| I spend a lot more time enjoying my passions and studying my interests and doing my projects than I do trying to compel my kids to do their school work. I do my own thing, sometime they jump in, always they observe. I just model a love for learning, a passion for projects and show them what it looks like to live life to the fullest. I am fully alive and totally focused on pursuing things that I am excited about. I invite them in to be part of my interest, and they invite me to be part of their learning. Anything I want to encourage them to do more of, I do myself in relation to my own interests. |  |
I love researching endangered plants and animals,
my daughter Laura, 10, shares my passion!
We are working together to raise and save Clayi Hibiscus Trees!
There are less than 100 of these trees left in the world
and TWELVE of them are in my yard!
I have a life, and I have adventures, and I enjoy projects and activities that have nothing to do with my kids, but everything to do with being an example to them. They see that I am a very passionate learner and I am living dreams right in the middle of raising a family. I share my accomplishments and struggles and they share theirs.
I am curious about their learning and pursuits and they are just as interested in mine. Because I am enjoying life as a learner, they do too. I have done so many things in my life that my kids can learn from. I entered an election and became vice president of the town council. I wrote for newspapers and magazines. I made new kinds of foods and put on parties. I read books and listened to audio books. I tried to build a village, and failed. I invested, I won and lost.
I also show them what fun it is to be a wife and mom. I teach them that it's okay to eat chocolate in the morning and fill up journals with poems. I make tea for myself and some for them, and they make tea for me. I plant trees and research strange animals. I travel. My husband makes music, sails, fixes computers and plays Pac-Man... We do a lot of things that we love, and we have fun. The children can join us, copy us, learn from us, or ignore us... and when they are grown we will still have each other and our hobbies and interests! I call the pursuit of my own learning " Mom School", and in the middle of homeschooling my children is life, my life, my marriage, my adventures! You can't see where learning stops and life begins, they always blend!
There are a lot of things I don't do to make time for what I love, and what I love the most... family. I am not willing to spend all my precious days fussing over math books and spelling words, when we can spend our days in awe of all the magic, wonder, mystery and truth and makes life amazing.
I am curious about their learning and pursuits and they are just as interested in mine. Because I am enjoying life as a learner, they do too. I have done so many things in my life that my kids can learn from. I entered an election and became vice president of the town council. I wrote for newspapers and magazines. I made new kinds of foods and put on parties. I read books and listened to audio books. I tried to build a village, and failed. I invested, I won and lost.
I also show them what fun it is to be a wife and mom. I teach them that it's okay to eat chocolate in the morning and fill up journals with poems. I make tea for myself and some for them, and they make tea for me. I plant trees and research strange animals. I travel. My husband makes music, sails, fixes computers and plays Pac-Man... We do a lot of things that we love, and we have fun. The children can join us, copy us, learn from us, or ignore us... and when they are grown we will still have each other and our hobbies and interests! I call the pursuit of my own learning " Mom School", and in the middle of homeschooling my children is life, my life, my marriage, my adventures! You can't see where learning stops and life begins, they always blend!
There are a lot of things I don't do to make time for what I love, and what I love the most... family. I am not willing to spend all my precious days fussing over math books and spelling words, when we can spend our days in awe of all the magic, wonder, mystery and truth and makes life amazing.
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My kids love joining me as I research endangered species
create art inspired by those creatures and plants!
Since I am preparing my kids for the careers and calling that they dream of I have very little work to do to motivate them to work hard and get serious in their fields. It was much harder when I was giving into pressure to teach things they resisted.
I create an environment and give them the tools. I really feel like true education happens when parents and kids collaborate to do real things. But, since I have so many more children than most people, it is a lot easier for me to live out many of my own dreams, than it might be for parents with just a few kids, because the kids create a big amazing team to run this house and to do important projects and go on adventures. My kids team up to help fun-school the little ones.
I learned to fun-school when I was sick, and kept it up when I was well. I would be out of commission for months at a time because of newborns and morning sickness.
I think a lot of people spend a couple hours per day unwinding in front of the TV or Netflix, getting much needed relaxation. I think that I fill those hours differently. When my family unwinds with a movie, I go sneak off and go on a spree quietly tinkering, inventing, writing, reading, baking, and creating.
I think that because 5 of my kids are dyslexic and 5 just learned English I had to let go of the idea that my kids have to be on grade level. Gone is the stress of keeping up. I also find comfort in knowing that I don't need to model my homeschool after public school standards, the public schools are at LEAST 30 years behind when it comes to the science of learning and the modern innovations that assist learning. So I have totally dumped the single subject approach since it is totally dinosaur when it comes to the true science of how kids' brains work. KIDS REMEMBER NOTHING unless they use the knowledge in real life multiple times in the weeks, months and years following the traditional learning experience.
Why try? Oh is was so hard to let go. But I did.
I create an environment and give them the tools. I really feel like true education happens when parents and kids collaborate to do real things. But, since I have so many more children than most people, it is a lot easier for me to live out many of my own dreams, than it might be for parents with just a few kids, because the kids create a big amazing team to run this house and to do important projects and go on adventures. My kids team up to help fun-school the little ones.
I learned to fun-school when I was sick, and kept it up when I was well. I would be out of commission for months at a time because of newborns and morning sickness.
I think a lot of people spend a couple hours per day unwinding in front of the TV or Netflix, getting much needed relaxation. I think that I fill those hours differently. When my family unwinds with a movie, I go sneak off and go on a spree quietly tinkering, inventing, writing, reading, baking, and creating.
I think that because 5 of my kids are dyslexic and 5 just learned English I had to let go of the idea that my kids have to be on grade level. Gone is the stress of keeping up. I also find comfort in knowing that I don't need to model my homeschool after public school standards, the public schools are at LEAST 30 years behind when it comes to the science of learning and the modern innovations that assist learning. So I have totally dumped the single subject approach since it is totally dinosaur when it comes to the true science of how kids' brains work. KIDS REMEMBER NOTHING unless they use the knowledge in real life multiple times in the weeks, months and years following the traditional learning experience.
Why try? Oh is was so hard to let go. But I did.
There was so much pressure to hold my kids back 30 years so they could stay in the same game as the public school kids. BUT, you know what's worse than one kids that doesn't want to memorize boring facts? 5 or 10 or 15 kids who don't want to. BUT they have dreams and they are ALL willing to work hard to live out those dreams! SO what can I do?
SHOW THEM what it looks like to live a dream. Then, with very little effort on my part they dream their dreams, they build businesses, they live their calling they become producers, artists and they bring their dreams to life!
SHOW THEM what it looks like to live a dream. Then, with very little effort on my part they dream their dreams, they build businesses, they live their calling they become producers, artists and they bring their dreams to life!
Six of my creative kids, ages 12 - 20, have instagram accounts where they display their work.
They are getting things done!
They are getting things done!
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