Hey, Guess What?

OK, I'm not sure how many people even read anything over here anymore, but I'm finding it really, really hard to maintain even one blog, let alone two. I always thought it would be just fine to have a "personal" blog with all of my random things that go on and then a "homeschooling" blog with all the school stuff we're doing. That way the three people who read my "personal" blog don't have to sift through any boring school stuff and the three people who read here won't have to be subjected to....well...my random things. (Although I have a sneaking suspicion that those three people are exactly the same people...)

But, alas, it's gotten to be too much.

Don't despair, though! Stop crying! Wipe those tears!

I'm simply going to start posting homeschooling goings on on my other blog! I have a Catagory over on the right side that's labelled Homeschooling, and I'll make sure to only put school stuff in there so you don't have to deal with any other drivel.

SO, please switch your Google Reader or your Favorites Bookmark or however you find me to The Karate Mom!

I look forward to seeing you there!

ARRGGH!

I am so frustrated right now that I want to scream at the top of my lungs and not stop for at least ten minutes. I want to go back to my room and beat the living crap out of my heavy bag, but I have the ending of a migraine, and I don't think that would make it feel any better.

I have a child who cannot stand to have her work corrected. 

In. 

Any.

Way. 

Regardless of if she has no understanding of what she's doing, regardless of if she's frustrated out of her GOURD, and has NO IDEA what she is doing, if I try and help her, SHE GETS MAD AND TAKES HER FRUSTRATION OUT ON ME.

Heaven forBID that I try and help her understand what she's doing, she'd rather flail along like a fish out of water and just get more frustrated. 

And then, if I make a suggestion like, "Hey, honey, why don't you just go and sit in your room for a couple of minutes, get away from your math and then come back to see you understand it a little better." I'm met with, "Well, THAT won't help!"

She wants me to GIVE her the answer, of course, rather than guide her to find the answer herself. 

It. Drives. Me. INSANE.

I really think I'm going to lose my mind.

Picking Curriculum

Well, we're reaching the end of the school year - can it be? How can that be? - and I'm beginning the search for curriculum for next year. I'm probably not going to change much of what we do because I really feel like we've found a great mix that works for our family. Here, in great bullet format, are my considerations for next year:

• Language Arts - do I continue to use both Learning Language Arts Through Literature and  Shurley English? I really like both curricula, but it can be kind of time consuming to do both of them in one day. Shurley English is very thorough, but LLATL really provides a lot of variety, though, which I think is good for her. It's mainly the time thing that has me rethinking our system.
• Spelling - I've used A Reason for Spelling this year, for the entire year  *pats self on back* and I like it, but it's really geared for a classroom setting, so some of the activities are a little hard to pull off. , Plus, it's requires quite a bit of one-on-one interaction every day, and I'd like something that Reilly can do a little more independently. BUT, we've been able to make it work fairly well, so part of me thinks "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

         I'm also debating beginning spelling with Declan. I know that I didn't "officially" do spelling with Reilly until third grade, but that was really because of lack of being able to  find a curriculum that I liked, not because I didn't want to do spelling with her.

         ARFSpelling does have a Level A that I believe would be the correct level for him. The down side to going with it is, again, the one-on-one required...sheesh, one would think I just want someone else to teach my kids from the way I'm talking! That's not what I mean, I promise!

• Math - we're sticking with Math-U-See, for sure! I love, love, love it and, barring a change in learning style with one of The Kids, don't forsee ever changing that particular curriculum.
• Science - I'm excited to stick with Sonlight Science again for next year! The Kids have really enjoyed all of the experiments we've gotten to do this year. I've loved all of the experiments, once I got used to the fact that they didn't necessarily match up with the lesson being taught, and I love having all of the materials on hand. I've already looked over the next level and I'm excited about what they will be studying...it'll be a great year! One consideration that I'm making is whether to get the four-day schedule or the five-day schedule. You get more materials, obviously, with the five-day, but seeing as we only do science one day a week (the four-day schedule can actually fit into one day, it just takes about 30-45 minutes) I'm wondering if the five-day schedule will fit in the same way.
• History - I'm also sticking with The Story of the World and moving on to The Middle Ages. I'm hoping that my Homeschooling Guru Friends will still want to do a history co-op to do all the fun stuff, because The Kids and I have really enjoyed that this year. I don't think I'll buy History Odyssey because I ended up using it mostly at the beginning of the year but I've abandoned it as we've reached the end of the year. She did all of the chapters out of order, which made NO sense to me at all, and I spent a lot of money on a whole lot of books that I've used just a few times. Waste 'o' money!
• Handwriting - Still going to use Handwriting Without Tears because I like it and it works well for both of The Kids.
• Declan - Here's my main "deal" with The Boy. I'm going to start him in LLATL in second grade with Red Book, like I did for Reilly, which means I don't have a language arts thing to do for first grade. I'll continue with reading from Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading, and math with Math U See, but I'm a little stumped as to what else to do. Do I jsut get some of those big 'ol workbooks from Sam's (Comprehensive Curriculum - First Grade) and work out of those? *shrug*

I think that one more thing I'm really going to try and do is actually use Rosetta Stone Spanish that I bought last year! I fully intended to use it this year, but I think that I thought that we'd just fit it in somewhere. Nope, we didn't. I realize that it needs to be scheduled in, so I hope to do that next year. I'm thinking 15 or 20 minutes, maybe twice a week?

So, that's what's going on in my little noggin right now! Thanks for reading this far!

Update! Update!

No, nothing exciting to report, as the exclamation points in the title would lead you to believe. I just wanted to let you know that I'm updating, and I thought I'd fancy it up with some cute punctuation. Because I've always thought that exclamation points were kind of cute. Not as cute as semi colons, but much easier to figure out how to use.

Last Tuesday, we schooled for a little while and then took a break to watch the Presidential Inauguration. I think that The Kids were bored out of their skulls, but I wanted them to see it. I didn't vote for Obama, nor do I think that he's going to be the savior that people want to believe he's going to be, but I can certainly appreciate the history that was made as he was sworn into office. I think there's kind of a neat irony in this Inauguration day falling the day after Martin Luther King day.

Everything else is going pretty smoothly, really. I recently went and bought a Comprehensive Curriculum book for Declan that has a lot of "fun" worksheet activities that cover a wider range of kindergarten level activities. I've not been thinking to do a lot of things that talk about sequencing or things like that, plus I thought he'd like a bit of a change from the regular routine. His reading ability is chugging along like gangbusters, and I'm really excited about that because it was really so easy with Reilly that I was concerned that it was a fluke and I'd run into some big issues with him or something. We've started doing long vowel words with a silent e and he's really getting the hang of it, although I do have to remind him to pay attention and look for an e, but I think that's typical.

Here's a confession for you: I think this is the first year I'm truly comfortable as a homeschooler and with the way we do things. It has taken me four years to realize that if we don't finish every single lesson in the curriculum, we will be okay and the world will not fall down around our ears. If we skip math one day, the Math Police aren't going to come to our house and flog us with logarithms. I think I spent the past three years stressing out because I felt like I was hanging on by my fingernails, but I'm finally (ha! finally!) in a rhythm that feels pretty right for our family. Yay!

Consistency: Doing the Hard Stuff

One of the things that I struggle with the most as a parent is consistency with discipline. I think that I just heard a collective "AMEN, SISTAH!" from pretty much every parent reading this, because heaven knows that one of the hardest things to do is follow through with that threat that you just made to Boseephus, Jr. about how if he did XY or Z one more time you were going to ground him for an entire year plus take away all of his desserts and send all of his action figures to starving kids in China. No sooner are the words out of your mouth then you realize that aaawwww MAN, now I need to actually do those things as discipline, or run the risk of my children realizing that I have no backbone whatsoever! And the implications of THAT are scary. Simply scary.

Well, I will confess that I am, more often than not, of the back-boneless variety. I am the classic Threatening Repeating Parent: "If you don't do such-and-such, then _____________" and I lay out some kind of consequence, only to remind said child of the consequence fifty times more, all the while growing more and more frustrated and closer to losing my temper. And, admittedly, sometimes completely losing my temper altogether. I hate that more than anything, really, because one of the things I'm trying to teach these little munchkins that God blessed me with as kids is SELF CONTROL, and it's hard to teach that when you're foaming at the mouth.

We're part of a history co-op with some of our best friends which meets every other week to do all the really fun activities that none of us moms really wants to plan for just our own kids. This week we were meeting at our house, but Monday morning I was spending time in school struggling with The Kids and their attitude. Both of them, oddly enough, because Declan is usually just fine. Finally I told them, very calmly and firmly, that if they didn't stop reacting to me in an irritated manner whenever I spoke to them or corrected them, if they didn't completely change their attitudes, they would not participate in the co-op. The way it would work is that they would be back in my room, on the bed with books, and they would not come out at all. Not to say hi to their friends, not to have a snack, or go to the bathroom or get a drink, et cetera and so forth. The only thing that would get them out of that room would be if the house caught on fire. (Hey, I'm not unreasonable!)

Well, Declan straightened right up and proceeded to finish up his schoolwork without any attitude. Reilly, on the other hand, did not, and long story short, lost her attendance at the co-op. She apologized for her behavior, and then said in a very sad voice, "I really wish that I could come to the co-op." I told her that I did to, but that she had her chance to change her behavior. She had her choice to make, and she chose to continue to be rude to me and I'm done with that. When co-op time came, off she went to my room, and she wasn't heard from until everyone left, which was about two and a half hours later.

Back in December I read this blog post over at Woulda Coulda Shoulda and it really made me rethink how I dole out consequences. The line that really jumped out at me was when she wrote, "Hey, I’m ready and willing to believe my daughter is super special and everything, but with 80+ kids I’m supposed to believe that her absence ruined the show? And also that THAT takes precedence over raising her to be a pleasant, respectful human?" One thing that I've realized is that I tend to back down on my consequences when it's something that I deem a "memory". It's as though I think The Kids are going to be scarred if I have them miss out on something that they could look back on fondly when they're adults. (Does that make any sense?) I'm realizing, however, that more important than memories that might be made while they're growing, is their development into repectful adults.

So, Reilly missed the co-op, and hopefully a lesson was learned. Hopefully not just by her, though. Hopefully I'm learning too, and will continue to grow a spine.

Starting off with a BANG!

No, we didn't blow anything up. I promise. Although, frankly, that might have been more interesting than the science experiment that we did on Tuesday...

I jest, I jest! Actually, the experiments we're currently doing involve magnets and The Kids find that absolutely fascinating. It's just that this past Tuesday, we were supposed to cut a butterfly out of tissue paper and then attach a paperclip onto the butterfly and some thread, and tape the thread to the table. Then, supposedly, you could make the butterfly "fly" using your magnet, but without actually touching the paperclip. I had my camera at the ready, poised to take cute pictures of my cute kiddos and their "flying" butterflies.

Yeah.
It didn't work.
It worked on the video. It always works on the video.
Stupid video.

Apparently our magnet wasn't strong enough, because we had to get it so close that it just kept clamping on to the paperclip. And not flying. Oh well, they had fun anyway.

I'm currently trying to download some pictures to make a slideshow of the things that we did for our Christmas Around the World study. Unfortunately, the computer is being crabby and slow...kind of like me with this raging cold that I have that is making me feel like my brain has decided to melt and run out of my nose...so I don't know if I'll get it posted tonight.

I mainly wanted to post here to let all three of you know that we are BACK IN SCHOOL! And, let me tell you, the "bang" that I spoke of in the post title? Well, let's just say that not everyone came skipping back to school with bright shiny faces, excited and eager to begin learing all about language arts and math facts again. In fact, when I polled my homeschooling friends, I don't think that ANY of them had a great first day back. (Actually, I think we may have been ahead of the curve because we didn't have any actual tears.) But, as the week went on, we seem to have gotten back into the routine fairly well. We go back to our co-op tomorrow, so The Kids are super excited to see all of their AHEE friends again.

Well, the slideshow is going to have to wait for another day. The photobucket site is being too slow and my Benadryl just kicked in and I'm about to go all loopy and start telling you all kinds of secrets that you never wanted to know in the first place. I promise I'll post it really, really soon. The pictures of Reilly and Declan wearing the Saint Lucia wreaths that they made will be worth the wait, I promise!

Just To Let You Know..

I'm not dead. We've not fallen off the face of the earth. I'm just finding it very hard to update here. School is going well and we had a great time doing Christmas Around the World for the first part of December. I even took some great pictures of the crafts we made to represent the different countries we talked about.
Honestly, I'm not sure I'll get around to posting them, but I'll try.
I'm really sorry.
I may start posting school updates over at The Karate Mom. Somehow it seems less daunting than keeping the blogs as separate entities.
I don't know why.

Anyway, I hope you all have a merry Christmas!!

Still Schooling, I promise!

I know it's been eons since I updated anything, but I promise that we have been having school! The past two weeks have been absolutely nuts though, because my purse got stolen and we got a new puppy (you can read about those two things over at The Karate Mom!) and it's just felt really nuts around here!
I've taken some great pictures of our history co-op, though, and I'll try to get those posted this week, along with an update.
I can't believe we're almost halfway through November already! How time flies!!

Sansday

Well, today is Sansday (read: Wednesday for all the Real Folk out there that have a real weekend) so we're sitting on the sofas, watching Bee Movie and being lazy, which is, frankly, the best way to be on a rainy, cool day. There's not a whole lot to update as far as school goes, really, seeing as how I've actually been updating more than once a quarter. *pats self on back*
Reilly is indeed enjoying grammar! Yay! Yesterday, however, we had a little bit of a...disagreement, lets say...over a little book that she was to write. On Monday, she wrote a five page "book" with a sentence on each page that had, simply, a subject and a noun in it. She chose "kitty" for her subject and then ran, slept, played, ate, and climbed. Then yesterday we talked about adverbs and she was to make another book and do the same thing, but add an adverb to each sentence. Simple, right? She could choose a new subject/noun combo or use the one from the day before, it didn't matter, so she chose to do "kitty" again.
I got down on the floor to do some math with Deco and a few minutes later Reilly said something about how she was going to go back and "put in" the adverbs. When I questioned her, I found out that on all of her pages, she had copied her sentences from the day before, minus the punctuation, with the intention of just going back and filling in the adverbs. Now, call me nit picky if you want, but I had her go back and erase what she had done. She simply didn't understand whyyyyyyyyyy I would have her dooooooo thaaaaaaat and it simply wasn't faaaaaiiiiiiirrrrrrr that she had to write it all agaaaaaiiiiinnnnn even though I explained to her that she wasn't learning how to write partial sentences and then lists of adverbs. She was learning how to write whole, good sentences.
On another note, I'm having a wee bit of a problem with some of the books we're using in science. As a Christian who doesn't believe in evolution, I really don't want to shield my kids from the fact that people believe that the world started from a big bang. However, when we're reading through books that are talking about the earth and how the make-up of the earth and things like that, it's a bit annoying to have to keep saying, "Well, that's what a lot of people think, but this is what we believe..." The thing that really is beginning to bother me about this is the fact that Sonlight is a Christian company, and as such, one would think that the books that they choose for their literature-based curriculum would be more creation minded rather than evolution minded.
Also, the experiments don't match up with the lessons anymore, but that doesn't seem to bother The Kids. They just enjoy doing the experiments every week!

Grammar ROCKS!

Or, well, at least we like to THINK it does!

I decided that I wanted to add grammar to our daily schedule and, after researching different options and talking to my friend Julie, Homeschooling Guru Extrordinaire...no, I'm just kidding, she's really just a completely normal homeschooling mom whose opinion I happen to value a lot... I decided on a curriculum called Shurley Grammar. (Or maybe it's Shurley English, I can't really remember. But that's not important.) Anyway, I was looking for a thorough curriculum that wasn't going to add a whole lot of time to our day, and wasn't going to kill us with boredom, and this seems like it's going to fit the bill rather well.

Plus, there are these fun little "jingles" that the writer of the curriculum has come up with for learning the different parts of speech, so I think Reilly is going to get a kick out of those. What's really funny is that while the curriculum calls them "jingles", and put them on a CD, they didn't actually put most of them to music. The lady just sort of...says them in a semi-jazzy way, throwing in some random claps as though that makes them more jingle-y or something. It's really rather laughable. Luckily, I have Homeschooling Guru Julie, who also happens to be Musical Guru Julie *waves at Julie* who was able to figure out an actual tune for most of the jingles, which will really make it fun. I'm kind of excited, actually.

What's really funny about all of this is the fact that she is so excited to start this! I guess it's because it's something new, so hopefully she'll continue to be excited about it. She was very disappointed that she wasn't going to get to write in her workbook because I was going to be alllll frugal and photocopy the book so that I could use it for Declan. However, I was just looking online and realized that when the time comes for Declan to use the book, it will only cost me around $10 to buy him a new one. So she'll be thrilled tomorrow when I tell her that she gets to write in her book! Silly girl!

Sooo...What's Been Up in Our World?

I'm not doing as well with keeping this blog updated as I would like to be doing! I take lots of pictures, and we're certainly not at a loss of things that I could share, but I somehow always put this blog off until last and then I get behind! Boo, hiss!



But, I'm here now, so here's an update! I'll even divide it up by subject so that I can make sure that I don't miss anything important!



SCIENCE

We do science every Tuesday and I must say that The Kids always want to do it first thing because it is, apparently, their favorite subject. I still really like the Sonlight curriculum, although it seems a little random sometimes. For example, in the book that we're reading, we're learning all about plants now. But the experiments are still just about water and the properties of water and what it can do and how it acts and reacts with the air around it and things like that, all of which made more sense when we were talking about weather. The experiments we wil did today were putting different things like sugar, pepper, sand, shampoo, etc. into water and seeing whether or not they dissolve, but we read about the parts of plants. So really the only way that the two are related is that plants need water! But The Kids like it anyway, except for last week when the "experiments" were really so lame that I had to put the word in quotes because they didn't really count as experiments! We made some condensation on the outside of a jar. We made some steam. Ring-a-ding-ding. Oh well, you can't win 'em all!

Here are some pictures of Reilly and Deco making bubbles with their hands...I don't really remember where this fit in, I just know that they had fun doing it! I think it had something to do with water's skin? *shrugs*

HISTORY
We're in a co-op every other Monday with a couple of families who are using the same history curriculum. Last Monday was my week to host and I was really lucky because I got the Ancient Egypt chapters! I made Egyptian fig bread (tasted like a Fig Newton bagle!), we did some decoding with heiroglyphics, and we mummified some Barbie dolls. It was a lot of fun!

Deco mummified his GI Joe doll instead of a Barbie doll. The only thing was that the dolls feet kept spinning around, making it hard for the bandages to stay on! Reilly was making the "death mask" for her doll.

Nothing looks funnier than a line of mummified Barbies!

For another lesson, we made "seals" with their names on them, which we then used to imprint on clay. I'm not sure what we're going to do with the little clay discs, which I don't have a picture of, but they liked making the seals!

SPELLING
We use a book called A Reason for Spelling which, midweek, has you pick a fun exercise for spelling practice. Something like spell the words in split peas and glue, make them on a paper chain, write them in sidewalk chalk, or say them out loud while tapping out the rhythm with instruments. Well, since we don't have any rhythm instruments, I opted for a pot and spoon. And Reilly opted for the "whack and yell" method rather than the "tap and say" method! And boy did she have fun!

She's all up for anything loud! Today she practiced by jumping and spelling her words at the top of her lungs - that fell under the "Spell Your Words Out Loud" option - because the other options were spell them with split peas and glue, make a paper chain, or something about puzzles. And, really, who would choose any of those options over "scream and jump"?

READING
I'm amazed every day with the speed at which Declan is picking up reading! I don't know if it's because he's older than Reilly was when she started Kindergarten or because he's been listening for three years and learning by osmosis, but he is so far ahead of where Reilly was at this stage of kindergarten. I remember she was still sounding out 3-letter CVC words at the start of first grade and he rarely has to be reminded to blend that all together. I have a great video that I took, but it's too big to put here, so I'll try to get another, shorter one soon.

Random School Thoughts

• I find myself still struggling with feeling frustrated when we're not moving as fast in a day as I'd like. I think it harkens back to last year when I was working and knew that I had to be at work at 5:00 and that I somehow needed to fit housework and errands (and usually a nap!) in between school and 4:00. Last Thursday, history took us around two hours to do, and I was so antsy because it was 10:30 and we still hadn't done anything else. But when we got done with history and moved on to the other subjects, we still finished by about 12:15 or 12:30. On a typical day, we start school around 8:30 and we're finished by 11:30, and then I've still got the whole day to do other things. I keep having to remind myself of that "whole day" thing!


• I'm going to be adding a grammar curriculum here in the next week or so. It's supposed to arrive next week...actually, it was supposed to arrive on Monday, but I just checked my order and realized that I'd ordered Level 1 instead of Level 3 - Oops! - so I re-ordered and it'll get here on Wednesday. Oddly enough, I'm really excited about this...I guess this is the weirdness of being a homeschooling mom. We get excited about grammar!

Well, this post has gotten long enough, so I'm going to hit "publish" now!

History Odyssey

One thing I added this year was history, which has been a whole lot of fun so far. I'm using Story of the World - Ancients, which starts out with ancient nomads in the Fertile Crescent (6000 BC) and works its way up. I also use History Odyssey, which provides a "lesson plan" of sorts to go along with SOTW and we do these neat things called Hisory Pockets, which is all sorts of cutting out and coloring and making picture dictionarys and stuff like that. It's very hands-on and interactive, and all of us just have a great time on Thursdays, a.k.a. History Days. In fact, yesterday, we did history for two and a half hours! With NO COMPLAINING! Amazing.

On the left, Declan is demonstrating how the ancient Sumerians sailed down the rivers to trade goods. On the right, Reilly is showing just how much strength it takes to staple card stock to a popscicle stick. It's a full body event!

On the left, Reilly is working on her picture dictionary. On the right, Declan is engaging in a very entertaining puppet show about two ancient Sumerians who got married and had to kiss (several times!) and then sail on their boat down the river to trade things. Actually, I think he may have said that they ended up living in Tulsa. *shrugs shoulders*

Usually, we start school at about 8:30 and we're done by 11:30 or 12:00. I like this, because I like to be done before lunch; I find that it is very hard to regroup after lunch and get back into the swing of lessons. But, since we got so involved with history this Thursday, we had to finish up after lunch.
Luckily, the after lunch activity was a fun one! Dress up like ancient Sumerians and weave on a hanging loom!

One thing that cracked me up while we were "weaving" was that Reilly mentioned that the men back in that time had the "easy" work! This led to a discussion of how, exactly, it was easier to go out and kill a deer or farm the land then it was to weave the cloth to make the clothes. All of which led, of course, to discussing just how much easier we have it NOW!

It was a great, great day!

I DO Have All the Answers

Periodically, at the homeschooling message board I go to, we get new homeschoolers who ask questions about what its like to homeschool, and we're always willing to chime in with our answers and share what we know about this thing that we love. I wrote the following as part of a response to one girl today, and I wanted to come here and post it, not because I think I'm some sort of genuis, but so that I can come back at a time when things are a little rough and remind myself why I'm doing this thing that I love.

Is it worth it to homeschool?
Oh, more than I can even say! We're heading into our fourth year of homeschooling and before we started, I always said, "Well, if we could afford private Christian school, we'd probably go that route, but we can't, so we're homeschooling because public school isn't even an option." Now, four years later, I don't even think we'd do private school if we could afford it! I simply can't imagine not homeschooling!The one perfect example I can give is that when I hear Reilly read, I'm still amazed at the fact that I'm the one that taught her how to do that! It's wonderful!

How can your children socialize with other children if they're not in school and don't go to daycare?
Aaah, that's the Question of the Day for all homeschoolers or potential homeschoolers!
To be honest, I'm not sure why the world is stuck on the idea that putting 25 kids together in the same room for 6 hours a day is what makes them learn how to "be together". Where else in life are we around only people of our exact same demographic? I believe that most "socialization", even for public schooled kids, occurs [i]outside[/i] of the school setting, either after school with friends, at ball games, at church, at the playground, at the store, etc. etc. When you really think about it, while the children are in class, they are in fact encouraged NOT to socialize because it disrupts what the teacher is trying to teach!One of my favorite things to see is a group of homeschooled kids together, because inevitably they range in age from preschool to middle school and are interacting within that group, many of them engaging with the adults in the group, with a level of ease that I'm pretty sure is a byproduct of the fact that these kids are used to being around kids (and adults) of all ages, at any given time of day.
(Warning: political statement ahead!!!! If Obama wins the election, I look forward to saying, "Well, my kids will learn enough about being Socialists from the president!")

What are the pro's and cons?

The pros are that I get to be such a part of what they learn, I get to reap the joy of watching them as they grasp a new concept and watch their eyes light up when they finally "get it". I see what they've accomplished and how far they've come (specifically for Reilly right now, seeing as how she's farther along than Declan) and get such joy from knowing that it was ME that did that for her, not someone else.
Also, being a Christian, I have a huge objection to a lot of the worldview that is taught in school. For example, I don't believe that it is anyone else's job to teach my kids about sex, nor would I want abstinence being taught as an afterthought.
Also, as far as safety goes and all the junk that goes on now in PS, my "classic" line is that if my child is not at the school, I won't be the mom on T.V. saying, "We never thought it would happen at our school!" when a student has just gone in and shot up half the student body. (Just trying to be blunt, not callous.)
The cons? Periodic waves of pressure, knowing that their education is in my hands. These are getting fewer, though, the farther we get in this journey! Sometimes I do think that it would be "nice" to have time away from The Kids. But, honestly, I'm really used to that whole aspect now and when I really sit and think about it, I know without a shadow of a doubt that it will only be a blink of an eye and they'll be teenagers and off with their friends a good portion of the time, so I'm going to just cherish this time that I have right now.

CoOps and Things Like That

Just a quick update before I go and collapse myself into bed:

• We started back to our homeschooling co-op last Friday, which was very exciting for all of us. It's such fun, and such a blessing to have a change of scenery and friends each week. This year I'm going to be in Reilly's class of 1st through 3rd graders for the first semester, and then I'm the Preschool Director (notice the Big Fancy Capital Letters! WooHoo!) for the second semester. Declan is in Kindergarten all by himself, which gives me a little pang in my heart, mainly because I'm worried that they're going to have to tie him to his chair! No, I kid...he'll be fine. It's a fun time, and it's really going to be nice to do school at home on Monday, Tuesday, then have a break on Wednesday, do school on Thursday, have a break on Friday, then do school on Saturday! Plus, Troy has been getting home at around 10:30 or 11:00 on Saturday morning, so it really hardly feels like he's working at all, so it's really nice!
• Another thing that we started today is a doing a history co-op with two other families who we are really good friends with and who are using the same curriculum as we are - The Story of the World. Shelley, Julie and I decided that it would be fun to get together every other Monday and do the fun activities that go along with the reading but that are too time consuming to do just for ourselves. Today all of the kids did "cave drawings" on paper bags with pastels, made timelines of their families and then compared them to one anothers. We were going to do an "archaeological dig" in the garden, complete with roped off sections and things to find, but it's been raining and it would have been waaay too messy, so we ate dirt pudding instead, complete with gummy worms. We all had a really good time and I look forward to future co-ops with them. Next time I'll take my camera!!

Stuff, Stuff, and more Stuff

Interesting title, huh? I'm sure it just makes you want to jump in with both eyes and read away!

Today is Declan's first sick day! Poor guy woke up this morning with a bit of a fever and said he had a sore throat. Actually what he said was, "Mom? Can I have something soft for breakfast because my throat is sore?" and while I assurred him that I would make some Malt O Meal for him, he told me all about how he had repeated "soft food, soft food" over and over to himself to remind himself to ask me about that when he got up. So he has been on the sofa all morning, watching all manner of videos and generally feeling punky. I know he's feeling punky because he's only gotten off of the sofa once to go the bathroom. And that's a big deal, because he's usually one energetic boy! Usually his "sitting on the sofa" is accompanied by rolling around and turning upside down and eventually getting up and playing some type of superhero game in the livingroom.
He did watch Leap Frog Math Circus, so I guess that could "count" as school. Somehow that seems a little too militant for though; it is just Kindergarten, after all. Now, if he'd been watching The Talking Physics Factory for an 11th grade credit, it would be a whole 'nother story!

I'm realizing how very differently I'm approaching Kindergarten for Declan than I did for Reilly. For her, virtually everything was fun, fun, fun. Games for everything, writing letters in playdoh and shaving cream, doing tangrams and patterning blocks and all kinds of stuff like that.
For Declan, it's not so much all of that. In a typical day, he'll come in, do a handwriting page or two in his Handwriting Without Tears book, do a page in his Math U See Primer book, and do a lesson from The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. Then he's done for the day. When we do science and history on Tuesday and Thursday, he does those with us as much as he can, and really seems to enjoy the way it's going. I give him breaks as needed, usually after we've done science or history because those things take a lot longer, but oftentimes he just works through his stuff without complaining at all and then goes off to play until Reilly is done. Sometimes I worry that he's not getting all the bells and whistles that Reilly got with kindergarten, but then I think that, heck, if it's not broken, why fix it? I'll save the bells and whistles for sometime when he does get bored!

I will say that I've already had several conversations with Reilly about why Deco gets to go off and play while she has to stay at the table and work. It's hard to explain the difference between kindergarten and third grade, especially when she conveniently doesn't remember that she got to do all manner of fun stuff in kindergarten!

Here are just some pictures of waaaay back on our first day of school on the 18th. We didn't have pancakes this year, per my usual tradition because I didn't have the stuff to make pancakes and my kitchen was about to be condemed by the health department. That's what they get for surprising me by wanting to start school early!

Something That I Learned

• Science experiments are more fun if you don't watch how they're done on a DVD first and then try to go and replicate them. Somehow the magic is lost if you know that the top of water is going to stay level when you tip the bottle on its side and it makes doing the experiment yourself a little redundant. The smart thing to do is to do the experiments yourself, then watch the video to make sure that you did them right. Then you can hi-five each other and say, "Way to go, science experiment genius!" and everyone is super-pumped!

There are two things that I added this year. OK, well, three actually, for those literal minded people out there who probably think I probably should count that whole Kindergarten thing with Declan. Anyway, I added science and history and The Kids are just crazy about those subjects! (So far, anyway.) I chose Sonlight Science because the thing that always bogs me down when doing science experiments is scrambling around, trying to gather up 3 feet of copper wire, a dowel, 2 cubes of clay, a soda bottle and a magnet. These simply aren't things that I have around the house and they somehow always seem to be on the list for experiments that can be done with "things you have around the house".

Enter Sonlight! The great thing about Sonlight curriculum is that, while it's a wee bit expensive, they send you virtually everything you need for the experiments and all the books that you need to read! I say "virtually" because I believe that I've had to come up with things like "a container of water" and I think that we can all agree that, as wonderful as the company is, it might be expecting a lot for them to ship that to their customers! I chose a level that is a little bit "under" where Reilly is, mainly because I figure that way Declan can actually keep up and learn along with her. Plus, since this is her first experience with doing science on a regular basis, I figured that it wouldn't hurt to start out a little easy. I'm amazed at how much fun they have, and how much they both learn though, specifically Deco. This evening, he was explaining to Troy how we got water into our house through the pipes. He didn't have it down perfectly, but he had a pretty good grasp of how it worked, especially since my money would have been on him not paying attention while I was reading!!

Oh, here's a picture of the Disasterous Erasers! I want to point out my adorable ear of corn on the right lower side! One of The Kids said, "I wonder if I can make an ear of corn!" and I said, "I bet I can!" and proceeded to make a really cute ear of corn non-eraser! Too bad it didn't work!

Jumping In With Both Feet

OK, I have a gajillion pictures of our first day of school (two weeks ago, on August 18th which was my 33rd birthday, and which was a full week earlier than I expected simply because The Kids ASKED me if we could! Silly kids!) and of our first round of science experiments that we did last week and of all Declan practicing his handwriting and stuff like that, but I have NONE of them loaded on my computer yet. I keep putting off starting the blog for this year simply because of NOT having the pictures to put up, and therefore I'm getting farther and farther behind and now it's piling up in my head and I finally decided that I wanted to go ahead and start writing NOW because, well, it's as good a time as any. I'll get to the pictures later, I'll just caption them well so you'll know when they happened and what in the heck we were doing in the picture.

I know you'll be waiting on pins and needles to see Reilly and Declan doing their Official First Day of School Activity, a.k.a. The Big Bomb. No, we didn't actually make a bomb, lest you think we're getting into Nuclear Physics 101 to kick off third grade and kindergarten, it's just that I decided that we would do a big, fun project on the first day of each school year to set the day apart as something special. It's hard to make the first day of school special in homeschooling because while other kids are going to school in new clothes, finding out who their teacher is and who is going to be in their class, homeschooled kids are faced with the same old, same old. Teacher is Mom, classmates are siblings, schoolroom looks the same. Nothing new.

So, on the first day of kindergarten for Reilly, she got her library card. First grade, we made gum. Second grade, they "planted" crystals to grow, and third grade/kindergarten, they made erasers out of a Sculpey eraser-making kit. The only problem is that, other than the gum, which was alright, and the library card which is still in working order, the other projects have been a total and complete bust. The crystals did not grow at all, and the erasers, while they were fun to make, did nothing but crumble into little bits while smearing color on the paper. I threw them away last week, they were so useless. So I told Reilly that in the future we would just plan on doing a project that was going to totally and completely bomb on the first day of school so that way we can just have fun with really low expectations.

This year has started out to be the most organized year thus far in our homeschooling. I have lesson plans in place for Reilly up until November 1st, which feels really good! Who would have thought that having lesson plans would make things so much easier? Well, except for all those...teachers...who have been doing...lesson...planning...for decades. I think they're on to something! I try to do the calendar each morning with Declan so that he learns the days and months, but in the past it's gotten bogged down when I would realize that we started a new month but I didn't have the new calendar printed. Then it would take me two weeks to remember to print a new calendar and by then, we're halfway through the month and it seemed pointless to continue. It seemed I was headed down this same path this morning when I realized that we had switched to September, but I remembered that I had made calendar "tops" (with the names of the months) up to November back before we started school, so I was able to go and pull the one out for September, figuring that would do for now and I'd just print out the date part later when The Kids were engaged in some type of schoolwork. Imagine my surprise when I pulled it out and realized that I had had the forsight to print out the actual calendar as well! I are smurt.

One last thing: I believe that if I just let Declan continue to watch Leap Frogs "The Talking Words Factory" he will teach himself how to read. Heck, it was "The Talking Letter Factory" that taught him the letter sounds, so it seems conceivable that it could happen. He practically has the video memorized and I was listening to him quote parts of it in the car tonight as we drove home from the house of some friends. I told Troy that I should convince Leap Frog to come out with a whole new line of videos because I believe te possibilities are endless! I know that "The Talking Calculus Factory" and "The Talking Physics Factory" would be a huge hit among the homeschooling set!

WOW! - A tiny boast

Back in April, out homeschooling co-op offered IOWA testing for those who wanted to participate. Although our state doesn't require any standardized testing at any grade level, I decided to have Reilly take them just so I could get an "indifferent" opinion of how she's doing. Long story short, I was amazed when I got the test results! In the reading area (comprehension, usage, etc.), she's at a 5th grade level and in most other areas tested she was at a third grade level. (We just finished second grade) The only thing that she was "low" in was math, and I expected that to be the case because MUS doesn't do math like the school system does it. Even with that, it was at an "early" second grade level.

Anyway, I've always said that I think that homeschoolers feel too much pressure to have kids who are advanced academically, as opposed to just average, so I'd have been perfectly happy with everything just showing at a second grade level. But it's nice to see that whatever random method we're using for school is working, and working well!!

AARRGH!!!

Sometimes I swear that I'm going to pull my hair out by the ROOTS!!!!

I think that oftentimes, Reilly sets out to simply be as stubborn as she possibly can. To look at things in the most obtuse manner available. We had a very simple exericise the other day: look at the picture and put an X next to the sentence that best describes the picture. The picture was of a child in a bed with a mom standing over with her hand on the child's forehead. The sentence choices were
1.) Jenny had a cough so she went to bed
2.) Dan is a tough little boy.
3.) Dad sanded the wood because it was rough.
4.) She had enough candy for one day.

Reilly chose "Dan is a tough little boy." When I asked her why she chose that sentence, her reasoning was because, despite the fact that it was obviously a picture of a child in BED (which would lead some to the sentence with the word "bed" in it) the child in the picture didn't look like a girl and why would someone go to bed just because they had a cough? I mean, she doesn't go to bed when she has a cough. What?
I have such trouble teaching in moments like that because it's all I can do to not just look at her and say, "Are you KIDDING ME?!? LOOK AT THE STINKIN' BED, for crying out loud!" It is so unbelievably frustrating! I know that being detail oriented is a good thing, but how on earth can I teach when someone is so detail oriented that it gets in the way of LOGIC?!

And I deal with things like this on a daily basis, where I just want to scream because I'm faced with a child who is SO literal that she has a hard time getting things done because they don't make sense to her.

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Yeah...no title. Because I'm THAT interesting.

We're kind of winding down things here at Morning Star, actually. Reilly is still (yes, I know...still!) trucking along with Red Book and I'm so proud of her. Yesterday, I realized that she would need to do an average of three "lessons" a day instead of two in order to completely finish the curriculum by the end of the year...otherwise, we were going to have to go into the first week of June. So, I showed her the calendar and told her what was up, and she readily agreed that she wanted to finish by the end of May and didn't have a problem with doing that many lessons each day. Now, it remains to be seen whether or not that will stick, but the nice thing is that as long as she averages three lessons a day, there will probably be at least a few days that she can do just two, or even one lesson. Regardless, she is really doing great at working on her own which makes me very happy. The added bonus is that she's starting school earlier than we used to, which means that we're not getting done at 2:00. Today she started at about 8:45 - we got a bit of a late start this morning because we were all cuddled up together, watching Carrie Underwood on YouTube! - and she got done just before 11:00!!

Today, I "officially" introduced Reilly to addition with carrying and had her do some worksheets from a 2nd grade workbook that we got from Sam's at the beginning of the year. I really felt like I was beating a dead horse with all the flashcards and things we've been doing to practice math facts and I think we were both getting a little tired of it. She knocked it right out of the park and completely understood what she was doing. Yay! I've not decided yet if I'm going to start Beta in this last month of school, or just introduce her to different things out of the 2nd grade Sam's workbook. Oh, we did some basic money counting, too. I tried to introduce this concept at the beginning of last year, I think, and it's amazing to see how much more she understands it now. Last year, it was impossible for her to switch from counting by 10's to counting by 5's and 1's and today, while it took her some thinking power, she was able to do it.

Poor Deco! He's just getting lost in the shuffle lately! He is so good about going in his room and playing that I tend to just let him do that so I can concentrate on Reilly. He knows all the letters and letter sounds, all his shapes and colors, all of his numbers by sight, so I'm a bit at a loss as to what else to teach him that's preschool! The only thing that he's lacking is writing skills, but he knows how to do a fair amount of his letters and I've just been putting that off as a kindergarten thing to do next year. Oh well, I don't guess he'll be any worse for the wear!

He loves playing with the magnetic letters and a cookie sheet and yesterday, Reilly told him he should make some of the words that are in the book he was looking at...so he made "people" with the magnetic letters! I said, "That's the word people!" and he said, "OH! Like the people of Ninevah!" (It was a Jonah book!) Funny guy!