Shining Examples

*****edited to add that Christmas break is a great time to refocus for the second half of the school year.  I know I am planning and thinking about finishing strong!*****

Homeschooling is difficult.  It is a constant balance of doing the have to and the want to, it is balancing being the Mom and the teacher.  It means we balance several full-time jobs that all require our constant attention and still strive to have a well-ordered, happy home that our hard-working husbands can come home to each night.  It is a constant balancing act of plates that could all drop on our heads at any moment.  I live this constant high wire act every day and I understand the strain but I want to add two more plates to the act.  The balance of character training and that of academic excellence.

Often we hear that we must choose our priority in homeschooling, whether we are going to strive for character developement in our children or that of academic excellence.  I think this is a faulty premise.  Character training and academic excellence are not mutually exclusive.  They are not an either/or propsition, they can be different sides of the same coin – a great homeschool enviornment.

One of the goals in our homeschool has been to train and prepare our children for whatever God has for them.  In Jeremiah 29:11 it says, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  He has plans for our children and whether they are to be a wife and a mom or a Pastor or a Professor of Mathematics, I want them as prepared as possible to walk the path that God has set them on.  To do that, I believe that we need to focus on character developement, spiritual disciplines and academic excellence.

Perhaps we are simply not asking the right question.  Perhaps the question isn’t whether we should focus on character or academics.  Perhaps we need to simplify the choice by focusing on excellence.  The philosopher Aristotle said this, ” We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit.”  Perhaps this is what we need to focus on, striving for  excellence in whatever we do and making it a habit. If we are training our children in character, with patience and diligence, we refuse to accept unkindness or dishonesty.  If we are teaching our children, we refuse to accept a paper that is less than their best.  We need to calmly, lovingly and consistently ask for our child’s best whether we are dealing with sibling rivalry, their bed not made or a math paper that is not done correctly.

Excellence should not be confused perfection.  I love what the actor Micheal J Fox says, “I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection.  Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God’s business.”  We are not asking our children or indeed ourselves to be perfect, we are asking for diligence and the perseverence to strive to do better.  We are not asking a child to get the answer the right the very first time but to promise them that we will keep going until they have it mastered.  We need to promise our children that they are not alone in this process but that we will be there to stand beside them encouraging and mentoring them.

At the beginning of each year, my husband and I set goals for our children in three areas, spiritual, personal and academic.  We recognize that our children need all three areas to be properly prepared to do what God has for them.  They need to know and love God, they need to be able to get to a class on time with all of their books and be able to to have the education they need to succeed.  We want to stand beside them and say, “You have some wonderful gifts that God has given you.  Let’s work on your strengths to make them stronger and strengthen these areas of weakness”.  Let us not limit our children by failing to recognize that we need to ask for excellence in whatever they do, whatever they say and how they act.

Categories: parenting

Categories: parenting

Several years ago, I bought a book called “A Candle in the Forest” which is a compilation of Christmas stories by Joe Wheeler. One of the stories is called, “The Last Straw” by Paula MacDonald and is about a family whose children can’t stop bickering and fighting. The Mom remembers a tradition her Grandmother told her as a child. Each person in the family writes their name on a piece of paper and then they each draw a name and play “Secret Angel” for a week. Each time someone performs a kindness, like making a bed or does another’s chore secretly, they can place a straw in the nativity to prepare a place for Jesus when he comes on Christmas Eve. Thus, their home is transformed from a place of bickering and anger to a joyous home where each member places each others needs first.

Each year, I read this story out loud and then we draw names each week for several weeks during the Advent season. We have a basket and strips of fleece that can be placed (secretly) in the basket every time we do a kindness for another family member. Then on Christmas Eve, after everyone has gone to bed, Scott and I place a “baby Jesus” in the basket and put the basket under the tree.  Signifying that we are preparing for Jesus’ coming in our hearts and our home.

We have found this to be a great way to prepare our hearts and home for the coming Christmas celebration. It’s one more way to have “J.O.Y”. (Jesus, Others then Yourself)

***Edited later to add: If you have older children “who are getting too smart for their britches” as my Grams says, you might want to state that they are not to purposely try and figure out everyone’s Angel. It does not bring love and harmony to a home – trust me.

Categories: parenting
Categories: parenting

I wrote this particular blog item several years ago but I wanted to re-visit it as my kids have become older. The eye bounce has been a great tool as my boys, especially, have gotten older. Connor often tells Collin to eye bounce even before I can now. I love that they are watching over each other’s purity, although I wish it wasn’t quite as necessary as it is. We can’t hardly watch a commercial without needing the eye bounce. Anyway, here’s the original blog.

Little eyes sometimes seem to notice everything that you don’t want them to notice. At the mall, they notice the store with scary items in the front window or the store with the beautiful woman posing in underwear. There are so many things these days that are inappropriate for little eyes to see that it gets exhausting having to tell them,” Don’t look at that!”. Isaiah 33 :14 & 15 says,

“He who walks righteously and speaks what is right, who rejects gain from extortion and keeps his hand from accepting bribes, who stops his ears against plots of murder and shuts his eyes against contemplating evil– ¹⁶ this is the man who will dwell on the heights, whose refuge will be the mountain fortress. His bread will be supplied, and water will not fail him.”

We need to teach our little ones to shut their eyes from contemplating evil. At this year’s homeschool convention I heard a speaker talk about how she taught her children an “eye bounce”. An eye bounce is simply bouncing your eye from the inappropriate sight to something else, quickly. This is an easy way to teach your kids ( especially useful for boys as they get older) to eye bounce away from things that God doesn’t want in our mind’s eye and our heart. I also taught my children the little song ” Be careful little eyes what you see, be careful little eyes what you see, For the Father up above is looking down in love so be careful little eyes what you see.” This helps them to remembe that God does care what they see and what they put into their little innocent hearts.

Use the eye bounce this week as you go to the mall or anywhere in public that you can quietly remind them to “eye bounce” away from things that are not appropriate. Make it a game and have fun with it, just beware of funny looks as your children (if they’re anything like mine) yell “Eye bounce” in chorus.

Categories: parenting

I am a busy girl.  I like being busy, I like being needed.  I like to be in charge of things.  I like my world to be ordered and I like my house to be clean. I like my kids to be well educated and I like them to be busy with quality programs and purposeful activities.

I like all of those things.  However, I need down time.  I don’t just like it, I need it.  My hardworking husband needs it, my College boy who is maintaining an A average and working for MIT needs it.  My 10th grade twins, who are busy with AP and Honor classes, Bible Bowl and Robotics, need it.  If I am honest, I will also admit that if I don’t plan down time for all of us, it just won’t happen.

I am currently teaching my 4.5 year old niece once a week using My Father’s World Kindergarten.  She wants to learn to read and apparently, Auntie Dawn, is the only who can according to her little self.  We do a modified version of two or three days of K depending on her attention span each week.  We have also been doing all the days of creation and we just got to Day 7, the day of rest. We read, “ By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. ³ Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”  Whenever I have have taught this lesson ( and not only have I taught it to my kids but I have used several times for Sunday School),  the kids always seem to wonder if God was so tired after all that work?  Caileigh asked if God needed a nap because he was grumpy after all that work?  (She was clearly remembering  all the times I would ask if she was tired and needed a nap because she was grumpy.) I always say, ” No, God didn’t need a rest.  He was showing us how to live and He knows that we need to rest.”  God patterned a work week for us. Six days of work and one of rest. He created us and knows what is best for us.

When we were doing Creation to the Greeks, the curriculum scheduled us to have a true Sabbath as we study about the Feasts and Festivals of the Jewish Nation.   So we cleaned the house on Friday, made a big meal for Friday night and prepped all the food needed for Saturday.  We had dinner by candlelight and watched as the first star came out.  The next day we ate, played games, took a walk, and watched a movie together.  What a lovely day it was.  We laughed, played and enjoyed each other and I was reminded that God’s Fourth Commandment was to remember the Sabbath.  It is directly between the commandments about our relationship with God and our relationship with man and I think that’s on purpose. When we rest, we have time to focus on God’s blessings but it also allows us focus on our relationships.  Without having to worry about whether the house needs cleaning or the laundry done, we can just focus on our family. We are going to be more patient, loving and kind if we submit to God’s plan for our lives. Note that the Sabbath pattern also plans a time to work hard and then rest.  God knows us and He knows that we are probably not gonna rest if our house is a mess and food needs to be made.  I love that about Him.

If you were sitting with me right now drinking tea ( okay, you can drink whatever you want, I will be drinking a London Fog tea), I know the next thing you would say is, “That sounds wonderful but how in the world am I gonna do that?  Do you know how busy we are?”  Life is busy and homeschooling can be crazy busy but it must be scheduled.  Do I plan this kind of Sabbath every week?  No, I don’t because Soccer and Bible Bowl and Robotics and Driver’s Ed have to happen.  However, I do plan it every month or two.  I take some time and look at our schedule and plan it every month or two.  I put it on the calendar and then I say, “NO!” to anything that pops up after that.  We are busy that weekend, we are resting.  We watch movies, stay in our pj’s, eat fun foods, play games and rest and we are better for it.

Daily rest must also be scheduled.  Quiet time should happen in each and every homeschool home.  It’s important.  Quiet time still happens in our house and I have teenagers.  Whenever we are done with school ( usually 2:30 or 3:00) we usually scatter to read, relax or nap.  By 4:00 we are rested and ready for all of our afternoon and evening commitments.  When mine were little, I mandated a two hour QT.  They could read, listen to books, play quietly with Legos but they must be on their beds in their room, being quiet.  For the first hour, I would clean, do laundry, prep dinner etc and the second hour I would read, watch a show or nap.  Then we would get up, have a snack, watch a Veggie Tales and get on with the rest of our day.

Rest makes our days much calmer and all of us much more patient and loving.

Ecc 3:1 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”

Balance – A state of which different things occur in equal or proper amounts or have an equal or proper amount of importance.

Homeschooling is hard.  It requires us to be even more than a wife and mother, which is hard enough.  It makes demands on our time, our energy, our focus, our social life, our me time and our money.  When we decide to homeschool our children it is like signing a job contract for at least a year, if not the next twelve years.  It is a job, make no mistake about it.  If our children went to a traditional school, they would have teachers whose job is to educate our children.  We would expect them to have our children as their main focus, that our children’s education is that teacher’s main priority.  Those teachers are expected to be on time and ready to work when their students arrive.  We expect them to be prepared, have lessons planned that are interesting, fun and above all, meet the educational goals that we have for our children.  We don’t want them to answer the phone, check their e-mail, post on Facebook or pay attention to anything other than educating our children because that’s their job.  When we decide to homeschool, it is our job, not our only job, but for a certain time of the day, our main one.  We should be able to schedule at least 20 hours a week toward that job.   To do homeschooling successfully, we must have this as our mindset.  However, we also have many other priorities that press in on our time and attention and that’s where it gets tricky.

As homeschooling Moms we have to find balance.   We have to be a wife, a mom, a daughter, a friend, a Sunday School Teacher, a laundress, a maid, a gardener, chauffeur, a chef and if that’s not enough, we also have to be a teacher, a curriculum designer, and a school nurse.  We  pressure ourselves to do all these things well and feel like failures when one of these things fall to the wayside.

Whew, what a load, no wonder we get stressed and feel over worked and meet our husband at the door and tell him that he’s in charge and that we’ll be back when we find our sanity.  I remember in our early years of homeschooling telling  my husband that I was going to go join the circus because it would be less crazy.

My husband has always liked to go to conventions with me and one of his favorite things to do is to pick workshops for me to attend. One particular year ,he picked a session that talked about scheduling.. There was a reason my lovely husband wanted me to go to that particular seminar.  One of my failings is that I consistently think I can do everything and I want to do them all well.  I am a little bit crazy that way. So, I over commit and then I  do everything in my power to make sure I get it all done, often times sacrificing sleep, rest, health, sanity and quality time with my husband.   It had also started negatively affecting my health and it was becoming a real problem. When he saw a session on scheduling, he was determined that this was the session for me.
I am not the most naturally organized person in the world.  I want things to be organized and well planned but I would much rather have someone else do the organizing. I have a tendency to forget things that might not be on my priority list.  You know the unimportant things like fixing dinner  or having the laundry all done before we run out of underwear or his personal pet peeve, not putting lids back on  properly or at all. Details, details.  This is also why my husband or my best friends never give me the movie,or play or museum tickets. I am thinking important things and can not be bothered by where I put the tickets.  Combined with the over-commitment issue, my dear husband had enough so I went to the seminar.

Through the stress I was placing on my family, my  feeling l like I wasn’t doing what I needed to be doing and the seminar, I took away several things.  Firstly, I needed a schedule. Secondly, I needed to start treating homeschooling as my job and I needed to dedicate uninterrupted time to my kids but then when that time was up, I needed to move one to my other tasks.  Thirdly, I needed accountability.  I needed people in my life who weren’t afraid to say, “Are you sure you have time for that?”

“Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan. ” Margaret Thatcher
Make a Schedule
Before you make a schedule, I want to talk briefly about the value of “ish”.  Don’t let the schedule become a tyrant, it is a tool for you to use to meet your goals and only that.  There is no schedule bouncer who is coming for you if you don’t do it exactly.  Give yourself that freedom.  This is a guideline not a mandate.  Depending on your personality, some may have more flexibility than others and there is nothing wrong with that.  Make a plan that you can actually do – not just something that you think you should do.  A plan that you can and will do, not one that if you were your sister’s best friend who always has it together, does.  God made us unique and our schedules will be unique too.  I always think of my schedule having the value of “ish”.  “ At 12 ish I will do this or that. “  My value of ish is 10 – 15 min plus or minus, except hard schedule items like piano lessons or Dr.  appt.  The value of ish applies to my internal, house schedule, not my external house schedule.   I have to do that to out smart my self,  I don’t like anyone telling me what to do, even my schedule so I made it work for me.  You need to make your schedule work for you.  If you are highly unscheduled then start slowly and just have a week where you get up at the same time, the next week add meal times and then add homeschooling.  You can do baby steps if you need to, don’t get hung up on starting everything right away.  If you were planning on running a marathon, you wouldn’t start by running the 26 miles the very first day.  You would maybe run a mile or two and slowly add additional miles as your body became accustomed to it.  (This example is only hypothetical, I would never run a marathon.  That would be crazy talk)  The same thing with a schedule, to make it successful make small goals and as you make them a part of your day and week and new items.

Isaiah 32:8, “But the noble make plans, and by noble deeds they stand.”

The Weekly Schedule-

The first thing to do when making a schedule is to write down all the things you do in a week.  You might write them all down on stickies so you could move them around if you needed while making your schedule.  I just wrote it all down on a piece of paper and then added them to my schedule with a pencil and a really big eraser.

Things to plan Weekly:
School, Lesson Planning, Meal Planning, Laundry, Weekly Cleaning, Daily Cleaning, Date Night, Library Visits, Kid Activities, Church Activities, Grocery Shopping, Yard Work, Cooking, Quiet Time, Exercise, Time for Appts., Bedtime,

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”  – Stephen Covey

The school schedule – 

This is the schedule that is posted on the frig and my  kids have had input on this schedule.  It seems like it changes several times during the first couple months of school.  For instance, my oldest came to me and asked if he could start his school day with piano practice.  He felt that the could put more attention to it and do a better job if he did it first.  The twins wanted to do history, science and bible back to back at the beginning of the day because then they could work on their independent work at their own pace and not be waiting on me to finish school.  So I moved my shower time to later in the morning.  If you come to my house before 11, you will find me in my pajamas or work out  clothes with my hair in a pony tail and I may or may not have brushed my teeth.  Be warned.

Daily lessons plans-

I make individual lists for my kids for what they are to do daily or weekly for independent work.  If I have done my lesson planning on Sunday then I have this in a lovely chart by day for the twins because that is all the info they can handle and a weekly chart for my oldest because he likes to do his work in larger chunks.  I like my kids to have a checklist and then we both know what they are supposed to do.  I have them show me their chart and pages done before they are able to have free time. If I haven’t done my lesson planning, which happens more often at the end of the year, then I use sticky notes.  I also know of some who have white board lists everyday and this seems to work.

Adding Activities-
Luke 14:28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?”
1. Count the Cost in Time and Money
2. When moving or adding activities have a plan for when you will get the original job done.
3. If you struggle with this, have an accountability partner to help you count the cost.

Flexibility-
“A system doesn’t necessarily mean rigid structure, but it means setting up organization that works for you.” Sue Shipman
1. Remember to leave room in the schedule for the unknown.
2. Give yourself the freedom to occasionally depart from the schedule
3. Keep the “ish” factor in mind. This schedule is guideline, a tool to be used but not meant to be a dominant tyrant.

Down Time-
Have a time for down time, date time, quiet time and play time.
Down time – make time to sit and be, to go play with the kids to sleep in, to go shopping with a friend.
Date time – this is vitally important to the health of your marriage, your family and your homeschool.  Make a deal with a friend, trade off kids, take a walk, make a quiet dinner for the two of you.   Your marriage must be a priority.
Quiet Time with God – this needs to be in schedule if you are anything like me.  I am more likely to do it if I have planned time for it.

In the end we need to find balance in our lives and schedules.  Yes, homeschooling is important and should be a priority but we cannot let it take over all of our other responsibilities. We must find balance.

Ecc 3:1 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”

Categories: homeschool, preschool, elementary, middle and high school

We started this several years ago  and loved it so much we left it through the holiday season.  During this season, I wanted my kids to focus on our blessings each day.   I wanted us to focus on more of those little blessings that we take for granted.  The blessings that if they were taken away would affect us greatly.  Like quiet moments reading out loud or the blessing of a dog who snuggles on my lap. 

I Thess 5:18 says, “in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  It is God’s will that we are to give thanks.  To help remind us, I got window markers and drew a tree without leaves on our sliding glass door and put this verse on it.  Each day we each put one “leaf” on the tree with the thing that we are thankful for.  By the end of the month, the tree is quite full and we can count our blessings one by one.  I can also point a kid to the tree when they are being unthankful or greedy.  It is a great visual reminder of the countless blessing God gives us.  As a bonus, the kids love to draw on the window!

Last winter, I painted our pantry doors with brown chalkboard paint because there’s always room for one more chalkboard. So, for this year’s Thanksgiving Tree, I drew the tree on the pantry doors.  I love it there as it is more prominent and is more of a visual focus in our kitchen and family rooms. I find that when we focus on our blessings, our attitudes are much better and we don’t tend to focus on the annoying or negative aspects of our day. 

Categories: parenting

We have had three sets of company in the last three weeks as well as a Family Reunion and school is in full swing.  Problematically, the people appear to need to eat, not once, not twice but three times a day!  And since I don’t have a personal chef or a maid or a laundress ( which is what I really want) it falls to me to feed the people.  I don’t mind cooking, actually I rather enjoy it when I have the time.   That’s the problem right there, the time. Time is commodity I don’t have a ton of, so I have had to learn to make meals that are healthy, easy, and can feed a crew.  I thought I might share some of them with you.

Breakfast –

I usually have a large thing of granola made at all times.  My daughter and I use it to make greek yogurt parfaits with lots of fresh fruit, while my sister was here, she ate it as a cereal and my boys eat it as a snack. Dawn’s Granola

Let’s chat a bit about Crockpots.  I have two and I use them ALL the TIME!  I use them for all three meals as well as to make stocks, apple butter, apple sauce, etc.

Here’s my main crockpot.  I got it a couple of years ago and it is a workhorse and also travels well.  I take it to parties and to feed the robotics team.  As a side benefit, it was also pretty inexpensive. Dawn’s Crockpot

I am also looking at getting a pressure cooker like I got my Dad a couple of years ago.  I hear there is tons of new “instant pot” recipes. Pressure Cooker

For breakfast, I have two main crockpot recipes.

In the winter I like Steel Cut Oatmeal and then everyone can doctor their oatmeal to their liking in the morning. I use Alton Brown’s recipe but I don’t add the dried fruit. ( I don’t like dried fruit of any kind, including raisins.  Some think this is a character flaw.) Overnight Oatmeal  I then use any left over oatmeal to put into my homemade bread.  It adds a nice flavor and texture.

We make Hashbrown Casserole for Bible Bowl Nationals but it also works for dinner for the Robotics team.  I get organic frozen hashbrowns and line the bottom of the crockpot ( usually about half a small bag) salt and pepper them and then put a layer of diced green chiles on the potatoes.  Mix up 10-12 eggs with about 1/2 cup of milk, pour it on top of the potatoes.  Then I layer cheese on top and let it cook for 6-8 hours on low.  This can get overcooked. so its important to have a crockpot that will change to warm after a certain amount of time.  Sometimes I serve this on its own but I also serve this with tortillas, salsa, cheese and sour cream.  Any leftovers, I make into breakfast burritos and throw them in the freezer for on the go days. This can also be baked in the oven and is easy to make ahead of time and thrown in the freezer.

Hard Boiled eggs

I usually have hard boiled (or baked) eggs made and ready for easy protein laden snacks or for a quick breakfast.  I bake my eggs and it is so easy to do while I am cleaning the kitchen or if I have the oven already warmed from something else. Baked Eggs Recipe

Mini Egg Frittatas

Here’s another recipe that I may make for a breakfast (or dinner ) and I make extra to freeze for Breakfast sandwiches.  I heat the oven to 350 and spray a 12 muffin pan with olive oil and put maybe a TBSP of kale or spinach in each cup.  I mix up 8-12 eggs, a 1/2 cup of milk and a 1 1/2 cups of cheese and pour it over the veggies.  I bake for about 20 min and then I have beautiful little individual frittatas.  We usually have the first round with fruit and maybe banana bread but then I freeze the individual ones for the kids to make breakfast sandwiches with.  I have frozen turkey sausage patties and either whole wheat bagels or english muffins available.  Healthy, quick and inexpensive!

Baked Oatmeal

Last but not least, Baked Oatmeal.  This is great because you can make it the night before and just throw it in the oven in the morning.  Easy to do with company and it is delicious.  I haven’t met a child or adult that dislikes this recipe.  I like to add fresh blueberries to the top while it is baking but my kids like it without the fruit and served with milk and butter on top.  Sometimes, I make several of these up at a time and buy disposable pans and put them in the freezer for busy weeks or for when we have company. Baked Oatmeal Recipe