homeschooling, sheep, and sweet potato poop

We have just finished being with family over Thanksgiving...what a blessing! I hope all you parents are INTENTIONALLY making meaningful memories by noticing all the giftings of your particular family. My brother-in-law and sis-in-law have been raising sheep for this year. It is FASCINATING watching them grow from newborn lambs to soft, fluffy personality-filled ewes and rams. Every Scripture I ever read about Jesus being the Good Shepherd and us being His sheep came to life as all the kiddoes and I watched Alan and Anita call, separate,feed, and caress their "babies". The obvious love that they both felt for these sheep (who DID know Alan's voice and came running to him) was so amazing. We all learned so many lessons that afternoon - including how wishy-washy and easily led all sheep are!!
On the way home from our relatives' house, I got a phone call from our daughter who is the mom of our only grand-daughter. Our little Maggie has the disconcerting habit of storing up everything in her tummy for 7 or 8 days, and then having a massive explosion. Anyway, Danielle was at her in-laws for the holidays, and they were outlet-shopping the day after Thanksgiving. They were loading her into the car to go back to the in-laws for holiday dinner (including Maggie's new favorite :sweet potatoes)and family photos(!), when ALL HECK broke loose in her diapers. Danielle had only 8 wipes, and sweet potato poop was soon all over Maggie's clothes, her carseat, her body-(up to her neck in the back)--and the car backseat. No more wipes or clothes--so they had to ride all the way back to his folks with that wonderful sight and smell.
The point is - IN FAMILIES, sweet potato poop HAPPENS. You have to forget the image of a perfect family, try to ignore the worst smells, and clean it up together. You HAVE to be real and transparent if you want real relationship..... enjoy the reality of family together!!

Karen Costello — author of "Go Fly a Kite — Ten Surprising Strategies for Success in Your Homeschool". Karen is also available to speak at your homeschool conventions and other homeschool functions.After 25 years of homeschooling, Karen has refined fun, successful teaching ideas which will work for you! Go to www.karencostello.com

homeschooling, sex, and math

Last night, I chatted online with this friend of mine- a homeschool graduate--who is now teaching English in Japan for two years. I had lost touch with her and asked her where she was. She wrote "Japan", and I wrote "What time is it?" and she replied, "almost 12". I hesitated, and asked."You mean, as in Friday, as in tomorrow at noon??!!" And she said,"Yes." I know abstract thinking is not my strong suit, but I am sorry - I canNOT get my mind around that. I was talking to someone ...in the FUTURE.
There are many things which I cannot fully grasp , but I know that they are true: God loves me and wants a personal relationship with me.That you can love your 2nd,3rd, and 4th born as much as you loved that firstborn.That two can become one.That I've spent the majority of the last 25 years homeschooling, and that I've still got (only!) 6 1/2 left.
The concepts in math are another thing. In my part-time grad school classes, we are learning about psych testing, and we recently took parts of achievement tests in class to understand their structure. As I was completing a math sub-test in front of class, I heard someone mention a certain curriculum, and I said (as any good hs'er would)"I LOVE Saxon math!"
I turned around to see a few of my friends with shocked faces : they wondered WHY I would just blurt out in class that I LOVED sex...and math :)!!
Anyway, after my explanation and much laughter, I finished my test and continued my learning that sometimes you just have to believe that some things are TRUE.

Karen Costello — author of "Go Fly a Kite — Ten Surprising Strategies for Success in Your Homeschool"Karen is also available to speak at your homeschool conventions and other homeschool functions.After 25 years of homeschooling, Karen has refined fun, successful teaching ideas which will work for you!

homeschooling, Legos, rockets, and digestion

In a graduate class i am taking right now, we heard today about testing to different learning styles. This is nothing new to me--in my book, I even have a quick test you can give your kiddo to find out if he is a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner. Most hs moms I know realize that their children usually have differing learning styles - mine certainly did!
Number 1 learned mostly in a visual way, while kiddo # 2 was a textbook auditory learner. Number three was a combination of both---and this last Costello is a kid who HAS to be doodling, playing with Legos, fidgeting, coloring, or shaping Sculpy (totally hands-on kinesthetic)in order to FOCUS on listening, memorizing, or narrating.
Speaking of memorizing, a year ago, he was actually PITIFUL at remembering and repeating anything. I gave him Psalm 1 to memorize--which we tried SLOWLY--half verse by half verse---and now, a year later---he is doing an amazing job!! Go get your Bble right now and find out why Psalm 1 is such answer to my prayer---I believe God GAVE him this ability as Luke digested the living word of God!!!
He loves creating---and it is now 9:15 p.m.---and he is staying up a tad past bedtime to work with his dad on a homemade model rocket that Gil & Liz gave him. Learning is lifelong--and not confined to a few hours in the day! I love watching him learn with his own giftings!

Karen Costello is the author of "Go Fly a Kite — Ten Surprising Strategies for Success in Your Homeschool".Karen is also available to speak at your homeschool conventions and other homeschool functions.After 25 years of homeschooling, Karen has refined fun, successful teaching ideas which will work for you!

homeschooling is NOT a snooze

Since learning of our FOURTH expected grandchild, I remembered how one of our own kiddoes never slept through the night until he was 18 months old. I recall getting up in the middle of cold, dark nights and sitting up in a creaky rocker, nursing. After many months of this, I almost started resenting his hunger and my resulting lack of sleep - until one night,I felt that God was telling me that this was our special time just to talk. That perspective made all the difference in my attitude.
Last night, after listening to Tim snoring for HOURS, I had that same resentful feeling---of somebody else robbing MY sleep. I prayed, nudged him, planned my day today, nudged him again, prayed some more, and then really started kicking him. However, sometime in that non-restful, non-quiet time, when I was praying for my mom, I thought about my mom and dad's 51 year marriage which ended when he went home to heaven three years ago . I know without a doubt that she would LOVE to be beside his wall-shaking snoring again. Again, that perspective shamed me...and I went back to nudging instead of kicking. Even though I realize how much I LOVE my sleep at this stage in my life, I decided to write some more tonight in this blo..........ZZzzz

Karen Costello — author of "Go Fly a Kite — Ten Surprising Strategies for Success in Your Homeschool".Karen is also available to speak at your homeschool conventions and other homeschool functions . After 25 years of homeschooling, Karen has refined fun, successful teaching ideas which will work for you!

homeschooling ,chaos, and delayed gratification

So, there are very few homeschooling homes that would be featured in "Architectural Digest" magazine. First, our proudest possession is not our home, and most of us are a one-income family. In addition, we encourage discovery and creative exploration in our children everyday--in essence, we live in a learning laboratory.
Yesterday , after bookwork, Luke & I went to an orchard, bought a bushel of apples, and spent the rest of the day making apple butter. The kitchen was a WRECK!! But he learned how to use my handy-dandy apple peeler, how to make applesauce, and the fairly long process that turns it into rich, dark,heavenly-smelling apple butter. Through God's provision, much waiting, and messy effort, our whole family will enjoy our labor all year--and that is probably the most valuable lesson I taught all day.
Karen Costello — author of "Go Fly a Kite — Ten Surprising Strategies for Success in Your Homeschool". Karen is also available to speak at your HomeSchool conventions and other Homeschool functions . After 25 years of homeschooling, Karen has refined fun, successful teaching ideas which will work for you!

homeschooling,trials, and brats

It has been a rough couple of weeks for our family---which is no different from yours at any given time! It seems to me that we try excessively hard to shield our children from every bad thing that happens . Sometimes this can be a terrible disservice to them. We rob them of learning to pray---of learning to cope--of learning to do without--of learning that we all grieve. The last thing we need to do is to cushion our kiddoes from all struggles and trials. Otherwise, we are at risk of raising a generation of entitled, pampered, self-centered and overly protective brats.
Obviously, we need to use Corrie Ten Boom's analogy of not allowing a child to carry a heavy suitcase until they are able, and discern what they are ready to hear, but one key issue is TRUST. Wow---God IS trustworthy--and He will allow trials in our lives. (He said that we shouldn't be surprised :)...and it is up to us to show His strength getting us through the trials!

homeschooling and Dave Letterman's mom

I love all the new technology--emails, texts, and blogs...but I DO miss some old-fashioned things: like non-refereed backyard football games, car trips where the license plate alphabet game was the highlight of many miles and you played TOGETHER, being bored in the summer...and home-canned foods. I only know a COUPLE of women who can vegetables from their garden...and teach this to the next generation. I say this because this week, Luke and his hs'ed friend picked and harvested two gallons of ripe persimmons on our property. I make several desserts from these delicious sweet fruits, but they are practically unknown these days. Persimmon pudding is one of our favorites--and the only other place I have seen it was in an old cookbook of David Letterman's mom called "Indiana Persimmon Dessert". Sometimes we need to reach back into the past..and grab some GOODNESS!

Last week, we were so thankful to be able to take all the kids and grandkiddoes to the beach for our annual vaca. There is probably no greater feeling than to have all my chicks in the nest (for a while anyway) and see them SO enjoy being together! Luke certainly got his share of studying "marine biology"--he caught crabs, geckos,skinks,--and touched a baby shark,a squid, many fish, and several frogs. He participated in putting on a pirate birthday party on the beach, played golf,babysat,collected all manner of shells, read, drew,watched endless episodes of "Cash Cab"(sort of like Jeopardy in a car?), and boogie-boarded for HOURS a day. My point is that learning never stops--especially in a large family setting interacting with all ages, interests, and sensibilities. The freedom we have as homeschoolers should be EXPERIENCED sometimes!! I still remember years ago one of my brothers offered to give my then 10 and 8 year old boys their first "trip of a lifetime": he wanted to take them to Washington DC, show them all the sights and then take them by train to Boston where they would continue to see all the historical sights. He said,"But what about their school?"...and I realized that I had failed to tell him what we were actually doing,because of course all of it WAS SCHOOL!!! Curricula cannot be our master...but we need to keep a balance of texts and real-life learning...have fun...kc

Wow!! My website is UP!! Please go to www.karencostello.com and read an excerpt from my book about ten surprising strategies for homeschool success. I also have topics listed that I have given to large and small homeschool groups. Sixth grade is going strong for us---I love having an inquisitive, kinesthetic learner! Today, we studied some random history of the Chinese people involving the abusive treatment of binding feet of the women many years ago. We did some Latin, some Saxon math (I love Saxon so much I want to marry it)...and of course, MUCH outdoor science time. More later!

My first blog post.

Thanks to my son in law and my friends for getting me on the internet.
This blog will be updated weekly I hope.
This was a hard start for me because I had to choose a blog title. As I looked at other blogs, I ruled out "Go Fly A Kite", because it seemed that the title needed to be who I WAS. "The Kite-Flying Mama" sounded a little too motorcyclish, and "The Canning Mama" sounded way too domestic--even though I do can and I do fly kites. I wanted "Your Mom Goes to College" or "Dynamite Homeschooler" because I LOVED Napoleon Dynamite--but that didn't seem to define what I wanted to write about. If I chose "Homeschool Diva" or worse,"Homeschool Queen", I would immediately make enemies and be stretching the truth. In the spirit of homeschoolers always comparing our children to others, I guess I could have chosen "My Kids are Better than Yours.com" :) , but again, stretching the truth. So, because I believe that we homeschoolers are doing amazing things while balancing extraordinary loads, I decided to go with "The Plate Spinner". I have made many mistakes over my 25 years in the field, but thankfully, my children are not four of them. I have written a book entitled "Go Fly A Kite : Ten Surprising Strategies for Success in Your Homeschool", and I hope to share here some of what God has taught me over the years.