A Quiet Simple Life | Sallie Borrink

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

A Quiet Simple Life

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Relaxed Homeschooling

Relaxed Homeschooling is a thoughtful Christian approach to homeschooling that is flexible, customized, academically responsible, and rooted in strong family relationships.

It is the sweet spot between unschooling, rigid classical education, and overly idealized Charlotte Mason — a family-centered, parent-guided approach to education.

Do Moms Need Me Time?


Do Moms Need “Me Time”? was originally published March 9, 2009, on my previous blog to accompany a poll I had in the sidebar. I’m republishing now it as-is in 2015 because the discussion is an interesting one. I was tempted to edit it since I would word things differently now. But if I did that, the discussion that follows in the comments might not make as much sense. It’s really striking how a phrase as simple as “me time” can mean such wildly different things to women who have quite a bit in common.

At the time I originally wrote this, Caroline was two and a half years old. She was a pretty high-maintenance baby and toddler.

I will add my current thoughts about “me time” later in a new comment.

Do Moms Need “Me Time” Regularly?

I’ve seen different places around the internet that suggest that moms, especially Christian moms, don’t need “me time” or time to themselves. In fact, to want “me time” is deemed selfish and sinful.

Not to try to tip my hand or skew the poll, but didn’t Jesus himself go off alone?

Maybe I’m just being awfully simplistic in my view that everyone – including mothers – need time alone. But some of the stuff I’ve seen makes it sound like a major sin or character flaw if a woman needs time to herself.

And from my perspective, if would be downright dangerous for some women not to get time to themselves.

I usually don’t say this much when I post a poll, but I have to say that this teaching deeply concerns me. What conclusions have you come to about this topic?

Feel free to vote in the poll in the sidebar and leave a comment!

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Our Homeschool Learning Room For Fourth Grade


This will be our fifth year of relaxed homeschooling as Caroline heads into fourth grade. Each year our homeschooling has changed because we’ve changed as a family and grew to better understand Caroline and her educational needs. Our homeschool learning room reflects some of those changes.

Where Learning Happens In Our Home

If I were to be most accurate with showing pictures of where learning takes place for our family, I would include pictures of our local public library, Caroline’s desk in her room where she has a laptop, her bedroom where she plays and creates, and her bed where she uses her Kindle and where we read aloud to her.

So why do we still have a learning room? It is still the central hub where we keep many things and where Caroline and I will sit down and do formal work together. But I can envision a time when this room will go back to being a living room instead of a learning room. Given Caroline’s learning style, I don’t know that we will need this room forever. She prefers to learn on technology and independently. As she gets older, we may not need this room. On the other hand, depending on what kinds of hobbies and projects she enjoys we may need to keep this area for those needs. I take it one year at a time. (You can read my follow-up here: Tidying Up Our Homeschool Learning Room.)

In the meantime, here is our room! It hasn’t changed a great deal from last year, but for the sake of keeping records regarding how our homeschooling has evolved, I thought I would share. (And looking back, it has evolved. Sniff. I don’t have an early elementary student any longer. Sniff sniff.)  If you are new to my website, you can see past posts about our learning room here:

Our Learning Room For Fourth Grade

This is a shot of the room I don’t think I’ve ever shared. This is looking in from the family room and out the front windows. It is not a very large room, but cozy and welcoming.

Learning Room Window Shot 2015

Caroline has expressed an interest in sewing so I put my sewing machine in the learning room on the computer desk. It’s an older model I inherited from my grandma, but it does what I need it to do. It’s a good machine for Caroline to explore on.

You can also see our The Mystery of History timeline that I hope to start working on again as well as our GrapeVine Studies Biblical Calendar. The workboxes are on the floor. (I wrote about our curriculum plans for this year here.) The drawers have supplies for notebooking. The dry erase board is where we do our math for now.

Sewing Machine Corner

This next corner hasn’t changed much. We still use the craft cabinet for craft supplies. I moved the games to a small bookcase in the dining room since that is where we usually play games. The only bookcase in the room has been radically emptied as part of my life-changing tidying up and I still need to finish clearing more stuff out of it. We have bookcases and books in almost every room of the house, but only a minimal amount in the learning room. It is due to many factors. We only have one child, we use minimal formal curriculum, and we are heavy library users. I simply could not afford to keep up with Caroline’s book use if I tried to purchase even a fraction of what she reads. We always have an overflowing library book basket in the learning room.

Craft Cabinet Corner 2015

The next shot is my desk. I rarely sit there. It is more for storage and a place to keep my planning notebook and the CD player. 🙂

My desk in the learning room

So there is a little tour of our homeschool learning room!

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Relaxed Homeschool Curriculum for a Gifted/2e Visual-Spatial Learner


This year my curriculum post is going to be a bit different. (You can see my past ones here, here, here and here.) I’m writing about homeschooling a gifted/2e visual-spatial learner. Kind of specific, don’t you think? And yet that is the world that we live in at our home. 🙂

We’ve undergone a significant shift in our homeschooling philosophy over the past year as we’ve come to a greater understanding of Caroline’s giftedness/2e situation and more about the fact that she is a visual-spatial learner. I can easily see at least 100 reasons to homeschool your gifted daughter and know that a school setting will not work for us.

You can see all my previous posts about gifted/2e children here.

If you think you might have a visual-spatial learner or are curious what that means, here are some different resources.

Gifted, Visual-Spatial, and Genetics

David and I had very different high school experiences.

He was artistic from the time he was a little boy and knew that he was going to be a designer of some kind whether it was architecture or graphic design. As a result, he took many classes in those subject areas and only took the science and math classes he was required to in order to go to college and study design.

I, on the other hand, took the total academic/college prep route. Four years of math and science (including AP). Not because I enjoyed them, but because that was what you did if you were a top student and going to college. (I would have preferred to take more history, more languages and more writing classes.)

I’ve come to see that Caroline has apparently inherited her giftedness from me and her visual-spatial wiring from David. I’ve also come to the realization that although Caroline and I do share some similarities, she is far more like David when it comes to learning style, interests, and so on. In fact, Sword points out:

The visual spatial style appears to be hereditary. In all the visual-spatial learners I have seen, there is always at least one parent who shares this learning style with the child.

For example, David and Caroline both enjoy playing Minecraft (and now Terraria). Minecraft is visual-spatial heaven. The mere thought of playing it makes me want to curl up in a ball. It literally gives me a headache and my brain tries to shut down when Caroline is whipping around Minecraft on her Kindle Fire, showing me what she has done. David and Caroline can also spend hours happily playing with TinkerToys and K’nex.

David thinks in pictures, he does mental math in ways he has invented for himself, etc. Caroline is the same way. She has figured out math concepts I’ve never taught her. She will spontaneously tell me answers to math problems in real life situations, but if I put the same problem in front of her on a math worksheet it would be viewed as torture.

Honestly, sometimes I get a headache just trying to figure out how to relate to how they think. LOL!

So how do we plan on learning this year?

Homeschooling More Effectively

We made the decision to shift some of the homeschooling responsibilities to David. For starters, David is going to spend more time doing math with Caroline since they think the same way.

We also tried out a workbox type method at the end of last year. I put in the work for the day and Caroline gets it out when she is ready to work on something. Sitting down and doing everything all at once does not work. At all. She likes the autonomy of choosing what she is going to do and when. This is the best system we’ve come up with so far. Not perfect, but our best option at this point.

The biggest challenge for me is keeping accurate records of what Caroline learns. She does self-directed learning stuff all day, but most of it never gets written down. Somehow I have to find a way to keep track of that information. That’s the number one homeschooling goal for me this year. Asking her is viewed akin the The Inquisition. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

Play and Imagination

One of the reasons we homeschool is for the freedom it affords us. Top of the list for us is to allow Caroline extended periods of time to play and use her imagination. This is still her primary mode of learning and I suspect this will continue for a number of years. While play is important for all children, it is critical for someone like Caroline. This is why I say we are learning and doing school all day even though very little formal instruction takes place on some days.

Always Icecream

Last week we started using Always Icecream, a learning website for girls. I’ll be writing about that later this week and sharing a promo code so if you are interested make sure you are subscribed to my website so you don’t miss it! Caroline learns best through websites, videos and the like so I hope this will be a good fit for her.

Notebooking

We started notebooking last year and that seemed to work well. She likes to create things and enjoys going back and seeing what she did earlier in the year. So we will notebook to keep track of what we do. For example, if we read a book I will have her draw a picture about it. The hardest part of notebooking is that she does so many things that I don’t get a record of. I need to stay more on top of this.

Math on the Whiteboard

It took me four years, but I finally figured out the best way to do math is to allow Caroline to wander around the learning room while we do math on the dry erase board. I write one problem on the board at a time and she dictates to me how to do it. I erase it and put another one up. It is honestly the best way.

I still have not decided on a specific math program or if we will even use one. Right now I have printed off some math checklist/assessments for different grades and I’m going through them with Caroline to gauge what she knows and what she doesn’t. She has figured out a lot of math concepts on her own and with computer programs. If she can demonstrate she knows something, I’m not wasting her time or mine addressing it again, especially since repetition is actually damaging for visual-spatial learners. We also can use math on Always icecream so I think that will factor in as well.

History

We started The Mystery of History Volume 1 (Creation to the Resurrection) from Bright Ideas Press last year. I really like it. Caroline did not like it. It was too much listening for her with no visuals. With everything else we had going on, I set it aside. I’m going to try to use it again this year, but instead primarily as an organizational guide and get highly visual books on the topics from the library. Caroline needs books like those from DK Publishing and Usborne in order to get the most out of history. I have all of these great add-ons for The Mystery of History that I will use as appropriate with Caroline:

  • The Mystery of History Volume 1
  • The Mystery of History Volume 1 Reproducibles Download
  • The Mystery of History Volume 1 Craft Pack
  • The Mystery of History Volume 1 Challenge Cards
  • The Mystery of History Volume 1 Notebooking Pages
  • The Mystery of History Volume 1 Folderbook Full Set
  • WonderMaps

Michigan History

State history is required in fourth grade, so we will do it this year. We’ll find some good books at the library and read about Michigan. Hopefully we will be able to visit the state capital as part of this study.

Science

Science is still a part of our every day living. We are constantly looking up science topics online or getting books from the library. I have no set plan for this. I believe at this age interest-led learning is still best. Caroline constantly learns science via websites, YouTube, BrainPop, etc. We still take a very casual approach to nature study.

Writing

I incorporate writing in various subjects when it works. Given Caroline’s dysgraphia, writing is something we only do on an as-needed basis at this point. I still have her dictate to me quite often.

Gym and Art

Caroline will be taking these at our homeschool co-op.

Foreign Language

We’re going to give Rosetta Stone French – Level 1 a try this year! I received a copy to review and I’ll be writing about that in the future! Caroline chose French. I took two years of German at Michigan State, but she had no interest in German. David took French in high school so guess who will probably be doing foreign language with her? LOL!

So that’s a bit what we have planned! What do you have in the works for your child?

New to Relaxed Homeschooling?

I’ve gathered my best posts on creating a peaceful, customized, relationship-first homeschool in one place. Start here: Relaxed Homeschooling.

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Feeling Inadequate and Homeschooling Stress


I started my teaching career 25 years ago this fall. When I think back to what I didn’t know, I’m amazed at what I was able to accomplish that year teaching a group of twelve third, fourth, and fifth grade students in a brand new school (Hillsdale Academy) that consisted of four portables. The reality is most teachers are inadequately prepared when they step into their first classroom, even if they graduate from a top program like I did at Michigan State University. There is no way to know everything. You must learn as you go.

In retrospect, I have often wondered why they hired me. Partially I think it was a God thing because most of my professional life traces back to that one job that I had for one year. I don’t think it was a coincidence I was there. But I can think of a few things I said in my interview that were not at all in line with what Hillsdale College stands for and promotes. They obviously looked beyond those comments and saw something else in me. I’m guessing they saw the following traits.

  • A track record of being self-motivated
  • A successful academic career
  • A strong history of leadership

None of those things really have much to do with being adequately prepared to be a teacher. Or do they? I would say they do, especially in a brand new school.

I believe some of the same principles carry over into the arena of parents who feel inadequate to homeschool.

If You Feel Inadequate To Homeschool

Many homeschooling parents feel inadequate for the responsibility of homeschooling their own children. That’s not surprising. Homeschooling may have never been on your radar. You might not have even liked school yourself. You might think you aren’t smart enough. You might believe teaching is something for professionals.

I think success as a homeschooling parent has far more to do with who you are willing to become than it does with who you currently are.

The questions you need to ask yourself are these:

  • Are you are willing to learn?
  • Are you willing to research?
  • Are you able to be self-motivated?
  • Are you willing to adapt and be flexible?

These are the character traits that parents need to have in order to be successful homeschoolers. A teaching degree is not necessary at all.

Homeschool Parents Grow As Individuals

Homeschooling requires a significant willingness to grow as an individual. Just as no teacher is totally adequate for the job when she starts, most parents are not totally ready for homeschooling. But if they have a commitment to doing whatever it takes, I believe the vast majority can be successful.

Even with all the experience I had in the classroom, I’ve still been on a huge learning curve with homeschooling my daughter. Gifted/2e was never on my radar. Dysgraphia wasn’t on my radar. My education experience has benefited me as a homeschooler to a certain degree, but when it comes down to it nothing could have completely prepared me for this homeschooling journey. I’ve had to jump in and constantly educate myself in order to give my daughter the education she needs.

Honestly, when I think about moving toward middle school and high school, I am tempted with feeling inadequate. I’ve spent my teaching career in elementary school. This is my arena. So even though I’ve had to make a lot of changes in my thinking, this age was still my thing. I think ahead to how in the world I’m going to get Caroline through to a high school diploma and it’s truly overwhelming if I dwell on it.

But I know if I am willing to continue to learn, research and adapt, we’ll get there somehow.

And so will you.

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