homeschooling

Tales from a Homeschool Conference

April 24, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth 8 Comments

As many of you know, Steve and I took the ‘little’ girls with us to Cincinnati last weekend for the Midwest Homeschool Conference. Because this is our first year homeschooling and our first conference to attend, we were a little afraid at what we might find. Since we’re only taking two of our children, will they believe we even homeschool at all? If we ask around for a good brewery, will we get kicked out? Are denim jumpers required? But we were pleasantly surprised. There were all kinds of different people there and most seemed, for lack of a better word, very ‘mainstream’.

I knew from the outset that I wanted to go to EVERY last one of Susan Wise Bauer’s talks. I love all her books and feel certain that without her curriculum (The Well-Trained Mind) and without her history program (Story of the World), I could not enjoy homeschooling as much as I do. I would most certainly lock myself in my bathroom more often than I have. So, we went to almost all of her sessions and I finally got to introduce myself to her. I gushed on profusely about how amazing she is and how she has become my new hero. She said to me, “I do think you are my number one fan.” Yes, I’m highly excitable and I’m most certain that I invaded her personal space. But she was very warm and ever so friendly in person and I would drive five hours anytime to hear her speak. She was inspiring and encouraging and I left there with a renewed sense of why we have chosen this ‘less traveled’ path. Some of the highlights from her sessions:

1. Relax. If your children say to you, ‘Mom, are you mad?” very often, you probably have this worried look on your face all the time. Have fun with it. They ARE learning. Alot more than you think. And they are safe and being protected from many outside influences. Relax. Just relax and breathe. (Those last 2 relaxes are for me).

2. Avoid the common mistake of compartmentalizing school. Don’t say (which I said daily in the past), “Hurry and finish school and then we’ll…..”. Learning is a lifestyle, not something to be done before other more fun things can be done. Instead, it should more like, “Let’s do your math and then we’ll go for a walk….then we’ll read some and then we’ll have lunch…..then we’ll go to ballet and then we’ll plant some flowers. Don’t use school as punishment.

3. Educate Yourself. If you’re embarking on trying to educate yourself (like I am, using her book The Well Educated Mind), don’t be discouraged. Just because you can read the newspaper doesn’t mean you can easily read great works of literature with ease. Be patient. Even if you can only get through ten pages of Plato, that’s better than no pages of Plato. Just keep turning the page.

4. Surround your children with great books. Buy books for gifts. Read to them. Read yourself. Have them read to you. There is no substitute for great books. Keep them everywhere.

5. Sing. Dance. Laugh. Enjoy the fact that you are blessed enough to be able to stay home with your kids and teach them. If you enjoy it, they will too.

6. Don’t ask your children repeatedly to do tasks that are highly frustrating for them. If they cry everytime you ask them to narrate or write something, there’s probably a reason why. Break writing down into tasks. Have them narrate back to you verbally what happened in a story and you write it down. Then separately have them take dictation of short sentences. Eventually they will be able to do both steps together but this was a lightbulb moment for me. I have a child who cries everytime I ask her to narrate. But I do it anyway, thinking maybe she’s just being lazy. SHE DOESN’T HAVE THE SKILLS TO DO IT YET ALL AS ONE ACTION! Oh, thank you for this tidbit Ms. Susan. You will save us many tears.

7. If they’re crabby, feed them a sandwich. If that doesn’t work, have them take a nap. Children are physical beings and most of their melt downs are related to physical needs. Don’t neglect the physical needs while trying to push harder with the mental tasks. The brain needs food and rest.

8. Establish a regular ‘rest’ time. Even if they’re older, they can go to their room and read. When you’re with your own children all day, you all need a break from each other. Even mom. Especially mom. Susan says she has kept this up even as they get into the teen years. Her mother (who homeschooled her) would say, “Don’t talk to me from 1-3, unless you’re seriously injured”. I think this is wise. We must pace ourselves. This is a long, hard but rewarding road.

Another highlight of my trip was visiting one of my favorite stores ever….. IKEA. And I’d like to thank the Creation Museum for that. We were so looking forward to going to the museum and were sure we’d need more time than just one day. I think the concept is good and I happen to agree with the main theology points of the museum (God created the world in seven days, young earth etc) but there was something lost in the translation I think. I’ll summarize by quoting Steve, “It’s like a bad mixture of Dollywood and Jesus 81”. Enough said.

And last but not least, I got to meet Darcy from Lifewithmy3boybarians. This was certainly one of my favorite bloggers to meet. Sadly, the picture of the two of us did not turn out well. Of me at least. I had just had my hair colored and it was a sort of orangish-yellow. So I’ll spare you the fright but I will tell you she is a beautiful, strong, kind woman who you should meet if you get the chance. She is DARLING in person and I feel so fortunate to count her among my friends in real life now.

Don’t forget, I’m making my big Retro Cottage Kitchen reveal on Monday and you can link up with me and show us your painted wood projects. I think to warm us up, I’m gonna show you my bathroom redo this weekend. So go get some paint and paint something wood. K? BTW, I did figure out how to use Mr. Linky. I’m pretty darn proud of myself.

Love to all!

Post-Edit:
I forgot to add one of the key things I learned:

9. Think LONG and HARD before you join a co-op. I was contemplating Classical Conversations and after hearing her reasons for not joining, decided to postpone it indefinitely. Co-ops can be very time consuming, especially if you’re required to teach. Spend that time preparing for your own kids instead. They also can foster unhealthy peer groups which is probably at least part of the reason you’re homeschooling to begin with. I think co-ops that are just for field trips might work for us, but we’ve decided against joining one for now.

Grace and Parenting

April 20, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth 17 Comments

Gracie and I–7 years ago

One of the speakers at the homeschool conference had a session titled ‘The Education of a Child–the Wisdom of Fenelon. I was intrigued–so I ordered the book on Amazon before the trip and read it on the way. Francois Fenelon was an archbishop in the Catholic church in France in the late 17th century, along with being a writer and poet. One of his books, called ‘The Education of a Daughter’ is fascinating if you can lay aside your feminist sensibilities long enough to get past lines like this, “…they need not be learned, per se…it is sufficient if they (girls) know how to govern their families and obey their husbands without reason”. I am not easily offended, so I read on, and am certainly glad I did. His overarching message for parents: grace and unconditional love, exercised with humility, reaches a child’s heart, and not just his behavior.

The speaker, Mark Hamby, from Lamplighter publishing, used Fenelon’s points to drive home the idea that parenting is about seeking relationship and not merely behavior from our children. Far too often, I find myself so determined to achieve a certain level of obedience and respect from them, that I’m oblivious to what is really at the heart of their ‘discord’. And admittedly, the desire for prompt obedience is often self-centered. We want our children to make us look good; to prove to the world that we are indeed good parents. We’re so afraid of letting them make mistakes. We parent them more like drill sargents than we do loving mothers and fathers. Have we not been given the unconditional love of our heavenly Father? Do we not defy and disobey and display profound ingratitude to Him daily? And what does He do? He welcomes us with open arms…..the arms of One who poured out His life for us on the cross to ransom us. He forgives and forgets. His mercies are new to us every morning. God gives us grace, pressed down, shaken together, running over and yet we measure out to our children tiny doses of mercy laced with hosts of rules and scoldings and “I told ya so’s”.

Our authority should be exercised with humility. Christ is our supreme example: His humility cost him His very life. We often associate authority with power and might, but as C.S. Lewis once said,

“Authority exercised with humility and obedience accepted with delight are the very lines along which our spirits live.”

We must surrender our need to always be right and humble ourselves in service to our children. As foreign as that may sound, that is exactly what our Father has done for us. He could have come in power, seized upon our frailties and weaknesses and demanded right behavior. But instead, He took on human flesh and died that we might have life.

Does this grace and humility mean that we have no rules, no boundaries. On the contrary. Those whom the Lord loves He chastens. It is our primary job to ‘discipline’ our children, but that word means ‘teach’. I think we often jump right to ‘punish’—which should be reserved for extreme cases of direct defiance. Likewise, God has given us rules, that if followed, will lead to happiness and unity. His standards are incredibly high, as should ours be for our children. But the final answer does not lie in following the rules. He has not been content to see our behavior realigned. He went to every length to reach our hearts: His grace and mercy cannot be exhausted.

You might think that I am providing the solution to our parenting conundrum as a simple ‘Show more grace to your children’. I am not.

The solution is always Christ. I will always fail to bestow enough grace. I will always, even in my best attempts, fail to love them unconditionally. The real answer for us all is the forgiveness and mercy of the One perfect parent, whose love has no limits and whose grace knows no bounds.

He alone can restore the years.

I’m linking with Emily from Chatting at the Sky as we celebrate ‘thankfulness’ and ‘noticing’. You’ll love her blog!

Silhouettes

March 29, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth Leave a Comment

This is so fun and easy that you must try it with your small children. Silhouettes are all over the internet but I think I first saw this method on the Shabby Nest.

1. Take a picture of your subject. This happens to be my darling and wonderfully handsome nephew because I’m making silhouettes for my sister.

2. Print the pictures to whatever size you want the silhouettes to be onto cardstock. I traced the silhouette and then solicited the help of the youngsters to color them in. Use a black permanent marker and fill in the image completely. They thought this was so much fun since they were essentially ‘coloring themselves’.

3. Use an exacto knife and precisely cut out the image; careful to preserve cute little noses and lips.

4. After cutting the image, color the egdes again so that no white is showing.

5. Then place them into frames and enjoy. I backed the cardboard from the frame with fabric such as linen or burlap to add texture to the framed silhouettes. They turned out beautiful! Only 6 more to go!

And in case you wondered about the ‘brood’, they’re just dandy. The rooster is quite the bossy cackling little guy and one of the hens loves to mother and preen the others. The ducks, named Bumper and Thumper, love to swim and love to wake me up at 5 a for more water.

Let me know if you try the silhouettes. There are also professional silhouette artists who can make ‘real’ ones for you……but that isn’t nearly as much fun!

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Logos School takes a field trip……..

March 26, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth Leave a Comment

It’s Spring Break for us so I invited several friends and their teens and tots to join us at Barter Theatre to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I don’t what was more fun….watching the play or watching my kids watch the play. The teenagers laughed out loud and wore the technicolor flashing glasses we bought for them. And Sue and Donna and I couldn’t resist a picture with ‘Joseph’. My angel friend Donna who used to make her haven next door to me lives in the vicinity of the theatre now….so we were especially excited to see her.

Emme was brave enough to stand next to Joseph for a quick pic.

We enjoyed lunch together at KP Duty in Bristol! Morgan joined us for the fun day too and kept Taylor and Andrew in line.

And I was fortunate to spend a few hours in the car with Cindy……and 3 teenagers and 3 small girlies. We talked and played music and laughed and talked some more and drank Starbucks (be still my beating heart). Abingdon is such a quaint and cozy little town. And every production I’ve seen at this theatre is spectacular. Our little group picture is missing Cindy, Sarah, Emily, Clay, and Donna. Sandy and Sue rode together with their kiddos and I’m only sad that we didn’t have more time to visit with them.

And the icing on the cake? We ran into Taylor’s first grade teacher Mrs. Savery! I almost cried. She was such a blessing to us and I have such fond memories of being at Providence Academy…..where I first learned about classical education. It was so good to see her and Bunny Turner. It was nearly a perfect day from beginning to end.

So, the girls and I are watching YouTube clips of the play this morning. Sandy was lucky enough to see this very one where Joseph was played by Donny Osmond! Thank you girls for such a great day!

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"Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men"

March 16, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth 1 Comment

This was previously posted on Lyndsay’s site as part of a series on mothers, but I wanted to include it for part of my archives.

I am a newbie homeschooler. I have four children, two of which are attending the local public highschool and are doing very well as I document here and here. My oldest graduates this year (in 83 days to be exact) so I’m in general quick to tears and completely unable to remember my middle name most days. At the end of the last school year, my 8 year old begged me to homeschool her. And since I had recently quit my profession as a family practice physician and was feeling a little lost in a sea of purposelessness, and because I love books and learning and had secretly always wanted to homeschool, I agreed to shoulder the responsibility of my children’s education. It seemed a more meaningful alternative than offering free pap smears out of the back of my SUV, which would have at least fulfilled my need to participate in serving humanity.

It was a whirlwind of a summer. I read every book on classical education I could find and scoured countless blogs of real life stories of homeschoolers in every attempt to make sure I would not be caught off guard…..and then set out to transform my garage into a schoolroom(shown above). We settled on a curriculum called The Well-Trained Mind with a heavy emphasis in history, great books, and memorization. The first month I printed a computerized schedule that catalogued every 15 minute increment of every day. My goals were lofty and my need to check things off the list strangled out the geniune love that I have for my children and for learning. In violent reaction to my self-imposed web of stuffy structure, I made all manner of resolutions, and even one pinky swear, never to interrupt pure children’s play again. I kept that vow until we got behind in math. And then I announced, in no uncertain terms, to my pupils that, “All pinky swears are null and void until you can count by 25’s to 400. And back. Mmmkay? Step away from the legos.

My maiden voyage into the tempestuous waters of homeschooling has been a bit akin to when Odysseus left Troy after rescuing Helen. Poseidon, the raging greek god of the sea, must have had it in for me. These waters seemed to toss me about with little regard for the fact that I had never had proper lessons in sailing or fishing and would prefer to decorate the boat to actually navigating it. And that is what landed me in my bathroom sobbing uncontrollably for two hours, which I painstakingly detail in this post. But as the scriptures claim that God’s mercies are new every morning and as March ushers in spring , I find that I finally seem to have found my ‘sea-legs’. And as all veteran homeschoolers that I know have assured me, any semblance of ‘staying afloat’ the first year is a success. All that belaboring aside, homeschooling my children has been one of the greatest joys of mothering. I know them more intimately and have been able to gently shepherd their hearts.

The frantic pace of life seems to have slowed down a bit.

There’s time for holding baby dolls and making great food.

There’s time for seed gardens and digging in dirt.

……there’s time for sewing skirts (that are clearly too short and require leggings) and for painting laundry room cabinets.

And since we’ve been entrenched in studying the ancient Greeks, there’s time to stage battles between Greece and Persia. And even time to spray paint the soldiers.

We sometimes take our books outside and do our math as we watch daffodils poke through the ground.

We commit more to memory than I ever dreamed was possible for young children. We’ve memorized eleven poems, thirty verses of scripture, the catechism of the ten commandments, and a long history and bible catechism that covers from Genesis to the time of the Greeks.

My girls have developed a love for reading and have read many great books this year such as Popper’s Penguins, Babe, Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and the Magic Treehouse books, just to name a few. They’ve listened to lots of books on tape and have enjoyed stories such as Little Women, The Railway Children, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Tale of Desperaux, among others.

We recently made Bucephalus (the horse of Alexander the Great) and then rode around the house all afternoon ‘on horseback’. We listen to classical music and sometimes stay in our jammies until 10. Or 11. We ride bikes, memorize latin, look for birds, and watch dance tutorials on YouTube. We sing and chant grammar jingles and read stories that take us to foreign lands.

We have enough organization to keep us honest…..

and enough bubble gum to keep us smiling.

There are days when I feel completely overwhelmed and inadequate. There are days when I’m not sure that I am the best teacher for my children. There are days when I’m drowning in books and dirty laundry and whining. But this is my vocation. This is where God has placed me, the job He has given me to do. I purpose to be thankful for today, for these children, for this chance to teach them, to shepherd their hearts and fill their minds with truth and wisdom. Maybe this is what Christ had in mind when He called us to be fishers of men.

I leave you with a quote from a book I’m reading aloud to them called Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott. It has some of the most beautifully constructed sentences that I believe I’ve ever read. I guess I wish for my girls days like those Rose, the protagonist of the story, enjoyed.

“Rose leaned where she was, and fell to thinking how many good times she had had lately, for the gardening had prospered finely, and she was learning to swim and row, and there were drives and walks, and quiet hours of reading and talking……she could work and play all day, sleep sweetly at night, and enjoy life with the zest of a healthy, happy child.”

Perhaps the greatest benefit is that homeschooling seems to foster lifelong learning for us all. They see me reading and learning and memorizing right along with them. We learn and love and live….together.

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The Spring Winds Blow

March 9, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth Leave a Comment

In my twisted logic, spring equals a can of white spray paint and some comfy flip flops. So while my girls recited “The Wind” by Robert Louis Stevenson, I braved the March wind with a can of spray paint and anything I could find in my house that looked worn and wintry. Enjoy my spring ‘fluffing’ while I share this delightful little poem with you. You should memorize it.