Homeschooling - Year 1

The Decision To Do It¹

In Feb of 2010, I first started thinking seriously about homeschooling my kids. I had thought vaguely about it before and read about it quite a bit on the internet, but I knew I was lazy, so I didn't do it. Then one day I was listening to the radio and I heard the statistic that homeschoolers on average score in the 70th or 80th percentiles². Over time, that statistic really got to me. I mean, even if I do homeschooling badly and end up on the lower half of the homeschooling Bell curve, my kids will still probably be better off than in a public school.

So I started thinking about it.

I read a couple homeschooling books. The book Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius is actually the one that got me thinking the most about how I'd want to do it. During the summer of '10, I embarked on the experiment. I set things up as I wanted, and we went at it, adjusting things as we went.³ I prayed about it, asking God if he wanted me to keep doing this or not.

And every time I asked God, I felt a sense of peace about homeschooling. And no peace about keeping the kids in school, even though I really liked the kindergarten teacher that both Kyrie and Elijah had gotten, and had no serious complaints about the elementary school.

So I did it.

I made the legal notifications, and when the school year started up in the fall, Kyrie and Elijah did not go. When people asked me why I was homeschooling, I would either point to the apparent advantage in quality of learning or else I would say "Because I think God wants me to."⁴


The First Year

Because I was inspired by the Montessori book to try to use Montessori principles, and because there are no Montessori curriculums out there for homeschooling parents, I decided to make up my own curriculum as I go. Over the course of the year, my methods evolved. I got a history book and a poetry book. I printed free math sheets online for math practice. We tried to do some Spanish flash cards, but that was a limited success at best. I started off by having them write and/or draw in a journal every day. I put together a paper with color-coded descriptions of all the parts of speech, and laminated it; we played verb-charades and "guess that noun". We practiced the prayers that Kyrie had to learn for her First Communion class. We went to OMSI. Savi joined in the homeschooling activities after her 5th birthday in February. By the end of the year, I was requiring them to do reading, writing, and math practice every day, as well as cycling through the other subjects over the week.

I found out that the hardest thing about homeschooling was anxiety.

I had an advantage here. I knew God wanted me to homeschool, so I didn't let myself be anxious about whether I was right to or not. I did spend an awful lot of time thinking about how much I should push the kids and whether I was missing something important, but for the most part I was satisfied with how things were going. My biggest concern was how much time we had taken off to deal with "life" issues: the van breaking, decluttering, and so on. I told myself I would make up for it by homeschooling during the summer. All in all, I developed a better appreciation for why people burn out on homeschool, but I was glad not to be there right now.


God Tells Me To Buy a Curriculum

Despite my overall satisfaction, the idea of picking a curriculum flitted vaguely through my head a couple times early this summer.

And then I had this dream.

I dreamt that my kids were attending Trinity - the high school I attended⁵. In my dream, I was so relieved that someone else was taking care of my kids' education and I didn't have to spend all that time thinking about it anymore, that I could just trust that they would be well-educated. When I woke up, that relief was still vivid in my mind, and captured my mind, so that I had to ponder it.

As I was speculating about my schooling options, it occurred to me that my main issue with buying a curriculum was that I didn't know if I could trust them to have high academic standards. So I asked myself: is there any curriculum I trust? And right away a name came to mind - Seton. Memories drifted up of reviews that I had seen online, way back when, complaining that Seton was too difficult, too dry, pushed the kids too hard. That's just the kind of complaint that people make about Trinity; Seton is the Trinity School of homeschooling, I thought to myself.⁶

Concerned about the conflict between a "dry" Seton curriculum and Montessori principles of using materials that attract interest, I opened up the Montessori book and started reading the intro. Almost immediately I came across a discussion of the swing between too-rigid schooling and too-loose schooling, and how Montessori avoids the problems of the latter by having a very structured curriculum⁷.

Structured curriculum, I thought. Hmm. I think God's trying to tell me something.

So Seton it was. I later had a spurt of second-thoughts and spent a weekend poring over reviews and looking at online "glimpses" into books. There was one set of curriculum that caught my eye - Living Books Curriculum. I looked over their reading list and felt this pull towards it. I can only think to describe it as a spiritual longing, rather to my surprise. I still had a sense during prayer that I should be getting Seton for this year, though, and there was no WAY we could afford to buy the whole LBC for Kyrie and Elijah and Savi, and Ken thought the kids still needed workbooks. I wasn't quite able to ignore that pull, though, or put it off for another year. So I made up a list of all the books on the LBC lists that were available from the library - sometimes substituting a different book on the same or similar topic, if the LBC one wasn't available. Seton will be our regular curriculum books, and I am going to try to have the kids each read one book from the reading list every week⁸, and discuss it with me.

We picked up the first week's set of reading books from the library today, and the Seton books should arrive by Tuesday, a perfect time to start the new school year. I am SUPER excited about this all.



<sup>1. Yeah, this section is before the the first year of actual homeschooling, but I don't think I really laid this out before on my blog, so I am now.

2. It was on Dr. Ray Guarendi's show. This link puts the average at 86th percentile.

3. One of the more interesting anecdotes from that time is that Elijah, fresh out of kindergarten, started reading this book called Extreme Nature. At 4.1 lbs, it literally weighed more than a tenth of what he did. It's 320 pages of gorgeous pictures and adult-level reading. He refused to let me read it with him or explain what it was talking about. He didn't understand almost anything at all from it, but he worked his way patiently through the whole thing until he had read every page. I was proud of him, and he was proud of himself.

4. Depending on how I thought whoever I was talking to would take the God-explanation, mostly. But I always have this urge to make it clear that (a) just because God wants me to homeschool doesn't mean he's telling you to do it also; and (b) I'm not one of those people who homeschools as a way to protect their kids from all those anti-Christian influences in secular culture. I mean, really, my kids have no shortage of secular influences. I worry about them being a bad influence on the sweet little kids in the homeschooling group that we're joining. Although I got to say, it IS really nice not to have my kids coming home asking to buy a DS or watch Hannah Montana all the time.

5. Trinity School at River Ridge. The kids were the same age in the dream as they are now, and they were not super-geniuses in the dream. Trinity was just accommodating them somehow. And my dream also ignored the fact that we live in Oregon, and Trinity is back in Minneapolis. But then, I find that almost all of my dreams take place in the house I grew up in, if they take place in any recognizable location.

6. And then, in true geek fashion, I thought, "Seton:homeschooling curricula :: Trinity:high schools". And then wondered whether I should call them curricula or curriculums.

7. Unstructured schedule, structured curriculum.

8. I have no idea if the kids will be able to read one book per week. Especially Elijah, who is crazy smart, but whose interest is pretty limited to Angry Birds and Sonic right now. He never did read that Hardy Boys book. There's only 25 books in his reading list, though, and twice that number of weeks before the next school year starts, so I figure that's lots of wiggle room.</sup>

PicVids - August 2011

We had a busy month.

From July 29th to August 1st, the kids and I were up in Seattle...

Uncle Steve took us to Ivar's on Friday night. Yum!

On Saturday was the family reunion. Someone appears to have been demonstrating poses for Savi to imitate.

Sunday we visited Nana and Steve at their house.

Much fun was had by all.

Nana let the kids pick some of the flowers in her beautiful garden.

Back home again, we get a few days to hang out before heading out again.

The weekend of the 7th was Brittany's wedding! At the beach! 

I'm not including pics of Brittany's wedding in this post. If I remember to, it deserves a post of its own.

Kyrie showed herself quite adept at befriending three or four random kids on the beach.

Ah, my cute husband.

Ah, my silly son.

This was the mega-engineering project that we all worked on at the beach.  Much of it was already in place. But it was awesome.

Did I mention we were camping this weekend?

Father-son bonding time over Angry Birds

In case you can't tell, he is, very very softly, doing "This little piggy" on Julie's toes.

Elijah lost his first tooth!

Julie has some silly moments by herself.

Julie has some silly moments with her sister.

And with her brother.

You think she's waving at you, but she's actually giving the hand-sign saying she wants to nurse. Or, possibly, she's just discovered how to open and close her hand. It's hard to tell at this age.

Oh, and Julie totally started walking, but apparently I don't have any videos of it yet.

Funny Things Kids Do

1

Elijah: "Julie, how about instead of eating that pen [as he takes it away from her], you eat this graham cracker [as he hands it to her]?"

This is not revenge on Julie's part. Really.

2

At the library:
Me, to Elijah: "I think you would like this Hardy Boys book."
Elijah, looking at how thick it is: "No thanks."
Me: "It's about two boys having adventures and stuff, and having to find the bad guys."
Elijah: "Ok, let's get it."

Getting Elijah to read a book is almost as difficult as shoring up this dam's leak.

3

Savi: "Look Mom, the ipad put red dots under my name."
Me: "Yes, that's because it doesn't know your name is a real word and it thinks you misspelled it. Here, let me see if I can fix that."
Savi: "No, I like it like that."

Someone at the reunion taught Savi some poses... or tried to?

4

Savi: "Mom, can I have just one more beer?"
[She meant root beer.]

Who doesn't like beer? I mean, besides me and half my family?

5

One morning I told Gabe to go get some clothes to put on. He came back holding up pajama bottoms in one hand, and a pillowcase in the other.

He may have learned the futility of chasing birds this day. Or he might not have.

6

Savi: "Mom, can I have some coffee?"
["I mean tea."]

Savi wanted tea because Kyrie had some; Kyrie wanted to pose because Savi did. I want to call this a "stork pose". Clearly it's a classic that should be added to the repertoire of all professional models.

Umm... Blog Award.

So I guess I've earned my first blog award? Actually, it is not quite inconceivable that someone else awarded me a blog award before (I'm thinking of you Tienne) and I just didn't do anything about it. I probably wouldn't do anything about this one, too, but I've spent the last five days (a) being sick with a cold, (b) pouring over the blog Like Mother Like Daughter and being inspired to attempt to clean my house¹, and (c) pouring over homeschool curriculum².

So, basically, I'm taking the lazy way out and just posting this award that I got:

I got this from my cousin Lisa. Yeah, so, umm, I guess I'm also supposed to nominate some other blogs and let them know that and whatnot, but I'm just going to have to be a spoilsport and not do that. Almost everyone on my blog-reading list either (a) has more than 100 subscribers or (b) hasn't posted in months or years. So tough luck on that.

But, thanks Lisa. Due to your kind award, I got to, like, not put any effort into writing today. ;)



<sup>1. I spent a little over an hour yesterday cleaning my living room. I never got past the five or so square feet behind the couch. And I still need to go back, hopefully today, to do some more in that same section. Pitiful, isn't it? But I am so inspired by the idea of even that little section being really clean. If it takes me a whole week's worth of an-hour-a-day cleaning to finish the living room, I think it will have been worth it.

2. If you have never done this, you probably have no idea how difficult it is to settle on something. I totally thought I had, and then Ken asked to see what I had selected - which totally delighted me to have him involved - and he noticed several things that I hadn't, which made me decide to go through the work of comparing some more curriculum. So I've got four browser tabs going with different curricula, and I go through and compare them subject by subject, making notes for myself in Evernote. They're all so complicated, and it's hard to get a thorough feel for what I'd be buying without holding the books in my hands. I need something like the MACHE conference that Dad used to tape, only out here in Oregon. And at a price that would make it worthwhile for me.</sup>

Walking the Environmental Walk

Back some time ago, I was having an email conversation with one of my brothers that touched on, among other things, environmentalism. I believe strongly that we need to take better care of the planet than we are doing. It occurred to me, though, that, other than our regular recycling, I'm not really doing much that is specifically environmentally-friendly.

Now, I have my reasons. Composting is time-consuming, and because of Ken's carnivorous tendencies, most of our food waste has some meat in it, which I understand is not good to compost, especially in areas with meat-eating wildlife. And we have a whole pack of coyotes living in the quarry on the other side of our backyard fence. Giving up the car would mean not getting out much, since taking 5 kids on public transport requires lots of effort. And since most of my friends do not live somewhere I can reach by public transport within a reasonable amount of time, giving up the car would mean giving up on some people I am very close to. And so on and so forth.

In an effort to go beyond talking the talk into walking the walk, I asked God what I could do to be more environmentally friendly. Use less water.

I asked several times over the course of a couple weeks, and every time, it was like there was this tiny whisper of a thought: "Use less water. (But don't go overboard)." So I started trying to think of ways to use less water.

And immediately ran into a brick wall.

1. I love the high-performance showerhead that we recently got, and while I might possibly be convinced to give it up, I don't think Ken could be.
2. Again, I could possibly be convinced to adopt water conservation techniques, but I don't want to, and I'm pretty sure Ken would object strenuously if I suggested it.
3. Any other attempt to reduce our water usage basically means doing less cleaning. Laundry; dishes; baths, those are pretty much our major water uses. I already make all of my kids share the same bathwater, and I try to do only full loads of laundry because I have to pay actual quarters for each load.

It seemed like any of my options would lead to some way of me failing as a wife or mother, so I didn't see how I could save water. But the thought would not go away. It kept nagging at me and bugging me for several months. Every time I did dishes or washed my hands, it would come back to mind. Finally, one day, when I was washing dishes and the thought was nagging at me again, in an effort to relieve my frustration with the thought, I reached out and turned the faucet down a little.

And there was peace.

I was like.... "Seriously, God? Seriously?!" I mean, c'mon here. We have seven people taking showers and baths, flushing the toilet down umpteen times a day, washing hands, seven plus loads of laundry a week, tons of dirty dishes that require sinkfuls of water to clean them...how can turning the water faucet down ever so slightly make any difference? As I thought about it, though, I realized that all that other water that we use is needed. This tiny bit of water that is the difference between having the faucet on medium and having it on low - that tiny bit was superfluous. Not being able to do anything about the rest of the water we use didn't mean that this comparatively tiny amount didn't matter. I also belatedly noticed that it was when I was running the faucet - i.e. when I was doing dishes or washing my hands - that I had been bothered by the thought that I should use less water. That thought was not occurring to me when I was flushing the toilet or taking a shower.

So there you go. Now I'm trying to keep the faucet down low and use less water.

Comic 1

In lieu of any writing today, I offer the first comic I drew. I'm sort of vaguely thinking of making them into a series, but that would require, well, effort, so we'll see.

Marathon Running

I discovered some months ago that one of my cousins had a blog. I checked out the link, figuring it was probably full of the random personal thoughts that most people put on their blogs. Instead, I found a post about how to run two big races on back-to-back weekends¹.

I thought she was insane I mean, she was on a different wavelength than I was.

I haven't been able to get that image out of my head ever since, though. I'm obviously overweight and out of shape, but I'm pretty healthy all-around, and I tend to think of myself as reasonably strong. But two races in a row? Can people even DO that? It made me realize that, even if my cousin's standards are on the high side, that maybe my standards are on the definitely-too-low side.

Insert the last two weekends.

Let me skip all the long whiny details and just say that on the first weekend, I packed the five kids into the van² and drove up to Seattle for a family reunion. The following weekend we all went camping on the coast for Brittany's wedding. (A highly successful, and very hippie³ affair.) In between these two weekends, I thought to myself, "Gee, this is a lot like running two marathons in a row."⁴

That's not the only time that running has come up lately. My other cousin blogged about her adventures with running. Jen @CD blogged about running(take #2). Every time I try to do a Wii Fit workout⁵, I think about how my only real successful⁶ attempt at establishing an exercise routine was when I started walking on a treadmill and eventually found myself running and liking it. And my new friend from Spanish class brought up the Race for the Cure.

I think I've even dreamed about running.

The only problem is, I have no idea how to make this happen. I don't think even a collapsible treadmill would fit into our tiny crowded apartment. I don't think I can afford a gym membership, and even if I could, the hassle of babysitting and driving and whatnot means it probably wouldn't happen very often. There's no time that would be convenient for me to go walking/running around our neighborhood without the kids, and with them, I can't even maintain a brisk walk, much less a run.

So I guess I will put it in God's hands... it's up to him to make this possible, since he has put the desire in my heart.



<sup>1. I think this was the post about runing two races.

2. Remember all those bags of clothes that I decluttered, and then got in the way of looking for Tire Jack? I still haven't found someplace to donate them to, so I had to carry them all back inside and pile them up in my bedroom, so that I could fit all our bags and stuff into the van. Just so you have *some* whiny details. Also, Kyrie threw up within a half hour of leaving for Seattle, and Savi got carsick on the way back down. So there.

3. It was a beach wedding. The day was windy, so everyone's hair was blowing around. Someone pointed out that all the bridesmaids had long hair, and all the groomsmen had hair just as long.

4. If you don't think taking five kids out of town sounds like as much work as running a race, you probably haven't done it before. This is also why I haven't posted in awhile, although I suspect no one noticed.

5. Which should be 5x/week, but is more like once every two weeks.

6. I call it successful because I did it 5 days a week for about 5 months. Then it died an abrupt death with the simultaneous onset of a Minnesota summer and another pregnancy. I just couldn't stand to wear shoes in the heat and didn't think I should be trying to run without them. Although I might reconsider that thinking in light of Jen's comments about the Born to Run book.</sup>