Author Archives: Lisa @ Me & My House

Need a math mind bender for you children today?

This one is written as determining your age by “how many times you want to go out to eat per week,” but you could substitute any other “event” that would be more than 1 and less than 10. And actually it works with 0 or 1 also, but it is more apparent how the calculations are working, therefore losing some of the “awe” factor – but your children may not catch on to that. Also, it won’t work if you are over 100. 🙂

You could do it by telling your children you will be able to tell them their “secret number”. Have them choose a secret number 2-9 (or 0-9) then follow your directions and do the calculations (without letting you see) and then read the answer to you. You will know the last 2 digits are their age, and first (in the hundreds place) is their “secret number”. If doing it with someone whose age you don’t know, you could not only tell them their “secret number” but also their age. (If they are less than 10 years old, their age will have a ‘0’ in the tens place, i.e. 3 years old=03. But I doubt that they can do the calculations, even if they are home educated. 🙂 )

This formula only works this year – 2008.

“Is it possible to calculate your age by how often you enjoy eating out? Get ready for a mathematical mind-bender– and don’t cheat by scrolling down first!

“This takes less than a minute. Work it out as you read, either in your head or on a piece of paper. But be sure you don’t read the bottom until you’ve worked it out!

1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to go out to eat (more than once but less than 10 times)
2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)
3. Add 5
4. Multiply it by 50
5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1758 … If you haven’t, add 1757.
6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.

You should now have a three digit number. The first digit of this was your original number, (i.e., how many times you want to go out to restaurants in a week).

The next two numbers are:

YOUR AGE! (Oh YES, it is!)

This is the only year (2008) the calculation will ever work, so you have less than nine months to spread this around.

from Mercola.com

Day 3 Home School Week!

What kind of Nebraskan would I be to not participate?

And we have likely all felt the fool in one way or another. Share your greatest challenge. Or one of those terrible, horrible no good, very bad days where the only thing there is to do seems to involve moving to Australia.

I don’t have “a day” to share, but I can guarantee that I’ve had bad days, even within the last week. Day’s when I’ve cried, days when we all pray, “God, please, we need you to guide us every step of the way today,” days when we’ve just STOPPED everything – and took a “break” for the rest of the day.

These days usually have nothing to do with the lessons themselves, but just our lives as human sinners living together in a fallen world, trying to make our way, trying to make a difference in our children’s lives, for God’s glory. Working on relationships and character is far more important than working on “school” lessons.

Day 2 of Home Education Week posts.

Describe yourself, your family or one of your children. What is it like to be home educated in your family? What is “normal” for you?

Normal for us has over time since those 4 little girls. Our days USED to be filled with everyone getting up and ready, then sitting at the table to work through our table time lessons – finishing these fairly quickly, (even the little ones quietly coloring or something,) then everyone completing their chores, then everyone reading or working on other projects and play time.

“Normal” now, with 4 boys in the home (+ the 2 younger girls, 16 and 8) is getting up and messing around, jumping around at the table during table time lessons, being disrupted by the 2 little boys during the table time lessons so we’re never done “quickly”, wrestling around during chore time, and goofing around when they’re suppose to be reading, rarely getting through soon enough to have enough play time. And FAR more bathroom breaks. Who ever said GIRLS are the bad ones for this?

Play time is still important though, so …. what’s a mom to do? Obviously, a lot more training is needed around here. The 2 girls recently went to their older sister’s for a week. I sent their lessons with them. They were done before 9:30 every morning, except for their independent reading, that they did at their leisure throughout the day.

Obviously, with our boys we’ve had to make adjustments in “normal”. The older girls preferred to work at the table, one lesson to the next, until we were DONE. Then their time was free. We’d even work ahead to give us “free days”. They LOVED things this way. With the boys, things don’t go that way. Much of their “play” time is taken DURING lesson time.

With boys we have learned:

1. more about SHORT lessons, no waxing eloquent, just make the point and move on.
2. to take short ACTIVE breaks between each SHORT lesson. They run outside around the house x number of times, jump 5 minutes on the tramp, ride their bike around the block a couple of times, or some other ACTIVITY. If it’s too horribly nasty to go out  (it’s got to be REALLY bad to not go out, but there are plenty of times it’s bad enough they can’t get on the tramp or the bikes) anyhow, if they have to stay in, they run the stairs a few times. Then return for the next table time lesson/project or family reading. The key is RUNNING. If I just send them out to empty the trash or something, the goofing off, messing around, etc. kicks in and they don’t come back for 15 min.
3. to vary lesson types that are back to back. A reading, a writing, a listening, a hands-on project all scrambled up. NEVER try to do 2 of the same type back to back. It will backfire.

I can’t imagine my boys in a traditional “school”-type setting. They’d no doubt be labeled and pushing for medication. I don’t know that I’ve totally figured out the perfect balance in our home though. A mom has to continually be using discernment for what is foolishness and disobedience, and what is just the way God made little boys. I’m still learning how to train boys. Girls are much easier.

So 14 years of Normal, has been exchanged for 7 years of “NORMAL?” I have a feeling “NORMAL?” has at least another 14 years to go, as our youngest boy is not quite 4 now.

I’m am joining Dana’s Home Education Week – in retrospect. This has been a week with very little online time, and so I’ll just take the time I have now, and backpost to follow the flow.

Dana asks:

Share your personal history  … before you were a home educator. What was life like? Think about things you miss and things you and your family have gained.

I’m sure there was life before home education, but there is little to remember except that we had to get up early, and I missed them while they were gone. That was a LONG time ago. We’ve been home educating since 1987.

Our oldest 2 went from being in our home up to age 5, to the typical government education institution for a few years. During that time we had 2 more dc, who were home with me. We also became Christians at that time, and began researching home ed soon after. It was just coming into anyone’s knowledge then. I read the 2 or 3 books available on it, and knew no one personally who was doing it. But, within 2 years of becoming Christians, we began home educating. It’s one of the very best decisions we’ve EVER made.

BTW, although I’d only heard vaguely of home schooling and of some family 75 miles away doing it, when our first was about 1.5 and someone asked when I was going to wean her, I replied that if she wasn’t weaned by kindergarten I’d have to home school her. — She did wean, way before 5, and I did send her to ps, but brought her home a few years later.

I probably worked on more craft and sewing projects back then. Now I work on lesson plans. And I obviously read different things back then. I took a couple college classes I was interested in, got my interior design certification, personal color certification (for make up and wardrobe), and when God saved me, I began lifelong dedicated Bible study. I was already designing crafts and selling them, and teaching craft classes, and teaching nutrition classes.

But I wouldn’t say I “miss” anything. I still work on those things as time allows, and I LOVE the studying I do now, for educating my own children – since it is just as extension of my Bible Study, and for teaching other parents how to home educate in Freedom & Simplicity™ through Lifestyle Education through Discipleship™.

I believed we have gained everything! I wouldn’t send my dc out of the home that way again. During our home education years, we have gone from 4 children to 10. Those oldest 4 are now grown and in their own homes. So life has changed, because our family has changed, but for the last 21 years, home education has been the constant – a God guided life of family discipleship.