Month: May 2017

Posted in Elementary, Homeschooling, Middle and High School, Parenting, Preschool

The Joy of Read Alouds

Posted on by Dawn

 

Lately I have been reading much of C.S. Lewis. I just finished “Surprised by Joy” which is an account of Lewis’ early life and his conversion to Christianity. One paragraph particularly caught my attention:

“In reading Chesterton, as in reading Mac Donald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere- ” Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,” as Herbert says, ” fine nets and stratagems.” God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.”

As parents we must also be unscrupulous in managing what goes into our children . We need to make sure and provide them with books and thoughts that lead them to God. We never know what will grab our children’s attention and may be used later for God’s pleasure. In Psalms it says “Your Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you.” We must be sure to help our children hide the word of God in their heart but also provide them with other materials that peak their interest towards God.

I personally think we should be reading a great book or a fun book to our kids all the time.  Even in summer, holidays or vacations, having a good book to read aloud or a good audio book to listen to encourages our children to have a love of reading but also to teach them think bigger thoughts, to have a bigger worldview and to teach them important life lessons.  The great thing about read alouds is that you can read chapter books to kids who can’t even read yet.  We started all of ours with shorter chapter books by age 3.

Links to some of my favorite books to read aloud –

Jeremy: The Tale of an Honest Bunny – for a younger crowd.  We read and loved this book.

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle Treasury – Great summer reading.  A chapter is a full story so it keeps littles attention.  We found this a great, funny intro into talking to our kids about behavior and consequences of behavior.  The consequences of bad behavior are a little magical and very far fetched but great fun.

 

Chronicles of Narnia – If you haven’t read these book outloud ( even if kids have read them themselves), then you have missed out on some really meaningful discussion.  We went through them one summer with this family discussion guide,  Roar, and really had some amazing family talks.

The Princess and the Goblin and Princess and Curdie – George MacDonald is one of my favorite authors.  I don’t always understand his books and have to reread but these books are written for children.  They are a little intense, but so full of wisdom that we have read, and reread them.

At the Back of the North Wind Audio Drama – I love the Audio Drama from Focus on the Family.  We have listened to this on several road trips and it has led to wonderful talks with my kids.

The Hobbit – JRR Tolkein wrote this as a read aloud for his kids and it is so much better read aloud or listened to on an Audio Book.  For my 5th grade and up kids, we read this and used the Progeny Press Lit Guide for an added level of understanding.

The Lord of the Rings – We read this outloud the first time and it completely had my kids engaged.  These are also great to use a Literature Guide.

Honey for a Child’s Heart – This is a book of book lists.  One of my favorite things ever.  I will caution you not to just hand a child any book without pre-reading.  The great things about read alouds is that you can stop and have a discussion of anything you need to with a read aloud.  You can also change words, soften a sentence or skip anything you feel is inappropriate.  I did this a lot.  This allowed me to read great books to my kids without some of the downsides.

Honey for a Teen’s Heart – While we don’t do read alouds as often now, I try to do several a year just as a connection point with my teenagers.  Again, this often provides a great opportunity for discussion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Homeschooling

Looking Back

Posted on by Dawn



We have finished the twins Sophmore year.  I am both glad and sad.  I have two more years of homeschooling and then I am done. This thought makes me very contemplative.  This homeschooling adventure that we started with trepidation and anxiety has been the best thing we could have done for our family.  It’s not always been easy and we certainly haven’t done everything right, but it’s been so worth it. 

Things that we could have done better in our homeschooling journey –

1.  Too much book/workbook academics and not enough learning through play.  I learned this lesson later with Connor so the twins had a much more fun and enjoyable beginning.  I had to learn that more isn’t better, it is just more.  I think we can teach through play in those young years and it teaches  much more effectively than a formal curriculum in those early years.

2.  Don’t compare.  Shakespeare says, ” Comparisons are odious” and I think it is true.  I can’t compare kid against kid or my homeschool against someone else’s.

3.  Slowly ramp up academics in late elementary.  Poor Connor had a REALLY hard transition to middle school because I moved from elementary to middle school in one giant leap.  A more gradual transition into independence and starting to ramp up academics in 5th and 6th grade has been far more successful for the twins.  We did the same for high school for the twins.  It has been a much smoother transition and we have been able to move into more advanced subjects earlier.

4. Grades do not define my children.  Scores on Standardized tests do not and should not define who my children are.  A low test score does not mean that they are not intelligent.  It does not show who they are and what they are worth. I learned this the hard way with Caileigh, and spent several years showing her that I could see her for who she is and not for how she did in school.  Caileigh really began to shine academically in Middle School and I had to learn not let her scores define her worth or my job as her teacher in her earlier years.

5.  It is not about me.  Oh, how I have struggled with this one.  What my children achieve or do not achieve is not about me.  Their personal style is not a reflection of me.  Their bad choices are not about me.  Once I could stop making it about me and taking it as a personal insult, I became a much more effective teacher and a better Mom.  I stay so much calmer and our home is far more peaceful once God broke my pride in this.

What we have done right –

1.  Insist that our children be friends.  In our home, if you are not kind to your siblings then you will lose the privilege of being with friends.  If we could not be loving to our family, then how could we be loving to others?  We practice kindness, service, courtesy in our home, first.  If you cannot practice those traits at home, then you lose the privilege in practicing them elsewhere.  Having a family learning model in school also helped immensely in this.  When you are all studying the same things in Bible and at least History, you create a commonality that allows your children to have things to play and chat about.

2. Insist that we do our school work with excellence and diligence. Not with perfection, but with excellence.  Sloppiness is not okay.  If we did something wrong, that’s fine, but we keep doing it until we get it right.  We do not move on until we have gotten the concept.  If we got a math problem wrong, we correct it and then move on.  We also persevere until we get it right.  We don’t give up, we don’t give in, we don’t fall apart.  We stop and look at it another way.  We research the problem, do whatever we need to do until we have figured it out.

3.  We have fun.  I learned this late but when I understood how powerful this way, I thoroughly embraced it.  Can we learn the same thing with a board game instead of a workbook? Don’t just read about the food they ate, make it.  Make it fun and interesting and they will want to learn more.  Get Dad involved in this.  Scott is far better at this than I am, so I buy the game and he plays it.  Getting Dad involved in doing Science or building the castle or doing the feast makes it so much more fun and memorable.

4.  Give them time to develop their passions and then do whatever you can to support it.  I am the ultimate overachiever but one of the things we did do, was allow our children time.  Unscheduled free time while severely limiting screen time helped them develop interests and passions.  Have a kid interested in gardening?  Get them books, buy a small greenhouse, let them build a working aquaponics.  Don’t let them be afraid of failure and just try.  That’s how Connor got to speak in Barcelona, and again at MIT this summer.  We scheduled time for him to find his passion and then we helped him to relentlessly pursue it.  We have begun to buy fun physics books for Collin and Caileigh spends much of her time working outside with her garden and aquaponics system.

5.  Make God an integrated part of our home and school.  I have loved our curriculum which integrates Bible into all of our studies.  My kids learned to read by reading their own beginner  Bible.  The first coherent sentences they wrote were summaries of Bible stories.  They learned the names of Jesus and did science based on those names.  The more they understood the science the more they understood why Jesus was named that.  They learned that the Bible was history as well as the Word of God. Bible isn’t a subject but woven through out day and life.


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Posted in Elementary, Homeschooling, Middle and High School, Preschool

These are a Few of my Favorite Summer Things…

Posted on by Dawn

School is about to be done, (woohoo, can’t wait for the pool to open) but to keep the kids learning something and to keep at least a semblance of a schedule, I always have math, reading and some language arts activities to be done 2-3 times a week as well as some fun boredom busters on hand.

For all ages

I like to have good books to read for the summer and there are a couple of resources I like to use. I usually read every book before I give it to my kids so I can know what my kids are reading.  My family likes Fantasy and Science Fiction so, again, I would recommend you read any books before handing it to your kids.  We also do many books as read-alouds so I can monitor and teach my kids about discernment and worldview.

I like Honey for a Child’s Heart. It is a great book of lists.  We have enjoyed the majority of books listed but there have been a few that I am glad I pre-read before I handed them to the kids.

I also like to get Sonlight Summer Readers.

For those who use My Father’s World, in the back of the manual from Adventures through 1850 to Modern Times, is a General Reading List of great, classic books by grade level.  My kids chose one of those books every two weeks or so and then put their initials by them when they finished.  All of them finished the entire list by High School and had a wonderful classic book list to their credit.

Jim Weiss Audio Stories – Nothing is better on a road trip than Jim Weiss stories or to give the kids something worthwhile to listen to during your daily afternoon quiet time.  (In my house, everyone, regardless of age, have quiet time.  It helps me maintain sanity) We also enjoy the Story of the World Audio Books and have used them as review over the summer or on long road trips. Jim Weiss Audio Stories

For preschool and younger elementary students

Summer is a great time to work on basic manners and I used  A Little Book of Manners for Boys and A Little Book of Manners for Girls.  We would read through a small section every day and then practice them while play acting a scenario and then try to work through them throughout the day.

I always like to have more “fun” math for summer and with younger kids, we enjoyed Mathtacular by Sonlight.  Although I have never had my kids use them, we love the older Life of Fred Books so I would recommend the younger Life of Fred books.  They start with Apples.

Lots and lots of arts and crafts that can be done outside.  Play-Doh, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, sidewalk paint etc.  I make a bin of outside crafts and activities that can be easily accessed.

Elementary kids

I have somewhat odd children who get very excited to have a workbook to fill in.  I think it’s because we don’t do workbook style learning in our school year so they enjoy them for summer.  The Critical Thinking Company has a ton of great workbooks.  We like their logic and Editor in Chief series’.  They are an easy way to keep the kids from regressing during summer without a lot if work on my part.  My kids actually liked the books better than the software programs.

Mathtacular, Multiplication.com, Life of Fred, Art of Problem Solving’s Beast Academy (for mathy kids) and Khan Academy are fantastic math programs that we have used over the summer to keep our kids occupied and their skills sharp.

One summer, I bought a huge cardboard castle to color and it not only kept my kids very busy, it kept my best friends kids busy.  So 7 kids were happy and busy for several hours a day for at least two weeks.  If it was nice, they played on the patio but when it was yucky, they played on the wood floor.  For hours, for days, 7 kids were happy and busy.  Well worth the initial outlay.

I like to have my kids do a Bible Study during the summer and we really like the Kids Inductive Bible Studies.  I usually start with the one about How to Study Your Bible but then let them choose what they are interested in after that.

Older Kids

If you haven’t discovered Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction, get it immediately.  Not only did it keep the younger kids busy, it kept the teens, my best friends kids, my cousins graduated kids and the husbands busy for almost the entire summer.  I made a list at the beginning of the summer of the needed supplies for the majority of activities in the book, took a trip to Wal-Mart and placed it all in a plastic container which the kids named, the “Awesome Box”.  They build mini working trebuchets, catapults, bow and arrows out of pencils and pens, awesome rubber band guns, exploding pens, you name it.  I also relegated this work to the patio.

Posted in Homeschooling

Child Training Part 3 – No Whining and Complaining

Posted on by Dawn
No Whining or Complaining



Nothing will make a homeschool day go down more quickly than whining and complaining.  If everytime you pull out a subject your children say, “Mooommm, we don’t want to do math.” or “Mooommmm, we hate history.” then you will probably begin to despise homeschooling.  We don’t want to continually fight or coerce our children into wanting to do school.  We all do things that we don’t want to do.  Think cleaning the toilet or the chore I like the least – folding laundry, it is so pointless.  I know there have been points where we have all needed a refresher in this, including me.  I really do dislike folding laundry and have at times been very whiny, at which point my kids quote this verse to me.


Bible Verse – Phil 2:14 – 15 says, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing,  so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.”Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky  as you hold firmly to the word of life.”


I modify this verse to “Do everything without whining or complaining so that you may shine like a star in the heavens”.  I have found star stickers and star charts for my younger kids and every time they obeyed or asked for something without whining or complaining then they receive a star.  We have taken our kids out to look at the night sky with blankets and talked about how the stars light  up the night sky and the Bible talks about how we can light up the world around us if we do everything without whining or complaining.


Bible Verse for the second or third day – Proverbs 16:24 says, “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”


The Bible talks a lot about our tones and how we say things.  As an object lesson for my kids, I got some honey out and told them that the Bible says that pleasant words and tones are sweet.  I gave them a demonstration of pleasant words, like “Yes, Mom, I am coming”, or “No, thank you” and then gave them a taste of the honey.  I then pulled out the Apple Cider Vinegar and told them that whining, complaining and arguing are vinegar words and tones and had them take a taste of the vinegar.  I still use this today.  If my kids are using honey words, I will put out the honey and if my kids are using vinegar words or tones I give a warning by pulling both the honey and vinegar and asking which they would rather have.  


To encourage younger children, I used a star chart with stickers for every time they asked for something without whining and when they get to 10, give them a prize.  For extensive whining, that doesn’t break with positive reinforcement,I would pull out the Apple Cider Vinegar and give them a taste.  Remind them that we would rather use pleasant words versus vinegar words.  (If you think I am being mean, check out the health benefits of Apple Cider Vinegar – it’s really good for the digestion.)

For older kids, especially those who are whining and complaining every time you ask them to do something or you ask them to get our their math, spelling or any subject they dislike, I would use a marble jar for every time they do something without whining or complaining. You could also let them them grab a honey stick or a M&M to give them a treat for obeying right away and saying, “Yes, Mom!”.  For a reminder, I would pull out the Apple Cider Vinegar for every time they whined or complained.



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Posted in Homeschooling

“10 Practical Things” Extended Pt 2 – Child Training

Posted on by Dawn

After you have mostly mastered parent training, ( let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no), move onto to child training.  Remember, you must be consistent or your children will never understand as the expectations are too moveable.  Consistency is the key. 

Week 2 – Child Training

When I was in the training stages with my kids, I would pick one trait to work on that week.  The pattern of the week was usually the same.

Day One – Introduce what we were going to work on.  Have them start memorizing a corresponding Bible verse.  Remind them what positive reinforcements would happen if I caught them showing this behavior.  I would also take time to remind them that they were not allowed to tell me when they showed this behavior, I must catch them at it.

Day Two – Introduce a game or activity that reinforced the behavior and practiced saying the Bible verse.

Days Three through Six- Play the game or activity, if appropriate.  Pay special attention to children and give them much praise and positive reinforcement of the behavior shown.  Make sure that you praise the kids, in front of Dad, of the times that day when they showed the behavior. Continue to practice Bible verse.

Day Seven – Have the kids recite their Bible verses. I always like to give kids a small treat, each and every time they could recite the verse for me.  Like an m&m or a jelly bean or a fruit chewie. Psalm 119:103 says, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Earlier on, I wanted this to resonate with my kids, that the Words of the Bible are sweet to our soul and to our mouth.  Years later, they now run for the jelly bean jar when they recite verses for me and any kids who come to my house know that if they can recite a verse, I will give them candy. On the last day, I also remind them that I will still be watching for them to show this behavior but now that I know that they know what they are supposed to do, I expect that from them.  I also warn them that there will be discipline if they fail to do what they know they are supposed to.

Now, that you have the basic pattern you put any behaviors into this.

There are several behaviors that I would recommend putting into place for a smoother home and school time.

First Time Obedience

One of the first times I presented this topic at a convention a woman stood up in the middle of the workshop and asked me what I meant by ‘first time obedience’.  I was a little taken aback but since it then happened at successive conventions, I try to define what I mean by that.  By first time, I mean, if you ask your child to sit down at the table, will they sit down the very first time you ask?  If you ask them to pick up their toys will they pick up their toys the very first time you ask?  If you ask them to come to you, will they come the very first time you call?  If your child will obey consistently ( say 80% of the time) then I would say that they are obedient the first time.

The Bible verse I use to teach this is Ephesians 6:1 “Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”  I would use this verse for children 2-5 years old, but for older kids I would add verses 2 and 3, “Honor your mother and father – for this is the first commandment with a promise – so that it may go well with you and you may enjoy a long life upon the earth.”


I play a modified game of hide and go seek with my kids to introduce first time obedience.  I go and hide and then call my kids.  They have to yell, “Yes, Mom” and then run to find me.  When they find me, if they have said, “Yes, Mom” then I give them a treat.  I play this several times the first time and perhaps have my husband do it too and then throughout the week, I would hide unexpectedly and call to them.  Little kids really love this but your older kids will get into it if you challenge them with your hiding places.  Teaching is so much more effective if we can think of fun ways to introduce and reinforce topics.



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