We just got home from a camping trip. We had to come home a few days early because of some pretty intense thunderstorms. We slept in a tent that we borrowed from my sister and her husband. The trip was a lot of fun - especially for our boys. But it was nothing like we had planned.

I'm sure you've been on trips like this - where your best laid plans are torn assunder by everything from rocky soil that makes it hard to stake down the tent - to curious raccoons who plunder your campsite - to having your sons walk back to camp covered in mud and with broken eggs running down their sweatshirts. In other words, we had a typical camping adventure.

Throughout our trip, I kept thinking about how much camping is like homeschooling. Before you get started with either adventure you plan, you make checklists and you get all of the equipment prepared. The feelings of excitement are high as you dream of what it will be like. Then you actually get started camping/homeschooling and things don't always go the way you had planned. The weather gets soggy, the ground is rocky, the math is too hard for your child, your favorite book of all time is boring to them...

In these situations, we need to decide whether we're going to stick to our original plan or if we're going to come up with a plan B. Find something to do inside for part of a day, move your tent to a better location, switch curriculums to something that will work better with your child's learning style, go to the library and help your son pick a different book to read that HE will enjoy.

Camping, like homeschooling (and life), will not necessarily go the way you had initially planned and will not necessarily turn out the way you had dreamed. We need to be willing to e-evaluate and be flexible.

In This Issue:

1. Preserving Family Time
2. Homeschool Days and Field Trips
3. Are you a perfect homeschooling mom?!?

Here in America, our culture has become one of staying VERY busy. Keeping up with the Jones's, as parents, is to be sure your child is learning the most musical instruments, is signed up for several sports, is enrolled in every extracurricular activity possible... and the list goes on.

Somewhere in the midst of all of this busyness, we have lost our ability to spend time together as a family - to sit down and have meals together - to talk with each other. Even when we are at home together, we are usually on the computer, playing video games, watching TV, and talking on the phone to others.

As homeschoolers, we have a unique opportunity to stop being Slaves to Busyness and instead work to maintain a balance between a healthy amount of activity and a healthy amount of family time.

Here are some tips for doing just that:

1. Before signing your child up for an activity, take a look at your family schedule. If you sign up for this, will you still have enough free nights together as a family?

2. Try signing your child up for activities during the afternoon as opposed to in the evening. This way they can participate when they're done with their regular schoolwork and still be home in the evening to preserve family time.

3. Plan fun family activities together such as playing board games, dinner & a movie, biking, hiking, campfires in the backyard, etc.

4. Plan as many evening meals at home with the family as possible. Make sure you sit at the table during this time and that the TV and other media are OFF, providing you with time to talk to your children and to develop family relationships. This is also a great time to do family devotionals.

The Connected Family: A Smorgasbord of Fun, Easy, and Practical Ways to Connect with Your Family By David & Claudia Arp / Howard Books Looking for fun, easy ways to strengthen your family relationships? The Arps offer a smorgasbord of activities to help you stifle overcommitment, control media, pursue the positive, develop thankfulness, and promote spiritual growth. Try taking a mystery vacation, having a treasure-hunt dinner, making a family notebook---and baking "aggression cookies"! Lighthearted and practical! 144 pages, softcover from Howard.

The What's-for-Dinner Cookbook: A Year-Long Program of Balanced Dinners for Your Family (discount mark) By Kathleen Botta & Claire Mendonca / Bradley's Book Clearance The What's-for-Dinner Cookbook is the brainchild of two friends who for years had asked themselves, What are we going to have for dinner? as they thought of how they would feed their families every evening. The result is a cookbook and kitchen planner designed to help organize the kitchen, plan meals a week at a time, and organize shopping so that the ingredients needed for every meal are available at the right time. Based on the four seasons of the year, the book provides five days of planned, well-balanced dinners for every week. Paperback.

	Group's Dinner and a Movie: G-Rated: Friendship, Faith, and Fun for All Ages-Movies Not Included By Group Publishing Bring families and friends together and share a tasty meal, and a great movie - and then relate the movie to your Christian walk. This book is packed with 12 G-rated dinner and a movie plans that are sure to appeal to even the most discerning movie viewers. Great for a fun night, family night, youth group, or weekend retreat. Movies not included. Using these tips, hopefully you will spend more time together as a family - and that family time will be quality time as well. Spend as much time with your kids as you can - we are only given so much time with them before they're grown... so use the time you have with them wisely. 2 - Homeschool Days and Field Trips Did you know that as a homeschooler you can get into some places at a discount? Many locations from Dollywood to Disney, from the Kennedy Space Center to Shedd Aquarium have Homeschool Days. Most zoos, museums, planetariums and more offer discounts to homeschoolers. If you plan your field trips to take advantage of these Homeschool Days, you can save your family a significant amount of money. Each year, plan a day when you will look at the websites for places you're interested in visiting. Write down their special Homeschool Days on your calender so that you can determine which locations would be best for your family to visit at which times. You might also want to consider having your kids take a Web Hunt or a Virtual Field Trip to save time and money (especially GAS MONEY as the price of gas continues to skyrocket). Virtual Field Trips allow your children to experience pictures, video, etc. about topics of interest to them without ever leaving your home. Here are some great books which will help you to give this experience to your child: Web Hunts & Virtual Field Trips Grades 3-5 By Deirdre Kelly / Teacher Created Resources Promote active learning and make the most of the Internet as an educational tool! Designed to be used with a publisher-maintained website, more than 30 reproducible activities help your third to fifth graders develop their research and technological skills while hunting for information on topics like endangered species or exploring faraway places like the moon. A wonderful way to supplement lessons across the curriculum! 144 perforated pages, softcover from Teacher Created Materials. Virtual Field-Trips: An Online Study Guide By Felice Gerwitz / Media Angels Science Travel without leaving your home to many locations with topics in each subject area. For school, homeschool or just plain old-fashioned fun at home! This complete how-to guide includes: site orientation; goals and objectives; educational research; lesson plans; questions and answers; additional activities. The Complete Creation Museum Adventure: A Field Trip in a Book By Master Books 3 - Are you a perfect homeschooling mom?!? Are you trying to give your child the perfect education or the perfect homeschooling experience? If you think about this logically you'll know that this isn't possible. In our hearts, however, parents want to do the best they can for their children, do the most possible for their children... and we often beat ourselves up when we fall short. Relax! You are not perfect and God doesn't expect you to try to be perfect. Us moms, especially, need to cut ourselves some slack. The memories your children keep the longest won't necessarily be WHAT you did with them but WHAT KIND OF ATTITUDE you did it with. If you are stressed because you feel you aren't measuring up, that will negatively affect your child more than if you aren't teaching a lesson well. Having chosen to homeschool, you may find that your house stays messier and your laundry never quite gets put away... If this stresses you out, you need to remember what's really important in life. When you're on your deathbed, will you regret that you didn't keep your house cleaner - or will you regret that you didn't enjoy the time you had with your kids because you were stressed out about not feeling like you were measuring up. If you find yourself in this situation, the below books will give you lots of tips on getting your priorities straight and on helping you to enjoy your walk as a homeschooling wife and mother: Lies Homeschooling Moms Believe: Learning to Live the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth By Todd Wilson / Familyman Ministries You look around, Mom, and what do you see? Everyone else's kids are better. Everyone else's home is cleaner. Everyone else fixes better meals. Everyone else is more disciplined and more spiritual. Everyone else's marriage is better. Everyone else can do it all. Every other mom loves homeschooling. Everyone else is more capable. You are the only one who is falling apart and who feels the way you feel. Why do you see those things? Because, believe it or not, everyone else sees them too, and feels the same way you do---the crushing pressure to meet expectations, to be perfect, and to at least keep up appearances when they can't. Let Todd Wilson draw back the curtain and show you what you can't see. Go behind the scenes with him and discover the reality. With gentle encouragement, anecdotes shared from his own life, and that lighthearted wit that brings such comfort and the relief of laughter to those who can identify, Todd will help you see the lies that bind you and steal your joy. You are not perfect---you may even be far from your ideal---but you are not a failure and you are not alone! Learn the truths that you need to lift your heavy load, take your joy back, and gain the courage and freedom to be real with others . . . and give them the precious gift of being able to be real with you. Homeschooling but Still Married: How to Be a Great Wife...Even though You Homeschool By Todd Wilson / Familyman Ministries When homeschooling takes all the time and strength you've got (and more!), how can you possibly be and do everything it takes to be a great wife, too? Actually, it's easier than you think and it's the key to a great marriage as well as a successful homeschool. Meeting your husband's needs will naturally increase his involvement in your marriage, your family, and your homeschool---when you take care of your marriage, you'll find that homeschooling will take care of itself. As part of a homeschooling family himself (and as a man married to a homeschooling wife), Todd Wilson intimately understands your struggles and constantly piles on the encouragement while striving to avoid adding to any sense of guilt or failure that you may already struggle with. In his personable and witty down-to-earth style, Todd shares key ways you can nurture your relationship with your husband and help your marriage (and your homeschool) flourish. A Mom Just Like You: The Home Schooling Mother By Vickie & Jayme Farris / B & H Publishing Group As a homeschool mom, you juggle so much! Housework. Curriculum planning. Teaching. Discipline. If you've ever felt like you're drowning or wondered whether to continue, this book---written by a homeschool mother of 10---is for you. Personal insights and Bible-based wisdom gleaned from years of experience will bolster your resolve and confidence, and help you balance it all without sacrificing your own well-being. 288 pages, softcover from B&H. The Heart of Homeschooling By Christopher Klicka / B & H Publishing Group Raising children is hard work, but the homeschooling family has particular needs that are particular to their situation. Many families start out strong, but give up or cheat along the way; but there is help and encouragement to be found! The Heart of Homeschooling brings a poignant focus upon what really matters, being faithful in the spiritual aspects of homeschooling, not just the academics. Principles that came directly from Chris and Tracy Klicka's life, you'll see their own experience raising seven children as well as the principle's they've learned along the way. 218 pages, softcover. By the way, on our camping trip my husband took our sons fishing for the first time on this trip as well. They absolutely loved it! I have a bit of a fish phobia (they're so slimy) so when they would go off fishing, I would stay back at the campsite and read a good book. Our boys discovered that they LOVE to fish, so I got a lot more reading time in that I thought I would as well. The moral to that part of the story is to be willing to accept help from others (especially your spouse) and let them take charge as well. Don't feel like you have to do it all yourself. Enjoy your role as homeschooling wife and mother this month! And be flexible. If you can adapt to changing circumstances, you and your family will end up on top, no matter what comes your way. Thanks for taking the time to read this month's newsletter. See you next month! Michelle Caskey SPECIAL REMINDER Know somebody who'd like to read this? We really hope that you've enjoyed reading this newsletter. If you think your family or friends might be interested in taking a look, please feel free to forward it to them. 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