Respecting Differences: A Homeschool Lesson on Sitting Bull

Sometimes homeschooling makes me physically ill. 

Reading about Sitting Bull and Native Americans, etc. to my teen son Joel. And I have lots of comments but compare it to this:

It's like my neighbor Dave comes into my house and just decides he wants it and takes it and moves in and locks my fridge so my family can't eat our own food. And then he tells me to just go somewhere else, to this little stick fort he built for me out back, and that he totally won't mess with my family; he promises!!!! Then we start fighting because THAT IS MY HOUSE and then we all die. HORRIBLE! 

And I'm not sure what the Native Americans were supposed to do with CASH MONEY for selling the Black Hills (gold!) ... head down to the Sam's Club and buy some junk like white people do? (I also don't get why Grant was dying to know about gold and then word got out and he was like, "Oops, better get those miners out of there and guard them with US soldiers who might give them a hand slap!")

Talk about not respecting differences. I mean, just because the NAs were more peaceful and used their resources better and didn't worship God and Jesus, let's mess with them and wipe them out. We came here for RELIGIOUS FREEDOM and, boy, did that get twisted.

No, it's not so bad these days here, but it's more subtle. So many of us are so intolerant of someone who is not exactly like us ... let us all ponder this during Lent, religious or not, shall we?

Homeschool More Than One Subject/Kid at Once for Free ... The Who Was What Was Book Series

Check out the books we have right now in our home: art, authors, architecture, faith, Black history, science, geography and events. That's a lot of cool FREE learning on my floor there :-)

I had my 15-year-old son Joel compose a list of the Who Was/Is books from Penguin because we are finding them to be so awesome. We do love Story of the World as well, for history for multiple ages, but it's fun to stop and read a quick biography of a person we find out about in Story of the World or just pick one up to read anytime.

I like to read these to all five kids at once and call it English and History. I like to homeschool multiple kids at a time to SAVE time and also do multiple subjects to save time ... this is how we can be more laid-back and have more time for playing outside, meeting friends at the park, etc. You can read a chapter a day or easily blow through one in a day. We normally do a chapter or two a day.

There's even a Mad Libs so you can beef up your kids' parts of speech knowledge while having fun at the same time!

If the thought of finding time to read to the kids right now freaks you out, you can assign a book to a kid to read and then have them tell the family about it orally or have them practice their report-writing skills. It's all up to you! And these are at the library so you can also homeschool for free using these resources.

Here's the list in alphabetical order by first name. I'll do another post for the "What Was" series or just add them here ... I haven't decided yet ... you let me know what you prefer :-)

Abigail Adams

Abraham Lincoln

Albert Einstein

Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander the Great

Alfred Hitchcock

Amelia Earhart

Andrew Jackson

Andy Warhol

Anne Frank

Annie Oakley

Babe Ruth

Barack Obama

Beatrix Potter

Beecher Stowe

Ben Franklin

Betsy Ross

Bill Gates

Blackbeard

Bob Dylan

Bob Marley

Bruce Lee

Bruce Springsteen

Cesar Chavez

Charles Darwin

Charles Dickens

Charlie Chaplin

Christopher Columbus

Clara Barton

Claude Monet

Daniel Boone

Davy Crockett

Derek Jeter

Dolly Parton

Dr. Seuss

Earnest Shackleton

Edgar Allan Poe

Eleanor Roosevelt

Elton John

Elvis Presley

Ferdinand Magellan

Fidel Castro

Frank Lloyd Wright

Franklin Roosevelt

Frederick Douglas

Frida Kahlo

Galileo

Gandhi

Genghis Khan

George Lucas

George Washington Carver

George Washington

Gloria Steinem

Hail to the Chiefs

Harriet Tubman

Harry Houdini

Helen Keller

Henry Ford

Hillary Clinton

Isaac Newton

J.K. Rowling

J.R.R. Tolkien

Jackie Kennedy

Jackie Robinson

Jacques Cousteau

Jane Goodall

Jeff Kinney

Jesse Owens

Jesus

Jim Henson

Joan of Arc

John F. Kennedy

Johnny Appleseed

Jules Verne

Julia Child

Julius Caesar

King Tut

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Leonardo Da Vinci

Lewis Carroll

Louis Armstrong

Louis Braille

Lucille Ball

Malala Yousafzai

Marci Polo

Maria Talchief

Marie Antoinette

Marie Curie

Mark Twain

Martin Luther King. Jr.

Maurice Sendak

Maya Angelou

Michael Jackson

Michelle Obama

Milton Bradley

Milton Hershey

Mother Theresa

Muhammad Ali

Neil Armstrong

Nelson Mandela

Pablo Picasso

Paul Revere

Pete Seeger

Pope Francis

Princess Diana

Queen Elizabeth

Queen Victoria

Rachel Carson

Ralph Lauren (coming soon)

Richard Branson

Roald Dahl

Robert E. Lee

Robert Ripley

Roberto Clemente

Ronald Reagan

Rosa Parks

Sacagewea

Sally Ride

Seabiscuit

Sitting Bull

Sojourner Truth

Sonia Sotamayor

Stan Lee

Steve Erwin

Steve Jobs

Steven Spielberg

Stevie Wonder (coming soon)

Susan B. Anthony

The Beatles

The Brothers Grimm

The Rolling Stones

The Three Stooges (coming soon)

The Wright Brothers

Theodore Roosevelt

Thomas Alva Edison

Thomas Jefferson

Ulysses S. Grant

Venus and Serena Williams

Walt Disney

Wayne Gretzky

Who was Activity Book

Who was Mad Libs

William Shakespeare

Winston Churchill

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Woodrow Wilson Want more laid-back homeschool? Come on over and give me a like here on Facebook!

The Brave Writer: Your Homeschool Coach

I don’t think a whole lot about the future. I survive day by day, praying my kids learn what they need to learn to live good lives. That they learn common sense life skills and also basic math and English skills and don’t sound dumb in a convo about the Holocaust or atoms. But lately Julie bogart is on my radar a lot and she’s raised her 5 kids and homeschooled them and loved it and writes about it and podcasts and shares helpful things and encouragement and I love her style and I realized I could be a form of her when I’m older. When my kids are gone I always figured I’d of course take up quite a bit of time checking in on them and making sure I know what’s up with them (thank God for texting) and then grandkids, of course. But in my other time, when not volunteering or caring for my parents or being with aron, I knew I would keep writing. But Julie gets $25/month for this coaching community she runs. It’s brilliant. I haven’t joined but it looks neat: http://coachjuliebogart.com/. I want to be a source of homeschool encouragement to others when I survive my own journey that I am learning so much on the way. Her style is so chill. Check her out on this Homeschool Sisters podcast. She also does these great writing helps called The Brave Writer.

She doesn’t make you feel guilty for not doing everything, for having bad days, burnout, resentment, more. She can be chill because her kids are grown … she says we are homeschooling our kids for jobs that don’t even exist yet so don’t worry about them if they want to play Minecraft all day … they might be programmers for drones someday. If nothing else, you must LIKE her Facebook page and make sure you click the option to see it first in your newsfeed because she always shares helpful things that I SAVE on Facebook to read later. Encouraging things to help us on this journey that is like no other. Often I read some homeschool mom sites and I feel more frantic. I read Julie Bogart or listen to her and I feel relaxed and that trickles down to my kids and my homeschool style for sure.

I mean, check this out from her coaching website:

Late at night, do you worry about…

• The enormity of the responsibility to educate your kids,
• the wide disparity of information about learning,
• the unrelenting demands of the little people in your charge,
• the annual changes in family dynamics and hormones,
• your natural home education fatigue
• and (dare you admit it?) boredom?

All of us wonder: Am I doing a good enough job? How will I know?

YES! We all wonder! We pretend to have it together but we need support and ideas and help! Homeschooling in my 40s with teens is way different from when I started in my 30s with little ones! My husband sometimes travels, I'm dealing with hormones (mine and those of my teens!), I work from home, I have to come up with ideas for teaching 3 classes a week at a homeschool co-op and MORE!

Funschool February: Beat the Homeschool Slump

Every year about this time we start to get that burnt-out feeling. We've been homeschooling over 5 months and have recently survived Christmas. Spring is coming and for us that means we will be insanely busy with some of the following items. Does any of this sound familiar?

one kid with First Communion and party

one kid with Confirmation and party

a fishing trip for my husband and the boys

a trip to Royals Stadium for Scout Day

an April birthday of a kid turning 14

a son with a lawn care job, babysitting jobs, a soccer practice and playing schedule, and a reffing job

another son who is dying to play real soccer

fish frys

bake sales

St. Patrick's Day parade

co-op every Wednesday

a son in Latin every Monday

Cub and Boy Scouts meetings and activities

a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting and more that will come up like dances and lock-ins and parties

Yeah, my homeschoolers are UBER socialized. No worries there.

So I heard about the February Slump on the Homeschool Sisters podcast recently and gave myself permission to mess around a lot during February while still learning. February is going to be busy enough plus my husband going out of town for 7 days overseas. That right there told me I'll have a week to not knock ourselves out homeschooling. In fact, I think we'll just blow up the house with learning activities and then clean it all up the day before Daddy gets home!

*If you listen to this podcast, do so with paper, so head to the link above because you'll love the recommendations for fun learning with your kids. The Field Trip Zoom drove me nuts, though, because some of them are so expensive. I'm trying to get Google Expeditions on my PC but so far it's making me only do it on the phone with the tiny screen. Also check out Discovery VR, and I have you heading to a cool little thing on Hawaii, although it's not exactly a field trip.

I've joined the My Little Poppies Gameschool Community on Facebook because it's very difficult for me to sit down and play games with my kids but I need to do it ... for bonding with them and fun for them and learning happens to sneak in as well.

As a side note, check out this post over here about 17 awesome subscription boxes. I know they can get pricey, but I spend money on dumb stuff at Target that I could get at a thrift or discount store instead so if I just am mindful of my spending and keep up my proofreading from home jobs, I can swing some of these.

I signed up for a JAM subscription for my LEGO kid because the first month was free then there was a discount for the next month. You really probably only need a month to explore each class unless your kid is REALLY into something, then you can pay for another month or there is an option for $99 to mess around in a class for a whole year. Your fee does NOT include multiple classes.

Don't forget about Netflix for homeschooling. Find yourself a community on Facebook for lots of great ideas on that.

Hit the library and snuggle up and read and forget about fractions and Algebra and teaching the alphabet for a while. I have some fun musical alphabet videos I'm going to sit with my youngest and watch and my educated guess is he just might learn more from those than from weeks of me making him do ABC flash cards he dreads. Time to change it up!

I also got a bunch of those "Who Is" and "What Is" and "Who Was" books ... tons of those and they count as history and geography and reading for sure.

So many ideas! I'll be back later! Have a great homeschool day!