Now that the school year is in full gear for most of us, we may begin to wonder if we can hold it all together until summer. These excellent posts will help.
With so many demands on our time, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Heidi St. John offers up three ways to cut through the chaos and focus on what’s important.
The Aussie Pumpkin Patch’s school room is a wonder to behold. There are so many ideas for putting things in order here, you’ll turn to it again and again for inspiration.
More homeschoolers read Psychowith6 because of my review of Classical Conversations than any other post. And now wonder! It’s an amazing addition to any curriculum. Now Not Consumed shares these creative tips for keeping it all organized and part of the school day.
I don’t think there’s any activity I ran harder from when I was pregnant and homeschooling than science experiments. Raising Lifelong Learners gives us this great advice about making science a part of life rather than a time suck.
I’m going to be honest and say that keeping reading logs for the various freebies homeschoolers can get drives me crazy. The papers tend to get lost around here. Free Homeschool Deals to the rescue with bookmarks that serve as reading logs. Genius!
Are you homeschooling an only child? Know someone who is or is considering it? You won’t want to miss this encouraging article that not only says it can be done, but maybe it should be.
For more hot homeschooling helps, be sure to like Motivated Homeschooler on Facebook, the homeschooling-only page of Psychowith6.
I believe that good nutrition is a vital part of being a motivated homeschooler and I bet you do, too. The problem we typically have is that shopping for and preparing healthy meals is time-consuming. Then there’s the issue of dealing with picky palettes. As a fellow traveler on the road to healthier eating, here are some of my motivators that might help you overcome your good eating obstacles:
Ditch denial. Just Google the risks of childhood obesity and you should have a harder time pulling into the fast food drive through today. Read up on the health risks of eating too much sugar and fat and too little fiber and you’ll have an easier time making your way to the kitchen.
Start small. I’ve given extreme eating and cooking a good try and I can tell you it’s not the best approach. Healthy eating doesn’t have to be an all or nothing phenomena. In fact, the most fit and energetic people I know are not food extremists. Making one food from scratch a week that has no preservatives or artificial additives is a great start!
Take time. I won’t lie to you. Healthier eating DOES take more time. But I think it’s well worth the investment. Consider and pray about which areas you could take time from to allow you to provide better meals for you and your family.
Add alternates. Rather than clear your pantry of all the unhealthy foods your family loves, introduce alternatives first. Once the good food is accepted, they’ll have an easy time letting the junk food go.
Request ratings. If you come at your family like a drill sergeant, insisting they give up their favorite foods (or die!), your efforts will be for naught. Instead, help your family feel a part of the process by asking them to rate new recipes. If the majority do not like something, respect them and try something else.
Try teaching. You already know that the best way to learn something is to teach it. Why not study healthier eating with your kids? Use the opportunity to give your kids an education in health, math (measuring), and practical arts (cooking). My kids studied Eat This, Not That for Kids religiously with no prompting from me.
Ease expectations. Even starting small, it’s easy to expect that we ought to be making all our own bread, canning our own veggies, and when we really get crazy we think we ought to be making our own cheeses, too! It’s OK to use some packaged foods and even to choose the lesser of two evils when it comes to eating.
Honor hunger. Because our number one nutritional problem isn’t vitamin deficiency or even pesticide side effects, but being overweight, remember that one of the healthiest things we can do is not overeat. God gave us hunger and satiation so we wouldn’t have to weigh and measure our food. Honor it and you’ll surely be healthier than if you don’t.
Prepare portions. The easier you make it for you and your family to eat healthy meals, the more likely your nutrition will improve. Consider making breakfast for the next day as you prepare dinner. Cut up fruits and veggies after a grocery trip and consider using a fun presentation to make them more palatable to the kids. Double dinners and freeze one. Prepare what you can in advance. For example, brown all your ground beef and freeze it in dinner-size portions for a quick staple during the week.
Enjoy esteem. If you’re anything like me, cooking just seems like a lot of work! What I didn’t realize until recently is that it’s also a great way to get the thanks and praise that so seems lacking in our homeschool. My kids and husband have been singing my praises as I’ve been making new, delicious, and healthier recipes.
Make memories. My mother’s home cooking comprises some of my favorite childhood memories. I doubt that our children will have similar memories of fast food or prepackaged chicken nuggets and fries. As I was writing this post, my son came in and saw my cinnamon rolls and exclaimed, “Those are so awesome!” While they aren’t the healthiest fare (and you wouldn’t want to eat them every day!), they do make wonderful memories.
Want even more healthy eating motivation? Follow me at Wonder Women where I will be regularly posting my food forays.
This summer I attended our local homeschoolers’ conference and found out about Institute for Excellence in Writing. I’ll be posting about this excellent curriculum in the future. For now, I mention it because the IEW catalog is how I learned of the book, A Thomas Jefferson Education. I ordered it and was so impressed with it that I have completely reorganized my approach to home education.
However, even if you are not a homeschooler or not a parent at all, this book is worth a read! The exciting concept espoused in this book is:
All education is self-education. If we want to teach our children, we have to inspire them to learn rather than require them to learn. What would you have studied if you had the time? When I was a kid, I was crazy about medical books. I read the medical encyclopedia we had at home for fun! It’s entirely possible that had I been given more time to pursue my fascination with medicine, I would have become a doctor. Unfortunately, we treat learning as if it were such drudgery that we have to bribe students (or ourselves!) to do it. Learning is the most fun and exciting thing we can do! Sadly, Oliver DeMille points out that we tell students to learn what they want to learn "on their own time." As you know, few students have time to call their own between school and extracurricular activities. As a result, we miss out on the natural momentum that each child has.
Even if you have students in public or private school, you can greatly increase your child’s love of learning. You can also advocate that teachers and principals use the Thomas Jefferson education principles at school. If you have no children, you should also read this book and be inspired to begin the process of re-educating yourself. I have been thrilled as I’ve picked up classic books and begun to read. Mr. DeMille contends that the reading of such books not only entertains and teaches, but literally changes us. I couldn’t agree more! If you’re a Wonder Woman wannabe, you owe it to yourself to read this excellent book.
If you are a homeschooler wanting to learn how to implement these teaching principles, I highly recommend you purchase the George Wythe College Packages A & B here: www.writing-edu.com/order.
I’d like to briefly summarize how this approach has changed our schooling. First, it’s given me permission to continue to learn. In this philosophy, your own continuing education is equally as important as your children’s BECAUSE you are the one who will inspire your children to learn. For example, if you read a classic book that you love, you will rave about it and your children are more likely to want to read and discuss it with you.
Second, TJEd has given me permission to teach what I am interested in teaching. I no longer have to conform to the "conveyor belt" form of education. If I want to teach my children how to do photo editing because I love it, I can! If I want to take time to teach them how to make breakfast, I can do that, too! Rather than have my children spend an hour on workbooks, I now take that hour to teach what I want to teach.
Third, TJEd has given me permission to assist my children in learning what they want to learn. I talked with both of my older boys (in what TJEd calls the Love of Learning phase) about what they are interested in learning. My oldest was interested in learning about inventors and in music history. Who’da thunk? So I obtained books and curriculum on these subjects. He devoured the inventor books and the music history curriculum is so good the whole family is enjoying it (It’s called Listen to Learn by the way. I will do a separate post on this in the future). My oldest says that this year of school is "the best ever." He has spontaneously written two reports, complete with pictures, one of which he delivered as a speech because he wanted to! My second son has asked for permission to do MORE writing!
Fourth, TJEd has given me a completely different perspective on math. I browsed through the discussion boards at www.tjed.org and found the inspiring website www.livingmath.net. The resources I ordered via this website have turned math from something to be endured to something to be enjoyed. The kids are happy not doing pages of boring, repetitive problems and I’m happy because math is really, really fun! I now think of it as solving puzzles. We all think of it as a means of gaining respect and even money! I’ll post more about the resources I’ve found in the future.
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
