Homeschooling

One of the best ways our children learn from us is by modeling our behavior- or learning by example. Never is this more important than learning the value of money . Teaching our kids how to manage their money is vital. I believe wholeheartedly in giving kids their own money with no strings attached. They don;t have to do chores or clean their room or get good grades to receive it. Why do I do this? I don’t want to attach emotion to money- much like I don’t want to attach emotion to food.

If I don’t use money to punish or reward my kids how will they learn that you need to WORK for your money?

I have serious doubts that my giving them an allowance each week will turn them into lazy louts and that at 16 or 17 they won’t be able to grasp the concept of no work no pay.
The benefits of having money and managing it0- making purchasing mistakes or learning to save for a big ticket item far outweigh any negatives that may or may not happen.

One of the first things people almost always say when they find out we homeschool is ” Oh- you must have a lot of patience! ” or ” I could never do that! ” I know that partly it comes fro having an image of sitting at home doing school work all day and me playing role of “teacher” which couldn’t be farther from the truth.

One of the key factors in our relatively calm lives is try and not get upset about tings that don’t matter. I think people who are minimalists have the same idea- the less stuff you have the less you have to worry about maintaining or fixing. We are similar to that in that the less rules you have the less you have to enforce/punish/oversee/get mad about.

If no one has to wake up early for school then there are no fights about bedtime because the idea of a bedtime makes no sense. If no bedtime no making sure kids are in bed, lights out, etc. Because their is no school usually no grouchy kids in the morning because you have to wake them up. They get up when they wake up and want to wake up. No lunches to pack or books to find and no homework that gets lost or worry about not being done.
I don’t have to make sure anyone catches a bus or is dressed properly either. Who has the harder time? I wouldn’t trade it for aything!

Not sure if homeschooling is better or worse when you are sick. I can imagine that it would be pretty nice to drop off kids at shcool and go back to bed for the day….. But not sure if getting out of bed is even possible sometimes.

I thought I was have allergies all weekend and just extra crabby- but today I have massive headache and a cold- so some kind of flu/cold thing happening. My youngest chose to day to wake up at 6am rather than his usual 10-ish. So I have been watching cartoons in bed most of the morning.. to sick too sleep and too sick to get up.

Luckily I have JUST the right amount of energy to sit at computer and type. Every once in a while I end up playing online video games- mostly in times of stress. The year we sold our house I played a Insaniquarium for days until I finished it. I also can play too much Zuma. Both are pretty good games from popcap.com

Was a busy weekend - had a birthday party to go to Friday night and for whatever reason I become responsible for the cake. I usually make a Carrot cake and it it always a hit. I was unusually stressed over the weekend, I got very little sleep during the week and we had a lot of kids over.. feeling a bit out of sorts add to that family factor which always makes for stress. Lots of evening activities and errands and demands being made. Felt like I have been at dentist and doctor constantly this month. Add to that soccer and music lessons- I am wiped. So the carrot cake turned out great but I was pretty miserable at the party.. just too tired to really enjoy enjoy myself. I try and remember not to overdo it or we all get cranky- none of us do well with over stimulation. Especially me and when momma ain’t happy nobody’s happy

If you are looking for some new board game ideas- try some of the European ones that have become very popular. One from Mayfair Games and All in Wonder are good bets.
They rules are generally easy to pick up and the game play fun without being to stressful- allowing for conversation and social time… Some of our family favorites are Settlers of Catan, Blokus and Ticket to Ride. We also play a lot of one called Carcassonne. The games are good for about ages and up.
I am not much of a traditional board game player- I loathe games like Life, Monopoly and even Scrabble. They just seem so pointless and maybe not enough stress in them for me, Though I have to admit I do LOVE Boggle.
One of my bigger challenges is finding people to play with- or finding time. You can play some of these games online but the fun for me is the socializing

ARGH. I am a very patient person and can tolerate almost anything but the sound of a whining mixed with screechy is like nails on a chalkboard for me. I just want to flee! Every once in a while my son will get a new game that is just a little but too hard for him . Not so hard that it is boring buy hard enough that he gets REALLY frustrated and starts to while and shriek and sometimes even bang his Nintendo DS. I am very pro-video games but doesn’t mean I enjoy playing them! I like more of the puzzle type games not ones were I have to defeat giant metal robots or complete Herculean tasks. So when a four year old thrusts a game console at me screaming to fix it or beat it am not jumping up an down with enthusiasm.
I do my best to calm down and redirect but I know I am in for a long day when the screeching starts….
Wish me luck!

One of the challenges that seems to happen for kids- and homeschooled kids- around ten / eleven years old is the sense of fitting in. many times this will be the age that a kid who is homeschooled will ask or be curious about going to school.

This seems to happen more with girls than boys but I could be wring. there seems to be a string need to fit in and conform. I notice my oldest daughter went through this in a BIG way. Sh wanted to be around girls, talk about clothes and feel like she belonged. She asked a lot about going to school. I did think about it. I thought about reasons why she wanted to go- friendship/fellowship, fitting in, be like everyone else, etc. She felt that she would feel more “normal” of she went to school. I will say it was tempting to give it a try during some really hormonal moments. When I looked at the real issue- it was about belonging. I looked at other ways she could belong or feel a part of things.
I made an effort to see more kids and invite other homeschooled kids to our home and for sleepovers. I spent more time with my kids and made sure we hae “fun” together. I became more active in our church group and some volunteer organizations. I looked at activities we were doing that were not longer working for our family. These all helped- a lot!

I must admit I am having bad day. The Phone company came by to fix a business line in our house and they cut the cable to our TVs. Thank God there is no hockey game on tonight! It has been absolute nightmare trying get it fixed. Both my husband and I have literally spent hours on the phone in hopes of finding someone- anyone that can put us in touch with right department. . Also I have been encountering some troubles with middle daughter who is having attitude/hormone issues. I feel totally drained for the emotion of it all. All of my kids are high needs/high maintenance and it is hard to balance and keep peace in our home. Normally I am very good at it- but this I BLOW. For a fleeting moment the thought of “school” crossed my mind I did weigh the pros and cons of it all.

Some of the families from our homeschool group went for a hike this week. The hike was supposedly and not too hard one but I honestly thought I would DIE. I thought it would be like a 45 minutes walk but it was closer to two hours of climbing. I brought one small bottle of water for the whole family. Daughter #2 actually poured the water on head at one point! I cannot believe how out of shape I am. It may have been a tougher than usual hike because even one of my daughters complained about a quarter of the way through that she was tired. It was also the first “hot” day of the year so maybe we just weren’t used to it- at any rate we made it. I am determined to keep it up and try and go every week. I was surprised my kids were not that thrilled- usually they are the first ones to suggest we go for walks and get out of the house. I do notice older one are wanting to be around me less and less.. sort of sad.

We have been having a tough time finding high definition Blu-ray discs to rent- our local store has about 25 of them- and of those I would watch maybe 3 of the titles. The cost is also quite high. I think one DVD to rent is 7.99. I decided to try one of the rent videos by mail things- where you make a list of videos you want to watch and they send to you when available. I have been impressed by how quick they get her- but not with titles. They have TONS of titles but I seem to usually get my 10th or 15th choice on this list. Forget ever getting something like Planet Earth series. Right now I am in a trial period that is free. After that it is 9.95 a month. So not sure I will continue- however the cost of one month of the service is about what it costs to get one DVD from video store.