The G.R.A.I.N. of Your Homeschool

I am usually not a big fan of using acronyms in speeches, lectures, or sermons, but in this case I was pleasantly surprised. This was the title of one of the workshop sessions given by Misty Spinelli at the NCHE home school conference 2 years ago. I loved what she said so much that I ordered a CD of her lecture so that I could listen to it at the beginning of every new home school year. It is inspiring, encouraging, honest, practical advice on daily living and homeschooling, and a great reminder of all the real reasons that we home school. This is an analogy that compares homeschooling to making bread and I would like to share some of the goodness with you.

G. Goals. This is like the recipe for our bread- the list of ingredients; the reason and the vision for your home school. She says we should home school for the adults that our children will become some day. First she says to make a wish list of all the things we would want our kids to be when they grow up, which of course would include all the virtues and would look something like this: wise, discerning, patient, kind, humble, self-sufficient, forgiving, strong work ethic, academic success, good social/relationship skills, a good brother, sister, friend, husband, wife, mother, father...etc. Now imagine that you show your list to God and He says your list is great, but if you could have only one of those things on the list what would it be? So you pick the most important thing on the list and from there you start to prioritize the list in order of importance and what usually ends up happening is that academic success falls pretty low on the list. There is no doubt that we want our children to be successful and that might mean going to college, but the truth is that true education involves so much more than academics and true success is measured by so much more than a college degree and a scholarly mind. We are educating a WHOLE person, not just the brain. If we followed the priority list of the world it would be: getting a good college education, having a successful career, making a lot of money, buying lots of material things to show for your success and so on. But whose priorities are we following? As a homeschooling mom I know how easy it is to get caught up in choosing curriculum, focusing on the academic checklist and trying to cover all the subjects each and every day, but when I step back and evaluate the reasons why I home school I realize that it is not so much about academics as it is about walking out Duet. 6 with my children.

R. Relax. This is when we allow the bread to rise. What do you do to make bread rise? Nothing. Let it rest. We all need rest from the constant stimulation that we are exposed to everyday- the radio, TV, computer, cell phone, etc. We need a break from these things and so do our children- time to formulate our own thoughts, time to be still and quiet- to commune with God and hear His voice. It is critical that children have down time to process what they are learning. There is a great book called the Power of Play by David Elkind that talks about the importance of providing our children with unscheduled free time to play and use their imaginations or to just sit quietly and watch the birds or look at books. So, it is one thing to provide free time for our kids, but it is much more difficult to provide it for ourselves. Why is that? We have chores to tend to (the never ending pile of dishes and laundry), we need to pay bills, grocery shop, plan meals, prepare for the days ahead, balance the checkbook, work on the house- the list goes on. The truth is that homeschooling is not an easy job and it is critical and equally important that the parents find moments of peace, prayer and rejuvenation as well.

A. Answers. This goes along with relaxing. Go to God for all your answers. Get on your knees. Open dialogue with God and ask specific questions about individual children. It is not possible to home school in your own strength. You will fail and feel like a failure. No one can possibly know everything and we shouldn't try to teach our children everything. We get these "have to's" in our head that aren't "have to's". Ask yourself whose "to-do" list are you working from? the elementary school down the road, the world's, Abeka's, our own or God's? We need to seek His to-do list. Seek wise council with the Father, pray and ask for His guidance on this home school journey.

I. Instruct the will of your child. This is like the shaping of the bread. It is critical that we help our children form good habits before any formal instruction takes place. It is very difficult to teach a child that is lazy, disobedient, and has a poor attention span. A habit is something you do effortlessly. It is a gift when we give our children good habits. The key to breaking negative habits is to set up natural consequences that directly relate to the habit that you are trying to break and be 100% consistent in implementing the consequences. (I have found that consistency is the hardest part but it it definitely worth it in the end.) Consistency, encouragement, and repetition are the keys to building good habits. I cannot say that I have completely mastered this area, but I do know that there is a mutual benefit for both me and the kids when they get their work done quickly and with a good attitude.

N. Nourishment. How do the majority of Americans eat? Fast, fun, but not very nourishing. What does the world say about homeschooling? We need a teaching degree, we need a classroom in our home, we need to cram their heads full of useless facts so that they will appear to be learning something. It isn't healthy to eat junk food that provides our body with nothing but empty calories and in the same way we shouldn't waste our children's time by filling them up with facts that don't really mean much in the long run. Let's fill them with true nourishment- let's fill them up with things that will really help them grow; a WHOLE education, love and a loving environment, time spent together, and the wisdom of the Word.

Happy Birthday Jo-Jo!

I can't believe Jonas is already 2 years old! Jonas is our 3rd son and is special for so many reasons. He says so many funny things that sound a lot like cookie monster (me do it! or mine shoes on) and he already has the most hilarious sense of humor. He loves music; he is always singing and his favorite activity is playing the keyboard. He also loves balloons and the moon. If we are in the car at night he will talk to the moon and about the moon the entire time we are in the car- he calls it bella luna, but it sounds more like bella baloona! His favorite books are the I Spy books, My Goodnight Book by Eloise Wilkins and Goodnight Gorilla. He is a fruit monster and would live on fruit alone if I would let him. I gave him the indian name Skinny-Minny-Too-Tiny because he is such a bean pole. One very special fact about Jonas is that he has amazing self control for a 2 year old and he has the best manners of all the boys. He is also a very compassionate, sympathetic little guy- if one of the brothers get hurt he is always trying to comfort them. I just know that all of these wonderful qualities will carry into adulthood and he will be a very steady, kind, and gentle man- just like his father. Happy 2nd birthday Jo-Jo!

Summer Road Trip Part IV- Laurel Fork, VA

We love the Brown Family!!! Our good friends Aaron and Jenny live in Laurel Fork, VA- one of the most beautiful areas of VA in my opinion. They live on 30(+/-) acres near the parkway and it is always so peaceful to spend time up there. We had such an amazing time with this great family that the pictures don't even do it justice.
The dads took the kids for a ride all around the property one afternoon and they spent 2 days building a fort in the woods. I am so sad that I didn't get any pictures of the fort because they worked so hard at clearing a spot in the woods and building the foundation. Every kid helped and had a tool in hand which made the process even more fun.
I call Jenny my pioneer/homesteader friend and while the boys were building the fort, she was teaching me how to can. We managed to can 21 quarts of peaches. I messed a few of them up a little, but Jenny is a very patient teacher and I realized that canning isn't nearly as complicated as I initially thought.
Aaron is a landscaper and he collected a huge pile of brush so we could have a bonfire. This has been a tradition every time we visit. This was the biggest bonfire yet- it was huge. The funny thing was that Jenny had a little patch of sunflowers last year and one lone sunflower came up in the same spot this year. Well, Aaron put the brush pile right next to it. Jenny hugged it good-bye and then it went up in flames- I could tell she was crying inside as it burned! So sad.
On Sunday we had a great time visiting with Jenny's family. We had a bible reading on her parent's back porch overlooking the mountains and we shared a great lunch together. Then we went swimming in the creek. The kids thought it was really cool to drive through the open ford. Matt is really good at skipping rocks and spent a lot of time teaching our kids how to find the perfect rock and showing them the proper throwing technique. Elijah caught a fish. The little boys enjoyed playing in the mud and they actually found a really muddy bank and turned it into a mud slide. They were so dirty, but as my Papaw used to say "a little dirt helps kids grow".
Our kids loved being able to spend so much time playing with their buddies. Savannah took a special liking to Ezra and kept trying to convince me that she was a very capable babysitter (which she is and will be a fabulous mommy someday). Little Katie Mae and Jonas really enjoyed chasing each other around. Elijah and Savannah loved putting together big puzzles every morning- it became a morning tradition and setting up elaborate scenes with the toys. Alan and Caleb just enjoyed getting dirty.
Our last day we went for a hike up Buffalo Mountain. The view from the top was breathtaking. You could see for miles and miles in all directions. Elijah felt like he was on top of the world. Finally, we had a picnic at Mabry Mill on the Parkway. It seemed like the perfect day and it was sad to get in the car and come home.
The thing I always recognize now when I spend time in the country and in nature is how much noise pollution we are subjected to in the city. My ears felt relieved to just listen to the wind blow and the crickets chirrup minus the sirens, trains, cars, horns and airplanes. It was so nice to sit under the stars without street lights dimming the view. It is so easy to recognize and appreciate all the things that God created without so many man-made obstacles in the way.
So thank you sweet Brown family for a relaxing mountain getaway. Don't be surprised if we set up a permanent tent on your property!

Summer Road Trip Part III- PA and DC

I just loved our trip. Looking back on the pictures makes me realize even more how much I loved it. The third part of the trip we went to Lancaster Co. PA, which was a great midpoint between Buffalo and DC. We thought about going to Hershey Park in Hershey, PA but we didn't think it was geared towards little children. Then we found this great amusement park called Dutch Wonderland and decided to go there instead. I have never seen such a great amusement park for little kids. It is the best beginners park for kids ages 10 and under. All the rides are geared towards younger children and they also have music shows, story telling, high dive shows and a great water park. I wish I had taken more pictures of this part of our trip, but we were too busy riding the rides. Elijah had his first big roller coaster experience and he loved it. He probably rode it a dozen times. Caleb and Jonas had the most fun in the water park. We had so much fun and we were all wiped out by the end of the day (especially Jonas).
The next day we left PA and headed for DC to see our good friends Kyle and Lorraine. We love Kyle and Lorraine. They are missionaries in Haiti and we only get to see them about once a year, so we couldn't pass up the opportunity to swing by DC and hang out with them for a while. We also got to meet their sweet new addition- baby Micah. The day we arrived Matt and Kyle took the older boys and went to an awesome park to play Frisbee golf. At this particular course there are blackberry bushes everywhere; so they took along some baskets and picked some blackberries which Lorraine made into a delicious blackberry cobbler.
The next day we visited Mount Vernon which was George Washington's home. It was so amazing being on that property and seeing his house and walking along the Potomac River. I never realized that George Washington was such a progressive and innovative farmer. You really have to see the gardens to fully understand. The strangest part of it all was standing at his grave site; it made him a real person, not just a name in a history book or a face on a dollar bill.
Ezra fell asleep in his stroller for the first time and it is actually one of the few times ANY of my kids have fallen asleep in a stroller. I think the trip was finally catching up to him and he looked so cute with his hat over his eyes.
After Mount Vernon Kyle and Matt went to DC at night just to see some of the major sites. It's kind of cool to go at night because everything is lit up and it isn't so hot and crowded. That was the first time Matt has been to DC and we definitely want to go back and enjoy the museums next time.

Summer Road Trip Part II- More of New York

These pictures show some more of the major highlights of our New York trip. We were thrilled when we found out that Fort Niagara was hosting a re-enactment of the French and Indian War, but this was no regular re-enactment. It just so happened that it was the 250th anniversary of this war and it was the biggest reenactment in the US this year with over 2500 re-en actors. We were able to watch a boat battle and a field battle. However, it was not only a reenactment it was an encampment as well, so we were able to see what life was like beyond the battlefield. We saw how they slept, what they ate, how they dressed, how they made weapons etc. And to my mother's great dismay, we bought some guns for the boys. The funniest part was that there was a park close by and we let the kids take a break and play there for a while. It was completely filled with little boys with toy guns and they divided themselves up and staged their own battle.
The next day we took the kids to a great little children's museum in East Aurora, which is about 30 minutes from my grandpa's house. Somehow we took a wrong turn and ended up taking the most beautiful detour ever through miles and miles of dairy and wheat farms. It is funny because when most people think of New York they think of the city, but there are some of the most beautiful farmlands I have ever seen in upstate New York and all across PA. I forgot to bring my camera into the children's museum, but I did get a few pictures of the farms. And if anyone is ever in East Aurora you must eat at a great restaurant that we found called Sorrentino's.
The day after that Grandma Joanie took us to Herschell's Carousel Museum in Tonawanda. The Allan Herschell Company, the most prolific maker of carousels, specialized in producing portable machines which could be used by traveling carnival operators. The Company produced over 3,000 hand carved wooden carousels and out-produced all of its rivals in the carousel industry. (info. taken from www.carouselmuseum.org) Who knew this all started in the little town of Tonawanda? The kids had so much fun riding the old carousels, which go much faster than the newer ones. The most interesting part of the museum to me was the organ and drums that provided the carousel music. We are used to music just coming out of a speaker, but these were real instruments designed to play themselves.
I had to sneak a few pictures in of Caleb playing in the rain. After we went to the carousel museum we ate ice cream on my grandpa's back porch and it started to rain. Caleb asked if he could play in the rain and of course we said yes. So he started off splashing around in the puddles, but by the end of it he was swimming in them.
Our last day in New York was fabulous. It was the Fourth of July. My Uncle Bill plays the bagpipes, so we got up early to watch him play in the Parade on Grand Island. Then we went over to my Uncle Bill and Aunt Deb's house for a delicious 4th of July picnic and were able to swim in their pool. Then we ended the day watching the fireworks go off over the Niagara Falls River just 2 blocks from my Grandpa's house. It was a truly perfect way to spend the 4th of July.
I ended the slide show with a picture of the kids with Great Pop and Mama Joanie because they were the highlight of our trip. My grandpa made a ramp in his living room for the toy cars and they played there every day. He even got down on the floor with Elijah and played pirates. Joan has a great laugh that fills the room and hugs that make you feel really loved. The memories of our time with them are the ones that will last forever.

Summer Road Trip Part I- New York

We headed out on June 25th on a 3 week road trip... a glorious benefit of Matt being a teacher and having the summers off. So we have been on this wonderful adventure and have been having the best time. Most of the pictures in this slide show are of our visit to Tonawanda, NY. This is a great little Suburb of Buffalo. My grandparents and all my aunts and uncles live there. My great grandparents came to the US from Germany and built a house in Tonawanda, NY and my grandfather still lives in the same house that he lived in when he was a little boy. His neighborhood is fabulous. It has a fire station, school, grocery store, church all within about a 5 block radius. His house is 2 blocks from the beautiful Niagara Falls River. There is a great running/biking trail that runs along the river all the way up to the Falls.
The first pictures are taken when we woke them up really early in the morning the first day of our trip because we wanted to get an early start on the 12 hour trip. You may be wondering what the picture with the tags is all about. Well, I knew I was going to have to be creative to survive a trip that long with 4 young kids in the car. So I found a great website www.momsminivan.com and I found a lot of fabulous ideas for making a car trip fun for kids. I hung a string from window to window in our Suburban and I hung a ticket for each hour that we were going to be on the road and when each hour passed I took down a ticket and this was a great way to give them a visual of how many hours were left on the trip. Every 2 hours I gave them each a surprise bag with a snack and a little game or activity in it. This really helped the time go quickly and we all ended having a lot of fun on that 12 hour trip.
A lot of the pictures are taken at Niagara Falls. Even though I have been there several times I really wanted to take the kids to see it. I am in complete awe each time I see the falls and I just can't imagine what it must have looked before it was developed. Can you imagine being an explorer and stumbling upon the falls for the very first time? It is absolutely amazing.
We also went to the Erie Canal, which is very fascinating to me. This time we went to the Erie Caves, which I never knew about before this trip and got a great tour of this amazing man-made cave next to the canal.
But the main focus of this trip was to spend time visiting with family. We spent so much time eating together, talking, laughing, looking at old pictures, swimming, and just hanging out. The last time I saw my NY family we just had Elijah, so they got to meet Caleb, Jonas and Ezra. The kids loved meeting their New York family and I know that we created some great memories that will last a lifetime.


For Today...

Outside my window... It is hot, humid and cloudy. I am waiting for a thunderstorm to roll through and bring a few cool breezes.

I am thinking... that I need to tend to the pile of dirty dishes in my sink and the clothes in the hallway...but I'm sure they will still be there an hour from now.

I am thankful for... my mom visiting. She took the boys to the YMCA to swim and the little guys are sleeping... so I am also thankful for the quiet stillness of the house right now.

From the learning rooms... Elijah is devouring old copies of Ranger Rick and enjoying some new books on tape from my mom and Caleb is really into Richard Scarry right now. We are still reading the Little House series...we only have 1 more book left... and Elijah has already told me he wants to start the whole series over again once we finish it.

From the kitchen... is the smell of pancakes from this morning. It's a great recipe that is made of whole wheat, wheat germ, oats, pecans, bananas, apples, cinnamon...Yum.

I am wearing... I long blue skirt and a white shirt

I am creating... a family vision. This is something Matt and I have wanted to write out for a while and when it is complete I am going to frame it and hang it in our bedroom.

I am going... to take Caleb to his first music and movement class tonight. He is so excited and I hope it will be a lot of fun.

I am reading... Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home by Elizabeth Foss and I am really enjoying it. I am always reading and rereading Educating the Whole-Hearted Child by Sally Clarkson

I am hoping... to find some good books at the used book store tonight.

I am hearing... My neighbor mowing his lawn, the attic fan running at our house and the faint sirens from a fire truck.

Around the house... I see laundry that needs to be folded and books that need to be put away.

One of my favorite things... hearing my children laugh.

A few plans for the rest of the week: tomorrow my mom and I are taking the boys on a train ride to Raleigh to see my brother and go to the Museum of Natural Science. I am sure it will be a very adventurous day.