Homeschool Diva

We are on a first name basis with our librarians. Whether you homeschool or use traditional school, I highly recommend working your local library like a TOOL!  I unfortunately pay a consistent amount of fines as we are always keeping something a little longer then a week. No matter what, I am always leaving one book at home that should of been turned in.   Oh well, that bursts your bubble doesn’t it.  This week we scored a few fun finds at our library. I take one canvas bag with me, and we fill it until we can’t fit any more in.  That is when they have to stop. I also find tons of educational movies at the library.  Some are great and some are a bust.

I also use some great educational websites to spice up our day.  The kids have really learned how to get around on the computer so I am working that too.  Here are two great sites that our family uses often.  Hope your family enjoys them as much as we do.  Now if I could just find a fun Latin website for kids.

• the happy scientist
• national geographic for kids

Have a wonder filled week everyone~

My dear and amazing husband, gave me a day off yesterday.  I got to go do what I wanted, come and go as I pleased and not worry about anything at home, or the kids, or cleaning and getting ready for church or doing anything but play. I finished work on some photo edits on Sat. and turned the computer off. I didn’t even look at my “to do” list yesterday.  I went for a dive, I went and saw a movie by myself. I turned the phone off, I went “dark” as my brother says, which is a navy term meaning you can’t be found. It was crazy.  I feel re-energized.

I don’t do that enough.   I need to go back to the way we lived our life 5 years ago.  We scheduled out silent retreats, and alone time, and date nights and weekends away.  Shoot, Dallas Willard schedules that stuff out for 5 years in advance so NOTHING ever comes in the way of it.  Having a hour break during the day where the kids and I all have alone time, and set standard bedtimes are good at keeping you sane day to day, but they don’t do what they need in terms of deeper soul care.  God is all over me about that right now.

I did start to do the blog redesign and as I stated  I love/hate css.  When you crack it you love it, when you inadvertently erase some bracket or essential word like <center> and don’t know where it is at or how the heck to get it back, then you have a jacked up tool bar like you see to the right, or should I say the very bottom of this screen, you HATE it. Note to self, copy all the code on a note-page before you begin fiddling with the original so if you mess up you can fix it quickly.  Oh well, I will figure it out…one of these days.   I also started to upload new WP software, and design some new headers.  FYI - I am so NOT feeling the one above, but it will have to do for now.

Grace and Peace to all wanna be web designers today.  Seriously, if I could just get over the need to conquer this, I would hire this mess out, because the fun of it was lost on me about 36 hours ago.  Don’t worry, I will move through that eventually and will most likely say in the next post at how enriching the whole dang experience was after all.

I’m out! Paz all!

Firstly here is something pretty to look at.  Why you ask?  Because, I feel the urge deep within my being to change some things around.  I think it is the right of every woman to want to redecorate, and the cheapest and fastest way to do that, is by moving a few pixels around online. Namely, a blog redesign.  I know, I know I can’t help myself.

So, I will be back to the drawing board, with my blog design and basic CSS.  Trust me I have a love hate relationship with that but I will not let it conquer me.  The problem is, I wait too long between redesigns that I can’t remember what I did last time, and have to learn it all over again.  Nice. I also need to update my linky love because it is terribly out of date and sparse, so I will work on that too.

I think I am finally laying to rest my thoughts on moving this blog to a different domain name. It’s gonna stay right here. Other then that, my kids are doing some art at the table, my son is reading through Robinson Crusoe and I am packaging stuff to send out from an ending eBay auction.

Have a great weekend everyone…..look for some changes coming shortly.

First a few disclaimers.  #1 none of these pictures have anything to do with money but I thought they were so RAD I went for it anyway, and #2 This is a subject every family has to come to on their own before the Lord. Hopefully a few of these words will inspire you to do what God leads you all to in your own family life:-) #3 I have to get a mountain of laundry done today, but that really doesn’t have anything to do with this either so we will just carry on.

The 2 BIGGEST enemies of the gospel of Jesus are consumerism and individuality. Well, I must say we have that in SPADES here in south Florida. I think money, and the topic of money really deceptively weaves those two enemies of the message of Jesus and the gospel right into it.  Save for you, you, you so you can spend, spend, spend and then play, play, play and where the heck did the whole gospel of “prosperity come into play in western culture”?  I say this politely when I say that that crap is from the PIT for sure.  I mean when God told his people He wanted to see them prosper, he didn’t mean with monetary wealth, he meant with his Presence so that they could be a blessing to a broken world so that ultimately HE would be glorified.  That whole thing has gone awry in our culture don’t ya think?  Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said the LOVE of money is the root of all evil.  Man, that junk will come in and mess you up on so many levels.  I will just hint at saying that even saving, 401k’s, college funds, etc. etc. could be a tiny bit out of balance in our hearts and minds as Christians. AND I only say that because I have fallen head long into that trap in my life.  Thankfully I am blissfully free of it, and have never been more content with much less stuff in my whole life. I love Burkett, and financial responsibility but ummmm, how do you “teach” that stuff to those in other cultures who are making do with day to day?  Just asking the question is all.   I think the message is the same across cultures and circumstances.  “Don’t worry about tomorrow, seek His kingdom and all of the other details work out”, or something like that. Sorry.  Am I being too simplistic?  I do that some times, anyway moving on.

I also think Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said “Don’t worry about what you will eat or drink, or your kids college or what you are going to do when you get old, just worry about today it has enough crap of its own to think about.”Okay that was my paraphrase, but you get what He was saying right?  So how do we responsibly teach our kids about money and saving and giving and so forth without letting those two enemies we talked about in the beginning creep in?  Good question…glad you asked.  Like I said yesterday, we don’t give our kids a weekly allowance for a few basic reasons.  #1 our budget. Even a small weekly allowance X 3 X 4 weeks a month adds up to a lot, and really how much money do little kids need to learn how to be responsible with it? #2 I think it devalues me as the Mom who does all this junk around here all the time, with no thanks and no money.  I mean what the heck?  Do you think these clothes just magically wash/fold themselves and put themselves away.  Okay, they don’t always get put away right on time, but lets not split hairs. Nope, we work as a team, and we get it done together.  I think it helps build character AND life skills all at once which are JUST as important as learning how to rightly manage money.

Here are a few practical things you can do for your kids to help them get prepared for God to move on their hearts in regard to money.  Because ultimately we sow the seed but God will make it grow right?!

• Open a bank account.  $5 bucks will get you going.  It was a big “Ahha” moment for our kids when the realized you don’t get money out of the bank without putting money into it. Plus if it is harder to get to, it will be harder to just get spent on Bubble gum if you get my drift.
• Ask some family members to give them a few dollars at Christmas and birthdays.  Think about it.  Say they get 10 bucks for Christmas and their Birthday, that is $20 a year for a 5, 6 and 8 year old. I mean come on, how much do they need to really learn how to use money rightly? The last thing I want is them day dreaming about how much money they are amassing so they can go buy whatever the heck they desire.  Remember consumerism and individuality?  It can creep right in, right there, and I well tell you right now I am going to guard the heck out of it here in our own home.  That is also the reason we stopped playing monopoly right now.  I saw a little greedy seed crop up, when they all were reveling in owning the world.  Oops, I saw that and in my heart, I was hearing, “ABORT, ABORT like fast.”  I quietly put it away and will take it out maybe later.  Hey better yet, maybe I will invent one based on giving instead of amassing wealth.
• We offer a small monetary fee for jobs above and beyond their normal chores, if they are really wanting to work towards getting something that we have said isn’t in our budget.  It isn’t an every week thing, just here and there.  I think it is good to makes kids work towards what they want.  I don’t buy them every new thing that comes down the pike.  I mean I really don’t buy them much at all. Would you be shocked to know we didn’t buy or kids a single thing for Christmas last year? Really, not one single thing and you know what, they still got more then they could ever use.
• Once they have an account, take a day, where you sit down together and talk about what money is.  Nothing more then a tool.  We spend it, we give it, we save it, we don’t hoard it.  That’s it.  Jackson realized the other day, that at one point in history money had no value, you traded what you had.  Hey I will give you a bushel of apples if you will give me a slab of meat, and it all came together.
• Then pray with them about how much they should give and where they should give it.  I think that helping your kids begin to hear what God is saying in their heart about the poor and marginalized will give them deeper joy in giving then in just making them do it.  I did this with our crew a few months ago, and it was crazy what they felt lead to give to.  Jackson was lead to a local migrant community, Chloe’s was sent to Africa and Hudson wanted his to go to Old people. I also don’t make them do a certain percent at this point.  I tell them, it is all God’s and He gives it us so we can steward it correctly.  Listen he will tell you how much to give.
• A little business isn’t a bad idea either.  Our kids have a lemonade stand.  They pull it out from time to time to make a few bucks.  It is cute and another real world math example that REALLY sticks in their minds let me tell you what.  They have also made some cash by dog sitting and walking while friends are away.  Hey, win/win in my book.  They get to see what it is like to have a dog without out us actually having to,you know, buy one.
• This year for the first time, we gave them all a clothing budget.  Here they sat, at this computer, and shopped at old navy for some new clothes for this school year.  They had to put whatever they wanted in their bag, with the right size and color without regard to cost. Kind of gave me an idea of what they like in regards to style.  I said you must put in 2 shirts, 1 short, 1 pant, 1 dress etc.  They had to follow the task.  Then we saw how much it all cost and how FAR it was outside of their budget.  Then they had to think it through and figure out what they really needed and what they really wanted, and what to put back.  It was fascinating to watch them.  Our youngest who is 4.75 GOT this with no problem.  Now this year, they will have to take care of the things they budgeted and spent for. We also said, you can’t get this until the tax free week, so they are having to WAIT. Did I say waiting was a good thing.
• Well it is, teach them to wait…..and that will flow over into every area of their life. Delayed gratification is a very, very good thing for little guys and Mommy’s and Daddy’s too.

So there are a few of my thoughts on money and kids and apparently laundry too.  Be blessed all of you out there counting the cost even when it comes to a silly little piggy bank.  It is a bigger deal then we think.

From time to time, I like to pull back, and review why we are homeschooling, and what we want to nurture in this whole thing.  I like to have my husband go over stuff with me, so that he can give me a birds eye view of what he sees, calm me down in some of my myopic meanderings, and encourage me on in some of the things we need to work on as a team.

I have re-read our homeschool philosophy, and it still inspires me to keep moving forward, so here we go moving into our third year of education at home.  This year our oldest will be working year 3, our middle will be working year 1 and our youngest will be working his way through pre-k at a local preschool.   One of the things we will be doing this year, is waking the kids with an alarm.  That and they will be given their chore list on small dry erase board, that they can keep in their rooms and check off each morning. It will have this written at the top. ” Have these tasks done and be ready for school at a ___________am.” I have got to ween them off of me constantly reminding them to do their chores.  This puts the responsibility in their hands as part of their work.  On an added note, this is not something I pay them for.  I don’t get paid to do the laundry, we are a family and work as a team.  I understand wanting to teach kids the value of working to earn money and how to manage that wisely, but doing standard family chores is not how our kids are going to get that.  I will write about what we are doing in another post.  This one is already long enough. Geesh.

• brush teeth
• use fluoride
• put away tooth brushes etc.
• wash face and hands
• get dressed in clothes OTHER THEN WHAT YOU WORE YESTERDAY.  Think color, you know mix it up for Pete sake!
• make bed
• straiten room and put away pj’s (strip beds and wash linens on Mondays)
• wipe down counter and mirror in the bathroom. (Chloe)
• Take out bathroom trash (Hudson)
• CAREFULLY open bedroom and bathroom window blinds to let in the morning light. (Jackson)

I am creating a spiral bound copy work book for the older two, that they can do directly in the book.  That way I don’t have to store tons of loose leaf paper, and our oldest will take over reading 50% of his course work and be working towards fully reading it all by  the end of the year.  This is the year that parents traditionally transition their child into reading a portion of their own course work in AO even though it will be a bit of a challenge,  I need to free my time up to focus on our middle.

One of the new things that we have been blessed with this year is a co-op in our local area. Our oldest will be taking a few classes there, and getting a “school vibe” complete with lunch and study hall.  He is very excited. They will continue with their Saints PE co-op and swim team has been added in to the mix too, along with children’s choir and a few other things. With all of this, we will be more then busy in the afternoons.  Which brings me back to point one, setting alarm to start our day.  I have to get all core work in by lunch time, or we won’t get it in.  I hear it all the time.  Homeshooled children are not socially competent.  Don’t they get bored?  Do they interact with kids their age at all? etc. etc.  Let me tell you people, there are so many things for these kids to do, that if I am not careful, I will never get the core work in.

So, here we go again, for another fun, at times frustrating, and grueling yet rewarding, always challenging yet gentle and nurturing, relationship building year of educating our kids at home.  I had a major boost when a dear friend who has three grown kids tell me that if she had to do it over again, she would of homeschooled.

Grace and Peace to all those Mama’s getting it done, whatever way they can.

I am home and getting ready to wade through the massive amounts of digital images I have recorded.  Editing will begin at a slow and steady pace, and by goodness, I will know CS4 inside and out on the back side of this.  I am approaching it like the tortoise, and am giving myself a number I need to hit everyday to stay on target and get this art out the door before August.  In other news, 4 hours of alone time in the car with no noise, is a must for every busy stay at home/homeschool Mom.  Wow can you get some thinking and praying and surrendering done. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.  I miss my family like crazy. Now that I am home, I can’t find them anywhere. They must be out having fun with Grandma, so I thought I would say hi to you.

See you soon~

I am heading out today for a 3 day photo shooting frenzy.  I have a friend who booked me  like crazy a few clients who are donating money to our Costa Rica trip. Pray for me, as I have back to back to back to back, well you get what I mean,  shoots on Monday and Tuesday.  Our children will be with their grands. So, to make a long story short, I wont be around for about a week.  I will be shooting, and editing and creating until my little eyes pop out of my head.  Then I will be back next Monday.

So until then,  pretend you are at the beach watching your kids play.

Grace and Peace to all~

You have to feed your kids good stuff. Not just good food, but good life experiences too. Bottom line. That takes plugging in, prayer and really observing where your kids are at, and what they need  at any stage of development.  Whether you home school or do private or public, you as the parent need to make sure you are tending your little garden. Ever hear the saying “No one can do your push ups for ya?”  Well the same is true in parenting. Lately I have been getting emails of admiration from non homeschooling Moms who want a little help on how to supplement their child’s education.  I love it.

First I would recommend taking stock of were your child is, physically, mentally, relationally, emotionally, spiritually and academically.  Make a list if you have to. Maybe we get things turned around when we hyper focus on academics and leave other very important formational stuff out?  Let the Lord lead you, on things that you see that your  child needs.  Do they need a good dose of habit training, how to do chores or how to take care of their hygiene?  Do they need to read some deep literature, other then fast food type stuff that is typically marketing to early elementary readers?  You get the idea.  I don’t know, only you will now that for each of your children.  Hey, and if you don’t know, maybe you are just too  busy and you need to slow down a bit so you can take stock or where you and your littles are at.

I would recommend you intentionally add a few things into your family rhythm to help give you some well balanced nutrition for you growing brood, weather home educated or not.  Pick a family read aloud.  Stretch and pick a classic or even, shock….. some Shakespeare.   This is also a great resource for those wanting to steer their children into some really good literature.  Living literature will take you and your child into deeper things like geography and history and science.  These books are simply outstanding and every family would do well to read through them together. We have gone through seasons of this on and off in our family and are right now back in this season.  Make your children earn video game or TV time by reading  2 for 1.   For every 2 minutes they read, they can earn one minute of TV or video game time.  It works for us.  Instead of filling your house with the sound of a TV on, play some music quietly in the background.  There are tons of online math helps out there or even some interesting math books that will help your kids.

Think through some practical things you can do with your kids.  Take them to the post office and have them do the whole deal, buy the stamp, address, and mail the letter, use the automated kiosk etc. Go to the hardware story and but the supplies for a family project and involved them in actually checking out and paying for the items.  Involve them in your whole life.  Even the simple things can be a learning moment.  You don’t have to be teacher or a school to schedule a field trip.  You can make a few phone calls in your local area and set up some family things for you all to do together.

Life is short, and there are so many things you can do and accomplish when your kids are big and have flown the coop.  Take a little time, in whatever way you can, to add a little richness to your child’s education.

Hope this helps some of you out there.   I am going to go take some of my own advice and do some phonics games with the kids.

Grace and Peace to everyone out there

Does anyone else get sick and tired of thinking up new titles for their stinking posts?  I hope everyone had a safe and Happy 4th of July.  We had a fun, family weekend together.  My dear husband had to deal with two flat tires and a car that wouldn’t start but that is another story.  For the most part our day was wonderful.

I wonder at how the summer seems so  frantic.  It is always so much busier then the rest of the year.  Is is that way for you all too? The kids and I are steadily working our way through school very gently this summer so as not to loose any of their competency in any area.  I took a large break last year and realized it wasn’t a good plan for us.  They get plenty of breaks through out the year, and it is so hot here mid-summer that our time is better spent schooling then playing.

I’ve had several emails and facebook comments lately about how I homeschool  etc. that I thought I would write a little post tomorrow at how you can implement these methods with your family whether homeschooling fully or just supplementing your child’s traditional school schedule.   I think life is learning and “we” as parents are responsible for making sure our kids get what they need to be ready for life. Anyway you slice it, that doesn’t just deal with making sure they can read, and write and do their arithmetic. It is a whole lot more then that.

As far as where I am at right now…..what I said the other day, still holds for me today.

Grace and Peace to all those testing the waters and learning something new! See you all tomorrow.

It is fun isn’t it people? Dealing with yourself before the Lord.  Good and hard stuff.  Taking each thought captive is one battle of wills I tell you what.

Read my post on this flickr stream.  Click each picture in sequence to see what is up with me.

Grace and Peace to all those who are punching their flesh in the eye, and telling it to sit down and junk because the King is in charge around here!