Gotta love Tim Hawkins -- comedian and homeschool dad.  He and Todd Wilson of Familyman Ministries help keep me from taking myself and the continual challenges of homeschooling too seriously.

Your kids sass you in Latin. 

(This actually happened to a friend of mine)

HSLDA’s monthly publication The Homeschool Court Report had a great article a few months ago on the "Greenhouse" philosophy of parenting. I had only recently heard of this term, even though I have been homeschooling for 8 years now. In this article they interviewed homeschool pioneer, Gregg Harris, father of well-known authors and speakers Josh, Alex & Brett Harris . I really appreciated Gregg’s insights; So with HSLDA's permission, I have pasted a portion of the article below. Follow the link at the bottom to read the rest of the article.

 Outgrowing the Greenhouse: A Conversation With Gregg Harris by Jennifer Olmstead

Ever wished you could sit down with Gregg Harris—father of Josh, Joel, Alex, Brett, Sarah, Isaac, and James—and find out his secret to raising driven, passionate, and grown-up teenagers? Recently, we did, and we hope you’ll enjoy having a seat at the table for our conversation as Gregg discusses his thoughts on the "greenhouse model," raising kids willing to do hard things, and then learning to let them go.

COURT REPORT: Back in the early nineties, you used to talk about the "greenhouse model," which forwarded the idea that it’s in your children’s best interest to be sheltered inside the greenhouse until they reach maturity—like seedlings. But when we look at the things your kids have accomplished at young ages—Alex and Brett started TheRebelution.com at age 16, published Do Hard Things at 18, then progressed to the national Rebelution conference tour; Josh started speaking and founded New Attitude at 17, then published I Kissed Dating Goodbye at 21—frankly, it doesn’t seem like you’ve kept them in much of a greenhouse. Just the opposite, in fact! Has your opinion changed?

 HARRIS: Well, let’s look at the metaphor of the greenhouse—or the hothouse, as some have called it. You don’t transfer plants right from the greenhouse into the field. Before that transfer, plants go through an intermediate process called a "cold frame." A cold frame differs from a greenhouse in that it doesn’t have as much temperature control. There’s much more fluctuation of temperature than in the greenhouse. There, the plants get used to changing temperatures so they don’t go into shock out in the field. That’s where the plants are "hardened."

Similarly, there are transitional involvements and activities that allow our children—once they’re well-rooted morally, doctrinally, and spiritually and have a strong sense of what they believe and who they are in Christ—to progressively be exposed to different points of view.

Unfortunately, many parents make the mistake of exposing their children to conflicting points of view before they are rooted, which creates a feeling of rootlessness and a lack of identity. At that point, the children can’t interact with these new ideas from a position of strength or confidence, but instead are feeling pushed around by every wind of doctrine. The Scripture refers to this in Ephesians 4:14 when it says that we’re no longer to be like children, pushed around by every wind of doctrine and the cunningness and craftiness of men in their attempts to deceive.

Because of this tendency, the strategy we’ve adopted for our family is making our home a place where people learn to think for themselves and discover what they believe at a very young age.  You can read more here . 

For further reading on the subject, be sure to see  Transitioning Out of the Greenhouse in the same publication.

We started school a few weeks ago, then we went on vacation for 10 days. I know, it’s not the typical way to start the school year, but I needed to do it this way for various reasons. The girls were less than enthusiastic about starting two weeks early, so I knew I needed to give them a little incentive to get their juices flowing. So I decided to start a new tradition. I had mentioned in a previous post that we love family traditions. I have never done much with back-to-school traditions, however. We usually have a tea party within the first month of school (except for last year, when my poor post-40-year-old brain totally forgot), but that's pretty much about it. This year, however, the girls got a visit from the "Education Fairy".

For several years now, we have been involved with a "back pack ministry" started by a lady from our church. This ministry collects school supplies or monetary donations from various individuals, churches, and businesses in the community. These items are then placed in backpacks according to school and grade specifications and distributed to needy families in our town. As I was in Walmart and the Dollar Store looking at all the school supplies it struck me: with the exception of Grace’s first year in at a charter school, my girls have never had back-to-school backpacks. Yes, they have backpacks but they are several years old. Furthermore, I had never given them a backpack full of their own, new supplies – we have always just made do with what we had (which I’m all for, by the way), supplementing here and there with new supplies as needed. What also struck me is that throughout the years of helping with this ministry, my girls have never complained about not getting a back pack of their own. So I decided that I was going to start a new back to school tradition: The Education Fairy. Now, the Education Fairy may not always be as generous as she was this year, but she is determined to bring something new for school each year from now on. Anyway, I know many homeschool moms already have been doing this sort of thing for years, but this is the first year we’ve done this.

On the first day of school I made the girls one of their favorite desser– . . . I mean breakfasts: chocolate chip pancakes.

It was Brian’s day off, so he helped me serve each girl breakfast in bed. One of us carried a tray while the other carried the backback. "Look what I found. It looks like the ‘Education Fairy’ came this year." To which I received a variety of responses ranging from eye rolling accompanied by a smirk from my 13 year old and frenzied jumps of glee from my 7 year old. My 10 year old just simply said "thanks Mommy & Daddy". When I reminded my 10-year-old her that these gifts were from the Education Fairy, my 7-year-old (still giddy) responded with a huge sigh, a smirk and a slight eye-roll "Yeah, right, Mommy and Daddy. You ARE the Education Fairy.

In addition to the pencils, paper, crayons, binders, etc., I found back-to-school cards at Walmart. In each card I wrote a back-to-school blessing/prayer for each girl stating how I saw God working in their lives currently and how I hoped they would allow Him to continue to work in their lives this school year. Of course I didn’t sign the card "Love, The Education Fairy" – so my cover was officially blown! My 13 year -old was on to me. "Funny how the Education Fairy signs her name 'Mommy & Daddy'"

Every Friday we host a homeschool literacy co-op for preschool- 1st grade kids at our house.  When I was working in the public school system, I came across this great resource called Book Cooks.   In it are fun recipes and activities that are connected to different children's books.  When we get together, we go over the parts of the book (front, back, spine, title, author, illustrator) and then discuss whether the book looks like it is going to be fiction or non-fiction.  After we read the book, we briefly discuss it.   We usually read 2 to 4 books (usually one is non-fiction) depending on the length of each one and the interest level of the group on the particular day.  Then we create simple treats that follow the theme of the book.  After they have had their snack, we work on a craft that reinforces the theme as well.  We used bugs for our theme in the pictures below.  One week, we used the Very Hungry Caterpillar , by Eric Carle, as our main story and another week we used the book Big Bad Bully Bug by Ed Emberley. 

Hannah and her Very Hungry Caterpillar butterflies

More butterflies

Max and his Big Bad Bully Bug

My Big Bad Bully Bug