The ONG family Homeschool

Guest Writer's Post: Free days!

I have been homeschooling for more than a decade and a half, and there have been very dry periods when the homeschool energy just isn't fired up. But watching and learning from younger homeschool moms can be so refreshing and energising! One of these mom friends posted the following on FB recently and I thought it was so enlightening and I asked her for permission to publish it here on my blog. She says she has 2 days in the week that are "free days". I think detractors will think "free days" are too "free" to be "productive" (read: grinding at the desk.) So she just had a thought to jot down what happened on one of their "free days". As you will see, lots of learning done, but just not structured. Thanks Wan Ling for sharing!!! 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our school days look like this. Green for altogether Yellow for my elder girl Blue for the little one Usually desk work is done in 15-30mins even though I allocated an hour for each subject.

We use a “to-do” box system. The day’s work is put in the bin, so the girls have a visual cue to the tasks ahead and they can choose how they want to manage their time. They can choose to do everything at one go if they like.

We have 2 free days in the week. They are days with nothing planned i.e. protected time.
I often get questions about what we do during those free days and why we have them. It’s hard to explain. Today, I kept a detailed journal of what the elder girl was engaged in the entire day.

8.15am: I slept in (because I had a terrible night) while she washed up.
8.30am: She prepared breakfast for everyone and took a photo to show me.

9-9.30am: She was listening to “Story of The World”. “Mummy, do you know that one of the Roman emperor made his horse a consul and forced everyone to listen to it?”
9.30-10am: At my breakfast table, she ate my nectarines and read “Sisters” comic aloud to me so that we could share the jokes.
10-10.15am: We went through our classical memory work subscription programme. We discussed the locations of Asian countries on the map and alternative meanings to “dig” and “value”.
10.15-10.25am: We discussed the Magna Carta and it’s importance because it came up in the History memory work.
10.25-10.30am: She spot-vacuumed the floor.
10.30-10.40am: We read the bible and prayed.
10.40-10.55am: Watered the plants and did her gardening.
10.55-11.20am: Played “hospital” with SM.
11.20-11.30am: Made silly sentences and stories with the Letterland Shuffle cards.
11.30-11.45am: Played with the volume, weight and measure set with SM. They tried to make the arrow on the scale go an entire round with rocks etc...
11.45-1150am: Did some Chinese writing on an activity book.

11.50-12.15pm: Completed 4 Sudoku puzzles (spotted a typo mistake in one and corrected it), did a couple of mazes.
12.15-12.25pm: Prepared lunch with me.
12.25-12.50pm: Had lunch and cleaned up.
12.50-1pm: Listened to “Story of the World” again. “Nero!”
1-1.25pm: Played a game of Rummikub with us.
1.25-4.30pm: Cycled and played with friends.
4.30-4.35pm: Fixed herself a snack.
4.35-5.35pm: Craft time! Did some sewing on the sewing machine. She sewed a pocketful of hearts for her daddy.

5.35-6.05pm: Asked daddy to do a science experiment with them. I heard “What is the limiting chemical?” and “ titration “ before I took a nap.

6.05-6.20pm: The girls came to my bed with books for me to read aloud to them.
6.20-6.30pm: Played “Lava” with SM before we went out for dinner.

Our free days are often like this, carefree, productive and full of zest for learning. Often, when we have a chance to schedule anything on our free days, I’ll consider the opportunity costs and turn it down. These seemingly lazy and endless days are so precious to us.

The Most Vital Link: Your Marriage

I know I probably have a rotting tooth. There's a gap that has the tendency to trap food and despite my efforts to keep it flossed from time to time, I know that it is probably is something big and bad happening in there. BUT I'm avoiding going to the dentist! Scardey cat. I'm living in denial. Well, since there's no pain, i don't need to go and have my tooth (maybe teeth? shudder..) removed. It's just going to bite me back one day.

This post is about how we need to maintain and nurture the most vital relationship in the family. No, not parent child relationship. Though I would suspect most people reading this blog would be most concerned about this, the precious children and how to best care for them.

No. Actually, the most vital lifeline relationship in the family, the one that is the be all and end all of all families:  the husband and wife relationship. I am happily married to my dear, loving husband. I feel often that God was so good and kind to have blessed me with a godly man like him, when I am so undeserving. 

Sadly, most marriage relationships are so often neglected and placed as the last priority. But when it fails, every other thread unravels. The marriage landscape is pretty ugly if you really stop to count the carnage. It's scary how marriages are failing. What went wrong?

Getting away from God's design is what went wrong. The Creator has specific design specifications for His creation Man and Woman to function and work. It can be seen in Genesis when God created Adam to be the one to have dominion over the earth and subdue it and He created Eve to be Adam's perfect helper.

I've been reading a really really great book Created to be His Help Meet by Debi Pearl. What a blessing this book has been. It has been both sobering and enlightening. Hubby and I were laughing while reading pg 155, a segment taken out word for word from a home economics textbook from the 1950s. Some exerpts entitled How to be a Good Wife Today:

*Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal on time. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home, and the prospect of a good meal is part of the warm welcome needed.

*Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so that you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your makeup, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people. Be a little gay and a little more interesting. His boring day may need a lift.

.

.

.

Some Don'ts:

*Don't greet him with problems or complaints.

*Don't complain if he is late for dinner. Count this as minor compared with what he might have gone through that day. Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or suggest he lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him. Arrange his pillow, and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soft, soothing and pleasant voice. Allow him to relax and unwind.

etc.

(at this point, hubby sticks out his foot for me to remove his imaginary shoe. :p)

___________________________________

Did any of you baulk yet? I know I did.... but partly in realization of how far my own standards are short from even this 1950s textbook.

Wow. The man is to be treated like a King??? And the woman is there to SERVE him??? Well, look again to the design of God and you will see, it is the way that God intended for blissful marriage!

Genesis 2:20-23  And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.  And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.  And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

1 Corinthians 11:8-12  For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.  Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.  Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.

Stay at home and serve him???

 Titus 2:3-5  The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;  That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,  To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

The Word of God is blasphemed when wives do not perform their duties to their husbands! This is serious stuff. But really, is it soooo serious? You will know it is serious when God's blueprint is not followed and things get all kinds of ugly. That's when the sobering fact that God's word is to be feared really hits home. :(

These days, we live in an equal opportunity society whereby women can rise the ranks and can climb the career ladder, as high as any man can. No body wants to blame failed marriages on this. But consider the real cost to the family of having a working wife. The kind of working hours. Eating on the go. The house is like a hotel to eat sleep and bath only to rush out of the next morning. Can a woman honestly say she is carrying out the commandments of Titus 2 when she compares it to her daily lifestyle?

How much time and energy women these days devote to their careers and leave whatever is left to their children. And they wonder why their ungrateful husbands leave them for another woman! Too many women think that just because her man said "I do" somehow guarantees a marriage made in heaven. It doesn't. Marriage, like any other relationship, takes nurturing to build.

I haven't even talked about the children yet. The baby comes along. Your husband and wife relationship suddenly switch to survival mode. Dear, can you pick up a packet of diapers on the way home, we are out of them. Dear, the baby is sick, can you take leave to bring him to the doctor. Been there, done that. Life went on a while like that when the first and second babies came along in our lives. Hubby did his part to help me in raising the kids. That was my attitude. Until I one day realized that it was completely meaningless if I didn't have our relationship right. I wasn't treating him right! Even though I was a stay home mom!!! The children had become the third party. We made a decision to change.

You know, the kids are a lot happier when they know mommy and daddy love each other and they are not the thing that holds the tenuous ties family together. Such a big burden for children to bear! :( Remember my mantra. The Children are NOT the centre of the universe. Fight the temptation to make them that, tooth and nail.

SO how is your husband wife relationship doing? Can it be said to be healthy? Are you constantly in a meeting of minds, spirit and body? Or has the relationship really become more of a partnership, a co-operation to get things done: you do your part and I do mine?

Don't wait till you are in extreme pain before seeing the dentist. Do what you can before your tooth rots and stinks and eventually have to pull it out. 

 Created to be His Help Meet!! BUY IT!!!

A Pleasant Surprise!

Now, this is something that I certainly never imagined when I started this family and homeschooling blog 3 yrs ago: Many have written to tell me that this blog has been an encouragement to them and for that I am so glad and grateful that God can use this blog! It had only been my purpose to let folks out there know what (Christian) homeschooling in Singapore is like for this family, it never crossed my mind that I might be so blessed in return!

But the Lord is so good! Through this blog, I have come to know dear people and this month, I was even materially blessed by one such reader turned friend!

My dear bloggy friend came across this Little House on the Prairie series and she remembered that we had been reading the book. Indeed, we thoroughly enjoyed it. (And yes, sometimes, through the course of the day, online friends also pop into my head and I often turn these thoughts into prayers for them.) She was so generous to acquire the whole set and send it to us! and.... she's in California!!!

!!!

So you can imagine my great surprise when I returned home from church camp last week to see a box sitting on the table waiting for me? I was close to tears. I ask myself, what did I ever do to have such lovely people shower us with such kindnesses?

Thank you so much!

Oh, and here are the children enjoying their other gifts also from the box....

John 13:34-35  A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

I do not wish for more such gifts, that is not the reason for my posting this, but I just want to thank the Lord for all He has done and blessed us with (material but more so spiritual encouragement). May the Lord richly bless you YW (and all my other blog friends!) as only He can for the love you have shown to us.