Confessions of a Perfectionist Mama

We all know that children are unique individuals with different personalities and different ways of responding to the world around them.  And, in general, children tend to be more imaginative than grown-ups.  While I still do have an imagination of sorts, it’s different than a child’s.  Sometimes it’s easy to forget that children see things differently than we do.  And when a homeschool mama happens to have perfectionist tendencies, it’s so easy to stifle a child’s imagination and creativity if she’s not very careful.

Yesterday, I gave my 5-year-old daughter a picture to color.  It had a foal following its mama along a fence.  I sat there and watched her color.  She began with the horses.  The foal she colored brown.  Then she decided to make the mama horse green with an orange tail and brown mane.  The opposite side of the mama horse was pale green with a brown tail and blue mane.  To be honest, I was annoyed.  She knows horses aren’t green.  Brown, black, or white would have been fine, but green?  She didn’t stop with that.  She asked me what color she should use for the fence.  I suggested brown, picturing in my mind a neatly colored wooden fence.  She began with a few brown scribbles and then decided to switch to yellow. 

Again, I felt irritated.  Why can’t she just color it the way it ought to be?  Finally, I asked her, “Why are you coloring the fence different colors?”  Her matter-of-fact answer, “Because they’re painting it!”  As I pondered her answer, I realized that I have a very creative child.  She doesn’t look at things the same way I do.  I like things to look picture perfect.  She thinks beyond that, and sometimes her thinking is more realistic than my picture-perfect world.  Yes, they actually could be in the middle of repainting the fence.

Today, perfectionist mama wasn’t any better.  This time she was to color sequencing pictures of firefighters putting out a fire.  I had specifically asked her to color very neatly, because she’s been scribbling, and I know she can do better.  When she brought it back to me, it was neatly colored; however, the fire trucks and firefighters in the last picture were colored black instead of red.  The two pictures before it were brown.  Again, I was annoyed with her.  “Gabriela, why did you color this fire truck black???”  “Because it’s nighttime in that picture!”  Duh.  Again, creative child sees things differently than perfectionist mama, and you know what?  It made perfect sense.  Of course, it could have been night by the time the fire was put out.

Why the green horse with an orange tail?  Because she wanted it that way and thought it made the horse look pretty.  So maybe that’s not as realistic, but it is very creative.

My children constantly amaze me, and I realize it’s all to easy to let my personality overrule their creative natures.  Yes, there are some things children must be taught to do in a precise way, but in some things it’s best just to relax and see what they come up with.

After all of this, I finally told Gabriela, “You know what?  You are really a clever little girl!”

Homeschool Tools: Mad Libs

I’m certain most of you are familiar with Mad Libs.  If not, I’ll give you a brief description, and then you can check out the links below.  Mad Libs are stories with key words left out.  Usually played at parties or with a friend or two, one person asks the others to supply the needed words (noun, plural noun, adjective, verb, adverb, number, person, etc.), and then he/she reads the story aloud, using the words supplied.  The results are hilarious!

I’ve loved Mad Libs since I was a kid, and I was born in the 70s.  Apparently, Mad Libs were invented in 1953 and first published in 1958.  I didn’t know that.  Anyway, believe it or not, I still have ALL of my original Mad Lib books, complete with stories my childhood friends and I completed.  My kids get a kick out of seeing Mom’s childish handwriting in these books and reading the words my friends and I used in the early 80s (like “Gag me with a spoon!” for exclamation).

I’ve use Mad Libs in our homeschool several times, spreading the hilarity to my own children.  It’s a good supplement when you’re studying the different parts of speech in language.  My kids still sometimes forget what an adjective or past tense verb is, so Mad Libs provide good practice.  Just recently, I found a Star Wars Mad Libs and ordered it.  My son, a HUGE Star Wars fan, was absolutely thrilled.  I’m kind of looking forward to watching him use it with his Star Wars-loving buddies.  (Too bad I didn’t have this for his Star Wars-themed birthday party!)

Here are a few links you might enjoy:

Mad Libs--the official Mad Libs website where you can find out about their products, apps, downloads, history, and more.

It’s a Mad Libs World is basically Mad Libs online, so you can play right now!  There are currently 286 stories you can choose from.

I’m hoping to write a series of posts on “tools” we use in our homeschool—not curriculum, but things we use to supplement our curriculum, or other “things” we find indispensable (such as my long-arm stapler) in our classroom.  Do you have a favorite homeschool tool?

First Day of School and School Room

I promised a few months ago that I would do a post on our school room; however, it took me quite a long time to get it organized!  Here it it…(finally)…

This is our dining room table/school table:

Our workbox station—Each child has 8 tubs.  On top is my tabletop pocket chart, Isaac’s science tub (for his weekly experiments), and other supplies.  Also pictured is our book rack and an extra bookcase.

My Parts of Speech bulletin board set and our British Isles and Europe maps:

Our spelling board for All About Spelling, our math door, and a shelf unit for Gabriela’s quiet play activities:

Bulletin board, calendar, pocket chart, USA map, and Periodic Table of Elements.  It’s taken me awhile to get used to the idea of our dining room doubling as our school room, but I’m just going with it this year and putting up more educational things!

     

Despite weeks of planning and a week delay in starting our school year (due to shipped books not arriving on time), I was not prepared for what happened the morning of school day #1.  Gabriela, who is beginning preschool this year (and very excited about it), woke up puking.  Not fun!  Poor baby, she spent the day watching movies and taking a nap.  She didn’t even get to eat the waffles Dad made for their Back-to-School breakfast.  Here are the kids on School Day #1:

 

One thing I did this year is prepare Back-to-School surprises for my kids.  They had no idea, and they were so excited when they saw what I had for them.  It really helped get us off to a good start (despite the fact that my baby girl was poorly).  Isaac and Moriah got Thinking Putty, and Gabriela got homemade scented play dough.  Also, I got some Smencils (scented pencils) for all 3 of the kids to use.  They absolutely loved their surprises!

Gabriela was still a bit puny this morning (day 2), but she’s doing so much better now that I’m confident she can do school with us tomorrow!

Back to (Home) School 2012: Our School Day (and planning)

I’ll tell you about how our school days and planning have been in the past, but it is subject to change.  I’m not sure how I’m going to homeschool 3 children at once (since Gabriela will be more involved this year), but it will happen somehow.  They’re too far apart in age to do any subjects together, although I know some people do that.  Maybe it would have worked if I had started homeschooling them all at the same time, but I started with the oldest, and by the time the next one was ready for school, there was not much they could do together.  So, I’ll be doing 3 separate grade levels in every subject.

Planning

As far as planning goes, I usually plan the whole year in advance on some subjects.  When it comes to Reading, Science, and Social Studies, I want to make sure I get it all done in a year, so I plan out the year.  Other subjects, such as Language, Spelling, and Math, we just work on some each day and go at our own pace.

In Kindergarten and 1st grade, I did it the easy way.  I ordered the Heart of Dakota curriculum, and everything was laid out for me with clear instructions, so I didn’t have to do any planning.  I love HOD, and maybe I could have made it easier on myself by sticking with them, but I kept finding other programs I wanted to try, so here I am planning again.  I even write my own curriculum guides for a few subjects.

We don’t start school until the beginning of September, so I still have time to plan for this year.  I like to get it all done before school starts because I find it less stressful  during the school year if it’s already there.  That’s just me.

Our School Day

Okay, now I’ll tell you the #1 lifesaver for us when it comes to planning and having an organized school day:   Sue Patrick’s workbox system!  I highly recommend it.  And yes, I tweaked it to fit our needs, and yes, I keep tweaking the system as we go.  We started out with 12 boxes per child (that’s 2 children), but I don’t have room to add another 12 for Gabriela.  So, now each of my three kids have 8 boxes.  People do this differently.  Some have shoe racks and plastic shoeboxes as suggested in the program.  Others used tubs with drawers, file folders, and pocket charts.  I couldn’t find anything I liked in England, so I ended up with a piece of furniture from IKEA.  Here’s a photo of our workbox station:

Our school day goes this way.  I don’t have a set schedule.  The kids start with box #1 and keep going until they finish box #8.  Occasionally, I let them do the boxes in whatever order they want…just to change it up a bit from the norm.  I usually have them start with Bible, Math, and Reading at the beginning of the day.  Also, I try to set it up so that I can work with Moriah or Gabriela while Isaac is doing work he can do on his own.  I do give them breaks after they complete so many boxes, although I’m considering doing scheduled time breaks.  Some subjects are done only once or twice a week, so I change what’s in some boxes.  At the end of each day, I simply fill their boxes with everything they need for the next day.

I use the weekends to make any copies they need for the week, and I store these in a pocket chart according to the day of week they’ll need them.  That makes it easier throughout the week.  All I have to do is pull their papers for that day and place them in the appropriate boxes.

At this time, I don’t have any set exercises to start the morning off—no calendar time, although I do have a calendar.  I’ll probably try to do some of that with Gabriela this year.  My plan this year is possibly to start the day with family exercise, and the kids usually have their own devotional/prayer time before school.  I guess we’ll see how it goes!

I’m linking this post to “Back to (Home) School” at Classic Housewife (and yes, I’m very late with this post, but we were busy packing to return to the UK).

Back to (Home) School 2012 Carnival

I’ve decided to join this Back to (Home) School blog hop, which means I post on a particular topic once a week during July.  Hopefully, I’ll manage it.  We’re headed back to England in 2 weeks, and that means 2 crazy weeks of trying to pack suitcases, ship some boxes, and fitting in everything we still wanted to do while in the US.  So much to do and so little time…and yet, here I am deciding to do this blog carnival right in the middle of it!

Anyway, you can read more about the blog carnival at the host blog Classic Housewife.  I just found out about it, so I’m a few days late.  The topic for this week is “Your Students/Your School.”

If you are new to my blog, here’s an overview.  We’re an American family living and doing missionary work in England, and I homeschool our 3 lovely children.  We’ve lived there for 7 years, and my kids get awesome field trips.  We do get homesick for America often, though.  My dream is to have a real homeschool room (meaning a nice, large room I can decorate and arrange as a school room and used solely for a school room); however, that’s not a reality.  In a later post (at the end of the month) I’ll show you our school “area.”

We prefer to use the same school schedule as the local public schools (it’s just easier for us), so we normally only get 6 weeks for summer break and begin the new year in September.  We also get 1-week breaks in October, February, and May, plus 2 weeks each for Christmas and Easter.  This year was different.  We skipped most of our breaks and worked hard to finish in May because we’ve been in the US since April, and I wanted my kids to experience an American summer vacation.  They’re loving it.

And these are my awesome homeschool students (at Grand Canyon, visited in May):

Isaac will be 11 in September, and he’s going into the 6th grade this year.  He’s very outgoing and friendly, and he’s very sweet and well-behaved.  I can pretty much depend on him to be responsible.  However, he does pester his younger sisters...  Still, they all honestly do love each other and mostly get along well.  Isaac’s favorite subjects are science, reading, art, history, and geography.  He does not enjoy writing or math, but he’s doing well enough.  His current interests include:  Hot Wheel cars, Lego sets, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, adventure and mystery books, snakes, sharks, and other dangerous animals, pencil drawing, swimming, fishing (his newest interest), soccer, roller coasters, and playing Wii (especially Mario games).

Moriah will be 8 in 2 weeks.  She is going into 3rd grade.  Moriah is my cuddle bug and can be timid and shy until she gets to know a person.  She has an amazing imagination and a very giving heart.  She is quiet when we’re out somewhere, but loud at home (just like her mommy was).  As for favorite subjects, I think she likes just about everything, but her favorites are probably writing, art, reading, science, and music.  Her interests include:  dressing up, Hello Kitty, Barbie dolls, listening to music, dancing, singing, drawing, pretty dresses, and dramatic play.

Gabriela will be 5 in October, and she will be doing preschool this year.  Gabriela is my sweet, little live-wire.  Seriously, she only stops for naps and bedtime, and she really does sleep well.  But between times, she’s constantly on the move.  She’s always been a challenge when it comes to getting her to eat, but she’s as smart as a whip, very clever, and a joy to be around.  She’s somewhere between Isaac and Moriah in her personality.  She’s not as outgoing as Isaac but not as shy as Moriah.  Before now, we’ve done only Tot School, so I don’t know what her favorite subjects will be.  Her interests include:  dancing, running, skipping, galloping on all fours, jumping, leaping, hopping…no really.  I think she’d be a brilliant gymnast.  Okay, back to interests, she also loves drawing, singing, playing dress-up, being read to, pretty dresses, dramatic play, and cute animals.

For more homeschool blog links on this same topic, visit Classic Housewife.  And you can join the carnival, too!

What Works for Us in Homeschool

I thought I’d highlight a few things that we find useful in in our homeschool, whether big or small.  If I think of more things, I’ll write another blog post!

1.  Homemade play dough and containers--These baby bowls with lids are perfect for storing our homemade play-dough.  They’re colorful and low-cost, and the lids fit on perfectly.  Homemade dough, by the way, is so easy to make and much better quality than store-bought stuff.  I’ll never purchase play-dough again!  I use a recipe from My Montessori Journey.  We like to make ours scented and glittery!  

2.  Cardboard dividers—Okay, so these aren’t exactly pretty.  What I’d like to do is cover them with contact paper, but the kids have been personalizing them with their own drawings…so I’ll leave them like this for awhile.  Because of lack of space in our house, we do school on the dining room table.  I was tired of the kids distracting each other, so my husband suggested these.  They actually work!  I also took left-over rectangles of laminated paper and wrote the alphabet and numbers for the kids (manuscript for Moriah and cursive for Isaac), because both of them still have a habit of writing certain letters and numbers backward.  Isaac also needs help remembering certain cursive capital letters.

3.  Pocket chart calendar—This is new for us this year.  It’s very easy to use, and unlike my old magnetic calendar, the pieces don’t get knocked off.  My daughter loves using this calendar, and she’s learning days, months, seasons, numbers, and patterns a lot faster.

4.  School Supplies Organizer—I searched online and in stores trying to find something we could use for this.  I used to have the kids’ supplies in their own personal drawers, but I got tired of them leaving the table in the middle of a lesson to search for a sharpened pencil or a dry erase pen or scissors or a glue stick…and we kept losing our rulers.  So I hunted up some tins I had saved, put them on a tray on the table, and it’s working perfectly!  Everything has a place, and the supplies are shared, so no one is worrying which glue stick belongs to whom.  Everything they need on a regular basis is organized and conveniently located.  Mom is happy!  By the way, the red-colored tin had nothing in it when I took the photo.  It now contains all the rulers we had lost!

5.  Sue Patrick’s Workbox System—This is our 2nd year using workboxes, and we LOVE them!  I have to say, however, that we’ve modified the system to meet our own needs.  Last year, we used the schedule strips.  This year we ditched them.  The kids are familiar enough with the boxes, and I didn’t feel they needed the schedule strips anymore (plus the numbers kept getting lost).  Pictured below is our workbox shelves and tubs, thanks to IKEA.  This is one homeschool item I splurged on (I used all my birthday money), because it wasn’t cheap.  However, since we homeschool in our dining room, I wanted something that looked nice and would fit boxes/trays for 3 kids.  Also, I couldn’t find the right kind of shoeboxes and racks in England.  And anyway, books fit much better in these larger tubs.  Isaac and Moriah have space for 12 boxes each, and I have room for Gabriela’s tot trays, too.  You can visit the website or click on any of my workbox links to learn more.

6.  Accountable Kids—I can’t say enough about this program.  It has worked wonders for our kids.  Not only are they more responsible and better behaved, but they are improving in getting their work done quickly because they want to spend their tickets to play their new Wii games.  You can read my review on Accountable Kids or visit their website.

7.  Snack Tubs—I got a pack of 6 small snack containers at Target ($1 section) when we were in the US, which means each of my 3 children have a snack tub for morning and a snack tub for afternoon.  I try to prepare their containers first thing in the morning, so they can get their own snacks when it’s time.  Although I choose what goes in the containers, they can choose which to eat first.

8.  Worksheet extenders—If I were to make a list of the top 10 things a homeschool family MUST HAVE, this definitely would make my list!  As of right now, the only place I know of to buy them is Love to Learn.  I could not do without these things, seriously!!!  I highly recommend them.  The set from Love to Learn comes with 4 worksheet extenders and a set of damp-erase pens, but I prefer using dry-erase.  You can also purchase the extenders separately and without the pens.  I’m not officially advertising for Love to Learn (meaning I was not asked to, nor am I getting anything from it)…I’m just sharing the info in case you’re interested!



Just a note on these: Apparently, you aren't allowed to use these with a consumable workbook with more than one student (if the publisher intended each child to have his/her own consumable workbook) without breaking copyright law. Sound crazy? It's true--even if your child writes the answers in a notebook and never writes in the workbook, it's considered used and is not supposed to be reused. There are options: You can either write to the publisher to ask permission, buy each of your children the consumable workbook, or chose a program that doesn't use consumable workbooks. Some workbooks DO state that you may use the book with more than one child. Just be aware and check your books. Despite that, page extenders are extremely useful. I use them with printables I want to reuse and workbooks that do allow photocopying or reuse by more than one child (far easier than copying unless you want the copies for your records).

Source: Homeschool World

9.  Hanging pocket holder.  I use this to plan out the kids’ school week, and it has been a huge time-saver for me.  I have enough pockets for each day of the week for each of the two older kids, and I have 2 left over which I use for Gabriela’s Tot School printouts or to hold our worksheet extenders.  Every weekend, I print out or copy any papers they need for the following week and place them in the appropriate day’s pocket.  Then when I go to refill their workboxes, everything is ready for me.  It’s a lot of work on the weekend, but it saves me lots of time during the hectic week!  This was a $1 Target find, by the way.

10.  Book storage—This is 2 things, actually.  One is cardboard holders from IKEA.  I wish I had a bookcase with high enough shelves to have turned them all the same direction, but I’ve made do with what I have.  I love how these have helped me organize my children’s books.  We also love our book rack.  Well, maybe it’s really a magazine rack, but we use it for our books of the month.  This way, the kids can actually see the fronts of books I’ve selected.  They’re always excited when I put new books in the book rack, even though they always have access to all our books!

What things do you find useful in your homeschool?  What works for you?

Persecution of Homeschoolers

If you homeschool, please watch the below video. Please keep these families in your prayers, and pray that this doesn't happen in our own countries that currently allow homeschooling. I have been praying for the Swedish family for over a year... if you're a praying person, please join me.