I’m a little slow at getting these up, I know!

We’ve been studying the U.S. Presidents this year, and when we read about Thomas Jefferson, the kids became really fascinated with his Virgina home, Monticello.  Since we live not terribly far from there, I thought it would be fun to go take a tour and make an overnight trip of it.

And the kids thought so too…they were all very excited when we told them about our trip plans.

So, we drove to Charlottesville one Sunday after church.

These are the requisite though-the-van-windshield pictures.

I really like the challenge of trying to produce a passable photo while riding in a moving vehicle.

We stayed in a hotel that belongs to the chain where my brother works.  They offer a really great friends and family discount, which means we can usually snag a hotel room for $39.

The kids felt the most important hotel feature was the pool.  We went swimming that night.

And after breakfast the next morning.

And then we cleaned ourselves up and headed off to see what we had come to see.

Don’t you just love brick?  It’s so classic and timeless.

Monticello has so much detail…this is the underside of the roof overhang.  Can you imagine how long it took to make those designs back in the days before power tools?

We took a tour of the inside of Monticello but sadly, photos are not allowed inside the house.  Boo.

However, outdoors and all the out-buildings/under-buildings are fair game.

The kitchen was really interesting.  This was a fancy stove set-up back then…each of those basins is for a small fire, which gave the cooks the ability to have different heat levels for each pot.

Do you ever wonder how anyone turned out a decent meal when fire was the only way to cook things?

This is the back side of Monticello.

I made the kids sit there for a photo, even though the light was terrible.

Hmm.  I just now noticed that Lisey chose a pair of jeans with holes in both knees.  This is what happens when you let your children pack for themselves…they leave the non-holey jeans at home.

Oh well.

Joshua took one of Mr. FG and me.

This is what you see from that seat.  Not too shabby, huh?  Even in January it’s pretty breathtaking.

Sonia says when she grows up, she’s going to rent Monticello for 100 years.

If only.

It’s pretty cool that you can walk around in Thomas Jefferson’s yard.  I’m sure his granddaughters ran around just like Zoe did.

When we had seen all there was to see, we hopped back on the shuttle that takes you up and down the mountain.

I did sneak in one last picture.

Down at the visitor’s center, they have a great exhibit for kids.  It’s a space with replicas of a lot of the neat features of Monticello, but since they’re replicas, you can touch them and play with them (whereas in the real house, everything is off-limits).

We tried out his polygraph machine.

See the copy of his bed there?

There are Jefferson quotes on the wall, and I thought any of you gardeners out there would like this one.

This was the most interesting quote of the bunch, I thought.  I wonder what Jefferson would think if he could see the lack of vacant land in our country.

Oh, I and I loved this list of his:

Though his counsel about money is wise, unfortunately he was no good at following it.  He was always in terrible financial shape!

Monticello isn’t a particularly cheap attraction (I think we paid $67 or so altogether), although it is less expensive if you go off-season.  And since we squeezed in our trip before Zoe’s birthday, she was free (5 and under get in at no cost).

I think it was worth it, though.  Making it an overnight trip seriously upped the fun factor for the kids, and I think that seeing Monticello in person will definitely help them to remember what we’ve learned about Thomas Jefferson. Visiting his home and taking the tour really makes him seem more like a real person than just a figure in a history book.

Plus, Mr. FG and I have never been to Monticello before, and we both thought it was really interesting.  I was particularly inspired by Jefferson’s habit of placing mirrors opposite windows so as to maximize the natural light, and I’ve been thinking about how I can do that ever since we got home.

If you happen to find yourself in the Charlottesville area, I definitely recommend making room for Monticello on your itinerary, especially if you love early American history.

Gorgeous.
_____________________________

Today’s 365 post: A sure sign of a good educational book.

An overnight trip to Monticello, in fact.  We got back last night, which means that I didn’t write a blog post for today.  But, I’ll be back tomorrow. 

I often get emails asking me about homeschooling, so I thought I’d take a post to answer some of the most common ones I receive.

How do you handle homeschooling kids of different ages?  They certainly learn things differently, so how do you handle it?  Any suggestions or tips for sharing?

That can be a challenge!  And it would be a HUGE challenge if homeschoolers tried to replicate the classroom experience at home…there aren’t enough hours in the day to personally teach every subject to every kid.  However, I don’t do that.  Once my children are able to read and follow directions, they’re able to do a large portion of their schoolwork by themselves. Of course, I’m available for questions, and I correct their work and help them go over wrong answers.

Another thing that helps is to do some subjects with all four kids…for instance, we’ve did our 50 States study together and we’re studying the U.S. presidents together as well.  Of course, Joshua gets more out of this than Zoe does, and I give him harder work than her, but we’re doing the bulk of the activities together.

I know you homeschool, and I’m not too familiar with how that process works in the long term. I feel it could be brilliant for kids while they’re young, as schools are often overcrowded and underfunded, but what are your long term plans? Will you home school until your kids enter high school? Beyond that even?

As of right now, I plan to homeschool my kids through high school.  However, in the high school years, I plan to have them start taking some classes at our community college, to give them some classroom experience and also because they can get high school AND college credits for those classes.

I know you said that for now your children are not allowed to go to school, although they have no desire to. However, if in the future they changed their minds would you ever be willing to send your children to school and allow them to choose for themselves? 

That would depend on a lot of different factors…the maturity of the child, the reasons for them wanting to go to school, the school they wanted to go to, etc.  I’d be very surprised if any of them wanted to switch to regular school, though…my siblings and I never did! 

Are you concerned about how homeschooling will affect college applications or their social life? The kids seem to have a lot of cousins and neighborhood friends which is great, but do you worry that they might be missing out on learning about other cultures and ideas?

Nope! Applying for college does not seem to be difficult for homeschoolers, especially now that homeschooling is becoming more common.

As far as the social concern goes, I’m also not worried about that.  I’ve had no trouble socializing and neither have my siblings or my homeschooled acquaintances.  In fact, as a teenager, adults often complimented me on my conversational abilities.

Homeschoolers do get out and about more than a lot of people think, and I actually believe that homeschooling provides some social advantages over age-segregated school…being around people of different ages and stages during the day offers children the opportunity to learn to relate well to people outside of their grade level.

I agree that peer pressure, cliques, and things like that are a big issues. Everybody experiences it, albeit to different extents. However, I feel there are many positive aspects of peer interaction. Collaboration, competition, companionship, and so forth are all things I gained from school. Eventually your children will enter society even if they don’t enter the work force. Do you ever worry about whether or not they’ll be able to keep up with the competition that is necessarily present in our world? In the real world schedules are not always so flexible; school teaches you how to manage your time. In the real world even if you are confident in your abilities to learn something from a book there are certain things that cannot be learned from a book.  The world has over 6 billion people, do you ever worry that raising your children in such an isolated environment will not prepare them for real life??

In a word, no. I truly, truly don’t worry about any of these issues.  I know from my own personal experience and from observing the experiences of other homeschool graduates that adjusting to “the real world” is not a problem.

My brother worked from the bottom up and now manages the east coast IT systems for a large restaurant.

My homeschooled brother-in-law owns computer consulting business.

My sister graduated magna cum laude and was a successful nurse (she now manages 4 children!).

My other brother graduated with a degree in business and now manages a hotel.

We’ve all managed to relate to people (we’re socialized!), excel in the workplace, and do well at college.  And there many other successful homeschool graduates out there as well.

As something of an aside, I’m not sure school actually does teach people to manage their time.  There are definitely poor time-managers who graduate from regular school (and by the same token, homeschooling doesn’t necessarily guarantee a graduate who manages their time well!)

I think school allows you to experience things that I don’t feel could be possible at home. Do you ever worry that without the larger resources school provides your children are missing something?? For example in most scientific subjects the lab portion of curriculum is an essential part of learning; wouldn’t you find it difficult to obtain a frog or pig to dissect, or chemicals to perform chemistry experiments with?

Actually, my mom managed to obtain all those animals for dissection even back in the day when homeschooling wasn’t nearly so common.

Plus, for people who don’t wish to take on dissections and such, there are SO many opportunities for homeschoolers to outsource bits and pieces of their childrens’ education if they so desire…there are co-ops and tutorials for homeschoolers, and a lot of community colleges will let high schoolers take classes right along with regular college students.

_____________________________

I guess I could sum up my answers to a lot of the questions I receive in this way: Nope, I’m not worried!

Since I’ve already been through the homeschooling process myself, I don’t experience a lot of the, “Oh, no!  What if I’m royally screwing up my kids???” fears that a lot of new homeschooling parents do.

I’m delighted to have been homeschooled, I’m thrilled to provide this same opportunity to my own children, and I feel confident that they’ll be just fine.

If you’re not a homeschooling parent, but are on the outside looking in, I’d love to share that  a lot of brilliant, effective people were educated in non-traditional way (hey, even the Jonas Brothers were homeschooled!)

I know it might seem strange to imagine that school can work at home,  especially when you’ve only ever known school in the traditional school building form, but it can!

And I know it might be hard to imagine that people can turn out socially normal without being in a classroom, but I promise, it’s possible. 

Thanks for sending in those questions, everyone!  I’m always happy for the opportunity to share my thoughts about and experiences with homeschooling.

(P.S. I feel it necessary to acknowledge that there are some people who homeschool badly, just like there are some schools that don’t educate very well. In my experience, though, the vast majority of homeschooling parents are truly dedicated to educating their children well, and it is that type of homeschooling that I’m proud to support.)

_______________________________

Today’s 365 post: Oh, grilled peppers! How I love you.

Joshua’s 365 post: The New Color (uh, actually not. Censored by Kristen.)

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!

We’ll start things off with two related questions from the comment section of last week’s Q&A post.

How do you feel about taking destination vacations? Like trips to Disneyworld?Disneyland? NYC? Is that something you would ever consider doing with your family?

-Wanda

Ooh, good question! And here’s a 2nd part for you – what about trips outside the USA or outside North America? I haven’t heard you talk much about those. Is it something you’re planning for one day? With a family of 6 it would certainly take a while to save up for.

-CB

Destination vacations aren’t something we’ve ruled out entirely…it’s just that we never felt the urge to do stuff like that while we had babies/toddlers/preschoolers.  Going to the beach is hard enough with 4 small kids!

Also, since destination vacations are fairly expensive and we couldn’t afford to do them often, we’ve agreed that we want to take trips like that when the kids are old enough to remember them (for instance, for us it would have been silly to take our babies to Disney.  We’d only be able to afford that once, and we want them to be old enough to really enjoy it.).

Zoe’s five now, which means that traveling has gotten to be much simpler than it was even just 3-4 years ago, so we’re pondering what trips we might like to take before Joshua’s off to college.

As far as the second question goes, I myself have actually never been outside of North America (I’ve been to Canada and I’ve traveled quite a lot of the United States).  I think it would be neat to go see another country, but if we can’t ever manage to get the six of us on a plane, I won’t feel like I’ve failed (I think I’m pretty happy and well adjusted despite having never left North America).

I will say that both Mr. FG and I feel like the most valuable part of a vacation is not so much the destination but the company.  Relaxation and relationship-building are what matter most to us, and we can provide those things for our family no matter where we can afford to vacation.

___________________________

I have 2 reader questions for you:
1) How do you determine the curriculum used for your children’s education?

2) Have you heard of “unschooling”? I know that you don’t pursue unschooling with your children, but as someone experienced with homeschooling, what’s your take on the unschooling and the value that it’s principles can bring to a philosophy on educating children? (If you’ve heard of it/think about it at all, others may not think about unschooling as much as I do!)

Context – from reading your blog and others, I have become fascinated with non-mainstream formats of education. I personally have only experienced traditional education through public schools and love hearing about these things from someone with different experiences.

-CB

Curriculum

I’m not sure if you’re wondering how I decide what subjects to cover, or how I choose which particular books to use for those subjects.  If it’s the former, that’s pretty standard, and our state laws require us to provide education in the subjects that would normally be taught in our public schools.

As far as particular curricula goes, I base my decisions off of my own experience as a homeschooled child, recommendations from family and friends, and research of my own.

Unschooling

I have indeed heard of unschooling.  My hesitations about it stem from concern that I myself wouldn’t be disciplined enough to do a good job with it…unschooling actually does require a fair amount of work on the part of the parents.  I also feel like keeping up with unschooling four children would be a little tricky for me and I worry they’d end up with educational gaps in some areas.

Also, (and of course, do keep in mind that I’ve not tried or experienced unschooling) I feel like there is some value in making my children do schoolwork that they’re not especially interested in. There are quite a few life situations that require you do to work you may not be inspired about, and you just have to do it anyway. So, though I do indeed encourage them to follow their interests and research things they like to learn about, I also am not at all uncomfortable drilling them on math facts (no one but Zoe really loves that!).

I’d say that we do some unschooling-style learning…we check out books and videos from the library on topics the kids are interested in, we looks things up on the internet when we wonder about them, and so on.  For example, I’d say that almost all of Joshua’s knowledge of the animal kingdom has been obtained through unschooling methods (he’s read a bit about animals in his science books, but the information in those books is usually stuff he already knows).

And the same goes for Zoe’s fish knowledge…she reads fish books for fun, checks fish magazines out from the library, puts fish puzzles together, and watches educational DVDs about aquatic creatures just because she’s interested.

I think this sort of learning is great! Helping kids follow their passions and interests is wonderful, but I’m just not at the point where I’m willing to put their passions and interests in charge of their whole education. So, we read fish books AND do handwriting books, and we visit reptile shows AND use grammar workbooks.

_______________________

Readers, what are your thoughts on destination vacations and on unschooling?

_______________________

Today’s 365 post: four shirts

Although my blog is not specifically about homeschooling, I often get homeschooling questions from readers.  Since a lot of people don’t really know what a homeschool looks like (of course, that varies from home to home!), I though it would be fun to give you a peek into some of our homeschooling days.

Please do know, though, that there are times when homeschooling is not photo essay worthy. Sometimes I’m frustrated, sometimes children have bad attitudes, sometimes a lot of times they don’t read directions, and sometimes they cry (I don’t think I’ve ever actually cried about homeschooling, but I did cry about potty training back in the day. In case you wanted to know.) Anyway, homeschooling isn’t perfect, and I’m not trying to present it as such. But, I do feel the the happy moments outweigh and outnumber the sad ones, and those happy moments are the ones I’m sharing.

{Our daily United States geography card game. Joshua and I play at breakfast and the girls watch and listen.}

{a post-breakfast state geography game on the computer}

{Zoe staring down an especially difficult state}

{reading practice on Zoe’s floor}

{doing state papers for our geography study}

{lunch at our neighborhood pier, with a side of bubble-blowing}

{the post-lunch half hour reading time}

a.k.a. 30 minutes of quiet time for me, cleverly disguised as a fabulous educational tool

{math checking session on the kitchen counter, using a crayon to mark wrong answers.}

{math and handwriting at the kitchen table}

{the kitchen table does show up a lot, doesn’t it?}

{once-a-week Latin and composition with my mom}

{reading practice on the sofa}

{ok, so maybe this doubles as snuggle time}

{it’s a hard job, but someone has to do it.}

{piano practice for Lisey, piano-practicing supervision+laundry-folding for me}

___________________________
Today’s 365 post: I will remember this when the leaves start to fall

Joshua’s 365 post: The Two Towers

It’s kinda dark and depressing here this morning, but for some reason, I felt the urge to play with my camera despite the poor light.  And since Joshua isn’t quite done with his math yet, I’m using some of my math-checking time to unload pictures.

Unloading pictures is far more fun than correcting math.

In case you were wondering.

And of course, pictures are more fun when you share them, so even though I already posted this morning, here I am with a very random, off-topic picture post.

Check out Zoe’s enthusiasm in the background.  She’s so pleased when she comes up with the right answer.

Squeaky, Sonia’s smallest stuffed turtle, joined us today.

A fish accompanied Zoe, naturally.

More turtles joined us for our reading practice.

There’s Frog and Toad going on one side of me (these stories delight Sonia and Zoe, and Sonia is getting so much better at reading them.).

And “Hop, Hop, Hop!” on the other side (Zoe’s still reading Bob Books, but we throw in some I-Can-Read books from the library just to mix things up a bit).

The girls both read out loud, so we take turns.  It’s so funny to watch Sonia while Zoe reads because she can hardly stand to be quiet while Zoe labors through the process of sounding out the words…she just wants to burst out and tell her the word!  And I know exactly how she feels, having now sat next to 4 beginning readers. 

We also did flash cards, handwriting, journal, catechism, and some other stuff (and geography is coming after lunch), but even I put down the camera every once in a while….so, this is all I have to show you. 

Joshua’s done with his math now, so I’m off!

“Who’s Charlotte Mason?”, you may be wondering.

I’ve written a bit about this before, but the Charlotte Mason method is based on the idea that children learn best from real books, not textbooks, and that workbooks are probably not the best way to help children remember what they’re learning. I use a Charlotte Mason approach when we learn about art, and we’re also utilizing that approach to learn about the United States.

The backbone of our “curriculum” for this study is made up of books from the library (yay for free!).  Our library has several different series of children’s geography books, and we’ve been systematically checking them out as we work our way through the states.

I read these state books out loud to all 4 of the kids.  Joshua obviously is soaking in more of this information than Zoe is, but I still think it’s valuable for her to be there.  In fact, I’m usually pleasantly surprised to hear how much the littler ones are picking up and remembering.

As we read, I ask my kids questions to get them to talk about what they’re hearing (like, “Why do you think that Illinois has so much farmland and Colorado doesn’t?).  If I’ve been to a particular state, I tell them what it was like.  If we know someone who lives in a state, I point that out.  We talk about the topography and the population, and compare these things to states we’ve studied previously.

We also usually get our well-loved state puzzle out so that the kids can get a good idea of how our current state compares to other states and so that they can see the states that border it.

After we’ve finished reading a state book, we get out pencils, crayons, markers, and paper, and all 4 kids work on making a “state paper”.

We write the state name at the top of the paper and trace the state puzzle piece.  After that, we draw various things we learned about that state….the state flower and tree, the state flag, what the state produces, some of its landmarks, and so on.

This is Sonia’s Illinois paper…do notice the upside-down John Deer tractor.    I think she accidentally turned her paper around when she was drawing that.

The building on the left there is the Sears Tower (oh, sorry…the Willis Tower), and you can see she remembered that Illinois has lots of farms, that it produces wheat and corn (that’s a pot full of corn there with corn sticking out of the bottom.  Hmm.), that the BlackHawks play in Chicago, and that the state tree is the white oak and the state flower is a violet.

The point of this is not to produce perfect drawings, but to help my children remember what they’re learning.  Reading, discussing, and drawing all help new information stick in their minds.

To keep our state papers organized, we put the state papers in a 3-ring binder (each kid has their own).

We also sometimes prepare a food that a state is famous for (bratwust for Wisconsin, crab cakes for Maryland, etc.)  We also play some fun online state quiz games.  This one is easy enough for Sonia and this one is more Joshua and Lisey’s speed.

One of the best things about this method is that it doesn’t even really feel like school.  I often read state books to the kids while they eat their lunch, and our discussions feel as natural as any lunch conversation does.  And when we get out drawing materials, it doesn’t feel like painful work…they usually have fun drawing the things they remember and they’re usually excited to show their drawings to Mr. FG when he gets home from work.

And of course, you can’t beat the fact that this course of study costs almost nothing.  The books from the library are free, we already have an overabundance of pencils, markers, and crayons, and the cost of 4 pieces of paper is negligible.

Ah yes…when frugal, fun, and educational meet, I’m a happy girl.

Today’s 365 post: The promised pictures of my new little niece!

When I was first starting my homeschool journey as a teacher and not a student, my mom gave me a book by Karen Andreola entitled A Charlotte Mason Companion.  Basically, it’s a summary of the methods used by Charlotte Mason, an educator who taught in a formal schoolroom, but whose ideas are very applicable in a homeschool setting.  Many of Miss Mason’s ideas made so much sense to me, and reading this book about her methods profoundly affected the way that I teach my children.

Charlotte Mason was a big proponent of using real books instead of textbooks, and she was not at all a fan of workbooks as a method of teaching (she felt that textbooks and workbooks were boring, relatively ineffective, and sucked the joy out of learning).

I don’t do a strict Charlotte Mason type of homeschooling, but I do use her ideas for a number of subjects that we study.  For instance, the way I do art studies with my children is heavily influenced by Charlotte Mason.

When Charlotte Mason taught her students about nature, she helped each of them make what she called a Nature Notebook. The children filled these books with drawings and information about the plants and animals that her students observed when they went on Nature Walks (which are basically just observant treks through the outdoors).  The children do the drawing and the writing of the books,  which helps them to be observant (you can’t draw something without looking at it carefully!) and helps them to remember what they’re learning (writing something in your own words is much more effective than filling in blanks in a workbook).

Andreola and her husband have devoted themselves to spreading the word about Miss Mason’s teaching ideas, and to that end, she has written several more books.

Her latest book, Lessons at BlackBerry Inn, and its predecessor, Pocketful of Pinecones, are fictional stories about a family from the 1930s who homeschools. The books are written as a peek into the mother’s journal and are meant to be an enjoyable way to learn about the way that Nature Notebooks and Nature Walks can be incorporated into a homeschool environment.

Though I read about Nature Walks and Nature Notebooks when I read the Charlotte Mason Companion, I haven’t actually managed to include them in our homeschooling experience (it’s much simpler to go the textbook/workbook route!).  After reading these books, though, I am newly inspired.  My children always enjoy learning in the Charlotte Mason style, so I’m quite sure that they (especially Joshua) will have fun making Nature Notebooks.

These books gave me the kick in the pants that I needed, and I am determined to make the time to include Nature Walks and Nature Notebooks in our homeschooling year.  I’ll try to update you all on how that goes since I think this could be a very frugal and effective idea!

A couple of caveats:

• These books are written by a Christian author, so they’ll probably be most enjoyed by a Christian reader.  However, the ideas relating to Nature Notebooks and Nature Walks are certainly as useful for a secular educator as they are for a Christian educator.

• I wouldn’t say that these books are riveting fictional literature, but that doesn’t seem to be what they were written for.  I look at them as a practical, real-life guide to using Charlotte Mason’s principles, and they fill that purpose very well.  They’re easy to read, are composed of short chapters (which is good for a busy homeschooling mom who has little time to read), and will definitely help Charlotte Mason newbies understand how to put her ideas into practice.

• Along those same lines, I found some of the chapters to be a lot longer than a normal handwritten journal entry would be (which makes the journal format a little bit unbelievable at points), and I also found it a little odd to read about a homeschooling family from the 1930s (homeschooling was very unusual back when I was in 1st grade so I can only imagine how unusual it would have been back in the 30s!). Again, though, these things don’t bother me when I think of the books as a teaching tool rather than a work of fiction.

I received a copy of both Lessons from Blackberry Inn and Pocketful of Pinecones for review purposes and now that I’m done reading them, I’d like to pass them along to one of you! So, we’re going to do a quickie giveaway.

If you’d like to win these books, simply leave a comment saying so, and I’ll randomly choose a winner 24 hours from now. I’ll email the winner right away, and will ship these books tomorrow afternoon (so make sure that the email address you leave in the comment form is accurate).

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!

Just out of curiosity, why do you homeschool?  Is it for religious reasons? The quality of schools in your area?  A personal preference?  Just curious

-Karen

There are somewhere around a zillion reasons that I like to homeschool my kids, actually! But I’ll limit myself to a few.

I like to homeschool because I can:

-infuse all of our learning with our Christian worldview.  Incidentally, this does not mean that we just write Bible verses on each page. (not that, you know, any Christian textbook manufacturers do that. Ahem.)  It means that we teach our children to look at the world through faith-colored lenses, if you will.  And it means we teach them that we can glorify God by doing our math just as well as we can glorify Him by reading the Bible.

-train, teach, and discipline my children as they learn.

-choose what curriculum and learning methods are right for each child.

-be free from grade levels.  My 3rd grader can be in 5th grade math, 4th grade reading, and 3rd grade science if need be.

-have my kids work at their own pace, whether that’s fast or slow.

-skip stupid, pointless busy work in our textbooks.

-teach without a textbook if I want.

-set our own schedule.  I ♥ this aspect of homeschooling more than words can say.

-give my children more time to play and more time to pursue their interests, because homeschooling is usually very time-efficient.

-enjoy my children’s company during the day.  I would miss them if they were gone all day!

-take my children on field trips whenever I want.

-take our school anywhere…outside, inside, down at the pier, at the park, at the doctor’s office.

-make decisions and change things without having to form committees and get approvals.  I love the simplicity of it.

-free my kids from homework.

-give my children the freedom to learn without the distractions of cliques and peer pressure.

Of course, I don’t enjoy everything about homeschooling.  It’s a lot of hard work, and there are definitely days when  think having children gone for 6 hours a day is a good idea!  But on the whole, the good aspects of homeschooling outweigh the bad for me and for our family, and I’m grateful that we are able to make the choice to homeschool.

(for the record, I know homeschooling won’t work for everyone, isn’t the best choice for everyone, and isn’t even a choice for everyone.  But, I think it’s the best choice for us.)

I don’t need specifics because it is quite personal, but you live quite the frugal life (obviously) and you as a family appear conscious of money, my question is – how much does your family make per year? Like I said, I do not need exact or details. But more like, $30,000-$40,000 or something general like that. the reason I ask is that I want to be a stay at home mom and I am trying to convince my hubby that we can survive! But he doesn’t believe me!

I actually tend to be very un-private about money (I think it’s odd that our culture considers it to be such a private matter), but Mr. FG is not quite as open as I am.

So, I will be respectful of that.

But, here’s what I can tell you. For many, many years our family lived on an income that was far, far below the average income for our area.  In fact, when my husband and I first got married back in 1997, after taxes we had about $400/week to work with.

Happily, we’re now in a higher income bracket due to my husband’s career change from warehousing to IT. Even with the increase in salary, though, we’ve not reached the median income for our area (this income level feels more than comfortable to us, though, because for the most part we have not increased our spending).

So, it’s not as though our ability to save is the result of having a massive income. Instead, it’s more attributable to our habit of living beneath our means.

I know of so many people who make far more money than we do but who are in dire financial straits, and each time I hear of another person like that, I become more and more convinced that how much you make is not nearly as important as what you do with what you make.

Even when my husband and I had $400/week to live on, we still managed to stay out of debt and we even saved up a down payment for our first house purchase.  When our income was that low, spending control was definitely key.

If your husband needs convincing that you can live on, say, $35,000 a year, see if you can make it work on paper.  Or even better, see if you can make it on $35,000 before you quit your job (and just save the difference!).  Seeing it on paper or in real life will probably be quite convincing to him.  And even if you can’t cut all the way back to $35,000, perhaps you can cut your expenses enough to warrant you switching to a part-time job.

This may be too personal, so feel free to answer as you wish (or not answer!). I was just curious what kind of money you (or other bloggers) make with your blogs. I love your blog and appreciate that you have very little advertising and that the advertising you do have is family friendly as well as relevant to your topics. I also hope that you are making money off you blog as I know you put a lot of time and effort into it – which is valuable.

-Shaylin

The amount of money I earn on my blog varies from month to month.  For the first 9 months, I was actually in the hole from blogging because of the $100 I spent for a year of hosting services.  After that, I added the BlogHer ads to my blog, and that’s when I got out of my hole.  I was so excited when I had $15 in my account!    And when I got my first $100, I was equally as thrilled.

Now I have a few more streams of revenue going, I have more than $15 in my account, and paying my hosting fees is not putting me into the hole (yay!).  I wouldn’t say it’s making me rich (though I’m know the really big bloggers are getting rich from their blogs!), but my blog income has helped me to make some progress on my van savings account. 

If you’d like some real number examples of how much bloggers are making, check out the comments section in this post on Blogging With Amy.

I’m not sure if this is the reason you asked the question, but when people ask me if they should quit their job and blog instead, I’m always a little bit hesitant.  Blogs can make money, yes, but in most cases, it takes months and months and months of work before a blog is even remotely profitable.  I’ve been at this for more than two years now, and as recently as last December, my blog was only earning around $150/month.

But, that was totally ok with me.  I blog because I have a passion for the topic and a passion for helping people to see that the frugal life can be the good life.  Any money that I make doing it is icing on the cake.

________________________________________________

Readers, the first and third questions are sort of hard for you to answer (unless you know another reason that I homeschool!), but do you have any advice for my second questioner? (I lost her name somehow!)  How would you go about figuring if the switch to a single income was doable?

Today’s 365 post: Breakfast on the deck

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!

So most weeks, I see in your grocery pics some furry friends. This week I think I saw a stuffed turtle? Are those part of your grocery purchases or are they your children’s friends that get to be in the picture? Just curious…. Also I was curious whether or not you included personal/paper goods (Toilet paper, toothpaste, etc.) in your grocery budget. thanks for your blog! I love it!

-Jessica

One of these days, I WILL get that FAQ page up, and these two questions will be on it. But I’ve slacked mightily on that, so I’ll answer these questions here. I apologize to those of you who already know the answers!

The stuffed animals all belong to my children and are not new purchases. Heaven only knows we don’t need any more stuffed animals in our house (though my kids would bring home new ones from Goodwill each week if I let them!). The stuffed animal in the groceries tradition started when Joshua snuck a little stuffed spider into a grocery picture, and it’s sort of taken off from there.

And yep, my grocery budget includes cleaning supplies, personal products, and paper goods, though I try to use a minimal amount of those.

I was reading about home schooling on your web site. I have a few questions:

Do home school students take the same test that public school students take? Do you give your children a report card?

How do you balance mom/ teaching?

How do parents decide what text books or curriculum they are going to teach? Where do they get the resources?

When a home schooled student is applying to college, what do they have to show? Is the college process different for them?

-DJ

I’m just going to answer these one by one so that my replies aren’t too difficult to follow.

Do home school students take the same tests that public school students take? Do you give your children a report card?

Requirements for homeschooling vary state by state. In my state, the law simply requires that we provide regular instruction in the subjects that public schoolers would be studying, and the county requires that we either present a portfolio directly to them or to a certified umbrella group (I go the umbrella group route).  So nope, we don’t take the same tests public schoolers do.

I don’t give my kids report cards because I don’t find it to be necessary. In public schools, report cards are partly for the purpose of reporting to the parents how well (or not well) the child is doing, and since I’m here all the time, I know how my kids are doing!   And since I have plenty of one-on-one time with my kids, they’re also pretty up-to-date on how they’re doing.

How do you balance mom/ teaching?

Well, I think they’re one and the same, actually. When I teach, I am Mom and when I am Mom, I am teaching. It’s one of the things I like about homeschooling…that I can train my children as I teach them.

Homeschooling is generally less formal than people imagine. When we homeschool, I’m just me and I relate to my kids  like I do when we’re not doing school.

How do parents decide what text books or curriculum they are going to teach? Where do they get the resources?

That varies parent to parent. Some homeschoolers do a program thru the public schools and in that case, they get their materials from the school.

I make my curriculum choices based on my own experience as a homeschooled student and on recommendations from other homeschoolers. I buy most of my schoolbooks on half.com, Ebay, or Amazon which saves me piles of money!

When a home schooled student is applying to college, what do they have to show? Is the college process different for them?

Most homeschoolers rely on their SAT scores when applying to colleges, though some have diplomas from their umbrella/oversight groups. Also, in my area many homeschoolers start attending our community college during their high school years which means that they can graduate with a two-year degree shortly after high school. I don’t have any personal experience with that, but I imagine a 2-year degree with a good GPA would make it easier to get into a 4-year school.

I know scads of homeschool graduates that have attended a variety of different colleges without a problem. 30 years ago it might have been difficult to get into a college with a homeschool education but that is happily not the case now.

Regarding your last question, I think that homeschooling generally does a good job of preparing students for college. Most homeschoolers are already used to studying on their own, and just generally managing their educations fairly independently, and that makes college much easier.

I am not much of a bread baker, but I do own a bread machine. I was wondering if you knew how your recipes might work in a bread machine. If you haven’t used one, do you know if any of your other readers have used your recipes in a bread machine?

-Nancy

This is one of those times when I’m really glad that I have a bunch of helpful readers.  I’m just about completely clueless about bread machines because I’ve never used one!

For the record, though,I am not against bread machines.  I’ve seen how they can be useful tools for some families and I think that’s great.  Not everyone has to make bread by hand (or by Kitchen-Aid!).

(see also: You don’t have to make yogurt.)

So, my answer is that I don’t have an answer!  I haven’t the faintest idea how to convert a recipe for a bread machine, but I am positive that one or many of my readers will have some helpful conversion advice for you.

Readers, have at it!  Share your bread machine smarts.  And of course any of you that want to chime in on the homeschooling questions can feel free to do so.