Tag: homeschooling

Follower Appreciation Day: Promote Your Blog!

On By Stephanie GailIn Uncategorized31 Comments

Wow! You people. You have exceeded my all expectations about who cares what I think or have to say.

Today my blog acquired 50 followers!

And not long ago, it hit 100 likes. It’s hardly been a month since I’ve made grittymomma.com public; I had no idea what to expect, and I have been so thrilled at the reception I’ve been given.

Thank you to all my followers!

I started this blog to share my thoughts and experiences of parenting, homeschooling, emotional health, and abuse awareness in an extended, detailed way that social media just doesn’t allow for. Contrary to my expectations, the number of people who have taken an interest (or even give me the time of day) here has been *so* edifying and affirming. For the first time in my life, I’ve begun to think that what I have to say is worth appreciating–not just by a small circle of close friends, but by the world at large, because at least some complete strangers out there have cared to spend the time on me.

I have so often hoped that my perspective might be relevant to the world at large; thanks to the warm welcome I have received here, I have really begun to believe that it might be.

For this gift you have given me, I sincerely say: Thank You.

As an expression of gratitude and camaraderie, I wanted to take this opportunity to give back a little. So, I hereby proclaim this Follower Appreciation Day!

If you are a follower of grittymomma.com, I invite you to promote your blog by posting a link and a description of it in the comments below. ❤

If you’re not a follower, it’s easy to join the party! Just click the “Follow on WordPress” button at the right side of the page or enter your address in the email subscription box.

And if you decide you don’t need the spam, feel free to subscribe and then unsubscribe later. I won’t judge. 🙂

Once you’ve shared your info in the comments below, I would love it if you would reblog this post or otherwise share it on your website to spread the word to anyone else who might be interested in the topics I discuss here–or just a friendly conversation with a curious introvert. The door’s always open. 🙂

Thank you so much again. I hope you leave here blessed! Come back soon!

–GM

Flower vector created by Freepik

Homeschool Diary: Day #2

On By Stephanie GailIn homeschooling, Parenting4 Comments

Yesterday we tackled two projects: banana bread and yoga.

Photographic documentation of the first activity:

The set-up
Gritty flour mess!
Sweet grit!
J stirs the flour mixture.
…and flings it all over the cookbook.
Mr. Monk suffered a dusting, too.
Eyes loves stirring!
Time to add the poppyseeds!
Stir, stir, stir…
Monkey boy loves banana bread!

There are actually two boys participating here, but the older one got bored halfway through because I wouldn’t let him sing the Caspar Babypants song Banana Bread anymore (couldn’t read the recipe AND keep them from licking salmonella spoons AND keep the bowl from tumbling to the floor etc. etc. while J kept belting the song out at the top of his lungs… just couldn’t do it) and left to play with toys. But Mr. Not-Quite-2-Yet stayed the WHOLE time to help from start to finish. And he actually managed to stir competently! Unlike his distractible sibling… 😉 “Eyes” is gonna be my sous chef one day!

I wish I had gotta pictures of us peeling and mushing the bananas up because they both enjoyed that, but I only have two hands and old bananas are STICKY. Heheh.

 

Doing yoga while we waited for the banana bread to bake was more J’s idea of fun. Actually, he was the one begging for yoga during the last ten minutes of our cooking time! I had said we could do some, but he was the one to remind me and really get excited about it. Go figure. 😀 He really likes to copy me/the demonstration on the screen as best he can and lasted about 20 minutes into the whole 30-minute routine (then decided he’d rather take up his daddy’s offer of lunch).

I am really enjoying SarahBethYoga on YouTube; she has a variety of videos of different lengths and ability levels (including prenatal yoga!) so that I feel like I can squeeze some stretching in even if I don’t have a lot of time or a lot of energy. The videos are high quality; it’s like going to a real class, but free! I especially love doing yoga in the morning to help me wake up and mentally/emotionally prepare for the day: it makes me grateful for each part of my body that God has created and helps to dispel the nervous tension/physical anxiety I tend to wake up with.

Sometimes, though, if it’s later in the day, I put the yoga video on our big screen TV and let the boys play along. It usually only sort of works because only one of my offspring really understands what’s going on, as with yesterday…

Eyes spent all his time climbing under and on top of me, giggling, and occasionally squawking because we weren’t paying enough attention to him. I wish I had pictures of this, but for obvious reasons it didn’t happen. I feel like I ought to get a cartoon or two out of it, though… as soon as I master drawing yoga poses… which may not be straightforward! But Eyes was ridiculously adorable even whilst kicking my ribs (throwback to utero, eh kid?). 🙂

 

Homeschool Diary: Day #1

On By Stephanie GailIn Parenting2 Comments

I have a 1.75 year-old and a 3 and 11/12 year-old. School doesn’t look like much.

Today, we watched Curious George. We read a few books–including the highly educational Baby 123 and Baby ABC.

I asked my oldest if he would like to try out some words in the reading primer I used when I was a year or two older than him. He’s just started blending letter sounds, so I thought he might enjoy sounding out “Al and Nat.”

“No,” he said.

So I sat down on the couch with it and pretended to be engrossed.

He came over and I showed him the picture of the big scruffy dog, and he giggled. “So, can you tell me what this says?” I pointed to “Nat.”

“Dog!” he said.

We (mostly I) sounded out two pages in the space of five minutes. He wanted to see the next page, and I said not unless he finished sounding out the words on the current page.

No interest. So, that was the end of that.

We built a Duplo tower by looking at the instructions. We played chase and spin-the-carboard-box-full-of-toddlers. We danced to Caspar Babypants. We tossed a football back and forth. We got all dressed up to go play in the snow only to discover it was raining when we opened the front door. So we stripped back down and pulled out the toy instrument set and my almost-four-year old composed about nine different songs on the xylophone.

“This one is about a kitty getting stuck in a box!”

“This one is about firepops!” (Fireworks.)

“This one is about a baseball game!”

“This one is ‘Deck the Halls’!” (An entirely new arrangement.)

And we worked on potty training some more.

There was nothing fabulous about homeschooling today, and I imagine most days there won’t be. But I’m hanging onto this quote that has floated around social media lately, attributed to The Parent’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents by William Martin:

Ordinary Lives

The extraordinary will take care of itself.