First posted November 2011 Some advice to mothers of young ladies:
"Some people like to live as if they were catching a train. They are really only running after their own tails; they cannot select what must be done this minute, and what can be put off to the next day. Put them where you like; they will still have no leisure. If you want to teach the methodical use of time and orderly habits of mind, you must first learn to show a calm front and have a heart "at leisure from itself." I heard a woman who had many friends spoken of as one "who when you want her advice does not jump up to fetch her knitting before she will listen to you.""--"Girls from Twelve to Sixteen," by Mrs. Hart Davis, in The Parent's Review, Volume 13, no. 2, February 1902, pgs. 81-93
Scientists experiment. They change the variables and see what happens. What's the optimum range for whatever? How much is too much, what amount is just enough, and how much margin do you have? This kind of testing goes on all the time, everywhere from high-tech labs testing pharmaceuticals, to parents figuring out how long a child's afternoon nap should be or how many toys are enough without being too many, to the people who figured out that Ted Talks should be exactly 18 minutes long.
Sometimes it's nice when someone else does the work for you. If you trust their reporting, it could save you having to reinvent the wheel, or, as in today's Pinterest link, the cake and the cookie. What happens if you put in one egg? Two? Three? How do cookies change if you use white sugar? brown sugar? Some other sweetener? Butter, margarine, or some other kind of fat? You may have seen magazine articles illustrating this before (I have one stuck in my recipe binder that shows different oatmeal cookie results), but the post linked on Pinterest has collected up a few useful ones. It's helpful when the muffins turn out tough or pointy, or the cookies spread too much. Like a scientist, you can ask: what caused that? What do I need to change?
This kind of experimenting is actually something that Charlotte Mason wanted her students to practice--within reason, as they didn't want to waste food on things that wouldn't work. There were times when you might want your little cakes to be richer, or sweeter, or have some other special quirk--so knowing how to adjust a recipe for taste or ingredients was a useful thing to learn. If I were teaching that to children now, I think I'd use muffins as an example: there's a basic formula (I took mine from The Tightwad Gazette years ago), but the special ingredients, amount of sweetener, amount of fat and so on can be up to the baker. Sometimes you can take advantage of a material's particular quirks: a non-food example would be strips of crocheting that tend to curl and twirl around themselves. That can be a problem, but if you're making legs for an octopus, it's exactly what you want.
First posted November 2007 (links edited) Jacci M at "The Educational Life" has a thought-provoking post [no longer available] about the naïveté shared by many new homeschoolers (green as grass, right?): how can we, without formal teacher's training or experience, dare to say we are prepared to teach our children? Her solution is a good dose of Charlotte Mason's books, and I'd go along with that.
However, I'm not so sure that we, coming into homeschooling, are necessarily as unprepared, or as different from any other new teachers, as her scenario suggests:
"She [your child's imagined teacher] smiles a cheerful smile and explains that this will be her first year teaching. Although she went to college, she really has very little actual training in education. Her degree was in history. She did very well academically, though, and has always loved children. She babysat a lot as a teenager and was the oldest of four children. She's looked through teacher catalogs a lot, too, so she feels that she's fairly ready. Understandably, you're a little taken aback. Has she ever taught a child to read? What about handwriting? Does she have experience there? Or math? Did she receive any training in teaching math to young children? What are her thoughts on children's literature? Does she know how she will make sure the children are processing what they are reading? Her answer to all of your questions is, basically, "no". She seems very relaxed about it, though, and very matter-of-factly says that she has the curriculum the school system provided, and she will just learn along with the class."
Yeah, I know, that's how the school system and a lot of non-homeschoolers see us. As if we hadn't yet penetrated the mysteries of learning...as my husband's grandmother used to say darkly, just wait, you'll see.
However, is this hypothetical homeschooler much different from any other first-year teacher? Where I live, a B.Ed. is a post-grad degree, so every new teacher has a bachelor's in something or other--same as this story--plus One Year of Teacher's Ed. Is that long enough to make you an expert in teaching? If lacking one year of university classes and a couple of practice-teaching sessions is all that separates me from a first-year "professional teacher," I don't know why I should feel much behind. In my own pre-homeschool experience (that's up until The Apprentice was four), I would include all the babysitting and so on (and don't make light of that) plus several years of Sunday School teaching, volunteering in what was then called a TMR class, tutoring a special-needs student, directing camp arts and crafts for a summer (yeah, me), doing library music and movement programs for a summer (yeah, me again), volunteering at my toddler's weekly community-centre program, and taking several relevant university courses (developmental psychology, children's literature and so on). Had I ever taught anybody to read?--not from the ground up, unless you count playing school with my little sister. (Did that end up mattering?--well, no, all my Squirrelings have learned to read, with or without my help.)
But even more important than that--I had the luxury of a couple of years of "apprenticing" before I jumped in myself. I went to homeschool meetings and at least two conferences during that time, and I listened. And yes, along with talking to the real-life homeschoolers at the meetings, at church and down the street, I had the privilege of "meeting" Charlotte Mason, Ruth Beechick, Gayle Graham, Valerie Bendt, Mary Pride, Cathy Duffy, and other teaching parents who had written down what they'd learned. Oh, and John Holt. By the time I was ready to, figuratively, take my place at the front of the classroom, I had a very good idea of what was and wasn't going to work for us, and even some idea of why.
And you CAN learn a lot by browsing teacher catalogues--both the homeschool-friendly variety and the other kind. The best homeschool catalogues have detailed and sometimes critical descriptions and comparisons of the products (does anyone else in Ontario still miss Lifetime Canada/Maple Ridge Books?). And the other kind...well, as I've said before, you can learn from what you don't need.
Besides, you're not presuming to sit in front of a class of thirty, waving your catalogue as qualification; you are planning to provide the brain-food for your own children. This week, this month. You do not need a teaching degree to follow AmblesideOnline's HELP crisis plan, to read them a chapter of Understood Betsy and play math games with marbles or cereal. Homeschooling methods are, and should be, somewhat different from public school ones; remember that "we don't have to slice bread with a chainsaw" (a quote from The Common Room).
So while I would strongly agree with Jacci's advice to new homeschoolers (learn from the best parent-teacher-education resources you can get hold of, including Charlotte Mason's works; strive to understand what and why you do what you do; learn the best methods you can and base them on solid educational and spiritual philosophy), I would also like to reassure those who want to homeschool and maybe feel like they're not qualified (didn't finish college or whatever). Understand that being your children's parent, in at least one sense, qualifies you. Yes, you can learn more; and no, a browse through a catalogue is probably not enough to get you going. But you can learn, and much better and faster than the teachers' unions and other naysayers would like you to believe. (Feetnote: Jacci's not a naysayer, just to clarify that.)
It's just over six weeks to Christmas Day, but we're still figuring out plans. It's not a big crafting year for me; I know, I always say that and then an idea pops up and I spend all of November going from one project to another. But no, not so much this year.
I looked in the spot where we keep empty boxes and jars, and realized that somehow we had not kept most of the fishbowl-shaped canned pear jars I wanted to use for decorating. And the store hasn't had any pears lately. We might have to buy some canned beets (I am not a beet eater) and decant them. But I am not buying brand new jars just to put some tea lights in.
On our last weekend trip to Walmart, I picked up a few things that I thought might help set things in motion: the December issue of Canadian Living, which I mostly don't read the rest of the year; two packages of paper napkins; and a set of mini cookie cutters. (I already had the red basket.) Mini cutters: I could see different possibilities for those. Cookies, biscuits, green peppers, fruit.
Between the magazine cover, the napkins, and the star cutter, we seem to have a bit of a star theme going. I'm good with that.
I just really liked the vintage truck and Christmas tree on these ones!
This isn't much of a year for cookies, either. But an article about bread...rolls, pizza dough, things like that--that's different enough to get my outside-of-Pinterest creativity happening.
Tonight's supper menu: Homemade minestrone soup, with English muffins and whatever you wanted to put on the English muffins (Lydia turned hers into a fried-egg muffin). The soup was "almost-free" because I used up several small containers of leftover pasta sauce and beans that had accumulated in the freezer, along with a box of chicken broth, a bit of frozen spinach, a bit of pasta, and a few mushrooms.
(When you're cooking for two or three, it's hard not to have those leftover half-cans of sauce, beans and other things. One way to deal with them is to put everything in freezer bags ahead of time--make six bags of spaghetti sauce or whatever, and you won't have any stray tomato sauce. Another way is what I just did: use little lunch-sized plastic tubs to collect up the bits and pieces, and then thaw them all out at once when you want to make soup.)
Have I ever mentioned that I like thrift stores? Our local store lately has been a treasure trove of good stuff. We have been there more frequently than usual for us, three times in the last two weeks to check on the status of that T.V. Mr. Fixit wanted; and I keep finding things. Today's treasure was an oversized deep grey shirt (photo above), that makes me think of kimonos. I also found a pair of grey jeans, and a light blue crinkle-cotton scarf that bled blue dye all over the towel when I gave it a quick handwashing. (It was an old towel, luckily.) (I also found some Christmas pinecone crafting stuff that I'll post about another time.)
Occasionally I do buy new clothes from a "real" store, although that seems to be getting rarer. The scarf in the photo was made by a co-operative in India and sold at Ten Thousand Villages. I have a couple of t-shirts coming soon, from a Canadian chain that often has basics in beautiful colours. But that's it for the next while. And yes, I realize that bringing these extra things home is going to change this season's Project 333 into more of a Project 339. But that's okay.
First posted November 2012 (links edited) This post is not about the spiritual side of Christmas, because that part of Christmas...the real, Joy-to-the-World Christmas... is there no matter what. This is more about the fun stuff: the gifts, the food, the trimmings. The things that take time, take money, or just take thought.
For centuries men have kept an appointment with Christmas. Christmas means fellowship, feasting, giving and receiving, a time of good cheer, home. --W. J. Tucker
These are not necessarily--in fact they're almost never--the same as the things that are advertised. They're certainly not along the lines of "buy her a diamond for Christmas."
For some people, Christmas trimmings are new window blinds and ginger beer.
Marjorie Gibson is another Guyanese who believes that Christmas in the USA cannot even come near those she experienced in Guyana.
“In Guyana you would get up in the morning and look over at your neighbour to see what type of blinds (curtains) they put up, if they have new ones. Here the blinds could be up for the whole year and it does not matter,” Gibson stated....“We do have all the traditional Christmas food," [said Marilyn Harper.] "I try to make Christmas the way I remember it in Guyana. I have everything, my ginger beer, sorrel, the black cake as usual and everything.”--"U.S.-based Guyanese Dream of Christmas in the Motherland"
What has inspired your ideas about how to make Christmas? Or what a really good Christmas would be...realistic or not?
For years, people said "Dickens' Christmas stories." Plum pudding, holly and all that. But I think in more recent years a more common answer has been the Little House on the Prairiebooks, slightly ad nauseum. Tin cups, mittens, and a stick of candy, and they were so happy! For those who didn't bother to read the books, there was always that oh-so-sweet first-season T.V. episode. And it is a classic, I admit.
Christmas is for children. But it is for grownups too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts.--Lenora Mattingly Weber
However, much of Mama Squirrel's holiday inspiration has come from a smaller, stranger assortment of books and even magazine articles. One was a Focus on the Family Magazine article, saved from a time before the Squirrellings were even thought of; it was an adaptation of the Advent and Christmas chapters in Together at Home, by Dean and Grace Merrill. One was The Light at Tern Rock, about Christmas spent in a lighthouse. Another was Carolyn Haywood's Snowbound with Betsy.
Okay, okay, Mama Squirrel has never quite grown up? But apparently I'm not the only one who fondly recalls the part where Betsy and the other snowbound children rummage through the storeroom for anything that might make good Christmas gifts. They come up with all kinds of kid-made crafts, and then have a sort of bazaar and do their "shopping."
In The Light at Tern Rock,those who end up using a trunkful of stored-up holiday plunder aren't there by choice, but because of a trick by the man who filled up the trunk in the first place. But never mind about the deceitful lighthouse keeper for now...it's the trunk that interests me, and it's an image that often comes to mind when I'm storing away things like the cans of cranberry sauce I bought on sale today, or a package of candles, or a crocheted bookmark. Who's the bookmark for? Sometimes I don't even know...I just keep filling the pantry shelf, and the box under the bed (or wherever it is), here and there. Then it's just as much fun pulling everything out again and figuring out: yes, there's enough chocolate for Quick Fruit and Nut Fudge...I still have lots of that blue yarn, enough to make a quick pair of slippers (yes, I do know who those are for)....I saw some cool plaid ornaments in the Chapters Christmas flyer, and I bet I could make something like that with the felt and Wonder-Under in the craft stash...Everyone's "box" is different. For one family, it's filled with MCC and World Vision catalogues, the ones where a donation pays for goats, soccer balls, clean water. Their children spend days figuring out what they can give this year. (Definitely beats the big gimme catalogue.)
And if you get to December and the box is still too empty to look like Christmas?
Then you read, or re-read, Little House in Brookfield (not the abridged version, please) and give thanks for Christmas bread. Sing a few choruses of "Christmas Day is in our grasp, So long as we have hands to clasp." And maybe read this practical post by the Prudent Homemaker:Christmas on a Zero Budget.
As a postscript to this, there's one other magazine article I saved from several years back. It also appeared in the Chicken Soup books, and I found a version of it online. It's about a mother and two little girls who were given a Christmas food box during a difficult year--but the girls, not understanding how "poor" they were, decided to give the whole thing away to a neighbor who was even worse off. ("Even her dog was sick.") The mother's immediate reaction was "Stop! You're giving away our Christmas!" Then she thought again: no, that is how you make it Christmas.
Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas. - Peg Bracken.
Joshua Gibbs just posted an interesting article on the Circe Institute blog, about whether one classical teacher in a school is more classical than another. He makes the point that the point is effectiveness. But towards the end, he says something that echoes Charlotte Mason's words on teachers who wield undue influence over students, and also her beliefs on loyalty:
"So, too, the Catholic teacher who incites Presbyterian students to doubt the Presbytery is not making his students into Catholics, but atheists. Once malaise emerges, it is hard to direct. Malaise is like ink in water and becomes diffuse. In and of itself, discord does not kill morale, because man is born into trouble as the sparks rise. A little discord is unavoidable. However, the knowledge that discord is intentionally being stirred up breaks the spirit."
I recently started a Christmas board on Pinterest, just to collect up ideas that were getting lost under other headings (was that Sewing? Crochet Patterns? Parties?).
"If folly or vice be represented in its open colours, or its secret disguises, let us search our hearts, and review our lives, and inquire how far we are criminal; nor should we ever think we have done with the treatise while we feel ourselves in sorrow for our past misconduct, and aspiring after a victory over those vices, or till we find a cure of those follies begun to be wrought upon our souls." ~~ Isaac Watts (thank you to The Common Room for posting the longer version)
So there are recipes for candy, for beverages, for Christmas-morning casseroles, and then some party appetizers and main dishes. I'm not sure what makes the Vegetarian Two-Bean Stew particularly festive, but it does look filling and tasty. Problems: you need to have "trout beans" and Aleppo pepper, neither of which are staples in my kitchen. Mixing cayenne pepper with paprika apparently is a possible substitute for the pepper, and I'm sure there are other kinds of beans that would work.
We do have some serious spinach-artichoke dip fans here, although we usually make a simpler recipe than this one (or just wing it).
But the one recipe I think I am actually going to try (and not wait until Christmas) is Honey Glazed Carrots. As in, with tomorrow night's dinner. You put the carrots in the slow cooker with honey, butter, salt and pepper. Cook on high. That's it.
The backyard rabbits will have their noses glued to the window.
If you read right to the end, you'll see these blunt words:
"Remember, these lists are written in order to make you feel inadequate, and to drive you to go shopping."
This applies not only to lists of must-have clothing, but to homeschool items, organizational tools, and toys of all kinds.
Janice (at The Vivienne Files) points out that not only does every woman in the world not need black pumps, but, in some places, she might not even need shoes. Someone else recently posted about how we all live in certain bubbles that make up our own reality. If our bubbles are too small, we can end up seeming callous or just ridiculous when we start listing "needs."
One of the Vivienne commenters pointed out that women's real needs are love, a way to keep clean, and "a way to get around--a bus, a bike, a camel, a Bugatti." I can think of a few more things to add to that list, but it's a start. To look at it the other way around, those of us who have those needs met (along with the other essentials like food and a safe place to live) are already well-furnished.
The list of must-haves...when we're told (or shown in photos) the ways that we don't measure up...who is writing that list? And why are we still listening?
Pinterest roundup posts often take you through a mess of active and broken links, posts on original websites, and re-posts in different languages. Sometimes the important thing is not so much tracking down the original set of instructions, as just catching inspiration. Case in point: "21 Thrift Store DIY's That Make Frugal Fabulous." This is a roundup of home ideas, with links which might or might not be helpful. I like the first one, "Stencil some old plates for a cool wall hanging," not because I want to have plates on my wall spelling out "E-A-T" (like a neon sign?), but because the plates used for the photo are unusually pretty, and because I can think of other three-letter words (or four-letter, if you have four plates) that would work. Maybe J-O-Y? You wouldn't want to use your heirloom dishes for a project like that, but if you found three or four plates you liked at a yard sale or thrift store, it might be fun to try. Or you could paint letters on other objects, like jars. #4: Painting an upholstered couch? Apparently (I'm very ignorant on these things) you combine the paint with a "fabric medium," and that keeps it from turning into a hard, crunchy mess. And according to the comments on the original post, painting upholstery is a "thing." I had no idea. We actually went through two inherited French Provincial couches much like the one in the photo, but I'm not sure that painting them would have been worth it. #7 and #8: Anything turned into wind chimes or a glittery vase is the stale end of the recycling loaf, in my opinion. I'm halfway through the article, still hoping for something I'd seriously Do. (It's Do-Vember, remember?) Here is #15: Decoupage part of an old purse with a funky fabric panel. That looks fun and somewhat useful, assuming you have the purse and the fabric. Would I actually do it? Yes, if I saw a piece of fabric that I liked. Put that one away for a rainy/snowy day. Finally, #21: improve a wooden tray with paint and a new covering. That idea is as old as wind chimes and glittery vases, but trays, unlike wind chimes, are very useful and uncluttery. You can use them indoors and outdoors. You can use them as memory pieces if you decoupage photos on them, or collect signatures. You can serve food on them, you can arrange gifts on them. I'm in. So, no couches or wind chimes, but I'm going to think about stenciling letters and upcycling purses.
"To ask that God's love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled, by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us lovable....We are not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved: we are, as Newman said, rebels who must lay down our arms."--C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
"Lest we should think this a hardship, this kind of good begins on a level far above the creatures, for God Himself, as Son, from all eternity renders back to God as Father by filial obedience the being which the Father by paternal love eternally generates in the Son."--The Problem of Pain
"Indignation at others' sufferings, though a generous passion, needs to be well managed lest it steal away patience and humanity from those who suffer and plant anger and cynicism in their stead."--The Problem of Pain
"I think the best results are obtained by people who work quietly away at limited objectives, such as the abolition of the slave trade, or prison reform, or factory acts, or tuberculosis, not by those who think they can achieve universal justice, or health, or peace. I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can....the dentist who can stop one toothache has deserved better of humanity than all the men who think they have some scheme for producing a perfectly healthy race."--from "Why I Am Not a Pacifist" (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory)
Today's Pinterest project was a simple one: using up some yogurt-flavoured baking chips that I saw at Bulk Barn and meant to use in cookies. Except that I didn't, and they were still in the cupboard.
Recipes for yogurt-chip cookies are, understandably, scarce, but really any oatmeal cookie recipe will do. I found this one that also called for dried cranberries, and I didn't have any, so I just used up all the yogurt chips in the bag. I also didn't feel like making individual cookies, so I baked the whole thing in a 9 x 13 inch pan, and cut it into granola-bar-sized pieces while it was still warm. And that's so easy it almost feels like somebody else did the work.
There is no actual Wednesday Hodgepodge this week, so I'm borrowing an old set of questions from the Hodgepodge archives.
1. What song reminds you of a specific time in your life and what is it about that song that makes you remember?
That could apply to just about any song, from something we learned in kindergarten or that my parents rocked us to, to the music that was played at campground dances in the 1970's, to the Christian pop I listened to in the 1980's, and the children's tapes and CDs that were our soundtrack in the 1990's. Or I can go the other way and think of hymns and Christian songs that were sung at different churches over the years. There are pieces I played in piano lessons, or in Stage Band. There are folk songs we sang at Brownies, or in our homeschool, and Christmas songs, and things that were sung in one choir or another. One summer I worked in a camp kitchen with a head cook whose preferences were the Rolling Stones and Killer on the Rampage. Non-stop.
But here's one that makes me think of my grandma. She used to sing it when we went to the beach. (Sorry the sound on this one isn't too good--you'll have to turn the volume up.)
2. What's something you've given up on? Becoming the next Anne Tyler.
3. What's something you'll never give up on?
Books made of paper.
4. If you had to cook something from scratch in the next hour what would it be?
Does that include putting ingredients into the bread machine?
Well, stay tuned and maybe I will come up with something from the Pinterest Do-Vember files.
5. Have you started Christmas shopping? Decorating? Listening to Christmas music? Music, no way; although a music-loving friend has been talking about a Christmas album by Josh Garrels that is coming out soon. Sometime I would also like to get hold of the Mitford Christmas album, just for fun. Decorating, also, no way; I just got rid of the October pumpkin. (I cut it up and steamed it in a pot, but the smell was a little off so we decided not to eat it this year.) Shopping: yes, if you count a bit of mail-ordering.
6. What do you know about your parent's wedding? They were married in the neighbourhood church I grew up in, the same church where Mr. Fixit and I had our wedding thirty years later. At least two of their grandmothers were there, and both of those grandmas lived within a few blocks of the church. It was the middle of summer, and very hot. Everyone wore hats (well, the ladies anyway). My dad's brother was a florist, so he probably arranged the bouquets and corsages (he did our wedding flowers too).
7. I can't believe I ___________________....
...am this old, and not still chopping garlic to Eddy Grant, or singing "One Little Elephant Balancing" in the kindergarten classroom, or listening to Keith Green on my Walkman. Time all collides together, and here we are in 2016, the morning after a historic U.S. election, during a week of horrendous wet November weather, with my youngest Squirreling away for the day at high school and staying afterwards for Robotics club (she takes photos), browsing through Pinterest pinnings, and trying to figure out what music goes with this stage of life.
8. Insert your own random thought here. I thought that last bit was rather random already. I'm going to leave this space open for a possible random update later in the day. The regular Wednesday Hodgepodge will return next week.
First posted in October, 2005. The Apprentice was 13 and doing Homeschool Grade 9. Ponytails had just turned 8, and Lydia (Crayons, at that time) was 4.
Yesterday the Squirrelings took a walk with Mama Squirrel (in this insanely warm October weather) and we decided to pick up some bananas at a gourmet food store that was on our route. It's the sort of place that's fun to browse in but also a place mostly for Serious Cooks. There are bottles of olive oil that cost as much as wine, more kinds of cheese than there probably are cows giving the milk for them, and jars of capers and all such things that have very limited use for the Treehouse brand of cookery. Crayons got to try a sample of cheese that had chopped oranges sandwiched in the middle--that got mixed reviews. We ended up buying the bananas, a piece of Gouda, and a two-dollar chocolate bar to split later for dessert.
Does Mama Squirrel know how to cook? Yes, she puts three meals on the table every day for the five squirrels, along with the occasional company meal, Christmas dinner and birthday cake. (All right, Mr. Fixit does the turkey roasting. And he cooks some meals on weekends. And makes pancakes.) Does Mama Squirrel know how to cook with $40 olive oil and capers? No, and the squirrelings wouldn't eat it if she did. Would Mama Squirrel know how to work a shift in a restaurant kitchen? Does she know how to make a roux? No, although she did work one summer with a chef who showed her how to bump lettuce, chop onions with a mean-looking chef's knife, and squish garlic. What are the Squirrels having for dinner tonight? Farmer's sausage sitting on some sauerkraut in the crockpot, frozen perogies, and some vegetable yet to be decided.
Does Mama Squirrel know how to teach the Squirrelings? With modesty, she thinks that the Squirrelings seem to read, write and figger as well as most other kids. Are the Squirrelings socially competent? Have they missed out on not having to share their Legos with the rest of the class? No, they still have to negotiate for the pieces they want and refrain from bashing each other. Is Mama Squirrel happy when she sees not one but two pairs of feet sticking out from under the Chev Caprice during an oil change on a beautiful afternoon? Oh yes. (And Ponytails would be under there too if Mr. Fixit would let her, but this activity is restricted to those who are actually getting Dad-credit for Transportation Technology.)
Does Mama Squirrel buy all her groceries at the gourmet store or her teaching supplies at the teacher's store? Nope. Does she get her recipes from Gourmet, or her teaching ideas from whatever the teacher's magazine is? Nope. The last time she made a dessert from a magazine like that, she ended up pushing raspberries through a sieve and making this cream thing, having to chill the thing about three times, and ended up with something that pretty much resembled raspberry yogurt. The last time she flipped through some classroom ideas, she was dazzled (not) by the fun little ditties we could sing about making people graphs (in a previous post) and the wonderful idea of demonstrating the letter D by having children paste dimes on their letter D's.
Does that mean professional chefs and professional teachers are wasting their time? No, it's just that Mama Squirrel has other things to do than sieve raspberries and paste dimes. She'd rather eat the raspberries and spend the dimes.
And that's the difference between classroom schooling and homeschooling. Bon appetit.
