home school - Stuff Parents Need

Keep Slowing Down. You’ve Got a Race to Lose

July 7, 2017 · by Tiffany Merritt · 2 Comments

I’ve been listening to the audio book version of blogger Erin Loechner‘s book, Chasing Slow, over the past week, and it has been giving me so much food for thought as Tim and I have decided to make some big shifts in how we do this whole life thing. But the quote from the book that stopped me dead in my tracks and made light bulbs really start glowing in my brain came in chapter 23 when she reminds herself to “keep slowing down. You’ve got a race to lose.”

Yes, sister! You’ve nailed it! If THIS is what the race is all about (more stuff, more bills, more stress, more time spent taking care of/cleaning stuff, more anxiety, more time chasing more, less time with family, less time living life) then sign me up to LOSE!!!

We are making some pretty intentional choices to remove sources of stress from our lives this year. For example, we just finished selling a house we bought at the height of our stupidity and the height of the housing bubble, and despite having moved away in 2010, have clung to in the hopes of not losing our shirts at the point of sale (spoiler alert: we still lost our shirts…just over 10 stressful years that were a constant yet survivable bleed. How I wish we would have just ripped off the band-aid in the first place!). But as I write this, that chapter is officially closed, and we are relishing in our new freedom from the chains of that house.

We’ve also decided to home school our kids, in a move that has surprised and delighted us all, because until a few weeks ago, it was not even something we had considered as an option for our ongoing dilemma of how to carve out a quality education for our girls without having to sacrifice our ability to save for retirement, for their college expenses, and for a house to one day own in Chattanooga. Once we realized all the things we were giving up in exchange for a “good” k-12 education for our girls, we decided to just scrap everything and go for it ourselves. One more massive chain around our necks was broken with that decision, and we once again made a downward gear shift.

I think one interesting thing I’ve noticed about choosing to let go of the pursuit of “more” is that our society, generally speaking, is not super thrilled with this move, so thick skin is important. Just yesterday we had a phone conversation with a mortgage officer about our pre-approval to buy a home (one that is half the size of the home we just sold but that we can most definitely afford without stressing out over) and we found ourselves being asked if we’d like to be pre-approved for a larger amount than we requested (“because you could be”), discouraged to put as much money down as we had planned (“no need to put down 1/3 of the housing cost when 20 percent will do just fine!”) and we were also encouraged to consider the 30 year mortgage instead of the 15 year mortgage (“lower monthly payments and you can still pay extra each month and pay it off in 15 years if you want”). The lady was very nice, and she was simply doing her job, but the burden was on us to choose to be aggressive with our debt and to buy well within our means. Even 9 years after the housing market suffered hugely, and the banks had to lick their wounds from over-extending and mortgages were no longer so easy to get, even now it still seems reasonable to many to take a lower monthly payment over a longer period of time and to buy as much as the bank will lend you and to put down as little as you can. It is still conventional wisdom that these choices will actually make your life easier.

So we have to stay really strong in our mindset to seek out less, because the world will keep shouting in our ears that more is the key to happiness, and that more gets you further along the path to the finish line. But I’m finally starting to figure out that this is one race I’d much rather lose.

I hope you’ll stick around with me as I share about our journey to massively de-clutter our 1,300 square foot home (a lovely amount of space for a family of 4 if its only contents are things we truly love), our adventures together as we turn our city into our classroom, and our pursuit of freedom from debt. We’re getting off the race track and trying something new, and we’ve never been so excited to lose because we’re already getting glimpses of what we’re about to start winning.

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

June 20, 2017 · by Tiffany Merritt · 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.

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!

Learning Math with Manipulatives! Hand 2 Mind Hands-On Teaching Guide Review and GIVEAWAY!!!

August 29, 2012 · by Tiffany Merritt · 74 Comments

If there’s one thing that Darah’s Montessori education so far has taught me, it’s that learning needs to be multi-dimensional. All the senses need to be incorporated when learning a concept, and the more tactile stimulation a child can get while engaging in a lesson, the better.

Hand 2 Mind is a company that firmly believes in learning by doing, and they have created some outstanding resources to help teachers and parents promote academic success and true learning, not memorizing.

I have been perusing the Hands-On Standards Deluxe Edition Grades PreK-K book and have been creating some supplemental lessons for Darah at home all about math. Math is a subject I feared as a child and adolescent, and that fear continues in me even as an adult. I do not want the same fate for Darah at all, so I want to get past my own fears and make sure we talk about math and “do” math frequently at home!

This assessment book is perfectly designed for teachers, or for homeschooling parents or even for parents who just need some ideas for ways to teach match concepts without being abstract. I am REALLY enjoying reading this. Pinterest projects are great for getting some cool teaching ideas, but this is a very comprehensive booklet that teaches concepts that it never would have occurred to me to attempt or to know how to communicate, and in very tangible ways.

I love that this book also demonstrates the research that is backing this approach to learning. I’m a data-driven parent, which means I want to know why certain ideas in parenting and in educating our children should be considered. What studies have been performed to prove that these methods are effective? This booklet shows you, and I really love that.

While specific manipulative objects are recommended in the book, and can also be purchased through Hand 2 Mind, you aren’t restricted to these specific items. With a little bit of advanced planning, you can find excellent substitutes for what is shown in each lesson by looking around your house or planning a quick trip to the dollar store or the craft supply store. This book has 57 different lessons that teach the following concepts:

Count up and back
Identify sets of numbers
1-to-1 correspondence
Ordinal numbers
Basic addition
Identify basic shapes in the real world
Sort objects by 1 or 2 attributes
Gather and record data
Order objects by height or length
Compare relative sizes of containers

I am extremely impressed with this book and I know it is going to go a long way toward helping me make sure that math is something we do and love, not something we fear. I would highly recommend hand2mind.com for their helpful kits and books designed to ensure your children stay engaged in learning, both inside and outside of the classroom. The book I reviewed retails for $49.95.

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