Green House Manor

(Dun, Dun, Dun...it was my first day of homeschooling, so naturally I have the right to post a three page blog about schooling the children at home, because clearly I know SO much about it. Really, you don’t have to read this, I just want to document how naive I am for future use in my sarcastic arts against myself)

Homeschooling.

I’m a little scarred.

I was a teacher’s assistant at Christian preschool once, it was the worst three months of my life.

So when it came to the daunting task of how to nurture my own kid’s education in a foreign culture, all I could picture was cotton balls and endless laminating tasks. MY HELL. And kids being forced to sit still when they should be playing outside.

NOW: Soren (4) has been going to the local preschool for 4 half days, 4 times a week, and we know it is right. He gets to establish new relationships, learn a completely new culture, and he is fluent in Montenegrin in just two years, not only that, he speaks like a local, and people are always surprised that “the American’s send their kids to ‘our schools”. That’s not why we do it, it’s just a huge plus! (Can you pick out the American kid in the picture to the left?)

Now that Xander (3) is starting school and Soren is almost 5, I knew it was getting time.

ggrrrrr.

At school they will learn all the boring stuff like letters and numbers. That frees me up to do all the fun stuff! My kids will also be juggling two languages and 3 alphabets, so we would need to take things NICE AND SLOW.

I knew there are many things that our family values that this post-communist culture just don’t value!

1.     Independent (outdoor) play

2.       Danger and problem solving

3.       Home life skills for boys

4.       An appreciation for Nature

5.       Fairy stories and imagination

6.       Spiritual formation and celebrations based on Christ.

we get starred at a lot in public. LIKE. A LOT.

These are Numero Uno(s) on my list, but are all almost diametrically opposed in this culture.

Who’s gonna teach them this stuff? I birthed them, so I guess the answer is me. But I too, am the reluctant home-schooler and was feeling a little uninspired about it all. Then...

God basically parted the clouds and showed me Waldorf.

I am in love. They are crazy hippy-dippy fairy loving parents. When I was a 4-H teacher I got to visit and teach environmental sciences and home economics to public, Montessori and Waldorf schools, I particularly loved the integrated nature of the Montessori and Waldorf methods, but since I did not have kids yet and I was poor, I did not think about it much.

Waldorf (IN GENERAL) is perfect for us, because it is everything local school isn’t. It checks all my boxes. Of course because our family loves Jesus, and think that… “17He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together... He Himself will come to have first place in everything.”

He will be the “beginning” and “hold together” all the things we learn. This means we can learn fairly stories, and sing songs about nature, and understand that Jesus is holding all these things, and he is the LIGHT which give everything else it’s light. This concept of Christ being the TRUE MYTH is really important to me. (I am sure i will elaborate more in future post!) Because of this, Waldorf is PARTICULARLY amazing for us. It nurtures the establishment of the wonder and joy at mystery that all our souls thirst for!

(that being said, some Waldorf stuff is down-right silly, For example, we are not throwing away all our plastic toys, gi-me-a-break).

So after looking at what steps I could take to plan my school year. Here

How to do it cheap Here

And a few ideas about how Christian families do it Here.

Then spending about 10 hours on Pintrest.

I got going…

Step One: Rhythms.
What are our family needs and rhythms? We have learned a ton about rhythm and how important it is for our health in ministry and rest and life. How do we celebrate, rest, and plan? People used to be controlled by the seasons, now we have to be intentional about letting our lives match the seasons God gave us.

YEARLY: We have yearly things like birthdays, a larger family vacation and we try to do a2 day marriage retreat.

SEASONAL: We have seasonal things: Every 3 months we have a 3-4 day Sabbath vacation somewhere. Celebrate the changing season and look back with gratitude about the last season and get excited about the future.

WEEK: What does our work week look like? This is not so easy for us, we have flexing hours and Jesse often works late at night. So once we have a rough family ‘schedule’ I can start plugging in how homeschool would work. For us this will by 12 weeks unit study thing (September-October- November) up until we start celebrating Advent. I figured I only wanted to do about an hour and a half of homeschool a day 4 X a week.

Step 2: Pick a theme: This could be a season theme, or based on one story book. I knew for a long time I wanted to delve into the story of creation. So we will take 12 weeks to do the 7 days. Here is what I came up with for each week’s theme.

Step 3: plugging in our values:

Value	How
Bible	Everything will have it’s foundation on a Bible story this year. First 12 weeks are the days of creation!
Independent play /Danger problem solving	Unstructured outdoor play, nature time, walks
Spiritual formation & Celebrations	Learn daily rhythm of prayer, gratitude and worship. Learning seasonal rhythms through Christ celebrations of the church calendar
Home life skills for boys	Understanding family life through rhythms, introduce chores, learn home crafts like baking
Fairy stories and imagination	Story time every day Fables, Poems & songs once a week
Appreciation for nature & arts	2 art projects a week

Step 4: Acquiring (Trusting God for) resources: we seriously were at the end of our money this month. I was realizing we needed a lot more children’s books in English. This would be impossible. 2 days later we visit another missionary family in another town and they have about 300 children volumes in English in their library leftover from homeschooling 5 kids the last 20 year. OH MY HOLY. God is so good to me.

I picked out about 25 I thought would help us, then divided them up to fit the weekly themes.

I also have a treasury of books that

we refer back to every Week...

1. Devotions for Preschoolers

2. Jesus Story book Bible

3. Jesus Calling Bible

4. Rhythms of the Family (has some great home crafts)

5. Bible Theme Nursery Rhyme book

6. Aesop's Fables

I straight up asked Jesse if I could by a book easel for our nature display table, and he said “no, we need to eat for the next 4 days”. ( Can you believe this guy?) then in a moment of inspiration I made this… I love it so much more than one from a store. And we get to buy cheese. Score!

When it was all said and done. I spent 11.25 on making an outdoor play kitchen. It even has a working faucet! This was 100% one of those mommy moments where you feel incredibly seen and loved by your maker. Thank you Jesus, for these moments.

Step 5: Nailing down your rhythm

(in pencil with an open heart)

I know this sounds silly. Life with kids is silly. They demand flexibility while at the same time scream at the top of their lungs if food, water, sleep and playtime are not provided EXACTLY on their constantly evolving rhythm. We like having a family routine, and we also like to break it sometimes.

MONDAY- SABBATH

TEUSDAY- FRIDAY

7:45 wake up get dresses

7:55-8:15 Circle time: read devotional, pray and sing as a family

80:15-12:15 Xander and Soren to school, Daddy to work, mommy and baby at home

12:15 Daddy returns with boys we talk as mom gets lunch ready for daddy and baby.

12: 30- 2:00 Homeschool time with Xander and Soren

- Story time & Bible verse

- Talk about the theme for the week

- Play outside

- Daily activity (might wiggle around each week)

Tues- Craft

Wed - Song and dance

Thurs – Art

Fri – home craft – bake, or learn a new chore

(possible put a service or learning adventure in place of 1 activity every week like visiting our friends with cookies ect)

2:00ish Naps or Quiet time with oldest (mommy studies language)

4-6 family time and dinner

6:30 Daddy goes to work

Kids in bed by 8, mommy collapses on couch till daddy comes home and tells her lots of funny ministry stories.

Saturday- slow morning- kid dates, team meetings, intentional fellowship in evenings (what introverts call hanging out with people they like)

Sunday- Daddy works (we do bible lesson). Evening is church

Step 6: Plan out the daily details for each week.

I made a template on the computer so I could just plug in the details as I had time.

There is really only 7 things to plan:

- Verse for the week

- Story for each day (can repeat if needed)

- Nature Discovery Theme (like find all the yellow things!)

- 4 Main Activities Every week

Step 7: Organize your space. We live in a relatively small house, so all our learning will be done outside or in the main family area right at the dining room table. All of our themes and activities for the week have a visual cue on our Family Display Table. So its impossible to forget, Or even if i do forget, the kids are learning it anyways. The table also has the Creation Day theme for that week, Our Bible verse or 'Letter from God', Our number for the week, a place to hang art work, and a container to hold all the natural treasures we find outside! this area is supposed to be soothing and beautiful and reflect each special season.(which is great because it is in the middle of our living area, and a great to reference during meals!)

We have another area for the boys season wheels and chore charts. (this also has the family calendar and my menu planning near by)

We will see if any of this sticks for longer than a day!

There is this joke. "Today is earth day, or as Evangelicals call it, April 22nd"

........

Ok, it's a bad joke, but it always makes me chuckle just a bit. As Christians in America certainly do come off as anti-earth sometimes (politically). I hope this is not true in our personal lives, because let me tell you nature is one of the most sacred sacraments in my life.

By sacrament, in this context, I use the broad definition of St. Augustine of Hippo, a sacrament being "‘an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace." Dirt on the hands and the smell of rain just brings me into the presence of God in some mysterious way.

Before my blazing career as a stay at home mom, I worked as a 4-H Environmental Science Teacher, I was able to watch kids get their hands dirty for the first time. It was magical, and when I got pregnant, I could not wait to share the same joy with my children.

This is the first year we have ad our own earth and the kids have been old enough to really participate in Earth day. So we made a Kid Garden.

I have to be honest with you, one of my reasons for this, wasn't just environmental education and spiritual lessons, it was to get toddlers away from MY GARDEN. The combination of kids love for dirt, watering cans, and their endless energy and my love for living plants does not always go hand in hand. This way each of the boys have their own plants to water to death, and they can call the produce their own, and maybe all throw in a talk about giving God our 'first fruits'.

So each of the kids got their own raised bed garden, I got these half rotted wooden frames from a trash pile. First we decided what the kids wanted to plant in their 4-square foot Garden. Soren wanted strawberry, peas, and carrots. Xander wanted beans, Strawberries and radishes. (Ok I choose Radishes, he's only 2!)

I have to be honest with you, one of my reasons for this, wasn't just environmental education and spiritual lessons, it was to kid toddlers away from MY GARDEN. The combination of kids love for dirt, watering cans, and their endless energy and my love for living plants does not always go hand in hand. This way each of the boys have their own plants to water to death, and they can call the produce their own, and maybe all throw in a talk about giving God our 'first fruits'.

Each of the 'walking' kids got their own raised bed garden, I got these half rotted wooden frames from a trash pile. First we decided what the kids wanted to plant in their 4-square foot Garden. Soren wanted strawberry, peas, and carrots. Xander wanted beans, Strawberries and radishes.