I read recently that people visit, and then revisit, blogs that give them a warm, relaxed feeling as they navigate through the site.   This sedated feeling includes a lack of busy, bright colors.    I'm seriously considering relocating my blog to another host for several reasons, mostly business-oriented, but I like HSB and the fact that you have to go a bit out of the way to find us.   In a very public Internet, it feels quite private.   We'll see.   In the meantime, I dumped Picasso for the more calming and monochromatic background.    How effective this will be is a story for another time.

Since the kids worked so hard to get their history pages completed, I thought I'd share a few final excerpts from their work.   Here are a couple of pages from my son's self-created book: 

'As a boy, Lincoln lived with his brother.   Not being in school for a year, his classmates encouraged him to run for Senator.   He was very smart, strong and honest.  Once in his store, he realized he overcharged a lady.   Abe walked 6 miles to pay her a few cents.   He decided to run for Senate.   Abe lost to Stephen A. Douglass, because not many people knew him.   We he ran for president Abe won against the same competitor.'

This is his illustration of Adolf Hitler.   (The five-year-old noted that "it doesn't look much like him."   I have to wonder who she thinks Hitler is and what she thinks he should look like).    Anyway, our son's words are:

'After World War I, Germany had many problems.   Adolf Hitler became chacellor because he made many promises to help Germany.   Really he only made it worse.   Many other countries had evil dictators like him.   Hitler hated Jews, people that were crippled and people rebelled against him.'

Below are the oldest's pictures.   The first is her rendition of a series based upon Jacob Lawrence's creation of visual narrative in the 1920's.   Her theme was "Lights."

 Finally, she crafted this poem following our visit to Vicksburg, MS and the Vicksburg National Cemetery.

Typical of my oldest, this took forever, but the results, I thought, were almost worth the frustration:

'Oh, that battle, it was hard and long

Especially for the Confederates, who sung a sad song.

All they tried to do was follow a command

But the Yankees kept blocking them, by sea and land.

The Confederates' zigzags just didn't work out

For the Yankees were ready for them, without a doubt.

The Yankees wanted victory, but also "the key"

Which was the Mississippi River, their major need.

At a time, the sides fought, 'til the ammunition was no more

And it was easy to see that death the battle had bore.' 

On next year, we'll continue to notebook--well, sort of.    I love the way notebooking enhances learning.   In order to be effective, the mind must process what's occurred and then translate it into something understandable, something wonderful.    Even with my "big kids," I love to have them write during class, and find it sad that the university forces me to teach from a presentation.    Watching a screen engages the mind in a very different way than writing.   

 I wanted to share a couple of great articles on making, or re-making, books as a tool for learning.  Amy Bayliss shared an idea that I'd never heard of (nor would my creatively-challenged brain have thought up) regarding turning a used book into a personal keepsake.    You might see more here.    There are other thoughts on book altering here.   For our purposes, I found a commonplace book concept (see here) which will free the kids from strictly writing their work and give them plenty of time and space to create.    This is not to devalue the writing process in any way; I know that, particularly as kids age, the ability to articulate a clear argument in both oral and written forms is increasingly critical.   The commonplace book, from where I sit, is the next step in them owning their own learning.    I looked up a couple of pre-crafted books via Homeschool in the Woods and Learning through History--so expensive!   So, we might see where we land with homemade books, much as we've done for the past two years.

I've finally reached a point of outlining the kids' day-to-day schedules.   As I posted earlier via Twitter, I am so glad that the Lord gives strategy, clarity, and peace as we submit our plans over to Him. 

Thanks to all of you--this is quite a milestone for me, considering that I often wonder if my words reach anyone.    I am humbled, and would especially like to acknowledge Marie at PumpkinsMomma who became my 1000th commentor.    God bless you great guys!

So, at least for the summer, this seems to be my Monday morning thing to do!   If you'd like to participate in this meme, visit Carol at ThreeLittleLadies, and be sure to leave your link so that we can check in and see what you're up to as well.

As an individual, I…

love how the Lord uses us, even in our unworthiness,  to minister to one another.   Our family drove to Baton Rouge to spend the weekend with another homeschooling family that we met a couple of years ago.    They were traveling from the D.C. area.   We didn’t have as long to connect as I would have liked, but I was so in awe of God as the mother shared with me how much I had encouraged her over the relatively short time we’ve known each other.     She has homeschooled all of her children’s lives; for that, I am envious.   Yet, she struggled with the legitimacy of homeschooling, and especially of her efforts.   She is a college-educated woman whose parents expected her to continue through graduate school and maybe (she never said this) work and achieve before marriage and kids—very much the life I lived.    Instead, she married right out of college and grappled ever since with being, in her words, “just a wife and mom.”    This society—pardon me, this very jacked-up (or skewed, for those who long for more eloquence) does such a number on our collective psyche about what a woman or a man should do, and sadly, those who love us most can also be most guilty of trying to force fit us into a place that’s comfortable for them.      I believe I’ve shared this story before, but, had I followed my own dream, I would have been a journalist—the only way I knew at the time to make money and follow a passion for writing.   However, one of my sisters very disapprovingly told me that journalists make no money.   As a young teenager—about the age that my oldest is now—I needed approval, and when I didn’t get it, so went my dream.   It would be difficult to look back at my life now with regrets, but I told my friend that she need not concern herself with never having worked in corporate America and “having a level of personal achievement” (again, her words).    When you work for someone else, you have to subject all that you are to fulfill someone else’s dreams, and you often are working in environments and trying to befriend people whose values have little to do with your own.    What is the personal achievement of that?   Anyway, my friend said that hearing me talk about what the kids were doing from time to time allowed her to see that being a wife and mom is a worthwhile pursuit, and that it is hard work.    She said that when I shared, it made her think, “She really takes this seriously,” and it has allowed her to take plotting her children’s course more seriously as well.   Praise God that my rambling is helping someone.

Two seems to be my magic number, as in two formal workouts per week for the last several weeks.   I won’t even go into the normal “this week should be better.”    I’ll just keep plowing away at it.    I hate the way that men’s and women’s bodies respond so differently to diet and exercise.   We received our Wii Fit as a Christmas present.   While unemployed, my husband worked out just about every day.   Now, however, we work out about the same number of times a week; we eat the same diet (he actually eats more).    All of his clothes are falling off, and I’m just praying not to have to buy new ones for myself.   I must have a metabolism that a slug could outrun.

As a wife and homemaker, I…

am concerned that our older kids don’t know how to do more around the house.     They have chores, but the oldest’s list of “can-dos” is substantially shorter than mine when I was 14.   Because of everything else we’ve had going on this summer, I haven’t been able to coach in some of the areas I wanted to.    Our son helps with cooking; the oldest is usually moving too slow to spend time in the kitchen.   They were to wash dishes on weekends, but that hasn’t happened yet, and when the oldest asked my husband how to wash a bowl on last weekend (in part to fake ignorance and attempt to get out of doing it, I’m sure), I felt as if I was slipping.    It’s so easy at times to do things yourself rather than to slow down and teach them to someone else.    Last week, all three children and I got down on our knees and cleaned the upstairs baseboards.   True confession: I’d never cleaned them in the almost 10 years that we’ve lived in the home, but they honestly didn’t look too bad.   The kids did a wonderful job.    As crazy as it sounds, I flirted with having the girls do this rather than asking our son to help.   Admittedly, this was a slip back into my traditional thinking about what men do in a home as opposed to what women do.   I quickly dismissed it because 1) the five-year-old wouldn’t be able to clean as well as he could, and 2) I don’t want to raise a slob or a chauvinist.     As I look at a sofa full of unfolded clothes (another gap between the oldest’s skills and mine), it occurs to me that I need to tighten this up.

As a mom and homeschooling parent, I…

am plowing along in this area as well.     I’ll work with the youngest on math, phonics and reading as soon as I finish this entry (if she allows me to complete it with little interruption—not likely).

We completed American history—hooray!!   I think that, now that we’re practically into July, the kids can actually begin to feel like it’s a summer vacation (smile).   Without knowing what all will transpire over next school year, it intrigues me to see how much the kids would ask to do over the summer if I left it totally up to them.   Maybe next summer…

As a business owner, I…

am preparing to speak at the Heart of the Matter Conference in August.  More immediately, I am back in editing mode and looking forward to adding some great new reads and activities to the elementary curriculum.

God bless your week this week, too.

Today is our niece’s very first dance recital, and the rest of the family went to support her.   I wanted to go, but there is so much to do before we head out of town on tomorrow.   Anyway, as much as I hate to miss her debut (she’s only four years old—too cute!), I am enjoying a rare moment of peace and quiet at home.    I can’t enjoy it long, though—there are groceries to buy, packing to complete, and minor cleaning to do before we get on the road.   I’ve wanted to write for several days now, so I made a conscious effort to pin my thoughts before I put the skates back on and start my evening shift.

I’ve spent days and weeks reading and reading, and then reading some more.    It amazes me how much I agonize over teacher’s guides, reading plans, and schedules, tweaking this and changing that.  I know from my blogging buddies that I’m not unique in that way.   Yet I also have friends who love scripted materials, and I’ve seen beautifully laid out step-by-step instructions from various publishers.  It’s just not me.  So, I tear through most teacher’s guides to get suggestions, with little intent of using them as designated.    I find myself creativity-challenged, especially for the youngest, and so I need help with ideas.   I am, however, gaining confidence in my own abilities over time.   Moreover, I’m gaining confidence with the kids’ abilities to create on their own, and to learn without my planning every moment of school day.    As just one example, the youngest has written so much over these few months.   It hasn’t helped her handwriting , but her understanding of phonics is growing tremendously.    She decided to write all of her dance classmates a note before the recital, so she cut several sheets of scratch paper to make little cards.    She asked me how to spell a few words for the first card, but then copied what she’d written on each of the other cards.   Right before the recital, I checked the cards to see what was written.   On the outside of each card was the name of a little girl.   On the inside, it looked something like this:

i wish you could come over, but my mom said no.

 I wish I had thought to save one of these before I hurriedly threw them away to avoid her actually giving one to someone, and the consequential embarrassment.     Laughingly, I thought to myself that even this probably captures the spirit of Charlotte Mason’s intent regarding masterly activity, if not the exact purpose.

So where am I now?       Right where I should be—humbled to pray, and committed to spending money on good books.    Overlaying each kid’s day with my own schedule was revelatory; I will never get done all that I would want to do in an ideal world, but they will learn plenty, and they’ll own their own learning, which is even more important.   I’ve pared down our schedule and worked hard to give the kids ample time to create.     I bought a used teacher’s guide for 1^st grade reading, not the $100 package that I purchased last year from Bob Jones.    I purchased a used Sonlight IG to help our son through Asia and Africa.   For the oldest, I’ll use Sparknotes (free literature guides), LessonPlanet.com (free lesson plans) and Learning Through History magazine to get us through the classics. I also found a great Medieval history bundle from LTH (I love these—for $7 a magazine, you get a wonderfully thorough and wonderfully fun unit study).  I think we’re set for 10^th grade, although it’s still another school year away.      Nothing like getting ahead, right?   By the way, Invitation to the Classics is a great resource to buy used as well.

Anyway, given that next week is July and we begin our year in early August, my plan is to begin laying this entire schedule into a planner.    The stores are behind me in the timing of their back-to-school materials display, so I may have to order the children’s planners online.    One work that I’ve crafted to the point of creating my own Picasso is a “syllabus” of sorts for my upcoming high school freshman.   I have all of her subjects, the weekly reading plan (at a high level), and her associated wrap-up activities for the books she’ll read.   Her “elective,” namely the Ancient Costume and History course, is also detailed in this syllabus.   I should probably come up with a better name for it, but really, I just wanted to get down on paper what she would do for the year, how she’d do it, and what tools would be in place to guide her learning.    The thoughts and resources that went into what I put together is probably worth a separate post, but I wanted her to grow accustomed to reading through plans and becoming increasingly responsible for her own schedule.     As I said earlier, I keep tweaking it, but within the next two weeks I need to wrap up all the loose ends so that we’ll both be ready.  It occurs to me why many homeschoolers place their kids in school after middle school.   Though it’s not rocket science, there is a certain level of timidity in designing a year that is child- and home-friendly enough for you to feel good about, yet rigorous enough for a college admissions board to feel good about.   Again, a post for another window when I have more time.   May God bless each of you.

I am convinced that this is the problem with summer for me—too much that I want to do, and fewer pressures to fit it all into a time slot.   Anyway, I woke up with plans to pray and eat breakfast on today, hubby’s and my fast day, work on a business project, and type my weekly homeschool wrap-up (this has become a Monday morning project as by Sunday evening I’m generally too whipped out to pull my thoughts together).   I had school with the kids, then a bit of time with my big kids, and perhaps time to sew this evening and complete that long overdue workout.   Normally, I’d list my tasks into my planner and then scratch through them when done.     So here’s the difference of the season, even if the difference is only psychological.   I can’t immediately find my planner, although I can think of 2-3 places where it might be.   Prayer keeps getting pushed back as I noticed an empty washing machine (gotta start that new load), fed a hungry 5-year-old, and began to tidy up a house with something in the floor of every room besides furniture.   Over breakfast, or should I say brunch given the time, a cursory check through my mail led me to a beautiful post regarding CM principles, how they relate to scriptural principles, and how they are still relevant in this post-modern world in which we live.     Between that entry and my dissertation to Cathy at Basketflat about our academic “uniqueness” (two posts ago), it is now time for school, and I’m already behind in typing this entry.   I’m not sure that it will be a weekly wrap-up, but we’ll see how it goes.

As an individual, I…

finished reading the blog entry about post-modernism and immediately thought about our Sunday school class.   We taught two Sundays back-to-back because of mini-vacation plans that will take us away from home this coming weekend.   In truth, because of our own schedules, we were nowhere near as prepared as we should have been, but the Lord was, and He did a work through us.   We were able to use the taco sauce/ penny experiment twice since we had a different group of kids in the second week.    Every time I look at their faces, I am reminded of the movie “Lean on Me”, based upon the true story of educator Joe Clark of Patterson, New Jersey.    One of his soliloquies that strikes me at the core is, as I paraphrase, we are a part of a system that is turning [the poor and the racial minority] into a permanent underclass.     I only see these kids for an hour on two Sundays, but it pains me to think about what their everyday lives must be, and sadly, they are a microcosm of a much larger generation who finds beauty in little, and indifference in much.    Our newest teacher has a lot of zeal toward getting them involved in redecorating the classroom, but from a teaching perspective, sent them home with instructions to read the book of Esther; to the best of my knowledge, they’ve discussed none of it in class.   I could go on, but I won’t.   It’s another of many situations surrounding me that need prayer.

As a wife and homemaker, I…

wonder what we are role modeling for our children regarding the realities of marriage.      The hubby and I almost never fight, but we went 15 rounds recently regarding the expense of Nutrigrain bars, too many turkey sandwiches as a portable lunch entrée, but ultimately, about what I perceived as a lack of appreciation for my post-layoff efforts to right our financial cart.   A sharp-tongued debate it was, with no volume and certainly no blows thrown, but it was enough to bring our son to tears, as he’s not accustomed to seeing us upset with one another.    Later I apologized to him and talked about the fact that we still love him and each other, but I also don’t want him to think there’s something abnormal about disagreements with a spouse (as long as it’s not the rule rather than the exception, and certainly not if it’s violent).    Such is the nature of bringing two lives together to make them one.   I once read somewhere that the hardest two jobs on planet Earth are being a wife (or husband) and raising children; interesting that we don’t get formal training in either one, huh?

As a mom and homeschooling parent, I…

am always intrigued by our kids and the way their enthusiasm for learning reveals itself.   I’m even more intrigued at why they feel the need to mask this enthusiasm.   Even in a homeschool environment, I think they’ve picked up from television and the crowd at church that it’s geeky to enjoy school.   Bummer.    We will wrap up our history studies on Weds.    The oldest said, “What will we study next?”  Then she grinned sheepishly once she realized that her comment might be interpreted as enjoying what we’re learning.   Today (although this was last week’s wrap-up), we traveled to 1944 Guam with the Code Talker , discussed the election of George Bush as President for the first time, and detailed Jesus’ questioning by Annas after His arrest.

The youngest will finish her K level math on this week and is excited to begin her 1^st grade work.    Being a big girl is relative, I guess.   I’m in a bit of a quandary about her phonics work.   She is reading very well.  I don’t know whether to drop the rest of the K books as she’s zooming through them, or to stick with the order of pages/ levels suggested so that I’m sure to cover everything.   I’m led to stay the course and complete her K book.     I struggle over whether that’s holding her back, but I also realize that she is not headed for college tomorrow, so a little extra time spent on something she might already know won’t be too devastating.    Other than that, she and I are enjoying The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder.    This is one of my favorite in the series, although it’s so hard to read through their near-starvation experience while waiting on the supply trains to get through to the town.    I think I like it because it’s the first time that Almanzo and Laura meet, although their courtship is a couple of books away.   I love when Pa, in the last ditch effort to feed his family, insists on taking wheat from Almanzo, who refuses to sell it.   Pa goes to the wall, takes what he needs from the hidden storage bin, and states defiantly, “And now we’ll talk price.”   I love it!

As a business owner, I…

have begun editing again.   I am also pulling together publicity packages for the cruise next year and an upcoming conference this year.   I will soon begin an affiliate program when I slow down long enough to complete the research.   I am excited about this time, and if I manage it correctly, I’ll hopefully get back to writing in the fall.   My next project is shaping and forming as I try to wrap up all of this other work.

Now it’s late, and I’ve picked this entry up and put it down several times, I’ve written Cathy at least one more dissertation.   Class work must be done, but I can safely say that there’ll be no sewing this evening.   The oldest did come and ask if we could sit down together and view her upcoming online biology class.   She was glad to be sitting when the instructor pulled out a real dissected heart for discussion.   Will we make it this year? (smile)

God bless you as your week transpires.