Here’s to you reader

I’m a narcissist.

But of a different form.

I don’t really love my own reflection.  I love my own thoughts!  I just read one of my last blog posts.  I thought is was hysterically funny.  I laughed and laughed.  I read it out loud to my husband.  I didn’t tell him anything about it.  I just said, “Listen to this.” and then I began to  read.  When I got done reading, he said, “I don’t think she’s funny.” (“and if you keep reading to me I am going to read you the stats from the Boise v Utah State game.”)  More laughter from me.  I said,  “You don’t think she’s funny!  I think she’s hysterically funny!”

And sadly I do.  I think I am funny.  I type with a smile on my face, not because I love typing, but because everything I type is funny.

See ya in a few months

(See I AM FUNNY)

speak necessary

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary

                   so that the necessary may speak.

I love this quote.  I have to admit to “taking it” from another blog (see here).  No author was mentioned, or I would tell you where it came from.  But here is what I am thinking:

 

  What to I need to do to apply this quote in my life?

 

I am putting this quote on my blog, because quotes have a way of getting buried alive in my word files. I want to come back to this and  give it  some real thought.  I am to busy with all the daily stuff, that the important , the necessary, goes undone.

How To Homeschool

Homeschool is not as hard as everyone thinks. In fact it is really quite easy. Here are ten tips that might be helpful to you:

1. Have kids

      Yes, this is really obvious, in fact it is so obvious that the public school system figured it a long time ago. When I looked into it, my child was worth $5000 a year to the school. That is why school is mandatory.  That is why you could get thrown in jail when you don’t show up.  When your child doesn’t show up, it’s not an education issue, it is a money issue.  So, this just has to be number one have kids, because without kids, no school. But wait… I’m starting to feel sub-points coming on.

          a. Have kids that you like and would like to spend time with – This is really important!  If you don’t think you can stand your kids all day long, then homeschool is probably not for you (who knows, maybe parenting isn’t for you either).  Your kids teacher probably handles them a lot better than you do, and hey, after spending all that time together, they might even like their teacher better than you. So, maybe you could enroll them in some after school program, so they can spend more time where they are happiest, at school.

         b. Have kids that are not quite perfect, but pretty dang close!  Word of warning, the people that like you will love your kids even more. They will think your kids are truly wonderful.  The people that hate you will really not like your kids.  Everything your child does will annoy them.  The better, nicer,and kinder your children are, the more these people will be annoyed with them.  But, that might be just human nature and not necessarily homeschooling.  On to point two.

2. Have fun

     Who said school had to be a drudgery?  If it doesn’t sound fun to have school that morning, then go on a field trip, learn about nature by being right in the middle of it, instead of watching a video about it.  Maybe you could go practice your roller skating skills, or observing skills, or even better yet,  you could practice life skills by cleaning the house.  Then you could go to the park and have a picnic, roller skate and enjoy nature, and practice all three skills at once!   Multi tasking at its best!

3. Have Joy–

     Just do it! Sit back, breath deep, relax had enjoy your children, after all they will leave home sooner or later whether you do this or not, so you might as well.

4.  Have Freedom

       Don’t model your school after the public school and use a system of force.  Base your school on the principle that there is joy is learning.  Let children learn about the things that they are interested in.  Plato said, “…knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind.”    This statement explains why we can get an A on the test and then the next day, we  have no clue what was even on the test!!  Educate without force or compulsion, because when education is done right, neither are needed.  Think back to what you love to do, your favorite hobby for example, did anyone make you read a book about it and then test you on the content?  All education is self education.  Get some!!  (And I didn’t even mention the freedom that you get from being free to vacation and be a family whenever you would like.)

5. Have Commitment

        There are several different kinds of commitment. There is the “dentist appointment in the morning”  kind of commitment, and there is the “we’re going to Disneyland” type of commitment.  I promise, school is the Disneyland type.  Here is why. When you make the commitment to homeschool, you are completely and totally responsible for what you children learn.  There is no teacher to blame.  You carry 100% of the responsibility for the education of your child. This is one of those tithing type principles, it doesn’t look good on paper, and yet it is true.  When you become  responsibility for your child’s education, you get busy teaching.  If you are like me, shortly after that you realize that you know very little about pretty much everything, so you start studying, and learning and wow, did you know about Greece and Rome and, etc… And you can’t wait to teach what you’ve learned about because it was so exciting.  If it is not exciting to you, by all means move on to something that is.

      Okay, I said ten steps, but I realized it is even easier than ten, it can be done in just five!!  And so my friends, that  is homeschooling made easy!  Any questions?

 I realize that you may have disagreed with everything I have said.  Get your own blog!!

Waldorf

I wrote a reply to Texasblu about Waldorf, but it turned out to be so long that I thought I would just use it for a post.   Is that cheating or is it killing two birds with one stone, and really should you kill two birds with one stone?  Don’t know… on to the post:

Texasblu,
I hope you know that burnout is just another word for “gearing up for next year”. Homeschool has an ebb and flow about it that is natural.  Some years are more intense than others.  Don’t fight it, just enjoy where you are at. It doesn’t come back!
That being said, I have been slowing adding in more Waldorf into my school every year for the last couple of years.  I love Waldorf.  It goes so well with TJED.  They really complement each other. Both are principles, and both say close to the same thing Waldorf just says ALOT more about everything. I probably have not had a year before where I felt more successful, than this year. Waldorf gives you a set of subjects to study for each year.  They are geared to the development of the student. For instance you teach fairy tales for kindergarten and first  grade, because they are in a dreamy state and learn good values from these stories. Like good, bad, right, wrong, true and false. In fairy tales, the good wins (If not, don’t tell that story).

 Waldorf says that in the first seven years you learn best by example, so you should really concentrate on what KIND of person you are. Because, as you know and anyone who has ever been a parent knows, your children are watching your every move. And, whether you like it or not, they are going to do pretty much exactly what you do.  So, example is really important at this age. You also work towards having a daily routine or rhythm that you follow in your house each day. Regular meal times, regular nap times, the flow of your day should be consistent from day to day.

 The home arts are emphasized: baking, ironing, cleaning, gardening, each day is a certain kind of day. Ironing day, chore day, painting day, etc.. you set the schedule, then you stick to it (the hard part).

This time of life is about beauty and so the surroundings should be beautiful, and the child should help make on their surroundings  beautiful,having a clean orderly room and making beautiful art. I have found that they are amazing at both when you just let them be and give them a little guidance with the cleaning part. A place to put everything and everything in it’s place.

 Waldorf uses a three day rhythm for teaching little people, so you tell the fairy tale and draw about it on the first day, next day, they tell you, (skit, puppets, narrate, whatever works) then some related art activity on the third day. You tell the same story all week.  Easy preparation here. Depending on time and effort, and what your child is interested in, you can add more.  If I tell the story three times that week, I’m doing great, it is usually only two or one. When a child is ready for reading, you introduce the letters through the stories.  K is about a king, using fairy tales.  Then the picture is of a king with arm and leg out in the shape of a “K”.  These are really fun pictures to draw.  All drawings are kept in a main lesson book, which is like a low key binder (we still keep a binder). Everyone loves their main lesson books. And my favorite part is that when you look back on these, you feel like you have accomplish something over the year.

You teach in blocks of three or four weeks. So, you can move on to other things, even if you never finished everything you wanted to, (which is how we  ended up spending about 3 years on Egypt).  Waldorf  is really into hand crafts, like knitting, wood working, felting and painting, not to turn everyone into artists, but just as a way of really feeling a story, among other reasons. And in knitting, it is a right brain, left brain activity, so it helps them to think more clearly.

This is a very brief overview for younger children.  Most of the Waldorf principles are either something my mother did, or told me to do, or just plain common sense.  It is a way of life, and it makes everyone at my house happier.

After all that, here is the answer to your question:

The saints we studied are Saint Francis, Mother Teresa, Saint Guadualope, Saint Nicholas, Saint Patrick, Joan of Arc, and Saint  Martin (must have done a bad job on that one, I can’t remember anything about him now!!) fun stuff, really interesting, I didn’t know anything about most of these people before I taught about them. The point is not to cover every saint that ever existed, but to cover ones that will help the child lead a better life, because of their example and ones that will appeal to them, and they can learn lessons from the saints life and relate to. You are supposed to think carefully about which saint you will present to the child.

Really, this is just the tip of the ice burg, I could go on and on, but here is another interesting thought, in Waldorf around 12, you gear up for some heavy duty learning!! They really go to town, and for high school you should get mentors who specialize in their field and know their craft.  Interesting, isn’t it.

I can’t leave this subject without mentioning Melisa Neilson.  She is a great resource to me. She is helping to make Waldorf more accessible to homeschoolers.  Check out here site and blog here.  There is TONS of information on the web about Waldorf.  Reading discerningly is helpful, as any TJED student should be doing, anyway. 

Best wishes on your homeshcool journey, it doesn’t have to be perfect, a little is better than nothing, and if you are like me, perfect never comes, but little by little does. We can accomplish much little by little, not worring about perfect

Tanya

2nd Grade Saints and Fables

Warning: My drawings are not meant to be funny.  Don’t laugh! (If you can help it, my kids couldn’t, so you are in good company.)

 Here is sample of what Hannah has been doing for school.  For second grade in the Waldorf curriculum it says to teach about saints and fables.  I have really enjoyed learning about the saints with Hannah. We have been using a few resources.  We use A Little Garden Flower books for 2nd grade and Teaching with Fables, and a  fable book I found at Goodwill. I love all of these books. They all serve completely different purposes.  For saints we went to the library and got books for each person we studied.  We did one saint a week during the block on saints.  During the Fables block we covered (or tried to cover) two fables a week.  We are not done, this is just what we have so far.

I try to draw with Hannah when she draws but her drawings are so much better than mine that I quit drawing with her and now we talk about what she could draw, how it will look on the page, and what will go where.  Then she draws and I draw, I try to stay just right with her, but sometimes, if I stay a little behind her,  I get good ideas about drawing from her.  These are in the same order that they were taught.  You can really see her progress in  drawing this year.

Here are some of her pictures (and  mine)  from the Saints and Fables we have studied:

The Crow and the Pitcher

      

The bird got a rock.  The bird got a drink.

The Wolf and the Sheep

 Hers:    Mine:

The wolf ate the sheep.  Wolves are sneaky.

The Fox and the Grapes

The fox was thirsty.  He tried to eat some grapes.  He could not get the grapes.  He said, “Those grapes are sour.”   He left them for someone else.

The Eagle and the Farmer

 Hannah’s          Mine

The farmer helped the eagel.  The eagle helped the farmer.

The Blind Man and the Pelt

        

The kids tried to fool the old man that was blind.

Saint Martin

         

“If you don’t harm the children, they will feed you.”

The Wind and the Sun

                          

The boy took off his coat.  He was hot.  The sun won.

The Birds Nest

(oops, we forgot to write on this page)

Joan of Arc

               

Joan went to war to help her King.

The Traveler and the Donkey

The donkey was stuborn.  The donkey made his choice, and he would not take it back.

The Eagle and the Turtle

Learn to be happy with what you have.

The Lion and the Boar

             

(We will write about this later today.)     

 

Hope you enjoy this. Coloring with block crayons is very fun. Not all the colors show in  these pictures.  The colors are actually prettier in real life. And thank you for the suggestion to add my pictures.  I would never have added them if you hadn’t made me!

 

For Emma

 

Emma’s Work

As I watch Emma play, I am amazed at the determination with which she ‘plays’. Emma is 13 months old, and can wreck a wonderfully planned school day faster than the speed of light. On this particular day she was ‘helping’ in her usual fashion by distracting the other students.

 I usually bring Emma to school with me. All the students love her and she is a really big hit. Of course, it’s easy to bring Emma to school with me when school is in the basement, and all the students have the same last name. This isn’t a small town inbreeding project, it just homeschool.

 Some days for school we just watch Emma ‘play’. This is work for us because we all want to ‘help’ her. Today’s project involved bright colored beads with wooden sticks. Emma wanted to put her small fingers into the hole in the bead. She was having a great time doing this. Joe, age 13, didn’t like her chosen project. He wanted her to slide the beads on the sticks. He took her hand and showed her how to do it. While he was busy doing this, I was busy telling him that she wouldn’t have the fine motor skills required for this particular project. And while I was busy telling him she couldn’t do it, she did it. We all laughed, especially Joe.

In his book, How Children Learn, John Holt said, “…the best games with little children flow easily and naturally from the situation of the moment” (pg. 52) The games my children play with Emma have shown this to be true.

I read Holt’s book, and I guess I still have a lot to learn myself, because I completely underestimated Emma abilities; even though she is my eighth. The biggest lesson that I have learned from Holt is this: just watch the baby. John should come to my house and just watch the kids. No one can leave the baby alone long enough to just watch the baby. If the baby is around some one will grab her up and carry her off. She’s just a baby, and of course I want to keep her a baby. My children, on the other hand, have other ideas. They are constantly challenging her abilities and helping her develop self-protection skills. Each of my seven other children all feel that Emma was personally sent to them, and that they each have complete responsibility for her upbringing. As a mother, I don’t always agree with their methods of raising children. I see myself as being totally capable of raising her without ‘help’ from those I’ve already raised.

My version of help would be something along the lines of “please go get a diaper” or whatever the need may be at that moment. It’s pretty much a ‘fill in the blank’ after please go get. My children’s version of help looks more like this “Hey, let’s put Emma in a laundry basket and push her down the stairs to she what she does”, or, “Emma wants to go outside and see the snow.” This is usually with just a diaper on, because I can never get her long enough to get her dressed. My personal favorite is the “Emma wants…” Again fill in the blank for what ever she may be wanting at the time, which only they know, because they also want that same thing.

I often worried that Emma would never learn to walk because everyone carried her around so much. I shouldn’t have worried. She learned to walk at eleven months and shortly after she was running. I think it was some sort of built in protection device.

From reading Holt’s book, I have come to realize that what we regard as play, Emma regards as work. Her work is real and she is busy learning. She can be immensely annoyed when taken away from a work project of her choice. When this happens she screams like a banshee. “How much people can learn at any moment depends on how they feel at that moment about the task and their ability to do the task.” (pg. 50) I’m sure that she has gained a lot of confidence in her abilities when she has had to freedom to play by herself. As a mother I’m glad to know that she can learn without sitting on my lap and having me pour information into her, so that at some later time she can regurgitate it to others and I can look wonderful for her immense knowledge. Knowing that I can just let her play and she will learn is a very liberating thought to a mother of eight.

Emma also has the opportunity to watch other children in her family play. She wants to join in their games. If the game involves her in some direct way, or if she is part of the project, then she is allowed to join. Sometimes, as mentioned before, this is not in her best interest. When her sisters Hannah and Sarah, ages five and four, play with her, she is the baby in their game. They are the mother and the father to her. In the game the mother gets the diaper bag. The father has to sit out in the hall while he pretends to go to work. Both of these parts are better than being the baby in the game. The baby has to lay in a small wooden cradle, drink from a doll’s bottle, take a fake pacifier, and is often kept in the game by force. It appears to me that the main object of the game is to change the baby’s clothes as many times as the baby will allow. This is not very many times, and in fact the older the baby has got, the more unwilling she is to tolerate being the baby in the game. I think if they would let her be both the mother and the father in the game she would be happy. Then she could have the diaper bag and go out in the hall and run away.

How Children Learn says “[children] don’t learn at an even rate. They learn in spurts, and the more interested they are in what they are learning, the faster these spurts are likely to be.” (pg. 155) When Emma decides to learn something, nothing gets in her way, nothing. She becomes quite determined. She has a way of blocking out the rest of the world and working feverishly and her projects. Eventually she will lose her interest and move on to something else. We recently started a puzzle project. This puzzle had 750 pieces in it. We put it on the train table that is low to the ground so all would have a chance to work on it. All did have a chance to work on it, especially the baby. She worked on that puzzle at least every day. She would have worked on it every hour, but we wouldn’t let her, because her work was directly opposed to our work. Her work involved scattering all the pieces off the board. She had two methods for this. Method number one was to take her hands and run them back and forth over the puzzle as quickly as possible, thereby sweeping the board of puzzle pieces. Method number two was to pick up any big chunks of puzzle that may have escaped from method number one and throw the chunks on the floor. I personally put the border back together so many times that I wished I had asked someone to time me from the first time I did this to the last. I’m sure I set new records on how fast I got at doing this. I didn’t have someone time me doing this because, the first time I was sure would be the last time, and by the last time, I was sure that at any moment when she saw no one was watching, she would come along and do her work again. We could not dissuade her from this project. She would look at us and smile as we all ran tearing towards her trying to save the puzzle. We finally resorted to putting a blanket over the puzzle so she would forget it was there. This only worked part of the time. The other part of the time she would peek under the blanket and do her work in the dark. When we finally got the puzzle put together it turned out to only be a 748 piece puzzle.

Emma’s oldest brother is Cameron. Cameron is 16 and an avid piano player. He has helped us see that there is a need to have rules about how early and how late the piano can be played. Cameron’s chosen work project for Emma is one of her very favorites. Cameron will get a chair and put Emma up to the piano so she can hit the keys by herself. This is a pure delight for her. Her face lights up and she always looks around to see who is watching and listen to her concert. Holt says that “improvisation lies at the very heart of all music making and should be a central part of every kind of music instruction.” (pg 30) Cameron also loves to improvise and he must know innately that this project is helping her to learn to love music, just as he does.

One point of training on which John and I disagree is that Holt thinks that children will correct their own mistakes. When I watch Emma, there is no need to correct her, he may be right and this young age.  When I watch my older children, the need to correct is stronger. As my children grow they need correction through inspiration. They need me to model correct behavior and they need me to help them correct their behavior. I must admit that I am not always a model of ‘correct behavior’. But even so, as a parent I still need to occasionally correct them. This ‘correction’ is not needed very often, but a wise parent, I hope I will know when it is needed and when it can wait for another day.

Miles, who is nine, likes to put Emma on his shoulders and walk around the house with her. He can often be seen giving her a tour of the house, showing her where the food is, where her clothes are and where the all important pacifier stash is kept. Holt says, “One good way to help children learn the names of things is by talking about anything we do together.” (pg. 96) I know for a fact that Miles has never read the book ‘How Children Learn’, and yet, at nine years old, he is teaching her language skills. Sometimes Miles will pretend that Emma is his pet. He will make a cage (i.e. laundry basket) for her and feed her crackers through the cracks in the cage. Because this game involves food, she is often very willing to participate in this culinary transaction.

Daniel and Matthew have several games that they enjoy playing with Emma. Some of their games I’m sure I’m not even aware of (and that’s a good thing for them).

As I watch my children play with Emma, I’m often inspired by them, because they have a sixth sense about what she needs to grow up healthy, curious, and strong. They seem to already know what John Holt says is true, and that is ” …they will make a better path into that word than we could make for them.” (pg. 157) As a mother of eight that is my goal, that Emma and her brothers and sisters will make a path into the world that will make them better and make the world better.

 

A book review of  “How Children Learn” by John Holt for my Five Pillars Class

the tale of two bloggers

There are two kinds of bloggers.  The blogger who works with the camera and the blogger who works with the keyboard. Everyone who  blogs with a camera knows you can’t blog without a camera. It is impossible.  A camera is the essential piece of equipement for blogging.  If you thought it was the computer or the internet, you were wrong.  They come in  second place.  If you blog with a camera, you take pictures with your blog in mind.  You think about what pictures will look good on your blog, and after you take a great shot you think to yourself, “oh this will  be perfect for the blog about… ” fill in the blank with what you are  currently thinking about.  Some bloggers even have what is called Wordless Wednesday.  This is where they just post pictures and (obviously) no words.  This is not blogging with the keyboard.

On the other hand, the blogger who blogs with the keyboard rarely needs a picture to support his thoughts. He has a keyboard and his mind and that is all the equipment he needs, oh yeah and the internet so he can broadcast his thoughts on cyber space. 

 Being a fan of both the camera and the keyboard, I can say that one is not better than the other, they are just different. 

Lately more bloggers or blogging with the camera.   Why, because the camera is an easier tool to blog with then the keyboard.  The keyboard requires more of our mind, and more of our mind is exposed to others.  With the camera our thoughts are often left open to interpretation.  It can be subjective.  You can more easily put your own spin on a picture than on a piece of writing.

  So next time you read a blog, see if I’m not right.  Check out the picture to words ratio. Currently, blogging is for the photographer, not the author.

ps- my next blog will be about Emma cutting her hair, pictures to follow.

No one asked…

but here is the answer. 

 

The picture from my heading was at Zion’s.  They were trying to catch the water as it fell from the rocks.

Advent Calender

Every now and then the craft side of me shows up,  and I actually do something crafty.  I made an advent calender from scrapbooking supplies.

I took an old holder that I hade made for block crayons.  I was going to throw it away, but then I realized it had twenty-four slots and an idea suddenly popped into my head.  It  would make the perfect advent calender.  I had a hard time  coming up with twenty-four fun things.  I should have asked my kids because after I showed it to them, they said things like, ” Oh, is this the day we put up the tree?”  pointing to one day that had a tree on it.  Hey great  idea, but NO that says something entirely unrelated to a tree.   Or  ” I know this has a story a day that we can read.”  No again, but also a great idea.  “Does the day with the snow flake have anything to do with snow?  Maybe we could go outside and make a snowman on that day.”  No, that day is for …well, you get the picture. 

I did decide that next year I will make it look like it is done and give it to them, then I will wait to hear what they say.  Then, I will be grinch like and take it down that night and put all the great ideas that they come up with on the recommended slots.

 

 

Day one was make a count down chain, which we did.

Day two was make a Christmas craft, which we have also done. 

We read the Jan Brett book “Christmas Trolls”, and on the tree in the pictures they have the cutest heart ornaments.  I went to her fabulous web site and lo and behold she had directions for making the ornaments  (I thought she might, it seemed like the kind of thing she would do.)

Check it out here:

http://www.janbrett.com/make_your_own_holiday_ornament.htm

 

Here is how ours turned out:

It was a fun project.  I recommend it for 9 years and older.  The girls struggled.  I tried to help Sarah.  I said “It’s just like when you sew, in and out, in and out.”  She is five, she looked at me and said,  “I never sewed.”

Yea,,,, so I sewed hers.

The  tree with ornaments:

Tomorrow is a treasure hunt, maybe I should ask them what we should hunt for.

Idaho Potatoes

When you live in Idaho, you should take advantage of the natural resources.  And that is exactly what we did last Saturday.  We went and gleaned a potato field.  I bet you didn’t know that gleaning was something done in modern day times.  I personally thought it was just a biblical times activity, but no, if you know where to go, you can clean in this day and age.  It was really interesting work.  The tractor had already picked up all that it could, and so we just went and asked if we could get what we could, and then we went to work and made quite a haul. 

 While we were gleaning the field, the man running the tractor was busy cleaning the disks of the plow.  And when he was done cleaning the disks he started the tractor and he plowed all the left over pototoes under, just like that-  gone!!!

So we happened to hit it just right.  The potatoes had been plowed up that morning, and harvested and plowed under the same day.  I don’t know if that’s how every farmer does it, but that is what happened the day we where there.

Emma had fun find the smallest potatoes,

Emma's finds

and Miles had a knack for finding the biggest potatoes. 

 Every time Joe thought he had found a potato that would be bigger than the potato that Miles had found, Miles had struck gold and found other huge potato.  It was funny to us, but not to Joe.  Here is what a real Idaho potato looks like when you go right to the source and you have some one with a real knack for finding the biggest potato in the field. 

Miles with the biggest potatoes I have ever seen!

Emma and Sarah named some of the potatoes that they found and I’m afraid that they will go rotten because how could we eat a potato that a family member had named and carried around for a few days?

Emma holding Mr. Bubbley

 

This will probably turn into an annual event for us.  We ended our gleaning day by getting an ice cream sandwich.  Then we came home and sorted the pototoes in groups of meduim, large, extra large and monster.   We are saving the monsters for Thanksgiving.  We will only have to peel about three pototoes and we will have enough for the whole clan. 

Here is the harvest, we got about 250 pounds of potatoes.