Back to School with Preschoolers--Be Respectful

When my daughter Victoria was five or six years old, I purchased a Bible Trivia game that I thought we would have fun playing together as a family. One afternoon as I sat reading questions from the cards to the children, I came across one that said, “In Chapter 5 of the Book of Daniel, whose hand wrote on the wall?” Victoria’s eyes widened, and she instantly replied, “It wasn’t mine!”

This incident clearly illustrates the struggle we had in our home with people writing and drawing on the walls. It seemed that no matter how much I lectured/punished the graffiti artists, they continued to use the walls as their canvases. I found crayon pictures and scribbles on the walls of the playroom, inside the bedroom closets and even inside dresser drawers. It did not matter that we kept a huge supply of drawing paper at all times. There was just no substitute for a freshly painted/washed wall.

Not long ago I was moving a beautiful bedside table that John and I had purchased in 1965 into our guest bedroom. It has an antique olive finish and is in perfect condition. I was congratulating myself that it had survived all of those years and all of those children and had emerged in like-new condition when I opened the top drawer. To my horror, the bottoms and sides of both drawers were covered with crayon scribbles in various shades of red, green, black, and blue!

Long after my crayon-on-the-walls days were history, an exciting new invention emerged—the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. By using it I was able to remove every trace of crayon from the wood interiors of the drawers, and now my bedside table really is like new. The experience, however, reminded me that keeping up with my preschoolers was a full-time job.

I was also reminded that my preschoolers played a vital role in the success of our homeschool. Their cooperation was critical, and in order to get that cooperation I employed a number of strategies that made it apparent to them that I not only loved them, I respected them.

I tried always to put myself in their places and imagine how I would feel if I were they. Consequently, I learned to think of them not only as children who needed to be taught and corrected but also as people who were just as deserving of my respect as the adults in my life.

For instance, I never said to my preschoolers, “We are busy; leave us alone, and do not interrupt us.” That is just rude, and nobody wants to be treated that way.

Imagine that one day you go to a friend’s house for an impromptu visit. She opens the door, looks at you, and frowns. Just before she slams the door in your face she says, “I’m talking to someone else. Don’t bother us. We’re busy.”

You would be hurt and embarrassed, and you would be so offended that you would probably never go to her house again. Yet, this is the way we sometimes treat our children. We react to them as if they are nuisances who do not deserve to be treated with the same respect we show adults.

Always keep the Golden Rule in mind when dealing with your children. Treat even the youngest member of your family with the respect and kindness you want others to show you. Children have the same emotions that you have. They feel the same hurt, anger, and humiliation as adults. Treat them with the respect that you demand they give you. Help them to feel included rather than excluded.

Your preschoolers are vitally important to the success of your homeschool. Every day let them know that you are counting on them. Tell them that you are proud of them for behaving so well; tell them that you appreciate their contributions. Never be afraid to tell them that their good behavior makes your homeschool possible. They will be proud of themselves for having played such an important role.

About once a month in the late afternoon I called all the children together. While everyone was present, I thanked each of them individually for something specific that he or she had done that month that had been a special help to me. For the very little children, their contribution was often that they had made me laugh or had made me feel loved, but when I listed their contributions, they felt just as special as the older children. It was a little thing, but I wanted them to know that I appreciated their contributions. It is a practice that I highly recommend to all homeschooling mothers.

Download Joyce Swann's book Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother  FREE on Kindle August 22nd through August 26th.

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother Her newest novel, The Warrior, is available on Kindle and in paperback. For more information visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup

Keeping it Real

When I was a public school student, every fall on the first day of school my teachers gave the class a pep talk meant to inspire us to forsake our bad habits, get serous about school, and start performing like rock stars. They told us that each of us was beginning with a blank slate. As of that first day of school we were all “A” students and all we had to do to retain that standing was study, turn in our homework, and score well on the tests.

On the second day of school, however, some students failed to turn in their homework and had neglected to read the required material in the texts to prepare for that day’s lectures. The “A” students were still A students, but others had already begun the process of finishing the school year as B, C, or D students, or failing altogether and being required to repeat the grade.

Because the first day of school, 2012, is just around the corner, I am writing this blog to offer some insights into how to keep your homeschool “real” this year. Not real in the sense that it will be modeled after the public system, but real in that it will be a structured and predictable part of your family’s daily life.

 In 1991 Dr. Bill Hagin, a religion professor at California State University at Dominguez Hills who was my children’s professor when they were earning their Master’s Degrees through independent study, phoned to tell me that he and his fifteen-year-old daughter were going to be passing through El Paso the following week. He said that since they were going to be here, he would like to come by our house and meet his students in person. Although the children were finished with their school day before he and his daughter arrived, we spent several hours talking about my approach to home education and how I incorporated my educational philosophy into my classroom.

In 1993 our family was featured on the CBS series How’d They Do That? and, because Dr. Hagin had actually visited us in our home, they interviewed him to ask why he thought we had been so successful with homeschooling. When the show aired, I was surprised to discover that in his interview Dr. Hagin said that although we had a homeschool, I ran it like a “real” school. Initially, I was taken aback by his remark because the truth was that I ran my homeschool nothing like a traditional public or private school , and I could not imagine why Dr. Hagin would come away with that impression.

As I thought about Dr. Hagin’s remarks, however, I realized that many people, including some homeschoolers, do not recognize a homeschool as a “real” school. Many people assume that homeschools have little, if any, structure and that homeschooled students are allowed to study only what interests them and to do so on whatever schedule suits them. While this is certainly not true, keeping a homeschool on target is always a challenge.  Therefore, I have decided to kick off this new school year by sharing three things you can do to keep your homeschool “real”.  I hope that they will help.

First, set up a “real” school year. Prior to the beginning of the school year, set up your calendar so that you know ahead of time exactly when your school year will begin and when it will end. At the beginning of the school year, mark you starting date and your ending date for the school year on your calendar.  Next, count the number of actual school days in each month (remember to subtract any days such as holidays or school breaks so that you will have an accurate count of actual school days).

If you use a curriculum with daily lesson plans, check to determine whether you have allowed a sufficient number of days to complete all lesson plans. If not, adjust your calendar so that you will either begin your school year earlier or end it later in order to complete all lessons. It is a good idea to allow ten additional days for emergencies and sickness that may interfere with your schedule.

If you do not use a curriculum with daily lesson plans, prepare a daily lesson plan for each student for the coming school year. That way you will know exactly how much work each of your students needs to complete each day.

Second, set “real” school hours. At our house, school was in session from 8:30 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. Normally, that ended the school day. However, if anyone had not finished his work in that allotted time, he came back to school at 1:00 p.m. to complete his lessons. This schedule was a constant during the 25 years that I homeschooled. As the children grew older and their work became more advanced, we found it necessary to make some changes, but the school hours were written in stone. If, however, someone finished his work in less than the three hours allotted, he was “out of school” for the day.

Third, each day give each student “real” assignments that include all of the subjects to be covered and the amount of work to be completed in each subject. When your students know in advance exactly what they are required to accomplish during their school day, they tend to get to work and get it finished so that they will be free to do other things.

Setting up a “real” school year, establishing “real” school hours, and giving your students “real” assignments each day will help you create a homeschool that operates like a “real” school.

 

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother Her newest novel, The Warrior, is available on Kindle and in paperback. For more information visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup

The Names of God: Part I--The Lord Who Provides

The Bible is filled with names for God that describe various aspects of His personality. Today’s post deals with a time when our family was experiencing extreme financial difficulties, and I encountered Jehovah-Jireh—the Lord who Provides.

After No Regrets was published Alexandra and I both accepted as many invitations to speak as possible, and the money we received as speakers was an important source of income for our family. Our expenses were paid, and we received an honorarium. In addition, we sold our tapes and books at these events.

In the spring of 1991 Alexandra spoke to a group of homeschoolers, and on the return trip her plane was delayed for several hours. When all the passengers were boarded and the plane was finally ready to take off, the stewardess announced that to make up for the delay the airline would be giving one lucky passenger a free round-trip ticket to anywhere in the United States. She then announced the seat number of the winner.

Alexandra did not even bother to check her seat number. The stewardess kept calling for the winner to identify himself, and finally the man sitting next to Alexandra said, “It’s you. You’re the winner.”

I was thrilled for her. Alexandra gave everything she had to the family, and I felt that this was God’s way of doing something special for her. I asked her where she wanted to go with her free ticket. She told me that she did not have anywhere that she wanted to go.

The ticket was good for only one year, and as the months passed, I began to exert some pressure on her to use it. I kept saying that she needed to treat herself to a vacation with that free ticket. She was working as a history instructor at the El Paso Community College and would have been doing well if she had not given every penny she earned to the family. She could use some of her own money to have a nice vacation with that free ticket.

In February, 1992, when my mother was seventy years old, she was diagnosed with cancer. She had surgery and afterwards had to undergo chemotherapy. I really wanted to visit her, but I knew that was impossible so I talked to her on the phone and prayed for her, but I never said anything to my family about wanting to make the trip.

One day Alexandra came to me and said that she was certain that God had given her that free airline ticket so that I could fly to Kansas to see my mother. I adamantly refused; she insisted. Finally she told me that she had checked the expiration date on the ticket and that it would expire in one week.

I quickly made my reservations and was able to spend three days with my mother right after she came home from the hospital. My stepfather was with her, and she had plenty of money. I did not really need to be with her, but God knew that I should be with her, and He provided a way for that to happen a whole year in advance.

I made a 1400 mile round trip with only ten dollars in my purse. I took my best “at home” slacks, a pair of old Dockers with an iron-on patch on the knee, and an old dress that still looked pretty good. My step father had his birthday while I was there, and I did not know what to do for a gift. I finally went to Braums and bought two ice-cream sundaes to go, one for my mother and one for him, and I wished him a happy birthday. When my mother asked me why I had bought only two sundaes, I said, “I didn’t want one. I’m on a diet.” Ten dollars wasn’t much, but it was enough.

The day I flew home was the expiration date for the ticket. God has great timing!

One of the most important lessons that I learned during those thirteen years is that what we want and what we need are rarely the same things. God did not always give us everything we wanted, but He always gave us everything we needed. During that time, I came to know Him as Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord who Provides.

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother. For more information visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.

Why I Love Texting

I began texting in 1975 and used it very effectively in my homeschool. In fact, I would have to say that texting was a major contributor to our success and soon became my new best friend. No, it was not the kind of texting that kids do using their big thumbs on teeny tiny keyboards that send weirdly coded messages to itty bitty screens. It was the kind of texting that saved us many hours and made our school day much more efficient.

Our kind of texting involved textbooks. Because we used accredited courses for all grade levels and enrolled each child separately, every child had his own brand new set of textbooks.  Since these books were not going to be handed down to subsequent students, I had an opportunity to utilize all texts as if they were consumables.

Those of us who attended public schools were thoroughly indoctrinated to believe that marking in a textbook was akin to committing a crime. Of course, the thinking was that if these books were defaced they would not be suitable for use by subsequent students. However, when you homeschool and are going to purchase new books for each student, that “logic” is no longer logical. My rule is this: The books are made to serve you; you are not made to serve the books.

A student can spend hours copying sentences to underline the subject once and the verb twice. Why? When you own the books, all you have to do is instruct your student to underline the subject once and the verb twice right in the book. An exercise that would have taken half an hour can be completed in five minutes. The best part is that all of the benefits of the grammar lesson still apply. Absolutely nothing is lost to the student by not spending time copying material.

Likewise, when my students learned their spelling words for their weekly tests, I quizzed them orally and had them spell the words aloud. Since each student had a different spelling list, nothing could be accomplished by having them write the words. I kept track of any words they missed and had them restudy to be quizzed on those missed words the following day.

When students were instructed to compile a list of words and their definitions from their lessons in geography, science, etc., I told them to highlight those words and their definitions in their textbooks and to study from the texts rather than writing them on a separate sheet of paper.

Math books can also be used as consumables.  Addition, subtraction, and multiplication problems can frequently be worked directly in the book. Of course, as math becomes more advanced, that is no longer possible, but whenever it makes sense, have your students work directly in their texts.

By eliminating hours spent copying material from their textbooks, your students will finish their work much earlier and will be less tired and better prepared to tackle their other assignments.

Next week: my final blog on time management: A Woman’s Work is Never Done

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother. For more information visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.