Good Beginning

Not everything is perfect, but everything is going well. When Sam has a meltdown due to frustration, we have a structure to deal with it. He goes to his room until he calms down. Now it is up to him to reduce the frequency. The structure will help him feel safe and help me to keep my voice and emotion on an even keel.

We are reading about ancient American Indians and their cultures. Fascinating. I would not want to read this material to Sam if it were not in a book written by a Christian for Christian kids. This way, the author is able to condemn the practices that are evil (human sacrifice) without saying all of the culture was bad.

Sam needed to a reminder on how to add fractions without common denominators, but of course remembered it well with just showing it once. Tomorrow he will practice adding with negative numbers—the secret here is to make the number line vertical (babies learn about up and down before their first year of life is completed). For those of us who cannot keep left and right straight the vertical number line solves many issues.

I am very happy with how homeschooling is going. Thanks for those who were/are praying. We are doing well.

Tomorrow is the Big Day

Here I am on the eve of the Big Day. Tomorrow we start homeschool in earnest. Our first day of "real" homeschool. Last year we unschooled and deprogrammed Sam for his negative thinking about learning he had obtained from the classroom setting. Over the summer we did "school lite" to keep from needing review this fall (and to be able to take occasional days off without any stress).

What will it be like? Have I prepared enough? Sam is excited--will he be able to maintain that all day? Will I be able to keep from nagging if he is slow or easily distracted? There are so many questions and I bet the preparation helps as much as it does when you become a first time parent. Yeah, it's necessary--you need a crib and carseat, etc--we needed books and materials, but nothing prepares new parents for how it feels to be solely responsible for this screaming baby. Can anything prepare me for being solely responsible for all of Sam's education?

But just as a new parent learns that mistakes aren't fatal, so I will learn that our mistakes will be tools for improving our educational system--not a sign of failure.

So, if I have any energy tomorrow night, I will let you know how it went.

A work in progress

Perfect is a word that creeps into our conversation and our thinking. It can discourage and lead to depression, but we cannot dismiss it completely since Jesus said very clearly "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:48. So, as someone who is not a perfectionist I began to wonder what God really expects of us in regards to perfection. I did a word study.

God is perfect and so are his works, words, law, patience, knowledge, faithfulness and will.

God is the giver of : perfect gifts, perfect health, perfect beauty (of a city).

We must offer God perfect sacrifices (Old Testament) in fact God did that for us in Christ (read Hebrews).

We are called to be perfect only that one time mentioned above. We are promised future perfection and are being made perfect at this moment (and the rest of our earthly moments). It is attainable, but future objective. We will attain this perfection through suffering. We should pray for the perfecting of other believers.

Love is the perfect bond of unity and perfect love cases out fear.

So, my conclusion: When I condemn myself as less than perfect, I am telling God that the sacrifice of Christ was not enough--or at the very least that His work of perfecting me is too slow (what I lack is patience).

When I accept myself as a work in progress, I am allowing God's strength to be manifest in my weakness and letting him choose the timing of my perfecting. It also frees me to celebrate the victories in the process rather than focus on the setbacks and failures.

God calls us to work for Him--that work can be anything, when we do this with all our strength we are still going to fail and fall on our faces--it is this falling that God uses to grow us closer and closer to the perfect person he created us to be. Since we grow through our failures, all the credit goes to God where it belongs.

So, what does this have to do with homeschooling? A lot, actually. Sam is a bit of a perfectionist. He'd rather not attempt something than fail at it. My job as his teacher is to help him learn to be willing to fail, over and over again. And to rejoice in his successes as well as learn from each failure.

May God grant you many learning opportunities this week.

Vacation

Sam decided to finish up that last bit of school quickly so he could have 2 days of "nothing but violin." Then, tonight when he was finished reading to himself he asked for another chapter of the read aloud "Sign of the Beaver." He is enjoying it a lot. The idea of a 12 year old staying in a cabin alone and having a gun he knows how to use--very enticing. After each chapter I have to endure a lot of gunshot sounds :-). Today, when the stranger stole the gun, it bothered Sam and he got real quiet. We talked about how Matt should have trusted his instincts. I told him that it is okay to avoid someone who feels "creepy" especially when parents are not around. Then the gunshots echoed through the bedroom, we prayed our goodnight prayers and turned off the light.

Les Nessman Walls

Okay, who of you have ever seen "WKRP in Cincinatti"? It was a sitcom about a low ratings radio station. The newsman, Les Nessman, was a bit of a weirdo. He felt he should have an office with walls, so he put tape on the floor where he thought the walls should be in the large shared space.

I know, you gotta be old to have seen it (unless they start showing it on Nick at Nite). But it comes up because we just created a "Les Nessman Office" for Sam. His workspace is right next to a high traffic path in our living room. Legos are very painful to step on. Instead of trying to get Sam to follow invisible boundaries--we made them visible with blue tape (our carpet is old and we don't care about it much). Once the job was done, I immediately remembered WKRP and so we added a door.

Sam's having a great time with it. His legos are many and small--we got the mindstorms stuff out of the attic and he's been having a great time inventing things. He made a mixer that spins a cup of water, so I dropped food coloring in the water as it spun so we could "see" centripital force. (seen in picture above) He calls it his "Mixer 5000" with great pride.

I am taking my hands off science (Dwight is doing it) and am very comfortable with it after Dwight and I discussed record keeping. I need to see what has been accomplished. We don't necessarily have to plan much--I think most things will come up spontaneously. And if not, we can check our records and fill in any gaps.

Dwight's calling us to dinner, I'll post again soon now that I'm feeling better.

Substitute Teacher?

Okay, so the advantages of homeschooling when your child is sick are obvious. If they are well enough to do some work, the whole day is not lost. It doesn't matter if they are contagious!

But what happens when the "teacher" is sick? Dwight seems to have deemed me worthy of his germs and now I'm hacking and wheezing. This time it isn't a problem because school hasn't officially started. Sam recently bought the lego star wars game (it comes for many systems and the PC). He has used the last few days to have a gaming marathon.

Sam also did a great job of playing nurses aid and attending my needs as I hack up a lung or 2. I just wonder how it will be when we have a full load of school work to finish in a day...I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

So, having said that, I'm too tired to post a long blog--good night and sweet rest to all!

Get to know someone

How can you really learn to know someone? The only way is to spend time with them. This applies to all relationships, especially our relationship with God. It definitely also applies to our kids.

How much time did I spend with Sam before home schooling? Maybe 30 minutes in the morning rushing him off to school--definitely NOT quality time. After school, I usually worked with other students until 5 pm. Sam was too young to do his homework during that time--too many temptations. Once I was done with my students, then I had to isolate Sam in order for him to get his homework done. If we were together we couldn't just talk--he had too much homework.

On the weekends, yeah, that was about it. I bet we spent around less than half a day per week of quality just chatting about whatever time together. Did I know Sam? I thought I did. I knew him better than the other people around, but...

Compared to now--it was nothing. Now, Sam and I spend our whole day together. I have only a few students this summer--no more than 6 hours per week is spent with them. Now, when Sam starts acting goofy, I see beneath it to the struggle underneath. He's such a sensitive kid and now I see his goof is a shield--it protects him.

Tonight at martial arts Sam needed his signal, but didn't remember to use it--I showed it to him and he got his "regrouping and come to grips" time. What hurts is that I was the cause of him needing that time, but at least this time I recongnized it much sooner than last time. How many times have I been a party to his hurts?

Why did God give children to imperfect parents? Our weaknesses are opportunities for God to show his strength! Am I spending enough quality time with God to recognize and know him and his influence? My prayer is for this time with God to grow.

Life is Messy

Today we did a lot of school. We did spelling and math. The math involved an activity which we all 3 did over lunch (Dwight's still sick). This day was not neat and organized with completing one thing before moving on to another--it was more of a hodge-podge of finding useful things to do in each moment that helped us attain our goal in a chaotic, disorderly, but successful manner.

Ah, homeschool. There are no rules about how things have to be done. I actually enjoyed the messiness of the day and I think Sam did, too. We will have a great time with school. Sam even had a time out in his room to adjust his attitude and it helped so much. Not having a schedule that is rigid makes this possible. My idea is to start the day (or even the week) with a check list of things to accomplish. As they are accomplished, they will get checked off. If Sam wants to spend Monday doing nothing but math lessons, that is fine. Then the rest of the week can be focused on his other subjects. spelling and violin may not be that flexible, but most other subjects will be.

This is definitely a learn as you go process. With Sam's help we can learn very fast. He really likes the whole homeschool idea--I think the boredom at school had really gotten to him when we pulled him.

May your day be messy and cluttered, but with good things!

What a Weekend!

Wow, our weekend didn't go as we planned, it just went as God planned.

Our plan was to go to a special martial arts mini-camp from 9-3. God's plan was for Dwight to stay home with bronchitis, and for Sam and I to leave the camp at noon and have an enlightening conversation in the car. If Dwight had been along, we might not have left--or my mood would have been different and it could have prevented the conversation.

So, when Sam is feeling overwhelmed and unable to cope with a situation, he now has a signal to give his parents. We will then provide him with the isolation he needs in order to get a grip on his emotions enough to talk about it, or return. Without the signal, my response to the situation made things much worse. I pray that Sam will remember the signal in moments of stress and that he will be able to resist the temptation to abuse it--which would render it useless.

Today, our plan was to attend the membership meeting at our church. Instead we have spent the whole day feeling rather ill. I'm getting used to my medication (this medication will regulate my hormones and prevent the PMS and migraines that I have been dealing with lately. Unfortunately, the first cycle or so, my body is still trying to regulate things itself and I'm feeling very yucky! Dwight is still feeling quite ill with his bronchitis--in spite of antibiotics.

School--don't do much on weekends, of course, except practice the violin. Good news there. Sam struggled to get this one song played well. We have worked on it together for a week and yesterday and today it actually sounds like a song. (before it sounded like sick cats). I'm so proud of him for not quitting. He struggled with desires to quit over this song for a long time.

No hurricanes heading our way--we expect and plan a quiet week, but are ready for what God has planned that he hasn't shared with us yet.

Heat, Swimming Pool and Summer's End

It feels so strange to be wrapping up summer already. Where did it go? After working with my morning students, Sam and I went to the pool with a friend of mine who has 5 children. It was a lot of fun for me and a real gift to my friend. Not only did her 5 children have a great time (one said it was the best day he's had all summer), but tonight her children will all sleep very soundly--just as her husband returns from a business trip.

That means we had another day with very little "school." Sam did spelling (Spelling Power--takes less than 10 minutes each time) and practiced his violin.

Tomorrow we have a whole day (9-3) of martial arts with a married couple that are coming to teach us just for kicks, I guess. They aren't charging us, they just love doing this kind of thing and are friends of the Brown's (our instructors). Sam will be demonstrating 2 kata's in order to earn his purple stripe.

Dwight is taking antibiotics for bronchitis which came on rather suddenly and will be missing our "mini-camp." I'm trying to talk him into coming as photographer.

I'll report on our mini-camp if I'm not too sore to type tomorrow evening :-)

A Day Off

A rest day in the middle of the week is nice. Sam went to spend the day with Eric at his grandmother's house. So, my day has been quiet and peaceful. It is nice and restful after the bustle of last week.

We have a storm heading our way. Its name is Irene and not as powerful as Isabel, but the path is very similar. Check it out at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ which is the national hurricane center website. Notice how wide the prediction path is---that means that this girl could end up anywhere. Hopefully it won't do the damage that Isabel did. It is exciting to watch a storm slowly creep towards you--so different than a tornado watch. It's like watching a slow moving monster that can't be stopped. You can't stay stressed the whole time, but it...never...goes...completely...away.

But, we're not frightened for ourselves. Our neighborhood is not close enough to any body of water to worry about flooding. Unless Irene decides to go right up the James River we'll be fine. Just keeping our eye on her.

Maturity and Suffering

Wow, I have been living with one of my worst headaches today. Sam was able to work independently on chores, etc, keep the rooms dark and quiet and even serve me when I had a need.

This level of headache would have caused me to resort to calling a friend to take Sam off my hands back during his toddler days. Now, as he is maturing quite nicely, it was nicer than being alone in the house.

I'm on medication that is supposed to make these headaches become non-existant before a couple more months pass. I'm praying it is successful. In the meantime, I do what I can and leave the rest in God's hands. Some days the "what I can" is very little, but it is good to know that it is all God ever requires of us.

School: we learned a little about algebra and simple equations using paperclips, an envelope and 2 sheets of paper. That was a rather fun activity. We read some of Pedro's Journal, Walk the World's Rim and did spelling. We are now officially finished with the first 2 weeks of school. Remember, our first official day of school is August 29th. Sam and I both are hoping to finish the third week of school before the first official day.

Recovering

Our hosting of Qing became overlapped with a visit from Dwight's brother, Dean, and family. We spent Sunday doing museum and boat tour in Norfolk (which everyone really loved). Then we said goodby to Qing Monday morning and Dean family moved in for one night.

We spent Monday at Grandview Beach (which is very nice and in Hampton--we'll go there at Thanksgiving!). They left today.

Dwight's brother is not a believer and his political beliefs are almost the exact opposite of ours. This makes conversation extremely difficult and a little tiring (we hold our tongues--he spouts and rants about the evils of conservatives--insulting us and our intellect left and right with no apologies).

Add in our homeschooling and we have definitely stepped off the deep end in their eyes. I politely and kindly assured them we are not "ruining" Sam, nor are we trying to create some kind of compound where he gets no exposure to any beliefs but our own.

They seem so foolish to me, buying conspiracy theories and swallowing party rhetoric, but I know that I seem as foolish to them. I belief in a non-existant diety who loves me a guides my life. My entire life is centered around what they see as a myth. Ah, to see scripture come alive and being willing to be a fool for Christ!!

Also, if this is the worst persecution that I ever experience I can count myself very blessed by God. I guess the miracle is that we love and enjoy the company of this family. I pray that we can be a blessing to them in some way that we cannot see. I sure don't ever expect to seem wise in their eyes, but I'd rather be a fool for Christ than have all the wisdom the world has to offer!

Jenny

Bringing Chinese culture home and balloon rockets

We have been playing host to Qing (He is the teacher/chaparone for high school kids here for an English camp) for the past week and a half. He will be with us until Monday morning. Today, we went to walk a portion of the Nolan Trail which we all enjoyed. Qing took some pictures. We discovered that people have been feeding the turtles at one of the bridges. If you stand and look at the turtles in the water for a few minutes they start coming closer to the bridge after a while, we even saw some fish responding to the turtle movement. Unfortunately we didn't have anything to feed them.

On the way home, we were driving through a neighborhood with some yard sale signs posted. I still feel an urge to stop every time I see one, but have not for some time (I always end up buying stuff we don't need that we have to store--or give away to a thrift store--seems silly after awhile). Today, I realized that this thing called a yard sale is uniquely American and asked Qing if he'd like to see it. He did and took out his camera to take pictures. This made the women holding the yard sale a little nervous, so I explained the situation. It was rather humerous. Qing shared after we got home that it was a little frightening to walk into someone's yard to look at their stuff.

Dwight's brother Dean (and wife and 2 grandkids they have custody of) is arriving this evening to visit us and his son and us. We'll be going to the Crab Shack tomorrow for lunch or dinner. It will be nice seeing some Kinters we rarely see!

On school--besides Sam's exposure to a non-American culture through our hosting, we found these "Screaming Rocket Balloons" at the dollar store (6 in a package). They are weighted at the top and bottom, and when you inflate them and then release them they go straight up--above the roof of our house and then fall down. As the air escapes it makes the sound. It was the cheapest and most fun thing we've done all week. We still have 4 balloons left (they usually pop after 3+ inflations). How's that for hands-on science?

We observed that even when it is windless on the ground, there can be air currents higher up. We discovered that the balloons fly truest the first time they are inflated--somehow the rubber gets more flexible and affects its flight pattern.

We also bought a helicopter, but it was missing a piece. I plan on going back to find a package that isn't missing pieces--I think that one might be able to be flowin indoors.

Who has control?

And how is it linked with submitting to God?

These questions have been running around in my mind off and on for years, since I discovered the strong will in my son (which he gets from me). For strong-willed kids obedience often comes down to control (and they HATE arbitrary rules that don't make sense).

So, who controls what?? And how does allowing a child to have control jibe with scripture? Fathers are admonished not to exasperate their children, so arbitrary rules that exasperate would be unbiblical.

How much control is too much? Today, I did an experiment--Sam has a friend spending the day here, so getting in his violin practice was going to be difficult (it is the only school we do on Fridays in the summer). His friend, Eric, and he were playing video and computer games while I was getting dressed and working with a student.

My normal mode would have been to try to make Sam practice his violin during this time, but I just kept quiet (of course, nothing happened). When I was finished with my student, I asked Sam "When are you going to practice your violin?" the response (all parents know his repsonse) was "I don't know."

Let me tell you that "normal" mode has often ended with yelling and tears and Sam saying he HATES practicing and he wants to stop lessons.

So, I made him stop and decide when he would practice his violin. He chose an hour from the present. I then made him set a timer for an hour. Then I said nothing. When the timer went off, I helped him get his violin, stand and music into a quiet room away from video games. He willingly went and is practicing his violin. He asked just now if he could go see something Eric is doing and I reminded him he needed to keep his word and he stayed with the violin with no outburst at all.

The submission to the rule is in place (you must practice your violin every day). The timing does not have to be part of the rule--so control for Sam and submission were both present.

As far as some rules feeling arbitrary-we have discussed with Sam that ALL of God's rules and instructions have a reason and make sense, but that we will not always be able to understand. We have to trust God to have a reason and obey seemingly arbitrary rules, because occasionally the reason comes after it is necessary to obey. I used the example of almost stepping on a (very small) rattle snake once when Dwight had said "STOP" repeatedly. I was waiting to understand before I obeyed and could have been bitten (except it was SO small).

So, when it comes times to schedule school I hope to be able to give some of that control to Sam and have a more peaceful education.

Another good day

August 29th is going to be our first day of school, but we have been doing "home school lite" all summer. As soon as we got the books that are to be read for history/geography (Sonlight 2 American history part 1) we began reading and are almost finished with week 2. This gives us the freedom to relax when we travel to Indiana for my parent's 50th anniversary party with another week to take off, too. Of course if we finish too early we'll just buy the next year's stuff and keep moving.

So, today, Sam again cheerfully did his morning routine. He admitted that getting to watch the Star Trek episode was his motivator. But that doesn't explain it all--good rewards have not worked in the past if the things he had to do to earn them was too long or difficult. I'm pleased with him immensely.

Today, we read about Christopher Columbus and how he found the Americas, but didn't find his route to Asia, didn't bring wealth back to the King and Queen of Spain. I'm not sure he would have called his life a success--he died poor, lonely, and sad.

So, what can we refer to as success? I think it is one thing--bringing glory to God. When we do that, it doesn't matter how we die, because we don't really die. I don't think Columbus was a success. I just pray that our family can claim to be when we enter our kingdom home.

surprise, surprise

Today, Sam proved something to me. With the right mind set, he can do his morning routine cheerfully and almost completely independently. He was working to get permission to watch a "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode, so that provided the motivation.

He wants to do art more than once a week, but I need to read the book ahead of time. Since neither of us have any natural art inclination it is very much a "blind leading the blind" endeavor. But Sam in enjoying the book "Drawing with Children" so we'll keep plugging away.

Dwight works with a guy who is an engineer and was homeschooled. I think we should have him over for dinner, then I can talk to him about the positive and negative aspects for the technical minded to be homeschooled.

Spelling (with "Spelling Power") is getting to be easier for Sam to do without tears and frustration. I don't see much improvement in his spelling outside of this curriculum, but I think that will come later. And as many people have said--with spell check it is getting less important to be a good speller.

Another day another challenge

Writing. Sam's definition of hell would be a vague writing assignment that never ended--and spelling would count. He loves to talk and imagine and invent things. I'm trying to figure out how he would be willing to get some of these thoughts on paper without my dragging them out of him.

And "dragging" sentences are never creative and fun. They sound like they were written by a first grader or worse.

Right now, he just finished composing 3 sentences that will help convince someone it would be great to be a cat. In order to make him willing he took his Palm M100 into our closet (his current secret base) and then hot synced with the computer.

I guess adding technology--even when it makes something MUCH more complicated can provide the motivation that cannot be bought with any amount of money. I wonder how long this will last.

One thing for sure, he would be able to do this in a traditional school setting. Another event that convinces me even more that home schooling is the thing for Sam.

Now, when it is time to turn each of these sentences into a small paragraph--that might be a challenge. But that is a worry for another day--today has enough trouble of its own.

beginning

In the beginning was the word. God began his creation with a word, he created all the things we learn in school (science, math, history, geography). So as we study his world, we learn with words all that he has created.

Home schooling will, I hope, keep this in mind. This means that we will never be done learning since God is infinite--only when we get to heaven we will only have perfect teachers and perfect students.

In the meantime, Sam and I will struggle along with our imperfections learning as much as our finite, fallen minds can about God and his creation.

Our official first day of school is August 29th, but we are sneaking in quite a bit before then, this way we can take days off when we wish to.

So, Sam is working on Chapter 5 in his pre-algebra curriculum (UCSMP Transition Math). We've begun week 2 of the Sonlight history/geography on US history part 1. He's chosen to skip the first 2 chapter of Language Arts (Abeka) because it is review and he doesn't need it. Science is still undecided and therefore in unschooling mode. We have been doing spelling (Spelling Power) twice a week and we just purchased "Rosetta Stone Latin" today.

At this very moment he is acting like a cat begging to be petted--he even chose a bowl and filled it with ice water to drink from. But I have a very smart cat who can do pre-algebra!

Jenny