Striving for Simplicity: Getting Rid of the Toys

I have always been a minimalist. People comment on how clean my house is and while I do keep it tidy, I think the majority of that cleanliness comes from not having a bunch of stuff everywhere. Now don't get me wrong, there are certain things I can never have enough of and always love buying, but overall, I just don't want stuff everywhere. I'm not very sentimental either and can dump pile after pile off at Goodwill without looking back. I think some of that is my personality and some of that is because of the way I grew up. Moving and traveling frequently taught me what I can live without, and mission trips to Central America solidified that as well as helped control my desire to always have more or have the best and taught me to be truly thankful.

As we prepare to move, I am in full on simplify mode. Moving is like a fresh start. I want to start over with LESS. I'd also like a smaller (cheaper!) moving truck! In this process, I have noticed that my children have accumulated a large amount of, for lack of a better phrase, crap that they don't need. It has always been my desire to raise children who value simplicity and are thankful for what they have, but it kinda gets lost in the shuffle of busyness, Christmas, birthdays, etc. I had already purged their rooms a few times when I stumbled upon this blog post about a woman who got rid of the majority of her children's toys and the benefits that had come from it. I was so inspired that I shared it with my husband and we decided to do another major purge, this time simplifying their toys down to these categories: educational/developmental/imagination (puzzles, games, blocks, play food), a gender neutral toy that they could play with when they needed a break from each other (hot wheels and princess castle), and something special (stuffed animal/baby doll). When I read all that I still feel like we have too much, and honestly I think we do, at least for our family. But we got rid of SO MUCH! And it felt so good! The kids actively participated and made comments like "I bet another kid will like this better than me.". I love seeing them think of others in that way! There were some items we had to discuss and compromise on, but I think we made a lot of progress. Since we did this I have noticed that they are playing together and using their imaginations more, as well as enjoying and being creative with the toys they do have. I hope as they get older and we get busier with homeschooling and activities outside the house we can continue to minimize the toys. We live in a society that says we need this and we need that and we must be entertained by something at all times. I think that if I want children who desire the Lord above all else and find their joy in him, it's probably best to remove distractions and teach them that they don't need material things to be entertained or find happiness.

I remember when I was younger reading the Little House on the Prairie books thinking how nice it sounded to just get one little toy and maybe some candy on Christmas. It might seem silly but even then I just knew the value in that one little toy was so much greater than the value in a whole mountain of presents. I saw this quote recently and loved it, so when I saw who it was from I thought it was definitely confirmation that I'm onto something good :)

Products We Love: Erasable Gel Pens

It has been a while since I posted last! We have been very busy because something very wonderful happened: we accepted an offer on our house! So if all goes through we will be closing June 20th and getting moved to NC sometime shortly thereafter. I am so very excited but also a little nervous! When you want something so bad it is hard not to be a little scared. So far everything has gone well, just need to get through the appraisal which is taking forever but should hopefully be done in the next week or so. Once we make it through that I am packing!

So anyway, for my post today I wanted to talk about one of my absolute favorite products I have found for homeschooling and just everyday use. Enter: erasable gel pens! I heard about these guys on a blog somewhere and just had to find them. I found a little pack at Office Depot and put them to use right away. You may be wondering how an erasable pen is possible, I did too. But seriously...these work. They leave far less marks and residue than any pencil I have ever used. Like nothing. And they are such pretty colors! Perfect for scheduling, homeschool planners (you can use a different color for each child!), anytime you want a pretty color and brightness of a pen but with the ability to erase. Apparently they make erasable markers and highlighters too! (Maybe y'all already know this and I'm just behind. Either way, I'm still pumped about these.)

 

 

 

Oh boy and now I just saw the Amazon has even more colors. Might be doing some shopping soon! If y'all didn't know already...I'm a bit of a color addict :) This meme might have been made for me. It really is an issue sometimes. Sometimes I'll be looking at curriculum and think "That one doesn't have any color, forget that.". And then I have to remind myself that it isn't about color, it's about content. Hopefully I'll get better about that. 

 

 

Anyway, if you don't have them yet, treat yo'self to these awesome pens. (Yes that was a Parks & Recreation reference. Love that show.)

 

My First Homeschool Conference!

Last weekend I was blessed to be able to attend the Midwest Parent Educators homeschool conference in Kansas City with one of my dearest friends. It was the first time for both of us and we had so much fun. My only regret is not being able to spend more time (or get a picture of us)!

We only had time to make it to one workshop, and it was a good one. It was called Homeschooling Without Fear. Fear hasn't been much of an issue for me but I do find little doubts creeping in every now and then, so I was very blessed by what was said. My friend was able to get a ton of questions answered and concerns eased which was great.

One thing that really stuck out to me was the topic of high school. I have always been really great about breaking down barriers and trying not to be pressured by grade level and public school standards in the younger grades, but I realized on Saturday that I haven't done the same thing with high school. I imagine my children getting to the age and feel panicky because they have to learn all this hard stuff and we have to get done when they are 18! But the speaker at the workshop was like..."Says who!?". Why is 18 some magic number that kids have to suddenly be done learning and an adult? Why can't high school kids be late bloomers? What is so wrong with a student taking an extra year to finish? Nothing, of course! I just love that and even though we are years away from it, I already feel some fear and burden being lifted off my shoulders. There is something so freeing about shaking off those public school standards. Learning should be organic and life-long, not something you do between the ages of 5 and 18, 5 days a week, during such and such time. I don't want their to be a separation between life and learning for my children. I don't want "school" to be something they dread, but something they do continually without even realizing it.

 

 

 

The workshop speaker also spoke on this for the younger years and allowing children the time to bloom at their own pace. Even if they struggle with something now, it doesn't mean it will always be that way. Patience and diligence may pay off some day and your child may thrive in the areas they struggled with most. It was a breath of fresh air for before we get started to remember to go at their pace, not mine, and certainly not public school's! Of course their will be times where our children need a little push, but it is good to be reminded to be their mama first and foremost.

 

I wish I had been able to go to more workshops, but I'm so thankful for what I got out of the one I went to. Next year I plan to have a lot more time. Especially in the vendor hall! It was so much fun seeing everything I look at online in person. I could have spent hours and hours at the booths! I think my favorite ones were Rainbow Resource and My Father's World. Both had really great set ups and tons of material to look at. I can't wait for the next one!



Thoughts on Common Core (from a regular homeschool mom's limited perspective)

So if you have spent any time on homeschooling chat boards or facebook pages lately, you will have seen a lot of discussion regarding the Common Core. I had seen enough criticism of it from Christian organizations that I respect to go ahead and assume it wasn't a good thing, but I still wanted to know more about it. I started researching recently and then yesterday, the HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association) released Building the Machine, a documentary that does a great job breaking down the issues with common core. I already highly respected HSLDA for their work on the front lines of protecting parents' educational rights, but I gained a whole new respect for them from their work in this movie. Not only did they share great information, but they did it without slandering and bashing those that created and support Common Core, which, to me, speaks volumes about their integrity as an organization that we trust to protect our rights.

So for those that don't know what Common Core is, it's basically a set of educational standards that the government wants to see implemented in every school in the country. Sounds good, right? I mean what could be bad about equal standards and an organized system for all students? And what does that have to do with homeschoolers?

Here are the major issues I have with it.

1. From what I can tell, Common Core was created by government representatives and people with PhD's that work at big name universities. American parents and K-12 teachers were NOT invited to be a part of it. That is really concerning to me. Who knows what kids need, the government? Or parents and teachers? To me this is a perfect example of the government thinking they know what is best for everyone. This is not democracy. If parents and teachers don't get a say in what kids are learning in school, we are heading down a very scary road as a nation.

2. The main goal of Common Core is to have kids "career and college ready". Sounds like a good thing but unfortunately the approach to this will most likely snuff out creativity and individuality. Kids are not cattle. We are not machines. We can't all be programmed the same way to do what the government thinks we should do. Not everyone wants to go to college or have a career. Some kids need more time. Some kids can and want to go sooner. "Career and college ready" creates a system with very little wiggle room for unique paths to education and jobs. One size fits all simply does not work for education and is NOT the answer to education issues in this country. Heck, I knew that in elementary school!

3. Beyond all of that, I have heard of SAT's being dumbed down, anti-Christianity agendas, teaching methods that have never been proven to work, shady dealings with the implementation of it and getting states to accept it, discouragement of parental involvement, and more. None of that sits well with me.

4.You may still be wondering how this affects homeschooling. For one thing, I think we should all be wary and alert when the government tries to step into education this way. If they are trying to manipulate the public school system to this magnitude, what is to stop them from encroaching on homeschool rights? There are also many homeschool curricula that are switching over to Common Core standards, so you can't just ignore it. On top of that, changes to the SAT's and ACT's may be promoting certain ways of thinking (alternative lifestyles, welfare mindsets, evolution, etc.) that are pushed in the Common Core. You see...this isn't just innocent basic math and grammar standards. There are other agendas being pushed here!

I think my biggest issue overall is that it appears to me that the government is truly trying to "build a machine", as the title of HSLDA's documentary so well puts it. It honestly makes my stomach hurt! I am absolutely not OK with sending my children into this kind of environment. As someone on the IndoctriNation movie said so well "You are sending your children into a pagan environment to have their minds molded by strangers". That was said BEFORE Common Core. Now it is even worse.

I thought about trying to write more of an unbiased post on this, but the more I learn about it, the more disturbed I am. Even if most of these issues don't bother someone, I still don't see how someone can agree that this is the answer. To me, the answer is MORE parental involvement. Individualized learning. Less time doing busy work and more time exploring. We can't send our kids away from us 40+ hours a week and dump 30+ kids on one teacher and assume they are going to thrive.

So what do we do? I know that I will not support it in any way, so will definitely be doing my homework on all curriculum I consider. I would encourage those who are involved in schools do all they can to try and stop it. But most of all, I would pray. So many people get into an "end-times" mindset and seem to just settle for America going down the crapper. Even if Jesus is coming back in a week, God CAN and WANTS to turn this nation around! We have to stop bashing our politicians and start speaking life and love over them. Pray for the teachers and students. If all Christians would come together and pray for this country, I believe we would see immediate changes.

As a closing, I would like to say that I have no judgment for those who send their children to public school. I can't put God in a box and assume that what is best for my family is best for yours. But so many people just don't know or understand the implications of something like this. I just know that when the government starts stepping into things they have no business in, I start to get concerned. Love to all.

Have other thoughts on Common Core? Please feel free to comment and share what you think!

For more information on the Common Core:
http://www.hslda.org/commoncore/default.aspx

 

Sonlight: Box Day and Organization

We had our first Sonlight box day last week! I may have been even more excited about this one than our My Father's World box day since it was the box days on the Sonlight blog that got me drooling over the curriculum in the first place. It was such a treat to have our own finally! And of course, I got right to work on organizing it :) Looking through the books, I saw that many of the titles weren't ones I would immediately go to if I were shopping for them individually. But after sitting down and reading through some of them, I can tell we are really going to enjoy them. The stories are different and interesting and involve great life lessons. We can't wait to start!

 

 

Here is how I have organized. I am a bit of a color addict and needed something a little prettier than Sonlight's binders, so I grabbed a pretty green 2 inch binder and some numbered dividers. The pocket in the front houses the LA games, while I put each week's P4/5 and LA K schedule/info in the dividers.

 

 

 

For the LA K student sheets, I added those to the files I had started for the MFW K student sheets. So now I have 36 unit files, a file for letter games, a file for reference charts (ABC, numbers, & blend ladder), and a file for other miscellaneous resources. Behind the files I am keeping the MFW guides and Lauri letters.

 

 

 

Finally, here is a shot of our shelf where I'm keeping all our books and other homeschool stuff. We do technically have a homeschool room, but with the house on the market and a major move coming up, I probably won't do more than this right now. Hopefully by the time we get started this summer I'll have a new homeschool room to debut!

Top shelf: large books, map puzzle, bin of craft items, CD's, Cuisenaire rods, etc. Middle Shelf: SL IG, misc. binders, misc. homeschool stuff. Bottom shelf: all of our beautiful books!

 

 

 

How We Organize My Father's World Kindergarten: Part 1

I find myself often floating between being something of an over-achiever and just plain impatient. When I am excited about something I have a hard time not going after it. So even though we still have months before we are ready to start our new curriculum, and are hopefully God-willing moving to North Carolina between now and then, I couldn't help but get going on some of our curriculum organization. I got my ideas from blogs off Pinterest so hopefully they are tried and true :) I know I would have been completely lost with that big stack of student sheets without seeing it organized online already. So here is what we did.

I got a hanging file crate to hang files for each unit in (and then realized the new pack I bought was the wrong size so we are still in production here until I get the right size!). I then printed out slot labels for each unit, Creation to Yy-Yellow. In each file, I am putting all of the work sheets for each unit into each file, as well as any coordinating worksheets from our Sonlight, math, and handwriting programs. So in total we will actually have 36 files for units. I also plan on adding a file for extra sheets, such as the bingo cards, blend latter chart, 100 chart, etc.

 

Obviously this will be much more full with files when I'm done, but hopefully behind the files I'll have space for large items, such as the Lauri letters, Teacher's Guide, etc.

 

 

I also got to try out my new laminator yesterday! I have never used one before but I am SO glad I got one. So far I have laminated the blend ladder chart, bingo cards, vowel song cards, alphabet game cards, and the number and letter reference charts. I wasn't sure what else to do at this point, I guess I'll have to wait and see once we get going.

 

 

 

Selah working on her bingo! (In her Frozen dress as usual)

 

 

 

That's what I have so far. I'm sure it will grow and change as we get going in the lessons but I will definitely post what we do and what works!

 





 

 

Products we used: 

 

 

Balsamic Glazed Pork Loin

I'm always looking for good recipes for pork loin. Not just because I love pork, but because pork loin is one of the most affordable cuts of meat. My store puts it on sale all the time so I usually pay $7-$8 for 4-5 pounds of it. Which means that not only am I saving money, but I have a piece of meat that we can eat on for more than one night. Which means less cooking! Typically I cut ours in half, freezing some for later and cooking the rest. Half of one usually feeds us for 2 full dinners and maybe some extra for Matt to take to work for lunch.

This is my go-to pork loin recipe. It meets all of my 5 star recipe criteria: easy, delicious, cheap, feeds us for more than one night, AND all of the ingredients are pantry staples in our house so no special trips to the store needed! Yay! So, enjoy y'all :)

Ingredients:
2 lb pork loin
2 tsp of sage
2 cloves of garlic
Salt & pepper to taste
1/2 cup water

For the Glaze:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp. cornstarch
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp. soy sauce
1/2 cup water

1. In a small bowl, mix together sage, garlic, salt, and pepper. (Measurements are approximate. Feel free to add more or less. I usually just dump it on until it looks right)
2. Place pork loin in crock pot and rub the sage mix all over it. Pour in 1/2 cup of water.
3. Put the lid on and cook on low for 8 hours.

About an hour before the meat is ready, make the glaze.
1 Add all ingredients to a sauce pan and whisk over medium heat until thick and bubbly.
2. Remove from heat and ladle out about 1/4-1/3 cup of the glaze into a bowl.
3. Use the separated bowl of glaze to baste onto the meat every 15 or so minutes until the meat done, leaving the rest of the glaze on the stove.

When meat is done, serve with glaze drizzled on top. So good. If I'm feeling ambitious, I typically serve with nice roasted veggies. If I'm in a hurry, I might just do biscuits and a can of corn ;)

Box Day #1: My Father's World Kindergarten

We had our first official box day today! I don't know about you but for our family, there aren't many things better in life than big boxes of books coming in the mail. So we were super excited! Poor Selah fell asleep on the way home from running errands though and Solomon and I were too eager to wait, so she missed out. We got the deluxe package, the literature package, and a few extras. Everything is pictured except the teacher manual and A-Z cards!

I am so happy with everything we got and am definitely happy with my decision to get the literature package, especially thanks to a sweet mama on a swap page who sold me a like-new set for a great price! We can't wait to get started. Solomon is already diving into the dinosaur books! Now I'm just ready to start organizing everything.

                                                                

 

                                                                
                                                                Literature Package

 

 

                        

 

 

Products We Love: Melissa & Doug Wooden USA Puzzle

I am a huge geography nerd. I find so much satisfaction in knowing where different countries, cities, etc. are. So needless to say, I plan on passing that onto my children if they'll allow me. So far so good, especially thanks to our awesome USA puzzle from Melissa & Doug. My children were already fairly familiar with several state names thanks to our numerous road trips around the country, but this has just taken their knowledge to the next level. Not to mention enhancing those fine motor and visual discrimination skills! The pieces are small and can take a little patience, but they are getting really good and putting this thing together. Within a few times of doing it, they were remembering all of the larger states and locations (California, Alaska, Texas), as well as our special states, Kansas and North Carolina and several of their bordering ones. Solomon is even starting to get his directions down! So if you are looking for a great introduction to USA geography and a way to get your kids doing something hands on, this is a great puzzle. I just ordered their world one too!

 

BBQ Carmelized Onion Grilled Cheese

Cheese, bread, and butter make up a serious majority of my food love language. That being said, I have never been a big fan of grilled cheese. I also used to never like onions. I am learning to like them and discovered a while back that I am actually absolutely obsessed with caramelized onions. Enter in this BBQ Caramelized Onion Grilled Cheese. I was doing the dangerous task of browsing Pinterest one day around 11am when the lunch time hunger starts hitting and saw this incredible picture. (Courtesy of Ring Finger Tan Line blog, mine get devoured before I can even think about a picture!)

And then I was really hungry. So I checked out the recipe and decided I had to re-create it with the ingredients I had on hand. IT WAS AMAZING. I wasn't sure about the BBQ sauce but seriously y'all...it works. This sandwich has changed my life. For those days when there isn't any yummy leftovers for lunch or evenings where I don't plan dinner, these are our go to meal. A recipe this delicious and easy that uses ingredients I always have on hand is a dream come true. The kids even love them too! So here ya go.

Ingredients (Serves 2)
4 slices of your choice of bread (We have used French, Challa, and regular old Sara Lee wheat bread. It's all good.)
2 slices of cheddar cheese
2 slices of pepper jack, muenster, or Swiss cheese. Or seriously...whatever you want!
1/2 of a small purple or sweet yellow onion, chopped
2 tbsp. BBQ sauce
Butter (2 tbsp.-ish)

Directions:
1. Melt butter in a frying pan and add onion, cook until nice and caramelized. I usually start on medium-high for a few minutes and turn down to medium low for 10-15 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, slice bread and spread butter on each piece. Flip over and spread BBQ sauce on each piece. Put Cheddar on top slice and other kind of cheese on the bottom slice.
3. When the onions are done, put them on top of the cheese and top with top slice of bread and cheese. Put pan back on burner on medium heat.
4. Put sandwiches in pan and grill on each side until toasty brown.
5. Eat. Love. Pray and thank God for this amazing gift.

Curriculum 2014-2015

This is our first official year of homeschooling, yay! I plan on starting sometime this summer, at the latest in September. Solomon will be 5 and Selah will be 3 1/2. So we are technically doing Solomon's Kindergarten year and Selah's Pre-K year. Since they are only 16 months apart, I want to combine them as much as possible.

So I have seriously been researching curricula for years now and finally narrowed it down to 2 main ones that I really like, My Father's World and Sonlight. I decided on using Sonlight for the most part and definitely wanted to do their Pre-K program for 4 and 5 year olds, adding in K math and language arts for Solomon and then seeing if Selah could keep up with that or if she would need something else. But that beautiful My Father's World Kindergarten set just kept calling my name. So after much deliberation and prayer, I have decided to use both! I think it will work out really nicely because I want to wait until Selah is 5 to start Core A from Sonlight, so if we start this summer, we have 18 months to fill with schooling. Doing both will help stretch us out and hopefully give them a nice gentle Pre-K/K year (and a half!). And maybe it will allow me to not only solidify my decision to use one or the other (or make it harder choose!), but also give me multiple tools to figure out their learning styles.

So here is the line up (for now...things could still change, except I do already have a few things ready to go).

Bible/History/Social Studies/Science: Mix of MFW & SL
Math: Starting with the integrated math in MFW and adding in Singapore Early Bird if we feel we need more
Phonics/Language Arts: MFW, SL Language Arts K
Handwriting: Handwriting Without Tears Pre-K and K
Spanish: adding in Spanish alphabet and vocab to go with MFW units

I realize that seems like a lot, but this is for 2 children over 18 months...more if we need it. I'm guessing we'll have some trial and error but hopefully this will give us a solid start and help us figure out what works and what doesn't. I am so excited to get started!

Here is what we are getting with Sonlight's P4/5. Love all the great books!

This is what we'll be getting with MFW, including the literature package. We are going to have a crazy amount of books, but I'm somewhat of a book addict and there is so much value in reading to your children. Plus, we'll be able to save these books for Esther and any future children!

 

Why We Chose to Homeschool and Other Thoughts on Education

I began to think about and research homeschooling when I was pregnant with Solomon. I knew from my own public school experience that I wanted better for my children. As I have gone deeper in my research and simply being a mother, I have found several more important reasons for us to homeschool, as well as develop an educational philosophy. That being said, I'm a total newbie at homeschooling. I'm sure my philosophy will change and grow over time. And these reasons and philosophies are for MY family. Others see and do things differently and that's fine. So not in any particular order, here we go:

1. I feel a personal calling to be home with my children and to be the one that is nurturing them in every way. Of course I believe that there is a benefit in my children learning from others, but ultimately, the shaping of their hearts and minds should happen predominately in our home. I also struggle with the idea of sending them away for 8 or so hours a day, 5 days a week. For us, that's just too much time for them to be out of our care and influence, especially when there is rampant anti-God agendas, sex, drugs, etc. going on in public schools. Now does that mean I'm going to shelter my children from the realities of the world? No way! I don't hide much from my kids and I'm guessing they know more about what goes on in the world than most their age. I am honest because I want to equip them to be prepared for what they may face, as well as learn how to pray for those matters.

2. I believe (HOPE!!) that I can give my children a superior education. From my personal experience, and many others I know, the atmosphere of public schools is not conducive to growing a love for learning. I am an intelligent person and when I apply myself, I know I can succeed at anything. But I was a C average student in school. Why? For one thing I was more interested in my peers and their opinions of me than grades or even my family. Being taught with the pressures of tests, mountains of homework, potentially failing or falling behind, etc. did not encourage a healthy appreciation or interest in what was being taught. Beyond that, I don't believe in a one size fits all instructional model. With homeschooling, I can tailor my children's education to their individual learning styles. I also spent a lot of time doing NOTHING in school. We can spend more time learning and playing at home or wherever we go. I have also read numerous studies showing that homeschoolers do better on SAT's so that is encouraging to me.

3. Freedom of schedule. I love not being tied down by anything. I love that with homeschooling, we can do it anywhere, anytime, and take breaks anytime we want. If we feel led to serve in Africa for a few months, we can pack up our books and go. If we start a unit on elephants, we can go to the zoo everyday that week and get to know them in real life.


4. This is more for me than my kids...but my giftings are administration and teaching. So for myself personally, I absolutely love setting up school, planning curriculum, and teaching my kids!


That's everything in a nutshell. I could go into a lot more but I'll save that for another time.