Gently Moving Toward Independence: The Student Planner

We had an amazing summer.  We realized that we're in a brand new era.  All four kids are growing up. They sleep all night, most nights, in their own beds.  They are all potty trained (not a new thing, but still noteworthy). They can swim.  We were able to hit the pool and let them loose.  Of course, I made Grace wear her floaties, but she was very independent.  At home, I let her swim without them if I was with her, but she was swimming like a pro by the end of summer.

We're in an era of gently moving them forward, helping them find what they enjoy doing, helping them be the person God would have them to be.

This has become especially evident in the area of our homeschooling.  

Ethan is reading independently, so he doesn't need me to sit by him and listen anymore.  He doesn't need help with several of his language arts assignments.  He works independently and asks questions when he doesn't understand something or if a new concept is confusing him.  He does the same with his math.  He uses a planner where I list all of his assignments.  He checks them off as he goes.

Daniel does the same thing, although he's not an independent reader, yet.  I still make him read aloud to me.  We tried to let him do some of his assignment reading on his own, but his nature would tend to read quickly, not comprehend what he read, and check it off his list.  I stay close by while he works, and he reads a book of his choosing for independent reading.  He loves his list.  He works well, and he works quickly.  He wants to get done with his morning school time as quickly as possible.

The boys do writing together. They write a paragraph every week of some form or fashion. They outline a model paragraph, write it in their own words, edit, and rewrite every week.  Ethan's final draft looks like that of a fourth grader and Daniel's looks like a second grader's.  The differences between the two final drafts are interesting.  Ethan's has a little more complicated sentence structure and vocabulary, but the content is the same. They're getting the hang of it. 

Hannah has a planner, too.  I wanted to include her since she's doing a lot more formal stuff this year.  Although I do sit beside her through all her assignments, she enjoys being able to check off her list.

Grace has her time with me as well, but she doesn't have a planner.  

We do language arts, math, and our K/PreK things in the mornings.  The kids get a break, lunch, and quiet time.  Then, we do science, history, geography, art, and music together in the afternoons.  Not every thing, every afternoon, but science and history and one of the other things most afternoons.  The girls participate in assignments occasionally, but they prefer arts, crafts, and science experiments.  They listen in to any reading aloud that I do.  We try to do as much together as we can.  Then, we split into level appropriate assignments regarding the same content.

I list whatever subjects we're doing that day so they can check those off as well.

The planners have helped tremendously.  I love to see them feel a sense of accomplishment when they know they're finished for the day.  Each day seems to move them into learning independently and being responsible for completing their own assignments.

Thirty.

Thirty.

 

Thirty years old.  I don’t feel thirty, and in my own mind, I don’t think I look like the thirty-year-old “old person” that I envisioned myself being when I was younger. 

Thirty is not old.  And I’m pretty sure old is a state of mind, anyway.

When I was in high school, I had an English teacher who gave us what I thought was an odd writing assignment.  We had to write our own obituary.  Creepy.

I decided to take a comical approach.  I decided to be the grandma who got ran over by a reindeer on Christmas Eve.  I had kids and grandkids and great-grandkids at my house singing and playing in the yard.  Little did I know how often I would think of this assignment.  I think we were supposed to think about our futures and what would really matter when we were at the end of our lives.  What did we want to have accomplished?  Where did we want our futures to take us?  We needed to check into our priorities.  Who did we want to become? What kind of person did we want to be?

I wanted a family.  A big family who wanted to be together, singing, playing, drinking hot chocolate, and roasting marshmallows.  I wanted peaceful togetherness.  I don't remember if my career choice was even mentioned in my paper.  There was definitely no fame or fortune.

I didn't know the point of the exercise until years later.  I didn't realize that I really did write about my future self.  I wrote my dreams out in the form of my obituary.

The other day, I drove up to the store and the clerk was walking an elderly woman outside.  I waved since I recognized the clerk, but I didn't realize the elderly woman thought I was there to pick her up.  She came walking over to the van and belted out laughter when she saw that I wasn’t her ride.

“I can’t see anymore,” she said.  She just laughed and laughed because she was just about sitting in my front seat before she realized I wasn't who she thought I was. I wasn't sure what to do except insist that I have a very common van and help her back inside until her ride did, indeed, arrive.

I hope I can laugh at myself when I get to be her age.  I probably won’t be able to see, either. 

From the Old SC Lady

sunset outside our cabin in CO

I know you will never remember my name, but you will remember someone sat by me when I was going to Cal. on June 10, 2012, and she really was different. (That is a nice way to think of me.)  This is something I would like for you and your wife to remember about married life.

How to Make a Beautiful Life Together.

-Let love be your shelter. The world is noisy and confusing at times, so make a home that is a haven, a peaceful place where you can listen to your hearts and savor the comfortable closeness you share.

-No matter how busy you are, make time for yourselves. Hold hands. Unwind. Surprise each other. Find little chances every day to show you’re grateful to be partners, to be friends, to be married.

-Life is not perfect. You will make mistakes, but each time you meet life’s challenges together, you will grow wiser, stronger, surer of your love.

-Cherish your yesterdays. They are irreplaceable, souvenirs of your journey through life.  Make memories that will bring smiles and sighs whenever you look back. (Look back often.)

-Look forward too.  Dream together. Plan together.  Make promises to keep.  Believe in your tomorrows because tomorrows are what forever is made of.

-To make love last, put each other first.  That is the way to make a beautiful life together, the kind of life you both deserve so much.

I know this sounds a little off the wall but, as I told you, my son just got married yesterday, and this is what I found to send him. You have been so kind to me, and your wife and kids are lucky to have you.  I just wanted to wish this life for you and the ones you love.

Just remember the lady from South Carolina that sat by you for four hours.  And at the end of our trip felt blessed by God that he put you in my life for even this short time.

Be Blessed. Be Safe. And Be Happy.

“one old SC Lady”

*I think I would have liked her!

Altitude Sickness

So- the altitude really does have a wide range of symptoms

I looked so sleepy.  The altitude didn't get to me except through an occasional headache, fatigue, and shortness of breath, although I didn't have to use my inhaler.  

Daniel and Deron had bad reactions.  Deron had major fatigue, and Daniel did okay for a short while, but by the middle of the afternoon on the first day, he was suffering from a terrible headache.  Then, all afternoon and evening, he felt nauseous.  In the middle of the night, he came into our room sick with a fever.  

We ended up giving him motion sickness medicine every time we were going to change our elevation drastically, and that helped more than anything else.  We all drank a lot of water, too.

Ethan and Grace never had any trouble other than a headache.  Hannah did fine until we got to the top of Pike's Peak.  She pretended to feel okay and then, told us she felt terrible on the way down.  And she put herself to sleep a few feet down from the top (14,110 ft). Sweet little girl.  She wanted the donuts from the top as much as the others.

They were really good donuts.

Plan A...B, C, or D- Joyfully Flexible

Wow. Ain't that the truth?!

At the beginning of every school year (and every other month or so, it seems), I make a master schedule.  A master routine.  It's nice to have an example of my perfect day.  It's my Plan A.

We almost always run into B, C, or D depending on what is going on in the real world, and you can't have a B if you don't have an A.  Somebody told me that years ago...before I was ever attempting the task of educating my children.    Homeschooling is part of our lives.  It meshes with everything else.  Somehow, it blends together.  I, desperately, want it to blend, and I have to keep the type A part of my personality in check over it.  She wants Plan A, every day, all the time, with a smile. Period.

However, life is rarely Plan A.  And there is a lot our children can learn from our reactions to the derailment of all our plans.  Those life lessons are more important than any math or phonics lesson you could dream up.  I know precious people who are nearing the end of a quite lengthy and trying situation concerning one of their children.  And I'm telling you, the lessons in faith and perseverance that their other children are learning are priceless.

That's not to say we don't need math or phonics lessons, but those are not the bone structure, not the meat, of home education.  Those things don't hold everything together.  Those are not the point.  Not a single mother I know would tell you that they educate their children at home, so they can be the one to teach the three Rs to their kids.  Not one.

One of the main lessons I want my kids to learn is to be joyfully flexible. Things come up. Kids get sick. Someone needs a favor.  Someone needs help with a meal or childcare while mom goes to the doctor.  Various life experiences come up all day long. I want them to be ready to manage their attitudes and their time as things come up to alter our schedule.

A couple of weeks before we left for CO, Grace caught a viral bug of some sort and literally, fell asleep on the floor in the middle of the living room one morning.  Hannah stepped away from the table and her math lesson, went to get a blanket, a pillow, and Grace's stuffed puppy in order to take care of her sick sister.  She also filled a cup with juice and placed it beside her.  I think the main lesson she learned that day was a lesson in kindness, a lesson in putting someone else ahead of yourself.

So when my Plan A makes a stop, my purpose is to look at the bigger picture and remember that we can get back to it after we take care of our derailment.  My attitude is everything in those instances.  My children can either learn that math is more important than their sick sibling or that math will still be math after you do what you need to do. (And I was going to move Grace, but I let Hannah handle it that day.)

They need learn that schedules are gentle guides not rigid rule books.  Children need to learn time management, too.  If their schedule is always perfect, there are no lessons learned.  No need for time management.  However, my kids and I do need structure.  We all need a plan.  But that plan needs to be adaptable. And we, moms, need to be flexible, joyfully flexible.  Like the saying goes our kids will remember what we did long after they've forgotten what we said...

Gold Mining

We went to the Wild West Ghost Town Museum while we were in CO, and it was filled with antiques, player pianos, authentic buggies, trick mirrors, authentic clothing examples, dishes, and much more.  While it wasn't exactly what we thought it would be based on the flyer and pictures, it had a lot of things to look at.  The homeschooling mom in me made the kids watch the informational video.  Then we went outside and that is where we found the gold mining table.  They spent as much time hunting for gold as they did browsing the museum.

By the time we left, we all wanted to go back to my sister's and watch Gold Rush Alaska.  We may have done just that.

Authentic

I am a type A, perfectionist, and super-mom wannabe.  It's a problem.  One that I try to keep in check.

I know I cannot do it all with a perfect house, perfect meals, perfect lessons, and perfectly behaved children.  I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  My children, most certainly, are not.  I, desperately, wish to recover that part of myself before I do more harm than good.  I don't need perfect.  I need real.

I want to be a great mom.  My heart longs to be great...to be perfect.  There are days when I feel I've accomplished virtually nothing.  My to-do list is struggling. Behavior issues abound.  My patience runs raggedly thin.

Then, I begin comparing myself to others...bad, bad, bad idea. I think of so-and-so who works full-time, outside the home, who seems to have it all together with never-ending patience and perfect kids.  And then, there's the homeschooling mom of seven, who has a business out of her home which she runs with impeccable time-management skills. She has super-talented and well-behaved kids and a perfectly clean house. Oh, and she has an extra special patience, of a "super power" proportion, and she's just perfect.

That snarky, evil, voice in my head screams at me.  Why can't you get it together?  They can do it all!  They are just so perfect.

Then, my more sensible subconscious, prompts me with, No one is perfect.  We are all unique.  Each person you think is perfect isn't.  They have to make choices and they've said "no" to plenty of things in order to do what God has put on their hearts to do for their family and in their home.

I have only been a mom for nine years, and I'm learning every. single. day.  So while I don't know much, I do know that my children know when I'm being real.  They know if I'm being authentic.  They know the real me.  That is a great thing!  My children help me to be real, without even realizing it, instead of trying to be something I'm not.  I have strengths and weaknesses that are unique to me.  I try to help them be themselves.

One thing that helps me to do that is to think and do with their adulthood in mind.  I ask myself, "What do I want them to remember from their childhood?"

- Baking cookies on Friday afternoons, in the fall
- Going to the park on a windy day
- Having our church family visit the house on a regular basis
- Traveling to visit family who isn't nearby
- Spending most weeknights at home, family time doesn't last long...don't like being too busy.
- Listening to mom read aloud during snacks
- Popping popcorn and stargazing
- Running with mom at the track
- Going to church meetings
- Knowing that mom and dad drink coffee every day on the front porch that they can, that they love one another very much
- That mom and dad work hard in different ways
- Knowing that while they were not perfect, they were home...
- That home was a place of solace, refuge, that God was/is honored and spoken of, often
- That they could be themselves.  That they could relax, in their hearts, in spite of any circumstances.
- That, while it may not have been quiet, it was peaceful.

So if you want them to remember that they baked cookies and listened to stories, you actually have to bake the cookies and read the book.  If you want them to remember popping popcorn and looking at the stars, you have to do it.  If you want them to be themselves, you have to let them.  If you want them to relax, you must set the tone.

So what's important to you, in your life, in your home?  What works for you?  I, likely, will struggle with perfectionism, but I purpose, daily, to remember that we are not perfect.  To remember that, while we're not perfect, we serve a God who is.  And I can rest in that truth.