Beating the Winter Slump

It’s January, for a few more days anyway. Along with New Year’s Resolutions, cold weather, and trying to fit back into those pre-holiday jeans, January means back to school for most of our families. For many of us, it also means the Dreaded Winter Slump.

If the dreary winter days have you feeling a little more like this:

 than like this:

then you might want to join me over on the CME Retreat blog for some ideas about how to Beat the Winter Slump.

Do Hard Things

I'm guest posting again today over on the CME Retreat blog. Have you ever hit a roadblock in your homeschool day and wondered, "Is something wrong; should it be this hard"? Have you ever heard that your school days should be filled with joy, or you risk killing your child's love of learning? When things get hard, does it mean that we're doing something wrong?

Have you ever noticed how a particular idea can suddenly appear all over the place, seemingly all at once? Recently I have heard some rumbles on the world wide web that homeschooling is supposed to be a joy-filled endeavor. They say that if it's not, the problem is either with you, the way you have trained your children, or the curriculum itself. They say, homeschooling shouldn’t hurt. If it does, you will kill your child’s love of learning. The moment they leave your home, they will do nothing but play video games and eat fast food all day long. To prevent this catastrophic outcome, dump your current curriculum―maybe ALL curricula―and find something more fun. (Okay, I might be exaggerating a little bit, but only a little.)

It sounds so good. Who wants our days to be hard? If there is a secret that can make it easy, who wouldn’t want that?! But we are called to be wise and discerning. I know that just because something sounds good and appeals to me doesn't mean that it's true. One way I know to test an idea is to look at other parts of the world and ask myself whether this idea fits what I know to be true. Are there other situations where we get to experience wonder-filled days, joyful times where we and our kiddos are reaching our goals and desires? Well, yes. And no...

Please head over to the CME Retreat page to read the full article. After you do, I would love to hear from you, here or on the CME Retreat blog. Have you had to overcome a particular struggle in your homeschool? What did you decide to do about it? How did it go for your family?

Digging for Absolute Truth

I am a big podcast fan. That might be because I'm an auditory learner. It might be because I like to engage my mind while I cheerfully wash dishes, sweep the floor, and work out like a fitness diva. (I'm not saying that it IS, only that it might be.) It might be because I like to play Candy Crush while I lay in bed sipping on hot tea. (I'm not saying that it IS, only that it might be.) Anywho... having exhausted the current offerings from the CiRCE Institute, I've recently discovered Julie Bogart's Brave Writer podcast.

All that backstory is to explain why I'm writing about a podcast three years after it was produced. Timely, I am not.

In 2012, Bogart interviewed Melissa Wiley, author of several children's novels. In the interview, Wiley said something that really hit home for me. I'm paraphrasing here, but essentially she says that on the internet, we tell the truth—the absolute truth—but not necessarily the whole truth. Online, there are obvious reasons for this, primarily discretion and privacy. But what about in my head?

Sometimes, I say awful things in my brain, things that flat-out aren't true. Like most parents, I am my own biggest critic, and it can get ugly up there in my head. Most of the time, though, what I say in my head is true but not the whole truth. My kitchen is a mess. Truth. I could go right now and sweep and mop and clear off the counters and scrub them down with bleach until they gleam like the sun. Truth.  Or I could teach my kids, take the time to laugh at Tiger's latest ridiculous joke, say YES to "...just one. more. chapter. PLEEEEEAAASE!!" and give myself a moment of relaxation so that I can retain the last vestige of sanity desperately clinging on in my Mom Brain. Absolute truth. We had four awful hours spent over a math lesson today. Truth. (Also, not my proudest moment. Those times when you realize that you have locked yourself into a battle of wills and don't know how to back out now... those are not good times. And that's about all I have to say about that.) Before those four hours, however, we had a delightful read aloud time in the morning. After those four hours, we spent the afternoon at the library (where that same stubborn kid sat and read picture books to her little sister for nearly an hour). Everyone came home with new books, and then we munched pizza and read past our bedtimes. Most of our day was great. Absolute truth.

I know this is not a new thought, but it keeps coming at me from different directions. What I choose to think about dictates my attitude, my reactions, the way our day plays out, and how I interpret that day when I'm lying in bed at night. I look past the facts of what happened and attribute motivations and meaning. It starts and ends in my head. When I assume the best about my kids, I react with more kindness. When I review our day in my head and cement those memories, I can choose to fixate on the rough spots or I can choose to zoom in on the laughter, the silliness, the "ah ha" moments, the chocolately kisses, the victory in Tempest's voice when she finally slammed that math book shut and called it FINISHED, the image of Tempest and Tiger curled up in a chair with their heads bent over a book together.

There is a part of me that wants to keep my mind private. I want to lay claim over it as all my own, free to think what I like without answering to anyone. The thing is, that's not truth—not absolute truth, not partial truth, not any truth. There is the spiritual fact that all of me belongs to Jesus: my feelings, my thoughts, my expectations, my actions... ALL of it. But there is also the practical fact. My actions flow out of my thoughts. Those actions determine the quality of people's lives: not just my own, but the lives of my kids, my husband, and even—to a lesser extent—the people I come into contact with. There is no such thing as "private." Some thoughts come and go, but I others take up permanent residence. It's not that I can't ever visit the Land of Dour. I just can't build a house and move there. The thoughts that I give room to form who I am. Who I am inside will come out, no matter how much I try to pretty-up my outsides. For good or ill, it will affect the people around me. That makes it vital for me to protect my mind, to choose joy and truth and hope.

I hear it. I see that it is truth. Now I get to try to live it out. That is when I discover that these are the things I cannot do on my own. I cling to the strength of the Holy Spirit in this moment by moment quest to "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (2 Cor 10:5) So, once again I choose hope and I try again. I choose to focus on the books and the love and the laughter and the brownies. Moment by moment, right?

Someone tell me that I'm not the only mama struggling with this. (Please?!) What do you do to protect your thought life? How do you make sure that you don't get so caught up in truths that you miss the Absolute Truth?

Truer than True

Next February, something incredibly exciting is coming to Colorado! Colorado Springs will play host to our first ever western-region Charlotte Mason conference. I am very excited (and so stinking nervous) to be one of the speakers. Today, I'm blogging on the Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat website about the unique power of fiction in education.

Join me over on the CME Retreat blog to read the full article. After you check it out, I'm curious to know, how do you feel about fiction as a tool for education? Have your thoughts or concerns changed at all over time? Strike up a conversation here or on the CME blog. We would love to hear your thoughts.

In Which I Discover There is More to Life than Star Trek

Have you ever noticed how easily people fall into ruts habits? When I was growing up, if there was a special occasion in my home, it was marked with a dinner of fillet mignon and asparagus, followed by Rocky Road ice cream for dessert. My children are gourmet cheese mongers. Every time we go to the grocery store, the want to check the cheese counter for samples. Me? I'm a coffee girl. Gourmet, fair trade, locally roasted, freshly ground: pour it in, foam it up, and top it with whipped cream and I'm a happy girl. All of these foods are delicious. Really, who can argue with fillet mignon? A grilled cheese made with applewood smoked Gouda? Rocky Road?! Obviously though, one meal, no matter how special, won't fill every need. It's easy to see that any diet consisting of only a few foods is going to leave us missing important nutrients.

Why is it that a principle we can see so clearly in the physical world becomes so cloudy and debatable when it comes to the intellectual world? Charlotte Mason declared that the mind has needs, just like the body does.

Knowledge 'nourishes' the mind as food nourishes the body.

A child requires knowledge as much as he requires food.

~Volume 6, p.18

If this is true, then it is easy to see that one or two kinds of books will not serve to create a full and richly-fed mind. Just like our bodies, our minds require both quantity and variety.

In the nature of things then the unspoken demand of children is for a wide and very varied curriculum; it is necessary that they should have some knowledge of the wide range of interests proper to them as human beings, and for no reasons of convenience or time limitations may we curtail their proper curriculum.

~Volume 6, p.14 

But just like the suspicious redundancy in my weekly meal plan, it's easy to fall into a reading rut. Growing up, I read science fiction and epic fantasy. I cut my teeth on Narnia, loved all the iterations of Star Trek (well, almost all of them; I'm looking in deep disgust at you, Deep Space 9), then leaped happily into Xanth, Pern, and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Red Planet. I was full to the brim with grilled asparagus and Rocky Road, but there was little else in my reading life. I would have been happy to continue this way, except...

...well...

...my children. Yup, children don't come out reading. Who knew? If I wanted to expose them to many ideas through a broad and generous curriculum, I was going to have to read their books aloud. So, we read books. 

So. Many. Books.

We read history, biography, fairy tales, natural science, poetry, and geography. One of my favorite things about Ambleside Online is the number and variety of books. I run into old friends all the time, but there are also a lot of unfamiliar titles. We read a chapter at a time, slowly working through a book, sometimes over two or three years, and the girls draw surprising connections between all the diverse sources. It's delightful to see.



Even though two of my girls can read at least some of their own schoolbooks, I find that my own appetite has been whetted by the past few years of broad reading. I don't want to pass off that history book. In fact, I find myself searching for more information, because I just have to know if Richard III really did kill his nephews or if it was a politically-motivated frame-up by Henry VII. (I still don't know, by the way, but I have my suspicions.) I'm digging their geography book, because I never really noticed how the shape of the land drives history. As I model the kind of curiosity that I want my kids to develop, it's growing in my own life.

What about you? Is your personal reading heavy in one particular genre? (And do tell, which is it? I always want to hear more about people's favorite books.) Have you decided or been forced to branch out into something new? How did it go?

Learn More, Know More, Love More

If you are subscribed to this blog and you received a rough draft in your inbox this morning, please accept my apologies. The Publish button is right next to the Save Draft button, and I was running out the door for a Dunkin Donuts date with my girls and a dear friend. If it did come to you, consider it a peek into the unedited workings of my mind. For whatever that's worth. ;)

Over the past two years, art study has become a huge source of joy in our home. I have already written here about how much we've learned. That's still true, and even more so as we explore new genres. What I didn't mentioned there is how much I've learned to love. Charlotte Mason was onto something important when she said, " “The question is not—how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education—but how much does he care? ... In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?”

There are so many subjects that I didn't know anything (or at least not very much) about, so I didn't care. Nothing moves your heart simply because it should. You have to get to know it before you can love it. After two years of picture study, I'm falling in love. I look forward to each new artist like a chance to get to know a new friend. (All the extroverts are nodding, and some of my dear introvert friends are shrinking back in horror at that image. Ahem, moving right along...) I haven't loved every painting, nor even every artist. I am, however, learning to love art. It's so much fun to see how each artist responds to what came before, how he changes it and makes it his own. Art is a window into the heart of the artist, and it's something special to be invited into that. Knowing more—loving more—makes my life, and the lives of my girls, broader and richer.

I have looked forward to this term's artist for a while: Edgar Degas. I have three daughters. My Teacup-age-10 started dance last fall, and she has found her "thing." I'm really excited about introducing to the master of Ballet paintings. As always, Ambleside Online has prepared a wide sampling of Degas' work, so we actually won't be focused specifically on his dancer portraits. Don't worry, though. I have plenty of extra goodies in the wings for my girls!

The Dance Class, Edgar Degas, 1875

Feel free to download these prints for your own use.* We have a new set of frames in our Art Gallery (AKA, the dining room), so these are now formatted as 8x10 prints. They still print on a letter-sized page, there is just more white space now. I trim the prints down to fit in our frames. As always, we get ours printed on glossy card stock at Office Max. They are reasonably priced and their quality is excellent.

Each of my girls has her own Book of Masterpieces, where she keeps her own 4x6" copy of every print she studies. The 4x6 art cards also print on a standard-sized computer page, three to a sheet. In addition to the assigned prints, I included a copy of one of Degas' self-portrait. Our curriculum recommends a different one, but this one makes me laugh. I don't really know anything about him, but I suspect that he had attitude.

Is Picture Study a part of your family's routine yet? I would love to hear your thoughts about you fit this important subject into your busy homeschool day. Are you excited to study Degas? What are you planning for this term?



*If you want to use these prints for your family or group's study, download them with my blessings. It should go without saying, but please don't copy the files and pass them off as your own work, don't sell the files, and don't sell the prints. Basically, the Golden Rule still applies!