Some people think that I’m fairly structured with how our day goes in this house, other people think I’m pretty fly by the seat of my pants. I’ve been floundering a bit lately, so a good friend and I have been hashing out how we can make our days run a little more smoothly.

The main problem that we were finding we were having was that we weren’t getting to the fun stuff… the stuff that you tend to really want to do, but feel it has to wait until the “must do” stuff is finished with.  We were also having a hard time keeping up with chores…  laundry mountain was threatening to take over my life.  (it’s still threatening, but the whips and chains seem to be helping keep it at bay.)

I had worked out a schedule where we were doing a different “fun” topic each day of the week.  It wasn’t working…  I felt like we were jumping all over the place, never able to stick with one thing for long enough to make it worthwhile.  Not to mention that I was still only hitting those subjects about half the time…  and, if it was a rotten day, that we all have, then it would be a good long time before we hit that subject again.

But, that’s the beauty of homeschooling, right?  That we can tweak and nudge however we need to… and keep on tweaking until it fits.  Until, of course, some dynamic changes and the routine needs to be tweaked again.

That being said, here’s the new schedule that we are just trying this week.  I think some things are going to need to be moved around and tweaked, and I have already had to realize NOT to be too attached to the time.  I’ve also gotten some fabulous advice from the woman who suggested homeschooling to me in the first place, Heather, at OMSH.

I think that the idea of teaching our children to teach themselves is something that we want to aim to as well.  Which means that Zi now has a chart put in her box with the list of her readings for the week on it.  She gets to choose what she reads when, and she is going to have to learn to factor in that we are NOT at home all the time.  Good time management lessons that I’m still learning as well.

The first thing I did was waste an hour looking for a ready made template on the web that I could just fill in.  sigh.  Will I never learn?  Then I jumped into the spreadsheet program and made my own!

I wanted one that went in half hour increments, even though I didn’t want to be crazily tied to times.  And really, like Ja said, this is pretty much the order we tend to do things anyway, but I wanted to make sure that we got all the extra things in there as well.

We just started the routine on Monday, and Monday went really well.  Tuesday, I kind of crashed and burned, and we didn’t follow too much of it.  Wednesday we had some people over, and I was babysitting, so I need to rework it a little bit so that I have a different one for when I’m babysitting.

What’s interesting is that the kids LOVE having the schedule up where they can see it.  They like to know what’s coming next in the day.  I’ve always known that about Ephraim, but I’ve been surprised by how often Zi refers to it.  It takes out (some) of the wishy washy nature of our days.

I’ve also been making a real attempt at menu planning again too.  When I did it before, I had all the meals on magnets, and could just move them around on the fridge.  I, of course, lost those magnets, and have not gotten around to making more, so I’ve just been printing them out off the web, and filling them in (although, I really think that I’m going to make my own template for this too…  I would like a two week template that starts on a Saturday, to go along with our grocery day.).

So, that’s part one of our scheduling post…  part two, when I get around to it, will be about how we’ve changed the schooling rotation.

We aren’t really a traveling family.  I like to be at home, even amidst laundry mountain, and we’re generally too cheap to travel far from home.  Also?  I don’t sleep well in beds that are not my own.  It’s a quirk of mine… ((I like to think it’s endearing…))

So, for us to do a trip, moderate for most families, where we were away for four days was a pretty big deal.

We, Ja and I, pawned the children off on my lovely sisters, and went to OCHEC.  I can’t even say how uplifted I was, how challenged I was, how amazing it was.  To be in a building with 1000 other like minded people, to be able to talk to perfect strangers about the joys and challenges of attempting to educate your children at home…  it was just… it was awe inspiring.  I’m not sure that I have the words to say how great it was.

Sadly, I don’t have a lot of pictures to regale you with… suffice it to say, hooligan number three did not make it all the way to Kitchener…

Also? I am alllllllll turned around on the TVs in the car thing. Whew, it sure was a quiet trip up!! And, for 12 total hours of driving over the weekend?? The only mistake I made was not packing enough movies!

OCHEC was in Hamilton, and there were several of our friends from here in Peterborough that we met up with.  We stayed with two of my sisters in Kitchener, and drove to Hamilton each day.

We hit the seminars, trying to split up so that we could do as much as possible with as little overlap as possible.  The highlight seminar for me??  Oh my, it was without a doubt John Stonestreet from Summit Ministries.  I could not possibly write fast enough to keep up with all that he was saying.

His subtitle to the talk was For What are We Responsible as Christians?  Oddly enough something that a few of us have been discussing in our own groups of late.

Mr. Stonestreet talked about culture, about the effects of culture on Christians, and the effects of Christians on culture.  He talked about how the point of our faith should be that it becomes the lens through which we see the world more clearly.  He talked about knowing the gospel first, then knowing the culture and translating it in terms of gospel.  He talked about preparing our children to know the gospel so that they can influence culture.

He made this “radical” statement,

Any educational endeavor that

seeks to hide kids from the world

is not a Christian one.

Wow.  The conundrum with sheltering versus having our children be a light to the world has been one where I have struggled, where Ja and I have both struggled very much of late.  I don’t think anyone can argue that culture in North America is where you want your children to be immersed whole heartedly… but, Mr. Stonestreet said they have to KNOW about culture and cultural norms in order to be able to be a part of it, and yet still be grounded in the truth.

Mr. Stonestreet grounded us in reality.  He took us out of our little happy Christian utopia, and plunked us right down into Nazi Germany, quoting Hans Scholl, a young man fighting against the war.

Isn’t Seclusion a form of treachery? Of

desertion? I’m weak and puny, but I

want to do what is right.

What we need, according to John Stonestreet, is a generation of Christian students who know the world better than the culture does.  Who know evolution better than the evolutionists.  Who are biblically grounded, but culturally literate.  Our children need to internalize culture without being deceived.

And those few notes?  Those are just a very very brief nutshell of the multitudes of examples he gave, biblical verses, cultural snapshots, you name it.  My head was spinning and I was so EXCITED after that ONE seminar!

Another great speaker was from the National Center for Biblical Parenting.  He was oh my gosh, so freaking funny!  Had us in stitches, AND gave us some great tips for dealing with any typical parenting issues.  In our family, we have already discussed with the hooligans how we are going to do “breaks” instead of time outs.  How our family rules are very simple,

Obey, Be Respectful, Be Nice

Really simple things, but with the whole purpose of changing the parents default setting of anger… The idea is to help the child to learn to take responsibility for their own actions.  Allowing them to figure out what’s wrong.  Is it going to take time on the part of the parent?  Absolutely, but really, isn’t that why we’re all doing this in the first place?

I like to say that we’re not raising children, we’re raising adults.  Our whole entire purpose as parents is to raise these little people into big people, and send them out prepared into the world.

And those are just TWO of the multitude of seminars we sat in on!  There were definitely surprises, like the seminar on Family Worship… I thought that that was going to be a formula, of sorts, you know, “at this time, call everyone together, do this, then pray this prayer…”  Instead it was about every moment being a worshipful moment.  About going for a walk and talking about how the Lord made the flowers.  About how awesome and awe inspiring God is.  It was about making the Lord the centre, and having all things revolve around the knowledge of his sovereignty.  Definitely another challenging message.

Those were just the messages!  Then there was the vendor room!  It was so great to be able to see, to be able to pick up and flip through all of the curricula I’ve heard about and read bits and pieces.  ((I’ll do another post soonish about what we bought, why we bought it, the list I took with me, and how this year is shaping up…))

It was a really great trip.  I feel absolutely renewed, full of anticipation, ready to jump in, and most of all?  I am rejoicing in where the Lord has brought us.  I am rejoicing in the new thoughts He opened up in our minds.  In the reinforcing of thoughts and thought processes that were already established.

Ja and I walked away from that conference knowing and feeling secure that we were making the right choice for our own hooligans with homeschooling.  We walked away feeling more united as a couple, feeling more unified as parents and as teachers.

The only thing lacking?  A seminar on how to conquer laundry mountain.

Ah well.  Maybe next year.

Finances are tricky…  I think that if you weren’t taught how to properly handle money, then it’s incredibly difficult to teach it to your children.

Family Mint, Helping Kids appreciate money. I mean, honestly, what can be bad about that???  Know what else is great?  Wait…  do you really?  Do You wanna know?  come on, admit it, you totally do…

Okay, okay, it’s…

FREE.

I know, crazy, right?

So, this program, that is really like a virtual bank for yourself and your hooligans (but you are the banker), is completely and absolutely free.

• Family Mint is money management for kids where parents are the bank.
• Kids manage their own money by setting goals and entering transactions.
• Parents motivate kids through:
  ~ Interest rates they set themselves
  ~ Automated allowance
  ~ Matching deposits on important goals

Kids can:

• Set goals for items they want to save for,  and even allocate money to donate to a charity of their choice.
• Log into their own accounts to set goals, or request withdrawals which can be approved or denied by the parent when  he or she logs in.
• View plenty of graphics and visualize where their money came from, where it’s going and how to manage it.

Parents can:

• Log in and see all of their children’s accounts at one time.
• Make deposits and set up automatic deposits of allowance each week, if so desired.
• Set up a set amount of interest on savings, or match deposits made on important goals.

You can use your own hooligans real allowance and savings, or you could just assign them a virtual amount of money to play with.  Either way, what a GREAT learning tool.

This is a bit above my hooligans ability to use on their own, but with some guidance, it’s not too bad at all.

Go, check it out.  It’s Free, seriously, what do you have to lose?

My Gramma was an amazing woman.  She was a crafter extraordinaire, she could make anything you could possibly dream of (including the most delicious crepes you can possibly imagine!)  She was a knitter, she crocheted, she was a seamstress, a potter.  She knew how to cross stitch, embroider, weave.  You name it, she could do it, and if she wanted to do it, but didn’t know how?  She would get a book and learn how to do it.

Now that she’s been gone for a few years, I find myself wishing that I had have asked her more questions.  In fact, just a few weeks ago, I was trying to figure out how to sew pleats on a costume for a friend of mine… knowing that there must be some simpler way to do it than the way I was doing it.  I had the fleeting thought, “Oh, I’ll just give Gramma a call… she’ll know!”

While my Gramma taught me a lot of things, and I mean a lot, she did not teach me embroidery.  My mom used to cross stitch, and I know how to do that (my mom taught me), it was never really and truly an interest at the time.  Which means that I never asked her about it.  Which means that now that she’s gone, I’m in the place of figuring it out myself.

The internet is truly a wonderful thing.  You can google pretty much anything.  The internet, however, does not watch you as you make those first few stitches… it does not put it’s hand on yours to guide you through the faltering routine until you pick up the rhythm on your own.

Last weekend the kids and I set out to learn how to embroider.  I did have a very basic knowledge, years of watching my mom cross stitch was still stuck in the back of my brain…

It’s interesting, I thought that the hooligans, mine and Rachel’s, aged from 3 to (almost) 8, would fiddle around and play with it a bit, lose interest, and go do what hooligans do… in our house that means doing their level best to drive me insane.

They amazed me.  Not only were they patient waiting for their turn to have needles threaded, they stuck with the project for hours.  Literally, hours.

It’s amazing how you can give a child a challenge, offer no expectations and just leave them to it, what they will accomplish! They each decided on their own designs, and we simply drew it on the muslin (for the older girls) mesh fabric (for the younger kids). They chose their own colours, I gave a brief tutorial on back stitching, promised that I would thread all needles, and they were off!

A brief interlude to watch a movie (embroidering all the time), a small break to eat dinner, and they persevered until it was time for bed.

I simply can’t believe how much fun they had doing such a simple thing! An art that has been around for thousands of years. The simple act of taking needle and thread to draw on fabric.

And while those first halting stitches are secured on the fabric, while we listen, while we calm to make them smaller and neater, they are learning an art. They are learning to persevere. They are learning the joy that comes with making something from your own two hands. They are learning patience. They are learning that while they are small, they are very very capable. They are learning a craft that they can pass down to their own children one day.

Last weekend was not just about learning to embroider. It was so very much more than that.

143. quiet house while the hooligans are away
144. Spending time puttering… with no stress of deadlines
145. Learning a new craft as a family
146. Being able to help out friends
147. Spaghetti pie
148. massive snow falls… right before spring
149. Not being too old for tickle fights
150. A man who makes you laugh so hard your tummy hurts
151. Visiting new churches, learning how different people worship
152. The whir of the breadmaker
153. The feel of spring in the air
154. Three year olds who sing whatever comes into their head at any time
155. New books
156. New curriculums
157. Humility, in all its shapes and forms
158. Online and irl friends who give you a pep talk right when you need it
159. Sweet snuggling babies
160. Babies snuggled close in their slings