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I was a bit worried this morning when I realized my first quarterly report is due on Friday and I haven't heard anything back about my IHIP (Individualized Homeschool Instruction Plan) Apparently it's ok not to have heard back. Kind of annoying that we hurry to get these things done and then they basically ignore it. I guess it's better than them being TOO picky. I hate NY homeschool laws... I want to move back to VT just so homeschooling is easier. It's very unfair that we pay as much school taxes as everyone else, but are not allowed to participate in anything at the school. No sports, no classes, nothing. In VT you can be on the soccer teams, run track/cross-country, play football, even take some classes while being homeschooled. In NY you can only participate in sports if it's a town sport, not a school sport. That means, once we hit 6th grade, my children will no longer be able to do sports. It really annoys me. But... I won't get started there! My first quarterly is due, so I finished it today. I keep weekly records, so it was easy to go back and write out what we've learned. I must say, I'm amazed at the things we've covered so far... and think it's so neat that they boys are learning so much!! MUCH more than they would have learned in public school so far.... Speaking of public school... in our tiny town we had lock down at our El. school. Someone had escaped across the border. They put lockdown on the school so no one could get in, but still... very scary!! They found the person not far from the school and all went back to normal, but it still made me think of the vulnerability children have in schools today. No longer are they 'safe zones'. It's so sad. |
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So many of us focus on teaching. What are we going to teach this week? What style of teaching are we giong to use? What has struck me is that it doesn't seem to matter how we teach... they learn so differently. So what if we change our approach? Focus more on the child's aspect of it... what they are learning and expand on it. Make it easier for them to learn things. When you see that spark of interest, run with it. Of course there are some things that they don't want to learn that they need to learn, so make it more interesting for them. I'm working on this. There's nothing more enjoyable than seeing a child's eyes light up with understanding. When they grasp that concept of reading it opens up whole new worlds to them. When they can first write their name, they are so excited and have to show everyone. When they grasp addition, subtraction, counting money.... all things they will use for the rest of their lives... they are amazed, thrilled and proud of their accomplishments. When do they loose that wonder of learning? WHY do they/we loose it? At what point does school become a bore or a chore. Something they do because they are forced to rather than because they want to? What can we do to change that? |
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On Saturday afternoon James' butterfly emerged from her chryssalis. Unfortunately she fell before her wings were dried and ripped 2 of them. We tried to save her, but she died the next day. James wanted to put her under the rhododendren bush, so there she lies. Yesterday we saw Levi's about ready to emerge, but she waited until we were at piano lessons. When we arrived home, she was out and ready to fly away. So we let her loose and the kids say she flew all the way to Mexico yesterday. I don't think they realize how long it takes to get there. In our FIAR this week we are reading Mike Mulligan and His Steamshovel. I'm thrilled that he kids can now recognized what makes a classic book classic. They are really enjoying this story and all that we are doing with it. Levi is writing his own story today... he's borrowing Mary Anne from Mike Mulligan and they are going to dig a big cellar for a house in Popperville. *grin* Not quite sure how he's going to do that since she's a furnace now, but he says he can. DH & I both remembered the story as being really sad and didn't care much for it. Now that I've re-read it, I really like it. I'm trying to dwell on the happy ending rather than the sadness of it, so the kids have good memories of the book. DH & I remembered the part where all the steamshovels get scrapped and we both thought that was the end of the story. LOL! Yes, it's been MANY years since we've read it. Levi's piano is coming along so well. He's starting on hymns this week. "God is so Good" is his first hymn. He's pretty excited about it. One thing that his teacher does that I REALLY appreciate is having her students begin composing even at this early stage. I think it's a wonderful way to learn more about music and how it works. So he is composing his first piece in C Major. Well, she wanted him to, but he really wants to do it in a minor chord, so she compromised and said he could do both. :) He loves the sound of songs written in minor. |
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Taken from today's Elisabeth Elliot devotional. The part that stuck out to me the most today is in bold. "Grant, O Lord my God, that I may never fall away in success or in failure; that I may not be prideful in prosperity nor dejected in adversity. Let me rejoice only in what unites us and sorrow only in what separates us. May I strive to please no one or fear to displease anyone except Yourself. May I seek always the things that are eternal and never those that are only temporal. May I shun any joy that is without You and never seek any that is beside You. O Lord, may I delight in any work I do for You and tire of any rest that is apart from You. My God, let me direct my heart towards You, and in my failings, always repent with a purpose of amendment."
--St. Thomas Aquinas |
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Everytime I introduce something new to James he throws a fit. This morning was no exception. We are reading "A Pair of Red Clogs" this week. For the science part we decided to do weather telling for 2 weeks starting today. I had them start writing the temperature, etc for today and he started in. "This takes too long. I hate this. I don't want to do this." and so on. I have to admit I didn't handle it well. (I should mention we'd been fighting all morning about reading, writing, etc. so by this point I'd had it) So I took it out of his notebook, crumpled it and tossed it. I said "Ok. you don't have to do it." Welll... then it exploded. He was screaming and crying and yelling at me. *sigh* I yelled back at first til I realized it wasn't really going to do any good. Then I got in his face, gently told him to stop yelling, pointed out that 1. he didn't want to do it and 2. he doesn't have to. He didn't like that, but it calmed him down. He went in his room, pouted for a while, then came back out and apologized. Then he asked to do it again, so we sat down and went over the weather for today and he's enjoying it now. *sigh* I wonder if the battles will continue? I need to figure out a good way to handle them when they start too. Thankfully he is only in kindergarten, so other than reading/writing everything else can be skipped for a day if need be. On September 15th I mentioned that the caterpillar was getting ready to turn into his chryssalis. Well, he fooled us... he jumped down and ate some more. He turned on September 17th in the middle of the night. Then Levi's caterpillar started hanging upside down on the morning on September 19th so we watched him ALL day. Not more than an hour went by without us watching him. I went to bed around 10, got up at midnight and peeked at him and sure enough... he waited til we were in bed to form his chryssalis. LOL! I think he did that on purpose. I really wanted to catch it on camera. *sigh* So now we wait... soon they'll be butterflys! James is starting to do better with his reading!! yay! He's into 4 sentence paragraphs now. He seems to be enjoying more now. It was a struggle at first. He doesn't like to sit still and concentrate for very long. Levi is doing well in his math. He has completed 60 pages already!! I've decided that since Beth will be 4 soon she needs to do a little work. I don't make her do much... I'm one of those people who believe they are only kids once so no need to push them. But she's showing such a strong desire to be able to write her name and read a bit, so I'm introducing it to her now. She usually sits with us while we do our FIAR anyway, so I just give her copy work after we're done reading. The kids are doing their journaling now... that's why I have a few minutes here :) For my schooling: I finally got feedback on my paper. It was REALLY good feedback! Yay! I just need to explain a few other things in it and then submit the final. I also had my first birth a little over a week ago! My SIL had a beautiful baby boy... after a long labor. Both mom & baby are doing well. |
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At Friday School (I'll explain that in a moment) the boys were given one caterpillar each. James' is starting to form it's chrysallis right now!! It's attaching the "Web" part to the jar as we speak. So cool!! I'm going to take pictures and hopefully capture some neat pictures. Levi's hasn't started to do anything yet. I did notice that on the way home from Friday School James' caterpillar was eating like crazy. The Very Hungry Caterpillar indeed!! We'll keep you posted on how it goes. During our second week of school we read the book "Lentil" and learned about small town, America. In our third week covered "Madeline" and we learned about Paris, France. We've covered classic stories and illustrations. I am feeling like there isn't enough Science in FIAR , so I'm looking for something to supplement Science for the boys. FIAR seems great for lit, vocab, art & social studies, but it's missing science & math. I noticed the math before school started, so I ordered A Beka grade 1 math. Levi finished page 44 this week! He seems to love math. Now I need to resear science curriculum. I have "A Pocket Full of Pinecones", but I'm not sure if that's what I want to do. We'll see... one nice thing about homeschoolin' is that you can choose new curriculum as you go if what you have isn't working! Friday School... It's a homeschool co-op of about 50 students. The parents teach different classes and the students can take classes of their choice. My children are in Animal Round Box, Lego Club, Arts/Crafts/Painting, & Science Experiments. We had our first day yesterday and the children enjoyed it. DH even came... he had to take the day off of work to fly to KY for his grandfather's funeral. He came to Friday school with us since he flight didn't leave til the evening. The last class of the day was bowling, so we went as a family. It was fun! DH & I took a lane and played against each other, while helping the kids & their cousins on 2 other lanes. I won the first game & DH won the second game. The kids were so funny to watch. It took a LONG time for their ball to get down the lane. My studies are going well. Still no contact from my trainer about my communications paper. It is supposed to take 2 weeks and it has taken 6. Hmmmm... I am going to write to the people in charge and see what's up. All that is left now is that paper, 2 births and a class evaluation. My first client is due any day!!! I'm so excited!! Nervous about the kids though. I need to find a "grandmotherly" type of sitter who can be on call 24/7 when I have a client due. Someone who can come into my home instead of having to disrupt the kids by dragging them out of the house at all hours of the night. I'm praying to find someone. So that completes week 3 of this years school. Next week "A Pair of Red Clogs" and stuff about Japan! |
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Today is our last school day this week. We're going on a field trip to the fair tomorrow... fun field trip, huh? This week went well. I'm struck more and more how my boys learn in completely different ways. I'm again amazed that my Mom has done this for 19 years with 8+ different children, different learners, different styles of teaching for each. I wasn't sure how Samuel and Beth would do while I was preoccupied w/ the boys all week, but they did well. I incorperated them into as much as I could. Samuel even colored a few times... he really liked that!! I think it made him feel like a big boy. Levi amazed me again with his reading. He took Magic Tree House #2 to bed for their quiet reading time the other night. He said he read it, but he wasn't reading aloud, so I wasn't sure how much he understood. So I had him tell me the story and he got it!! So not only is he reading, but he's reading to himself and comprehending it. *sigh* Makes him sound SO OLD! He also did great with his math this week. He completed 25 pages!! I had to make him stop every day cause he wanted to keep going. It's just simple addition & subtraction right now... an intro to $$ as well. It's easy and he grasps the concepts so quickly. James is hard for me to patiently teach. I'll be doing a bit of praying over the next 12 years over how to handle his schooling. Each day at the end of the school day we journal. I let them journal what they want, but do keep it within some paramaters. Today they had to journal about things they like. Another day it was something they learned that day.... just things like that. I also journal by writing what they learned that day. It helps me to keep a log of it all... and I'm sure it'll help when it's time to report to the state! The one thing I'm finding difficult with homeschooling is that now I have NO TIME to myself at all. I thought I had no time before, but this is bad. Instead of cleaning in the mornings now I have to do it in the afternoons, which is so dificult for me. By the time it's time to cook dinner I don't want to do anything because I'm just too tired. I've been getting up between 5:30 and 6 to do my doula studying, then the kids are up at 7, we start school between 7:30-8. We finish around 11. Chores for the kids (which is really more work for me) Then lunch... then naps for the younger 2, quiet time for the olders. I start my chores and studies. This continues until everyone is up for snack, then dinner time, then soccer twice/week or outside play time til bed time. Then up at 5:30 the next morning to start it over. |
He doesn't pay attention as well as I'd like him to, so he doesn't grasp what we're learning as quickly. I learned that we need to do Reading Made Easy first thing in the morning because by the time we're done an hour of schooling he doesn't want to pay attention. So I catered the school schedule to his needs. We start w/ the Reading and then he does his workbook. After that we do our FIAR together, which is reading a story and then a lot of hands-on learning. He thrives on that!! We finish the day off with our art project & journaling. 
Do you see any time I can have a second to myself in there? *sigh* No time to scrapbook or read for pleasure anymore. EEK. Maybe it'll get easier.... |
Today was our first day of school. Levi was up early, as usual, but the other 3 slept in. Levi and I started math a 7:30. He did 11 pages!!! It was all just copying the numbers and then counting items and writing the numbers in the box provided. It was so easy for him and I figured he would do a lot of pages, but I didn't expect him to whizz through 11 so quickly. When James woke up we started FIAR. We studied the yangtze river & chinese culture. They were very sad to hear that a lot of Chinese families discard their daughters because they don't want them, but were very interested in the shampans (houseboats) We also used colored pencils to draw pictures similar to the ones that were in the book. The medium the artists used were colored pencils and/or crayon. I taught them how to shade w/ colored pencils from the side rather than just using the point. They made some beautiful artwork!! James & I did Reading Made Easy afterwards, while Levi did his quiet reading (#2 of The Magic Tree House series) Then we all journaled. I found these neat journals at Walmart. The top 1/2 of the pages are blank so they can draw a picture on them and the bottom half have the lines so they can write about the pictures they drew. Levi Drew about the Knights he read about in his book and James drew a picture of himself leading a horse. Beth & Samuel woke up somewhere in there and ate bfast and played while we finished. We finished around 10:30 and then went outside to dig for rocks. Tomorrow we are going to make candy rocks. Remember doing that in school?! I think they'll enjoy it. So our first day of school went well... tho James did get kind of tired of it. I think I need to have him do Reading Made Easy first, since that's what is most important to me. His workbook, journal and FIAR can take a back burner to learning to read IMO. |
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(WARNING: First paragraph may be sensitive if you've ever had an abortion!!) I'm 63% of the way through my course and I have a grade average of 97% so far! Woohoo!! I am cruising right along because I LOVE what I'm learning. When the kids go to bed at night, I'm studying. Then I get up around 5:30 or 6 and study. I just love it!! It amazes me the things I am learning.... and it amazes me even more than people can think babies are just a blob of tissue to be discarded if the mother doesn't want it. Did you know that the babies heart starts beating at only 18 days old?! That's just over 4 weeks gestation! People BARELY know they are pregnant by then... and many people don't. And that babies are fully developed by 8 weeks gestation?! They have all the same organs and structure that we have... they just need to fatten up. They have their own fingerprints and personality traits by this age... basically everything that makes up who they really are has been formed into them by this point. (except of course the environmental changes that will be made depending on how the child is raised) It is AMAZING... and yet people thing they aren't all humans worth giving a chance to live. *sigh* It's sad to think of the millions of lives that have been literally tossed in the garbage. Anyway... I'm not going to get off on that tangent because we could be here a while..... I'm enjoying my studies, learning a lot and can't wait to attend my first birth in Sept!!! The kids schoolin': I sent in my IHIP and I'm hoping it's accepted. I'm veyr excited over the prospects of what we'll be learning this year!! It amazes me to see what Five In A Row really offers and I am interested to see what my children glean from it. I was given a good comment this week about Levi's ability to read & write. Another homeschoolin' Mom (who has 6 kids, 1 graduated, 1 a senior and the rest homeschooling as well) asked me what grade Levi was going into. I told her first and she said he definitely reads on a 2nd-3rd grade level. She said she was amazed at how well he reads and the words he can spell at his age. That was a proud mama moment. So only another week and a few days til we start. I really hope it goes well this year. I'll be bloggin' weekly about what we've learned. I'm going shopping tonight for school supplies!!! Im so excited! |
I'm starting school too! It's been a 13 year dream of mine to become a doula and maybe work on becoming a midwife. My husband said I need to stop using the kids as an excuse and just do it!  So I signed up. I'm so excited!! I've already begun my studies... it'll take about 7 or so months depending on how hard I work... but I can take up to 3 years if I want. I can't believe I'm finally doing it... did I mention I'm excited?!  |
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**this post has been edited to add more... I had more time than I thought! ** I'm always looking for new things for Levi to read. The librarian suggested The Magic Tree House series, so I looked at them. I thought it might be a little above his level... but he read chapter one aloud to me as I was fixing dinner last night. I was amazed!! He's reading more and more and I'm thrilled. I love to read and hope to instill that love in my children as well. This is the first year I have to report to the state. EEK! I have to admit I'm a little nervous... will I report enough? Too little? Will he be on the right level w/ others his age? I just want to be sure that he is learning what he is supposed to be learning. My IHIP (bascially my outline for the year) is due on August 15th, so I've been working on that. I'm about 1/2 way through the year, so that's pretty good!! Levi is so excited to start school... and the curriculum I'm using this year will be good for all 3 of the olders... and Sammy can listen in when we read the story each morning. I'm not sure if I've already mentioned it... but I'm using Five In A Row this year. For more info: http://www.fiarhq.com/ The thing Levi is the most excited about is the cookbook! I love literature based programs, so hopefully this will work out well. I do need to find the books and our library is so small! Hopefully I'll be able to get them through interlibrary loan. There is a new craze w/ my OL friends... it's called Bento. In case you don't know what it is about here is what one friend says about it: Basically, (it is)a boxed meal, consisting of small portions of generally healthy food, served in an asthetically pleasing fashion. Traditionally, bento is found in Japanese cuisine and culture, so most of what you'll find on the Internet is going to feature common Japanese dishes. However, lots of moms like you and I are discovering the fun of creative mama-bento'ing! It's such a fun way to feed the kiddos. I did it yesterday for lunch and again today (yes, I've already packed their lunches to make it easier on myself) They really enjoyed it yesterday, tho I'm not sure what to do w/ the scraps. I suppose I could do bread pudding or stuffing. I could compost them... or make a fruit salad out of the fruit scraps. There are plenty of things to do if I'm creative enough. Creativity... that's what it's all about, isn't it? |
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It bothers me that reading is often viewed as a "school thing". So kids read through the school year and then skip out over the Summer. Of course by the time the school year starts again they need some more instruction than they would have needed if they had just continued to read throughout the Summer. I applaude the parents who make their kids read even on breaks, but I know many who do not... especially parents of young schoolers. I love it when libraries have summer reading programs to give the kids incentives to read. I think it's a wonderful idea. Unfortunately the library near us does not do that. I realized yesterday that it had been almost a month since I checked out a book for Levi to read. He's checked out many books for me to read to him, but I like him to have "living books" to read to me. So I found one on Thomas Edison. It looked a little above his level, but I thought we'd give it a try anyway. He amazed me! He read along w/ hardly a pause and even knew the word Michigan without having to sound it out! Wow. However, he doesn't like to have to sound out words, so when we came upon 'laboratory' he tried to guess at it, failed miserably and then grumped about me making him sound it out. He did it though. I was proud of him. He is amazed at what Thomas ('AL"..did you know they nicknamed him AL?!) did throughout his life. There were things I had forgotten.... like he used to sell newspapers and candy on a train until an experiment in his laboratory almost caught the whole train on fire. He was also homeschooled, which I knew, but Levi thought it was pretty cool. I think I may have him write a report on this book. Just a few sentences about Thomas Edison. It would be good practice for him to start writing book reports. Speaking of reading... I just walked by his bedroom and he's sitting on his bed reading a Richard Scary book. I guess I should describe our family for those of you who are reading but don't know us. We are just starting out w/ homeschooling officially. We started last year, but this is our first year to have to report to the state. Levi is 6 & will be starting first grade. (second really, but for state reporting I'm saying first), James is 5 and will be starting Kindergarten. He is more of a hands-on, busy kid so book learning doesn't come as quickly to him as it did to his brother, so he really will be starting K this year. He is very good at writing and is starting to read, so he may end up doing some first grade work in the middle of the year. We'll see. Next comes Beth. She is 3... almost 4. She'll be doing some pre-K stuff... basically learning to write and letter recognition. Last comes Sammy... he just turned 1. He'll be learning all about life.. how to walk, how to run, how to get into things... and so on. |
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Homeschooling is a way of life for me. I was homeschooled, so the thought of sending my children to public school made me cringe. Then Levi turned 5 and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I couldn't send my son, who had been with me and me only for 5 years, out into a classroom of 20+/- kids whom we didn't know with a teacher whom we didn't know. The thought of loosing him for 6 hours per day just didn't sit right with me. Then I wondered what would he learn? Levi's a rule-follower. He would excell in any school, I'm sure. He would listen well to his teacher and do fine. Of that, I am confident. I'm also confident that he would be influenced by his classmates. I'm sure that he would learn more than I'm ready for him to learn yet, and I'm not talking scholastically... I'm talking other things. Wordly things. I'm not ready for him to loose his innocence... So many people have said to me recently, "I wish I could homeschool. My son (or daughter) learned so many negative things at school." I know homeschooling is the right thing for us to do at this time. If that changes over the years, so be it... but for now... we're homeschooling. I have noticed that schooling doesn't start at 5... it starts at birth in my experience! From the day my children were born I felt we were all learning and growing in ways that I never imagined we could. And it amazes me to see my 3 y/o daughter, Beth, learning just by listening to what I'm doing with her older brothers! I love that about homeschooling. I love that the kids are home, close to me... as my name says, they are close to my heart and I love that I am able to keep them home and watch them learn!! I love seeing their eyes brighten when a concept they've been working on finally clicks! I love the excitement of learning to read! I love when they make their first notes to me and show them proudly. I just love teaching them... and learning with them! It's amazing! I just want to mention one more thing right now... the baby needs me, so I can't stay on long. Yesterday a friend and I were talking and she said that public school is the only place where our children are thrown into an odd social group. No other time in life are we placed with 20+ people our exact age and forced to learn, play & interact with only that age group for 6+ hours/day, 5 days/week. It's so true! I hadn't thought of that before.... |