Christmas Traditions

I haven't blogged in a while and I really have no excuse other than that, well, Christmas happened.  We have three birthdays and Thanksgiving and Christmas within two months of each other, so this time of year is always a blur of cake and gift-wrapping and cleaning so that the next round of cake- and gift-demolition can begin.

The birthdays are hectic, but Christmas - Christmas is hard.  There's such a cacaphanous clash of traditions secular and sacred, of everyone being sure they know what is right for your child, of buying and worrying about the perfection of the pies and the tree and the lights.  And amid all that, we're starting to figure out how we want our Christmas to look.

We've had a difficult time with Santa Claus.  I'm a grinch - Santa and his elves and his reindeer are a lie that we tell children, and I'm not cool with lying to my kids.  "But it's fun," I've been told, or "it's magical" - well, plenty of lies can be fun, but that doesn't make them right, and I can't think of anything more magical than the birth of Christ.  Is the reality of Christmas somehow not enough on it's own?  And if I spend years weaving an elaborate lie for my children around a mythical fat man, I'm undermining my credibility with things that I really do need to present to them as truth.  If Santa is a fun fiction - then is cute baby Jesus just a story, too?

Super-Smart Hunky Husband (SSHH) wants to participate in the Santa cultural tradition, though, and so we've tried to find a good way of approaching Jolly Old St. Nick.  And while the obvious way would be through St. Nicholas, he doesn't bear much resemblance to the American icon in red, so we've found a different path.

We go to Mass first thing on Christmas morning - while there's always a veritable mountain of presents to be opened, they can wait until after we've celebrated in prayer.  And you know what?  The kids have never once raced out of church or asked to go home to open presents.  In fact, they usually want to stay after Mass to look at the nativity scene and the poinsettias - this year I had to remind them that it was time to leave and go see what there was under the tree.

And what is under the tree is a celebration of Christ's birthday - torn into with messy shouted exuberance.  If on an ordinary birthday one person gets presents, Jesus' birthday is so special that the only way to celebrate it is for everyone to get presents!  And Santa comes, bringing a gift to add to the collection, and leaves a note wishing us a happy birthday celebration.  We try to make sure that Santa is part of the observance of the birth of Christ, and not in competition with it.  It's a hard line to walk - especially when stores and TV are flooded with Santa-this and Santa-that, and when it seems like everyone we meet wants to know what the kids want from Santa or what Santa brought them.

We also amuse the grocery store bakers by ordering a big sheet cake with "Happy birthday Jesus!" written on it - and we sing happy birthday before we eat it, too.  The whole day is a party, with decorations and songs and gifts and food.  And through it all is woven the idea that it's not a party for us, but a party for Christ, and one so big that one church, one family, one house can't contain it.

Our family Christmas traditions are still a work in progress, but we're figuring it out.  There's plenty of fun, and plenty of magic, too.  So if anyone is reading - please share how your families approach Christmas.  We'd love to borrow ideas!

Ba Rum Pum Pum Pum

I have a confession to make.  I didn't go to Confession for a long, long time.  On the order of years.  I couldn't make it feel important, I couldn't seem to make it feel not-awkward, I just didn't want to.  I knew it was important, and serious, and a deep awesome good thing, but that was in my head - in my heart, I wasn't there yet.

And I should have gone anyway, because not understanding something to do with God is no excuse for running away from God, but that's easier said than done, and when kids are screaming and groceries are to be bought and toilets scrubbed and floors vacuumed, going to Confession - when you don't really know why you're going in the first place - moves to the bottom of the list.

But I've learned that when God wants me, he'll find me.  And slowly, I found myself wondering if maybe I shouldn't go and just do it, try it again.  Then I found myself wanting to go.  Then I did.  And again.  And again.  Regularly.  And there was God, patiently waiting for me to stop my bustling and tantrum-throwing and just come back.  It's not much of a strategy, just waiting for God to find me - I should probably do more looking and less sitting around - but there is something to be said for simply being open to having my mind and heart changed.  I find myself in that place more and more, simply saying "God, I'm here to learn - I'm listening - teach me."  And He does.  I was - unknown to myself - in that place when I went to Mass eleven years ago and found Him there.  I was in that place walking out of my first appointment with the obstetrician, pregnant with Sprout, and He showed me the depth of what it is to be pro-life.  I was in that place when SweetPea was born, and I realized that I had become open to His gift of life - whenever and however it came.  And I was in that place when I headed back to Confession.

It's really pretty embarrassing, actually.  I've been spending all this time and energy feeling very self-important and caught up in my own plans and agendas and thinking I've got things figured out, and God comes along and makes me feel like a child.  And I've been thinking about that, too.  Momastery talked about the popular carol The Little Drummer Boy recently, and she got me thinking about that child.  We tend to angelicize him, a sweet little cherub making beautiful music for the Christ child.  But if my experience with young children is any indicator, the Drummer Boy probably looked - and sounded - more like these two:

It's unlikely that he was a solemn, gifted musician.  He probably dressed a bit on the ridiculous side, as kids do.  And his joyful music just might have been loud, out-of-tune banging.  The most fantastic song my girls could come up with was shouting "I'm a wittle pwincess, WA WA WA WA WA!" at the top of their lungs, shaking a tambourine erratically and pounding on a cardboard box.  Is that what the Drummer Boy sounded like?  Was he just a kid, making happy loud kid-noise for Christ?

And if he was, then there's a lot to learn there.  The Drummer Boy asks to play, and Mary nods - letting him come to Christ, just as he is.  No circumstance, no rules.  And when he makes his joyful crazy noise, Jesus smiles.  It's all He wants, for us to come to Him, just as we are, even when we're too loud, too unschooled, too out of tune.

When SweetPea presents me with a note, filled with misspelled words and some backwards letters, I am filled with love for her and see her kind heart in her childish note.  When Sprout plays at saying Mass and intones "For the most high and resurrected merciful body and blood of the wonderful feast of the Annunciation, Keeri-yay Ee-lay-zone!" I see the prayer in the jumbled words.  When SweetPotato plays with Doodle and smothers her with so many messy kisses that her baby sister starts to cry, I see the love in what she does.  And I love them so much I feel like I might crack open, despite and because of all the crazy ways they express the beauty of themselves.

Why couldn't God love us the same way?  The most earnest of my attempts at prayer and worship must look to him like SweetPotato banging on a cardboard box yelling "WA WA WA WA WA!!!"  But He loves it, He rejoices in it, and He wants me to keep doing it.  The absolute worst thing I could do would be to feel ashamed of my own pitiful attempts and turn away or shut down.  Christ on the cross didn't call out "Father" or "Almighty God" - He cried "Abba."  Daddy.  That's a model for us. We're supposed to turn to God like an awesome daddy, with all of our foolishness and childishness and craziness.

And maybe that's what I finally got that made Confession feel important.  It's not about following the "rules" or being "clean."  It's about showing God all the weird unsophisticated rough-hewn parts of myself and doing it purposefully and without shame, like SweetPotato dancing naked in the living room to an invisible band, not caring who sees her  and wanting everyone to see her.  Her joy in herself, fearfully and wonderfully made, is her gift.  If you hold that part of you back, then you're not seeing God as Abba, you're seeing Him as the Rule Maker.  The Drummer Boy got it.  Mary got it.  Maybe I'm finally starting to get it (hey, I never claimed to be bright).

And the point of this intolerably long epistle is that I want my kids to get it, too.  Last year in Catholic school Sprout was sent home with a letter he'd written, apologizing for poor behavior at Mass.  We were shocked - the kid never misbehaves at Mass.  And his transgression was - he put his head in his hands.  That's not disrespectful, that's how he prays.  And while it's surely difficult to shepherd 30 seven-year olds through Mass, the emphasis on the rules ("one prays with their hands folded") at the expense of the relationship was troubling.  I don't want that.  I want them to know Abba, I want them to dance their beautiful crazy dances and sing their beautiful tuneless songs and love in their wild abandoned way and I want them to know that that's what God loves about them - that if they open themselves to Him, He'll open Himself right back.  The rules will come.  But the love is a gift.  Teaching the kids at home has allowed us to continually foster that love and joy, to point out God not just in church but in the way they care for each other and in the simple prayers they make up and songs they sing and in the beauty of their own strong little bodies as we hike through the woods and in the spider outside the door.  It's the biggest gift we can give to them.  I'm glad we decided to give it.

On Finding Time

When people learn that we homeschool, they react in one of two ways.  First, they say "Oh, that's great!  I've always wanted to homeschool/wished I could try that/been interested in homeschooling."  Then, they follow up with either, "But I don't have the time for that," or, "But I'd never have enough patience."

Well, lemme tell you something - neither do we.

Patience, like most other things, is a virtue.  We are about the most un-virtuous people you ever met, but the great thing is - patience can be learned and cultivated.  One of the most common requests in our morning before-school prayers is that we be patient with each other.  It's not uncommon for one of us to walk away from a particularly frustrating moment - Sprout arguing over his spelling work, or SweetPea mispronouncing the same word for the eighteenth time (and she knew it yesterday) - and come back in a minute or two with temper firmly in check and a fresh helping of compassion.  I don't think anyone is born naturally patient, but homeschooling will force you to learn, quick.

As for time?  Well, SSHH is a stay-at-home-father, but with four wee ones to chase after and a busy volunteering schedule, there is precious little time for hitting the books.  I am fortunate enough to have a job with somewhat flexible hours and to work from home most of the time, so more often than not the kids and I are all sitting around the dining room table during the day, each of us concentrating on their own work.  I love being available to answer math questions and share a giggle over a funny line in a book.  What time this takes away from my job, I'm able to make up once the kids are in bed.

Neither one of us can spend all day with school, though, and so Sprout has a very detailed checklist made for him each day that lists exactly what he needs to do for each subject.  With some oversight to keep him focused, he's then able to get through much of the school day on his own - although we're always available for questions.  The plans take a ton of time to make up, but we wouldn't be able to find the time during the day to direct Sprout through all his schoolwork, in between baby-feedings and work conference calls.  And really, he shouldn't need us to say, "And now go get your grammar book.  And open it to page 79.  And read the next three pages.  And then do this worksheet."  As long as he has someone there for questions about the material, following directions and working independently and managing his time are important skills to learn.  So we are there, floating around and taking care of life and ready should Sprout need us during the day, and I do lesson plans, grading, and organization when everyone's tucked in for the night.  I confess that most evenings I groan inwardly when everyone's finally quiet in their beds and I still need to get school  ready for the next day and finish up my own work, but it's a very small price to pay for the sort of flexibility we enjoy.

As fortunate as we are to have a situation that is conducive to homeschooling, I really believe that anyone can make it work - the key is just to find an arrangement that works for you.  I know homeschooling families where both parents work full-time - playtime and self-explanatory work can happen during the day with a caregiver, while the more hands-on school goes on in the evenings.  For that matter, there's no rule that says school has to happen Monday through Friday - some families use the weekend, when parents are home, for school, and have the free days during the week.

The ways to work it out are as varied as the families who homeschool.  And while homeschooling isn't the right choice for every family, not having patience or not having time should never be a reason not to give it a try.

An encounter with my son.

I was getting Doodle ready for bed this week, changing her diaper and putting on her jammies, and was chatting with Sprout while I worked.  The kids all love to have "conversations" with Doodle, where they talk to her and I answer back for her in a teeny squeaky voice.  We were expecting a visit the next day from a family with a new baby, so the conversation went like this:

Doodle:  "Sprout, I am so excited for the baby to come visit tomorrow!  Then I won't be the smallest one here."
Sprout: "Aw, don't worry, Doodle.  You're still a really cool person even though you're small.  It doesn't matter how big you are."
Doodle:  "Was I a cool person even when I was in mommy's tummy?"
Sprout: "Of course you were!"
Doodle: "Even when I was so teeny-weeny you couldn't even see me?"
Sprout: "Yep.  You're a cool person no matter how new or small you are!"

I started to push him a bit, and teeny squeaky Doodle-voice asked: "How do you know that?"
Sprout: "I don't know.  I just do."
Doodle: "Well, how could I be cool and important and a person when I was so tiny you couldn't see me?"
Sprout, thinking for a moment: "Well, because God makes us all like Him.  And so we're all cool and important, 'cause God made us.  Even when we're tiny and new, we're made like God and we're people - God wouldn't start us out as some other thing and then change us all at once into being like Him; that's just weird and He doesn't work like that.  So we're always people, and we're always important, right from the very beginning, even if we're tiny or don't look very much like a person yet.  How you look doesn't matter - what matters is that God made you.  So see, Doodle? You were always cool!"

I was floored.  We've never talked about this, and he certainly doesn't know that the lives of unborn children are a political, social, and ethical minefield.  But he got it, all on his own.  It is such a privilege to see into his mind sometimes, and I marvel at his ability to pray and hear God.  That kid is going places.

Giving Thanks

I am thankful for Super-Smart Hunky Husband (SSHH).  He loves his children, loves God, and is the strongest person I know.  He's done incredible things for his family.  I have learned so much from him, and he still makes me laugh and smile every single day.  Every challenge we've faced has been another opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to each other.  He is a gift and a blessing to me.

I am thankful for Sprout.  He's bright, funny, and is so full of joy and love.  He understands God and life in ways that leave me speechless.  He's one of the kindest people I know, and truly has a heart of service.

I am thankful for SweetPea.  She is always the first to want to help others.  She notices everything, and points out all the little wonders that I'd never noticed.  She has an insatiable curiosity and stumps me regularly with her questions.

I am thankful for SweetPotato.  She is so strong and independent.  She loves fiercely, and is quick to get angry when someone has been unfair to her brother or sisters.  She gives out 9647 kisses a day.

I am thankful for Doodle.  Even at 3am, she always greets me with a smile.  She is truly the most joyful child I've ever known.  She has been a blessing for all of us.

I am thankful for the job that puts food on our table and a roof over our heads and still allows me to spend most days home with my family.  I am thankful that it is a job of public service, letting me be of use in the world in a small way.  I am thankful for our wonderful church community, filled with faithful, joyful people.  I am thankful for our local homeschoolers, who are so kind and helpful and affirming in the path we're taking this year.  I'm thankful for our friends, amazing people, all of them, who show us how to live better in ways large and small.

I can't imagine ever having more.

Social Maturity

The stereotype of the homeschooled child is an awkward, stumbling, poorly-dressed nerd.  I'm not going to address that here, except to say that research and experience have proven that to be far from the truth; homeschooled kids inhabit every corner of the social spectrum, as do traditionally educated children.  Everyone knows of an awkward kid in their high school class - but no one thinks "OMG!!! He's awkward because he goes to SCHOOL!"  Why do we assume the reverse is true?

If anything, homeschooling parents are very intentional about their children's social experiences.  They look for positive, nurturing friendships and seek to foster a strong sense of community in their children.  They get their children out and about in all sorts of environments - not just with a flock of same-aged peers.  That often produces kids who are socially awkward as children precisely because they are socially mature.

Sprout is an active Cub Scout and loves it.  As often as not, however, we leave meetings with him shaking his head a bit - "Mom, you know when Billy and Joey were crawling on the floor like worms?  It was really rude to do that while Mr. Jones was talking.  It was really fun to be worms in the dirt when we went outside to play, though!"  He can get messy and crazy and loud with the best of them, but he's very aware that there's a time and a place for that - and he limits his crazies to when it's appropriate.

While searching for books for Sprout for Christmas, I thought about the popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.  They had some juvenile humor, from what I'd heard, but lots of Sprout's Catholic school-friends read them and they seemed pretty harmless.  I found one at the library book sale for a buck and picked it up to read.

And it was awful.  Not just in a potty-humor way, but in an encouraging-nastiness way.  The hero shows how awesome it is to torment your sister, throw spitballs at kids you don't like, and be apathetic about nearly everything.  And that isn't my kid - and I don't want my kid thinking that's normal.  Sprout loves his sisters, gets excited about learning, is openly friendly to everyone, and loves to talk about God and church.  That might make him socially different, not having the too-cool-for-that mien of some of his friends.  But you know what?  That's okay.  That's even good.  When meanness becomes a sign of maturity, I'll take a little longer childhood.

How on Earth is this a bad thing?

House of Mercy

Well, we survived Halloween.  It's not one of my favorite days.  We don't do "character" stuff - not on the kids' clothes, not their toys, not their Halloween costumes, and it's crazy hard to find costumes that aren't Disney Princess or Spiderman or Skylanders or what have you.  The massive, rude candy-grab annoys me - seriously, the kids who get obnoxious because you only gave them three candy bars instead of ten! - and it's just an entirely manufactured and sort of weird day.

Be that as it may, we always get the kids decked out and go trick-or-treating.  This year, though, we decided that we wanted to do something to make the event a bit less self-centered, and the website of House of Mercy, a local food pantry and assistance organization, suggested "trick-or-treating for Mercy" - collecting food items while going door-to-door on Halloween.  I pitched the idea to Sprout and he was on board, so the weekend before Halloween we distributed fliers around the neighborhood explaining what House of Mercy was and that if they wanted to donate food, we'd collect it Halloween night and bring it in the next day.

And our neighbors rocked it.  The kids went trick-or-treating, towing their little red wagon behind them, filling it up with food as we trundled around the block.  At the end of the evening, the wagon was nearly full (and their candy baskets, too!), and so were our hearts.  One man, who had forgotten the food when we came to his door, even came driving up looking for us at the end of the night so he could give us his bag of canned goods.

Then today we loaded up the car and set out for House of Mercy.  I'd read about it, but we'd never been - what an amazing, blessed place!  Every volunteer we encountered was open and welcoming and grateful for the food and genuinely joyful to be there.  They took the time to talk with the kids about the work they do.  They thanked Sprout effusively when he gave several dollars of his allowance.

They also invited us to look around their facility, which is much more than a food pantry.  There's a thrift store, computer lab, and small chapel.  They serve hundreds of client families each month, giving them not just food and clothing, but baby supplies, toys for their children, and classes in English, money management, writing, and employment skills.  There's Mass in their chapel, a replica of the grotto at Lourdes.  They also take their ministry beyond their walls, teaming up with groups in Washington, DC and around the world.

What was most striking, however, was the quiet dignity of their mission.  I've seen assistance organizations that, in their quest to serve many, feel more like a feedlot than a place for human beings.  House of Mercy is not fancy, but they take great pains to care for the dignity of their clients.  The pantry and thrift store were immaculately clean, and felt more like shopping at JC Penney than a secondhand shop.  There was quiet religious music playing in the background.  All were welcome to stop and pray in the chapel, whether they were there to shop or donate or receive material assistance.

House of Mercy, when they go out to work with the homeless, has made foot washing a part of their ministry.  That, I think, encapsulates their vocation.  They serve their fellow men as Christ would have them do it, always with respect and care for the dignity of each human person.  They realize that poverty afflicts the soul as much as it does the body, and so in their work they take constant care to say in so many small ways, "You have worth.  You have dignity.  You have potential."  They treat everyone who walks through their doors as one who is made in the image and likeness of God, from recognizing the act of a small boy who gave his carefully saved four dollars and fifty cents to appreciating how much effort it took for four small children to collect their bags of food to helping an unemployed pregnant mother choose new clothes for her toddler to teaching English to a new immigrant.  Their mission is to show God's mercy to the weak, but even as we came with bags of food, we left having received much more grace than we had given.

Finding Renewal at Costco

And no, this does not mean that I got a giant tub of face cream for an absurdly cheap price.  Although I could have.

This blog started out as a way to just keep our extended families updated on school happenings.  But the further we get into homeschooling, the more I realize it's not just a way of educating children, it's part of a philosophy of life.  When you homeschool, you're making a commitment to recognizing your children as individual, interesting people worthy of conversation and respect and time.  You're committing to viewing your children as a gift, and extending your immersion in their lives instead of "getting your life back" as they grow up.  It's a validation of the culture of life which is, though not uniquely, still particularly Catholic.

Most people identify being Catholic and pro-life as praying for leetle unborn babies.  Actually, it's redundant to say Catholic and pro-life - if you're not pro-life, then you're not living some of the most basic tenets of the Catholic Church, and sorry, but you ain't Catholic.  And while being pro-life certainly includes, often front-and-center, those leetle unborn babies, it's an awful lot more than that.  It's the fundamental belief that each and every human life is inherently valuable and has been given its value and dignity by God.

That means that the serial killer's life is just as valuable as Blessed Mother Theresa's.  That the child with Down Syndrome and Cerebral Palsy has as much worth and dignity as the Harvard-educated prodigy.  And yes, that the life of the child in utero or the elderly person in the final stages of life is worthy of as much respect as yours or mine.

What the media says this means is that Catholics don't like abortion and the Pill.  What it really means is so much larger than that - it means that to be called to co-create life with God through parenthood is an awe-inspiring gift.  It means that every aspect of creating that life is to be treated with reverence.  Contrary to popular opinion, Catholics don't think that sex is bad.  In fact, they think that it is so amazingly good that its awesomeness shouldn't be tampered with - and that means that as a Catholic you don't mess with the creative nature of sex, that it's wrong to try to change the natural outcome of the act.

Being pro-life means that children are valued.  They deserve to have a committed pair of parents, and so you don't bring children into the world outside of marriage.  You treat them as the persons with dignity that they are, which is actually quite counter-cultural these days.  Children don't need to be feted with petting-zoo birthday parties and expensive vacations.  They don't need a regimen of after-school activities and sports designed to create "excellence," whatever that is.  What they need is to be loved simply as children, and to know and be shown that their value comes from who they are and even, simply, that they are, created in the image of God, and not what they do or what they have.  Some of those things can be fun for kids, but they are in no way integral to a good childhood, as society would have one believe.

Valuing life means that you treat each life as an individual.  This is where homeschooling fits so well into a culture of life.  In educating their children at home, parents are giving them the fullest opportunity to develop as individual human persons.  You can recognize their strengths and help with their weaknesses.  This necessitates respect for these pint-sized people - and that requires a certain approach to forming and parenting little souls.  I'm not normally given to reading natural-birthing or feminist or atheist blogs, but I agree with much of this and love this discussion of spanking.  Valuing life means meeting each life where it's at, right now, and holding it, nurturing it.  Smacking its backside doesn't fit into a philosophy of respect and value.

And valuing life in all ways is joyful.  I'm nowhere near there yet and routinely lose my cool at the kids for doing perfectly normal kid stuff.  And its easy to let exhaustion and the to-do list obscure the joy of a family that is open to life.  I'd bet a poll would show that most people expect a mom of many to look frazzled, frumpy, and maybe show up at the store wearing mismatched slippers and with spit-up on her shirt.  That doesn't look joyful, it looks like drudgery.  And that makes openness to life look like a chore, an imposition.  I read about a mom-of-eight who makes a conscious effort to look pulled together when she is out with her kids for this very reason.  Sitting at home or heading out alone?  The bag lady look is perfectly acceptable.  But when she's publicly in her role as a mom-of-many, she wants to project the joy of that vocation.

I liked the idea.  So I tried it.  I'm a pretty low-maintenance type by nature, so "put together" is more of a state of mind than a look.  Going out with kids?  Swap sweats and hoodie for jeans and a sweater, sneakers for flats.  Take a breath, and show the world that although you are scattered and exhausted, the lives you are creating are a joy.  The culture of life is joyful, it cherishes and finds dignity and happiness in all life.  Because creating life, several times over, doesn't mean that a parent's "life is over."  It's just starting.  And while I don't like poopy diapers or screaming tantrums any more than the next person, there is a dignity in caring for these tiny fledgling lives, messes and all.  Life is not sterile or orderly or scheduled or planned or photogenic.  But it is beautiful, and there is a deep, radiant contentment in giving oneself to being deeply pro-life in all of its meanings.  And in trying to reflect a bit of that joy with my kids at Costco, I found that I actually became more joyful in my vocation.  Cool.

Trick-or-Treating for Mercy

One of the things we wanted to accomplish while homeschooling the kids was instilling an ethic of service as part of life, in ways big and small.  We try to bring it up throughout the day when opportunities present themselves - "Sweet Potato, please help clean up after breakfast so Sprout can do his math work!" - but it's hard to find larger ways of making service relevant to very young children.

For all the havoc it's wreaked on our lives, the government shutdown has provided just such an avenue.  Sprout had asked how Federal-employee families who didn't have savings were managing during the shutdown, and we talked about food banks and ways of getting by.  He wanted to do something to help, and so after a little brainstorming and a little web-searching, we decided to go "trick-or-treating for Mercy."

The House of Mercy is a local Catholic relief organization offering food, clothing, shelter, and education to those in need.  Over the next week, Sprout will be helping to make and distribute flyers around our neighborhood explaining our project.  Then on Halloween, while out trick-or treating, our three little princesses, knight, and their dog will collect canned goods that we'll bring to the House of Mercy the next day.

The kids will get to do some hands-on service.  They'll learn that serving involves sacrifice, even if just in a small way - while we'll make sure that they have more candy than they can possibly stuff themselves with, it'll be just a bit hard when someone hands them a can of soup rather than a bag of Skittles.  And they'll help out with a very real problem.

And, perhaps most importantly, it involves humiliating the dog - and that's what Halloween is all about.

Sam and Susie Spider

We have two tiny subjects for our homeschool science investigations this week.  A black-and-yellow garden spider took up residence near the front door, and a couple days later her mate joined her in the bushes by the porch.  The kids have dubbed them Sam and Susie Spider.  Susie is big and colorful; Sam is drab and considerably smaller.

Now, I'm a definite arachnophobe and so is Super-Smart Hunky Husband (SSHH), but we're determined not to pass this on to the kids, and so in the name of science, we've gotten up close and personal with Sam and Susie.  And you know what?  They've got great little spider personalities.  Susie is a fastidious housekeeper, and keeps a neat, organized web.  She carefully repairs it each night and every morning there's a new row of neat Z-s across the middle.  A heavy rain tore down her web this morning, but by lunch she'd built a little temporary one near the same spot, still perfectly made.  We watched her trap and eat a grasshopper and she was very careful to keep the mess to a minimum.  Susie spends her days hanging serenely upside-down from her web by the door, and she doesn't move at all as the kids get close and peer at her.

Sam, on the other hand, has a dive of a bachelor pad.  His web, a few feet from Susie's, is a helter-skelter mess of silken threads.  He sits on top of whichever one is convenient at the moment, and if you come near, he skitters along the thread as fast as his spider legs can carry him, heading for the safety of the bushes.  We've never seen him trap anything and I don't even think he could in his dysfunctional mess of a house.  I suspect Susie makes his meals.  We're anxiously waiting to see if eggs and little spider babies will be forthcoming, as apparently garden spider romance is at its peak in the fall.

The kids are learning to quietly observe and to respect even the littlest of God's creatures.  Sprout is doing internet research on spiders and learning about Sam and Susie.  They're writing fanciful stories about the spiders' past and their little spider friends and families.  And we're all having fun.

This weekend we went to a nature festival at a local park and the good folks there dressed up SweetPea like a monarch butterfly and gave us a lot of information on how to plant a garden that will attract butterflies and beneficial insects.  I think that'll be a springtime science project for us.  In the meantime, we'll continue to keep the can of Raid put away and watch and learn from Sam and Susie.

Leveraging the Village

I realized I hadn't posted in a while - but we've been so busy doing that I haven't had time to write about it!  At the beginning of the year I felt fairly confident that I could shepherd Sprout and SweetPea through their books without issue, but I wondered how I'd figure out how to do all of that "extra" stuff - you know, the fun.  I've got champion Google skills, but that can only get you so far.

As it turns out, that should have been the last thing I was worried about.  There's information for teachers everywhere - and we've been making liberal use of it!

There are resources for more "academic" things.  SweetPea is ready to do more writing - and I found a website that will let me put in my own traceable words, complete with pictures, on tablet paper.  It'll also make addition and subtraction problems with little pink hearts to illustrate the numbers - her favorite!  For Sprout, a search for activities related to a particular novel will unearth worksheets, discussion and essay questions, and ideas for things to do outside of the classroom.

We read Little House in the Big Woods, for example, and decided to make butter "just like Ma and Laura" - suggested on a homeschooling website.  That site linked to instructions for making butter in a jar, complete with an explanation of the science behind why the butter separates when shaken!  We tried it, and the kids were astonished at how much work it took just to have butter for their bread...

We had a "little house" dinner and made our own bread and cornbread, pie and applesauce.

They ate so much more when they made the food themselves!

Sprout is learning about the Civil War and reading some historical fiction, Turn Homeward, Hannalee.  The protagonist works in a mill, so we took a trip to a nearby eighteenth-century working mill to check things out.  And when I was looking up hours and directions, I found that there was a whole educational activity guide put out by the folks at the mill!  History (owned at one time by George Washington!), science (pulleys, gears, and levers that make the mill go), nature (what grows on the grounds?), and the literature we were already reading - and I barely had to do more than point 'n' click.

Sprout will be reading about the Civil War in books from the library and watching videos on a kids' website, he'll be playing games online on simple machines around the house.  Later we'll visit the battlefields at Manassas and they, too, have a comprehensive learning guide for young students.  Everywhere I look there are more ready-made and tailor-made things for us to do!

There's so much fun help for the kids' book learnin', too.  Sprout actually asked if he could practice subtraction on the MathPlayground website - and even cleaned his room to earn the privilege... "No, you may not do more math until your room is clean!" -  I never thought I'd say that!

If it "takes a village" to raise a child, we're poring through every last drop of what the village has put out there - and finding some great gems.

And then sometimes it's less than blissful...

Sprout writes a few sentences in his journal every day. Yesterday, he seemed to think his parents were too demanding...

Apples and Hard Work

The kids have been studying hard and making a lot of progress over the past few weeks.  Sprout hasn't missed a single math problem in over a week, and he's even starting to teach himself some new concepts - without mommy or daddy - with the help of his book.  His writing is getting more thorough, and he's done a much better job of keeping himself focused and on task, even when he works at the busy kitchen table - he's usually finished with schoolwork before lunch these days.

SweetPea's writing has improved a hundredfold, and she does a credible job with all her letters and numbers.  She likes being a part of Sprout's art and science, and is really getting the hang of reading.

We've been reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods and learning about nineteenth century life.  Every afternoon I read a chapter aloud, and we talk about it.  The next day there's a worksheet on the reading for Sprout, and sometimes one for SweetPea, too.  We've been talking about how little boys and girls worked with their families every day to harvest and prepare food, and our little flock got to try it today when we brought home our peaches, pears, and apples from a local orchard.  In the next week we'll be making pies and cobbler, applesauce and bread and butter, and hopefully giving them a taste of what it's like to eat only what you can produce and make yourself.  Sprout will practice math by being Chief Measuring Dude, and we'll learn about the chemistry behind making butter.

And they learned from our trip today, too.  They learned that if you're not careful, you'll bruise and spoil your food.  They learned that sometimes it takes teamwork to get things done, and that there's a lot of physical work involved in getting food to their table.  We talked about how a fresh apple from the tree doesn't look like a shiny waxed apple from the grocery store, and why they're different.  They learned what they could do without any help from mommy or daddy.  They learned about the life cycle of plants, and that although they wanted blueberries, they couldn't have blueberries in September.  And we laughed and sampled the fruit and enjoyed being alone out in the field, and had a wonderful day just playing and learning as a family together.

I'll leave you with a few pictures from a beautiful day -

On teaching God

If there's anything that keeps me up at night about our homeschooling adventure, it's one of the very reasons we decided to do it in the first place: we wanted faith to be a constitutive part of education, and we couldn't get that at public schools. The problem is, I have no idea how to teach it. Kolbe has served up a nifty religion curriculum, with texts and quizzes and worksheets. They're a bit too dry for my tastes - religion doesn't have to be boring, and gazing at the nineteeth century paintings of a radiant resurrected Christ that fill his textbook may be less instructive and inspiring to a seven year-old boy than cartoons. We may change to a new text next year, we'll see.

Such is our angst that Sprout and SweetPea are also taking CCD classes, although they don't have to since we're covering a formal religous instruction curriculum at home. Two chances to get it right doubles our odds of success, right?

But teaching religion is one thing, teaching faith is entirely different. Teaching religion is easy - here's yer Bible, here's yer Act of Contrition, here's yer Dogmas of the Church, go. Even non-religious people can learn religion, it's just as academic as anything else. But the textbooks and such can't teach faith, hard as they try ("this IS what we believe!"). That means it's up to us, and that's daunting.

I suppose it's daunting because I don't know entirely how I came to faith. I grew up in a Lutheran family. We went to church regularly sometimes, less regularly other times. I primarily remember liking to sing; I remember very little about the rest of it. Christmas was nice. But it was - through no fault of my family - all kinds of fluffy, and by the time I hit high school I was firmly convinced that I stood beyond all that. I was going to be an intelligent, educated, independent, liberated woman. I could go out and be whatever I wanted and make my own decisions. I had an agenda for my life, places to go and things to do, and I decided that I was well on the path to being a person of value to the world.

And all was well and good for a while. I went through college and on to graduate school, was doing very well, thankyouverymuch, living my lovely independent liberated life and getting ready to go out and really make a difference in the world. I was a strong woman who didn't need anyone to take care of me.

And then I met Super-Smart Hunky Husband (SSHH), a very nice guy who just happened to be a devout Catholic. When we'd been dating for a few months, he invited me to come to Mass with him, after saying that he absolutely was not trying to convert me or brainwash me or anything - he just wanted me to see where he disappeared to on the weekends, since things were getting serious.

I chose daily Mass - it was shorter and I was busy, and I had too much to do on the weekends. So, one Tuesday at lunchtime, we went. Mass was in a non-denominational chapel in the religious services building on campus. There were three of us there - SSHH and myself, and an elderly retired professor who was just as hard of hearing as he was to understand (and an incredibly kind man, when I later got to know him). It was really uncomfortable and I was afraid I'd do or say the wrong thing. I'd never met a priest before and thought he might be weird (you'd have to be a little bit off to sign on for that, right?). We pulled up chairs in front of the altar, and I was asked to do a reading - SSHH had to poke me when it was time to get up, since I had no clue what was going on.

And when that most unassuming Mass started, everything changed. God was there. I didn't feel it or think it or hear angel choirs or speak in tongues - I just knew, with more certainty than I'd ever known anything else, that God was there. It was absolutely stunning. There was no singing, no incense, no fiery preaching - just the four of us in that room, praying together, and the Eucharist, and God was there.

And that made everything very complicated. Liberal educated independent women lived their lives on their own terms and were not told what to do. But if God is in the Mass - and I knew that for certain - then there wasn't really another option but to follow Him there, and that meant (gasp!) becoming Catholic. And for a liberal educated independent woman who was living life on her own terms, that was, well, weird. 'Cause Catholics weren't pro-choice, they subjugated women and everyone else, they had all these weird rituals and rules that everyone had to follow, and that was just so.not.me.

But I tried. And it didn't come all at once. But I prayed about it, stumblingly and haltingly, and I watched the people I got to know at Mass. There was a joy in their lives that I wanted, and they were joyful and Catholic even as they remained intelligent, independent, interesting people. They were really, truly, amazing people, and I wanted whatever it was that made them so amazing. And little by little, my heart changed, and I actually started buying it. Really, really buying it. No one told me to. No one said I was bad or sinful for not buying into it instantly. But God took care of it with time, and I can honestly say now - that it is primarily as a Catholic that I am truly able to fill my potential as a woman and as a human being. It is primarily as a Catholic that I am a person of value to the world.

I'm far from finished. I work on figuring it out daily, with the help of some fantastic Catholic women who are doing some good thinking and living, like Simcha Fisher and Jennifer Fulweiler and any number of women and men I've met along the way - some of them homeschoolers, some of them public school parents, some of them priests and religious, some of them working high-powered full-time jobs, some of them stay-at-home parents. There is no one face to them, and I'm always seeing new ways of living an authentic life of faith.

That was a long digression, but it boils down to - I just got lucky. God was there when I needed to find him, and for some reason, at that moment I was willing to listen. I got faith. Unfortunately, that means that I have no clue how to go about imparting this in a more systematic manner than continuing to throw spirtual darts at them and hoping one sticks.

I can't teach or give or force faith, and that's so much more important than religion. I'm not talking about a nebulous spirituality - that's the same kind of mushy nice god-feeling that I had growing up. I'm talking about a concrete FAITH and a genuine encounter with God. You can't teach that. You can only live it and hope that your children see something of value, something emulable in the life you're living, and that they choose to walk that path, too. You can encourage an ever-more adult understanding of what faith means. You can surround your family with people of the church, people of faith walking together, and hope that your children will see something of value in this community, and want to remain a part of it. You hope that they see God and joy in parents raising their children, and not a burden. You hope that they see marriage as as sacrament and not as a party with 347 of their very closest friends. You hope that they'll decide that living chastely is more important and more joy-filled than the party crowd, and working according to their beliefs is more important than money or power.

But it is entirely unclear to me how to get there. We can take the children to Mass, but we can't make them know God. We can follow an ever-so-orthodox religion curriculum and ensure that they know it, but we can't make them believe it. We can live our lives in accordance with what we know of God, but we can't make our children see beauty and love and joy in that life.

So what are parents to do? We'll keep trying, keep praying, and keep figuring it out as we go along. And at the end of each quarter and each year, Sprout and SweetPea and SweetPotato and Doodle will earn a grade for "religion," and it will have very little to do with the most critical work that's been set out for us.

Fun With Art

I thought I'd look at some of the subjects we're doing this year and how we're approaching them.  One of Sprout and SweetPea's favorites is art, so we'll start there.

We decided at the outset not to treat art childishly.  Fingerpaints and paste are fun, but that's craft time and playtime - art is school.  That doesn't mean we don't have a lot of fun with it, but there's a fair dose of appreciation and history thrown in, too.

We're using a fantastic text called The Art Book for Children.  It's got a large color print of an artwork on one side of  the page, and on the other is an introduction to the piece, pointing out key features in a fun, conversational way.  The kids spend one day looking at and reading about an artwork in the book, and on a second day they try some of the techniques themselves.

This gets them to look many different works, from the ancient to the postmodern, and learn that art can be art in all of its forms.  We'll talk about the Mona Lisa and Jackson Pollock, about landscape art and sculpture and photography.  We'll take trips to some of the many museums in and around Washington.  We'll look at art from some of the different times and cultures we're learning about in reading and history.

Last week we looked at Jose Miro's Women and Bird in the Moonlight.  We read that Miro's teacher would have him draw with his eyes closed, and we talked about how one can draw things even when they don't look just like what they're supposed to represent.  We don't know which of the figures are the women and which is the bird, and that's okay.  Then I put a blindfold on the kids and had them try it.  Since we'd read poems by Wordsworth and Williams about cats this week, they drew a boy, a girl, and a cat.

And this is what SweetPea ended up with:

Pretty good, eh?  She was adamant about which figures were the boy, the girl, and the cat, and she even said she'd drawn in a mouse for the cat to chase and pointed that out, too.  There were a lot of giggles about the pictures they drew, and the kids watched each other with eager anticipation as the drawings took shape.  They had fun, and stretched their horizons just a little bit.  Tomorrow they'll be coloring black-and-white photographs a la Warhol's Marilyn, next week we'll look at Japanese paintings of Mt. Fuji, and the week after we'll go downtown to see some Native American art.  We'll take fun photographs and have fun Jackson Pollock-style on the driveway (washable paint!).

The kids continue to amaze me with how much they understand and notice - they "get" things far more than I'd expected.  We're taking a similar approach to music, and Sprout's been looking forward to when he gets to listen to more of The Magic Flute!  I was worried that a seven year-old boy would hate listening to opera, and I was ready to drop it and find something new after day one, but he sings along heartily with his English translation and thinks it's great fun.  The kids still spend countless hours with goofy kids' CDs and coloring books and crayons - but just a bit, they're dipping their toes into new waters, too.

The Homeschool Picnic

Last Saturday was the annual beginning-of-the-year picnic for the local group of Catholic homeschoolers we belong to, and we learned a few things about this demographic we've joined:

1)  There are socially awkward kids.  There were a few who just didn't seem to know how to function well in a group of other children, or adults either, for that matter.

2) There are socially adept, gregarious kids.  Most of them, actually.  They play sports (one boy arrived in soccer gear, straight from a game with his traveling team), play music, act, dance, volunteer, and generally stay really active and involved in their communities.

3)  In any public or private school, there are social butterflies and awkward kids too (believe me, I was one of the awkward ones growing up).

4)  The kids at the picnic didn't seem to care much who they played with.  Boys played with girls, little kids played with bigger ones, and everyone was welcoming.  Sprout and a group of older kids were happy to let SweetPea join their game, and when she didn't understand the rules, one of the boys explained them to her.  The kids didn't segregate themselves, and everyone was looking out for the others.

5) The families are devout.  Everyone prayed a "cupcake rosary" before dessert, and even most of the little ones sat quietly and said the prayers they knew for the twenty minutes of the rosary.

6)  The families are supportive of everyone's individual goals.  I heard an experienced homeschooling mom talking with a newer mom whose daughter was struggling with essay writing.  The older woman talked about the different books and ideas she'd tried with her own children, helping the less experienced mom find likely solutions for her own daughter.  They were focused on figuring out what made sense for that child, not on the "best" or "most rigorous" curriculum, if that wasn't going to be helpful.

7)  The families are welcoming.  A slew of parents came up to introduce themselves, offer any help we needed, and say that they were always available if we had any questions.

8)  They make delicious cupcakes, which the kids devoured after the rosary.

Farm Field Trip Day!

Another great day!  Our field trip days are always light on book-work, so Sprout was done bright and early.  He got 100% on his math quiz, which was a big confidence-booster for him - he does well at math, but he needs to really think about it on occasion, so he has moments of worry.

We had a doctor's appointment in the morning, and as we pulled up the road, Sprout saw kids waiting for the bus and said "Are they really just now waiting to go to school?!  I'm sure glad I'm doing school at home - I'm all done!"

In the afternoon we went to a county park that has a small farm on the property.  We've just finished Charlotte's Web, and  the kids were eager to meet some animals.  We've used the book to talk about friendship, life cycles, farm life, and where our food comes from - it's important that the kids know that bacon and eggs don't just come from the grocery store, and that a lot of hard work has to happen in order for them to get their food.

So as we walked around the farm, we gave pats to the piglets and calves and kids and talked about what the animals ate, how they all needed different things to stay healthy, what a farmer needs to do to care for each animal, and the kinds of food that we get from each animal.  They saw squealing Wilbur-esque piglets...

...and big grunting pigs.  Sprout even noticed a spider web up in the rafters!

They met a calf...

...and chickens (and yes, the dog got her nose pecked for getting too close).

They met ducks and turkeys, sheep and goats.  They saw old farm machinery and we talked about what a combine and a threshing machine and a plow do.  We walked through a vegetable garden and a cornfield.  And they left with a new understanding of how much work it takes to put dinner on their plates - a lot of things have to happen before mommy cooks their chicken nuggets.  A super day, full of fun and learning and being together.

Figuring Out What Fits

We've got two weeks of school under our belts now, and we're liking some things very much and making adjustments in other places.  When we first decided to homeschool, I wondered how on earth we would find things to do.  What does a kid even learn in second grade?  I checked out a book from the library that had a list of things second graders should know.  Multiplication tables?  Okay... but how do we do that?

Now we're left wondering how we're going to fit in all the fun - and academics are the least of our worries!  Kolbe's lesson plans make staying on track easy, and most of the materials are set up well for homeschoolers - they haven't chosen textbooks based around in-class group work, for example.  Matthew's learning, and overall there are no complaints about what we've gotten from them.

Beyond that, though, there's a huge universe of learning and teaching resources that is all. so. tempting.  We're reading Little House in the Big Woods next, and there are scores of activities, worksheets, discussion themes, art ideas, videos, and historical bits and pieces - we could spend all year doing nothing but this book!  The difficulty isn't in finding things to learn, it's in choosing just a few things from all that's out there.  Living outside of Washington, DC, too, there's so much to see and do that we could head out and go exploring every day and we wouldn't be able to reach the end of it.  It's overwhelming at times.

So I began the year very much thinking that we MUST DO ALL THE THINGS.  And I'm realizing now that we don't, and that we'd likely be better served - intellectually, emotionally, spiritually - by paring back a bit.  There are things that can be effectively learned and taught without a textbook or a specific curriculum devoted to them, at least at a second grade level.  I'm learning how to incorporate those things into what else we're doing so we can have more quality learning, and not just quantity learning.

So what are we loving?  Math.  Well, Sprout dislikes math intensely, but the books and method are great.  He's making fewer mistakes and grumbling less than he did last year in Catholic school.  We're using the Singapore Math series, and the way it presents things - with a lot of pictures - seems to be making sense for Sprout.  Two thumbs up.

Art rocks.  We've got The Art Book for Children and it's fantastic.  Every week we pick a work of art from the book, and the book presents it in a fun, age appropriate way.  Last week we read about Henri Rousseau's "The Merry Jesters" and the kids used the leaves they's studied on our hike to draw their own botanical scene.  This week it's Miro's "Two Women and a Bird," and the kids will draw pictures with their eyes closed, just like Miro's teacher had him do.  Later this year, we'll do some Jackson Pollock on the driveway.  The kids are having tons of fun and learning a lot about the myriad forms art can take.

We've taken our own path with reading, choosing our own texts.  Sprout read Charlotte's Web and liked it, but I think I was too adamant about making him dig into the book; a second grader still operates primarily on the level of plot.  It sparked some really good discussions, though, and the kid is a perceptive reader - warming the hearts of his literature PhD mommy and daddy!  We'll be doing some poetry this week, and starting Little House In The Big Woods next week - I've got lots of fun, lighter things to do with that, and we'll wrap in some history, too.  We ditched Kolbe's curriculum entirely here.  After looking at it, it was just too Catholic for even us - lots of morality-filled, old-fashioned stories that seemed really heavy-handed.  Their literature curriculum is super in the later grades, though, and we would likely follow that much more closely.

We've had issues with history.  Second graders don't usually do history in the strict sense - they mainly learn about historical figures and events at certain times of the year (President's Day, for example) and then do broader "social studies" work - learning about geography and communities and simple civics concepts.  Sprout is doing geography this year, and that's fine.  But Kolbe does Bible history in second grade, and it isn't history of Biblical times - it's the Bible as history, which much of it ain't.  It's super to read the Bible and he will, but that belongs in his religion work, not history.  There were lots of lengthy, tedious questions to answer in the book, and the abridged Biblical text they use is less than scintillating.  We're going to use it sparingly, and instead wrap in some introductory American and European history as it comes up in our reading and in the calendar.

So we're making our way through, and are enjoying being able to teach what works for us in the way it works for us.  Sprout's gotten much better with time management, thanks to his sticky notes, and we're starting to hit a groove.  So much work - but so far, very worth it!

Statistics

So it's a bit too cute for my taste, but I think it makes the point well (and yes, these statistics are primarily from academic, peer-reviewed studies) that homeschooled kids aren't lagging behind academically - quite the opposite. Most interesting, actually, is that education level and income of the parents doesn't have an impact on academic performance here. Maybe an involved parent - however the child is educated - is the most important factor of all...
Source: TopMastersInEducation.com

The Amazing Sticky Note Time Management System, and how stuff gets done

We learned SO much this week about what it takes to keep the HSS Homeschool afloat, and what Sprout needs to keep himself happy, productive, and learning.  He's got a tendency to dawdle and get distracted - heck, he was almost two weeks late for his own birth, and I'd make up silly little songs with the refrain "focus, baby, focus!" as he'd take 90 minutes to nurse as a wee Sprout.  He *still* needs to be reminded to focus, and that was our challenge this week.

Some homeschooling parents have the time to shepherd their children through all of their learning.  That works fantastically for some, but to be honest, with three other little ones in the house, we just plain can't sit with Sprout while he goes through all his work.  And he wouldn't want that - he's a bright kid, very capable of learning a lot of things on his own, and he chafes under micromanagement.

While we make sure that at least one of us is always available for any questions, Sprout works independently for much of his school day.  The hard part is keeping him on task.  At the end of a frustrating day where Super-Smart Hunky Husband (SSHH) and I had both found ourselves snapping "SPROUT!!!  SITDOWNANDDOYOURMATHRIGHTNOW!!!" it was clear we needed a better way.  We talked about time management and why it's important.  And we told Sprout that we wanted to give him the responsibility of being in charge of a lot of his learning, but that he needed to show us he could focus. 

But we needed to teach him how to manage his time and focus, just as much as we need to teach him his multiplication tables.  Thankfully, homeschoolers are prolific internet sharers, and there were lots of good ideas to try.  So, on Friday, we tried the Amazing Sticky Note Time Management System.  It looks kinda like this:

The pink sticky notes are meals - breakfast, snack, lunch.  The blue sticky notes are for things that SSHH and I need to be involved with.  If Sprout is going to go for a run with me or play piano with SSHH, for example, we'll put that sticky note where it needs to be - say, run after snack.  The yellow notes are all of the things that Sprout has control over.  There are some for his morning chores, like making his bed and feeding his fish, and there are notes for all of the school subjects he'll be doing that day. 

When he gets up in the morning, the pink and blue notes are already stuck to the dining room wall in the right order.  It's his job to arrange the yellow notes however he'd like.  If he'd like to do geography before spelling, that's fine.  If he wants to get math out of the way first and save reading for last, he can do that.  It's his job to plan his morning.  If he finishes some work faster than anticipated, he can move some notes up on the list. 

When he's finished something, he runs upstairs and moves the sticky note out of the line.  This lets him check that job off his list, and we can all see what he'll be working on next, how much work is done, and how much is left to do.  SSHH and I don't have to hover - "Are you done with handwriting?  What are you working on now?" - and Sprout has a visual reminder of exactly where he is in his day.  It's also a little bit fun - he's not normally allowed to plaster the wall with sticky notes.

He's also got his daily plans, that list every subject for the day and tell him what needs to be done for each.  He crosses those off as he finishes them, but that wasn't enough to keep him mentally organized.  SSHH and I are to-do list makers, but that's actually pretty complicated to execute well.  Sprout needed Time Management 101, and so far the sticky notes seem to be helping with that -  he finished all of his work on Friday on his own, with just one reminder to stay focused.  He was happier not being nagged at, and we were happier having a motivated, organized kiddo.  We'll see how well it works to keep things running more smoothly in the coming weeks!

I hear you asking, "But wait... so you don't actually *teach* him anything?  He does it himself?  That can't possibly work."  Well, for some things, yes, he does it on his own.  He's perfectly capable of practicing spelling words or reading about a simple geography concept and doing a worksheet on it all by himself.  We go through his work every day so we're catching places where things may be going off the rails, and we know what he has coming up for each day - if there's something we feel we need to formally "teach" him, that becomes a blue sticky note, and we do it together.  Discussing his reading can happen over lunch or in the car.  And we're always available for questions on anything, and we work with Sprout on recognizing when he's getting stumped by something and needs help.

Homeschool is not intended to be simply "school at home."  The same material is taught, but the methods can be very different.  There's no classroom to manage, and learning can be tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of each child.  When he was in a classroom, Sprout's teacher might take 30 minutes to explain a math concept, do some examples with the kids, and have them do a worksheet on their own.  Well, Sprout's stronger in math than most but not as good as some.  That meant that he probably got the concept pretty well and was maybe bored by the second example, but needed to listen through the five examples the teacher gave.  Emily might be a math superstar, and maybe she was bored and not learning anything halfway through the explanation.  And maybe Ethan struggles with math and needed ten examples to understand the concept, so he stumbled through the worksheet and got most of the answers wrong.  Sprout and Emily finished their worksheet early, so they got a word-find to do to keep them occupied for the rest of the 30 minutes.  Ethan didn't finish his worksheet and got frustrated. 

The point is that only some of what goes on in a traditional classroom is teaching; a lot of it is classroom management.  And that's not a dig at teachers - heck, SSHH and I taught for years (albeit not wee ones) and know the difficulty of trying to teach to a wide variety of learning needs and styles in the confines of a classroom environment.  There are so many amazing teachers out there, but the educational system we've got sometimes doesn't serve their talents - or our kids - very well. 

We don't have a classroom to manage, so we can focus our time on teaching, when it's needed, and learning.  The reward for work well-done is more free time, not busy work (although we've got word find worksheets if Sprout wants them!).  When we need extra time with something, we take it.  Sprout's needs and interests dictate how he learns each day, and we're there to help and guide the process - and to be ready to step in and change course when necessary.

We've already done some of this.  The history curriculum as given by Kolbe Academy was heavy on "discussion questions" that were just lengthy regurgitations of the material.  Sprout was bored and frustrated and not learning.  So you know what?  We threw the questions out.  We'll talk about his history instead to make sure he's understanding it.  When putting together Sprout's binder for the coming week, I eliminated any activities proposed by the curriculum that didn't have a solid purpose - a geography word scramble is not going to help learn the terms he just spent several pages working with in a substantive way.  It's a time-filler, and if he enjoys it, he can certainly do it - but I'm not going to force him to do those kinds of activities when there's no need for them in a homeschool environment.

We're still a work in progress, and we're still working out what works well to keep everyone on track and enjoying the day.  We're not a classroom, and we don't necessarily have to operate like one.  How we will operate, however, depends on the needs of the kids and on how our we can best operate as a happy family.  I'm sure there will be a lot of bumps in the road as we figure out how to work together, but that's part of the learning process, too, and will be valuable in its own right.  Say a prayer for us this week as we drown in a pile of sticky notes!