Category Archives: Homeschool?

When I was my son’s age, my advent calendar was one of my favorite parts of the holiday season.  Each year, my mom bought me my favorite:  it was a cardboard calendar with little windows and doors for each day that tear open to reveal a festive picture and – get this – a different holiday scent.  It was a scratch and sniff advent calendar.  The 1980s really were awesome.  I can still smell the gingerbread when I reminisce about it.

I wanted to keep the advent calendar tradition for my son, and initially I thought the Lego advent calendar looked fun.  However, we’ve been trying to move away from associating the holidays with a big commercial gift grab – particularly because his birthday is Christmas Eve –  and 24 days of new Legos seems like a poor way to set an example.

As an alternative, we created an advent adventure calendar.

The Pelsers inspired me with their simple but sweet take on the advent calendar.  Each card is a large index card with colored paper and stickers on it.  What makes this an “advent adventure” calendar is that each date has a short list of things to do, including the title of a book to read (some new, some old), a song to sing or joke to share, and an “adventure.”  Some adventures are simple:  play with Play-Doh, make and use a car wash for the Hot Wheels, or paint some suncatchers.  Other adventures are a little more involved, like baking cookies together, or going for a drive to look at the Christmas lights.  I’m hoping that this style of advent calendar will not only be a lot of fun for Jack, but that it will help him grasp concepts like the passing of days and appreciate the importance of even the little things that we do together.

Everything I needed to make the advent calendar came from the dollar store, and I paid less than $6.00: glue stick, 2 pieces of tagboard, one pack of Christmas stickers, a pack of index cards, a box of paperclips, and a classroom calendar for the numbers.  It took about an hour to cut and assemble everything.

I initially planned on writing the activity list on the back of each individual card, but instead I listed them separately in a notebook.  That way, if the advent calendar ends up being a hit for Jack I can reuse the cards over a period of years and simply update the books and activities listed in the notebook to ensure that they are more age appropriate as he grows up.

This year’s list of adventures include:  a scavenger hunt, playing a board game, baking chocolate chip cookies, a game of hide and go seek, setting up a couch cushion fort, making a trip to the half price bookstore, and more.  Simple, fun things.  ”Together” things.

Happy Holidays!

As I mentioned two weeks ago, I have started doing an online Bible study.  I was terrified to make my initial post about it – terrified that I would be mocked and ridiculed, and fearful that people would think less of me because I wanted to learn about God.  What I found was just the opposite:  encouragement.  Reassurance.  Camaraderie.

While that bolstered my confidence, I’m still struggling.  I’m so new at this that I just don’t know if I’m “doing it right.”  We’ve been reading about Peter.  Each week we address a certain passage or two, and we journal about certain questions posed in our study guide.  For me this means that every morning I get up early, sip my coffee, read the assigned passage, nibble on a pastry, ponder the questions, and fill my journal with commentary.

And I feel like such a fraud.

People spend their whole lives studying the Bible.  They find meaning in each word, each nuance.  And here I am, stumbling through every sentence and consulting online resources to see if I’m “doing it right.”  I like to think I am, or at least if I’m not, my online Bible group hasn’t outed me as a total Bibilical sophomore yet.  (I think they’re too nice to do that, anyway).

So let’s just say I’m not at all confident in this whole Bible study thing yet.  Is that a good thing?  I think it certainly gives me a healthy dose of humility when I approach my studies.  But it also makes me question whether one can really learn, really know, after a lifetime of not knowing the Bible and not knowing God.  I guess that’s a question that I’m going to have to answer over time.

And all I can do is try.

There’s big news around our house:  my husband has taken a part time job.  He wasn’t looking for work, but a job that he is perfectly suited for and enjoys tremendously came up, and when such a grand door is opened, you’d have to be a fool not to walk through it.  So he walked on through.

And this means that Jack is spending about ten hours a week in daycare.

We’ve been sharing this good news with family and friends, but a common reaction that we are getting was totally unexpected:

Daycare is going to be so good for Jack.

Jack is going to have such a great experience interacting with other kids at daycare.

He’ll learn so much at daycare.

Now hold the phone, here:  Jack interacts with other kids every week, and he interacts well.  We take frequent trips to the playground and library where he seeks out children his size.  He’s a regular at the YMCA’s nursery as well as the nursery at the church.  He’s not afraid to introduce himself (first and last name, every time), and he always, always shares his toys with them.  I can’t even recall a single incident where I’ve had to correct poor behavior when he’s played with other children.

And it isn’t just children, either:  he’s happy to strike up a conversation with an adult, and he’s at the point now where he can hold a pretty reasonable, albeit sometimes odd, conversation.

Daycare didn’t build that.

At first I was a little miffed at this apparently common perception that Jack somehow “needed” whatever daycare had to offer.  I firmly believe that kids “get” so much more than we realize.  They are constantly observing and soaking up everything they hear, see, touch, taste and feel.  Even if they can’t articulate it, they are still picking it up, without formal instruction by parents, teachers, or anyone.

So I took these comments personally – like we as his parents somehow were lacking.  Or, even worse, that Jack was lacking in some kind of social skills and needed daycare to correct it.

I realize that wasn’t their intention.

In fact, I suspect that my family and friends were actually just trying to reassure me that daycare wasn’t the end of the world.  To be honest, I never thought it was a bad thing.  It wasn’t what our family did, but that doesn’t make it bad.  Just different.  And now, daycare is something we do, on a limited basis.  It’s our new normal.

And Jack loves it.  But I promise, he was already a damn cool kid even before daycare.

In my life this week…

Reading, reading, reading.  Jack’s appetite for books has been absolutely voracious lately, and I’m doing everything I can to satisfy his requests for reading.  Last week we discovered the wonderful writing of Eric Shannon, and Duck on a Bike is becoming a nightly read.

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…

Last weekend was filled with running around.  Irish Fest was Friday, the Renaissance Faire was Saturday.  By Sunday we were a heap of exhaustion, so this week we laid low and took it easy.

My favorite thing this week was…

Trips to the library, which means getting to see Jack interact with other kids.  I had this fear that when we pulled him from his half-day of preschool he’d stop being so outgoing around other kids.  Um, WRONG.  He has no fear, no hesitation, and wants to immediately be open with other kids.  He’s always ready to jump in, say “hi” and share his toys.  He must get that from his dad – I was never so bold, not as a kid, and not as an adult.

Questions/thoughts I have…

My question is what it always is:  how can we keep this homeschooling thing going beyond preschool?

(And where is my winning lottery ticket?)

Things I’m working on…

I’m reading…

I’ve come to terms with where I sit on the homeschooling issue.  I’ve blogged in the past about my internal struggles on the topic, and I think we have our resolution.  Now I need to come to terms with it.

In a perfect world – that would be a world where I’m not working ten hours a day outside the home with an hour drive each way – we would homeschool Jack.  I’ll even go so far as to say we’d homeschool, with a touch of unschooling.  If we win the lottery, that will happen.  Barring such an event, though, I don’t see it happening.  I’m not home enough to do it, and while my husband is more than capable of creating a wonderful classroom for our son, I am Type-A enough to want to have my hands in it as much as possible.  And I just can’t do it, not with my schedule.  It wouldn’t be fair to Jack, and the bottom line is, that’s what matters.

So that’s where we stand.  And now it is up to me to come to terms with it.

Until then, let me fantasize a little about our homeschooling classroom.  It looks a lot like this:

With a healthy dose of this:

And a dash of this:

Our inability to effectively homeschool Jack is a damn shame.  We have all of the right tools.  We have so many resources available: from our little “urban farm” to our proximity to a wonderful library to access to all kinds of programs, we could really do something amazing.

Jack is just 2 and a half right now, so school is still an event in the far-enough-off future.  So for now, we live out my homeschooling dreams in our little ways:  the garden is a classroom, the state park is our field trip.  The kitchen is our science lab, and the library is our constant companion.

It’s time to buy that lottery ticket.

The Olympics has done wonders for my desire to get Jack involved in sports.  Our local YMCA very wisely timed the arrival of their fall catalog of course offerings so that I could peruse it while watching Gabby Douglas showing the world how awesome she is.  (USA! USA!)  I was excited to see plenty of gymnastics offering for girls and boys as young as 18 months.  I was ready to sign Jack up until I saw the class schedule:

Tiny Tots Tumbling:  Tuesdays from 10:00 a.m. to 10:45.

Ah.  Let me check my schedule.  Oh, yes…I’M WORKING THAT DAY.  You know, like I do every weekday.

This happens all the time.  Storytime at the library?  Wednesday afternoons.  Mommy and Me art?  Thursday mornings.  Local moms and strollers running group?  Nine a.m.

Apparently parent/child activities are for stay at home parents only.

I have checked high and low for parent/child activities on the weekends, with little luck.  The YMCA does offer swim classes on Saturday mornings, and I am extremely grateful for that.  But other activities – music, tumbling, dance, art – weekdays during work hours only.

Why?

I don’t believe it is some kind of anti-working-mom conspiracy, although sometimes the cards really do feel like they are stacked up against us.  Presumably, the lack of evening and weekend activities is profit-driven.  If there was a demand for these activities, places would offer them, right?  But why is there little interest in after work parent/child activities?  I’m certain that other working moms want to do organized activities with their kids.

It is a mystery to me.

Are we too tired after work to engage in directed activities?

Are the demands of home life – making dinner, catching up on the day with the spouse, cleaning, etc. (things that studies tell us still fall to women even when both spouses work full time)  too much to leave room for other things?

I suspect a combination of the two.  I would guess that you could ask any working mom if, given that they had enough time and energy to do so, whether they’d like to spend time in organized activities with their children, they’d give an enthusiastic yes.  But that’s not our reality.  In reality, weekday evenings are a blur of dinner prep, hugs, washing dishes, doing a few loads of laundry, keeping the house reasonably clean, baths, bedtime stories, and a little internet time before bed.  We just don’t have the time.

Personally, I say screw the dishes, my son needs to work on his backbend.

Readers, what are your thoughts?  Why do you think activities after work hours are so limited?  Or do you have a different experience – do you have better luck finding weekend and weeknight activities?

“It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.” -Leo Buscaglia

Thomas the Train has solidified his place in our family.  That little blue steam engine is almost always planted firmly in Jack’s hand and when he manages to escape it is only because Jack has grabbed onto Percy or Charlie or one of the other little engines whose names I have learned in the past few weeks.  We’ve gotten a little off track (who doesn’t love a good pun?) with our regular lessons because Thomas really has taken over just about every waking moment in Jack’s days.

And I’m not at all worried about it.  Jack is learning just as much from his Thomas toys as he does from him books, his flashcards and his lesson books.

Thomas the Train as a counting device.  Jack has about twenty-five Thomas the Train cars, and he loves linking them up in different configurations.  As he clicks the magnetic train cars together, we count them: one, two, three, four, five.  As we take cars away, we count them too.  We’re a little early to start addition and subtraction lessons, but I don’t think the concept is lost on him as we add and remove cars to our trains.

Thomas the Train shows the importance of sharing.  The Thomas the Train layout is set up on a 6 foot by three foot train table.  Jack loves to play with his trains, but above that, he loves when he can play with his trains with his parents.  Doing so requires a little  sharing of the trains, and a lot of sharing of the track.  While at first he got really upset whenever a parental train was in his way, he has started to realize that if he wants to play trains with us, he needs to give us some room for his trains.  It seems like a simple lesson, but it is a big thing for a two year old.

Thomas the Train teaches problem solving.  Having a whole pile of interconnecting track and twenty-plus cars going in all different directions has given Jack some problems to solve.  Some of his train cars are a little too tall for some of the bridges.  Some sections of track don’t connect as well as other sections.  Some of the train cars are very light and consequently don’t take corners well when when placed in the middle of a train link.  As adults, we’re only mildly aware that these things are problems – our years of experience allows us to easily modify our behavior to avoid these stumbling blocks.  But to a toddler, each of these issues is a challenge that requires observation, analysis, and a lot of trial and error.  I love watching the little gears turning in Jack’s head as he works on these problems and comes up with solutions for them, and I love the glee he so freely expresses when he is victorious.

Thomas the Train encourages imagination.  The depth of Jack’s play has increased by leaps and bounds lately.  His train cars “talk” to one another (usually the conversation goes, “Oh no! You okay?”  ”Okay.”  *kiss*).  They carry little Fisher Price people to other destinations, and they play with Disney’s Cars.  There’s a whole busy little community on that train table and Jack is becoming a fine puppet master over them.

Be it Thomas, or Cars, or the Fisher Price Little People, Legos, Star Wars, or any other toy, the line between learning and playtime is fluid, and seeing Jack learn through play is such a wonderful thing.

Okay, more than a touch of the flu. The flu has taken this family OUT this week. It started last week, but instead of getting better it got worse and worse. We’re learning how to roll with it and deal with it. Now we just need to start feeling well enough to get the house cleaned, too.

Before we get on to the journal this week, has everyone seen these yet?

(Click the picture to enlarge and see the details)

(Click the picture to enlarge and see the details)

I can’t lie, I probably harbored some of those prejudices against homeschooling before my son was born – especially the little girl in the bottom picture with the “1+1=3″ chalkboard.  Now that I know more families with kids – families who have the same kinds of beliefs and ideals that my family does – those stereotypes and prejudices have all faded away.  Funny how that works, isn’t it?

In my life this week…

I read a really interesting piece by a mom whose kindergartener decided that she wanted to go to public school.  Mom had planned for, prepared for, and was absolutely intent on homeschooling her daughter, and her daughter had other plans.  I never thought of that possibility, but I guess I need to open my mind to the idea that my little strong-willed man may make a decision like that in his future, despite my own wishes and desires.

In our homeschool this week…

For our lessons this week, we’ve slowed down a little bit because we’ve all been so sick.  Well, I exaggerate when I say we’ve all slowed down.  The adults have slowed down.  The toddler is still at full steam.  Our lessons haven’t been as structured because I haven’t had it in me while I’ve been sick, but we’re still reading books like they are going out of style.  Jack has been surprising me by correctly identifying a lot of letters that we haven’t learned together yet.  We started at the beginning of the alphabet, but he is pointing out S, P, W, X and more with perfect accuracy.  I’m not actually sure where he picked those up, but I’ll take it.

I’ll also admit that the iPad came into play a lot this week.  I usually try to limit iPad time, but we were just too sick to be doing too much active play with Jack and while he’s content to play with his cars and trains for hours, he needed a little change of pace too.  This has not been a fun week for him, either.  The neat part about his extra iPad time is the proficiency that he’s developed with some of his educational apps.  He is a master of all of the puzzles on his farm app, and he’s found games and sections of the app that I didn’t know existed.

Playing in the virtual barnyard

Questions/thoughts I have…

I asked this one on my Facebook page, but I’ll present it here as well:  what are your thoughts on attending a homeschool conference if you are still on the fence about homeschooling?  Or if your child is very young?  I’ve heard positive responses – that it is a good learning experience, that you can take away a lot from the conference even if you aren’t currently homeschooling, etc., but I’d love to hear more opinions.  There’s a homeschool conference coming up in May and we might take the trip to attend it if it seems like a worthwhile thing to do.

Have a safe and healthy week, everyone!