Oct 8 2015

Thoughtful Thursday Week 41 – Chattanooga

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Adriana Zoder

Since we have a membership at The Muse in Knoxville and we heard so many good things about the children’s museum in Chattanooga, we decided we should put our membership to work for us. The Muse and Chattanooga’s Creative Discovery Museum are part of the ASTC network – American Science and Technology Centers. If you get a membership with one, you get free admission elsewhere.

The four of us in front of the Chattanooga CDM

We have already been to the Discovery Place in Charlotte, NC. I decided that October would be the month to visit the Creative Discovery Museum in Chattanooga.

For your information, there are two different networks of museums for children (besides zoos and aquariums): ASTC and ACM. The ASTC network is different from the ACM network. ACM is the Association of Children’s Museums. ASTC is the Association of Science and Technology Centers.

Your membership card should have the logo of the network of which you are a member. Chattanooga’s Discovery Continue reading »

Oct 1 2015

Thoughtful Thursday Week 40 – Coincidences

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Adriana Zoder

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.

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 September 24, 2015 by Adriana Zoder

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.

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 17 2015

Thoughtful Thursday Week 38 – Truth and Crowds

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Adriana Zoder

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?

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 10 2015

Thoughtful Thursday Week 37 – M.I.B.

Posted on September 10, 2015 by Adriana Zoder

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.

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 3 2015

Thoughtful Thursday Week 36 – Tennis Lessons

Posted on September 3, 2015 by Adriana Zoder

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.

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 27 2015

Thoughtful Thursday Week 35 – Wings

Posted on August 27, 2015 by Adriana Zoder

One of my favorite chapters in the Bible is Psalm 91. The image of sitting under the shadow of God’s wings strikes me every time with peace and quietness. The idea of putting God and feathers or wings in the same sentence is striking, of course.

I found a profound article online about why Jesus chose the image of a hen gathering her chicks under her wings when He talked about trying to reach out to Israel and Jerusalem over the centuries. When you love someone, you want to protect them. Children being like chicks, they need lots of cover from harm. Mothers feel the need to protect their children. Some of us have chosen to homeschool because of this ancestral urge to cover, protect, and keep from harm.

Unfortunately, schools have become battle grounds. Children are exposed to a lot of hawks and foxes out there. Many times, they do not have the mechanisms to cope with it all. They succumb to peer pressure and choose to follow the fox, not knowing that, once they turn the corner, the fox will gobble them up. Continue reading »

Aug 20 2015

Thoughtful Thursday Week 34 – Consequences

Posted on August 20, 2015 by Adriana Zoder

My children do not always have a perfect attitude. Please tell me that you knew and expected that, given the fact that we are human beings and I never made any announcement that we have reached perfection. So, we have “those days” when they moan and groan about chores or learning or practicing violin and piano. What do I do?

Well, I am not perfect either. Some days I make mistakes in the way I handle their bad attitude. Then we make up and apologize to each other and we are the stronger for it. Other days I manage to keep my cool, say a prayer for wisdom, and find a way to motivate them. It is going to be a long life in the homeschooling lifestyle if my children have attitude problems every day, right? Good thing they don’t.

I expect they will have less and less of those days as we consistently show them there will be no videos until they finish their chores, learning, and practicing their instruments. Or other consequences. Continue reading »

Aug 13 2015

Thoughtful Thursday Week 33 – Discoveries

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Adriana Zoder

For the first couple of weeks when school gets back in session, our violin teacher does not teach any lessons. She says the kids are too crazy with going back to a school routine to do any meaningful practice or to even pay attention in violin lessons. So she stays away from students for the first two weeks of school to give them time to adjust and get their bearings. How wise!

This is now our third week of school in this new school year (2015-2016) and we are finally settling into a routine. I have made some discoveries while trying to teach both of them “officially.” My youngest is now in kindergarten, so I have to involve her in four hours of learning every day. And here’s what I have discovered:

1. She can join us for my son’s language arts classes. She sits in my lap, which she loves. My son reads for his Reading class, listens and repeats after me for his Grammar, and then listens some more and does some writing for his Writing class. We have story after story in these classes, and I figured out my kindergartner can sit and listen. She enjoys being with us, sitting in my lap, and I can count this as school for her. She leaves when we do Spelling and Math. It’s not that interesting, unless we play a math game like Go to the Dump.

If you are a Right Start Math mom, you know what I am talking about. If you are not, it’s like Go Fish with making 10 out of two cards. She loves to use the abacus to see what makes 10 if she has a 6 in her hand, for instance. Hey, I can even leave the room for a few minutes to start lunch or a laundry load while they play and thus rehearse math facts. Who knew? Continue reading »

Aug 6 2015

Thoughtful Thursday Week 32 – Back-to-School

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Adriana Zoder

This is our first week of going back-to-school and it has already presented some challenges. But in my second day, God spoke to me through Zechariah 4:6 and reminded me that WHAT we do is not as important as HOW we do it. You may be familiar with Zechariah 4:6: “… not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord.” I would like to submit to you that this verse holds the secret to homeschooling successfully.

The Lord called you to a mission – homeschooling – and He will provide the spirit in which to do it. If you are listening, you will hear His still, small voice and will know to turn this way or that.

If you go into Strong’s Concordance for the original Hebrew words, you will find that “might” can mean wealth and “power” can mean physical force. The way I see it, homeschooling does not need the most expensive curriculum or an angry call to obeying the schedule. No wonder Charlotte Mason calls it the gentle art of teaching.

You know how some people who are afraid of homeschooling invoke the need for structure in a child’s life? Well, I dare say that a child can have a structured life even without having to be in a school building by 7:50 every morning. A homeschooled child also can learn structure without being a slave to the clock. Continue reading »

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