Some Random Thoughts on a Tuesday about Homeschooling

I'm sitting in a local coffee shop listening to some people play folk music--2 guitars and a violin. It's kind of nice...I've had a great, but long day. We had a super productive school day and I love that. I am still working on finding the balance between productive school days where we get everything done and still having some freedom in our little homeschool. On the days where each child gets through every subject and every assignment it takes us until about 3 to finish. The thing with that is that at about 3 every day of the week we have something going on. On Mondays, it's Landon being dropped off and the kids picked up to go to theatre, on Tuesdays I tutor at 2:45, on Wednesdays I pick up a friend's daughter from school at 3 then it's home for a quick snack and I take my kids and her to theatre, on Thursdays I tutor 2 kids starting at 2:45, and on Fridays Landon gets to my house at about 3 and is there until about 7. So, whether we are done or not we have to wrap things up by 3ish. Everything we're doing this year kind of has a "you need to do it every day" style otherwise you get behind. On a week like this week when we only have 3 days actually at home it makes for long, jam-packed school days. I am trying to be a little more relaxed about getting behind or even just skipping some things and I'm doing better than I ever have. I am also thinking about doing something like going to the park in the morning and putting down a quilt and doing our morning reading there instead of at home. This could be a nice change and yet we'd still be getting work done. I think it'd be an even nicer change if it involved donuts and coffee. :0) I'd also like to add in some midday bike rides, nature walks, a rousing game of yahtzee, an art project, stuff like that. I want to enjoy this school year and I want my kids to also. I want to fully experience the blessing of homeschooling my kids and sharing their lives. I don't want to be the stressed out grumpy momma. Joe said today that he's noticed that most homeschool moms are stressed out. Thanks Joe. But, it's sometimes true. As homeschoolers we are carrying a big responsibility and this life choice is certainly not without it's stresses. Back to the balance--I'm really working on having all of Joe's school done by noon. He is a child that really, really needs plenty of downtime at home each day. When he has this time he very often chooses educational activities and that's the closest I feel like I can get to unschooling him....making sure he has the time to follow his interests. I was all set to do a Chemistry unit with him and Grace but I've changed my mind. I'd rather do a simpler (faster) science program with him. I think I'll be back to the Lesson Pathways for him and keep it simple. He really does work best being schooled alone which makes my day longer but more pleasant overall. These are just some thoughts I've had lately. A few ideas to tweak our year to make it better for us all. I wonder if any homeschooling mom has it all figured out at the beginning of the school year and then sticks to it. That's a nice idea.

Reflecting on Our School Year

What worked...what didn't. This has been an interesting school year if nothing else. I had some big plans at the beginning of the year, I started some new curriculum that I just knew would be amazing, and I stuck with some old curriculum because it was tried and true. As I sit here a month and a half away from the end of our school year I see that almost everything has changed including many of my own ideas about what home education should look like. Just for fun let's take this subject by subject.
Language Arts--I started all three kids in Rod and Staff English this year and really loved it up until about 2 months ago when I abruptly quit using it. The girls did more than half of their books and I am sure they learned quite a bit but as it got into the second half of the book it became very tedious and had me questioning why anyone would ever have to know this much grammar. Joe didn't make it very far in his book at all...no surprise there. He does know what a noun, verb, and adjective are though as well as basic punctuation so I'd say he's okay. Hannah and Grace have done Daily Paragraph Editing all year and have learned way more from that daily exercise than they ever learned in the English book. I just recently bought Daily Language Review for Grace and Joe and they both enjoy it and it's reinforcing many things they already know. Both of those books by the way are from Evan Moor (my fave). One area that I've totally failed at this year (again) is writing. I was so sure I was going to get a handle on writing this year and I haven't. Towards that end though the girls did most of a workbook called, "Outlining, Notetaking, and Report Writing." We never quite got to Report Writing unfortunately. I am testing out IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing) during this last month of school. The girls did the first lesson today and so far so good. I can see us sticking with this and finally getting a handle on writing. Next year is the year, I can feel it. In addition to all of this we have also started the Evan Moor (my fave) unit study on Nonfiction. We are moving significantly slower than I had hoped to move but that's okay. I had planned to do some of it this year and some of it next year anyway. Trying not to stress about that. Next year for Language Arts we will be doing Daily Paragraph Editing, the Nonfiction unit study, IEW, and possibly a literature study, not sure about that yet.
Math--we started the year with everyone doing what we've been doing since Hannah was in 1st grade--Horizons math. I have always loved Horizons math....until this year. Actually, I still love it but my children do not. Specifically, Grace and Joe. They both became very anxious about math (that's an understatement--crying everyday) and so I finally just did away with the Horizons workbook and started having them do worktexts from Math Mammoth. It has been a lifesaver!!! I can't say enough good about Math Mammoth--it's cheap, simple, and solid. I will continue using it for Grace and Joe for next year and Hannah will also be doing a few of the worktexts reviewing fractions and decimals as we end our school year and into the summer. We've decided that everyone will continue math this summer. Grace and Joe both struggle with math and have made great strides in the last few months, I do not want them to forget anything! Hannah was doing fine with Horizons math but as she approached the end of the first of two workbooks for 6th grade I decided to give Teaching Textbooks a try and fell in love. She is currently in the middle of 7th grade TT and will stop for now and resume next year. When she finishes that she will start Pre-Algebra, probably mid-year.
History--We started off the school year with Story of the World Volume 2--The Middle Ages and we are still pushing our way through. We have taken our sweet time and are only on about Ch. 17 but we are now reading a chapter a day in order to finish this as soon as possible. We have plans for the kids to study American History next year so I have to wrap up The Middle Ages. I have done no extra projects but we have read a few books to go along with this--Red Sails to Capri, The Bronze Bow, and we are reading The Door in the Wall. We've done a more consistent history program in years past but I am still happy with what we have done and what we will finish before school is out.
Science--Do I have to talk about Science? It's my blog so I guess that answer is no but in the spirit of "keeping it real," here goes--Again, I had big plans. I had borrowed Apologia's "Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day," from a friend and had heard such great things about it. I even bought the lapbook component and was super excited about science. Well, after almost an entire school year we are only on Lesson 3. I surrendered today and packed up the copies I had made of the lapbook along with the book and have it waiting by the door to give back to Amy. It just wasn't meant to be. One of my goals this year was to focus on Math and Language Arts and Writing and to relax about everything else. I relaxed so much that our science curriculum just didn't happen. Oops. That doesn't mean we didn't do science though--we've watched countless episodes of Nova as well as other science documentaries, read Ranger Rick every month, and done some experiments from our science kits. I would venture to say that my kids know more about science than many of their public school counterparts--at least Grace and Joe do. When Grace took the CAT5 last year she scored 100% on the science portion. With that said...I have no intention to neglect science next year. In fact, I have big plans (I've heard that before)--Grace and Joe will do lessons from my new favorite website--Lesson Pathways. They have some great science units and I'm looking forward to doing a lot of them. Hannah will likely be doing Science with some other kids--Apologia General Science.
Other Stuff--Joe is almost done with his Caldecott Winners Pocket Book, the girls did an Easter lapbook, Joe has read almost all of the A to Z Mysteries--he's on Y, Hannah has learned to cook, Grace has learned to do laundry, and much more. I guess it's been a pretty good school year after all.

Just Shootin' the Breeze

1. Last weekend I got to be an honorary sister and go to the beach for the weekend with 4 crazy ladies. On the way there we loaded up the back window of the car with all things feminine--pads, tampons, coupons for pads, an ad for a bra and a book about women's hormones. It was pretty funny and started our weekend off with some good laughs. One of the sisters, Keri, lives about 15 minutes from the beach so we all stayed at her house. Their momma, aka Granny, came along too to take care of the babies (there were 3) while the rest of us played. We went to the beach, out for every meal, shopping, to a spa for pedis (I got my eyebrows waxed since I just had a pedi a couple of weeks ago), out for ice cream, to the beach at sunset, to a park, church, Wal-mart, watched a chick flick, stayed up too late, and all around had a great weekend. I came home refreshed and exhausted. Oh and I also got myself a new tie dye dress (didn't have one of those yet) from Keri's next door neighbor who also sells tie dye at the beach. In the picture below you can see the bottom of my dress--my toes are the ones without a flip flop on.

2. I'm numbering my thoughts for Gabi's sake. He doesn't like when I type one big paragraph. Does this make you happy Gabi?
3. Today at Racetrac "Take Five" candy bars were just 50 cents for a king size. I bought two and they are hidden in the back of my freezer as we speak.
4. Hannah is still cooking. Last week she made 4 meals and tonight she made spaghetti with bolognese sauce. She's a really good cook and I only have one complaint--she totally trashes the kitchen! I usually do clean up duty when she cooks but I'm thinking that may have to change. I'm sure she would make less of a mess if she knew she had to clean it up. I am loving having someone to share the burden of planning and cooking dinner with. Tonight I went to the gym while she cooked, if I had been the one to cook I probably wouldn't have made it to the gym.
5. Speaking of the gym and exercising...I'm really finally motivated to exercise more and get to the gym more. This week I did nothing Monday but walked for an hour on Tuesday morning and then biked to the library later that evening and then went to the gym on Wednesday and today. I'm planning to go again tomorrow and hopefully Saturday as well. This weight will come off, it will. And, maybe before I turn 40. :0)
6. So, I am getting almost no comments lately. It's not that big of a deal, I'm pretty sure people are still reading but sometimes I wonder. I can't help but think I've gotten too boring for most of my readers. I think I had better posts when I first started blogging, I had a lot more posts about specific topics. I've tried to go back to that but it doesn't work very well these days. Usually the best I can do is empty my brain. When I am reading blogs those types of posts are actually my favorites. I love people and truly enjoy hearing about their day to day life. Fo rizzle. I know, I'm weird.
7. The kids dyed easter eggs tonight. Unfortunately most were cracked--I was a big stupidhead and after boiling them I dumped them into a colander and they all bumped up against each other and cracked. I wasn't boiling 18 more eggs though so they dyed them all anyway. I'm hoping Hannah will make us some deviled eggs this weekend.



8. Joe has decided that he wants to try to like math. He's dying to learn multiplication but he's just now getting good at adding and subtracting and we haven't even started borrowing and carrying yet. But, to appease him I am going to teach him the 1s, 2s, and 5s times tables. He's really smart and I know he can get it but math often really stresses him out and so we have to move at a snail's pace in order to keep us both sane.
9. As I've mentioned before I have made some changes with school and am not requiring a whole lot from Joe that is assigned. Consequently, he has more free time while the girls are still doing school. I've been pleasantly surprised to find that he finds educational ways to occupy himself. He's written two books this week and keeps wanting me to give him spelling tests. If he was an only child he'd make a good unschooler.
10. After watching some of the talk about the upcoming royal wedding tonight at the gym I've decided that I'd like to read a biography of Princess Diana. Any recommendations?

Home

It seems like we have been super busy the last month and a half or so. We've had two rounds of company, a show, dentist appointments, and just stuff that takes us away from home on almost a daily basis. It feels like I am always rushing through school so we can leave. We finally had a full day at home today and even with a late start we got a whole lot done and felt relaxed while doing it. Hannah babysat two different toddlers--one in the morning and one in the afternoon and did all of her school and practiced her lines for Camp Rock. Grace got through all of her school, did laundry, and helped Hannah babysit. Joe did school and wrote a book. His little friend, Jake, is creating a library in his room and Joe is eager for his book to be in the "Friends of the Librarian" section. Noone can read it until it is in the library and they check it out. I got to read it because I typed it up for him. He did a great job and my favorite line is, "he brushed his teeth because they were yellow." School is going well with Joe these days--I'm not pushing him to do much and he is using his free time productively and even educationally. He reads a lot and also creates little projects for himself that he ends up learning from. He usually needs my help and that's another good reason to be home all day. Today I had the time to type up his book right then and there and hand him a "published" book that he is incredibly proud of. I have cancelled a field trip that we were supposed to go to tomorrow so that we can have another full day at home (at least until theatre at 4). And, we should have another full day at home on Friday. I'm going to really protect next week as well and make it a habit to protect at least 3 days a week so that we can get into a groove again. I'm planning to school right through the middle of June and there are a lot of things I'd like to do between now and then to round out our school year. This time of year is always hard for me but I really want to finish strong this year.

The Dewey Decimal System

We did something really fun today that I think everyone should go and do. :0) As part of our Evan Moor "Nonfiction" study we had to go to the library and use the above worksheet to explore the nonfiction section. I say "we" but really after a brief explanation I sent the girls to do it on their own while I read my book and did some math with Joe. They started in the 100s and perused the shelves making note of what topics were represented by the books in that section. It took them about an hour and they really had fun. Of course, as they were looking they found a lot of books to check out. We left the library with 5 bags of books. I actually got a little bit of attitude from the check out lady. That annoyed me--here I am, using the library, checking out educational books. Just because it was a lot of books should be of little concern to her. Anyway, the girls found some great books--lots of cookbooks, some books about different kinds of writing (ancient egyptian, chinese, hebrew, etc.), a book about hermit crabs, box turtles, cats, ballet, the Titanic, and more. More importantly, they saw how the nonfiction books are organized and saw that there are books about just about everything!
After their exploration, they had to pick a topic, decide on a question they wanted to answer, and use the card catalog to find a book that could answer their question. Hannah is fascinated by the story of the Titanic right now so that was her topic. Grace's original topic was cuttlefish (sp?) but we could find nothing about cuttlefish. Really, where does she get this stuff? Did you know that cuttlefish are like squid and octopus? I didn't but Grace did. Anyway, she had to change her topic to Beavers and managed to find the answer to her question. These were the first two activities in our unit study. The first pocket is about Finding Information in the Library.
The picture above is not very good but I was trying to get a picture of all the books they checked out. This is most of them but some are still in the Publix bag. I don't know if they will take the time to look through and read all of the books they checked out but I hope they will. One of the new ideas I have is to go to the library once a week or so and have the kids pick at least one book from each of the sections of the nonfiction books and read it over the course of the week (or two). There are plenty of short, picture books in every section. I would assume that some weeks they would get interested enough in one of the books that they get that they would want more information and then we can pursue that. Right now for example, Hannah is interested in the Titanic and she has a big stack of various types of books about the Titanic. Some are fiction and some are non-fiction and she plans to read them all.

School Today

So, today was our first day back to school after Spring Break. I had planned to ease our way back into our normal routine and it's a good thing I did. Today was anything but normal. First of all, the weather was crazy--stormy and rainy--and the weather radio was going off every few minutes. Grace had spent the night at a friend's house (normally a no-no on weeknights but I caved) and didn't get home until after 10. So, we got a very late start but we did start. We did our reading time--read the Bible, Book of Virtues, Young Person's Guide to Knowing God, and started a biography of Walt Disney. Then the kids did chores. We are trying something new. Joe is in charge of all living areas, Hannah is in charge of the kitchen and dining area, and Grace is in charge of bathrooms, foyer, and laundry. So far, so good. The laundry was piled up so Grace got to practice using the washer and dryer and folding a lot today. After chores we started school--this was interesting because I have all these new ideas and philosophies that I'm eager to test out but yet unsure how I want our school time to look still. This is most definitely a work in progress and I am assuming that every day will be different and I will bore you with seemingly endless blog posts because not only do I write for your enjoyment (ha!) but this is my journal as well. Hannah had an easy first half of the day because much of what she needed to do was on the computer and we had everything unplugged to protect it against all the lightning. She wrote an article for the Bunk Room, read for half an hour (she is reading Homesick by Jean Fritz), and did Wordly Wise. Later she did Math and attempted her virtual school Spanish. I finally convinced her to just quit that class today. I'm not crazy about the style of teaching and she wasn't retaining much. She had an assignment and a big test and she had hit a wall and just didn't think she could do either and I couldn't help her. I think part of her problem is that I helped her too much during the first semester. Because of that I've been completely hands off for this second segment and consequently cannot help her. Anyway, I have a great Spanish workbook and that will suffice for now. Grace did Math, Wordly Wise, read for half an hour, and wrote an article for The Bunk Room. Joe did Math, helped me make a cake, finished up a project for his Caldecott Winners pocket book, and read for a while. I had hoped to do a couple of the experiments in his science kit that he got for his birthday but he wasn't into it so I didn't push it (one of my new ideas). It was a good start for the first day back after almost two weeks off. I'm hoping with each new day I'll have a better idea for how I want to do things and what that looks like day to day. I keep reminding myself that these last couple of months of school are one big experiment. Surely by next fall I'll know what I'm doing, at least until I change things again. :0)

Homeschooling Changes...

Okay, these are the kinds of posts that are very hard for me to write because it means taking the jumbled thoughts out of my head and trying to make them into words and sentences and paragraphs that you, the reader can understand. So, bear with me if this gets a little confusing. In past years of homeschooling I have done a lot of lapbooks, small unit studies, science experiments, and more history. After feeling like I was too task oriented about accomplishing these hands on things and rushing through them to check them off a list I decided to just quit doing them this year. I felt like my kids weren't getting that much out of them because in my haste to finish I was taking the fun out of the project and not allowing for much depth. So, consequently, this year has been day after day of Math, English, Wordly Wise, and a few other workbook style language arts practice. No wonder it's been our worst year ever. The kids have definitely learned and progressed but the spark is gone. I had already decided to scrap the English book in favor of this--Nonfiction by Evan Moor for the girls. I am also doing an Easter lapbook from In the Hands of a Child. So, I've added a little fun back into school and that's a start.
I would also like to start following the kids' interests more and "living a life of learning" as opposed to "doing school." I read the book, Homeschooing: A Family's Journey by Gregory and Martine Millman and it really inspired me. They take more of an unschooling approach but yet do a lot. I am not much of an unschooler, I have always felt too undisciplined to just wake up every day without a plan but I found some ideas in this book that I could use in my own homeschool. For one thing, I want to have less specific curriculum that just becomes rote learning. When I think of the workbooks I do with Joseph, outside of his Math and Wordly Wise I think the others are really a waste of time. I bought one Comprehensive 2nd grade book back around Christmas and thought that if we finished that I would feel like he had done 2nd grade. He does the pages in the book but they are so disjointed and shallow that I don't think it's even worth the time we spend on it. It would be much more valuable to take a walk and point out nouns, act out verbs, and use adjectives to describe what we are seeing for example. Joe hates writing in the workbook but will happily write a sentence out of a book he is reading so we could do that more as handwriting. I still have a few science kits with plenty of supplies and experiments to keep us having fun with science for a long time. I have a bookshelf full of science and history picture books, biographies, art books, etc. We could spend a day reading about volcanoes, Pompeii, and even build a volcano, or paint a volcano, and watch an instant play video on Netflix about volcanoes. That would be interesting and informative and I know the kids would remember it. So, I am going to "practice" learning through living in these last couple of months of school and see if it's something I want to continue long term next year. I am planning to get out of the house more and either go on field trips or nature walks, or take the book that we're reading aloud for history and go sit by the lake for read aloud time. So, in a nutshell--I am going to do less bookwork (of course, math is still a daily subject) but hopefully more learning. In the next couple of days I am going to make a list of the things I want to do, and want the kids to work on and learn for the rest of the school year and then set about making that happen. More than anything I want to find joy in homeschooling again. So, we'll see. Of course, I'll document much of what we do here on my blog. Stay tuned...