Making History Interesting to Teens

Maria made the mistake of telling me last year that she does not like history, she finds it boring.  You would think by now my kids would know better, or at least be able to predict what will follow a statement like that :)

I have spent the last few weeks creating a high school 20th Century Humanities course for this fall.  Each month we will focus on a single decade 1900-1909, 1910-1919, etc all the way through 1999.  We will study historic events, famous people, inventions, science discoveries, art, music, literature, film, television, and philosophy.  The goal will be to prove to Maria that history is fascinating and linked to everything else going on in the world at any given time.  The course will be interdisciplinary and have both breadth and depth.  I have been having a lot of fun putting the class together. 

I have learned through my years of teaching that most learning occurs when students are engaged, interested and having fun.  They rarely realize they are learning because it is just so interesting.  This is the goal and so far I think I will be able to accomplish it with her.  Yesterday I spent the day looking at 100 years of art selecting our works for the year.  You really learn a lot about a culture when you spend a day doing that.  Today the focus was music, the day before literature and inventions.  I can already see trends and patterns across just these few subjects.  Connections will be formed all semester long and hopefully carry with her throughout her life. 

The key is finding the hook.  I thought my way in would be through film and literature.  As I prepare though I realize in her case it will be through science and inventions.  So many amazing things happened and were developed last century.  Science played a critical role and she will enjoy that part being the scientist that she is.  The literature will be interesting and fun, the music telling of the cultural changes but as I prepared I realized there are so many more connections between science, inventions and history this past decade that I am getting excited to discover them all and help her along the way. 

I remember my first interdisciplinary class, my high school senior art class.  We only combined history, art and music but it had a profound affect on my understanding of the world to be able to see all the connections.  I have always approached my kids education with an interdisciplinary/unit study flare but this will be our first year studying exclusively this way.  Only her math curriculum and chemistry class will be outside of this class.  I was tempted to bring my younger kids into the study, it certainly would be easier for me, yet I know this needs to remain just a high school level class.  The 20th century saw a lot of events, art, music, and historical figures that one needs to have a certain level of maturity to grasp and handle emotionally.  I know Maria is ready for this and the others are not, so they will have to wait their turn. 

I was disappointed to discover there was no curriculum already made that could do what I wanted.  Still it has forced me to make it truly what I want as I develop everything from scratch.  There are many wonderful resources available so mostly I am compiling a big spreadsheet of lists and material to study.  We will focus on primary and original sources whenever possible.  Most of the original material is readily available thanks to the internet and the library.  I will report back at the end of the year letting you know if I found a way to make history interesting to teens, or at least to my teenage daughter. 

Teenagers are Amazing. Stop Judging Them so Harshly

I have always loved teenagers.  Everyone tells me that will change when I have my own.  So far we are doing okay but we are only a month into the official teen years.  People told me to hate two year olds and I did not.  I actually found two to be a magical and interesting year for my children.  I will go into the teen years positively and take it as it comes. 

My own teenagers are not the motivation for this post, teenagers in general are.  I thoroughly enjoy teenagers and I am at a loss as to why more people do not enjoy them as well.  Sure they are loud and at times rude and rambunctious but they are always interesting.  Teens are fascinating as they learn to navigate the world around them as themselves and not as who their parents told them to be. The teenage mind is interesting to watch a problem and see their creative ways through difficulties.  Yes they can be impulsive but often that is because we allow excuses for them to fall back on. 

For anyone who thinks they dislike teenagers I challenge you to get to know some teens.  Really get to know them and ask them about their interests, joys and hardships.  Learn about how they balance school, work, sports and friendships.  Ask about their goals and dreams and how they plan to get there. 

I always tell people my favorite age people are 15-22.  So much happens in those years.  The mind is developing, strategizing, understanding, negotiating, and it is amazing to witness that process.  Conversations, debates, and discussions are very rich with individuals in this age group.  Opinions alternate between firm, fluid, unsure and firm again.  People in this age range are trying to figure out who they are, what their place in this world is, what this world is all about and what it really should be like.  They love to engage on issues of religion, politics, sexuality, money and all the world's biggest issues and questions.  Adults are foolish to not engage and learn from them and help teens and young adults learn from them and see the world from other perspectives. 


I am a tutor.  I primarily work with teenagers on their study skills and their ACT test prep.  The first question I ask them is what sports or musical instruments they have played.  I ask about their favorite movies, music, books and video games.  I work hard to find connection points with each of my students and to help them feel comfortable with me.  The only part I dislike about my job is that when I am successful I work myself out of it.  When my students succeed they stop working with me and I miss getting to know them and see their success and journey. 

I watch other adults look at teenagers with disgust or cross a street to avoid them and I am saddened.  Our culture needs more cross generational relationships and the adults in this culture are doing little to connect with the teenagers and young adults and be active parts of their lives.  If I was a teen receiving looks from adults like I observe I would not want relationships with adults and I would likely continue behaviors that were repelling the adults. 

Our home school group meets at the beach every week.  Several times this summer I set up in the middle of the high school/college zone.  It was interesting to see how the teens served as "adult repellent" with no other adults wanting to be anywhere near them.  Yes they smoked, yes many of them swore, yes they gave me incredulous looks at first.  A strange thing happened though after I smiled, returned a football that landed at my feet and they realized I was not going away.  They spoke to me, they smiled, they seemed to have cleaned up their language some and even spoke a little softer.  I did not ask them to, I did not encourage them to, I did not even really interact with them. 

I work with many teenagers and every one of them is unique and interesting.  They are totally amazing and special people.  They are polite, kind and engaging.  They just want people to treat them with respect and kindness.  They want people to believe in them, build them up, support and encourage them.  They don't want to be talked down to, belittled, or prejudged.   They care burdens and walk hard paths.  They want to do hard things, be challenged and will respond to the opportunities laid before them. 

In all of my years of teaching and tutoring I have learned you always teach up.  Students long to be recognized, they long to have someone notice the specialness within them and help bring it out.  Students will always rise to the challenge when encouraged and supported.  I still believe Aristotle was right and work hard to help all my students realize I am only helping them discover what they themselves already knew.  It is not about the teacher, it is the student who knew and just needed a little help getting it out of themselves.

Teenagers want the adults in this world to realize they are just as capable and hard working as fellow adults.  Teenagers want to be treated like adults but also be given some breathing room to be allowed to make mistakes and screw up along the way, they are still learning.  Treat teens with respect and you will be amazed at the results.  You will meet some really interesting and amazing people along the way. 

Reflections on Eight Years of a Reader

I have kept journals for each of my children since I was pregnant with them.  Their journal is a place I record important times in their lives, funny stories I want to remember and advice I want to give them years later.  These pages are made up of moments I want them to remember, a picture of their childhood without all the snapshots, just my verbal descriptions.  

Occasionally when I write in these I skim back over past years and see where they have been and where they are now, even in their young lives you can begin to trace paths and see how each experience led to the next.  I was doing that recently when I came across an entry that stuck with me.  I wrote in Maria’s journal on January 22, 2004 when she was 4 years old.  

“Today was a special day.  It was as if the light bulb just clicked and you truly got it.  I was so thankful to be a part of it - to be there to help and to see you read your first words and whole book.  Your first book was “Al” by Primary Phonics read on January 22, 2004.  I truly hope this develops into a passion for reading much like your father and I both have.  You love being read to and your excitement over reading yourself is contagious.  You are so proud of yourself as you should be - not many children read at the age of 4.  Thank you for sharing your life passion and learning with me - it truly is a gift I cherish and am so thankful for.  Love, Mommy.”

Part of why this entry struck me was the timing in relation to recent accomplishments in Maria’s life.  In February 2012 she took the ACT (College Entrance Exam) as a twelve year old.  As I drove her to the college where she took her test I was struck by the fact that just eight years ago I was witnessing her learning to read independently and praying for her to have a passion for reading.  

It was this very passion that led her to take the ACT in the first place, to experience a challenge in reading.  As I dropped her off in a classroom of juniors and seniors in high school and walked away I wondered if what she was doing was right for her.  I am not a fan of grade skipping and I am not a tiger parent, yet there I sat with my 12 year old daughter taking an exam to determine her college readiness.  

Of course I knew she was not taking it to try to get into a college and her reasons for taking the test were sound.  I am glad she had the initiative to do so and I was so proud of her for being brave enough to give it a try.  As  I sat at a coffee shop a few blocks away I wrote her a long letter about her journey that brought her to this point.  I shared some of what I hoped would follow which continued with the theme of lifelong passion for reading and being a lifelong learner.  I have no journal entry from this day because I wrote a letter and handed it to her when she got in the car after the exam.  

I asked her reactions to the test and she said “It was fun!”  Not what I expected, though I probably should have.  She said the math was hard because she had not even learned half of it yet and science was too time pressured but the rest of the test was fun.  As I drove away I was thinking about how much can change and how much stays the same in eight years.  Maria has always loved reading and she devours books of all types.  She has had a lot of freedom to read as often as she wants and if the 10,000 hours to become an expert rule has merit I am pretty confident she has achieved that level or is very close to the threshold :)

We recently attended ceremonies on the campuses of Northwestern University and Hamline University to celebrate her accomplishments on the ACT.  Taking that test and her results have opened many new doors and possibilities to her for her present and her future.  She has discovered some new things about herself and her potential and plans to use them well.  She is as excited and motivated as she was eight years ago when she first learned to read.  Her enthusiasm is at times contagious.  Now though my messages to her are a bit different.  

From my journal entry after we received her ACT scores.  

“While it is true that your composite ACT score and all your subscores would get you into most colleges now, we would not encourage you to or let you go to college now :)  As I tell you all the time I am pro balanced life.  I want you to excel in school and do well but I also want you to enjoy swimming, youth group, and just having fun with your friends. I want you to keep your whole life in balance even as you pursue your passions and gifts....You are extremely self motivated and disciplined.  You set very high goals for yourself and work harder than almost anyone I know to achieve them.  Set your goals for a whole and balanced life where you still pursue your passions and talents becoming a lifelong learner and person who is happy with the whole of her life.”

I am very proud of Maria but not because of the results of a single test.  I am proud of her bravery, her discipline, her hard work, her passion and talent and her willingness to try new things.  I am proud of how she attacks a problem and faces new challenges.  Her test results show this more than anything else.  Her test results just confirm what we have known about her for a long time.  

Her journey of reading may seem incredible to some from learning to read to a perfect reading score in just eight years and it is quite an accomplishment!  When I reflect though I realize she was given freedom and encouragement and support to explore and pursue her passions and talents at the rate that was best for her individual personality and motivation.  She is very hard working and always willing to try new things and challenge herself.  

Each child has their own bend, talent, passion and motivation level.  As parents we need to encourage and support those passions in our children and give them the freedom to explore on their own and provide new challenges to help them rise to the next level when they seem to be leveling off or stagnating.  This is one of my favorite parts of home schooling.  Having the freedom to give my children freedom and room to grow and become who they want to be.

I have enjoyed walking this eight year reading journey with my daughter and I look forward to seeing what the next 6 years bring.  It will be fun and interesting to see where she decides to continue her journey when she takes the ACT to actually apply to colleges and heads out the door to one, if that is the path she chooses to follow.  A lot can change in six years but then again a lot can also stay the same :)  

Kiss those babies,
Tenniel

Teaching Older Kids

When I started this blog so many years ago I was in the middle of the preschool and toddler years.  I threw my creativity into teaching the alphabet, learning life skills and experiencing the world.  Most of my posts were made up of field trips, letter of the week games, and surviving life with three kids under the age of 5 while beginning our home school journey.

Here we are 8 years later and this blog has a very different tone as my life has a very different tone.  I never would have believed I had more time for things like blogging back then but I simply did.  I know someday again I will.  I can not bring myself to close this blog down no matter how little I blog because it is such a part of us and our home school journey.

Yesterday was a great home school day here.  We are wrapping up a school year and getting ready to find our summer rhythm.  Typically at this time of year my responsibility winds down and I have less and less to do with the kids.  This year is a bit different though as Maria has decided to do an independent study in Chemistry through the summer.  She is working through a high school level course with what looks to be a college level textbook.  Yesterday I spent the afternoon teaching her how to outline a textbook and take good study notes.  I actually even used our chalkboard :) As I taught her these skills I thought back to my own educational and my freshman year Biology teacher who taught me the outlining and note taking process I still teach my students.  A great big thank you to her!

Maria thought I was a bit rigid at first and this was a very different experience for her.  I am not often "rigid" or particular in my teaching.  Overall the experience will be good but it is much harder than anything else she has ever done and it definitely challenged her.  Not the reading, not even the material, but rather the concept of taking study notes and keeping an actual notebook for a subject.  I made her start a three ring binder just for Chemistry with sections for Notes, Vocab, Problems, Labs, Questions, and Misc.  The idea of having all those sections for just one subject was foreign to her but she understood the logic of it by the end of our session together.

We worked together on outlining the first chapter of the text and I wrote out her first chapter vocab/definition list so she can see what it should look like each chapter.  She learned the best format for keeping good clear visual notes and is learning how to write in keywords rather than all complete sentences. I demonstrated how she should pick out the key concepts and have her notes follow along with her text.  As we worked together I explained that this system she was learning would be key to both high school and college studies and the difference good note taking skills can make.

Maria is a very cooperative student and hard working so she was a joy to teach, honestly.  As we worked together I found myself getting filled up as well as I watched her learn a new important skill that was hard for her.  It has not always been easy to challenge her as a student so I cherish the moments when she faces true challenges that she has to work her way through.  She is a bright light at those moments burning furiously until she figures out the task and can settle into her new rhythm.

We will continue to touch base throughout this course to make sure her Chemistry notebook is coming along and she is maintaining good study habits.  Yesterday was an excellent start and I am proud of her.  I am excited for moving into this next step of her education with her.  Next year we will be working together on a very cool interdisciplinary modern history course that I am developing for her now.  I am glad she is learning these skills now in Chemistry so she can easily use them next year once they have become habit.

Home schooling her through high school does not scare me, it excites me.  I know there will be challenges to be sure just as there were when they were little.  Somehow I feel more up for the challenges of chemistry and high school history than I ever did for the playdough, paint and sparkles from the younger days.   I have always loved working with older kids and everyone keeps telling me that will change when they are my own, but so far I don't see it and just like the "terrible twos" that we called the "terrific twos"  I believe a lot of it results in how you approach it.  I will not be scared of the teenage and high school years, I will be ready, I will expect challenges, but I will embrace them and be excited for them.  Besides I do love teaching older children, so why in the world would I not love teaching my own.

Kiss those babies!

Starting with the end in mind

Lately I have found myself having many conversations about our educational philosophy and how we made the choices we have on our home school journey.  I keep coming back to the same answers.  We started with the end in mind.  We knew what we wanted our kids to achieve and experience in their education and what we wanted them to be prepared for, then we worked backwards.

We wanted our kids to grow up to be life long learners, confident, well rounded, contributing citizens who were ready for college.  Each family will have a different picture of their end for their unique kids an that makes sense.  Each family will then need to find their own path to reach it.  The one thing I would add, stepping up on soap box, is all kids should have the right to be prepared for college.  Over recent years I have heard more and more, well my kid does not want to go to college, or probably will not.  That is fine if they choose not to but as educators and parents it is our responsibility to make sure that option is open to them and to give them rigorous enough studies and schooling experiences to leave that door wide open for them.  Let them make that call their senior year, but make sure they have the option open to them, stepping off soap box now.

Back to our little unique family.  Well rounded life long learners, that is our ultimate goal.   I tell my kids this often and I sometimes remind myself of it daily when their unique learning styles are driving me crazy.  To build life long learners you need to help kids fall in love with learning and knowledge, something that I believe is rarer in our modern educational system.  This does not mean making school "fun", but rather rewarding.  Making the child take ownership and feel pride (the good kind) in their achievements and successes and giving them the passion and determination to see through the hard things and the boring things to make it to the rewards.  A life long learner is someone who loves to learn and just can not help but to continue to learn and grow every day of their life, long after they are required to work on their education.  This is what I want for my children and for my students.

When I talk to my children about their education I often share our overall approach to their education.  I explain how in the end I want to give them three skill sets to help them in their lives.

1. Research
2. Data Analysis
3. Communication

Life long learners need to be able to find information on any topic they want to learn about.  Research skills are important.  Being able to find data now is not hard, being able to find good and relevant data is.  The first goal is teaching the kids how to find out information about whatever they need and giving them the reading skills to be able to understand it.

Having information means nothing unless you can distill it and know how to utilize it.  Data analysis is very important for any life long learner, high school or college student, or any employee who needs to deal with data.  Having the skills to allow you to take raw data and comprehend it in useful ways is essential.  Here I talk to my kids about the skills of discerning fact from opinion, discovering bias, finding connections across disciplines and learning to add new information into your current understanding of the world.  Learning to take the good and apply it in your understanding of a situation, a subject or the world at large.  This is the second skill set I want them to excel at.

Lastly having knowledge is not that useful unless you do something with it.  I want my children to be able to communicate effectively in the world about what they know.  They need to be able to speak, write and present effectively.  In our world that still includes written essay type communication but more importantly it includes things like power point, twitter, facebook, video presentations, and learning to communicate in every available media.  So in our home school we work on our communication skills.

In the end if my children end up with these skills, the classes and schooling they need to be successful in college and they have had a well balanced life filled with friends, sports, service, church, and other activities we will have achieved our goals. 

Remember your goals are different than mine but I encourage you to think through your own goals for your own family.  Start with the end in mind, work toward those goals and the rest will fall naturally into place. 

Story Starters

More Story Starters

View more PowerPoint from Billy Cripe

Even More Story Starters

View more PowerPoint from Billy Cripe

Scope and Sequence

As I sit at my computer today I find myself doing a task I knew was coming but still seems to have snuck up from behind.  Today I started working on Maria's Scope and Sequence for junior and senior high.  Maria and I had a great talk today about goals and paths to achieve them.  We started to talk about how the rest of this year should look and more importantly how the next 6 years will look.  Seems appropriate at this midpoint to begin giving her more choice and control, within boundaries of course.

As of now Maria plans to home school through her first two years of high school and then take advantage of the PSEO opportunity here in Minnesota to dual enroll at a community college as a high school student and to finish whatever else she still needs to at home.  We have begun outside the home classes this year for Spanish and next year she will likely do a few online science and humanities classes through either EPGY or CTY.  Still we need to plan out the overall plan including CLEP, AP, PSEO, online, home school classes and internships. I did not realize how enjoyable I would find this process.

Starting next year we will keep a portfolio of work and complete reading lists, along with service projects and extra curriculars.  I figure it is easier to start with the end in mind and collect more than we may need than to be scrambling at the end to pull it all together for college applications.  We are starting with the high school sequence that we believe will be best for her and working backwards to make sure it all will work out.  Of course there can be some flexibility and changes along the way as needed but it is exciting to think about and begin to plan.  Maria has some big goals and some clear approaches to try to achieve them, it will be fun and exciting to be part of the process and to help guide her through these years and see where her path lies and the journey she takes to get there.

Here's to fun tables, charts, book lists, and getting to research and buy new curriculum.  Always fun :)

Kiss those babies!
Tenniel

Hosting a successful book club

Poke around this website long or simply walk through my actual home once and it quickly becomes evident we are avid readers here.  Reading is a part of every day life for each member of this house.  To some it came naturally, to others it has been developed and for others it has at times simply been required :)  Still readers we all are.  

To encourage more reading in my kids and some of their peers I host monthly book clubs in my home.  My kids tried a variety of book clubs before I started hosting.  We found that many book clubs were simply social time with many of the kids having not actually read the book and fewer wanting to actually discuss it with any depth.   These traditional book clubs also tended to be very gender divided both in attendees and book topics. This really bothered Maria who loves fantasy and science fiction books and has good friends of both genders.  She could not find a girls fantasy book club or any book club with peers who also really wanted to dig down and discuss ideas and topics in the books.  So we started one here.

I have led a book club for Maria and several of her friends for over three years now.  I have read so many good books with great kids and have truly enjoyed our conversations and the way we learn together.  Through the years we have had between six and twelve attendees. The age span of our group is four years, when we started the kids ranged in age from 10 to 13 and now they are 11 through 15. Currently we have 12 kids who meet regularly evenly divided between boys and girls. Through the years there have been meetings with one boy and four girls or one girl and five boys.


I also lead a book club for Ciaran and some of his friends.  His group is made up of 6 boys ages 10-12. He just started last summer but the group seems to have developed nicely.  He tried for a co-ed group too but they only found one brave girl to join in the mix and eventually she moved on to other things.  For my son I think the all boy piece works nicely at this age for him, I may try to encourage more co-ed options later as he and his friends get older.  For now though they need the comfort of being just with each other and developing into readers together in a safe place with both they enjoy.


These two book clubs have many similarities.  Both groups meet once a month.  The kids pick the books each month and the older kids actually vote on which books to read and in what order.  Both groups tend to live in the fantasy and science fiction genre. I read the books along with them each month and I lead discussion with both groups.  Both have to have an hour of discussion before they get their hour of social time.

I never realized how easy leading book club was for me until I recently needed to ask some other people to help out and take over a month or two.  When I wrote out some discussion questions or found materials to help support the leaders I discovered how natural this process was for me and how unnatural it can be for others.  It is easy for me because I have done it so long and I know the kids and the patterns of what works and what does not work.  It is easy for me to lead because I am an avid reader and I love talking about books.  It is easy for me because I love teaching literature and I often do it in different ways like through the kids understanding of movies.   So I have decided to share some of my strategies.  There really is no secret formula for a successful book club other than enthusiasm but there are some tips that may make it easier for you.

Find Kids With Similar Reading Interests
This is important, perhaps the most important.  More important than age and gender is the reading habits and interest of the kids involved.  Maria needed to find avid readers, she wanted people who loved fantasy and would not be scared off by the size of the books she enjoys.  She needed to find peers who actually liked reading just for fun and would read series of books over the course of a single month.  In order to do this we sat down together and figured out what she wanted the group to look like and then we wrote a very detailed description of what our book club would look like so people joining us knew what they were getting into.  Then we sent that description out via email to groups and forums we were a part of and to her friends with similar interests.  We found a fairly diverse group of kids who all had the same interest in joining a fantasy book club that would read and discuss big books.  The first book we read was Eragon by Christopher Paolina.  The size and topic was a pretty good filter :)

When Ciaran started he knew he wanted a smaller group.  He wanted action and adventure with some fantasy and science fiction.  He knew Percy Jackson and the Olympians series was his baseline book.  If someone would enjoy that book they would probably have a lot of reading in common and enjoy a book club together.  We wrote up his description that way and reached out to his friends.  They would not be the same book club as Maria and they would read smaller books and only one per month.  Some in his group go on to read the series but we only read and discuss book one together.

So we started with the kids interest and built the book club around it.  We followed "If you build it they will come" and they have and it is quite harmonious.  The kids like reading the same sorts of books and trust each other to pick good selections.  They find new books and they also find new friends.

Let The Kids Pick
Discussion will always be deeper and better if the book came from the kids themselves.  Let them rotate choices between members or have all members suggest a book and then vote on them.  In all the time I have led discussions only once have I picked a book for them to read.  That book went over very well but it was years into our discussions and the kids trusted me by that point to pick something they would all love. Let them pick and be ready to read some diverse things yourself.

Have One Discussion Leader 
We have been to book clubs where the leading responsibility rotates and there are benefits to this as well.  However, I believe our book clubs have lasted so long and been successful because we always meet at the same place and have the same discussion leader.  I read the books alongside the kids.  I do not just read a summary of plot and find discussion questions on the internet, I read it and create my own discussion questions.  There has been one exception to this and the older kids had a grand time making up characters and plot lines to pull one over on me when they realized I had not read the book.  They were creative and cooperating which was fun but I don't think I will skip another book :) 

Having a single leader has the benefit of truly getting to know the kids and the way they discuss and approach books.  Having one leader lets you carry lessons from one book to the next and to build on discussion topics and understanding of literature from session to session.  Having one leader provides insight into the group dynamics and the best discussion strategies for the group. Of course the kids have to like the leader and the leader has to like the kids for it to work  It is similar to having one teacher over the course of a school year, much better than continual substitutes. 


Have Great Discussion Questions
Kids rise to the occasion.  If you ask great questions they will give you great answers.  I have had some of my most recent intellectual discussions with teenagers on the book The Hunger Games.  We have talked about politics, government, children used as soldiers, desensitizing violence, what love really is, and how we could survive ourselves if thrown into life or death situations.  When we discussed the book Ender's Game we talked about governments using children, being forced to grow up too quickly, carrying burdens of the world, deciding who gets to live and who gets to die, and the reality of war games.

Kids are capable of so much more than they are often given credit for.   Ask them tough questions, expect great answers, keep pushing them past their easy first off the cuff answers and you will be rewarded with great discussion.  In addition to the serious questions be sure to ask the fun ones.  Kids reveal so much about themselves answering questions like "What one piece of technology would you bring out of the book into your world?"  or "What character would you want as a best friend?" or even "Which piece of candy would you choose in the Candy Shop Wars?"  Some of the light questions, lead to great discussion as well and help the kids in the group get to know one another. 

Skip the Crafts
Perhaps this is biased because I am sort of the anti-crafter so have little talent in this area.  Still I have found the kids enjoy the discussion much more than doing a craft or hand project along side book discussion.  Crafts and book activities are a lot of prep work for the group leader and I have rarely found they add more to the book or a kids understanding of it past about second grade.  They also tend to be a distraction from group discussion time and I find the kids would rather have unstructured time or organized games for their social time then be forced to work on an activity or craft structured around the book they read.  Often these activities can feel forced and kids are fairly diverse and do not enjoy the same types of crafts or activities.  I gave up on crafts and structured book activities and think the clubs have been rewarded for it.

The one exception to this is if you are doing a book club for younger kids.  When I did our American Girl Doll, Little House or If You Lived Groups those succeeded because they had specific crafts, music, food, clothing and activity that brought those books to life.  Of course all of those had real historical roots as well and lent themselves quite naturally to book specific activities and crafts.  I think this type of book club works best with first through fourth grade and past that good discussion and social time has been a better format for us. 

Combine Serious and Fun
I get really good discussion out of the kids for an hour.  They know there is an end to our discussion and that they will have an hour of social time.  They have clear expectations.  One hour of discussion and then one hour of play.  The combination works well.  The kids who are there to socialize still know they have to discuss first and they all come prepared.  Some may come just for the fun but they do the work required to get to the fun, read the book and participate in discussion.  The social time has really bonded them together as friends and has benefited the discussion time as well. As they have grown from a collection of kids with similar reading habits into friends who laugh and work together.  I believe the combination of the two serious and fun has allowed the kids to grow closer, the book club to grow stronger and our discussion to have much more depth.  The social also build trust which is important in a good book club.

Food
We always have a snack after our discussion time.  Kids can go two hours without eating but something about sharing a snack together bring them together.  Food brings adults together and it brings kids together as well.  Root beer floats, Orange Creamsicles, Girl scout Cookies, Homemade Hand painted Hunger Game Cookies, Chips and Candy, all the usual kid suspects.  They enjoy having food and parents are quick to chip in and rotate bringing snacks which helps relieve that from me and lets the kids all take turns sharing their favorite foods.


This post has gotten far longer than I expected.  Thanks for reading and good luck starting your own book club if that is your intention!  

Hunger Games Essay Questions

 With the movie being released the Hunger Games book series by Suzanne Collins is getting even more attention.  Awhile back we wrote some essay questions to review some of the central themes found in The Hunger Games trilogy.  Some questions apply to the entire of the trilogy.  

If you have not read the book I encourage you to read it along with your kids.  I will be posting some book discussion questions as well after our teen book club tonight.

                                                                     
Pick one of the following themes of the Hunger Games Series and discuss it in a 1-3 page paper.

1)  The Hunger Games series shows how old habits die hard.  People will continue old traditions even though they know that they are unfair and unjust. Discuss how the people in the different districts and the capital felt about the hunger games.  Why did they continue to participate?

2)  The Hunger Games series shows that good people can be especially cruel and violent if the situation allows for it or even demands it.  The Hunger Games and then the civil war required some incredibly violent actions by people who were not "bad" people.  Discuss your thoughts on if and when violence and cruelty is OK.

3)  The Hunger Games shows that the ends justify the means and that if the final outcome is good, that makes the strategies, tools and actions getting there OK.  The final tactic that won the civil war was the dropping of bombs on the civilian shield around the presidential mansion.  We don't know who ordered the attack.  If it was the rebels, was this OK?  Was it worth the price of those who died to stop the war and even more killing?

4)  The Hunger Games shows that good leadership often requires morally questionable decisions and actions.  Discuss 3 specific actions that the rebel president did or that Katniss did over the course of the books that was morally questionable.  How did these actions contribute to their leadership?

5)  The Hunger Games shows that television plays a very important role in society.  Discuss how the televised games were received in the Capital.  Discuss how the televised games were received in the Districts.  How did people's actions change because they were going to be on TV?  Did it make them try to be more "sensational" than they would otherwise have been?  If so, was it really "real" or was it a simulacrum?

6)  The Hunger Games Series shows that honor is sometimes assumed where it is not warranted and found where it is not expected.  Who was the most honorable in the book and why?  Who was the least honorable and why?  Who was assumed to have honor but demonstrated a moral and ethical ambiguity when it came time to act on that honor?  Who is more honorable at the beginning of the series Gale or Peeta or Haymitch?  How did this change by the end of the series?

Why read biographies?

Every summer we pick a reading challenge for each of our kids.  The summer between fifth and sixth grade has been "Biography Summer".  Ciaran is coming up on that this year and I am beginning now to try to encourage him to be excited for it. So far my enthusiasm has not been contagious, even Maria's good reviews have not helped.  The summer Maria read biographies she averaged about 3-5 juvenile non-fiction books a week because she found she really enjoyed them. For Ciaran I am going to require 1-2 a week, maybe he will find a similar passion for reading them. Like it or not he will be reading biographies this summer.  Here is to hoping he enjoys them :) 

Why biographies? They are a unique way to teach kids about invention, creativity, ingenuity, fame, power, and gifts of all sorts.  Biographies offer people to relate to, real life examples of success, and a different approach to learning history.  Giving the student freedom to pick the biography allows them to learn more about areas they are passionate about and discover some new areas of interest.

I do not pick the biographies.  I bring the student to the biography section and make them select a variety of individuals across different disciplines.  The only rule is the biographies must be varied and about someone you already do not know a lot about.  It is fine if you pick an athlete, an artist, a scientist, an inventor and a politician.  The point is to learn about a variety of disciplines through the story of a specific person. I also find that by requiring them to read so many biographies at once they start to discover the similarities of famous people across disciplines.  I like encouraging inter-disciplinary thinking and studies whenever possible and reading a variety of biographies is one easy way to do so.

I find even as an adult I still enjoy reading biographies.  It helps me understand some of the similarities and differences  between the lives of famous people.  I enjoy seeing the creative ways different people approach solving different problems and questions they face.  I enjoy learning about the creativity and determination and discipline of many different people throughout history, both ancient and modern. I enjoy my kids discovering the same sorts of things for themselves.

If you have never read biographies yourself I encourage you to try.  Your library is full of them.  Encourage your kids to read biographies and then discuss them together.  You may be pleasantly surprised by what you discover.  

Preparing for the ACT or SAT in High School

Recently I wrote about the importance of testing and how and why to begin preparing for the college entrance exams in junior high.

If you have not read that post yet please start there before you begin this one.  There is some important foundational information that you should know first. 

Remember testing is important in our culture and college entrance right now whether we like it or not so begin planning for that instead of avoiding it and hoping it will go away.

As an ACT tutor and a parent with three kids who hope to go to college one day this is an important topic to me.  I have put together a list of skills to work on with your high school student to best prepare them for their ACT.  Do not wait until they are a junior, begin these in their freshman year if at all possible and continue to build their skills and confidence over the years so their testing situation is not stressful but successful. Remember there are some skills you can start preparing for in junior high as well.

High School Test Prep Strategies

Read strategy books on how to beat the ACT or SAT

There are many different types of strategy books designed to help prepare you for the exam.  Your local library will carry most of them.  Check out a few and find one that works really well for you.  A few good names in the business are Princeton, Barron's and Kaplan.  For the ACT I think the Princeton Cracking the ACT book is the best for strategy and I recommend it for the students I work with.  Whatever book you decide on, read it and practice the strategies outlined even if they feel weird at first.  Help your student to understand and adopt the strategies that will work best for them to beat the test.

Set target goals 
The internet makes college applications easier in many ways.  Just a few google searches will help you discover what the requirements for the various colleges you want to apply to are.  You can type in any college name and ACT scores or SAT scores after it to be taken to a website that gives you the range of acceptance scores for the particular college.  Digging into a college's admission page and you can find the scores needed both for admission and the ever important financial aid. Look at several schools and set goals for yourself.  Have ranges (reach schools and safety schools) and determine what ACT score your student needs and can realistically expect to get. Start with a target composite range.  You will determine the individual section goals soon.

Understand your students strengths and weaknesses

Have your student take a practice ACT under test like conditions.  There is a complete free past ACT available online for this purpose.  This document is put out by the official ACT company and can be downloaded here.  It can also be picked up at any high school guidance counselor's office.  If your student has already taken an official ACT look at the breakdown and results for the official and this diagnostic test, average them and see where the strengths and weaknesses are. Talk with your student and ask them what felt hard and easy for them and create a plan for them to work with their strengths to increase their scores.

Make a plan based on number 2 and 3 and stick to it 
After understanding goals and actual present abilities create a plan to help you get from current ability to desired outcome.  The ACT and SAT are predictable and if you know the score you need you can easily discover about how many questions you need right on each section of the test.  Once you have that goal in mind you can create a study and practice schedule to help your student achieve it.

A practiced ACT tutor can help you with this as well.  One of the biggest advantages students get from working with me is a tailored practice plan based on their individual strengths and weaknesses.  We work together to discover how many questions they truly need to get right in each section to achieve their goals and then we build our strategy around that. What many people do not realize is that few students will actually need to get all of the questions right to achieve their goals.  Many students only need to get half the questions right in each section of the test to achieve their goals, some may only be able to miss 5 or 10 questions a section, and only the exceptional students will really go for accuracy in every single question.  Knowing and understanding your particular student and their goals makes a huge difference to your students success on the test. Working with someone who truly understands the test at this point can be very helpful. 

Practice real ACT and SAT tests. 
Bottom line your student needs to practice a lot.  Just as with any other activity to get good at it you need to practice. Your student needs to build up familiarity and muscle memory with this test so when they sit down to take the test nothing is unfamiliar and much of it will feel easy or at least routine.  By practicing with the skills they adopted after reading a strategy book or working with a tutor they will begin to make the skills part of themselves so on test day it is natural and habit.  Practice with a timer, practice with distractions, practice under test like conditions.  Practice. Practice. Practice. 

Practice some more. 
Now repeat the above.  Seriously the biggest difference to your student's score is likely to be how much they have practiced.  I often get asked how much time I recommend practicing.  The answer is as much as your student will.  I don't believe you can over practice.  If you have a young student they have many years to practice and could go at a slow pace.  If you have a senior I would sit them down and tell them to prepare for a lot of work over a short course of time.   I recently worked with a student who only had 8 weeks to prepare and some high goals I let her know you are looking at two hours of homework a day to properly prepare, are you ready for that?  She was and she did it and she reached her goals. She practiced a lot and she was rewarded. I had another student who practiced an hour a day for over 4 months and also saw much improvement to his test and achieved his goals. 

Bottom line, the practice matters more than anything else.  Hold your student accountable to whatever practice schedule you set up.  Do not just hand them a book and expect them to do it themselves.  Create a practice schedule with assignments they have to hand in to you.  Evaluate their work, continually discover patterns to their correct and incorrect answers and help them work on the areas they need to.

If you get nothing else from either of these posts pay attention to this.  For most students success will depend on the amount of practice they put into the test.  Make them practice! 


I already about the next three areas in the junior high prep section but they still all apply here in high school, especially if you have not done so before they reach high school age.   If you have already developed these skills in your student now is not the time to stop, keep at it :) 


Build your vocabulary 
A good vocabulary will help with the test in a variety of ways.  The SAT directly tests for this, the ACT indirectly tests for it.  Your writing will get a higher score with good vocabulary use.  The science and reading and english sections will all seem less scary if big words are not scary to your student.  Develop their vocabulary. 

There are many books available at your library and local bookstore that highlight words for the SAT.  Give your student these to read and practice.  Encourage unique vocabulary words.  Improve your own vocabulary to help your student improve theirs.  Subscribe to word a day emails or apps. There are also many free website with word lists such as this one. 

Practice decoding strategies for unfamiliar words.  Look at roots, use context clues, show how to use the answers to discover clues about the actual word.  Teach them to rephrase unfamiliar words and to discover relationships between words and analogies.  The more you practice the less intimidating big and unusual words will be for your student.  No matter how much you practice there will likely be unfamiliar words on test day, the key is being comfortable with unfamiliar words and understanding how to approach them.  This sort of practice is far more important than memorizing a bunch of words and definitions. 

Remember building vocabulary is not just studying for this test it is giving your student a life long skill that will help them in all areas of school, college, writing, business and just general intelligence. 


Write 20 minute essays often 
I encouraged you to start this in junior high or even younger if your student is ready.  If you have not started yet start as soon in possible and practice often.  I would encourage writing one 20 minute essay every week in high school.  Yes I can hear the groans.  But really how many minutes a day does your student spending texting friends, surfing the internet, or watching TV?  Surely they can find 20 minutes in the course of a week.

By the time a student is in high school these essays should be about real topics, similar to the ACT and SAT writing prompts.  Pick topics both of interest and non-interest to your student so they get practice writing both things they enjoy and know little about.  Pick topics that have two sides to an issue and force your student to take a position on one side. Set a timer. Allow them up to 10 minutes to outline before they start writing the essay.   After 10 minutes set another 20 minute timer and they hand it in when the beeper goes off no exceptions, no finishing sentences.  This is how it works on test day, this is how it must work when they practice.

Read the writing section in your strategy book and help your student structure their writing around this outlined structure.  A good standardized test essay will have an introduction, three body paragraphs,  and a conclusion paragraph. The body paragraphs should contain one showing the opposite side of the issue from your conclusion and two paragraphs supporting your conclusion.  Learning to write five complete paragraphs in 20 minutes is a learned skill and not a natural one. 

Organizing ideas, drawing conclusions and writing complete ideas in a short amount of time is another lifelong skill.  This will serve them well in college as well as the business world.  While they may not have to ever write another complete essay in less than 30 minutes they will be required to organize complex issues into coherent thoughts and arguments quickly for the rest of their lives.  Practicing 20 minute essays develops this skill and helps prepare them for test day essays as well.  

Read. Read. Read. 
Highschoolers are busy.  I get it.  They are balancing school, homework, sports, clubs, social lives and for many work.  Now mom and dad have added test prep and writing homework every week!  Where in the world are they going to find time to read?  Help them find and make the time.  Reading now is just as important as it was when they were learning to in elementary and when they did for fun in junior high. 

Avid readers score better on tests.  They have better vocabularies.  They tend to be better writers.  They can simply spot errors in the english section of the tests because something doesn't sound "right".  They have an advantage because so much of the test requires reading and they are comfortable with reading and likely faster readers. Being a good reader will also serve them well in college.  Being a good reader will help them be life long learners.  Reading is important, make them read. 

Not all books are created equal.  Encourage reading good books.  There are many lists of classics, award winners, books that have stood the test of time.  There are books with intricate plots, character development, and amazing vocabularies.  Few of them are about vampires :)    Assign good books, or place some around the house and encourage them to pick up some of your favorites.  If you don't read, try.  Set a good example.  Create a book club for your student and their friends.  Read and discuss the book with them.  Either way encourage them to

Keep a list of all the books they have read in junior high and high school.  Consider sending it with their college applications to show them as a rounded and well read individual.  Reading will always bring more rewards than the work that went into it.  Encourage your kids to read!

Get help where you need it 
There are many tutors and prep classes available to you.  If you are overwhelmed just reading this post consider finding help for your student.  If you start the process and feel like you need some extra help get it.  You may find your student only needs a few meetings with a good tutor to set them on the right path or you may discover they work really well with a particular tutor and keep them working with the tutor through the duration of their preparation. 

Keep in mind not all help is the same.  There are big name agencies that charge a lot of money per hour or per class for their tutoring and there are local tutors that may charge substantially less.  Tutoring for this type of test typically runs between $30 - $100 an hour depending on where you live.  More expensive does not necessarily mean better, and cheaper does not necessarily mean bad.  Both can be good, both can be bad, the key is finding the right fit for your student.  Also when working with an agency you may want to understand how much of your money the company gets and how much your tutor receives, people are often very surprised at these numbers when they examine them. 

When interviewing a tutor be sure to understand their method and approach and what is expected of your student when working with them.  If they don't require outside work I would keep looking until you found someone who did.  While taking a class or meeting with a tutor to review strategies is better than going into a test cold it is not as helpful as actually practicing the skills and strategies with a seasoned tutor.  I would recommend you find someone who focuses on individual test strategy as well and not a cookie cutter presentation of each section of the test that is the same to each student. 

Not everyone needs outside help.  A motivated student and an involved parent willing to read strategy books and manage practice can be just as effective for many students as a tutor.  But you need to put in the time and energy to make it work.  

If you do choose to work with a tutor remember this is an investment you are making in your child.  For many students a few hundred dollars spent on tutoring may translate into thousands of dollars in college scholarships. 


Conclusion
Until colleges change their admission and financial aid scholarship policies the college admission test is here to stay.  It is important and it needs to be faced.  Don't bury your head in the sand, cross your fingers and hope for the best.  You can be sure the students your kids are competing against to get into school and a piece of the financial pie are not. 

Take the time needed to create a plan for your student to succeed on these tests.  Follow through with it.  This is an area in your control, don't miss the opportunity to help your student.  Remember the more your student puts in the more they will get out of it. 

If anyone has further questions.  Feel free to drop me an email or leave a comment.

Preparing for the ACT and SAT in Junior High

Recently I have returned to tutoring for the ACT.  For those who do not know, the ACT is like the SAT for the Midwest, it is a college entrance exam.  I did well on my ACT's when I was in high school and then I tutored some in college to make ends meet.  When our lives changed last spring I began tutoring again and of all the odd jobs I have been doing recently I have discovered I truly love this one and I am fairly good at it.

I will keep tutoring as long as I am able.  The reason is I believe it is important and getting good test scores can make a substantial difference in the life of a high school kid soon to be in college and to the lives of their parents. I love seeing my students confidence and test scores rise.  I love watching them achieve their short term goals with the understanding that it is a first step to helping them achieve their long term goals.  I love knowing that together we have opened a door for their future that might have otherwise been closed to them.

Why Testing Matters
For better or worse testing has become extremely important in our country.  Your college entrance standardized test score will make the difference between what college you get accepted to and how much financial aid you will receive.  The test becomes that much more important for home educated students as colleges will put more weight on these scores and sometimes ignore all together the transcript grades of the home educated believing they could be inflated or fabricated if they come from mom and dad.  In addition often home school students have little testing experience under their belt and are used to knowledge being tested in different ways than by the bubbles they must rush to fill in.  Home school students also rarely have experience with the time crunch of these standardized tests and can feel more anxious about them.

If I can communicate one thing to home school parents with kids in the junior and senior high age group it would be START PRACTICING for these tests with your students NOW.  They are not too young to start gaining the skills they need to beat this test and secure a better college future for themselves.  The first thing I tell my tutor students is: the ACT and SAT are not truly a test of your knowledge or intelligence, they are a test of how well you can take their particular test.  They are not a test you can "study" for but they are a test you can and should practice for. Together we work to develop a strategy that is unique to them to help them maximize their score working from their strengths and not fighting their weaknesses. You can do this with your own child at home as well.

Junior High Strategies

Practice Bubble Tests
There are hundreds of standardized test practice books on the market.  There are many free tests you can find and print online now.  There are computer programs that give you multiple choice options.  The resources are there, use them.  From about second grade on I make my kids go through a grade appropriate test review book filled with bubble questions.  We use the Spectrum series and that has worked nicely for us.  This serves two purposes.  It acts as a catch all review for things most schools are teaching at their grade level and it helps my kids get acquainted with the style of bubble testing of their knowledge.  They get practice in these types of questions in a low pressure scenario and I get a general review of their knowledge each year.  Win. Win.

Practice Time Crunch Situations
Every once in awhile set a timer while your student works.  Give them five minutes to finish a math page or one minute to do a math problem.  Make it a game if you want, challenge them to see how fast they can do a page while still getting everything accurate.  As they get older do it more often.  Make them practice moving quickly through a math page or seeing how fast they can read a passage and still understand it.  While in general I don't believe busy or fast work is the key to knowledge and understanding I do think it is an important skill to learn so long as standardized testing has so much weight in our children's future.  Set a timer, don't tell them why, don't make it stressful but get them used to occasional time crunches so they are not facing it for the first time as a junior in high school!

Learn Vocabulary 
 Good vocabulary is very important on these tests.  The avid reader will just naturally have a good vocabulary if they read good books.  Other students will have to work harder at it and should.  The SAT will test it more directly than the ACT but having a good vocabulary will improve your score on both.  It will also help your student feel more confident in all sections of the test if big words do not scare them or they understand how to decode unfamiliar words using context, roots, or other work a rounds. The stronger their vocabulary the stronger their test results.  Build vocabulary skills by talking to them as you would talk to other adults from a young age.  Challenge yourself to use better words.  Make friends with Google Define and never say "I don't know" to what does a word mean.  Play synonym and antonym games, use vocab workbooks.  Occasionally assign reading from a dictionary during reading time.  Get out 1000 best word books from the library.  Keep a vocab list.  Build your students vocabulary.  This can only help them in life and translates to a life long skill not just a test prep one.

Get Comfortable with the Uncomfortable 
Too often in home school situations the uncomfortable gets pushed aside or worked around.  Challenge yourself and your kids to work through the uncomfortable testing, vocabulary, or math situation.  Face the challenge head on together to demonstrate and build the skill they will need in the test when faced with a topic they are unfamiliar with.  Practice reading really hard science or literature textbooks.  Read something translated from a different language.  Look for the hard and uncomfortable every once in awhile and teach your kids to embrace and work through it.  Then when they see it on a test they will have built the skills up to deal with it.  Science tends to be a test section that scare many on the ACT until they realize it truly is a reading comprehension section with charts and graphs and data.  All the information they need to answer the question is in front of them they just need to decode it as uncomfortable as it feels.  Practice this type of skill whenever you have the opportunity and create the opportunities from time to time.

Make sure your math program teaches what is on this test
I am not at all a fan of "teach to the test" but I am also not an ostrich.  Your kid does need a substantial amount of math knowledge to do well on this test and they need particular knowledge, make sure they will have it.  Not all math programs are created alike in the home school world.  If you love your math program and it has holes in it when it comes to standardized test material fill the holes with other material.  Make sure by the time they are a junior they are going to have all the math they need down.  Math is the one test you can't really get around having outside knowledge in.  No matter the tips and tricks you learn you need the math knowledge to do well on this part of the test.  Kaplan has a 100 Math Key Concepts that is worth looking over in junior and senior high to be sure your student understands what they will need.

Practice writing 20 minute essays often
For some reason the time crunch in the essay part always seems to surprise people even though they know it is coming.  This is a skill you can work on from the time your kids are young.  Make them write 20 minute essays on various topics from older elementary years on.  I start with creative writing and my expectation of my third grader is substantially different than my expectation of my 6th grader or it will be of my junior in high school.  As they get older transition them to non-creative topics where they must take a position on a controversial or two sided issue.  The point is they have to get used to writing fast, neat and complete in a short amount of time.  Their brain practices organizing thoughts and getting them down on paper in a quick amount of time.  They are training themselves in an unnatural skill as most people like to take their time to write, which in general is preferable.  It is still important to learn how to organize and communicate thoughts in a quick amount of time. 

Read. Read. Read
Well it is me writing this post so you knew this was coming :)  I honestly believe the amount of time a student spends reading throughout their life will increase their scores overall.  If you are a good reader you have a higher vocabulary, you can read a variety of topics and subjects and language arts does not scare you.  The Reading and English sections will likely go well for you if you have always been an avid reader or even forced to read and retain.  There are time crunch and test strategies you will need to work on later for these sections but if you start with a good reading base all of it will come easier.  I have always made my kids read an hour a day since they were independent readers and I always will.  Some of my kids choose to read more than that in a day. In the end I honestly believe there is no better preparation for college, for testing, and for life than a solid reading foundation.  Make your kids read!

Advanced Testing for the Gifted 
This last recommendation is not for everyone but it is important to consider for some.  If your kid is truly gifted they could qualify for early advanced grade testing through an organization like NUMATS out of Northwestern University.   Programs like this allow advanced students to take the ACT and SAT as early as 6th grade and see how they compare to other advanced students their age as well as the college juniors and seniors who typically take the exams. This experience can be very helpful for the gifted student and gives them early testing experience that will help them years later.  It also allows them to compare their skills with other advanced students.  It is not for everyone as the student goes to an area high school or college testing center and takes the test along with the seniors and juniors taking it, no exceptions. For some students the experience may be anxiety increasing and I would not recommend it for them.  For others it is not stressful but rather rewarding and some even say fun! Our oldest tried this year and enjoyed her experience and was glad she did it.


When to Start
Everything I wrote above is appropriate to do and should be done with kids from sixth grade on.  I have done these things naturally with my kids since about second or third grade so they have no idea I am giving them test prep skills, it is just another "weird" thing they accept about the way they are educated :)  We don't do all of this daily or even weekly.  It is rather peppered throughout their education from time to time.  In this way I believe it is building natural habits that will serve them well later on.  If you have not started these types of things I encourage you to do so in junior high.

Read the followup post.  Preparing for the ACT or SAT in high school.

Growing Up and Letting Go

Some weeks are big in the lives of our children.  This past week was one of those for our oldest.  So many things happened all at once.  Some highs and some lows.  As I walked the journey with my daughter I was just awed by how she handled it all.  With grace and humbleness and with tears and then stubborn resolve.  With determination, with sadness and disappointment, with joy, with passion and with a deeper understanding of herself.

I loved the moments she just needed me to be there with her and know those are going to be fewer and fewer as she builds her resolve to deal with it all herself. I was there to encourage, praise, support, and just hold.  I know after this week I will look at her through a different lens.  I know she grew more all at once this week than she has in a long time.  I know I see something different in her, or I suppose it has always been there just harder for me to accept and see for myself.

My daughter is growing up and she is doing a great job of it.  I suppose this makes it somewhat easier to let go, though that is never the easy part for us mothers is it? Part of me just wants to fight her battles for her but I know the time for that has in general passed and it is her turn to fight them for herself.  Of course I am still here with her and walking this journey but I am slowly learning to hand the reins of control over more and more to her and to step back an watch and support from the sidelines when she comes to me. 

She is facing things now that I can't do for her, fix for her, or even really help her with at all.  I can encourage and support her, let her know I love her no matter what, encourage her and be there to lift her up whenever she needs.  I can not do the things she needs to do, or even understand how she is able to accomplish all she is.  I can not determine her success or failure at tasks she puts so much of herself into.  I can not determine whether it will go well or poorly for her.  I can not make it happen for her as I could in so many areas when she was younger.  I can not protect her from the failures and hurts but I can help her cope with them and get through them.  I can not claim victory for her successes but I can celebrate them with her. 

I can be proud of her and who she has become and is becoming.  I can tell her this and show her love in all her favorite ways and support and encouragement in the ways she needs even if she does not prefer them.  She is growing up and letting go and I am growing and letting go too.  It is both painful and beautiful at the same time. Here is to many more years of growth for us both and may we always be gentle and loving with each other


Kiss those babies!

Confessions of a Swim Mom

My children amaze me sometimes, often in fact.  They have the strength and bravery to do harder things than I ever did at their age or even do now in many ways. 

Every time I watch them get up on a start block and dive in the water I think of everything that race represents for them.  I think of all that brought them to that moment and I am so proud of them, no matter what the clock says or where they finish in the pack they are racing at the moment.

I have a confession to make.   I never wanted to be a sports mom.  Really, I mean it.  We had a house rule.  Only one sport at a time.  No I do not mean one sport per kid, I mean one sport at a time.  So when Maria played soccer unless Ciaran could be on her team (they were occasionally) he was waiting until her season was over and the next season was his and she had to sit out.  The whole family went to practices, games, and supported the one participating and the other kids waited their turn.  We had this whole season rotation worked out and the kids were content.  They were young, they had no choice and they accepted it. 

I was the mom who refused to let my kids learn how to ice skate until they were old enough that I knew it was too late to play hockey effectively here in Minnesota.  Hockey scared me: too much time, too much money, crazy obsessed parents, insane schedules, high expectations on young children, my list went on and on.  I am fully aware of the irony of this now being a swim mom.  Everything I said about hockey could be said about swimming in addition to other swimming oddities and here we are fully in the throes of year round competitive swimming, three kids in with no end in sight. 

We had another rule, notice the trend of rules, no swim lessons until you were willing to put your own head under the water and you could do it independently.  Mom and dad were not getting in the water for paid lessons.  We would take you swimming ourselves, encourage you even try to coax you to put your head under water but you had to be willing to do it on your own and to really want swim lessons.  Then it was swim lessons in the lake with the Red Cross teenagers.  If it was raining, you swam, if it was 90 degrees you swam, if it was 65 degrees and windy you swam.  In Minnesota this can all happen in the same week and did one year.  This was my oldest two kids introduction to swimming.  How in the world did they ever love this sport enough to want to do this all the time?

I blame Michael Phelps, well I also thank him, for the best thing that happened to our family, even if I went in kicking and screaming.  Long time readers of this blog know we don't watch TV, we don't even receive TV channels in our house.  Why does this matter in a post about swimming?  Well in order to watch something on TV we really have to want to and it is quite an ordeal with computers, digital receivers, external antennas running through windows, you get the picture.  The Olympics is one of the few things that qualify in our home to be worth the work and our time to watch.  Beijing 2008 Michael Phelps was the story and we watched every one of his races as a family, no matter the time it was on.  After it was all done Maria said to me "You mean you can swim like a sport not just in the lake? This is what I want to try next."   

Who knew where that simple statement would take us.  She was nine years old.  Off we went to the local pool and signed up for a "swim team" it was not intense, an hour a week and they were not very organized or honestly very good, knowing what I know now.  She loved the water but was very unhappy with her "team".  She was determined to find something better so she made me find a better club through research.  We found a club and she started practicing 4 days a week for an hour a day.  I thought what have we gotten ourselves into?  At the same time I thought the intensity of a club like that would turn her off.  After all this was the girl who said "What is the point of soccer I hate running up and down a field all day."  Surely she would not enjoy something that made her look at a black line for an hour a day while she swam up and down a pool with nothing else to do.  I was wrong, very wrong.

Three years and one more club later we are quite settled into the swimming world.  Both girls made the state team this season and we will have attended something like 20 swim meets this season when it finishes.  All three kids swim and I have a Swim Taxi bumper sticker that defines a large portion of my day :)  My youngest was not subjected to swim lessons in the lake, instead she had private lessons with swim team coaches as her learn to swim. There are certain benefits to being the littlest :)

We spend our weekends literally "camped" in junior highs around the state playing cards, working on tablets, reading books and getting to know other families who have chosen a similar path.  On a typical weekend we could spend anywhere from 10 to 25 hours doing this over the course of two days.  My house has a perma-chlorine smell, I can never find a clean towel even though I have close to thirty in the house and the owner of the local swim shop knows me by name.  There is no way this is less time, money, or craziness than hockey would have been.  At least it is warmer, which given typical Minnesota winters I appreciate.  You know you are a swim parent when you keep your birks and shorts out year round and use them.  

So what turned this reluctant sports mom into a full swim mom? My kids of course and all the benefits our family has seen as a result of swimming.  I can't even begin to explain all of the benefits but there has been a complete transformation in our oldest and much of it is due to her experiences in swimming.  There are all the physical benefits of course.  Life long healthy sport, easy on the joints, building lung capacity, strength, working both sides of the brain at the same time, building myelin, general fitness.  That has all come and in spades.  The girl who never wanted to run up a soccer field trains for 12 hours a week now and sometimes does additional work at home. She has seen great physical benefits in general fitness and strength and she knows those will only continue.  It is wonderful that she found a physical activity that she loves and will continue with.

Honestly though it is the unexpected benefits that have come from swimming that have kept me supportive of it.  In this sport you have to face a lot of things on your own.  You have to get up on the blocks in front of sometimes hundreds of people all looking at you in a bathing suit during your awkward formative years.  Then you dive in and race your peers including many of your friends but each time you swim you are really racing yourself, constantly trying to best your last time.  It is you and the clock and how you perform.  There is no team mate to pass off a bad performance on, no judge to blame, no other excuses.  There is just you and your individual performance to evaluate.  The longer you stay in the sport the harder it is to best your times each time and you need to find other successes for each race.   It is a sport that constantly causes growth every time you swim and offers many hills to climb and plateaus along the way.  It requires mental and physical toughness.  This sport builds and challenges confidence in unique ways.  I have seen so much growth in my kids that I can attribute to their time on swim team. 

I have watched them set goals and then work amazingly hard to achieve them.  I have seen them face challenges and unexpected obstacles and work through them to overcome them and still reach goals.  I have watched them adjust goals when needed and face what they consider failures with grace.  I have watched them handle success with humility.  I have watched them be brave.  I have watched them work through being nervous and through fear.

I have watched them build great friendships.  I have made great friendships.  Just last week I sat at a meet and cried together with another mom when Maria made her first state time, a goal she has been working towards for two years over a variety of obstacles.  The fact that my friend cried with me speaks highly of my friend and of this sport that bonds us together. 

We are making memories that will be a large part of my children's childhood memories when they grow up.  I know they are positive now, I pray they will be looked back upon with favor in the future as well.  I love that they are family memories and that all three kids are sharing this bond.  It may not last forever but I will enjoy it while it is here.  I have seen them draw together in new ways as they share their swimming experiences and look to each other for support and encouragement and sympathy that only a swimmer can give to another swimmer, how much cooler is it that they also have the sibling relationship. 

So here I am years later with all my "rules" thrown out the door.  I spend my weeknights shuttling kids to and from pools and fitting in good nutrition as best we can.  I spend my weekends waiting for hours on end to cheer my kid through a few thirty second races.  I am not just a sports mom but I a swim mom and I would not have it any other way for this moment in time.