Sep. 16, 2008 Homeschooler's wish list
This was too funny (and true!) not to share:
The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List
By Deborah Markus, from Secular Homeschooling, Issue #1, Fall 2007
1. Please stop asking us if it's legal. If it is — and it is — it's insulting to imply that we're criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it?
2. Learn what the words "socialize" and "socialization" mean, and use the one you really mean instead of mixing them up the way you do now. Socializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you're talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet, and you can safely assume that we've got a decent grasp of both concepts.
3. Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize.
4. Don't assume that every homeschooler you meet is homeschooling for the same reasons and in the same way as that one homeschooler you know.
5 If that homeschooler you know is actually someone you saw on TV, either on the news or on a "reality" show, the above goes double.
6 Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you know, know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by homeschooling. You're probably the same little bluebird of happiness whose hobby is running up to pregnant women and inducing premature labor by telling them every ghastly birth story you've ever heard. We all hate you, so please go away.
7 We don't look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear they're in public school. Please stop drilling our children like potential oil fields to see if we're doing what you consider an adequate job of homeschooling.
8 Stop assuming all homeschoolers are religious.
9 Stop assuming that if we're religious, we must be homeschooling for religious reasons.
10 We didn't go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing of options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling just to annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision, tailored to the specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of our being homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your own educational decisions.
11. Please stop questioning my competency and demanding to see my credentials. I didn't have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don't need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can't teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there's a reason I'm so reluctant to send my child to school.
12. If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please understand that you're calling me an idiot. Don't act shocked if I decide to respond in kind.
13. Stop assuming that because the word "home" is right there in "homeschool," we never leave the house. We're the ones who go to the amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in the off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and holidays when it's crowded and icky.
14. Stop assuming that because the word "school" is right there in homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every day, just like your kid does. Even if we're into the "school" side of education — and many of us prefer a more organic approach — we can burn through a lot of material a lot more efficiently, because we don't have to gear our lessons to the lowest common denominator.
15. Stop asking, "But what about the Prom?" Even if the idea that my kid might not be able to indulge in a night of over-hyped, over-priced revelry was enough to break my heart, plenty of kids who do go to school don't get to go to the Prom. For all you know, I'm one of them. I might still be bitter about it. So go be shallow somewhere else.
16. Don't ask my kid if she wouldn't rather go to school unless you don't mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn't rather stay home and get some sleep now and then.
17. Stop saying, "Oh, I could never homeschool!" Even if you think it's some kind of compliment, it sounds more like you're horrified. One of these days, I won't bother disagreeing with you any more.
18. If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class, you're allowed to ask how we'll teach these subjects to our kids. If you can't, thank you for the reassurance that we couldn't possibly do a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a better one.
19. Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child's teacher as well as her parent. I don't see much difference between bossing my kid around academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else.
20. Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.
21. Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she's homeschooled.
22. Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I homeschool my kids.
23. Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I homeschool my kids.
24. Stop talking about all the great childhood memories my kids won't get because they don't go to school, unless you want me to start asking about all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because you went to school.
25. Here's a thought: If you can't say something nice about homeschooling, shut up!
Secular Homeschooling magazine
Contents © 2007-2008 Deborah Markus
Visit our family @ http://underthemonkeybars.blogspot.com. See you there! |
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Sep. 6, 2008 All the other stuff
That is what we are doing for school this year. All the other stuff.
At least for the next couple of months. We are still too broke to buy any curriculum, and even when we do have the money, it looks like we will have to buy a new dryer. Plus we need to get some minor work done to our new-to-us van. So what are we supposed to do without any curriculum or books or supplies?
All the other stuff.
All of the supplements I bought and we never used. All the books I bought that we never read. All the projects I planned that never got started.
All that stuff.
We will work on the basics - reading, writing, math, and Bible - without prepared curriculum. We do have our science - except for my oldest - so we will be doing science - except for my oldest.
Hopefully by the time we are done with "all the other stuff," we will have the money to start ordering our curriculum and books and supplies for the new year. Literally, the new year. Who says we have to start a new school year in August?
Visit our family @ http://underthemonkeybars.blogspot.com. See you there! |
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Jun. 26, 2008 Nature Study
We are going to start doing nature study in addition to science. Science will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays; nature study will be on Saturdays. Or on whatever day of the week happens to work out the best. We'll start by joining in the Outdoor Hour Challenges presented weekly by HarmonyArtMom. If you are interested in incorporating nature study into your homeschooling, she has a lot of articles and resources on her blog to help you get started.
I will not follow the seasonal terms that she has suggested, though, as studying birds in summer here is a pointless endeavor. Birds migrate here in the winter! What shall we study in summer instead? Mosquitoes?
Visit our family @ http://underthemonkeybars.blogspot.com. See you there! |
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Jun. 23, 2008 Online Math Games May. 20, 2008 Florida History
As we have progressed through Year 2 of Tapestry of Grace, I have realized that there hasn't been much mention (if any) of Florida's early explorers. So we backtracked just a little yesterday, and read about Juan Ponce de Leon, Hernando de Soto, and my personal favorite, Pedro Menendez de Aviles (I know he was evil, I just like his name!). To avoid this happening next time around, and to make sure that we study Florida history within the context of American and world history, I am working on a Florida History Supplement to Tapestry of Grace.
I already own, and have used previously, a 14-week Florida Unit Study for Cottage Homeschool Press (available from ROCK Solid Inc, for anyone interested), so I am using that as my base. Only 3 weeks of the unit study will be scheduled for Year 2, with the remaining 11 weeks spread throughout the other 3 years accordingly. Most of it will probably be done in Years 3 & 4.
If anybody has any suggestions for good "living" books about Florida's history (preferably detailed subjects - not just general history) I would really appreciate it! I'll get it posted when I have it all together.
Visit our family @ http://underthemonkeybars.blogspot.com. See you there! |
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May. 12, 2008 Mother's Day Freebies May. 2, 2008 Organizing our books
I never did finish organizing our book collection when we moved into this house, and we have been living with disorderly bookcases since then. Not to mention all the ratty cardboard boxes of books left unpacked. So this week I decided enough was enough and something NEEDS to be done! The first thing I did was buy some nice boxes - 18-gallon Sterlite totes. So far I only have 2, in red and blue. I need to find one of each in green and yellow.
Why the colors? Because Tapestry of Grace is organized by colors. Red is for year 1, yellow for year 2, green for year 3, and blue for year 4. I organized all of our history and historical fiction books into each of the 4 boxes (just using cardboard boxes for year 2 & year 3 for now) and stacked them in the corner. Besides being organized per year, they are also out of reach of little babies who will be crawling in a few short months!
We also study science in 4 year cycles (at least until 7th or 8th grade) as suggested by The Well Trained Mind so I also sorted our science books into 4 milk crates that we already owned - red, yellow, green, and blue! So our year 1 science books (life sciences) are in the red crate, our year 2 science books (earth & space science) are in the yellow crate, etc. It works out perfectly.
We had probably 30 different children's Bibles and Bible storybooks, too, and those are in the boxes to give/sell as well. WHY would I get rid of those? Because I have come to the conclusion that children do not need dumbed down Bible stories or easy to read Bibles. They need the real thing! And they are capable of understanding the real thing if you take time to talk about it.
So now I have 2 big boxes of books and curriculum to sell or give away. Of course the easy thing to do would be to drop everything off at Goodwill or the library. But I would really like to make some money to try to finance at least a small part of next school year's curriculum. I have an eBay account and have sold stuff there before, but it's such a hassle to list everything and then pack it up and mail it. It makes me tired just thinking about it. So I'm thinking about dropping it off at one of those places that sells your stuff for you on eBay. Only I would lose some of my profit ... but it might be worth it! |
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Apr. 26, 2008 Dylan's 8th Grade Science 08/09 Apr. 26, 2008 Jesse's 3rd Grade Science 08/09
This is what Jesse and Emily will be doing for science next school year. Jesse will be in 3rd grade and Emily will be in 1st grade.
Curriculum
- Living Learning Books Level 3 ~ Chemistry
The only thing I will need to order is a copy of student activity pages for Jesse ($8.00), because Emily is not reading/writing well enough to use them, and I already own the Teacher's Manual. Emily can just listen to the readings and participate in the experiments. She can also draw pictures of the experiments and/or give an oral narration of what she learned.
The curriculum and experiments should be plenty for their ages, but if for some reason it's not then I have a list of books from Jessica @ Trivium Academy to supplement with:
Supplementary Reading List from Trivium Academy
Our 3rd Grade Chemistry
We will be using Living Learning Books Chemistry but I've decided to add a few living books and other items.
- How Science Works by Reader's Digest
- Chemistry: Learn about Chemical Elements and Compounds CD(The Science Series)" Twin Sisters Production
- What's Smaller Than a Pygmy Shrew?" Robert E. Wells
- What's the Matter in Mr. Whiskers' Room?" Michael Elsohn Ross
- Great Black Heroes: Five Brilliant Scientists (level 4) (Hello Reader)" Lynda Jones
- The Periodic Table (True Books)" Salvatore Tocci
- What Is the World Made Of? All About Solids, Liquids, and Gases (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science, Stage 2)" Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld
- Switch On, Switch Off (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)" Melvin Berger
- The Periodic Table of Elements Magnets" SMART by Simple Memory Art
- The Best Book of Fossils, Rocks, and Minerals (The Best Book of)" Chris Perrault
- Science Verse (Golden Duck Awards. Picture Book (Awards))" Jon Scieszka
- How to Think Like a Scientist: Answering Questions by the Scientific Method" Stephen P. Kramer
- Electric Storm, Magic School Bus Chapter Book
Besides a Periodic Table poster and Atom chart, that will be it for our 3rd grade chemistry.
(Of course after she posted these plans she decided to do something different for her daughter's 3rd grade science!)
Other Possible Supplements
Connecting Color Tiles Periodic Table
http://www.etacuisenaire.com/catalog/product?deptId=&prodId=55694&q=Periodic+Table+tiles
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Apr. 21, 2008 History Plans for 08/09
At this point I plan for us to stick with Tapestry of Grace for our history (and so much more!) indefinitely. Last year we used Mystery of History Volume I and while it was ideal for Dylan, it was boring and not at all challenging for Bill. So we went through the first quarter of the second volume of MOH over the summer, and started TOG Redesigned Year 2 (where MOH Vol. II, Quarter 1 leaves off) in the fall. With the busy year we have had, we are only halfway through, so we will be homeschooling all summer to catch up.
This fall, we will start TOG Redesigned Year 3 - The 19th Century, From Napoleon to Roosevelt. I plan on buying the Bonus Bundle for $295.00 ~
The Bundle: one complete Year-Plan, Map Aids, and reinforced tabs--plus your choice of Writing Aids, a full year of Pop Quizzes, a full year of lapbook kits, or every level of Evaluations. (I plan to order Writing Aids.)
The Bonus: your choice of a Unit 1 Pop Quiz, Unit 1 Lapbook Kit, any one level of Evaluations, or $15 Gift Certificate. (Haven't decided yet ... )
And then we will have to buy and borrow BOOKS! Lots and lots and lots of BOOKS! With 3 levels - lower grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric - that's a lot of books! I'm not sure if this link will work, but I have started a Planning List to help keep track of all the books we will need. What I have listed so far is only a small sampling of all the books we will actually use! Some of the books listed are actually needed this year as well, but we haven't been able to buy them yet. It's very expensive but after years of hopping from one curriculum to another to another ... I truly believe that this is THE curriculum that God desires for our family to use, and for that reason alone it is worth the expense. Not only that, but all of the books we buy now will be used again and again and again as we cycle through this program every four years with our 6 children.
This year we have not done many of the activities that are suggested, due to how busy we have been. Hopefully next year we will be able to do more and I will photo blog much of what we do. The activities all look so fun! |
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Apr. 18, 2008 Bible "Curriculum" ~ Input Requested
We rarely use a formal curriculum for Bible. Mostly we just read the Bible. We talk about God and the Bible and Biblical precepts throughout the day. It's just a part of life.
On top of that, we study history chronologically, with Bible and Church history integrated into the curriculum.
Sometimes we throw in a devotional or study guide. For the elementary years, we use the Calvary Chapel curriculum, which is available online for free ~
Old Testament
New Testament
Jesse and Emily will be going through the New Testament over the next 2 school years. This curriculum uses the NKJV Bible. Now that Jesse is reading well, I will be buying him his own NKJV Bible to use. The one he wants is the NKJV Explorer's Bible for Kids, in yellow imitation leather. (Yellow and orange are his colors.)
I am interested in using Balancing the Sword but at $70/book, it is quite costly. Maybe if I only used it with Dylan? It doesn't look quite challenging enough for Bill. Plus, it involves writing answers, which is something he detests.
Bill has participated in Bible Drill for several years now and he has no plans to stop. I think he enjoys it because it is challenging and he doesn't have to write down the answers. So we will stick with that for him. He has already earned one full Bible credit and he can earn up to another half credit. He can easily earn that through Bible Drill & listening to sermons on CD. I'm thinking a half-credit in theology would also be good for him to earn next year ... any ideas on resources? I don't want it to be strictly one doctrinal viewpoint or another, but obviously it must be CHRISTIAN.
Dylan tries Bible Drill every year but he soon (re-)discovers it is not his learning style and so he quits. We will need to find something else to help him memorize scripture. We do have SanctiFinder to help him memorize the order of the books (if I would ever remember to get it out and use it!) but I also want him to memorize Scripture. We can use his Contenders for the Faith book for Bible passages to memorize, and work from there.
Here are some ideas for memorizing Scripture ~
Scripture Memory System
Family Scripture Memorizing
Am I forgetting any aspect of a well-rounded Bible curriculum? Are there any resources you would recommend?
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Apr. 14, 2008 Let's Start with Preschool
Now I know that formal preschool is not necessary but my little ones always want to "do school" just like their big siblings. And I am the type of person who needs a plan; otherwise, I will not get much of anything done. And sadly, that includes reading good books to my children.
So for Sarah's "schoolwork" next year - or sooner, if I can buy it before then - we will be using the following curriculum & resources. Assuming I don't change my mind between now and then!
Now as I said, there is the chance that I will change my mind. Just this week I discovered this free Bible and Rhyme preschool curriculum at Hubbard's Cupboard. It looks very well put together and chock full of fun activities, songs to sing, books to read, Bible stories to learn, and Bible verses to memorize. And it's free! The downside? All those pages I would have to print out & supplies I would have to gather. That's just too much work for me at this time. But come September? We'll see! |
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Apr. 13, 2008 Planning Next School Year
It's that time of year again; time to plan next school year! And here we are with 17 weeks left in this school year! We had to take several weeks off due to early pregnancy fatigue and nausea, various illnesses, packing and moving, and then having Jacob 5 weeks ago via emergency c-section. This year has been FULL of obstacles! This coming week will be a busy one too, with doctor's appointments and whatnot throughout the week. So it looks like we might not get much done this week, either.
Honestly, I would not be too worried about it if it were not for having a high schooler. But he's gotta earn those credit hours, you know! Most of my planning is centered around him and what he'll be doing. We use the family integrated, trickle-down effect homeschooling method here. So, one day this week I need to put on my guidance counselor hat and sit down and have a good long talk with Bill about his future.
Currently, he is talking about dual-enrolling at the local community college this fall, and then in 2 years transferring to a university with Air Force ROTC. If he does that ... then there won't be much "trickle down" from him after all. Then I will have the freedom to either go on with the plans I already made for next year, OR starting fresh with something new. We will see. But most likely, we will stick to the plan I already have, which I'll be posting in the coming week as I have time. |
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Apr. 11, 2008 Music in our Home/School
I've been wanting to incorporate more music into our homeschooling and our family life. Music really wasn't very important to me growing up; I couldn't carry a note in a bucket and piano lessons were torture for me. (My brothers are a different story.) My husband, on the other hand, is very musically inclined. He's the kind of person who can flip through the radio dial and name every song on every station within the first few notes. He's self-taught on the drums and piano. (He might only know how to play one or two easy songs on the piano, but he taught himself those songs.) He even has a sense of rhythm, which is something I pathetically lack.
And so now we have children; six of them to be exact. The oldest, unfortunately, takes after his mother in the music department. Music is for listening, not for performing. Singing is what other people do. At least, that is how he is now. Never mind that when he was younger & in public school, he was always chosen for the school chorus. Never mind that when he was younger & homeschooled, he had a solo in a homeschool group play, and when the only other child with a solo did not show up on time for one of the performances, he filled in at the last minute and performed perfectly.
Dylan's interest in music is like a pendulum; sometimes he is very interested and sometimes he could care less. He did very, very well, I'm told, in the music appreciation class he took at co-op. He became very interested in music at that time. He wanted to take guitar lessons, so we bought him a guitar and lessons on DVD. I bought him some books and Cd's. I wanted to do more to encourage his love of music, but with little money and little time, there wasn't much more we could do.
Jesse has been wanting to take violin lessons for years. Emily LOVES to sing and she wants to take piano lessons. I want my children to love music and to have an appreciation for it. I want them to have the opportunity to learn to play instruments and to sing in a chorus or a choir if they have that desire. So off with the TV and on to the music ... here are a just few of the many resources for teaching music in the home to various ages:
Beautiful Feet Books History of Classical Music
Pfeiffer House K-6 Music Curriculum
Discoveries in Music
Worship Guitar Class
Piano for Preschoolers
Friendship House Catalog (we have a couple of these books and would love to order the rest of the series)
Wee Sing
The Land of Music
Music Ace
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to incorporating music into your home. I have children to feed so I don't have time to list any more. Please leave me a comment with your favorite resource (especially any I have not listed)! Thanks! |
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