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Early Learning. Happy Teaching.

How to Afford Homeschooling: Having “The Talk”

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Welcome to the first post in our ongoing series “How to Afford Homeschooling”! For the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some tips that I’ve found to be useful in affording homeschooling so far. This week’s topic is “Having the Talk”.

What is “the Talk”? The it’s-time-to-get-serious-about-our-finances talk. Christopher Robin (the husband) and I have had that talk several times over the years. Interestingly, lots of couples don’t talk about money. And it’s no wonder. Disagreements about money are some of the most commonly cited factors in marital troubles. But, we didn’t want to risk losing our family’s future over something we could fix together.

During our heart-to-hearts, we’ve literally made a list of things we could start doing and continue doing to save money so that he could be home more often and get more involved in the kids’ schooling. And these are the things that I’ll be sharing with you during the series.

Here’s a breakdown of the topics we’ll be covering:

If you’re facing a financially uncertain future, homeschooling can easily take a back seat to worries about paying the bills. Having “the Talk” may be just what you need to help you develop a practical method for continuing to homeschool, even if you have to make serious budget adjustments.

Have you faced a financial crisis? How did you and your family meet the challenge of continuing to afford homeschooling? Let us know in the comments!

Keep on learning!

The Importance of a Supportive Homeschooling Spouse

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If you look at the typical homeschooling family, you’ll probably see a mom teaching the children while the father is busy working to provide for everyone. Naturally, then, a lot of the homeschooling books and articles are aimed at helping us moms stay organized, encouraged, and motivated to teach our kids.

This is great, because we really need the support system of other homeschooling moms to help us keep going. However….

We really shouldn’t underestimate the value of a supportive homeschooling spouse. Personally, I’d never have been able to even attempt homeschooling our brood if my husband (seen above with the littles) wasn’t so supportive of both my intentions and my efforts to teach our kids.

We made the decision to homeschool from birth through high school (as long as it’s humanly possible) and it really does take both of us to make that happen.

Here are a few reasons why homeschooling parents need their spouses’ support:

  • Supportive spouses prevent burnout – When the entire responsibility for educating our children falls completely on us, it’s natural to get exhausted and worn out quickly. If I had to bear the brunt of all the subjects, lessons, and activities on my own, I would have given up homeschooling long ago. Having a spouse who’s willing to step in and help makes all the difference in the world.
  • Supportive spouses help us feel confident in our teaching ability – Most of us are not professional teachers, so we may feel unsure about our teaching skills from time to time. Even some professional teachers who take up homeschooling find that their education and training don’t really translate to the homeschool environment. When your spouse believes in your ability to teach and encourages you to continue, it gives you confidence that you are well qualified to give your kids the education they need.
  • Supportive spouses reinforce our teachings with the kids – I can recall many days where I would spend the morning going over a lesson and my husband would come home and quiz the kids on what we discussed. At first, I felt like he was testing me to see if I had actually “done school” that day. But, he was actually checking on them to see if they were giving me the attention and respect that they should during class. He would even follow up on how they viewed what they were learning and help them see the value of it in their everyday lives. Those reminders help our kids view me as a person who deserves their attention, not just during school but all the time.
  • Supportive spouses provide a definitive answer to doubters – I’m sure you’ve faced your share of naysayers who, while well-intentioned, may make you feel awful about your choice to homeschool. They may comment on our “socialization issues” or a perceived “academic gap” between what we do and what kids in the school system do. Having a partner who believes in homeschooling and is willing to defend it stops most of these comments in their tracks. I’ve been particularly grateful for my husband’s support in this area over the years.

Do you have a supportive homeschooling spouse? How has he or she been a partner to you during your homeschooling journey? Be sure to let him or her know how much you value them and then tell us about it in the comments!

Keep on learning!

Making Obedience Pay

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It’s always difficult to start a new routine at home. Homeschooling moms have an especially heavy responsibility here, since we need to help our kids structure their entire day despite the fact that they’re near televisions, video game systems, and their toys all day long. After getting frustrated over and over again, I did some searching and found a couple of rewards systems to try with our family.

Over at Chart Jungle, there are a ton of free rewards system printables. I liked the idea of these “Play Bucks”, so I printed out four sets of $1, $5, and $10 Play Bucks and then laminated them.

iMom is another great resource for printable kids reward charts and coupons. I got these “Kid Time Coupons” from there. Each one entitles the child to have one-on-one time with Mommy doing a specific activity.

And I got these individual reward coupons from Professor Poppins.

I used some lapbooking pocket templates to hold everyone’s Play Bucks and rewards through the day. We hung them on the refrigerator so the kids could go and put their rewards in their own pocket as they collect them.

Now, as to our rewards system. I did a very rough calculation and figured that each child’s daily chore was worth $1. I also decided that if the kids sat quietly during Story Time and Quiet Time, they’d get $5 each. Tigger gets $5 when she completes all her schoolwork for the day and the boys each get $5 when they play quietly during Morning Time. So, each child can earn up to $16 per day.

If they earn $1, they get free play time. If they earn $5, they get 30 minutes of TV. If they earn $15, they can pick a Kid Time Coupon or an individual reward coupon. Needless to say, everyone did exactly what I asked that day. 🙂

Tigger picked a 30 minute tickle session with Mom, Pooh picked 30 minutes of playing video games (he and Christopher Robin played Sonic Colors on the Wii), and Roo picked 30 minutes of TV time. As I watch their behavior, I’ll probably adjust the system a bit, but it’s really helping them work toward good behavior instead of just avoiding bad behavior.

How do you help motivate your kids to be obedient? We’d love to hear your suggestions! Keep on learning!

Starting the Homeschool Year Right

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Well, it’s a new year! And it’s a great time to look ahead to our homeschooling goals for 2013. I’ll be writing more about them in an upcoming post, but suffice it to say, we’re making some big changes in our school routine.

I think one of the things I like best about homeschooling is the freedom to change curriculum and teaching methods whenever I notice that something’s not working for our family. It’s often a lot of trial and error, but hopefully we’re getting to some kind of routine that works for ALL of our children.

In 2013, we’re starting the homeschool year right by…drumroll…asking for our kids’ opinions!

Starting the Homeschool Year Right

Starting the Homeschool Year with a Kids’ Interview

Usually when I plan a new homeschool year, I sit down and think about what I want the kids to learn in the next grade. I never thought about asking them for a review of what we already did the previous year before! Turns out that asking them for their honest opinions about the previous school year can be really helpful.

To get the kids’ input on last year and the new year, we did a post-2012 interview with all of them. I used a free “Year End Time Capsule” printable from Today’s Mama as the basis for our interviews. It’s really an opportunity for the children to express their favorite things about the year and what they hope to do in the coming year.

Some of the gems from our interviews:

Roo (age 3) – Favorite thing to do: “Stay up.” Why? “Because I don’t like being in the bed so much. It makes me feel bored.”

Pooh (age 4) – Favorite thing: “Coloring pictures.” Why? “Because I like looking at stuff. Toys are boring.”

Tigger (age 8) – Favorite book: “Ramona and Her Mother.” Why? “I like Chapter 2 and it has lots of girls in it. The whole book was mostly Ramona and her mother and Ramona did a lot of things with her mother.” (Hint, hint.)

After hearing their responses, my resolve is: Less boredom in 2013!

When I asked Roo what his favorite part of 2012 was, he said “The Rocking Clown Game”. It’s called Coocoo the Rocking Clown and it’s a great game for very young children and older kids.

The goal of the game is to place the colored cylinders on the clown without tipping it over. Yes, I have ours sitting on an Usborne book for balance. (Don’t judge me.)

As you can see, the more cylinders, the more likely it is that Coocoo will start rocking…

and fall over!

Our kids literally played this game for hours. They absolutely loved it. You can’t tell by Roo’s expression, but he’s saying “Cheese”. Trust me.

What are your educational goals for this year? Feel free to share them in the comments!

Has It Really Been Two Years???!!!

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You know how you know it’s been a while since you’ve done something and you think, “Hmmm. I should really check on this soon.” Well, I had no idea that it’s been TWO FULL YEARS since I updated this blog. I should probably have my Blogger profile revoked.

What have we been doing in the last 24 months? Schooling, of course, but I was also working a lot, which I’m going to be cutting back on because we’re about to have our fourth child any day now. “But”, you say, “isn’t this is a terrible economic time to be having another child?” Yes, it absolutely is and we’ve been kicking ourselves for the timing of this pregnancy for the last nine months. We’ve worked through most of our feelings though and we’re looking forward to having our new little girl. We’ve also taken to eating at home nearly every night, making lots of the kids’ clothes, and reusing nearly everything. All things we should have been doing anyway.

In the meantime, our schooling philosophy has undergone lots of changes: partially because I’m extremely flighty and partially because we’ve learned a lot more about our children and their learning styles. I’ll be going into depth about that in a future post, but for now, we’ve settled into a relaxed Charlotte Mason homeschooling approach.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing more of our new life and our new little girl once she arrives. Hope you guys stick around to see what we’re up to!

Image of time slipping away c/o: bogenfreund on Flickr

Low-Country Cooking

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To those of you unfamiliar with the deep South, allow me to give a very short geography lesson. The part of the East Coast in the U.S. that includes the coast of Georgia and South Carolina (and maybe the extreme north Florida coast, depending on who you ask) is referred to as the “Low Country”. I imagine it’s because it’s low to sea level and it’s really, really country, but I actually have no idea. Major cities in the area include Savannah, Hilton Head Island and Charleston.

I’m from Florida originally, but I grew up in the Low Country. While I am glad to have left the area, the one thing I miss is the seafood. I have never had seafood like that anywhere else in my life. When I was growing up, my parents would steam live blue crabs and oysters in a giant stockpot and we would eat like kings.

If we got enough people together, we’d have what we called a “Low Country Boil”, which is usually shrimp, potatoes, corn on the cob and smoked sausage tossed into a stockpot and boiled over a mixture of water and Old Bay seasoning. (I have to been Low Country Boils that included crawfish, pork neckbones, snow crab legs and king crab legs as well.) Traditionally, the food is dumped onto a table spread with newspaper and everybody eats with their hands. Since the kids are getting a little older, I decided it was time for their first Low Country Boil.

So we all sat around the table and ate with our hands. Tigger ate almost everything she could find, but kept putting her eaten corn cobs back in the pile. Ick. Pooh only wanted to eat the “shrimps” and Roo seemed partial to the potatoes. Daddy got full the fastest and I dipped my food in a mixture of ketchup and hot sauce. (It’s a Southern thing.) Apparently, it was a pretty big hit. There were only scraps left and everybody was still alive afterward. If nobody dies, it’s a good cooking night in our house.

See? All smiles! That’s the sign of some good eating.

A Visit to the Interactive Neighborhood for Kids (INK)

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Long time, no post. Sorry everybody! Things have been a little hectic around here. And I’ve learned first hand that trying to start homeschooling full steam with a new baby is…an insane proposition. Anyhoo…Roo is almost four months old and basically sleeping through the night, so hopefully our schedule will be a lot more stable from here on out.

A couple of weeks ago, we got the chance to visit the Interactive Neighborhood for Kids (www.inkfun.org). It’s a child’s pretend town where kids can engage in all sorts of grown-up professions.

As you can tell from the first pic, one of the biggest draws is the indoor playground. We literally spent the first hour just sitting there watching Tigger play and, naturally, bounce around. After dragging her away, we started actually seeing some of the exhibits.

Here’s the fam on the fire truck. Christopher Robin seems to be having the most fun, huh? Then it was on the doctor’s office…

Tigger gives Daddy a checkup.

Pooh was taken with the medicine bottles. A future pharmacist, perhaps? After getting checked out, we stopped at my favorite place, the restaurant.

Tigger served up what she said was a hamburger (it was really pretend baked beans, but we didn’t want to spoil it for her).

I don’t know what she put on that pizza, but it was delicious!

Pooh makes a selection at the jukebox. Afterward, we had some letters to mail, so we went to the post office.

Tigger waits on Daddy behind the counter.

Pooh delivers some high-priority mail. We needed to do grocery shopping, but of course, we had to go to the bank to get our spending money.

Tigger went to work on our account.

Daddy celebrates our newfound riches. It’s probably the most money we’ll ever see. =D

The bank just didn’t seem to do it for Pooh and Roo. So we went to every child’s favorite place, the dentist’s office. (sarcasm intended)

Tigger worked on a stuffed lion. He had really big teeth for some reason. It was actually a little creepy….We hurried off to take x-rays.

Tigger donned a lead apron and went to work.

After reviewing the x-rays, Tigger understood why his teeth were so big. Turns out he wasn’t a real lion. Mystery solved! We went shopping.

Items galore and no prices! Why don’t they have stores like this for adults?

Tigger filled her basket with enough food to make dinner. So we headed home to eat.

Overall, we had a great time! I definitely recommend INK as a low-tech, family-friendly attraction. It’s a nice change to go to a place that inspires imaginative play instead of stifling it.

Okay….Our Library Officially Rocks!

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For the last year and a half, our local library has been going through a renovation. In the meantime, we’ve only had access to about half the space as before and about half of the circulation materials have been unavailable (due to space restrictions). Honestly, I had gotten so used to our mini-library, I forgot that they would be unveiling the finished product soon. Anyway, I was astonished at how much they’ve done! Check out the pics below to see our new, way way way better library!

This is a view of the audiovisual department from the entrance. I like the layout much better, because you can actually see all the videos and CDs! Before, they were stacked on top of each other and it was hard to know what was available. and look at how bright it is! It was very dark in there before….

Here’s the same department from the other end of the room.

Here’s a peek back into the nonfiction and reference section. For now, all the computer stations are stashed behind that wall to the left, but I’m told that the downstairs is now being renovated and eventually, all the computers will go down there along with a special area for teens! (I think that’s pretty cool….maybe it’ll get teens interested in reading more, right?) Now, for the fun part….the children’s section!

Here’s a view of the entrance to the children’s section. To the left of this pic is the information desk and the computer stations for the kiddies. I like how the books are arranged in a way that gets the children’s attention…

 

One extra special part of the new children’s area is the seating….there are comfy chairs everywhere! And they’re all next to the newly added picture windows….there are even outdoor seating options for when the weather’s nice!

As you can see, Tigger took to the caterpillar seat right away! If i hadn’t been taking the pictures, I would have wanted to sit on it too…(head in bag)

This is the story room….the staff is offering several story programs for children this fall. We’ll be doing preschool storytime (3-5 year olds) on Monday afternoons and baby time (0-18 month olds) on Thursday mornings. It’ll be a nice intro to outside socialization, which homeschoolers definitely need. We’ll also be doing some park days, but more on that later….

 

And last, but certainly not least, the toddler and prek section…..see how height-friendly the bookshelves are? And the little tree table and chair sets are too cute! We’ll probably be spendingthe majority of our library time here.

So, I’ve decided that we will have days when we will spend the bulk of the day at the library. I don’t
think I’ll schedule particular days for that, but I’ll probably use it when we need a change of pace or
when I need to regroup. I’m very impressed by the new selection of educational materials. Just
browsing through the biography section in the children’s area made me feel a lot more confident about covering the topics we need to consider…..this unschooling thing might just work!

Look! We’re Homeschooling!

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After years of consideration and months of planning, it’s finally time to start homeschooling! We decided on this years ago after having our daughter, but I never thought about what it would be like to actually carry it through…..until now.

I have to admit, I’m a little nervous. Will I be a good teacher? Will I stick with our schedule? How will our children respond? But, with persistence, flexibility, and humility, hopefully we’ll settle into a nice rhythm soon.

In any case, we’ll be posting our progress here and would love any input we can get!