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Simple Tip – Thankful Thinking

October 31, 2011 in My Simple Living

I wanted to write a few posts on thinking and outlook. I have probably touched on it before, but it is so huge. So much of life is formed in how we choose in our head to see it.

So minimalism or simple living is having less stuff right? Society tries very hard to make us feel like we don’t have enough stuff and tries to makes us want to buy more and more. This isn’t evil, it makes tones of economic sense, I just don’t want to follow it.

The way to combat the feeling of needing more and more stuff is to really focus on being thankful for what I have. What I have is a gift. I didn’t deserve it but I want to manage and make the most of it.

I wanted to focus a bit on what I am thankful for. Your list is probably a bit different, but I bet we have lots of the same things. (sorry, kinda on a list kick from last Wed still)

I am thankful for:

Life, all 31 years
Health, not always the best, but sure could be far worse
An amazing husband who is teaching me how to love and that I am valued
Energetic, healthy, and smart kids
Enough money in the bank to not worry about buying groceries
Almost being out of debt (we have been working hard at paying off the Prius)
The ability to read and the incredible amount of books available
The chance and finances to stay home with my kids and home school them
Modern medicine and the preventative health information to use it as little as possible
Great friends
Caffeine free coffee (I can’t handle the caffeine, wigs me out, but I love the taste)
Dark chocolate
Olives… ok, I should probably just put great food or this list could really get long
Sunny days, and hot summer days, and a south facing apartment
Mostly consistent work since we became self-employed over 4 years ago
A God who loves and has saved me
Our minimalism journey which makes it much easier to clean, find things and/or move
Awesome garage sales and Craigslist to both sell what we don’t need anymore and get things we do
Blogging, the fun people I have gotten to know through it, and the challenging process of learning how to do it
Sleep…. my favorite hobby
Facebook and the fact that I have caught up with almost everyone I ever knew in the last few years… and the ability to take my time back and not spend near as much time on it as I have been.
Brown paper packages and whiskers on kittens
British Comedy
Early bedtimes and quiet evenings
…..my need to finish off a list with a nice round number like 25.

What does your list look like? I dare you to make on–just making one makes the day feel better.

Tags: apartment, Blog, Chocolate, chocolate olives, coffee, consistent work, craigslist, dark chocolate, economic sense, enough money, free coffee, garage sale, garage sales, great friends, groceries, Health, health information, home, hot summer, journey, minimalism, modern medicine, Money, money in the bank, olives, preventative health, prius, Simple, simple living, smart kids, stuff, sunny days, time
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The Caterpiller — Ian’s YouTube Performance

October 28, 2011 in Simple Home School

This kid cracks me up. He insisted on the half naked fireman get-up for his movie.

This is his first ‘official’ memorization assignment.

We are following First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind: Level 1 (Second Edition) (First Language Lessons). I have an older version that includes the first two years and I went through the whole book with Lily. We just started it with Ian. It is an awesome home schooling resource. It focuses on:

memorization
story summary and narration
grammer (they memorize several list like all the prepositions)
copy and dictation

It is all in short interactive lessons. Super easy, literally you read from a script. It was so complete, especially with the grammer that I learned lots of stuff … that I managed to graduate from college without knowing.

I really recommend these books. Even if you aren’t home schooling it would be a great tool to use in the evenings. 15 minute for most of the assignments max and it is fun interactive learning.

First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind: Level 2 (Second Edition) (First Language Lessons)
First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind: Level 3 Instructor Guide (First Language Lessons)
First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind: Level 3 Student Workbook (First Language Lessons)
First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind: Level 4 Student Workbook (First Language Lessons)

Disclaimer: I am not paid to review or recommend anything on this site. I am an amazong affiliate so I do get a small pay back if you purchase the book by following my link. What I recommend I want you to get whether you follow my link or not, because I believe in it.

Tags: amazon, assignment, caterpiller, dictation, first language, home, home schooling, Ian, interactive learning, interactive lessons, language lessons, memorization, school, youtube
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Lily’s ‘I Have A Dream’ YouTube Performance

October 21, 2011 in Simple Home School

‘And if America is to be a great nation, than this must become true.’ — Martin Luther King Jr.

Ok, so this isn’t acting class… she is really shy and getting her to say it into the camera is the closest thing I can do to get her to recite it. She has a hard time getting into it, but then gets going. She can say the whole thing just fine to me, but getting dressed up and having the camera distracted her. When she gets going the best I wasn’t even in the room. I had to leave to try and keep Ian quiet.

Memorization is an awesome tool in home school, especially at the young ages. My 7 year old daughter has memorized tones of stuff in biology, math, geography and The Bible. The past few weeks she has memorized the last 3/7ths of the ‘I Have A Dream’ speech (almost half). The end is where he really builds so we memorized that first.

This year I wanted her to spend some time memorizing great speeches. This not only helps with memorization and brain exercises, it also helps with complex sentences and increased vocabulary.

The first one she did was the Gettysburg Address. Then after a break of memorizing a few Bible passages she started working on this speech. It was hard to get her excited about it at first, but this speech is energizing and addicting. This guy had passion and an incredible speaking/speech writing ability. I have listened to her say it hundreds of times and I could listen to it hundreds more. A great way to start the school day!

She doesn’t want to tackle the rest of the speech now so we are working on another smaller poem. I would like to find some other great speeches for her to learn… maybe the sermon on the mount.

Tags: bible passages, brain exercises, complex sentences, dream speech, great speeches, home, martin luther king, martin luther king jr, memorization, school, speeches
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Overlooked Perk of Homeschooling

October 7, 2011 in Simple Home School

It hit me a few days ago when I was trying to get my kids to eat broccoli and I was trying to explain to them that, when cooked right, broccoli still has just a bit of crunch…. that it isn’t supposed to smear when you try to cut it.

Health is a big thing for me because it is very important for growing minds. But it got me really got thinking about how much our homeschooling decision affects the kids health. I decided to compare it to the Newstart program which I have always really respected and have also used to teach my kids health. This is what I came up with. Some offer only a slight difference while others offer a huge benefit.

N=Nutrition

This, I believe is hugely different in a home school setting. Sure there are great mothers who pack super healthy lunches and home school moms that don’t cook healthy, but for the most part kids at home are eating home cooked, fresh cooked, balanced meals. It is just easier to do at home. Taking a healthy lunch is hard to start with, and then there is ‘peer pressure’ or ‘lunch envy’ for the kids who get the most ‘junk’ in their lunch. What is served at ‘hot’ school lunches can qualify for ‘warm’ (hopefully) food, but it is far from healthy, nutritious, or fresh.

But that is just the obvious lunch problem. There is breakfast, the most important meal of the day, that at home can be unhurried and balanced when kids are rushing out the door. I have worked hard at cooking full breakfasts for the kids. Sometimes it isn’t ready soon enough to get it in before our school starts at 7:15, but we can break for it at 7:45 and still have a full meal without being rushed.

Snacks are also great. Kids just function and think better when they aren’t hungry and we have a morning snack every day (sometimes an afternoon one, but the morning seems the most important). For snack we usually cut up fruit or pop popcorn, but just having the kitchen close makes it easier to find something fresh and healthy. My poor son goes through growth spurts that have him eating tones and still begging for food almost every hour. At home there is always something on hand as well as time to stop and ‘re-fuel’.

Funny side note: When I started homeschooling Lily at 5 I asked her what she thought of home school. She answered “Oh mom, I love it. At school we only got one snack (referring to pre-school) at home I get TWO snacks”

Kids can’t think or learn hungry, or sugared up… They also can’t learn as well if they are missing vitamins or nutrients from an over processed, over stored, and over cooked diet. This is not some great feet for a home schooling family, or that other families are mistreating their kids, it is just easier to eat nutritious at home.

E=Exercise

This probably is very different per school and per home school, but we try and make exercise really important in our day. We have gone for a 2 mile walk, played at 2 different parks for a total of at least 3 hours, and gone swimming 3 times this week for a total of at least 4 hours. Kids need to move. I was super proud my kids both hiked the Grand Canyon this summer (ages 7 and 4).

This is something families can easily still do when the kids aren’t at school, but I do believe home school makes it easier because of scheduling flexibility.

W=Water

This is simple, but super important. I don’t know how the schools do it, but my kids have a cup of water at both their desks when they are working and drink regularly through the day.