Piney Woods Homeschool

I'm reading The Tao of Pooh , in which Benjamin Hoff uses the Winnie the Pooh stories to exemplify philosophical principles.  And I'm reading Charlotte Mason's second volume, Parents and Children , which is a collection of articles she wrote for the parents' magazine her organization published.  Tonight my Tao of Pooh reading came from chapter 4, "Cottleston Pie."  One of the points of this chapter is that dealing with things As They Are is better than pretending things are Something They Are Not.  Tigger comes up a lot.  Hoff reminds us of Rabbit's plan to Unbounce Tigger.  The plan failed, and one of Tigger's positive traits became obvious: he doesn't get lost.  Tigger's bounciness distracted everyone, maybe even himself, from noticing his talents.  And when Rabbit finally wins and forces Tigger to promise not to bounce, Tigger's whole character changes, and not for the better.  Everyone misses the old cheery, bouncy Tigger, even if the...

  This is Part 6 of 6.  Find the other parts here. Less than perfect *is* success.  Focus on what happened, not what didn’t happen.  Today, this week, this term, this year, what did you and your students accomplish?  Where did you grow?  What new experiences did you have?  How did you improve?  Appreciate the beauty in what you *are* doing.  It’s easy to feel inadequate and worry that you’re failing.  And of course we have to consider where we need to improve, but first we have to seriously look at where we’re doing well.  So your Year 1 student isn’t narrating beautifully even when you read a paragraph at a time.  But what *is* she doing that she wasn’t able to do at the beginning of the year?  Where can you see growth or forward progress? Where are you seeing small glimpses of success?  Maybe your Year 4 student isn’t adding Latin or taking to Plutarch or the original Shakespeare plays, but is he enjoying one ...

This is Part 5 of 6.  Find the other parts  here. When you make your plans, plan to delegate.  The first place to delegate is to your kids.  Pass responsibilities to your kids as they can handle them.  This looks different for each child and each home; it will even look different from week to week sometimes.  Don’t fear for their failure.  You want to be wise about adding responsibility, but you also need to let them own the responsibility even if it turns out to be more imperfect than you would like.  Plan for boundaries to help teach them as they take on these new roles.  They need regular checkpoints where they can see the consequences of their success or failure.  This helps them learn to manage their own work.  But within those checkpoints, give them freedom.  Some of them will pick up on what they need to do sooner than others.  I have one child who starts his week’s work on Sunday evening and tries to come ...

This is Part 4 of 6.  Find the other parts  here. The map should not rule us.  Plan, but hold plans loosely.  AmblesideOnline’s booklists, schedules, and other plans are such a help!  They give us a place to start.  Sometimes we can work with those plans with very few changes, and other times we’ll find we have to make big adjustments.  When you’re ready to plan, plan for what you think you can realistically accomplish plus a little more.  Give yourself room to grow into the plans.  Looking at the schedule for a new term can seem overwhelming--all those books!  All those new types of work!  And we weren’t getting everything done *last* term!  Don’t panic!  Take that work, and organize it into whatever template works for you so you can see how it might actually play out in your home with your unique situation. Adjust your expectations down if you need to, but don’t adjust them all the way down to a level that feels c...

This is Part 3 of 6.  Find the other parts  here. How do we measure success?  Charlotte Mason said it wasn’t how much a child knows, but how much he cares, and the connections he makes.  Most of the time, I don’t get much indication of how much any of my children care. I worry just like anyone else about where I’m falling short.  When the kids were young, it was sometimes really hard to find signs of caring and connections.  Somehow my kids never seemed to act out the stories they read in school like I hear about other people’s children doing.  Now that they’re older, I’m more likely to see connections in a dinner table argument over Richard III.  I’d prefer not to have the argument, but it’s undeniable that the participants both know and care about the history they’ve studied.  My kids normally don’t love their handicrafts, and that’s a subject that gets skipped regularly by at least one of them.  But that one has voluntarily tak...

This is Part 2 of 6.  Find the other parts  here. Imperfection feels like failure, doesn’t it?  We want to know that we’re doing what’s best for our children, that we’re competent at this job of homeschooling that we’ve embraced, that we measure up, and the clearest way to know that is to judge ourselves and our children against the standard.  But what if our standard isn’t the right one?  And what if we aren’t competent to judge how we measure up because the results aren’t necessarily visible?  What if our expectations fail to account for the true challenges we face?  What if the “right thing to do” isn’t actually best for our specific situation? My oldest and my youngest both learned to read painlessly and early.  My youngest taught herself by helping me do DuoLingo Spanish on my phone at bedtime every night!  (That’s not an officially approved method of reading instruction.)  When my oldest started Year 1, for her reading in...

This is not a post about how to do all the right things.  This is a post about finding success in the midst of the impossibility of doing things right.  No matter how long you’ve been homeschooling or how carefully you study and work to implement Charlotte Mason’s methods, you know the sting of imperfection.  None of us is doing everything “right”, no matter how we define “right.”  Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what “right” even is, especially when what’s “right” for one somehow doesn’t seem to achieve the same results for another. I’ve been using Charlotte Mason’s methods in my home for a long time.  My oldest will graduate from high school in May, and we started when she was in preschool.  I take this seriously.  I believe that Charlotte Mason’s principles and even her specific instructions are wise and well founded and almost always I can find a reason for why she suggested what she did.  You might think that means that my home is a p...

Young Man's Guide to Awesomeness The Young Man's Guide to Awesomeness: How to Guard Your Heart, Get the Girl and Save the World is a book I've been looking for for years.  Barrett Johnson has written a guide for Christian teen boys outlining, in a direct and serious tone leavened with a healthy dose of humor, the challenges they face in their relationships and attempts to succeed in life and how to overcome those challenges. The three major sections of the book cover How to Guard Your Heart, How to Get the Girl, and How to Save the World.  Within each section, chapters outline different areas of focus.  In each chapter, the topic is explored within several subsections.  A pithy Big Idea gives a piece of advice.  A body part is highlighted along with an explanation of how that body part affects this topic.  Typical responses or situations are described.  Advice is given for how to respond differently than the norm.  A related lesson from the...

Latch: A Handbook for Breastfeeding with Confidence At Every Stage is a straight-forward, encouraging resource for moms who would like to breastfeed. The book is organized by the stages of the process, starting with prenatal preparation and ending with weaning. *Preparing to Breastfeed * Establishing Breastfeeding * Breastfeeding Through Changes * Weaning from Breastfeeding The tone is matter-of-fact and supportive, and the author does not make judgmental statements. Moms facing typical breastfeeding challenges will find practical advice along with suggestions for where to go for additional help if that is needed. Many testimonials from breastfeeding moms are included, giving a multitude of perspectives on the process and the types of challenges moms face. I have nursed five children, so I found much of this information familiar, but I still saw some new and helpful facts and ideas. I would have liked to see more testimonials from moms who had a smooth experience or at leas...

Whenever I find a copy of Gary Thomas' books Sacred Marriage  or Sacred Parenting  at a discount price, I buy it.  I love to give these books to other people when they are facing challenges in their marriage or their parenting.  I recently learned that he had written Sacred Search , about choosing a marriage partner, and I bought the paperback and the ebook.  I have teenagers now, and I'm always looking for excellent resources to help them transition to adulthood and the new challenges it brings. Sacred Search tries to set the focus of the dating relationship on the purpose of the marriage relationship.  Thomas hopes that Christian marriages will become support systems for lives of ministry and training grounds for new generations of Christians who will form the same types of marriages.  From the beginning and throughout the book he reminds readers that Christian lives should be focused on the kingdom of God, and this means that Christian marriage...

I don't remember ever considering having children until I was 30 years old or nearly so.  It's possible that the thought crossed my mind, but it wasn't something I dreamed of or planned for.  Exactly why my husband and I decided to begin to plan for children, as we neared 30, I really don't know. Maybe it just seemed like the next phase, just like finishing high school, going to college, getting a job. So we set out to have children and parent them.  Seems simple, if you've never had any.  And although we had no idea what we were doing, we muddled through pretty well for a few years.  Frequently we found ourselves totally surprised by challenges we faced, and we discovered that our lovely plans for how all of this parenting business was going to go were pretty much useless. But eventually we'd figure something out and move forward, feeling pretty confident. We exemplify the Peter Principle for parenting.  Instead of being promoted to the level of our in...

I like lists.  I like calendars and planners and organizers.  I have a stand specifically made to hold my Daytimer (only that brand will do) for which I have a lovely binder to hold my lesson plans.  I love to plan out my day and then check off items all day long.  I have an app that plans out my FlyLady zones .  I have another app that tracks my to-dos .  I feel wonderful when I've accomplished all my goals. Children, however, do not fit into neat and tidy lists or schedules.  I've seen the books that purport to make children fit into boxes, but I don't own any.  I've glanced at the websites, but it's a bit like an alcoholic stopping in front of the bar on the way home.  I try to walk past as quickly as possible.  Probably those books and websites help those who find scheduling a mystery or a burden.  They inspire *my* soul with a zeal to make my day conform to my plans, and that zeal does not make me a good mom. I have to ...

Today we transformed a diaper box into a Road Trip Treasure Chest by covering it with pages from a worn out picture book.  Inside, we stowed interesting items, bundled in groups of four similar items, which will make their appearance during our next long road trip.  For a long trip (more than 3 hours), every 100 miles we get out a bundle of items.  Each time it's a different child's turn to pick first from that bundle, but each child gets an item from each bundle.  (Unless that child has seriously misbehaved during the previous 100 miles.  In that case, no item from that bundle.) This provides frequent changes in activities, something interesting to look forward to, and regular opportunities for logical consequences to reinforce helpful behavior. What do we have in our treasure chest?  I gather items all the time, from stores, garage sales, thrift shops, bookshelves and toy bins at home--anywhere! small chalk boards with chalk and eraser magne...

I've posted before about how we organize our chores, more or less.  As summer approached I determined to get more serious about organizing our meals (with which the children take turns) and along with that our shopping.  Also, I needed to have a way to keep track of extra chores needing to be done. Our Household Organizer The easy part of this is the orange-bordered sleeve with the dry erase marker on the top.  I bought five sleeves like that to use for our school schedule (another post on that to follow) and only needed four.  Inside the sleeve are five sheets, one sheet for each of our zone chore lists.  (The zones are loosely based on Fly Lady's cleaning system .)  When someone needs something extra to do, they can now come look at the list for the zone for that week (which will be the one displayed), choose a chore and do it, and come back and cross that chore off the list.  Once a week I'll clean the sleeve and move the new zone sheet to t...

Obviously every family will handle these subjects differently, which is as it should be.  In fact, each child may require a slightly different approach.  My intent here is merely to share what we have done, not to prescribe what anyone else should do. A great parent resource is Kevin Leman's A Chicken's Guide to Talking Turkey with Your Kids About Sex .  In fact, with this book alone a family would be in great shape to adequately handle these topics without any other resources. We generally first approach these topics very informally by talking about babies.  Anytime I, or anyone in our immediate circle of family and friends, am pregnant, I pull out our books about babies.  We especially like Hello Baby by Lizzy Rockwell, which follows a pregnancy through the first day at home with baby from the point of view of big brother, and The Miracle of Birth by Jenny Bryan, which uses acetate overlays to show what is going on inside of Mom as the baby develops....

Charlotte Mason's first volume, Home Education , emphasizes the importance of habits in making our lives run smoothly.  We all operate on lines of habit, either good or bad habits; most choices we make are not made consciously but are made habitually. We are all mere creatures of habit. We think our accustomed thoughts, make our usual small talk, go through the trivial round, the common task, without any self-determining effort of will at all. If it were not so––if we had to think, to deliberate, about each operation of the bath or the table––life would not be worth having; the perpetually repeated effort of decision would wear us out.  Volume 1, p. 110  Modern neuroscience actually supports this idea , calling the "ruts" of Ms. Mason's terminology "neurological pathways" instead. Reading Volume 1, with its emphasis on formation of solid habits, it is easy to lose site of another part of Ms. Mason's philosophy.  Habits were a useful tool, in her es...

I've been reminded recently, on several occasions, of how important is parents' role as the gatekeeper for the education of our children. We simply cannot turn our children over to someone else to be cared for or taught without paying close attention and intervening when needed. So often, I think, we assume that since no other parents object then there must not be anything about which to be concerned. I know that in some areas that was my assumption. For Christians, this is even more imperative since God's instructions in the New Testament regarding children continually warn us not to interfere with their development, not to hinder them, not to cause them to stumble. When we allow others to present them with incorrect theology and biblical interpretation, casual views of God and holy things, or instructions about personal matters that rightly should be handled by parents, I believe we are presenting them with a stumbling block.   Even when we ourselves...

Recently I visited a local health food store, seeking out a particular employee for advice on choosing a pro-biotic for my youngest child.  A friend recommended this employee for two reasons, both because she is knowledgeable about these products and because she "talks to Papa."  I waited quite awhile to speak with her as she was in conference with other customers, but when I had my turn she listened attentively as I described our issues and what I hoped the pro-biotic could help us avoid.  She asked some questions, spoke to the boys with interest (only the boys were with me), and took us to find an appropriate pro-biotic.  Her advice, however, was not what I expected. "Here is a pro-biotic, and here are digestive enzymes.  These may help for a time, while you wait.  But I can't tell you what to do.  You will have to ask the Holy Spirit what you need to do.  It may be inconvenient, what He tells you, and it may be very difficult, but that isn't ...

I did not write this post; it is not about my own family.  I thought this might inspire some of you, so I requested permission to reprint this since the author did not at the time have a blog of her own. This post is reprinted with permission from a Year 0 post by Sarah in AR.  One day, I was referring to a parenting book for advice b/c I'd been noticing my children's behaviour and obedience weren't what I thought they should be. As I was reading, they included the scripture Prov 29:15, "a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." Somehow, that verse pricked my heart, as I realized how often I was telling my kids "Just go play while I get my housework done," and then feeling guilty b/c there never seemed enough time left over to work on forming habits or teaching them how to do helpful things around the house..... Well, here was the answer! I was "leaving them to themselves" too often, while *I* tried to do everything myse...

"Strong willed" is probably a misleading description.  One thing that drew me to Charlotte Mason immediately was her insistence that the child wasn't strong willed--the child had a weak or untrained will . Better than the term "strong willed" I think is the term "spirited," because that gets more to the heart of the matter.  Spirited kids are intense, in many different ways, and their intense tenacity is what gets them the label "strong willed."  But just trying to bend their will to yours does not help them to manage their intensity--that intensity is given to them by God and can be an asset, but not until it has been brought under management by their wills.  Perhaps they have those intense wills because they will need them to manage their other intensity! "Raising Your Spirited Child" by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka provides the best insights I have seen into the spirited child.  She helps you know whether you have one, what ...