Not ready for DIY – How to get started

If you are not ready to start your own DIY project but you want to learn how to do a specific task, there are classes around your local community that you can take to help you get started.  I have taken a cake decorating class from Michaels, a tiling class from Home Depot, and a scrapbooking class from my local university.

For Crafting:  Michaels offers a variety of crafting classes: cake decorating, scrapbooking nights, floral arrangements, etc.  Going Batty, a local Reno fabric store, offers sewing classes, long arm quilting classes, and group quilting classes.  They also have wonderful staff that is always available to answer your questions about machines and color combinations.

For Home Renovations: Home Depot and Lowes offer many different home improvement classes: tiling, putting up drywall, plumbing, gardening, etc.  I have learned how to put together my home garden through our local home depot.  I started my garden indoors from dirt pods.  Now, I have a large garden in our side yard.

For Cooking: Your local community college or community center may offer cooking/baking classes.  The City of Henderson, where I grew up, offered a number of classes of this nature.  I had a great time taking these courses with my friends and family.

For Photography: There are a number of really good on-line resources for photography, but community colleges offer some wonderful introductory photography classes.

The outlets are endless for continuing your education for your hobbies and interests.  These small courses may just inspire you to pursue those DIY projects that you have been thinking about starting.

Do-It-Yourself

I have found that I love to work on “Do-It-Yourself” or DIY projects.  I love them.  I enjoy the challenge of trying to figure it out on my own, struggling through the steps, and ending up with an end product that I may or may not be happy with.  If I like it, I make notes of which part I enjoyed of the process, what I felt was necessary, and what I did not like about the process for the next time I attempt it.  If I do not like the end product, I usually figure out what I did not like about the end result, ask an expert for help, or I try the process again and change some steps to see if it helps the process.

I have a few pointers for you when embarking on your own DIY adventure.

1. Come up with your idea.  What do you want to recreate?  Recently, I decided that I want to learn how to make my own quilts.  I have dabbled in small time quilting: backing for a picture frame and four squares together to build a bigger square, but I have never built a quilt from scratch.  I wanted to make a quilt for my good friend’s daughter’s first birthday.
2. Do some research.  My favorite research medium is Google.com.  Unless you want to try something extremely specialized, you can find it on Google.  There is someone somewhere that has already tried to complete this task.  In my quilting research, I found that the Yellow Brick Road quilt pattern from Atkinson Designs was a great beginner quilt.  It was relatively simple, but the final result was beautiful and looked much more complicated.
3. Ask questions.  Once I started my quilt, I found that I had a million questions. I wanted to know that I was on the right track.  After purchasing my pattern and fabric, I asked the person in the fabric department at my local Ben Franklin Crafts for her advice.  She helped me out by telling me that I do not always have to pre-wash my fabric, I should wash all my quilts on the gentle cycle, and she showed me how to get the proper seam clearance and how to bind my quilt when I was finished.  I went home excited to continue on my quilting adventure.
4. Practice.   I cannot tell you how many quilt squares I took apart because I did not do it just the way I wanted it.  I just think of each mistake that I make as a learning experience, and I make a note to myself to not make it again.
5. Complete it.  I finished the quilt about five days after the little girl’s first birthday, but I was very happy with the results.  I was very proud to give her the quilt that I put many hours into for her birthday.  Above is a picture of the final result.  It is not perfect, but it was made with love and that is what is important.  (Oh, and Kiera loves it.)
6. Evaluate how the process went.  I found that binding a quilt take much more time than an hour to complete, the floor is a great place to stage the quilt before you sew it together, and it is important to measure twice and cut once.  I am looking forward to starting my next quilt for my husband and my good friends who are expecting their first baby.

Patience is key when trying something new.  Don’t let the frustration of a small bump in the road deter you from sticking with your project.  You never know what these projects can lead you to experience.  I taught myself how to make diaper cakes (which can be anywhere from $60 to $150) for my girl friend’s baby shower, and now I am asked to help others make them for their friends.  I may be able to start my own business from that little hobby of crafting.  I wish you the best of luck on your next DIY project.

Katie – Second Generation Home Schooling

This my second post about school choice.  Katie was my and my husband’s wedding photographer (Katie Watkins Photography, if you would like to check out her website).  We loved her photographic style, and she took time to answer our questions.  Since we booked her really early (a little over a year), we were able to get to know her.  I found out that she home schools her children, and I was fascinated by her story.  Her children are just as excited about learning at home as Katie is.  Thank you Katie for taking the time to share your story with us.  Mindi

We are a 2nd Generation homeschooling family. My husband and I were both homeschooled as children and loved it so much; we knew it would be the only choice for our kids. We have three children, and my husband and I are both in our early 30′s. When we first married, we knew that I would be staying home with our children when they came along. For us personally, we have never considered daycare or preschool to be the atmosphere that we would want to place our children. We feel the best place to grow as children is at home with the loving and 100% care from mom and dad.

We made the personal choice to homeschool for our family for 2 main reasons. The first reason is that we love the lifestyle that it gives our family. I never had to worry about getting my children out the door to school everyday or make sure someone is there to pick them up. Our school schedule works around our lives. We plan school around our family trips and other outings instead of planning our trips around school. We never have homework! We do school until lunch time and then have the rest of the day to do other things. School is completed quickly because we are not waiting for a classroom of 20 children to complete each activity. We are a very active family and enjoy hiking, boating, camping among other activities. My husband only works 10-20 hours a week in his profession so we have a lot of family time with him. Our children never wake up to an alarm but get the rest that they need each night. We are able to be relaxed and not stressed in daily life because we don’t run from school to dance to what ever the next activity might be. We do participate in many activities but with the most of our days spent at home the soccer practices and dance camps don’t overwhelm or take over our lives. My kids have plenty of time to explore their world here at home, to pursue art, to play with their baby sister and to learn how to work along side us in the daily rhythms of life.

The second reason we homeschool is to be able to pass on our faith in an effective way. When we were children, our parents homeschooled us for “religious” reasons. The mindset of those who homeschool for “religious” reasons is that it is their God given responsibility to teach their children and homeschooling is the only way to do that. We personally don’t hold to such a strong opinion and would consider private or public school for our children except for that it would greatly interfere with the lifestyle that we enjoy because we homeschool. With that said, we still homeschool for our faith. It is easier to guide our children in making moral choices that line up with our belief system if we are able to somewhat regulate what outside influences they have. We can pick and choose what media they have contact with, which families they interact with, and which activities they participate in. I have seen studies that show that up to 95% of children who are homeschooled do not walk away from their faith where as something like only 35% of public school children stick with their faith after they leave home. Since my faith is important to me I want to effectively see it passed on to my children.

When it comes to academics the kids receive a very solid education through a curriculum called Sonlight. My 11 year old daughter will be entering 7th grade this year and my 7 year old son will be going into 2nd. I love that homeschooling allows my children to be at various grade levels in their academics and it has allowed my daughter to be several years ahead of her peers grade wise. She is bright girl and she is ready to enter 7th grade because she has been allowed to progress at her own pace. As a one on one teacher with her I am able to quickly identify areas in her schooling were she may be struggling and work personally with her until she understands the material. She loves to read and we have bookcases that are bursting at the seams with our collection of books for our children.

I will close with the biggest question about homeschooling….socialization. It always seems to be the biggest question mainly by those who are school teachers or involved in education. My children are so well socialized it is literally hard to get them in bed at night!! We live in a cul-de-sac and my kids play outside with about 10 neighborhood kids of various ages from morning to night. These are the same children that they would go to school with if we choose to send them to the local public school. They play like this all summer long! During the school year my children have participated in soccer, dance, baseball, volleyball, swimming and gymnastics. My daughter was at the gym for 20 hours a week for several years. Most of my kids friends are public school children they have meet through various activities. We have constant play dates and sleepovers with other families. We also participate in several homeschool coops. The coops meet once a week and they have various classes that the kids are enrolled in and taught by other teachers. Add church activities on top of that and you can see we are a very busy household.

My husband and I never had a hard time entering into the “world” upon completion of our homeschool experience and are thankful for some of the things we avoided by not being put into a school environment. We love our parents dearly, have an incredible marriage of 12 years, have a positive outlook on life, find peace through our faith, accept our responsibilities in work and play, and love our children. Why wouldn’t I want to pass the same things on to my own children?

Kirsten’s Story – Connections Academy

I have asked my dear friend Kirsten to talk about her experience with a Charter School, Connection Academy.  I enjoy listening to why this model works for their family, and they truly embrace the option of school choice.  Enjoy her story. A big thank you to Kirsten for sharing her story.  Mindi

Hi, everyone!  Mindi has asked me to discuss some of the reasons I
chose Connections Academy for my daughters’ education.  I’ll give you
a little rundown of my family.  I am a married, work-at-home mom of
three daughters ages 4, 7, and 9.  My kids have no knowledge of what a
“regular” public education looks like past preschool.  I was
introduced to Connections Academy back in 2006.  My oldest daughter,
Brenna, had spent the previous 3 years at a fantastic Montessori
school in Idaho, and I knew we couldn’t afford to keep her there for
kindergarten.  As her birthday is in October, she was going to be one
of the older kids in her class where ever she ended up.  She was also
reading pretty well for a 5-year-old and was still loving learning new
things.  Knowing this, I couldn’t place her in a traditional school
where they would be teaching letters and numbers.  Luckily there were
many options in Southwest Idaho for public education.  Charter schools
seemed to be popping up all over the place.  There were 3 elementary
charter schools in our district.  Unfortunately *everyone* wanted
their kids in the charter schools, so enrollment was based 100% on
lottery.  Unfortunately Brenna was not picked, and that is when I
found Connections Academy.  I went to one of their information
sessions.  I fell in love.  The principal of Inspire (Idaho’s
Connections Academy), in explaining how the program worked, won me
over.  This was exactly what I wanted for Brenna.

I have to take a step backwards.  Had you asked me at any point in the
previous year if I would school my kids at home, I would have
vehemently said “no way, nuh uh!”  But when faced with the reality of
kindergarten looming and knowing what I wanted for Brenna’s long-term
educational world, she wasn’t going to get it.  I’m being vague.  Let
me give you my perspective on education.  When I was starting school,
I was basically in the same place as my daughter going into
kindergarten, except I was one of the youngest in my class.  I was
ahead of the curve. So, I essentially skipped first grade when we lived
overseas.  When we moved back to the states, I was going into 3rd
grade.  The issues came with the pace of the work.  Emotionally I
wasn’t prepared to handle the stress of the 3rd grade classroom.  So I
repeated 2nd grade and emotionally this was perfect for me.
Academically, not so much.  The academics weren’t difficult for me and
I breezed through.  As I got older and things got harder, I did as
much as I needed to in order to pass tests with A’s or B’s, but my
retention diminished.  Which, in the end, what’s the point of learning
if you aren’t going to *learn* the information or at least learn *how*
to learn.  This is something I find lacking in today’s schools.  They
want regurgitation, but the overall focus does not appear to be on
teaching but on getting good scores on the tests which then show they
are a “good” school.

Back to my point.  Connections Academy offered me a choice for my
child(ren).  It offered the flexibility of more challenging work.  It
offered me, as the person in charge of overseeing school work, the
ability to really know what they were supposed to be learning.  I
could focus on different aspects of an assignment if she wanted to
know more about something.  I had access to great teachers who spend
their days teaching and not having to worry about discipline issues in
their “classroom”.  I had books and supplies delivered to my house,
which is exciting every.single.year it happens.  It affords me the
opportunity to be with my kids and get to know them better.  It also
affords me the opportunity take the girls out in the middle of the
week for a field trip, or take a trip out of state and not miss any
school.  We could either take it with us or double up on assignments
so we could take the time off or even a combination of both.  Right
now my two oldest are enrolled in Nevada Connections Academy.  In the
fall of 2011 my youngest will be enrolled in kindergarten with NCA.
We are all excited for that to happen.

I will admit that there are trying days.  Days where frustration
reigns in both parent and child.  And there are days where I feel like
driving them down the road to the local elementary school and
enrolling them and making it someone else’s problem.   But then
reality hits me, and that’s the last thing I want to do. There are
also days where they feel like they are missing out on the “normal”
way of school, and it’s hard to handle the tears associated with being
“different.”  Ultimately I want them to look back on these school days
and realize that they had it pretty good.  That we, as parents, were
lucky enough to have this choice for them and appreciate the
opportunities it has provided for them.

School: There is a Choice!

Before a couple of years ago, I never knew that there were more choices to a K-12 education than the public ‘brick and mortar’ schools and the expensive private schools.  I just thought that is how the system worked, and we, as education consumers, were just stuck with those choices.  Most people just enrolled their children in the public school system because it was easy and covered by the tax paying dollars.

To my amazement, there are four distinct different places to learn for the K-12 educational system: the traditional school, the private school, charter schools, and home schooling.  I have asked a few people that I know in each area to guest blog about why they have chosen the place of learning that they have and why it would benefit others.  I am very grateful for their help on my blog.

I am really excited to learn about all of the different choices that are available for our children’s education to set a foundation for their future.

Traditional: The traditional school model is a physical classroom where children attend school in a classroom, and the teacher shares lesson plans with the class.  These schools are managed by a state or county government.

Private: A private school is not administered through a governmental board; it is managed by an independent party.  These are generally funded by requiring tuition for admission.

Charter: A charter school is a public school that receives public funds for operations, but they are held accountable to produce specific results outlined in a charter.  This charter is managed by the public entity, such as the state school board.  A charter school has more flexibility than the traditional school on the teaching methods used, but they do not collect tuition for enrollment.

Home School: Home schooling is where the child learns at home from a parent or tutor.  This allows the parent more control of his or her child’s education and more flexibility with pace and material.

I am looking forward to sharing guest blogs with you on school choice options.

Parental Engagement is Key

I have always believed that getting parents involved in their child’s (or children’s) education is crucial to that child’s success in the classroom.  From my experience, my mom and dad were always extremely supportive of my education at all levels.  My mom volunteered in my classrooms in elementary school.  I went to a Magnet School for math and science in middle school, and my parents were always present at sports games, presentations, and available to help proofread my papers in high school.  As I went on to college, my parents were still supportive on my goals.

I have found that this parental involvement allows the ideals presented in the classroom to be reinforced at home.  If parents take the time at home to encourage academic exploration, the child is able to learn in effective ways for the child.  Parents know their children better than anyone else.

There are a number of ways to encourage parental involvement.

Use technology: Many schools have websites.  These websites can host a classroom calendar that can showcase the assignments/homework that have been passed out, upcoming fieldtrips (and due dates for those permission slips), and other important classroom dates.  This would allow parents to monitor this information on their own time when it is convenient for them.

Communication: Communication is incredibly important for both parents and teachers.  Parents can inform teachers of any topics that are difficult for their child to understand.  Teachers can provide information on where to go for more information to help reinforce these topics with the child.  Also, teachers can talk with parents about difficulties in the classroom, disruptive behavior, and even share successes for the child.

Encourage Ideas and Feedback: This is probably the most important facet that can help development in the classroom.  Parents can help by chaperoning fieldtrips, reading stories to the class (changing up the classroom for a time), and encouraging students to study and find new ways to learn.  By asking for feedback, teachers can figure out what is working, what is not working, and what they can do better to improve the learning experience for each child.  Parents are incredibly creative and can help the teacher develop lessons, experiments, and help break up the monotony that can occur in the classroom.  Children always remember the things that are different in the classroom, like when Jimmy’s dad came in and let them see the town’s fire truck in the school parking lot.  It really helps the children focus on the more ‘boring’ details for the math lessons.

It is important for children to have this reinforcement at home.  This is definitely important for both parents and teachers to understand and work together to provide a valuable foundation for children’s education.

It’s all about the Individual. (That’s You!)

Every person is different, and we each have a different learning style.  It is important to determine which style will work best for you.  There are three different types of learning styles:  visual, kinesthetic, linguistic, or a combination of all three.  (Actually, there are more types of learning if you search the vast world of Google, but I feel that these three are the most common types of learning.)

Visual learners prefer to learn through pictures, images and spatial learning.

Kinesthetic learners acquire knowledge best through feeling, doing, and/or building.

Linguistic learners prefer to learn through speaking and writing.

I, personally, learn best with a combination of each of these types of learning.  It is important to understand how you learn.  Do you remember things better after you take notes during a lecture?  Are you someone who can remember how a mechanical process works after putting it together once?

Take a second to think about the last time that you felt that you truly learned something.

How was that information delivered to you?  Can you remember all of the details vividly or do you only remember certain points?  Did you feel inspired to investigate the topic more?

The experience that comes to mind, for me, is the topic of personal branding.  I am taking a class from Bret L. Simmons at the University of Nevada, Reno while working on earning my MBA.  Bret talks about how important building your personal brand through social networking, and he is the reason that I am starting this blog.  He is able to keep my interest on this topic because he is able to appeal to each of my learning preferences.  He is excited and truly believes in the importance of social media and personal branding.  This is apparent in his lectures, which appeals to the linguistic learning style.  Bret uses a smart classroom on campus to “show” me, and the rest of our class, how to use WordPress.com, Twitter.com and LinkIn.com.  Lastly, he requires that we get out there and get our hands dirty so to speak.  I have made my LinkIn profile much stronger.  I reluctantly joined Twitter, and I am working on developing this blog.

Thanks to this experience, I now understand the power of social media, both for your personal life and the business world.  I can see how powerful Twitter can be to build a social network.  I am following people from around the globe, and they actually want to follow me too.

No two people have the same learning style.  This is important for students, teachers and parents to realize.  My advice: Take the time to figure out what will work for you.