The Leaves on the Trees… and Owls
So… rather than doing schoolwork today, my kids have been playing outside most of the day. Like they did yesterday. And Monday. And Thursday and Friday of last week.
Slacker mom, much?
I posted a very similar message to one of my awesome homeschooling groups on Facebook (you guys rawk, seriously) and got lots of reassurance that I am not screwing up my kids educational futures by taking some time off. I know it seems like we’ve been taking a lot of time off lately, but those days are well-earned, I assure you.
Darn it all if I am still trying to let go of the feeling that we ‘have’ to do school the way we’re ‘supposed’ to. Who says we ‘have to’, and who dictates ‘supposed to’, I ask? ME! That’s who! (throws devil horns à la Ronnie James Dio and screams ‘Yeah!!’)
We’re taking off next week (DH’s vacation), so I am feeling all guilty and indulgent as I play on the computer (I say play; I’ve been working on our homeschool group’s newsletter, which is not exactly playing. Close though; and adding stuff to my DeviantART page, which is completely indulgent in every way). We only have a few more weeks left in this school year, and the kids are only about 5 weeks away from being done with ‘this grade’s work in grammar and history and their workbook math. Their spelling and regular math will take longer, but since we school all year, one grade sort of rolls into the next in most cases. So lesson wise, we’re good – on schedule; a little ahead, even… and yet still… the feeling that I’m not doing enough is bugging me.
{shakes it off}
I have to say that although we didn’t do any formal sit-down learning today, there was still learning going on. The kids are deeply involved in building a fort in the back of our property. I haven’t been back there yet, but they assure me that it is both safe and awesome. They’ve been hauling stuff out of the house for a few days now, so I can only imagine what I’ll find when I do get invited back to see the results of their labors.
After spending a relaxing morning with some lovely Earl Grey and flipping back through my completed art journals in preparation for posting them, I got all inspired to do crafty stuff with the kids, so I called them in and we worked on this year’s Thankfulness Tree. We made one last year – just out of construction paper and had it taped up to the cabinet door. It was lovely (and kinda bare in the picture – wish now that I’d gotten a picture closer to the end of the month), but not as jazzy as I like, so this year we’re kicking it up a notch.
I’ve been saving toilet paper rolls for ages with plans of making some sort of crafty thing, and since Pinterest is the end-all, be-all of crafting ideas, I checked out what they had to offer and found the most adorable little owls. Ours turned out quite differently than the inspiration pieces, but the kids had fun and I think they turned out great! We also used coffee filters and markers to make leaves. The kids drew on the filters then got them wet do the colors would bleed and we cut out leaf shapes – voila! Fantastic fall foliage! Now to figure out how to attach them to my tree without ruining the branches in the process… and yes, those are Halloween pumpkins in the background there. Those suckers have lasted a LONG time this year!
In any case, he’s what we have so far. More to come when the project is completed (possibly tomorrow – one can just never tell around here). We’ll add things we’re thankful for to the beautiful leaves, then add them to the tree as we go along. The owls will be hung from the branches when they’re dry as well.
What about you – anything crafty you’d like to share to do with toilet paper tubes or other all crafts?
Warmly,
~h
Just DO it.
If you’re unfamiliar with our schedule this year, we have school for four weeks, then take a week-long break, all year long (with a couple extra weeks in December, between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next, which is on Jan 1).
This week, thank all that is sacred in that which was, is and ever shall be, is our off week. We had kind of a wonky schedule over the summer, with a lighter workload and more days off than I’d originally planned. As is wont to happen, I started feeling like things were sliding, so in a fabulous (but misguided) flurry of organization and determination, I announced that we would henceforth be putting our noses to the grindstone and get back on track. Somehow, in my blaze of glory, I decided that the best way to accomplish this was to skip the last break, which put us at 6 weeks straight of school.
Oh, silly young Padawan… there is still much to learn.
The funny thing is, I already knew that this was a mistake. Our schedule last year was 6 weeks on, one off. We only had school 4 days a week, but I realized towards the end of the year that 6 weeks was too long. We all get burned out, and consistently, by the end of week 6, I was seriously struggling to get schoolwork organized and the kids were lollygagging about, doing any and everything but schoolwork. After 5 weeks, max, we all needed a break! This just goes to remind me that, even as a somewhat more experienced homeschooling mom (now that I’m almost through our 2nd year), that lingering ‘school’ mentality still exists.
So, in an effort to maybe have these things sink in (AGAIN), I give you my list of reminders why homeschooling is awesome:
- City ISD school year calendar and State Education Association list of skills by grade: these are not the schedules you’re looking for.
- There WILL BE gaps in their education. No matter where they go to school, or in what style they’re educated, or how many days and weeks they spend learning, there is always MORE to know. No two ideals of what is ‘core knowledge’ will match up, so stop trying to please everyone else! Teach them how to learn, and to love learning that they will be
FINEAMAZING. - For the love of Pete, stop trying to ‘catch up’. Education is a marathon, not a race. They’re going to be ahead in some things and behind in others. That’s okay… they’ll get there when they need to.
- Remember the fun stuff! Education is not just about book learnin’. There are arts and crafts and gluing macaroni and cotton balls to construction paper. It’s creating seed mosaics and painting with food dyes, exploring the world, doing it themselves, and learning at the knee of a seasoned professional with knowledge to share. Revel in the fact that you have freedom from the established norm – the amazing opportunity – to collect these types of learning experiences for your children. Be willing to go out and MAKE them happen for them!
- Breaks are essential to balance. Being parent and teacher is an extremely stressful job. It’s easy – too easy sometimes – to get caught up in the constant pressure and demand for educational excellence that homeschooling parents deal with. It comes from within and from outside – but it cannot rule your relationship with your kids. Take breaks often and enjoy them fully. Laze about and relax!
~h
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.
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,
~h
Lazy Summer Days
This is undoubtedly something that we just don’t get enough of around here. Take, for example, this week… we’re out of school (it’s one of our regularly scheduled week-long breaks in our year-round school schedule) and so far, we’ve been go-go-go, and will continue to be so until at least Thursday. So that really only leaves us with 2 days of ‘break’ and 2 days of weekend.
Don’t get e wrong, I generally love having a busy schedule, but there are times when I look at my calendar and end up wanting to chuck it out the window. To be fair, sometimes I do shed the plans in favor of relaxing family fun, but sadly, this week will not be one of those times.
I started the week with bad news/good news. My eyes have been hurting a lot lately - very light sensitive (photophobic, almost) and almost like dry eyes but not quite… I know why; it’s because I wear disposable contacts that I don’t dispose of when I’m supposed to. I wear and wear and wear them until I can’t anymore and that’s lead to what amounts to scratches on my corneas and an incredible amount of irritation and swelling. We started off yesterday morning with a trip to the optometrist. So the bad news is that contact lenses are, for the foreseeable future, verboten. Furthermore, my future as a contact lens candidate is questionable. I’m currently on a ‘take these eye drops for a week and then come back and we’ll see’. It’s also been 7 years since my glasses prescription has been updated, so they have been woefully out of date for sometime now. I’ve been squinting through them for a while now, and I was informed that I’d fail a driving test with the current pair. The good news is that I got new glasses and rx sunglasses out of the deal.
Also, same-day service = Yay!
The rest of the week consists of trying to fit in painting my bedroom a lovely blue called ‘daring indigo’ in amongst playgroup (vegan/vegetarian & fermented foods luncheon rescheduled due to the first forecasted rainstorm in 8 months), summer reading club plans (bug cooking and eating today, a NASA presentation tomorrow) and visiting our lovely friend SFK, whom we haven’t seen for 2 whole weeks.
One of these days though, we’re going to have to take a blanket out to the woods and just laze about with books to read and tasty cool drinks to sip. We may through a couple of magnifying glasses and a pair of binoculars in the bag for good measure and do some exploring at the edges of the blanket or high in the trees. That sounds like a good plan to me.
Warmly,
~h
Lesson Planning: Summer 2011
If you’re a long-time reader at This Adventure Life, you may have noticed that I am not doing lesson planning posts for each mod the way that I did last year. One of the reasons that I haven’t been doing them is because we’re not switching materials with the same frequency that we did last year.
2010 was our first year homeschooling with school-age kids (we’d gotten in a couple of years of home-pre-school before LBB started K), and as a newbie, I was experimenting with different styles, different methods, different schedules – basically trying out as much as we could to find what works and what doesn’t. I’m glad we did it that way; we got a look at a ton of different materials and tried on quite a few ‘homeschooling hats’ and got a feel for what we liked and didn’t, what worked and what we should change. If you’re new to homeschooling, I’d definitely recommend approaching your first year in that manner – as an experiment of sorts, to find your groove. The benefit was that going into this, our second year, I felt like a I had a much better grasp on the mechanics of homeschooling, and a better idea of the kinds of materials and lesson styles suited my kids best. For the most part, we’ve stayed pretty consistent with our materials and methods – we’re still using what we started with in January (though we’re finished with some of it already) and our 4 weeks on/1 week off schedule works well.
If you want ‘categorization’, I’m really not sure where we fall in the homeschool styles spectrum (though I did find this nifty teaching style quiz. I’m a 56 – combined parent/child directed. I think that’s pretty accurate, though I see a lot of what’s described as ’traditional’ in my style as well). I see us as fairly easy-going, but by no means do we fall into the ‘relaxed’ homeschooler category. We’re also not ‘rigorous’, though we do have a lovely schedule and manage to stick to it a goodly portion of the time – at least for the months that fall within the traditional school year. For the summer months though, since we school year-round, we’re making some adjustments to the schedule to accommodate the goings-on in our community.
I have divided our school year into ‘sessions’ to accommodate what feels like a good pattern for us. The Winter Session is January – May. Summer Session is May-August, and the Fall Session is September – December. Our heaviest session, work-wise is the Winter Session. It’s the longest (5 months), and is the beginning of the new school year, so everything is all shiny and new. During the summer, my niece Fred (y’all remember Fred, don’t you?) spends a significant amount of time with us, so it’s somewhat impossible to hold a ‘regular’ school day with a sometimes-guest. This year we’ll be coordinating her visits with our activity days, so we’ll have a bit of a better routine this year, I hope.
We’re fortunate to live in an area where there are many summer offerings to take advantage of in the community, on both a city-wide and state-wide level. With gas prices being so high, that will curb our comings and goings on longer trips, but around town, there is still plenty to keep us occupied.
Our local libraries (in our county and two neighboring ones) all offer a summer reading club. In addition to the
book/reading part, each of them host different kids’ events for several weeks; puppet shows, magic shows, local Parks & Wildlife and Rangers give presentations, our local art museum has a mobile program, the Houston Zoo’s Mobile Zoo comes, Gator Country does presentations… it’s a pretty extensive list of ‘things to do’ that offers plenty of material for a homeschooling family to use as a jumping-off point for unit studies and lessons – and that’s just from the library.
We also have the Texas Nature Challenge, with missions from all over the bayou region (all over the state, really), we have the chance to explore state parks and other educational attractions with an eye towards education and conservation. This year’s missions include destinations such as Matagorda Bay Nature Park and Natural Science Center, Sheldon Lake State Park & Environmental Learning Center, Sea Center Texas and Habitat March at Nature Discovery Center’s Russ Pitman Park, among others.
And then there are the museum programs, visits to friends’ homes and Spindletop Rollergirls games, community service projects, 4H, and whatever else piques our interest. We like to stay busy!
HomeschoolShare.com‘s extensive list of unit studies and lapbooks will come in handy, I’m sure. We’ll cater more to the boys’ interests (ages 8 and 9; in 3rd and 4th grade-ish) this summer and focus less on ‘curriculum’, though we will continue with some basics, just not as rigorously. I did buy a couple of workbooks for the summer, Math Minutes and Summer Activities for the Gifted Student (just to clarify on that one; no, I don’t think my children are ‘gifted’ – well, they’re both exceedingly bright, but we’re not talking savant-level genius or anything. That’s just the name of the workbook. Don’t get your panties in a twist over it. {wink}).
We’ve used the Math Minutes workbook before; it’s 100 lessons with 10 problems on each page, designed to be done in 1 minute. LBB took more like 10, and often did 2 pages at a time, but then we used that as a bridge between ‘OMG, we’re homeschooling!!’ and ‘proper math curriculum for properly homeschooled child’. We’re >thisclose< to being done with this ‘grade’, so the two new books will be used here and there where needed to supplement our more regular, though considerably lighter than during the Winter Session. (On a side note, when I was looking for the Amazon link to the Math Minutes workbooks, I came across this: Math Minutes by Sadlier-Oxford Publishing. It’s a website that you can use to practice math concepts. You choose the category and set the time and then go. We haven’t used it yet, but it looks interesting. Just thought I’d share…)
In addition to the already full summer plan, two of our local movie theaters also do a kids’ program; one previously-released kids movie each week for $1 per ticket. You can’t beat that and since we don’t often go to the movies, we’re planning on taking advantage of that this summer as well.
I can’t wait to get started! What’s on your calendar for the summer?
Warmly,
~h
The Meanest Homeschool Mom
And thus has the devil-may-care, relaxed lifestyle to which my children have become accustomed come to an abrupt end.
Recently, some of the parents that I share a homeschooling discussion chat list with were talking about being overwhelmed as a homeschooling parent. I was going to chime in, but decided to put my contribution in blog form and post it here, because it would be a long post and I enjoy monopolizing the conversation.
It seems like since my FIL died, we’ve been thrown off kilter. For whatever reason (nothing directly related to his death – just the time frame), we have not been able to get back into a good, consistent daily routine. I came to the realization that we have simply got to make some changes around here a week or two ago when I lost my schmidt ( with a nod and a wink to Rants from Mommyland) after dealing with whiney, uncooperative and lazy children for several days in a row. I need to clarify that this wasn’t a mere moment of frustration; this was the final straw on a huge pile of hay. I completely and utterly lost it and in one of those spectacular displays of Mommy Mayhem, announced to the children that a New World Order had arrived.
From now on, I declared, there would be no more luxuries they have come to expect – no recreational television viewing, no video games, no dsi playing. It wasn’t that they are ‘grounded’. Being ‘grounded’ implies a punishment of some sort that, after whatever time limits have passed, shall be lifted. No, I explained in the Mommy Has Had It voice, this is more that they are simply no longer have any of those privileges. At all. And so shall it remain until I see a dramatic and sustained improvement in attitude and application of self to schoolwork and basic picking up after self-ness.
This may seem a bit extreme to some, but Loverly Husband and I see this as an overall positive step for our family. It got to the point that I was outright angry irritated all the time about having to try to get the kids to do their work and pick up the mess they made. They’re not incapable, they’re unwilling – and that doesn’t work for me. It seemed like every day, I was cajoling and pleading and threatening and bargaining with them to accomplish even the most basic of assignments, or reminding them several times to do a task (like: put your shoes on the shelf. – 15 minutes later – Put your shoes on the shelf. -15 minutes later – PUT YOUR SHOES ON THE FRAKKIN’ SHELF!) and then whining when I say that they can’t play/watch/do until XYZ is done (but Mooooom… that’s not fair!!). That sense of entitlement and no work ethic was buggin’ the crap outta me.
We tried things before this: chore charts, a stapled packet of school work, timers, attaching chores to money/video game time – nothing has worked consistently. And no matter what I asked or required, there was always – always – something that had to be done before they could do whatever task (no matter how small). LBB is the Champion of Stall and his tactics are legion. When the physical stall tactics run out, he has mental check-outs that he engages in, better and deeper than anyone I’ve ever seen. Makes me insane.
So we took a drastic step to see if we can curb some of that. We’re two weeks in, and though The Stall is still around, I’m in a better mood and we’re accomplishing more school work (though it still takes LBB all day sometimes). We are using the timer still – a reasonable amount of time is given for an assignment and when the timer dings, we move on. If you haven’t finished it, then that’s your ‘homework’ – for you to do on YOUR time while the rest of us are enjoying whatever leisure activity we have planned for that day. Doing it this way sucks for whoever is indulging in The Stall on their school time, but doesn’t punish the one who did do his work that day (and amazingly, they both have their days – it’s like Goofus and Gallant tag-teaming Mom most days… le sigh). It also keeps me from feeling resentful at having to skip whatever field trip we’d planned on doing – we don’t skip it; approximately 137% of our field trips are in some way school-related and I don’t want to skip them because someone prefers to make sound effects rather then write his paper. What this means is that someone may have to do his remaining schoolwork that evening while the rest of us play, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles, Chief. I’ve been stressing Time Management in a big way lately and though the situation looks bleak, I remain hopeful that this lesson will one day sink in.
The other, known but forgotten, benefit to the ‘no TV’ thing is that I just plain enjoy my children more when there is not a constant stream of television in the background. It’s not like they’re allowee to watch all that much to begin with, but I know how convenient TV can be, and I am not above letting the TV engage the kids for an hour while I get a break from the never-ending chorus of mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom,mom,mom,mom,mom,mom. I’ve realized it in the past when we’ve banned TV for whatever reason, but it’s always surprising to see how much more creative and more willing to try new creative things when they aren’t mentally calculating how much longer it will be before they can watch TV or play that next level.
Like I said, we’re two weeks in, and though life is not perfect, I think we’re on the right path. They’re slow to adjusting, but they don’t ask ‘now can we watch TV?’ 6,000 times a day, so I’m calling that progress.
Warmly,
~h (aka: The Meanest Homeschool Mom)
Things that are Not Banned: bike riding, board games, swimming/slip-n-slide/sprinkler play, play dough/modeling clay and other sculpting mediums, wood carving and burning, helping Grandmother and Grammie and Gramps (all of whom live next door), visiting with friends, going to the park, fishing, hiking, art journaling, reading, trampoline – anything that requires physical or mental effort, engages the mind, body and spirit… so I’m not a total ogre.
When Life Gets in the Way of Homeschooling
One of the biggest benefits to homeschooling is that you can take breaks when you need them. One of the biggest drawbacks to homeschooling is that it is, at times, very easy to let life interfere with your good intentions.
This week, our normal school schedule has naturally been derailed by the death of my father-in-law. I am grateful that we’re able to adapt our schedule to what our family’s needs are without sacrificing our academic schedule. Because we can just pause, and then pick up where we left off, there won’t be a gap like there would be if we’d pulled the kids out of school for the remainder of this past week to deal with family issues. Another bonus: No ‘make-up’ work.
It’s been an odd situation as a parent/teacher. My FIL and I didn’t have the closest relationship and though there is no love lost between he and I, my children, and certainly my husband, feel the loss keenly. I am sad for them and sympathetic, but I am not as emotionally affected – at least not in the same ways, and so as a teacher and mother I am not sure how long to leave for the grieving process. I don’t want to rush the boys and I want to be respectful of their feelings and am feeling at a bit of a loss to know the ‘correct’ action here. This isn’t exactly a situation that Hallmark of Emily Post have addressed, “How to be appropriately sympathetic towards family members who are deeply affected by the loss of someone with whom your own relationship was strained”.
Both of my grandfathers died last year – within days of each other. Those deaths were expected, but still painful. We took time off from school, but not much. It felt better to me to get back into a normal routine after a few days. The boys are taking things really well; it’s hard to know with kids sometimes. They were close to their PawPaw, but kids are so resilient that it’s hard to gauge how much to address directly. We’ve so far explained to them what happened, explained to them what would happen at the service and offered them the option of seeing or not seeing his body at the service and just kinda opened the door to questions without being pushy. I feel like that’s all that needs to be done right now.
Loverly Husband went to work today, and I’d planned on working on school today – at least getting the kids’ work from earlier this week finished and graded, but we haven’t gotten to it yet. I’m feeling quite lazy, which is the con to the ‘flexibility’ point mentioned above – it would be completely easy to put school on the back burner for a while. We still have the ‘scattering of the ashes’ to be done; maybe this weekend, maybe next. That seems like the final ‘goodbye’, and it feels odd to get back to ‘normal’ until that is done, but realistically, I don’t think we can or need to take the next 2 weeks off (I guess we could… there’s just no need to).
We’ve taken this week off and I guess we’ll start back next week. Our homeschool co-op canceled for this month, so we actually aren’t missing anything school-wise. Next week, the boys have a class and I have one on Saturday, so it really will be back to normal. For today though, I think we’re about to get dressed and head to the library – in the rush of the weekend, I forgot about books that were due. Have a great weekend!
Warmly,
~h
Lesson Planning 2011 Part 1: The Overview
So… it’s that time again… planning for next year! I’ve been working on this for weeks now and I think I am finally ready to start getting it all on paper. I’m breaking this post into parts; this is likely to be quite long and I want to cover each section separately. I’m starting with the overview.
Our calendar for this year will run from January 3 through December 9. We have 40 weeks of school, M-F, in four-week sections with a week’s break between each. That will give us 200 school days. Of course, we’ll have scheduled holidays off (birthdays – no one should have to go to school or work on their birthday) and major (and bank) holidays, so we’ll even out at around 190 or so, which is about average.
I’ve looked at a couple of new things lately, both method and resources. We’ll actually be buying some curricula and other things for this upcoming year, which will be fun. Over and over this past year, I’ve come across pages from Enchanted Learning, so a subscription to their site for this year is on my wish list.
Something I’ve been considering for this year is a better ‘spine’ to keep us grounded a bit better. I know some aren’t concerned with keeping up with the grade level that they’d be at in school, but I am – not so much that we overlook what they’re interested in, but enough so that we have a guide and path from A to Z for the year’s arc. To that end, I consulted a couple of different resources. I ordered the “What Yours X Grader Needs to Know‘ from the Core knowledge series for 2nd and 3rd grade and will probably get the 4th grade book towards the summer. I don’t know how much we’ll use them or need them, but it will be nice to have.
I also looked through the Moving Beyond the Page site, which is a literature-based study program. Using their book lists and outlines, we’ll work on some of the stuff they suggest. Obviously, without paying for the full curriculum, we won’t be doing quite the same things, but I love the literature aspect of this site and if the boys like it then we may consider using their full paid curriculum for Year 3. I’m also still consulting The Well Trained Mind on occasion, though we’ve deviated from their path more than a little at this point. I do like referring to it when I feel like we’re getting too far off track though. We’ve gotten away from CM style in recent months, so I think a shift back towards literature as a base will be beneficial for us.
As for a basic overview, I was considering getting a big workbook; one of the ‘everything for 3rd grade’ kind, and I still may. I spent some time looking through a couple, and I really liked Harcourt’s Complete Curriculum series. I don’t know that we ‘need’ it, but one thing we will be working on this year is ‘working independently’. A friend recommended the workbox system, and I’m considering modifying it to a folder system so the boys can work on certain days or for certain subjects (or reviews) on their own. We’re going to be using the STARS planner for them to help encourage good work/study habits as well. I think the workboxes will fit nicely into that system.
In a slight change from last year, 2011′s school year is broken into five 10-week sections, called ‘mods’ (short for module), and which include 2 ‘off’ weeks. Each mod is one grading period. To some degree, each 4 week section has a theme that we work in; 4 weeks=4 seasons is a natural rhythm, so the first week is discovery (beginnings, spring), the second week is growth (summer), the third week is mastery (harvest, fall) and the fourth week is review and preview for the next section (winter). I like Moving Beyond the Page’s ‘concepts’ but their 3 week set up doesn’t fit our calendar, so I took that idea and tinkered with it to fit.
I have the first mod pretty much planned, and themes set for the year. I’ll be working on the rest, and a couple more posts (one with ‘core‘ and one with ‘extras’) to go up soon. If you’re starting in January, how’s your year’s planning coming along?
Warmly,
~h
Motivation
Someone found my blog by searching ‘homeschooling and completely demotivated‘ and it got me thinking…
Motivation is one of those areas for me that on some days, it strikes hard. I feel good, I’m enthusiastic and eager, the day swims by quickly and I feel productive and accomplished at the end of the day (today is one such day). Other days, it feels like every action is a chore, I have to push and pull and prod the kids (and myself) to do every little task and the job of ‘homeschooling mom’ just seems overwhelming.
Balance is a wonderful thing and maybe it’s personality or lack of organization or time management, but I seem to have little of it in the day-to-day – things tend to swing from one extreme to the other a lot of the time. In some ways that’s a good thing. It feels like we’re following the natural ebb and flow of life.When inspiration strikes, I tend to gorge myself on whatever interest is catching my eye, then put it down until interest sparks again. That’s a ‘natural’ rhythm for me, and how I learn best.
In other ways though, I question the validity of this mindset as a style of homeschooling. It seems like a bad thing because I feel like there should be some level of consistency to our days. I feel like when we stick to a more regular and balanced schedule, there’s not a rush to ‘catch up’, and it seems like the kids are more focused on what we’re doing. Now, whether that’s a ‘truth’ for us or just a feeling I have remains to be seen. Letting the natural wax and wane of interest seems to sound like unschooling to me, and obviously that is a completely viable homeschooling style for some people. As drawn to the idea of it as I am, I haven’t gotten to the point where I am willing to jump in whole-hog with it… yet. Maybe one day.
When I find myself lacking motivation, one of the ways I try to inspire myself is by shaking things up. As I’ve mentioned before, we rarely stick with the same thing for very long (same area of study, yes – we just hit it from different ends, sources, materials, projects, etc). That gives us a fresh look at and a new direction to come from on the material we’re covering. I also find that a change of scenery does wonders; if we’re having a wretched day, we’ll pick up and go to the library or to a museum – anything as long as we’re out of the house for a bit. Ideally, whatever we’re studying will come into play for this excursion, but really the change in locale is the key. I’ve often just packed our books into the Big Red Bag (that’s what I call the spacious red alligator bag that I got from my Grandmother on one of her cleaning sprees… it’s amazing!) and we just moved ‘school’ to somewhere else, often with a similar good outcome. Fresh air also is a fine motivator – my kids enjoy working or reading outside so when the weather is nice, we’ll bring school into the yard.
We also take frequent breaks. I am learning to prepare my kids for the next segment of the lesson by telling them what we’ll be doing or giving them a specific question to think about while on a break. Letting them free to roam and run for a few minutes with a task seems to be an effective re-focusing technique for them. It also gives me a few minutes to myself to prepare for the next part of the lesson or check Facebook (I won’t lie, lol).
That’s another carrot that I dangle in front of myself – working on whatever project I have in the back of my mind. Lately, it’s been preparing for our upcoming Teacher’s Retreat in January, and getting the groundwork laid for the Texas Secular Homeschooling Network.
What are your best motivating tips?
Warmly,
~h
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,
~h
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,
~h
Year Round Homeschooling
When my brother was in elementary school, our local ISD did a trial program with a year-round schedule for one year. The kids loved it but the program was a flop, mainly because of childcare issues; parents found it difficult to find childcare for a week once every 6 or so weeks. The idea, though, seemed brilliant to me and when my boys were old enough to start ‘pre-home-school’, we planned a similar schedule.
Now that we’re homeschooling in truth, it really never even occurred to me to continue with the traditional school schedule we had become accustomed to. Since we were no longer bound by the school’s way of doing things, and schooling all year-long seemed much more logical to me, we switched. We have school throughout the calendar year and take smaller, more frequent breaks between learning periods and it’s working very well for us.
Now, admittedly, I planned our schedule with absolutely no input from ‘experts’ and did zero research on the subject. It merely seemed logical to me based on my experience in public school – spending 3 months in the summer vegging out with no academic concerns and then spending weeks on reviews at the beginning of the school year catching up and re-learning what I’d lost. It seemed that not having that huge long break would eliminate that whole scenario.
Depending on the individual schedule, you might also have more academic days than a traditional school schedule. We don’t, because we only have school Monday through Thursday, which gives us lovely 3-day weekends to enjoy, which works better for us. As long as we have a comparable number of ‘in class’ days, I figure that’s plenty (though we do log school time in our ‘off’ weeks, we just don’t do formal, sit-down work).
Imagine my surprise when I found this article at Summer Matters that wants to Stop Year Round School. Some of the points that the Summer Matters site talks about are family time (though many families have two or are single-parent working and the summer doesn’t change that since the kids are still in the care of others during the day), childhood growth and development (which is currently ousted in favor of having children study more to boost standardized test scores) and the economy of seasonal communities (which really only matters if you’re among the top income brackets – we poor folks don’t really contribute much to the seasonal economy since we’re too busy worrying about budgeting this week’s grocery bill to plan a vacation to a touristy hot spot).
Having said that, there are some points that I agree with. For public schools. Homeschooling is quite different. One of the first points on their list of bad is that year round schedules offer too little, too late in the form of intercessions for students who are falling behind. If you’re talking about an over-burdened public school system where teachers are paid very little to do a monumental job, then yes. I agree. But for homeschooling students, intercessions aren’t needed simply because a parent/teacher is going over each concept and working with his or her student until he or she grasps the concept. There’s no push to keep ‘on schedule’ or worrying about keeping up with the faster learners. Their solution is to have the child attend Saturday classes.
I assert that if the school system can’t get the necessary lessons accomplished and fully educate my child in the 8+ hours per day that they have my child in their care, then an extra few hours on Saturday likewise isn’t going to help – not to mention the fact that by forcing my child into school on a Saturday, that will significantly interfere with our family togetherness time. How does that impact students and families long-term?
When you’re homeschooling year round, the learning never stops. Even if you start out planning to homeschool with more of a traditional schedule, you tend to find that homeschooling eventually starts to become ‘how you live‘ rather than ‘something you do‘. There is a learning opportunity in nearly everything that you do with your children. Most homeschooling parents are extremely conscious of the enormity of the responsibility that is on their shoulders and they take it quite seriously. They actively seek educational application in the mundane activities of everyday life.
The bottom line for this kind of debate is that comparing year round public (and other institutionalized) schooling with year round homeschooling is like comparing apples to oranges. They’re really two separate organisms with enough differing characteristics to make comparing them very difficult. I’m quite comfortable with our year round schedule and I know that this method works for other homeschooling families as well.
I’ve been looking for other year-round homeschoolers and have found a few. I’d love to have a group of homeschooling families who use a year round schedule to show the diversity and ‘how-to’ aspect of year round homeschooling. To that end, I’m creating the ‘Never Stop Learning’ blog ring for homeschooling bloggers who follow a year-round calendar. If you’d like to join in, please comment below and snag a button for your blog. You can link back to this post if you like.
Warmly,
~h
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,
~h
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,
~h
Planning for the Next 6 Weeks
One of the things I am always interested in is the planning process. I’m curious how other homeschooling moms go about planning their lessons – where they start, how they make choices, how long it takes them, etc. So I thought I would share a bit about how I plan my lessons. For me, planning is possibly the most important step in homeschooling (if you’re not unschooling). An organized method of presenting information is key to making things “flow”. I think there is a logical way to present information, especially in the core subjects. Each new thing builds upon the foundation previously laid, and so I want to ensure that my kids’ foundation is strong. That means good planning is essential so that nothing is left out … and so, I plan.
As I mentioned in previous posts, this week is our “off” week. We do school for 6 weeks, then take a one-week break. We follow that schedule all through the calendar year. I use the week off to plan the next 6 week lesson period (what we call a learning module, or “mod”), which leaves us with 7 mods for the year. If you’re new to lesson planning, I recommend getting a good lesson planner. You can buy them in office/school supplies stores, online (Donna Young has a good selection of printables. Here’s her homeschool lesson planner) or you can make your own, which I recommend once you know what you want to do. I also use Homeschool Tracker, a free downloadable program that lets to plan and/or keep records on your computer. Helpful because you can generate reports on everything and I am a fan of good record keeping.
Now, for the actual planning process, I begin by browsing. Today, I am just surfing the web, reading homeschool blogs and checking out websites that other moms like and making notes. I’m also reviewing my bookmarked sites because I tend to forget what all I have saved. I often will bookmark something with the intent of using it for a certain lesson and forget that I have it, so this review helps me use the resources I have gathered. I am using Ambleside Online (link in sidebar) as a basis for our year with heavy influence by The Well Trained Mind (link below). I also want to incorporate more Waldorf style into this mod, so I will be working on meshing that this week. I’m using these two articles about Waldorf curriculum to draw from: 1st grade & 2nd grade. You can search that site for Waldorf curriculum overviews for other grades.
We covered “Paddle to the Sea” for history/geography in the first 6 weeks (M1), so I need something new for M2. I am thinking of buying History of the World, but since we covered “history” in M1, we might work on more “social studies” in M2 and then switch back to history in M3 and just alternate for the rest of the year. If we do social studies, we can still work in concepts like mapping (drawing our neighborhood, a local park, finding routes to locales around town), visiting a local fire dept and police department, the courthouse; even things like paying bills can become a discussion and lesson on how our society works. If we do stick with History, I am considering using the history section of The Well Trained Mind’s strategy and starting on a timeline. I have read that kids under 3rd grade don’t benefit from a timeline, but I am not so sure about that. It seems like such a logical way to show history in relation to a little kid’s lifetime. That will require some thought over the next week or so. I did find this online timeline, which is way cool. We’ll still make our own, but this will be a good one to start with and to help me know what to add and when. I also found a set of lesson plans at Core Knowledge (link below) that we may use for history as well.
I found a recommendation for Sequential Spelling while reading through this blog’s list of resources. The workbook we’re using for PeaGreen is one from his former school (though oddly, not the one they were using for spelling lessons) and so we’re going to continue using that for now. For LittleBoyBlue, the book I am using is just a workbook I picked up from somewhere and it’s short (only 8 lessons) so we’re doing that for M2, but it will run out in week 5, so we’ll do a review of the words form the book and I will probably pick up Sequential Spelling to begin in M3. I also found some spelling lists here, and if you scroll down, there are holiday and special occasion lists, too. I also have a book called Power to Spell 2, which is a teacher’s edition (it’s so old that it doesn’t have an ISBN number…), and one called Dr. Spello 2nd edition that I may use if we don’t get Sequential Spelling. (Wow – I looked that up and maybe it’s worth something??) One thing I am noticing is that the older spelling books seem more advanced in grade 2 than the newer ones I am finding. Proof that schools are dumbing our kids down?
For math, the boys are almost done with the workbooks we started in, so I need to come up with something to carry us through. Actually, when I looked, LittleBoyBlue is done with his. I have Saxon Math 3, but I am not sure if we’re ‘there’ yet. I will be looking over the skills they need for their grade on the IXL website, and planning quite a bit from there for this mod. I found a list of lesson plans at HotChalk that offers some neat games to plan that are math related using cards, dice, spinners and other manipulatives, which my kids love. We’ll add in a bunch of those, too. I am looking over Math programs and am considering going with Math-U-See, but am not committing to it just yet. I am going to get some of the block/place value manipulatives, but probably from Manning’s since I’ve seen sets there cheaper than $30.00. I may check and see if Manning’s has a 2nd grade workbook to finish out the year since “technically”, LittleBoyBlue will begin “3rd grade” in the fall.
I have Learning Phonics and Spelling in a Whole Language Classroom but we’ve never used it. I also have Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and we have used that before, so I think we’re going to use that more completely during M2. We’re using a couple of readers that I found at Goodwill (always good to pick up lost and older versions of text books…) for Reading and Language Arts. We didn’t focus a whole lot on reading last mod, so it’s going to be stepped up now. The kids read books, but not aloud, so I need to make sure they’re doing that more this mod. We’ll probably just use the readers (Bookworm for PeaGreen and Rainbow Bridge for LittleBoyBlue) chapter by chapter until we’re done with them, then look for something else.
Field Trips – we didn’t do many (only 1, not counting the library and playgroup) of these in M1, so I definitely want to plan several for this mod. I really want to go to the Botanical Garden in Orange, and since we’re studying plants is Science, and it’s getting closer to Spring, this will be a good time to go, I think. I’ll probably call or email them at some point this week to get their recommendation and see if they offer a lesson plan based on a trip there. I’d love to hit some of the museums around town, too. I’ll have to see what’s out there and how it can fit into our lessons for this mod.
For art, we’re going to continue with our study of Raphael. We’ve only covered 3 of the paintings recommended by Ambleside for the first term, so we’ll stick with that, and then move on to the next artist. Music will continue with AO’s recommendation as well. I’m also going to buy some silk scarves from Dharma Trading Co. and we’ll kool-aid dye them for playsilks. I’ll get several 35×35 and a couple of the larger sized for tent-making. Handicraft-wise, I think we may work on some needlecrafts this mod. I remember learning how to crochet when I was about 7, so the boys might enjoy that. I have a beginner’s kit, so this might be a good time to re-learn, myself! I also will plan holiday-oriented crafts for St. Patrick’s Day and Easter/Ostara /Spring Equinox will fall in this mod on March 20, so we’ll have some activity corresponding with that as well. Spiritually speaking, I don’t profess to claim any one religion; I think there is value in almost all kinds and want to present my kids with a well-rounded, open-minded view of things and so we’ll learn about the Christian holidays and the Pagan ones that influenced them.
Here are some of the sites I have bookmarked:
Big IQ Kids – spelling lists grades 1-7, math lessons and US Geography – This site is pretty neat. It features a “tutor” that speaks to your child. Downside is that all of the lessons are done online, so if you don’t like that (I prefer not to do lessons online) then this might not work for you. However, the geography one seems pretty cool.
Books available in whole online:
Main Lesson – LOTS of books here, many from Ambleside’s curriculum including Milo Winter’s Aesop for Children, The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang and Elementary Readers by Treadway.
The Rosetta Project – Vintage picture books and lots of classics
Handbook of Nature Study – Anna B. Comstock’s 1911 version online.
And videos we like:
50 States and Capitals and worksheets
The Colors in Spanish, Numbers 1-30 in Spanish, The Alphabet Song in Spanish
You can also search story books, circle time or the name of a book and it may be read by someone and published on YouTube. Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, The Carrot Seed (from FIAR) and many others can be found there.
There are also lots of kids’ TV series and videos, like The Magic Schoolbus and Grammar Rock (and School House Rock, too) videos!
So… that’s where I begin. I have a lot of information; now comes the part where it gets put together into coherent lessons. Basically, I take the information I want to cover and break it down into 6 “bites” – or more, depending on how many days per week we do that subject. For example, with copywork, math, spelling, phonics & reading – those are done every day so I need 24 lessons to cover the whole 6 weeks. With art, music and drama, I only need one per week, so 6 lessons will suffice. With history, geography and science, I can get away with only 12 lessons, or 2 per week for each. There are other lessons, too, like character education (Aesop and other resources), etiquette (Tuesday Tea and I’m using a book called White Gloves and Party Manners that I picked up a long time ago) that may happen daily or weekly, depending on our schedule.
I am going to go ahead and publish this now, but I may edit it later and add to it, so check back! If you have resources that you’d like to share, please comment. Any additions will be noted. Thanks for reading!
Warmly,
~h
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,
~h
Workboxes, Week 1
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:
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 »