Playing Is School

One of the things about homeschooling is the fer that you aren't doing enough "real work". I make Katie do worksheets and papers and "real" school everyday so she wont get behind. But I have been learning a new way to teach my kids. It's called playing!

Yep! That's all. I make it a point to either go outside and play or pull out some games and play every week.

I'm finding that even the most basic game is indeed learning. For instance: hop scotch is a big time learning game. I make Katie put the numbers she's learning to multiply by in her boxes (for example, this week is 6. So she writes 6, 12, 18, 24, etc.) and Eli has to write his numbers 0-9.

Another game we play that is a real learning game is Twister. Yes, you read that right. Twister. I have found that my kids still struggle to remember their right from their left quickly. They also get flustered at remembering their color, hand or foot and left or right quickly. So we practice...by playing Twister in speed mode!

UNO is another very important game for our kids. They learn color combinations. They learn numbers. They learn to read. They learn strategy. And they learn to play fair and be a good sport in winning or loosing!

As summer approaches, I highly recommend you look at your game cabinet and start playing. They wont sleep away their learning and they will have fun building memories while their at it!

Confessions

I home school my kids. You probably already know that if you're reading my blog. But what you might not know is that sometimes I am jealous of those who don't. I rarely talk about it, because all the other home school moms I see seem to love it and are doing a fabulous job of it. I, however, see my house and think how much better it might be to just put the kids in school. I get envious of the moms who take their kids to school and then have 4-7 hours to clean the house, get the shopping done, or even just take a shower in peace. I feel guilty when I have these thought and feelings because I know that homeschooling is what God has asked me to do. I know all the great benefits of homeschooling my kids; I see the growth and development in Katie almost daily at this point. I know that the messy house and lack of showers is just a season. I know all the logical things I would be telling another home school mom who is feeling this way. But knowing all the right answers and feeling the tiredness and jealousy are two very different things. All I can do is hold on to those logical thoughts at this point and know that God does indeed take all things and make them not just a good thing but a blessing in His own special way.
This Thanksgiving I am thankful for my great relationship with my daughter. I am thankful for my ever supportive husband, my energetic son and a God who takes my feeble efforts and makes them work together for good simply because I love Him!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Fun With Adverbs

Today Katie was learning adverbs. I gave her a list of words and let her make silly sentences. Here's what she came up with...

Knights toddle mysteriously.

Dancers cry awkwardly.

Turtles leap shrilly.

Eagles lumber fiercely.

Spies battle gracefully.

Babies wink cautiously.

Some are a little more accurate than she planned, I think!

My Musings on Homeschooling the Parent

Homeschooling has been a strange journey for me. I brought my child home because she was about to drown in the 30 child classroom. I saw she needed more one on one than they could possibly give. I spent the first year working on figuring where she really was, getting her caught up and getting a schedule that worked for all of us. This year she is mostly caught up and now we are getting into really interesting information.

I have learned so much information that I had no idea about. For instance, Mesopotamia means between the rivers and hippopotamus means river horse. I've also learned why chicken eggs are different colors and that a platypus is a mammal even though they lay eggs. Those are mostly useless, yet interesting, items to know, but I've also learned new grammar things. For instance, you can sit down but you set something down. I can't sit a baby in her crib, I set her in her crib. I can sit on the couch or I can set myself down on a couch. This is news to me.

I have also learned things about myself on this journey. I am not very predictable. I don't like doing the same thing everyday. I like mixing things up. I don't mind reading everyday, but does it have to be at the same time in the same place everyday?

More importantly, I've learned that I haven't dealt with all the pain my undiagnosed dyslexia had caused me in my childhood. I wanted to do good in school and be smart, but struggled with my reading so much it was impossible. Everyone thought I was being lazy and just not doing my school work to reflect my ability. Truth was, I had no idea what was going on most of the time and was just able to "perform" to the teachers liking in class. I see this in my daughter and it scares me. So, I am having to deal with my own pain issues as I teach my daughter that she is smart and I see her trying hard too! I, to this day, hate reading out loud. It's hard to do for a dyslexic. My daughter wants me to read to her all the time and I struggle (even with kids books, I'm afraid) but this too is a lesson for my daughter. She can see that a woman can be successful and still struggle with a reading difference. I think she's not going to struggle as I have. And I pray she never feels the pain of not feeling good enough as she gets older!

I know homeschooling was the right thing to do for my daughter. I have a feeling it'll be good for my son. But now I can see that homeschooling was great for the mother! Praise God I obeyed and brought Katie home for school!

Perseverance

One of the great joys in my life is when my kids actually enjoy conquering a hard task at school.
Today, Eli asked to do school. He asks to do school often, but I am usually so busy with "real" school with Katie that I give him something easy like cutting and pasting or mazes. But today I decided he needed a challenge. I gave him a dot to dot book for five year olds. It was HARD. He cried and fussed, but then when he figured it out and completed the page he did a happy dance and asked to do it again!
Katie has always struggled with writing/reading/grammar. Today we were talking about nouns ("A noun is the name of a person, place, thing or idea."). To solidify the rule I pulled out an old magazine and told her she had 15 minutes to find as many pictures of nouns as she can and paste them on the page. She is giggling and searching. I hear her saying quietly to her self "a noun is the name of a person, place, thing or idea...yep, this is a noun." She is having fun learning and she will REALLY know this definition by the end of the day!
My children are finding school a challenge, but are learning to persevere. I am finding homeschooling and housework and being a mom, wife, friend is a challenge, but I am being encouraged to persevere. It reminds me of the verse found in Hebrews 10:36...You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
We all have something we need to persevere in. What challenge are you facing today? Remember, the Lord promises great blessings if you fight through!

Katie and Eli

One of the great parts of homeschooling is setting our own schedule. Sometimes we have a slow starting morning or a super busy afternoon and we set the schedule accordingly. Well, this is one of those slow mornings. The kids decided to just play while they waited for mom to get her act together. As they were playing they were doing real life math. They were sorting according to size. When they realized there were too many small and not enough big to be fair. Then they sorted by color and realized there were way too many groups to be fair. Next they decided to count. They counted 30 toys (I know, they have way too many toys) and Katie said, "I think that is an even number. Lets take turns taking one and see how many we each get!" So they each took one then another than another. Then Katie said, "lets count and be sure we have the same number." They counted to 15 (well, Eli had to have some help at #12, but she helped him and I stayed still, eavesdropping!). Then Katie says, "Mom, did you know that 15 plus 15 equals 30?" Home-school math at it's best!

As they were playing and learning together I couldn't help but think of John's writing in 1John 4:20-21. He writes:

If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love

God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

There is nothing better than when my kids are enjoying each other. I don't just want them to get along, but I want them to enjoy each other. As they grow, I am treasuring these times in my heart and praying their love for one another never grows dim. Because their love for one another is a direct reflection of their love for and relationship with God!

Spelling With Katie

Katie is writing emails to people. She needs help with spelling often and today was no different. It was a little funny. Here's how it went...

Katie: Mom I need help spelling

Me: OK, what do you want to spell?

Katie: OK

Me: You want to spell OK?

Katie: Yes...OK

Me: O...K...!

Katie: No, really.

Me: Really. It's O...K...

Katie: Can't be.

Me: It is.

Katie: OK...what was that again?

Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I'm gonna blog that...OOOOOO....KKKKKKK!

Katie: Oh...sorry...O (type the letter o) K(type the letter k)...thanks mom. How you you spell we?...wii?

Me: You have got to be kidding me?! I am so blogging this.

And it went on from there!

Gotta love homeschooling!

All the necessities in life!

Katie was told school was done for the day but she couldn't watch a DVD. She got paper and scissors and colored pencils and started working. She made a paper cell phone, ipod, nintendo d.s. and a computer. All the necessities in life! She made copies for her brother. Now they're playing office in my living room. I love her creativity and willingness to include her brother!

Exactly....

I've been asked how homeschooling is going. And really I love it. But I am more exhausted than I have been in a very long time. I was browsing a friend's blog and ran across this post. I think the columnist sums up how I'm feeling perfectly...please read. You may feel the same!

TELL ME ABOUT IT ®

By Carolyn Hax
Wednesday, May 23, 2007; Page C10

Below is a letter to a columnist.

My best friend has a child. She says she's exhausted, busy, has no time for self, no time for me, etc.

I have no kids.

I sympathize, and say wow, sorry. What'd you do today?

She says, Park, play group . . .

Okay. I've done Internet searches, I've talked to parents. I don't get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners . . . I do all those things, too, and I don't do them EVERY DAY. I guess what I'm asking is: What is a typical day and why don't moms have time for a call or e-mail? I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events) and I manage to get it all done. I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy -- not a bad thing at all -- but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth? Is this a peeing contest ("My life is so much harder than yours")? What's the deal? I've got friends with and without kids and all us child-free folks get the same story and have the same questions.

The columnist's reply...

Relax and enjoy. You're funny.

Or you're lying about having friends with kids.

Or you're taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven't personally been in the same room with them.

Internet searches?

I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand, while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom-friends are either lying or competing with you, is disingenuous indeed.

So, since it's validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. In list form. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.

It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.

It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.

It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.

It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything -- language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.

It's also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you to mutual friends, or marvel how much more productively she uses her time. Either make a sincere effort to understand or keep your snit to yourself.

Write to Tell Me About It, Style, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, ortellme@washpost.com.

Matthew 7 : 7 & 8 comes true for the Riggan's

As you know we are planning to homeschool in the fall. One big thing we needed was a homeschool space; a desk, some drawers, a wall for posters and a white board, etc. (Yes I plan to be a homeschooler not an unschooler). These items can be quite expensive. I began looking online at places like IKEA, Target, Office Depot, etc. but didn't find anything I really liked. Besides the desks were over $100. So I prayed. Then God reminded me of Matthew 7 : 7 & 8 which reads "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." I put on the Facebook that I was looking for a desk for Katie that was cheep. I got some sassy comments about being a chick desk (get it "cheep, cheep"). But then someone told me about a website for free stuff from people in the Bay Area called freecycle. My friend looked at the site and found a "student desk, wood in Palo Alto". I went to pick it up Tuesday. Not only was this desk free (great price!) but it is perfect. It's the wood color I love and have all through my house. It has the perfect sized writing area for Katie. It has 4 drawers (3 on the side and 1 at the lap). And it fits in my dining room against the wall so perfectly that you'd think I'd planned it. Moral of the story? Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."