Surrounded!

By loved ones, that is...Ken's siblings and parents are making the annual trek to NY in waves this year. Every couple of weeks a new family member has arrived and they will all finally here by next Wednesday. It's a fun time of year for us...a month long family reunion filled with cousins playing, fun outings, barbecues and such. These days will long be a wonderful memory for the kids--barefoot, swimming every day, no baths, watermelon juice running down their chins. The lines blur between the households here on the hill, and kids run back and forth, eating lunch here, dinner there, and vice versa. We love it ever so much. We will enjoy this next few weeks of fellowship with loved ones. I'll post a pic or two to share the fun, as soon as I can get my photographer to load them on the computer!

Homeschool convention highlights...

I had a really nice time at the convention this year. It was peaceful. We had a nice room, and could walk to the convention center. And we got to listen to Andrew Pudewa, the founder of the Institute for Excellence in Writing. He and his wife homeschool their 7 children. He never finished college, and yet he is sought after all over the country to help teach teachers and parents how to teach their children to write. He teaches violin using the Suzuki method, which involves memorizing portions of music and playing them repeatedly until you know them by heart, then adding more music to that and so on. The premise is, if you want music to come out of the brain, it must be in there to start with. So he decided that if that is true for music, it must also be true in writing. If we want reliably correct and sophisticated language to come out of our children's brains, we must systematically and consistently get it in there. The two ways he proposes we do this is by reading aloud to our children from classic literature... a minimum of two hours a day (!), and by memorizing poetry and other beautiful writing. It's not enough for our kids to be good readers..they need to hear the language orally. And as they memorize things, there are actually physical connections made in the brain. It's exercise for the brain, so to speak. Now I have been of the opinion, since my college years of Early Childhood Ed., that rote memorization kills creativity. Having children copy other people's work is a hindrance to their originality. So I shyed away from memorizing much. But I have since become convinced that the only way to learn to do something well is to copy the people who do it well. Then, once you are able to copy the masters, you can use the tools and skills you've learned to be creative and original. But it can't come out of the brain if it's not in there.
I know this is getting long, but this stuff is fascinating to me. It makes so much sense! I agree with his opinion that we need to focus on Character, Knowledge, and Skills...in that order. That we need to make the things we want our children to learn relevant to them, if it is not naturally relevant, thru inspiration and games and fun. That children are profoundly industrious and will do anything if we will use 2 secret weapons:
1-before we criticize or correct we say at least 10 positive things to offset the effects of the negative, and
2-Smile.
He recommended many books, but two of them I have not read are Why Gender Matters by Dr. Leonard Sax, and The Restoration of Christian Culture by John Senior. I think I may add them to my "to read" list.
And now I've bored you to tears and I will end this too-long-to- read post! If you made it to the end you must really love me! :>)

Kids say the cutest things...

I just have to share some cute interactions with my little guys. The other day I changed Matthew's diaper, which apparently made him very happy, because after I was done and had pulled up his pants he proceeded to say, "Dee-doo," which in toddler speak means, "thank you." Isn't that cute? And then today, I was cleaning out a boo boo on Dan's finger, after having finally convinced him it wouldn't hurt if he would stop pulling his hand away. When it was all done, he chuckled with relief and said, "Thanks, Mom. You're my saviour!" I laughed and told him, "Jesus is your saviour, I'm just your mom!"