I am reading in emails for homeschool groups and on blogs how many of us are feeling down, burned out, worrying if we have done enough this year, thinking about curriculum for next year, considering public school, planning to teach cursive to 6 year olds...

I want everyone to just stop for a minute. Take a deep breath. Now let it out.

Think about why you homeschool. Think about being with your kids and the ability to share your time with them. Think about what is truly important. Does a 6 year old need to write in cursive? Really? Now laugh at yourself, and take another deep breath.

I know what many of you are going through. I have gone through it myself and I'm sure I will go through it again. However, I gave myself permission over the past 2 weeks to enjoy spring with my son. So, I am now giving everyone out there who reads this permission as well.

You have permission to stop worrying about curriculum. Don't think about this years or next years. You probably have everything you need to teach your kids for the next 2-3 years on your bookcases already anyway.

You have permission to spend a few hours outside during the afternoon, doing nothing but watching the birds and butterflies and enjoying the breeze. Don't try to turn it into a lesson - just enjoy the outdoors.

You have permission to maybe do a bit less than usual. Who are you racing against anyway? Is the world going to stop if the kids don't finish the books by the end of May?

I'm seeing a lot of spring fever going on, so give in. Enjoy it. Get outside, shake off the remains of winter's cold, and be happy that you have the ability to do this with your kids.

If you can't tear yourself away from school totally, then do it differently. Take a book you are reading as a read aloud and go to the park. Let the kids play for a while, then sit on a bench or in a swing and do your read aloud.

One of the main reasons that families choose to homeschool is the ability to be with and enjoy their kids. I give you permission to do that.

I have a new blog where I will keep track of my writing goals and try out some short stories and things. You can see it here - Planning and Pondering.

Thank you to everyone who replied to my post from the Unschooling Carnival. I appreciate all of you. You people, especially Andrea and Ron, are how I know that not all unschoolers are like the people I met on that list. I hope you can understand though, being a newcomer to homeschooling at that time, why it was so hard to admit to myself when I first "met" unschoolers like Andrea and Ron - people who were NOT like those on the list, that unschooling could be something positive. First impressions really do count :)

Jove, I totally agree with you about your daughter being who she is and suiting her style. Homeschooling is so varied and different for everyone, and we really do need to focus on how our kids learn best.

Rebecca T, I had to stop being the mother who turned everything into a lesson quite a while back :) Sometimes we have gone into more detail when it's required - the recent BB gun lesson was one that William continually brought up, so it was continued - but sometimes those off the cuff type of questions can be answered in a simple way. I had to learn that lesson myself. I had a friend who asked me about homeschooling recently. I asked her what she wanted to teach her daughter and she said "everything!" I know that no one can know everything - we don't know everything - so why do we think our kids need to know everything? This is why I so love the quote from Think and Grow Rich: An educated man is not, necessarily, one who has an abundance of general or specialized knowledge. An educated man is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he may acquire anything he wants, or its equivalent, without violating the rights of others. If you have enough education to find out things you need to know later in life, then you ARE educated.

Cynthia, I agree more and more what you said about the definition of unschooling and getting away from the "school at home" model. I think that more parents, though define that freedom-from-school in such broad terms and those are the radical unschoolers who take part in these lists. There was even a discussion on the list about swimming lessons - were they too structured? Should parents "make" their children take them? Were they still "unschooling"? These are things that parents on the list were worried about.

I think it's because of the differences in so many people that the term "relaxed homeschooling" came about. These are the people that use some structure, some curriculum, but they don't stick to a "school at home" schedule like 8:00 math, 8:30 english, etc., and they follow rabbit trails when they come up. This is probably going to get me flamed, but I think that people who are relaxed - I consider myself a relaxed homeschooler - had to come up with that term because the radical unschoolers were saying "If you use ANY curriculum, if you have ANY type of parental involvement, if you TELL your child to do ANYTHING, you are not unschooling. A parent is there only to provide resources for the child, not to TELL the child anything." I told my dh the other day - for people that pride themselves on their unschooling lifestyle without rules for their children sure do have a lot of rules to follow themselves.

Andrea, I'm putting "Guerilla Learning" on my reading list. It sounds interesting. And I love reading about Emma and how she learns. Since you've run the gamut of schooling types with the others, just being free to let her learn shows how it can really work out. If I ever have another child, I would love to unschool him / her right from the beginning.

William finished his spring break on Friday. I think he will be happy to get back to schoolwork on Monday. He kept telling me he was bored.

He is still working at my mom's on weekends. He's doing well, learning how to feed and catch the animals when needed, put a halter on them and carry those who need to be fed seperate out to a hitching post. He has been very tired after working all day. He got sunburned last weekend so I made sure he had sunscreen for this weekend. Tomorrow all he will have to do is feed in the morning before the family goes to the state park for a cookout and egg hunt.

My mom had a new mule born just the other day. His name is Paulie. He's already having a good time running around the paddock with the others. I told my mom she needed to set up a blog so she can post pictures and write about her critters instead of emailing all her friends and customers. She agreed and I may help her with that next week.

Tonight was a pretty clear night, so William and I went up to the barn at my parents' place and sat in the bed of the pickup truck to stargaze. We had a book (Look to the Night Sky by Seymour Simon, received through Paperback Book Swap) with us that helped us find 2 constellations - the Little Dipper and Casseopia (sp?). We also saw 2 satellites and I think we found Orion, but we aren't sure. We're going to try another night when it's a bit darker and not cloudy. The few clouds that were out made the stars look out of focus.

Tomorrow evening we'll read the Easter story and I may rent "The Passion of the Christ" if it's available. I still haven't seen it.

Guilt Free Homeschooling has this list posted today. It has a lot of good information for those who question homeschooling. My favorite is this one:

6...I'm not smart enough.

This always makes me laugh. Let's check out the logic here.

You went to public school, but you don't think you're smart enough to homeschool your children - BUT you want them to go to public school too?

I am currently reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. He talks about self-made men in this book, men like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, who had little schooling but reached the goals they had in their lives. A quote struck me:

An educated man is not, necessarily, one who has an abundance of general or specialized knowledge. An educated man is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he may acquire anything he wants, or its equivalent, without violating the rights of others.

In other words, an educated person has something they wish to know, so they find out from other sources what they desire to know. To do this, they may take a college class, ask someone in the industry, read a book, surf the internet, do an experiment, whatever it takes to find out the answers they seek. This is what I want for not only my son, but also myself.

Ron at Atypical Homeschool.net asked bloggers to write a post about one of two subjects. Since I'm not an unschooler, I chose this one - Unschooling feels, sounds or appears like a good philosophy to follow, but ________ prevents me (or make me hesitant to) follow through with it.

I would have to fill in that blank with the word fear. I fear that if we unschool that William would spend all day playing games and watching TV. I fear that he won't learn to spell or read well or write anything, much less learn multiplication and division. I fear that he will be selfish and rude and care only about himself. Why do I feel this way?

When dh and I first started discussing homeschooling I researched it like many people do. One thing I looked up was unschooling. I found a very well known site on unschooling as well as a well known email list. This site and list featured a predominant unschooling figure that is well-known as a speaker at various homeschooling events. I found the people on this site - including this well-known speaker - and the email list mostly rude and arrogant. They apparently allowed their kids to stay up at all hours, play games all day, pretty much allowed them to do whatever they wanted. Any mention of any types of rules handed down by the parent - bedtimes, mealtimes, etc. - seemed to be out the window. At the time I was on this list I was still working outside the home, so we all had bedtimes so William could come to work with me. Anytime I mentioned bedtime I was told I "wasn't an unschooler" and pretty much that any type of direction from me was hurting him.

I was only on that list 2 weeks. I knew I still wanted to homeschool, but I new I would never unschool because I didn't want my child to be selfish and mean like the parents on that list.

It's been over 3 years now since I was a part of that list, and I know now that not all unschoolers are like the people that I met online. I also discovered it doesn't matter what curriculum you use or don't use - some kids and parents are just selfish and mean. I needed to do what I felt was right for my family. However, to this day I stay away from lists and groups that are exclusive. These are the types that say "Do it my way or it's not right." I still don't like that.

However much I've learned about unschooling, though, I still have a fear of actually going through with it. Maybe if I'd been able to homeschool William from the beginning instead of starting in third grade, then maybe my feelings would be different. I don't know. I would have loved to have found out, though.

This week has been partly a spring break week. William has done some schoolwork, but he's also played with friends and enjoyed being outside in the warm weather.

He also has a job. About 2 weeks ago he decided he wanted another game system. First he wanted a new Nintendo DS but now he's decided he wants a Sony PSP. In order to purchase the new game system, he had me sell his Gameboy on ebay and he's working weekends at my mom's farm. He helps to feed, he cleans the stalls, he feeds the animals hay, he gets them water, and does pretty much whatever else my mom and dad ask him to do there. This weekend he was supposed to help my dad put up fencing, but the weather is bad. Instead he spent an hour in the rain trying to figure out why the water wouldn't work, then getting the barn animals hay and water until the helper showed up to finish the feeding. I'm really proud of how he makes sure his job is done right.

This weekend my MIL & FIL are in town, so we'll be spending afternoons with them. My mother is in Savannah this weekend with my grandparents, so we're also taking care of their cats and their dog. It's nice to be able to work at home and homeschool so that we can help others when they need us.

Here is a question for you science / math types. I have no idea how to begin to figure this out.

William was given an air pistol that shoots BBs and is powered with a CO-2 cartridge. He wants to know how much CO-2 is used from a cartridge to shoot 1 BB. There is 12 grams of CO-2 gas in the cartridge. We haven't measured the distance he shoots the BB yet, but we can do that if it's needed.

Any ideas on how to figure this out?

Update: I'm trying to work this out in comments too. Anyway, based on Andrea's question, William can shoot about 75 BBs on one cartridge. I figured 75 / 12 = 6.25, but then recanted that answer because it doesn't make sense - 6.25 grams to shoot 1 BB would mean that only 2 BBs could be shot on 1 canister.

He's also said he wants to know how "fast" the BB comes out of the gun, to which I asked, "Do you mean how much force is used by the gun to shoot out the BB?" and he said yes, that was what he meant. So now I'm researching Newton's Law - F=mA (Force = mass x acceleration). Okay, I can find out the mass of a BB, but the acceleration? I don't have a ballistics lab like CSI.

So this is what kids think up when they are on their own for spring break. I feel like this question will end up on a list like "Redneck Math Questions" one day.

Another update: I have googled and gone to ask.com and cannot find a formula to figure acceleration. I found the formula for speed, but one site said that speed and acceleration are not the same thing. We may have to estimate, I don't know. I do know that 30 BBs have a mass of 10 grams. We have a spring scale that we used to determine that. My dh said that if that is correct, then 1 BB has a mass of 300 milligrams? I wanted to divide and get 3, but he said that was wrong, we should multiply. Now I know why I hate math.

Still trying to find the formulas needed. We have some old high school textbooks I'm going to go through next.

Yet another update: I found this at Wikipedia. I give up.

Another update - Another online friend sent me here - How Do BB Guns Work?