terms with it. But this year it would be nice if things were calmer and a little more predictable (have I said that already?). If that actually happens, here are some of my goals:

1. I would like to develop in the kids a better sense of family responsibility. It frustrates me that if I have a down day, whether because I'm extra-busy or because I'm under the weather, the household seems to go to pieces. Of course, it's good to feel needed, but I would like to maybe be a little less so. I would like the kids to have a better sense of what gets done throughout the day, and to develop a better sense of their responsibility in getting it done - and maybe even to have the older ones able to take the helm to some degree if I can't for some reason.

Stop laughing!

Now, if this seems to have nothing to do with school, I will insert here the idea that while it's possible to make homeschooling simply "school at home," I don't think that's what it really is at all. I think homeschooling is a different animal altogether, that it involves developing every part of the child - discipline not only of the intellect, but also of the body, soul, sense of responsibility, worldview, etc, etc. So I think learning to be a part of running the household is an important part of their day, and I don't just mean giving them chores to do for the sake of doing them. I'm more interested in them developing a sense of responsibility, which is also something I think children enjoy...even though they might not know it.

2. I would like to make sure they have a good foundation of Biblical knowledge and church history. Sometimes we skimp on this when we're in a hurry, and I want to make it more of a priority. (So maybe this should be point #1. Cut me some slack!)

3. I know I've said I'm not a "lesson plan" kind of person anymore, but it might be nice to have a better feel for what each child needs to do so that I'm not scrambling around to figure it out AND trying to get their attention at the same time. This seems like a good idea given that I'll have three this year who will be getting more formal instruction, and that Aimee's workload (now that she's in 6th grade - yikes!) is really increasing. It's also easier to get some of my kids (not naming any names!) on task if the task at least appears to be inflexible.

4. If I can plan better, I also hope to be able to include more of the subjects that tend to get dropped by the wayside when things get the least bit hectic - namely, art, science, and a few other things I'd rather NOT name, so you won't lose whatever good opinion you have of me. And I'd like to be able to do more fun activities in all subjects, rather than just always be cramming the necessities in.

That said, here's the planned curriculum for the year (I'm not going to include links to all of them here. I'll try to update my favorites list in my Amazon widget later):

Art
Art: 2,500 Works from Cave to Contemporary
Little Hands Art Book
How to Teach Art to Children
Drawing with Children Mona Brooks
Crafts for Young Children



Bible
Homeschool Enhanced Kit Veritas Press

Cursive
Classically Cursive


Geography
Story of the World (map activities)
Geography songs
States and Capitals Songs

Grammar
First Language Lessons
Following the Plan Rod and Staff


History
Story of the World

Latin
Latina Christiana

Math
Saxon Math

Music
Piano Lessons
Violin Lessons (both given by yours truly)



Reading
Phonics Museum Veritas Press
Whole book selections to accompany art, history, and science studies


Science
God’s Design for Life
God’s Design for the Physical World

Spelling
Spelling Workout

French
Rosetta Stone

Spanish
Rosetta Stone


As promised, I'll let you know in a future post how it's all going!

The Normal of Mothering Through Breastfeeding

Earlier this week I had a doctor's appointment (for nothing important - just to recheck my Vitamin D levels), and when the doctor walked in I was nursing Scarlett. The doctor mentioned how much she loved had loved breastfeeding her own children, and when she asked how old Scarlett was and learned she was a year, she was slightly surprised at how it looked like she was still "really into it." She wanted to know if she still got most of her nutrition that way, or through solid foods, which stumped me a bit, because I really don't know! Once again I was struck - and amused - by how interesting it is that most people, and especially those in the medical profession, have a hard time understanding a lifestyle of "mothering through breastfeeding-" i.e., having breastfeeding be interwoven throughout our days in such a way that it's impossible to measure, and impossible to determine the questions of "how much" and "how often." They see it as a process with a defined and gradual tapering off, and, even as a whole, simply a supplement to the mothering process. Newborns should nurse every three hours, three month-olds less often (and sleeping "through the night" to boot), six month-olds should begin adding solid foods at regular intervals that should gradually replace even the nursing sessions that should be even farther spaced apart - all leading up to the one year-old mark, at which time they should be eating three well-defined meals a day and ready to wean. If they are nursing at all, it should only be occasionally, because, after all, they no longer "need" it at this point. Now, I should add that I don't know if this is exactly my doctor's thinking, so I don't want to be unfair to her. But I do know that this is the overwhelmingly popular philosophy among doctors, which filters down through the rest of society, so that I often talk to mothers who are confused when their babies deviate from this neat schedule and want to know if their reality is "normal."

I know for a fact that our reality is decidedly different from society's expectations, and I also know that it is normal, and that it isn't harmful (but, I hope, rather the opposite). So I thought I would count how many times Scarlett nursed yesterday, including every ten-second "snack." In a sixteen-hour period, I counted eighteen times. Yes, that's slightly more than once an hour, and, because she took a nap of a couple hours, it means that sometimes she nursed a few times in a given hour. What's more, she nursed during the night, some of which I was aware of, and some of which I wasn't. She probably has close to the same frequency at night as she does during the day. In any case, I wasn't surprised by this, except that I thought it might have been a little more often. "Mothering through breastfeeding" (which, by the way, is a common phrase used in La Leche League) means that nursing is usually a seamless part of our day. She eats other food when she's hungry, and drinks water or juice when she's thirsty, so I don't know how often hunger or thirst figure into her reasons for nursing anymore, but it doesn't matter. When she asks, it's there. When she's tired, it can serve as a pick-me-up, or a way to settle down and get to sleep. When she's frustrated, or overwhelmed with emotions that are just too big for such a little person, it can serve as a way to re-center herself - like the equivalent of taking a deep breath. When she's hurt, it's what Dave jokes is "instant morphine." When she feels she's ventured too far from me as she learns new skills of independence, it's a way to reconnect - "you're still here, and you'll be here every time". When she wants contemplate the difference in taste between breastmilk and juice, she's free to spend 15 minutes alternating between sips of each. And in the meantime, I'm usually going about my business - overseeing schoolwork, reading books, pulling energetic four year-olds off my head, making pancakes (!), checking email, or any number of things that need to be done. And sometimes we still settle down for quiet snuggling time when she's nursing, during which I can look into her beautiful brown eyes, and she can poke lovingly at my face...even though even that kind of time these days usually ends in "nursing gymnastics" in which she tries to see if she can turn upside down and still hang on. The point is, it may be that it sounds like even more than nursing a newborn, and, indeed, she probably does nurse more often as a one year-old than she did as a one week-old, but it's not at all the same.

But the fact remains that it's normal. A different kind of normal than what our culture expects, certainly, but normal just the same. It isn't measured, predictable, dictated by any book on baby care or parenting, or really very explainable to anyone who doesn't already understand it. I don't know how much breastmilk she gets, how it figures into her nutritional intake, or all the reasons she asks for it. And I certainly don't know how long she'll keep it up. All my children have weaned at different ages - but I do know that all my older four children are weaned, so I know it happens eventually! I also know that they are all confident, independent (not sure why everyone is so desperately interested in that, but, anyway....), smart, social, and healthy kids. None of them are even remotely overweight or have major eating problems -nothing at all, in fact, beyond the very normal pickiness common to all kids.

So what I tell mothers who wonder if their reality is normal, who are hounded by concerned pediatricians and mothers-in-law, and aren't sure how to reconcile this style of mothering with the much more neatly packaged variety sold by parenting books and popular thinking is that it's ok. Mothering can't be neatly packaged. Children don't come with dosing instructions, and each and every one is different. There's nothing abnormal, emotionally or physically, with a one year-old who nurses at a rate of more than once an hour...and now that I've exposed myself, so to speak, and our strange variety of "normal" that would leave almost any pediatrician speechless, my hope is that my sisters-in-arms will be encouraged by whatever variety of normal is theirs.

The Rick Riordan grammar series

What, you haven't heard about that one?

Actually, we "officially" use First Language Lessons for grammar, and like it well enough, although I agree with some of my homeschooling friends that it can be rather...um...boring at times. Let's face it - that's just the truth. And that being the case, I never make my kids repeat the definition of a noun with me three times...and three times again...and yes, three times again...in one lesson. But since I own the books for levels 1-4 and am far too cheap to invest in an entire new grammar curriculum for those of my kids who are still working their way through those levels, this is what we're doing, love it or not.

However, as I might have mentioned once or twice before, I tend to take what we've got and work through it the way that suits us best. I also encourage new homeschoolers to use this approach, because I really think it's not about finding the perfect curriculum, which, by the way, doesn't exist; rather, you should let your curriculum serve you. With this in mind, I can follow the general track of First Language Lessons, but adjust how I use it based on each child's learning style. Aimee is a by-the-book sort of person, so she went through the workbooks as directed. Drew, however, who last year started level 3, which includes a workbook, practically experiences some kind of strange spasms when I open the book to a page of something like diagramming. Since starting up our school year a few weeks ago and having this happen more than once, I realized that this was going to be a no-go, at least at this point in the year, while we are trying to rein everyone's attention back in toward academic pursuits (and for Drew, this means that trying to hold his focus for longer than ten seconds is something like trying to herd cats in one direction).

Enter The Throne of Fire, Rick Riordan's new book in the Kane Chronicles. Fyi, this series, and this latest book in particular, contains a bit more magic (spells, etc, not "magic" as in general wonderment!) than I would ordinarily like in books for the kids. But they had already devoured it a few times over before I got to it, so it seemed a little late to say we were probably not going to explore this particular corner of Rick Riordan's universe. So we had a brief discussion on magic and what the Bible has to say about it in real life, and how we could just appreciate the fiction without emulating any of the practices. And then - moving on - I began finding fun sentences in the book which Drew could use to find various parts of speech and then even to diagram. Honestly, which sentence do you think a nine year-old boy with attention issues (which is rather redundant, I suppose) would like to explore:

"Helpful John stirs hot soup,"

OR

"The magic flame tickled my fingers."

Yes, exactly. So there you have it - it's how grammar gets down around here. We've covered adjectives, adverbs, direct objects, and the diagramming of the same using Rick Riordan's scintillating fiction. And for that matter, we've used the same for cursive practice, dictation, copywork, and as many other forms of language arts as I can squeeze out of a book both older kids enjoyed. So for the time being, the grammar workbook will be lonely, empty, and used only as a guideline for which parts of speech to review next. I don't think Jessie Wise would mind, but if she did, well, who cares - in the nicest way possible. Homeschooling, after all, is not about being enslaved to the curriculum - it's about letting your kids be free to learn!