Weeks in Review - Icelandic Art, Cutting Up Dead Animals, and Ancient India

I'll start this two weeks in review with a little dissection humor from my daughter, Amber.

Why is an earthworm so mean?

Because it's heartless!

It's funny and it's true!  Earthworms do not have hearts, they have aortic arches - I just learned that this week.  Learning new things all of the time is one of my very favorite parts of homeschooling!

Amber performed two dissections this Friday - the earthworm and the crayfish.  I feel so blessed that a dear friend of mine is working through Apologia Biology this year with her son so her son and Amber are doing all of the dissections together.  They both did an incredibly thorough job on their dissections and encouraged one another throughout the process.

Definitely the most exciting news of the past two weeks - Amber and Mason were both so unbelievably excited that their art project took first place in the art contest at the Edge Games!  Their artwork earned Team Iceland 60,000 points!  Wow!  They worked so hard on their giant painting and I was happy to see that their hard work paid off for them.  The Edge Games were held three Fridays in February for the junior high ministry (Edge) at our church.  Amber and Mason had an INCREDIBLE time at the games!

Mason and Duncan have both been doing hands-on activities to go along with their science textbooks.  Mason investigated the impact of adding salt to water on whether an egg can float or not.

He also investigated using different "motors" on the motion of little cardboard boats.  The activity required that unsoftened water be used, though, so Mason had to bring the water in from our outside spigot.  After bringing in two buckets of water from the snowy outside, he commented that he was thankful for the running water in our home!  The cardboard boat powered by a small piece of soap won the race.  None of the other "motors" - a piece of paper toweling, chewing gum, or no motor - caused the boats to move at all.

Sometimes what my children think is REALLY fun surprises me.  I was surprised by how much Duncan enjoyed the chapter in his science text about weights and measures.  We did the weighing and comparing activities suggested in the lesson and then added quite a few more weighing activities!  Throughout the process, Duncan kept telling me how much fun it was to weigh things and he was so interested in comparing the weights of different objects to each other.  What I thought was going to be a dull chapter turned out to be Duncan's favorite science chapter yet!

In history we finished the weeks on ancient China and ancient India.  We've watched several interesting videos to go along with our history studies, all of which I would recommend.

• Discovery School Ancient China:  Journals Through History
• Ancient India:  A Journey Back in Time, Lost Treasures of the Ancient World
• Families of India.

For the remainder of the year, we will be studying ancient Greece and Rome.  After a full year of studying ancient history, I am starting to look forward to early American history next year!

That was our two Weeks in Review!  To read about what other homeschoolers have been doing, visit Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers for the Weekly Wrap-Up!

52 Weeks of Organizing Week 8 - Greeting Card Organizer

This past week I worked on a small organizational project - a greeting card organizer.  Sometime in the past, my mother gave me this lovely greeting card organizer as a present.

For quite a long time, this lovely greeting card organizer has been languishing in my craft room closet.  By getting my greeting cards organized I hope to:

• Send out more holiday cards to my mother-in-law and parents
• Send out birthday cards on time

To complete this project, I gathered the organizer, our calendar, and my stack of "good intentions" cards.  What are good intentions cards?  Good intentions cards are those cards that I purchased for my loved ones in the past with good intentions of sending them out...but never did.

I wrote down all the birthdays for which I need to send cards on each month's page.

Next, I went through all of the cards that I already have and placed any that I can use in the appropriate month's pocket holders.

So, now I have a perfectly organized greeting card organizer all ready to use!  To read about what other bloggers have been organizing this past week, visit Org Junkie's 52 Weeks of Organizing.

Reflections on Homeschooling: What About Friends? - Will My Children Have Any Friends If I Homeschool?: Part 2 - The Preschool Years

As I stated in my previous post - What About Friends? - Will My Children Have Any Friends If I Homeschool?:  Part 1, I do think that friends for one's children is a real concern and not a trivial one.  The short answer to this question is, yes - given a minimum degree of effort on a homeschooling parent's part, a homeschooled child will, most likely, make friends.

Today, I'll discuss what I've done over our years of homeschooling to give my children opportunities to make friends during the preschool and kindergarten years. 

Preschool and Kindergarten Years

My experience with my children during the preschool years was that while my children did prefer playing with some children over others, they simply didn't have the kind of deep, meaningful friendships that they developed as they got older.  The focus was on playing side by side, and then playing together as they gained maturity.    So, at that point in their development, it seemed most important to give them opportunities to interact with other children but fostering friendships was not nearly as important during the preschool years as it would grow to be.

During the preschool years, I do think it's important that children get out and about to be with other children sometimes but I don't think that necessarily calls for a ton of structured, often expensive activities.  

One of the best activity experiences I had as a young mother was a structured weekly playgroup that I was involved in with two other young mothers.  We got together for a few hours each week to socialize and let our children play.  Sometimes we would plan activities for our children to do and sometimes we just let them play.  We continued our playgroup for several years but eventually grew apart over time.  

   

We had our oldest child, Amber, involved in a LOT of preschool activities.  Our middle child, Mason, was involved in some preschool activities.  Our youngest child, Duncan, was involved in very, very few preschool activities.  By the time Duncan was a preschooler, I was actively homeschooling my older two children.  Therefore, he was included in all of the field trips and our homeschool support group's activities but he wasn't in any preschool activities of his own.  For example, Amber and Mason both attended a two or three day per week morning lovely preschool program at a church in a neighboring town.  While it was a good experience for my older two children, sending my youngest child to preschool just didn't seem to fit in with the path that we had chosen for their education by that time.   

If I had my children's preschool years to do all over again, I would have stayed home a LOT more.   My happiest memories of their preschool years are not rushing to this enrichment class or that team practice - my happiest memories are the crafts we made together at home, the time spent reading picture books by the stack, and the hours upon hours playing with homemade play-doh.  While many of the outside activities we did were great and I'm sure quite enriching, I also remember them often being quite stressful.  I can remember tired, hungry kids and a tired, hungry mom.  

I truly think there's an incredible amount of pressure on preschool parents to have children doing lots of activities at a very early age.  While some of the activities we did were quite valuable, I think we should have just said no the vast majority of them and stayed home more.

Having said all of that, there are an overwhelming amount of activities for young mothers to choose from for their preschool children.  Structured activities give children an opportunity to be with other children and learn how to act in group situations.  As well, they may be places where friends can be made.  Between all three of our children we participated in many activities when they were younger including:

• YMCA Soccer
• YMCA Basketball
• T-ball
• Gymnastics
• Tap Dancing
• Vacation Bible School
• AWANA
• Storytime at the library
• Field trips with our homeschool support group
• Homeschool group holiday parties
• Co-op art classes
• Swim lessons
• Kindermusik
• Mom's Together group at church
• Playgroup
• Morning preschool program at a local church (2-3 times per week)

Yes, homeschooled children do make friends and there are lots of things a homeschool parent can do to try to foster friendships for their children, in the preschool years and beyond. 

But, even as I talk about fostering friendships for children, I think that the importance of the family and family activities must be elevated above the issue of friends for children.  For the most part, friends come and go but a child's family will be a part of his or her life for the rest of his or her life.  Family relationships must come first and be elevated over the importance of friend relationships, even during the teen years.  When I focus on the importance of family relationships, I find I have absolutely no worries about my children making friends.

I have two more posts that I will be writing in this series:  What About Friends During the Elementary Years? and What About Friends During the Teen Years?  Hopefully, both of those posts will be written and posted over the next week.  

Reflections on Homeschooling: What About Friends? - Will My Children Have Any Friends If I Homeschool?: Part 1

What about friends?  Will my children have any friends if I homeschool?  I think it is safe to say that most homeschooling mothers worry about those questions at some time during their homeschool journey.  If a homeschooling mother doesn't worry about such matters, she can rest assured that somebody else will and will ask her about it.

I've been homeschooling for quite a while now and I'm usually not caught off-guard by questions and concerns from others about our educational choices anymore.  But, last year at an out-of-state swim meet, I went out to dinner with the coaches, swimmers, and the swimmers' parents.  I didn't know any of the parents well and one of the swimmers brought up the fact that my daughter is homeschooled.  One of the other parents looked at me and said, "She's a teenager.  What about her social life?"

I floundered a bit and then recovered by talking a bit about my daughter's friends, youth group at church, and the social contacts she has through USA swimming.  I never fully recovered, though, and felt a bit defensive and out-of-sorts the rest of the evening.  Apparently, the myth that homeschoolers stay at home, friendless and alone, chained to their desks with no contact with the outside world is still prevalent.

Whenever I've started to worry about the friends issue, I try to remember that going to school doesn't automatically guarantee that a child will make lots of friends, or actually any friends.  As Benjamin Franklin was quoted:

• All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse. 

If a homeschooling mother is struggling with her own fears about her children making friends or trying to deal with the negative comments of others, it is easy to think that all would be well in her child's social life if her child just went to school.  Well, that may be so...or it may not.  Just as homeschooling is not perfect, neither are traditional schools.

An extremely quick internet search reveals that making friends is a concern for children who go to a brick and mortar school as well.  Children who attend school may have to deal with bullying, cliques, and negative peer pressure.  So, while attending a traditional school may possibly solve a homeschooled child's need for friends, it may not.  I would argue that it is a myth that all traditionally schooled children have friends and are happy with their social lives.

For many homeschooling parents, having less peer pressure for their children was one of the very reasons behind their decision to homeschool.  There are those who argue that parents really don't matter all - the peer group is the most important determining factor of behavior in a child's life.  If you really want to have nightmares, read, "Do Pals Matter More Than Parents?"  Homeschooling, for many, is an attempt to keep parents as the most important influence over children's lives, rather than peers.

While I do think that friends are important for children, I also strongly believe that friends need to be kept in their proper place.  The importance of friends in a child's life should not be elevated above the importance of a child's family - even during the teen years - especially during the teen years.  Having a family-centered life is difficult in today's society.  I think pressures exist from all sides to pull children away from their parents.  Friends are important but activities with friends should not usurp activities with one's own family for children.

Back to the original question, though - What About Friends? - Will My Children Have Any Friends If I Homeschool?  I do think that friends for one's children is a real concern and not a trivial one.  The short answer to this question is, yes - given a minimum degree of effort on a homeschooling parent's part, a homeschooled child will, most likely, make friends.

In Parts 2, 3, and 4 in this series about homeschooling and friends, I'll discuss what I've done over our years of homeschooling to give my children opportunities to make friends.  I'll also discuss how I feel my children's friendship needs have changed as they've gotten older.  Lastly, I hope I'll help to put any new homeschoolers' fears to rest about their children making friends.

Yes, homeschooled children do make friends and there are lots of things a homeschool parent can do to try to foster friendships for their children.  But, most importantly, I think that the importance of the family and family activities must be elevated above the issue of friends for children.  For the most part, friends come and go but a child's family will be a part of his or her life for the rest of his or her life.

  

52 Weeks of Organizing Weeks 6 and 7 - Organizing My Teenage Daughter's Bathroom

I'm so proud of myself that we are well into February and I'm still faithfully continuing with the 52 Weeks of Organizing!  As I've said before, I KNOW that I wouldn't be carving out the time to organize problem areas of our house if it were not for the ongoing challenge at Org Junkie.

Over the past two weeks, I've focused on organizing my teenage daughter's bathroom.  Wow - for such a small room, it turned out to be a pretty big project!  I simply haven't decluttered in there for years - we've just gotten in the habit of cleaning around the mess on the counter and I tried to not even think about the mess in the drawers.  I've been wanting to organize my daughter's bathroom for quite a long time now - it was on my master to-do list for the past two summers!    

The main problem in Amber's bathroom was that it had been completely overtaken with years of gifts of lotion, soaps, lip balms, and hair accessories.  As well, there were lots of medicines that Amber had used in the past that never made their way back to the main medicine cabinet.  There was also just quite a bit of just plain junk that needed to be thrown away in the drawers!

None of the drawers had a clear job either.  Hair accessories, earrings, and lip balms could be found in a number of different drawers.  Due to the chaotic nature of the drawers, even though Amber owns handfuls of ponytail holders, she had difficulty ever finding one!

Bags of toiletries that had been taken on trips in the past were simply shoved back into drawers, adding to the  chaotic nature of the drawers.

In one of the bottom drawers, Amber had the first aid kit that she made in the mother-daughter group we participated in years ago.

The medicine cabinet was filled with BABY lotions.  I even found Children's Tylenol in there that expired in 2003.  Needless to say, a big part of organizing Amber's bathroom was major PURGING.
 
 Really, how many lip balms can one girl possibly ever use?  

 

I first tackled the counter area because I thought that a clear and pleasing-to-the-eye counter area would motivate me to continue with the project.  While the clear counter was very motivating to me, the excited praise from my daughter was much more motivating.  The clutter really was beyond what Amber could handle  going through on her own and she really appreciated my efforts to make her bathroom tidier and much more usable.  

After organizing all of the drawers, Amber even has some empty drawers now!  I may move the towels to two of the empty drawers since the basket does not fit underneath the sink.

I used containers that I already had to organize the larger pieces of jewelry, lip balm (I did purge quite a bit of lip balm), ponytail elastics, scrunchies, headbands, and barrettes.

I used these divided containers for earrings.  The earring holder she had was all rusted and I just chucked that in the trash.  I'll be keeping my eyes open for even better earring storage.

The medicine cabinet now only holds toiletries that Amber will actually use.  She has two empty sections in her medicine cabinet now.  

While this was a time-consuming project, it was definitely worth it.  Now instead of feeling antsy every time I get near Amber's bathroom, I feel a sense of accomplishment.  I am also happy that the bathroom is so much more user-friendly for my daughter now!

To read about what other bloggers were organizing this week, visit Org Junkie's 52 Weeks of Organizing.

Celebrating Thankfulness - #101-120

I am so enjoying writing these thankfulness posts this year.  Writing them has made me more aware of so many little things for which I am thankful.  For example, while driving my daughter to morning swim team practice, I repeatedly kept thinking how very thankful I was for dry roads.  Then, I reflected on how thankful I was for the Christian radio station (The Fish) I enjoy listening to and the family-friendly morning show they broadcast six days a week.  Lastly, I felt thankful, once again, for changing swim teams so that practice is closer to our home which means less driving for me.  Consciously focusing on all of the many, many gifts in my life has made me happier and more appreciative of all that God has given me.  I am looking forward to continuing to count the reasons I have to be thankful throughout this year.

101.  My husband gave Valentine's Day roses to our teenage daughter.  Not only was she happy with the flowers, she was happy that my husband remembered that she (Amber) likes roses, whereas I prefer flowers that are reminiscent of wildflowers.

 
102.  My husband gave my favorite kind of flowers to me for Valentine's Day along with a box of chocolates.   I'm just a simple woman - I enjoy flowers and chocolates!

103.  I am thankful for once again celebrating the birthday of my husband and his twin sister.  Even though they are twins, somehow, my husband turned 42 but my sister-in-law remained 39 once again!

104.  Homemade birthday cakes from my much loved mother-in-law.

105.  I am grateful for the excitement of my youngest son about opening his Valentine's Day present.  He repeatedly mentioned to me that "we didn't celebrate Valentine's Day last year" so I made sure that all of our children had a Valentine's Day present.

106.  Going out to lunch at our favorite restaurant, Moe's, for a Valentine's Day treat.
107.  I am so thankful for the energy and creativity of my teen and pre-teen.  They spent over eight hours over the week-end working on this massive art project for their youth group.  They are hoping to win big points for their country, Iceland, in the art contest during the final night of the annual junior high games at the main campus of our church.

108.  My husband and I attended a marriage seminar at the main campus of our church.  We both found the evening to be beneficial and encouraging.  I am most thankful that my husband asked me to go rather than me asking him to go.

109.  Dry roads to drive upon.

110.  The treacherous ice on our drive-way is melting due to the warmer temperatures this week.

111.  My winter coat that fits very well even over big sweaters or sweatshirts.

112.  The family-friendly morning show which is broadcast on our local Christian radio station.

113.  I am thankful that we switched swim teams and are now closer to swim team practice which means less driving for me, which is wonderful since I don't like to drive.

114.  I am thankful that my husband was able to easily fix our dryer thereby avoiding an expensive repair call, or worse the need for a new dryer.

115.  The 50 Book Challenge at my local library which inspires me to read and keep track of my reading.

116.  The two 50 Book Challenge award coffee mugs that I've earned so far for the 2009  and 2010 50 Book Challenge.

117.  Teaching Textbooks curriculum which makes Algebra and other higher level math courses self-teaching courses.

118.  Our DVR which records television shows which we can watch at our convenience.  

119.  PaperBackSwap

120.  My reading glasses.

To read more thankfulness posts, visit Multitudes on Monday at A Holy Experience.

Weeks in Review - Carousel Animals, Ancient China, and Team Iceland

The past two weeks have seemed to go by in a lightning-quick flash!  Even my daughter asked me today if it seemed like this week went by super quickly.  I'm not quite sure why it seems that time is speeding past us but I think it's a good sign that we're not mired in the February blahs that so easily settle in at this time of year.

Over the past two weeks we (finally) moved past the history of ancient Israel in Winter Promise's Quest for the Ancient World and are now studying ancient China.  We have all perked up quite a bit during our history reading each day - we were definitely ready to move on to another topic in history.  We've watched two highly recommended videos so far about ancient China:

• Lost Treasures of the Ancient World:  Ancient China 
• Ancient China:  Ancient Civilizations for Children.

I am hoping to do a hands-on project next week to go along with our ancient China study.  We haven't done any hands-on projects to go along with history in quite a while.

All three of my children are progressing well in their respective science courses.  Amber will be finishing Module 10 next week in Apologia Biology.  She is enjoying the course a ton more now that she is studying material that she finds interesting.  She'll be getting together with a friend who is also taking Biology this year to dissect the earthworm and the fish later this month.  I'm so glad I don't have to be her lab partner!

Mason is adjusting well to taking his first textbook science course.  I LOVE Apologia General Science.  Mason is still adjusting to the work but seems to find it interesting overall.  I was so proud of him for getting a B on his first-ever science test!

Duncan and I are enjoying Bob Jones Science 3.  This week, we finished the chapter on minerals.  As part of the  chapter, we conducted a hands-on activity to determine which fruit juices had iron in them.

If the fruit juice had iron in it, the tea was supposed to become cloudy when we added the fruit juice.  Duncan and I had trouble determining if the tea looked "cloudy" or not, though.  Not every hands-on science experiment goes well here!

We finished our read-aloud this week - Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.  We all ADORED this book.  I highly, highly recommend this book if you haven't shared it with your children yet!  It actually made me sad that I didn't discover this great book when I was younger.  We'll start reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Monday.  After several read-aloud bombs tied in with our history program this year, I've just chucked the suggested history read-alouds and we're just enjoying great children's literature instead during our read-aloud time.  Thankfully, ALL of my kids (even my 14 year old) are enjoying read-aloud time again.

Since my kids tend to keep busy hands during our read-alouds, they all manage to make some pretty great handicrafts in that trapped time.  Duncan completed his largest Perler bead project this week.  He was so proud of his creation!

My children worked on their latest art lesson over the past two weeks.  The focus of this art lesson was on designing, drawing, and painting their own carousel animal.  After watching the lesson on video, my children spent quite a bit of time looking through the library books about carousel art that I checked out from the library.  After looking at many carousel animals, they began sketching out their projects.

Today, they finished their projects by painting them and adding sparkly jewels at the end.  Interestingly, for the carousel animals project none of my children chose to draw a traditional carousel horse!

Mason chose to do a carousel pig.  He said that he wanted to draw a pig from the very beginning but I told him he had to find an example in one of the carousel animals books.  He did and he got to draw his carousel pig!

Duncan found a carousel llama that he really liked.  I was able to find a llama in one of our "how to draw" books to help him with his project.  Duncan's project turned out SO well - he was so proud of his project!

Amber chose a sea dragon for her carousel animal - she liked the imaginary creature immediately when she saw it an antique carousel animals book.  She chose to work with acrylics for her painting.  I thought she did a wonderful job of blending one color into another.

Amber and Mason were so excited for tonight.  Tonight was the second of the three Friday nights of the Edge Games.  The Edge Games are a mini-Olympics for the junior high youth groups and friends held at our main church campus.  Last week, there were about 340 young people at the games!  It's a fabulous time for all of the kids in a safe atmosphere with a great message.  Amber, Mason, and all of their youth group from our smaller church campus are on Team Iceland.  They were encouraged to wear as much white as possible to the games.  This week, Amber made Iceland t-shirts for her youth group.

Mason really got into the spirit with a white duck tape hat!  I'm sure they're having a great time while I'm writing this post!

That was our Weeks in Review!  To read about what other homeschoolers were doing this past week, visit The Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.