The Value of Museum Memberships

For Christmas we gave the family a membership to the Natural History Museum, hubby and I felt that not only would this gift have value for the entire year, but that it would open their minds and give them some amazing things to view and see and do.  When we mentioned this to our friends and family, a few individuals actually felt that we "cheated" our children out of a gift because "no child wants to go to a museum and learn when they could be playing and having fun". 

I would first like to clarify that just because museums are for learning, does not mean they are not also fun.  Second, our children were elated to get the museum membership because they truly love exploring all the wonderful exhibits that are offered and learning about some amazing things!  Of course as a homeschooler I find museums to be wonderful teaching resources, and the kids really do enjoy them, especially the dinosaur bones and gold panning exhibits at our local museum. 

Now all that is well and good, but what fun is a museum really you ask?  Well, two days after Christmas, our museum held a special members only event in the evening after usual museum hours.  Our Museum welcomed Astronaut Joe Acaba to come and speak about his recent mission to the International Space Station.  He offered a very nice, yet brief presentation, and then opened up the field for questions.  He answered questions from children and adults alike and carefully chose his answers based on the age of the individual giving the question. 

If a child asked "how fast does the space station move?"  He answered "really, really fast," and then proceeded to give an example that the child would understand.  If an adult asked the same question then his answer was given in miles per hour and length of time to orbit the earth.  By the way the space station makes it's way around the Earth every 90 minutes, which means the sun rises and sets every 45 minutes on the space station.  How's that for confusing? 

After his presentation and Q&A session he did not immediately run off and disappear, nope, he stuck around and signed autographs for everyone in attendance!  Since only myself and my two older boys attended (I wasn't sure a 3 year old would sit nicely for the presentation), I asked him if he would kindly sign one for my little guy and he most happily obliged.  In addition to autographs he was also kind enough to pose for photos with everyone that was interested!  He was so kind to the children, and so willing to be part of whatever was asked of him that evening, he didn't have a "look how special I am for what I've done" attitude, but rather a "I'm a lucky guy to be doing something I love and I want to share that with you" attitude.  He was real, down to earth (har, har), and pleasant. 

She snapped the picture before B had a chance to fully get his smile together, 

but he really was happy to be there!

This was a rare opportunity for my big boys, and without our membership it would not have been possible!  They both loved listening to the presentation and learning about space travel, but even more they loved having the chance to post for a photo with a real astronaut, and get an autograph.  I intend to take their photo from that night, as well as the autographed photo and frame them nicely for a special reminder of this night when they were just kids, that was all made possible by a museum membership. 

Birbitt thinks making memories with my children is the best thing ever, and museums really are a valuable thing!

A New Chapter or Perhaps a Continuation of an Old One?

I have news, I have enrolled in online college classes and will be spending the next 4-6 years working towards the completion of a Bachelor's Degree, and possibly a Master's as well.  There is a wide range of time to complete these classes because it may be possible for me to double up on some classes, or I may have to spend my time working through one 5 week course at a time.  I am hoping that I will double up on  enough classes to complete both degree programs in no more than 5 years, however I am prepared to spend the full 6 doing my classes if I must.

I have several ideas of how I want to put this education to work for me, and the best part is that based on my degree program, and my plan I will be helping to provide for my family financially without having to sacrifice the things that are important to me.  I suspect that some of the discussion questions that are assigned each week will likely spark some interesting blog posts, and I am quite excited to get started.

I will be spending the first couple of weeks in an orientation course, and then I will take two introductory courses, and then I get to work on my general education requirements.  Some of my courses I am quite looking forward to, as they sound quite fascinating, and I hope that they are just as interesting as I think they will be.

I am quite confident that I will do quite well in my classes.  I plan to work on my classes mostly in the evening after my husband gets home from work, and potentially when he is sleeping and I am sitting up trying to sleep.  I will sneak my course readings in while my older boys are working on their homeschooling, which can provide me with a great tool for keeping them focuses.  I have set up an area in my bedroom where I can have quiet and space to spread out my work and complete assignments, and I have the full support of my husband, who says he will take the children to the park during his days off if I need some quiet time to get a difficult assignment completed.

I am a bit nervous about writing papers though, as the school requires all my work to be in APA format, and I have never before used that format.  Thanks to the great expanse of the internet I was able to find lots of information about it, and I am confident that I am teachable and can learn this at least well enough to submit high quality assignments.  My school also provides many resources for me, so I believe I have all the information I need, it's just a matter of applying it correctly.  I did discover in a quick English Assessment that I really need to brush up on my punctuation skills as I do not put commas in the proper places, and forget semi colons (honestly I don't have the foggiest idea what a semi colon is for other than making smiley faces).

I put this here, because I do best on accomplishing something when I write it out, and tell others...so I am telling all of blogger land!  Thank You for listening to me ramble about it.

What makes a mother smile?

I don't know about you but for me the things that made me smile before I became a mother are much less important to me now that I have three handsome little boys. I also find that things that never before would matter to me now make me smile.

Things that used to make me smile? A pretty new dress, a houseplant that has outgrown it's pot and needs to be moved, a blanket freshly dried on the clothesline (actually that one still makes me smile), a nice clean house, a meal freshly prepared and pretty on the plate, time spent working on a craft of choice, and of course many other things.

Things that make me smile now? A new baby (any new baby), smiles on the faces of my children, dinner being made on time and children who will eat it, the realization that my children do hear what I say, a little time to myself, and compliments from others on my children.

That last one is what I want to write about today. I am not a vain or prideful person, but when I take my children out to eat at a restaurant and am complimented on their behavior it makes me smile. It makes me smile because I know that as a mother I am doing my job of teaching my children the proper way to behave, it makes me smile because I know that as a child of God my children and I are having a good testimony for the Lord, it makes me smile because I know that I do not have one of THOSE children (you all know what I mean), and it makes me smile because I know that my children have heard me all these years of telling them what is ok and what isn't.

We were all tired Thursday after a hard week of apartment prep and such, and we decided to have a meal out at a local family owned restaurant (my favorite kind). Being that it is still technically winter (though I would hardly call 70 degrees winter) it means that our snowbirds are still here (snowbirds are those who live up north during the summer, and here during the winter, they flee from the snow) which means that almost every restaurant would be filled with snowbirds (of whom nearly all are older folks) and that when Hubby and I entered with our 3 boys eyes would roll at the thought of "noisy children" while they are trying to eat.

We all sat at the table, quietly looked at the menus and decided on our meals. We talked quietly while we waited for our food, and when it came we prayed and then we ate quietly. As the boys were waiting for their sherbet for dessert a couple nearby got up to leave and as they did the woman came over to tell me " You have a beautiful family, and your boys are so well behaved. It was a pleasure to eat dinner with your family nearby!" That brought tears to my eyes, and I thanked her and told her how much that meant to me. The boys finished their sherbet, and as they did another group sitting just next to us got up to leave and two of the ladies leaned over to tell me " We agree with everything the other lady said, your boys are absolute treasures, and you've taught them well." I again thanked them and again had tears in my eyes. Nothing in this world means more to me than my family, and being told that I've done a good job raising my children, that is just a joy for me! I love knowing that my family is welcome in public, and that I can enjoy a meal in public without spending the whole time fussing at my boys. At the same time though it makes me a little sad, because people wouldn't comment on how good my boys are if well behaved children in public was the "norm", if one saw a child every day behave in public it would never be noticed, but that is not what most people see in restaurants and stores, and so when a family sits at the table and behaves it is noticed and it makes me just a little sad for others, but it also makes me smile for myself and my family.

Maybe next time I will have the pleasure of sitting in a restaurant near one of you my bloggy friends and as we chat and laugh our children can quietly talk over sherbet.

New Found Struggles

As I said in a previous post we are taking the final part of our school year to work on weak areas for the children. This had brought out some interesting struggles.

My husband brought to my attention that he himself is dyslexic (I had never noticed because it is not a severe case and he hides it well), and that while we were listening to B (our almost 8 year old) read we realized that his reading is getting worse and not better. He's starting to forget (or just not use) some of the phonics he's previously learned. This led me to do a little research on Dyslexia, and in doing so found that B has many (read nearly all) of the signs of both Dyslexia and Dysgraphia.

I am not one who likes to label a child and so I will not take him in to have him tested for it, nor will I ever tell him he has it or bring it to the attention of others who may work with him. Labels tend to follow children for the rest of their lives and I don't think that's helpful. So our new plan is to go back to the beginning and reteach phonics, SLOWLY and REPETITIVELY, until we are certain that he's got it. I have to remember to be PATIENT with him, and I have set aside a time 2-3 times a week to sit alone with him and work on his phonics, meanwhile I will simply remind him of the phonics rules and guide him through his lessons.

In a way it is a bit of a relief to know that there is a reason for all of his struggles, and while this isn't exactly a cure all, it is at least a step toward progress. I am relieved in a way because this means that I didn't make a mistake in my teaching (though I probably still did), and now that I have an idea of what's going on I can work toward fixing it.

I had noticed many of the signs of dyslexia in him very early, but the signs I noticed early on are also just common mistakes children make (such as reversing b and d, or E and 3, or p and q). Now that he is older and nearly 8 years old still making the same mistakes and then some I think it's time to take action. So without labeling him, I am simply going back and reteaching and hopefully he'll improve. If he does not make improvement by the fall then I will consider taking him in for further testing, I hope it won't come to that. I think that with some patience and steady work we can get him over this hump.

He may struggle with reading always, but if I don't do what I can to help him I don't feel I'm being a good teacher. I'm ok if he's never a speed reader, I'm fine with the idea that he may never enjoy reading and writing, but I am also confident that with love, patience, time and review that he can improve in those areas so that school isn't such a painstaking process for him.

First day back.

Today was our first day back to school after a month long Christmas break. I had been doing a lot of thinking over the break of what I was going to do with them to get them motivated to finish the year strong. I had decided to put our Science and History curricula up and away to be used next year or the year after, and to simply use Netflix and our local library to learn subjects that interest them. I decided that we would spend the remaining few months studying hard on our weak areas, so that by the end of our school year (March for us) our weak areas will at least be close to or at our goals.

For us focusing on weak areas means that we will finish out our Math book (not a weak area but we are too close to finished to give up now) in about 2 weeks and then drop math down to a couple of times a week just to keep ideas fresh. We will continue with a daily spelling test from our Sequential Spelling, we will get at least 5 lessons of grammar done each week including at least one writing assignment, and we will spend at least 30 minutes a day practicing our reading skills.

Math is not a weakness for my children, and I had planned to just keep going with math, but after much thought and prayer I feel that it is in their best interest to drop math down to a couple times a week. We will finish our math books because there are only 12 lessons left, and then I have a few books of random math activities we will pick from a couple days a week so they don't forget the skills they have learned this year.

Spelling is still a very weak area for them both, though I'm not going to up their spelling lessons we will just continue on as we have been until we reach the end of the book and then I will re-evaluate our spelling program and see if it really is what they need at this time. If there is no improvement in their spelling we will just have to figure out another plan for them.

Grammar has been a weak area from the very beginning, I think this is in part because we have jumped around so much in curricula trying to find one that both teaches what they need to know, and teaches it in a way they can learn it. I think we have finally found a winner because they enjoy Grammar now and they are learning, so hopefully those gaps and struggles will ease off because they are finally on a steady track with one curricula.

Reading is only a weak area for my oldest child, and I know without a doubt that with time, patience, and practice he will get better. I came across an old public school reading textbook, the kind with just a collection of short stories, poems, and excerpts from books and for now we are using that to boost his confidence in reading, and then we will probably move into Rod and Staff Reading for a couple of years. Once I have them both working well in both reading skill and comprehension I will drop reading curriculum and just give them good literature, to hopefully instill a love of reading and a love for the learning that comes from reading. My goal right now is to keep it light, keep it positive, and keep it (fairly) simple because I don't want them to hate reading. A child who reads for pleasure is a child that never stops learning, even if the child only ever reads fiction there is always something to be learned from a book!

These are my plans, for now...and today it all went well! They took a Latin test, to see how much they maintained over the break, and since I am satisfied with the results we will begin level 2 on Wednesday. We completed all planned subjects today, Math, Latin, Spelling, Grammar, and Reading in only 2 hours! I was impressed with their retention over the long break, and while I did find a few areas we need to go over again, I am overall satisfied with their progress and we are ready to tackle our weaker subjects for a few months and finish out STRONG!