Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Sounds Like Life to Me
The general purpose of starting this blog in the beginning was to keep our friends and customers updated about what's going on "down on the farm". As happens with so much of our life, it all becomes so intermingled that it's hard to compartmentalize it and only blog about farm life here in this space.
So it is with SCHOOL at our house. I keep a documentary of what's going on with our school days in another place so as not to blather on and on about it here. I used to do this in a notebook, written by hand. If I do it on the computer, I can send pictures from my cell phone to keep the whole thing looking fresher.
The children don't like cell phone pictures on this blog, so the pictures HERE are not generally from my perspective. I hang out in the background most of the time. Nobody really knows what I do unless I sit down and write about it from time to time. Like now. But then I only really write snippets of the larger-than-life kind of life that is mine.
Earlier today, Paul and I were walking around with a tape, trying to explore the feasibility of different building arrangements to accommodate the ever changing needs of our family. Let's face it, our youngest eight children are boys; all of them are thirteen and younger. Most of them seem to possess some mechanical aptitude. Our future plans and goals will need to take this into consideration, or else we will be faced with the reality that we will be having truck, car, and/or lawn mower parts strewn everywhere as each works on his own project for the next ???? years. They need a place to work.
The girls have always kept their stuff more contained (and might I say neater and manageable??). Plus, there were/are "only" three of them. It's just the way it is, I guess.
While we were measuring spaces for possible building sites (and promptly discarding most scenarios for one reason or another), we had little Trevor skipping along with us. He, by the way, is the most likely to actually be a FARMER on this farm vs being on the machinery maintenance team.
I was well aware that a few of my sons were NOT in the house starting on their arithmetic lessons as I had wanted them to. The neighbor sent a four wheeler over for them to repair and, of course, they were all.over.that. I pried them away from that when I got close enough to catch them and sent them into the house to "do school".
See what I mean? They go to the house to "do school", but it doesn't necessarily equate to learning something more important. They just learn different things at the table in the house than they do outside with a wrench in their hands. I, for one, wouldn't be able to tell you much about carburetors.
Realizing that an English test was in his imminent future, Brock suddenly comes up with a plan. "Mom," he says, "you know how we haven't been doing too well on our English tests?" (This ranks right up there with all the other understatements of the year).
"Well," he continued, "I was thinking. Since you said we couldn't work on any more of our projects until we start doing better on our English tests, couldn't we hold off taking that test until tomorrow?"
"Why?" I asked. I've learned not to be suckered into an immediate response. I've lived to regret it too many times.
"You see, we promised (the neighbor) we'd get that four wheeler running. If we can't work on it after the test..." His voice trailed off, letting it settle into my brain that he was figuring his test score wasn't going to be very high. At least he was planning ahead. Sigh.
Our homeschool is an amalgam of traditional "school", tech school, and vocational school. While I sometimes jealously look on at some other mothers who buy all sorts of snazzy science kits from catalogs to work on in controlled environments at the kitchen table, my children are out wiring tractor lights or tearing down a building or greeting customers who came to pick up something they just got done selling on Ebay. It's not exactly what I had in mind when I started out on this journey. I thought *I* was going to teach them in kind of a "Little House on the Prairie" one-room-school-house sort of way. Ha.
There are a lot of different educational philosophies out there. I try to strike a balance. I am pretty adamant about MAKING them do the unpleasant things just because. Just because. No further explanation required. I don't care if you don't think you'll ever use this stuff again. You probably won't, but most well educated children from time immortal before you had to learn it and so should you.
But then I have another side of me that also lets them do crazy things like change the rear axle of the van or buy a Greyhound bus so they can fashion it into an R.V. that we seldom ever use or let them dig tunnels out of a little shack they built themselves because they watched the movie "The Great Escape". And then there are driving detours so someone can take pictures in an out-of-the-way spot.
Some of today's educational moments included:
~Colleen
So it is with SCHOOL at our house. I keep a documentary of what's going on with our school days in another place so as not to blather on and on about it here. I used to do this in a notebook, written by hand. If I do it on the computer, I can send pictures from my cell phone to keep the whole thing looking fresher.
The children don't like cell phone pictures on this blog, so the pictures HERE are not generally from my perspective. I hang out in the background most of the time. Nobody really knows what I do unless I sit down and write about it from time to time. Like now. But then I only really write snippets of the larger-than-life kind of life that is mine.
Earlier today, Paul and I were walking around with a tape, trying to explore the feasibility of different building arrangements to accommodate the ever changing needs of our family. Let's face it, our youngest eight children are boys; all of them are thirteen and younger. Most of them seem to possess some mechanical aptitude. Our future plans and goals will need to take this into consideration, or else we will be faced with the reality that we will be having truck, car, and/or lawn mower parts strewn everywhere as each works on his own project for the next ???? years. They need a place to work.
The girls have always kept their stuff more contained (and might I say neater and manageable??). Plus, there were/are "only" three of them. It's just the way it is, I guess.
While we were measuring spaces for possible building sites (and promptly discarding most scenarios for one reason or another), we had little Trevor skipping along with us. He, by the way, is the most likely to actually be a FARMER on this farm vs being on the machinery maintenance team.
I was well aware that a few of my sons were NOT in the house starting on their arithmetic lessons as I had wanted them to. The neighbor sent a four wheeler over for them to repair and, of course, they were all.over.that. I pried them away from that when I got close enough to catch them and sent them into the house to "do school".
See what I mean? They go to the house to "do school", but it doesn't necessarily equate to learning something more important. They just learn different things at the table in the house than they do outside with a wrench in their hands. I, for one, wouldn't be able to tell you much about carburetors.
Realizing that an English test was in his imminent future, Brock suddenly comes up with a plan. "Mom," he says, "you know how we haven't been doing too well on our English tests?" (This ranks right up there with all the other understatements of the year).
"Well," he continued, "I was thinking. Since you said we couldn't work on any more of our projects until we start doing better on our English tests, couldn't we hold off taking that test until tomorrow?"
"Why?" I asked. I've learned not to be suckered into an immediate response. I've lived to regret it too many times.
"You see, we promised (the neighbor) we'd get that four wheeler running. If we can't work on it after the test..." His voice trailed off, letting it settle into my brain that he was figuring his test score wasn't going to be very high. At least he was planning ahead. Sigh.
Our homeschool is an amalgam of traditional "school", tech school, and vocational school. While I sometimes jealously look on at some other mothers who buy all sorts of snazzy science kits from catalogs to work on in controlled environments at the kitchen table, my children are out wiring tractor lights or tearing down a building or greeting customers who came to pick up something they just got done selling on Ebay. It's not exactly what I had in mind when I started out on this journey. I thought *I* was going to teach them in kind of a "Little House on the Prairie" one-room-school-house sort of way. Ha.
There are a lot of different educational philosophies out there. I try to strike a balance. I am pretty adamant about MAKING them do the unpleasant things just because. Just because. No further explanation required. I don't care if you don't think you'll ever use this stuff again. You probably won't, but most well educated children from time immortal before you had to learn it and so should you.
But then I have another side of me that also lets them do crazy things like change the rear axle of the van or buy a Greyhound bus so they can fashion it into an R.V. that we seldom ever use or let them dig tunnels out of a little shack they built themselves because they watched the movie "The Great Escape". And then there are driving detours so someone can take pictures in an out-of-the-way spot.
Some of today's educational moments included:
- punctuating direct quotations,
- turning fractions into decimals,
- square roots,
- Brady writing a description about a rota-tiller Paul wanted the boys to list on Ebay,
- several boys trying to figure out what's up with the carburetor and fuel line of the neighbor's four wheeler,
- Brock helping me figure out how to spell carburetor (and helping me come up with a synonym for IMMEDIATE, which I used in the sixth paragraph of this post),
- Trevor watching the movie Sign of the Beaver (Early Colonial era),
- taking the cows out to a new pasture,
- adjectives,
- discussing what the word "cruel" means with Miles & Clark. I was reading "A Hundred Dresses" to them and that word came up.,
- figuring surface area,
- me reading "Blue Willow" to the middle boys (about migrant workers).
- There's a library book about 1930s Germany someone had been reading on the piano.
- We try, of course, to teach them from the Bible along the way as well.
~Colleen
Sunday
Sunday afternoon a whole bunch of people from church got together at a park to play soft ball.
::Some of the onlookers::
::Johnny gives a funny little hop every time he pitches ::
::Janetta::
::Liz, Aud, Becky and Loretta::
::Joanna::
::Andrew::
::Jimmy::
Unfortunately, it started pouring down rain, so we all had to leave. Some people did get together in the evening and play volleyball.
::Some of the onlookers::
::Johnny gives a funny little hop every time he pitches ::
::Janetta::
::Liz, Aud, Becky and Loretta::
::Joanna::
::Andrew::
::Jimmy::
Unfortunately, it started pouring down rain, so we all had to leave. Some people did get together in the evening and play volleyball.
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