"I could never homeschool" (The How)

"Better you than me!" or "I can hardly stand having my kids around on the weekends."  and "What about socialization?"  Nearly every time I tell a non-homeschooler that I homeschool my children, I get some kind of comment along those lines.  For the most part, these people are either truly impressed or they think I am nuts (if they knew me better, they would be certain I am nuts, but that happened way before I had children.)  They also wonder how and why I do it. 

Let me start with the less important part, how do I do it?  I think this question is addressing two separate issues.  First, what does homeschooling look like in my home and, second, how do I get everything done around the house and school the kids?  Well, the pictures here show what homeschooling looks like in our house.  We build things together. 

 We do experiments using simple things. In the picture to the right, my husband is showing the children how having a wider base lowers your center of balance, thus making it harder to be pushed over.  It's simple physics.  Wow, the boys really needed a haircut!

We take our lessons outside whenever we can.  Here we were practicing our skip counting by skipping.........while we counted.  For the record, writing all those numbers in sidewalk chalk was a great work out for my glutes and abs.  Who knew?
 

We do a little bit of the sit and work stuff too.

We also do a lot of this.  Yes, my oldest is reading to his two sisters.  Do you see how one sister is just adoring her big brother and baby sister?  They bring dogs into schools for kids to read to.  How much better is it to read to an adoring sibling?  Do you see the love?  We do a LOT of loving.  Hugging, playing, snuggling, wrestling, laughing and lots of loving.  All with our favorite people in the world.  That is what homeschooling looks like in my family.

Now, what about all the housework?  Well, I am no great housekeeper.  I will admit, I would rather spend time playing and learning with my kids than scrubbing floors.  However, cleaning does need to happen because it is no fun to play when you end up covered in cheerios and other less tasty things.  Also, it is comforting to have a house that people can pop into and you will not be embarrassed.  I don't quite have that, yet.  If you pop into my house, you will likely find a pile of clean laundry waiting to be folded, a few dishes waiting to be washed and dirty floors.  The door to the office is closed because it is downright frightening (hopefully we will fix that this weekend, FINALLY!) The downstairs bathroom shows signs of vandalism and is not always sparkling.  The vandalism thing is a long potty training story and I don't want to tell it right now.  Just making sure you understand, my home would cause Martha Stewart to have a conniption fit.

We teach our children to help out around the house and we will soon institute a chore chart.  I do think it is important for people to take care of their homes.  There is no reason why one of us should do all the cleaning for 7 people.  Children need to be taught how to care for their home, clothes, vehicles and selves.  We call it being a good steward of the blessings God has given us.  I have a weekly group meeting at our house and that has been a great way to make sure the weekly chores get done consistently.  My scientist husband calls it a "forcing function."  I like that.

Oh, I also don't sign up every child for every activity under the sun.  I am a homeschooler, not an out-of-the-house-all-day-schooler.  I should warn you, it will only take one comment or question about socialization to open a can of worms.  Fear not, we are not Socialists ;)  We attend church, have a small group that meets at our house for bible study, go to the Y for Homeschool PE and are part of a homeschool co-op type thing.  Oh, and there are two homeschool families in our neighborhood with children around the same age as mine.  So, lots of chances to accumulate lots of different friends.  Yes, almost all of them homeschool.  If you think that means they are all the same you don't know homeschoolers! 

That is the hows of homeschooling.  Next up, the whys.  I have some 'splainin' to do.

Clothing Management part 2

Another issue to attack in a large family is how to handle hand-me-downs. I am blessed to have a basement in my home which has one area devoted to storage. I no longer loan out clothes because too many times the clothes were returned full of holes and stains, or were not returned at all. Yes, I am hoarding children's clothes, sorta. Here is the process I go through with each child, about twice a year.

First, I catch up on laundry (if you have many children you are laughing hard, we will wait while you go pee.....*whistling*..... Oh, good you're back.) Then, I go up to the clothing room with a plastic storage box and two trash bags. I like an opaque box with handles that lock the lid in place, about 72 qt seems to work well. The transparent boxes get brittle and break easily and without locking handles the lid pops off. Since I do not store coats, shoes or cloth diapers in the box with the other clothes, this size works fine.

I start with the littlest child and pull everything out of all their drawers and the closet. As I pull each item out, I assess the quality of the item. I check to see what size it is, whether it is true to size (change the label if necessary), is the elastic in good shape (if you tug on it and hear a dry ripping noise, it is useless), do the snaps still snap, are all the buttons there, are there any tears, stains or worn areas and did I actually like using this clothing item? Those things that I want to save for the next kiddo get folded neatly and placed in one pile. Things that are worn beyond use go in one bag (the cast-off bag) and things that are still good, but I no longer want, go in a second bag (the blessing bag.)

Once I have culled the items that are not going to be saved for one reason or another, I look at how much of each item I have left. I match tops to bottoms to make appropriate outfits. I make note of anything that really needs replacing. For instance, this year, I noticed that every pair of khaki shorts my 3 year old wore was noticeably stained. I watch end of season and clearance sales in stores and online for those things that we need to replace. I also check to see if I have too much of any item.

Once I determine how much of each item I really need to have around, I put the extras in the blessing bag. All of the clothes I am keeping are folded neatly and placed in the storage bin. If the bin is not already labeled, I make 3 labels out of scratch paper for it. Each label states gender and size.So, this year as I am packing up Isaac's clothes, I will make three labels that say "Boy 3t." One is taped on the top of the box, one on the side and one on the end. That way, if the box is stacked I can see what is in it, no matter which way the stacks are facing.

The blessing bag is a wonderful thing. I often have too many bits of clothing that I don't like or can not use. I bag them up neatly and label the bag with size and gender the clothing works for. Then, if there is a crisis in our area, say a house fire or someone finds themselves parenting unexpectedly, I can check my bag piles and bless them with decent clothes in the appropriate size. I never put stained, torn or way out of date clothes in this bag. A child who has been through a trauma does not need to be given ugly clothes.

So, what about that cast-off bag. This is the bag of garbage, right? If you are the kind of person who does not know how to fix a button, rip, etc. or if you know how, but you know you will never get around to it, yes, throw this bag in the garbage. So many people ask me how I do it all. The answer is, I don't do it all. I am crafty, frugal and creative with some things, but with other things, I cut myself some slack. God has yet to give me real superpowers, until then, there will be things I can not do. The same holds true for you. I give you permission to cut yourself some slack and toss that bag in the garbage. I promise I will not think less of you for knowing your own abilities and limitations. If you are of a mind to use that bag of cast-off clothing, check in later and I will give you some of my ideas for these items. :)

That is it. When I next have a child who needs that size of clothing, I can wander into the basement, bring up the appropriate box and it will contain appropriate clothing for that size. No extras, no surprises when the clothes are the wrong size, torn, stained or mismatched. A little work now saves work and money later.

Clothing management pt 1

Our growing family has found that the traditional American way of handling a family's clothes does not work. When there are seven people living in a four bedroom home, sharing bedrooms is a fact of life. I have no problem with this. I think sharing bedrooms is a good thing, but it does lead to a few problems. One of those problems is clothing. I can trust my 9, 7, and 5-year-old not to play in their dressers, but the 3 year old is a whole different story. It is just far too fun to pull all the clothes out of a dresser and roll around on them while you are supposed to be napping. As long as you are quiet, mommy will not even know what you are doing until the mess is made. Oh and if you have access to THREE dressers, ahhh, bliss. Except, what mother wants to spend the end of every single nap time cleaning up such a humongous mess? Yes, I can discipline for this behavior, but it tends to be one that lasts about a year and then is outgrown. Not so awful, unless you have many kids and face the possibility of returning to that one year of life over and over and over and over again. (I feel a little hysterical just typing that sentence!) One of my general mommyhood rules of thumb is - "Sometimes you need to change the behavior, sometimes you need to change the circumstances." This is a perfect example of changing the circumstances.

I read the Duggars book and thought Michelle had a fantastic idea. The Duggars have a family closet right off the laundry room. Clothing is folded and or hung and taken straight to the family closet. Wow, no more taking one basket of clothes to one room and one to another, accidentally putting clothes in the wrong room, or not having access to a room that holds a sleeping toddler! Yes, great idea...except...I don't have any rooms near the laundry room that would work for that purpose. Thus, we adapted the idea to suit our situation.

My husband took shelves from our master bedroom closet and hung them in the laundry room (a room that is a tiny bit bigger than a half bath.) That means, I have the original set of shelves, just over the washer and now a set of shelves across from it. Yes, I have to be very careful how I stand up, so as to avoid bashing my head or bottom into a shelf. I have adapted and have not had a bonk on either end in over a year. The shelves across from the washer hold a bin for every child in the family and one for socks. As I pull clothes out of the dryer, I sort them straight into these bins. Adult clothes, sheets, towels and the like go into a basket at my feet. Each child is responsible for folding their clothes each day. Some days that means a lot of folding, some days just a little. I have found this VERY helpful in discouraging my 7-year-old's tendency to wear 3-4 outfits a day! The younger the child is, the more help they get from either a parent or an older sibling. So far, this system has been a big help. Renovating my laundry room this way cost us about $14, the cost of 5 bins and a couple molly bolts (two of the support beams for the shelves lined up nicely with studs in the wall, but the middle one did not) and 2 hours of measuring, hanging, fuming, muttering about the confusion of being taught two systems of measurement and rehanging the shelves.

The next part of our laundry renovation was literally life changing for us. In our home, Mommy, Daddy and baby share the master bedroom. The boys have one room and the girls have another. The fourth room is the clothing room. This is a good sized room, about 10'x12'. There is enough space for 5 dressers, a futon and a three bin hamper. This room is also our guest room. It is not spacious, but it works. When clothes are folded, no matter what time, day or night, they can be put away immediately. No more laundry diving, digging through piles and piles of clean clothes in search of that one pink sock. No more sneaking into a sleeping toddlers room and oh so quietly opening the drawers. Less chance of a busy one year old pulling down stack of neatly folded laundry that is sitting on the couch waiting to be put away. When we need to pack for a trip, we put everyone to bed and then haul the suitcases into the Clothing Room. It is so easy to accomplish the task! When it is time to sort outgrown clothes and make a shopping list, I spend a couple hours in one fairly tidy room sorting things. YAY!!!!

Okay, for those of you who have actually set foot in my home recently, yes, I admit, sometimes the system fails and there are still piles of laundry to fold. I am, most assuredly, not perfect. However, when we follow the system, life is easier.