Captain Me Planet

Posted this. And I will copy it here. Because I’m like that. A big ol’ copy cat. On things I really like.

Here is a sample, there is more:

How does a homeschooler change a lightbulb?

First, Mom checks three books on electricity out of the library, then the kids make models of light bulbs, read a biography of Thomas Edison, and do a skit based on his life.

Next, everyone studies the history of lighting methods, wrapping up with dipping their own candles.

Next, everyone takes a trip to the store where they compare types of lightbulbs, as well as prices, and figure out how much change they’ll get if they buy two bulbs for $1.99 and pay with a five-dollar bill.

On the way home, a discussion develops over the history of money and also Abraham Lincoln, as his picture is on the five-dollar bill.

Finally, after building a homemade ladder out of branches dragged from the woods, the lightbulb is installed.

And there is light…which begins a Bible study on the days of Creation.

You Know You’re A Homeschool Mom When…

When a child busts a lip, and after seeing she’s okay, you round up some Scotch tape to capture some blood and look at it under the microscope.

You find dead animals and actually consider saving them to dissect later…

Your husband can walk in at the end of a long day and tell how the science experiment went just by looking at the house…

The only debate about the school lunch program is whose turn it is to cook…

Your formal dining room now has a computer, copy machine, and many book shelves and there are educational posters and maps all over the walls…

You have meal worms growing in a container….on purpose…

You take off for a teacher in-service day because the principal needs clean underwear…

Your honor student can actually read the bumper sticker that you put on your car…

You live in a one-house schoolroom.

Make wee people. Especially if you add some yarn hair. Our younger two love doing this, and then playing with them for hours. The 10 year old boy? Notsomuch.

But two of them are creatively occupied. We even did this in a Sunday School lesson once, having each child create one for each member of his or her family. It was one time they weren’t bucking to leave early.

Found at Dani’s site. I don’t feel well enough to wax on here, but boy, I sure could. Just more evidence that teaching our children at home is the only choice we have.

1940’s Top Disciplinary Problems:
Chewing gum
Talking-out-of-turn
Making noise
Running in the halls
Cutting in line
Dress-code violations

1990’s Top Disciplinary Problems:
Assault
Robbery
Drug abuse
Alcohol
Suicide
Pregnancy

Wonder if God and prayer being removed from the public school in the 1960’s (not to mention the new liberties being afforded in our society at that time, some good, yes, have had major impact on the family and the comittment and desire to remain one, in a role that is actually beneficial to the children coming into those families) could have anything at all to do with this?

In 2005, we can add school shootings, stabbings, drug dealing, pornography, along with rape and child molestation; committed by teachers and students alike.

Yay social progress.

Listening to music while doing math or handwriting focuses Private Two’s brain and enables her to much more quickly, and profienctly do the job at hand. Breakthrough. And better than the way I felt about it, was the way she felt about it. Mommy, I feel like a did accomplished something really major today, like I did something really important.

Why would she feel this way? Because for the last few weeks, it has taken her 2-3 times as long to complete the same tasks given not only to her older brother, but her younger by 3 years brother. Even if I gave her time and space by herself. And why else is this interesting to me? It’s just like her Daddy. Who, as a designer, does all his best work while listening to music, in the shower, or running. Something to distract him from becoming, well, distracted.

Other news? 20-25 minutes a day with an Alpha Phonics book, and a couple of books she really digs has already significantly increased her fluency. And her confidence? Through the roof today, as she read a second grade book to her Daddy. She’s in the second grade.

Today, schooling at home is looking really good. Tomorrow? Hell if I know.

Hum those doo doo’s in the carnival’s come to town theme. Does that make any sense? Whatever. Get over to phat mommy, and check out the homeschool carnival! Thanks phat!

It’s another Carnival of Homeschooling! Check it out at phat mommy, on Tuesday. And this will be my submission. On the benefits of homeschooling. I’m thinking my thoughts on this will run from the typical, to the unusual, possibly disagreed with, and maybe bizarre. Here goes, in no particular order, 50 Reasons I Won’t Quit:

1. You can teach from the sofa.
2. Or outside.
3. Or ditch it all and play all day when the weather begs it.
4. Even, if necessary, from the toilet. Yes. I have.
5. You see intimately what your child needs, and how they should learn.
6. All pressure can be removed from learning, and the joy of it can shine through.
7. If one child is struggling with a particular subject, I have the option of putting it away, and waiting for some maturation.
8. Or determining that maybe this is a time to help push through.
9. I am my children’s primary influence. Not society out there. Someone, or something, will brainwash our children. Who’s it going to be?
10. And they can see me put my money where my mouth is. Or not.
11. I am able to nuture relationship with me nearly all day, every day.
12. As siblings, they are very close.
13. And have had to learn to cooperate, compromise, and depend on each other.
14. And put all their clothes in one chest of drawers.
15. They see each other as their primary friends.
16. And as such, are protective of each other.
17. Being home, as opposed to in a school for 7 hours a day, gives them time to be children.
18. So they actually have a childhood.
19. They all, boys and girl, are learning how to run a home, by being with me and helping me.
20. Therefore, I have house help I do not have to pay.
21. They are learning that parents have the responsibility of actually raising their children.
22. I can sleep in when I want. This is a big one.
23. When their Dad was working long, odd hours, they could stay up extra late to see him, and visit.
24. Last week, our oldest couldn’t sleep, so he and his Dad built a fire in the chiminea out on the patio, and just sat and talked.
25. Then our son was able to sleep in the next morning, and start lessons later.
26. Our schedule is adjusted according to our family needs.
27. No school clothes are needed.
28. Jammies are acceptable.
29. Matinee weekday prices for movies.
30. Vacations whenever we want.
31. Visits to grandparents anytime.
32. Breaks watching HGTV together in the mid-morning.
33. Catching Mr. Ed on TV Land after breakfast.
34. The children are not constantly surrounded by incompatible values.
35. Or lots of other little girls in midriff baring tops, and short shorts with words on their bums. Or boys at age 10 with cell phones.
36. Which means I’m not constantly begged for these items.
37. We’ll teach about sexuality when we want, how we want. In the perspective that we want.
38. No school nurses with condoms.
39. No metal detectors at our doors.
40. Truly free speach. We can pray and say Jesus all we want. (me, sticking out my tongue)
41. We’re building a strong foundation for the children to grow on.
42. We get to be with them as much as possible, while they are ours to prepare for their futures.
43. I’ll never regret choosing something over them, when they are grown, and on their own.
44. I have not, and will not, have to miss teeth falling out, walking becoming running, lightbulbs going off in their brains, being able to answer all the many many questions they have, or giving and getting a thousand hugs a day.
45. They are learning super social skills. From adults and like-valued peers. Not from that place they say socialization ought to take place.
46. Our daughter is not having to learn to swim with the sharks cope with the cattiness so many little girls get sucked into.
47. Our sons are learning what it means to be a strong, gentle, able, respectful young man, and how young women should be treated.
48. None of them are subjected to constant “pack mentality”. They are learning to think on their own, according to the spiritual values we teach them.
49. Our daughter can take care of her own dog. And play with him all day.
50. Knowing, that through this decision to educate them at home, we are doing absolutely everything we can do to help insure their future health, wholeness and happiness. Between us, and God, that future seems very bright.

For the opportunity to teach from home. Even it it’s from the toilet. 3 days in of “routine” lessons, and certain personality traits are becoming glaringly clear. Private 2 is unnerved and stressed out by other stuff buzzing around her while she has been given a task to complete. And totally wigged when her brothers announce they are done with something she is still tackling. And highly distractable when there is any interuption of any kind. And overwhelmed when given a whole page of math, front and back, when she thinks of all the work that is yet to be done. Even if the task is simple for her. She began to cry today, just trying to explain her frustrations to me.

She pours over every letter in a practice scripture. Agonized over the turn of an ’s’, or the symmetry of her ‘w’. While her brothers just plow on, churning out the words of a 2 sentence verse. Naturally, with her being pursuant of perfection, she will not finish as quickly as her brothers. And it makes her crazy. If we decorate cookies, she designs one for an hours, and is working on it long after the boys have churned out 10 and gone off to play. We’ll work through it all, because I am on it. A major part of my job is determining what their needs are for best being able to learn. And when I think about her in a class of 25, all the different things that would be going on, the kids getting up to sharpen pencils, the hands shooting up in the air for questions, the teacher walking around helping children near her, timed quizes, the who knows the answer to (fill in the blank) and on and on and on, it just turns my stomach.

Today I was able to hold her hands, look into her huge blue teary eyes, and say we will figure this out together. There is no pressure. This is not a test. This is part of how you are created, and we will learn how to help you love learning. Thank you, God.

Today, I experienced some homeschooling yet to be tapped in our home. I taught math from the commode. Yep. Sitting right there on the pot. Pottying. And there was a daughter in tears over not understanding something. So what to do? Come on in, hon, I’ll show you.

This is one of those “you know you’re a homeschooler IF” deals I’ve not seen before. Surely, I’m not the only one.

This came over a homeschool email loop I’m on at a very timely moment. I’m going to work hard to analyze just what causes me angst and being overwhelmed (like starting with the fact that I rarely get out of bed before 9 am and I often stay in my jammies till after noon, and am not exercising at all due to this). Our house needs some order. I need some peace of mind. The children need more structure, responsibilty. I like what this article has to say. From the Elijah Company…

Home School Burnout and How to Avoid It - Part 1

This time of year seems to be the hardest time of all for home schoolers. Winter weather has kept us inside, but now that spring is coming we’ve got too much to do to enjoy the pretty weather. The drudgery of routine has set in; work has piled up; and we’ve had a chance to fail miserably at reaching goals that seemed so easy to achieve when we started schooling in the fall. Add to that level of stress a series of small crises, and you have a recipe for homeschool burnout.

Gail Felker, in Homeschooling Today magazine, says homeschool burnout is a condition in which “the teaching parent is anxious, depressed, discouraged, overwhelmed, and ready to quit. Burnout is not uncommon. Special-needs schools, churches, and nursing homes, for example, have a large employee turnover due to burnout. Demanding, people-oriented professions are most at risk. For the home-schooler, it often results in sending the children back to public school.”

Burnout and the 80/20 Principle

One of the most cherished tenets of business is the “80/20 Principle.” This scientifically proven principle says there is always an imbalance between causes and results, inputs and outputs, and effort and reward, and that imbalance generally assumes the proportions of 20% to 80%. In other words, 80 percent of the results you want to see will come from 20 percent of your effort. In business, this means that 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your products; 80% of the important work will be done by 20% of your employees; 80% of the actual benefits of a project will be developed in only 20% of the time spent on the project, and so on.

The 80/20 Principle applies to other areas of life as well. For example, good students innately know that 80% of an exam usually covers only 20% of the topics from the course, and they have discovered how to find out which 20% of the material to study to make an 80 or higher on the exam. The 80/20 Principle even works relationally. 80% of the value of your relationships usually comes from only 20% of the people you know.

OK, so what does this have to do with “Homeschool Burnout?” First, we need to understand that a major cause of burnout is the feeling of being overwhelmed and under-supported. Here are some common ways this feeling is verbalized:

This isn’t fun anymore (in fact, it’s a real drag).

I feel like things are spinning out of control.

There’s not enough me to go around.

My life is fragmented (pulled in too many directions, torn into too many pieces).

I feel like I’m trying to keep too many balls up in the air (or spin too many plates).

I’m drowning.

There’s too much to do and not enough time to do it.

There’s too much to do and I’m expected to do it all myself.

I don’t feel anything but anger (frustration, irritation) or sadness (grief, depression, sorrow).

I resent having to be responsible for everything.

I am the one who has to pick up everything that “falls through the cracks.”

I am constantly disappointed.

Here are some common ways this feeling expresses itself physically: (1) a tightness in the throat, chest or between the shoulder blades, (2) pain in the lower back, (3) headaches or dizziness, (4) chronic fatigue, (5) numbness of certain parts of the body, (6) anxiety and tenseness, (7) difficulty swallowing, (8) nausea, (9) upset stomach or irritable bowel, (10) ringing in the ears.

Any and all of the above verbalizations and physical symptoms are a good indication that we are bogged down in the 80% of our lives that is non-productive and that undermine our sense of well-being. The good news about the 80/20 Principle is that there are a very few, key activities that will dramatically improve our happiness and sense of productivity.

What do I mean by “key activities?” Well, do you know the simple, key activities that distinguish thin people from people who struggle with their weight? If you ever went to a “Weigh Down” workshop, you know that thin people don’t munch, they eat only when they are hungry, they stop eating when they are full, and they eat smaller portions of food. In contrast, people who struggle with their weight tend to be “grazers” who eat large portions of food and don’t stop eating even when they feel stuffed. This means that becoming thin doesn’t necessarily require a massive amount of will power counting calories, weighing portions, and developing meal plans. The average person can lose weight by sticking to the key activities of eating less and becoming aware of when they are hungry and when they are full.

What are the simple, key activities that distinguish financially stable people from people with chronic financial troubles? Financially stable people resist going into debt, they save, and they don’t fill their lives with expensive doodads. So what does this mean? This means that becoming financially stable doesn’t necessarily require keeping track of every expenditure to the penny, becoming a Scrooge, and denying yourself your dreams. The average person can become financially stable by following a few, key principles of money management.

Now, back to the 80/20 Principle. The book, 80/20 Principle says,

“There are always a few key inputs to what happens and they are often not the obvious ones. If the key causes can be identified and isolated, we can very often exert more influence on them than we think possible.”

What this means is that there are a few key things that cause us to feel overwhelmed and under-supported, that contribute to that feeling of always being on edge and the tenseness in our bodies, and that make us want to throw up our hands and quit.

Simple measures to avoid burn-out

OK, what are some simple measures we can take? First of all, we can identify our “energy vampires.” These are the people, activities, and beliefs that literally “suck” the energy and enthusiasm out of us.

People as Energy Vampires. Not only can groups be draining, but certain individuals can cost us a lot of energy. In our former church, there was a woman who was like a huge emotional vacuum. Her neediness and negativity would suck all of the optimism and energy out of me. I had to learn to let someone else try to help her.

When I first started homeschooling three boys, I tried to keep up with women’s Bible studies, homeschooling field trips and other get-togethers, but it didn’t take long to realize these social outings didn’t provide me with enthusiasm, they only wore me down.

I also had to learn to say no. It’s amazing that people will assume since you’re home all day, you’re available. They wouldn’t dream of calling a career woman at her office and asking her to take the afternoon off to listen to their problems, but they will call you and assume you’re free to help them. I learned to think of myself as a “career woman,” only my career was managing a home and educating my children. I didn’t just work a 40 hour week, I was on the job 24/7, so didn’t have to apologize or lie when I said, “I’m committed this afternoon.”

Before you know it, you can spend 80% of your time on social activities that have a pay-back of less than 20% in terms of what is really important to you. There are two key solutions to the “People as Energy Vampires” problem. (1) Pare down your involvement to only those 20% of social activities that have real meaning to you, and (2) Get an answerphone and let it take all calls for certain hours each day. If your household is like mine, just leaving an answerphone on most of the day saves me about 45 minutes in answering telemarketing calls.

Activities as Energy Vampires. One of the best pieces of stress-reducing advice I ever got was from a time management book. It said to mentally visualize myself going through a typical day. This meant visualizing getting out of bed, getting dressed, fixing breakfast, brushing my teeth, and so on…every little activity I typically did in a day. As I screened through my day, the book said to notice any time I felt irritation, tension, or resistance, and jot down that activity.

What an eye-opener! The first thing I realized is that it irritates me to be interrupted while I am in the bathroom. Sounds pretty stupid, right? But what this meant was that I was starting every day irritated because there was hardly ever a time I wouldn’t be interrupted while I was in the bathroom. Stupid problem. Simple solution to eliminating that source of irritation: Always close the door when I go into the bathroom and tell everyone that when the bathroom door is closed I am not to be disturbed.

By the time I finished visually screening a typical day, I realized that there were dozens of annoyances like the bathroom scenario. None of them was significant enough by itself to ruin my day, but a day filled with 40 or 50 unconsciously irritating moments might have something to do with my being frazzled by suppertime.

Certain routine activities are always accompanied by some amount of emotional or physical pressure. What are your stressful activities? The laundry? Cooking? Shopping? I’ve never particularly liked to cook. Plus, taking a carload of small boys to the grocery store has got to be on my list of “Top 10 Ways to Torture a Tired Mother.” So I had to experiment with getting the grocery shopping done without wearing me out (or freaking me out when I saw the receipt), and with developing some simple menu plans that didn’t exhaust me after a long day. Plus, I had to be realistic about my limitations.

As much as I might want to provide my family with three, lovingly created, nutritious, home-cooked meals a day, it would be psychotic of me to think I could pull it off and still do everything else I needed to get done. So in my household, we have meals where everyone is on their own to fix something for themselves, meals that another family member prepares, and meals that I prepare, depending on everyone’s schedule and what will give us the most family time around the table.

Another thing that can be done is to go through each room of the house and note anything that is irritating. Rooms have a powerful effect on our sense of well‑being. They can make us feel like prisoners in our own homes or make us feel gracious and relaxed. Are there certain colors that make you feel tense? That make you feel relaxed? Could the room be re-arranged so that the pattern of traffic flow is better? Could simple changes be made that contribute to a sense of peace and order?

Do the tools you have enhance your productivity? For example, I started out writing our catalogs on an old IBM electric typewriter ($25, second-hand), made photocopied reductions of the book covers, and had to cut and paste everything together. It was a massive, time-consuming, mess-producing job. So, guess how I began to feel about the catalog? I dreaded the thought of starting each new one, and the whole time I worked on one I was a witch. It was like trying to build a modern house with stone tools.

Then one day I heard Mary Pride say she always tried to invest in things that increased her productivity. I began to look around at all of the equipment I relied on. Everything from my vacuum cleaner to my typewriter was out-dated and difficult to use. So I began systematically replacing my “tools,” starting with the equipment I used most and that caused me the most aggravation. I also began investing in skills that made me more productive. I learned how to use word processing programs and scanners and Adobe Photoshop. I read every household and time management book I could get my hands on. I tried to increase my knowledge and skill in every area that drained energy.

Another stressful area for home schooling parents is the “schooling” itself. In our desire to make sure we don’t leave any educational gaps, we tend to overdo. We need to evaluate our homeschools by the 80/20 Principle. What are the key areas we need to be concentrating on? How can we eliminate the unnecessary and ineffectual? What simple changes can we make to decrease stress and enhance enthusiasm?

Part II is coming next week! You’ll learn about “Lifestyle Vampires,” “Belief Vampires,” “Reaching Ground Zero with God” and much more. Stay tuned….

Any article appearing on this website may be copied or forwarded electronically provided that proper credit is given and that the article is not substantively modified. No article may appear in whole or in part in a publication sold for profit or as part of any commercial endeavor without the written consent of Home School Marketplace.

© Copyright 2006. Home School Marketplace, 1053 Eldridge Loop, Crossville, TN 38571.

This schooling the children at home comes back to me. Ultimately. The buck stops with the Captain. The Colonel can weigh in, and does. But daily, I’m in the trenches with the privates, and have my finger on the proverbial pulse of that they are doing. What they need. How to help them. Their strengths and weaknesses. Or, at least, I should.

Often I do. Feel confident. Good about our direction. We’re banging on all cylinders. But then there are the things I’m just not sure about. That involve more prayer. More trust. More angst, really. These are the things I want an expert to tell me about. Somebody to swoop in and and say here. Do this. This will work in this way, at this time schedule. Yet, this person never materializes. Or better yet, when she does, out of the recesses of my psyche, she is often trumped by the loudly whispering skeptic that’s also lurking in there. Nooooo, no no. That will never do. This kid needs more than that. You need to get her tested. Maybe she has an LD. She probably has something going on you can’t handle. All children should be able to (fill in the blank) by age (whatever you want).

We have a daughter who is so bright. So beautiful. Don’t we all? At 8, she is an artist. A problem solver. A puzzle master. Quick with Dad’s tools, and the concepts of simple engineering. A peace maker. An eager helper. Also an expert brother torture-er. An animal lover. Math whiz. Lego builder. Horse rider. She is so many things to be proud of, pleased with. But what am I doing as her teacher mother? Against all the books that tell me otherwise, the so-called experts to whom I look, I am beginning to have angst over her lack of desire to want to read more fluently. Does it trouble me that her 2 years-her-senior brother is not on level in math? Nope. He’ll get it. We’ve actually done that on purpose. But when the 5 year old started telling her words she can’t seem to figure out, at least not easily or readily, I started to get that niggling worry. Should we be doing something else. How can we help. What am I to do to make it better. Does it need to be made better?

She has basic phonics down. Most of the time. I see improvement when we practice regularly. She’s technically in the second grade, and probably proficient on a first grade level. Can muddle through grade 2 readers. But she really is just not into reading much. I cannot determine if she is not into it, because it doesn’t come simply and quickly, or if it does not come simply and quickly because she is not into it. Chicken? Egg? She doesn’t want to read with me often. She wants me to read to her, but not with her. She is not that keen on working it out herself. An occasional ‘d’ becomes a ‘b’ and vice versa. But not all the time. When she reads a word, works it out, it may or may not stick in her brain. It seems to stick like glue in the boy’s brains. Not that I’m comparing my children. I would never, of course. It makes no nevermind to me that once the boys began piecing words together, the entire world became something to read, while she’s content to see letters as gibberish all over the place. Nope. No worries about that at all. She will say from time to time, I wish I could read better, and when I offer to work with her, usually just get a naaaah. This is where my dilemma comes in. Do I push? Do I relax? Is there an underlying problem, or is this just equivalent to her big brother and his math. When she’s ready, she’ll a-go-go? Are the books right on this too? Which ones? The ones that say wait, or the ones that say definite problematic LD? Can she really suddenly become fluent at say, age 12, and it’ll seem she’s been reading steadily all along? Or if I wait that long to see, will I miss some critical developmental stage that will leave her at a disadvantage all the rest of her could-have-been-pleasant reading days? Is this just a case of some people having certain strengths and interests, and others holding different ones? She’s just not a huge fan of reading? Lord knows I don’t like math. I am not an artist. I’m definitely not some engineer. We all have gifts, right?

What is it about this so-called delay that has me irked. Is it our societal rule that even pre-schoolers need to be knowing their phonics before entry into the next K class? Is it these read to a kid PSAs? We’ve always read to her. Kept interesting books around. Taken her to the library. Can you make someone a reader who really doesn’t have that interest originally? And should I if I can? Obviously she needs to become proficient, but after that, there’s a vast array of options for how far, or how not far, she may go with it. She just may never get it when I tell her my favorite ever thing to do (by myself, that is) is to crawl under the covers with a great book on a cold and rainy day, and stay there till I find out who did it. Other people don’t get it, so why should I mind if she doesn’t?

Because she is mine. Because maybe deep down, that’s just when we have the hardest time being fair. Non-discrimnatory. We want our own to understand us deeply, and for us to return the feeling in kind. And when they come out of the womb their own little person, and continue to grow in the way they should go, and we don’t quite get it, it’s unnerving. Even as we realize it is only our place to help them along the way. Not create clones of ourselves. It’s really hard sometimes. My husband’s not a big reader. Oh, he can of course. But it’s not his prime choice of leisure activities. But I didn’t raise him. So I can’t be responsible for his flaws (Ha.). This girl I’m in charge of. Can’t I just make her into what I see fits? No.

So the dilemma becomes this. Figure out what makes her tick. And what doesn’t. Help her become proficient in what her life will need proficiency in, but not too early as to make it tortuous and difficult. Introduce these things at the right time, with the just right amount of nudging. But do not be over bearing. Help her challenge herself, and rise to challenges, but not have to wallow painfully about in the things that she just won’t need to worry with. If she is not to be a world class chemist, don’t beat her over the head with the periodic table chart. Figure out who she is just before she does, so I can help her get from here to there. Let her be her, not a take 2 on me. In other words, be perfect. A perfect mother, teacher and career counselor and friend. Yeah. Perfection. That’ll work. And afterall, what’s so hard about that?