School is in the House! We're Back for 2014.

We are back-to-school!  And can I say, take no offense please, that I kinda don't like the "Not Back-to-School" phrase.   I get it, I do, us buck-the-system homeschoolers.  But truthfully, we are back!  Back from lazy days of summer when the TV got to go on early and stay on late.  Back from being off schedule. Back to the books daily. I like it. Mostly.

My eighth year of home teaching, ALL by God's grace!

First of all, let me say I am so proud of my children! We have had a great first week. Transition is never easy, school only holds so many delights, and we are definitely expecting more of them this year.  Especially when it comes to  helping out with household work.  Mister has been mowing the lawn all summer. He's helping to put in the wood for winter.  Each child has a daily checklist to get them in the habit of accomplishing certain tasks by the time we start school around 8:30, and with daily chores as well.  I am no longer the resident dishwasher unloader, I no longer do my children's laundry (except Petite's), and I am no longer relied on to make every breakfast and lunch.  Dinner is still my department.

But we are growing.  And it is good.  For all of us.

You can't gauge how the year is going to go by the first day, or week, but it's gone so much better than I anticipated.  Maybe because...

I am trying, really hard, to be more relaxed.  To leave more margin in our day.  To undo the noose I put around my own neck, the one that squeezed tighter and tighter when we didn't do spelling and grammar every day.  Or check off all the other boxes every day.  I am trying to take the time to really look at my children, see what their needs are, and their desires, and let those things determine more of what we do each day.

Petite is in kindergarten!  We are using My Father's World for this very special year.

I'll be honest.  I've got a slow-to-warm-up reader.  I've tried everything, but we make very slow progress. But this is my number one focus this year for this child.  So I invested in the new Rosetta Stone reading program (Lexia 5).  Because when I prayed about it, I just didn't feel I was giving consistent and effective enough teaching.  It hurts my pride to say this, but it's true.

I've also got my son doing a computerized math program, Teaching Textbooks. Not what I had originally planned for the year, but what is working for this year.  I am having him use the JUMP Math ( my favorite math ever!!!) to reinforce his TT lessons. But this hurts my pride too. I want to be able to do it all.

Be a dynamic math teacher.

Have readers far above grade level.

Brown-Eyed Girl is in fourth grade.  She loves to draw, sew, and, most recently, talk on the phone!

Do art, music, PE consistently.

But why? And for who?  Yes, for them, but often I make it more about me.  My need to feel like a good teacher and a good mom who is doing it all and doing it all just right.


Bleh.

It feels good to relax.  It's such fun to be teaching kindergarten again.  It's a relief to take a deep breath and let contractions wait til tomorrow because today Daddy is home and it's a great day to go fishing.

It's wonderful to have hope that this year will be better than last year.  And that, by God's grace, I can keep on doing this.

Mister is in the fifth grade this year.  He has the makings of a great writer, and his current passions are fishing and gearing up for deer hunting season.  So, he's a little bit of me and a little bit of Daddy.
The older kids are studying MFW's  Rome to the Reformation and Apologia Astronomy.

The Summer- So Far- In Pictures

There is no greater place to be in the summertime than Maine!  

There are plenty of lakes to enjoy swimming and fishing with the cousins and friends.

Parades are in abundance.

And all three kiddos have birthdays!

And summer is never complete without a wedding to go to!  Gabe and Heather's was a super-special one!

Two of my favorite people!

New life abounds! Babies love arriving in summer!

Our best friends were visiting for many weeks from Florida!

My kiddos loved visiting with their buds from "back home".

School's Out 2014

There it is. Our homeschool year is done.  We have, at least, fulfilled the legal requirements of what makes up a school year (175 days, instruction in various subjects, four progress notes).  Though it is a welcome thing to check off the list, to wipe my brow and sigh in relief, really, this thing called home education never ends. Most of the books will be put away, the paperwork completed, but now a different kind of learning gets to take precedence.  Summer is a whole semester of education, don’t you think? Swimming, sunscreen, fishing, camping, social BBQs and, my favorite, summer reading. 

As for our 2013-2014 school year, I am not sad to see it end. It was one of the more challenging. The worst year was probably the year we moved, but this year takes a close second.  It was The Year I Wanted to Quit.  I knew the day would come. I just thought I had a few more good years left before then.  Now that it’s coming to an end, and things have improved somewhat, I thankfully do not remember all the reasons I threatened to put these children into a brick and mortar school.  And yes, I did say it aloud, numerous times, to my children, my husband, all the while knowing I could not really do this.  It is not time, not yet, maybe not ever.  But I began to dream of how wonderful it might be not have to do this anymore.  To take sole responsibility for their minds, bodies, spirits.  To pass the baton off to someone else.

But even thinking this way made me uneasy, as this responsibility belongs to no one else.  But also, paradoxically,  not entirely to me.  Perhaps this has been my Grand Lesson of the year.
Homeschooling has been a very lonely experience for me the past three years.  I am no longer surrounded by “so great a cloud of witnesses” who can testify that this venture is going to pay off- or at least commiserate with the unique difficulties of not just motherhood, but home-educating motherhood.  I have so few to sit and have coffee with, who truly get both the passion I have for home education, but also understand the fragility of a mom who undertakes this.  My children, likewise, have a much smaller circle of friends here.  We’re all lonely and it makes the days difficult.

Chief among my worries is not my ability to educate my children.  They are getting the kind of education I most desire for them (literature based, delight-directed, thought-provoking). It is, rather, my inability to be enough for them, or to do enough for them.  But, then, I have learned the truth and I am trying to embrace it: I am not enough for them; I cannot do enough for them.  Children need not only a mother who loves them, but a father, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends, coaches, teachers, Church, nature, books, and mostly, Christ.  My children need to embrace this too- mom cannot do everything for them.  They must learn to do for themselves.  The world is more than mom, more than her fears, more than her passions and her beliefs.  Mom is not enough, but there is one Who Is.

Through this very difficult year, He has been enough for me.  In the loneliness, He has been here for me. In the worrying, He has spoken Peace.  In the tears, He has whispered “I will use this.”  I am beyond grateful.  I often think that the purpose in all of this is to break me and in that process, make me whole.  Well-educated kids are the bonus.

I do want to share something I am incredibly proud of, this 2013-14 school year.  And it’s not me boasting that I am better.  I think I’ve made it clear that I am no better at this than anyone else.  But one of my passions is reading to my children, and with it the hope that they become voracious readers.  One of my core educational beliefs is that reading is enough. And this was a banner year for reading.  Allow me to share the list of books we listened to (via read-aloud or audio) this year:

Gooney Bird Green and the Room Mother- Lois Lowry
The Golden Goblet- Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Lost on a Mountain in Maine- Don Fendler
Charlotte’s Web- EB White
Ramona and Beezus; Ramona and Her Father- Beverly Cleary
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle; Hello Mrs. Piggle Wiggle- Betty McDonald
The Tanglewood’s Secret; Star of Light; Treasures of the Snow- Patricia St. John
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever- Barbara Robinson
Eric Liddell- Janet and Geoff Benge
The Moffats- Eleanor Estes
Misty of Chincoteague- Margeurite Henry
Understood Betsy- Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Gooney Bird is So Absurd- Lois Lowry
The Little Princess- Frances Hodgeson Burnett
Mountain Born- Elizabeth Yates
In Grandma’s Attic- Arleta Richardson
The Children’s Homer- Padraic Column
The Secret of Pheasant Cottage- Patricia St. John
The Hobbit- JRR  Tolkien (currently reading)
Archimedes and the Door of Science- Jeanne Bendick

That’s 24 books, I believe, and these are just the chapter books we dug our noses into.

This was also the year that Mister really began to read chapter books for pleasure.  He has begun devouring, not all, but many of the books he’s read.

This is the year that Brown-Eyed-Girl’s reading has taken off, finally able to read more independently, and higher level readers.

My greatest joys in homeschool involve us being wrapped up in books.  I am not a science experiment mom; this year was short on that.  I am not all that dedicated to teaching my children practical things like tying their shoes (my philosophy: It will come). But I do love reading aloud from the Bible and from other good books and discussing them. I love when my children ask the thought-provoking questions.  Two-plus-two is so easy (in theory, of course), but I just love a good “Why do we believe this?” question.

I feel like I’m giving a bit of an award speech, and honestly, every homeschooling mom deserves an award at the end of the year, but I do need to thank my greatest encourager in the whole wide world, my husband.  I honestly could not do this without his 100% (and more) support and wisdom and words of encouragement every day.  He is proud of what I do here at home and he doesn’t want it any other way.  I also must thank the grandparents for being so supportive of our endeavors and for all the practical help, too, like watching kiddos for date nights, getaways, and doctor’s appointments.  And much thanks to the moms who started this before me and who show me that this can be done and turn out all right. You may not even know you are my heros, but you are, so I’m just going to go ahead and drop names: Holly, Aleyne, Wendy, Jesse, Sarah, and Sandra.  And to all the moms in the trenches with me: I’m so so glad you’re here with me and please, let’s have coffee soon!  And to my young mommy friends who think this is something they want or feel called to do: You will never regret it.  Not in the end, anyway.

I’ve promised myself not to think about next school year- at least for a week.  And though there is a lot I want to accomplish this summer- teaching cursive, math facts memory work, Spanish, typing- I’ve decided to just take a breather for a bit.  Trust. Rest.  Taking time off from school work and taking that time to build stronger relationships with the my children.  Breathe.  Chill.

There it is.  The end.

Remembering Why I Love This

I'm not going to do it.

Apologize for not posting in three months, I mean.

But please forgive me anyway.

We are here. I have just been too busy to take the time to post anything.  I am often writing, often thinking of things to write, but seldom publishing, for many, many reasons.-
One of the main reasons is that I am a wimp. I'm afraid I might  write something that unwittingly enlists me in the Mommy Wars.

Or that by posting pictures of my kids hard at work and actually engaged in what they are learning, someone will think homeschool is all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows in the Mathews home and that it's all thunderstorms, chicken gizzards, and smog at their home.

Nothing could be further than the truth.  I try to be as real as real can be when I share what's going on around here.  When I share some of the highlights of our life, that is what they are.  Highlights. The good stuff.  Family- and our journey of home education- has many highlights.  But don't think we know what we're doing any more than you do.

I sat down to write this post a week ago and had to erase most of it.  I was so excited to share a few highlights about homeschooling.  Some reasons why I love it so much.  But then, as expected but still unexpectedly, the tides turned and I found myself frustrated with many aspects of this homeschooling lifestyle.

My kids are always HERE!  Always in my face. Always asking me questions. I cannot sit down to upload a few pictures and write a post without continually being assaulted with interruptions.  Interruptions are my pet peeve.  So I start these posts and never finish them because it's just not worth the frustration.

But I'm thankful for the reminders of why I love this way of life.  Like bounce houses on a school day.

 My nephew lives in Texas with his mom, but came to visit during his school vacation, which fell on a different week than school vacations here in Maine.  Because we have the perk of a flexible schedule, we were able to drop regular schooling to go on a field trip to the bounce house to spend time with him.

I call this PE.  And I count it as a school day.  I have the wonderful freedom to determine what an education is and to share it with my children.  School is a building.  Education is all around us.  Even in the mouth of a plastic crocodile.

I call this recess.  And socialization.  And family bonding. (And gambling for minors, too)

Homeschoolers are rebels in many ways.  Even amongst ourselves, we are nonconformists (the brave ones, that is!).  The reasons why we homeschool vary, as well as how we order our day, what we choose to teach our children, and how we choose to teach it.  We love different things about this way of life.

The introvert in me loves that when we go on field trips, the places we go are quieter and far less busy. Because we tend to go when public school is in session.  You will not catch us on many field trips when the public schools are on vacation.  Not that I'm trying to keep my children from those children. Not at all!  It's just kind of nice having a place mostly to yourself.

I love the learning that takes place even when we are travelling. We are big fans of audiobooks and audio dramas like Adventures in Odyssey.  We utilize our CD version of The Story of  the World Volume 1 which compliments what we are learning from books at home.  We listen to biographies of composers that came with our core curriculum.

I love that these children are with me all day, when I pause from my own agenda and disregard the interruptions. I can't believe the questions they ask and that I get to answer them.

Should we be afraid of death?

Why would someone kill their baby?

What's dating?

Do all children go to heaven?

I wouldn't want anyone else answering these questions for them but Josh and I.

So yes, it's hard most days.  It's mundane, especially in the long cold winter.  But I'm so glad I get to do this.

Advent

First, my apologies for not updating the blog in OVER A MONTH! Don't I hate it when other people do it??? And here I am again, long overdue.  But maybe that's the joy and blessing of being an unrecognized, fairly unfollowed blogger.  It raises very little emotion when you say nothing.

Vacation is over, warm weather is definitely over, and winter is here, along with one of my favorite times of year, Advent. And doesn't the season seem to be going quickly!?  Anyone else? Perhaps because we had a late Thanksgiving. Perhaps because life is so full, mostly of the mundane, but this time of year, it's also full of extra activities and places to go and things to do.

For me, the Christmas season truly begins with a few moments... putting up the Christmas tree, setting up the nativity, and yes, some cheery Christmas shopping.

This year we decided to cut a tree down from our property. The weather was quite balmy, so we grabbed the kids and headed out back.

Josh had his eye on a few trees. Now, you may not know this, but when you chop down your own tree, it's probably not a seven foot fur tree. It's probably more like 30 feet tall. You chop it down and lob off the top as your Christmas tree. And the tops of those trees can look excellent from 30 feet below. But usually by the time you've felled the tree and cut off the top, you have a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

And that's what we got.  It's tall and skinny and could use a few prosthetic limbs... but once it was decorated, it was really beautiful.  And we love it because it came from our own backyard.

We've been using colored lights for the past few years.  We really only needed one strand because the tree was so skinny, but we put on two anyway.

"Out of the stump of David's family will grow a shoot" Isaiah 11:1

I took a picture of the stump because it reminded me of the verse we read for the first day of Advent this year.  I didn't make the connection until the tree fell.  Then I got the kids to go with me to look at it... and even then the idea of a stump producing a shoot took on new meaning.

For Advent this year, we are doing the Jesse Tree, particularly using Ann Voskamp's book The Greatest Gift.  I abandoned my usual One Year Bible reading to meditate and reflect on the daily scriptures in this book, and to journal through the questions.  It's been such a blessing. I then read the scripture to the kids and we have had some great discussions.  Someone gets to put the ornament on our Jesse Tree, which has become something they all look forward to.  I've missed a few days with the kids, but I personally look forward to my time in the morning, preparing for, waiting for Christmas.

I tend to gauge the Christmas season by what I DIDN'T do.  There's often quite a list of things I didn't do that I wanted to.  For several years I've wanted to take the kids to a live nativity or Bethlehem Marketplace, something several churches in our surrounding areas do. We haven't made it yet.  I want to watch my favorite movies at least once, some twice.  This year, I've "watched" White Christmas while scurrying around my kitchen.  I haven't listened to Christmas music as much as I'd like, or decorated the fence with pine boughs, or hung the lighted wreaths in the windows.  We haven't even put the star on top of the tree.  I look at the pile of gifts in my closet and think "It's not enough, I didn't get enough".  I didn't get the BeyBlades.  I didn't get the stuffed Creeper. I didn't get the guitar.  I didn't get practically anything they asked for.

Or so it seems.

Is it possible to have done more...though it looks like a lot less?

Is it possible to have gotten what they really, truly want... even though it wasn't on their list?

Is it possible to have a truly wonderful Advent and Christmas even when the upstairs is a mess due to an insulation project?  And when the laundry never really seems to be done?  And when we really scaled back gift giving?

I think the answer to all these questions is... yes, it's possible. And highly likely.

So I'll forget everything I haven't done and enjoy what we have.  Our Advent readings often include craziness, fussing, and fighting over spots in front of the woodstove, but they also include amazing discussions and insight from my children. We read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever in one sitting, because they simply wouldn't let me stop reading.  We've had lots of cocoa with whipped cream and giant bowls of popcorn. We've watched the second in The Santa Clause movie series because, even though I wanted to watch them in order, the second is everyone's favorite.  The kids have done their shopping for Daddy.  I've had two peppermint mochas.  My bulletin board is filling up with Christmas cards.  We went to see Frozen.  The windows are plated in snow.  

And we're all dreaming of a white Christmas, and looks like we may have one. 

The Ultimate Field Trip

We our back from what I call The Ultimate Field Trip-nearly three weeks on vacation in Florida!  We drove from our most northern state to the most southern with three kids in an overflowing Yukon! I went armed for the drive with snacks and a few gifts for each child and lots of audio books from our local library.  The drive was wonderful and it was so much fun to see our country from top to bottom.  We drove through or by some of the biggest New England cities, then through the farmlands of Pennsylvania, the Shenandoah Valley, and the Blue Ridge mountains all the way to the Sunshine state.

The first leg of our trip was spent with Josh's family, celebrating his grandfather's 90th birthday.  His parents and sister's family were there too! We stayed at his aunt and uncle's house and got to visit a few state parks in their area.

It was sunny and tropical, almost like we were in a rainforest those first few days.

Josh's cousin has a horse farm and we each got to ride on of her beautiful Arabians.  They said Brown-Eyed-Girl was a natural.

Most of the great-grandkids were able to surround Great-Grampy as he blew out a candle celebrating 90 years.

We got to see the wonderful manatees that flock to the warm waters of Florida at Homossassa Springs State Park. We got a real taste of the Florida wildlife here.

The second leg of our trip was spent in Orlando.  It was our first trip to Disney World.  We spent one day at the Animal Kingdom, one at Epcot, and three at the Magic Kingdom.

Petite loved the rides that were not enclosed.  Dumbo, Aladdin's Magic Carpets, and the Triceratops at the Animal Kingdom were her favorite.

The Magic Kingdom was so beautifully decorated for fall.  Main Street and Cinderella's castle were my favorite sites.

We rented a vacation home for a week, complete with its own pool- fabulous! We would definitely do this again. It was so wonderful having space and being able to make our meals.  I loved that the coffee mugs were oversize so it felt just like home.

When we saw Cinderella's castle, the excitement mounted as we rode the ferry to the Magic Kingdom.  It truly does make you feel like a kid again.

At Epcot, Mister did the Pick-a-Pearl exhibit in Japan. He had been anticipating this for some time!  He chose and oyster and in it was a 7mm pearl.

We made a side trip to Legoland to fulfill Mister's dream.  We were probably one of only a hundred families visiting that day so there were no lines!  That is my kind of trip.

There were so many things made of Legos here!  The pumpkin and otters were only a few of them.  The Mini Village was just amazing, with world landmarks like the capitol building, Eiffel Tower, Las Vegas attractions, and so much more made entirely of Legos. The details were amazing.

The third leg of our trip was spent in Fernandina Beach visiting our best friends who moved here in June.  Now, a trip to the beach is MY favorite kind of vacation. The kids had soooo much fun in the water.

Josh caught nine fish and even this young hammerhead shark! We had a delicious fish fry that night for dinner.

Mister really took to boogie-boarding. He would spend his life in the water if he could.

On the way home we stopped in Hershey, Pennsylvania for the night.  We made a quick trip to Hershey's Chocolate World to see how they make chocolate and pick up a few goodies.

We had so much fun with our friends. The whole trip was full of wonderful moments, we just can't decide on our favorites. We feel so blessed that we were able to take this trip and do so much.  We're back home now, with the woodstove going and packing up all the warm-weather clothes we wore in Florida.  Reality resumes soon but we're thankful for the memories we made.

Weeks 6 and 7- Wicked Good Fun!

So, no pictures from week 6 of our school year.  It was a quiet week with more study of Ancient Egypt and the usual 3 R's.  Week 7 detoured from the lesson plan book and leads up to the Ultimate Field Trip!

 I heard an ad on the radio for a special  Wizard of Oz exhibit celebrating it's 75th anniversary at a (somewhat-not-local) art museum.  But with friends, the hour and a half drive wasn't so bad.

 All the characters were there. Mister refused to have his picture taken with any of them, including the scarecrow, tin man,and lion.

Even the rest rooms were reserved for either the "wicked" or the "good".  You see where I ended up.

I'm so proud of the kids! This was their first visit to an art museum and they did an amazing job.  Yes, it was hard for these tactile learners not to touch, especially when the paint was textured or the sculptures were lifesize.  But it was hard for me too.  We weren't able to take any photographs of what we saw, but favorites from the Oz exhibit were the ruby slippers, Lollipop Guild character costume, the hourglass, and an original screenplay.  The other exhibits were wonderful too.  We saw a few of Andy Warhol's works and lots from Andrew Wyeth and the other two Wyeth artists.   I loved the discussions we had and the kids' comments.  I love that they appreciate art.

The second part of our field trip was visiting a light house that was near the museum.  We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. Honestly, it's been the perfect fall. We didn't even need jackets. We had a picnic lunch and kids collected shells and snails.  They were tickled that some of the snails came out to visit.

To get to the lighthouse, we had to walk down a mile long breakwater.  We saw lobster traps, crabs, and even a sea star on our journey out.  We saw a school of fish when we got to the lighthouse.

On the way back we saw this sea gull eating a sea urchin.  So we considered this a day of Art Appreciation, Marine Biology, and PE.  The best kind of learning is by experience.