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In my most recent post for HOTM, Teresa in NC asked to see my favorite kind of gravy-- MY MAP!

Well, here it is!  TADAAA!!!

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Obsessed. Compulsive. Junkie. Curricaholic.

Those are words that described my passion for all things curriculum. Be it posters, workbooks, CDs, books, DVDs, games or puzzles-- if it was "educational" then I had to have it! I mean, come on, look how packed that one measly bookcase is up there!

Believe it or not, that is actually pared down from what I used to have. You can say that I am a recovering curricaholic. As summer and the season of homeschool conventions draws near, I can't think of a better time to share with y'all some tips on how to combat the compulsion to cache curriculum.

But first, you must realize one very important thing...

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I don't know about you, but I am a Type-A kind of girl. And no, it doesn't mean that I am an A+ excellent home educator and on the mommy-honor-roll with my kids proudly proclaiming it with a bumper sticker on their bikes!

Reality would more likely show me to be an overbearing, over-scheduled, checklist loving, rule following drill sergeant! At least that's how I'm naturally bent. Or was today anyway. When the troops... er, my children don't keep to my schedule, follow all my rules to a T, and allow me to merrily mark off all the items on my checklist, let's just say it gets pretty ugly around here.

To read the rest of the story, please follow me to HOTM...

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Life just gets busy sometimes-- so busy that I had forgotten how lovely a poem could be. One of my favorite writers is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow... The Wreck of the Hesperus, The Village Blacksmith, Paul Revere's Ride, Hiawatha... I first enjoyed all of these when I was in 5th grade. I found this new-to-me poem by Longfellow and thought I'd share. It totally makes me think of my boys and how fleeting their childhood really is!

THE CASTLE-BUILDER
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A gentle boy, with soft and silken locks,
A dreamy boy, with brown and tender eyes,
A castle-builder, with his wooden blocks,
And towers that touch imaginary skies.

A fearless rider on his father's knee,
An eager listener unto stories told
At the Round Table of the nursery,
Of heroes and adventures manifold.

There will be other towers for thee to build;
There will be other steeds for thee to ride;
There will be other legends, and all filled
With greater marvels and more glorified.

Build on, and make thy castles high and fair,
Rising and reaching upward to the skies;
Listening to voices in the upper air,
Nor lose thy simple faith in mysteries.

Do y'all have any favorite poems from childhood? I would love to introduce my boys to more poetry, especially the kind that would enthrall and capture their imagination.

Right now, my youngest is imagining that these soup cans are blocks!

If you don't mind, would you leave me a comment over at Heart of the Matter instead of here?  THANKS, my fine homeschooling (and not homeschooling-but-loving-poetry) friends!

~Marshie

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Posted in School Stuff

Perhaps you mommy's of teenagers would cringe a little, but this mommy of an 8yo, 6yo and 3yo is currently reveling in the delightful deliciousness of a breakfast that someone else prepared and served me! Canned biscuits with jelly and a big ole glass of milk never tasted so good! (Now if I could just trust them enough to make me a latte...)

Truth be told, I have not always been so apt at...


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All too often as a homeschooling mom, I am rushing about trying to get school done. Likewise, it seems that some days my boys are not rushing about with their work, but trying to get school completely undone! I know y'all can relate-- even you mommy's of girls!

I'm ashamed to admit it, but this is what is heard a little too often from the mouth of yours truly:

-Hurry up!
-Come on, FOCUS!
-Okay, now do this and as soon as you are finished, move on to the next assignment.
-Quickly!
-Quit dawdling! You are wasting time.
-That is a time waster. Why are you just sitting there? Get a move on! Your math is not sitting outside the window!

Yup, I'm a regular cheerleader. The leader of the pep squad.

I don't know about y'all, but if someone were telling me that all day long, it wouldn't exactly be the magical words that suddenly made me more productive or quicker or joyful!

One day I was talking to my friend who teaches at a small private school. We were discussing schedules and the inevitable ...


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I tried to avoid thinking about it-- the "Just for Fun" Bee that is coming up in two weeks.  Then I ran across this post by Rocks in My Dryer.

Dash is uber excited about the Bee and absolutely loves spelling!  Why?  Because it comes naturally to him and is by far the easiest subject for him in our homeschool.  In fact, we usually do one word list a week (including the more difficult alternate words).  Most weeks he gets 100% the first time around and, on a rare occasion, he might miss one word.  Then the next day he spells that one word correctly.  No problemo, easy-schmeasy.

So I worry about two things:

1.  The disappointment he will feel if he does not make it past the first round.
2.  The total anxiety and nervousness I will feel during the Bee-- as well as the time spent thinking about the Bee, preparing for it (like I have all the time in the world) and the actual even itself.  It turns my stomach, y'all!

*sigh*  It makes me think back to my spelling bee days. The spelling gene runs in the family... my DAD even won the spelling bee at his work!  I know, who knew they had those things?  He works in budgeting/finance at Lockheed, won the company Bee and then went on to the regional competition.  Yup, you heard me right-- he moved on to the next level (it may have been called something different).  It was essentially other companies sending their best spellers to compete.  Just thinking about it totally makes me laugh!  I love my daddy!

Anyhoo, this "just for fun bee" makes me nervous. *I* really really really want to back out.  My mom still quizzes me on "television"... the dreaded word that *I* missed in my school spelling bee in 2nd grade.  I got a really big second place trophy but have been haunted by that word ever since! 

Oh, and in the 5th grade I missed "doornail."  But I'm telling ya, I spelled it right!!!  I just happen to mumble and go very quickly when I'm nervous and the judge did not hear me say the "i".  Come on, who would ever spell doornail without the "i"?!  Give me some credit here.  The humiliation.  The agony of defeat.  Oi.

So, has anyone won the big tamale of spelling bees?  I know y'all have spelling bee stories to share-- both good and bad.  I want to hear them!  Why?  Because it's fun.  And I don't want to feel alone in my anxiety of the dreaded "just for fun" bee.  See how I'm putting the "just for fun" in the :quote: :unquote:?  Yup.  I have no idea WHO it could possibly be fun for!  Ack!

Oh and a couple of words that are on the list for this K-3rd grade "Just for Fun" Bee are minuend and docile.  I hope he gets a couple of the other words on this same list... words like in and gut!

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Welcome to the first ever Heart of the Matter Online meme. Every Friday we will feature a different topic for our meme. Mr. Linky is set up over there so please share with us a day in the life of your homeschool family.

We never have two of the same days in a row! 

For example, Monday was horrid.  As in completely and totally beyond terrible to the point where I had to leave the house because I had daydreams about a particular child and that bright yellow bus that drives past our house in the wee hours of the morning.  There were tears by that certain him and tears from moi.  Those are the days that you just have to stop, take a break (or the day off) and start over again the next day.  It WILL pass, I promise!  Just try really really hard to not say things you will regret.  Maybe even put yourself in a time out.  So remember that next time, okay?

We were going to have lessons on Tuesday, but it just didn't happen y'all.  But I did manage to get the house semi-clean and we had company stay the night.

Wednesday and today (Thursday) were beyond WONDERFUL!!!  Can you believe it?  Two days in a row of not just okay but almost ideallic!

So can I just put down for the record what a fantastic homeschool day looks like for us?  Trust me, I will need this written reminder for those inevitable days that were like this past Monday.

-I woke up around 8:30am.  Drat.  I like to be up at 7am so I can have my quiet time, coffee, and be ready for the kids when they wake up.  And so we have a good chance of starting our lessons on time-- our goal being 9:00am.  Oh well.  It can still be done.

-The kids were already awake.  All of them.  But that's okay.  They weren't fighting or wreaking utter destruction upon the house.  In fact, they were already eating breakfast-- toaster waffles for one and cereal for the other two.  I'm telling you, putting those bowls and cereal boxes in the bottom cabinet was one of the most brilliant ideas I've ever had!  (Sad, but true!)

-The boys brushed their teeth, changed their clothes and waited in the schoolroom for me.  While I was getting my morning cup of coffee, they completed an assignment from this book.  



I copied a page and put it on their desks the night before.  They are finally starting to understand that you can't always do things your own way.  Those instructions are important-- and if you don't follow them, the results don't come out like they are supposed to!

-It is 9:45-ish by the time I join them.

-Our daily schedule is not broken down in tiny increments.  If I did, something would inevitably come up or someone will dawdle and I will just get really upset about being SO off-schedule.  Instead, we have goals and a general direction to our day.

-The general direction of our subjects is as follows:

• Math-U-See 
• one page of handwriting (Italic Writing by Getty & Dubay)
• individual language arts assignments (usually a few workbook pages and a chapter to read in their personal readers-- which, by the way, tie in to the period in time we are studying in history courtesy of WinterPromise).
• review individual spelling words- either a new weekly list or any words they missed previously.  either spell it out-loud or on the whiteboard per child's preference (or mood!).
• WinterPromise American Story 1 - We do this together as a group and do the assigned reading and discussion for that particular day (they schedule it all out for you!).

-The kids go outside and play while I make lunch.  It is around 1:00pm.

-Science is after lunch.  We are studying God's Design for Life: The Human Body by Answers in Genesis.

-It is 2:15pm and we are DONE!!!  Well, we still have our current read-aloud which is The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare.  I am flexible as to when we do this-- during breakfast, during lunch, after lunch or even right before bed-- it totally depends on the day.

The kids spend the rest of the day playing with their Magnetix, rowing around the pond, hitting tennis balls (all over the place!) in the driveway and playing on the dirt pile.  Talk about boy heaven! 

I wonder if they even realize how blessed they are.  They may not realize it right now, but one day they will...  Man, sometimes *I* don't even realize how blessed I am!  But today and yesterday, I see very clearly how beyond blessed I am and how I don't deserve a bit of it.  God is very gracious indeed!

Sometimes our homeschool day actually ends with every assignment being completed.  Other days have glitches both major and minor-- like waking up 1.5 hours later than planned (although some may see that as a really good thing!); or like the one math page taking 3 HOURS to complete due to intense dawdling; or fighting, crying, and just plain old complaining that reduces everyone to tears. 

What defines a good day vs. a bad day is not necessarily the number of subjects that get completed but the state of the heart.  When a day is full of discussion, doing your best, good attitudes and happy hearts-- well, that is what makes it a great school day (the math will still be there tomorrow)!

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When I walked out into our backyard a couple of weeks ago, I saw this.

I have been told that this is a banana spider.  If I was a good homeschooling momma, the boys would draw this in their nature notebooks along with the proper latin name.  Next we would add a diagram of the different parts and research the diet of said spider.

But I'm lazy... Instead, David and I gathered the boys around to point out this huge spider and gigantomongo web.  He then picked up a small branch and threw it into the web.  I kid you not, that branch just stuck to that superstrong web!  And the seemingly sleeping spider was right on top of it before you could even blink!  Zowie. 

The branch did tear a good size hole in the web, but when we looked at it again a couple of hours later it was completely repaired.

On another note, we saw this creature slithering away from the trampoline.  Can you tell what it is?



Yup, that is a copperhead snake with its head halfchopped by a shovel.   Not as pretty as the CORAL SNAKE we killed in the front yard a couple of weeks before, but they both had one thing in common-- they both ended up dead.  Oh, and while I don't really know what snake tastes like, I can tell you that their meat really does look like chicken!

SO, who wants to come over and play outside with us? :-)

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Did you ever have a problem that you were trying to solve and you thought up a bzillion elaborate possible solutions?  I've been doing that all week.

My quandry?  I really really really like finishing our lessons by lunchtime.  But with the addition of Spanish and being determined to actually do science every day, it seems like an impossibility. 

I thought about moving our read-aloud to breakfast time (and just eating early by myself), doing a horizontal schedule (science and math on certain days, history and writing on the other 2 days, etc), and even *gasp!* making the kids get up at 7am.

Okay, I knew that I was crazy when I came up with that last idea.  But I was desperate, people.  Desperate, I tell ya!

It seemed that I was destined to schlep through whatever our last subject of the day would be.  After all, post-lunchtime is the sleepiest time of day for my whole familia.

*ding*ding*ding*  Then it hit me.

MOVE LUNCH BACK ONE HOUR TO 1:00 PM!

Voila!  An extra hour of lessons before lunch!  I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.  So simple!!!

And I shudder to think that I actually considered waking the kids up so early... on purpose...

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