Lori Seaborg

ONLY a Housewife?

" 'I'm only a housewife, I'm afraid.' How often do we hear this shocking admission.  I"m afraid when I hear it I feel very angry indeed.  Only a housewife: only a practitioner of one of the two most noble professions (the other one is that of a farmer); only the mistress of a huge battery of high and varied skills and custodian of civilization itself.  Only a typist, perhaps!  Only a company director, or a nuclear physicist; only a barrister; only the President!  When a woman says she is a housewife she should say it with the utmost pride, for there is nothing higher on this planet to which she could aspire."

 

~ John Seymour, The Forgotten Arts & Crafts

 

by Lori Seaborg 2006

Be Queen Elizabeth, Whitely, Aristotle....Be a Mom

"To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. 

How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? 

How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? 

No, a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute."

~ G. K. Chesterton in What's Wrong with the World (a collection of essays first published in 1910)

by Lori Seaborg 2006

On Homeschooling

 

My guinea pigs have done private schooling, public schooling, blended school (a mix of public and home), and homeschooling. Finally, after years of wishy-washy, I've figured out what I want to do, and what I really should do: homeschooling. Even so, we take it a semester at a time. There was a time that I was VERY against homeschooling them. I was hsed one year on furlough  (I was a missionary kid) and hated it and didn't learn a thing. But now that I look back, it just wasn't a good year anyway, away from my missionary friends without warning (it was an emergency furlough for my brother's health reasons). It's not the homeschooling's fault for my being miserable.

Curriculum:

 

You definitely don't have to know how to teach them. And you can spend as much or as little time as you like teaching them. There is a curriculum to suit every fancy, from sticking the kid in front of a computer to traditional textbook schoolwork, to "unschooling." I am now using a free online curriculum that is literature-based with a fine art and fine music emphasis. It encourages nature studies and practical skills. It suits my personality and my passions perfectly (Ambleside Online). I'm not saying it is the one and only curriculum; certainly not. I'm saying that it is the one that best suits me and helps me best handle three grade levels and a toddler. I think if my husband was the one teaching, he'd use something more traditional, like A Beka (he has an engineering degree and was a middle school teacher for a couple years, so it would suit him). Find something that best suits you - your personality, your budget, your kids' needs and your time allowance. Don't worry about finding the Perfect Curriculum. I think they all pretty much even out in the end and, besides, you can always adjust. How much have you retained from high school and below? For me, almost all of my education has been self-taught as an adult.

Which brings me to a new point.....

 

I think our number one job as home educators is to encourage a kids' curiosity and teach him how to learn. If you give him those two things, he can soar above any obstacle. If he decides to be a civil engineer, but you weren't good at math, so you only taught him algebra and trig, he can still make it in his field because he will have: 1.) curiosity in the form of loving his chosen field enough to want to learn, and 2.) he will know how to find the answers he needs, whether that be from reading, knowing how to ask questions, library science, or the 'Net. In other words, he will be able to teach himself the things that you might have left out (I also think it's important to let him follow his trails, so if you choose a traditional curriculum, consider dropping the textbook sometimes, if it is telling you that you MUST teach about the French Revolution this week, but your kid wants to discuss how modern elections are decided.). This curiosity and love of learning will also help him in regular life, should he find himself in a financial jam someday, needing legal help, or on the mission field in the bush, needing to build a house from nothing but the jungle. It will foster a great deal of self confidence if he knows that he can figure out anything in the world, given the time.

Mission Statement:

 

A very good friend of mine quit homeschooling one year. It shook my foundation and made me wonder if I should quit, too. I was consumed with this, and even researched putting them back into regular school. One morning, I decided to write down "Why I Homeschool." It was simpoly a list of reasons that I, not my friend, not someone else, but I homeschool (my husband leaves this decision pretty much up to me, knowing its my burden to teach them while he's at work). I've kept that list for probably 4 years now, and still look at it when I get discouraged. I encourage you to make a mission statement or a list of reasons why you homeschool. Someday you may need to look at it, too.

Activities:

 

Look for a homeschool group in your area. They will know what activities are offered for hsers. The list of activities being offered is so vast that I would be busy all day long, from 8-5 if I did them all. No kidding! In our area, here are only a few of the many offerings: Marine Biology at the University of West Florida for grades 6-12; history classes for grades 1-5 with other hsers; youth orchestra with the Mobile Symphony Orchestra; acting jobs with local theatres; Zoology for grades K-12 at The Zoo in Gulf Breeze; a class in the sciences (DNA last month) at the Exploreum Science Center; and many many more. Many local public schools will let your child play sports with them (you are a tax payer, after all), and many will allow your child to attend classes (the public schools get their funding PER child, so they usually welcome your child's attendance). Private schools often have open arms to hsers.

Real Life:

 

To me, I don't think that sitting in a classroom of peers with one teacher doing the talking is very real life. Real life is all ages and multi cultures having discussions with one another. So I try to immerse my kids in a potpourri of cultures and ages. One way of accomplishing this is to participate in quite a few field trips. The kids get to learn from the facility (a fire station or a musuem, etc.) while interacting with people from baby age to adults. Just this month, we went to the USS Alabama Battleship in Mobile, Alabama, and saw a bunch of uniformed Army guys on the ship. Our 10yo was curious about that, so I struck up a conversation with one fellow. Turns out that he was on the ship to waste some time until the plane arrived to take him and the others to the war in Iraq. It is his first time to go, and he looked rightfully scared behind his toughness. Moments like that are why we homeschool. I don't want my kids to just read about the guys in Iraq, I don't want them to just see it on t.v., I want them to meet the guys, to look them in the eye, to see their emotion, to hear Mama say, "Hey, thanks for fighting for us."

 

by Lori Seaborg 2006

What ' s Happening in Our House - April 8, 2006

 

I know I haven't blogged nearly as much as you deserve lately, but, wow, if you could just see how beautiful and time-consuming Spring has been this year, you'd surely understand!  Here on the Gulf Coast, we know that the Summer is our mostly-indoors time of year, so I've been spending almost every minute outdoors lately, knowing that soon the bugs, the heat, the afternoon thunderstorms, the hurricane warnings, and the humidity will be here.  Here's a bit of what's been going on:

 

• Consuming.....Little Apricot, my cute distraction, is still consuming minute upon minute of my day until hours are gone.   When I catch a glimpse of his white mohair running across the window, you can bet that right then I've lost all concentration on my household chores, and I'll be gazing out the window for at least a full ten minutes, if I can successfully keep myself from putting on my husband's huge galoshes and making my way down to see Apricot, you know, to make sure he's okay.

 

• Maddening....Toby, the Cocker Spaniel, consumes minute upon minute of my day, too, with maddening cuteness as he chases our rooster across the yard.  One of these days that rooster is going to get tough enough to spur Toby.  For now, it's an entertaining race.

 

• Raising...19 Cornish Rock chickens for the freezer.  This is our first year doing this; until now, we have only had laying hens.  But the more I learn about organic foods, the more I'd like to raise as much as we can on our own.  This is going to be a good learning experience for the kids, too.  Cornish Rocks are ready for the freezer by 6-8 weeks (that's fast!), so the kids are documenting the amazing growth rate of these chickens as a school project. They can do their documentation through writing, photos, or drawing. We are weighing the birds once a week and the kids are documenting their feed and water requirements. 

 

• Building....a Chicken Tractor with my dad, to house our Cornish Rocks as they grow, and to later house a couple of turkeys that I hope to buy soon from the feed store.  Click here to view a bunch of chicken tractors.  I'll try to post photos of ours soon -- it looks great and is made of all recycled materials except 1/2 of the chicken wire and the nails.

 

• Flitting....The butterflies have been flitting about our yard in abundance.  I've seen several swallowtails of different colors - orange ones and mostly black ones, and I have seen our native Gulf Fritillary, a bright yellow beauty.  Butterflies love mud, so if you want some butterflies, create a little mud or a very shallow puddle, or fill a plant's drip pan. 

 

• Blooming:  The Cherry tree, the Lemon tree, the Kumquat tree, the mysterious tiny-tangerine-type tree, Dogwoods (almost done blooming), wild Roses (almost done), and our Yellow Rose, the Amaryllis is in bud, the Louisiana Irises were beautiful this year, the Azaleas were absolutely stunning this year because we are in a drought - there is just one bloom left.

 

• Gardening:  Today, I planted basil, cilantro, jalapenos, and garlic chives in my herb garden, which already houses oregano and rosemary.  Tim built this little garden for me, which is about 6' by 3-1/2', made out of two log-type pieces of wood (not railroad ties, but they would work), stacked on top of each other so that the garden is 6-8" deep.  I filled the frame with purchased soil a couple of years ago. It is in the full sun.  The herbs love their garden!

 

• Journaling....The kids and I started nature journaling this month.  We walked a half mile up the road to the local farmer's cows, only to find the cows wanted to be far away from us (you can draw a distance cow, but who want to see a dot on a piece of paper), so we ended up coming home to draw in our own back yard.  On our walk, Britty, our 8yo, took photos of nature with my digital camera.  It was a nice walk, but drawing in our yard was the real treat.    I had found 88cent drawing pads at Big Lots, so handed one to each of the three older kids, ages 10, 8, and 6. The 3yo got a cheap lined notebook.  I had a real artist's sketchpad for myself, a handy little one about 4"x3".  Using only pencils, we sketched anything in our yard.  I sketched the neighbor's dog, Santana, who thinks she belong to us, and the last azalea blooms.  10yo Brenden sketched a black swallowtail butterfly and the vegetation surrounding it.  6yo Stone sketched a leaf and a twig after telling me "I can't draw anything," and tossing aside his pencil and paper.  I encouraged him to draw what he sees, not what he thinks it should look like.  And I told him that nobody has to see his drawing if he doesn't want to show it to us.  8yo Britty drew the rooster in his pen. ----------- It was important for all of us, myself included, to not say, "I can't draw."  I'll have to blog on this subject soon; nature journaling has been a wonderful "discovery" for our family.

 

• Welcoming.....Tim (dh) home after a week of business in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  I'm more of the outdoor, nature lover in our family, but even Tim said, "Wow, it is really green here!" when he came back home from up North.  I missed that man even more than I thought I did.  It's nice to have his strength back again, in every way that he gives it to us. 

 

by Lori Seaborg 2006

My Favorite Granola

I tend to eat this mostly as a snack, out of hand. Sometimes I'll put a little in a bowl and add milk, for breakfast, or sprinkle it over vanilla yogurt.

Almost every time I make this granola, I change something, using what I have on hand. Feel free to change it around to suit you!

Pour 4 cups old-fashioned oatmeal into a large roasting pan. Heat oats in 350F over for 5 minutes. Remove from oven, stir, heat 5 minutes more.

Heat together:

• 1/3 cup maple syrup OR honey
• 1/4 cup oil (I usually use olive; it's healthiest)

Remove from heat, cool, then add:

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract (optional; I never seem to have it on hand)

Combine together:

• 1-2 cups chopped nuts (my choices: pecans, almonds - use your favorites)
• 1/2-1 cup seeds (my choices: sunflower seeds; flax seeds - add your fav.)
• 1 cup flaked coconut
• optional: 3/4 cup bran cereal (I've never added this but hear it is good)

Add to heated oats and mix thoroughly. Pour honey-oil mixture over oat mixture. Mix thoroughly.

Add:

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg powder

Return to oven, bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes, stirring about every 5 minutes for even browning.

Remove from oven and add any dried fruits that you like, such as raisins, dates, apricots, cranberries, cherries, etc. I most often use the granola without adding any fruits to it at all.

Mix thoroughly. Cool and store in an airtight container.

by Lori Seaborg