Math For Mom Part 3 -- Budgeting Our Time

Math is a most dreaded subject for many moms, and possibly moreso for homeschooling mothers. Numbers are not my best area, for sure. But this series is not for giving you pointers or hints for how to better teach your child math. This is Math for Mom!


You'll find my thoughts on budgeting our money here and using space wisely here.  Accountability for the numbers doesn't stop with the ledger, though.  We must be careful to be wise stewards of the time we have been given - for our husbands, our children and our homes.   
 
There are are many tools available to help with this area. For homemanagement, you might try the MOTH resource at titus2.com.  Organizing your homeschooling might be best served with the workbox method.  Even just a daily checklist can be helpful.  Flylady could be the answer for getting a morning or evening routine established.  I found some great ideas at plannerperfect.com, also.  It really doesn't matter which tools you use.  The important thing is that you do it.  Be consistent.  If it doesn't work, tweak it or move on to something else.  Try not to be so loyal that you can't think outside the box and seek what will be the best for your own family.  If you know that something particularly works for you, keep it.  If it ain't broke......
 
If you know that you have a shortcoming in a certain area, make yourself accountable.    For example, if menu planning and grocery shopping are a struggle, get together with a friend and make menus together. Then, switch off babysitting so that you can both shop peacefully.  You will be a blessing to your own home and serving others, not to mention that you will likely spend less doing so! My husband is not home in the evenings, so a schedule is a necessity and nearly every single night looks the same when he's working (within about 30 min or so).  That is my accountability because I am looking forward to the peacefulness of a quiet home by the evening.  But there are plenty of times when I have to have to write myself a "to do" list by the computer so that I don't get carried away or piddle away my time while doing what began as a  worthwhile endeavor. 
 
Our children also have to be trained to use their time wisely. I have a variety of personalities in my children to admire.  There are dawdlers and there are highly motivated ones.  I do know by now that nagging doesn't work.  There must be absolute consequences for incomplete, untimely or poor work.  I feel it is a disservice to not train my children to use their time wisely.  For example, a child who does not complete an assignment that is given a reasonable amount of time to finish will find himself sacrificing his free time.  This is not carried over into chore time.  It is completed during personal free time. 
 
In closing, I also want to mention that I do often find that if I am having a particular problem with my children, that if I examine closely I find that the Lord is having the same problem in me.  I must be exhibiting wise use of my time if I expect my children to do the same.  To not do so is teaching them hypocrisy in addition to foolish stewardship of their time.  And time is short.  We never get another chance at today.  When it's done, that's it.  I am working at making today a special day-every day.  I keep trying harder at making sure that each today is the best today I could give and that I've invested wisely.

Laundry Day

Every one has one household chore that they do not sincerely prefer, right???  Right?  Tell me it's not just me.  Pleeeease.  Even if it is just me....I do not prefer laundry.  At.  All.  None.  I have tried ten thousand laundry schedules and routines.  I'm ever evolving on that one.  One thing doesn't change, though.  By the time children are around 6 or so, I am diligent to make it ever so easy for them to do their own laundry.  Yes, I'm a whiner and I'm selfish about it.  I confess.  I have repented and try diligently to maintain a grateful heart for the clothing and appliances and fresh water and all that we need to keep cleanly clothed.  I do....

Laundry with children:  At around age 4, they become my laundry helper on a fairly regular basis.  They help transfer clothing and remove clothing from the machines.  Also, they begin to learn to put a simple shirt on a hanger.  They are with me and just "practice" on this for a loong while.  Sometimes, the child might not have a dresser ( we use baskets across the shelf in their closet) and keeping that organized is not an issue.  Right now, our littlest helper can put a shirt on a hanger.  She has four containers across her shelf in her closet.  One for socks/undies, one for jammies, two for folded pants .  Shirts, sweaters, dresses and skirts are hung.  It keeps it simple and streamlined and very functional.  My boys, who share a room, do theirs together.  Each can hang/fold all of his own pieces.  There are two plastic drawer carts in their room and each has one to hold socks/undies/jammies/pants.  It's real simple here.  My oldest can do hers however she likes and is not prone to having laundry issues, so I give her organizational liberty on that.

 I went through a rather long period of time when everyone had an assigned laundry day.  Everyone of laundry age loved that one, that way they knew what to expect.  They sometimes still revert back to it.  Lately, I've been doing A laundry day.  As in, doing it all on one day and not having to think about it again till next week, or  at least the end of the week.  That goes OK, too.  I don't really care as long as it gets done and is not lingering.  It's a huge thorn in my side.

Laundry Products: I'm about as simple as it gets in this area.  I like smelly stuff.  My family does.  My husband likes the smell of fabric softeners.  There are less expensive, natural alternatives, I know.  I do use the Aldi brand and all agree that it is nice.  Also, I try to keep detergent to 2.00 or so per bottle because we do so much.  I did try to make my own.  I gave it a good effort.  I used it all.  I was not impressed with the clothes that needed a lot of help.  I generally stick with Aldi there, too, unless I have a coupon deal going on-usually from a drugstore.  I have no complaints with the Aldi cleaners as of yet. 

Sorting--I'm not real particular there, either.  Again, I just want it done!  When we were on the assigned days system, we did  not sort and each person just used cold and had about one load.  If they had two loads or more, sorting became a possibility.  Now, with the once a week method, we definitely sort and I do feel like I'm doing laundry the "right" way, like my Mama taught me.  But, honestly, I really couldn't care less if linens are in with my socks.

I'm soo open to hearing more on laundry simplifying and scheduling...any help is welcome! Leave me a comment and tell me how you get it done. 

Monthly Newsletter for Our Family

So, I mentioned in another post recently that I would like to post through the process of writing a monthly newsletter from our family.  I am not committing to doing this every month of the year-I like to set myself up to succeed as many times as possible!  We had a lot of "stuff" going on in February and I thought it might give us lots of good material to write about.  Also, once the articles are composed and illustrated, I may work on a little desktop publishing with the two older children just to test the waters and see how they take to it. 
You can click on the picture and see our list..there was a move we helped Grandparents make,  an anniversary, special Valentine's breakfast and more!

Today, I used our time to recall events from the past month.  Tons of stuff to write about here!  I gave them a little bit of time to chew on it and then choose the article they wanted to write about.  Then, we brainstormed the topics that they chose. 

I hesitate to state just how far we will get tomorrow because I make lots of plans, but the Lord sometimes has His own plans for our school days!  But, tentatively, barring intervention, I plan to help them get through a rough draft.  My 3rd grader will probably only be required to compose about two paragraphs.  My 5th grader can come closer to one page.  My 1st grader will dictate to me while I type his out and the preschooler--well, she's a whole 'nother story!!

I'll let ya know how it goes :)

Part Two: Hands On Grammar

I guess I should have mentioned in my previous post on this method that reverse operations serve a purpose as well. :) 

What I mean is, I have taken a  pattern of cards and given them to the children and they produce a sentence (can be silly ) that correponds to the part of speec on the code cards.  It helps them to create as much as identify.  They present it to the group and disputes are welcome.  This is how they learn--working it out, proving themselves, building confidence in their skills.  It works for me!

Hands On Grammar

I do realize that the picture would be misleading since the title refers to Hands On Grammar.  However, I have one child who struggles with grammar and needs any sort of different approach I can possibly conjure up.  I looked all around for something that I thought would be a sure-fire hit for her, at a reasonable price.  For me, that means almost free.  I had invested in various language programs through the years and have been reluctant to shell out much for something that I thought we likely might have already tried, in essence at least.   So, I decided to go it alone on this one.  I am still trudging through Easy Grammar this year.  It's going. Slowly. I felt the need to continue appealing to different senses with her on this and can see that all of my students benefit.  This is what I came up with.

As I mentioned in this post, I used sentences from literature that we had read aloud (or you could use something that the child is familiar with or reading through independantly).  We took a few simple sentences and (for the ten thousandth time) explained what a subject and predicate is.  Review never hurts and we go by the trickle-down effect for the younger ones since we basically have a one-room schoolhouse.  Using the very simple sentences that you see here, (and a few others before I erased them to write these) I had each child decipher the subject and predicate and just mentioned that we were going to have to divide these two parts because they are different and they do different things in the sentence.  That, in my opinion, is the beginning of sentence diagramming lessons.

(These are laminated pieces of regular white printer paper and I use dry erase markers on them with a clipboard)

Next, we "code" them.  This is done with our homemade code cards.  They take one word at a time and decide what part of speech it is and place the corresponding card in order, so that sentences look more like this:

This lesson is done as a group.  Anyone can (respectfully) dispute the answer that another gives.  The discussion facilitates learning AND teaching.  The ones who are sure of their answers inevitably teach the others the correct answer and even how they got it, and looove to prove it!!! 

If a child is unsure, they can reference the back of a card and find the definition and examples of what that shape represents and from there he can decide if he is choosing correctly. If a child, in coding his assigned sentence(s), runs into a word(s) that they are unsure of or have not yet learned, they can simply put a black card there and move on.  That word will be up for discussion when we all have completed their coding and we open it up for input.  Each child only had  two sentences to code on this day.   The solid black cards are KEY for them, in my opinion.  It keeps a struggling student from getting burned out and feeling stuck.   It's their "get out of jail free" card.  They are all laminated for durability.

 Got any other cool ideas for making Grammar more fun?  If so, please share :)

Sorting It Out in the Bathroom

I am sure that next to laundry, bathroom duty is my least favorite job.  But there is something therapeutic about getting down on your hands and knees in the place where all the cleaning takes place and actually cleaning that place, too.  I have high hopes for our bathrooms...I have paint colors chosen, just purchased a few more rugs for the kids' bathroom and already have a cute shower curtain.  Enter the four precious souls who share this zone and you have the epic nonsensenical battles of who put what where, who did the handprints, why someone misplaced someone else's toothbrush, no one knows how on earth the whole roll of TP got into the trash can and despite the fresh hand towel there is water slung onto every surface. 

I am getting to the bottom of it one step at a time.  The first step is the most important in the hygiene arena--the toothbrush problem.  This little gadget has become our best friend.  The toothpast rests nicely on top so there's no fumbling.  There are four perfect slots of toothbrushes and we just happen to have four precious children, so that works out nicely.  This keeps them off the countertop and out of easy reach of little ones.  The littlest one usually has a helper to assist with toothbrush time. 

You will also notice the container of wipes on the cabinet.  That is for the bathroom cleaner.  Each child has his/her own jurisdictions to attend to daily.

Next, the problem of  "I didn't throw it down there", when asked to pick up towels/washcloths.  I found (on clearance) these hooks that do not leave marks on the wall when removed.  They hold up to 3 lbs each, which is plenty for a towel and washcloth. My children thought it was great that they each got to choose their own color towels.  What a wonderful Mom I am!!  Yes, there is only one each.  They are to wash their towel when they wash their laundry on their day (more on that in another post).   My children are old enough to take responsibility for that.   I was sure to hang the hooks for the smaller children lower so that they can actually reach the level of the hook.

This method has eliminated the fussing back and forth about who didn't clean their towels up behind themselves and who put which towel where after bathtimes. I am soo thankful the Lord dropped this idea into my mind.  I may have even read it somewhere, but if so, the Lord brought it to my remembrance and it has been a blessing!

A Day in the Life of This Homeschooling Mom

Schooling By the Spirit

Today is one of those days.  But not one of those days.  I had a bare bones list of school iniatives jotted down.  How they actually played out is a totally different story.  This is one of those times when I am soo thankful for the little things the Lord drops into my mind at just the right time.  Without fail. 

We are having one of those "bare bones" type weeks.  I just have vague ideas of what we're covering.  Actually we've been having those for several weeks now.  We have just had a lot going on in our family and what with the construction zone that our family room has been, there's not much order to anything at the moment.  I am hoping next week will bring more, but I can't say for sure :) 

I know math and language arts are fairly remedied with the workbooks we have.  That will get us by.  Other than that, art is at free will and reading "inspired"  pieces will just suffice for history and science.

Here's what I mean:  I started with this list general list for today:

Newspaper articles-brainstorm, assign
Math - 1 pg in workbook and a game for the 1st grader
Reading-Nature Readers
Grammar/Language:  workbook page, 5th grader should make corrections
Handwriting
Finish reading our current read aloud
Key in spelling words for next week
Make a birthday card for Grandma
Check that 5th grader turned in assigned written narration on literature book.

This is what actually happened:
Finished reading our current read aloud, Lewis and Clark and Me  (love, loved it!)
Went on to map out some trails.
Used the map and scale to figure distance of the journey (5th grader has been doing this in math)
Discussed preparedness for such a journey
Discussed issues of survival, health,  and accomplishments of this journey
Discussed dogs, breeds, their functions
Used a few simple sentences from book to pick subjects/predicates/introduce diagramming.
Used my homemade code cards to code those sentences (will post separately on this)

Brainstormed ideas for Feb. family newsletter (thinking on posting this as a series)
Assigned articles and began writing notes for those
Played add/subtract bingo
Played mult/div bingo
Scratched handwriting
Realized that I need to make clue cards for conjunctions????? (How did I forget that??)


Plans for after lunch:
1 page in math
1 pg /corrections in Language
Reading from nature readers for one hour at room time.

Hoping I will get to the things that I made note of   :) 

I make plans and sometimes they come to fruition...most times, the Lord has better plans.  I'm OK with that.   I figured on checking off some boxes.  The Lord knew for sure, they'd love the inspiration from real learning instead.  It's been a beautiful homeschool day already!