Disclaimer: What not to expect from this blog

I'll be 100% honest when I say that I am not sure exactly what this blog will become.

We all like to dream with our children about what they will be when they grow up.  I remember what I wanted to be..(in order)... a Mommy, a teacher (hey, got the first 2!), first female President, a lawyer, a judge, a preacher, & a professional football player.  I always tell my children that one way to decide what you will do when you grow up is to eliminate the things you will not do.  For example, it was easy for me to eliminate professional football player as I got older, even though I still loved football.  In that spirit I hope I can narrow down what this blog will be by telling you some things it will not be.

1. It will not be the "how to homeschool website."  By this I mean: My prayer is that reading my site will help you learn to homeschool better.  However, I do not believe that anyone can teach you "how to homeschool!"  It is something you have to figure out yourself, for your family.  I hope to write some about educational philosophy & how to use it (as well as all of the "how to do this system" books we buy.)  Most homeschooling moms I meet are looking for a magic book or website to tell them exactly what to do.  It does not exist, so stop looking.  What a relief!

2. It will not have tons of great printables or activities to download.  But I will add some links to some of the many sites that have an awesome selection of those things!  There are so many out there already who do a much better job than I ever could with that type of thing.  RealHomeschoolMom will have great ideas of how to do learning with the things you already have or can get very easily.  And I will share neat resources that you might want to consider adding to your homeschool as your budget allows.  I will not assume that your husband is the CEO of a fortune 500 company & you have money to burn.  So far I don't have anyone sending me great free stuff to try & review!

3. I sincerely hope that RealHomeschoolMom will not be a site that makes you feel like you are not doing a good job, that you are not smart enough, that you don't have enough time, etc.  I firmly believe that God gave you your specific children for a reason & that both of you have something to teach the other.  Homeschooling is a great laboratory to make that happen!  I want to encourage you & give you ideas that make you say, "YES!"

4. This will not be a site where I show you my immaculately cleaned & decorated house- again, far better sites out there for that!  In fact from time to time I will post pictures showing just how bad it gets in the trenches!  Just to keep it REAL.

5. This will not be a site that you will receive posts to daily.  Some of these bloggers post multiple times a day.  As my HH (hot hubby) says, "when do they actually homeschool?"  So go ahead & subscribe, I hope to post 2 time a week, maybe more in the beginning as I have a backlog of creative juices.

If you were making a blog for REAL homeschool Moms what would you want or not want?  Send me your ideas.

How to do it all...

...DON'T.

How "Get REAL & Homeschool!" began...

I have been homeschooling my children their entire lives.  Officially, & according to the BOE that has been  7 years.  I have created a blog once before, mostly for selfish reasons.  I have a dream of being a writer & quite honestly the blog is the easiest way to have your writings published.  You can even sucker a few good friends into following it & then you have a reader following!  That blog lasted about a year & got nominated for a new blog award (of which I was immensely proud.)  Then I quit blogging for several reasons- the main one being the REAL world.  You see I have 5 children ages 11 & under...do I need to say more?

How did I go from there to here?  One of my passions is helping other women homeschool.  Common things I hear are: "How do you do it all?"  "You are so talented, it's easy for you."  "I could never do that." In addition to encouraging other women, I love to read other homeschool Mom's blogs & share their great ideas- why reinvent the wheel.  There are several blogs that I follow regularly & I often leave their blog thinking, "how do they do it all?"  Well, it's had my husband & I discussing how great it would be if there was a blog about REAL homeschooling.  This is not to discredit those blogs where they do unit studies on apples & everything in their house is magically transformed to Appleland.  You know, their kids write their spelling words on apple shaped paper, they do math problems about picking apples, they visit an orchard that week, they process & can 100 gallons of organic apple juice, make homemade apple pies for the homeless, and on, and on.  I love those blogs.  I'm sure those women are all that & a bag of apples!  I just think if I leave their site going, "oh, my gosh..." how does Betty Lou Having A Bad Day feel when she leaves their sites?  The idea for this blog was born.

I will once again be a published writer (yeh me!) & hopefully you will be encouraged.  On this blog I hope to post things we are doing in school- really cool things that worked out great & ideas that just flopped.  I'll share places that I go for inspiration & ideas.  I'll blog about our lives & doing it all.  I'll talk about organization, curriculum, temper tantrums, educational philosophy, & basically anything I want.  I will get on my soapbox & share my views & through it all I will be REAL!

Please do not misinterpret being REAL for being sorry.  I have very high expectations for myself, my children, & YOU.  Parenting & homeschooling your children is the greatest calling you can have & I don't take it lightly.  However, I do think in our modern world of knowing what everyone else is doing in their school down the street we spend way too much time wishing we could be like them & not nearly enough time being the best ME God made me to be.  So here's to each of you & being REAL.  My prayer is that through this blog I can encourage you to be the best REAL you that you can be!

Welcome, & if you find my blog & like it please tell your friends about it.  I'd just love it if all us REAL Moms got together & made this blog insanely popular- maybe then I could write a REAL book!

Old Posts?

As I start this new blog experience I wanted to save some of my favorites from my old blog so that's why you will find posts from 2009 on this brand new blog.  Things sure do change in 2 years, but then again that's REAL life.

Unfortunately, as I am not a techie, I could not figure out how to add the old comments so leave me some new ones!

Salt Dough Fun

Material from a previous blog:

I have written in several entries about my love of playdough.  It’s hard to beat the stuff from the store because nowadays it is so cheap &, unlike when we were kids, soft right out of the can!  However I absolutely LOVE homemade salt dough!  We had not made any in 3 years so only my oldest even remembered doing it.  It is one of those things that you need to do every once in a while if for no other reason than the wow factor!  It is so easy & your children will be so impressed that you can make playdough yourself!  I call it Mommy magic- you’ve got to always keep them a little amazed at the things you can do! 

My absolutley favorite part of salt dough is playing with it right after you make it & it is still warm; it is really a delight to all the senses! 

I had lost the recipe for the kind we made 3 years ago which we all loved but I found it recently in a wonderful book that I am really enjoying.  It is Kids Create by Laurie Carlson.  I highly recommend this book for basic craft recipes & fun simple ideas to do with your children- things like what you did as a child before every craft came from Oriental Trading!

This recipe calls for 1 cup flour, 1 tablespoon oil, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup salt, 2 teaspoons cream of tarter, & food coloring.  You put all the ingredients in a large saucespan & stir contantly with a wooden spoon over medium heat.  The soup will magically form a ball at which point you remove it from heat & turn out on a lightly floured surface to knead & cool.

Another thing I love about homemade dough is making your own colors!  These are the 4 colors my boys & I made recently.  To get these eye popping colors I recommend using bakers food coloring (for cake decorating.)  Mine is in a gel form & although a little expensive I have used the same few bottles for years on everything from salt dough, to cakes, to mashed potatoes!  We store our dough in recycled peanut butter jars & do not keep ours refrigerated (although that is what the recipes says to do.)

B1 & I played today.  I can’t imagine anything better for finger dexterity & the imagination!

This was HH’s supper plate that we had waiting for him when he got home- strawberry, blueberry, pear, french fries, ham, cheese, & bread- yummy!

Active Volcano!

Material from a previous blog:

In Mystery of History II we studied Pompeii this week.  It is a tragic but fascinating story from the pages of history about a city that is literally frozen in time- buried in volvanic ash!  We also read Pompeii…Buried Alive! by Edith Davis.  We love the activity suggestions at the end of each MOH lesson & what better way to end a lesson on Pompeii than to make our own volcano!

Here F9 is helping L4 add the vinegar as E6 looks on.  We used a ratio of 3 tablesponns baking soda to 1/2 cup vinegar.  We added a few drops of red food coloring & dish soap for effect!

I don’t know why it suprised me that they went GA-GA over this little experiment.  They are all boy & what’s not to love- it’s messy, explosive, & and "dangerous" (it’s is a real volcano-remember!)  The looks on their faces says it all!

Mount Brookgreen was definately an active volcano.  They repeated the experiment many times- I finally had to put a limit on the amount of vinegar that could be used!  They even started experimenting with capping the bottle & added a little shaking to the volcano with very pleasing results- try that at home yourself to see!  Here are the unsuspecting Playmobile men oblivious to the impending danger!

And finally, the carnage left in the path of Mount Brookgreen.  The poor guy never knew what hit him; he’s still smiling!  Life with boys is sooooo much FUN!

ABC Beads

Material from a previous blog:

We are in our second day of non-stop heavy rain at my house which can become stressful when you have 6 people (5 of them male) in 1000 sq. feet.  Yesterday, I had to banish the boys to the hay barn for a short noise break.  Today we all got involved with a box of ABC beads from Walmart ($3.67.)

The idea was to make one of those water filled bottles full of floating stuff to go in one of L4′s preschool activities in a bag which I use in his workboxes.  The basic idea is from Preschool Activities in a Bag Book 2 & is called ABC HIdden Treasure. The book instructs you to hide the ABC beads in rice but we had been wanting to make one of the floating bottles so we decided to do that instead.  Luckily our bag of beads included 300 beads so we’ll have enough to do a rice version as well.

Basically, we used an empty water bottle filled with 50% light corn syrup & 50% water (although I plan to experiment with this % & see how it changes) & added ABC beads (2 of each letter to make it a little easier) & glitter!  The whole crowd got invloved.  L4 found the letters to his name & then E6 & F9 wanted to do the same of coarse!

E6 & F9 went in order to make the complete alphabet in a line of beads (so we could make sure we got 2 of each letter in the bottle.)

Afterward we decided it would be best to store the beads sorted so we could easily find any letter we needed so E6 went through the remaining 248 beads & grouped them by letter alphabetically.  It was really great alphabetizing practice & fun for him too.

Here is E6 posing with his alphabetized piles of beads & the " ABC Under Water Search" we made for L4!