educational methodology

“Young women need to be taught, but not necessarily by other young women. Age brings wisdom and maturity which can only be gained through experience. Young women can be very strong in their opinions about what makes a good homemaker, but they can lack the wisdom and understanding needed to teach with balance. For example, young mothers can be very opinionated about how to feed their babies and can unknowingly (or knowingly) put pressure on newer mothers to feed [a certain way]. The same thing can happen with regard to schooling choices or meal-planning or house-keeping. Young women can be very excited about “their method” and then express their views too dogmatically. Young women, especially young mothers, are very vulnerable to this type of peer pressure, and they can come to think that their spirituality depends upon whether or not they are doing their shopping or their house cleaning the same way so-and-so does.”  -Nancy Wilson, The Fruit of Her Hands

I love this quote for so many reasons, but today I want to use it as a springboard for talking about homeschool/educational philosophy and methodology. If you are a newbie, you may not realize – but will soon discover – there are very strong opinions about educational methods and philosophies. I was an educator before I had children, so I know about some of these philosophies but never did I imagine such emotional freight could be attached until I entered the homeschool community. There are passionate groups representing all kinds of methods: classical, charlotte mason, unit-based, literature based, unschooling…seriously the list goes on.

So, before I tell you what my philosophy of education is, please know that I am not out to persuade anyone, but to inform anyone who is interested. I have bounced between a few methods and found myself picking and choosing what works not just for me as a teacher, but for my real life kids who don’t spend hours a day reading Henty books and drawing in their nature journals.  I am hoping to give you a non-emotional review of various methodology as well as some links to various websites and resources.

I can’t resist making this observation from the quote as well. In choosing to homeschool, be careful in your enthusiasm not to give the impression that this is the best or only legitimate choice for other moms. It bothers me when people say that if someone chooses to put their children in school they are being selfish, taking the easy path, or missing a golden opportunity to invest in their children. Let us find the balance between loving what we are doing and throwing ourselves completely into it, and being charitable and encouraging to others who have chosen a different way to educate their children. We are for one another, right? We want each other’s child(ren) to succeed, so let’s take care to be humble about our choice to homeschool our kiddies and not inadvertently communicate that it is somehow the superior method of education (and now I will step down from my soapbox.)

Next post I will give you my hodge podge of educational methodology. Experienced homeschoolers, could you be thinking about what has worked for you?

Dinner Tonight

Here are the topics covered in dinner conversations tonight:

Pete Rose and his being banned from the Hall of Fame.

Donte Stallworth accidentally killing a man by reckless driving.

Jason explaining international trading systems in soccer. (snooooorrrre…oops, excuse me, I think I dozed off for a second).

Quick drill of post office abbreviations for as many states as we could come up with.

All of the Mallinaks read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, even Benjamin who is about halfway through.

Brothers in our old neighborhood whose mom hadn’t married her boyfriend (who apparently called all of the boys the “A” word) after two years.

Quick teachable moment by dad about our attitude toward unbelievers who can’t help but sin because unlike Christians they don’t have the power of the gospel at work in them.

A few funny parts Maggie remembered  in a Junie B. Jones book.

What we should name future children in the family. Caleb wants us to have twins: Simeon and Jude. (no, this is not an announcement of some sort.)

This was a fairly typical conversation at our dinner table. I love the constant chatter even if 80% has to do with sports. I don’t want to forget these normal moments that represent a very sweet season of parenting.

***

What I still have a hard time believing is that it didn’t include:

Eat two more bites

Sit down

No you may not be excused from the table

Stop touching your brother

Potty break 1, 2, and 3 (and at least one visit requiring my “help”)

Sit down.

That doesn’t count as a bite.

No you did not eat enough to have dessert.

Two more bites.

Okay, it’s time for your bath.

***

And yes, Joshua finally solved the Rubik’s cube. It hasn’t left his side ever since.

Homeschool and Home Management

One of the challenges of homeschooling the kids is how to manage the rest of the household duties and keep some semblance of order in the home. The reason why this is a unique challenge for a homeschool family is three-fold (but there could be other things I’m not thinking of): first, the house is occupied all of the time. We don’t have a chunk of time when our little (and not so little) mess-makers are at school. Second, we have a whole set of educational items that need to be incorporated into the home. It isn’t just a place for back packs and lunch boxes, etc. We have years worth of curricula, text books, teachers guides, boxes of work representing each child’s school year, base ten blocks, scads of paper, pencils, crayons, markers, notebooks, science experiments, history projects of large scale….just lots of school stuff! Third, we are dealing with large amounts of time to keep the kids occupied which means lots of wonderfully creative messes around the house. If school takes 3-5 hours, that still leaves 9-11 hours of time to fill. Even with the heavy dutiest kiddie chore list, you still have lots of hours for them to make messes. And if your kids are like mine, they cycle through various play things making it hard to have them pick up one thing before they get something else out. Inevitably, they want to return to “lego city” later, or show dad their tent, or keep the clay sculpture because they are proud of it. I just thought of a fourth factor that doesn’t affect me in this season but did back in the day…if you have preschoolers underfoot, you may be contending with more mess because while you’re teaching your 2nd grader math, that toddler can wreak havoc on any room of the house. It’s astounding what they can do when we are distracted for even five minutes!!!

I don’t mean to discourage any of you future homeschool gals with regard to keeping an orderly home. I just think it’s important to have reasonable expectations regarding home management. Some of you love order. You love your to-do list, your schedule, your routine. Your bent toward order and structure is going to be wonderfully beneficial to your family. However, if you are in any way hoping to derive peace or control from these tools, you will find yourself and your family very frustrated. Some of you love spontaneity and creativity. You may like spur of the moment field trips, flexible hours, and time with other moms and kids. Your family will benefit from your fun loving approach to the day. However, if you are undisciplined and disorganized you also will find yourself and your family very frustrated. Whichever group you find yourself in (and I have one foot in each group), God will use homeschooling to help you cultivate the strength and overcome the weakness of your particular bent. Okay, that wasn’t very practical – it’s just a heads up. Now on to the practical…

1. Find out your husband’s preference. My husband loves orderliness. I love this about him because it helps me to constantly be growing in my own time management/ home management skills. Because Jason is the kind of guy to like order, when I asked him what he would have “take a hit” so to speak, he chose meal preparation. In the beginning especially, we ate frozen pizza more than I care to say! But my particular husband would rather have me use my time cleaning than cooking elaborate meals, so the meals take the hit before the cleaning does here at the Reyes house. There is a kind of relief when we find out that hey, this isn’t a big deal to my husband so why am I feeling guilty about it?

2.  Food and laundry. When you are in a survival mode – like you have lots of preschoolers, or a new born, or the hubs is working crazy long hours, take your Girl Talkers advice and strip it down to food and laundry. They need to eat. they need to have clothing. Repeat to yourself often, “it’s only a season!”

3. Organize the bones of the home. I have found that if the bones of my home are organized, it’s a lot easier to keep the house in order from day to day. You may want to spend time working on organizing toys, cleaning products, kitchen cabinets (consider putting dishes low enough for the kids to put them away), homeschool area(s), bedroom closets/drawers, etc. If the mention of this makes your chest feel tight – just go back to suggestion #2. If you think you could find a bit of time to do some nitty gritty organization, it will be well worth the effort.

4. The kids do get old enough to help and it can happen earlier than you might think. I can hold out hope that your kids being home all day means extra hands to vacuum, dust, empty trash, fold and put away laundry, unload the dishwasher, and pick up the messes.

I have a few posts on organization,  housework, menu planning ideas, etc.  here, here, here, here, and here.

How do you manage your home and your homeschool?

He Said She Said – The Empty Life: Work

I started a feature on this blog a long time ago that went the way of all of my other “features”…lost in the sea of good intentions. However, I will take the liberty to resurrect this feature, even if it’s for one post because I think the handsomest preacher (yes, my husband) did a great job on Sunday and there is a lot for me to apply as a woman. Let me re-introduce you to He Said/ She Said just in case you are new here or forgot because it’s been a while. He Said/ She Said is my attempt to take what Jason (or another pastor preached – said) and respond to it from a woman’s perspective.

You can listen to the sermon here, but I will attempt a quick summary. The preacher in Ecclesiastes is on a quest to discover the meaning of life. This week we learned about his passionate pursuit of “work”. Not only did the preacher give himself thoroughly to hard work, he was extremely successful in his work. And yet he comes to the sad conclusion that all that he has worked for will go into the hands of another when he dies. He sees this as tragic. All of his hard work was in vain, empty, futile.

Yeah, not your feel good kind of passage of scripture. But Ecclesiastes prepares us for the coming of a Savior whose work on our behalf through His perfect life, substitutionary death, and resurrection makes it possible for believers to enjoy working hard for His glory – which is what we were created to do. So how does this apply to me as a woman? My primary point of application was in considering the origin of work in scripture.

Jason briefly reviewed Genesis chapter 2 where we see that God assigned work to Adam. This was not a result of the fall. Adam couldn’t do the work by himself. He needed a helper. Enter Eve. Her design to be Adam’s helper in his work was not a result of the fall either. So when I consider how to apply this teaching on pursuing God glorifying work I can’t, as a woman, separate it from my role to be a helper. I am married so I need to think of my work in terms of helping Jason in his work. If I were single, I would still need to see how my design as helper relates to whatever work I am called to do .

So I had to ask myself, “how am I doing with being Jason’s helper for the work God has called him to do?”  A few questions of application come to mind:

1. Is my day oriented around myself and what I think needs to get done?  Or am I being intentional about what would truly be helpful to my husband?

2. Have I reversed this God-given work and viewed Jason as my helper particularly when it comes to parenting?

3. Have I resented  my husband’s work? Succumbed to complaining about his work? Been ungrateful for the work God has provided?

4. How can I encourage my husband in his work? How can I express gratitude to God and to Jason for working hard?

5. If my husband is unemployed, how can I encourage him and help him as he looks for work?

6. If I am a single woman, how can I be helpful to others in my work?

A secondary point of application that I think relates to us as women is this idea that even the most mundane task can have significance and eternal value because it brings glory to God. Think about this: because of the gospel, we no longer live for ourselves craving our husband’s position (remember that part of the curse, “her desire shall be for her husband…”). Jesus has redeemed us and now we are able to live a life of service that displays the amazing power of the gospel at work in our lives. So whether it is doing laundry, reading a book to a little one, running the kids to piano lessons, soccer, or boy scouts, our work has significance!

A third and final point of application I thought of for us ladies is this: God sees all of the work you are doing. Our husbands may not see. Our kids may not understand. But God sees every single work you did today, and even if it wasn’t perfectly executed, He takes pleasure in it because of His Son whose work has been imputed to you, just as if you had done it yourself. Amazing! Absolutely amazing!

Every Homeschool Mom Needs This

Humility.

God may choose to use homeschooling as a wonderful means for showcasing your gifts and strengths for His glory. But in my case, God is using homeschooling – parenting in general – to showcase my weakness, not my strength. Don’t be surprised if you find this to be true. Turn to Him. He is ready to give grace to the humble. He delights in giving strength to the weak.

An Ordinary Homeschool Day in Pictures

Ahhhh, a picture is worth a thousand words. I’ll spare you hundreds of them and just give a few observations:

1.  My unfolded laundry is on the dining room table, but I still feel happy because it is clean.

2. Lebron James had an influence on our school day today. Jason went to the Cavs game yesterday and brought this poster home. It has inspired a lot of basement basketball in between subjects. I’m calling that physical education for today.

3. There is an empty granola bar wrapper next to Caleb. He isn’t supposed to eat snacks in the dining room (maybe I need to rethink that rule – I just realized that it is a dining room). Homeschooling makes us all have the munchies.

4.  There is still a stack of folding chairs against my living room wall from a meeting last Wednesday night. Didn’t notice it until I took this picture.

5.  Caleb can’t help but grin when I’m taking even so-called candid shots. He is doing History, by the way.

6. You may see the pencil sharpener on the piano….that is an essential for a homeschool situation – invest in a decent pencil sharpener!!!

Maggie is learning cursive this year. She’s in 3rd grade. (I think traditionally it’s taught in 2nd.) She loves this curriculum and worked hard on her verse picture.

My son Joshua was obsessed with solving the Rubik’s cube today. This child is determined to solve the puzzle. It sat next to him all day, even at lunch.

Caleb took this picture of us. I love the fact that Israel still likes me to snuggle next to him and take turns reading his history book with him. And Betsey is always my little shadow! (and I’m always freezing in my house, hence the scarf and jacket). (and yes, that is homeschool mom hair-do for sure.)

Successful Homeschooling

Before I begin, I want to re-iterate that I am not trying to persuade anyone to homeschool their kiddies. I am just trying to help some of my friends who are seriously considering this venue of education. Enough bridge building, here goes my waxing eloquent on the topic of successful homeschooling.

I remember when we were making the decision about whether or not to bring our kids home, I had a ton of concerns and questions. A very small sampling would be:

1. Would my boys grow up tied to their mother’s apron strings?

2. Is this just another venue for me to sin against my kids?

3. Is it fair to put my kids in the pressure cooker of being together 24 hours a day and expect them to get along?

4. Will I ruin them academically? I can’t even remember certain math facts!

5. Will I ruin them spiritually? I will be their primary influence day in and day out….yikes!

6. Given my tendencies toward guilt and condemnation with regard to parenting, do I really need another thing to “fail” in?

And in that little four letter word, FAIL, I find the theme of so many of those questions. What if I fail? It’s scary. It’s not my life we’re talking about here. It’s their lives. The responsibility is great indeed. So as I was getting counsel and asking these questions to my friends who homeschooled, one wise counselor said something that has been helpful on the most beautiful and the most ugly of homsechool days.

This person said that maybe I needed to re-define success. Success isn’t always happy children eager to learn from their competent, creative mother. It isn’t a lack of quarrels, complaining, and chaos. The ultimate measure of success is that at the end of the day a mom and her children grew in their love and gratitude for the Savior.  And for some reason, that piece of advice – almost more than all of the others – has comforted me on my hardest days, and directed me on my best days.

What is one piece of advice you received that has been helpful to you veteran homeschool moms? Would you mind sharing any bit of wisdom that has reverberated in your heart over the years? Either comment in my box or tell me you posted so I might link to you.

Another, not so ordinary, homeschool mom writes

My friend, Zoanna, over at Penchant for Pens, wrote a post – the first of hopefully many – about homeschooling. Zoanna has something I don’t have…fruit of her labors. Her adult children are excellent students, thriving in college, and serving the Lord. Read about her re-entry into homeschool here.

If any of my experienced home school mom readers would be willing to post something on this topic, please do. Let me know and I’ll keep throwing the links out to my newbie homeschool friend readers!

Homeschooling for Ordinary Mothers

Many of my friends who sent their kiddies to the church school in MD are now considering the option of homeschooling because, sadly, due to economic difficulty, the church school is closing after this year. I want to make sure that anyone reading this understands that though I homeschool my kids, I do not think homeschooling is the only option for Christian families. It’s a good fit for my family, but it isn’t for everyone. So this is in no way meant to persuade anyone to attempt homeschooling.

My reason for writing a series on homeschooling is simply to help others who are just starting, and maybe get a conversation going in the comment box so that newbies aren’t intimidated by what’s out there. It’s kind of like when you first get pregnant and everywhere you go you are getting advice and information from tons of voices. This is helpful, but can be overwhelming, and really until you have the experience yourself, you really don’t know what was truly useful counsel. I want to be helpful, but please know that I am average at best. My kids are average at best. And there are way better resources out there to help you.

I want to begin by telling you some of the benefits of homeschooling (again, this isn’t to persuade – I’m sure I could make an equal list of benefits of traditional day school), it’s just to help inspire you that it isn’t all hard work and sanctification. These are random, not in order of importance.

1.  I don’t think I will  look back on my life and wish I had spent more time with my kids.

2. We can vacation anytime throughout the year.

3. Life feels more unified because I am pretty much confined to my domain (home).

4. I am learning way more as a teacher than I did as a student.

5. My children are experiencing every aspect of life together which I can’t help but believe will be incredibly bonding over the long haul.

6. Homeschool uniform really can be pajamas .

7. You can work your school times around your family dynamic. If dad works late, the kids can stay up late to see him but then sleep in in the morning. If you are an early bird, you can start school early and be finished

8. It is deeply gratifying to see your child grasp any new concept (think about how it was when they took their first steps, said their first words, etc. – it’s like that but potentially on a daily basis – very cool).

9. It is humbling. This is a huge benefit, albeit painful.

10.  Snuggling up on the sofa reading Farmer Boy while Maggie cuddles next to me and the boys play with legos….and calling it school. Love that!

Okay other homeschool mamas…what do you love about homeschooling? And if you are getting ready to homeschool, what benefits could you imagine?

Wonder Working Power

I have been listening to this series from Covenant Life Church while I treadmill. Ordinarily, I would workout to music, but I’ve really been wanting to listen to the series based on the book by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington entitled Bookends of the Christian Life that profoundly impacted my life back in the beginnings of our homeschool year. The sermon series is having a similar affect.

All of the teachings have been outstanding, but I wanted to throw out the link to one message in particular by Joshua Harris that I think will really help other ordinary mothers out there. It’s about God’s part and our part in the work God has called us to as believers. A few things I really like about this teaching are Josh Harris’s use of the Old Testament to illustrate how the power of God results in working hard, his de-mystification of what it looks like to experience the “power of the Holy Spirit” in everyday life, and his application section at the end of the teaching.

I know your house is probably as noisy as mine, making it difficult to listen to sermon, but this one is definitely worth the attempt!