Story Problems are for Box Thinkers

Cameron's schooling is eating away huge quantities of my time, but he's getting steadily better at being independent and figuring out how to work the online system.  It won't be long before I won't have to be nearly as involved as I am now. And I keep reminding myself that it doesn't matter how difficult or time consuming it is, this online school is exactly what Cameron needs, so it's worth losing control of my laundry again.  The laundry can wait.  Who needs clean underwear anyway?  Not us.  My kids think going commando is hilarious fun.

People ask me all the time why we decided to do online school with Cameron, and I could answer with lots of reasons.  The most blatant would be because he didn't get into the stupid magnet school that he applied to, but another important reason is because in traditional schools he spends half his time daydreaming about natural disasters and how many ways a tornado might kill a person, and the other half of the time he's listening to the teacher but isn't learning anything because the teacher usually only teaches to the majority of the class that think alike and learn alike.  That doesn't work for Cameron.

For example, the other day Cam was taking a math test online and he started yelling at the computer for being stupid.  He was getting a little carried away in his annoyance, so I asked what was wrong.

It turns out that the computer had asked him which is the better deal: six hot dogs for $4 or two hot dogs for $3?  Cameron answered two hot dogs for three dollars and was told he had the wrong answer.  I asked him why he chose that answer and he said, "Because I can't eat six hot dogs, so that would be a waste of a dollar!"

So in the real world Cameron is absolutely correct - nothing is a deal if it's not something you can use.  But that doesn't matter in the standard school setting.  Here at home we can talk about that and learn that there are sometimes lots of right answers.  Then I can tell him the answer his teachers are looking for and we can move on with our day feeling all kinds of superior.  

So we'll keep chipping away at his curriculum and eventually this will feel normal instead of feeling like a colossal black hole sucking up all my time and shredding it to bits.  (Incidentally, Cameron learned about black holes today.  Pretty cool stuff.)

The First Day

As soon as Cameron's supplies for his virtual academy arrived in the mail I started to get excited.  Partly because I have a fetish for office supplies and books, and partly because the arrival of those supplies meant getting rid of half my kids in just a few short weeks.

Today marked the arrival of the first day of school.  It was like Christmas - I almost couldn't sleep last night.

Drew was pretty excited for his first day of Kindergarten.  Andrew and I are now accepting bets as to how soon he will get sent to the principal's office for telling someone to "kiss my hairy butt".

Ethan was put into Mrs. Forsell's class, which is something he had been hoping for since they put him in her third grade class last year and then three weeks later ripped her out of third grade and put her into fourth.

Trent is not old enough for school for another two years, (stinking late birthday), so he is going to preschool this year.  We're doing a co-op with some ladies from church.  That means that three weeks out of the month I get to spend Tuesday and Thursday afternoons by myself doing whatever I please while Trent is at one of the other teachers homes, and the fourth week I will be paying for that by having four 3 and 4 year olds at my home.  Yowza.  Wish me luck.

And then there's Cameron, who entered sixth grade today via Oregon Virtual Academy.  It's going to be a tough year.

Disappointment

Back in January I went to a school district meeting about middle school options.  Cameron will be in middle school next year, and the district we're in has something like eight magnet schools for the kids to apply to.  

I've always been a little bit opposed to magnet schools and charter schools as a part of the public school system, simply because a very small percentage of the kids in the district get to go to those much better schools while everyone else is left back at the neighborhood schools with not great teachers and bad learning philosophies.  It just seems so unjust.

But when I heard about this environmental middle school that is available in our district I swooned over it.  The benefits of attending this particular school were numerous and impressive.  Plus, it was right up Cameron's alley with the science curriculum.  

I wanted Cameron to be one of those unjustly lucky kids who got to go to the really good school.  But only 64 kids could be accepted.  Two thirds would be chosen by lottery, the other third in a second consideration process.

We went to open houses, information nights, Cameron shadowed a student for half a day...  We did it all.  

And he didn't win the lottery.

So he wrote an essay and he went to an observation/interview - all in hopes that he'd get one of those last few open spots...

He did not.

And it honestly made me a little bitter.  I went back to feeling like the entire system is unfair.  I thought about my kids spending the entire month of February being tested over and over until they passed the state tests or failed them three times in a row.  I raged about how nonsensical that was and wondered what all the lucky magnet school kids had been doing in February...  I still feel a little bit sad about the whole thing.  Why do some kids get the obviously better education while the rest have to settle for what the school district calls our "best fit", when really it's just the "crappy leftovers"? 

I don't have the happy place answers yet.  I just know that disappointment is a huge part of life and we have to learn to take it in, refuse to let it poison us, and make the best of whatever we do have.

I also know that other kids being chosen doesn't mean that Cameron didn't deserve to be accepted.  It just means he had crappy luck.  And when we have crappy luck, we treat ourselves to ice cream.  (That's why we're chubby.  Lots of bad luck happens here.  We're used to it, and we'll feel better soon.)  More positive post coming later.  :)

Bully

Cameron came bursting in the front door after school last week hardly able to keep the grin off his face as he shouted that Ethan had gotten in a fight at school.  I kind of laughed at how excited Cameron was about it.  I think he thought Ethan was destined for the biggest punishment our house had ever known.  But I know my Ethan, and I wasn't worried.

It seems that Ethan had been enduring a couple of days of bullying by a boy in his class who, from what I hear, a lot of kids have had trouble with.  In fact, Ethan brought up this boys name at our first parent-teacher conference back in October, telling his teacher that he was being picked on by this classmate.  Physically.

When explaining the "fight", Ethan told me that this boy kept tackling him on the playground, and this time he scratched Ethan's finger with a piece of ice.  (There was no ice on the ground that day, so I'll have to assume it was a piece of clear plastic.)  Having already asked the boy repeatedly not to do that, Ethan decided that he had put up with enough, so he returned the kid's tackle, twisted his arm behind his back until he cried, and scratched his face with a bark chip.

After listening to Ethan's story and asking what the teachers had done, (taken the other boy to the office and sent Ethan on his merry way), I told him that his actions were fine, except for maybe the bark chip scratching, which was, perhaps, taking things a bit too far.

At the beginning of the school year Andrew and I told our kids that if ever someone hit them or hurt them at school, they had our permission to beat that kid into submission.  *Within reason.*  We told them to end it.  Because that's the only way the bullying stops.

We told both our boys that if ever they saw someone else being hurt, we expected them to defend that person, verbally at least, physically if need be.  And in either situation, they had our blessing.  There would be no punishment, regardless of what the school said or did.  We believe that our kids have the right to defend themselves and the responsibility to stick up for anyone weaker than them. 

We also told them that if ever they were the one doing the bullying, they would live to regret it, but just barely.

Schools do a really good job of putting up signs and talking about being a "bully-free zone", but a lot of times it's just talk.  They'd rather ignore it and avoid a law-suit from a parent who thinks their bully-child can do no wrong. They let it go on and on until there is irreparable damage.  That's why our kids were told to stick up for themselves, yes, physically, if they had to.

It seems that Dr. Laura, (who I think is just about the smartest woman around), agrees with us.

Child Prodigy

Trent is my baby, and with his third birthday rapidly approaching I decided it was time to potty train.  

Right now, nothing feels more insipid than a story about toilet training a three year old, so I'm going to make it quick.

This kid was potty trained in four hours.

I'm not kidding.

I put him on the toilet for the very first time in his life at seven in the morning on Monday, and nothing happened.

He peed his underoos three times before eight o'clock, and again at ten; then, at eleven in the morning we had success.  Pee-pee in the potty.

No joke - Trent has not peed his pants since ten in the morning on day one of potty training.  

He goes by himself.  I don't have to ask him if he needs to go, he just says, "Pee-pee's coming," and trots off to the toilet where he climbs on, does his business without the aid of a kiddie-sized seat, and gets back down.  (I do help with the hand-washing.)

The kid did go four days without pooping, and I was a little concerned that it would hit suddenly and with ferocity - but no.  Tonight, right before bed, he just did the doo.  Simple as that. 

I declare him a child prodigy.  And this week's favorite child.

The end.

Speech Therapy

My youngest son, Trent, is in speech therapy.  It's going pretty well.  He says all kinds of words now, and more and more often he will spout off a word that he hears one of us say, and it will surprise and delight us.  


Last night Andrew and I were watching The Hangover because it seemed like the entire world was raving about it a year ago and we never got around to seeing it.  All the kids were in bed, but Trent wouldn't stop crying, and after we'd paused the movie about eight times to try to get him to go to sleep I gave up and brought him downstairs hoping he'd fall asleep on my lap.  


But no - Trent watched that movie with serious intensity.  When it got to the part where Heather Graham breastfeeds the baby and it shows the entire breast being plucked from the shirt, Andrew looked at me in shock and said, "Did you see that boob?"


Queue the two-year-old who spouts, "BOOB!"


And of course, because Andrew and I are such mature parents we laughed like a couple of school children.  So guess who thinks "boob" is a hilarious word now?  That's right.  Trent, the Wonder-Talker.


I was a little worried that Trent would demonstrate his new word for his speech therapist when she came to our house this morning, but he behaved and "boob" didn't make an appearance, (verbally or otherwise).


The speech therapist did leave a CD of the most annoying children's songs ever recorded for Trent to listen to, and I dutifully played the CD when she left.  Trent loved it, and I was singing along...


"Puppy!  Puppy!  
Where are you?
Where are you?
Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof woof woof!"


This CD was really aggravating Drew, who is four, talks pretty well, and who's musical tastes lean more towards Pink and Kevin McHale, shouted over the kiddie rap, "Mom!  Stop it!  You're making me PISSED!"


So that pretty much proves that none of our kids really need speech therapy, because Andrew and I will eventually teach them all the words they really need to know.

Now I Remember

My head hit the table for the second time this afternoon when I heard the screen door slam and the house was suddenly much quieter than it should have been.

I was sitting in the dining room with Cameron and Ethan helping them trudge through their homework, and we'd been at it for an hour and a half.  I'm not sure if there really is that much homework or if it just takes that long because I'm up and down and inside the house and out chasing after the two Littles who are not confined to the table for homework every afternoon.

When that screen door slammed I knew that Trent had escaped again and I was going to have to go monitor the actions of my giant baby who usually doesn't wander too far and stays out of the street when cars approach, but has a bad habit of hitting most of the neighborhood children - especially the sweet little girl next door.

And that necessary baby monitoring means that homework is going to be delayed that much longer, because you know that as soon as I leave the room one of the boys will start flicking broken crayons at the other, and as retaliation there will be chanting of random numbers while the crayon flicker attempts division.

So today it hit me.  I now remember why I was so keen to homeschool.  I remember the very last straw that broke my back and solidified the as yet wishy-washy decision to keep my kids home last year and educate them myself...or try to.  It was the homework.  The time-sucking, play-depriving, Mount Kilimanjaro of homework every night.

Heaven help us.  It's only week three.

Bringing Sexy Back

Today was the first day of school.  And not just a regular first day of school.  For my kids it meant going back to public school after their initially successful and later disastrous year of homeschool.  

Can I get a hallelujah?

I was so worried about making sure I told Cameron to smile or he'd never make friends, and double-knotting Ethan's shoes and reminding them both to pick good friends but be friendly to everyone that I totally forgot to take their pictures.  So I snagged them when they got off the bus.  

I asked them if they wanted to strike a sexy pose.  You know - to lower the boredom factor on your average first-day-of-school photos.  Here's what they came up with:

I totally have nothing to worry about in the adolescent love department.  They must get their sexy moves from their dad cause I swear I'm not that big a dork.

The first day seems to have been a success.  The bully girl across the street is, in fact, in Cameron's class, but I was told she behaved herself.  Ethan's teacher hates video games, so she's my new favorite person in the world.  And Cameron lost his lunch box, but his glasses are no more mutilated than they were when he left this morning.  

As a bonus, the cute girl next door asked Cameron if he wants to walk to school with her every morning instead of riding the bus.  Let's just hope she doesn't have a thing for nerds.  Cause dang.

All in all, I'd say we couldn't have asked for much better.

Back To School To Do List

The following things must be done before school starts next week:

Remove all embarrassing clothing from children's wardrobe, i.e.; tie-dye shirt from camp last year and warm-up pants with holey knees.  

Cut children's hair without having "Oops - well, I'm sure no one will notice" incident.

Clean and re-organize children's room to allow for individual homework stations.  (Fantasize about quiet homework time.)

Re-teach children how to tie shoelaces.  They seem to have forgotten and have been sticking to velco or sliding feet in shoes without untying.  

Prepare Drew for shock of having no older children around to play with.  Convince him that "Mom is fun too!"

Pray that bully girl across street is not in Cameron's class.  She's scary.

Write names in backpacks and hooded sweatshirts.  Resign self to fact that this is not guarantee that items will come home with children, or be locatable in Lost and Found.

Decide whether or not to pack lunch for children on first day with super cool items (ex: Twinkies and Dr. Pepper) to convince children's peers of their awesomeness.  Is well known fact that kids with garbage lunches are desirable friends.

The Final Countdown

One precious week of summer left.

No clue what we're going to do with it.  Seems a shame that we have not been to the beach all summer, and yet I can't seem to get myself to want pay the gas money to get out there when a camping trip is looming in the distance.  A camping trip with zip line expeditions to pay for.  

While summer is closing like a good book with not enough pages left, I can't help but feel excitement over the start of the school year.  It has, after all, been over a year since I had the joy of sending the kiddos off to be someone else's problem for several hours a day.  Homeschool sort of kicked my butt and sent me reeling head over feet for several months.  Remember how cool it was in the beginning?  (See this and this for examples.)  Then we moved twice and I had a stroke and everything became lame and not fun.  Just lots of boring spelling words and math worksheets.  It did not go how I wanted it to. 

I am a little concerned about the social status that my oldest son will earn on his first day of school.  He picked out pretty decent clothes, (seems to be going for the skater look), but I am going to have to ban him from wearing sandals because he still insists on wearing socks with them.  And in fact, he is in his bedroom playing Magic The Gathering with Ethan.  I'm not sure if that's nerdy or not, but it might be one of those things that's better not to mention, just in case.  

Positive improvements in the geek arena are:  Cameron no longer wears his shirts tucked in so tightly we can see his ribcage, and he has stopped adjusting his glasses by contorting his face in ways that imply he might have mental issues.  That's about it.  But I've decided a geeky son is about the best thing a person can hope for.  He might get teased, but he won't be one of the jerks doing the teasing.  I don't think.

So.  One more week of summer.  We really must send it off in style.  Time to put on my thinking cap I suppose.

Still Pluggin' Away

We're still neck deep in homeschool, in case anyone was wondering.  It's going pretty well, I suppose.  My kids know all about viscosity, so I don't know what else the state could ask of me.  I haven't really figured out how a knowledge of viscosity can be applied to real life just yet, but Cameron and Ethan can sit down to breakfast and say, "Mom, I prefer my maple syrup with a slightly lower viscosity, so could you microwave it for me, please?"  And one of them did say that, so they sound smart, if nothing else.

Today we did a science experiment called The Incredible Can Crusher!  We crushed a can using nothing but air and a little cold water.  The sound of a gunshot was involved, so it was a huge success, of course.  When in doubt - loud noises are popular with boys.

Cameron and Ethan are learning to play the piano, courtesy of Grandma.  Just today Cameron mastered Ode To Joy - and after only six lessons, too!  Here's a little video of their recital, which took place after four lessons.  (My mom requested the footage, so if you're not my mom, don't feel obligated to watch. - Mom, you have to because it took me six years to download the 70 second reel.)

Reading, math, language arts, PE, and spelling are all coming along nicely, too.  And after seven months of this, I can say that I am very grateful for public schools.  Cause dang.  I'm beat.

Gratitude Journal

In honor of Thanksgiving, my kids are keeping Gratitude Journals as part of their homeschooling.  They have to write a minimum of five sentences every day about something they are thankful for.  Allow me to share Ethan's entry from two days ago:

"I am grateful for animals.  They can help make food.  Meat and steak.  And bacon.  And pork."

Ahem.

The kid likes animals.  And we need to work on our definition of a complete sentence. But I'm with him on the steak and bacon. Can't wait to see what he's grateful for during the rest of the month.

Week In Review: October 9th, 2010

It really took some thinking to remember the beginning of this week.  Seems like that's always the case - you ask me what I did yesterday and I'm totally clueless.  Luckily, I take pictures of some of it.

 Trent got hold of Cameron's glasses.  Good thing we had the back-up pair.  Cameron learned that the bathroom counter is not a safe place for such a thing, and I learned, well, several things about being a good mother.

Ethan played in another soccer game.  He kinda kicked butt at goalie, apparently.  I was home tending to Drew's never-ending diarrhea, so Joel took Ethan to this game.  Thanks, Joel!

We went to Lagoon - those season passes are almost spent.  We're hoping to get one or two more visits out of them.

Trent was really upset that  he didn't get to ride the bumper cars.  He's too little.  Imagine that!

This was the first time we ever tried this ride.  It was higher than it looked and scarier than I imagined, but Drew laughed like a maniac the entire time.  At one point I took my arm away from him so I could adjust my sunglasses, and he screamed in terror, "Don't let go of me!"  So I put my arm back, and he resumed laughing.

 Ethan kept everyone calm on the Littles' favorite ride.

 It was a spooktacular time!

 Sandy and Mindy came for a quick pit stop visit on their way to see Holly.  We had a good time during those few short hours and were glad to get to see them.  Even more glad to see them beat each other with the weapons Joel made for my boys.  Good show.

 Speaking of weapons, we've spent the last two weeks studying the Middle Ages.  The boys learned tons of useless facts about medieval times.  It amazed me the things their brains chose to remember and the things that were cast out, never to be recollected.  Anyway, they made shields and painted their own coat of arms on them.  I forget what each one means, but the boys chose the symbols and colors based on what they wanted to represent.  I think the dragons indicate that the boys are guardians of treasure.  I think the only thing they have to guard is the family jewels and a nickel that Ethan managed not to spend at Lagoon.

We had cousins come over and build castles with us.  It was kind of insane, but the boys had fun.  I put the boys in teams of two, and now I have more cardboard in my kitchen than I know what to do with.  One of these nights I'm going to have to sneak them into the trash while the kiddos sleep.  Hopefully in the morning they won't be able to figure out why the square footage in the kitchen has doubled.

 Yes, I need to clean my baseboards.  What of it?

 We did several other projects which I managed not to capture on film.  My favorite was 'Sir Cameron and Sir Ethan's Code of Chivalry' book.  They each depicted several rules that they are to follow in order to be nice, respectful, chivalrous young men.  My favorite was the page that says, "Respect Women", and shows a doorway covered in cobwebs while a man bows to a woman and says, "Ladies first!"  I'm not sure if they think they are funny or if they really didn't get it...  Anyway, the above picture is the grand finale to our Medieval unit - the Medieval Feast.  We dined on roasted chicken, yams, red cabbage, banana bread muffins, apple cider and apple tarts.  All atop a "mess", because they didn't have plates back then, you know.

 As King, Andrew presided over the feast, while his noble knights sat at his table in the tunics they painted themselves.  Trent's is the sun, meaning glory.  Cameron's is a flaming star, meaning zeal and nobility.  Ethan painted a bloody sword, which means he is warlike and apparently very good at it.  Drew's is, according to him, a dragon and a dinosaur.  I'm not sure what that means.

Langer's was the chief supplier of cider back then, didn't you know?

 

 I was the peasant woman who made all the food, but the men let me eat with them anyway.

The cider was the only part Trent partook of.  I don't think he appreciated his bread plate. 

So there you go.  It was an exhausting, but very fun week.  Next week we're going to keep things simple with homeschool.  The history of Halloween, a little geology, a bunch of math, and lots of reading.  And here we end.

All The Ways You Might Die

This week in homeschool, my kids and I are learning about sea life.  Specifically, fish.  I went to the library and checked out a whole heap of books on fish, sharks, giant squid, piranhas...everything.  And one of those books is simply a gem!  Or, rather, one page of the book is a gem.  Literally priceless.  Allow me to share an excerpt:

     "Your chances of being killed by a shark are very, very small.  You stand a better chance of winning the lottery, being struck by lightning, or dying from a bee sting than being attacked and killed by a shark.

     You will more likely die of an illness, being in a car accident, drowning, eating food with harmful germs, or being shot!  About 1,000 times more people die every year from accidents with guns in the Unites States alone than from shark attacks worldwide.

     Count all the people killed in all shark attacks.  The total doesn't come close to the number of people who are killed by each other."

Taken from Killer Sharks, Killer People an Imagination Library Series book, (emphasis added).

My kids are not wimps.  They can handle gruesome.  They can handle morbid, scary, frightening, and all kinds of horror.  But this??  This book is telling my kids seven ways in which it seems they are likely to die, and they are all pretty awful.

And seriously?  Being shot?  Did we really need to include that, people? 

But now that I'm thinking about it, Dr. Suess could probably have worked wonders with this topic.  I feel a future blog post being developed...

Week In Review 8/29/10

Boy have we had a week.  It's been a long time since I've had a fatigue-induced mental breakdown, but I suppose I was due.

Monday we took the kids to the park for one last summer picnic.  We were sick of sandwiches, so we brought Dominos pizza.  That stuff is good.

We played at the park and had a good ol' time.  Then it was home and bed, and our first day of homeschool.

It was hard, people.  Hard.  So much time, so little cooperation from the littles who were not used to being ignored for so long...  Cameron and Ethan were amazing though.  They did beautifully.  

We did our basics; math, reading, (both individual and group), language arts, spelling, penmanship, ...uh...did I get it all?  I don't know.  And then there was our science unit for the week:  insects.  

I jest not - my kids are now bug experts.  We watched DVDs on bugs, or arthropods if you will, we built a bug trap (as depicted below), made construction paper insects and labeled all their parts, sculpted models of insects and spiders out of salt dough and then baked and painted them...  The kids rocked it out.  And when they took their final tests on the unit, they each scored 100% without any help from me.  I was so proud.  

They both know that spiders are not insects, but are members of the arachnid family which is a sub-group of the arthropod species.  They also know that pill bugs and crabs are both crustaceans.  (Hello!  I didn't know that!  Well, I knew that about crabs, but not pill bugs.)  

If you asked them what three characteristics are true of all insects, they could tell you that they are all invertebrates, they all have six legs, and all true insects will have a head, thorax, and abdomen.  Then they could point out those parts to you and tell you how to spell them.

I have no idea how long it will take them to forget all this stuff, but who cares?  We had success on our first week!  Of course, there are a lot of things we need to tweak and perfect, but we'll get there.

Here's the kids' trap.  They dug a hole, and placed four flat-ish rocks around it.  (Flat-ish is a word.)

Then they put a large yogurt tub in the hole, and filled dirt around it to make the top of the cup flush with the earth.

 

Then they put a box on top to keep water out of it, and waited over night.

The next morning, they found that they had captured at least three spiders, eight beetles, several potato bugs (pill bugs to some of you), and one earwig, which was evidently killed by one of its cup mates.  It was hard to document all of this because all the insects and spiders were racing around the cup like crazy trying to stay away from each other and find a way out.  We took video of it, but I hate loading video on this thing, so you're out of luck.  (Or maybe count your blessings cause this post is already really long.)

The boys documented their findings...

...and sketched pictures of all the different kinds of insects they found.

And there you have it - a taste of our first week.  

And finally, Cameron's sunflowers are really super tall now.  He's an excellent gardener, and he didn't get that from me.

Have a happy week, everyone!

Slurred Title of Some Sort

I'm typing with my eyes closed because it's so much easier and more relaxing this way. Eyelids...so...heavy...

Seriously though, this homeschool thing is sucking the life out of me. Maybe I just need to adjust to it, but at this rate I'm going to be asleep by 8:00 PM every night and be completely unconscious all weekend long.

There are plus sides though.

Brace yourself.

I have been awake, showered, and dressed well before 9:00 AM all week long.

Shocking, no? That hasn't happened two days in a row since I was 20.

Also, the kids don't hate me. I was kind of expecting a little bit of a rebellion, but so far so good.

Possibly the worst change though, since this week began, has been my blog comments. So far I've been keeping my own blog alive by scrounging around my drafts pile, but all of y'alls blogs have gotten to see a little more color from me.

You see, by the time I get around to reading everyone's blogs, it's late and I'm wasted from going non-stop all day. That means I have no energy to hit my self-censor button.

I vaguely remember leaving a comment containing at least one cuss word on someone's blog - no idea who's it was, and I know I made comments about "dirty" fruit on Bossy Betty's blog.

In all honesty, those comments were likely more of my true self than anything I usually say, but I try to keep it reigned in when I'm completely coherent.

So if you've gotten an odd, offensive, or off-color comment from me - you have my apologies. I'll try to take a nap before I respond from now on.

Homeskool Curriculum

I know this will make something like three posts today, but I've been slaving over this homeschool schedule, and I've never done it before, so it's a little intimidating. I wanted to share with you what I've got so far and get your feedback. Here's our first week's schedule:


Daily Activities:

Pledge of Allegiance - Or sing the theme song to South Park. We'll just pick whichever one we're feeling most loyal to at the time.

Math - We'll be spending a lot of time on story problems. For example, "If there are 24 cans of Dr. Pepper in the fridge at the start of the day and by the time Daddy comes home from work there is no more Vicoden left in the medicine cabinet, how long will Mommy be in re-hab?" Real-life stuff like that is important.

Reading time! - Before you know it, my kids will have tackled Moby Dick and they will tout their superior intelligence to every adult and peon child they meet. I can't wait for my kids to be better than everyone else's!

Lunch - Making the kids cook for me is a life skill.

P.E. - We're just going to start counting their punishments as school time. The boys run too many laps around the house and do way too many push-ups and wall squats to not be counting those hours as part of our curriculum. And no one really needs to know how to play badminton. We're good.

Our first week of variable activities will be as follows:

Science - We'll start by observing the progression of milk to cottage cheese when left in a sippy cup underneath a car seat. That'll take about two days.

After that, we'll move on to a study of the effects of prolonged breastfeeding on six year olds. I'm sure I'll be able to find a Dr. Phil or some You Tube videos dealing with this subject.

We'll follow that theme with a field trip to the farm, where we will learn how to milk a cow. And how to tell the difference between a dairy cow and a bull. I am sticking with this dairy theme for science because it ties into our first health unit...

Health - We'll be learning about the four food groups. Chocolate, ice cream, potato chips, and Soda Pop. Each child will be tested on his knowledge by having to put together an entire day's worth of meals using nothing outside these food groups.

And let's not forget -

The Arts - We'll do all kinds of things, like dress up as people from the bible and act out everything from pillars of salt to lion's dens. Walking on water might be a little out of our league. But I think we'll make our own costumes out of dryer lint and toilet paper. We'll also sing songs about loving our neighbors, and learn to play instruments - like the kazoo.

That's what I have so far. I think it's a good start.

I hope your kids don't feel too bad about their crappy public education.

A New Batch of What-Ifs

As summer approaches it's last few weeks, I am growing uneasy.

This huge decision I have made (homeschool) is looming there in front of me, and I am terrified that I'm going to fail.

I'm worried that I will completely botch it, that my kids will learn nothing, or just not enough.

The plan was to do this for only one year and then send them back to public school with all the keys and pieces that they were lacking before. But if I screw it up, then I can't send them back to public school! They could be held back because their mother was a nit-wit!

What if I can't teach them the things I think I can?

What if they go back to school next year and have no clue how to do long division or properly punctuate a sentence?

What if all we do is lay in our p.j.'s and watch reruns of Ben 10 and Gilmore Girls? Would I do that??

What if I really excel at this home teaching thing, and in the process I miss out on all things Drew and Trent?

What if the dishes are never completely done again? (Because let's face it - it's a rarity now, and I don't have the burden of two minds to educate.)

I'm just thinking of all the potential there is to fail. I'm sure that somewhere in there, there is the potential to succeed.

Or I hope there is, anyway.

Summer Is My Pre-Test

I'm spending some time this summer on homeschool. I wanted to get a head start so there wasn't so much pressure to have all the hours done within the nine months of the normal school year. We want flexibility.

And I've basically decided on a Unit Study method. We'll pick a topic that is appropriate for Cameron and Ethan's educational level, as well as interesting to them, and we'll base our learning on that topic for a week.

For example, if the boys want to learn about dinosaurs, we will check out library books about dinosaurs, use those to read as well as pull our spelling words from. We'll take a field trip to the dinosaur museum a few towns away, possibly have a fossil dig, learn about fossils, maybe make a salt dough version of our favorite dinosaurs, etc... We can even incorporate our themes into our math work. Story problems and such.

There were a lot of things I liked about the Charlotte Mason method, in fact, I loved it, but I knew that it wasn't a good fit for my personality. I need more structure in order to be organized and productive. Plus, I think this Unit Study will be a good fit for my kids.

So anyhow, I wanted to start with some of the basics that led me to make this decision in the first place - penmanship, reading, writing, punctuation/grammar. But that stuff is no fun. Summer is not supposed to be filled with worksheets and assignments of four lines full of perfect letter g's.

So I'm adjusting a bit. I feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants with no direction, and I guess that's ok for now. I've got til September to figure out all the details.

So tomorrow we're doing a science experiment - frying eggs on the sidewalk. Should be fun, right?

Two days ago we did an ice melt experiment. I wanted the boys to learn about hypothesis, estimation, recording data, and most importantly, making observations. So we took three ice cubes outside and placed them on different surfaces to see how long it took each to melt. First, we made estimates based on what we knew about grass, concrete, and foil. We recorded those and then moved on to find out how accurate we were. I think the kids had fun. We talked about how the results might have been different if there had been no clouds in the sky, if the weather had been cooler, etc. Plus, while we waited for ice to melt, we watched some ants and talked about their habits and jobs.









In the end - about an hour logged for science, and it was mostly effortless with really good results. Except that I was the only one around to see the ice on the grass melt. That sucker took forever!


Anyway - that's a very confusing look at what we're easing into. When things get more serious, I swear I'll be more organized. :)

On Globes And Pencil Sharpeners

I am homeschooling my kids this year.

I am going to be the hottest girl in their class.

That's a first for me.

Homeschool is a hugely intimidating task. I not only have to educate my children, but I have to do it better than a public school would, or I get a big FAILURE stamp on my forehead. I have to make it fun, and try not to turn them into social misfits. You know - the kind of kid who can't interact with his peers because he's been spending all his time making macaroni art and breastfeeding.

Thank goodness I'm all dried up, huh?

So, in a rather unrelated event, CSN stores sent me a gift certificate to use in any of their 200+ stores, and so I picked out a few tools to use in our homeschool endeavors.

They shipped me an electric pencil sharpener and a globe, per my request.

I picked the pencil sharpener because there is nothing I hate more than a stupid hand crank sharpener that will only shave half the pencil and makes me use bad words in front of my impressionable kids.



Unfortunately, the electric one I picked out will not shave either half of my pencil. A week after this one came in the mail, I went out and bought a dollar pencil sharpener from Wal-Mart. It's not perfect either, but it comes a lot closer.

I'm not going to give up though. You get what you pay for, really. (This was a freebie for me, so no harm done.) I think next time I'll go with the X-ACTO brand.

The globe that I ordered was better. It spins, it correctly labeled all the oceans, etc. It's an inexpensive globe that gets the job done. I've used it in a couple of quick, impromptu lessons, and I was satisfied. Mostly the kids and I sit around the breakfast table, chomping on our cereal and taking turns spinning the globe, closing our eyes, saying, "I'm going to live in..." and then slamming our finger down on the spinning orb to make it stop on the location of our future homes. I need to learn to swim, by the way. We kinda love this globe - best toy ever.




I don't think the globe would fare well in a fall to the floor, or if it were taken hostage by my one-year-old, but I don't have plans to let that happen to our educational breakfast entertainment. As long as we're careful with it, this globe should last us as long as we need it. I would definitely buy it again, if I were made to do so with my own money.

That pencil sharpener can go to hell, though.

(In case you couldn't tell, this post is a review for products that I received for free from CSN Stores in return for posting my honest feedback and links to their website. I was not compensated in any other way, and I think it's obvious that my opinions are genuine.)