Fall is in the Air!
Autumn is an elusive season in Texas. It usually goes from blistering hot to bone-chilling cold, without a lot of middle ground. But there are a couple of days in the ‘fall’ that are just beautiful – sweet relief from the sun.
Today is one such day. This morning when we came into the school room to begin for the day, one of the boys went to let the cat out and discovered the amazing day. In light of that, desk work has been put on the back burner in favor of enjoying the great outdoors.
We’re headed for a bike ride and a nature hike as soon as Mom gets her butt in gear! Hope that your Monday is equally as enjoyable.
Warmly,
~h
Kids will be Kids…and that’s Okay
I have been thinking about homeschooling and ‘image’ again. The other day, we had a couple of moms over and about 11 children ranging in age from 13-ish to 3 running in and out, and apparently ‘something’ happened between some of the boys. My first reaction in that situation is a raised eyebrow. That’s about it. Whatever happened wasn’t enough for any child to come running in crying and/or bleeding, which usually indicates that it wasn’t a major ‘thing’. But both of the moms whose boys were involved left, inexplicably. There was no discussion, there was no intervention to find out what happened and attempt to resolve the issue… they just packed up and left.
At first, I had no clue that anything was amiss. There were 11 kids running around, and since some kids (and moms) are of the sensitive variety, I can see how that much action in our small house might throw some people’s inner workings off. I figured that was what happened. I only found out about the apparent ‘thing’ later on, with the thought being that there was embarrassment on the moms’ part because of how the kids were acting at a homeschool group function. To put some perspective on this, both of the moms in question are or were very active in a local faith-based co-op. Overall, my impression of such groups is that image is of prime concern; how the children act is a direct reflection on how the mothers are perceived by the group and I’m sure to some degree, cast doubt on how good of an influence these children are on the others. There are several aspects to this scenario that bother me.
1. Mom gets so wrapped up in ‘image’ that she willingly accepts this conditional acceptance by her peers.
Why, oh, why do moms do this? Please repeat after me: ‘If my friends don’t like or understand my kids, then they’re NOT MY FRIENDS.’ Your children, in some ways, are a reflection of you. They aren’t mirror images, and their own personalities and thoughts and experiences will shape them differently than you, but on some levels, your kids reflect what you think is important. Presumably, you’re doing the best you can, instilling into your children the values and virtues that you think are important. If your friends don’t like or understand or accept your kids, then guess what. They don’t really like or understand or accept YOU, either. That’s really all there is to this point.
If the people who you are currently hangin’ out with are passing judgement on you, your lifestyle or your ability as a mother, then they don’t like you. Stop hanging out with them. You’re not learning anything from them. They are not enriching your life in any way. You’re setting a bad example for your children by putting up with that kind of crap. They’re making your life worse. Find new friends. Even if you can’t find new friends, being by yourself is less harmful to you than hanging out with those h8rs. Ditch ‘em.
2. The children learn NOTHING when ‘retreat and regroup’ is your primary coping mechanism.
Children argue. That’s a given. It’s normal. They’re emotionally and mentally immature people who lack essential communication tools to effectively handle a confrontation without loosing a grip on their emotions. That’s why they have parents – to help pack their tool box ‘on the fly’. As a parent, you hope that these teaching moments won’t come in public, but they so often do, and when the opportunity presents itself, you can either teach or run. I’m no paragon of perfection – I’ve lost my temper in public on more than one occasion with my kids (usually due to neglecting or not recognizing my own needs at the time), which generally necessitates running to the car or other neutral environment to assess the situation. But the kids don’t really learn anything about communication through ‘retreat and regroup’.
As homeschoolers, our kids aren’t subjected to playground wars or bullies – and thank goodness for that. Unfortunately, kids are kids pretty much everywhere, and conflict resolution is an essential tool that I don’t think is ever perfected. I think that letting our personal embarrassment get in the way of equipping our kids for healthy communication cripples them. And this ties back into the first point – why would you want to be a part of a group that does not respect the needs of the child, and that values the importance of a parent taking advantage of a teaching opportunity?
I have a great deal of respect for a mom who sees something that needs addressing - and not the ‘Hey stop that!’ kind of addressing – but really digs into it with her kid, looking behind the obvious and dealing with the issues behind an action that motivate the child. It takes effort and balls to stay calm in the face of a meltdown and communicate with your child when everyone around you is looking on with a keen and critical eye. It’s hard enough with strangers; I can’t imagine how much more difficult it would be when you know that your ‘friends’ will be even more judgmental.
I’m not perfect, but for the most part, I’m content to give my boys enough space to work out their own troubles. I try to stay out of it, but with an open ear so that if I need to step in and help facilitate communication, I can. As difficult as this has been, now that they’re 8 and 7, I am starting to see real results from this method (yay!). That is to say, they can often work out issues with their friends with a few words, rather than it being a big blow-up thing. Factors like hormones, amount of rest, hunger, growing pains, ‘muchness’ – all of this plays a role in how our kids FEEL and ACT in any give day or situation. For that matter, all of those things also play a significant role in how WE feel and act – and respond to our kids. But as parents, we do our best to monitor and take into consideration what our kids NEED at the time and do our best to provide it so that they have a level playing field to work from.
That’s not always going to happen of course; my kids both require – REQUIRE – food every couple of hours. But I’m human and sometimes forget that – or get the notion that they ‘should’ be able to be okay without food for a little longer (which usually ends with a spectacular fail on my part), forgetting momentarily that children usually are doing the very best that they can right now… I believe that expecting more out of my kids than they’re able to provide is detrimental to the kids and to the structure of our family, so we try not to do that. Same goes for my friends and their kids. I expect them to do what they can. Sometimes leaving is the only option, but I sincerely hope that when you must have one of those ‘teaching moments’ with your kid, you can feel the vibes of support that I’m sending in your direction.
Warmly,
~h
“And now, for something completely different”
You ever have one of those mornings, before you get out of bed, where you think it’s going to be a wonderful day… the sun is shining at the crack of 9, the children are in the other room doing something that’s not noisy, but not so quiet as to tingle your spidey senses, and you’ve slept profoundly well… only to get up and realize that the day has completely gone to utter shite the moment your foot hits the floor?
So that’s how my day started out. Le sigh.
Yesterday we had a field trip to some of the museums downtown, then everyone came back to my place for a little visiting fun. We didn’t accomplish much actual ‘school work’ (not to say that the kids didn’t learn anything – just not deskwork) other than reading and piano lessons (which my grandmother has decided that the boys ‘simply MUST learn to play’, and so she’s teaching them… which is really kinda cool). I really thought that today would go smoothly. I figured we’d sleep in a bit since we’ve been on the go so much over the last week, then after a leisurely breakfast, settle in to deskwork.
The morning started out fine, other than me being in a crappy mood. I made a pot of coffee, which helped.. a little, and had the kids do their reading first so I could get into the groove. They read for about 5 of the 20 minutes that is required and then started arguing over space… we have a 1600 square foot house. I am SURE that they could have found a comfy place to read in that was not in close proximity to the other one… but no. They wanted the EXACT SAME PLACE on their bed. Are you friggin’ KIDDING me?!? o_O
Fast forward to math and handwriting… math was wonderful. LittleBoyBlue and I did his math on the board and one our brand spankin’ new abacus (or ‘counting frame’ if you’re a sticker for accuracy). He excelled, I beamed – it was wonderful. PeaGreen hemmed and hawed on his writing, but did finish it with neatess and relative quickness, so how could I be displeased? We moved on to the first of our lessons on maps, in which we watched a couple of videos on the different types of maps and the kind of info you can find on one, then laid a world map on the floor and played ‘jump to X’. I called out a location (Pacific Ocean, Antarctica, North America, etc…) and they jumped to it. It was fun and they did great – but still the day was tinged with slight displays of irritation, on everyone’s part.
I called a break and decided a change of pace might do us all some good. So we went to the library, grocery shopping and the post office. Then we dropped off some stuff that’s been in the back of the van at Goodwill and brought back an aquarium that we bought not realizing that it was cracked. There’s something about dropping off stuff at Goodwill that always makes me feel lighter somehow. Getting the unnecessary crap out of our house that we’ve accumulated, especially since my grandfathers both died – one grandmother is cleaning out her house and the other has moved in with my aunt, necessitating downsizing – both have sent things my direction and my little house can’t hold it all! I also have baby stuff still from when the boys were small, so all that is gradually making its way out. It feels good – and our house is easier to keep clean with less stuff.
Coming home, we put all the groceries away and right now, I am enjoying peace and quiet… one child is still at piano lessons and the other is sitting in the other room with his nose in a book. That is lovely to see. This whole week, I’ve been saying something I NEVER thought I’d get to say, especially to LittleBoyBlue: “Put the book DOWN and come do your chores!!”
It’s funny how much something as simple as a change of scenery can improve your outlook. Now, it’s off to make dinner and hopefully tomorrow we will begin anew with a better frame of mind.
Warmly,
~h
Sunday Surf for 9-19
Welcome to this week’s Sunday Surf! I hope that you find something fun to read, and if you’re so inclined, take this as your invitation to participate next week!
Enjoy:
Rural Socialite’s Welcome to my Home – A Photo Tour is fun. I can;t afford to redecorate my house and this might serve as a good placeholder while I dream of new paint and knobs…
Kitchen Witch’s Zombie Contingency Plan is awesome… I’m thinking I might need a kit ‘just in case’. This may lead to a van full of survival kids, what with our field trip box already back there, lol. Vampires, aliens … you just need to be prepared!
I’m Unschooled. Yes I can Write’s Month of Cool People and Places is a great post. If you don’t click any other link in today’s surf, click this one and watch the “Not Back to School Camp” video. What an amazing, inspiring place!
Secular Nature Homeschool’s Organizers & Joiners post has a great list of Top Ten Rules for Being Part of a Homeschool Group that I thought was both funny and true (not that MY group moms need to worry about that, lol).
Teri at Laughing, Lace and Legos posted about their geography lesson and maps that they made. I am super-inspired by this and as we’re about to begin a study of the United States, I thought we might be able to draw from her awesome craftiness in our study of the land we live in.
New Dress A Day was recommended on SecularHomeschooling.com as a ‘must follow’ blog, and yes, I admit, I am hooked. She’s SEW CRAFTY! (Bad puns are cool now; didn’t you get that memo??)
For more Sunday Surfing, visit Authentic Parenting, Enjoy Birth, Breastfeeding Moms Unite, A Domesticated Woman’s Adventures, Maman A Droit,Hobo Mama and Baby Dust Diaries.
Warmly,
~h
Homeschoolers Suspected of Terrorism
Before you get yourself all worked up over that, let me just say – it’s not what you think. Our homeschool group took a trip out to Galveston Island State Park this past week, and to get to Galveston from my house, one must cross the ferry at Bolivar Peninsula. Apparently, ferries may be a target for terrorism and the TX Dept. of Transportation has instituted protocols to keep us safe. I found this NY Times article from 2005 that tells a little bit about it; odd if that’s the new rule, that of the last 3 trips across the ferry in the last year this is the first one that I’ve seen them taking this security step.
On this particular trip, I was one of the lucky ones selected for a random bomb check. I kinda go back and forth on how I feel about it. On the one had, yes, thank goodness – that’s one of my irrational phobias – being trapped in the car with the kids as the car is sinking. I have no doubt that I would absolutely lose my mind if that reality ever befell me. On the other hand though, it was a random check and I was asked to cooperate. What would happen if I said no? Would they then have probable cause and require a more invasive search? All these things require thought, but not on field trip day {wink}.
Obviously, we made it through the checkpoint with no trouble (other than getting hassled about my Dr Pepper that may or may not be ‘confiscated’) and we were on the ferry with very little wait time – enough for me to get out and go tell SFK and PB&JMom that the title of the re-cap blog was going to be “Homeschoolers Suspected of Terrorism”, lol.
We drove all the way down the seawall to GISP – this was the first time I’d been that far down. We had to go check in, and our fee was waived since we’d called ahead, which was really nice. We’re always looking for group discounts or school discounts when we go with the group and usually get them. I think that since the park was so affected by Hurricane Ike, they were more inclined waive the fee.We were supposed to get the kids’ ‘estuaries and bays’ sticker for their Wilderness Passports, but the rangers didn’t have any. I did contact the HW program to see about having the stickers sent directly to me, so one way or another, they’ll get their stamps!
We had a lovely picnic lunch (even though LittleBoyBlue got an old fishhook stuck in his toe, which prompted the bringing out of the first aid kit and mandatory shoes for all children), and the kids waded down into the little swampy area and found a couple of fiddler crabs.
After lunch, we hit the trails, which included an awesome observation deck. We had a mini-lesson on ‘erosion’ (everybody say, ‘erosion’!) and then took off on a little hike. After about 15 minutes, the kids were hot and tired of walking and wanted desperately to go over to the beach side of the park. I think we moms were a tiny bit disappointed that the kids weren’t more into it, but when they’re grouchy they’re not learning anyway, so I’m really glad that everyone was on the same page about respecting the kids’ needs rather than expecting them to continue on a path that was clearly not going to accomplish anything.
So, we loaded up and headed out to the beach! I didn’t get many pictures of the kids on the beach; there were 12 of them and a couple of strays, so we were constantly keeping count between the 5 of us moms. We did manage to arrive and leave with all heads accounted for, so I’d call that success.
After a couple of hours (and 2 very sun-kissed mamas later), the kids were getting hungry, so we packed up and went up to the showers for a rinse-off and back over to the bay side for a snack. Afterwards, the older kids found a bay trail that led to the water and a shoreline that was teeming with life. They spent a good hour or more catching hermit and fiddler crabs and playing in the mud. This was, by far, the best part of the day. To see a group fo 12 children, ranging in age from 3 to 12 work together with no conflict (older ones helping the younger ones and valuing their input) was amazing, and I think that all of us were very, very proud of our kiddos.
All in all, this has probably been one of the most enjoyable trips we’ve taken so far. We were all sun-kissed and exhausted by the end of the day, but it was worth it! Have I mentioned how much I TOTALLY ENJOY homeschooling?
Warmly,
~h
My First Blog Award
The end of this week has been so very busy for us that I’ve barely had time to get on the computer much. I was so surprised and delighted to find this message in my comments, ” Hi! I just love your post. I am sending you a blog award.” from Anna-Marie of Life’s Adventures.
Wow – I’m honored that you find my blog interesting; I really don’t know what to say. Thank you so much! The blogging mamas who’ve been reading here have all be so encouraging and supportive – blogging has really become one of my favorite ways to organize my thoughts. It’s like scrapbooking in digital form and with more words, lol.
I started this blog to chronicle our foray into the homeschooling world, and it’s since become an avenue to connect with other homeschooling mothers. It’s a tough job, but infinitely rewarding, and I hope that one day my kids will read back through our adventures with a smile on their face.
So here are the rules for accepting this award…
1. Accept the award. Post it on your blog with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.
2. Pay it forward to 15 other bloggers that you have newly discovered.
3. Contact those blog owners and let them know they’ve been chosen.
So I am passing on this award to the following great blogs: (in no particular order)
- Homeschooling a Texas Tornado and a Preschool Tag-a-long
- I Capture the Rowhouse
- Lost Persons Homeschool
- A Domesticated Woman’s Adventures
- Enlightended Life (recently featured on No Longer Quivering and Ex-Christian.net)
- Lagniappe Academy
- Creekside Learning
- Here in the Bonny Glen
- Our Worldwide Classroom
- Laughing, Lace & Legos
- Homeschooling Seaside
- Life’s Magic Moments
- Karmamatopoeia
- F.I.M.B.Y.
- A Magical Childhood
I’ve learned so much from these amazing bloggers and enjoyed peeking into their lives (homeschooling and otherwise). I hope you’ll pop on over and show them some comment love 
Thanks again to Anna-Marie!!
Warmly,
~h
Secular Thursday, Defined
There’s a thread on SecularHomeschool.com that asks what makes you a secular homeschooler. Since I’ve been browsing the SecThurs blogs, I’ve also noticed a bit of a division between what one defines as ‘secular’ and the next. Apparently, there are many schools of thought on the subject.
For example, one person might define secular homechooling as completely a-religious. Another might use religious material but edit out the religious stuff, or be fine with a modicum of religious content but refraining from letting that be the focus. Some secular homeschoolers atheist or agnostic and others are Christian, but do not define themselves as “Christian Homeschoolers”. Still others are decidedly anti-Christian in bias and seem to get a little miffed when the Christian set use ‘secular’ to define themselves.
While I understand and can identify with many facets of the ‘secular’ arguments, I thought that rather than debating the seemingly endless possibilities and nuances that secular homeschoolers encompass with the term, I thought that I would define what ‘Secular Thursday’ means to me so that when you come to my blog looking for a SecThurs post, you’ll know what flavor of ‘secular homeschooling’ you’re getting into.
Though I think Smrt Mama left a pretty open discussion guideline for SecThurs, most of my SecThurs posts will have to do specifically with religion and how it relates to homeschooling in some way. I am not a particularly religious person though I was raised in a very conservative religion. My Loverly Husband and I do not attend church and we don’t allow our children to attend church either. We live in the ‘Bible Belt’ so the main religion we’re exposed to in our area is Conservative Christianity (CC). I am intrigued by the message of love and forgiveness that CC seems to preach and baffled at the many ways in which CC’s members cast judgement, belittle, criticize, ostracize and make utterly unwelcome anyone who makes it clear that they are unwilling to follow that line of belief. This attitude is especially apparent in the homeschooling community here as there are 7 Christian-based co-op/support groups in this area. To my knowledge, none of these groups even allows anyone who is not CC to become a member. They are not inclusive, they are not welcoming or tolerant of other faiths and the juxtaposition of message vs. works is quite perplexing to me… so I write about that a lot.
In our homeschooling, I do not seek out religious material and I rarely use anything with a religious slant unless the lesson we’re studying is on that particular religion. I don’t care for bible verses listed on everything, or opening messages that talk overmuch about faith or related subjects. While I am not ‘anti-religion’, I vastly prefer secular materials and prefer that science be the foundation for my children’s education rather than faith/belief. I do try to be respectful (mostly) in my portrayal of other religions, though when faced with outright non-Christ-like behavior from CC’s, I reserve the right to point and sneer mockingly while making snide remarks.
Overall, I think my blog carries a secular tone. The resources I recommend are overwhelmingly secular, though if I find something I like I won’t ‘not’ use it just because it’s got a bit of religious content. While I wouldn’t want CC’s to be uncomfortable reading here, they’re not my primary audience and as such I won’t censor my posts with that audience in mind. There isn’t a large secular homeschooling community though it is growing by leaps and bounds, and I cherish my little corner of the blogosphere where I can talk about things that interest me (and hopefully, you).
In conclusion, that’s what you can expect from my SecThurs posts – a great deal of rumination about the climate of homeschooling without religion in a very religious area, and a few posts on how we do things without a faith-based slant. If you’re a secular homeschooler and haven’t checked into writing with Smrt Lernin’s Secular Thursday bloggers, let this be your invitation. Click the icon below for more info.
Warmly,
~h
Social Circles
A question that I saw asked to secular homeschoolers in Facebook the other day was, ‘How do you overcome feeling like an outcast in your social circles?’
This is an interesting question to me. I see the same question asked to natural-minded mamas, too – ‘how do you fit in when everyone around you is so different?’ when it comes to breastfeeding or co-sleeping or sling-wearing… like those things aren’t ‘normal’. Weird.
Truthfully, it’s been so long since I wasn’t surrounded by a group of like-minded mamas that when I am confronted with someone who is ‘different’, it’s just such an odd feeling when I notice them noticing that I am different. When I was a new mom, I purposely sought out other moms who did the same things I did or had the same idea of how to raise kids that I did. That search led me to La Leche League, which was a gathering place for moms who did things outside the norm. Eventually, I started a playgroup with an emphasis on attachment parenting and natural mothering and so my social circle as a mom really grew from that foundation. Homeschooling was then and seems to be now an extension of that ‘type’ of parenting philosophy, and I am still friends with many of the mothers that I met through those avenues.
Overall, I’m not a big ‘joiner’ of things. I know that sounds like a contradiction when clearly I do join things: La Leche League, my local playgroup, my local homeschooling group… but I’m not just a member of those groups; I volunteer in a leadership capacity. I don’t usually set out to be a leader, but if there’s a position open in an organization that I believe in, I’m willing to step up for the chance to do something worthwhile. There have been times when I sought out to fill a role; LLL comes to mind, but only because they had training that I needed in order to accomplish a goal. Other times, there’s been a void that no one else was interested in filling, so I volunteered. In other instances, I set out to start something and worked to make it successful.
But that’s really only part of the picture. Being the leader in a group makes it easier to ‘set the tone’ of a circle, but it’s not easy to find people to fill it. Stepping into a leadership role in an established organization is challenging, but easier because you already have the framework ready-made. Starting something from the ground up takes a lot more… moxie, as hockeymom at SecularHomeschooling.com says. I call it ‘fake it till ya make it’. There’s a great deal of presentation involved, and confidence. In effect, you’re selling an idea, so making something look appealing is a big part of what goes into making a group successful.
I recently advised another mom seeking friends to not let the lack of a social circle prevent her from doing things – to go out and do things with her kids and just pretend like the other moms in her group couldn’t make it that day. In essence, that’s exactly what I did when I started a local playgroup, and again when I started homeschooling. It wasn’t a lie; the other moms weren’t in my group yet, so they really couldn’t make it that day {wink}
This to me is at the core of the ‘socialization for Mom’ issue… feeling confident enough in ourselves. People like being around people who are confident; who seem like they know what they’re doing. If you can project that image, then you’re ahead of the game! I’m not confident a lot of the time, but you probably wouldn’t know it. I was a painfully shy kid, and missed out on SO MUCH that I really, really wanted to do. I’m just not willing to let life pass me by anymore.
One of our local libraries hosts a homeschoolers book club that just got started for this school year, so I took the boys. I started talking with one of the other moms after the book club and found out that she is one of the chairpersons for another, faith-based group in town. She was super sweet and really nice and I am looking forward to chatting with her as the book club progresses, but as far as joining in with the groups for stuff? Probably not. I don’t think anyone would be comfortable with that – but that’s not a ‘loss’. I’m not willing to fake who I am in order to try to fit into a mold that does not fit me. I don’t see that as setting a good example for my kids, or as netting anything of worth to me.
So the short answer to the question is that I don’t want to ‘fit in’. I want an environment in which I am comfortable being myself and am willing to completely re-vamp my entire social circle in order to accomplish this. I hope that you will be, too. You deserve it!
Warmly,
~h
Thoughts on Working Independently
Something that I used to struggle with on almost a daily basis was the expectation of what my child ‘should’ be able to do. One of the main reasons we decided to homeschool was because LittleBoyBlue was not able to complete his work independently in a classroom setting. He’s not learning disabled (though the school system and his pedi really tried to stick that label on him); what he needs is for someone to be right there with him to help him stay focused on his task.
Looking back, I think that I was laboring under the impression that homeschooling would ‘solve’ the problem of his inability to work independently at this stage. For months I was struggling and trying to get him to work independently on a worksheet or reading assignment only to com back 20 or 30 minutes later to find that he’d done nothing. This was a completely unrealistic expectation on my part because no matter what the school system’s policy and procedure is, the fact remains that some children just do not fit that model. I knew this, and yet for a while there I was making both of us miserable as I kept attempting to stuff him into this mold and concept of what I needed him to do.
Obviously, I don’t advocate following in my footsteps. Once I examined why homeschooling seemed to be so very challenging on some days, I realized that the problem in the equation was me. The first thing that needed to happen was an adjustment in my thinking. We’re homeschooling, not to fit my needs, but his. Attempting to homeschool in a similar format that wasn’t working in class wasn’t going to work. Even though our feel was different enough that I told myself it was different enough for him, it wasn’t.
Over the months that we’ve been homeschooling, we’ve made some changes that really should have been made in the beginning. Sure, we could go the whole unschooling route, but that’s just not right for us (at least not right now), so there is some desk work, and I do want him to be able to work independently at least some of the time so that I can work one-on-one with PeaGreen. But not all day, not for every assignment, and even now, it’s a struggle some days to shift gears mid-stream when it’s not working. But sometimes, in order for the day to be successful, we need to make a change quickly even if that throws me off. I’m getting better at being adaptable on very short notice.
These days, we’re doing a lot more of his work together (with him at my desk unless I’m working with my other son at my desk), working orally instead of long periods of time where he was expected to write a lot, working on the chalkboard (we have a large one on the wall in our school room) so he can stand and move instead of sitting at a desk, working on the computer – just trying different things for him that meet his needs better than trying to fit him into a mold that he clearly has broken.
It’s really hard to let go of the thought that homeschooling will solve whatever problem our kids have. Well, it can, and does, but not without a learning curve and some adjustment in our thinking as well. Though I am no expert, I’ve learned that what I see or think of as ‘a problem’ probably isn’t – it’s only a problem when I tried to apply the ‘classroom model’ to my child. But realizing that the classroom model didn’t work for my kid is the reason we’re homeschooling. It’s a weird loop and it took me a while to realize that’s where I was.
Since we’ve implemented creative strategies to help meet him where he is, things have been much better. Every day isn’t perfect (today is a case in point reminder of that), but in general his ability to complete assignments and overall enthusiasm for learning has improved, as has his cooperation and attitude. Taking that into consideration, even though we’ve had a few blips and bumps along the way as we settle in, I am thankful that I came to this realization earlier rather than later because seeing him enjoy school again has really made me a happy mama.
Warmly,
~h
A View From Space
On Friday, our homeschool group met for a field trip to the Texas Energy Museum. The TEM focuses on ‘the fascinating world of petroleum science from the formation of oil to the geology surrounding it.’ One of the coolest features is the holographic characters that are dressed and set in a scene to tell the story from a first-person perspective of what the early days of oil drilling were like. When the museum first opened, there were 5 or 6 of them, but over the years they’ve apparently not been maintained or serviced and only one is working now, which is sad because that was such a neat way to learn about what their work was like.
One of the newer sections of the museum focuses on oil refining and the manufacture of gasoline and other petroleum products. The kids got lessons in viscosity and the properties of different types of rubber via a ball demonstration in which one ball bounced and the other just plunked to the ground.
Another really interesting part of the tour (to me, anyway) is the history of Spindletop as told by ‘Patillo Higgins’.
Patillo Higgins, a one-armed mechanic and self-taught geologist, was one of the few at the time who believed that, in the future, modern industry would switch from coal to oil. But where to get all that oil? He believed it lay beneath his feet at Spindletop. He had a feeling that drilling a well on top of this salt dome (and others like it) would produce oil, and lots of it. In an attempt to turn his dream into a reality, Higgins organized the Gladys City Oil, Gas, and Manufacturing Company in 1892. Years of frustration followed, with most members of the petroleum and geologic communities proclaiming Higgins’s ideas to be silly nonsense. Nearing the end of his rope, Higgins ran an advertisement in a local newspaper, and one man, Captain Anthony F. Lucas, replied.
That’s not the word-for-word, but close enough. They used to have another holographic robot to play the role and recite Lucas’ involvement, but he’s been broken for some time.
Incidentally, Spindletop, the Lucas Gusher and oil refining play a really big part in the lives of a great many of us in Southeast Texas. Most of us have at least one family member and several friends who work at one of the big plants (Motiva, Exxon Mobil, Total – which is pronounced ‘toe-TAL’, emphasis on the second syllable and short /a/, not ‘total’ like the cereal) not to mention the many smaller plants and contracting services who provide employees to them. The history of our city flavors several of our many and varied sports teams, even our ‘health’ type events are flavored with Texas oil… In a day and age where reliance on the petrochemical industry is falling more and more out of favor, I’d like to put the reminder out there that there are certain portions of the country where the citizens whole lives are so firmly rooted in this industry that change, while necessary, will be a monumental undertaking. And from where I’m sitting, that change is still a long way off.
Moving on… upstairs, a special presentation of A View From Space was on loan from another museum (The exhibit is already gone from our museum, but that’s the same one). It was really neat! The kids got to examine about 11 different stations with hands-on activities and things to see and read and learn. They watched the seasons change over North America in mirrors, how a satellite moves and takes pictures, experiment with how high into the atmosphere different things go, what the Grand Canyon, deforestation and city growth looks like from space (and through time, from the 70′s -2001-ish) and the temperatures of the oceans and what the hole in the ozone looked like in the past and now.
After our tour, we went down to Riverfront Park for lunch and some tomfoolery before we got sprinkled with rain and each went our separate ways.
It was a great trip! The boys came home talking about limestone and sandstone and salt domes. I think they learned quite a bit… and evil homeschooling mom that I am, we’ll be doing a review of what we learned Friday as soon as we get settled in this morning. {insert maniacal/sinister/evil laughter here}
Warmly,
~h
Sunday Surf for 9-12
This week, I actually browsed the web ‘with intent’ – with an eye towards what I would recommend this week. I definitely like that better, and as such I’ve already begun my list for next Sunday’s surf post.
When I started participating in SS, I was trying to keep my recommendations more parenting centered, but that hasn’t been working for me. Since my kids are older, I think it would be odd for my SS post to extol the virtues of cloth diapers and debate the merits of sling vs. crotch-dangler carrier (even though I whole heartedly advocate cloth, at last part-time, and slings are clearly superior to front pack style carriers).
So, I am going to stop trying to fit into the mold that Authentic Parenting has kind of set by the posts that she recommends (not that she only wants XYZ style recommendations or anything – it was my own limits, I think, that were stifling me) and focus on articles that interest and apply to my life.
So, without further adieu, today’s recommended reading can be found at:
- The Scientific Homeschool’s Using Questions to Create a Climate of Inquiry in the Homeschool Environment points out the benefits of using questions to help your homeschooler learn to think better.
- Age of Autism’s article, CDC Admits No Rigorous Study Refuting Thimerosal-Autism Link Ever Conducted points out something that I have long felt might be true – that despite assurances that they have eliminated the link between autism and mercury, they really have not done rigorous research to back that claim.
- SizzleBop’sMean Adults- Part One is the first of a three-part series dealing with adults who don;t like your high-needs kiddo. Excellent and HIGHLY recommended!
- Enjoy Parenting’s Go With the Flow… Even If It’s ‘Wrong’ was an article that I really took to heart. I have such a linear thought plan as to how the day should progress or how things should be done that I often find myself irritated at deviations from it. This reminder that kids are creative and such thought patterns really are stifling, and can create unnecessary friction.
- Lesson Pathways’ Blog Carnival of Homeschooling: The Road Less Traveled Edition. This is a collection of posts from various methods and styles of homeschooling that talk about the paths that are open, and how their journeys have begun and changed and where they are now. There is some very interesting reading, so I recommended the entire thread rather than pick out individual posts.
For more Sunday Surfing, visit Breastfeeding Moms Unite, Domesticated Woman, Maman A Droit, Hobo Mama and Baby Dust Diaries.
So… what have you been reading this week?
Warmly,
~h
My Special lil’ Snowflake(s)
One of the blog/websites that I frequent lately is SizzleBop. I actually found this site years ago, then forgot about it and recently re-discovered it on Facebook. It’s a site for parents who have kids that operate outside the norm. Frequently used terms to describe them are high needs, active alert, highly distractable, out of sync… others as well, but those are the most common.
I have one of these children. Actually, depending on who you ask, I may have two of these children, though they’re very different.
LittleBoyBlue was a classic ‘high needs baby‘. I held him, quite literally, all the time either in arms or worn in the sling. I was okay with that, but it took a lot of energy to defend my actions as a new mom with him. Thankfully, my Loverly Husband was (and ever has been) on board with a more attached style of parenting, so as a united front we pretty much made most parenting topics ‘off limits’ to non-supportive family and friends. Once PeaGreen came on the scene, we got flak from so many people about our feeding methods, sleeping arrangements and discipline philosophy – things that I really tend to feel are NOYFB.
The reason that I particularly enjoy SizzleBop is because of founder Carol Barnier’s attitude towards these kids. She’s constantly reminding parents of ‘sizzlers’ not to ‘miss the gift’ in these children. That message is so very important – one that is so easy to forget when you’re in the midst of a ‘situation’ with one of these intense little people. It is, at times, so very hard to remember that they are not trying to create chaos. They’re not trying to make things more difficult. And most of the time, they’re just as frustrated as you are.
Two of my best friends have a child that is like this as well. They’re all so very similar, and easy to pick out. I can, without hesitation, say that I deeply enjoy these kids. Oh, they’re right little brats at times – probably more often than your average kiddo – but they have so much ‘much-ness’, as SFK often says, that when they’re being charming, well… gosh darn it, you’re charmed! When they’re not though, it’s exceedingly difficult to remember that the gift in these kids is the same thing that cause us parents the most grief.
I got a chart from Kindermusik years ago that had a list of positive phrases to use to describe your child. Instead of ‘argumentative’, you might say ‘opinionated’ or ‘goal oriented’. Instead of ’loud’ you might say ‘vivid’ and so on…it’s a good tool to help re-shape your attitude towards your spunky kidlet. It also makes you much more aware of the phrasing that other people use to describe your kids, and if yours are like mine (super smart and very observant), then they also understand when someone is saying one thing but meaning something else; something not so nice, and it makes your heart simply ache when you realize that your child recognizes that he is ‘different’ to the point that they’re uniquely disliked by an adult.
The thing is, my child has only ever seemed ‘different’ when I start comparing him to other kids, or hold him up to the expectations of people who really don’t matter. That’s not to say that he’s not challenging, because he is – they both are. They’re both intense little people – but that just reinforces something I have always thought and said – children are whole, complete and fully functioning little people, from the moment they’re born. One of the benefits of homeschooling for me is that there is less pressure to compare my child to any others. Yes, the homeschooling community at large is responsible for some of the most fierce competition in accomplishments for their kids, but I don’t usually buy into that mindset. I know that my kids both have unique strengths and with that comes weaknesses as well. Recognizing that has gone a long way towards having the relationship with my kids that I do… that, and having some awesome tools to help me respond in a way that is helpful.
One thing I try to always keep in mind is that the traits that we admire most in Leaders are the same ones that are so challenging to handle in children. Smart mouthed kids grow up into witty and clever adults who can get your attention with a single phrase. Kids who have limitless energy when they’re little are burning the midnight oil on whatever project has their interest as adults. Children who ask a million questions grow up to be those amazing ‘idea people’ who can think 5 steps ahead of normal people… these are things that we envy in other adults. So how do you nurture those traits without going crazy in the process?
Something that helps me is to be conscious of how I think about my kids. I’m not perfect, so obviously, I fail at this more than I succeed, but like the Kindermusick list, I try to give myself positive words and phrases to think about my kids. If I’m struggling for a word to help reshape my perspective, I can type a word that describes my feeling at the moment into Thesaurus.com and pick more positive words to replace them. It’s amazing how much that one thing alone can help shape your outlook.
Another amazingly simple tool I use is the Mistaken Goal Chart by Jane Nelson from PositiveParenting. I printed it out and have it in an easily referred to place because I need it! This is by far one of the best tools I have found that helps me really understand what my kids need and having an answer to the ever-present question ‘what do you want?!?’ makes it ever so much easier to provide them with it, especially when most of the time they are not even able to verbalize what they need.
I do believe that when children feel well, they act well. I believe that children are acting, for the most part, the best they can in that moment. That doesn’t mean that I let my kids get away with being ugly or disrespectful or bratty. It does mean that I try to understand where they’re coming from as best I can and try to make sure that I am not pushing an unrealistic expectation on them.
Warmly,
~h
Organized Mom is Disorganized This Week
… and by ‘week’, I naturally mean ‘month’. {sigh} I am playing catch-up in a major way… we’re 2 weeks into M6 and I just now printed out my reports for M5. (If you’re just tuning in, I use Homeschool Tracker’s Basic for record-keeping. We break for a week after every 6, and I print report cards because I am an obsessive-compulsive type who likes paper (as well as digital) reports to refer to when the need arises – and it does, often. More on that in a bit. If that’s not your bag, that’s cool – but you don’t get to make nasty comments… unless they’re funny. Funny, I can forgive {wink})
I’ve spent the last 2 or 3 weeks working with SFK and PB&JMom getting our homeschool group’s co-op planned and the calendar set for the next few months (and then coming home and updating the calendar and website). I thoroughly enjoyed myself throughout all stages of this event, but in working all of that, I have neglected my own planning. I have our 6 week arc down, but I do not have daily lessons planned for the entire mod as of yet. My poor lesson planner is nearly blank past this weekend, so I will be sitting down and filling the rest of that out over the weekend, I am sure. After all, how can we learn when we don’t yet know what we’re going to learn about?!
Something I have been meaning to address is, “How do you do everything that you do?”
This is a question I get asked often – or variations of. In the past month, I’ve been called everything from a ‘straight-up overachiever’ to an ‘android’… all in good fun, of course, but the question stuck with me. I’m sure it’s a compliment with a great deal of snark mixed in, but I get asked that often enough to want to answer it. I’m just never sure what to say that answers it without sounding like I’m either defending myself or bragging. So here goes…
First of all, I’d like to say that what I do is in no way a comment on what you do (or do not) do. My friends know this already, but I wanted to clear that up before I went any further. I’m hardly perfect and gleefully submit to pointings-out of my faults, but as Patchfire says in SmrtLernins’ Secular Homeschool Archetypes: The Organized Mom,
Organized Mom doesn’t know how not to be organized…
Truer words, my dear… truer words. I love Smrt Mama’s homeschooling archetypes post. I can easily identify myself. I could front and say that’s not me, but we all know it is, lol.
I don’t think it’s so much about the ‘how’ as it is the ‘why’. As I said, I’m an obsessive compulsive type who likes information in duplicate and in multiple formats (in case of a fire… or hurricane… or alien invasion…y’know. Whatever). I do not like surprises; the rare exception to that is if you can manage to keep me from detecting even a hint of it. Such a feat has only been accomplished once, and all credit to BFF, because she completely rocked that! As you would expect, I am not a spontaneous person. My calendar has actually had time blocked of for ‘something spontaneous’ in the past, I kid you not. This mindset extends to basically every aspect of my life.
That’s not to say that I am not flexible. I am more than willing to change plans most of the time, but I need my hours blocked off so that I know what my options are. That way, I can pick and choose what I really want to do and rarely miss out on something cool. This is the part that applies to homeschooling and why I am the way I am. I don’t want my kids to miss out on a unique learning opportunity. Why spend a week reading about the Civil War when we can go to a Civil War Re-enactment and live it? That’s so much more interesting and makes history tangible. I dig that.
I also know what I want available in our area. Though our individual group is rather small, the homeschooling community in our tri-county area is extensive. With 7 co-ops that I know of (just learned about another one yesterday!), not counting mine, that’s a LOT of homeschoolers. But none of the groups are working together as a team to pull resources that we could all benefit from. Each group individually might host a science fair or an art show – but what if we had enough participants from all the groups for a ‘real’ show or competitive fair? I just see potential know that I want that opportunity for my kids. Surely there must be other homeschooling moms who see this kind of void, and I can’t help thinking that if we all work together, we can fill it with something totally awesome.
I also know what it is that I want for my kids, and to an extent, what I want out of it as well. I enjoy homeschooling. I love researching and finding cool things to dry and make and do. I like messy projects and days where we chuck the lesson plan and snuggle on the couch with hot chocolate and literature (or I will when winter gets here, lol). I love teaching my kids – watching them finally ‘get’ something is absolutely amazing. I love that I get to spend time with my kids – hours per day that would be lost if they were in school-school – every aspect of it, though challenging at times, is right up my alley. Combine that with my personal philosophy about child rearing, which can basically be summed up with, “When you know better, do better”. I want the best for my kids, and I do my best for them. I’m by no means perfect, but I try awfully hard.
I think there’s also a good dose of learning from my elders mixed in with my outlook, too. When my babes were little, I held them all the time. No really. ALL the time, either in-arms or worn on me in the sling. This came about, in part, because I kept hearing my grandmother and her friends talk about how much they wished they had not listened to the ones who told them to put their babies down to sleep or on the floor for ‘tummy time’… about how fleeting the baby days are. I didn’t want to miss out on any of that, so I held them. When I was in school, my mother worked a lot and talked often about how much she’d only ever wanted to be a stay at home mom. Since I am a stay at home mom, I try to enjoy it to the fullest and not take it for granted. These kids grow faster every day and since I can’t slow ‘em down, I’m savoring every single step.
So, back to the organizational stuff, if you’re still wondering why I keep and print records, and perhaps more interestingly, wondering what it is that I do with them, you’re in luck. I print them to file so that I have a back-up if my computers and/or hard/flash drives bite the dust. I use them to balance myself when I’m planning our lessons. I print the Overview and can see how many hours were devoted to which subjects. We’re almost always math and science heavy. Our Reading and LangArts/Grammar are moderate and history is actually pretty light most of the time. That makes sense to me – I know where that comes from. Math is my weakest subject, so I overcompensate to make sure I’m not short-changing my kids on math skillz. Maybe too much. I think science and technology are vital to my kids’ futures and careers, and so they play prominently in our curriculum. I’m much more comfortable with the ‘Reading’ stuff. That’s my strong suit, and so I feel pretty confident in those areas with what we’re doing so I don’t focus as much on those. They are also my boys’ weakest subjects, so I can see that maybe we need to spend more time in those areas.
In a 6-week long mod (usually 24 days of instruction), we range from 67 to 82 hours of ‘classroom’ time. That includes the lessons and field trips that are in my lesson planner and sometimes I also count schoolish things that are done on non-school days (like a field trip taken with our homeschool group on our off week). There are also a zillion ‘other’ things that could be added, but I try to keep what I record just to actual ‘lessons’, if that makes sense. Being able to quantify our time like that lets me sleep at night instead of worrying if we’re spending enough time in school or on schoolwork.
Grades are a little trickier. They have excellent grades – but we don’t just ‘gloss over’ anything that they need to know. If we’re learning a math skill, then we stay on that skill until it is mastered. They may be ‘behind’ what other kids their age are doing, but I feel that mastering a skill now is far better than squeaking by with a ‘passing grade’ now and finding that your foundation is weak later on. And they’re not behind (in case you were wondering).
So anyway… this all sounded a lot better in my head, lol. I’ll stop here, though I welcome questions if you want to know something specific. I hope that this casts a little bit of illumination into the transparent depths of my psyche for you {wink}.
Warmly,
~h
Religion Matters!
Something that’s come to my attention as a homeschooling mom that I didn’t notice as a ‘classroom mom’ is that religion matters. Not to me, but to the homeschooling community in general. It even matters to the people in your community as a whole since once they learn you’re homeschooling, they automatically assume that you’re one of the denim jumper moms (even though my blacker-than-thou’s teeshirt, ripped jeans and coordinating black nail polish do their best to discourage that assumption).
As a parent with kids in school-school, my religion never really entered the picture. I was raised in a faith where it was a big deal at the beginning of every year for my mom to sit down with the teacher and explain why I couldn’t participate in holidays and wasn’t going to be standing for or saying the pledge. Our church even had a special booklet that was designed just for teachers. Since I chose not to pursue that religion with my own children, there wasn’t any need to outline what I believed because there was nothing in my belief system that would ostracize or make my kids stand out so much that it required explanation. In school-school, it just doesn’t matter (unless you’re trying to skimp on the snacks for holiday parties – then you get the evil eye from the Room Mothers… but since I usually was one of the Room Mothers and usually first in line with holiday coordinated store-bought home-made goodies, that wasn’t really an issue for me.) Yeah, I was that mom. Even I hated me some days… I missed out on all that as a kid, so that had a lot to do with my motivation.
But, I digress… back to the subject at hand.
Fast forward to this past January, and my entry into the homeschooling community; though truthfully, I guess I should say ‘re-entry’. When I was in high school, my mom got fed up with the ‘security’ measures being taken at the local high schools, and decided that we would be homeschooling from then on. She was awesome in her organizational capabilities. I don’t think that there were very many organized homeschool groups back then, but she created one and planned field trips and all kinds of activities for the group.
Even before I had my first child, I knew that I wanted to homeschool my kids. Once my boys were pre-school aged, I started reaching out to the local, and by then far more organized, homeschooling community… and promptly got my hand slapped. Why? Because I was not the right flavor of Christian. At that time, I was indeed a Bible-toting, aspiring Titus 2 woman intent on honoring God by being a dutiful wife and committed mother, and homeschooling was just another step on that path.
The only problem was that I was not a ‘fundamentalist Christian’. I don’t know if these types exist in other places, but you can’t open a Bible ’round here without knocking into one of them, they’re so thick in the South. From what I can gather, the foundation of fundamentalists Christians seems to consist of making sure that their beliefs are in no way challenged, and a great deal of evangelizing with the goal of saving your heathen soul from the eternal flames of hell. Oh, I’m making light of it, of course, but these are some deeply religious folks and a great many of them are both honest and sincere in their belief that it is their duty to at least attempt to bring you to Jesus lest your blood be on their hands come Judgement Day. In some ways, I admire that kind of … faith? I don’t know what it is, really. I don’t want it for myself, or for my kids, but I am happy for them if it makes them so. But if I say that I’m not interested in hearing their message, I don’t think it’s too much to expect that I no longer be pressured to convert.
Since I was a ‘different’ kind of Christian, I was deemed unfit to join or participate in any of the already-formed groups in this area. Even my own religion frowned on inter-faith association, but as they also lacked a homeschooling support network (though homeschooling was pretty common among members of my religion) I was forced to look outside the fold to find support. I don’t know why it came as such a big surprise to be so completely cast out, but it did.
All I really wanted was a group that was inclusive and respectful of other types of Christian beliefs. I don’t care what you believe; I wasn’t looking for religious flavor in my kids’ education. I just wanted a group of homeschooling moms to talk with and learn from and hang out with when we had time. Most of the groups already formed here required members to sign a statement of faith (and still do). I wanted a more secularly based group so that the religion thing didn’t come up or create conflict. If there had been a secular group available, I’d have joined it in a second! But there wasn’t so it was either suffer in silence or start a new group. Once I thought about it, starting a group myself sounded more and more like a good idea. I could create a group with a more open-minded atmosphere so that I, and others like me, would be both welcome and comfortable participating without worrying about the religion factor.
And that’s pretty much the kind of group we have. Though we’re open to pretty much anyone, there is definitely a certain ‘type’ who would simply not be comfortable in our group. On one hand that bothers me. On the other, there are 5 (FIVE!!) Christian-based homeschooling support/co-op groups here – no 6 if you count the super-secret group that is by invitation only that I just learned about – so I think there’s plenty of support for that ‘type’. I don’t want to have an issue because my kid pulls out an h-e-double hockey sticks when he is wronged or wears a tee-shirt covered in skulls, or the conversation turns to last week’s True Blood or planning for a field trip to the local Buddhist Temple. We’re not trying to step on anyone’s toes, but we do recommend steel-toed boots if you’re going to hang with us. {wink}
It’s fascinating to me how much religion matters to the vast majority of homeschoolers out there; how dividing beliefs can be in this day and age. I thought we were moving more towards acceptance and respect as a society, not clinging to and even reinforcing the thoughts and ideas that segregate us along chosen lines. It’s just so odd to me that there are actually people out there who feel like having a non-religious person, or a person who is a different religion than they are, being around their kids is so dangerous and damaging to them that they create what is essentially a closed community within which to raise them. A community that they actively guard and protect against any thought or idea that might present options to their kids outside of those that they find acceptable. It’s sad, really. Those kids are every bit as oppressed as any other group of people who has been given only a certain portion of freedom or purposely limited in knowledge and access to information and experience. That is exactly the kind of environment that gives the homeschooling community such a bad reputation.
For me, homeschooling is partially about experiencing life outside the classroom. Classrooms have walls and boundaries that make it so difficult for a child to experience life as long as they have to be cooped up in one, and I certainly don’t want my homeschool to have barriers before my children because of my beliefs. I don’t think that closed-mindedness has any place in education. My religious beliefs have evolved quite a bit over the years and I’ve come to see belief as a fluid thing. It’s ever-changing in response to what life hands me and I’m fine with that. I tend to think that belief is a journey, not a destination; though I am sure that makes me a very scary lady to some. But you know what? As I said on SecularHomeschooling.com,
I’m awesome; my kids are awesome and if your beliefs don’t allow for the sunshine in my world to brighten yours, then I am not the one missing out {wink}
~h
Warmly,
~h
Sunday Surf for Sept. 5
To start the morning off (okay – afternoon… it’s been a long and busy week and I am playing catch-up in a major way!!), I thought we could take a moment to share a song from the Atheist’s Hymnal with Steve Martin.
From there, I thought we could visit with Madeline Bea Photography’s Sunday Creative prompt. Since I’ve been kid-free this weekend (the boys have been at my parent’s house all weekend, and are out with my Loverly Husband for a visit to his grandmother), I thought it might be nice to see if something she’s posted lately provides some creative inspiration.
I also really enjoyed ‘The Gift of Time’ at Homeschooling With Attitude.
TX Parks and Wildlife’s Be an Outdoor Kid site has fun stuff for the kiddies that encourages outdoor play and exploration.
Kids.gov is a site we’ve been on frequently in the past week. We’ve been working on a lapbook for the Constitution, and it’s come in quite handy.
Moms Rising is an activist site that has a form letter that can be customized and sent to your senator to urge them to co-sponsor S.593 – the Ban Poisonous Additives Act of 2009 – and support amending it to the Senate Food Safety Modernization Act. Since we just talked about BPA in the water bottles we’re putting in the field trip boxes, I thought this was an apt addition to today’s post! Moms Rising is a great site anyway, with tons of articles dealing with making America more ‘family friendly’. Mothers Acting Up is another cool mommy activism site.
I’ve found Sister Dottie S. Dixon to be quite entertaining… as the proud mother of a gay son, Mormon Mom Dottie is (in her own words) ‘Plum full of dicey opinions, wisdoms and sage advice’. Her YouTube vids are… enlightening, to say the least.
I know this is short today, so apologies… other than my blog and Facebook, I really haven’t been doing much blogsurfing this week. Hopefully, some of the other SS participants will have some cool stuff to click. Be sure to check them out : Breastfeeding Moms Unite, Domesticated Women, This Adventure Life, Maman A Droit, Hobo Mama and Baby Dust Diaries.
Warmly,
~h
Field Trip Kit
After our trip out to the wildlife refuge last week, it came to my attention that we were lacking some necessary supplies. After some discussion with the other moms, we decided that we should all probably make up a field trip box to keep in the backs of our vans so that come what may, we’re prepared and ready to hand the kids what they need to make the most of any learning opportunity.
I already keep a first aid kit in the car, and bug spray and sunscreen (through we often forget to take advantage of having them on-hand). I have 2 boys, so the first aid kit gets frequent use – I am sure I need to replenish its contents by now.
After some consideration, as much as I’d love to say that a backpack would work, I think that a bin might work better for us. I have a bunch of rubbermaid 18(ish) gallon containers used for various purposes in our home- they have them on sale at Target after holidays for SUPER cheap – I think one of these might work best for us.
I’m including:
- binoculars
- pencils/colored pencils
- notebook paper & clipboards
- towels
- sunscreen
- bug spray
- specimen bags
- paper bags
- magnifying glass
- our letterboxing kits
- extra clothes for me and the kids
- baby wipes
- hand sanitizer
- field guides (birds/plants – I still have to buy some more of these) and park guides
- craft sticks (for poking or picking things up that one doesn’t want to touch)
- maps
- string/rope
I’m sure I’ll be adding things to the box – I’ll come back and update this post when I do. So what’s going in your box?
Warmly,
~h
Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge
Our local homeschool group met today for a field trip to the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. It’s been hard to hit the local parks and wildlife attractions in this area; so many of them were severely affected by either Hurricane Ike or Rita – we could still plainly see the effects of Ike. The visitor’s center was closed (destroyed, more or less), and there was debris in the trees higher than out heads – that’s how high the water was after Ike. I wouldn’t have thought that after two years there would still be such visible effects of the storm, but they were definitely there.
I talked to one of the ladies who works out their about the stickers for our Houston Wilderness Passport, and she left them for us since the Visitor’s Center wasn’t open, so yay! We got our stickers!!
We took a hike, longer than expected, along the butterfly trail, using our study guide to talk about leaves and plants and the changes that the hurricane might have wrought, how things might have looked before and during the storm and how plants and animals might have adapted to live in this environment.
On our way back up, we came across a letterbox hidden in a tree. We were looking for birds nests and debris from the storm up in the branches and one of the kids pointed out a film canister. We didn’t plan on letterboxing, so none of us had our stuff, so we took a picture.
We headed back up to the very sad-looking visitor’s center and the kids found owl pellets. I’ve been wanting to get some and examine them, so this was definitely a highlight of the day. They found bones from birds, mice and crabs in the pellets. Who knew poop could be this interesting?
After that, we re-hydrated, sanitized nine pairs of child-sized hands and four moms, and loaded up to head down to the bay where more crab shells and lots of water bugs were found.
Then we went back up to one of the wildlife viewing areas to check out the pools and bogs. We found a lovely little spot that was filled with blue crabs. The kids spent almost an hour fishing for crabs!
By then it was well past lunch, so we went back to SFK’s house and ate, then put the kids in the yard while we moms put another layer of papier-mache on the maracas we started earlier in the week. When they were dry, we brought the kids inside in shifts to paint them.
Then we fed the kids dinner and put them in front of a video for a bit – they were exhausted!
We made it home at 10:40 this evening. It was a long, tiring, amazingly satisfying and throughly enjoyable day. At some point next week, my boys and I will be notebooking our trip. They drew a few pictures to add to their Nature Journals while we were crab fishing, and we’ll fill in the rest of our study guide. We’ve been so busy today that I haven’t really had a chance to sit down with them to hear about what they learned. I know the owl pellets will feature in big – on the way home they were telling me all about what they planned on telling Daddy when we got home.
After days like this, I just can’t imagine ‘school’ ever being our norm again.
Warmly,
~h
Play Attention!
There is something about the beginning of a new month that makes me very happy and optimistic. I have to enjoy this kind of mood when it strikes because it never lasts long and is quite outside my usual nature.
But today, the first of September (isn’t that a Dr. Seuss book – nah, that’s Octember. Anyway…) has been a lovely day in so many ways!
One of the doors on my minivan has had a broken hinge and it’s been a complete PITA to try to get it fixed. Now, almost 2 weeks after the original ‘take it in to the shop for a look-see’, I have my van with both doors in complete working order. When they were checking it out, they caught one of the side panels on a lift and tore it off, so they’re replacing it – it’s actually in and they’re matching the paint, so that’s nearly done as well. Yay!
We spent most of the morning in their very nice waiting room doing school work. They had a table so we could spread out a bit and a train table that the boys were motivated to play with enough to finish both math and handwriting fairly quickly. While they were playing, we did our grammar/LA lesson (nouns, proper, singular & plural review). I asked the same question a couple of times and tried to tell them to pay attention, but I mis-spoke and say ‘play attention’. They thought that was super funny. After some discussion, we decided that it was rather appropriate since they were playing while we did the lesson orally, and so that became the phrase of the day.
We hit the library to stock up on books for the next week’s lessons, and to see if they had anything on the coastal marshes ecosystems, and they did so we snagged those since we have a field trip with our homeschool group tomorrow to the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. We’re doing the Houston Wilderness Passport program, and trying to visit all of the eco-regions in Southeast Texas, and we’ll get our ‘coastal marshes‘ sticker tomorrow. The boys have their Big Thicket and Other Places stickers (two each of those, actually). Yay!
After the library, we went next door to the park, which was delightfully deserted (have I mentioned how much I enjoy school being ‘in session’ – the parks and libraries are EMPTY – it’s SO nice!!), and the boys got to run around for a bit. They found some little mushrooms growing in the mulch, which led to a discussion and some YouTube surfing for time-lapse mushroom growing. I didn’t think about there being ‘magic mushrooms’ on there, but there were. We skipped over those lest Mommy have some ‘splaining to do… (Mommy, what’s a ‘head shop?’)…
I have to say that I’m super proud of my kiddos. Their first inclination when they found the mushrooms was to take pictures of them and go home and look them up. I’m so glad to see this excitement for learning in them.
After the mushroom madness sidetrack, we read over some of the books we found on marshes and found some of the native plants that we may see tomorrow. Of course, the most interesting by far were the carnivorous plants (venus fly trap and pitcher plant), so we YouTube’d some more and learned all about how they trap food.
And, the icing on my cake – September means that I get to have a new folder for pictures. Yay! I keep my picture files organized by year, then by month and special event. It always makes me happy to have a new folder to fill with pictures.
Warmly,
~h
ADHD, School and Homeschooling
Although I haven’t looked into it extensively, homeschoolers dealing with attention disorders don’t seem to have a lot of web-presence. My perception is that if you’re homeschooling an ADHD/ADD child, that’s no longer the focus of your day – you’re able to make the modifications to their educational program and style that are needed, and it’s not a ‘thing’ – it just becomes how you homeschool. After Googling it this morning, I did find a couple of interesting things – a lot of lip service about ‘being flexible’ and ‘incorporating action into learning’, but nothing was really specifically geared towards helping homeschoolers deal with attention disorders in the homeschool environment. I don’t know if that’s because we don’t find ADHD to be an issue when homeschooling, or we homeschoolers just have different issues that aren’t being addressed by the ‘experts’… maybe a little of both?
Something I did find interesting was this from Carol’s Web Corner:
This was a primary motivating factor for our decision to homeschool. LittleBoyBlue was not accomplishing his work at school, so we would spend hours doing homework. In effect, I was sending him to an 8 hour daycare, in which he received assignments, he came home and we ‘did school’ – only a very rushed and frustrated version of it because he’d just spent the previous 8 hours ‘doing school’, slipped some family time in before dinner and bedtime – only to do it all again the next day. No wonder we were all so very, very tired.
Being able to move at our own pace, which to some degree is motivated by the children’s natural rhythms, is much more productive for our family. One of the topics discussed at the ADDA meeting last night was that ADHD/ADD children generally have sleep issues – getting to sleep, staying asleep, getting quality sleep. I know this to be true for LittleBoyBlue. When he was a baby, he never slept more than 2 hours at a time, He woke frequently, and did not nap. He did not seem to need as much sleep as other kids, but he also tread a very fine line between ‘fine’ and ‘overtired’. If he slipped into overtired mode, then sleep was impossible to come by. I walked for miles to get this child to sleep most nights. When we were in school, sleep was imperative to his performance, and it was noticeable when he didn’t sleep well, which was most of the time. Being forced into someone else’s schedule was detrimental to his sleep cycle. Being told, ‘You HAVE to go to sleep!!” for several hours only added to his stress and inability to go to sleep, I’m sure (mommy fail moment)… homeschooling allows him to stay up later, follow his own routines and wake up naturally rather than being forced into a false time-table. I see this is hugely beneficial to his education.
Though attention disorders in homeschoolers exist, they’re not a ‘problem’ in the same ways that they are in a classroom environment, but it’s still an issue. How we as homeschooling parents deal with them is the main difference, I think. Homeschoolers aren’t bound by the need to balance the needs of 20 plus students – we may have only 2 or 4 kids and a unique understanding of our particular child, which goes a long way towards creating an environment in which the child can be successful.
I read most of Nurture Shock New Thinking About Children yesterday. I thought that this was an interesting book – not necessarily ‘helpful’ but interesting. Some of it was new info to me, other bits, I was aware of (or thought anyway). I was rather annoyed at the assertion that ‘following your instincts’ was really a product of societal conditioning; that’s a statement and stance that we’ve always taken with our kids and since our position on how to raise our children is in conflict with the vast majority of society, I fail to see how that applies… unless the book is written for people who fall into more mainstream ideas, in which case it makes perfect sense. One of the comments that a reviewer made on Amazon was that there’s a feeling of ‘so what?’ for parents. Even knowing these things about children and how they grow and learn, there’s not a lot that you can do about it in school. The school system is set up how it is set up and most are not open to change just because research suggests that this change might be in the best interests of the children. However, if you’re homeschooling, then you have a lot more freedom to change your child’s environment to match these needs.
One of the recommendations in Nurture Shock I found to be absolutely fascinating was the Tools of the Mind Early Childhood Education program. I found this book, Tools of the Mind – a Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education, which I think is the same program (but am not 100% sure). As a parent with an ADHD child, I really wish I’d seen this method years ago. Another topic from the meeting last night was ‘executive function’, which TotM is designed to teach. For us, this comes in to form of oral work, narration and short writing assignments, games, having finger fidgets or an activity for his hands while I’m reading aloud… meeting him where he is.
Our speaker asked how we teach ‘listening’, pointed out that the ADHD child has no internal monologue to help them self-regulate, and that they get confused when too much stimulation is thrown in their direction. We covered the differences between ADD (inattentive), ADHD (hyperactivity), ODD (which is completely different from ADD/ADHD) and behavioral and personality disorders. Many symptoms overlap and each disorder can mimic another – so having the correct diagnosis for your child is crucial to successful treatment. There was a lot of emphasis on medication for treatment; I remain unconvinced that medication is a first step treatment option. Based on what I have read about medication (any meds/all meds to date), long-term research either shows detrimental results or has not been conducted to my satisfaction with results that indicate that the risk of not taking them would be less than the possible side effects or long-term effects for us. I am not ‘anti medication’. I am anti-medication for now. We have avenues of treatment that have not been explored yet. Obviously, your mileage may vary – this is merely my position on the subject relating to my specific child. You’ll get no judgment from me if you’re contentiously medicating!
As a homeschooling parent, I don’t find my son’s attention disorder to affect our homeschooling day in a way that we can’t adapt to most of the time. I wonder how much of ADHD’s bad rep is because of our unrealistic expectations for our children – to think that a 5-year-old little boy can and should sit at a desk and be still and quiet is unreasonable. It is beyond the reach of the vest majority of small children, yet we routinely strip them of their coping mechanisms and heap even more expectation and stress on them – no wonder attention disorders are on the rise!
Of course I do recognize that there are chemical components to ADHD that need to be addressed. But for us, regulating sleep, adjusting our environment and expectations, not pressuring our child to do or be something that we know is outside of his capabilities – those steps have been enormously helpful in ‘treating’ the symptoms we see. Using a checklist, he clearly has attention issues but homeschooling allows us to accommodate him and makes him less aware of them, which makes them… less of an issue.
Overall, I am extraordinarily interested to see what this support group offers over the next few months. Though the group seems to be geared mainly towards teachers and professionals, parents are most welcome, and homeschooling parents, I think, are an underrepresented group in this dynamic. If you’re a homeschooling parent to an ADHD child, I’d recommend looking up a group in your area and seeing what they have to offer.
Warmly,
~h
P.S. Sorry if this is a bit disjointed… the tag isn’t called ‘rambling thoughts’ for no reason! {wink}
September 21, 2010 | Categories: Advocacy, Community Events, Homeschooling Resources, Parenting, Rambling Thoughts | Tags: commentary, homeschooling, meet them where they are, special needs child, unrealistic expectations | 4 Comments »