My Cool HomeschoolHomeschooling Resources

About 25 years ago, my father purchased some property in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee. He had several different plans for the land, including a youth camp and a place for his retirement home. Sadly, he passed away before his dreams could be realized. We still enjoy the property, however, as a family reunion site every Memorial Day weekend.

 This year was one of our biggest gatherings yet. My mom and seven of the eight children made it, along with spouses, 26 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Some of older grandchildren went hiking while the younger ones played in the river. Some slept in the cabin while others camped in the valley. We played volleyball and soccer in the open field. We painted rocks to look like bugs and mice. We cooked hotdogs over a fire and ate more than a few s’mores.

Traveling to see family has always been a priority to me, and this past weekend was a good reminder of why. What a blessing it was to see my children having such a great time with all of their cousins – cousins who ranged in age from one year to twenty-six years old. They played games with aunts and uncles and talked with their grandmother – it was good to watch them just enjoy each others’ company. 

Even though my mom and siblings live quite far from us, we’ve been able to maintain close relationships, due in part to get-togethers like this one. And the family continues to grow. This year, one new great-grandchild has already arrived, and two more are due in the months to come. We’ll take trips to see them, and hopefully they’ll make it to the mountain property next Memorial Day.

 Though it may not be exactly what my dad had intended, I think he would be pleased with how the land is being used, as it brings his family together again and again.

Through the years, I’ve used a number of different reading programs. They were all good programs – different ones just worked better with different children.

 When my oldest son was three, he showed an early interest in reading, so my sister gave me the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We went through it slowly, and it worked well for us for a while. Around Lesson 50, it seemed as if there were too many words on the page, and he was feeling quite overwhelmed. This was understandable, since he was only four years old.

 I pulled out Ruth Beechick’s book A Home Start in Reading and followed some of her ideas. I found books with reading games and made up some of my own. For the next year, that was our reading program. We continued to work phonetically on words with short vowels for months.  Then he just took off, and suddenly he could read almost anything.

 I started my next child with 100 Easy Lessons when she was five. We weren’t too far into it when a friend recommended the American Language Series reading program. This included workbooks and readers, and she moved right through it.

When my third child began to read, I started her off with the American Language Series. She didn’t do as well with it as her sister had, so I went back to the 100 Easy Lessons. This didn’t go so well either, so we tried the Explode the Code series. Finally, we had found the right program for her. She has done very well with the workbooks, and her reading has improved a great deal.

Other reading programs include Sing, Spell, Read, and Write, The Writing Road to Reading, Hooked on Phonics, Alpha-Phonics, Christian Liberty Press Phonics, Saxon Phonics, McGuffey Readers, The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, and more. There are many good reading programs out there; it may take a little time, but you can find the right one for your child.

My oldest son John will be thirteen this summer, and he’s already been telling me for months about the things he “needs.” His sister dropped his digital camera; he needs a new one. The guitar that he plays in church has nylon strings instead of steel ones; it’s too quiet, so he needs a new one. Some of his friends have purchased an iPod touch; he needs one too. Another friend has a used laptop his dad fixed up for him; John enjoys creating images on Photoshop, and a laptop would come in handy. 

I miss the days when a one dollar Hot Wheels car was enough to make him smile. Of course, as he grows older, the “toys” he’ll want will cost more. I just didn’t expect him to want these items so soon. 

I’m still trying to figure out what to do about it. I understand the peer pressure – when his friends have these items and talk about them, he wants to have them too. But I also know these are big ticket items, and though I can find a deal on a guitar or camera for his birthday, we won’t be giving him both. And the iPod and laptop are just going to have to wait. 

He can work and save the money he earns to buy the items, but finding a steady income when you’re twelve can be difficult. Many of his friends receive allowances, something John also earns when we have extra money, but lately we’ve had to cut back on that as finances become tight. 

So what’s a boy to do? Well, he can save up any birthday money he receives. He could do yard work for his grandma or help her wash her car. He can sell some of the toys he’s outgrown at the flea market, a yard sale, or on eBay. 

What else can he do? He can learn to wait. He can understand the value of his time, his energy, and his money. He can find the satisfaction in delayed gratification – in working diligently and, over time, reaching his goal. While these are hard lessons when it seems he’s the only one learning them, they’ll last a lot longer than the latest innovation in technology.

My sister is the administrator of a small Christian school, and this week she’ll be speaking at the graduation ceremony for the seniors. When she told me about her speech, I just sat there, more than a little stunned. She had decided to tell the students that they can’t be anything they want to be.

“What?” I said.

“You can’t. People always tell you that you can, but it’s not true. I took piano lessons for years, but I still can’t play it well.”

“But,” I said, “if you spent most of your time practicing, you’d be really good.”

“I might play it better than I do now, but I’ll never be great at it. It’s not my gift. It’s not what I was designed to do.”

Now I understood what she was saying. I have always wanted to be a singer, but as of right now, I can’t match a pitch, and I struggle to find the right key. While I would love to take singing lessons someday to hopefully improve, I know I won’t ever be a great singer. It’s not what I was created for.

This isn’t to say that we can’t try new things. If I worked on my singing all day, every day, I might work up to be an adequate singer, or maybe even a good one. But it would take a lot of effort just to get to that point.

But, if I were to concentrate on my strengths instead, I can be better than good – I can be excellent. I may only be an average cook (sorry, Dear), but I can be an excellent artist; I may only be an average seamstress, but I can be an excellent writer; I may only be an average gardener, but I can be an excellent teacher. I can be excellent in those things God has called me to be.

So maybe she’s right – instead of telling our children they can be anything they want to be, perhaps we should be telling them they were made to be excellent at something, and then help them discover just what that something is.

We began this past school year in early August. I printed off calendar pages and marked in our school days to 180. I planned for our breaks around holidays and family visits. By all calculations, we would be finished in early to mid-May.

Now it’s mid-May, and I’m looking again at the number of school days we have left – more than a few. I’m also looking at the amount of work we still need to finish – also quite a bit. So what happened? To paraphrase John Steinbeck, the best-laid plans of this homeschool mom often go awry.

Each year, I plan out our school days, and each year, life always alters those plans. This year we had some health issues, family issues, and financial issues to deal with, all of which didn’t work into my scheduled days. So, once again, we’ll be schooling into the summer in order to be ready for the next school year in the fall.

But that’s one of the advantages of homeschooling. Life brings challenges to everyone, but when you’re homeschooling, you have the time to step back from the studies and work them out. If you’re child has a behavioral problem, you can cut back on the math assignments and deal with it. If a struggling friend needs someone to talk with, you can delay the history lesson for a day. If a family member is facing a health crisis and needs extra help, you can pack up the kids and the schoolbooks and lend a hand.

I know I’m easily distracted by minor things that come up, and I need to be diligent in helping the children get their schoolwork done. But as a homeschooler, I can also feel the freedom to take care of bigger problems when I need to, knowing that there’s always the summer to catch up. I just have to convince my children that year-round schooling isn’t so bad.

Ask any of my kids, and they’ll tell you I’m a list-maker. I make lists for chores, lists for weekly activities, lists for daily activities, lists of items that need to be done, budgeting lists, and lists for schoolwork. I have my weekly, yearly, and 5-year goals written up in lists. My lists are on the fridge, on the bulletin board, and in the school notebooks. I am constantly revising and updating my lists – I think I even have lists about my lists.

If you like using lists as well, check out ChartJungle.com . Wendy Shepherd, the author of the site, has created free printables to help you get things organized. Not only will you find free calendars and charts for schedules and chores, but you’ll also find printables to help you with your money, your car, your weight loss goals, your health, your holiday activities, and much more. For the totally committed list-maker, there are even charts for recording the times you changed your baby’s diapers, when you had a reaction to an immunization, and when your child was nice to his sister.

ChartJungle also offers lists to help get your homeschool organized. You’ll find reading lists, report cards, number lines, graph paper, diplomas, and word lists. My favorites have been the school year calendars, which I use to record our school days and attendance.

The free newsletter is another nice feature of this site. After you sign up, you’ll receive periodic emails about the latest charts that have been added to ChartJungle. With so many charts available, it’s a good way to keep up with the changes without having to search the site. 

If you’re looking for ways to re-organize before the next school year, be sure to check out this site. If you can think of it, there’s probably a chart for it.

After leaving the putt-putt course in Alabama, we headed to Florida to visit more family – aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandma. My children always find a lot to do when we visit, and one of their favorite activities is trying to catch the lizards that run around outside my mom’s house. This took on a whole new dimension, however, when the cat chased a lizard inside.                                 

We were sitting around the table with my mom finishing up breakfast when the cat raced through the door that had been propped open. I saw it pounce on something under my mom’s chair, then I saw a tail underneath its paws. 

“A lizard! Get the lizard!” I shouted, and everyone started looking around in confusion.

“What? What?” My mom shouted. By this time the lizard had gotten free, but the cat was still holding onto it’s tail. The tail had come off and was wiggling on the floor. 

“The lizard!” I shouted. “It ran into the bedroom behind the door!” A lizard in the house has nothing to eat, and it usually dies and dries up. “Get the lizard!”

Four children were still sitting around the table, and my mom was still hollering “What?” and laughing. The cat was the only one looking for the lizard, and the tail was still wiggling on the floor. 

I pulled John (age 12) from his chair and took him into the bedroom. The lizard was hiding behind the door against the wall. An easy place to catch him, or so I thought. 

“Get him, John!”

“I can’t.” 

“Why not? Look – he’s right there. Get him!” 

“I don’t think I can.” 

“He’s going under my foot. Ah!  He’s under my foot. Get him!”  I said. 

But within a moment the lizard had slipped out from under my foot, under the door again, and back into the kitchen, where the cat chased it under a bookshelf. The tail was still wiggling on the floor. 

“Somebody pick up that tail,” my mom said. John sat back down. Everyone else stayed in their chairs, laughing. 

“Oh, I’ll get it,” I said, grabbing some paper towel. I picked up the tail and threw it in the trash. There were quite a few lessons here, I thought. The first two were obvious: How To Catch a Lizard and How to Pick Up a Tail. But there are some good homeschooling lessons as well. What is the natural habitat of lizards? What do lizards need to survive?  Why do the lizards tails come off? Besides cats, what other predators attack lizards?

Life events do lend themselves to learning, don’t they?

Last week I received an email stating that the co-op we visited had enough openings for the next school year – they have a place for each of my children if we decide to join (we were actually put on the waiting list last year).  The cost of the classes is minimal and they offer a variety of courses from elementary through high school. 

Just a couple of days before, I had spoken to a friend of mine who had registered her children at another co-op and was still waiting to hear if they had the room. We talked about starting our own co-op, and she seemed excited about the possibility. We both knew other families who might be interested, and we discussed location possibilities. 

My children were especially excited as they thought of attending classes with their close friends. While they recognized a few faces at the co-op we visited, there were many students they didn’t know.                                    

Then I opened the email, and I wondered what to do. I was glad they had room for us, but now the other plan was taking shape. 

I spoke with my friend again, and I found out she had been accepted into another co-op. They are going forward with that one, so the plan to start one of our own has been placed on hold. Although I’m a little disappointed, I’m also relieved – starting and running a co-op is a lot of work. This past year has been a very busy one, and adding such a big responsibility to my list probably would have become overwhelming.   

We officially have until June 1 to decide whether we will join the co-op or not, which gives me a little more time to think and pray about it. But it’s looking really good to me right now, so I think we’re in…. I think we’re in… we’re in?

Our part in the putt-putt project is almost done, so tomorrow we’ll be heading down the road again. I look forward to road trips, as the children have always traveled long distances well, even when they were small. We borrowed a portable DVD player once so they could watch movies, but we’ve never purchased one of our own. Instead, we’ve found other ways to make the time in the car pass more quickly. Here are some of the things we do: 

1. Sing along to songs on the iPod. When my husband gave me one for my birthday a few years ago, I had no idea what to do with it. My niece and her friend downloaded over 300 songs on it; they gave us such a wide variety of music to listen to, it’s been fun finding our favorites. 

2. Listen to books on CD. Right now the favorites that span the age range from 5 to 12 are the Junie B. Jones stories by Barbara Park. I find these and others at our local library. 

3. Listen to Adventures in Odyssey by Focus on the Family on CD. We have listened to these over and over and over…

4. Play the alphabet game. This is the game where each player searches for the letters of the alphabet in order. The players can find the letters on billboards or business signs. When we are in an area where signs are scarce, we modify the rules a little to allow for letters on trucks and license plates. 

5. Play “I’m going on a trip…” This is a fun game, though it’s harder for younger children to play. Each player names something he would take on his trp that begins with the next letter in the alphabet. The catch: he has to also name all the items previously mentioned and in the right order. For example, I’m going on a trip, and I’m taking an alligator, a balloon, a car, a door….

6. Search for states on license plates. Before we leave on our trip, I print off coloring pages of the map of the United States, one for each child. Then, as we see license plates from the different states, they color the corresponding state in on their maps.

After traveling for many hours, we’re all ready to get out of the car, but the time on the road has been a good time together.