I've been glancing through Apartment Therapy: The Eight Step Home Cure recently and found one of the author's comments really enlightening. Clutter isn't about stuff. It is about procrastination (or nostalgia, as Dan pointed out). It is about not living in the present.
His comments hit home because I clutter up much of my home in order to avoid reality. I could decide about the stuff on my counter today or put it off til tomorrow... or next week... or maybe it'll go away before I have to admit that I never used those lovely things I bought. I used to never clean my fridge because it felt like a slap in the face to realize that I had let food go bad. Now, I at least declutter my fridge once a week, admitting that I let some food go back but hoping that by being able to see what is in it, I may prevent future waste.
We have a lovely counter connecting our kitchen and dining room. Usually it is covered with unread mail, children's drawings to be filed, CDs to be uploaded, books to be read, and many other things. Feeling challenged to deal with clutter, and knowing that a clean counter makes me happy, I decided to attack it. It wasn't that hard. I put away the CDs. I recycled or shredded the mail. I dealt with the books. It wasn't really that bad.
Will I ever upload the CDs? I don't know. Maybe, but if I don't, I am no worse off than now.
Will I ever look at the counter? Definitely, dozens of times per day, and I feel happier and freer each time I look.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
German as a foreign/second language
We're doing it! We're doing J's German School homework!
He can be in the advanced or beginner class. The advanced class includes children who spend the summer in Germany. The beginner class includes children who have never been exposed to German as a spoken language. He doesn't really fit into either group, as he understands way too much German to be a beginner and doesn't speak well enough to be advanced. We made a deal with the advanced teacher that J would try out her class for a month and then we'd reevaluate.
With that in mind, we really have to prepare for class. He can't just do spontaneous oral drills, we have to practice beforehand. We have to go over everything covered last class and preview everything he'll be doing the next class.
This discipline has been great. After looking for some sort of German curriculum to provide extra practice for the kids for a few years, we finally have one, preplanned and prepared for us. We have the discipline of class time and homework, and J has the reading skills necessary to do well with German in a spoken and written way.
We're still doing our own things to achieve my goal for German this year: that the children can understand stranger-produced German. We're reading books and listening to CD stories and music. We speak German in the afternoons after we've finished our other homeschool tasks for the day. This is the heart and lifeblood of our German learning. The German School and homework has just added the bones to keep things in place.
He can be in the advanced or beginner class. The advanced class includes children who spend the summer in Germany. The beginner class includes children who have never been exposed to German as a spoken language. He doesn't really fit into either group, as he understands way too much German to be a beginner and doesn't speak well enough to be advanced. We made a deal with the advanced teacher that J would try out her class for a month and then we'd reevaluate.
With that in mind, we really have to prepare for class. He can't just do spontaneous oral drills, we have to practice beforehand. We have to go over everything covered last class and preview everything he'll be doing the next class.
This discipline has been great. After looking for some sort of German curriculum to provide extra practice for the kids for a few years, we finally have one, preplanned and prepared for us. We have the discipline of class time and homework, and J has the reading skills necessary to do well with German in a spoken and written way.
We're still doing our own things to achieve my goal for German this year: that the children can understand stranger-produced German. We're reading books and listening to CD stories and music. We speak German in the afternoons after we've finished our other homeschool tasks for the day. This is the heart and lifeblood of our German learning. The German School and homework has just added the bones to keep things in place.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Crash and burned
I tried Sonlight last year and we crashed and burned.
I tried Ambleside Online during the summer and we crashed and burned.
I gave (used) KONOS a try this month and we (shock) crashed and burned.
We're doing really well in math and language arts with RightStart and the Writing Road to Reading. Neither is an extremely simple program and neither is hands-off on the teacher. If I can handle teaching two kids math, one child phonics, and one language arts with WRTR, why can't I handle another curriculum for the rest?
I think I figured out at least part of the problem last night.
When I started math, we did only math for a while. Actually, quite a while. We did only math for about nine months. Then, we added on phonics and language arts via WRTR/SWR.
As we've started new curricula, I haven't added things one at a time but instead threw everything into the mix at once. We didn't have any time to adjust our schedules, to sink our teeth into a new subject, to ask questions and enjoy. Instead, we started reading ten new books at a time and it was crazy. Very crazy, annoying, and frustrating.
This isn't how I work well.
Now, I'm going to do things differently, We're not going to do everything at once but do one thing at a time. I know narration is extremely important, so "narration" is going to be our only new subject for the month of October. Since I printed out "50 Famous Stories Retold" and already own a great copy of Aesop's fables, that is what we'll be doing this month, but we'll be reading at least one story and narrating it each day.
We'll see what November brings!
I tried Ambleside Online during the summer and we crashed and burned.
I gave (used) KONOS a try this month and we (shock) crashed and burned.
We're doing really well in math and language arts with RightStart and the Writing Road to Reading. Neither is an extremely simple program and neither is hands-off on the teacher. If I can handle teaching two kids math, one child phonics, and one language arts with WRTR, why can't I handle another curriculum for the rest?
I think I figured out at least part of the problem last night.
When I started math, we did only math for a while. Actually, quite a while. We did only math for about nine months. Then, we added on phonics and language arts via WRTR/SWR.
As we've started new curricula, I haven't added things one at a time but instead threw everything into the mix at once. We didn't have any time to adjust our schedules, to sink our teeth into a new subject, to ask questions and enjoy. Instead, we started reading ten new books at a time and it was crazy. Very crazy, annoying, and frustrating.
This isn't how I work well.
Now, I'm going to do things differently, We're not going to do everything at once but do one thing at a time. I know narration is extremely important, so "narration" is going to be our only new subject for the month of October. Since I printed out "50 Famous Stories Retold" and already own a great copy of Aesop's fables, that is what we'll be doing this month, but we'll be reading at least one story and narrating it each day.
We'll see what November brings!
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