Die to Self and Live

Many times I chose to live unto myself and sin.

I paid no mind to others and thought that I would win.

Until one day a mentioned Name made me stop and think.

Realizing the hurt I'd caused, my heart began to sink.

Knowing now I was wrong, a new decision was made.

I would live for Someone Else and let my own life fade. 

When I confessed His Name and believed with all my might, 

His Word said I would be saved, my black heart turned to white. 

Now Jesus lives within me, I've been crucified with Him.

My new life craved Him more; my old life began to dim

To know God loved me so much, His own Son He would give.

True love helped me have the strength to die to self and live!

By JoEllen Claypool

I am a Pastor's Wife

I am a pastor's wife?

Shouldn't I have a bun in my hair

to wear that title?

Shouldn't I have a modest dress

for each day of the week?

I think I'm supposed to speak softly

and be gentle to all.

I think I'm supposed to play piano

and sing like an angel.

Don't I have to bake 

and have grand pot lucks?

Don't I have to have 

weekly tea parties for the ladies?

Well, I wear my hair down.

I only have pants.

I can be rather loud, 

not gentle at all.

I can plunk a few keys

but can't carry a tune.

I hate to bake 

and I don't drink tea.

I am a pastor's wife. 

by JoEllen Claypool
A poem from A Realist's Guide to Being a Pastor's Wife
http://www.amazon.com/Realists-Guide-Being-Pastors-Wife-ebook/dp/B008EYONAC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454204586&sr=8-1&keywords=joellen+claypool

"What qualifies you?"

"What qualifies you?" This is another question that I would hear when I told people we homeschooled.  I often wondered if people would approach the public school teachers (most times who are strangers at the beginning of the year) with this question.  Would they go up and ask, "What qualifies you to teach my child?"  Why is it that people feel it is their duty to ask a mother what qualifies them.

That was my answer to their question.  "I am their mother and who else is more concerned about my child's education?"   I was no longer working when we made this decision and we figured we might as well try it.  Nothing had to be set in stone. The public school would always be there if we needed to fall back on that. It was determined on a year to year basis for a while until we realized that we needed to completely commit and decide that this was going to be our lifestyle.

A friend was asking me questions about school the other night and asked if I would do it through high school. I told her that both of the boys were in high school now.   "That just goes to show how very smart you are!"  I quickly corrected that.  I don't consider myself very smart at all. My advantage has been that I started with them in kindergarten and have learned right along with them.

I used to bring school books to bed with me at night and plan out the lessons for the next day. One night, I was excitedly telling my husband what the kids and I had learned about George Washington that day.   He laughed and said, "I'm glad you are learning so much."

"I am! I don't remember learning this stuff in school,"  I responded.   Maybe it was because it had been so many years or maybe I didn't pay attention in school. I did what I could to make history and science fun for my boys in hopes that they would retain more than I did.

Now that WE are in high school, things are a bit more challenging.  We are in Algebra 2. We have our good days and we have our bad days.   Each of us has our own math notebook and we do the odd numbered problems so that I can check our answers in the back of the book.  We all write down the problem and cover our papers while we work the problem out. The boys are afraid I will cheat off of them...and I would, if they would move their hands.  I ask them what answer they came up with and see if it matches mine, then we check the book's answer.   There have been several times that my answer has been wrong and they both got it right and they are able to tell me where I went wrong.


So if anyone asks you what qualifies you teach your children, smile politely and respond with, "I'm their mom." Then quickly walk away before anything else spills out of your mouth.   It's just safer that way.

"Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned."

"Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned."   I saw this on a business sign the other day.  I have been a bit overwhelmed lately as I think about some of the goals that I would like to achieve this year.   When I look at the big picture, my first instinct is to shut down and crawl into bed.   Has anybody else ever felt that way?

It is easy to get excited about dreams and plans, but it is not so easy to follow through at times.   We need to learn to take it a step at a time, even if we are taking baby steps.   I have been a book coach for a client recently. She is very close to being finished with her first book. It has been a few years since my first one has come out, but as I was walking her through the process, her emotions took me right back to the first time I was trying to figure it all out. I had a dream and that was for my book to be in print. That's all I wanted. Was that too much to ask?!  I was focused only on the big picture and I was not being very patient.

Last night, I watched previews of the movie Everest and one of the men being interviewed was asked why he would want to even attempt such a task. He stated that it was about conquering.  We all have fears or insecurities over which we want to be victorious. There are things that we want to prove that we can do. We want to make the most of every opportunity.   I realized in that moment that writing has become my Everest.

Just like conquering that mountain physically, the climbers had to be in shape, they had to have a plan, and they had to be prepared. They couldn't just take any path. They had to study that mountain, gaining knowledge about the risks and the design of the peaks.

There were a million little steps to get to the top of the mountain before me.  My client was quickly experiencing the frustration of each of those steps.  There was an order to the process that had to be followed exactly or it would not work. She had to do research and make a plan of action. She was slowly traipsing up that mountain. Some days, the steps would come easy and everything lined up. Other days, she felt that she was taking two steps back or had to be at a standstill in the middle of the mountain  as a storm passed.

It is a very accomplished feeling once all of the small deeds are done.  I love to make lists just so I can put a check next to the items that I have completed.   At the end of the day I can see that I actually did something.  An accomplished feeling is great, but there is nothing that compares to the freshest of air at the top of that mountain! When the great deed that was planned is now accomplished because of all of the small deeds that were done, it is a feeling of absolute victory!  Stay focused on the small deeds and conquer your Everest!

"What about their social skills?"

"Aren't you worried about their socialization skills?"  If I had a dollar for every time I had to confront that question, I would be rich right now! Why is that question never asked in regards to public school kids?  Just because they are in a room with other kids their age does not mean they have any more social skills than a homeschooled children.

I was asked that question one day and I responded with, "I don't have enough  time in the week for them to be any more social."  At that time, I took them to the after school programs at the library. They attended Adventure Club, an after school church program. They were involved in the community Easter play, the church Christmas play, two or three different sports throughout the year, church activities, and a Civil War re-enacting group in the summer. If they were involved with too much more I would not have had any time for their studies!  Their socialization skills were the least of my worries.

We were not any different than any other families. We taught our kids manners and how to interact with adults. We taught them to share when they were with other children.  Opportunities were always presenting themselves for teachable moments. We did not lock our children in a room and keep them sheltered from the community.

Now as teenagers, I am very thankful for the social skills my children possess.   They are able and WILLING to help at our Awana Club and on Sunday mornings with the younger children. They are able to round up work in the summertime because they know how to interact with adults and approach them. They are polite and perceptive as to when others need a helping hand.   I love that!  A lot of that I believe was knit into them, but it took some training as well.

I will admit, there are times that I have worried about how they will act in public.  My boys are not angels, by any means. They are teenage boys. They roughhouse and pick at each other, but they have never disrespected us as parents and they know the appropriate times and places for certain things. They know what is expected in mixed company. My aunt asked me one time, "JoEllen, are your boys always this well behaved?"  I laughed out loud at that as I pictured  doing dishes at home and nerf gun bullets would be landing in my dishwater and footballs were zinging past my head and the remote control was the cause of many wrestling matches on the living room floor.  "Um, no," would be the answer to my aunt's question.  I never felt the need to threaten them to be good or remind them to have manners when we were going out.   They are good boys and and I have been so thankful for the chance I have been given to be with them so much throughout the day!

Learn to Love to Learn!

There are a lot of things to pack into a day of learning and it can quickly overwhelm you.  Don't let it! ENJOY your time with your children.  I shared with you that we did a lot of hands-on projects when the kids were younger. At one point, I thought it would be less stressful to try a different "program". It was actually more stressful and by the end, all three of us were in tears everyday. There was so much paperwork that HAD to be done, it left no time at all for fun stuff.

My husband and I decided that OUR main goal would be to teach the kids to love to learn.  They were not going to love to learn if I made them read something they were not interested in reading.  Now, don't get me wrong. We had some non-negotiables.  Reading and math had to be done everyday and of course they had to read about certain historical events and people. Leisure reading was different though.   I let them choose what they wanted to read about.  As teenagers today, one of my boys loves reading the Percy Jackson series and the other loves to read about the different wars. As long as they are reading everyday, I'm happy.

With the library being our home away from home, I was used to talking to them on the phone often, either to extend our check outs or be told that something was overdue. So I was not surprised one day when they called.   I was surprised, however, for the reason they had called.   They told me the book that I had reserved was in and that I could pick it up anytime. I searched the warehouse of my brain trying to determine which book I had reserved and had to finally ask the woman on the phone.
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Eli reserved it," she replied. Okay. Eli was five! In order to reserve that book, he had to go find the Ninja Turtle section on the bookshelves, look to see that the particular one was not there, go down to the main desk, climb up the little set of steps so he could see over the counter and request the librarian to reserve it and call us when it was available. At five!

That's what I'm talking about! Teach them where to find the answers.  I certainly didn't have them all. Teach them how to use an index and table of contents so that they can search things out for themselves. Teach them how to use the library.

My youngest  has been the only one of our children who has voiced that he wants to go to college. He would ask me questions and I would try to look things up online but really didn't know what I was looking for or how to maneuver around the pages once I did find them. He has been researching colleges on his own since he was in the sixth grade . He has made budgets and charts comparing different colleges. He has learned how to find the information that interests him.  If we can teach them that, their options will be limitless!

Confession Time:  I have spent practically every waking hour with my boys since we have started schooling. Knowing that Eli wanted to go to Texas Christian University about gave me a heart attack. I tried to let him know that there were closer (and cheaper) Christian colleges. He wouldn't budge. I then advised that he needed to look at more than just the courses and such. As he was sitting down to the computer one day, I mentioned that he also needed to look up the weather and other information about the area. He took one look at the screen and said, "You've already been researching TCU, haven't you, Mom?"  I gave him the deer in the headlights look. How did he know?!  "Mom, the search bar says Crime Rates and Statistics for Fort Worth, Texas. I know you've been researching." Busted!  Í have to learn how to clear the search bar!  I backed off that topic for a while, but through his research, he discovered one bit of information that was very important to him. He said, "Mom, on the TCU website, it states that they do not necessarily follows the disciplines of Christ." That was all it took for him to start seriously searching for other colleges.

Teach your kids to love the world of information that is at their fingertips. Work that in to your studies.  Before we started each school year, I would sit down with the list of topics for history and science and I would let them put the list in the order in which they wanted to learn it. That gave them some ownership of their studies and kept them interested. Homeschooling allows you to really zone in on their interests and talents so that you, in turn, can nurture that aspect in your child's life. What a great opportunity!

"What curriculum do you use?"

There were times I dreaded telling people that I homeschooled, especially other homeschoolers because the first question I would hear was, "What curriculum do you use?"  I never knew if I was being judged or not when I would tell them we customized our curriculum based on one book.

When we were just starting out, I had gone to the library to see if they had any books to help me know what I should be doing. I found this book:  Home Learning Year by Year.  I would call and check it out over and over again until I finally found it on Amazon.com and ordered my own copy  for less than $10.00.  It covers Kindergarten through 12th grade and breaks down every subject for those grades.  It gives links you can visit and suggested readings. It lists what they need to be learning about in math and language arts. It tells the people, time periods and topics they should study in history and science. It explains how deep they should go in art, music, physical education and foreign languages.

We were on a very limited income so my main expense to begin with was the Home Learning book and a library card. I paid $45 a year for a card and the Payette Public Library became our home away from home.   I had a list in my hand of who we needed to learn about that week and would load up my oversized blue-jean bag with books and videos and audiobooks.  I would grab family magazines for me to get craft and game ideas.

Library books were not my only resource. Over the years, I have kept an eye out for good deals on books. Because I had my Home Learning book at my fingertips at all times, I would know what to look for.   I could always find good reading books for the kids at yard sales.  The Dollar Store and I became very well acquainted. They had the math and language workbooks usually through grade 2. Then they started getting Spectrum Test books in up through grade 8! When these first came out, my boys were still very little but I loaded up and bought two for each grade. Every once in a while they will get some great little science and history books in so I snatch them up.   They always have colorful charts and such too.   I have even gone to the public schools at the end of the year to see if they are getting rid of any old text books. That step alone supplied me with Saxon Math text books for four years.

Of course, the highlight of my year was (and still is) the CHOIS Homeschool Convention. The Thursday before the convention is the used curriculum sale. The first time I attended this event, I was overwhelmed. I walked around like a zombie the first half hour. There was a whole gymnasium filled with tables of books and games and gadgets and more books.  I didn't even know where to begin. Once my head cleared, I was in heaven. The deals I was able to find there had me dancing on cloud 9 for a week!  I learned a valuable lesson that first time though; make a list.   Before I go to this sale, I go through the material I have at home and and decide what I will need for the next year.  I make a list and try to set a limit on what I will spend. Those are the first things I look for when I walk in. Once I have fulfilled those needs and if I still have money left, I look for fun stuff.

I shared my anxiety about telling people about my choice of curriculum.  That panic ended when I attended one particular workshop at the convention. A woman was speaking about how much she would spend on her schooling supplies each year.   She opened it up with, "The only thing that you need in order to homeschool your children is a comfortable couch." A couch? That statement actually changed our lives. For the first few years I had been trying to bring the public school home. The boys each had their own little desk . The room I used was set up like a school room, but I realized how rigid and legalistic I had been.  That next Fall when I grabbed our stack of books and went and sat on the couch the first day of school, the boys weren't quite sure what to do .  It has made things much more relaxed and we have had some great conversations on that old couch.

So there you have it! A book, a library card and a comfortable couch is all you need to begin homeschooling your children!

Learning to Teach

By the time Chris was ready for kindergarten, Eli was three years old.  Eli was my wild child and I remember telling my parents that when it came time to homeschool him, I would have to re-evaluate things.   I didn't know if I could handle him or not.  It turned out that he was the easier of the two to teach.

I have definitely discovered a lot about learning styles over the years including insight regarding my own style of learning. At first, I thought that I should just have to read to them and they would learn. Children were sponges I had been told so I expected them to soak up everything I was telling them. Yeah...not so much.  I was also under the impression that children had to sit still and pay attention while they were being taught.   Again...not the case.

This first dawned on me when I was reading a book about  Charles Lindbergh one day to Christopher. Eli was off in the corner playing with his giant leggos while I read.    At the end of the week, I was quizzing Chris on the subject matter, but it wasn't Chris who was answering the questions. It was Eli! I was assuming since it was Chris that was by my side that he would be able to remember every word he had heard. I certainly didn't think it would be the three year old toddler who was humming and clanking plastic blocks in the corner while I was reading. Yet, he was able to answer all of the questions correctly.

I realized that I was going to have to learn a different style of teaching.  One of my boys was an auditory learner, Eli obviously and Chris was a visual learner.  I had to learn to adapt. We became very hands on with our lessons and we loved it!  We built pyramids out of giant boxes. We made dioramas of the jungle. We made our own playdough together with the wildest of colors. We created chariots using toys from their rooms. Our options were limitless! And we had bright colored charts and maps and calendars.  It made it fun for me to teach and fun for them to learn.

One thing we incorporated was a sensory box. It had dry rice and beans along with objects of different sizes and textures.  They had measuring cups and funnels.  There were squishy balls in it, strips of furry cloth, small rubber grips for opening up jars, pipe cleaners,  and anything else that they found fun to touch. Each boy had one and the only time they were allowed to bring it out was when I was reading to them. They could then play quietly with their sensory boxes while listening to the story.  When we were done, we would place the lids on them and put them away til the next day. It became something they looked forward to each day and it wasn't a fight to get them to be still.  
I wanted my boys to learn to love to learn and we tried many different tactics to assist in this. Some of them worked. Some of them didn't. I will share more along the way!

Me? Homeschool?

I have always been told to "write what you know". One thing I know is homeschooling.   I thought I would start blogging a bit about it. I certainly don't consider myself an expert but have done it now for 11 years and my children are still alive and I still have most of my hair so figured I may have something to offer. The attached picture shows how I feel much of the time.

In this post, I will just give a little background as to why we started homeschooling.   My husband and I have seven kids between the two of us: his, hers, and ours.  We call it the beauty of the blended family.  I felt that we were raising two separate families as there was an age span of fifteen years between our oldest and our youngest.

I had never thought of homeschooling before I met my husband.  He knew one family in our hometown who lived that adventure and it really made an impact on him. He had mentioned it several times and I kept giving him the excuse that everybody uses with me now, "I would never have the patience to do that!"

My turning point was when our oldest graduated from high school. I couldn't believe how fast time had flown and I was determined to go to all lengths to make it slow down. Surely homeschooling was the answer for that. I wish I could report that it was true. Unfortunately time has gone just as fast.   The one thing that is different, is that I know our youngest two boys on a level that, sadly, I will never have the opportunity to know my older children.

So we chose to homeschool our youngest two, Chris and Eli, right from the beginning.  We had nothing against the public schools. We just wanted to enjoy being a mom and dad for more than two hours a day.  As Christian parents, we did find it difficult to parent effectively for the short time that we had our children during the day. They would go to school at 7:30 a.m. They got out at 3:00 p.m. but then were involved in sports and sometimes didn't get home until 9:00 p.m. or later.   We had an hour to undo everything that the world had done in the last 12 to 14 hours.  They were dealing with peer pressure, struggling with certain classes and teachers, and living their lives with very little guidance. I do not fault the schools for this. With hundreds of kids, they cannot possibly give attention to every child in the capacity that is needed.  My only regret in all of this is that I did not have the confidence to homeschool my older children.   I missed out on many precious moments! Although there have been many ups and downs, I have fallen in love with homeschooling!

I was struggling at first trying to think of the different aspect I would share about our homeschooling adventure. However, as I have been writing this article, ideas are now flooding my mind. I am excited to share my experiences with you!