Author Archives: Adriana Zoder

Oct 1 2015

Thoughtful Thursday Week 40 – Coincidences

Posted on by

Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated by coincidences. Growing up in a secular family, I wondered why I met certain people on the street. What if I had taken a different route? Would I have met somebody else? Would I have received different news? Those were the days when news came face-to-face, not via Facebook.

As I gained a spiritual perspective, I realized that coincidences are part of God’s Providence. He sets kings up, He removes them. He takes care of the sparrow. He knows my name and the street on which I live. Yes, I believe God is personal. I am no agnostic.

Thoughtful Thursday Coincidences

Five years ago, I was wrestling with, “To homeschool or not to homeschool?” That was the question. I decided to homeschool. The rest was not just history. It was a series of coincidences that simply blew me away.

They keep on coming, too. It’s like once I aligned myself with God’s will and purpose for my life, things fell into place like a puzzle. Every time.

There was the time when I decided to get more curriculum from Peace Hill Press and, the following week, this homeschooling mom, out of the blue, decided to just give me $200 worth of brand new, never before used Peace Hill Press curriculum she was not going to use anymore.

There was the time when I scheduled our weekly trips to the Adventurer Club – one hour away from home and then wondered if it was the right decision, i.e. drive for two hours only to be somewhere for 90 minutes. The following week, I got an email about another activity I could schedule in that city on the same day. I even had the right amount of commute time in between.

I could go on and on. Continue reading »

Sep 24 2015

Thoughtful Thursday Week 39 – Organize

Posted on by

A few weeks ago, on the bleachers next to a soccer field in Tennessee, parents were chatting about this new experience. Most of them had a child in kindergarten. Most of them were there for the very first soccer practice in the life of their kindergarten student. I felt like a veteran, as this was my third year on those bleachers.

They knew each other because their children attended this private school. They did not know me.

Thoughtful Thursday - Organize

I homeschool and bring my children to the soccer practice at this private school because the coach welcomes homeschoolers. Plus it works out with the rest of the things we do in Knoxville, one hour away from home, on a particular day of the week. My husband, as the principal of our homeschool, had asked me to look around for an opportunity for our children to be involved in a team sport. This was the perfect fit for us.

So these parents who knew each other turned toward me and asked if I had a child on the field. I told them I had two, one in second grade and the other in kindergarten. Oh, they wanted to know, “Which kindergarten class is your child in?” “We homeschool.” They were very positive in their responses. They thought homeschooling was admirable.  Continue reading »

Sep 23 2015

Wonderful Wednesday – Jewelweed

Posted on by

I told you I invested in the Ultimate Naturalist Membership Level at this blog about nature studies. I am going through this year trying it out, seeing how it all fits in with our goals. I know I want my kids to learn as much as possible from nature: rocks, plants, animals, insects – they are all important.

We received so many ebooks and notebooking pages, it is quite possible we will spend years going through these materials. But, for now, it is one weekly lesson at a time.

Boy and girl studying jewelweed

Watching a youtube video about jewelweed, just before working on their notebooking page.

Last week, we looked at jewelweed. The week before that, it was catfish. While we did not get to go fishing for a catfish, or observe one in a river, we watched the suggested nature videos from youtube. It is a bit disappointing when you cannot study your subject up close and personal.  Continue reading »

Sep 20 2015

Story of the World, Vol. 2, Chapter 8

Posted on by

Chapter 8 is about the Golden Age of China and the beginning of Chinese dynasties. The kids were excited to do history. We do it once a week, but when it comes back around, it’s like they have not done it in a long, long time. They are happy to be reunited with this subject. They were a bit under the weather, so I decided I would not require them to color and work on the maps just yet. But my daughter was disappointed. She wanted to color while she listened. I obliged and provided the pages and crayons.

They were both surprised by the way Chinese discovered gunpowder, printing and other things. They answered the questions very well. I did not ask for a narration this time, seeing that they both were fighting a head cold.

As far as crafts, they all seemed too messy. Sorry. All except making rice and teaching them how to eat with chopsticks, which is what we ended up doing the next day. By the way, cooking Chinese (or Asian) from scratch is not that complicated. If you can boil water, you can make rice. If you can stir some veggies in a pot in a bit of water or oil or soy sauce, you can make stir-fry.   Continue reading »

Sep 17 2015

Thoughtful Thursday Week 38 – Truth and Crowds

Posted on by

Truth is not popular. Have you noticed? Have you stopped to consider this? Truth and crowds rarely go hand in hand. That’s why we talk about “mob mentality.”

The vast majority of people think a certain way and do not search any further. They choose willful ignorance regarding religion, money, how to have a happy marriage, how to raise successful children, whatever that means and so on. It was good enough for their parents and it’s good enough for them. Why rock the boat?

Truth and Crowds

So let us think about homeschooling. By choosing to homeschool, a family already puts themselves in the non-crowd zone. I understand some people would love to homeschool but they cannot afford it. I am not discussing those people. I also understand that many people decide to homeschool after they get married and have children (I fall in that category), but then their spouse has 0 interest in this route. Thankfully for me, my husband is flexible enough in his approach to life, he gave homeschooling a chance. Now, you would not be able to change his mind back to public school. He has tasted homeschooling for two years with our kids and sees the results. You will not be able to find a bigger homeschool advocate than my husband.

So I get that there are people whose circumstances are difficult. They would like to homeschool, but they cannot afford it or they do not have enough emotional support on the home front etc. Then, there are the people who absolutely can’t think of themselves as teachers. They say things like, I am an engineer. I am a marketing person. I am a baker. What do I know about teaching? I understand lack of self-confidence in the teaching arena. After all, we are all trained to think of teachers as people who can teach one or maybe two subjects at the most. That’s what we experienced in school, right?  Continue reading »

Sep 13 2015

Story of the World, Vol. 2, Chapter 7

Posted on by

Chapter 7 describes how Islam became an Empire. It is a rather long chapter. It took us three sessions to finish it. We did the map work at the very end, for some reason. We started out with the snake crafts. These represent the valley of the snakes from Sinbad’s adventures.

We hung two from the ceiling and turned the ceiling fan on. They flew around and twirled and got tangled up, but it was still neat to see them going.

Sinbad valley of the snake craft

My daughter’s snake craft

My daughter did not want to hang hers up. She did not want a button on hers, either. She just wanted to hold onto hers and play with it. Of course, it did not last long. She has not played with her snake since the day she made it. I have gotten used to these patterns now.  Continue reading »

Sep 10 2015

Thoughtful Thursday Week 37 – M.I.B.

Posted on by

It’s not a typo. I actually meant to write M.I.B. It stands for “Mind in Boat.” It was one of the slogans the University of Washington rowing team used to help themselves focus and win gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. I am reading all about their story from The Boys in the Boat, a nonfiction book which reads like a novel, written by Daniel James Brown. (affiliate link)

I have been going to the Anna Porter Public Library Book Group monthly meetings for a year now. We vote on several books we propose in the summer. We read one book a month, except for December. In January, we have a lovely dinner after the regular meeting, generously provided by John and Lee Mellor at their Buckhorn Inn.

Thoughtful Thursday M.I.B.

I love the intellectual stimulation these books provide. You see, I would love to go back to school and get a graduate degree in law or French. If I had to choose today, French would probably win. But I cannot. I feel compelled to homeschool my children, blog about it, and publish books to help others. Compelled is another way of saying called. I feel called.  Continue reading »

Sep 6 2015

Story of the World, Vol. 2, Chapter 6

Posted on by

Chapter 6 deals with the rise of Islam. We worked on the craft first. I definitely did not want to make an oasis scene with all the candy recommended, so I was glad they provided a low-sugar version. Even so, I decided that we could use LEGO bricks for the camel, since we did not have animal crackers.

Camel and bedouin in an oasis

Camel and bedouin in an oasis

The kids got into it when I told them to build me some palm trees.

Oasis craft

Putting the oasis together

I prepared the sand by crushing up some old wheat crackers in a zip lock bag, with a rolling pin.

I made "sand" by crushing wheat crackers

I made “sand” by crushing wheat crackers

They surprised me by adding a mini-figure to the scene. The water was aluminium foil, which I kept in place with double tape. Maybe it should have been something blue, like in the sugared up version of the scene, but aluminium works too, as it reflects light the way a body of water does.

Bedouin on camel coloring sheet

Bedouin on camel coloring sheet; can you tell which one was colored by my kindergartner?

As I read the stories to them, they colored the bedouin on his camel (coloring sheet provided in the Activity Book). Then, I asked them the review questions. Finally, we worked on the map. It’s very tempting to do it all. But I decided this was enough for this chapter. There are three other activities recommended in the book, for those who do not have the book.

Sep 3 2015

Thoughtful Thursday Week 36 – Tennis Lessons

Posted on by

I like tennis. Very, very much. I would have written that I love tennis, but I think love is such a sacred word, throwing it around for everything we enjoy in our lives sort of cheapens it. So, I wrote I like tennis, but I really should write that it is my favorite sport and I regret that I never took tennis lessons as a child.

Tennis Lessons

I looked for tennis lessons for my children, but maybe not hard enough. I am not willing to drive an hour for this. Besides, we already have so many extracurricular activities, I would not know where to fit tennis in. For now, we watch tennis on TV if a slam event is going on. And I think about it. Sometimes. I like it, but it does not dominate my life. I might look into lessons for them here in Gatlinburg.

Anyway, all this to say, I am learning a lot about parenting and homeschooling by listening to tennis players being interviewed. Someone once said that the top 100 players in the world all have the same basic tennis skills. The difference between them is in their … minds. The mental aspect of the game cannot be underestimated.

Donald Young, a young American player, recently said that the difference between himself a year ago and today is all mental. He does not take comments from the public seriously anymore, he does not let something someone said bother him, he does not get upset over a mistake he made 10 points ago. He lets it all fall off his shoulders. He shrugs negative things off and moves on. The interviewer quipped, “It’s called maturity.”  Continue reading »

Aug 30 2015

Story of the World, Vol. 2, Chapter 5

Posted on by

Chapter 5 deals with Medieval India. The best part was the weaving craft, although the two stories were pretty interesting, too. The kids learned the word “dynasty.” New vocabulary is always fun and it is one of the reasons why I chose to do history with them in grades 1-4.

Weaving Craft

Sometimes it does seem like too much when so many people simply focus on the 3 Rs, but I really think there is something to exposure to vocabulary, true stories, geography and historical figures.

They liked coloring the map and the man riding on an elephant, which was the coloring sheet provided for this chapter in the Activity Book. I can already tell the Activity Book has more projects and on a higher level than last year. I can see a progression of difficulty level.

The kids were really excited about weaving. They used the nail to poke holes and my son even made a pun when he said, “I nailed it!” My daughter got discouraged with the weaving process and I had to encourage her to continue and to persevere. “This is only your first time trying weaving, so give yourself some room to make mistakes,” I said, or something to that effect.

Woven Cloth

Finished product

She really enjoyed coloring the elephant. I know she needed to do something more familiar after all that weaving, so she threw herself at coloring with all her might.