Nervous About Another Year of Homeschooling?

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Barb

In a few months I’m going to meet my first grandchild, a little boy. (I can hardly wait!) I enjoyed my children’s baby years so much, and friends tell me being a grandma is even more fun. How can that be possible? I’ll find out soon.

One of the things I enjoyed most about my babies was their bright little minds. Almost from the time they were born, it seemed, they were scoping out their world, eyes wide and curious. As they grew, I was amazed at how ready they were to explore with their eyes, their hands, their mouths, and before long, by crawling and walking. I didn’t have to coax them to do this; I just had to make their world safe for exploration.

Take my eldest son, for instance, the father of my upcoming grandchild. When he was a baby, he was easy to care for, a mellow guy (as long as his tummy was full and his diaper was dry). Before I started making supper each night, I’d put him in his baby seat on the kitchen counter and hang a little squeaky stuffed bluebird right in front of him. At first he’d just stare at it. Before long he was cooing at it. And then one night he took a swat at it! This became a fun game for him. For weeks I cooked supper to the sounds of him cooing and the bluebird squeaking as he whacked it and chortled.

I’m sure this activity was good for his eye-hand coordination (and may even have led to his love of baseball!) But it was also a good lesson for me: he learned to do this without my coaxing, prodding, or insistence. I gave him a learning environment, and his God-given intelligence took care of the rest.

Of course I’d forgotten times like this when I first started homeschooling my kids. I often parked them in front of textbooks and “taught” them and expected them to learn. And they did, but before long it became a chore. There was no intense interest, no chortling.

Over time I discovered that true learning requires the interest and desire of the student. I had read this in books by John Holt, but what really cemented it was seeing my children pursue their interests and excel in them. By the time they were teens, my participation primarily involved driving them to a limited number of activities of their choice and paying for the books and/or supplies needed in their pursuits. The rest was up to them, and that God-given intelligence I first saw when they were tiny.

So if you’re a bit nervous about whether you’re buying the right curriculum this year, or whether you’re going to be up for another year of homeschooling, consider that much of the task of educating your children is up to them; if you create a vibrant learning environment, answer their questions and facilitate learning by obtaining what they need, you can count on them to do the rest.

As for me, my kids are grown and I’m not homeschooling anymore, which leaves me a lot more time to make things for the baby 🙂

Helping Our Kids Find a Career

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Barb

A recent article I read about a 13-year-old boy who wants to be a chef when he grows up included a comment that jumped out at me:

This young cook plans to attend culinary school and one day would like to teach cooking classes or own his own restaurant.

“I think I could be a chef anywhere. I like working with my hands and always being in the game and not sitting in an office all day,” Steven said. “So I think that may be a job for me.”

He’s a smart kid. He knows he wouldn’t be happy sitting at a desk all day. I wish I’d been that smart at his age (or even when I was a little older). Once I graduated from college, I worked at a couple of “desk jobs” and found that I was miserable. Even though I was trained (via many years of formal education) to sit at a desk all day, that didn’t make me like it.

Most homeschooled kids don’t have to sit at a desk all day. My kids didn’t. They had a few hours of daily bookwork, but once that was finished, they had freedom to pursue their own interests. And now that they’re all grown, I can see by the jobs they choose that they, too, clearly have no interest in sitting at a desk all day. My eldest has two online businesses supplemented by a part-time job working in a warehouse store. My son is a manager for a publishing company, which requires a lot of business travel. And my younger daughter works for the police department writing parking tickets while she works her way up to becoming a full-time officer (she was one of the few women to pass the physical agility test recently, woohoo!)

Now that it’s so hard for young people to find good jobs, it’s more important than ever that they pursue the kinds of careers that are a good fit for their personalities and experience, because once they get a job, they’ll need to hang on to it. Homeschooled kids who are accustomed to freedom may have a difficult time sitting at a desk, computer or phone all day. They might be better suited to active work or even outdoors work.

As parents, we can’t force them to come up with a career plan, nor can we make them do what we want (my dad still thinks I should have majored in accounting, but I’m so glad I didn’t!) But we can encourage them to pursue their interests, provide the tools they need to pick up a skill they want, and share helpful information whenever we happen to find it. By supporting them in this way, they’ll have a better shot at finding the work that’s right for them (even if they want to do something that requires sitting at a desk all day!)

Back from the Quilt Festival

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Barb

My friend and I are back from our vacation. Many thanks to those who sent us best wishes! We had a great time.

We went to the Shipshewana Quilt Festival in Shipshewana, IN. The show itself was wonderful, with some of the most amazing quilts I’ve ever seen. Quilting has become a sophisticated art form.

There was also a display of World War II quilts in the Hudson auto museum; we enjoyed that, too.

We hit all the best shopping spots in Shipshewana, including Yoder’s Department Store. We also visited several small Amish shops in the outlying areas and came home with some nice fabric, including several pieces for a quilt I’m making for my first grandchild, due this fall. 🙂

While in the area, we tracked down several quilt gardens, which were just beautiful despite the drought in the region. Here’s one in Elkhart, IN:

We also enjoyed the barn quilts on various buildings.

I spent a lot of money at the Amish bulk store, where I bought 25# of natural sugar (cane, not beet), several pounds of three varieties of popcorn for 60 cents a pound (my husband makes popcorn almost every night), and 5# of cocoa for $1.09 a pound, along with some other goodies that we will enjoy (for quite some time!)

But the very best part of our trip was the night we went to an Amish farm.

While there, we were served a yummy homemade dinner (salad, fried chicken, Salisbury steak, homemade bread, buttered noodles, stuffing, gravy, green beans and two kinds of homemade pie!) followed by a quilting bee.

What fun! There were nine of us quilter-tourists plus two Amish women who quilted with us. We chatted while we worked, which is how we learned that the Amish lady quilting next to us had ten children, the youngest of whom has Down syndrome. When we told her that both of our youngest sons have Down syndrome, she was clearly quite touched and it gave all three of us a lot to talk about. We had such a nice time that night.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the boys and their dads were doing just fine without us. I think we had the harder time adjusting to being away from them. We really missed them, plus it felt weird not to have to make meals for anyone; we just went out to eat whenever we got hungry. Between outings, we’d take a break in our room and comment on how quiet it was without our families around. And before we checked out of our hotel, we both scoured the room, looking under the beds and in the drawers out of habit from years of making sure our kids hadn’t left anything behind.

We returned home very tired, but refreshed just the same. If you get the chance, check out Shipshewana, IN. It’s a nice place to visit. And if you’d like more info on how you can quilt with the Amish, just let me know and I’ll send you the contact info.

We’ve Escaped!

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Barb

By the time you read this, I’ll be on vacation with a good friend who, like me, happens to be a retired homeschool mom. Between the two of us we’ve homeschooled nine kids; she has five, I have four, and both of our youngest sons have Down syndrome, hence we’re still very much moms on a daily basis.

So we aren’t just leaving our husbands to do the cooking. We’re leaving them with their often-rambunctious 19-year-old sons who have lots of energy, make quite a few demands, and who each have a great sense of humor as well as a spare chromosome. This should be interesting!

I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve never even been away from my husband for more than a night (except when I had the babies). But I’m really excited about hanging out with my friend, seeing lots of quilts (we’re going to a quilt festival) and eating at any restaurant that doesn’t have golden arches (my son’s favorite).

After I get back, I’ll report on what happens when two recently retired homeschool moms escape the ties that bind, if only for four days 🙂 See ya!

Don’t Be Intimidated by Homeschooling for High School (Part 1)

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Barb

First off, remember that homeschool high school is nothing like public high school, and it doesn’t need to take nearly as long each day. There are no passing periods, no assemblies, no waiting for buses. So there’s no need to stick to the same time schedule that they do. Many people have asked me how long our high school day was. I usually required my teens to work on their studies in the morning, and as far into the afternoon as it took them to finish. I encouraged them to get an early start so that they’d have time to pursue their own interests the rest of the day. (Later on, their various part-time jobs, which we strongly encouraged, also came into play.)

Next, keep in mind that the curriculum you choose will determine how long it takes to study each subject. A very demanding math curriculum will require more time than a basic arithmetic review. Which one you choose will be based on your teen’s future aspirations and goals. If he wants to be a chemistry major in college, you’ll need a solid math curriculum. If he wants to go into the dramatic arts, you’re better off finding a basic math course and spending the time saved on the study of classic plays. And if he wants to be a car mechanic, use that same basic math course so he can spend the time he saves apprenticing with a self-employed car mechanic in your town.

Never forget that the goal of homeschooling a teen is to customize upper level studies to your teen’s needs. Those needs may not be as obvious at age 14 as they will be at 17 or 18; to make matters more complicated, teens change dramatically during those years and so do their needs. But you’ll recognize general areas of interest that really won’t change much. For instance, my son went from wanting to be a computer engineer at 15 to a business major at 18, then felt called into the ministry at 20. As it worked out, he’s now in his late 20s and is a manager for a Christian publishing company with plans to eventually enter seminary as a second career pastor. But during his teen years the common threads we could see were a desire to study beyond the high school level and a love of management and business principles. So we (he and I) designed his high school studies with an eye toward college prep and an emphasis on management.

A friend of mine who homeschooled several teen sons aimed the studies of the first three toward vocational prep because they were clearly “gear heads” who loved doing anything mechanical. But her fourth son was more studious, so she designed his studies to be college preparatory.

Each child is different; one big advantage of homeschooling is that you have the time and opportunity to plan a course of study with your teen (note that I said with) to capitalize on his or her interests and plans. That’s why you need to take all information that you get from books or friends with a grain of salt, tailoring the things you learn to your specific child.

(Excerpted from Stages of Homeschooling: Letting Go (Book 3), now just $2.99. Learn more HERE.)