record keeping | This Adventure Life

Secular Homeschool Conference

Today, our homeschool group sponsored a mini-conference for people who are, and who are thinking about, or planning on homeschooling their kids in this area. The closest homeschool conference or ‘open event’ is in Houston. I’d go, but the only issue I have with it is that they tend to be heavy on the faith-based thing. That’s cool and all, but really not my bag. We’re secular homeschoolers, so I thought that hosting an ‘informational’ mini-con might work. I created a public event on Facebook, and sent out invitations to all of the homeschoolers I knew, and invited them to share the event and invite their friends. I was expecting only 1 mom outside of our group.

Color me speechless to find out that more people came than I was expecting! We had 3 soon-to-be homeschoolers, one who wasn’t able to make it, and four who are already in our group and are actively homeschooling. For our first event of this kind, I think it went pretty well, especially considering that we didn’t really advertise or anything. I’m fine with that, and having this one finished opens up a lot of possibility and ideas for future events.

So, I wanted to talk about organizing one, and make some notes and share some thoughts if you might like to put on a homeschooling mini-con of sorts for your community. Here are somethings I learned and wish I’d had on-hand:

1. an identifying banner of some sort – I didn’t realize that some of the ladies who were there waiting were there for us and if we’d had a sign of some sort, we would have been easy to identify. I priced a 1′ x 3′ banner at the UPS store and it was less than $30 for a vinyl sign with grommets at each corner. There are lots of times that may be a good thing to have, so I am considering getting one. www.VistaPrint.com carries banners similar in size for $16.00.

2. name tags – helpful! Since it was a small group, I think I remember everyone’s name, but I am SO BAD at names! So having name tags would be good. Also, being able to address everyone by name creates a sense of intimacy that most people respond well to.

3. a sign-in sheet - also helpful! – since there was only one woman that had not already contacted me, and she was friends with another mom in our group already, I can pretty easily get in touch with them. Had we had a bigger turnout, then I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to talk to each of them individually (which is a perk of having only a small group).

5. Handouts – I really should have written up a hand-out or something for everyone to take home – a welcome kit… something. I’ve done them before by calling different companies and asking for samples (things pencils from office-supply stores, other swag from school supply stores, coupons for local kid’s places (jump zone, OrangeLeaf, bowling or skating, etc.), a list of resources, a pamphlet about our group, etc. If I’d thought about it a month ago, I’d have had time to pull that together. Maybe even a gift certificate for dinner or something and do a ‘just for fun’ raffle. A lot of places are wiling to donate stuff like that if only you ask.

4. I think next time, if we do this again, I’d like to do a bit more promotion. Our group is already on our local Library resource list, and is on several ‘group databases’ online, but local advertisement for local homeschoolers would make more sense and probably be more helpful at attracting locals.

5. Explain to my homeschool group members better what kinds of audience we’re targeting with this project, and break it down into small, specific jobs so that my group moms have a better idea of what’s happening and how they can help. I asked for help a couple of times, but, only to find out today that I wasn’t explaining myself very well. I’d love to make this a yearly thing, and many hands make light work, so I’ll need to work on that for next year (if we do this again).

The feedback was good – that what was presented was helpful, and the experiences shared by the more seasoned homeschooling moms (especially about their ‘getting started’ experience) was reassuring and worth hearing. Our group has been growing by leaps and bounds since January, and from what I’ve heard lately, we can expect more.

For our topics today, we covered:

*Homeschooling and Texas Law*

Homeschooling Law in TX (synopsis)

HSLDA website

In Texas, homeschool families are considered private school and as such, are are not subject to regulation by the school district or state (this includes standardized testing and compulsory attendance edicts), and are exempt from school-time curfews (with identification).
Since homeschooling is legal in Texas and operate independently from a school district, you do not have to allow the school district representatives to ‘review’ or ‘approve’ your child’s curriculum.
The only the requirement for legal homeschooling in Texas is to homeschool in a bona fide manner, with a written curriculum consisting of reading, spelling, grammar, mathematics, and good citizenship. This can be as simple as a sheet of paper with these subjects written on it.

*Methods and Philosophy*

The method an philosophy has to do with how you think that children (your children) learn best, and what you think school should be. We all start out with preconceived notions about these things, and sometimes, we find that we were right all along. Other times, we may need to choose a new direction. Reading about the various styles of homeschooling that are out there gives you a ‘niche’ for what you are already thinking. For the most part, why re-invent the wheel? Homeschooling has been around for generations. Though each new generation adds a new twist on an old idea, when you’re just starting out, knowing where you fall in the ‘structured…. unstructured’ scale can help find resources that will be closer to what you’re looking for and makes a good place to begin your research. Here are overviews of some of the more well-known methods and philosophies out there:

Classical Education: Charlotte Mason, Well Trained Mind, Thomas Jefferson Education
Literature-based Education: Unit Studies, Notebooking, & Lapbooking
Enki Education
Waldorf Education
Montessori Education
Delight-led & Unschooling
Eclectic Homeschooling

*Learning Styles and What they Mean to You*

Everyone gathers information about the world through three sensory receivers: visual (sight), auditory (sound), and kinesthetic (movement). Some people rely most on visual cues, others prefer auditory input, and still others learn best through movement. Educators refer to these differences as learning styles. How does knowing your child’s learning style help? By identifying your child’s dominant learning style you can tailor their education to lean heavily in that direction so that they learn best. Public schools tend to be ‘one-size-fits-all’ in their approach. Homeschooling with an eye toward your child’s learning style will help make schooling more enjoyable for you and the, and maximize their learning potential.

Learning Styles

Auditory - listeners: They may learn to talk early on, and may enjoy listening to tapes and playing musical instruments. Auditory learners are often talkative. They may like to read aloud, recall commercials word for word, or do tongue twisters. In school, they may memorize math facts much more easily in a song or poem than from flash cards.
Kinesthetic - hands-on: Kids who love taking things apart to see how they work, or who are obsessed with building toys may be kinesthetic learners. Kinesthetic kids are often in constant motion, their movements are well coordinated, and they are anxious to crawl and walk as quickly as possible. In a classroom, kinesthetic learners can be fidgety. They’ll often be the first to volunteer to do something —anything—active. They want to do an experiment not watch it or read about it.
Visual - watchers: As babies, they are often drawn to lights, colors, and movement. They revel in colorful toys and piles of picture books. Visual learners enjoy and learn easily from pictures, handouts, videos, and films. In school, they can learn science principles by watching a science experiment rather than having to conduct the experiment themselves.

Not leaving the teacher out, there are different teaching styles, too. One of the great benefits of homeschooling is the ability to tailor-make your education program. Everything is yours to try, tinker with or discard in favor of a new or changing idea or need. As a teacher, you’re interacting with your child in a different way than as a parent. The two are closely related, of course, but what you want for your child may be different at an age, o what they need from you may call for more or less structure. So learning your teaching style is also helpful. I am sure there are more, but the way I like it explained best is Directive, Guide and Facilitator. All of these can work with basically any schooling philosophy or method, though it might take some finagling.

Teaching Styles

Director - had total control over all aspects of the child’s education. Parent sets mood, tone, lessons, materials, and every aspect of what the child learns. I see this as more of an elementary level style of teaching, though some children who tend to be easily distracted may work better having everything laid out for them.
Guidance - Parent still sets most tone, but has slightly more input from the child. Parent helps guide the child to subjects, activities and research that are in-line with his/her interests and goals. I see this as more of a middle-school style of teaching, though may work for independent children who work well alone.
Facilitator - Parent is solely there to facilitate – to learn about and promote learning through the child’s interests. And/Or the parent is there to help, but the child’s education is largely self-directed. I see this more of a high-school age style of teaching, but also works well for children who are very self-motivated and who need little by way of encouragement.

Obviously, this list is not complete, but may help you determine what your style is, and what your child may need from you. Often, if you have more than one child, each of your children may need something different from you.

*Curricula – Finding What Works*

Finding the exact right curricula can be absolutely overwhelming. There are literally hundreds of options, and often many options associated with different methods. Finding what fits your family can be challenging at best. First, knowing what fits in line with your personal philosophy and what method you want to use is important. That will eliminate may curriculum options right off the bat. Identifying your student’s learning style and your teaching style will further narrow the options. Once you have those things out of the way, there are several places you can begin.

Grade level (or age/peer group) can be a good place to start. If your child is being pulled from school, unless you know they were behind, you should be able to pick up with that grade level work. If your child was consistently getting lower scores, it might be worth it to drop down a grade and work on cementing the previous foundations before moving on. Don’t feel bad if you need to do that; your student will soon catch up and even surpass his peers.

Many parents feel that it’s a good idea to have a ‘spine’ – a framework that tells you what your child ‘should be’ learning. This is often found in the scope & sequence. What is ‘scope & sequence’? A couple of options are:

Core Knowledge K-8th Grade Sequence

Texas Education Agency Scope & Sequence

You also want to figure out your schedule. Many homeschoolers take more frequent, shorter breaks than public schools. We school for 4 weeks, then have a week break, then pick up again. Others have different schedules; you’ll find out your own. That may be closely aligned to the ISD, or may be totally different. Do what works for your family.

*Getting Started – Homeschooling, Year One*

Tip #1: Don’t buy anything ‘big’ the first year – no curricula, don’t re-model your house. There are PLENTY of free homeschooling resources that you can use the first year. The last thing you want to be is locked into an expensive curriculum that both/either you and/or your child hate(s).

Tip #2: Look at your first year as an ‘exploratory’ year. Try different styles, experiment with times and days, try out different methods. See what works and what doesn’t. After a fully year, you’ll have a much better idea of your teaching style, and of your child(ren)’s learning style. You’ll be able to spend that whole year trying new things and ideas and will have a much better idea of how YOUR homeschool will work when you start planning for Year 2.

For me, setting up our space helped get me in the frame of mind. Having our school space separate from the ‘home’ seems to help us all focus a little better. That’s not to say that we’re trapped in here during school. We’re just as likely to work on the living room floor, retreat to their own bedrooms, have school on mom’s bed, have school outside, pack up and head to the park… all totally valid options. But just having that space helps me out a lot. Of course, that’s not practical for every family, and many families just don’t want that. Again, do what works for you! There are so many options – if you don’t know what you want right off the bat, start with one thing, then change it if it doesn’t work. Flexibility is one of your greatest ‘teaching tools’.

Another tip is to join a homeschooling group. If there’s not one in your area, start one and you can learn together with the other newbies. If there is absolutely nothing in your area, find a good forum or group to join online. Having someone you can talk to to vent, praise your children bounce ideas off of, share resources, talk about your latest field trip, gripe about your non-supportive family or in-laws… whatever – having that support is absolutely essential in my opinion.

The blogosphere is awesome, too. I have learned so much from reading other blogs! Moms that inspire, Moms that I am in awe of, Moms that make me laugh, Moms that really make me think… there are SO MANY homeschooling moms of every variety, of every style and method – it’s truly amazing how much these bloggin’ mamas share. Feel free to check out my sidebar – there are tons of links!

***

If you were able to be with us today, THANK YOU for coming out! If you’re planning a mini-con for your community, I’d love to hear about it! I’d also love to hear what kinds of things that you, as homeschooling parents, would want to get out of a small-scale conference.

Warmly,

May 21, 2013 | Categories: Advocacy, Community Events, Homeschooling Resources, Homeschooling Tips and Tricks, Rambling Thoughts, Socialization | Tags: commentary, curriculum, Homeschool Conference Texas, homeschool tutorial, homeschooling, homeschooling challenges, hosting a homeschool conference, record keeping, schedule, secular homeschooling, Secular Homeschooling Conference, time spent in school, year round homeschool | Leave A Comment »

Back in the Groove

And so we embark on our fourth year of homeschooling. Looking back, I just can’t believe that we’ve been at this for three solid years. Time has just FLOWN by. It’s amazing to me how much we’ve accomplished over the last three years.

We took off the month of December, as is our normal schedule. We use a four weeks on/one week off schedule throughout the whole year; that gives us roughly the same number of school days that your average public or private school has (following a traditional schedule) – we just get our breaks spread out through the year instead of clumped together during the summer.

I spent our first day ‘back to school’ doing some assessment testing with the boys, mainly in reading, and was impressed with their progress. I don’t do much testing as we go; we’re mastery focused, so we don’t move on until the concept is learned, so there’s not a need for testing in the same way that educational institutions use testing. If you’re interested, I use a couple of reading assessments; there are several listed here that are free and easy to use. It may not be totally comprehensive, but it’s good enough to get an idea; plus, they read all the time, so I hear them reading aloud and already have an idea of their ability; this just gives me a quantifiable number for my records.

I thought that I posted a ‘lesson planning’ post for this year, but I must have overlooked it. I know that I updated our ‘curriculum’ page, but I’ll reference some of that here for good measure, rather than posting a lesson planning post. We’re pretty much set at this point; we’re not making a lot of changes the way that we were in the beginning. I’ve kind of found the things that work for us, so we don’t need as much trial and error!

One of the things that i kinda wanna brag about for a minute is ‘grade level’. I have said over and over again that we don’t really do ‘grade level’ – it’s somewhat of an arbitrary concept, in my opinion. However… even though I’d love to get rid of the concept entirely, we can’t really escape it. The boys have friends in school, my niece is in school – so the topic comes up whether I like it or not. Since we pulled the boys out of school mid-year, and started our school year in January, we’ve been in the middle of a grade for homeschool. My goal has been to get the boys and the school year’s start on the same page – without letting the boys lag behind their schooled peers – and it’s taken three years, but we’re finally there! That’s a silly thing to be proud of, but I am!

That said, we’re actually not starting the next grade. Technically, they’re both done with this grade level’s work (4th for PeaGreen, and 5th for LBB), but one of the benefits of not having to jump into the next grade is that we have time to play around with unit studies and some of the other things that I’ve been wanting to do that we just haven’t had time for because we were busy getting the basics out of the way. I’ve really been wanting to get back to Mason style, literature-based lessons, and with the boys having their grade-level work completed, I finally feel like we can delve into those things.

When the boys were small, we pre-homeschooled with Before Five in A Row and Five In A Row. Then, when the boys started school-school, I sold our copies of those guides and books – but when we had them, we loved them. So, I bought Beyond five In A Row, Volume I to work on over the next few months. I had forgotten how multi-disciplinary the lessons were. I don’t feel that they’re necessarily complete, but using them as a base and supplementing with other materials will work quite well, I think.

The first book in BYFIAR I is The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. We do lapbooks, so I decided to lapbook the lessons. I posted them a few weeks ago here: The Boxcar Children Lapbook for Beyond Five In A Row Vol I, and we got started on them yesterday. So far, so good! This is a different ‘style’ lapbook than we’ve done previously; usually the mini-books are all on the same theme. In this case, because the lesson plan pulls so many different aspects into it, I’ve had to re-think lapbook organization. Truthfully, the lapbook probably won’t make much sense without the lesson guide, but feel free to use them if you like.

On the schedule for this year are:

continuing with karate – Loverly Husband and PeaGreen are both orange belts; LBB and I are both yellow belts. We’re completed a year of training, and participated in our dojo’s New Year’s Day tradition of Hatsu Geiko, or 1,000 Kicks, to re-commit ourselves to our training for the coming year.

Spanish Lessons – our local library has organized a children’s conversational Spanish course to be held once a month with a group of volunteer teachers. We went to the first class this evening, and it sounds like they’re going to have a lot of hands-on type things. It sounded interesting and can’t wait to get started! The theme for the next class is ‘food’, so we can interpret that how we like, I suppose.
Spiral Scouts – we’re starting a new Spiral Scouts group in our area. I have issues with Boy Scouts, so that was out, but scouting always sounded like so much fun! There’s just nothing like that in this area; we’ve been in need of a more inclusive scouting program here for years. I’ve known about SS for a while, and am glad to be getting started with it.
I don’t have a main curriculum for math right now; we’re going to work on solidifying some of the core concepts before picking up again and moving forward. LBB is working on division with decimals, and PeaGreen is working on division with remainders at the moment; I’m content to work on that and multiplication tables for a few weeks. We used Timez Attack for a while last year so I think we’re going to use that a bit more for a while.
The boys both got tablets for Christmas and already, two days int the new year, they’re getting quite a bit of actual school-use from them. We’ve been working on research projects each week, so that laid a good foundation for them to be able to do independent research. Already, they’ve been asked to and successfully located information about Gertrude Chandler Warner for a research paper on her, and several bits of information for their Viking Adventure lapbook, and definitions for vocabulary. I am loving that I don’t have to give up my computer for them to do their work!
Something new I want to try this year is visual writing prompts. I found an article by Rosina Lippi a while back on Pinterest where she was talking about using them, and it made me start a pin board for interesting pictures that we might use for writing prompts. We haven’t started that yet (only 2 days in), but I am looking forward to using them.
Science is another area that I am not set on yet. I am thinking that we may go ahead and do REAL Science Odyssey. I am thinking Level I Chemistry and then Level 2 Biology in a few months… we’ll see. I have science textbooks for days, so we may stick with those.
We’re doing Story of the World III this year, but aren’t starting it just yet. We’re in the middle of II, and are taking a break to pursue Vikings at the moment; I found a lapbook that corresponds with Viking Adventure by Clyde Robert Bulla, so we just got started in that. We were/are doing the SoTW lapbook from Chronicle of the Earth at RunOfTheMillFamily’s blog, but she’s on hold for now; we may or may not be ready to start SoTWIII by the time she has started posting new minibooks… that’s a ’wait and see’ game. In the mean time, I have started working on lapbooking components for III just in case.
We are still doing Latin; still Cambridge I. Hopefully we will get into II sometime this year.
Science Fair is coming up in the spring, with the Texas Regional Homeschool Science Fair in March/April. We’re going to go this year, I think – maybe not compete in the TRHSF, but at least go to get the kids excited about next year.
And, of course, our local homeschool group is active, as ever. We just updated our calendar for the group’s activities through June and we have a ton of fun stuff planned.

So… that’s a look at what we’re doing/thinking about for the coming year. We’re off to a really good start, and I look forward to sharing our continued journey with you!

Warmly,
~h

January 8, 2013 | Categories: Community Events, Homeschooling Resources, Rambling Thoughts, Testing & Assesment | Tags: curriculum, grades, homeschooling, lesson planning, methods, record keeping, schedule, year round homeschool | 2 Comments »

Back to (Home) School

One of the things I miss about brick-and-mortar school is the ‘first day of school’. With homeschool, it’s just a matter of falling back into a good routine. We don’t go anywhere, there aren’t new clothes and new backpacks and lunchkits, there’s no excitement about seeing who’s in your class this year or moaning about getting this teacher or that one.

On the one hand, you might say those are bonuses to homeschooling, not drawbacks… but I really loved the first day of school. I am thinking that when we break and go back in January (which is technically the beginning of our school year), I am going to have to make the first day back a little something more than we did today… maybe a Schultüte (a giant hand-made cone full of school supplies and other goodies) or party decorations… something fun, I think.

On the plus side, we spent our first morning ‘back to (home) school’ in our pajamas, had lovely mochas and spent the first part of the morning in quiet serenity (with a little bubbling excitement just under the surface). Our first day back went well overall. Usually, after a break of any kind, going back to a regular school schedule is like pulling teeth, but they were excited to get back. We went school supplies shopping last week, and since I banned all school supplies from anywhere but their desks, I wonder if part of their excitement was being able to use their new colored (and totally erasable) pens to do their work.

They breezed through Reading and Spelling; LBB got hung up on math, but PeaGreen got through his morning work pretty quickly (and so he got to do his chores! Yay!!). After a bit of moaning and groaning, we took a break for lunch, then PeaGreen got over his hurdle. LBB was still in a funk and tried some of his old stalling tricks. We did some re-focusing, and then it was time to pack up and head over to a friend’s house to make soap.

The boys brought their work with them – Latin to finish, handwriting & Grammar (plus a bit of math for LBB). It wasn’t a total success (bringing work with us). PeaGreen – who is by far the less distractable of the pair, got finished with his work fairly quickly. LBB though…. he likes to dawdle. And stall. And find things to be distracted by. Being in a new place, watching mom do a cool craft – that’s not exactly a recipe for success. I cut him some slack though. To be fair, it wasn’t really a good time or place for ‘school on the go’. Our friend is extremely crafty and has lots of pretty cool things to look at. Plus, we were mixing oils and making soap! She even got out some homemade melt-and-pour soap and let the boys make up their own bars. LBB chose a lemon scent and PeaGreen chose grape.

Speaking of soaps… if you get a chance, check out her products at Goddess Divine Creations. I have a bathroom FULL of her soaps and they are *amazing* – my favorites at the moment at Nag Champa Hemp milk soap and Dragonsblood. I also use her Teen Clean Neem Facial Soap and quite a few others (Sin City Amber, Orange Patchouli, Lemongrass, Prosperity Blend, Strawberries & Champagne Salt Bar, Blueberry Salt Bar… oh, my list goes on and on!!).

The rest of the week has been surprisingly easy. Whatever mental block LBB had on Monday & Tuesday, he got over it by Wednesday and completed all his work in record time Wed & Thurs. PeaGreen is as steady as ever – he’s my little trooper!

We’re as busy as ever – Monday’s soap-making excursion, Tuesday’s field trip and planning sesh for the fall calendar with our homeschool group, Wednesday was mine and Loverly Husband’s 13th wedding anniversary, but we had a full day home at school, and Thursday (today), LH was home (we went to see The Dark Knight Rises… excuse me while I squee like a silly fangirl, but it was *fabulous*!!) but managed a pretty full day of schoolwork anyway – total gold star for Mom for managing to get school done with Dad home… that’s usually a no-go!

Speaking of Batman… Catwoman has always been one of my favorite characters, and I love the Batman/Catwoman ‘ship – I have since the good ‘ol days of Michael Keaton/Michelle Pfieffer movie way back when. I have to say, Anne Hathaway did a good job bringing her to life, and though I haven’t been as much of a fan of Christian Bale as the Dark Knight, it was good to see them on-screen together again (Batman and Catwoman, I mean). All things considered, this was a truly amazing movie.

Bruce Wayne & Selina Kyle = <3
Batman & Catwoman = <3

So… things I learned this week:

keep calm, and explore Mars – we need to incorporate the Mars landing into our lesson plans next week.
keep calm, and pretend it’s on the lesson plan – be flexible with ‘on-the go’ lessons
keep calm, and drink more coffee – coffee calms my kids down; that’s not a bad thing for desk work
keep calm, and carry on – ignore distractions, like Dad being home
keep calm, and play games – 8 minutes of math game is worth and other 15 minutes of hard-core desk work
keep calm, and karate-do – our karate class was cancelled Tuesday due to the power being out from a storm. I just missed class and am looking forward to it this evening, that’s all {wink}

I am posting this on Thursday, and taking it on faith that Friday will go in a similar vein. Light a candle and hope that I don’t eat those words! Hope your first week back either went well, or will go well!

Warmly,

August 9, 2012 | Categories: Daily Review, Field Trip, Homeschooling Tips and Tricks, Lessons Learned, Rambling Thoughts | Tags: back to home school, batman & catwoman, commentary, homeschooling, homeschooling challenges, record keeping, school on the go | Leave A Comment »

NBTSBH Curriculum Week: Planning 4th and 5th grade

So as of today, we’re officially ‘back to school’ – yay!!

That means that it’s time to play ‘Not Back to School Blog Hop‘! Yay!! I love this time of year – it’s so… exciting. Everything is all hustle and bustle and getting ready for doing things! This past summer was the first time since we started homeschooling that we’ve taken a lengthy break (not that we’ve been idle), and even the kids are actually looking forward to school starting up again.

Rather than be frustrated with the school year not working out the way I’d envisioned, with a few changes to the fall programme I am quite happy with the way that she summer has worked out. We’ve had a full 8 weeks of summery-time fun, and spent tons of quality time with friends. The kids have gotten to attend some pretty awesome classes and even though it wasn’t structured, got plenty of learning in as well. Now that all that is past, it’s time to drag out the books, clean out the files and start fresh.

Some ideas that I’ve played with over the last few years that I want to put fully into practice again:

workboxes – I am a fan of workboxes. We’ve struggled to find the exact right method of ‘box’, and are trying out one more . Eventually, I think I’d like to have this style:

This isn’t my picture, but this is the style I want to use. Everything is open and visible at a glance – I can see what’s inside the boxes at any time without having to mess with them. But for now, we’re using the file box system. I did print out some workbox tags from HeartofWisdom (and some from HomeschoolCreations as well) to help the kids see ‘at a glance’ what they have in their files for the day.

We have 12 boxes; we’ve been talking about this already for a while now. We started preparing for the ‘first day of school’ about 3 weeks out; I wanted them well-prepared with what to expect this year. I am putting the onus on them to get their work and chores done – with everything spelled out and in their boxes, as long as they follow the next box, they shouldn’t have any trouble – or get into trouble – for not fullfilling their responsibilities.

With middle school on the horizon in the fall of next year, I need to see more than a little independent work from them, especially LittleBoyBlue (who will be 11 in December). He has ADHD and SPD – but he also has a large repertoire of coping strategies to help him stay focused; there’s no reason I cannot expect him to handle this level of responsibility. After all, this is what we’ve been working towards! And I will still be there to offer reminders.

meditation/quiet time/reflection time – some sort of similar idea Mind jar

We’ve been using our mind jars for quite some time now, though probably not as often as we could, and I have noticed that the boys are more easily able to contain themselves when we make meditation practice a more regular part of their days.

I have also been attending group meditation at the local Buddhist temple and Unity church, and find that in addition to my own formal private meditation practice, these group meditations are useful. I think that we’re going to start incorporating some sort of mindful meditation as part of our school schedule this year, even if it’s only 15 minutes or so a couple of times each week, with an eye towards having the kids attend in the near future. We’re not ‘religious’, but this sort of consideration for the needs of the spirit/soul/inner self/mind – whatever you want to call it, are helpful, I think.

Another area we’ve been slacking in is organized group charity work. AT one point, we had a HEARTS group, but that kind of fizzled out. Coyote Communications has a lot of great suggestions for community service work, and we’re planning our homeschool group’s calendar tomorrow at our weekly meet-up, so I am bringing a list and getting some plans on the books.

In addition to the regular subjects, math, grammar, handwriting (yes, still), spelling, geography, science, history and the like, I want to work on extra-curriculars. We’ve talked for a while about doing ‘adventure scouts’ with our local homeschool group – a scouting group that is completely secular and utterly non-discriminatory – for our kids to participate in, but we’ve never gotten it off the ground. I’d like to work on that this year. The kids’ hiking vests have gotten too small, so it looks like we’ll be getting new ones in the near future, too! (Oy… do I move all the patches, or just start getting new ones??)

As for some of the resources we’ll be using this year, I decided to go with a different big workbook than we have been using. I decided on American Education Publishing’s 4th and 5th grade Comprehensive Curriculum books to try out. There are actually 2 versions of these books; one is older and one is newer. I think I like the older version better, but both seem a little more challenging than the Harcourt books. The 5th grade books has a section called ‘citizenship’ that I am using as a guide for both boys, and there’s an ‘environmental science’ section as well with projects and activities that they can both do. These workbooks are pretty much our guide for covering basic skills in reading comprehension, math, grammar and phonics. I supplement that with activities like journaling, copywork, narration, dictation and reading aloud. We’re implementing a ‘student teacher’ section on Fridays where instead of the boys doing their reading lesson, they can teach it to me and their brother (the idea being that when you can teach it, then you know it).

I haven’t gotten the 5th grade Core Knowledge book yet, but I do have the standards for 4th and 5th grade printed out. (It’s the ‘download the sequence’ tab in the menu here. Although I like the ‘What Your X Grader Needs to Know’ books, we don’t use them for much past the checklist of skills. I may get it later, but I don’t need it right now. This is one reason why I like the big workbooks – it’s covering the basic skills for each grade level without much fuss.

For History, we’re still using Story of the World II and the lapbook from Run of the Mill Family (which is *awesome*). There isn’t a lapbook for Volume III, so I may be writing one! I am loosely using Mosaic’s activity guide for year II, but in January we will have to find a new activity resource. I may end up getting the actual SotW III book and guide. So far, between our timeline, the lapbook and additional reading and video watching, history has been pretty well-rounded, though I would like to add some more hands-on activities this year.

We’re doing a composer study each month; starting this month, our composer is Ludwig Von Beethoven. Miss Music has a great page with some basic info for different composers, and notebooking pages from Practical Pages (and their composer of the month wall chart as well). We’re only hitting composer study once or twice each week, so a month-long lesson on each composer (and possibly a lapbook) seems much more doable than one each week. I’d like to do an artist study as well… but one thing at a time, I think.

We’re using Seterra for geography, as well as some Practical Pages geography lapbooking. I am considering making just one big geography lapbook instead of breaking each thing up into smaller sections, but I am not decided just yet. Seterra has some nifty little flash games that help with identifying geographical features; the boys like games, so that worked out well.

Another idea I came across (on Pinterest) was to give the kids self-assesment tools, such as this poster, rather than rely on my interpretation of how they’re doing. We’re going to play with this a bit and see how we can incorporate it into their space. I am thinking that maybe we’ll talk about some of the assignments before they get started and see where they think they are, then afterwards, review again and see if they feel like they learned it. Not on everything, obviously – that would take a LONG time! – but when they seem to get ‘stuck’, maybe… idaknow… I’m still working on that.

So there you have it… a pretty good look at what we’re going to be doing and using over the next few months. To see more homeschool planning goodness, check out Heart of the Matter Online for their Not Back to School Blog Hop!

Warmly,

August 6, 2012 | Categories: FAQ, Homeschooling Resources, Homeschooling Tips and Tricks, Testing & Assesment | Tags: balance, curriculum, homeschooling, homeschooling challenges, lesson planning, methods, record keeping, schedule, secular homeschooling | 1 Comment »

Summer Fun Passport

I was going to start this post off with a line about wanting to know what my kids are up to when they’re not with me. Then, I realized that there are very few instances when my kids are not with me, and so that wasn’t an applicable way to begin…

But the principle applies – *if* my kids were away from me, especially on a somewhat regular basis, I’d want to know what they were doing. By the same token, I thought that it would be neat for Appleberry, Huckleberry Pie & Red Butler to have a record of everything we did this summer to take home with them.

And so, the ‘Summer Fun Passport’ was created!

I took my existing history passport and changed the color scheme and updated the text. Then I searched Google for clip art of things we’ve done – tennis camp, swimming, sleepovers, the library, summer reading club, spending time with grandparents, movie posters, etc… and put them into a document with text (in some cases).

Then I printed the pictures, cut them out and glued them into the spaces just like passport stamps and added dates and notes (if they weren’t typed out).

The result turned out pretty good, and is a visual record of what we did this summer!

I added the templates I made if you’d like to make your own:

Summer Fun Passport Cover and map BLANK

I print the covers, then turn the page and slide it back through for the map to print on the opposite side. Then I do the same thing with the map pages for the insides. They don’t align 100% perfectly, but they’re pretty close. It may take a bit of fiddling with flipping the pages to get them to print evenly; on mine, I have to turn the page over and upside down so that the margins match up. But if they don’t, it’s not that big of a deal; most of the lines will be covered with pictures, stickers or text anyway.

I also left blank spaces on the back so that you can add your homeschool crest or logo, and a message to the kids on the back. If you make one, link back and let me know! I’d love to see how this idea gets adapted!

Warmly,

August 3, 2012 | Categories: Art, Daily Review, Day in the Life, Field Trip, Homeschooling Resources, Tutorial | Tags: homeschool tutorial, record keeping, summer fun passport | Leave A Comment »

Summertime: Week 6

I am totally running out of cool things to say in these intros, lol. If you come here for homeschooly goodness, I apologize for the lack of such over the past few weeks – we’ll be getting back to the norm in about 3 weeks.

Just so you know that I haven’t forgotten about it, I am working on a lesson planning post and getting ready to get back into the school groove. This foolishness won’t last forever, I promise!

This week has been much less busy than last week; we’re back to our recent ‘norm’ after being insanely busy with a holiday, a birthday, and Loverly Husband being off. Monday was the next to last day of Tennis Camp, which they were excited about… then we were invited to come back for session II, which starts next week and lasts through August 5th. Appleberry was all over it, PeaGreen declined and surprisingly, LBB was totally for it. He hasn’t been the most ‘yay, tennis!’ kid, so I was shocked (but happy) that he wanted more.

After that, the kids went to visit Gramps and this mommy got a house full of quiet, which I enjoyed to the max – I even did the kids’ chores so I wouldn’t have to call them home! Then I got to go for the first time to our local Unity Church for their meditation session, which was cool – different from the meditation at the Buddhist Temple, which I love going to, but good. After that, I met with some friends for coffee and made it in bed by 11:30PM (which is EARLY for me).Have you ever had one of those dreams that seems so real that you can feel it with every fiber of your being? That’s how I woke up Tuesday morning – someone was taunting me with a giant scary spider and I was screaming so hard in my dream that I *fainted* and woke up with the ‘EWW GET IT OFF ME RIGHT NOW’ seizure-motion response that such phobias provoke. And it was 7:30AM – which is not a time I normally see. The morning was salvaged though – Loverly Husband hadn’t left for work yet, so we made coffee and got to chat for a bit before he had to go. I checked the computer and I saw that my very good friend the Mad Minx was online so we had a bit of a Skype date, then I had to round up the minions for the summer movie club offering. We saw Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2, which was actually pretty funny – sometimes these kids movies are a trial, but this was interesting and funny as kids movies go. I got a laugh out of the concept of ‘Mom Bucks’ – we’ve tried that before and the little petty part of me was glad that it didn’t work out any better for her than it did for me, lol.

After the movies, it was off to Rayma’s for a bit of crafting/art journaling, then to the library for a presentation on the animals we have in our area and a track identification exercise. (hey look – actual schoolwork, with a worksheet and everything!!). Apparently, the Big Thicket also has a summer program, so we’re going to try to check that out this week as well.

Tuesday evening is karate – our first class back again after a full week of being out! I have decided – no more karate after a week of absences… we missed last Saturday because we were being lazy, fully intending on making the rest of the week. Then Loverly Husband had to work late, then it was PeaGreen’s actual birthday and he went for a sleepover; Shamrocks went but I stayed home to enjoy the silence, then Saturday was his party and he opted to skip. (As I write this part out on Thursday, my legs are still sore and we have class tonight!)

Wednesday was supposed to be the last day of tennis camp, but we got rained out- boo to that! We went to the grocery store instead – yay for food! On the way home, we passed by a huge fairy ring on the side of the road and decided to stop and take a picture. I’ve never seen one that big before! It was raining, too, but (despite their expressions), the kids thought it was pretty cool, too.

After we got home, Mom had all kinds of good intentions… that went right out the door in favor of a nap. The kids were being so sweet to each other, and playing so calmly and nicely… I was utterly unnecessary as guardian or peacekeeper, and so my body apparently decided that meant it was naptime. I woke up just in time to get dinner going and get ready for derby – there’s a game on Saturday, and as much as I’d like to say that I’ve been kicking butt and taking names getting ready for that, the truth is that I’ve been slacking – I haven’t even unpacked my bag from the last game a month ago – yikes!

Thursday was going to be a ‘home’ day. If you’ve been following along, then you may have noticed a slight absence of days spent lazing about at home, so the plan was to start making up for that. Unfortunately, there have been storms for the past 2 days and our power went out at 9AM. 4 kids, rain, no electricity (so lights, no tv, no video games) – this was its own special kind of hell, so we abandoned the ‘home’ plans in favor of hitting the other theater’s movie club. To be clear, there are two movie theaters in our area offering movie clubs for the summer – one (Tuesday) is a Cinemark theater, the other (Thursday) is a Dickinson theater. The one we had this experience with is a Dickinson theater.

It started off fine – but there were buckets in several aisles to catch the water from the leaky ceiling. I didn’t think a whole lot of that (though in retrospect, I maybe should have). About halfway through the movie, a huge chunk of ceiling tile soaked through and fell down into the audience – inches away from Red Butler’s seat. I shooed the kids to the side of the theater and went to speak with the theater employees (kids; no manager present), who said that the leaky roof was an on-going problem, and that they’d been trying to get the mall to fix it for the past year. While that may be true, I am calling shenanigans – I went back into the theater to take pictures, and that was not the only set of missing tiles – there were three – which means that someone knew that the tiles were falling due to being wet, and they STILL opted to open that theater and host a kids’ movie in it.

The theater refunded my money, and I went to talk with mall management, who was more interested in passing the buck than taking any responsibility for failing to ensure the safety of their patrons. He wanted to blame the theater, saying that it was the air conditioning (even claiming that he, personally, had been on the roof of the mall the previous day – in the rain, mind you – to check for leaks in the roof) in one sentence, then claiming that he didn’t know that the roof was leaking in the theater in the next breath.

In this instance, no one was harmed, but to knowingly endanger children is beyond comprehension. Thankfully, Loverly Husband was on the ball and he called city zoning, who will be sending someone out to assess the situation. I am incredibly thankful that the kids were okay – but the theater didn’t even close the movie or move it to a safer theater after the incident. I was in shock that they didn’t take it more seriously. I emailed both the theater company and the management company that runs the mall… we’ll see if and how the respond.

**UPDATE** Our local paper picked up the story, and I have spoken to Dickinson Theater’s corporate offices, who assure me that the offending auditoriums have been closed and that repairs are under way. I commend the corporate offices and Mr. Dake, in particular, for being on top of this and getting involved quickly. They are working to resolve the problem, which is what I was after by making our experience public. Bravo – I couldn’t ask for more!

As for Central Mall and thier management company… not so much (as of Sunday, July 15).

**UPDATE** I got an email on Monday (7-16-12) and a phone call on Tuesday from the management company for the Mall assuring me that safety is a prime concern and that the situation has been addressed and is on its way to being corrected. I was also invited to contact them for progress reports on the theater’s repair progress. Many thanks to David Renninger in particular for his prompt attention!

After karate, I met the officers from our local Breastfeeding Coalition for a board meeting to plan out the next few months of events, including a community swap meet and breatfeeding class that I will be teaching. It was directly after karate, so I went all sweaty and gross in my gi, and had the kids with me. I thought they would be bored, but there are a bunch of chess players that meet at that coffee shop all the time, and the boys got involved in their games and I ended up waiting half an hour on them to get done with their game so we could go home.

Anyone who says that homeschoolers don’t get properly socialized – I challenge you to take your schooled (and presumably ‘properly’ socialized) children to a coffee shop late in the evening (when most kids are snug in bed) and see if they have the guts to approach tables full of strangers and not only ask to play, but interact with them for 2+ hours. All this without Mom’s help or input. That’s not something that most kids would be able/willing to/interested in doing and I am super proud of my boys for their guts and gumption!

On Friday, we were supposed to do things, but it was raining and I was feeling lazy, so we ended up doing a big bunch of nothing – and it was everything I’d always hoped it would be! Some might say that with our normal schedule, we deserve a restful day at home, and though part of me agrees, there’s another part that pokes me with a stick and whispers, ‘slacker’. I think I am okay with that though.

Saturday was to include karate, but I skipped out while the hubs took the kids. I had a derby game in the afternoon and am usually late, so I decided to take my time and get ready and show up on time for once. The game was good – our team won, which is always nice on home turf – but the real joy in derby is to get to know so many amazing, talented and dedicated people. We had players coming in from San Antonio, refs from Houston and volunteers from all over Southeast Texas who were willing to drive hours in nasty weather and spend their day playing derby. It’s not just a sport for women – there are plenty of men involved, too. Between the players, the refs and non-skating officials and volunteers that make this sport happen – all without any compensation (in fact, we all pay to play) – is so cool! And talk about bad ass role models for little girls – derby is all over it!

Sunday, the Sabbath, a Day of Rest… so we can do it all again next week!

Warmly,

July 15, 2012 | Categories: Daily Review, Never Stop Learning, Rambling Thoughts, Science, Socialization | Tags: family, homeschooling, karate, record keeping, roller derby, school on the go, summer reading club, SuperMom Complex, year round homeschool | Leave A Comment »

Summertime: Week 5

I knew going in that this week would be busier than the norm. With a holiday happening mid-week, plus PeaGreen’s birthday, and Loverly Husband taking half the week off, I was expecting things to be hectic, and they did not disappoint!

Monday, we had Tennis Camp as usual, then were invited to swim with PB&JMom and her kiddos. New pools are always fun to swim in, and swim they did – until their little fingertips and toes were raw! They had a fabulous time though. With nine kids and three moms, games like Marco Polo, Colors, Red Light Green Light and Mother May I were ever so much fun.

Tuesday was movie & library day – went to see Despicable Me and then to the library for Mystery Activities. Despicable Me is one of my favorite kids’ movies and one of the only ones that I actually wanted to watch. I must have been completely pooped though, because I fell asleep about 5 minutes into it and only woke up when they were celebrating at the end. The ‘fluffy’ comment is my absolute favorite though, and I vaguely remember hearing Agnes say it, so that was a plus.

The library had Mystery Activities, and the kids spent an hour or so solving puzzles, guessing what was inside ‘feel’ boxes, and figuring out riddles. They also stocked up on new manga (always a hit). I found a newer book called Hidden by Helen Frost that is written in poetic structure that we’ll be reading aloud this coming week. We haven’t been doing much by way of ‘real’ schoolwork lately, but this really sounds interesting and I can’t wait to delve into it with the kids.

Wednesday was a holiday – inconveniently placed in the middle of the week, but we had a Happy 4th of July anyway!! I totally lucked out – since Loverly Husband had the rest of the week off, he took the kids to the store to stock up on provisions for the afternoon BBQ and some household fixer-upper projects while I lazed away in bed.

He then spent most of the early afternoon cooking inside while I got the pool cleaned up and started the grill. This was my first foray into cooking on the pit. I shall generously define it as a moderate success – the sausage links were a bit crispy, but edible. The hot dogs and chicken turned out fine though.

After dinner, the kids played some games while the grown-ups chatted, then it was time for fireworks!

Thursday was PeaGreen’s actual birthday. He turned 9 this year, and though we planned a party for him, it really turned into more of a birthday week. Red Butler and Huckleberry Pie spent the night with us on 4th of July, then all the boys went to PB&JMom’s house for a sleepover Thursday night (which meant that while Loverly Husband was at karate, I played hooky and spent the evening in glorious silence!).

Thursday would have been our last day of tennis camp as well, but they bumped it up to next week to make up for missed days from the rain a couple of weeks ago. Once we got the kids up and dressed, we took them to see Stuart Little 3 (which was just awful, lol), then I brought them to PB&JMom and we had coffee for a bit, then I was CHILD FREE – which is such a lovely thing!

On Friday, we took Loverly Husband and Appleberry to SPAR – it was his first visit there. We had an awesome time. The kids were totally excited to have Dad there to play with them. I think they all got a little too much sun though; they all passed out on the way home in the car.

another one of me and Shamrocks - it's been a while since we've had pictures together!

On Saturday, we picked up PeaGreen’s friends and took everyone for birthday party fun, to dinner and had a birthday sleepover. We saw Brave, which was good, but really not what I expected at all.

Today is Sunday – week’s end and everyone is back at their respective homes, the boys hit the hay pretty early today and I am getting ready to pack it in for the evening. This coming week should be a bit easier – I am feeling some crafting and maybe some organizing coming on. We have about 3 weeks until school starts up again, so I will be planning coming up in posts soon.

Warmly,
~h

July 8, 2012 | Categories: Daily Review, Field Trip, Rambling Thoughts, Reading, Socialization | Tags: family, going with the flow, homeschooling, record keeping, socialization, summer reading club | 1 Comment »

Three Weeks Down Already?

Oh, Dwight… you do have such a way with words.

I was going to make a comment about time flying by, but then I found that picture and got distracted by fun stuff from The Office. ‘Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica.‘ There’s even a tee shirt.*So* funny.

Anywhoo…

We’re three weeks into our new school year. How did that happen? Didn’t we just get done with Christmas? I am shocked and amazed – we’re only four days out from our first break this year and everyone is alive and well. As stressed out as our last few weeks of school were last year, I am exceedingly happy to report that this year is off to a very nice start. I’ve also lost 12 lbs. of 128 lbs. since Christmas, so I’m a pretty happy camper all around.

We’re still doing our crazy schedule – the kids have karate 2 evenings per week and on Saturdays, and I am training to be an NSO with our local roller derby team. My sister is a rollergirl; she’s been after me to come play but seeing as how I am an utter disaster on skates, I think it’s best that I keep my involvement firmly planted on the ground. Being a non-skating official lets me participate without risking my tailbone. In any case, practice is one night per week. If we weren’t enjoying it so much, I’d complain about being over-scheduled, but so far it’s working well.

Plans for this week include attending a performance by our local symphony, attending a half-day full of JASON presentations at our local college, learning about Groundhog’s Day and the history of (which are Candlemas and Imboc), and various crafting and lapbooking associated with, and working on solidifying those pesky multiplication facts. I found a video that uses your hands for quickly figuring out 6×6 – 10×10 facts, and a way to do ‘short’ division (because long division is absolutely killing LBB). I started arrays with PeaGreen, but he’s not so keen on them, so I will be looking for other ways to help him with his times tables (maybe Mr. Numbers?).

We’ll be winding up the week, and the first four weeks of school on Friday with a review of what all we’ve covered so far and a look at what we may want to change. I like my new lesson planner layout; the boxes for individual subjects are smaller, but they look *super* full when I write in them now, so it’s quite visually appealing. I’m still kinda disorganized off of paper, but on paper, I’m the bomb-diggety. We’re still using workbox plans, but I haven’t been packing the boxes like I was. We’ve been using a file box with hanging folders instead of actual boxes, but the boys say that they like the boxes better so we may work on going back to that here in the next few weeks. I’ll have to work on space though; the school room is crazy cluttered right now (we’re working at the kitchen table as I type). Luckily, tax season is right around the corner, so we’ll be doing some home improvement inside and out in the very near future. That means storage shelves, new paint and planning our garden for this year. Loverly Husband is even talking about building a greenhouse. I can’t wait!!

Now that school’s over for today, I’m going to curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and my Nook while the children are otherwise occupied in another room.
Warmly,
~h

January 30, 2012 | Categories: Day in the Life, gardening, Homeschooling Resources, Math, Mom's Health | Tags: homeschooling, random thoughts, record keeping | Leave A Comment »

Homeschooling, Year 2: Done!

We made it through our second year of homeschooling! We are officially done with this year (not this grade). Sorry for the lack of posting, but we’ve been making the most of our Winter Break, which is also our official break between school years.

I gotta tell ya, I am so glad for this year to be done. I love homeschooling, don’t get me wrong, but it’s definitely been more of a struggle over the past few months than it has been before. Part of that is me; I have been on antidepressants for a couple of years and have been needing to change my medication for a while now. I’ve done that and have added an anti-anxiety medication, which I wouldn’t have thought I’d needed, but have found is definitely helping. In any case, I do expect that with proper management of my own health, my stress level will decrease, which can only help things.

In other news, we’ve been quite the crafty-kins around here. I made some of the cutest little hand warmers for all of us from felt and rice. I used flower-shaped cookie cutters, but any shape will work. You can heat them up in the microwave, then slip them inside your pockets or even shoes to warm up freezing fingers or toes. It’s not nearly cold enough for that around here (we’ve only come close to freezing temperatures once so far), but I am sure they’ll come in handy in January & February when the Texas weather finally catches on that winter months are supposed to be cold.

December is a busy month for us; we celebrated LBB’s 10th and Loverly Husband’s 35th birthdays this month in addition to Yule and Christmas, both of which were amazing. LBB got to hang with his friends for his birthday and do some lazer-tagging, and the kids both got air-soft guns for Christmas in addition to a handful of video games and Kinect for XBox. I’ve been playing with my new Nook and Loverly Husband’s been on vacation this week and immersing himself in the world of Skyrim.

Though it may seem like it, I haven’t been neglecting school stuff. I updated the banner here at This Adventure Life for the new school year and spent a few hours last week updating my lesson planner pages and getting them ready to print and bind. I added the workbox plan sheet into my normal lesson planner since we’ve been sticking to that.

We’re also going to give the boys’ STARS planners another go this year; hopefully with better success. I think with the workboxes (which we will continue for this coming year), the planners will work a bit better. We’re continuing the goal of helping them become more self-sufficient with their school work; hopefully between workboxes and their planners they’ll have the tools they need to really take on more responsibility. We won’t be starting our new school year until the second week in January, but I’ll try have all of the new pages in an upcoming ‘lesson planning’ post sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Hope you’re all enjoying your break (if you took one), and felicitations for the New Year!

Warmly,
~h

December 29, 2011 | Categories: Daily Review, Lessons Learned, Mom's Health, Never Stop Learning, Rambling Thoughts | Tags: family, homeschooling, homeschooling challenges, record keeping, time spent in school, year round homeschool | 1 Comment »

Workboxes, Week 1

Well, we’re almost through our first week with workboxes. We’ve actually completed all of the boxes every day so far (though I did change ‘health’ to ‘chores’ yesterday – kinda cheating, I know, but I was ready for school to be done).

I haven’t decided exactly how I feel about them yet. I’m thinking that we’ll give it another week and see how it goes. I am almost sure that the actual ‘box’ part is just adding an extra/unnecessary step; I’ve seen several versions of workboxing mods that use a single box or bin with manilla mailing envelopes to hold the work, and others that use hanging files, covered cereal boxes, and lots of other methods. Since we’re so limited on space, I am wondering if something like that might be better.

I am also going to have to figure out something else to do with the ‘done’ cards or tags… the process we have now feels like a bunch of extra steps that might be eliminated. I saw several people using velcro dots on the fronts of boxes (or on a sheet of paper inside the front of the box) to hold all the tags; I’m thinking that I might want to try that instead. I do like the chore cards though, so I may play around with that and see if I can come up with a better way to manage them. We have a chore chart in the hallway that I made months ago; we may go back to that style for a while.

Overall, I’m not sold on the system for us, but there are some things I like about it, so I’m not ready to scrap it just yet. I thought I’d do a pros and cons list this week and then re-evaluate next week. In the interests of disclosure, I will say that I have not read Sue Patrick’s book (creator of the workbox system), or attended any kind of lecture or class on them. I’ve just been reading about them since last year and checking out all the different mods and tweaks that I’ve seen in blogs and put my system together from what I’ve read. That may very well do Ms. Patrick a huge disservice, so please take my two cents on the matter with a spoonful of salt. {wink} I like the idea of the workboxes system. Ideally, it seems like allowing the kids to be completely responsible for their work makes me happy. I just don’t know how that will work out practically speaking with my kids.

Pros:

I like that having a weeks worth of plans laid out in advance helps me see where things are missing; I’m planning better and even though it’s still taking a while, the day is well-rounded.
I like that I can also see where I am harping on ‘work’ and not adding in enough ‘fun’ stuff; workboxing it helps me make sure to include fun stuff at even intervals during the day.
I like that everything is done the night before; I can just say “okay, time for school” and they’re set.
We’re getting a CRAPLOAD of stuff done! I am impressed with the number of completed assignments that they’re turning in every day.

But of course, all this can be done without workboxing it.

Cons:

it takes up a lot of space – the whole time; from storing packed boxes, to while they’re working on an open box, to boxes they’re saving for homework and boxes that they’ve completed. I’ve got boxes everywhere.
the packing process takes a long time – not so long that it’s prohibitive, but long enough that I can see myself getting bored with it in the near future. I’ll want to pack them, but slack, then feel stressed about it in the morning.
it’s not saving us ANY time. My kids still dawdle. The only benefit here is that I can say, “Okay, time’s up. Pack your things back into the box and set it on the side of your desk. That’s homework.” But then I still have to oversee homework. Le sigh.
Even though we have the shoe-box sized bins, they’re still not big enough to hold workbooks or larger materials. Even their journals and notebooks get curved into the bottoms of the boxes.
I’m also concerned about long-term wear and tear on the boxes, themselves. They’re dollar-store boxes, but that was still $24 on box. If I upgraded to heavier boxes or wider ones, that will be an even bigger expense.

So that’s where we’re at now. Again, SO IMPRESSED with the sheer number of completed assignments that they’re turning in. With better time-management, I think that this might be a good system – time will tell, though. If you’re a workboxer, I’d love a link to your blog or other sites you’ve found helpful in modifying workboxes, thinking of fun stuff to put in them… anything workbox related, really. I made a Pinterest board for my workbox bookmarks and it’s sadly lacking.

If you’ve been reading here and wondering about our progress this week, we have had a much go of it than we started off with. Tuesday was great – we met our homeschool group for our 2nd Annual ‘Not Back to School Brunch’ at the park, and managed to get all of the boxes for the day completed before dinner time. Wednesday, we were home and had a heavier workload, but still… it was a good and productive day. Today, we had errands planned, so they got their morning boxes finished, took some work with us to do on-the-go and have finished in time to hit the pool before dinner.

Hope your week is winding down into a relaxing weekend!

Warmly,

P.S. If you’re looking for an NVC update post this week, I think we’re going to work on chapter 3 again next week. The chapter is on separating ’observation’ and ‘evaluation’ and I am having a hard time with it.

August 25, 2011 | Categories: Daily Review, Homeschooling Resources, Homeschooling Tips and Tricks, Lessons Learned, NVC, Product Review | Tags: commentary, homeschooling, homeschooling challenges, lesson planning, NVC, record keeping, schedule, SuperMom Complex, time spent in school, workboxes | 4 Comments »

One of these days, I’ll stop ‘getting’ organized and just BE organized.

I am generally an organized person by nature. I know that some of my friends might not believe this, but my mad organizing skillz comes in cycles. I start out super organized and stick with that for a while, then I start slacking a bit, here and there, then feel the carefully greased wheels of my life start slipping out of control and reign it back in again by getting re-organized. Rinse and repeat.

I have also noticed that there are times of the year at which I feel the need to take stock and make sure that what’s on the books is what really works for me and for my family in both our personal lives and our homeschooling one. The process of organizing things is centering to me. It’s empowering because I feel like I am taking control of things and putting myself back in the driver’s seat – being proactive instead of reactive; all good things in my world.

About, oh… 7 years ago or so, I was all church-y and fell in love with the ‘Managers of Our Home’ thing. Between that and FlyLady, I created a pretty in-depth household management journal. I’ve used it off and on over the past several years, most recently when the boys were in school last. When we started homeschooling, we kinda dropped everything and I realized while browsing Pinterest’s organizational awesomeness pins exactly how far we’ve come from being so on-top of things in the house.

Recognizing the lack, I’ve been working on bringing my binder up to date and though I still have some sections to bring current, the bulk of the journal is workable with minor updates here and there. Presenting {insert fanfare}: My updated and newly revised

Household Master Bossy Book!

Isn’t it perty? As much as I wish I could take credit for the ‘bossy book’ name, I must credit my dear friend SFK for this apt moniker. “Bossy Book” has become the nomenclature of choice for all planner-type books and calendars in our circle of friends.

{Quick Page-Border Tutorial}

I created the border by:

Google ‘page borders’ or something like that and finding pictures that I like
open a MSWord doc and set the margins to the ‘narrow’ pre-set
then I paste the picture in, and sized it to the page
then I clicke ‘insert shape’ and put a box over the textable area
right-click box and select ‘table properties’
set the color to ‘no color’ and transparency to 100%
then I right click the box and select ‘add text’
save the document with a descriptive name

I have a folder full of them. When I want to use it, I open the document that has the border I want and add whatever text and pictures, then click ‘save AS’ (very important to choose SAVE AS instead of save – this will create a NEW document in your files) and the folder I want it in. Once the new doc is saved, I close both documents, and when asked if I want to save the changes to to original, I click ‘no’, that way the original border is still there.

And, if you like my page, you can have one of your very own: Household Master Bossy Book Cover There’s no name, so you can run it through your printer and add your own or write it in and make it spectacular.

Back to the book tour:

I wrote that on the picture, then thought about the other kinds of info that might be in the book and decided that I wouldn’t necessarily want my Bossy Book to be open to someone who was babysitting. Then again, if I trusted someone with my kids, surely I could trust them with personal info, right? Of course, we haven’t ever used a ‘baby sitter’, so that’s kind of a moot point. If you want a ‘babysitter info’ page though, there is one here. There are other printables, too.

The picture on the left is this one, 1955 Rules for a Good Wife. I found it years ago and it’s as funny as it is frustrating/offensive. I’m glad times have changed!

The Daily Routines section houses all of my schedules and master lists of where we should be and what we should be doing.

The routine pages and concept are modified from the ideas at FlyLady.net. I joined FL for about 3 days, but the program didn’t fit me as it was then. I think it’s changed in recent years, I haven’t been back lately to see the updates. I got what I needed from the site and tweaked it to suit my own needs. If you’re really struggling to get a handle on things, then I would recommend FL – reading the site if not joining. There really is a lot of good motivational and get-started info there.

After photographing, I noticed that there are marker tracks on a lot of my pages (that’s why they look pink – they’re not). I keep the most often used pages in plastic page protectors and a (red) dry erase marker in the book (clipped to one of the rings). I use the marker to cross off things that are done, or that don’t apply for that day. I love lists, so this methods works for me IN SPADES. Plus, seeing a page full of ‘done!’ gives me a happy.

I used to keep my book open and in a central location. That used to be in the living room, but in recent months, it seems like our center is the kitchen, so that’s where I think I’ll keep it for now. Once it gets cooler and we can be back in the school room, I’ll probably move it in there.

Blank Standing ToDo List

Several of the lists are the same thing, just organized differently. I don’t use every list every day; the main ones I use are the daily routines and the 8-week plan. I didn’t take a picture of mine because the print is too small to show up, but mine is modified from Donna Young’s website; the Housework .doc format that I got from her site is the one I still use and it’s editable. I customized my version, but kept it all to one page.

The eight-week plan is basically one thing each weekday that is a little harder or out of the normal routine (like decluttering a high-traffic area, or clearing off the top of the refrigerator, or cleaning out a closet). At the bottom of the page is a yearly to-do – things like wardrobe inventory, holiday decorating, birthday planning and flipping the mattresses.

Yay for color coding! This is another list that I refer to often. I actually have two of them – one that’s arranged by person and one that’s arranged by day of the week. I do a lot of time-juggling right now, and I know that in the past, I didn’t feel as time-stressed. I am hoping that keeping this in mind will help eliminate that stress to some degree. The links are downloadable and customizable documents so you can have your own micro-management fixation, too.

The AM and PM Chores list is another ‘frequently used’ list. With sections for all of us, and things organized ‘daily, monthly’ weekly and yearly’, it’s a handy reference.

Chores – Instruction How-to List - this is an editable older version of our list. You can download and make changes to reflect ‘your way’ of doing things.

Yay for lists! A whole section dedicated to lists. A lot of my lists have been modified from Donna Young’s website, others from Microsoft Word’s templates and various others from random places on the web that I found eons ago and don’t remember now. I’ve tweaked and edited all of them, or just flat-out re-made them to suit my own needs. If you have time and a printer, you can make your own.

When I was making my book the first time, I kept blank notebook pages with titles on top (a suggestion from FlyLady if I remember correctly) and wrote down things on that page that I though I would use/need/refer to over the course of a couple of weeks so that I would have a really good idea of what worked and what didn’t when I actually made the permanent page. That was a really useful suggestion, and one that I recommend.

My inventory lists are downloadable and customizable: Refrigerator & Freezer Panty Household Items

These lists are extensive and not necessarily a list of what we keep on-hand. They’re also older; some of the things we used years ago, we’ve phased out in favor of better/more nutritious/greener alternatives, and some of the things we use now are not on these lists (I work from two computers - different versions of the files are on different computers). My book’s inventory pages are undergoing revision in the coming days and weeks. I’ll try to come back and update this post with my revised lists.

Another thing that I like about having the nutrition information on hand is that when I am dieting, I can easily plan what I am going to order before leaving home. Not all restaurants have their nutrition info available online, but some you can request a copy by mail from and others have sheets available in the restaurant if you ask.

More printables for you: Family Meeting Budget Worksheet Media Out/In Log (to keep track of things you lend out and thing you’ve borrowed)

Our medial record section has an info sheet (will update this post with that later) that is filled out and printed and kept in a page protector. I use sticky-notes to update most recent visit dates and other info that changes frequently. I punch holes in prescription info pages from the pharmacy and keep them in the binder, as well as all current physician info and insurance info. I also keep a copy of the boys’ vaccine exemption paperwork and notebook paper to log recent health notes for each person in our family. (TX vaccine exemption affidavit request page; for other states vax exemption info click here)

What!? Shut up; I like lists.

So. That’s my book. Any questions?

Now, I showed you mine… {leering suggestively}. But don’t send me dirty pictures. I just wanna see your Bossy Book and scavenge for ideas. Feel free to link to your blog, especially if you have pictures, links and printables!

Warmly,

August 3, 2011 | Categories: Day in the Life, FAQ, House Stuff, Tutorial | Tags: bossy book, control journal, family, Household management journal, record keeping, schedule, SuperMom Complex | 3 Comments »

Math Journals

The first thing I ever saw about math journaling was on Integer Jim’s Math squad site. The journals there are totally drool-worthy and enough to make even a math-o-phobe like me get really interested in numbers and such.

I loved the idea of a math journal, and have wanted to start them with the kids since the beginning of the year but really had no idea where to start – what, exactly, goes into a math journal?

I was messing around on YouTube the other day and came across ZapplePi’s excellent two-part tutorial video on math journaling. It’s for the parent (or teacher), not the student, and it gives you an overview of how to help your kids start and keep and use math journals. He also has a ton of free resources on his website. I mean, really – a TON of them for kids 3rd-8th grade, including a PlaceMaths sample!

My kids are all about art journaling; I’ve posted stuff on that before, but math journaling is a little more intimidating. In addition to making it pretty, the information needs to be legible and useful. So I started fooling around with a notebook and came up with a few ideas. Thus far, I have a number line and the four basic math processes down – an explanation and definition of each process and an illustration, then the tables on the back of that sheet for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. In doing that, I really got inspired and more ideas started coming to me. I’ll make a page with fractions, geometric shapes, graphs, grids, angles… I can see just getting the basics down taking quite a while.

So with my handy reference journal in hand, I showed the kids what I thought they might like to add to their journals and they made a great effort! We’re intentionally leaving some blank space on each page so we can add more facts about that process as we go along. I can see ways for all kinds of interesting stuff to be incorporated this way. It seems that the more we add, the more we think about adding. This is similar to what happened with our history/geography folder – we have ended up using that so much more than I thought we would! I’ll have to post about that one, too.

Here are the kids journals. I was lacking inspiration, so I snagged a bit from Integer Jim’s ‘math adventure’ theme and used Indiana Jones and Lara Croft for the pictures, then made the lettering in Microsoft Word (word art). Fred’s with us again this summer; that’s her book on the far right. Since she’s here she gets to do school too. {wink}

I have to say that I’m pretty happy with their work! The pages look great and once we get a little more info in them, I am hoping they’ll act like a reference (similar to a dictionary) as they’re working. I honestly enjoy helping my kids when they need it, but sometimes, ‘Mom, can you…’ is just laziness.

Do you journal? Any recommendations? Link to your blog and post your kids’ journals!

Warmly,

June 9, 2011 | Categories: Homeschooling Resources, Math, Tutorial | Tags: homeschool tutorial, homeschooling, math journal, record keeping | Leave A Comment »

Copywork, Narration and Notebooking

We’ve been doing copywork and oral narration since we started homeschooling in 2010 and we’re planning on starting notebooking in the fall. In case you’re not familiar with the terms, let me explain:

What is copywork?

Copywork is what it sounds like. The child copies a passage as-is in their own handwriting. When they’re beginning writers, you start with simple things (name, address, phone number, etc.) and can progress to whole paragraphs. We started with regular notebooks and then went to Mead’s RediSpace notebooks to help my boys learn proper spacing in print. Now that they’re progressing to script, they’re still helpful.

Copywork is beneficial on many levels. It can cement an idea through repetition, it exposes a child to proper grammar and syntax and tons of other benefits as well. Copywork was one of the first things that we started with when we began homeschooling, and it still features today in many different guises. We often start our school time with copywork of some sort and then go on from there.

What is narration?

Narration is ‘telling back’. Basically, the parent/teacher reads something, or discusses something, then the child tells the story or passage back. You can facilitate the narration by asking questions like, “What do you remember about what we just read?’, or “Name 3 things from this paragraph”. You can help your child organize his thoughts by asking what happened first, second and last. Oral narration precedes written narration; Charlotte Mason recommends that written narrations begin around 10, however you know your child best. My oldest is 10 and we’ll be starting written narration (in small doses) this fall.

Here’s a nice how-to on narration from Charlotte Mason Education. I also found a nifty article from Mozart & Mud Pies on difficulties with narration. This applied for my oldest and the verbal cues to imagine the scene helped tremendously.

What is notebooking?

While I’m sure there are a hundred different definitions to notebooking, the way I see it is basically a collection of copywork, narrations, dictation, artwork, research and more, all on a particular topic. You can go into a topic with the intent of notebooking it, or a notebook can serve as a landing ad for your child’s work on that topic. One of the most awesome and inspiring examples of notebooking style homeschooling is Jimmie’s Collage. Every time I go there, I find something else that I want to try with my kids.

If you’re into lapbooking, you can easily combine notebooking; either with pockets or brads to keep papers bound into your lapbook. My kids do a fair amount of copywork and writing in their lapbooks already, so we’ll just continue adding more as we go along.

I found some great links on notebooking here.

Since my last post was on the sometimes value of worksheets, it got me thinking about the alternatives to them. I thought I’d post my thoughts.

Basically, I think I might have gotten a bit lazy. Worksheets are easy and pretty basic. I am considering working with the boys over the next few weeks to assimilate their math work over the last few months into their math journals. In looking through the worksheets though, while they certainly did the work (in one form or fashion), those types of worksheets are entirely unsuited to notebooking. The worksheets we’ve been using have been more broad-subject types, which is good in some ways, but bad for delving deep into a subject or topic for notebooking.

One of the advantages that notebooking has over worksheets is that the kids actually write more, especially when narration is part of it. The kids can write their own thoughts instead of merely answering questions. I think that it will be a challenge to get LBB to write, so we will probably work on dictation and copywork (he’ll dictate, I’ll transcribe and he’ll copy) until he gets the hang of it. I’m not planning on starting PeaGreen with written narrations until he’s 10 or so – another couple of years, yet – but we are going to start notebooking with him, too.

Putting together a good notebook – helping the kids – will be an experience for me. We’ve gotten pretty good at lapbooking, so I see notebooking as an extension of that; the next natural step. I’m looking forward to the challenge!

I’m curious, do you notebook? What are some of your favorite resources?

Warmly,

June 1, 2011 | Categories: FAQ, Homeschooling Resources, Homeschooling Tips and Tricks, Language, Rambling Thoughts | Tags: copywork, homeschooling, homeschooling with ADHD, lapbook, narration, notebooking, record keeping | 4 Comments »

History Passport

Since we’re starting our main history unit anew with ancients again, I decided to make a history passport for the boys. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out! I’ll tell you how I did it if you want to make your own, or feel free to use my template.

Like I mentioned in the Lesson Planning posts of late, we are using Mosaic with the Story of the World. We’re also doing a tour of the 50 states in geography, so we’ll get to use it for more than just history. I’ve found several images with travel stamps and country postage stamps that I’ll probably put into a document, print and then put through a sticker-maker so they can go into the books.

I made the boys’ passports in Microsoft Word. I made the margins narrow on a new document, then added a shape (rectangle), then copied it and placed another one next to it to make the cover and back of the passport. Then I added the text and background color, then a picture of the United States Seal (since we’re in the US. If you’re international, you could use your country’s symbol or flag or seal, or your homeschool’s symbol or crest – the options are limitless!).

For the inside pages, I created a new document and placed the same sized rectangles to make the page borders, then added a map for the background (edited to be ‘washed out’ looking) and added the lines to make the interior boxes. If I’d thought about it, I would have added text inside for ‘entry’ and ‘departure’, but I didn’t. I’ll write them in later. Once I was done with the shapes, I printed (which took some finagling to get them printed just right) and cut out, folded and stapled. Then I let the kids sign them inside. I may take the finished passports to be laminated next time I go. Leaving them closed and running them through will laminate the outsides and I can cut the opening again. We’ll see if that’s necessary.

I found some ready-made templates here:

DonnaWard.net

Satori Smiles

and I have mine uploaded if you’d like to use it.

HistoryPassportTemplate_cover_ThisAdventureLife

HistoryPassportTemplate_inside_ThisAdventureLife

The boys are keeping theirs tucked into the corner of their desk calendar for easy access. So far, I hear good things about them; they’re anxious to start using them! If you’re using a pretend passport with your kids, please tell me about it in the comments. I’m interested in other things to use them for.

Warmly,

January 4, 2011 | Categories: Geography, History, Homeschooling Resources, Homeschooling Tips and Tricks, Kid Craft, Tutorial | Tags: history passport, homeschool tutorial, homeschooling, record keeping | 6 Comments »

Lesson Planning 2011 Part 3: The Extras

I know that from the previous posts about our 2011 school year, it looks like there isn’t much room left in the day for anything else. Let me rest your mind a bit by saying that I often over-prepare to some degree because I know that some of the things planned will end up getting scrapped in favor of something that works better. I blog as much for my own reference as to share; in several instances, I’ve planned on using two full courses of study but of course we’ll only need one. We may use bits from each or focus mainly on one or the other, but we will not complete both as full courses (unless we need to go back and remediate). Our daily schedule, while full, is flexible as is my general attitude. As we get more settled into homeschooling, I think it’s natural to step it up more.

Our extracurriculars for this year will be: Foreign Language, Physical Education, Health, Music/Arts/Drama, Triangle Homeschoolers Adventure Club, Community Service, Robotics, CurrClick’s Lego Club, Home Economics, TX Nature Challenge, Houston Wilderness Program, 4H, Science Fair, Summer Reading Club and whatever other interest the kids have that they’re motivated to look more deeply into. Some of this will be continuous and other things will be seasonal.

Many of these ECs will be in conjunction with a core lesson; TX Nature Challenge, JASET and the Lego clubs, for example, are science lessons. The TXNC may also count under ‘geography’ and ‘physical education’, depending on the activity and location as well.

Foreign Language

We started Latin a few months ago and we’ll continue with it this year. I found a great literature-based YouTube Series called Learning Latin with Virgil. It’s based on Virgil’s ‘The Aeneid’ and it’s been really fun and easy to learn. I don’t speak Latin, I was wondering how to work the pronunciation; this video series eliminates that worry. Since we’re doing this video series, I wanted flashcards for the boys to review in other places (so we’re not continually tied to the computer for Latin review) so I made flashcards for Lessons 1 – 4, and for Lessons 3 – 4. I’ll have more later on. I’m cutting them, pasting onto index cards and laminating them. I also found The Declension Song (lyrics), which we’re learning. I’m hoping that will give us a leg up when we start with more in-depth Latin lessons. I also found vocabulary flash cards at Flashcard Exchange. Eventually, we’ll move in to Ecce Romani (exercises and Teacher’s Lounge are good resources). The video series is quite long though, so it will be a while before we’re ready for ER.

Physical Education & Health

Getting exercise isn’t a problem for my kids. Having a PE curriculum is. Do we ‘need’ one? maybe not, but we’re going to put a little more structure into our PE plans this year. Our homeschool group will have a planned ‘PE class’ starting in January, but that’s only once per month. We’re going to use PE Challenge.org‘s website some, and PE Central for more game-oriented ideas. My friends and I are back on the weight-loss wagon starting now, so having to ‘teach’ PE to the kids is as much for myself as it is for them.

We’re also starting a comprehensive sex ed course this year. I found the FLASH Curriculum that is put out by the Seattle and King County Health Department. From what I’ve looked at, it seems to be exactly what I was looking for. It’s geared to 4-6th grade, and doesn’t skimp on sexual health topics. Naturally, I’ll supplement with other materials or discussions on topics that I find appropriate, but as a spine with good pacing, FLASH looks like it will work well for us. I’ve also added the Kids Health.org link to the kid’s computers so that they can look around and have questions answered. The Young Men’s Health and Young Girl’s Health are a bit ‘older’, but I like those, too. The videos, As Boys Grow and That’s a Family were also recommended.

Music, Art & Drama

The Core Knowledge books have a section on Music, presumably for all of their books. We’ll cover what is there as well as music study with Share the Music (grade 4). I also found a really fun set of mini-books on impressionist artists that we may take a week at a time and do a lapbook over the course of a few months.

The boys began formal piano lessons a few months ago with my grandmother who lives next door. She used to play in church when I was little and has really enjoyed teaching the boys. They spend about half an hour, 3 times a week with her in lessons and practice for 15-20 minutes the other 2 days. When we get a decent keyboard, then they’ll practice everyday.

I am also getting the Artistic Pursuits ( book 3) curriculum. It seems to be very highly recommended, and since I like art but know basically nothing about it, I think this will help me out a lot. We’ll also use bits from Masterpiece Art Instruction; their article, Art & ADHD was of particular interest to me, and countless crafts and art projects that tie into an academic lesson will be used, plus holiday and just for fun stuff from That Artist Woman’s Blog. I’d also like to add more theater into our lives; I found some Drama Links from A-Z Home’s Cool Homeschooling that we might be able to incorporate. Our homeschool group is talking about hosting a play in the spring, so we’ll see about that.

One of the things I am most excited about for this coming year is getting the kids more involved in community volunteering projects. We’ve found several organizations that are (HEARTS.org, 4H’s ‘Community Service Projects You Can Do!’, LU’s Cardinals C.A.R.E. Resource List) targeted towards children and homeschooling families; one of our homeschool group’s moms has volunteered to take the lead in planning on organizing events for this year.

TX Nature Challenge is a program coordinated by the TX AgriLife Extension office and the TX Forest Service. They’ve started posting ‘missions’ each year that encourage families to ‘view native wildlife, dip your feet in creeks, rivers, and draw and write about your observations while learning more about nature and science in your neighborhood!’ We participated last year and the missions for 2010 in our area are still up. Though the competition portion is over, we’ll continue working on them in our own time. The Houston Wilderness Program ties in, but is not connected with the TXNC; we’ve been able to do many of the HWP’s activities on the same day/trip as TXNC’s missions.

4-H offers plenty of learning opportunities; everything from lessons in government and parliamentary procedure to agricultural engineering, animal husbandry, archery and photography. I’m quite sure that we’ll find plenty to do with 4H this year, as well as our usual barrage of homeschool group field trips (we have a trip to Austin planned for the summer, camping) & Co-op. We also have other clubs through our group, like the Adventure Club, which is similar to scouting, and we’ll also be involved with the FIRST Jr. Lego League (ages 6-9) & Lego League (ages 9-14) and CurrClick’s Lego Club.

Texas Regional Science Fair – the boys won’t be competing this year, but LBB will be next year. I found several really neat idea books, so between them and the boy’s natural curiosity, I’m sure they’ll find something that appeals. Our homeschool group is planning a group-wide, informal science fair for June. I think the boys will be excited about it.

Changes to the Curriculum for 2011: I know, we haven’t even started and are already tweaking… such is my life! I have omitted Spectrum Science as a possible resource for us this year. I had the chance to really look at it, and basically, it’s a reading/worksheet assignment that will simply not work for my boys. They need more hands-on, and less lecture. I am going to use the E=MC2 Life Science book (it’s a free downloadable version) and if that goes well, I’ll purchase the next set.

For history, I am going to end up using Story of the World. I found the first 3 volumes at Barnes & Noble and got to look over them. I think that the ‘story’ format will work well for us. We’re using Mosaic to start; if that works well then we won’t use the SotW Activity Guide books. If it doesn’t, then I’ll look into them.

And so, with that, our curriculum for next year is complete. I hope that you’ve found something here that you can use; if you find something that you think I might like, please feel free to link in comments below!

Warmly,

December 29, 2010 | Categories: Art, Classes, Community Events, FAQ, Field Trip, gardening, Geography, History, Homeschooling Resources, Kid Craft, Science, Socialization | Tags: benefits of homeschooling, curriculum, homeschooling, lesson planning, methods, raising responsible adults, record keeping, time spent in school, year round homeschool | 2 Comments »

Lesson Planning 2011 Part 2: The Core

I consider ‘core’ the basic three: reading, writing and math; plus language arts (which includes phonics, spelling and grammar), science and history. Our daily schedule usually has all the above daily, with science or history on alternating days.

In my last post on this topic, I wrote about using the ‘complete’ workbooks as a guide. I really liked the math sections for both 2nd and 3rd grade in the HB series, and I think we’re going to go ahead and get them. We’ll still be using MEP as our main math, but the wkbk would be nice to supplement with, especially on days where I need an easy day!

We’ve pretty much given up on Saxon Math. I know some love it, but it’s just too overwhelming for me to use. We’re still using bits and pieces from it like the morning meeting, the daily problems and warm-up, problem or concept of the day – stuff like that, but as our main squeeze, I’m ditching it. We’ll also be using Math Mammoth, Lesson Pathways and Khan Academy videos for new concepts, and plenty of manipulatives for illustration and repetition. We’re still math journaling to keep track of math work and to serve as our weekly review. If you haven’t seen Integer Jim’s math journals, then do check them out – they’re something to aspire to!

The all-in-one workbooks also have spelling and LA, but I don’t know how much of that we’ll really use. We’ll be going back to doing an individual spelling lesson this year; I’ve let it slide as a stand-alone subject in favor of working on it through writing. That’s been going well and I think that my plan for this coming year falls into line with that method rather than the ‘learn this list’. My kids both have a hard time with spelling, so we’re going to go ‘old school’… as in, to the 1960′s. I have Power 2 Spell and Dr. Spello (this is 4th ed.; mine is 2nd edition and from 1968, but the table of contents list is the same). LBB has auditory issues, so I am hoping that going through this workbook will help him with slowing down his thinking a bit and really listening. Once we’re done with Dr. Spello, we’ll move on to Power to Spell 2. It’s a second grade level book, but I think they’ve ‘dumbed down’ the spelling words over the years. I have a more recent spelling textbook for 3rd grade and the words in it are less challenging than the ones in PtS2. In any case, both books focus on ‘hearing’ sounds and connecting them with the letter that represents that sound. I haven’t been able to find a link to the Power to Spell book that I have, but this is it:

I used printouts from SuperTeacherWorksheets.com for LA concepts this past year; I’m hoping that the workbook will help provide more direction for this coming year. One of the things I liked about Charlotte Mason style and about Moving Beyond the Page’s ‘year overview’ was that LA, science and history are taught in conjunction with literature; using the reading selections to highlight, illustrate or expound upon the lesson. I’d like to work towards that more this year.

For our main LA curriculum, we’re considering using English Maven in addition to the workbook’s LA section. EM is computer-based, which appeals to my boys, esp LBB. We’ve also been using KISS grammar to some extent, but it is hard to navigate and use without an extensive read-through and exploration before use. Once you’re used to it though, it’s a good (if incomplete for all grades) program. Honestly, I think that the biggest helper for my kids in grammar and LA concepts has simply been reading. The Core Knowledge books also have a good overview of literature and skills by grade, so we’ll make sure to cover those as well.

The boys spend at least half an hour reading every day and when we started homeschooling, I was reading to them every day as well. We’ve gotten away from that, so I really want to focus back on that as well. I’ve noticed a marked improvement in both of the boys’ reading skill since we’ve been homeschooling. We started reviewing basic reading skills and they’re taken off since then. I use some of the reading assessment tools from A-Z Home’s Cool Homeschooling to check their progress. I don’t know how ‘accurate’ they are, but it gives us a starting point at least.

The writing stuff will be a challenge. Both boys are great at dictating their thoughts, not so much at writing them down. This is an age thing, I believe, and we’ll be working on developing and improving both handwriting and writing skills more this year. We started cursive with LBB in M5 last year; PG is still working on D’Nealian print. We’re using Handwriting Practice books, along with custom-printed worksheets that I make (themed relevant to something we’ve been working on or will do). The boys both have email addresses and blogs for journaling online. We haven’t been as diligent on that as we might have been, but the goal for this coming year will be at least one blog per week. (Contact me for the link to their blogs. If you have a homeschooler who is looking for a pen pal, we can chat about that, too.) Journal prompts and handwriting worksheets also come from SuperTeacherWorksheets and whatever I may think of or they come up with to write about. For 2011′s school year, we will be focusing heavily on handwriting, note-taking and constructing paragraphs and reports in addition to daily practice.

Moving on…

I find science and history to be both extremely challenging and laughably easy to ‘teach’. I find it very easy to integrate both into the curriculum just through everyday ‘stuff’ – field trips are usually science themed and the world around us presents so many opportunities for delving into both of those subjects. That said, I find it hard to measure where they are because we’re not really using a linear system of learning. Not that that’s a huge issue or anything, but I am considering moving back to a more structured model for this year. Yes, I realize that this is more for my own need to quantify rather than a real ‘need’ for structure in these areas, but that’s how I roll. {wink}

For science, I am considering getting Spectrum’s 3rd grade workbook to use as a spine. I have our ISD’s science text books for 1-3rd grade (I found them at Goodwill), but they’re SO BORING, and quite frankly… simple. My boys are way past that level, so we need something a little more in-depth. I really like Moving Beyond the Page’s idea of integration of science and history into the LA work, so my plan is to work on doing that this year. I’ve also gushed about Super Science Concoctions in the past, and continue to extol its virtues. Fast, easy and fun; we’ve never been disappointed. I also have Jr. Boom Academy, which is similar to SSC and just as fun, as well as a variety of subject specific science books by Rosemary Althouse and Cecil Main (magnets, water, air, food, as we grow, colors) that have experiments and explanations of ‘how this works’ that we can incorporate into lessons this year as needed.

History ‘worked into everyday’ is easy. History as a ‘systematic course of study’ is more challenging. I really like The Well Trained Mind’s idea of history in stages; we’re current with 3rd grade (Late Renaissance – Early Modern (1600-1850) and will continue in that vein. MacroHistory has sectioned links that are great for timeline-making; we’ll be starting our scroll version this year. Mosaic, using SWB’s Story of the World was recommended to me; but SOTW seems to be pretty faith-based and I prefer not to use it. Also, there are three volumes (and several versions) of SOTW, so it’s confusing. Mosaic can also be used with Gombrich’s A Little History of the World; I’m finding that A Short History of the World by Alex Woolfe mostly works too. Again, the Core Knowledge books and the all-in-one will have some contributions to our curriculum this year; it will be as we get started that I determine how much of what we’ll actually use on a regular basis.

Learning Tools

A word about worksheets: they really don’t work for us – not in the traditional sense, anyway. We usually do them together, aloud and on the chalkboard (we have a 5′ long school chalkboard in our schoolroom). I may write the actual problem from the worksheet on the board or re-work it into pictures or symbols, or I may get the kids to write the problem or question out. I use the sheet to record answers and take notes from the lesson, and then file the sheet.

Lapbooks: We’ve been working on lapbooks for the last few months and will continue throughout this year, supplementing almost every subject with lapbooking fun. I love HomeschoolShare.com’s lapbook templates and unit studies. They’re easy to combine and mix-and-match as needed. HomeschoolHelperOnline also has a list of lapbooks, and you can’t help but be in awe of the resource list at Eclectic Education! KickButtMama’s master list of free printables is really spiffy, too. Practical Pages Lapbook Pages and Jimmie’ s Collage Minibooks also have a bunch of nifty templates that you can print, cut and keep handy for lapbooking on the fly.

Manipulatives: we use file folder games I have this book), computer games, diagrams, lapbooks, flash cards, puzzles, math manips (like tiles, geoboards, marbles, playing cards, stones, legos, abacus, fraction tiles, math mini-office, etc.), maps, posters, crafts and projects – literally ANYTHING that I find or the boys show an interest in to make learning fun, exciting, engaging and memorable. Sometimes, we find things that we enjoy, sometimes we decide in the middle of something that this is not for us and chuck it in favor or attacking the lesson from a different perspective. It’s all about trial and error and keeping an open mind.

I’d also like to recommend Topsy’s A Few of My Favorite (Secular Homeschooling) Things article from a few weeks ago at SecularHomeschool.com. Some of the resources listed there are too old for my boys, but I’m keeping them in mind for later.

Whew! That is a LONG list of stuff! I’ve been working on this post for weeks now and I am glad it’s all lined out. I’m sure I’ll be tweaking this more, adding and shelving things as we go, and I will have an ‘M1 Lesson Planning’ post with more detailed lists for the first 4 weeks going up as well. Up next: Lesson Planning 2011: The Extras!

If you’re lesson planning for next year, feel free to link to your blog in the comments so I can poke around!

Warmly,

December 16, 2010 | Categories: FAQ, History, Homeschooling Resources, Math, Never Stop Learning, Reading, Science, Spelling | Tags: curriculum, FAQ, homeschooling, lesson planning, methods, record keeping | 2 Comments »

Our First Year of Homeschooling is Complete.

Incredibly, we’re more or less done with our first year of homeschooling. This week is the last week in my lesson planner (an oversight that is corrected in next year’s planner), and though we will still be doing ‘school-ish’ things throughout the month of December, we’re officially out of school until January 3rd.

I can’t believe that we’re already finished with our first year! Back in January, when I started on this path, I knew we were taking a step in the right direction. Even so, I remember feeling nervous about the actual day-to-day ‘doing’ of it.

Many of the websites I looked at in the beginning talked about how the first year of homeschooling is an exploratory year. They cautioned against buying too much or getting too entrenched in one method or mindset with the comment that the way you think you’ll homeschool often isn’t the way that ends up working for you. I’m so glad that I read those kinds of things because I found those points definitely to be true in my case.

I’m glad that we didn’t buy a bunch of text books; we rarely use them, opting instead for materials that aren’t so dry. We started our homeschooling year enchanted with Charlotte Mason style ideas. Books play such a central role in our lives, so that style fit in with what we were already doing by nature. We stuck with that pretty well until summer hit, which required a re-vamp as my niece was with us most days. I’d started to read more about ‘de-schooling’ by that point, too, so we fell into more of an unschool-y rhythm. Not ‘real’ unschooling, but as close to it as I’ll ever come, most likely. Then when the school year started up again, our homeschool group was getting off the ground and more active, so we moved more into unit studies and active learning through field trips and other non-traditional methods (though we have kept a fairly consistent level of book-work at home throughout). Over the last few months, we’ve also been doing more lapbooking and finding our groove with a more relaxed and mastery focused method.

It’s been interesting to me to work through the progression over the past year. We’re both not at all where I thought we’d be and exactly on-target. I’m extremely pleased with how the year has gone, with the work that the kids have done this year, and with the material we’ve covered. I’ve learned to be more relaxed – not so much that school slacks, but enough so that I’m not worrying myself ragged over being ‘on track’ with public school or so that the kids aren’t enjoying learning. I still worry about it, but I think they’re pretty well ‘on-target’ with their grade level, and that is reassuring. That’s my hold-out issue; staying ‘on-track’. I think that worry will lessen as time passes and we settle more into homeschooling.

There are, of course, some things that I want to get back in a better habit of doing. For the first few months, I read to the kids almost every day. Now, they read aloud every day, but I rarely read to them unless it’s something on the lesson plan. I miss that, so I will be adding more literature and story-time for next year – actually scheduling it so it doesn’t slide. More along that line of thought to come; I’m working on a Lesson Planning for 2011 post that will be up soon.

Aside from a curriculum to teach, there are some things that are essential for a new homeschooler. If you’re just starting out, here’s my list of must have items to make homeschooling ‘go’:

a good lesson planner & calendar
100 quality pencils and an electric pencil sharpener. Click or pink erasers would not go amiss.
skip crayons; opt for quality colored pencils
case of copy paper or two and a quality printer and plenty of ink refills
internet access
Counting rack/abacus, globe or world map (globe is better), a comfy chair for Mom

Another thing I found to be most helpful this year has been establishing a firm support foundation, both in real life and on the internet. Meeting local homeschooling families has given both me and the boys a social outlet as well as afforded us more active learning opportunities via field trips and group events. In addition to ‘real’ hand-holding, I’ve found so many homeschooling moms who are willing to share on forums and through blog recommendations. You ladies have no idea how helpful you’ve been; how valuable and encouraging your experiences and stories and accounts of day-to-day homeschooling life have been to me. Thank you so much for sharing!

First Day of Homeschooling

Homeschooling, Year 1 is Complete

Without a doubt, this year has been a rousing success. It’s been such a joy and privilege to share our first year with you, dear reader, and I thank you for your comments, feedback and unwavering support! Homeschooling has been wonderful for us, and I am so grateful that we have this opportunity. I’m looking forward to sharing next year with you as well.

From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!

Warmly,

November 24, 2010 | Categories: Daily Review, FAQ, Homeschooling Tips and Tricks, Lessons Learned, Never Stop Learning | Tags: homeschooling, methods, record keeping, secular homeschooling, the beginning, year round homeschool | 8 Comments »

Standardized Testing

I don’t usually blog about issues that don’t impact my kids, but this one is different. We’re in Texas, where standardized testing (STing) is not required for homeschoolers… at this time. Who is to say what will happen in the future – but for now, it’s not an issue we have to deal with. Actually, since it is not required, I’m kind of opposed to homeschoolers voluntarily taking them, just because I can see how that might lead to legislation making it not optional in the future.

There’s such a buzz about STing all over the place that people seem to either not realize or forget that they’re really not a good way to ensure a minimum of education or gauge what a student has learned. Let me say right off the bat that I am in no way advocating standardized testing. I really think it’s faulty reasoning for schools to use STing results for making big educational decisions for many, many reasons. But I am curious as to what the alternatives to STing might be for large-scale operations and schools.

There’s a group on Facebook, Parents & Kids Against Standardized Testing that I found recently, and though I tend to agree with the premise, you can’t just take away the only method that institutionalized school systems have for ensuring (attempting to, anyway) that at the very least, all students in X grade know XYZ. It’s not a perfect system (by far) but I do feel that if you’re going to entrust your children’s education to the government, there would need to be some sort of system in place to ensure that at least a minimum of education is met. STing is the method that has become that system.

Is it a perfect system? No. Is it even an adequate system? Not really, no. For one thing, STing does not take into consideration any child who does not learn via lecture. If you have a child who needs manipulatives to really grasp a concept, then in most ISDs he’s just out of luck. The whole process of STing does not allow for children who learn outside the norm.

Another issue is the test itself; I have been on the pencil end of many, many “fill in the bubble’ tests where the question is designed to trick you or mislead you. Now,while some might argue that questions like that are designed to test reading comprehension or to punish you for not paying attention, have seen many that are designed so that there may be more than one correct answer, depending on how you interpret the question. Some even have multi-part answers that are counted incorrect if you only miss part of the question. I’ve even found some homeschool tests that are like that – that’s not ascertaining what the student KNOWS, it’s ascertaining whether the student can take a test. Then there are the children who simply do not test well, or have a harder time with reading comprehension or don’t learn well visually. Such a big deal is made during testing grades that there is an enormous amount of pressure put onto the kids to do well – starting at 8 years old – earlier even if you’re in a school that has lower test scores. As young as 2nd grade, they’re starting to hear about tests and practicing for taking them. I know a couple of parents with children who worried themselves ill – literally – before testing days. How can that be healthy?

I’m really not opposed to assessment tests that actually look at what the child knows. I use them for my kids to keep us on track. I use the state’s standards as a guideline to see what we need to cover each year. We may stray from that as the kids interests dictate, but we do make an effort to stay near the state’s recommendations.

I’m mostly just thinking out loud here. Obviously, in an institutionalized setting, it will function differently than homeschooling will. It’s not practical to have a delight-led class of 25. I just think that there are too many kids who fall through the cracks in the current system.

Warmly,

November 8, 2010 | Categories: Homeschooling Resources, Rambling Thoughts, Testing & Assesment | Tags: benefits of homeschooling, grades, methods, record keeping, standardized testing | 2 Comments »

Organized Mom is Disorganized This Week

… and by ‘week’, I naturally mean ‘month’. {sigh} I am playing catch-up in a major way… we’re 2 weeks into M6 and I just now printed out my reports for M5. (If you’re just tuning in, I use Homeschool Tracker’s Basic for record-keeping. We break for a week after every 6, and I print report cards because I am an obsessive-compulsive type who likes paper (as well as digital) reports to refer to when the need arises – and it does, often. More on that in a bit. If that’s not your bag, that’s cool – but you don’t get to make nasty comments… unless they’re funny. Funny, I can forgive {wink})

I’ve spent the last 2 or 3 weeks working with SFK and PB&JMom getting our homeschool group’s co-op planned and the calendar set for the next few months (and then coming home and updating the calendar and website). I thoroughly enjoyed myself throughout all stages of this event, but in working all of that, I have neglected my own planning. I have our 6 week arc down, but I do not have daily lessons planned for the entire mod as of yet. My poor lesson planner is nearly blank past this weekend, so I will be sitting down and filling the rest of that out over the weekend, I am sure. After all, how can we learn when we don’t yet know what we’re going to learn about?!

Something I have been meaning to address is, “How do you do everything that you do?”

This is a question I get asked often – or variations of. In the past month, I’ve been called everything from a ‘straight-up overachiever’ to an ‘android’… all in good fun, of course, but the question stuck with me. I’m sure it’s a compliment with a great deal of snark mixed in, but I get asked that often enough to want to answer it. I’m just never sure what to say that answers it without sounding like I’m either defending myself or bragging. So here goes…

First of all, I’d like to say that what I do is in no way a comment on what you do (or do not) do. My friends know this already, but I wanted to clear that up before I went any further. I’m hardly perfect and gleefully submit to pointings-out of my faults, but as Patchfire says in SmrtLernins’ Secular Homeschool Archetypes: The Organized Mom,

Organized Mom doesn’t know how not to be organized…

Truer words, my dear… truer words. I love Smrt Mama’s homeschooling archetypes post. I can easily identify myself. I could front and say that’s not me, but we all know it is, lol.

I don’t think it’s so much about the ‘how’ as it is the ‘why’. As I said, I’m an obsessive compulsive type who likes information in duplicate and in multiple formats (in case of a fire… or hurricane… or alien invasion…y’know. Whatever). I do not like surprises; the rare exception to that is if you can manage to keep me from detecting even a hint of it. Such a feat has only been accomplished once, and all credit to BFF, because she completely rocked that! As you would expect, I am not a spontaneous person. My calendar has actually had time blocked of for ‘something spontaneous’ in the past, I kid you not. This mindset extends to basically every aspect of my life.

That’s not to say that I am not flexible. I am more than willing to change plans most of the time, but I need my hours blocked off so that I know what my options are. That way, I can pick and choose what I really want to do and rarely miss out on something cool. This is the part that applies to homeschooling and why I am the way I am. I don’t want my kids to miss out on a unique learning opportunity. Why spend a week reading about the Civil War when we can go to a Civil War Re-enactment and live it? That’s so much more interesting and makes history tangible. I dig that.

I also know what I want available in our area. Though our individual group is rather small, the homeschooling community in our tri-county area is extensive. With 7 co-ops that I know of (just learned about another one yesterday!), not counting mine, that’s a LOT of homeschoolers. But none of the groups are working together as a team to pull resources that we could all benefit from. Each group individually might host a science fair or an art show – but what if we had enough participants from all the groups for a ‘real’ show or competitive fair? I just see potential know that I want that opportunity for my kids. Surely there must be other homeschooling moms who see this kind of void, and I can’t help thinking that if we all work together, we can fill it with something totally awesome.

I also know what it is that I want for my kids, and to an extent, what I want out of it as well. I enjoy homeschooling. I love researching and finding cool things to dry and make and do. I like messy projects and days where we chuck the lesson plan and snuggle on the couch with hot chocolate and literature (or I will when winter gets here, lol). I love teaching my kids – watching them finally ‘get’ something is absolutely amazing. I love that I get to spend time with my kids – hours per day that would be lost if they were in school-school – every aspect of it, though challenging at times, is right up my alley. Combine that with my personal philosophy about child rearing, which can basically be summed up with, “When you know better, do better”. I want the best for my kids, and I do my best for them. I’m by no means perfect, but I try awfully hard.

I think there’s also a good dose of learning from my elders mixed in with my outlook, too. When my babes were little, I held them all the time. No really. ALL the time, either in-arms or worn on me in the sling. This came about, in part, because I kept hearing my grandmother and her friends talk about how much they wished they had not listened to the ones who told them to put their babies down to sleep or on the floor for ‘tummy time’… about how fleeting the baby days are. I didn’t want to miss out on any of that, so I held them. When I was in school, my mother worked a lot and talked often about how much she’d only ever wanted to be a stay at home mom. Since I am a stay at home mom, I try to enjoy it to the fullest and not take it for granted. These kids grow faster every day and since I can’t slow ‘em down, I’m savoring every single step.

So, back to the organizational stuff, if you’re still wondering why I keep and print records, and perhaps more interestingly, wondering what it is that I do with them, you’re in luck. I print them to file so that I have a back-up if my computers and/or hard/flash drives bite the dust. I use them to balance myself when I’m planning our lessons. I print the Overview and can see how many hours were devoted to which subjects. We’re almost always math and science heavy. Our Reading and LangArts/Grammar are moderate and history is actually pretty light most of the time. That makes sense to me – I know where that comes from. Math is my weakest subject, so I overcompensate to make sure I’m not short-changing my kids on math skillz. Maybe too much. I think science and technology are vital to my kids’ futures and careers, and so they play prominently in our curriculum. I’m much more comfortable with the ‘Reading’ stuff. That’s my strong suit, and so I feel pretty confident in those areas with what we’re doing so I don’t focus as much on those. They are also my boys’ weakest subjects, so I can see that maybe we need to spend more time in those areas.

In a 6-week long mod (usually 24 days of instruction), we range from 67 to 82 hours of ‘classroom’ time. That includes the lessons and field trips that are in my lesson planner and sometimes I also count schoolish things that are done on non-school days (like a field trip taken with our homeschool group on our off week). There are also a zillion ‘other’ things that could be added, but I try to keep what I record just to actual ‘lessons’, if that makes sense. Being able to quantify our time like that lets me sleep at night instead of worrying if we’re spending enough time in school or on schoolwork.

Grades are a little trickier. They have excellent grades – but we don’t just ‘gloss over’ anything that they need to know. If we’re learning a math skill, then we stay on that skill until it is mastered. They may be ‘behind’ what other kids their age are doing, but I feel that mastering a skill now is far better than squeaking by with a ‘passing grade’ now and finding that your foundation is weak later on. And they’re not behind (in case you were wondering).

So anyway… this all sounded a lot better in my head, lol. I’ll stop here, though I welcome questions if you want to know something specific. I hope that this casts a little bit of illumination into the transparent depths of my psyche for you {wink}.

Warmly,

September 10, 2010 | Categories: All About Me, FAQ, Homeschooling Tips and Tricks, Parenting, Rambling Thoughts | Tags: homeschooling, methods, random thoughts, record keeping, schedule, SuperMom Complex, time spent in school | 3 Comments »

Lesson Planning for M6 (Sept-Oct 2010)

Wow – we’re really starting to wind down into the end of our school year! Just in time for ‘back to school’ madness, we’re ready to start fresh on Monday.

If you’re just finding TAL, welcome! Let me explain a bit about this post. We are year-round schooling. Our school year begins in January and ends at the end of November. We school for 6 weeks (modules, or ‘mods’), then take a week-long break. I plan the kids lessons 6 weeks at a time, and usually post a ‘lesson planning’ post at some point before the new mod starts.

I find that planning incrementally lets me make adjustments as-needed during the year. I’m not planning so far ahead that if we stop on a subject and linger for a while, we haven’t thrown off the rest of the year. I use this post to remind myself of (and share with ya’ll) the links I’ve collected that I thought were so neat – this is to keep myself from coming across them 6 months after we’re done with that lesson and going, ‘Darn it!! I wanted to use that!!”.

Before we get into the good stuff, I wanted to mention a couple of things. I found this article – it’s only relevant in the ‘learning about lesson planning’ sense, but if you’re like me, the you might find it interesting. I liked the diagram – that first column of goals is quite helpful in knowing what ‘my’ goals as a teacher need to be in planning lessons for the boys.

I was recently asked if I use a lesson planner – I do. In fact, I consider it an essential part of keeping myself on track. What ‘on track’ means may be different from day-to-day, but I rely on my planner quite heavily. I keep it in my purse and use it to make notes (like I’ve said before, homeschooling isn’t something we do, it’s how we live) when we’re out and about, or to record notes for myself about the kids’ achievements or areas that might need addressing later on. I looked into the kind meant for classroom teachers and found that they weren’t really suited to homeschooling use. I tried the homeschooling ones on sites like CurrClick.com, but most are religious-y and as a secular homeschooler, that also doesn’t work for me, so I ended up making my own. I’ve added them here for you to see; feel free to print and fill them out for your own use. I take mine to a local printing shop and have the pages copied into however many I’ll need (and print them so that they’re front&back printed), then separate them into 7-six-week sections and add a colored page of paper to mark each mod. I put an evaluation sheet at the beginning of the school year, end of each mod and end of the year, print out a cover with our homeschool crest and put plastic on the front and back to protect it from wear and tear.

LessonPlanP1_ThisAdventureLife

LessonPLanP@_ThisAdventureLife

EvaluationPage_ThisAdventureLife

CurricRefSheet_ThisAdventureLife

Donna Young also has a page with a ton of printable planning forms for homeschoolers that I love looking through. Here are a couple of other pages that I didn’t make that I may add to next year’s book:

Student Goals Worksheet (or something similar – I really like the idea of the kids having goals for themselves and outlining a strategy to reach them.)
I am going to add a 2-page month-view calendar to the beginning of the planner – I frequently need one for planning non-school events.

I always put a school year calendar and a page for the kids to tell me about themselves (fun to look back on later – plus it’s a good place to add their picture for this year), and I add a page to list all of the books and resources we’re using this year and the code that I am using for that books (for example, ‘Saxon Math 3′ is ‘S3′) and any pertinent info (like reordering info for workbooks and such).

Once I have all my pages printed and copied and in the correct order (check once, twice, thrice!!), I have the book spiral bound with sturdy plastic covers. In all, the last one I printed cost around $15-$20, which is comparable to what I would pay for a commercial one, so I think that’s reasonable, especially when I have the features that I want in it – and no pages that I don’t!

I also made Student Planners for the boys for next year. found several online, but all were faith-based, so I made secular versions that are similar. Most of the clip art is ‘boy’ related; I may work on a girl version in the future:

STARSPlannerReadLog_ThisAdventureLife

STARSPlannerPg2_ThisAdventureLife

STARSPlannerPg1_ThisAdventureLife

Now, on to the links!! {fanfare}

One of the links I am SUPER excited about is this one from NASA, Virtual Skies. LittleBoyBlue has his heart set on being a jet pilot (on the days where he doesn’t want to own a grocery store or run an orphanage). Even though many of the concepts are clearly above his level of understanding, he’s interested in the subject and wants to explore it. Far be it from me to deny him access! We recently had the chance to preview ‘Legends of Flight’ at IMAX, so I’m sure that will come up in discussion as we work on the concepts in Virtual Skies.

We’re always looking for fun ways to work on grammar and parts of speech; Teachers Pay Teachers Open Marketplace has a free download of Grammar Comics volume 1 that looks fun. We found printable comic strips a while back and have been meaning to make use of them – maybe we can work on that this mod.

Grade Two Word Wall (Math words) – love this list!

The Homeschool Mom.com – How to Make a Time Line We’ve been using HyperHistory’s timeline online, but I think that the boys would benefit more from having one they can touch. That’s the only drawback to finding cool stuff online when you have (or are) a tactile learner!

Most of our resources will actually not change all that much for this mod. We’re still using LessonPathways for many of our lessons and augmenting with different websites and workbooks/sheets (listed on the ‘Our Current Curriculum‘ page). We’re planning field trips with our local group about once per week, most science or history based, so we’ll use those as the backbone to our lessons for those subjects. We started working on a lapbook for the US Constitution, so we’ll be continuing that as well. Overall, I want to add more lapbooking to our lessons; I think that’s a good way to cover and review individual units or specific topics – we’re going to give it a try, anyway!

I’ll be updating the curriculum page over the weekend, but as I said, much of it will stay the same. If you’re local and interested in the specific lesson plans associated with the field trips our group is doing, you might consider joining Triangle Homeschoolers’ Yahoo Group. We’ll be discussing lesson plans onlist there.

Warmly,

August 27, 2010 | Categories: Homeschooling Resources, Homeschooling Tips and Tricks, Lessons Learned, Never Stop Learning | Tags: curriculum, homeschooling, lesson planning, record keeping, schedule | 6 Comments »

Lesson Planing for M4 (June-July 2010)

Welcome back!
If you’re just joining me, then be warned – this post might get a tad overwhelming. Every 6 weeks, my kids and I take a break from school and relax… well, they relax; I plan our next 6 weeks! This is the time when I go back through all the websites and homeschool materials I have to refresh my memory on all the cool things I wanted to try and lessons I wanted to do with the kids. I usually post a lot of links and reference a lot of materials, so if you’re starting out this might be a good place to look to get ideas or to find spiffy little homeschooling gems that you might not have come across yet.

If you’re joining me again as I plan this next module, then I’d love to hear if my posts have helped you. I’d also love to hear from you about how you plan or what some of your favorite materials and resources are.

In scanning some of my earlier posts, I just realized that my previous “lesson planning” post had a huge mistake in it – the title is “LPing for M2″ and it was actually M3 that was being planned – so if you noticed that, then you get a gold star for having a keen eye.

So – we’re going into M4 – that’s our 4th six-weeks grading period. Our school schedule is year-round. We do 6 weeks on and a one-week break throughout the year, then take all of December off and start our new school year in January. We end up with a total to 7 grading periods, which comes out to about 165-ish days (we school M-Th). We’re going into our 6th month of homeschooling – I can’t believe how FAST the months have passed! It seems like we have just gotten started. Looking back at how much we’ve accomplished, I’m simply amazed. I didn’t really suffer with self-doubt about homeschooling (overly much, anyway), but it’s really nice to be able to look back and see just how much we really have covered. Last week, for example, we were discussing a friend who recently moved back to Michigan and how far away that is. We haven’t done a whole lot of geography on the map, but we have discussed in great detail the Great Lakes area in one of our lesson series. I was trying to tell the kids how far away Michigan was in relation to Texas, and I brought up the Lakes… and they totally got it! They had a whole discussion that reviewed much of the material we discussed months ago – on their own! That was such a gratifying “homeschool mommy moment”.

With summer coming up, we’ll have a unique addition to our family’s school days. My niece, Fred, will be joining us several days a week. She’s a “school-a-holic” – she loves school, and has requested to be allowed to participate. So I’m going to be planning some things for her to do as well. Since she and my oldest, LittleBoyBlue, are in the same grade (going into 3rd), it won’t really be any problem to add in lessons for her. PeaGreen is going into 2nd now (wow – my baby is in second grade!).

So, without further adieu… planning! {fanfare}

Okay, so… one of the main things we’re going to work into our summer is letterboxing. If you’ve read previous posts, you’ve probably seen it mentioned before. Basically, letterboxing is a treasure hunt. You have a notebook and a stamp (hand-carved or bought, your choice. It’s your personal stamp – your mark), and ink pad and the list of clues to find the box (and there are literally thousands of them, all over the world). Then you go out and find the box. In it, you’ll find a notebook and a stamp. You stamp your book with the box’s stamp, and mark your stamp into the box’s book and then hide the box back exactly where you found it so it can be found again. And that’s it! Unless you want to start making and hiding boxes (in which case you have a whole new level of fun to enjoy). Learn all you want about it at Letterboxing North America’s website.

The other thing that will be taking up a lot of the next 2 mods is the Texas Nature Challenge. It’s a 12 week, 24 state park “how many can you visit” challenge with a mission for you (the kids?) to complete. We snagged a nifty poster from the Big Thicket Visitor’s Center a couple of weeks ago. We stopped in by chance and learned about it by accident. It’s such a cool concept though that we’re really looking forward to sinking our teeth into it. The neat thing about these two projects is that they can be done in conjunction with each other. We’ve already completed 2.5 missions and are really looking forward to doing more of them!

Now, as for what subjects those things fall into, I’m filing them under science, geography, critical thinking, history, art… pretty much all of them! Different missions and different clues and locations for letterbox hunting contain different aspects of “school”. Sometimes we’re drawing, following a map, learning about the history of an area or object – the list is endless and i LOVE being able to have school be a living, breathing thing.

Of course, we’ll still be doing ‘real’ schoolwork as well. I still haven’t had time to delve into Lesson Pathways site yet, so that’s high on my list for planning this mod. I’m planning on using their Year 3 Math for LittleBoyBlue and Year 2 Math for PeaGreen starting at some point this mod. I have Saxon 3, but not all of the consumables, so I will be supplementing LP’s stuff with that. We were supposed to get into multiplication tables this past mod with LBB, but haven’t really sunk into them yet, so we’re going to start off next week (week 3 of M4 – already!!) hitting them hard and heavy.

Something else we’re starting is mock-scouting. I love the concept of scouting, but the dogma of organized scouting programs just don’t work for our family. So, we’re doing an ‘adventure kids’ type thing that mimics scouting in some ways. I started buying patches from the State Parks we’ve visited and am going to make a sash for them to showcase their achievements. I also found a bunch of merit badges (demerit badges, in some cases) that are fun and amusing that we’ll use as well – I want this to be fun and interesting – not plain ole’ Boy Scouts stuff. So I’m going to choose the badges that I like and come up with a worksheet/accomplishment/task/skill set for the boys to complete to earn them. I’m still working on this, so when I get it together better in my head, I’ll do a new post about it with links and such so you can see.

Another really cool thing that is going on this summer is our library’s Summer Reading Club. Their theme this summer is ‘The Reading Express”. In addition to encouraging the kids to read (20 books), they can log their time and compete for prizes from the mayor’s office and get an award for reading. There are also a TON of nifty classes, presentations and projects that they’re offering in connection with the club – and the best part about it is that it’s all FREE! If you’re not local, then check your library – they may have something similar that you can take advantage of. Our library also has a room (or shelf, depending on the branch we’re at that day) with books for sale – either donated or withdrawn. Usually, they’re super cheap. If you’re book hunting, you can usually pick up a text-book or two, and almost always find a handful of kids books to supplement your personal library for very little dough. Other places, like Barnes & Noble and Scholastic also offer Summer Reading Programs that might be worth checking out.

Language Arts: Mad Libs! Or, if you’re interested in playing online, you can use Wacky Web Tales, which is similar – and still fun! Of course, we’re still going to be doing more traditional LA work – I’ve been using EnglishGrammar101 for LittleBoyBlue, but I am thinking that it’s a bit too far ahead of where he is at. We’re into Unit 1, Lesson 14-ish, and he’s having trouble with a lot of it. Whether that’s due to inattention or inability, I am just not sure. I’m thinking of starting with Lesson Pathways Language Arts (which starts with Boxcar Children lessons, which I like) and trying some of the ProTeacher resources.

For History and Geography, we’re still using ‘A Short History of the World’ by Alex Woolf, and also using worksheets from SuperTeacherWorksheets – I use that site quite a bit, especially when we’re going to be schooling on-the-go. It’s easy to snag and print a couple of worksheets that coordinate with something we’re doing “in-class”. The library’s summer reading club has some history-based activities (like the Pioneer Lady’ mentioned in my previous post).

Science is going to be spent outdoors a lot this summer. In addition to the above-mentioned Texas Nature Challenge, we’re planning a trip to the Houston Museum of Natural Science and to several additional state parks. We’re also doing the Houston Wilderness Passport, which focuses on specific ecosystems in our area.

Other than that, we’re kinds going lite this mod. We’ve scaled back history and science to only 1 day per week each, and art and music are each 1 day. Handwriting is M, T, W and journal is at least 2 days per week. Math, spelling, reading, phonics - those are everyday. We’re trying to fit lessons at home with lessons out-and-about; since we have such a busy summer planned, it will be a challenge to get all our lessons in. So far, so good though. Tomorrow marks the last day of week 2 – Only 4 more weeks left in this mod!

I hope you found something useful in this post! As always, I’d love to hear what you think, or what you’re using.

Warmly,

June 9, 2010 | Categories: FAQ, Homeschooling Resources, Lessons Learned | Tags: curriculum, lesson planning, letterboxing, record keeping, schedule, texas nature challenge | Leave A Comment »

Lesson Planning for M2 (April/May 2010)

It’s been a while since I posted anything. Sorry about that! If you’re waiting to see what we’re doing for the next 6 weeks (well, 5, almost 4, now that the first week and a half of M2 is over!!), we have some new things that we’re working on that we started this week.

One of the new sites I found (courtesy of FreeHomeschooling101′s blog – link in sidebar) is EnglishGrammar101.com. It’s a fully lessoned-out plan of attack that your kidlet can do online, or you can print lessons out and. The site will score the lessons, and you can keep track. Neat-o! You know me; I’m all about record-keeping, lol. LittleBoyBlue is breezing through 100 Easy Lessons – I knew he would; he’s reading very well (surprisingly well sometimes – he recently finished the Halo graphic novel and a Zelda GN, and started on The Fall of Reach (which is a full-length Halo novel) and 100 EL is very, very basic. We started EnglishGrammar101 this week with Unit 1, Lesson 1 (and have completed Lesson 2). It’s good. I like it, at any rate. Since the first part is verbs, I found the Grammar Rock YouTube video of “Verbs” and we watched that. Fun, and it brings back good Saturday-morning-cartoon memories for me. When you click on the link, look in the left hand menu and choose “homeschooling”, then you can click the plus signs to expand the menu and you can choose a unit and lesson from the drop-down box. I let LittleBoyBlue do the lesson, then click “score” at the top (though you can click the question mark boxes at each line as you go if you’re reviewing or learning) and then write down the percentage (grade) and then print. We’re using the printed work as a review and reference to reinforce what we learned in the lesson.

Another is AAAKnow.com – it’s a math site that is divided into grade levels and subject areas. Again – it’s all online, fully planned out lessons and worksheets. PeaGreen has completed his other workbooks, so I was scraping the bottom of the barrel to find him something (I was about to go buy a workbook!!) when I found this site. He’s actually quite good in math, and we’re coming up on May where he would have ‘graduated’ to 2nd grade, so I think we’re going to finish out this mod and the next and start him in “2nd grade” in M5, which will come up starting in July. LittleBoyBlue is also very good in math (though he lacks discipline as evidenced by the 2 hours he spent on 20 problems today; some of that was my fault for not paying him enough attention) and as soon as he finishes the Math Minutes book, he’ll start on Saxon 3, but we’ll supplement with AAAKnow’s lesson plans as well. One thing I will mention is that the ‘practice’ portions will go on indefinitely – at least past 50, so count as your child does them as you go and limit it to whatever number you want to work with. We did 50, but could have stopped after 25 or so, once he demonstrated that he clearly has grasped the concept. I do like that there’s a printable progress report form so you can keep track of which lessons as you go.

We’re also using Multiplication.com quite a bit this mod. LittleBoyBlue is getting into multiplication tables and they have a nice little video that uses “cookie math” to explain the concept. It must work; he’s up to the 3′s already, and can figure out most of the problems I give him. They also have worksheets, pre- and post- tests to print and use.

I also found (again, thanks to FreeHomeschooling101) is a flash sight words site. It’s based on the Dolch sight words and many other resources use that as well – we actually had flash cards and sticky-notes with these words on them already, which makes it super easy to supplement with hands-on materials. I haven’t looked through the flash site fully, but what I saw, I liked. PeaGreen is having some difficulty with reading – I don’t know why. It seems like he was doing quite well in his classroom with the leveled readers that his former teacher was sending home, but for some reason he seems to have lost that confidence. He’s doing very well with the phonics lessons in 100 EL, but when it comes to spelling work (not the spelling itself, but the reading of directions or spelling sentences) or independent reading, he’s stumbling more than I am thinking he should be. I am hoping that drills of sight words will help reinforce his skills.

Another new development in our school is a return to handwriting as a subject all its own, independent of journaling and copywork. Both boys still have their handwriting books from school (McDougal, Littell’s Handwriting Connections for grades 1 and 2)

so we’ll continue to use them until they’re done, then we’ll have to find something to supplement that. LittleBoyBlue will be moving on to cursive writing soon!

Let’s see… I also bought A Short History of the World by Alex Woolf to use for History/Geography. It’s not comprehensive, but it does cover a heck of a lot – skims the surface of history, which I think is enough to get us to an area that one (or both) of the boys finds interesting – at which point we can dig in a little deeper. we’re still chronologically in pre-history and ancient history (here on the timeline – and can I just reiterate how much I LOVE the online timeline at HyperHistory?!) and the book is not strictly chronological, but we can supplement as needed.

I also have been looking for a way to assess where the boys are in reading – are they “on track”? Ahead? Lagging behind? I found several assessment tests – some more for “Language Arts” and reading speed/level, and some to give you a ‘grade/month’ number. I think the first one is probably more ‘accurate’, but the second one is fast and easy to use. According to it, PeaGreen is reading at 1st grade, 6th month (which is on-target for him) and LittleBoyBlue is reading at 3th grade, 6rd month level, which is ahead of his actual grade (2nd)… and I read at 12th grade, 8th month and beyond, in case you were wondering. {smile}

I’m planning on doing the other test at some point during this mod as well, which will give us an idea of which “level” books to give them when we’re choosing leveled readers. Right now I’m giving LittleBoyBlue level 3 books, which are chapter books, and PeaGreen is getting between level 1 and level 2 books, depending on the series. He’s harder to choose for; I want him to be challenged, but not frustrated. we’re reinforcing his skills with 100 EL as I said, so I am seeing small improvements – I think that will improve as we continue through this mod’s reading, phonics and grammar lessons.

Here’s something fun: BOOK IT – Pizza Hut’s reading incentives program for 2010-2011 school year (deadline June 30, 2010) http://www.bookitprogram.com/Enrollment/homeschool.asp Your kidlet can get free pizzas for reading. How awesome is that?!

Another freebie (thanks, yet again to FreeHomeschooling101′s blog – if you’re not on their FaceBook page, you REALLY need to check them out.) History Lesson plans - August 2010 DVD http://www.history.com/images/media/pdf/TDIH_Guide.pdf

If you’re looking for Earth Day lesson plans, check this out: http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/earthday/index.php There are lots of options, depending on your grade level and how involved you want to get. Of course, if you’re local to Southeast Texas, then you’re going to want to come out to The Barking Dog to support the Farmer’s Market that opens this May!

And one more thing… Lesson Pathways website is now FREE!! http://www.lessonpathways.com/Home They have TONS of info, including COMPLETE curriculum outlines by grade. You can pick and choose lessons, units or use their entire plan. So cool! I haven’t explored it fully, but there are some things I am pretty sure we’ll be using in the math section – I am sure I’ll find more awesomeness as I browse.

Overall, I’m feeling very good about this mod’s beginning. It always takes a few days to get back into the routine after a break, but now that we’re back, it’s going pretty smoothly. I think the boys are excited to have some new things to work on, and I know they both like doing computer work. Having the option to print is good, but paperless is definitely cheaper, and between the Homeschool Tracker program I use and online lessons, I’m using less paper and ink than I thought I would be. That’s a good thing!

On another note (for those of you who have been keeping up with the progress of out garden), we have definite PLANTS now – not just seedlings. From seed, we have tomatoes, onions, pumpkins, radishes, watermelons, avocados, jalapeños, basil, coriander, tarragon, radishes and cantaloupes coming up. It’s SO NEAT to watch! I’ll post pictures soon.

I hope that you find some of this useful when planning your own lessons and activities!

Warmly,

April 20, 2010 | Categories: Homeschooling Resources, Testing & Assesment | Tags: curriculum, grades, lesson planning, record keeping, schedule | 1 Comment »

Thoughts on Accountability in Homeschooling

One of the great things about homeschooling in Texas is the freedom parents who choose to educate their kids at home have. We don’t have to register with anyone if we choose not to enroll in Kindergarten. We don’t have to ask permission to pull our kids out of public school. We don’t have to be evaluated or take tests or hand in reports or samples of work to anyone. Homeschools are regarded as private schools, and like any private school, we’re pretty autonomous.

For those of us who have been indoctrinated into the public school system, it’s a bit hard to shift from the mindset that there will be some sort of testing going on to assess where your child is at the beginning of the year and again at the end of the year to see how much he’s progressed, to realizing that there really is no system for tallying accomplishments and improvements that gets handed to you when you decide to homeschool. Sure you can go look at the TEA website and get an idea of what your child would/should be learning in public school, but you have to look for it – it’s not handed to you.

On the one hand, that’s great. I think that standardized testing is a crock to begin with; though I realize and agree with the thought that there should be some kind of system in place to ensure that students in an institutionalized educational setting are getting a minimum set of skills and/or knowledge base, there has to be a better way of determining that information than the testing that schools (in Texas, at least) do periodically. It would also be nice if teachers had the autonomy to make decisions about the method of testing for their students based on their knowledge of the student’s ability without having to go through the red tape of having a 504 designation and IEP* if your child is a special-needs child. If you don’t have a special needs child, but do have one that just doesn’t perform well on written tests, letting the teacher assess the information orally or in some other format than the formal “test” would be a huge benefit to the student.

Aside from that, teachers spend half their time teaching kids how to take the test (dealing with trick questions and absolutes, etc), which means that there is less time spent on teaching the material they’re being tested on. Even on off years when there is no testing, they still do mock tests so the kids don’t forget how to deal with testing. Then there’s the level of importance that is placed on test scores. If you’re not a good test-taker, then you’re pretty much screwed, even if you know the material. I always got hung by trick questions – ones that used absolutes (always or never) or phrased things tricksy, and so I scored much lower than I would have if the question assessed my knowledge coherently.

On the other hand, there’s a certain reassurance in the testing. With it, you have a concrete starting point and yardstick with which to measure. It’s easy to look at the scores and see where your weak points are and where you’re good to go. Without it, there are no guidelines to go by, no system of checks and balances to help guide a parent/teacher or show her that she’s doing a “good enough” job in setting and reaching educational goals. There’s no one to have a conference with and ask how he’s doing and get tips and pointers on how to help shore up the weak areas. There’s no set list of skills or knowledge that must be learned “this year”. In a way, that’s bad. It means that WE (loverly husband and I… well, me) have to pour over websites and through curriculum outlines and decide what all needs to be addressed this year. WE are solely responsible for making sure that our kids are not lagging behind their peers.

Or do we?

Who’s to say that the way the institution has laid out their year and the subjects/skills the “right” way? The “best” way? Does my 1st grader really NEED to know Roman numerals this year? Or can that wait until we start studying the Roman Empire? Does my 2nd grader HAVE to study ‘whole language’ style (sight words), or can we omit that altogether and learn phonics instead? Or what if I have one child who does better with whole language and one who does better with phonics? Shouldn’t we do both in that case?

I think that’s another benefit right there – lacking the ‘paperwork’ to tell you about your child, you actually have to (get to?) focus on your child. You’re also not limited to the lowest common denominator when you’re homeschooling. In the classroom, rather than bringing the students all up, they tend to drop everyone down. That means that if your child is excelling, unless real effort is made in the classroom to tailor to that child to some extent, their potential goes untapped. At home, there’s no cap on learning.

Next year would have been our first foray into standardized testing. There’s a small part of me that would kind of like to have LittleBoyBlue tested – and I’m not ruling out buying the test-prep/mock TAKS book at Manning’s even though I am philosophically opposed to standardized testing. It’s expensive though, so I may not. And by that time, we may be on a whole different homeschooling agenda page by then. Who knows? I honestly don’t think that he would do very well on the test if he were to take it the way they give it. If I gave him the test, it would be piecemeal where we could and orally, I’m sure – my goal would actually be to assess his knowledge, not trick him up and see how well he tests.

I don’t really have a goal with this post. I’m still new enough to homeschooling that I can see the benefit in the way that institutionalized schooling operates. It must function the way that it does to meet the goals they have, and though they fall short and are in drastic need of a complete overhaul, there does have to be some form and structure there. Institutionalized schooling cannot mimic homeschooling without… well, so much is lacking to even come close. I really do feel that home should be the standard and everything else should measure up to that and not the other way around. Only when I can’t provide what my child needs should I start looking for someone else to help me provide for my child.

Warmly,

* As I understand it, 504 is the designation in TX for students with handicaps or learning disabilities that allows modifications and accommodations to be made in the classroom for them to help learning/functioning. IEP stands for “Individual Education Plan” and outlines to modifications and accommodations that will be made for the child that the teacher must follow. That may not be entirely accurate, but it’s close.

February 13, 2010 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: benefits of homeschooling, record keeping, special needs child | Leave A Comment »

Report Cards!

Today marks the end of our first learning module in homeschooling – and, thanks to Homeschool Tracker’s lovely (and FREE) program, I have report cards to prove it! Yay!! I have found that for lessons that don’t have a point value assigned or easily visualized, a “scale of 1-10″ works well, and I enter all tests 2 times so they count more (I didn’t know that was a thing to do until I read about it; apparently, it’s called “weighting” the grades…handy!).

I don’t remember if I’ve covered this before so if I have, please forgive the lapse in memory. If I haven’t, here’s a breakdown of our schedule. We begin our school year in January, so even though we’re technically in the middle of the 2009-2010 school year according to traditional academic calendarl, my kids aren’t really starting in the middle of the year according to our calendar. We’re using Ambleside Online’s curriculum (link in sidebar) and staging, so we’re officially in Year 1 with them as well.

January 3 (the first Monday), 2010 began the first learning module (“mod”) in our year. I mark off 6 weeks (that’s M1), then we take a one week break. We do another six weeks of school (that’s M2), and then a one week break, and so on for the whole calendar year. That gives us seven 6-week learning modules (instead of only 6 like “regular” school) and we stop at the end of November/beginning of December, depending on the calendar. Then we take the month of December off (except for maybe the first few days or so if the calendar is wonky that year), and begin the next school year in January. I haven’t done the math to figure up exactly how that compares to a traditional academic calendar – we end up with 168 school days per year; I seem to remember our former school’s calendar had something like 77 school days in a year (but that could be off).

Our school week is Monday through Thursday, and we test on Thursdays in Math and Spelling, and we do a mid-mod review at week 3 in Science, Social Studies/History/Geography (combined) and another review at the end of the mod. We go to the Library on Wednesdays and we also meet with our playgroup (weather permitting). Since we have a short school week, we try to schedule field trips for Fridays or in the afternoons so they don’t interfere with “class time”.

I guess you’d say what we’re doing at this point in time is “school at home”, though admittedly with much more flexibility than “real school” (that’s not to say that we will always “do” school this way, but it’s working for us right now, and so we continue). A lot of what we’re doing is oral, or comes from literature instead of text books, so it doesn’t feel like school-in-a-classroom, even though we have a mini-classroom here. I was reading about how some families started out with a dedicated homeschooling room/space and eventually abolished it because “school is life”… while I respect the sentiment, I know that I need to have “school” contained in one area and not taking up half my kitchen, and I definitely don’t want it cluttering up the living room! It makes me a much happier mama to be able to close the door to the school room and have my house company-ready (not that we ever have company, hermit that I am lately). That doesn’t mean that learning stops when the door closes – most of the kids’ craft supplies, and mine, too eventually has migrated or will migrate into there, so we’re constantly using the space for something, and as soon as I get a rug, I’m sure even more fun will be had, strewn across the floor. Today, even though our tushies were cold, we made Valentine’s cards whilst lounging on the school-room floor. It was nice!

So, like I said, today marks the end of our first mod in homeschooling. Even though this mod is short by 2 weeks due to the boys still being in public (well, charter) school for the first 2 weeks of the year, I want to stick with our calendar so I am marking M1 officially

SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED!

{bows to wild applause and whistles of congratulations}

Thank you, thank you… it’s been a journey, but one we were more than happy to undertake. {/smarmy speech}

I just can’t get over how impressive it all looks on paper! Well, impressive to me, at least. In 4 weeks, we’ve had 16 school days, and spent 67+ hours (it varies a bit by kiddo on the minutes) in official lessons. That doesn’t include the extra learning that happens just because we’re an inquisitive family… and just think – that’s 67 hours of almost PURE learning/instruction time – not 5 minutes of learning and 20 minutes of trying to get in a quiet, straight line so we can go to the next classroom/lesson. With only 2 kiddos, my time is pretty evenly divided between them, so that’s nearly 34 hours of one-on-one instruction time that each of my boys has had over the last month. If they were in school-school, taking out 30 minutes for lunch and 15 for recess, that’s 6.5 hours of instruction time per day (and that’s not counting the 5 minute between-class bells – so it’s actually going to be even less time than that). Anyway – with 6.5 hours in her day, a teacher with 25 students (the ratio at my kids’ former school) can give each child, at most, 26 minutes of her time per day. Over a week, that would be a whopping 1.3 hours per week; 7.8 hours per 6 weeks; 46.8 hours per school year. And that doesn’t include making lesson plans, keeping the “class” on-task, lining up, handling discipline issues, sick kids and emergencies, fire drills and other interruptions that plague the classroom teacher daily. Gee, based on that math, I could stop RIGHT NOW and my kids will have gotten almost as much time with their teacher as they would in school-school….

Seeing everything laid out like that is really reinforcing the idea that we made a good choice here. So… any friends out there who wanna make plans for next week since we’re out of school?

Warmly,

February 11, 2010 | Categories: Daily Review, Homeschooling Resources, Lessons Learned | Tags: grades, homeschool room, record keeping, schedule, time spent in school | 2 Comments »

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