Easy Way: Not Always Entertain Your Child with Busy Work.

Moments like these I feel like I have been let in on a little secret. Don't you? I love watching children in their natural state playing and perfectly content. Here my son is playing with his Batman umbrella and an old McDonalds Happy Meal box. Doesn't get any better than this on a wet cold rainy day.

It can be exhausting for moms and dads alike to be constantly trying to keep their child engaged and entertained with one thing or another, especially if you have an active child like we do. I remember as a child my mom telling me go outside or your room or something and I looking for her to give me something to do. When she didn't those were the most creative and fun times of my life. I could be anyone, live and do anything, in a world that was all my own, made by me, for me. As an adult I often find myself trying to get back to that place and when I do, that is a happy day. To be able to see your child making that world for themselves truly is a sliver of happiness in life!

 Play truly is the work of children! Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and good morning Monday.

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Quiz: Could YOU Homeschool? Take the Quiz, find out.

I remember the first time the thought crossed my mind about homeschooling a million questions crossed my mind and I wondered "Would I be cut out for this?!?!" Well if you have ever wondered this or perhaps you are just curious as to the results then this is for you.

 Take this quiz and see if homeschooling might be right for you and your family.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE QUIZ 

 

Homeschooling Using Pinterest

Son and I this summer in downtown
Chattanooga, Tennessee.
My real man is behind the camera. LOL.

So usually how I wind down in the evening is either by writing or pinning. Yes pinning on Pinterest. I can't be the only one that pins on pinterest! Of course not or else there wouldn't be so much there. Well this week my little saw me looking at Pinterest and asked me about it and so I explained what it was and how I used it. So he wanted to pin some stuff too. Now mind me, this is my, me time. I am not wanting him to jerk the laptop away from me and I lose the little time I take for myself, but I also didn't want to say no and I knew this wasn't a game or anything that would hold his five year old attention span long.


So this is what I did.  I set up a board this week that is just for stuff we plan to do this school year. Then I allowed my son to go through all of my homeschooling pins I have been collecting and select the ones that interest him the most. Now Pinterest has a feature where you can move pins from one board to another. So that is exactly what I did. I moved the ones that he wanted to do and a few I know he needs now to this current board for this year. He picked some amazing stuff and I think I am just as excited as he is! I am so happy he asked me about Pinterest and we were able to do this together. If you don't already try asking your kids what they want to do for school sometime? I do it often and the answer always surprises in a good way. :-)

Feel free to follow me or any of my boards on Pinterest.

Putting in the Garden -The Play Of Childhood Is Work

We are all very excited to actually be working on our little farm again. The past few years there has been so much going on that it has been hit and miss and with me not working secularly now some of the ideas I have always had for our Littlefoot Farm may actually be in grasp. I just hope the energy and the finances will be there to get it all accomplished. I wish I could harness some of my little’s energy and zap it into me somehow. What I would do for some of that! Could you imagine if that was possible? Oh if only.

 The hubby tilled up our first phase summer garden spot Sunday afternoon, which I thought was never going to happen because the tiller was giving trouble, but after about four hours of labor hubby finally got it run. Could you imagine the days before with had motorized equipment. No wonder those generations were so fit looking, they worked their tails off for sure. I just can’t imagine things like cutting a thick tree down with a handsaw or ax and then the task of actually cutting it into logs and then splitting the logs  and having to do it to survive all winter long, keeping the fire going. Makes me remember the time we got iced in at my sister-n-laws. The power went out, but thankfully she had a fireplace. We dragged the mattress into the living room to sleep. My hubby got the fire going and all night long every time he would get almost to sleep his sister would get cold and he was off outside to get wood. He kept that fire going all night and was so exhausted the next day. We still laugh about that night. I don’t know if too many of us could now adapt to the days without electric, running water, motor powered equipment. Which raises the question would we want to? I know I enjoy it when we go camping, but not sure if I would like it permanently or not.

 Monday the little and I spent the morning reading books, doing a few fun “school” activities and doing some house chores as we have a busy week and company visiting our congregation this week. In the afternoon we raked the garden and got out all the grass clumps. We have so missed our vegetable garden and not putting it in the grass came back stronger since it didn’t get dug up last two year. Thankfully we have a tiller. I loved that I am seeing so many earth worms. Our seed collection got moldy so tomorrow I am heading out to collect some new seeds and maybe some plants.  In addition we have our first meeting with our local homeschool collaborative on Tuesday which I am anxiously anticipating. I am hoping it will be a good addition to our school program and that my little likes it. I dread going grocery shopping, but that is a must on the list as well. So busy, busy….

(Left, Bug Hunting with Snoopy)

 

The weather is so beautiful her in the North Georgia foothills right now. You just want to be outdoors all day. I love how beautiful all the dogwoods are and my iris are starting to bloom that my momma gave me. I saw the most beautiful snowball bush I have ever seen yesterday. We enjoyed a salad and some homemade pizza on the deck last night and when it got dark we had a movie night featuring: “Mars Needs Mom”, which is a really cute movie, and ate some chocolate covered strawberries I made. I will tell you, that is my kind of dessert right there!

Our little is so excited about the garden. He seems to not remember our gardens from when he was a baby and toddler. Yesterday he asked “does this mean I am a real farmer now?” I told him yes and he started jumping up and yelling: “YEAH!” He worked all afternoon in the garden yesterday and was back at it again today with me. I love his work ethic. “The play of childhood is work.” –Lacey

 

Keeping up with the Curriculum

(Above, Found bird nest in our grill. Little loved all the speckles)

When I was pregnant with our little my hubby said: "I want our boy to be home schooled." At first I laughed. I had always had a career and didn't see myself being able to balance working full-time and work a secular job. But the more we talked about it the more I realized it was a good idea, although at the time I had no idea how we would accomplish such a big task.

(Left, Little loves puzzles)

I don't know about you, but I tend to over think things. Sometimes I make life a lot more complicated than it really is. It kind of like when you car breaks down and you don't yet know what is wrong with it, and you think the absolute worse. You've been sitting there waiting on a tow truck for two hours and before you know it you've determine you might as well scarp the car because you just know it's the engine and the tow truck driver says ma'am are you sure it's not just out of gas. And you remember you had been going over your to do list in your head and forgot all about checking the fuel gauge as you drove past five gas stations. Yes, well we have all been there in one scenario or another. At least I hope I am not the only one!?!  Well that is what I did with home school. I spent nearly five years research home education until I figured out that it wasn't about textbooks, schoolrooms, worksheets, test and grades It's about learning. It's about life. It's about happiness.

So what about keeping up with curriculum? Yes, it is hard to keep up with it all. But in a totally different way than I ever thought. My child has so many interest that we are trying to keep up with that sometimes it is difficult to keep up with it all, but it is awesome. I am amazed everyday that this amazing five year old has so much desire to learn and it just keeps growing. I think about all the planning and time that goes into creating textbooks and curriculum when the school could just stop and listen to their students every child would have a love for learner and they would have created lifetime learners. Children have a unique curiosity that is a true and legitimate curriculum.

(Below, Little Finger painting)

Today's Top 10 Questions from a 5 Year Old

 

 

 

I read somewhere that the average 4 year old asks over 400 questions per day. I have no doubt that is true. Here is a list of the top 10 questions my 5 year old asked me today.

1.       What is that private thing that I came out of when I was a baby?

                Answer: It’s called a vagina.

                                He replies: Ha-ha that is sooooo funny.

2.       Mom do boys have vaginas too?

 Answer: No only girls have them.

                                He replies: That is too funny.

3.       When was the television invented?

Answer: good question, let’s look it up. (The answer was actually more complicated than I ever imagined)

                He replies: Whoa, that a long time ago. That’s funny, right!?!

4.       Can we eat our own poop?

(The mom in me wants to just yell, NO! But the teacher in me knows this is a good question)

Answer: Yes you can, but it is a waste product that can make you sick, even by just eating a little bit can make you sick.

                Reply: -Breaks out in laughter- (and….leads into the next question)

5.       Can guinea pigs eat their own poop?

Answer: Some animals do eat their own poop, but this is because they need to in order to fully digest it. So sometimes guinea pigs do eat it for the nutrition that is still in it.

                Reply: Whoa that is so funny.  –Giggles--

6.       Why do we have wrinkles on our fingers?

(Had to look to see what he was talking about)

Answer: Those are called joints. They help us to move our hands and be able to grasps things.

                Reply: Oh, cool. That’s why I can use tools so good.

7.       Why do you make so much dust when you are cooking?

Answer: That is steam. Steam is water that vaporized and helps to heat the food so that it cooks.

                Reply: Oh neat! J

8.       Are all fruits and vegetables healthy?

Answer: Yes, they all have different nutrients and vitamins in them that make us strong and healthy so that is why it’s good to eat different kinds.

Reply: EVEN CUCUMBERS, TOMATOES, BANANAS AND CARROTS? (Those are his favorite!)

Answer: Yes, those are very healthy!

9.       What is a whirlpool in a river?

Answer: its water that is rotating really fast and typically objects are drawn into it. It happens sometimes when water called currents is moving in opposite direction as each other and they meet and cause a whirlpool.

                Reply: That takes stuff in the river and drags it down to the bottom.

10.   Do Rhino’s eat their own poop? (Seriously, another poop question!?!)

Answer: (Had to look this one up) Yes, Rhino’s do eat their own poop.

Reply: That’s so gross –laughing his head off-

So there is some of the questions my little has asked today. Share some of your kids funny and interesting questions.

Tragedy Strikes Again

 

Finally starting to manage things and getting used to running on no sleep. I was proud that I was able to attend a cousins baby shower and hold her new bundle of joy.  While I was at the shower I got a call that dad was taking mom to the hospital because she was having some swelling on her stomach and had became worried. An hour later I got a call that they think it is her liver and they are keeping her.  The next day I relieved my dad and the doctor delivers the news that my mother had 4^th stage liver disease and has maybe a year to live.

My world is crushed. My mom was only 54. I need my mom still. Her only chance is that maybe she get a liver transplant. We were given some options for a transplant, all of which were out of state. Mom said: “if I am going anywhere I want to go somewhere warm”. So next stop was Miami, Florida. They were hesitant to leave. I am an only child, my husband they consider their son and our little is of course their only grandchild. Then there is the question of what will they do for money, housing, all their stuff, etc… I sold our business and got them enough to get going and settled.

 

My parents with my little the summer of 2005

After lots of testing and medication changes finally some good news, but of course there was bad news too.  The bad news first, mom was not a candidate for a liver transplant. My reaction was we need  a new doctor, a new hospital, whatever she needs to get this done. Then there was the good news the change in diet, environment, and medicines was having a positive effect. Her health was improving and her doctor told her she didn’t have an expiration date and his guess would be she would be around for a few years at the very least. I was so happy to know that wasn’t the last time I would see my mom.

My parents have now been living in Florida for over a year. Mom has her bad days, but she has a lot of good ones too. They are happy, but we all miss each other very much and the distance is difficult, but it makes for excellent field trips, lol.

                                                  picture courtesy of sunnyskiesrealestate.com

Tragedy Strikes

Long days at work with my toddler became the norm with my husband working and me busy as a new business owner. We made a play area and my dad and hubby would come and get him when they could to give him and I a break.  My mom had become to sick to care for him anymore, although we didn’t know why and happily I became pregnant. All seemed to be going well and then we went to our check-up to find out we were having another boy, but everything was not okay. I was dilated and my water sac was bulging. I spent the next few weeks in the hospital upside down practically trying to keep my baby boy. The doctor kept trying to get me to abort, which I would not and facing the fact that I would probably die. My husband was by my bedside nearly every night. My little was staying with my parents, which was difficult with my mom being sick, so I didn’t get to visit him much and when he would come you could tell it was very stressful for him. He just wanted his parents home. After a few stressful weeks in the hospital my little boy was born. 1 lb 2 oz and 12 inches long with a beautiful headful of hair. He died in my arms a little after an hour being born. We buried him on a Wednesday next to my grandma.  I spent the next 4 months in a lawn chair on my front lawn reading my Bible and watching my little play. I finally had to go back to work, but it was difficult because I could not sleep due to the nightly nightmares I had reliving the delivery.  (maybe another time I can blog more on this, but this all my heart can take for now on the topic of losing my youngest little).

 

 

 

Learning to listen to a child…

I was the proud owner of a new business, my own boss. I thought it all out, more time at home, more time with my child, more time with my family. Now let me go ahead and bust the bubble. If you have a full-time brick and mortar service or retail oriented business that is successful or requires a certain amount of open hours then every client is your boss, you are not your own boss, you do not set your own hours.  Sure you can do those things, but if it doesn’t suit the clients they will find somewhere else to shop to suit their needs.

I didn’t want to make the same mistakes with my little that I had previous so since he loved his day care I let him still attend, but I got to drop him off usually and sometimes got to pick him up. He loved seeing me more and I felt that we were reconnecting and he was a lot happier. But I learned in my absence he was not as happy as he wants was at his daycare and before long I got a note that another child had bitten my child. It was a small bite and not very noticeable and I felt like the daycare had taken appropriate action, but I kept him out of “school” for a few days until I was sure. He went back to school and everything seemed fine, but before long the same child took a bite out of my sons scalp and all I got was a note. When asked what would be done, they said if it happens again they will place my son in a different classroom (a lower age group of children). Why my son, he didn’t bite anybody. They said they couldn’t put the biter in with younger children. For months my little one stayed with family or went to work with me. We tried to make it fun, but he would get bored be there on long days as my business we open 12 hours a day. It was incredibly stressful on all of us.

Time passed and I was told the daycare had a new owner/director and the biter was no longer there, so I he started to attend again, but my child was incredibly unhappy. I thought it was just because he had gotten used to being with me or with family. He would say he didn’t like the other kids, but I ignored his pleas because he was just acting like a “child” and got spoiled staying with me and family, plus this was normal, right? One day I went to pick him up early and my little was on the playground, but over in the corner and looked sadder then I have ever seen him in his whole life. He looked broken and fearful. I questioned his teachers to find out why he wasn’t playing with the other students. They said your child is really shy. I had seen my child interact with other children within our circle and complete strangers children at jungle gyms, my child was not shy. I told them, my child doesn’t have a shy bone in his body. They just struggled their shoulders. I questioned my child as to what was going on, but he said nothing. But the pleas not to go to school started getting even worse. A couple days later I got a call from one of the teachers at my sons school who said I am family of the owners of the daycare and I work here, but I felt you should know there are some bad things going on at this school that I don’t approve of but I need my job so I don’t say anything, but I your son is too sweet to be here and if it were my child I would get him out of here. I then talked to my son and determined he was being bullied and hurt by other students, but I honestly have no idea what was going on in that daycare/school.  I just know after removing my son, within no time the place was shutdown and I am uncertain why to this day.

I learned a valuable lesson from this. My child had something to say and I needed to work on our communication.

The Toddler Years

With the encouragement of others against my gut I placed my little guy in a local government funded (I paid, but some parents got to use the daycare services free paid by the government) daycare. The thought of doing so made me so nervous and out of sorts. But wasn’t this normal to ship your kids off to daycare? For me it didn’t feel natural, but my toddler loved it. He made friends, did arts and crafts, brought home things he made for mom and dad, was taking naps, which reaffirmed that everyone else was right and I was wrong.  This perceived thought led me to making my next big mistake.

Welcome to the Big City

 picture courtesy of: en.wikipedia.org

My baby was doing so well and he had started nursing less and less at a year and half old I got an infection which forced me to stop nursing and I felt a need to help my hubby pay the bills. Under the false reality that my child was in the best place he could be I took a big city job. I never realized how miserable this would make our family. I felt like I lost the connection with my son the moment I made that terrible decision. I stopped nursing and at the same time took a job that required that I had to take him to his grandparents, still asleep to his grandparents house at 5 am, I would carpool with the hubby to the city to work all day and fight traffic to and from, not getting home usually till 8 or 9 pm in the evening.

While we were at work my parents got to wake up with my little boy, dress him, feed him, play with him. Then they would take him to daycare where he would spend 4-7 hours of his day. Then my parents had the pleasure of picking him up, getting him a snack, asking him how his day was, watching him grow, feeding him dinner, playing with him, bathing him, changing his clothes and putting him to bed. By the time we got home usually my baby was asleep. This was our schedule pretty much 6 days a week, except my hubby got to be off with our son on Saturday. My child withdrew from me. He barely spoke to me. He wouldn’t come to me, he would barely look at me. He expressed in his own way that he was angry with me.  I was heartbroken, but still unclear what do and was advised it was just an adjustment and it would straighten itself out. As weeks of this turned into months this pain in my heart became unbearable. It had destroyed the connection I had with my baby, to the point I wondered if he would ever forgive me and/or reconnect with me. In addition, the strain started to affect my marriage as well. We barely spoke to and from work and I usually cried to and from because I missed my baby. My husband told asked me one day: “why are you doing this?”  I confessed that I would rather live in a tent in the woods then spend another week away from my child. He said: “Let’s get you out of the city”.  Almost overnight I was presented with a business offer in our local town and I accepted and put my notice in. Finally I was out, finally I could reconnect. I hoped it wasn’t too late.

Littlefoot Farm & School... Blog Introduction

Hello and welcome to my new blog page. I am a life learner mom of one. I am a writer and a poet. I am a designer. I am a wife. I am a child of the true God, Jehovah. I am a farmer and gardener. I am an artist. I am human and I make mistakes. I am a friend, a daughter, a niece, a granddaughter and a cousin. Every day we grow and learn on this journey we call life. Feel free to grow and learn with us on this life adventure.

What is a life learner to me? A life learner in my opinion is someone who learns from the people, places and things in their environment. This also includes people, places and things introduced intentionally into ones environment. To me it also means being gentle and kind to all people, including oneself and all living creatures. To me a child is not an inferior person. They deserve consideration and even respect. This does not mean I do not believe in discipline. Discipline is important, but it has its place and it is often overused and abused in the current system of things. I speak to my child as I would any other human being I encounter (perhaps with more love though :-D). What does that mean? Well when we our scheduling our day/week instead of saying: “we are going to do this, this week.” I say: “So what do you want to do this week?” I include him in the decision making process and in return he listens to my ideas and together we come up with a great week of fun and learning. My child is only 5 years old, but I have found since I implemented this style of treating him as a partner in his own life and learning. His ideas are more educational, interesting and fun than anything I could have came up with on my own let alone found in a textbook.

As I stated my little is five. So we really are just beginning and growing. So let me tell you a little bit about how we came to be where we are right now. When I was pregnant my husband said he wanted to homeschool. I loved the idea of it, but didn’t see how it would be possible because we both worked full-time. I breastfed until my little was a year and half and I got infection, right about the time I started a long distance job in which meant leaving the house at 5 am and not getting home until 8 to 9 pm in the evening (sometimes even much later if traffic or weather was really bad). This wore on me greatly and I missed my baby too much. My child was in a daycare during this time and beyond and started out loving it, but soon it got to where he would beg not to go and I got a phone call from a staff member that told me that something was fowl at the daycare and I had a sweet kid, to get him out of there. I didn’t hesitate and never took him back.  My little did ABCmouse.com for pre-k and he loved it. He completed nearly 50% of the Kindergarten portion, but he was desire to do more hands-on activities. So we held off on the online program and I order Volume 1 of Five In A Row. I absolutely loved it and so did he, but in the meantime I had done a lot of research and reading about radical unschooling, unschooling, homeschooling, etc... None of these titles describe what I feel out style is exactly and that is okay because we are all different, right?

So what do we do all day? Everyday varies, but everyday we are learning, but the neat thing is we are not doing it forced or out of obligation or to prepare for a test. It is amazing to be learning about real things, education that will benefit our child for the rest of his life. Because he is partnering us in his educational journey we are taking an adventure of discovery his passions and interest and watching him really connect with the things he is learning. I am so excited to be a part of his amazing journey and in turn discovery a lot about myself and our family. I love the connections I am feeling with them.

In addition we are working on developing our little farm and make our farm provide for us. We hope this blog will include many tips and stories about the various things we are doing and hope to do in the future, including, but not limited to, raising farm animals, making soap, making candles, homemaking, cooking, recipes, fermenting, canning and so on!

Why did I name my blog Littlefoot Farm & School? When my husband and I got married we bought a small patch of land and our first pet was a goat. Yes a goat!!! We named him Littlefoot and eventually we began to call our home Littlefoot Farm and now that we are homeschooling we call it Littlefoot Farm & School. Learn more by following my blog.

My purpose for this blog is to keep a record/diary of our learning experience, share and inspire other families. My intention is to create some blog post about our past journey over the past “school year(s)”.  Then I would like to do a blog post about each day of our life learning if I am able to keep up that is. I also hope to write about the ups, but the downs and challenges too. I will also include things we are doing in our life that may not seem like “homeschool” but as a life learner it all applies: like recipes, family experiences, pets, farming, gardening, homemaking, financial subjects, etc. I like to write book and website reviews too.  If you ever have a question or a topic for me to write on I would love to hear from you.