O Orient, Brightness of the Eternal Light, and Sun of Righteousness:
Come, and enlighten them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
Dec. 20, 2009 - Daily Diligences
Half way through this year we started calling our independent, discipline studies Daily Diligences. This emphasised two aspects – One, it happened daily, and two, it required diligence. This has turned out to be a good vocab choice as our younger two, Nomi 12 and Daniel 10 learn to work independently on these few subjects.
Many years ago I started calling these subjects Discipline* Subjects because these subjects needed daily practice. (*I think this word came from Sally Clarkson’s Educating the Whole Hearted Child). These subjects vary from student to student and from year to year depending on what is important. Math,
There are a few benefits of having this habit established
- They can work independently on something beneficial when you have to work with another child, or answer the phone, or leave the room.
- They can work on these subjects on days that you feel totally distracted by life and you know they are still doing important stuff.
- You can use these subjects during busy seasons to maintain order and focus in your day – one hour of focus time each day brings surprising calm and order to an otherwise busy, hectic season.
Next year I intend to use this independent, discipline (daily diligence) time spot to have one on one conference with the other children. In one hour I maybe able to talk to all children, or I may only get to speak with one – but it will be a daily time where I can catch up and talk to the kids about their work, their goals and whatever else pops up.
Dec. 20, 2009 - God Moments
My heart is full as I contemplate all of the blessings that God has showered down upon me today. The phrase "God is good" has become a bit of a cliche as people seem to overuse it mindlessly but today God is, indeed, good.
We went to church today, the first time in a month. Bad weather and bad moods prevented us from attending any sooner. The message today was on the blessing of love. The Pastor encouraged us to keep a journal of all of the ways that we are shown God's love and His presence. He told us to hold these moments close and treasure them as Mary did.
In the middle of the service, we are usually given a few moments to go around the sanctuary to greet people. I saw a friend across the room. She has not talked me to since my cancer experience. I know it is because she doesn't know what to say to me but it still hurts. I went by her, tapped her gently on the arm and whispered 'Merry Christmas' into her ear. She started to cry and gave me a oh-so-tight hug. We stood there for a few minutes just hugging. There was no need to say anything. That hug said it all. Thank you, Lord, for letting me treasure that moment.
On the way home, I decided to take the back roads as I wasn't sure if the highway would be a bit slippery. I like going the back way as the scenery can be quite breathtaking in the winter (Yes, Saskatchewan does have scenery.) As we were driving we were listening to 'Caught in the Middle' by the Casting Crowns. The last minute of that song is given to the string section and, oh my word! it is truly beautiful! As I listened to that brief glimpse of heaven, I started to cry. What warmed my heart even more was that my kids recognized that beauty and let me listen to that song over 3 times. Thank you, Lord, for letting me treasure that moment.
When we got home we saw that my Beloved was at the garage (aka Daddy's Clubhouse.) We drove over to just say hi. The kids and Daddy decided that I could have the afternoon to myself to get caught up on gift wrapping. So I have been revelling in a quiet afternoon. Thank you, Lord, for letting me treasure these moments.
As I said at the beginning of this post, my heart is full of all of these moments that have shown me His love and presence. Thank you, Lord!
Dec. 20, 2009 - Workshop Days
One of the things I mention in my “what worked well this year” list, and on my Assignment Sheet post, is family workshops – what are they?
During the year it dawned on me that Mondays are our best day because I’m all fired up and ready to go based on the prep I’ve done over the weekend. (Presuming that is that I got that prep done!) So I decided to use that energy and focus on the subjects that are important but often get left out because of lagging energy. I call them workshops because they are often interactive and I have to be there teaching as opposed to encouraging independent work. Depending on the subject depends on which child joins me for the lesson – sometimes we have all four, sometimes just the oldest two, or maybe three come together, occasionally I have one-on-one time as well. If a child is not involved in a workshop they work independently on their own studies. This year writing, creation science, money, Auslan and living math were our subjects for Workshop day.
Workshop subjects are also things that we study with other homeschool families either as a few families getting, which we do for Contenders of the Faith and Keepers of the Home every fortnight, or as a Homeschool Co-op which we do once a month. In the past we have done a unit study together with another family (Dinosaurs) which was short term or a public speaking course which was long term in that it lasted for a whole year.
The other style of workshops we have in our home is for creative projects. We’ve only done this a few times but it is something that I’d like to do more often now as the kids are older. We keep dinner early and simple such as a bowl of soup or we have a veggie platter so we can nibble throughout the evening. Our goal is to start on creative projects as early as we can and our fellowship is around our creative projects instead of the dinner table. Sometimes we listen to an audio story, sometimes we have background music and we talk on and off throughout the evening. Doing dinner this way means we can get a couple of hours of creativity happening and yet not be a late night.
I like the term workshop because it denotes a short season. As adults we would do a workshop on quilting for example and it isn’t like doing a course that lasts for the whole year – it is a short burst of commitment, to learn a specific skill and then we are left to practice that skill. That is the kind of idea behind my workshop subjects.
Dec. 20, 2009 - Internet Reading
I’ve had lots of links to share but they’ve all gone ‘walk-about’ so here are a few from the last few days.
Prepare to be a guest in someone else’s home – though this doesn’t apply to us this year I still thought it was a very good list and I’d like to share it with you all.
Here’s a great Squidoo Lens on Workboxes – we don’t use workboxes but she sure makes it tempting!! (note: The only reason we don’t is that our system of lists and diaries is working well to keep Daniel focused throughout the day though we used similar types of systems when he was younger.)
Robyn from Heart of Wisdom shares about 15minute clean ups - we call this Blitzing. I like these charts though that Robyn shares – giving a bit of a system to the Blitz. Kids seem to work better when they know what to look for in a messy room – look for all the books, look for all the paper, all the toys, all the clothes. I am going to customise these lists for our rooms that regularly need blitzing.
These days our house seems to be a buzz with political and philosophical discussions. I’ve subscribed to two blogs to help me keep up. I used feedblitz.com to subscribe to any blog/website I want to keep in touch with. Feedblitz sends me an email whenever my subscribed sites update. I find it easier to have these updates come to my email box instead of setting up a RSS feed. Anyway back those to emails:
- Andrew Bolt
- Breakpoint by Chuck Colson
Another from Robyn from Heart of Wisdom as she talks about celebrating Christmas and the changes that have happened, and the reasons why, over the years. I enjoyed Robyn’s honesty and the fact that she shows that these things are so often a journey. 12 Things I don’t like about Christmas
I’ve finally got my head wrapped around Josh finishing homeschooling and moving into university studies – he’s not there just yet but hoping to start some university units next year via Open University.
Dec. 19, 2009 - Word of the Day
The kids and I have started reading The Book of Three: The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander. We were sitting on the couch, looking at the cover of the book.
Mia looked at the picture of the skeleton head and said, "There is the Horned King."
She then pointed at the group of people beside the skeleton head, "and there are his minions."
I just stared at her, amazed that she came from my womb.
Dec. 19, 2009 - After Lunch Routine
Our after lunch routine is 1.5 hours of quiet, individual, independent time.
Quiet: Quiet time has a two pronged purpose. One is rest and the other is focus. I find children get overstimulated with noise, busyness and choices. A time of quiet helps to calm things down. Unfortunately in this busy world we are not comfortable with quiet and yet it is in the quiet of the morning that our soul is restored – if we are busy busy busy we so often miss the still quiet voice of God. Helping a child get use to quiet is a good thing. (The ability to be quiet is also an issue of respect towards other people)
Individual: Our children need time where they can look after and develop their inner self and their unique self. They too may need to rest or they may take the time to develop and work on the things that are a reflection of the unique them.
Independent: Our children need to be able to do things themselves. They need to be able to entertain and teach themselves. It is important that our children are happy with themselves and their own company. This cannot be developed in a crowd - they need time alone.
So the purpose of this time is for the children to learn to rest, to focus, to process things, to learn things and to entertain themselves.
The flip side is that this is a time where I have 1.5hours of uninterrupted time for the things that I need. (The rule is the children can come and get me if there is blood and no breathing!) I may need rest or I may need to work on projects it is really up to me to determine how best to use this time. The challenge is not to waste it!
Of course our children have had to be trained towards this and they haven’t always achieved 1.5 hours. It started off with toddlers still having a day sleep, then it moved to nap time, then rest time, then reading on the bed time, and it grew from there.
Sometimes we seem to lose the skill altogether and we start a season of retraining. Daniel was at this place at the beginning of the year. He could just do 20min of focus by himself – just and it wasn’t all that consistent! So we started stretching always keeping our eyes on our purposes. I split the 20minutes he could do into two 10min blocks and taught him how to use the timer. 10 minutes of reading on his bed (he wasn’t reading reading so it is just looking at books), 10 minutes of playing with a toy he choose (this toy was taken into the bedroom at the beginning of this 20minutes.)
Once he could do 20minutes, moving from reading to playing by himself successfully, we stretched him to 30 minutes – two lots of 15 minutes. Once he could do this well we moved him to 20 minute blocks, and so forth. Now he has 3 blocks of 30minutes and he can transition from each block without me. Next year I may bump this up to 4 blocks. He is not ready to focus on one thing for longer than 30minutes.
Dec. 18, 2009 - A Grand Day
My day did not start off well. I woke up with a rip-roaring headache. I am prone to migraines but this baby was worse than a migraine. Actually I had this mother of all headaches last night, I went to bed at 8:00 because I could not handle the pain. I was nauseous and shaking due to feeling cold. I took Tylenol but it did not help much.
So this morning I woke up with a steady beat of pain throbbing in my head. I took more Tylenol but it just dulled the pain. It just would not go away. I was a bit worried because we had our homeschool group Book Club today. I didn't know if I was going to survive with 30 kids screaming around me (we didn't end up with 30 kids but it sure sounded like it at times.)
Anyway, I pulled myself out of bed and started getting lunch ready as we were having a potluck. As the preparations were being made, I could feel the pain start to move at a headlong pace into uncontrollable again. On the way to the book club, I decided to stop at the grocery store and grab a coke. I had tried drugs and they didn't do a thing so I was ready to pull out the caffeine, man. I was desperate! I have been trying to go cold turkey with the coke thing, but there are times when caffieine is needed and this was one of those times.
We got to the church and I started getting ready for the craft I was going to do with the kids. In between pulling out ice cream cones and candy (we were making Christmas trees) I was slugging back the coke, hiding it in my bag in between gulps so no one would catch me. I mean, drinking Coke at 10:00 in the morning is just plain nasty, even for a Coke-aholic.
I got everything all laid out and made my way to the gym where the kids were gathering for the opening games. As we began to introduce ourselves, I began to feel that throbbing, gut-wrenching pain start to ease its way out of my brain. At the risk of another addiction experience, I was blessing the Coca-Cola company. By the time we all broke into our groups to do the craft, that nasty boy was gone. All gone.
I was able to enjoy my time with the kids and with the other moms. We all had such a wonderful time. The kids put on the nativity play (the church had wonderful costumes,) We had a few craft stations where the kids wandered to the craft that caught their fancy. My craft had to do with food so I think everyone came to my station. I so enjoy talking to these kids. They are funny, polite and just plain interesting to talk to.
After the crafts, we had our lunch and then played a few games. We ended our time with singing Christmas carols. As we began to clean up and haul everything to the car, I felt the pain start to creep back into my head. It wasn't as bad as it was last night, though, so I could handle it without a dose of caffeine. I was just very grateful that it stayed away during our party.
On the way home, the kids and I stopped off at the library and took out the audio book of Charlotte's Web. It was a silent drive home while listening to the tale of Wilbur. This is just what my head needed. The day ended with leftover chili and watching George C. Scott's version of A Christmas Carol.
Today was a grand day.
