Inspiring our Reluctant Reader

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Both my husband and I have loved to read for learning and pleasure for as long as we can remember. So perhaps you can imagine why I assumed our children would one by one learn the mechanics of phonics and automatically love reading as a result. Much to my chagrin, when three of my children had learned how to read, lo and behold two out of three couldn’t understand whyever anyone would spend good time on it. I’ll throw out a spoiler at this point: the reticent readers are reticent no more. But we made changes in order to get to that point.

Four specific changes stand out to me, too many for one post. I’ll start with one: “Modeling the love of Books and Reading,” and then cover the others in another post. In my initial confusion when I found my boys did not just magically see eye to eye with we their parents on literary matters, I argued to myself, “But why? We’ve always modeled the love of reading for them!” But then I started giving myself a fair assessment and realized that they didn’t really see us doing the book-loving because my husband did a lot of his reading at work (to overcome small business challenges, but it is also a pleasure!) and I did mine while relaxing after bedtime or in snatches when they were watching a movie or playing. So I started to read in the middle of the chaos. I began to tell them about how may pages I read the last time I settled down to read. I read part of my book out loud to them. They saw me prep for a bookgroup which sometimes meets in my home.

But the real modeling opportunity happened when we had no idea what an opportunity it was. We took them to our local library books sale. They saw the light in Daddy’s and Mommy’s eyes as we found book-treasures for a bargain, and noted our fun as we compared our stacks and got excited with friends who popped in for the same sale. Suddenly it was game on. They rushed to sort through stacks and found their own treasures. I realized that just because I was modeling a love of books and reading in concept did not mean it was nearly as visible as it needed to be to inspire my children.

2019 Reading List Quarter One

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My 2019 stack of reading material is beginning to shape up. I’m reading through All Quiet on the Western Front while taking an online class for adults on The Great War. (Check out The Great War, taught by Tom Garfield on Roman Roads Classroom!).

I’m part of a group of ladies who meet for a monthly book group and we’ve read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden and Diana Wynne Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle for January and February with C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces coming for March. This is my third pass through Till We Have Faces, but it has been about 10 years since the last time I read it. I’m excited to be going through it again! My husband and I are part of another book group that is reading 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson and Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett.

I’m also reading The Nesting Place by Myquillyn Smith for my own personal interest; After we built our house in 2018 I realized how much I could improve on my interior design efforts. So I snagged myself a short stack of books on home decorating and management for 2019 reading.

What’s on your list to read during the first quarter of 2019? Comment with you favorites!

2019 First Quarter Book Stack

Elementary Mathematics in our Homeschool

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Edmund and William have been working on Saxon Math since kindergarten. We have recently incorporated Math-U-See (Gamma) to boost our mastery of multiplication. I’m loving combining the two approaches! Nancy Larson’s approach in Saxon 1, 2, and 3 is manipulative based, incremental, and largely intuitive. My 4th, 2nd, and 1st graders all love the early Saxon material. After a long summer of building our house though, I felt like we weren’t really achieving mastery with multiplication. Daniel has more than once talked with Ethan Demme (CEO of Demme learning, the producers of Math-U-See) about the Math-U-See approach: learning why a specific concept works via hands-on manipulatives and then mastering it well enough via review that the student can essentially teach the concept himself. I knew we needed to bring more of that into our study. My 4th grader is watching the DVDs with me and his first comment was “Hey! He [Steve Demme] make sense!” I feel that the DVDs teach me to be a better teacher as well. We’re looking forward to combining Saxon 54 and Math-U-See Delta into our schooling this spring and summer.

Edmund grading William’s math

How much more . . . your Father who is in Heaven

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Wouldn’t you agree that when you teach your children, you learn every bit as much yourself? Matthew 7:11 describes an analogy between our frail human parenting and the love and leading of God our Father, assuming that we could learn about God’s relationship with us as we teach our own children.

My six-year-old son loves his schoolwork but routinely freezes up, and things start to unravel when he perceives the assigned problem is too new and too hard. At those times I stop him, look him in the eye and tell him, “I will not give you something impossible to do, and now I’m asking you to be brave, and we can work this out.” He wipes his tears, puts on a brave face, and we sit together and work through it step-by-step.

What I hadn’t realized until recently is how much I am saying when I tell him “be brave, we can work this out” and, riffing off the Matthew 7 analogy, “How much more” would God our Father communicate this kind of instruction and love to us if we as frail humans would do that for our children?

It was a rough morning. One of those magical combos of dipping hormones, old griefs, new annoyances, and not quite enough sleep. I found myself dealing with the “problem” of just getting through the day. And I was freezing up and things were unraveling. Sound familiar? I started to tell myself “be brave . . .”; and then it clicked. What do I ask my son to do, what do I promise him when I say “Be brave, we can work through this,” and does God my Father do this even more to me when I’m struggling with a problem I can’t handle?

First and fundamentally I ask my son to trust me. And if I as fallen a human can be in some small way trustworthy to my son, how much more our Father who is in heaven? I ask my son to trust me that I know the point of giving him that particular problem, that I love him and am helping him grow. How much more does God our Father do this for us?

Next, I promise my son that I’m with him to help him. God promises his children that He will not leave us, that he will help us. The Sons of Korah in Psalm 46 talk about this promise in the face of overwhelming and fearful trials,

“God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah” (Psalm 46:1-3)

I also ask my son to work hard at something he may never have tackled before. God certainly gives us as His children problems to tackle that are unfamiliar and require discipline and patience. In Hebrews 11 and 12, Paul urges us on toward endurance like that of the saints of old who had faith even though they could not see what they hoped for, “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross…” (Hebrews 12:2)

And last I promise my son that with my help he will make it through. Doesn’t God our Father promise us this? Paul’s confidence for the Philippian Christians in Philippians 1 is something we can rely on as well: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

“How much more . . . your Father who is in heaven . . .”: this promise comforted and challenged me. If I ask this trust and perseverance of my son daily because I love him, I know my Father asks it of me even more so. If I promise my son I will help him and be with him because I love him, I know God promises that much more.

The Lord has spoken living words,
He gave us ears, and thus we heard.
We will not give our sons a stone,
We will not live by bread alone.
                            – Word and Water, Bread and Wine

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Choosing Curriculum in the Early Years

Thoughts on choosing curriculum for the early years

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“How do you even know where to start??”

A friend recently put into words exactly how I felt when faced with the challenge of diving into homeschooling with a  second grader, kindergartener, preschooler, and toddler. For more interesting posts to read you can now visit Skrumble.com.

I loved my homeschool years as a child. I had some ideas I wanted to implement, but lots of doubt about my ability to keep a steady schedule with so many littles and only one reader. I worried I would miss something important and not being able to get my paystub.

Well-Trained MindI cracked open Susan Wise Bauer’s The Well-trained Mind, knowing that she is a trusted authority on classical homeschooling. I half expected to find that I had already failed big-time in our K and 1st-grade years, and that I would somehow have to do the impossible and catch up. Should I have done more science? More history? Art? Geography? 

We had done Saxon math, piano lessons, and reading lessons with the kids’ grandma (bless her for that!) for the 1st grader. We had done a little “letter-per-week” pre-k to introduce phonics to the littler ones with the cousins. And we had done some art projects from books given by the kids’ other grandma (bless her also). And that was it.

So I dove in, wanting to read the bad news and get it over with. I skimmed right to page 30, “Kindergarten Years: Four and Five.” Four paragraphs in, I began to find a little hope that I might not have failed at the beginning of things. Bauer writes:

“We feel that there’s little point in following a formal, academic K-4 or K-5 curriculum at home. Rather, the first four or five years of a child’s life should be spent in informal teaching–preparing the child for first-grade work. In about thirty minutes per day, plus informal teaching as you go about your family life. You can easily teach your child beginning reading, writing, and math concepts, all without workbooks or teacher’s manuals.”

The encouragement derived from that start propelled me into my planning for the next year. Of prime importance was reading. In fact, Bauer calls internalizing “the proper use of language” the main goal of grades 1-4. That provided a springboard for my planning: lots of reading for my second grader, and read-alouds and phonics work for my kindergartener. I’m using Veritas Press book recommendations and literature lists from Logos School to help inform my book choices.

We set aside some time for phonics and spelling and handwriting for the 2nd grader, a lot of which he can practice himself with some basic guidance. Right now, writing is built into our history work. The Well-Trained Mind has lists of recommended materials in these areas for the homeschool parent’s reference.

Both my kindergartener and second grader enjoy Saxon math. I set aside an hour for it, mainly because only some of it can be taught side by side. The extra details of each lesson require one-on-one time with each child.

Between language arts and reading, I have needed no more than two hours per day. History (Veritas Press history cards) and music (piano practice for the second grader) are added into another half hour per day.

We are three weeks into the first year I consider “serious” homeschooling. So far the guidance presented in The Well-Trained Mind used alongside overviews of Veritas and Logos curricula has helped immensely. I highly recommend all three resources as reference materials for homeschoolers preparing to pursue classical education.

Baby #4!

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ethanRecently some mom friends had a discussion going over an article which stated that statistically, moms of three kids are more stressed than moms of four. And I remembered how many times I had heard that “after three, it never gets any crazier!”

But when Ethan arrived, much anticipated baby four, he threw me into a period of family life which felt so much like a car without brakes barreling down a hill. I just hoped no sharp curves were on the road ahead!  It was the kind of crazy that had me on the verge of tears and laughter all at once! I remember sobbing when Ethan had his first big blowout and it poured down his leg and into my lap when we were both all freshly dressed and ready to leave for church. Actually, I outright wailed. And then laughed so hard at myself right afterwards for taking a simple mess so hard. I remember asking mom friends with more kids than I if this was “normal” to feel so wildly behind and grinning with teary eyes when they said “Yes!” I cried when I forgot my stroller at the park, and when I couldn’t remember carrying the baby in his seat to the front step to be loaded into the car. And later laughed at how silly it all was. Having three children was a breeze in comparison.

This has brought me to conclude that in comparing how various numbers of children affect the life of a mom, variables like how close together the children are, and the personalities of those children, and for that matter the personality of the mom all play into the experience. But with that said, I’m also grateful that I didn’t go straight from a relatively easy three-kids-experience to an even less stressful four. I’m grateful, somehow, (though I was hard-pressed to be grateful at the time), for what that careening feeling (as if I were digging my fingers into the dashboard of that brakeless car and holding on for dear life) teaches me about trust in God. Precisely when I knew I really truly could not hold anything together, not even one little bit, then I really knew without doubt that I HAD to rely on God to be the One in control. It was sheer incapacitated dependence.

I suppose much like my sweet fourth baby depends on us, his parents, for everything. He can’t control the position of his body or whether his tummy will get filled or when his clothes get changed or if he gets covered or uncovered. And arguably this is precisely the state where our little baby sees most constantly our care and provision for him. I want to remember that picture of dependence and provision for those times when I feel the most like I’m in the careening car. Those moments serve as the best opportunities to see God’s moment-by-moment love and provision for me and for my family. I want to be watching during those times with eyes of faith, to see what God will do.

“With Kids”

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 As my first baby grew out of the napping lots, play-pen-compatible stage, I found myself waiting until the babies were in bed before doing my chores or pleasure activities. Often, though, I would be too tired to do either one. The house got behind, and I ended up frustrated. I realized that this was no way to live and love the next ten years when most likely I’ll always have some stage of little personhood toddling through my home. So I started to work on ways to do my chores and my fun activities WITH my kids. This may not be a new concept to most mamas, but I felt like I had come up with something brilliant! On this blog, I have a tab labeled “with kids” where you will find photo

Edmund, William, and Margaux

Edmund, William, and Margaux

evidence of the things I’ve tried to do with little people involved throughout the process. It’s usually messier, and often seems crazy at the time, but at least it’s never boring! And, with chores and projects getting at least partially done during the day, I’m hoping there may be at least a little evening left after the kids go to bed for some grown-up downtime before we crash too!