Advent

This year for Christmas Advent instead of buying those advent calendars with the waxy chocolate squares that are disgusting yet fun to eat because you get to eat chocolate first thing in the morning, I made my boys their own advent with things I found around the house.

I put some hooks on the wall (those 3M ones that go on and off the wall with ease), tied some string between the hoooks and hung up some old (but clean - I do have some class) socks up with clothes pins. Each clothes pin is numbered from 1-25. The clothes pins from 1-24 have a sock (or stocking if you prefer to call it - makes it sound more festive) hanging from it, and the 25th has a star that marks Christmas Day. Each morning I put something in the sock that corresponds with that day. The first thing the boys do in the morning is dig into their sock (stocking) to see what treasures and treats they will find. Even before they go to the bathroom, which shows me that they have an amazing amount of willpower - I can't do anything in the morning before I visit The John!

I Hate Crafts

Being a homeschool mom, there is a certain amount of pressure to be crafty. Children should be exposed to making things with their hands, experimenting with different mediums, creating something neat out of materials. I'm not very crafty and I'm not very creative. Every once-in-a-while I pull out stuff to make something out of. The kids get quiet. They know what's coming. A frustrated mommy is whats coming.

It's not that I don't like to make things. I DO like to make and build things. Cris and I built our fence all by our little selves. We measured, marked, hired a bobcat to drill the holes, set in the posts, mixed the concrete, leveled the posts this way and that way and the other way (they are perfect! I can attest to that!), marked this way and that way, put up all the runners, screwed in all the boards (some were done in the middle of the night with a flood light...I'm sure our neighbors LOVED us...but we were running out of available time!), and painted it inside and out. I single handedly purchased and hauled all the fence boards and 3000 lbs of concrete - one bag at a time - along with toting along 2 wee ones. I recall telling the boys that we had to go to Home Depot once again and Tove, who had just turned 2 at the time, cried out "No!! Not Home Depot!" We made many trips there.
This is the finished product:

Building this was a lot of work, a little frustrating because we had to squeeze in taking care of a 2-year-old and 4-year-old, kind of fun, and very rewarding. I liked building and creating it.

But "crafts"??? Not so much. I like creating things with a purpose and things that will last. I dislike the twaddle of meanial crafts.

Have you ever tried to work with Fimo? Don't try it with little kids. Waste of time. We did manage to create this "Eye of Horus" when we studied the Ancient Kingdom of Egypt, but it was frustrating, not enjoyable, and not rewarding. Fimo is the most annoying medium I have ever worked with. It's like trying to soften a stone by squeezing it.

We switched to clay when creating Ancient Chinese ming vessels, but I was annoyed when I opened the clay I had bought to discover I had purchased one white tub and one terra tub. So Elijah and Toviel had half as much clay to play with.

 In the end they produced these little things:

I hated every step of it.
I'm doomed! Doomed I tell you!
Either that, or my children are doomed to not learn how to properly create with their hands.

Mastery of Mathematics

One of the most difficult things about homeschooling is choosing an appropriate curriculum that is a good fit for your child. There are SO MANY options out there, and not all of them are excellent, although most are.
For math, you can choose from the more popular curriculums:
Math-U-See, Singapore, Saxon, Math Mammoth, MEP (totally free, which is really cool!), Miquon, Rod & Staff, Life of Fred (which we will probably use later on), Calvert Math, Abeka Math, Horizons, Teaching Textbooks, Bob Jones, McRuffy Math, Moving With Math, Key to Math, Christian Lite Math, LifePac Math, Kumon....
The list seems endless when you are researching for your own children.

I remember math as a child. I recall sitting in school, having the teacher demonstrate an algorithm one time, and getting it. I spent the rest of the weeks bored out of my mind wondering how we could still be reviewing such a simple topic. My dad taught me to add double and triple digits in church one morning. He explained it through once and that was that. From then on I looked forward to adding up his numbers every Sunday morning (he was an usher and counted the people in attendance). When it came time to learn this strategy in school the following year, I remember groaning, sighing, and putting my head on my desk in boredom. Needless to say, I never struggled with math concepts in my early years. But I did have a bad habit of counting. I think we were supposed to memorize the arithmetic, but I couldn't be bothered. And I also did not have a good visualization of quantities and numbers, which affected the way I researched math programs.

We started off with Math-U-See because so many people had raved about how easy it was to use and how well their children did with it. It was a complete flop. Elijah and I trudged through it for a year, completed a total of 2 years worth of math in that time. He hated it. I hated it. It was boring & monotonous. Every time I brought it out I could feel my shoulders slump over and I felt as though I wanted to cry. Elijah did too...and many a tear were shed, poor little guy. Math is anything but boring and monotonous! The patterns that emerge with numbers alone are totally cool.

For example, have you ever realized that if you count by 3's....

 3             6             9
12           15           18
21           24           27
30           33           36

Do you notice anything with this pattern?

I'll give you a moment....


Look at the first column. The digits all add up to 3.
The second column, they all add up to 6.
The third column, they all add up to 9.

How cool is that?

On top of that, mathematics is not just about numbers and algorithms.
We need a math program that taught more than arithmetic. *I* needed a math program that taught more than arithmetic. So after investing $300 (ouch) in 4 years of materials, we made a switch.

Enter RightStart Math.

I have yet to talk to a homeschooler in Canada who is familiar with RightStart, which boggles my brain. How can an amateur 2nd year homeschooler know about this when all the seasoned homeschoolers do not?
I have had to start basically right back at the beginning with Elijah since Math-U-See taught him nothing except how to combine numbers. I will say that it was effective in teaching him place value - they use a cool visual called "Decimal Street" with each place value being a house. But it is a rather abstract way to teach something that could be taught in a much more straight forward way.

RS Math uses the 2-toned abacus as the primary manipulative. This is absolutely my favorite teaching tool!

When we were still struggling through Math-U-See, we were using the abacus as a supplement to the blocks.

Right Start also uses more of a spiral approach, introducing many topics and frequently refreshing and reviewing it throughout the next few years instead of relying on the mastery approach which bored my poor artsy little Elijah (ie drill & kill until you get it, and then move on).

Toviel is 5 and LOVING math. LOVING it! When I say, "It's time for math," he drops everything and comes running. He will tell you the difference between parallel and perpendicular lines, he will explain how a square is not just a square, but it is also a type of rectangle and quadilateral. He can solve problems by mentally add numbers together and recognize patterns that I overlook. He loves to play math games, which is what we do instead of worksheets.

For anyone trying to find an excellent math program for their elementary-school-aged child, I highly recommend looking into Right Start Math. And no, sadly Right Start Math hasn't paid me to say this.