Life Lessons in the Laundry Room

The laundry room. Daily laundry loads.

Life reflections, unexpected.

That box. That one (yes, that assumes there are others) box in the laundry room, way up high atop the file cabinet (yes we still own one).

Last night I began the PROCESS of dejunking the laundry room, under the influence of my very organizational-minded daughter.

It started with that box.

I began digging, wrestling through papers and pictures. Tossed a few in the trash. Read entries from my college journal, the one I kept while dating Mike. Shared some of my thoughts with our children and then made a "keep" pile. I pulled out a binder of notes scrawled on napkins, scraps, and bulletins; a book someday. I added the binder to the "keep" pile. Another binder. This one dated in the 1990s full of notes from an encouragement column I wrote as a homeschool support group leader. I read over the columns, smiling at the names, remembering the faces and field trip moments. People I knew and walked the homeschooling journey with, twenty years ago.

Ah, my early years of home education with our oldest children five, seven, maybe ten years old. I purposed an environment of love, grace, enrichment; a place where intellect could be challenged and a love to learn modeled. I wanted learning to be digging deeper, studying the fascinating, fostering curiosity, but also master math facts and memorize the periodic table. I planned my days with the "goal" or "what I thought they would need" when they walked over our threshold.

I loved those days. Blossoming with potential, fresh with anticipation, hope and aspiration. I loved being a mom, being with my children, watching every light bulb light, pondering how their early passions—strategy, the outdoors, people, analytics — might be used in their future.

Forward to today.

The oldest are now adults, one graduated from college, earning an MBA, working full time and acting as CFO for a non-profit. The other, married, pursuing a doctorate in physical therapy. Each unique.

But here is the interesting part...at least to me, the lesson I reflect on.

The lesson which will impact the education of the ones still at home.

Though I envisioned young men walking across my threshold, educated a certain way, prepared for certain things, I would have never dreamed my young strategist would to teach business skills to people in Haiti. Had I known that, I would have prepared him a different way!

But wait! Prepared him a different way? He WAS prepared.

That is the lesson I learned.

Though we had our vision set on something totally different, God used our faithful prayers and provided EVERY opportunity my son needed today. His learning at home PREPARED him for where he is today. And, I am glad I really didn't know exactly what he would need, as my heroic attempts to PREPARE him would have pigeon-holed him, given him too narrow a perspective, limited to what I thought "he needed".

There is no way I would have ever fathomed him teaching business skills to business owners in Haiti.

And even if I did, how would I have taught those skills?

I look over my thoughts in those notebooks. All I thought I had to do. All I thought I knew, but really didn't understand. All the books I thought we had to read. All I purposed. All great things.

Now, I see differently.

What did he learn from his days in our home.

• The ability to communicate with others and work with individuals very different than himself.
• The ability to take risks, to visit places that might not be safe, for the sake of something bigger than he can understand.
• The ability to solve a problem, a problem he didn't even know he would have.
• The ability to pour his heart into something, not give up, and walk faithfully when the future is unknown.

That box.  The one stored in the deep, dark corners of a closet or the one atop tall piles in the laundry room. That box of lessons. 

I'm glad my daughter encouraged me to purge and organize.

In the process I was able to reflect on our years and look to the future, with new anticipation.

What opportunities will our children have ten years from now? I don't really know, and I am glad. That reflection causes me to use what we have and know today, to the best of our ability, with what is provided, and allow God to plant our feet to destination I cannot possibly know or understand.

STEM Made SIMPLE at Home

The house was a buzz; the hum of learning.

Thirty minutes later we had two experimental cable cars made from Polydron Revolution, complete with a make-shift pulley system on a spare piece of rope from the "junk" box. 

The wonder and excitement of trial and error, learning from mistakes and purposing to make it better. Patience and perseverance necessary. Collaboration and deferment to another's idea. 

Determination rewarded.

Confidence. 

I can create. I can learn. I can ask questions. 

Indeed, thirty minutes mattered, and made a difference. 

"Let Me Do It!" - Little Learners Become Independent

Little learners are industrious! They can accomplish much in a short time: unloading cabinets. emptying bags of flour for "snow", unwinding tape rolls. Their industry may not be what we define as true betterment. 

However, in those tough to see times, it is important to understand a little learner's definition of industry is key to developing independence.

Given a task, an important one, one they care about, they will accomplish much and feel incredibly empowered, eager for the next "job".

Mr. Red, the fish we inherited from great-grandma, needed a clean bowl. The water had become a science culture--I am sure, though I didn't test it. Poor Mr. Red!

Sick children needed care. Mr. Red had to wait.

I moved the fish bowl to the kitchen counter, near the sink, grabbed an extra large coffee cup from the cabinet, scooped Mr. Red into the cup, and within seconds our little learner "wanted to help".

"Let me do it, too!"

What toddler doesn't like to play in water?

Mr. Red was swimming happily in the coffee cup I placed out of reach. I dumped the yucky water in the sink, poured and rinsed the ornamental  rocks. Chair pushed to the sink, a smiling eager and confident helper turned on the tap and began cleaning rocks. One squirt of soap. Two squirts of soap. Fine motor muscles were getting a work out. Three squirts, four.  

Thirty minutes later, my assistant had cleaned every rock and placed them back in the bowl. She beamed with pride. She had contributed to the care for our beloved Mr. Red--her pet!

A first step of responsibility. A first step toward independence. 

My little learner knew she could be a productive, contributing member of the family, accomplishing tasks of importance. Her smile spanned ear to ear, dimples dotting each corner, for the next several hours. 

Little learners wants to contribute, to serve, to care. In doing so, each time they take another step toward independence, they catch another glimpse of a much bigger picture, one much bigger than oneself. 

What started as "let me do it!" ended with

"I like being a part of a family!"

You may have little learners, or not so littles, eager to contribute, eager to work alongside. 

How can your child contribute?

How can he or she make a difference and catch a glimpse of a greater community?

Imagine the possibilities!

• help organize the pantry, cylinder cans on one shelf, rectangular boxes on another. 
• water the plants, inside or out, with a pump spray bottle (great for fine motor skills)
• fold washcloths in half and half again
• match socks
• sort laundry
• organize the plastic container cabinet
• feed pets (with supervision)
• sort coins- pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters
• roll coins (get paper rolls at the bank)
• collect the newspaper from the end of the driveway
• carry a neighbor's garbage cans to their designated area
• fill ice cube trays with fresh water
• make sandwiches (spreading is a great skill)
• peel carrots or wash potatoes (with supervision)
• empty bathroom trash cans into the larger garbage can
• carry hangers to the laundry room
• make cookies (with supervision)
• help put seeds in seed beds
• refill bird feeders
• help wash the car (and clean out the inside)
• put library books in the bag to go to the library

Embrace the industrious little learner at your feet! His or her inquisitive energy can be productive, taking one step closer to responsibility and independence. 

Cultivate, then celebrate, the milestone--together! 

Want to learn more about little learners? Join me at my Teaching Preschoolers and Little Learners workshop at FPEA 2016!

Delighted to Be a Speaker at FPEA 2016

I am thrilled to be back at FPEA again this year. New workshops. New insight. New stories and practical helps to equip and encourage at every stage of the home education journey, preschool through high school.

Come see me at my workshops! I'm walking the journey with YOU!

Friday 10:30am

7. Celebrate Simple! Intentional Home Education

The simple teaches the profound. Cheryl shares stories and offers insight from her 21 years of homeschooling eight children — the everyday teachable moments, the simple yet ingenious ideas, the interest-driven learning — the things her graduated and grown young adults say mattered most. Learning together, building family relationships, is priceless. It's simple and worthy of celebration!

Friday 3:55pm

68. Happy (High School Paper) Trails to You!

High school is not a one-size-fits-all experience. It is a time to refine the skills needed to polish a student's God-given gifts and talents. But what does that look like on paper? How do you tailor courses which will prepare your child for what God has planned for their future? Cheryl walks parents through answers to these questions.

Saturday 1:45pm

129. Celebrate Middle School: Fostering Ingenuity

Middle schoolers will surprise you! When they do, be ready to foster ingenuity, seize opportunities and think outside the box. The middle school years, ripe with potential to impact entrepreneurial ventures, employment or college/career paths, can also be conflicting for parents and children. In this workshop, Cheryl offers practical tips from experiences as a homeschool mom and a wife of a 27-year middle school educator.

Saturday 3:55pm

153. Teaching Precious Preschoolers and Little Learners

Young children have an insatiable curiosity to learn and a natural desire to work alongside people they love most. How do we utilize these innate qualities to maximize their learning potential at home? Drawing from 28 years of experience of teaching early learners, Cheryl challenges attendees to look beyond societal and educational pressures to the emotional and developmental needs of young children. 

A New Year to Create, Cultivate and Celebrate

How will you be intentional to create, cultivate and celebrate in your home?

Perhaps...

• Organize an art corner where ingenious minds can create.
• Refresh art supplies. Introduce a new medium.
• Bind last year's art masterpieces creating a portfolio to celebrate progress and change. 

• Offer new tools to cultivate life learning --protractors, microscopes, compasses, templates, 3-hole punches, staplers, balance scales
• Use New Year savings offered by digital scrapbook companies to create a family memory book where accomplishments and memorable favorites can be celebrated...TOGETHER!
• Provide blank books to budding authors and illustrators. Cultivate the need to create! 
• Say "yes" to requests for household trinkets and treasures. They may just be the next patent in the making. 

• Purchase a personal bookcase to fit bedside the contagious reader. 
• Read to the emergent reader eager to build fluency. Celebrate the sentence read and the chapter completed!
• Post a black-out list where newly mastered multiplication facts can be crossed off.
• Champion ideas and celebrate milestones. 

Clay Day

At a local craft store, my girls cashed in on a 40% off coupon, wrapped their arms around seven pounds of clay and hurried home to the kitchen table. Clay creations came alive. Our table was covered in gray dust. We used several resources to learn more. One, Fun with Modeling Clay, was penned by one of our favorite children's author illustrators, Barbara Reid. Barbara wrote Two by Two which she illustrated with clay figures. Creative and intriguing to my children. 

Later, our oldest daughter made some cooked play dough, a huge hit with the little learners in our home. She used the crumbled water-stained recipe card* I used when I taught preschool. Gathering ingredients, she measured each and combined in a medium cooking pot, cooking on medium heat until the dough formed a ball. 

.

Playdough

1 c. flour

1/2 c. salt

1 c. water

1 tbsp. vegetable oil

2 tsp. cream of tartar

*The old recipe was hand-written on a piece of scrap paper and given to me by a mentor teacher. No idea where the teacher found it.

Digging Deeper

On our clay day we spent several hours working with clay, experimenting with techniques, watching online tutorials, reading author websites, measuring ingredients for the homemade clay, following directions, calculating cost of clay per pound based on what we paid, and working alongside siblings collaborating while sharing and taking turns with tools. Much was accomplished with just seven pounds of clay!

As a family, we enjoy learning about the lives and hobbies of the authors we read. We always read the About the Author and connect with any links they provide. If we desire to dig deeper, we search for the author website online. These learning trails often offer opportunities to learn geography, history, and science. 

Mentors Matter

We champion finding mentors in fields of interest. All of our school-aged children have gained great insight into areas most intriguing to them, from Olympic competition (we conversed with an Olympic runner from the Wilma Rudolph era) to successful entrepreneurs (no better way to learn about business than from someone who owns one). Each unique experience was recorded in our learning logs, sometimes by written word, other times photographically.

Learning alongside a mentor proves one of the highest retention rates.

Hence, we use this means of learning whenever we have the opportunity.

Participating in the Young Eagles Introduction to Aviation class has been one of our favorite learning experiences. Recommended for children ages ten through eighteen, this eight-week class taught by pilots and aviation professionals offered my children opportunities to learn about aviation from people who know it best.

Each class focused on a topic: weather, air traffic control, flight planning, pre-flight check, and aviation careers. Each week professionals planned an applicable experiential activity. My children toured hangers took a field trip to a working air traffic control tower and learned how to navigate a flight map from a commercial airline pilot. The final class included a graduation flight. Participants in the class were divided into groups of three, each group having the opportunity to fly one leg (after safe take-off by the pilot) of a three-leg flight, flying in and out of three airports. After the flight, participants were given a flight log—which they continue to build for their aviation career—signed by the supervising pilot, a certificate of completion, and a code for ground school should the student want to continue their journey to becoming a pilot. 

"There's Math in My Candy Bag!"

All that candy!

This may be a proclamation in your home this week.

If so, perhaps one of these simple adventures could add a fun twist to your learning.

Measurement (linear) 

Young children, generally preschoolers, often learn to measure in non-standard (inconsistent) measurements before they measure in standard (consistent) measurements. Non-standard units might be blocks or perhaps toy cars.

So, why not Snickers?  

Snickers, or any candy bar for that matter, can be a non-standard unit of measure.

How many Snickers high is Dad? How many Kit Kats long is the bed?

Draw a visual representation. 

Measurement (weight)

Weigh your candy on a kitchen scale. Did everyone collect the same weight amount? This activity offers opportunity for children to learn to weigh objects and read a scale. To extend this activity, have the children estimate the weight before placing on the scale. If the estimation and the actual weight are written on paper, demonstrate how to subtract to find the difference (how close the estimate was to the actual weight). 

Sorting and Counting

Skittles and M&Ms create wonderful opportunities for sorting, counting, comparing, and graphing. In fact, if you have an abundance of fun size bags, consider inviting another family or a a group of friends to learn too! 

Small candies work well for set creation, comparing and counting. We used Smarties and Sprees for counting by fives and tallying. 

Graphing 

Sort out two different types of candy bar from the collection. Ask each member which candy bar is his or her favorite. Offer each his or her favorite to eat. Save the wrappers to make a "favorites" graph. 

Fractions

Packages with multiple colors of candies--Skittles, M&Ms, and Starbursts--are great for teaching fractional parts. Count the total amount. Sort the colors. Make a visual representation of each color in relation to the whole. For example, if there are 16 Starbursts and 4 are orange, the written fraction would be 4/16. Taking a step further, 4/16 is equal to 1/4 of the package. 

Percentage

Halloween behind us, stores in our area are posting opportunities to use practical math, for example 50% off $6.99, 75% off retail, and buy-one-get-two free. Take photos of these while out and work the math when you arrive home. OR, do it in the store to determine whether the sale is a "deal". 

Operations and Equations

My older children love to use math to determine whether or not they are getting a "sweet" bargain. We figure out cost (If a bag of candy costs $3.99 and the sale is 50% off, what will be pay?) and cost per unit (If the bag of fruit chews costs $2.19 and there are 50 chews per bag, what is the cost of each individual chew?). I also make up additional hypothetical scenarios (If you have a $10.00 bill in your pocket and the candy is $3.29 per bag, how many bags could you buy and how much change would you receive from your purchase?) This often leads to conversation about sales tax, taxable and non-taxable items, and cost per pound.

These yummy math ideas (and more) are compiled in my Flip Three Pancakes With One Spatula book, a resource I put together after years of hands-on math activities. Yes, my children love to eat their math. 

Ideas from the Flip Three Pancakes book. 

Making Learning Relevant for Middle and High School

Though summer annual evaluation season ended a few months ago, I continue to post frequently asked questions to help equip and empower parents.

 Knowledge is power in the high school years 

and adds confidence to the journey.

 

One mom asked:

Recently in our area there seems to be limited diversity in learning environments for middle and high schoolers. Many venues provide only traditional classroom settings or online meetings. This is not the best setting for my child. What other opportunities are available and acceptable?

 This is a tremendous question with valid concerns.

 First, check the home education laws in your state

 Second, having some experience with online learning is beneficial. Online education is growing. And, it did prepare our graduates for post-secondary education.

 Those points being said...

Home educated middle and high schoolers have the opportunity to partake in a variety of learning environments; a definite advantage over their public and private schooled peers.

Our middle and high school students learn widely from a variety of environments. One started a business and learned on the job, everywhere from church fellowship hall craft shows to convention trade show floors. Another learned from independent study, volunteering, and conversation from professionals in the field. Still another learn from contractors, field work, job shadowing, and collaboration with peers. Our home education statute allowed us the freedom to utilize these means. We are all grateful we could fit learning with learning style and student interest.

When designing courses or considering courses for middle or high schoolers the learning environment is essential and often dependent on the learning style and strengths of the individual. For example, if the student learns best by observation, perhaps best fit environments would include laboratory settings, field work, internships, job shadowing, or apprenticeship. In these settings, the student can observe to learn. If the student is an auditory learner the best settings may be research laboratories or classroom instruction.

When the course is complete, if our students were applying for a university requesting course descriptions in addition to a transcript, I made sure to be specific about which environments the student used. Often the environments, being different than a typical classroom or online setting, were intriguing.

Yes, the reward was worth the effort. The contents of the course descriptions, transcripts and cumulative folder were the documents which set a solid foundation for resume writing.

 And in the end, as we--student and parent--looked over documents, the accomplishment was a part of our celebration of high school and the ability to finish with excellence.

 As you consider the potential learning environments your learner may have access to, ponder how those opportunities may benefit your young adult. The results can be astounding.

Reading Made Simple

Recently, I began the journey of revising my first book, You Have to Read This One: Raising a Contagious Reader. It is the backbone of my workshop Raising a Contagious Reader and I have missed offering that book as a resource! It is packed will all the things I felt I needed on the path to raising a reader and finding great literature for my children and could not find anywhere else. 

It is also full of ideas and methods I wish would have been used to teach me, a reluctant, delayed reader, as a child.

The revisions are still a ways from being reprinted. In the interim, I will post a few ways to make language arts fun and easy.  

Reread the Story

Sounds like a no-brainer, reread the story? Yes, in fact, if you are a parent you have already likely met this frequent request. 

But did you know it will also nurture a future writer?

"Read it to me again!" 

A favorite story often brings this joy-filled request. Together the story is reread, anticipating favorite repetitive phrases or mimicking a main character. Hearing a story multiple times, the child comes to understand rising action, climax, and falling action in a foundational manner. Not only does rereading a story help a child understand foreshadowing and predictions, but it nurtures future writing efforts by reinforcing (and eventually mimicking the use of) simple plots, from the multitude of books read over and over. It is the familiar stories children will draw from as they begin their writing adventures.

Some of our favorite "read this to me again" stories are:

Retell the Story

Want to build comprehension and recall?

Retelling a story or a sequence of events builds comprehension and expressive vocabulary. Retelling is the review of characters met and events lived. Open-ended questions encourage a child to recall, to remember, to think. In the process comprehension is built. A much more productive way to build comprehension than answering a plethora of questions on a work page.

Predictable plots and repetitive phrases or wording invite the child to "read" along or retell later. Books with predictable plots include The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle, The Napping House by Audrey Wood, or In the Small, Small Pond by Denise Fleming. 

Incorporating puppets offers another means by which to retell a story, fostering and encouraging the child to add to the story from his or her imagination and creativity. Imagination invites innovation, soft skills--life skills--needed for future learning and employment. 

Some of our favorite "retells" are:

Listen

The ability to listen, the process and store information is a key language arts component. Often, in today's visual society, auditory training is neglected. Though I do purpose to read aloud to our children, audio books, story recordings (our favorites are Jim Weiss), and online resources like the audio below are some of our favorites, especially in the afternoons when children and I are ready for another learning option. Our goal is 45 minutes of read aloud and an additional 45 minutes of additional listening from either story recordings or audio text. 

Audio input is one of those elements of reading which could have been helpful to me as a struggling reader.

For more thoughts on how reading aloud fosters reading comprehension, I offer this blog post. 

Encourage Independent Reading

Reading independently is another important skill. As a mom, I remind myself that one way I encourage independent reading by providing engaging books in the home--home library or borrowed from the public library. I also remind myself to listen when a reader comes to my side with the "You know what I read?" or "I can't believe this happened!" response. Those phrases are really saying, "Engage with me about my book!" The benefits of conversation and dialogue are topics for another blog post.  

Independent reads must be age appropriate and of interest. Some of the favorites have been:

Early Elementary

Middle to Late Elementary

Read with Purpose

Where there is purpose there will be effort. Intrinsic motivation, internal motivations and desires, are some of the greatest catalysts to purpose, hence the energy behind effort. 

I was a reluctant, delayed reader. However, I LOVED gymnastics. Though reading was laborious, tedious and down right frustrating, I wanted to know about the lives of famous gymnasts. My desire to know about gymnastics fueled my desire to read. The more I read, the more fluent I became. A strength bolstered a weakness.

Some of the books my children have read with and for a purpose--something they wanted to learn: 

Reading really doesn't have to be complicated, though it will take time. However, the time put forth matters. For me personally, it was a game changer. I became a reader when many said I wouldn't ever become fluent. 

The time and effort you put forward matters. 

3 Things They CAN Do On Their Own

Doing on their own is a glorious moment for parents and children. 

Parents welcome the growing independence (well, for the most part)

and children gain confidence and a sense of contribution. 

With eight very different children, adult to infant, we have experienced these milestones at varying times. There have been no two identical developmental time tables. Yes, there are milestone guidelines, but what takes one four-year-old child six months to practice and master may take another three weeks. Both four year olds achieved the milestone, but with different processes and progress. That is the beauty of life, unique and individual.

With all their distinctive characteristics, there are wonderful ways these littles could be independent, work on their own, with some guidance and forethought from us.

One- They can process and participate in decisions. 

In doing so they can independence and confidence, two important aspects of future growth and development. Participation in decisions also gives them age appropriate control, again important to growth. Participation in decisions also gives them opportunity to gain important life skills: cause and effect, collaboration, cooperation, and conversation. 

Two- They can be a part of the family helping team. 

Just as processing and participating in decisions, children gain independence and confidence when they realize they can contribute to a cause bigger than one person can manage. They realize their contribution makes a difference in others lives. Setting the table, gathering and emptying smaller trash cans into one large one, folding laundry, watering flowerbeds, washing a car, and many other life skills. Our family members have come to realize, when we work together, completion and care are quicker and there is more time for play and entertainment. Children thrive when they feel like a part of a bigger team effort; they feel a sense of camaraderie and community life skills which will later be used outside the family unit.

Three - They can care for many of their physical needs

Tooth brushing, putting dirty dinner plate in the dishwasher, placing shoes by the front door, replacing borrowed library items to a library bin, putting laundry away; these are all practical ways littles can care for themselves. If parents repeatedly do for the child what he can do for himself, self-governance and responsibility will be delayed. Delayed too long has huge life impacting consequences. 

An older, wiser mom once told me, "You are supposed be working yourself out of job!" 

Yep, I have, and I am. It is hard work, but a work worth the effort, many times over.

Littles (and not so littles) are very capable of doing for themselves. When I allow them, they can say, "I CAN!" with confidence which perpetuates ingenuity and  fosters responsibility; three vital life skills children need in their life tool box. What begins with putting away laundry and brushing teeth progresses to driving a car, building a marriage, and eventually parenting another generation. 

 It is hard work, but a work worth the effort, many times over.