Heart of the Matter Friday Meme: Most Exciting Homeschool Moment

The good folks at Heart of the Matter Online ask for our most exciting homeschool moment.

Our most exciting homeschool moment is yet to come. It'll be the moment(s) each of my kids...

- enters university.

- makes the first step on chosen career path.

- is a self-supporting, life-long-learning adult.

- becomes a homeschooling parent.

Check in to to see others' most exciting homeschool moments! Add your own!

Heart of the Matter Friday Meme: How We Socialize

I just laughed when I saw this topic come up. I was getting things set up to leave early in the morning for a field trip with our homeschool group. The family room was messy because we'd had friends over earlier in the day. We're in the midst of planning some summer reading get-togethers with friends.

How do we socialize?

We know "the S word" comes up with people who don't understand homeschooling. People worry that our kids will be isolated and develop no social skills. Like all kids who go to school have stellar social skills?

Anyway. Here are ways we socialize:

- Homeschool group activities, including weekly park days during nice weather.

- Church.

- Neighborhood friends.

- Girl Scouts/Cub Scouts.

- Little League.

- Soccer (upcoming in the fall).

- Other classes, such as at the nature center, or a PE class.

Since we moved last summer, our homeschool group has been a real help. I actually got connected with them before we even moved here. When my husband and I came out on a fact-finding trip, I was able to join some of the moms as they waited for their kids during an art class. We kept in touch throughout the summer as I prepared to move, and within the first week we were at a park day. I can't say we have made any deep friendships yet, certainly not like those we had back home. But we are out and about and having fun.

Soon we will take our dog to obedience training and might meet some folks there. We are thinking of agility training (he is a fast and happy runner!) so might meet people that way. There are no shortages of ways to socialize.

And, let' s not forget about our family. Even though it's just the 4 of us, we like to be together. We don't always need other people around. We want to be our own best friends.

Read more at Heart of the Matter Online.

The Heart of the Matter: Favorite Books

This weeks' Heart of the Matter meme is: favorite books.

Oh my. How can I come up with a list? There are so many! Favorite history books, fiction, science, fun books, grownup books... I asked my girlie and she just stared at me. "That's a really hard question, Mom!"

But then I knew what question to ask next: "What is our favorite readaloud book or series of books?" Before I had the question completely out of my mouth, she called out

Swallows and Amazons!

Yes, if you have read this blog for any length of time you have heard that song and dance before. The Swallows and Amazons books (the first in the series is conveniently titled Swallows and Amazons) is a 12-book series written in the 1930s and set during that time in England's Lake District and other areas. They are beautifully-written (by Arthur Ransome), exciting stories of adventure, independence, self-reliance, fun!

I clearly remember reading the first book. It was almost 2 years ago. We were reading slowly; my girlie was not too into it - there's a lot of technical sailing information at the beginning. But we had taken it on vacation with us, it was the only book we had, so one evening in our hotel room in Fernandina Beach, FL, we picked it up, and - it clicked. Something happened (my girlie says it was the appearance of the fearsome pirate Nancy Blackett) and we were hooked. Over the course of the next year we read the whole series, loving almost* every book.

You can read some of my old blogs posts on the topic here, if you like. You also might want to browse the home page of the Arthur Ransome Society, and this Guide to Swallows and Amazons.

Oh, some details: written for the 9-12 set, I suppose, but they would have been hard for one of my 9 year olds to read, and would probably be interesting to older kids, depending. They are long - 300-400 pages. They have lots of information on sailing but that is not tedious for long, and may not be tedious at all for some kids. A great, great, family readaloud. I cannot recommend them highly enough, and I tell everyone I meet who has any interest in excellent children's literature to read them.

For some reason I could not get the little button for the Heart of the Matter Friday meme, but
you don't really need that anyway. After you go there and read some of the other favorite book posts, go find yourself a copy of Swallows and Amazons! I have a feeling we're going to be rereading it soon ourselves. Probably won't make it through all 12 again as a readaloud, though I hope my kids read them all again someday.

*Missy Lee is not so hot, and contains what, to our modern eyes, are stereotypes of Asians, typical of the time it was written.

I updated my video bar to the right with some short videos of England's Lake District. It's a gorgeous place.

Heart of the Matter: Happy Habits of A Homeschooler

The weeks go by so fast around here. I keep forgetting to write any sort of review for the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. I didn't even remember to look at the Carnival of Homeschooling, much less post about it. But I did remember the Heart of the Matter Friday meme. This week it's all about homeschoolers' happy habits.

We aren't very good with habits around here, but we're trying.

One habit we do have, and keep to pretty well, is to start our day with the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and Training Hearts, Teaching Minds, which is a study guide for it. This means sometimes breakfast takes a very long time. My kids like to talk - maybe they just like to stall - and we do talk a lot. Much of our homeschooling is accomplished just by talking.

We have the habit of reading daily, or most days, some sort of nature writing or natural history. I count this as science because, well, it is, but it also often leads us to further research on some animal, plant, or place. Right now we're in the midst of North With the Spring by Edwin Way Teale. I love Teale's writing.

We try to keep to the habit of doing our "table work" - that's math, grammar, writing - finished right after breakfast and kitchen cleanup, so we can get to the good stuff - reading history, doing science experiments or reading, research, etc. When I can combine work on these skills with the good stuff, it's a really great day. But that's not always possible, so we try to get it done quickly and move on.

We almost always close our day with a book too. Right now it's Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson. Very exciting and interesting book. This is one of those books my kids could read on their own, but I like kids' books too sometimes. I usually try to read them books that are above their reading level. I also like to read old books because the language is so much richer than most contemporary writing I've come across.

Afternoon teatime with a book is another happy habit, though we don't tend to want tea in the warmer weather so much. I like iced coffee and I don't want to start that habit with my kids quite yet. Reading in the hammock will commence soon.

Just this week we started a habit of going to an exciting and new place on Wednesdays. That is the day Daddy gets home from school early enough that we can go off for most of the day. (We are a one-car family right now.) We don't like leaving him home, but he needs time to study. This week we went to Valley Forge with our dog Max. It was beautiful; we had a picnic and a great walk. The semester is winding down so things will change after finals, but we need to try to keep up a weekly outing while we are living here. There is a lot to see in this area, and we only expect to be here about 3 more years. So, we need to keep moving.

Notice none of those habits have anything to do with house or yardwork. Those are habits we should be working on. But then this was called "happy habits."

Heart of the Matter: Sheltering our children

It's The Heart of the Matter Friday meme: share your thoughts on this quote:

Clearly there is an appropriate kind of sheltering. When those who are opposed to homeschooling accuse me of sheltering my children, my reply is always, 'What are you going to accuse me of next, feeding and clothing them?" ~R.C. Sproul Jr




Sheltering our kids - always a hot topic for people unsure or critical of homeschooling. What are we sheltering them from?

Well, there's the obvious - bullies, fights, cliques, sexual abuse from teachers or fellow students. When a homeschooling parent mentions them, people nod and say. "yes, yes, those are problems. But still..."

How about all that wasted time? There is so much time wasted at school! Time wasted lining up, calling roll, waiting for other students to finish the work, waiting for the teacher to finish disciplining someone. Of course at home we waste time too. It's 7:18; I should not be typing here but should have my kids up and about and ready to hit the books, yes? But the wasted time here is not spent sitting doing nothing. A child needs to wait for me while I move some laundry around - he's reading a book, she's drawing. Or, better yet, they are helping me do it, learning those important but overlooked home skills. Sometimes the wasted time is intentional: "go outside and run around with the dog" means "blow off some steam, get some energy out, then come in and let's read." From my experience in school, waiting time is dead time, daydreaming time, misbehaving time. Yes, people shrug, "that's just the way it goes."

I'm also sheltering my kids from being put in a box. Not a literal box; the grade level box. My boy would be in 5th grade. He is doing 3rd grade arithmetic, though he understands high-school (or beyond?) level math concepts. His grasp of the basics does not yet meet his conceptual understanding. His reading level is probably about 5th grade, though if he is allowed to read about a subject that really interests him, he can read books found in the "adult" section of the library. My daughter would be in 3rd grade; she's doing 2nd grade math facts but reading 5th grade level books. Both of them are used to reading/listening to me read history and science books that aren't even in the elementary school curriculum. The boy asked some question recently about the Chechen Republic's relationship to Russia and the former Soviet Union. What grade do they teach that in?

How about sheltering my kids from an artificial environment? At what other time in their lives other than school are kids massed with their own age group almost to the exclusion of all others?

Guilty of sheltering them from absurd "zero tolerance" policies that make a child defending himself equally culpable as the bully attacking him, or equate an aspirin with illicit drugs.

I am sheltering my kids from the values taught in school, both implicitly and explicitly. Peer pressure to express their individuality within the strict confines of what is in style, inappropriate sexualization, a diminishing of Western values in honor of tolerance and diversity... yes, I will gladly shelter my kids from all that. This is, I think, the biggest fear of homeschooling opponents. They are afraid parents will pass on their own opinions, ethics, and morals. But that is the job of parents, and that is how a culture survives. (Will our culture survive?) That doesn't mean we teach them a narrow view of the world. We don't exclude other viewpoints; we simply emphasize our own, and we teach them why we believe the way we do.

Sure, there are dangers that we may shelter our children too much, or inappropriately. But I think that is a topic for another post.

What I wish I'd known....

Today I came across an interesting meme at The Heart of the Matter, a new blog to me. (Thanks to Smallworld.) This week the topic is:

What You Wish You Had Known Your First Year of Homeschooling.

I can't really say when my first year of homeschooling was. Was it when I decided to homeschool? Was it when my kids "should have gone" to kindergarten? Or when I had to register them with the local school district at age 7? I guess it doesn't matter, because the answer would be the same no matter what:

I'd have calmed down about the reading.

Both my husband and I could read before we went to kindergarten, and both love books. So we assumed any kids of ours would love books and would be early readers. Well, they both love books, always have. Our boy's first comfort object was a book, not a blankie. And if we had to punish the little toddler, afterwards he would cry "read a book, read a book!" That was how he could be sure he was still loved.

But neither kid took to reading early. The boy and I struggled mightily for a couple of years before I gave up on the conventional methods and let him read easy books. By 8 I could relax a little because he could read, some. Now by almost 11 he is doing pretty well. He can't spell, because he never got the phonics down. But recently he asked me to "redo" phonics with him because he sees the lack of it hindering him. Since he is doing it because he wants to, there is no struggle and we're progressing OK. He is "behind" in writing but otherwise doing pretty well. I managed not to kill his love for books and learning.

My 2nd child wasn't interested at age 6, and I didn't really care because I was still struggling with her big brother. At 7 she taught herself to read. I guess hearing his phonics lessons was enough to get her started, and she's never looked back.

So, if I could have those years back, I'd just keep reading to them, keep letting them love books and language, and sit back till they were ready to read. I should have known it would happen.

Go over to Heart of the Matter and see what others have to say.