The Blessing of Creative Handwork
Posted on August 25, 2010
Filed Under Home & Garden, Inspiration, family | 4 Comments
Granddaughter's Quilt
I just wanted to share what I’ve been working on. This is for our expected granddaughter, due in October.
My friend Belinda, who’s also my daughter-in-law’s mother, embroidered many of the squares (I did the Scottie, the bunnies, and part of the black sheep block, and she did the rest), and I designed and pieced the top. Next step is the back (I like a pieced back, as well) and the quilting. I think we’ll finish in time! We can hardly wait to welcome the new little one.
Homeschooling moms have a unique opportunity to pass along creative skills that their daughters can enjoy for many years. I remember sitting and doing embroidery, crochet, macrame, cross stitch, candlewicking, crewel, drawing, calligraphy, and other crafts each evening as we listened to Daddy read scripture. Some evenings, we also enjoyed listening to the CBS radio mystery theatre or music.
To this day, I love to keep my hands busy with a creative project while listening to something interesting. It’s a delight to turn raw fabric, yarn, thread, or paper and ink into something beautiful or useful. Helping your children learn to use their hands creatively can help develop imagination, creativity, and fine motor skills and will provide them with the means of giving unique and beautiful gifts to others, even on a very small budget.
Note: For those of you who enjoy vintage transfers, I recommend Pattern Bee for wonderful selection and service. I particularly wanted this pattern because my grandmother used the same one to embroider a lamb on a receiving blanket for me many years ago. You can see the same lamb at the bottom right corner of the quilt.
Embroidery transfers are a particularly fun and easy way to get started with embroidery. Choose something you like and iron it on to the fabric of your choice. A tightly-woven linen or cotton broadcloth or batiste works well. Choose embroidery floss in colors that please you, and start stitching. For most designs, you’ll use at least three basic stitches: outline or stem stitch, lazy daisy, and French knots. These aren’t hard to master, and you’ll find instructions with your transfers or in any embroidery book.* It’s a lot of fun!
*I just noticed that the owner of Pattern Bee has a new embroidery book coming out. It’s called Embroidery Craft: Stitching Through the Seasons, and it looks beautiful. You can see it at Turkey Feathers, Vicki’s blog. It just went on my wish list!
Read to Learn, Not Just for Story
Posted on August 18, 2010
Filed Under Homeschool, Observations, Reading | 2 Comments
Read daily, for love and for learning.
I’ve always loved to read. My earliest memories involve wonderful, imaginative stories that enriched my life. The Little Red Hen, Johnny-Go-Round, Sendak’s Wild Things, Anderson’s fairy tales, the Bobbsey Twins and Happy Hollisters were all as much a part of my life as was the freeway traffic that flowed endlessly across the street from our home, the railroad at the end of the block, and the liquor store where I bought my weekly treat– a fudgesicle, or if I was feeling flush, a 10-cent Rocket Pop. Every day I’d pack my school bag with at least two books with which to stave off inevitable boredom. Trips to the library or my favorite thrift store were highlights of my week; I knew I’d come home with at least a few more books to cherish.
Perhaps I was an odd little kid, but even then I wasn’t reading only to find out what happened in the story. I read to discover new worlds, different lives, deeper meanings in everyday matters. Reading historical fiction such as Mary Jane by Dorothy Sterling, and biographies about women such as Prudence Crandall and Florence Nightingale aroused awareness that not everyone had the kind of life I lived. Through stories, both fiction and non-fiction, I learned that it’s essential to stand for what is right; to be brave when it’s easier to be passive; and to understand that every human was created with a heart and soul, and must be treated with kindness and respect.
Because I didn’t have brothers and sisters at home, I shared Amy, Meg, and Beth with Jo; adventured with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, and traveled, played, and learned with the subjects of all the Landmark biographies. Because I had beloved pets, I wept over Black Beauty, Beautiful Joe, the Wahoo Bobcat, and all the other animal books I could find. During road trips through the western states, I devoured the work of Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour. They taught me to truly see and appreciate the vast, not-quite-empty spaces, mercurial skies, and distant horizons. Each book–even the easy reads and funny stories– expanded my small world in some way, and taught me the value of compassion, ingenuity, curiosity, persistence, integrity, diligence, humor, and imagination.
As parents, we can’t begin to teach our children everything they need to know, but we can teach them to read, and make sure they have plenty of good books. Stories have power to awaken the imagination, which is essential both for empathy and for creativity. Truths carried to the heart through the power of story wil linger far longer than anything that comes through a lecture or a worksheet. As you begin the new school year, make time for reading, and I promise, learning will happen.
Our Summer Poem: The Summer Rain by Henry David Thoreau
Posted on July 29, 2010
Filed Under Poetry | Leave a Comment
The Summer Rain by Henry David Thoreau
Think cool thoughts on this steamy summer day.
My books I’d fain cast off, I cannot read,
’Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large
Down in the meadow, where is richer feed,
And will not mind to hit their proper target.
Plutarch was good, and so was Homer too,
Our Shakespeare’s life were rich to live again,
What Plutarch read, that was not good nor true,
Nor Shakespeare’s books, unless his books were men.
Here while I lie beneath this walnut bough,
What care I for the Greeks or for Troy town,
If juster battles are enacted now
Between the ants upon this hummock’s crown?
Bid Homer wait till I the issue learn,
If red or black the gods will favor most,
Or yonder Ajax will the phalanx turn,
Struggling to heave some rock against the host.
Tell Shakespeare to attend some leisure hour,
For now I’ve business with this drop of dew,
And see you not, the clouds prepare a shower—
I’ll meet him shortly when the sky is blue.
This bed of herd’s grass and wild oats was spread
Last year with nicer skill than monarchs use.
A clover tuft is pillow for my head,
And violets quite overtop my shoes.
And now the cordial clouds have shut all in,
And gently swells the wind to say all’s well;
The scattered drops are falling fast and thin,
Some in the pool, some in the flower-bell.
I am well drenched upon my bed of oats;
But see that globe come rolling down its stem,
Now like a lonely planet there it floats,
And now it sinks into my garment’s hem.
Drip drip the trees for all the country round,
And richness rare distills from every bough;
The wind alone it is makes every sound,
Shaking down crystals on the leaves below.
For shame the sun will never show himself,
Who could not with his beams e’er melt me so;
My dripping locks—they would become an elf,
Who in a beaded coat does gayly go.
(1842)
Can Learning Go On While Caregiving? Crisis Schooling for Homeschoolers
Posted on July 14, 2010
Filed Under Homeschool, Inspiration, Learning Lifestyle, family | 1 Comment
“Your children may not remember what you do, but they’ll remember how you made them feel.”
Caregiving and homeschooling can work together.
Can learning can go on while you’re cargiving for someone who is elderly or disabled? I want to reassure you that it can, but it will be different from what you might expect. If you can align your expectations with reality, make adjustments that keep you sane, and focus on priorities and essentials, you’ll be able to homeschool while you’re a caregiver. You may not achieve the picture-perfect homeschool you envision, but your family will learn many valuable lessons, and can even thrive.
Be Realistic
The first thing to do is to be realistic. You’ll need to balance the needs of your husband, your children, and yourself with the demands of caregiving. If you’re in a short-term caregiving situation, you can make big, temporary compromises in your focus and survive in the short term. If you’re in a long-term caregiving situation, you’ll need to focus on overall lifestyle changes and enlist help when you need it.
For example, in the last year of my grandfather’s life, we were dealing with his Alzheimer’s disease, my grandmother’s difficult adjustment to living in Virginia, plus four boys, ages 1, 3, 6, and 8. Between having to pack up the boys to go and hunt up “Gampy” when he wandered off (sometimes more than once a day), selling our house and building a new one where the grandparents could live with us, and coping with meals, laundry, and all the varying physical and emotional needs, it was a challenge to get more than the very basics of a math lesson and a bit of writing done. Some days we weren’t even able to do that much.
I was fortunate enough to have been a very focused learner all through my childhood, and I realized that most of what I’d learned had been through independent reading (that is still my most important learning method). During that crisis year, I made sure that the boys had a lot of good reading material, lots of audio books and music, and an occasional video documentary. I also gave the two big boys one of those giant supermarket workbooks that contain short lessons in every subject, and let them work on those when I was feeling that they needed something more.
The important thing was that I realized quite early that there was no way I’d be able to keep up all the beautiful plans and orderly schedules I’d mapped out for our homeschool. The physical needs of the moment made it impossible, and it was more important to preserve and build relationships in our family than to have a perfect homeschool. I knew that we had many years ahead to balance out anything they may have missed, and their year-end test scores were as high as they had been in previous years. If you have a crisis when you have older students, they’ll be more able to self-direct, and should miss even less than young ones.
Make Adjustments
The second thing we had to do was make adjustments to keep ourselves sane. If you’re going to be caregiving, you’ll find that it’s physically and emotionally draining. If you’re a wife and mother, the most important thing you must do is to love your husband and children (Titus 2:4), and keep them at the top of your priority list. The most important adjustment you can make is to eliminate things that absorb too much time or energy from priorities. If you find yourself stressed and being crabby with your husband and children, it’s time to step back and refocus.
A good way to decide what to eliminate is to look at what causes you the most stress. I found that when I was overtired from going out too much, I didn’t have the physical or emotional ability to meet everyone’s needs. The answer was to become more home-centered and eliminate most evening outings. We found that slowing down our life and eliminating too much running around had many benefits, including better family relationships, better overall health, better-quality learning, and much more relaxed and pleasant days. You may find other things to eliminate, but be sure to eliminate what doesn’t contribute to helping you fulfill the most important priorities in your life.
You’ll find it helpful to make practical, physical adjustments, too. If you need to add adaptive equipment to your house for the safety of your caregivee, don’t hesitate to do so if it’s financially possible. You’ll usually find many health-related items sold cheaply in the classified ads of your local paper. As my grandmother’s balance has gotten progressively worse, I’ve had to begin wearing sport sandals with a lot of traction to keep myself stable when helping her. I’ve also had to work on increasing fitness, as she’s requiring more and more physical assistance. It can be a real challenge to equip yourself and your home with what you need, but it can help you avoid accidents or injuries, and that’s important.
Stay Focused
The final thing to do is to remain focused on priorities and essentials. Your family must not only be fed physically and academically, but they must also be nourished with love and tenderness. There will be times when you must compromise on the physical in order to meet the emotional and academic needs of each one. It’s more important to spend time on things with long-term benefit than on things that last only for a moment.
Your children are likely to remember that you spent time with them, even if you were eating peanut butter sandwiches rather than a full-scale dinner. Learning to read is more essential and will last longer than having a perfectly decorated and maintained house. Being loving and nurturing is more important than maintaining a perfect homeschool schedule. (Again, if you find yourself feeling overtired and crabby, it’s probably time to eliminate a non-priority or perhaps get your hormone levels checked–your physical needs must be met so that you are able to care for your family.)
There are seasons of life for each of us, and you’ll find that in each season there are different priorities. The common denominator of each priority is that it’s usually related to people, not things. We’re called to work diligently and be good stewards, but we’re also called to love and nurture our family first. During the parenting/homeschooling season, raising and teaching children and building a strong family becomes a top priority. When you add caregiving into the mix, it usually slots into the priority list right below spouse and children. Everything beyond that becomes negotiable, because there will be other seasons when caregiving and family responsibilities are over, and you can focus elsewhere.
Learning will continue to happen as long as you focus on priorities, eliminate distractions, and keep a long-term view. Remember that you’re not required to do everything in every season of life, and it’s important not to become discouraged by comparing yourself or your family to others. The reality of parenting, homeschooling, and caregiving is that you do the best you can with what you have at the moment, and pray that the mercy and grace of God will cover all.
“Your children may not remember what you do, but they’ll remember how you made them feel.”
Addendum: The boys are grown now, and those less academic years don’t seem to have harmed their education. They were surrounded by books, art, music, nature, and love, and that’s the core of creating a learning lifestyle in which learning will happen, with or without structure. If you create the atmosphere, they’ll learn!
“Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.”
(Charlotte Mason)
Other posts in this series:
1- Caregiving for Homeschool Families: Don’t Go Into It Lightly
2- Advice for Friends of Caregivers
Advice for Friends of Caregivers
Posted on July 6, 2010
Filed Under Observations, family | 3 Comments
In traditional flower meanings, a pansy stands for loving thoughts.
When you have a friend who is caregiving, there are a few things to remember. Caregiving is something that will come to most of us at some point, perhaps only for a short while, but possibly for decades. Whether you’re the caregiver or a friend of a caregiver, it helps to know a bit about what it’s like. If you missed the first article on this topic, you may want to read it for a little more information on the subject.
Here are a few comments and suggestions that come from my experience and the experiences of caregiving friends. Please feel free to comment if you have additional ideas.
- It’s not that your caregiving friends don’t want to see you, it’s just that getting an elderly or disabled person ready to go and out of the house requires so much energy and focus that we have to carefully choose where we go, what we do, and how long we stay.
- Even if you don’t think we’ll be able to come to an event, it’s still nice to hear about things and have the option of coming if we can make it.
- The children of caregivers don’t always get to go out and do as many things as other children. Inviting them to share an event or experience with your family can give them a delightful memory.
- People who are being cared for have feelings, and even if they are hard of hearing or don’t seem to be listening, please be tactful in what you say around them. Caregivers do their best to help the caregivee feel loved, and appreciate it when you do too.
- People who are being cared for are often conscious of being different. Just a few kind words or a smile can brighten their day. Even if it’s a person whose speech you can’t understand or who can’t hear or understand you completely, you can still make the effort to smile and greet them. It will be a blessing to their caregiver, at the very least.
- When you invite a caregiver and her family somewhere, please be sure to mention whether or not the caregivee is welcome to come along. It’s awkward to have to ask.
- Caregiving families often have enormous strains on their budget, as well as their time, so please be understanding if they opt out of things that cost money.
- Caregiving takes time away from other family members, so many caregivers try to preserve family time by avoiding long phone conversations. It’s always nice to hear from friends, but be conscious of the fact that we may suddenly have to go, and that others may need our attention.
- Elderly and disabled people and their caregivers routinely face things that are embarrassing or unpleasant. If something happens in your presence, please remember to be kind. If an accident happens, it’s not necessary to tell other people or further embarrass the caregivee.
- If the time comes when a caregivee can no longer be cared for at home and must move to an assisted living facility, don’t imagine it’s an easy decision. Caregivers facing this move need nothing more than your kindness and support. They don’t need to be second-guessed or quizzed on reasons, details, or how the new living situation will be paid for. Some things are simply private and don’t need to be shared.
- At the end of life when the caregivee passes on, know that caregivers experience a lot of mixed feelings. There’s relief at having your life back, guilt that you couldn’t do as good a job as you wanted to do, and sadness at losing a major part of your family, your history, and your life. Each caregiver will deal with these varied emotions differently, but above all, they don’t need to be told how they should feel. (No one ever has the right to tell another person how to feel, and it’s disrespectful to do so.)
- If a caregiver is dealing with an elderly person who is bullying, abusive, manipulative, or otherwise toxic, please focus on being kind and supportive, and when appropriate, encourage the caregiver to seek additional help through counseling, respite care, or finding another long-term care solution. Caregivers who survive this situation often experience symptoms similar to Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, which gives you an idea of how traumatic it can be. Even respite care can be a challenge, because having to willingly return to the situation after a few brief hours of freedom can be almost harder than staying in it.
- If you haven’t been through long-term caregiving, it’s probably best if you don’t try to tell caregivers how to do their job.
- If the caregiver prefers not to talk about the caregiving job, please don’t press for information. It’s exhausting enough to live with it without having to spend your few time-off minutes talking about it.
- Conversely, if the caregiver needs to talk a bit, please take a moment to be gracious, even if you don’t like the caregivee or aren’t interested.
- The bottom line in most of these bits of advice is to be kind. Caregivers are doing the best they can with what they have.
Caregiving is a challenge, but by the grace of God and with the love and support of family, it can be done. If friends are kind and understanding, that’s an added bonus. I hope these suggestions will help you love your caregiving friends wisely and pray for them more knowledgeably.
Previous article in this series: Caregiving for Homeschool Families: Don’t Go Into It Lightly
I plan to write one more post on caregiving: Homeschooling While Caregiving: Can It Be Done? You’ll find it here on the blog in the next week or two.
Carnival of Homeschooling: The Beach Reading Edition
Posted on June 22, 2010
Filed Under Blog challenge, Homeschool, Inspiration, Learning Lifestyle, Observations, Organization / Time Management, Reading, Travel, family | 8 Comments
The homeschool carnival makes great beach reading.
Three Things to Consider When Making Curriculum Decisions
Posted on June 15, 2010
Filed Under Homeschool, Learning Lifestyle, Teaching Literature, family | 3 Comments
I know that it’s curriculum-choosing time for a lot of you, and after talking with parents at the last two conventions, I wanted to suggest three things to think about before you make any curriculum decisions.
- Your student’s learning style
- Your household patterns and routines
- Your student’s gifts and goals
Your Student’s Learning Style
It’s important to know whether your student learns best by seeing, hearing, or doing. When you work with a student’s learning style, rather than against it, the student will learn more easily and retain a lot more of what he learns. If you are teaching multiple students using one curriculum, adapt it to fit whenever you can. For example, if you have an auditory learner, allow him to sometimes listen to audiobooks, rather than read everything, especially if he needs to read something that is full of challenging ideas, such as classic literature. If you have a kinesthetic (hands-on) learner, look for resources that will actively engage him, such as science with a laboratory component, or literature that requires looking, listening, and doing. Read more
Caregiving for Homeschool Families: Don’t Go Into It Lightly
Posted on May 26, 2010
Filed Under Home & Garden, Homeschool, Observations, family | 6 Comments
Homeschool families are notoriously family-friendly, but I’ve recently been hearing questions and concerns about caregiving while homeschooling, so I thought I’d share a few thoughts here. Most of the people who have asked questions have been thinking about their parents or grandparents and have options available other than in-home caregiving, so I’ll mostly address things to consider in deciding whether or not to opt for in-home caregiving.
I was raised by my grandparents, so caregiving arrived early for me. My husband Donald and I cared for my grandfather (actually step-g) from 1989 until he passed on from complications of Alzheimer’s disease in 1993, and have been caring for my grandmother ever since. The observations I’ll share are based on my experiences and those of my caregiving friends during the past couple of decades and may not apply to everyone. Perhaps they’ll help as you consider what might lie ahead for your family.
You Gain
- You learn to be flexible and patient.
- Your children can become better acquainted with the person you’re caring for, and bless them by helping out.
- You learn that people are more important than perfect schedules.
- If you’re caring for an elder who is still mentally sharp, you can take the opportunity to learn from them.
- You gain friends who understand some of what you’re going through.
- You learn that a sense of humor can make an awkward or unpleasant situation bearable.
- You learn not to rely on yourself, but on the Lord.
You Lose Read more
The Power of Copying a Text
Posted on May 18, 2010
Filed Under Homeschool, Penmanship, Teaching Writing, Writing | 5 Comments
Charlotte Mason recommended copywork as part of the language arts curriculum, and I second that suggestion. Copying a text is a powerful way, not only to practice writing mechanics, but also to absorb the cadence of an author’s prose, the fluidity of each sentence, and most of all, the deep meaning of the passage. If you want your students to commit anything to memory, the first place to begin is by having them copy it.
I learned the power of copying when I did calligraphy for hire. Writing out a text gave me time to reflect on meaning, prose style, and more. Poetry and verses that I copied have remained with me, even decades later. Copying is a relatively simple activity that can make your student a better writer. I hope you’ll try it!
The power of a text is different when it is read from when it is copied out.
Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it,
whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text,
that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it:
because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of day-dreaming,
whereas the copier submits it to command.
Walter Benjamin
Homeschool Through High School Workshop Replays
Posted on April 28, 2010
Filed Under Early College, Homeschool, Learning Lifestyle | 1 Comment
Ultimate Homeschool Expo 2010
Several of you have asked about replays from the Homeschooling through High School workshop I did for Cindy Rushton’s Ultimate Homeschool Expo a couple of days ago, and a few of you wrote that you hadn’t been able to click the link I sent out in e-mail. So here it is on the blog– I’ve even tested it for you!
We had such fun on this call, and there were so many questions at the end that the call lasted almost two hours. We were happy to share so much information about the scary subjects– transcripts, records, college admissions, financial aid, and more. If you were able to be on the call, I hope you were reassured by it all.
If you weren’t able to make it to the live call, Cindy has a page up that will tell you how to access this recording and all the other speakers she’ll be hosting over the next couple of weeks. The UHSE is an amazing online event, and it’s well worth putting on your calendar. You can check it all out at the Ultimate Homeschool Expo homepage.
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About
Hi, I'm Janice Campbell, and I'm glad you're here! I invite you to join me in focusing on things that matter- family, literacy, creativity, growth, and service. It's so easy to be entangled by the mundane, but it doesn't have to happen.
Among other things, I'll write about home-schooling through high school, and some of the opportunities you can explore with your teens- entrepreneurship, travel, early college, college alternatives, and more. I'll also share favorite poems, classic literature, announcements of special events and reviews of good resources, as well as a dollop of opinion on mostly education-related topics. I welcome your comments!
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