homeschooling | Vanessa Fernandez Fitness

If You Get Lost You Can Always Be Found

June 13, 2017

A major focus of my blog is an appeal that the “hard” things we shrink back from, are actually the GOOD things that in the end will make our lives better. Daily workouts, clean eating, natural child birth, homeschooling, building a business from home….and now, living abroad.

These things aren’t for everyone, but I feel like most of the time people focus on how DIFFICULT they all are, when in reality, when you push INTO the hard, they can be INCREDIBLY rewarding and beautiful.

But in order to do that I have to acknowledge the hard.

Yesterday was our first full day in Merida, Mexico and it was hard. We are on full sensory overload, everything looks different, smells different, sounds different. Simple things like grocery shopping are confusing and overwhelming. Add to that, four crazy kids who are constantly running all around and more than a few miscommunications between the hubby and I (oh, and NO ONE napped yesterday – no one.) and ya, it was a hard day.

Here’s the thing. IT’S OK. It’s ok to have hard days. It’s ok to try things that don’t always work. A lot of times trying things that don’t work is the only way to know it doesn’t work. Miscommunications help you communicate better. Naps missed are always terrible, sorry, no way to sugar coat that one.

So, here’s the story:

EVERYONE wakes up at 5am, because it’s one hour different and everyone is in new, strange beds and bedrooms. Mama didn’t get her early morning time and half the bags were still yet to be unpacked. Daddy was anxious to get out and see the city and the sights, but mama wanted to settle in, organize the house and get her bearings.

Daddy’s pressure made Mama stressed, finally out in the neighborhood we go, only to be completely overwhelmed at the grocery store – kids are knocking down large, perfectly stacked mountains of fruit and asking for every new and exciting sweet treat that we don’t have in the states. Daddy and Mama are trying to convert Kilos to Pounds and Pesos to Dollars, baby is hungry and cranky.

Finally we make it home (walking half a mile in 90 degree heat each way) and try to put everyone down for naps. SURELY they are tired. Nope, after several attempts, tantrums and desperate pleas, we give up and decide to go to the local park. Only now, it’s the HOTTEST (and I mean HOTTEST) time of the day. Which is the reason we were trying to get the kids to rest, so we could stay out later and enjoy the COOL evening. But kids don’t understand things like that.

So we are melting into the pavement, but make it to the local park, which has a small playground made entire out of METAL. The kids tried their best, they even used some of my baby wipes to place on the see saw seats so they could play one it without burning their little bottoms.

We didn’t last long, but saw on google maps that there was an dessert place just a few blocks away. We were promising our kids something sweet and delicious if they would just keep walking a few more steps!! Only, as we got to the spot, there was no dessert place. Nothing, just a house. We almost had a mutiny on our hands.

Finally as we walked back, we found the cutest little food truck with agua fresca, kombucha and smoothies. The kids got their sweet treat, and a respite in the shade and we learned our lesson – no going out in the heat of the day.

Dinner finally got done at 8:30pm (and I literally just made fried potatoes and onions….I don’t even know what happened) and we all collapsed into bed.

There you have it. Day one. I won’t detail EVERY day for you over this next month – but day one was all sorts of challenging, overwhelming and hot as heck and still good, and learning and stretching and moving outside of our comfort zone is never easy, but when we do it we grow.

Here’s to much more growth (and naps!) over the next four weeks!

A Homeschooling Story

May 20, 2017

“Ok Vanessa, you can do this!
You were homeschooled, sure it was like 20+years ago when you were in 1st grade and you were a kid so you weren’t taking notes from your mom, and you had no idea how much pressure you’d feel being completely responsible for the intellectual formation of one of the human beings you love most in the entire world, but it’s 1st grade…how hard can it be?”

Just a little pep talk I gave myself at the beginning of the year.

When we started this year of homeschooling I felt like it was my first “real” year. I had to officially send in our letter of intent to the State of Florida, letting them know – we are DOING this. I will be taking FULL responsibility of the education of my son this year, thank you very much.

Fhew! Totally scary. Not going to lie.

I had a newborn at the beginning of the year, so I kept thing VERY simple. We would do Phonics, Math, History and Bible. No frills, no co-ops, no involved science experiments, no Latin or science fairs. I know other moms who did all of the above (and more) and some even gave birth and had newborns during this school year – I just knew my capacity and went with that.

I was anticipating a crazy year of homeschooling (in addition to my newborn, I also had a VERY energetic and attention needing three year old, a sweet five year old and then my first grader) but what I was not anticipating, was a child who did not want to learn to read.

Nope. He was not having it. We tried several different approaches, four reading curriculums, prizes, songs, games, threats, rewards – anything I could think of and yet – to no avail.

Apparently, if a child does not WANT to learn, you cannot MAKE them learn! What a concept!

And I was faced with a very difficult inner dialogue.

“What if this isn’t the best way to educate? What if I’m not a good teacher? We keep butting heads. This isn’t working. I thought education at this age is supposed to be fun. I must be doing this wrong.”

Yup, one year in and this girl who LOVES school, was homeschooled herself, has been looking forward to this for YEARS, was ready to throw in the towel.

Thankfully I have been surrounded by an amazing community of more seasoned moms – moms who remind me that the goal of homeschooling isn’t for the child to master a certain skill set by a certain date. We are creating LIFE-LONG learners. We are investing in character as well as intellect and it is as much MY character that is being built as his.

Throughout the year I have seen a change in my heart – from one of despair, discouragement and failure, to one of hope, trust in God and patience.

I am called to be faithful, to teach daily, to model hard work and a love for learning. (Now if only I can remember that at the end of every lesson gone wrong!)

I have seen myself changing from the mom sitting two inches from my child’s face, pointing at each word saying “what’s this word, sound it out, sound it out, what is that letter? Common, you know this, read the word.” Veins popping out, stressed, striving. To the mom who prays before EVERY lesson, encourages every small victory, has set aside the reading curriculum for now, and simply enjoys reading stories aloud together, focusing more on the areas he DOES love to learn in – math and history. Spending lots of time outside, exploring the world and talking about what we observe.

For a goal-oriented, book loving, first time, “am I doing this right?!” mom, this has been my biggest victory. My homeschooling story is a humbling story. It’s certainly not the story I thought I would have, but it’s OUR story and I’m thankful for it.

Congratulations to my sweet children for enduring their crazy mama this year!
Congratulations to my son for completing the first grade and my daughter for gracefully completing kindergarten.
Congratulations to my three year old for always needing to poop RIGHT when we are at the most crucial moment in our lesson.
Congratulations to my sweet 10 month old baby, for nursing and sleeping anywhere and everywhere this year.
Congratulations to my husband for supporting me EVERY day, listening to my fears and wiping my tears.

One year down. 18(ish) to go!

Homeschooling: a Different Objective

May 4, 2016

I have been asked to share a little bit about my homeschool routine. I find this humorous because I am JUST finishing up our Kindergarten year with my 5 year old and the other two are just absorbing whatever they can (which, surprisingly is a lot!).

However, before I begin sharing WHAT I am doing I think it’s important for me to share my objective as a homeschooling mom, because it is significantly different than a public school system’s objective and once it is clear what my objective is in homeschooling, my methods will make much more sense!

I am in no way critiquing the public school system with this post (or any of my homeschooling posts), my husband is a public school teacher and we live in a city where MANY children are children of immigrants and without an English speaking public education system, they would never have the opportunities and experiences as they do. But I think it goes without saying that there are definite flaws in our countries education system.

This system was originally designed to create more educated workers for the country. Factories were popping up all over the place, the “work force” was moving from small scale, family-based businesses to larger companies and industry. We as a country needed an employable workforce who could read and write and understand basic math skills. And so the public school system was created.

My objective as a home educator however, is not to create an employable factory worker (or office worker), my objective is to create a free-thinking, independent citizen who LOVES to learn and never stops in their pursuit of personal and educational growth. My objective is to create individuals who can understand logic, craft intelligent arguments and have a moral compass to guide their every decision. I don’t want to tell my kids what to think, I want to teach them HOW to think. I don’t want my kids to graduate high school with a uniform set of facts but with the tools and work ethic and passion to learn ANYTHING they want to.

Because of this objective I am not really worried about “keeping up with the class”. I think many times homeschooling moms are so nervous that because they aren’t trained teachers, that they aren’t going to do a good job, and because of that we are constantly looking to societal norms to make us feel better (at least, that’s how it was for me!). The problem with this is that if I am trying to teach my kindergartener how to tell time for example (because I saw it on some list) and it’s just not clicking for him, I can be tempted (and trust me, I’ve done this!!) to go over it and over it and try to FORCE him to learn it and we’re not stopping until he gets at least one right! Before you know it, I’m frustrated, he’s in tears and “school” is something that he dreads.

It has been SO helpful for me to see education as a marathon and not a sprint. If I am able to give my child a LOVE of learning, tap into that natural curiosity and excitement that children already have, then my child will NEVER stop learning. I will gladly sacrifice his/her ability to tell time for another year if that means that school keeps it’s joy and enjoyment, because if my child loves learning, they will eventually learn how to tell time. If I get anal about checking every single “subject” or topic off a list and because of that turn school into a nightmare, as soon as school is over or graduation day comes, my child will stop learning, or even worse, they will see “education” and information as something you only hold on to to get a certain number on a test to please mom and dad. <— This is my greatest fear and what I am TRYING to avoid, but this is exactly what public schools are trying to achieve.

I believe that if I make it a habit to expose my children to an academically rich environment and let their curiosity lead the way, and have FUN learning and make it a natural part of our every day lives, they will be very well educated.

This doesn’t mean I don’t have a plan, or curriculum or I’m not ever going to give my kids tests. All it means is that if we are doing something and they are having trouble understanding the concept (ESPECIALLY in kindergarten – or before) I am not going to stress out or push the subject. I will stop and move on to something else, and then bring it back a few days later and re-explain and try again, and be patient with my child, because I KNOW sometimes I don’t always get things the first time and I appreciate others having patience with me.

Knowing what my objective is helps me to not feel pressure to PACK our day with school work from morning until night, but instead leave plenty of empty pockets in our day and just listen and be attentive to my children and seize every opportunity to satisfy and pique their curiosity.

For example, going to the park and having play time and one of my kids trips over a tree root. After consoling him I ask him if he knows what these are. He says no. I tell him they are roots and they bring water and nutrients into the tree, all the way up the trunk, out through the branches and to the leaves. We pick a leaf and look closely at the little veins in the leaf where the water and nutrients get exposed to light and photosynthesis occurs. He is completely in AWE and captured by our little lesson. Later, on the way home I stop by the store to grab some celery and we fill a glass with food colored water and in a few hours we can see the water traveling up the veins of the celery and into the leaves.

He didn’t even realize it, but we just did “school” and I didn’t plan for it but I took advantage of the moment, of their natural curiosity and explained in far more detail that he probably understood, but I’m exposing him to it. The concepts, the words. In a few years, when we study it “for real” it won’t be the very first time he is hearing these words or being introduced to this concept.

To me, homeschooling in Kindergarten is all about having a simple plan, not letting another person’s “schedule” dictate what my child ‘SHOULD’ know, making space for play and imagination and being present and intentional with every moment, having deep conversations and asking the second and third question to make learning an ongoing activity and a natural part of life.

If you’d like to read more on this theory and approach of education I highly recommend reading A Thomas Jefferson Education. Stay tuned for my next installment where I will show you what a typical day looks like for us and how I keep things simple and fun with our kindergarten education.