Homeschool FAQ’s

Again: opinions ahead. Again: they’re mine, and they don’t have to be yours. I’m only raising my family.

“Why do you homeschool?” Well, since before we were married I have thought homeschooling would be kind of fun, but we never thought seriously about it until we started researching and planning to go to the mission field. There, since Clay wanted to work with tribes away from cities, our only options would have been to send our children to boarding school or homeschool them. Boarding school was, for us, out of the question. So we began dreaming about homeschooling, and exploring different philosophies and curriculum providers. What most people who are unfamiliar with homeschooling don’t realize is how many philosophies there are out there. Some families just do kind of like traditional school, ordering textbooks and tests and answer keys that mirror the public school setting at home. Some do “unschooling,” which I know only enough about to know that this philosophy is definitely out of the question for us, as well. We researched and quickly settled on providing our kids a classical, Christian education. I know that most of you will read that and move on and not care, but just in case, Douglas Wilson is one of our favorite authors on classical Christian education, and he explains it much better than I could. This education will have our kids reading books in middle school and high school that I didn’t even read in college. They will start Latin in second grade. They will be memorizing tons of facts about each subject in their elementary years, which is exactly what elementary minds are equipped to do. They will begin learning formal logic in their middle school years, asking why? about everything they study, which is exactly what middle school minds are equipped to do. They will study rhetoric and debate and other communication skills in high school, along with some extensive reading on a wide range of subjects, which is what high school minds would be equipped to do if they have been educated to do so. You will not hear me bash public schools–I went to public school and lots of my family works in public schools and I think Christians absolutely need to be working in public schools. The adults working there are to be the salt and light, though, not the children, as so many Christian parents give as the reason they send their kids to public schools. But I will say this: I know the education I received, and I know the education that, if God is good enough to allow us to continue to do this throughout their school years, my kids will receive, and one is far superior to the other. I’d be happy to engage in further discussion with anyone who wants to, but as this is kind of a sensitive issue for lots of people, we usually just let our decision to homeschool stand for itself without doing a lot of preaching or trying to “convert” others, as some homeschoolers are notorious for doing. I know there are lots of families who can’t for whatever reason homeschool, and more who just don’t choose to, and that’s fine. But people ask me why I do, and so I answered it.

“Do you use a curriculum?” Personally, I think it’s sad that people would even think to ask this. Of course I use a curriculum. But the sad (in my opinion) truth is that lots of homeschoolers don’t. They just move from topic to topic based on the child’s interests at the moment, pulling worksheets off of websites or visiting museums on that topic or reading books or doing other activities on that topic and move on when Johnny decides he doesn’t like trains anymore but likes frogs instead. People have asked me how I’ll make sure my kids learn everything that they need to know for each grade level, and I’m sure that they’re basing that question on families they know or have heard of who homeschool on a whim. But I digress. To answer the question simply, yes I use a curriculum. We use Veritas Press (linked in the right column). Veritas Academy is a classical Christian school in Pennsylvania that makes all of their curriculum available through catalog and website. We basically order everything that they recommend for each grade level, although we’re doing phonics, reading, and spelling a year ahead of their recommendations. Some of their stuff is published by other companies (they use Saxon math, for example) and some they have developed themselves (they have an award winning program for phonics as well as Bible and history). It all comes with teacher’s guides with day by day instructions and answer keys.

“What about social skills?” or “I couldn’t keep them home all the time.” Well, we are not home all the time. We go to playgroup. We go to church, where they are in classes with kids their ages. We go to gymnastics. I’m sure we’ll eventually get into soccer and baseball. Even when they’re home, they’re learning social skills simply by playing with each other and learning to share and respect others. But also, throughout the week they are exposed to people of all ages as they go about with Mom and Dad, learning to interact with grown-ups as well as children, learning to respect the elderly as we interact with them in the grocery store. They are learning social skills with all kinds of people, instead of being in a classroom with 25 other kids exactly the same age as them all day every day. As far as extra-curricular activities go, I feel like we’ll have even more freedom than public school kids, because my kids won’t have homework at night. They’ll finish their work during the day (homeschool doesn’t take all that long) and be free at night to pursue other activities without having to worry about finishing 2 extra hours of homework every night. Also, regarding social skills, and not to toot my own horn but just to answer the issue, we have had so many comments just since we moved to Salem about how our kids greet people. Different people of all ages have told us how much they appreciated being approached and greeted by name by our children, and how they’ve noticed how our girls make a point to greet the other kids by name when they get there, and say goodbye to them by name when they leave. Abigail has an entire class of elderly ladies wrapped around her little finger simply because she likes to go in and greet them while I’m dropping the other kids off in the nursery. These are social skills. Manners are social skills. That’s what we’re trying to cover.

“Is it expensive to homeschool?” Not as much as you’d think, but then again, we’re only just getting started. We’ve been using a chunk of our tax refund, so it hasn’t really put us out at all. It will all depend on how much you order. Veritas Press color-codes their stuff by order of the priority they place on it. The red stuff is what they say you really should get, and we get pretty much all the red stuff. The purple stuff is secondary and the green stuff is third. We get a few purple things and haven’t really gotten any green things, but that may change as we get up into the “real” stuff as Abigail moves into the elementary grades. The wonderful thing about most of it is that we will only have to shell out the bigger bucks once, since most of it is reusable. We’ve gotten several reproducible books so far. I tear each page out and put them in page protectors in a binder, and all I’ll have to do for each kid is copy a few pages a week, buying the book once. For the phonics and the math, and several other subjects we’ll be moving into, you buy the kit with the teacher’s manual, workbooks, and whatever else it comes with, for the first kid, and then for each additional kid you just have to buy the workbook. So while we spent about $300 for Abigail’s first year, we’ll just spend $16 for Catherine’s, plus the cost of 7-10 copies a week. But even in public schools, you shell out quite a bit of money each year, if you stop to think about it.

“How long does it take each day?” Right now, it takes us about an hour and a half. Last year took 30-45 minutes. Next year will take longer as Abigail will really jump in with several new subjects and Catherine will do kindergarten phonics and Bible. Each year will take longer until all our kids are in full swing, and we’ll just have to figure out a new routine each year.

“How do you do it with your smaller kids?” Right now, the only way I can do it is to do it at naptime. I really wanted to get a new routine this year of getting ready every morning and doing school in the morning, but it just was too hard to focus on Abigail with three other ones demanding my attention. Elisabeth especially is just too small to be expected to entertain herself for that long. So we switched back to the afternoons and it goes much smoother now. Naptimes are a must, I would think, for homeschooling with little ones around.

“How will you homeschool as the subjects become difficult, like chemisty and calculus and advanced Latin and Greek?” Well, I want to try to do as much as I can with just Clay and I teaching them. I was good enough in science and math that I’m hoping a good teacher’s manual will be enough to help me help them. Clay can teach the languages. But, in case it’s not working out, Veritas offers online classes with other homeschoolers from around the country in some of the upper subjects, and that will definitely be an option for us to look into if we can’t handle the subject matter ourselves.

“Are you going to homeschool them all the way through?” That’s the plan, Stan. Who knows what’s around the corner? But that’s definitely our desire.

That’s us on homeschool. Let me have your feedback if you wish.

Family size FAQ’s

Disclaimer:  strong opinions ahead.  Keep in mind that my opinions as presented here are just that–my opinions.  It’s hard enough to make decisions and priorities for my own family and I’m extremely thankful that I don’t have to do so for yours.  Just the same, as we carve out our lifestyle, we all form opinions, and some of mine are expressed here.  Please don’t take offense; we know that most of America thinks we’re insane.  But I’m entitled to that, right?

“Three girls and a boy?”  For some reason, I get asked this all the time as people are looking at my children who are quite obviously three girls and a boy.  I guess people just feel the need to comment and don’t know what else to say, but it seems kind of redundant to me.  But, yes, I have three girls and a boy.  This question comes in other forms, with the second most frequent being the comment, “You finally got a boy!”

“So are you done now that you finally got a boy?” or “How many kids do you want?” or “Surely you’re done now, right?” or “You mean you still want more!?!”  One of these, or one of their various companions, shows up at least once a week and I’m not kidding.  (Disclaimer:  opinions ahead.)  My verbal response:  “No, we don’t plan on being done.  We’re not sure how many we want, we’re trying to take a little break and then we’ll see,” or something polite like that.  My mental response:  “Do you know how rude you’re being right now?  Do I question your family make-up?  Do you know how idiotic you’re making me feel for having lots of kids?  What is wrong with having a large family?  I’m not asking you to take care of my kids, I don’t take money from the government, your taxes are not raising my kids.  So where does your opinion fit in?  I’m not passing judgment on your family choices-quit passing judgment on mine.”  Now, I understand that for some reason, seeing a family with four or more kids, especially close together like mine, tends to shock people into talking before they think.  And even if I think these thoughts at the time, I do not generally hold grudges against people who say these things, because, quite frankly, if I did, I’d be holding a grudge against tons of people.  So don’t worry if you’ve asked me these things.  I still like you.  But maybe you could think next time you want to question someone’s choices regarding their family make-up.

“Poor little boy, having to grow up with three older sisters.”  Now, I have to say I kind of agree with this one.  But I solemnly promise to do my best to protect Samuel from having dresses put on him, from getting all the worst roles in the make-believe world, or from having to play baby dolls or princesses.  His daddy and I are making it our mission to see that he grows up all boy.

“How do you do it?”  By the grace of God.  We’re finally back in a good groove, having recovered from the addition of another new baby (it takes a few months).  Some days are nothing but chaos–arguing sisters, crying toddlers, crying big girls, messes, dirty diapers, etc.  Other days are smooth as butter and make me take a deep breath and think, okay, I can do this after all.  Basically, I tend to let slide what other people might not, just to focus on the urgent.  I haven’t cleaned glass or windows or things like that since we moved in.  I don’t jump to completely clean up every little mess (except for the ones involving bodily fluids).  My kids might stay in their jammies for the whole day.  They might go a day without combing their hair.  But we get the essentials done.  Daddy has family Bible time with them every morning.  We’ve worked out a way for me to get exercise and Bible study time every morning before Daddy goes to work.  Even Abigail now does her own Bible study in her room every morning.  We do school every day.  We pick up clutter every day so that we don’t live in physical chaos as well as kid chaos.  Except for church nights, we eat supper together every night, and lots of days we get lunch together too, since Daddy can usually come home.  We’ve set some priorities and we try to cover those, and do the rest as time allows.  My house is cleaner now than it’s ever been, but I don’t stress out about it.  Also, we don’t allow our kids to be the bosses.  We don’t give them everything they want.  They are able to play with each other or by themselves, and I don’t have to entertain them all day long.  I think a lot of the time, when people can’t believe how I could handle four kids all day, it’s because they would probably do a lot more for their kids than I do.  I can’t drop everything to fix them something to eat between meals; they wait for meal time or snack time.  I don’t run to put in a movie for them every time they ask.  They can wait for TV time.  I find myself saying, “Just a minute,” and “No,” a lot, usually more than I wish I had to.  Sometimes I feel like I’m slighting them all by having so many.  But that’s usually a fleeting moment.  It’s good for them to know that the world does not revolve around them, that in a family you have to wait for things or go without things for the good of all.  That in a family, you cannot dump all your Littlest Pet Shop toys out, play with them for five minutes and move onto something else leaving them for Mom to pick up later. That in a family you don’t always get to pick what you eat, or what game you play, or what character your sister gets to be when you play Brady Bunch, and that’s okay.  That in a family, you will have to help Mom out by dusting or folding laundry or cleaning your little sister’s room even if you didn’t make the mess.  That being a member of a family requires you to learn manners and to respect people around you.  You cannot run and be loud while someone is sleeping or if someone doesn’t feel good.  You will speak when spoken to, and speak in a happy voice, even if you were listening to a song you really wanted to hear.  You cannot take what someone else is playing with or using, even if you do really want it.  You will forego your rights and desires in order that someone else might get theirs.  You will place your sister above yourself, you will learn to be the boss of your feelings and not let your feelings be the boss of you, and you will learn to obey Mom and Dad all the way, right away, and with a happy heart, no matter what.  These are the things we focus on, and as our kids learn these things, we find our days going smoother and smoother, and they are much happier to0.  There might be crumbs under my table or smudges on my mirrors, but I can clean those up after my kids have learned to be respectful, productive members of society.  Now, do I accomplish these things perfectly all the time?  Do my kids always behave the ways I just described?  Heck, no.  Ask Ms. Chasta at Mission Friends if you want to know the answer to that.  But that is what we try to focus on.  Not making them happy or giving them the things that they want.  Those are desires, of course, but I don’t exist as a mother simply to make my children happy.  I would be doing them, and those around them now and as they grow older,  a great disservice to place my focus completely on what they want.  Sometimes, I mess up.  Daily, I mess up.  But, the next day is full of new mercies to start all over again.

Here we go…

I realize that by putting this out here before I see how it’s going to work out, I’m opening myself up for a potential public failure, but here goes anyway:  we started our new “chore charts” this week.  I finally achieved my goal of developing a weekly system for doing housework and coming up with ways the two older girls can help me.   I made a chart for each week, and they have the different tasks for each day listed on them.  They put a check in the box for each task they complete, and if they get all their boxes checked they get a sticker at the end.  The tasks start from the moment they wake up (the first one is “potty”) and go until the work part of the day is over.  Some days, they just have to do the normal wake up and get ready stuff, checking off each one.  Every day but Sunday has picking up toys added to the getting ready routine.  Monday and Friday have them cleaning their room.  Tuesday is playgroup and gymnastics so there are no extra chores that day, besides just picking up the toys they’ve played with.  Wednesday and Thursday are going to be our big working days, and Abigail’s chore is to dust while Catherine’s is to help sort and fold and put away laundry, which she absolutely loves to do anyway.  I split the dusting up into two days, but she got done really fast today so I might put dusting all on Wednesday and give her something else to do on Thursdays.  Anyway today was the first day, and they did decently well.  We were done before lunch, which was a relief because we don’t really have any other working time after lunch on Wednesdays because of school, nap, and church.  They worked well without too much complaining, and they really loved putting their check marks in the boxes and the stickers on the chart.  We haven’t attached any kind of reward to it yet, and I don’t know if we will or not.  They do get extra stickers when I catch them being kind or obeying right away with a happy heart or being unselfish, but unfortunately none of that happened today.

I have high hopes and am trying to have realistic expectations.  I didn’t realize how long it would take to teach a 6 year old how to dust; she just was excited to have the spray bottle and was spraying right and left without ever moving anything, then she would move on and never put anything back in place when she was done.  And a 3 year old doesn’t move the laundry quite quickly enough to save it from Elisabeth’s clutches and several piles had to be folded more than once.  (Frankly, I even have trouble moving the laundry quickly enough to be safe from Elisabeth!)  But we’ll get there.

So now it’s out there, and feel free to ask me how it’s going.  Or just stop by and see for yourself–give it the white glove test or something.    Hopefully this is the start of a beautiful new relationship with a housework schedule.

Homeschool ‘08-’09

Okay, I know it’s just the middle of July, but I’m still new to the whole homeschooling thing and get excited very easily.  Therefore, I have all my planning and purchasing and organizing done and I’m just counting down the days until August 4!  This year, I have an official kindergartner!  She completed the kindergarten phonics program from Veritas Press last year and we called it preschool.  This year, we’re calling kindergarten even though all of the work she’ll be doing is actually a first grade level.  So, for all of you who have a vested interest in the education of my children, and for the rest of you who probably could care less, here’s our plan for the year:

For her kindergarten year, we are tackling Bible, phonics, literature, math, and music.  The way the number of lessons in each curriculum worked out, we’ll do Bible, phonics, and literature every day, math four days a week, and music once a week.  This gives us a little more than 32 weeks.  We’re starting the first week of August to try to get a month in before baby comes, and depending on how long of a break we take then, and how many other breaks we take in the year for holidays and traveling, we should finish up by the middle or end of May, at the latest.

Bible:  Last year we began reading through the Child’s Story Bible, by Catherine Vos.  This is a very thorough, child-friendly story book–so thorough that we’re only about halfway through it.  We’ll pick up where we left off in preschool.  We also have the Big Picture Bible Timeline, which has coloring sheets for many of the stories we read.  So most days she has a coloring page to complete as I’m reading the story to her.  We are also working our way through memorizing the Foundation Verses, by Desiring God Ministries.  The story Bible will carry us through all but the last 8 weeks or so, at which point we’ll pick up with a catechism story book to help nail down the catechism questions that we work on every night in our family devotion time.

Phonics:  We’ll be using the first grade Veritas Press phonics program, which is a continuation of last year’s.  It is called the Phonics Museum and, while the skills taught are not new to Abigail since she is already reading way past this level, it is still a wonderful program.  She enjoys the songs, games, and most of the workbook pages, and I love the good foundation that it lays, as well as the “use-ability” of the program.   Every day she’ll complete 2-3 worksheets, which are very varied in method, and the program comes with several reading primers that she will read throughout the year.  Spelling lists and tests will also show up from time to time this year, something new that wasn’t in the kindergarten portion.  The Phonics Musuem is an excellent program and I’d recommend it to anyone.

Literature:  We’ll be using the Veritas Press First Grade Literature curriculum, which basically consists of two volumes containing worksheets and activities for 25 well-known children’s books.  We’ll tackle a book a week.  She’ll read such classics as If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Corduroy, Madeline, and Frog and Toad, then complete comprehension questions, handwriting exercises and fun activities (making mouse cookies, making a shoe-box train, etc) for each story.  Again, there will be about 8 weeks left when we finish all the books, and at that point we’re going to do the Aesop’s Fables Literature Pockets, by Evan Moor Publishers.  We worked through three Literature Pockets titles last year; they introduce the child to a nursery rhyme, folk tale, or fable (depending on the book) with several activities to complete.

Math:  We are using the First Grade Saxon Math curriculum.  There is a kindergarten level, but Veritas Press (who uses Saxon math in their school) recommends working a year ahead, and after looking through the skills covered in the first grade book, I’m really glad I didn’t spend money on the kindergarten level.  She will easily be able to handle this material, as it begins with counting and learning patterns and how to write numbers, and this will all be review for her.  It will move into addition, subtraction, telling time, and other skills that will be new for her.  We ordered the manipulatives kit as well, and she’s already excited about getting to “play” with all the fun things she saw in that box.

Music:  We ordered the music curriculum recommended by Veritas Press for grades K-3.  It’s called Discoveries in Music and is put out by Calvert School.  It is mainly taught by watching a short DVD lesson every week, with accompanying worksheets.  It gives lots of guidance for follow-up activities, and comes with a lap harp, a flutophone, and a triangle that she will get to play.  We’ll do music on the one day a week that we don’t do math.

So that is what our school will look like this year.  One major change from last year is that I’m going to try to do school in the mornings this year.  Last year, we did school while the younger two napped, and then Abigail finished out naptime with a rest of her own.  However, for several reasons, we’re going to attempt morning school this year.  Elisabeth still takes a morning nap, so at least until she gives that up, I’ll let Catherine either sit with us and “work” in her notebook and folder that we let her pick out, or play–whatever she wants to do, and Elisabeth will be asleep.  We’re holding all options open for after new baby comes, but I really want to get into a good morning routine and have school finished–at least this year–by lunchtime.

I still have a few little piddly tasks left to do before we actually start, like running copies and making Bible verse bookmarks, but for the most part, I’m completely ready and now just sitting on my hands until we can get started.  I absolutely love doing this and am extremely excited to jump into another year.  And just for the record, Abigail loves it too.  She cried every time I mentioned kindergarten, until I figured out that she thought she had to go to a real school when she wanted to stay home and do school with Mommy “always!”  So we both are loving it, and ready for a new year.

Lessons I’ve learned the hard way

Writing the post yesterday made my brain keep moving in that direction, and there will probably be more “How I do what I do” posts in the future. But I also started thinking of all the little tricks or lessons that I’ve learned that are now second nature, but that I had to learn the hard way. The more I thought about it, the more I thought of, not just in parenting but regarding life in general. So read on, and maybe you can learn from my mistakes. I won’t include many details, so feel free to use your imagination.

* Always put Catherine’s hair in a ponytail before allowing her to eat yogurt.

* Always dilute juice with water for my children at least until they’re three or so.

* If you forget to dilute the juice, make sure you have plenty of diapers, wipes, and diaper cream on hand. You will be using them frequently for a day or so.

* If you feel led to move to Indiana to take over a church plant, please examine the situation carefully and get all the details first.

* Don’t leave glasses or dishes with food or drink still in them on the table once your toddler learns how to climb in chairs.

* Don’t leave pots of dirt in the playroom for any length of time. It only takes ten minutes for the dirt to travel far and wide, but three hours to clean it up.

* Never leave dirty diapers where the dog can get to them.

* Know that if you teach your children not to say certain words, they will comment loudly everytime they hear someone else saying them, which could be embarrassing.

* Your parenting expertise will diminish by about 68% as soon as you bring your first child home from the hospital.

* Never ever ever assume that just because it looks like your husband will have Saturday off, that you could actually make plans to do something fun, at least not if he works for Terminix.

* If your husband does work for Terminix and you do happen to try to plan something fun, never tell your children about it in advance. Wait and see if it actually happens.

*  Adults who seem perfectly sane and “grown-up” can and will–on the day they become grandparents–morph into strange beings who suddenly begin buying lots of ice cream and sweets and noisy, light-up toys to pull out every time they see your kids coming. 

* Always make sure the bathroom door is closed when you have a toddler, especially if there happens to be a “little” potty in there too.

* Think very carefully before signing up for daytime activities when you will be the only grownup in charge of three small children.

* Getting strep throat on a cruise ship costs a lot of money. (But yes, to be completely honest, the insurance actually reimbursed most of it.)

* Poptarts are very difficult to get out of baby hair.

* Police don’t help anymore when keys get locked in cars, and locksmiths are very expensive.

* A determined baby can and will figure out how to escape a buckled carseat while traveling 65 mph down an interstate.

* Bedtime, at our house, is very important. We don’t want to mess around with it too much.

* If you go a day without brushing curly hair, it is next to impossible to comb it the next day.

* When you have children, people assume that you will be jumping up and down begging to teach the toddler Sunday school class.

* No, seriously, never leave half-full yogurt containers on the table when Elisabeth knows how to climb in chairs!! (I just had to leave the computer to clean up this unlearned lesson yet again!)

* People are capable of incredibly idiotic comments about the number of offspring you may have.

* It’s better to pack too much rather than too little. Period.

* It’s not a good idea to take two Percocet when you’re home alone with a newborn and a 2 year old.

* People will indeed steal a car right out of a church parking lot.

* ER bills are outrageously expensive, even if the elbow is already back in socket by the time you get there.

* Finally, probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned the hard way: The doctor who told me I would probably never be able to conceive a child without going on Clomid was….WRONG!!!