Teaching the Challenging Child

(This article first appeared in The Canadian Homeschool Minute July 5, 2017)  

Have you ever had to deal with that kid who no matter what you do seems to just balk at everything? Have you both ended up in tears because you just can’t seem to connect? You talk and everything you say seems to go in one ear and out the other? When you are trying the tenth curriculum this year trying to find the one thing to spark this kids interest in learning? Well I sure have! In fact I seem to be faced with this problem every couple of years. Just when I think I have found just the right curriculum mix so I can sit back and coast, my little angel will show signs of boredom or start struggling with the material.

I always find the answer eventually. The pathway to the answer is always the same. I have to give it up. Not give up on my child and not give up on homeschooling. Give up my struggling heart to my Father in Heaven. Search the Scriptures and humble my self in prayer. When I lay it in His hands the answer we need will come. Many times the problem turned out to be something entirely different than I had expected. The only consistent thing has been how startlingly different the answer has been each time! And different for each child. For one child the problem was sensory issues with her clothes. She simply couldn’t focus on anything because the seams in her pants and the terry in her socks drove her to distraction. Another time the problem for my son was his energy levels made it necessary for him to move while he composed any essays or creative writing assignments. The answer was to have someone act as scribe for him as he walked around the room. My second daughter needed more time at home. She was overwhelmed with “extracurricular” activities. As I have gone through this process many times now I spend less time struggling on my own and more time praying for guidance for my children and asking God what His will is for each of them and our family.

Tune into CBC radio Monday morning!

I’m going to be interviewed live on the Ontario Morning show with Wei Chen!

Surprisingly, I’ll be talking about homeschooling. Specifically about homeschooling in Northumberland county.

Tune in to listen live to support me.

Or go to ; www.cbc.ca/listen/shows/Ontario-morning-from-CBC-radio

Click here for the updated link to the show.

Let me know what you think!!

Feel free to share!

Adventure Time!

Adventure Time!

Last month was super busy for us here at Novelty Trades. (and for our family!)

I had grand plans to blog as it was all happening…. but, well, I didn’t.  So I will do it now.

In late October we left for a road trip to Utah.

Daynen is finally got his mission call! We sort of… the YCSM coordinator let us know he had an assignment lined up. Daynen could start at Learning furniture building at Deseret Manufacturing on the 25th of October!

It had been such a long road to get to this point, 2 1/2 years long. That we actually weren’t really prepared to leave right away… but we did!

The reason for the delay being so long was, well, us, actually. We are not the kind of family content to just do the easy or “normal” stuff in life.

Daynen found this opportunity to serve others with his talents and decided it was a really good fit for him. So what if it was a pilot project? So what if it wasn’t actually offered in Ontario Canada where we live? It was just that much more of a challenge!

Our poor local church leaders got stretched pretty far to make this happen but they stepped up!

Daynen has been at his assignment for 5 weeks already!

RibFest Cobourg

What a fun time!!

11th annual ribfest and music festival!

Let’s take a quick tour;

Here we are at the west entrance, one block north of the beach at the corner of Queen and McGill streets.

On the right are hundreds of tables and chairs for people to sit and eat and listen to music.

To your right you will see vendor booths.

You think, “they look interesting I think 💭 I’ll wander over and take a look”.

“Look at that sharp looking talented young man in the middle booth. I’m going to take a closer look!” you say to yourself.

<<<<< I'll come back here in a little while. Oh look! There's the stage! <<<<<< ribfest and I'm hungry! Let's see what's to eat! <<<<<< hat's some flashy rib trucks!! Let's see what else there is to eat! <<<< Let's get funnel cake and lemonade. << at kind would you choose? Let's get some lemonade and eat this delicious funnel cake! << t's go back and check out that young woodworker. What a great spot! There's some great products inside this booth. 😉

Did you know the vendor was homeschooled until he was 16?

There sure are lots of people here. Several bands played. There was even a little girl singing and playing the ukulele. She was so cute!

Most of the music was pretty good. Some of it was just way too loud. I didn’t really appreciate the Saturday evening band who felt it was ok at 9:30 in a public park to liberally sprinkle curse words from the PA system.

All in all it was a pretty fun event. I hope you enjoyed coming along with me!

High school Graduation!!

My sweet daughter, B, has graduated!!! 

June 28, 2017!!


Two school years ago at age 16, she started her first day in public school part time at CCI.   4 semesters later she has graduated with a Specialist High Skills Major in the health and wellness area of study!  She worked very hard and was serious about her classes. 

We are so proud of her!!

Wilderness Camp. Family style: part 2

This trip was truly about spending time together as a family.

K was the first one up each morning, naturally.   He gathered kindling and lit the fire with his tinder kit. To get it going for breakfast.

Burgers and Corn for dinner.

D and B planned the wilderness camp very well.  They chose the site and packed all the bedding and tent. They planned and organized all the meals.  They did a fabulous job!

Our home for four days

 

 

We quickly got into a daily rhythm;

We would have oatmeal and tea for breakfast.

Then we would all tend the fire and work at preparing meals.

Everything was cooked over the fire.

 

 

 

 

D spent the morning of the first day building a tripod to put over the fire so we could hang the kettle and the cook pot over the stove.

Then he worked on carving us a flipper for the burgers and a ladle for the soup out of nice hardwood.

 

The tripod has a really practical double hook affair that could be raised or lowered to control the amount of heat for cooking.

 

 

While we were cooking or carving or tending the fire B was reading to us from a Neil Gaiman novel.  It was quite nice. Even when she needed to pause for a few seconds to rework the story a bit to make it appropriate to read to her little brother.

            

Even the puppy lay down to listen,

Wilderness camping ⛺️ family style

What an adventure 😀

Wednesday June 21 to Sunday June 25. 

Halliburton highlands water trails park 

By time we all met up at the parking lot next to the boat launch it was getting dark.  

And

VERY, VERY buggy. Tons of mosquitos. Yuck. 😜

K and I had stopped at the grocery store for snacks but B and D had planned all the meals.  First the canoe came off the van. Then we had to quickly go through everything while under attack from the swarms. 

So we all piled in the canoe and headed towards the campsite. 

Out on the water was very beautiful.  The water was completely smooth.  All along the lake the shore was reflected in the water perfectly.  I wish I could’ve taken pictures to share with you how absolutely stunning it was. 

It looked very much like this;

http://www.eastshorervpark.com/home

https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/ocala/recarea/?recid=40233


I think we learned going to a campsite we had never been to before in the dark was not the best plan… 

Maybe it was the stunningly beautiful scenery or maybe we were just tired, but We took a couple detours before we found our site. 

Once we found the right area D landed us at the right campsite the first time.  Because he is just that good. 👍🏻

B and I were left at the campsite with the tent, two chairs, K’s survival kit and the dog. While the boys went back to the car for another load of gear. 

In the dark. Oh yeah. We did have a couple hand flashlights to get the tent set up. 

Next we had to scrounge around in the dark looking for kindling and wood to light a fire.  At ’tis point we realized we had no matches or lighters.  Just K’s tinder kit….

It took a bit but we eventually got it going. 

Our signal fire.


We had to keep getting dried pine needles and small twigs to keep it going until 1:30 when the boys finally got back to us with the bedding and the rest of the camping gear.  

Apparently finding the boat launch went as well as finding the campsite. They paddled along the shoreline until they found it. 🛶🗺

D found some more wood and we had some oatmeal and went to bed. 

So tired.