Boys Hand Weaving

It all started with a crochet hook and an inquisitive boy.

  My 9 year old boy found a crochet hook and asked if I knew how to use it. I told him I did, so he of course asked for a lesson. I found him some yarn and showed him a 2 minute lesson on how to make a simple chain. It was confusing, and his boy hands were having a hard time. I went back to vacuuming thinking that it would be the last lesson he would ask me for as I did not do a very good job. I was so wrong. About 1/2 hour later I moved the vacuum down to the Family Room and was met with a very excited 9 year old. He had crocheted a chain twice his height and he was beaming! :)
 
Fast forward a few hours to when Aunt Mindy comes for a visit and unveils the mysteries of hand weaving. I remember hours of hand weaving when I was young so I was very excited about it, which no doubt fueled the ensuing hand weaving extravaganza. We got out the bin of yarn and ever since,my  9,8, and 5 year old boys have done almost nothing else. We are sitting at the table eating lunch ; they are weaving. They are out feeding the chickens, dogs, and cats; they are weaving at the same time! Funny boys! You can imagine the smiles they brought me as they went about their chores and goals for the day with their weaving in progress.

  My silly 8 year old put a skein of yarn in the back of his pants so he can take it wherever he goes. We joked about him being a spider weaving a web. So fun! I love it.

  The lesson I keep being taught over and over is that my boys will learn best when they are interested in something and once they get going, it would take something major to get them to stop. I also keep learning that everything they learn does not need to come from me. They will get enthusiastic about things all on their own. It is up to me to provide the means whereby they can exercise their new found passions.  These passions are changing about every week with my 9 and under set of kids so I use the library and inexpensive ways to help them along. The 12 and older set of kiddos have more or less settled on the things that they are passionate about, so I can invest more of our education budget on them. Yarn is pretty cheap, but recording software requires an investment. :)

As I type, my 5, 8 and 9 year olds are weaving while they practice a magic trick they just learned. :)



 

Worried

Every once on a while I go through a short stage of being apprehensive about the boys educations. Am I doing this right? Are we doing enough?

I should know better than to even subject myself to this worry because it is always quelled. I suppose worrying once in a while brings a renewed sense of purpose and direction. I always end up feeling great about what we are doing, and this time is no different.

The 3 young boys in my house did a lot of playing his last week, and did not meet all of their goals. I was worrying and wondering if I needed to change things. I had a talk with my husband who helped me see things in a new light: a paradigm shift.

We recently instilled a new goal system in our house to match the system being used at the commonwealth school we attend on Thursdays. At the Commonwealth the adults are studying the 7 Habits books and we have been inspired to make changes at home and at school.  I set up a system of earning stickers towards something the boys want. When they reach a goal they get stickers and when they get enough stickers, they get a reward. I also give out stickers for work well done and extra work. I thought it would take off like wild fire but it didn't. That was when I saw lots of playing and not a lot of working towards goals. For one thing I was not trusting the process and remembering that my 3 youngest kids are in Core and Love of Learning stages and my Scholar kids were doing great on heir goals. Second, as my husband reminded me, Rome wasn't built in a day, so I shouldn't expect a new system to work it's magic so quickly.

Well, fast forward to today when I am sitting with a happy smile on my relaxed face because things are going great with my kids' learning. All day my kids have been actively engaged in great work ethic and goal achieving. At this very moment there are 5 boys self directing themselves in learning. Science presentations are  being prepared, music being practiced, books being studied for pertinent information, writing skills being pursued and literature being enjoyed. Phew. It is working. They are educating themselves and loving every minute of it. I needn't have been worried.  :)

Paradigm Shift

The boys and I are reading from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. Every morning we read around two pages from the book and discuss it. Usually the discussions are short but through the day the new vocabulary is used and the new concepts tried.
Today the conversation was longer and interspersed with laughter! We read about the paradigm (pear-uh-dime) shift of a lady at an airport. She bought a drink and a package of cookies, then sat down at a vacant table. She was reading her newspaper when she heard some rustling. She looked up and saw a man eating her cookies! She madly took some of the cookies and a bit later he man took some more. She reached out and took some too. Back and forth they each ate the cookies until there was only one left. The man took the last cookie, broke it in half and gave her one of the halves. He then left. The woman was in a huff, angry at the man for what he had done. She got ready to go, opening her purse in the process, and was met with her package of cookies in her purse!
The boys and I had a great conversation about how we see things one way, but even a small amount of new information can change how we see it, dramatically.

Playdough vocanoes

The boys and I made salt play dough the other day. They played with it for a while, then came up with the idea of making volcanoes out of them. They were fashioning play dough lava coming down the sides when I told them I could make it look like real lava exploding out of the tops. We played with the baking soda/vinegar solution for a while and had great discussion over it.

Student Whisperer essay

This is my essay on the Student Whisperer. I took my notes from the book and wrote them into a story form about how I could use what I learned. When my husband was a boy his Dad used to call his future wife, 'Suzy'. In this narrative I am writing, I will refer to myself as Suzy because I am not yet the perfect wife that my Father in Law painted a picture of, and I am not yet the perfect homeschooling Mom that I am going to portray in my writing. This is to show me who I could be, and how I could be.

   It's 6 am and Suzy is alone in the quiet of her cozy front room. She has already read in her core book to get grounded for the day and now we find her deep in silent thoughtful prayer.
   Suzy has a son that she has been seeking to mentor.  She has read many books, sought the counsel of others, and has prayed many times before this on behalf of her son who is the central theme in her current prayer.  In her prayer, she is asking guidance about this one certain child.  She wants more clarity about his special mission in life. It's important that she understand her boy better so that she can help him to see his own genius and help him work hard towards the mission that will be his. 
  Suzy's prayer is interrupted by the sound of children waking, so she ends with a thankful heart and stands to begin the rest of her day.  She has learned to embrace motherhood and all of the toils and joy that go with it so it is with a smile that she stands.
  As she is preparing breakfast and cleaning up with the kids, she is pondering her morning prayer and the thoughts that have come to her since then.  She has an idea of her sons strengths and weaknesses and she can't wait to help him along.
  It is one o'clock in the afternoon a week from the day we first met Suzy. Lunch is over, the young ones are napping or reading.  Suzy goes to the room of the son she has been praying over for the last week.  She has set the stage for a transformational experience by building this meeting up over several days and making it into a special occasion.  She has been telling the children stories about important men in history who have had missions in their lives and what they did to accomplish those missions.  She's included in those stories the pain of what those people had to go through, the hard work and the sacrifices.  Suzy had also been reading classics to the children to expose them to greatness way before she made this date to talk to her son.  She wanted to plant the seed in his mind that he too had a mission and she wanted him to see that it would take hard work when he was ready for the challenge. 
  Since her oldest was small, Suzy had been planning frequent sparks of inspiration for her children.  She would find books they would love, plan field trips they would be drawn into, and she would also do the things she wanted them to do so they could have a first hand example of how it was to be done.
  Now Suzy walks into her sons room after hours and hours spent pondering, writing, and brainstorming about her sons needs.  She is ready to do the things she has come up with through the long process.  Suzy's son looks up from one of the many books he has been in love with reading lately and beckons her to come sit by him.  He is ready to move on with his education - excited about it. 
  The first thing Suzy and her son do in this meeting is to have a prayer so they will be guided by the spirit.  Then Suzy hands him a paper and has him brainstorm all of the things he can think of that he is interested in, what he wants to learn, to know, and to do this year.  He does that while they are sitting together and then they talk about how those things can lead him to his life's mission.  As they talk, more ideas come and are written down as possibilities for study in the near future. 
  Suzy's son feels that she is truly interested in him and he takes comfort in it.  His Dad holds regular monthly interviews with him too, so he feels very secure in his parents love for him and their devotion to being there helping him. 
  Next Suzy has her son circle the things on the list that are the most dear to him right now.  She only has him circle a few so that his energies can have a sure direction and so that they can make a plan that won't be too overwhelming and complex.  They make a plan together including academic, personal, and spiritual, and then talk about commitments that the son is making and that he will be held accountable for those commitments.  Suzy's son is comfortable making commitments because he has been through a comfortable love of learning phase and knows that he needs a mentor to progress.  He is ready to move forward.  Suzy has taught him the techniques he needs to be able to learn and she will teach him more.  He has learned how to learn well and will benefit now from having a mentor.
  When Suzy and her son have his plan worked out on paper and signed by them both, Suzy brings out a package that she had slyly brought in the room.  Inside is a beautiful book that she tells her son is his very own commonplace book.  He has seen her write in hers and knows that he will keep his study hours in it, and write his thoughts on what he has been learning.  Suzy has been a good example of keeping up on hers and she has been inspiring her boys with books filled with other peoples written journals.
  Suzy's son is ready to get started on his mission path.  He has been given a certain free time in the day that is his own study time and he is excited about it.  Suzy has no doubt that he will use this time well, but is also prepared for the times that her son will fail to meet his commitments.  They have talked about this and know what the consequences will be.  Suzy knows that allowing her son the freedom to fail will give him tools he would not otherwise have.
  Suzy leaves her happy son's room to go to her own where she offers a prayer of thanks for the direction and inspiration she has been given.  She's inspired now to make a bubble list of her own, and see what is most important for her to be studying right now.

   You'll remember that this 'Suzy' is not the true me and she has done this process with lots of grace and love.  Having it clearly written before me will help me to do likewise but I know that life doesn't always go so smoothly as a storyline. I'll just have to allow myself the freedom to fail like Suzy gave to her son and know that I have learned valuable lessons in the process.

Goins on Lately

We have begun a family education again separate from the public schools and we are loving it. I had seen such a positive difference in my boys the last part of the summer that I couldn't start the unrest again. The problems we were facing have melted away and there is continual learning going on. So happy.

Here I will list some of the things we are busy with so far this year.

We joined a Commonwealth School in Fort Collins where my older two boys participate in a Shakespeare class, and a writing class. The next two boys are learning about Native Americans and taking a science class, and the youngest is with kids his age doing various acitivities(this week they made salsa).

I am taking a 9 month webinar course on Mentoring the One. It is a course that I found through my search for a mentor for me to learn from in order to make our family education as rich as I can. Friday was my the first webinar, and I am enjoying the study that was assigned.

I began a book club here in Cheyenne with a group of homeschooled kids. My oldest two boys crave to be around their peers these days, and they need people with whom they can discuss what they are reading. This month I have them reading Carry on Mr. Bowdich and they are to come to the discussion with something to say about it. After they have all had a turn to talk I will open it up for discussion.

Once a month we attend a P.E. class for homeschoolers. This month we played kickball. The boys had a blast and so did I!

My oldest boy is taking piano lessons. He practices for hours and hours perfecting his lessons and making goals for himself.

The two oldest boys are involved in boy scouts, and are also den chiefs with the cub scouts. The next two boys are in cub scouts. I really like the lessons they learn there. I am a den leader for the wolves also.

We are studying Shakespeare with a family that we are friends with. We haven't gotten very far yet, but it is another thing that is adding richness into our lives.

These are some of the things that we are involved in right now. They don't mention the many books we are studying and the outings, adventures, memorization, and so forth. All in all we are loving our family education and wouldn't trade it. We are working together and bonding together. Heaven.

Life is an Education

I am seeing that life is an education. You may not receive awards for all that you learn or have initials to put after your name (M.D., P.H.D., etc.)but life is a learning experience.

This week I have been busy learning how to sew with a fantastic lady I know, building garden beds with another fantastic lady I know, and investing time into learning the ins and outs of music recording, lyric writing, and guitar playing.

I have really enjoyed learning the sewing as it is opening up doors to me. Clothes are so expensive, and it is hard to find exactly what I want. Now I can pick out the exact pattern I want, and the exact print I want and go for it! It is freeing.

The garden projects always call to me at this time of year and it is so fun to share what I know with other budding gardeners. It is also fun to do projects with people that you have things in common with. I learn more about gardening each year, and come to love it even more with each new thing I learn. Yesterday I kept exclaiming how happy I was to be out in the sunshine, smelling sage and sawdust, and working with my hands. My senses were on overload.

All of these things won't earn me a degree no matter how hard I study them. I am learning them for my own enjoyment and fulfillment, making me a more well rounded person, and to bring me joy. Life learning brings joy and an education that can't be reproduced.