homeschool

You take the good, you take the bad…

March 4, 2010

“You take the good, you take the bad,
you take them both and there you have
The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life.”

Blogging is funny, as many of you bloggers know, because when you write a post, you’re really writing a snapshot of a moment in time. And as as the author (or photographer, if you will) you get to choose which moment in time you post and thus you can largely shape the perception of your self and your family life that you present to the world.

And I struggle with this.

Because, I love my life. I really do. I love being married to Scott. I love being Mom to my 4 kids, and I love being able to stay home with them full time. And so at the end of the day, I often choose to reflect on those good moments throughout the day. Because every day has them. And I don’t want to be one of those negative people who complains and rants and dwells on the bad. (because oh, by the way, each day has plenty of those moments too).

And here lies the struggle for me, because I long to keep it real, to not put on a facade of having it more together than I do. I honestly do not enjoy being around “perfect people” or those that appear to be juggling their many roles without every dropping a ball or getting hit on the head. I get hit on the head quite often and I want to show my real self, but I want to do it without whining.

As I sat down to write a post for today, I thought about reflecting on our week of homeschooling. Here lies a perfect example of the inner struggle.

We’ve had some great moments this week. I could tell you more about our field trip to the butterfly tunnel on Tuesday and how the kids had a blast riding the Metro into DC and how the day ended so well with dinner at Chick-Fil-A on a family fun night (wahoo— kids eat free with adult combo meal and awesome face paint lady was there too). It was a great day! And not only did we have fun, but I really think the kids learned about the stages of butterfly development and had a good time seeing the butterflies fly up close and personal, instead of just reading about it in a book.

I love field trips! (hence the good)

But, life is not all field trips. And I could also look back on this week and tell you about the day my son spent 45 minutes, yes 45 minutes doing his handwriting… not b/c he was working so painstakingly slow to get it right and do a good job, but b/c he didn’t feel like working and so he piddled around and whined and complained… and I prompted…. and got frustrated…. and pleaded…. and raised my voice…. as we were trying to get our work done so that we could go on this really awesome field trip! (the bad)

Or I could write about today…. we spent a good deal of time at the dry erase board reviewing blends and special sounds and reading words that “break the rules” and he was doing it. He was reading! (sometime I often lose sight of the magnificence of in my shortsighted focus of today’s task). And he wasn’t giving up. And the girls were playing nicely in the other room so we could focus. (the good)

Of course fast forward a few hours and we have multiple children in time out for disobedience, tantrums from everyone and a hastily colored page in his book. (the bad)

The facts of life are, much like the jingle from the 80s show theme song state, you gotta take the good with the bad. We’ve got both. And I long to present the full picture without negativity. (not exactly sure how to do that, but it is my goal)

This afternoon we’re going to bake scones and have high tea as an extension of our study of England in Social Studies earlier this week. If I post pictures tomorrow of the kids all dressed up, eating their tiny sandwiches and smiling at the camera, don’t assume this is how we looked all day. It’s a moment, an activity, I’ve been looking forward to all week and will want to cherish and remember it, and yet I also know that between now and high tea, we have to go to the grocery store for those special ingredients, and swing by the post office to mail a package and buy stamps… and since I’ve been a mom for almost 6 yrs now, I know we’ll have many of those moments before (or IF) we get to our Kodak moment.

I’m just banking on the fact that 20 years from now, when the kids are grown and gone, and I look back on today’s snap shot…I’ll probably only remember the good. It’s just the facts of life.

{ 11 comments }

So Big and Yet So Small

September 15, 2009

in Circus Shots,homeschool

After months of deliberating, praying, waiting, and a little second guessing, the first day of school finally arrived this week. As you may recall we decided to home school, but with a twist. We’ve enrolled our son in a home school tutorial that he attends two days a week. So he has school at home with me three days a week, and at his tutorial 2 days a week. In a lot of ways, it’s the best of both worlds. Here’s a glimpse his first week at school.

Doesn’t he look so grown up?

The “Mom, really do you have to take this many pictures?” face

Here he is waiting for us to pick him up at the end of the day in the “dismissal room” Doesn’t he look so little here? Who took my baby and put him in this big kid room?

And here’s our first day of school at home.

The pledge.

Seat work

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{ 25 comments }

Bill Nye’s Got Nothing on my Little Guy

August 13, 2009

in homeschool,Motherhood,science

The kids have been into “experimenting” these days. We even have science journals with which to record our results. (Yes, we can thank Sid the Science Kid for that brilliant idea).

It started with freezing stuff.

I overheard my son tell his sister with a hushed voice of excitement, “Sis, you watch…we’ll put this cup of water into the freezer and then later when we come back it will be ice.”

Ah, the thrill…

From cups of water, they then moved to other random objects, slippers, plastic toys, juice boxes…

Here they are “investigating” their frozen juice box. Do you see those eager faces of anticipation as they removed it from the freezer?

Later I opened the freezer to find this.

Seems the poor little people girl was frozen into a cup of ice. They loved watching her melt out on the deck later that afternoon.

He also tried sticking ice cubes into a cup of water and then freezing it. We liked how the ice looked different in the cup this time.

On Monday, my son asked me to write some instructions onto sheets of paper. He wanted me to write in all capitals, very small, “like a printer” in the center of the paper.

One sheet read, “make experiments”

Another read, “use a crane to make something”

Still another said, “make fire.”

And my favorite, “make experiments with fire.”

When Daddy got home he said that these were their directions for experiments they needed to do together.

So Daddy seized the day and came up with a fire experiment for him to do with the kids. They took 3 different colored papers. Then Daddy burned each one and they had to watch the flame to see if it looked different for each paper. They made predictions, talked about the results, and recorded their findings by drawing pictures in their science journal.