I Like Big Maps, and I Cannot Lie

Maps, wonderful maps! A critical part of any education and an organizational nightmare for the homeschool family... The little maps that fit neatly in a three-ring binder will never cut it! Digital maps on phones or computers are great for driving and not much else. Big, beautiful wall maps are the ONLY way to go for learning! But what a hassle!

In school, I loved those big pull-down maps that hung over the chalk board. They held a world map, a map of each continent, and usually some maps of the ocean explorers. Teacher stuff was my favorite - like the special chalk holder and the giant wooden protractor and compass! I jokingly say that I went into teaching so I could have one of those chalk holders of my own. Sadly, by the time I had my own classroom, all the chalk boards had been replaced by whiteboards. I still have that unused chalk holder. Sigh. But I digress...

My love of big maps has continued into my homeschooling years. I was the proverbial homeschooling mom who thought it ideal to have a school room, complete with the alphabet that ran around the top of the wall, the phonics posters, the daily weather chart, and of course, the big world map on the wall. That lasted about two months... I learned, as most homeschooling families do, that learning cannot be contained! The vast majority of our school now takes place in the living room and the dining room, and our beautiful world map languished on the wall of the empty schoolroom.

Now, I'm no expert in home decor, but I was not interested in plastering maps all over the walls of the common areas in our home. And besides, we don't have much wall space in the first place. I came up with an idea that's not revolutionary by any means, but every time I share it, people comment that they think it's a great idea that they hadn't thought of before. So I'm sharing here in case you are encountering the same problem that I had.

I decided to take over the biggest available flat surface - my dining table. I place my maps on the table and then cover with the plastic sheeting that you purchase by the yard at fabric/upholstery stores. I purchased mine at Hobby Lobby. You can find it in the fabric section where the upholstery fabric hangs on those huge rolls. The maps are visible at any time, but protected. We eat supper over the map of the United States, which has led to many geography games over dessert. And when I want things to look a little more pulled together, I simply throw a tablecloth over the top.

I have a number of different maps of different parts of the world, different sizes, and even one of the solar system tucked under there. I rotate which one is on top based on our studies. Now, you can use all those beautiful maps that came tucked inside the National Geographics! (Which they practically PAY you to take away from thrift stores and library sales...)

Now you see it; now you don't!

And more maps tucked underneath

Hope it's been helpful to someone! Happy exploring!

Seasons

When I was in kindergarten, we learned four seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall. January was the time of beginning, and Christmas was the close of the year. When I was in school, there were two seasons: school and summer. Summer was a glorious new beginning, and August ushered in our nine months of captivity. When I was a teacher, there were three seasons: fall semester, spring semester, and summer. August was a season of hope and renewal! Everything was new. There were no mistakes in it yet! (Hat tip to Anne with an e.) Spring semester was the long, slow trudge to the finish line. And summer was a time of reevaluation and preparation.

As a homeschool mom, I've retained much of the teacher mode of thinking for our first eight or so years of homeschooling. I have always LOVED the beginning of the school year! But I find myself unsettled and almost anxious for the first time at this beginning-of-the-school-year. I'm supposed to be thrilled at the prospect of perfect pencil points and reuniting with friends at our various activities who we haven't seen all summer. But today, I find myself overwhelmed with the muchness of it all... Maybe it's the thought that our educational choices for our oldest (a rising seventh grader) are higher stakes now. Maybe it's the fact that we really didn't take a "summer" break this year - continuing (on a VERY relaxed pace) with our coursework throughout the summer, and thus, I'm not getting my "new year excitement" phase. Maybe I'm just having some sort of homeschool existential crisis!

But mostly, I think it's our schedule of outside-the-home activities this year. I don't call them "extra-curricular" activities, because I truly believe them to be an integral part of our curriculum, not an extra take-it-or-leave it activity just to fill time or provide recreation. And yet, the idea of scheduling and taxi-ing all over creation most days of the week has me hovering just short of hyperventilation these days. What happened to the vision of cuddling on the couch reading to my children and walking in the out of doors and studiously working out math problems around the dining room table (without griping and tears, yeah right...)? My desire to reclaim those slow and easy days is what led me to continue a relaxed schedule of homeschooling throughout the summer. Without all of the outside activities of the fall, we were able to enjoy some of those idyllic days of homeschooling that I had first envisioned - just in the summer when most others are out of school.

But here I sit with an overflowing fall calendar wondering what we can cut out. Can we cut anything out? How would we cut anything out? SHOULD we cut anything out? Simplifying, slow living. Isn't that what all the cool kids are doing these days? Why am I getting busier?

Inspiration comes from strange sources. Last night I was watching my latest favorite British television series, Lark Rise to Candleford. The episode centered on the people of Lark Rise, a hamlet fully attuned to and dependent upon the agrarian seasons of seedtime, harvest, and home. In this episode, the families of Lark Rise struggled to bring in the wheat harvest. The wheat harvest was critical to the very survival of those families. It was also time-sensitive and of a short duration, so during the harvest time, entire families devoted every moment to the task. There was intense pressure and stress, but also joy in the season! They were exceedingly busy and tired but were also filled with singing and celebration. When I woke this morning, I began to look on our fall season in the same way as this harvest time. It will be fun; it will be busy; it will be joyful; it will be stressful; and ultimately, it will be worthwhile.

But we cannot maintain this frenetic pace continuously. The people of Lark Rise looked ahead to an intense season of home following the harvest. Sure, the daily struggles and hardships of life continue, but the pace slows considerably as the weather turns and the land rests. In much the same way, after November, several of our outside-the-home activities fall away, and they don't resume until next August, leaving us with a slower pace of life for the winter months. They won't be free of struggles, of course. As any homeschooler can attest, February can be the toughest of all months! But even in the struggle, there is time for rest.

I have always fancied myself a country girl. In reality, I've never lived on a farm or even had a vegetable garden of my own! But I come from a family heritage of farming and living off the land. The stories of family life passed down to me share many of the attributes of the people of far away Lark Rise. They lived through three seasons - seedtime, harvest, and home. There was a flurry of work in the spring as young livestock were born and crops were planted. There followed a season of steady, but not overwhelming work of tending and maintaining. Then came the autumn season of bringing in, a season of provision for the remainder of the year, a season of critical importance to the survival of the family. And finally, there was a season of home. A season of early sunsets and quiet indoor labor. My family still has quilts handmade by my great-grandfather during those quiet inside months. The tools of his outdoor labor gave way to needle, thread, and quilt frame. Large muscles of body took their rest while small muscles of fingers were busier than ever. When the winter months came to an end, he resumed his labors outside the home.

So this year, I'm looking on our busy season as harvest time. I CAN make it through November! I WILL find joy in the busy-ness! I will watch my kids stretch and work in ways that are different from the work we do in our home classes. We will struggle together through the scheduling and celebrate our accomplishments at the end of that time. And then we will take a BIG sigh of relief and enter into our season of home. A season of long nights and rest and learning and planning for the coming seedtime. When April/May arrive, we will be ready to start new learning adventures, and the procession of our seasons will begin anew.

Mississippi Home Educators Association Conference 2016

Hello MHEA attendees! As promised, you can find my presentation here. Please comment below if you have any questions that you would like to discuss further.

Learning through Living Books - Charlotte Mason's Methods

Houdini Lizard

This is Houdini Lizard, A.K.A. Bob Lizardo, Bob for short.

Bob came to our home as a passed along pet from someone who grew tired of the care required to keep a chameleon. Bob came to us in a tiny terrarium-like cage. After a great deal of research, and finding that chameleons required a minimum 2 x 2 x 4 cage, we built Bob an ENORMOUS lizard mansion.

It took Bob about two weeks to be accustomed to his new manner of living and then to become discontented with it. Ever since, he has found dozens of ways to sneak out of our homemade cage. We've only had him since Christmas, and we live in a cold, drafty 100 year old house, so all previous escapes have ended in finding a lizard popsicle not too far from his cage with its warm and snuggly heating lamps. But now that the weather is getting warmer, he is able to cover more ground.

Tonight, we searched for two solid hours. Two hours that I was supposed to be working on labs for my homeschool chemistry class tomorrow. Two hours that I was supposed to be putting together some notes for a presentation. Two hours that I was supposed to be grading some online homework. Two hours that I was supposed to be doing ANYTHING but tearing my house apart looking for Houdini Lizard.

I'm not sure if the moral of this story should be about how easy it is to become discontent with God's provision for our lives, even when it is infinitely better than what we had before we knew him or if it should be about building enough margin into our schedules so that an unexpected two hour lizard search won't throw us into mental chaos to get last-minute work done. But maybe I'm too tired for a moral tonight, so I'll just give you the rest of the story.

Bob was found under my husband's pillow! Thankfully, my husband found Bob while looking for him instead of accidentally snuggling up with him or accidentally squishing him! All's well that ends well. I gotta work on those labs now.

The Bin: A Workbox System for Mom

I find that the short lessons and the many subjects of a Charlotte Mason education are wonderful for my kids, but they are pretty tough on me. I ping-pong back between two different conditions: 1. I've got my intricate plan of what subjects we are doing today; I'm keeping an eye on the clock; I'm preparing the materials (and thoughts) to get into the next subject; and I'm completely stressed the entire time. 2. I really settle into each lesson, enjoying what I envisioned our gentle Charlotte Mason school to be. But at the end of the short lesson, I have trouble shifting to the next thing mentally. The books aren't prepared. I have to stop and refer to the plan. The flow of the day is ruined, and often, we end up quitting our work early for the day, losing much instructional time and getting behind on the plan for the year. I have tried using these very intricate plans showing which days I will do each subject, and if miss part or all of a day, it throws the whole week into chaos (and every week thereafter!). During those times of chaos, I really long for the simplicity of traditional homeschool curricula in which you just "do the next thing." You did lesson 53 yesterday? Guess what you do today? 54! Open your book and fill in those blanks!!! My answer: The BIN. Instead of saying, "I'll teach history on M/Th, science on T/F, picture study on W, composer study on F, etc..." I have a bin. Think of it like a file box, but it has to be big enough to hold all the books and materials you need for the week. It has dividers like a file box would, but they're made out of poster board or foam core to fit the bin. There is a divider for each subject I hope to teach during the week and as many times as I plan to teach it during the week. So if picture study is just one day a week, it gets one divider. If history is two, it gets two dividers. Arrange the dividers in the order you would arrange them for a weekly schedule. Spread out the arty subjects. Don't put the two history dividers right next to each other. Separate read-and-narrate subjects with copywork or composer study. Now fill in your books and materials behind the dividers. Your bin is done. ***2/1/17 Edit: I've taken out my dividers, except for the ones that mark the second (or third, etc.) occurrence subjects that we do more than once a week. They were mostly in the way. Now the book itself marks the spot.***Now here's how to use it: When we wake, we do our (brief) morning chores, Bible, math, and poetry. Those are our every-day-without-fail subjects. If we get nothing else at all done, at least I know we've hit some pretty important things! On our in-town errand and activity day, that's all we accomplish, and that's okay! While they're working on math, I drag out the bin. When we get to the end of math, we pull out "the next thing" in the bin and do whatever we find there. When we're done, we file that subject at the back of the bin. If it's a subject that happens more than once a week, you'll have to put the books in the next spot where you have a divider for that subject. Then, if we have time, we pull out "the next thing" in the bin and do whatever we find there. We continue in this pattern until either we have something on our schedule that forces us to stop for the day or until I think we've done a reasonable amount of school for the day. We don't always get an entire week's worth of work done in a week. But sometimes we get more done! And we don't stress about keeping to a specific schedule. And more importantly, we don't get fatally sidetracked when our plan falls apart. We just start again tomorrow and "do the next thing." The benefit is that my brain doesn't have to be in teacher-planning mode the whole time. Some folks can handle that sort of executive processing at all times, but it's wearying to me. I can just enjoy reading and learning along with my kids. When we finish a subject, the next thing is there waiting for us. I sort of think of it as a workbox system for mom.

Stages of Narration

I've been thinking a lot about narration lately. Narration is the method by which students demonstrate their understanding of the content that they've been reading in their living books in the Charlotte Mason method of education. Narration is not meant to be a means of assessment, but a tool for taking in, processing/making sense of new information, and finally sharing that newly processed knowledge with others. In addition, oral narration is the early foundation for later composition. Charlotte would say that narration is PART of the learning, not just a way to tell if learning has taken place.

My kids are 12, 10, and 8 as I write this. At the earlier ages, all of the living books are read aloud to the students followed by oral narrations. At about the age of 10, Charlotte had students slowly transition to self reading with oral narration and then finally self reading with written translation.

It's been interesting to watch my oldest begin to make this transition. The student who was a competent narrator as long as I was reading aloud is now struggling with their narrations when they read the material for themselves. I think we're struggling with the different style of reading for information as opposed to the style of reading she utilizes to read her favorite pleasure reading series from the library. My oldest is a speedy reader. And that's fine as long as she's just following the adventures of a clan of cats... But for gathering and processing information, I think she's going to have to learn to throw it in low gear. Pray for us... She is not liking the idea.

Written narrations are going to be our next hurdle. I am interested to see how she will make the transition.

Free Audio Books in Our Homeschool

I'm a Charlotte Mason mama. Our homeschool is a Charlotte Mason-ish homeschool. And if you know anything about Charlotte, you know that means LOTS OF BOOKS! In the early years, it means lots of books that YOU (mama) have to read aloud! And if you try to keep all of your kids in the same subject matter for as many of the subjects as possible, it means that those books have to be read aloud until the very last kid can read well enough to digest the material on her own.

A confession... Most moms won't be scandalized by this, but most Charlotte Mason moms probably will. I HATE reading aloud! For real hatred. Thirty seconds in, I'm yawning, and my eyes are watering, and my larynx is hurting, and my voice is cracking.

Very early on in my Charlotte Mason journey, I realized that I was going to have to find an alternative to reading all those books aloud to my kids. As the kids have grown older, more of them have learned to read well enough that they can begin to shoulder the read-aloud load. But the oldest hates it almost as much as me.

I knew that audio books would be a good fit for us. But have you checked those prices?!? One of the reasons that we decided to homeschool was financial! We can give our kids a quality education for a fraction of the price. But if we had to buy all of our books in audio form, we'd be just as well to pay for private school! (Perhaps that is a bit of an exaggeration...)

Enter Librivox - my life saver! Librivox is a non-profit project that pairs volunteer readers with public domain books and hosts the audio recordings online. For Free! It's sort of like a Project Gutenberg with voices. Public domain means that the copyright has expired, and that generally means "old." Well, most of my curriculum books fall in this category, so Librivox is a GREAT match for us! Many of our selected books are found there, and we have discovered many that we hadn't planned to read, which have since become favorites.

I download an app on my iPhone. This is the one I use, but there are several available. This allows me to easily download the .mp3 files to my phone. We hook the phone up to the audio input cable in my car, and away we school! We do listen indoors sometimes, but as we have a 20-30 minute commute to all of our activities, this is a great time to get in some of our "reading." The girls enjoy their stories; sometimes it doesn't even feel like school!

The cons:

• The readers are volunteers. Some of them are spectacular. Some of them are terrible. We know several of the terrible ones by name and avoid titles read by them. Thankfully, most often, a terrible reader only does a few chapters in a book, so you can make it through those. One book we read recently had a great reader up until the last 10 or so chapters. The girl who read those last chapters was so awful that we opted to download the book from Gutenberg and read them ourselves. But again - most of them are great. You won't get all the fancy character voices that you'll get with the professionally produced audio books, but the price tag more than makes up for that in my opinion.
• It is possible to overdo recorded books. There is something about snuggling up on the couch to read together. You can miss that with a recorded book. And there is something important about drive time with regard to connecting with kids. If we fill every moment of that time with recorded books, we miss out on some deep conversations with our children. But we do a TON of driving, so there is plenty of time for both in our family!

Happy reading to you!

Go Be

In the spirit of "just writing something" I'm, well... writing something.

After school this morning, I sent the girls outside to play. Because, you know, I'm a Charlotte Mason super mom, and we're going to count it as Nature Study. In my defense, one girl did take her new color the birds by number coloring book and colored pencils with her...

My twelve year old, in all her twelve-year-old-ness came back in a few minutes later. I promptly kicked her back out, saying "Go outside and play! We only have an hour until we have to leave for band." To which, she promptly replied, "There's nothing to play out there." My response - quite profound, I think - was "Well go outside and BE."

How often do I find myself in life standing around not doing much of anything because there's nothing fascinating to do? How often do I stand so paralyzed by a myriad of too many choices of what to do that I don't ever actually get around to doing anything?

Maybe the answer is to just get out there and BE. Then maybe the what to do will become apparent.

There's plenty of doing going on out there now. An impromptu popcorn picnic, some gardening, some scouring of bird identification books. It all came out of first BEing out there.

Ten Reasons the Church Doesn't Suck

Warning: I'm about to be real. And at my very core, my "real" is slightly sarcastic. So if you don't like real and slightly sarcastic, you probably won't like this post. You may want to try some of my other posts, as I am normally able to sand down the sarcastic edges before posting. But not today. Sorry. 

I read a fair number of "church blogs." Not blogs by churches necessarily, but more blogs about The Church, the condition of the church, the direction of the church, the leadership of the church, etc. And there is one genre of blog posts in this area that I'm ready to see die a slow and torturous death. It's the "Ten reasons the church sucks" post. It can take on many titles: "Ten reasons My church sucks," "Ten reasons Your church sucks," "Ten things your church should do so it won't suck," "Ten things my church did to change its suckiness, because obviously I'm so awesome that no church I attend or lead could ever suck." 

I'm not saying that there have never been times in history when the church needed to be called out. I'm not even saying that there aren't churches today that need to be called out. I'm CERTAINLY not saying that EACH of us individually doesn't need to be called out on occasion (perhaps on frequent occasions). If your church is teaching heresy, then by all means, nail your 95 theses to the door! But if you're griping about not having a coffee fellowship time before (or even instead of) Sunday school, just HUSH!

The focus of The Church should be to follow Christ, spread the Good News, and teach the scriptures. Period. The other stuff - the stuff that is almost exclusively pointed out in the Ten Reasons The Church Sucks blog genre is ancillary. The "stuff" can be used as tools to do those things, sure. Snappy music can attract a person into our doors who may never have heard the Good News. A coffee bar can encourage a new believer to come to Sunday school for some meaty scriptural teaching. A state of the art nursery can allow mom to relax and focus on a preacher's message. A rocking kids' program can attract families for miles around. But they are all just STUFF if we don't remember that the purpose is to GLORIFY GOD. Whining to the entire planet via your blog about the music in your church does NOT glorify God.

Honestly, if I was considering this idea of "the whole Jesus thing" and I read the "reviews" of the church that I'm seeing, I'd never want to be part of it. 

So, I said I'd give you ten reasons why the church doesn't suck. It's what I wanted to write. Really, it was. I didn't intentionally lie to you. But really, I can't tell you ten reasons why Your church doesn't suck. Only you can tell that! And that's what I want to encourage! Tell your story! Tell what you are learning in God's word. That great lesson your Sunday school teacher taught you? Tell how it impacted your life and thinking. Tell your brothers and sisters in Christ you love them. Tell how your kids came home from that program singing praises to God. Tell about the relationships you have formed with the ladies in your Bible study. Tell about how you have laughed, wept, and commiserated with your fellow moms who are trying to raise their children to love God. Tell how those couple of men in the church have served as mentors to you as a father seeking to lead your family in serving Him. Tell how God showed you the very same principle three times in the same week, through your Bible study, Sunday school, and the preacher's message--God using his implement, the church, to teach you in all three situations! Thousands of voices. Telling what God is doing in their lives, often through the church. Let's drown out those negative voices.

I don't want to get into a "Ten Reasons" battle with those who think they are edifying The Church by broadcasting everything they don't like about it. I want to tell the story of a church focused on following Christ and teaching God's word, clearly and completely. If that's not the reality in the body where you attend locally, find one where it is. There is no perfect church. We are called the "body of Christ," but oh, what an imperfect picture we are of Him. There will always be areas in need of improvement. Get in there. Be part of body life. Your strengths will encourage others in those areas. Your weaknesses will be strengthened by the believers around you. And, because the church reflects the characteristics of its members, as you grow, the church will also grow in its likeness to Christ!

Vanity of Vanities; All Is Vanity

I've just started a study on the book of Ecclesiastes. (Weird, I know, right???) In the first passage, we see Solomon sighing at the sameness of it all. When my kids get that "I'm bored" whining thing going on, I think I'm going to teach them this phrase - vanity of vanities; all is vanity - just so they're a little more poetic about it.

Verses 3-9 speak of the sameness of the world. Solomon sees this as "nothing new under the sun." The sun rises and goes down. The winds follow their prescribed paths. Rivers run to the sea and not upstream. We have to work for a living. Our eyes and ears aren't satisfied. "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun."

I've been thinking a lot about God's creation lately. What this passage gives me is not a depressing dissatisfaction in the sameness of it all but an amazement at God's orderliness in His creation! The news shows us the anomalies - the earthquakes, the floods, the droughts, the hurricanes and tornadoes. But more notable and newsworthy is the fact that on most days in most locations on the planet, EVERYTHING moves exactly according to God's machinery - DESPITE the anomalies! Cycles of day and night, seasons, temperatures, winds, gravity always works, water freezes from the top down (Think that's a minor thing? Ask the fish who have to breathe under the ice all winter!), seed time and harvest, the chemical intricacies carried out by each cell in your body. It's incredible.

...All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Colossians 1:16b-17

On the Road Again

I started this blog a year ago after going to a conference and meeting some of my favorite Christian homeschool mom bloggers. I was inspired to come back and write - for myself, for the benefit of others who might one day read, for my kids to read one day when they look back on our years at home. It was a grand idea. I wrote. It lasted three days...

I went back to the same conference this year. I was renewed and revitalized. I have the same desire to write. So I'm trying again. Maybe it'll go four days this year! My goal is to JUST WRITE SOMETHING. I have several blog posts that have been on my to-write-up list for nearly a year, but I never got around to them. This time I'm just going to try to write something, anything, even if it isn't a planned topic. We'll see!