Image Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/369088

I’ve been a little torn over the past few months as I’ve contemplated some aspects of our homeschool that need to change. Perhaps you are there too. I’d like to share some food for thought in regards to making curriculum choices, in hopes that it may help someone avoid some of the struggles I’ve been facing.

We decided to take a break from My Father’s World curriculum for a while. We still love so much about this curriculum, and may return to it at some point, but right now we have some goals for our family and homeschool that are leading us to try something different. Exactly WHAT that difference might be has been the source of my conflict. As I read curriculum reviews, browsed online homeschool stores, reviewed books about learning styles, and read books and articles about homeschooling high school, I encountered dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of ideas and programs that looked so wonderful. I made a list of all the subject areas that I wanted to cover, and listed out the “can’t live without” resources we’d need to make our homeschool complete.

Then reality hit. My list was impractical. For one, the costs were crazily expensive. I know that education is an important endeavor worth investing in, but the numbers did cause me to reconsider if all those items were truly necessary. Perhaps more importantly, my list wasn’t doable. If we diligently used each of those resources I thought we needed, my family would get overloaded, burned out, and we would have no time to do anything else. I needed to rethink these plans.

In our family we like to say, “Mom’s the teacher, Dad’s the principal, and God’s the superintendent.”  It was time for this teacher to stop trying to do it all herself, and spend some time discussing the matter with the principal and superintendent!

So, I spent some more time praying for wisdom to make good decisions, and I asked my husband for advice. During a long drive on a weekend trip, we turned off the radio, I got out a notebook and a pen, and…

We talked.

We talked about goals. Why are we teaching each of these subjects anyway? Is it only to meet the minimum requirements set by our state’s department of education? Or would it still be important to us if the law didn’t require it? Why would it be important? For profound purposes, practical ones, or some other reason? In light of our answers, how much time and emphasis should we dedicate to each subject? What do we want to accomplish with this child, or that one, or the younger set, or the older set, in this particular year?

We talked about methods. Do we want a textbook, workbook, test format? Discussion-oriented? Experiments? Living books? Notebooking?

My husband is not the primary teacher and therefore doesn’t use many of the homeschool materials that we buy, but I rely heavily on his input. He has a lot of wise counsel to give, and being that these are his children, his opinion and preferences should be honored. Talking with him helped me immensely in considering why we do what we do.

Once those goals and methods were determined, I was much better equipped to objectively think about curriculum!  Most of our curriculum decisions were quickly and easily made once I was able to assess with how well the various resources fit in with our family’s goals.

A mountain of resources is available for homeschoolers today. SO MUCH of it is SO GOOD! Please know that there is no end-all, be-all “perfect” curriculum, that your children will forever be ill-served if you don’t use it. Before you make any curriculum decisions, I would strongly encourage you to first stop, pray, and ask some questions. Are both parents on the same page? Why do you do what you do? If it wasn’t required by law, would you still teach it? Why? Will this curriculum help you achieve the goals you have for your family? Are the methods in line with what your family wants? Is it feasible in your current season of life?

Once you know where you want to go, it’s much easier to look at the map to figure out how to get there. I hope you’ll spend some time thinking about your homeschooling destination!

One of my favorite things to do on birthday blogs is to compare pictures of how my kids have grown. Here are a few random photos of Writer when she was small.

Then, an adorable little girl…

And now, a beautiful young lady…

She’s all dressed up for her birthday present. I took her to see a musical production of “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” We both had a wonderful time!

Happy birthday to my sweet daughter! You make the teen years delightful!

Another soft head to kiss, and another sweet smile to lighten our hearts.

Handsome’s fascination with shoes.

Pineapple boy

Sonshine’s smile

 Bigger brothers helping little brothers

 And sometimes reporting them to Mama…

 …when those little brothers try to eat sand.

New ways to wear a pair of gloves…

 and a coonskin cap.

A second thumb-sucker in the family (Writer was our only other thumb girl)

A whole yard full of little ones

in their pajamas

playing Candy Man.

Similar to “tag,” except the person who is “it” is called “the candy man,” and wears a big box on his or her head.

 It’s called “Candy Man” because the box looks remarkably like a candy bar in a colorful wrapper.

Finding new things to do with boxes. Here Happy is saying, “Now saw me in half!”

(Toddler slides that come in boxes are fun too.)

Hula Hoop contests.

Big kids who help Mama create new ways to occupy their little siblings (ball on a string, anyone?)

And little ones enjoying the inventions!

 Big baby laughs…

 …and sweet faces for Daddy.

A rousing game of baseball. It takes nine to make an “official” team, you know!

 More children to read, and more children to read to.

And fun memories like these videos:

A tired and hungry Handsome, who decides to try eating and sleeping at the same time:

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Little thumb girl again:

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And more conversations like this:

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Many souls to love, and to love each other.

Very blessed, I tell ya!

She’s having a lot of fun seeing the world from this new view. :-)

Image Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/

While “official homeschool” is out for the summer in our house, education is not. Children are always learning, whether it be from a textbook or from real life. Now that many of the schoolbooks are closed, I decided to devote some time this summer to intentionally teach my oldest three children some life skills. One of our areas of focus is cooking.

The children already know their way around the kitchen. They have a good bit of experience following recipes and helping me prepare meals, but I would like to give them some more in-depth preparation for this important life skill. Cooking an entire meal from start to finish is a much comprehensive experience than just “helping” in the kitchen; I want them to know how to manage the process. I want them to know the basics of preparing a menu plan, efficient grocery shopping techniques, how to have multiple dishes going at the same time (the main dish, the sides, the veggies, etc). I want them armed with a good repertoire of meal ideas to choose from.

I have the basic plan of my “Cooking 101″ class in place, but I’m sure that those plans will morph and change as we muddle our way through it. In the meantime, though, I’d like to share my plans.

May: Month of Meals Chart

During the month of May, I had the children start some preliminary work on the upcoming class. I gave each one a “Month of Meals” chart (credit for this wonderful chart goes to Homeschool Oasis) to start filling in. The chart provides 32 spaces for students to fill in main entrée ideas, 16 spaces for side dishes, 8 spaces for veggies, and 8 spaces for accompaniments. A brief explanation of how to use the chart is at the bottom of the chart.

I asked our children to begin filling in the chart’s spaces with foods that they really want to learn how to cook. After they completed as much as they could, I helped them finish filling it in with foods that I believe they should know how to cook. I gave each child a simple file folder (color-coded by person) to put their charts in.

So what are we going to do with this meal chart?

June and July: Help and Learn

Throughout the months of June and July, I hope to teach the children how to cook every single item on their charts.

First, the children are learning how to plan a menu, by helping me plan our family’s menu each week.  This process is greatly simplified by  using the month of meals as inspiration to draw their ideas from!

Using the dinner charts and weekly menu plans, I am gradually printing out recipes to add to their color-coded cooking folders. I am adding other printouts to their folders as well, such as an “internal temperature” guide for cooking meats, and a “tips on shopping for fresh fish” guide. As I print these pages off for the children, I am printing them off for myself as well. In a few short years, I will likely repeat this class with some of my younger children, and having these recipes and guides in place will significantly shorten the preparation time!

Recipes and weekly menu plan in hand, I am teaching the children how to scan the recipes for ingredients to add to our shopping list. I consider this shopping list template to be indispensable in my kitchen, so I am printing out one for each child’s cooking folder as well. I typically print out a dozen of these at a time and hang them on the refrigerator with a magnetic clip. Through the years, this handy template has saved me countless hours at the grocery store.

Most importantly, and probably most obviously, the children will practice their cooking skills over these next two months. They will work with me during meal prep times, learning how to prepare each and every meal item from their chart, and learning to manage the process as they go.

August: Experience

After much learning and practicing in the months of June and July, the children will apply all this knowledge in the month of August with some serious  life experience.  This is the month where they will tie it all together and get to independently cook entire dinners from start to finish. I will assign each child one day of each week to be “the cook.”

For example, Writer might get Tuesdays, Handyman might get Wednesdays, and Cowgirl might get Thursdays.This means that every Tuesday in August, Writer will be completely responsible to prepare dinner. She will plan the meal, add the necessary ingredients to the grocery list, and help me shop for the ingredients, ensuring that she will have everything she needs before Tuesday. On Tuesday, she’ll make sure her meat is thawed in time, and she will calculate when she needs to start cooking each item in the meal in order to have it all hot and ready to eat at dinner time. Finally she’ll do the actual cooking. When August is over, each child will have planned and prepared four meals completely on their own.

Everyone is enthusiastic about jumping in to our summer cooking class. I think that this is going to be a fun and beneficial experience for all! I am encouraging everyone to hold on to their folders, because the contents will provide guides and inspiration that can help them the rest of their lives. I often say that the toughest part of cooking is the planning, so the “Month of Meals” alone will be especially beneficial. I hope that the printouts will also provide a reference for those cooking questions that they are most likely to need answers to.

What about you? Are you focusing on teaching any particular skills to your children this summer?