Stuff Parents Need

Easing the chaos in the nest, one find at a time.

Education Options for the Stressed Out Family (and Our Surprising Choice)

· by · 2 Comments

Grab your beverage of choice, friend, and sit with me for a minute, because I’ve got some news to share with you about some exciting changes happening with my family. Goodness knows I’ve got my iced coffee by my side as I take deep breaths and write this all out. After all, announcing something makes it much more real, right?

My big news is that my husband and I are going to be homeschooling our kids next year. I will be the primary teacher since my husband works full time, but he will also be teaching as his schedule allows.
too busy for home school
This news is so huge for us because until about 2 1/2 weeks ago, doing school at home was absolutely out of the question, and that’s because I refused to even consider it. I had some preconceived notions of what home school was like (very insular, very taxing on the teacher, very risky for the kids) and only recently did I become open to changing my mindset.
Tim and I sat down together while my mother-in-law took our girls to the park and we had the goal to really “figure out” school for next year. The private school tuition we were paying was getting increasingly difficult to cover, and the next private school we’d been loosely planning on sending our girls to after Montessori was more than double the cost of what we spent now. We couldn’t figure out how in the world we’d be able to pay for it, and so we were making plans for me to go back to 9-5 work and to increase our “side hustle” opportunities and work more to earn more to pay for school.
And then in a stroke of pure genius, I sat back in my chair and said, “Wait a minute. This is stupid! Why are were strapping ourselves down with debt and giving away all of our time with our kids just to pay for their school?”
And that’s when Tim, who has always thought home school was a cool concept, saw his moment. He reintroduced the idea, and we talked about what home school could look like for us, vs. what I’ve always imagined it had to look like. Suddenly, we were both SO excited!
This year we are saying “no thank you” to huge tuition bills, “no thank you” to a public school option that never quite felt right (despite 4 different tours and hours of conversations with parents, principals and school board members), and we are saying “HECK YES!!!” to having a year of exploration, adventure, and fun with our children. Our little ones still want to be with us more than anyone else, and we are keenly aware that this won’t be the case for all that much longer. And so, while they want to learn from us we will be their teachers.
I don’t yet know exactly how this is all going to work. So far I know that I don’t like the idea of doing a boxed curriculum that emphasizes sitting at the table and filling out worksheets (those have their place for reinforcement, though). I want to offer my girls something hands-on and experiential. I want to follow the rabbit trail when something piques their interest. I want to learn right along side them and to experience the joy of seeing the world with eyes much less clouded than my own.
This blog isn’t going to turn into a “home school blog” but I will be writing about some of our adventures and about things that are working for us (and yes, things that don’t work…I know rough days are ahead of us, too). My hope is that I can help inspire parents with some cool enrichment ideas that can happen after school or on the weekends.
If you have any questions or suggestions for me as we embark on our new adventure, I’d love to hear them. Do you have any experience with home school (I’ll take it all: good, bad and ugly!)? Leave me a comment!

Talking #WithMalala about Secondary Education as a Right for All Girls

· by · 1 Comment

Last week I had one of the most awesome opportunities that has ever come my way as a blogger (and that’s saying something, becasue this job is one big adventure!). I got to spend half an hour on a conference with Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai. She’s a bright and energetic 18-year-old girl who, 3 years ago, saw an injustice in her community and spoke out against it. She did a very hard thing, and she almost lost her life by standing up for what was right because the Taliban shot her in the head in the attempt to silence her forever. But she didn’t back down and she didn’t stop speaking out for the need for education to be a RIGHT, not a privelage, for every single child, no matter their gender, race or economic status.

malala

Friends it was such a moving phone call! Malala is very clear about the fact that she is just one person, and she can only do so much, but that if others will join her, the collective power can topple over centuries-old institutions and traditions that exclude certain children and deny them opportunities to receive an education. She challenged us all to imagine for just a moment what this world would look like if every single child could receive k-12 education, which is something I admit that I take for granted here in the United States. That image of an entire generations and all the generations that follow being educated blew my mind, an in a really good way. It felt SO right. 

In the next week, a new film will be released in theaters all over the nation called  He Named Me Malala. This film is about Malala’s story, and more broadly, it’s about the importance of girls’ education. Take a moment to check out this quick trailer:

I mean…woah. I CANNOT WAIT to go see this. And I am really excited about sharing Malala’s story with my girls. My children already have access to k-12 education, but if they had been born in a different part of the world their options could be SO much more limited. And in those places, right now, there are mothers and fathers with precious little girls who are being denied that opportunity. And in other places in the world, boys and girls alike are being denied education based on their family’s income (or lack of sufficient income). I try to put myself in the position of those parents who aren’t allowed or just aren’t able to give their little ones something that is so critical for success in life.

This is heartbreaking. And it’s wrong. And it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Please be watching out for when He Named Me Malala will be released in your community and gather up a group of your friends to go see it together! And if you want to have some great discussions with your kids about the issues Malala is fighting for, stay tuned because I’ll be posting soon about some ways you can engage your kids in thoughtful discussion.
Follow Malala’s work on social media by searching for #HeNamedMeMalala and #withMalala. You can find her on instagram at @malalafund, and on Facebook, too!

Teaching a Child How to Read a Tape Measure (GIVEAWAY)

· by · 78 Comments

A few months ago, Darah asked, “How do you read a tape measure?”

Hmm…an interesting question! She can read the numbers on the measuring tape that her dad uses around the house, but she has figured out that the numbers mean something more than just a simple number.

I thought perhaps the best way to help Darah learn how to measure objects and how to read a tape measure would be by getting one just for her that she can use. Learning Resources has an excellent child’s tape measure!

A tape measure is actually an incredibly useful teaching tool. You can learn increments, fractions, and of course, measurements with it. You can also work on comparisons for the younger kids.

child's tape measure measuring a toy

Here’s what we are doing to work on the skill of learning to read a tape measure.

When we are having a “measuring session” I get out a piece of paper and serve as the note taker. Right now we are learning about the foot measurement. The tape measure we have goes up to 4 feet. So we hunt for things that are less than one foot, greater than one foot but less than 2 feet, greater than 2 feet but less than 3 feet, and up to 4 feet in length. It is so cool to see Darah using her critical thinking skills and her estimation skills before the pulls out her tape measure to investigate length. She will often make a guess about how long an item will be. She isn’t often accurate, but this will improve with time, I think. Plus, we try to teach her that it is perfectly fine to be wrong. Better to take a stab at a problem and not get it right than to not try at all!

Does anyone have any tips on how to teach children the concept of inches? I’m not sure how long it will be before we are ready for that task, but I’d like to be prepared once she is!

Win it!: One lucky Stuff Parents Need reader will win a simple tape measure from Learning Resources!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to enter my other current giveaways, found on the sidebar of my page.

I received a complimentary product for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are strictly my own.