New resolutions

Last year we had a lot of interruptions to our school year, added a new baby, moved across the country, house hunting, and many more things could go on this list....

Our school year was dragged out forever.... but we are finally done, and just in time to start again.

Goals for the year?

1. Let the kids be in control of their own advancement.

2. Be kind

3. Enjoy the year

4. stay on task, schedule

New things that we are doing this year, the kids are having 20 minute time limits, they will be given a subject and a timer for 20 minutes, when the timer goes off they are done with the subject and I am going to say little to nothing about their progress unless they do a fantastic job, in which case I will not limit my excitement.

Also this year we are not doing the same subjects every single day, we are doing a bunch of subjects and not all of them will be done every day, which means my plate is going to be full keeping everyone doing the right thing at the right time, but also we should be having more fun everyday and learning plenty of cool things.

Wish us luck, today is the day, we start 5th grade, 3rd grade and Kindergarten 2.0 today.

And there are INCREDIBLE days

Because it would be incredibly inconsiderate of me not to follow up last weeks post about hard days I am writing again, with a post about incredible days. I have had it on my heart to do this all weekend, and we so busy that I had not gotten to it. But this needs to be written as it is even more important than telling mama’s who home school to be aware of the hard days… this one is meant to give you hope on those hard days.
Don't be surprised by the hard days that are coming, or are here, but also know during those hard days that everything is going to be alright.
To emphasize this point I’m going to use my son and I as an example again.
He really is such a bright boy, and really does know how to do all that I have asked him to do for the last week. Our biggest area of struggle was in math, a subject I know all to well that he is fully capable of doing, but he just wasn’t. Why? Disobedience is all I can pinpoint.
One sweet home school mama I know wrote me and asked if it was a curriculum problem and if so suggested we try other options or take a little time off, but it just wasn’t that. It was an obedience problem which I believe is something that must be pressed into, though hard on both mama and son.
So what happened?
Well my boy rose to the challenge, defeated his giant and did more than was expected of him, with a happy heart (which is something we stress in our house… do all that you do as unto the Lord, and with cheerfulness). The crazy thing is that I know that if we don’t start on time we will have problems through the whole day, Thursday and Friday we didn’t start on time. I worried about how this would affect our day, as history would tell me it was going to be another fight to get everything done.
But it wasn’t. My son got his chores done without me asking him, got his own breakfast, and was ready for school with mama when I took the dog out at about 8:20am. I hadn’t eaten or gotten dressed yet at this point but that doesn’t much matter, we took his reading book outside where the challenge is that he read one more line than the day before in order to earn a piece of candy, and he did that, without fuss, or prompting (on too many occasions) making mama very proud!
When we came back inside 20 minutes later the youngest of my children had finished eating his breakfast and my daughter had gotten out of bed so I quickly took care of their needs and we started on our bible lesson.
The rest of the day went smoothly too… He did what he was asked to do, and we made it through the day beautifully, and I was at last feeling a little more rested and relaxed.
Friday was a little different, in an AMAZING kind of way.
Friday is a test day for us, we review and test areas worked on all week. It doesn’t take as long as a regular school day, I feel that is important, since testing is so stressful, and my son feels the need to succeed and get A’s on his reports so that he can bring his report card to the movie store and get a free rental. He is very excited and wants to do well, but after a week like the one we had it is even more important for him to do well to redeem himself for a week of disobedience.
We started with a memory verse test, which he normally does well, and he of course Aced it! Then on to our reading test, which consists of a book about animals that I picked up at Target in the ‘one spot’. It is for reading comprehension. He has to read one page which is usually only one or two paragraphs, about a different animal or location certain animals live in, every Friday and then answer questions regarding what he read. I give him the option to read with me, or to take the book and read in another room alone.
Normally he wants to read with me but this Friday he wanted to try it on his own. There were a few words that he mispronounced and he ended up coming back to read with me so that I could help him to figure them out and we ended the test with him beside me, I then asked him the questions and he nailed them all. I am at this point feeling VERY reassured given the way Thursday had gone and the good reading test we had just completed.
Next up was spelling, I don’t think it is very fair for a child to have to take a spelling test when they have not been required to think about their spelling words in 24 hours, so I gave him a little time to practice them. His sister was at this point playing with her ‘computer’ (a toy that you can play several games with that has the letters of the alphabet on it with buttons that sound out the letters and say them along with other options) I called her into the room and sat them down on the floor. My son was to read a word and then spell it slowly out loud for my daughter who then was required to find the letter on her ‘computer’ and press the button. They had to work together to find all the right letters. They loved it.
After this we had a little break, because I also don’t believe you should take a test right after looking at the words and truly studying them because it only requires short term memory to do this and I want to see if they are lodged in my child’s long term memory. We all got a snack and I folded some laundry and then did our test.
I find that if I am looking over his shoulder I might give a bit too many hints at the spelling of the words, so I sat at the table, spelling list folded in one hand, with his math book laying in front of me and a pen in the other hand, he sat nearby with his spelling test and a pencil, while he wrote his words I corrected days of math I had not corrected yet, and read off the words as he was ready for them. When he was finished I asked him to read each word that he had written and tell me what they were, if he could read the word well then we left it alone (so long as he thought it was spelled correctly), if he couldn’t read the word then I would tell him what it was supposed to be and ask him what he needed to do to make the words on my paper (which he couldn’t see) and the words on his paper match, and then we would move to the next word and continue through the list. I’m trying to teach him to catch his own mistakes and correct them.
He got 8 out of 10 words correct!
Then on to math, that one hour of subtraction we had been struggling with all week. Friday is not a test day for math, the tests come when they come, and it doesn’t follow any particular schedule, so it happened that this lessen was a review, so I got out my white board and marker, and he got a pencil and paper and one by one we knocked out the whole lessen. I keep a timer going so that we don’t ever spend more time than he can handle doing this, and when we finished the lessen I glanced at it and it was only half way through our time allotted… !!! YAY! Obedience was ruling the day, and my son’s heart. We actually knocked out almost two lessens before the timer went off, and we were high fiving and laughing and playing the whole way through the lesson. It was FANTASTIC!!!
After all our hard work, and so much happiness in my heart we ended up going to see some friends at a free event in town, and then totally missed most of our nap time, but it was worth it, and my boy gave me the best present ever, his attention!
I know that is the longest version of a good day there ever was, so I apologize if it wasn’t that climatic, but if you were a fly on my wall you would have seen one incredibly happy mama and a boy who felt proud of himself and loved very much. I was so excited my smile was ear to ear and my heart was bursting with joy.
Persevere. sweet friend. The day comes when they finally get it… they finally understand obedience, or math, or spelling, or whatever it is that your child is struggling with, they get it at last, and the struggle to teach isn’t a struggle at all! It is an amazing gift from God; it is the joy of a home schooling mama!
Thanks for bearing with me, Thanks for sharing my joy, Thanks for reading.

Tears happen

I'm not going to say that homeschooling is easy, no one EVER should. I find myself getting frustrated daily. Some days, if I am completely honest with you, I WEEP, horrible ugly tears while screaming prayers (in my bedroom without children nearby) at God. I know he called me to do this incredible thing, to teach my children, and to raise them the way he calls me to in the Bible. I know he has placed it on my heart that I am the most qualified person to teach my children during this time of their lives, but this is the hardest job EVER!!!! Today sitting at the table next to my brilliant son, who understands math so easily but is also very easily distracted I helped him write out his math problem and then patiently waited for him to accomplish the math and give me the answer to only a portion of the problem before us. When the answer didn't come I urged him to use the methods that we have always used in the past to figure it out, methods that he has successfully used several times in the past, and that I know very well he is able to do. When the answer still didn't come my blood began to move a bit faster in my veins and the frustration was mounting but I kept my cool and urged him again to focus on the task at hand and please do this math work in front of him. He still did nothing. Now this is blatant evidence that this child just doesn't feel like doing it, because he wasn't even trying. He didn't give me a wrong answer (which would have been acceptable), he didn't give me any evidence that he was even attempting to do the work, he just fiddled and wiggled, and talked, corrected his sister when she was saying something backward about her own school work, attempted to get his brother out of trouble (he wasn't in trouble and wasn't even in the same room). The list of things he was doing instead of his math (with me sitting right next to him) is long. Did we make it through math? Yes, but only after I screamed in frustration, went to my room to have a huge horrible cry, and then returned to apologize to my poor children for their mother's bad attitude. What changed? My son, after hearing his mother loose it. While I had a hard cry in the bedroom he suddenly realized the stress he was putting me through and quickly did 2 problems, not just the portion of one problem I had been asking him to do for 15 minutes (having done one problem very slowly before this one was even attempted). After finishing these two problems he came to my room and gently knocked on the door and apologized to me and told me he had done two problems and did I want to see them. I pulled myself together and did come see them, and we continued through the day rather ok... not perfect but we made a lot of progress. Do I condone a person like myself loosing their cool and screaming at their child? No absolutely not, but it does happen. I don't have a clue why God said I was qualified to deal with this, I don't know that I am qualified, but if there is anyone qualified I'm probably the closest so I'm continuing to do it. When people say they don't have the patience to home school I laugh and answer 'neither do I'. It is the truth. I'm walking in obedience to the calling I feel God has placed on my life and I'm doing my absolute best. We have really great days, and we have some really awful days, but the end comes, the work gets done, and the children are smarter, and completely safe as well as loved at the end of the day, so I guess I'm succeeding. I'm a failure, but God is not. He asked me to do a great number of things that I feel absolutely incapable of doing.. here's a big one... SIN. He asked me NOT TO SIN!!!! and I do that every day (I'm not counting, I'm just sure I do it no matter how hard I try not to). He even knew I would and sent Jesus to die in my place before I ever even did a single thing that was wrong.. and I knowing that he did it continue to nail him to the cross daily with my wrong attitudes, filthy heart and bad behavior... not because I want to, but because I'm a failure, but that doesn't mean he doesn't love me, not at all, if he didn't love me he wouldn't have sent Jesus to die for my wrong behavior long before I ever even had a single chance to behave wrongly. I am a work in progress. Just like my children. They are a work in progress, every day I'm seeing the progress, every day I'm most likely a part of the progress, but every day I have to keep at it. There is no break for a mother. Not a home schooling mother, not a working mother, not a stay at home mother who is sending her children out of the home for school, but in my humble and honest opinion there is NO break for the mother who teaches her children at home. She works hard all day, has to keep her cool all day, has to maintain her home all day, has to schedule every event and appointment either into the school day or around it, there is no time when she is child free, there is no time she is not working for or with her children. I want you all to know it is ok to have a meltdown once in awhile... this job is hard. Be careful with your children during these meltdown's, they need to know that mommy has a breaking point but that she is still firmly keeping the expectations she has for her children (adjusting when necessary but not just because the children push her buttons too much too often). Let them see your emotions in a safe way. Once about a year ago I had a very similar meltdown and I called my mother, at my wits end, and I told her that amazingly after my meltdown my son got to work and got it all done, and I felt really guilty, like I had manipulated him into doing his task, and she said 'no, you let him see that he can hurt you, and like a good son he wanted to rectify it.' We do need to be strong for our kids, but we also need to show them that they can hurt us, and put a stop to it. I can't say I have the answers, honestly I don't have a single answer at this moment. I'm worn out, stressed out, wondering what God has in mind to have given me the most distracted stubborn kids on the planet, but I love them all so much. I can't put my easily distracted children into a public school system and watch them fail, or worse, make them work all day long because they got distracted while in school and then came home to do school all over again. Here is my only advice. Breathe. This too shall pass, and when it does you'll be one day closer to graduation!

Update on how Konos is working for me, and a view of Singapore math

I wrote earlier that we use the Konos curriculum and that I enjoy it very much for my family. I can honestly say that things are going very well. Aside from the problem I have every year of introducing a new level of expectation to my oldest and waiting for him to grasp ownership of it, our school year is going VERY well. I had a few weeks that everything in our personal life got off schedule which greatly effected our school schedule, but we are almost on track for every subject, the only one we are behind on is Math, and that is easily remedied because Caeden has a minimum of one assignment to complete every day and an hour to do it, so if he finishes the assignment he moves on to the next one and works until the timer goes off, so eventually he will most likely be caught up without putting too much emphasis on it. And that brings me to my next subject! MATH! I HATE math. I honestly only feel confident doing math in my head up to a 3rd grade level, and after that require either a.) a lot of time, or b.) a calculator to figure it out. I'm almost ashamed to say this, but everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and I'm able to teach a lot of things I can not do myself, so I feel that I should be able to teach my kids math far longer than I feel confident doing it (especially with the teachers guide in hand!) I researched many math curriculum, saxon math, math you can see, Hands on Math, Abeka, and the list goes on. Math is such an important area to me because I myself have very little skill in it and know that I need a curriculum that I can teach and understand above anything else. For the rest of my curriculum choices I based my decisions entirely on how my children learn (mostly my oldest son since he is the only one up until this point who is in school full time). Math however was chosen based on my own strengths and weaknesses. I want to be absolutely sure I can understand what I am teaching my children before expecting them to learn it themselves. I had never heard of Singapore math until I found a review on it. The things I read were pretty impressive. It is a sort of unorthodox method of teaching but amazingly I understood it and thought it would be a good fit for us. The first books (which we completed last year) were so totally different than what I had learned in public school as a child that I was shocked. I understood it all for more than one reason... a.) it is first grade math, pretty easy! b.) it is taught the way I learn!!! I've NEVER seen a math program that I understand as much as I do this one. Now we are in book 2a, and while reviewing the material we would be going over this year I was terrified to learn that he would be really truly beginning to learn multiplication this year! That means that he is going to hit my level of math far sooner than he would in public school or with a different teaching method. But I'm not totally freaking out, because I do math with him every day, and if I'm doing it then I'm getting more practice with it and more understanding as well. I also feel like I'm being given a second chance at learning how to do math myself. True next year I'm going to have to buy the teachers edition so that I can be sure he is actually doing all of the work correctly, but that is ok, I get to learn right beside my children. Singapore math is a slow introduction to all areas of math, and though it isn't that great for teaching currency or learning to tell time, it does go over both subjects and does an ok job of introducing them. It is in my humble opinion that Singapore math is a great unconventional way to teach math to the child (or parent) who doesn't learn in a typical fashion. My husband who loves math and learns in the typical fashion isn't the greatest fan of the method, but as mentioned already it is awesome at helping me to teach my children. Also, when I teach math with my son, I LOVE using a tiny white board/chalkboard right at the table, and my son thinks it is great fun to be able to use the white board when he is doing his equations. That is probably my favorite purchase for school EVER! Happy Homeschooling!

Very cool curriculum

I have never written a curriculum review before so who knows if what I have to say will be relevant to what situation you are in...  here goes
In preschool with my oldest I didn't want to fork out the money to buy curriculum when there were so many free ones available on line.  We choose a letter of the week curriculum and I painstakingly copied everything I would need for every day onto a spreadsheet and then organized it accordingly.  It never occurred to me that this method would not work for my son who is not a visual or auditory learner.  It was frustrating to attempt this method also because it required weekly trips to the library to stock up on books to emphasize the subject of letters and their corresponding sounds, but our library didn't have most of the listed books.  The "cool" part about that is I was supposed to be able to switch one book out for something else on the subject but library shelves in the children's section are very hard to find certain books by subject matter since they are all grouped together under the subject 'children' and then organized by author.
Eventually I strayed from my well thought out format on the advice of several other homeschooling moms and began only loosely following the plan. The major breakthrough was when studying the letter T I took Caeden and his sister outside for a walk. We pointed out everything that was or looked like a T.  The t on a stop sign (I lifted him high in the air and let him trace it with his finger those signs are really high!), the shape of the telephone poles, a tree branch we saw.. anything that looked like a T. Then we pointed out things that made the t sound or started with a t. Truck, tire, tie, tick.... When we came to a pile of branches a neighbor had left by the road we carried a few into the field right next door and I let Caeden make his own T. 
The next day he remembered what we had done and could say,  write, and sound out a T for his daddy!
Finally he understood what I was telling him!  And due to not going through the alphabet in order (so I could match holidays with letters) we were only a few months in and still had plenty of time to get him to understand the rest.
The following year I decided that I could do this without anyone else's curriculum.  The only thing I needed was to understand the way my child learned (hands on and lots of science) and a general understanding of what was expected at his age. I choose to use the core curriculum as a loose fitting guide and made my own curriculum.
In this I discovered that Caeden hated coloring. I thought hands on would mean he would do things with his hands...  I was wrong to some extent. .. but I believed that he needed some exposure to sitting still and continued on with the coloring though it was painful for us both. Every thing about kindergarten was fun except the coloring.
The other problem I encountered was that my so. Was significantly more advanced in science than the core curriculum was asking of him, we started a 3rd grade science book half way through the year when I realized this and found a free one at a garage sale.
Because I started Caeden early I was unsure if he was ready for each grade as we approach it, but he would pull through about 9 weeks in and show me he was indeed ready for the challenge.  
When we started first grade I had a few extra challenges to face, his sister would be starting preschool in a loose and general fashion, and I would no longer have Internet access except through my phone. This would make creating my own curriculum nearly impossible and I really liked the idea of finding people who could homeschool along side me, always my original intention.  I talked to people from my church who told me about curriculum based on subjects like science or history and following topics that pertained to the thing that needed to be taught but allowing all subjects, math, history, science, literature, etc. To be taught inside of the topic. ... I believe it is called topical curriculum. 
I loved the idea!  I told the lady I had never heard of that before and she introduced me to one based on  history.  I studied it thoroughly and liked the method but hated that it involved a lot of bookwork and sitting still which I knew Caeden could not adjust to.
I figured there had to be more options and went on the hunt to find one that suited us and our needs. I found one that quoted one of our former first ladies in  saying children need to wiggle and we shouldn't make them stop.  The curriculum was called konos, and it focused it's topics on building godly character traits in our kids through activities that did not require sitting.  The downfall for me was that it required supplemental teaching to cover all bases thoroughly.   Such as math, and learning to read, once the children know how to read there are plenty of assignments with both fictional and non fictional books to read but the makers don't teach you how to teach your kids to read.
I decided to go with konos... The biggest thrill was that it was chock full of crafts and science and history that allows for movement and activity. 
I had to then research math curriculum but that is for another day.
Konos is designed for K-8th grade, and made with the intention that all ages could follow the same topic at different levels of understanding.  I can use the same curriculum on all my kids at once, and you only have to buy it once so when your oldest is out of 8th grade and your youngest is still doing the curriculum you just circle back to a book you did before that child started school.
The are two schools of thought about this book from what I found in online reviews.  One is that it is super flexible and can easily be used by anyone with minimal preparation or cost, the other is that it takes a lot of forethought and preparation and minimal to moderate cost .  Why such different ideas about it?
The authors themselves designed this curriculum for their children and answer the question pretty easily.  If you intend to do every project that is listed on every subject in every day, you will need to spend some money and you will have to be an organized person, the intention that they had though was to spark ideas in your mommy brain.  If you don't have the time to do a craft, don't do it, instead make up a game for riding in the car that will help drive home the idea behind the subject.  If you don't have the book listed or don't want to go to the library find something you have that matches... don't have a book about bears? Read goldilocks and the three bears.  Don't have the supplies needed for that craft? Make up your own craft or just skip it, that's OK too.
Caeden is now starting 2nd grade and this is our second year with konos.
Our first year we ended up moving several times and being overly prepared was not an option so I would lessen plan sunday night for the whole week writing out what we would be doing so I wouldn't have to rely on the bulky book every day and flipping through the pages to locate the crafts we were supposed to do.  If I didn't have supplies I had no time to go get them and we would either substitute something, or completely skip the activity.
This year I had all summer to prepare and didn't like having my week on a single page (or two) and made spread sheets on my computer,  one for each day... This took weeks and I don't really recommend it if you don't have the time or desire to be overly prepared. .. but I had a goal to do 'every' craft and activity possible. .. so I needed to be very ready.  After laying out my daily plans I bought all of my supplies.  The curriculum comes in several books and one book lasts about two years so I had no curriculum cost this year and spent $200 buying craft supplies and activities along with paper,  pencils, scissors, glue and crayons for each child. Not bad for anyone homeschool or not. If I were sending my kids to public school they would probably cost me close to the same after backpacks, new shoes,  school supplies,  and new clothes (I am sure you can thrift shop for less but really this isn't a bad cost for home or public school).
I also didn't want to visit the library at all this year (I don't enjoy the children's section) and cataloged all our books at home to see if I had something to fill every space... I did (which should tell you we have a bunch of books) I only have to borrow one book from a friend this year.
We are one week into our school year and I have to say all my time and energy putting all I need for a day (the writers combined it into a page per week but you have to look up the references for crafts on other pages) has really been making the day run more smoothly and I feel more prepared to deal with the individual levels of understanding my children have as well as personality traits already at work in them.
I also really like that since I laid out the curriculum and projects so throughly I am actually doing them with the kids instead of chickening out when we have to sew something together or do something outside that I might otherwise just skip because I didn't feel like it.  The lay out sort of keeps me accountable.

So here is what I think summed up... Konos is an amazingly freestyle program that should work for anyone as long as they understand their strengths and weaknesses and use it accordingly.   The character traits actually have to be explained to the children which is easily skipped and is vital to teaching about them.  Being diligent to do as many activities as possible and having the talk about why things are they way they are is also vital... If you don't do any of that you will still end up reading to them and going over bible verses but you will have pretty much wasted your money because the whole program is made for the activities.
I hope this review is helpful.  I absolutely love the program, though I am not fond of page turning while trying to teach a lesson, you also have the freedom to find different listed activities to substitute for those you cannot or don't want to do pretty easily.
Thanks for reading!  Good luck with your school year!

be prepared for bad days

I think it all starts in my own heart but it seems that if I dread the start of a school day it is bound to be a bad one. To be honest it isn't the work, or the children, it is me. I wrote out the plan on Friday night relaxed on Sunday as planned but just didn't want to go back into the school week on Monday. And of course right on cue my kindergartner has no interest in learning, my toddler wants to plant get face right in front of everything my kindergartner needs to see, and the baby wants to take a nap. .. No not a nap; a snuggle together and nurse non stop nap. We take a break before we have even really begun. This is how the day will continue if I don't protect my heart from anger about how poorly we started. I write this to let you know that there are bad days, but the are also really good ones, don't lose heart. Stay strong, hold your tongue if need be, and remember to do all that you do to the glory of God, remembering to praise him in everything.

getting back to work

I have been thinking about whether I should start using this blog like I had originally thought I would... And I think I will give it a try. We are in kindergarten here and for a brief moment it looked as if next year we would stay in kindergarten but if both my son and I really buckle down we can finish the year up just as next year begins... No breaks for us at least not this year. To much happened. We added a new family member, and moved three times this school year which just makes me that much happier to say we are homeschooling. Can you imagine enrolling in school three times? So anyway watch for updates through out the summer as we try to make up for lost time.