Rethinking School in 2018 ~ podcasts and the audiobook

Another extra ….  

I’m endeavouring to listen through Susan Bauer’s podcasts on Rethinking School. Links below.

(For teachers/ brick and mortar schooling friends: the interviews are not a negative hate-on-all-things- out-school  ☺  The podcasts are about making the way we educate/school each child work for them personally.  I don't agree with some of Andrew Kern's theologically input, shrug, ymmv. )

Part 1
Part 2 

The first podcast encouraged me to want to read through Bauer's book

 Rethinking School: How to Take Charge of Your Child's Education;  however, using an audible credit to purchase the audiobook was more economical for my back to schooling budget - we start next week.  Christina Moore is the perfect narrator for this book.

Update: Despite the fact that I’m not the target audience for this book - we’re nearing the end of our home educating; and, are not U.S. based - Rethinking School was an easy and engaging listen.  Understandably, portions of this book are American,  K-12 grade schooling, centric.  Chapter 21 was of the most interest to me, especially since Jay is taking a road less travelled after highschool, which does not include University.

There are some help filled suggestions in this book which would make it an excellent read for someone newer to home educating, or whose children are younger or pre-teen, or those who are wrestling with their child’s brick and mortar schooling, or in their own homeschooling journey.  Sometimes we can get stuck in a rut, that the route we are taking is the only one,  and can not see the wood for the trees: to have someone who is further ahead of us in the educate-the-children journey offer some concrete suggestions can be a game changer.

Homeschooling Boys Through High School ~ Archive Post for me :)

I'm nearing the end of educating my high school 'boy'  - who is actually a young man now - and yet topics like this one still hold great interest for me.

• SS #23 The Nitty-Gritty Guide to Homeschooling High School Boys  (with Cindy Rollins)
• Circe Institute (topic: boys)

These topics sound encouraging/interesting, so archiving them here also:

• SS #01: Preventing Burnout Through Levity   
• SS #20: Mothers, Don’t Let Your Methods Grow up to Be Systems (with Karen Glass)

Sally Clarkson ~ Podcasts

Term break gifted me with an "opportunity" to select out a few refresher, encouragement based, podcasts from Sally Clarkson to listen through . At Home With Sally Clarkson ~ podcasts
Thought I'd share that link for others who may be interested too.

52 Books in 6 months (Jan to June) PT.1 ~ 2016

I usually publish one of these posts at the end of each year, but as we're only partway through 2016 and I'm already at the 52 books 'read' mark, I figured I would just post this now.  Part 2 of our annual 52 books can be found here.

The number beside each book is my personal rating for the book, or audiobook,  at the time of reading with the range being:
(1) = would not recommend,
(2) = some interesting aspects but not one of my recommended reads,
(3) = would recommend.
(4) = Really good (or worthy) read, would definitely recommend
(5) = Excellent book, highly recommend

The next few were sip reads, from last year, so I added them here:

A: Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling Teens ~ Debra Bell (3)   
Some good things here but, but much of the advice was either American-eccentric (grades/transcripts/ how to work towards getting into college) or just not relevant for our own family's, customised, NZ based homeschooling journey.  This could be a good read for NZer's using something like ACE (?)
B: Teaching from a State of Rest ~ Sarah Mackenzie (4++  completed.   Encouraging read. Totally recommend.)

(As in previous years, I won't include the books I'm reading for my own extra-mural studies;  and,  the titles in green are ones I've pre-read as possible reads for the children.)  

1. The King James Bible: The Books of;   Luke,  Ephesians, Corinthians   (5+)
2. Mrs. McGinty's Dead ~ Agatha Christie (content issues, not handing to Daisy) (2)
3. The Clocks ~ Agatha Christie (3) 
4. Murder on the Links ~ Agatha Christie (3)  (okay for Daisy)
5. Hallowe'en Party ~ Agatha Christie (1)     meh!  A birth father plans to sacrifice his daughter.
6. Lord Edgware Dies ~ Agatha Christie (3) (content issues. Not for Daisy.)
7. Sparkling Cyanide ~ Agatha Christie  (3)  (okay for Daisy)
8. Murder is Easy ~ Christie (2)  (psychotic killer.  Not for Daisy)
9. Miss Marple's Final Cases ~ Agatha Christie, BBC dramatised  (2)
10. Fallen into the Pit ~ Ellis Peters   (3)   (not for sensitive readers)
11. The Chimes ~ Charles Dickens (1)
12. Artists in Crime ~ Ngaio Marsh   (1)   (content issues!!!  However, I want the children to study the beautiful 'artistic' prose in the first chapter.  They won't be reading the rest of the book.)
13. A Surfeit of Lampreys ~ Ngaio March  (3+) content issue with the way the victim was murdered.  Jay is reading this as part of his 'golden era' mystery writer study.)
14. The Great Escape ~ Paul Brickhill (WWII)  (4)  (profanity in the later half of the book)
15. The Land ~ Mildred D. Taylor (3+) 
16. Glimpses of the Truth: The Wycliffe Translation ~ Jack Cavanaugh (-)  dropped
17. Weapons of Mass Instruction ~ John Holt (4) 
18. Bake ~ Allyson Gofton (4)
19. The Boy on the Wooden Box ~ Leyson (4)
20. Outliers: The Story of Success ~ Malcolm Gladwell  (3)
21. Agatha Christie at Home ~ Hilary Macaskill (2)
22. Brave New World ~ Huxley (1)                     (loaded with s3xual content issues, including interaction amongst children- very Freudian.   Ends with a drug induced mass or.gy and a suicide.  This is not a book I'd want to just hand to my teens without pre-reading.   We are more than able to - and have and do - discuss any of the issues detailed in this book.  We won't be scheduling this book as a high school read.) 
23. 1984 ~ Orwell (1)                        (I found 1984 a disturbing read.    Too many content issues to be used as a reader for our teens;  some profanity,  and detailing physical relationship problems, and s3xual pleasures Winston embarks on.  Includes sadistic torture and a seriously depressing!! ending.   I loathe books with those sort of endings.  Not recommending this as a read to those in my immediate circle.   Grinning ....  I think I must be one of the few people in the universe to have taken a serious dislike this book.  )
24. Fahrenheit 451 ~ Bradbury (3)  this makes for tame reading after the 2 books above, still contains content issues others may wish to know about, which are implied , rather than exemplified - woman tries to commit suicide, dysfunctional marriage, totalitarian state which murders people, protagonist uses a fire torch on his work colleagues - but!  the story ends with hope!  We selected this as one of the dystopian reads for Jay.)
25. How to Read Slowly ~ James W. Shire   (it's become a sip read.  I  prefer this title over How to Read A Book ~ Adler, any day.)
26. The Giver ~ Lois Lowry (3)  lent itself to indepth conversation
27. Gathering Blue ~ Lowry (2-)  The series really starts to take of with 'mystical/inner spiritual powers' in this book.  I had Daisy read and discuss this series with me.  
28. Messenger ~ Lowry (2) 
29. Son ~ Lowry (2)   ends quickly with  quite a few questions about characters/communities in the other books unanswered.
30. Cat Amongst the Pigeons ~ Christie    (a repeat listen.  okay for Daisy)
31. Spiders Web ~ Christie   (a repeat listen. not for Daisy)
32. Journey to Munich ~ Winspear (audiobook)  (2)   (content issues for me.  The author has the main character discussing past "lovers" like favoured clothes once had and then discarded :-/  )
33. To Kill a Mockingbird ~ Lee (4)   content issues. 
34. A Doll's House ~ Isben  (1) feministic.  Isben was definitely successful in creating self-centred, shallow characters that the audience will dislike.  The main character, a mother,  abandons her children to go and "find" herself   ... with the excuse that once she finds herself she'll be a better mother.  Ends in a suicide.
35. False Witness ~ Randy Singer (2)
36. The Great Gatsby ~ Fitzgerald (3) hedonistic, non-religious life style.  Adultery, greed, murder.  Jazz era.  Good book for discussion about what the meaning of success and happiness really is.  We've chosen to edit out the sensual 'romance' portions before handing to our children:   our children, our choice.
37. There's a Sheep in My Bathtub ~ Hogan (3)
38. Honey for a Woman's Heart ~ Hunt (3+)  
39. Own Your Life ~ Sally Clarkson (4++)   I really appreciated this book, definitely rates as literary balm for the 'soul'.  Christian content.
40. The Nickle-plated Beauty ~ Beatty (family read aloud)  (4-)
41. Why Shoot a Butler ~ Heyer (3)  (not for Dasiy)
42. The Reluctant Widow ~ Heyer (3+) (historical mystery.  okay for Daisy)
43. Tramp for the Lord ~ Ten Boom (3++)
44. Alas, Babylon ~ Pat Frank (3++)   edited out the sensual/s3xual portions
45. The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax ~ Dorothy Gilman (3++)  (1: One of the Foreign characters says, "What the h3ll?: a bit.  2: Another lives her life by personality driven astrology (star signs).  3: There is a clairvoyant gypsy reading palms et..   No s3xual/sensuality based encounters, or obscene profanities.)
46. Night ~ Elie Wiese  (4+) Some content issues. Sober, emotive,  heart rending read
47. The Elusive Mrs. Polifax ~ Gilman  (4-) 
48. Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station (3+) (includes buddist teachings, and, a physic)
49. The Secret School ~ Avi   ( 3)  (A story Daisy thought made okay reading, so I went through it too☺)
50. Duplicate Death ~ Heyer (3+)  (not for Daisy)
51. The Dragonfly Pool ~ Eva Ibbotson  (3++)   (recommended by Allie and Elise)
52. The Lifegiving Home ~ Sally & Sarah Clarkson (4)

My Book Basket ~ As at April 01 2016

Since I find it interesting to see what others are reading, or about to, here's a quick look into the current selection in my book basket.

Books
Current Sip Reads:

The Book of James (KJV)

Catharine ~ Jane Austen   

Catharine is out of the book,  Jane Austen: The Complete Novels. pub Oxford.  The book is written in the old style Austen used, which makes for slower reading especially with the teeny tiny print the book uses.... I'd like to switch to a kindle edition, if I could find it for free ☺

The Lifegiving Home ~ Sally and Sarah Clarkson

There's a Sheep in My Bathtub ~ Brian Hogan   A modern missions story.  I'm about 1/4 of the way through and Brian writes well so the book makes for interesting read.

To Start Next:

Honey for a Woman's Heart ~ Gladys Hunt

The Shepherd King ~ Mark Meadows   (Solomon's Bride series Bk 2)

Great Journeys in Old New Zealand ~ Ell

I usually get through audios at a much quicker pace, as I can listen while I work.

Audios
Nearly Completed:

Tramp for the Lord ~ Corrie Ten Boom   I'm really enjoying listening to this!

Weapons of Mass Instruction ~ Gatto    A sobering, worthy, listen.   Totally recommend. 

About to Start:

To Kill a Mockingbird ~ Lee    I'm wanting to get through this before Jay needs to read it.

Night ~ Wiesel    A scheduled read in  Essentials in Literature  8  for Daisy, so I'm wanting to get this listened to before she required to start reading it.

ETA:  I'm also going to give The Great Gatsby ~ Fitzgerald a listen through, and TRY to finish War and Peace ~ Tolstoy.  With my own personal reading I try, mostly, to read in the era of history we are study

Encouragement To Take a Homeschooling T.O.D

Before we start feeling joyless or seriously drained, or both,  with homeschooling responsibilities, my encouragement to other mums educating at home is to generate a more regular  'teachers only day' (T.O.D) for themselves - or as one of my adult nieces calls them, a mental health day ☺.

(For those who want to skip reading further, the links are at the end of this post ;-) )

For me a (teachers only day) T.O.D doesn't mean that I'm indulging in heavy planning sessions, or heading off to the lake for a picnic - those are different sort of days, and ones I indulge in too - what I'm actually doing here is gifting myself with a day of personalised encouragement.  We all need encouraging as negativity, in ourselves or others,  can be such a joy in the journey stealer. 

We're in our tenth year of being registered to educate at home - and if I've learnt one small thing over the years, it's that I do need to be purposeful in taking days to refresh, evaluate, and realign myself (emotionally, physically and spiritually) - and the benefits are enormous.  T.O.D's are mandatory in my educating at home life.  I keep extra days in lieu, to allow us to step away from scheduled learning, during my planning sessions so that we can use them where we want to.  Sometimes the children are just needing a down-tools-day too, for no other reason than to rest, regroup, or just to be 100% delight led.

Here's how I ended up deciding a few T.O.D's are necessary for me, right about now:  as our weather starts to shift from summer to the cooler days of autumn each year we try to take a break from home, academic learning, the farmlet, business, and church responsibilities.  However, a series of events have required us to not take a break, but to stay put and step things up a bit in certain areas of life.  Now that doesn't really lend itself to anyone feeling very rested or full of joy; so, we've reinvented our living space with the mindset that our contentment and joy in the journey is still to be felt, and had; and, God willing, we'll get to take our break away later on in the year  ☺

One of those reinventions is trimming academic learning down to three days a week for a few weeks, and allocating the other two days as delight-led ones.  Lots of reading gets done on those days, and I'm noticing that Jay and Daisy return back to lessons feeling refreshed and ready to go again.  Funny thing is, Jay still chooses to do Maths every day, whether it's a delight-led day or not.

Woman Reading, Asta Nørregaard. (1853 - 1933)

With last weeks delight-led days , I purposely took two, much needed, T.O.D's for myself, and feel good to go again too.  Translated that means; while I'm listening to audio content, I potter away at things that are not regular 'must-do jobs' ie: outdoor tasks & cupboard sorting usually count as must do jobs for me.  I like to chose things that I feel more like doing, right then.
Amongst my reading, praying, sermon relistens, lecture listening, and re-evaluating time - which brought about some needed home educating expectations, and,  beyond my control  'tossing' - I also listened to a few homeschool podcasts I hadn't listened to before, and gleaned some extra encouragement from them. 

HSP 18 Carole Joy Sied: A Message for Moms     Carole is always encouraging!  If you’ve only got time to listen to one podcast,  I’d be recommending this one.

HSP 23 Susan Bauer: It’s Mostly About Parenting     I did appreciate Susan’s mention of homeschool mom ‘peer pressure’ and to just take adventure days.  Have to note here though, I’ll be 100% ignoring her Merton book suggestion as he’s too much of a ‘religious mystic’ author for me.  ymmv

HSP 13 Erin Hassett: Living the Large Family Life    Erin’s suggestions are good for mums of just a few children too.

HSP 22 Dawn Hanigan: All About Gratitude    Such a timely reminder!

(Do take a look through the other, HSP podcasts  ... I've already lined up two more to listen to during house cleaning chores tomorrow  ☺ )

ETA:  HSP 28 Durenda Wilson: Unhurried Homeschooling   Another worth while listen, for me :-)

Mother Culture ® ~ My Way

Mother Culture [1] is a term used by many Charlotte Mason appreciators, yet I'll back up a bit for any unfamiliar with that term; Brandy of After Thoughts blogs about the term, Mother Culture, more succinctly than I could; and Karen Andreola writes about Mother Culture ®  in her book, A Charlotte Mason Companion , on her blog,  Moments with Mother Culture ® or Homeschool World in Mother Culture, and on Mother Culture and You.

For me Mother Culture ®,  has become mothercraft - a space where I,  a mother,  am purposefully displaying towards the children my life long desire of working towards crafting myself - with God's instruction, guidance, and help -  into becoming more as a believer in Christ and as a mother/wife/woman/sister/friend/student.  Some of my mothercraft time involves handcrafts, things that are quietly restful and restorative,  along with areas of self education that are challenging and require focused effort on my part. 

Mothercraft is an aspect of our family's home educating life style that I mull over at regular intervals - especially during the summer holidays, and how to put it in to effect for the year ahead .... and then keep it in balance.

Self educating, nurturing hobbies, or pursuing delight led interests I may have is not the area of life I want to be over focusing my time and energy - and dollars - into to the detriment of our family's greater good.  For me mothercraft has to compliment what Dn and I are continually working towards: A Christ centered family that is also enjoying, as much as we can, our journey through the growing up years with the children - and quietly working towards (trying to ;) ) preparing each one of us for the time when the children are wanting/needing to live life as adults away from dad and mum. 

Before I roughly outline the approach to mothercraft I've taken over the years while home educating the children,  I want to add that I'm gaining a delight led education in many of the subject areas the children are learning in also. During my own schooling years History was a 'put 'em to sleep' boring subject - not so, it's all to do with how it's presented; story format or a dry, boring, set of fact and figures to memorise and regurgitate for exams later.
Another bonus of educating  my children at home has gifted me with the opportunity to go right back and start reading through lists of wonderful books !, including many unabridged classics I'd never been exposed to - books from pre-school level right through to where we are now; finishing off reading through works written during the Early Modern Times (1600-1850) and starting to read through literature from Modern Times (1850 to present).

The list beneath is just an indication of some of the things I've focused on during mothercraft time:

Younger Years

While the children we're young I purposely chose the areas of mothercraft to develop that would compliment the age and stage of the children.

• Focus on more in-depth studies in the scriptures (bible) (this often follows on from sermons I've heard).
• Time spent expanding my culinary skills; cooking and baking from a wide range of cookbooks and dvds.
• Sip reading books of poetry.  LOVE poetry.
• Developed a love for fine quality picture books.
• Painting 'with' the children..... 
• Tried to flower garden. That was a flop!  Flower gardening and me are definitely not a love match  :D
• Personal growth and education.  I chose to read through many books on biblical based womanhood (as a wife) and parenting, and, home educating to up-skill myself.     The French/Haitian proverb Little by little the bird builds it's nest is one of my favourite, and I certainly get to live it out in my life; A huge amount of sip reading went on during those early years - little bits of reading would be scattered out over the weeks so that I could get through a much-wanted-to-read book.
• A handcraft I can pick up, and lay aside when necessary.  Right from the little years I've been slowly knitting up a few fancy squares each winter to eventually make a knitted patchwork blanket ... we'll get there little by little.

Middle Years

• Continued with more in-depth studies in the scriptures (this often follows on from sermons I've heard, or bible studies Dn leads).
• Expanded my computer skills.
• Started a blog and learnt how to create notebooking/craft pages for the children to use.
• Cooking.  Continued to expand my culinary skills.
• Still read, and listened to talks, on biblical based womanhood, parenting, and,  home educating.
• Completed the next few stages of an extramural study (with my little by little mindset).
• Worked on refreshing myself in the area of math.
• Listening or reading through classic literature.
• Started using my rusty drawing skills again.

Much of my mothercraft time, during these middle years, involved Daisy - she'd see some of what I was doing and join in too. Osmosis is such a powerful thing!

Teen Years

• Continue with more in-depth studies of the scriptures (as mentioned above).
• Read, and listened to talks, on biblical based womanhood, parenting, and, home educating.
• Cardmaking, & art.
• Upskill in sewing.
• Gardening (That means tending my teeny tiny vegetable gardening. I enjoy it very much!)
• Cooking.  Continuing to expand my culinary skills
• Continue to work on up-skilling myself with higher level education.
• Continue to expand my computer based skills with online courses.
• Listening or reading through classic literature.
• Put my rusty hairdressing (dressing long hair) skills back into practice.
• Working with Dn to upskill ourselves in our hobby farming project.
• Work towards completing the remainder of my extramural study.
• Update extra: during the later teen years we began building a home on our farmlet, this ended up becoming a self-build.

And etc... 
Mothercraft for me is a life long journey.
Wondering what Mother Culture ®, or mothercraft looks like for you? 

[1] Mother Culture ®  is now a registered U.S trademark