Kim's Kids

• Jan. 31, 2008 - A day in the life

I wrote a blog entry on my other blog about a typical day in my life. I was thinking of re-entering it on this blog, but for the time being you can see it here.

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• Jan. 26, 2008 - Time

Almost exactly a year ago, we made the choice to become a homeschooling family. Our son was in public school at the time so the plan was to finish off the year and then switch to homeschooling for the next academic year. Thinking back to what I thought homeschooling would be, the reality is quite different than what I had imagined.

For the most part reality is much better than I thought it would ever be. Homeschooling suits us quite nicely and I feel that as a family we're flourishing like never before.

The hardest part, though, has been how pressed for time I feel. I often say that I can keep the house clean and I can cook wonderful meals and I can spend lots of quality time with my kids but I can't do all three of those things in one day. I think that my situation is not at all uncommon for homeschooling moms, but it's still a struggle for me.

After talking with a friend the other night, I've been doing a lot of thinking about my commitments outside of the home. It wasn't until I really sat down and thought about it that I realized how many things I've got going on.

I'm a LLL Leader. I plan and lead a monthly meeting. I send out monthly meeting reminders, attend monthly Chapter meetings, and 3 days a month where I take calls from moms who call the city's central phone line. I also periodically attend other events such as Leader/Leader Applicant Day, training seminars, and fundraising events.
Our family volunteers with Catholic Engaged Encounter. For the approximately 9 weekends our groups hosts each year, we do the set-up of the conference room and we act as hosts for the couples arriving at the retreat house. We also purchase some of the supplies used during the weekends. We attend some meetings and social nights for the local EE group.
I'm an active member of a local attachment parenting group. I attend monthly meetings when nap-time allows and I've done a presentation during one meeting on flower essences. I'm part of the planning committee and I'm in the process of building a toy and resource lending library.
I sell Usborne books. I do home parties and have displays set up at fairs. I attend monthly meetings put on by my supervisor.
I'm part of a Non Violent Communication book study group. We meet monthly to complete activities from the handbook.
I'm the wife of a Beaver leader. While this isn't an official commitment, it means that I sometimes help out with craft prep and snack. I've been attending most meeting this year and I'm going to be camp coordinator for winter camp next week.

Whew. I think that's it.

So this is on top of housekeeping, grocery shopping, meal making, parenting, homeschooling, and being a wife. I've also got my own interests including writing, reading, scrapbooking, and being outdoors.

Looking at this list, it doesn't seem surprising at all that I never feel caught up. I feel like I'm going in many different directions all at the same time, but all the things I'm involved in are important to me so the idea of stepping away from anything is difficult.

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• Nov. 22, 2007 - Thursday's Thirteen

Thirteen unexpected gifts of homeschooling:

A slower pace of life. I knew things would be quieter, but not quiet this quiet! I love how reducing our outside commitments has changed the tone of our family.
A blossoming sibling relationship.
Meeting other fantastic homeschoolers.
Getting to know Nick all over again. I thought that I really knew him, but the time apart had created more distance between us than I'd realized.
Looking at every moment as a learning opportunity. In the past, I'd be too rushed or focused on what we were "supposed" to be doing to answer his questions. Now, more often than not, I take the time to really answer them and we have discussions about gravity, friction, melting points, and the holocaust.
Improved health. Nick has been sick fewer times this fall compared to the two years when he was in school, and he looks like he's actually starting to plump up a bit!
Including the kids in household work. No, they don't help out with everything or even every day, but they're doing real work with me: making the beds, changing the sheets, cleaning the bathroom, doing the laundry, making meals, etc. These are all things that will serve them well later in life and I see them as being just as important as other skills.
A growing interest in reading. We could barely get Nick reading last year because he "had" to read, but this year he's really running with it. He begs me to read out loud and I frequently find him reading books.
A greater respect for my children's needs and feelings. We do things that work for us, not that are expected of us by someone else.
Family unity. We feel more like a team now rather than people who are in different places all day and then come together in the evening.
My evolving views on learning and education. I started researching homeschooling 14 months ago and the more I learn, the further I move from my original mindset.
Greater overall happiness. I feel like this is the right path for our family and it's very satisfying to be following what's right for us.
Spending more time outdoors. When it's nice out, we go out! We take every opportunity to enjoy the nice days and we don't have to miss out on them because of school.

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• Nov. 21, 2007 - Works For Me Wednesday - In the bedroom!

As unschoolers, our days tend to be quite relaxed and unstructured. On the one hand, this leaves ample opportunity for spur of the moment learning adventures, but on the other hand it can make it difficult to keep up with daily tasks and commitments.

The single biggest determining factor on what kind of day we're going to have is this: whether or not our beds are made. Yup. A simple five minute (or fifteen minute if the kids are jumping in the beds) task is what it takes for me to get into a productive mindset.

It's an interesting mental process. If the beds are made it only makes sense to pick up the floor. If the floor is picked up then there's laundry to bring downstairs. If I bring it down, I may as well wash it. With the washer churning away in the basement I feel a sense of accomplishment and I'm spurred on to do other things: vacuuming the kitchen, reading with the kids, making something more exciting than sandwiches for lunch, cracking open a new science kit, and so on and so forth.

As much as I found the whole FlyLady cleaning system to be stressful and dizzying, the idea of making my bed each morning is a fabulous lesson I held on to. Well, most days anyway!

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• Nov. 20, 2007 - Tag

I've been tagged...twice! It seems so funny since I consider my blog so tiny and new.

So anyhow, here it goes:

Rules for the tag are as follows:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and list the rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 random or weird facts about yourself.

3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

4. Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here is who tagged me:

Jesus Lives

and

Living the Life

7 random or weird facts about me:

I was born in Nova Scotia but grew up in Alberta.
I have 29 aunts and uncles, not including spouses.
I have a vine tattooed on my ankle and I hope to be adding to it (flowers representing our family members).
I attended two years of kindergarten.
I ran a half-marathon in 2002.
My second toes are longer than my big toes.
I've so far spent 77 of my 334 months gestating and lactating. That's 23% of my life!

Here is who I tagged:

Daddy on the Road, Mommy on the Run
(I'll start with one and I'll add my other six when the kids let me!)

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• Nov. 19, 2007 - Baby Jesus

Today, I was in the kitchen when I heard the sound of something hitting the floor. It sounded like something hard, which worried me firstly because we have a tile floor and secondly because I was pretty sure Lily was the cause of this noise.

I tracked her down and asked her what she had. She held up the little ceramic baby Jesus from the kids' nativity scene. "Lily!" I said "We don't throw baby Jesus! Go put Him back!" to which she replied "No. I LOVE Jesus!".

This isn't quite the love for Jesus I pictured for my children...

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• Nov. 15, 2007 -

As a relatively new unschooling mom, I get these moments of worry. Lately, I've been explaining unschooling to friends and I've been questioned by my parents about Nick's education so I'm probably feeling slightly more sensitive than normal. Add to that the fact that we're a few months into this whole unschooling business and I feel like I should have something to "show" for our hours and months of homeschooling.

Yesterday, I asked Nick if he'd be interested in doing some math workbook exercises. Nope. I tried doing some verbal math questions but he joked around instead of answering at first and then said he didn't want to. Ok. Scratch that for the time being.

The one thing he is interested in quite a bit lately is being read to. We've spent many hours reading on the kitchen floor, enjoying the unseasonably warm winter sunshine. We polished off Charlotte's Web quite quickly once I stopped trying to get him to complete the accompanying novel study and we've also finished off Alice in Wonderland. Through the Looking Glass is our latest choice and we're a couple of chapters in so far.

Today, however, we haven't done any reading. I've accomplished lots of house work from laundry to clearing off and scrubbing down my entire kitchen counter. Nick was acting kind of bored and I was feeling like we should be doing something more "school-y" but he didn't want to do anything I suggested.

I wasn't paying much attention to what he was doing as I finished up my cleaning in the kitchen, but at one point I looked over to see what he was doing. "Oh great," I thought at first "There he is making a huge mess on the counter I just cleaned up." Nick had found the bowl of peanuts and was shelling them, getting pieces of peanuts and shells all over the counter and the floor.

Once he had enough peanuts shelled, he pulled out the grater and began to grate the peanuts one by one. He decided that he wanted to make peanut butter and he tried mashing the grated pieces. After a few unsuccessful attempts, he decided he should use the blender. I helped him out and before long we were mixing peanuts, peanut oil, and salt and watching them spin around in the little cup. When we ran out of peanuts to shell, we found a bag of bulk shelled peanuts I'd bought and we threw a bunch of those in.

We ended up with a small cup of fairly smooth and very tasty peanut butter. We also had a discussion about processed versus homemade foods, friction (the cup got quite hot!), and composting.

It never ceases to amaze me how an afternoon of doing "nothing" can so quickly be turned into a creative learning experience. All you need is a child with an inquisitive mind and a Mom who's willing to make a mess!

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• Oct. 12, 2007 - The big visit

Today we met with Louis, our facilitator, for the first time. In order to meet provincial regulations, we are required to meet with our facilitator to perform two evaluations each school year.

I felt fairly confident that the meeting would go well since our school board's facilitators are all people who have homeschooled, but I was still quite apprehensive as I really didn't know what to expect. I found myself getting ready to list off all our resources and activities in an attempt to show that we really are doing stuff and I had to remind myself that Louis would be on our side!

The meeting went really well and I really enjoyed it. We discussed what drew our family to homeschooling, what we've been doing, and what we plan to do this year. We filled in an evaluation form assessing Nicholas' current levels in the core subjects and his behavior.

We also created our education plan, which was fantastic since I was dreading trying to figure out how to make one. As we talked, Louis broke things down by subject and put my thoughts into goal forms. We've now got a nice broad list of goals such as "Nicholas will be exposed to a wide variety of books" and "Nicholas will lead a healthy and active lifestyle". I'd been stressing about how to figure out specific goals when I don't know what the year holds in store, but I'm quite comfortable with the very general goals we now have in place.

It was quite nice to get some insight and some resources from a parent who has lived the homeschooling life. I really feel like we've got some good support and I look forward to meeting with him again in the spring to look back over the year.

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• Oct. 10, 2007 - Learning

Sometimes I think I've got my brain out of "school mode" and other times I think I'm just starting to learn about real learning experiences.

Today, I spent a good part of Lily's nap cleaning the kitchen. The counters were dirty and cluttered and I was too bothered by them to be able to focus on getting anything else done. I was feeling guilty about not using the time for some one-on-one with Nick. It seems I'm often faced with the choice of trying to catch up on cleaning a bit or doing stuff with the kids. Sometimes it works out that I can do both, such as when they took great delight in folding laundry with me this morning, but homeschooling in general has pushed housework aside. I'm certainly not a neat freak, but the constant clutter is frustrating.

Anyhow, today. I was probably a good ten minutes into a conversation with Nick until I realized that I was having an educational moment with him! As I scrubbed, tidied, and re-arranged, we'd discussed poaching, Native American hunting styles, endangered animals, and the reclaiming of spaces for wildlife.

During part of the conversation, Nick had also been building some kind of pulley system (as usual!) with the knobs on the buffet and some pieces of plastic. The creativity is interesting enough to watch, but I was particularly aware of his reactions. The project he was trying to complete broke two or three times and so much of his work came undone. Normally, his reaction is to become extremely agitated and lash out. This time I made a point of empathizing with him ("It's frustrating that that broke, hey?" and "It's just not working out for you today!") and whether it was my comments or if it was that he was in a different mindset today, he remained calm. He tried to repair it a number of times and then decided it wasn't going to work. He went on to something else without kicking up a fuss at all.

I would rather see him make these kinds of personal changes over learning a new math concept any day of the week. The more time I spend learning and living homeschooling, the more I realize that at this point in time it's much more about the personal development than it is about the learning of information.

I said to Liam last week that I'd be perfectly happy if we spent an entire year with our focus solely on helping Nick to develop his character. I see how often his quick temper causes him problems and brings about tension and I feel that if we could work on that together it would make his life a lot easier.

I really do think that he'd benefit more right now by learning about communication, empathy, self-care, and balance than he would by learning about nouns and animal kingdoms.

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• Sep. 26, 2007 - My role

Today I've been pondering my role in my children's education. If I say that I've made the leap to unschooling and that our homeschooling will be focused on following their interests, where do I fit in? So far, this is what I've come up with.

My job is to:

- Provide materials, resources, and opportunities for Nick and Lily to discover, create, and learn about the world around them.
- Set an example of the behaviors and morals I want my children to adopt.
- Explore and learn with my children.
- Enjoy my children and help them to develop fully as people.
- Protect my children from harm.

My ideas expand from here, but I think these are the basic jobs I have. I think this list is something I need to come back to often to revise and to check my daily activities against.

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• Sep. 23, 2007 - Mother and Son

Over the past two years, my relationship with Nicholas has changed a lot. He went from being an only child to an older brother and a kindergarten student all in the same week. We no longer spent out days alone together as I was kept busy tending to the never ending needs of a newborn and he was at school 14 hours each week.

Last year when he entered grade one, he was out of the house for 41 hours each week for school and then had extracurricular activities and a weekly sleepover to Grandma and Grandpa's house on top of that. I often felt like we weren't close like we'd been before but I chalked it up to the changes that take place when a child grows older and doesn't need his mother as much.

This year, homeschooling has had the beautiful side effect of rekindling the connection between Nick and I. In spending our days together, we've come back together and I realize that it wasn't his age that changed our relationship but rather the amount of time we were spending apart.

I'm now finding that I'm more sensitive to Nick's moods, energy level, and interests. The physical closeness between us is increasing, too, since there are more moments for reading on the couch and walk-by hugs. The other day as I was sitting at the computer and Nick was creating a notebook beside me, he came up and hugged me out of the blue and it almost brought me to tears.

How very luck I am to have this opportunity to bask in the presence of my children each day. To watch them unfold and explore is a blessing more incredible than I could have imagined.

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• Sep. 23, 2007 - Blessings

This school year has brought an obvious shift in our home. There's less hurrying an more exploring. Less arguing and more discussing. Less tension and more togetherness. Less worry and more acceptance.

Liam and I discussed these changes the other night and we both agreed that if we'd known homeschooling was going to be so great for all of us we would have made the change last year. I'd worried that I'd be stressed with the extra burden of having Nick home with me and needing attention for school work, but I'm so much happier now than I was last year.

I love having my children home with me. I love it when Nick and I are sharing a quiet moment and he comes up and hugs me. I love it when he and Lily build secret hideouts in the living room and giggle together under boxes. I love helping Nick to explore and discover answers. I love the sense that we're a family working together as a unit.

Last year, I was picking up a tired kid from the bus at 4:15 each afternoon and coaxing him through homework, extracurricular activities, and mealtimes while trying to avoid fights. I often felt like I was just trying to get from one day to the next with him and looking forward to weekends and holidays so we could spend some time together.

This year, I'm much more focused on both my kids. Because their education is solely our responsibility, I look for those learning moments in the walk outside and the story on the radio. I look at the world through different eyes now that I'm my children's educator and it's a fun and rewarding shift.

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• Sep. 22, 2007 - What are we?

Tonight, I'm reading about unschooling. I've always said that I'm too chicken to be an unschooler and that Nick and I both need to much structure to be happy as total unschoolers. Tonight, I'm questioning this belief.

We've completed three weeks of "official" homeschooling. The first week, we followed a morning routine that went something like this: eat breakfast, brush teeth, get dressed, make bed, do a chore, read daily Bible reading, write in gratitude journal. It was a great week. During week two, we were busy and the routine kind of fell apart. By week three Nick seemed bored of doing the same routine each day so we focused on one topic (math work, reading, etc.)

I've been concerning myself with what counts as homeschooling and when people ask how our first month is going I tick off all the things we've accomplished to show that Nick is indeed being educated.

What I'm finding, though, is that the more freedom and time he has the more he's been building and creating. Whether it's the pulley system he's rigged up with the light switches in his room or the thousand little crafts he's created for specific jobs, the kid is creating constantly. And when he's not physically creating he's imagining what he could build. He'll stand there for five minutes describing in intricate detail the machine or system of machines he's thinking about making and exactly how all the pieces will fit together.

When I look at his time, he's either sleeping or his mind is whirling with ideas and images. Why do I feel the need to classify certain types of activities as school? Is he not constantly thinking and experimenting with the world around him? Is one type of learning more valid than another? Am I pushing him towards certain activities in order to be able to have evidence of his education?

I think I need to just let go of my expectations and view of what schooling is and let Nick teach me about what learning is. I can unschool without throwing the reins completely away. The other day I suggested trying out a free piano lesson program I found online and now he's begging to do more. I can bring things up and give him the freedom of running with it or sidestepping it.

Oh, and to think that I thought that homeschooling was about educating my children! I think I've done more learning this month than the two of them combined.

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• Sep. 9, 2007 - Outdoor classroom

This weekend the kids, my parents, and I attended an Alberta Parks conference in Crimson Lake Provincial Park in Rocky Mountain House. It was a free camping event for all volunteer stewards in the province, and since my parents and Nicholas are stewards I got to tag along.

I brought along Nick's Bible and journals with the thought that we'd find a few minutes to get Friday's work done at some point during the weekend. Unsurprisingly, we didn't find the time since we were too busy doing all sorts of other learning.

Nick began teaching himself how to sew on Thursday night and he ended up spending the entire drive to the camp sewing a pillow, a sleeping bag, and a parachute for his stuffed bear.

The learning continued once we got to the conference when the kids watched a puppet play about David Thompson, a huge name in local history. He was a fur trader, an explorer, and a map-maker who charted much of what is now Canada. Nick being the sponge that he is soaked up a lot of information from the very entertaining puppet show and is still going around singing the theme song.

The next morning, I took the kids down to the lake where we spent a couple of hours catching minnows with small nets. We caught 15 minnows of various size as well as a water bug which was promptly returned to the lake when he seemed to be hurting the minnows. We also spotted several leeches swimming in the water which we made a point of avoiding. We discussed food chains, life cycles, and habitats.

Our afternoon adventures included geocaching and archery. Nicholas fell in love with geocaching and the excitement of tracking down markers. He's insisting that Grandpa is going to buy a GPS. Failing that, he wants to use some of our funding money to buy one.

He had a bit of a slower start with the archery as it took him some time to get the knack of it. I was happy to see that he stuck with it, though, as he often abandons any endeavors he can't quickly master. I'm still not sure if he had more fun shooting the arrows or collecting them but it was great to see him having so much fun.

On the way home today the conference concluded with a visit to the Rocky Mountain House Historical Site. We followed along on an interpretive walk where parks personnel showed us various artifacts and re-creations of building from the fur trading period, and we learned about what life was like for folks who lived in and visited the forts. Nick flitted back and forth between following the walk and chasing grasshoppers so I suppose he was fitting both social studies and zoology into one afternoon.

On top of all the hands-on learning we had the chance to do this weekend, we had a lot of fun. It's always great to leave behind the familiarity of home and routine to explore new places. The kids were both generally well-behaved and I think we're all feeling mentally revitalized if physically exhausted!

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• Sep. 4, 2007 - How it all begins

Today was our first official day of homeschooling. Not only did we survive, but I feel more confident than ever in our decision.

Last night, Nicholas and I planned out his morning and evening routines as well as a list of chores he can do. His morning routine included the regular morning stuff such as brushing his teeth and making his bed, as well as more homeschool-y things like writing in his gratitude journal and reading his daily Bible reading.

As it turns out, nothing today went like I imagined a typical day would. Since it was 15% Tuesday at the grocery store, we got ourselves ready and out the door for 9am. We got back home at 10:30 with a car load of groceries. We stuffed the perishables in the fridge and freezer then packed a lunch and headed out the door again at 11:30.

We drove across town to a "First day not back to school picnic" for local homeschoolers. Despite what Nick will tell you, he had a fantastic time. There was a gaggle of boys between the ages of about 5-15 who spent the entire time marching through the trees and having sword fights. Luckily, Nick's toy sword and shield happened to be in the car so he was well-armed. Partway through the afternoon, though, he ditched his plastic sword for a piece of wood. I'm not sure if it was because most of the other boys had sticks but I found it very amusing that he'd rather play with an imaginary sword than a "real" plastic one.

We picked Liam up from work on the way home and got home at suppertime. I hadn't had time to throw things in the slowcooker earlier in the day so instead of coming home to the smell of sweet and sour chicken bubbling away I got to stare at half-thawed chicken breasts in the sink. The kids ended up eating chicken nuggets and french fries out of the freezer and Liam and I had leftovers.

We ended up not doing anything overly school-y until 7:30 tonight. We pulled out Nick's gratitude journal and he made his first entry: Thank you God for grapes. He's so deep that boy! We then read today's Bible reading (the first part of the story of Creation of course) and I showed Nick the memory verse at the bottom of the page. He decided to start another journal for the memory verses, so he recorded today's part of the verse. I'm thinking that the urge to write in multiple journals might be a genetic trait I've handed down.

Reflecting on the day, I'm feeling happy and encouraged. The picnic was a very positive way to start off our year and I felt blessed to be spending the day with Nick rather than missing him while he was sitting in a classroom. We're definitely on the right path.

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• Jul. 20, 2007 - Road trip

Topics we've discussed so far on our trip:

Land formations, mountains, volcanos
Weather, cloud formation, hurricains (including reading Weather book)
Maps, world geography, orientation
Types of groups of animals

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• Jul. 13, 2007 - Thinking Ahead

I'd been thinking that it would be nice to have a separate blog for homeschooling, and tonight I came upon homeschoolblogger.com so here I am!

Nick finished up grade one 15 days ago and I have felt so much more at peace during this time than I thought I would. We had decided in January that we would finish off the school year and then make the switch to homeschooling starting the following year. A few of my homeschooling friends advised me to take him out of school as soon as our decision was made ("Have you pulled him yet? Pull him!" was often my greeting) but we decided to stick things out. Maybe it was the right decision, maybe not, but the year is now over and I'm very happy about that.

I've been reading homeschooling stuff whenever I have a chance and I've been intrigued both by the Charlotte Mason approach and by unschooling. I have a sort of idea as to how I think I'd like things to go, but I'm trying not to get too set in my expectations. I want to be open to what works best for our family.

Some ideas that I've had so far about what I'd like to do with Nicholas:

Putting on a magic show for family. He loves learning magic tricks and we could make quite the project out of it right from researching tricks to building a set and printing invitations.
Doing notebooks. I came across this idea on a homeschooling blog and I think it's fantastic. You pick a topic and you include anything at all relating to it such as pictures, stories, facts, drawings, etc. When I told Nicholas about it he immediately wrote "Garden" on the front of an empty notebook. So far it has a picture of chives and flowers (our garden!). He was so excited to have free reign over what went in it. He started to include some writing but got frustrated, and the look of glee he had when I told him he could erase it all if he wanted to was priceless! When he was done he stated "School is really fun when you get to do whatever you want!". My thoughts exactly!
Daily Bible readings. I feel quite strongly that this should be a part of our daily routine. Lily received a beautiful children's Bible for her baptism and it's set up with daily readings for 52 weeks as well as a short verse to memorize each week.
Volunteer work. I want to use the times we volunteer as a learning experience, so I'll initiate more conversations about why we volunteer, how else we can donate our time, etc. With Nick's volunteer work as a steward at the Natural Area, I'd like for him to learn more about nature and conservation.
Gratitude journal. I'm going to take Nick to a store and ask him to pick out a writing book. I'd like for him to write out at least one thing each day he's grateful for. I think it's important both to build a sense of gratitude and to have something concrete on which to look back.

Anyhow, that's it for now. It's late and I've got a man on a couch waiting to watch a TV show with me. He doesn't know it yet but I'm going to manage to sneak a backrub out of him.