Cricket’s Thoughts

From the day Sassy entered our lives, she was extremely protective of us and our property. Tonight her overwhelming need to protect us cost her life.

As I was opening the back door to go get soda out of my truck, some sort of animal wandered into the yard area from the woods. Sassy began growling loudly and at the same moment tore outside, almost knocking me over.

Sassy chased the animal into the road but was moving at such a speed that she didn’t stand a chance of stopping when a truck came over the hill, killing her instantly. I will miss her desperately.
 

In Loving Memory of Sassy Always …

Although structure is important, sometimes parents forget that homeschool is NOT just about books and supplies.

Sometimes in our excitement to homeschool, we replicate the very things that cause our children problems in school.

I know several families who homeschool on a shoestring budget.

One of my boys hated anything that LOOKED like learning. If it was in a book, he was sure he didn’t want anything to do with it. The more I pushed, the more he pushed back. Learning became a time of stress rather than a time of wonder and joy.

Although his IQ is well above normal, he has some serious learning challenges.

The last thing he wanted to do was work on fractions or learn anything about history.

The stress of our power struggle was increasing.

The counselor had advised that I back off the books for a few weeks and allow him some space. Just give him somewhat of a break.

I decided to take him on a “field trip” to see Sequoyah’s cabin and home site just outside Sallisaw, Oklahoma. (Sequoyah was the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet.) Although he was quiet the entire day, he appeared to be paying attention to the man guiding him through everything. He especially spent a lot of time staring at the cabin, but again, not saying much.

On the way home, I remember thinking, okay, another great idea down the drain.

My mind was racing with ideas on how I could somehow get his attention, but he wasn’t having any part of it.

The next morning he woke up early and headed straight outside. He was building a tree house and NOTHING was going to distract him. No amount of encouragement was going to bring him in that house to work with “books”.

This went on for a week.

He would stay out there for hours, coming in only to grab a sandwich and take it with him, and to sleep at night. I was just reaching the point of thinking his counselor needed counseling because this was NOT working. Backing off was taking him even further away from learning.

At the end of the week, he came in the house filthy and soaked in sweat. He had a huge smile on his face as he was asking me if he could show me something. I followed him out, but I was absolutely positive he was going to show me something disgusting, like a huge snake.

He led me straight to the tree house and asked me to go inside.

Now let me tell you, from the outside this tree house looked pretty atrocious, but I was keeping my comments to myself because I knew how hard he had worked on it. However, I was extremely concerned that he was not INSIDE LEARNING.

Reluctantly, I began climbing the homemade ladder up the side of the tree. When I got to the top and peeked inside I was totally shocked.

I can still recall the feeling of complete astonishment at what I was seeing.

The inside of this tree house looked like a miniature replica of Sequoyah’s cabin.

I could not believe the detail, right down to using rope for the bed. It was absolutely incredible.

On the floor beside the bed were some scribbling notes, from him using the fractions I was desperately trying to teach him. Turned out he had taught himself as needed, with all the measuring he had been doing. He then told me the story of Sequoyah and how fascinated he was by it all.

That day, and many times in his life, instead of me teaching my son, my son taught me.

He continues to do so now as an adult.
 

Thanks For Being A Part Of My Life!

I wanted to give another example of “thinking outside the box” when homeschooling.

As I mentioned in an earlier article, my son struggled with learning disabilities.

They labeled him dyslexic, and he never quite got past that. Six years into public school he had not learned to print or sign his name.

This had a tremendous impact on his self confidence and increased his rebellion when it came to anything involving “learning”.

I knew that if I could somehow teach him to sign his name that he might have some confidence to want to learn more.

Paper and pencil were out of the question at this point, as it led to serious arguments.

I began to research everything I could get my hands on. Finally, a possible solution was right in front of my face.

I asked my son if he would go shopping with me. He was absolutely willing if it meant we were leaving the house and learning behind.

Off to Wal-Mart we went.

We bought 20 cans of shaving cream.

He was absolutely positive that I had lost my mind.

When we got home, I told him that I needed him to cover the table in shaving cream.

Of course he had a blast making sure that not only the table, but both of us were covered in that dang shaving cream.

We began drawing things in the shaving cream.

Pretty soon I showed him how easy it was to DRAW his name in it and erase it as often as he wanted.

We ended up with one heck of a mess to clean up, but we were both laughing.

About 90 minutes into it, my son could DRAW his name, both first and last.

All this to say . . .

Relax and have fun . . .

If you let them, your child will show you how to teach them.
 

Thanks For Being A Part Of My Life!

This morning, shortly after Haley was dropped off at school, the teachers were outside tracking down all of the band kids to bring them together into one room. They had to tell these kids that the school had just been notified that their band leader, at 41 years old had died suddenly of a massive heart attack.

The kids were extremely close to this very special teacher and it was a devastating blow to our community.

Counselors were brought in to keep the kids together and help them work through this.

Tonight Haley handed me the following letter she had just finished writing.

I don’t think I could ever be more proud

Dear Ms. Little,

I don’t know if you’ll get this, but I am going to at least try. I still can’t exactly accept that you, I guess I could say, went away. I don’t know why you went away, but Mrs. Booker said you would have the best Christmas of your life. I guess that’s true. I sure wish I could have said goodbye, but you know, I just realized I don’t want to say goodbye. I know it sounds selfish, but I wish you were here so I could at least hug you one more time.

Really, I hope you have fun up there, and don’t think about us. The last thing I want is for you to feel guilty for making us cry. You know, though, I think the reason people cry is because they’re happy for you, since we’re sure you made it to heaven.

If my mom was right about there being a band in heaven, I am sure you’ll be the instructor. I hope we make you proud by living your dream one day. The thing I want most in the world is for you to be happy up there. Have fun.

Your trumpet player,

Haley, 5th Grade Band

Thanks For Being A Part Of My Life!

Thanks For Being A Part Of My Life!