Wakato Academy

The Family Business

Have you ever thought of your family as a company.  I never really thought of it that way until I came across The Busy Moms Guide to a Happy, Organized Home by Kathy Peel.  In it she explains how a mom is really a CEO of the most important company ever founded, The Family.  She explains that as CEO we have several departments to manage, she came up with 6, I came up with 7 becuase homeschooling is a department in itself. 

All us moms instinctivly know this.  Women were created for this, if you read up on current brain research you know that there is a huge mountain of evidence that shows that men think linearly where women thing globally.  God actually designed our brains to think differently so that we can be better equipped to handle this monumental task.  This is not to say that our husbands don't have valuable information to offer, my husband is a military medic he definatly falls into the linear thinking category.  He understands the importance and value of focusing on one task at a time.  He's helped me a great deal in wrapping my mind around the model of the Family Business. 

So your probably wondering what are these departments that we have to manage on a day to day basis, well you'll probably recognize most of them even though you may not have thought of them as departments to the oldest corporation known to man.  But here they are:

Taskmaster or Facilitator

Being a taskmaster is one of the biggest causes of the downfall of a homeschool.  Often times we feel that we have to be on top of our children becuase they "have" to get this work done so they can learn.  Lately I have found myself falling into this trap way too often, my days feel like they are filled with comments like;

           What are you supposed to be doing?

           Get to work?

           If you ever finish that you might have time to do XYZ!

           Put that down and get to work!

I am really feeling exhausted with it all.  I am sure there is a better way to handle this but in the back of my mind I am worried that he might just not do it if I am not on top of it all the time.  I have realized though that this isn't my problem, it really is his problem.  Its my job to help him discover why its a problem that he doesn't do his work.  In public school there are other motivators such as getting a bad grade or in more extreme situations they have to repeat a grade.  So the challenge is  to find a way to help them see the value of their education. 

When we start being a taskmaster, our kids begin resisting, learning stops and our relationships suffer.   So I've decided to give being a facilitator a try.  I sat down on Sunday and wrote out the schedule for the week, I explained that Thursday is field trip day and if you don't finish your work, you don't go on the field trip.  Monday morning we went to work.  The first day went well, the 2nd day he started getting distracted, the 3rd day he got totally distracted and Thursday morning the sitter showed up.  By Saturday evening he had everything caught up.  The next week was better but still a struggle, I noticed that he did do better if I sat down with him and we said o.k. you do this and this and then you can do this for 15 minutes etc, etc, etc...  until it was all done.  This gave him a little brain-down time periodically and he was able to work more efficiently even if not as efficiently as I would like,  So week 3 we discussed what I could do to help him be successful without being a taskmaster we decided to give him a morning boost by saying o.k. here's your schedule tell me what your going to do, ok, let me know how it works out for you.   We are still having some trouble but its getting better and I am not going around all day being a task master. 

2009/2010 Overview

Preparing for a new school year is always interesting.  It takes a lot of careful thought and planning to figure out how to meet all the needs of the students and coordinate learning across several grades.  This year Big Brother is in 5th/6th grade, Billy and Princess are in Pre-K and Bunkie is baby school.  I'll start with my plans for Bunkie since he is the least involved and work my way up to big brother.

Bunkie (age 20 months)

Has an activity kit with paper, crayons and sidewalk chalk.  He also has blocks, a train set , shape sorter, puzzles and board books we'll be using.  In addition to creative use of other toys he has at his disposal.  I will occassionaly play some videos that I have called My Baby Can Read from Usborne books, all the little kids enjoy it.  He will also be sharing some of the pre-school supplies.

Billy and The Princess (age 3 1/2)

My Fathers World Pre-School Activities; http://www.mfwbooks.com/preschool.htm

Bright Minds Pre-School Buildingl Thinking Skills

Leap Frog Videos (letter factory and math circus)

Art supplies (crayons, construction paper, play-doh, sidewalk chalk, paint etc...)

Big Brother (age 11)

Reading;

Big brother is a very good reader he tested at a 12 grade reading level according to his last reading test in the Spring.  He also loves to read.  This year he will participate in boys book club once a month and read at least 4 other books per month.  (he actually has a goal of reading 30 books a month but 4 is the minimum he has to read.

Spelling:

Big Brother tested at 4th grade for spelling so we are working on that are this year in an attempt to encourage his understanding of spelling.  We will be using a program this year that emphasizes understanding of the structure and syntax of the english language as part of the writing curriculum in the hopes that it will improve his spelling ability.

Writing:

This is an area of weakness for Big Brother, he enjoys the mental process of writing but struggles with the physical act of writing.  So we are approaching writing from two directions.  One with the goal of improving the physical act of handwriting to make it easier for him.  I have researched and found some good information on how to do this and the same program that is supposed to improve spelling and grammar is also highly reccommended for students that are struggling in handwriting as well.  For the mental processes we are doing 2 parts.  The first is from his KONOS study that provides weekly writing assignments and latter we are planning to add in the One Year Adventure Novel.  

Math;

This is another area that Aaron has struggled with over the years.  I have tried a lot of different things but this last year we gave Living Math a try and boy was it successful.  He gets to see how you use math in real-life and learn his skills at the same time.  We read a lot of books, play games and do other fun stuff.  More than not he doesn't even realize he's learning math and a subject that was once the dread of his day is now one of the many highlights to his day.  So we are going to keep that up focusing on specific skill areas each month.  The first month we will be focusing on multiplication and division, the rest of the year will be divided up between fractions, percents, decimals, measurment and geometry concepts.

Science:

Big Brother loves science and becuase he has gotten so much of it in a variety of ways I haven't been able to find a program that really fits him well.  So this year we are going to try a Gifted Learning strategy for his science studies that involves what is called an indpendent learning contract.  He will sit down with his father (the science guy) and they will set out a learning contract based on a science topic that he is interested in.  He will have time during the week to work on his "project" and report back to his father on the weekends as to his progress and any questions he has. 

History;

Last year we did several lap-book unit studies and those worked really well for us.  So this year we decided to give Konos a try.  I really liked its multi-age focus and the unit study approach works really well for big brother.  We are starting with a study on Time Management, should be interesting :-).

Music/Art/Drama;

This year Big Brother is taking Cello Lessons at a private residence for music.  For Art hh will be doing Artistic Pursuits with Grandma. For Drama he will be preparing some dramatic presentation as part of his Konos unit studies and will also be going to some plays and other theatrical performances that are organized through a local homeschool group at school field-trip rates. 

So that wraps up our plans for the year.  Now fo the fun part, seeing how it all works out ;-)

Kids and Schedules

As promised I am updating the blog this week.  Not much is going on in the school this week becuase we are still in the planning stages. 

I got my last box yesterday and we picked up Big Brothers Cello at the music store, his lessons will start next week.  Music lessons are something I have been putting off because of finances but I really feel they are a neccessity in any well rounded education so this year I got creative to find some money so that he can have lessons.  The good news is that by the time the little kids get old enough for lessons they are all so close in age that they will be able to have group lessons which are significantly cheaper than private lessons so at least the cost won't be much higher than what I have to pay for my oldest private lessons :-).

I am also getting everything organized.  This year I made up a totally custom student organizer cross portfolio for big brother to keep track of his assignments and keep records of work completed.  I will detail that in another post and show a picture of our completed project.  It will be a nice record of his work for the year that will be great for an end-of-year celebration where he can show off all he has done throughout the year.  I of course also have my own teacher planner that I will use to make the initial plans and then sit down with him on Sunday evening to discuss and fill out his weekly schedule with him.  My hope is that this will give him ownership in what he is expected to do so that he will be able to work independently.  A goal we have been slowly working towards for the past 3 yrs with slow progress but progress non-the-less.  Last year he completed a very elaborate science/research project all on his own, a huge success in this arena.  So I have hope that this year he is finally ready to really take ownership of his own learning.  I will report back after a month on the success and challenges of the student planner.

Thats all for this week.  After I have a chance to break into all the books and lay out the curriculum this weekend I will be able to put up some reviews and notes on what we are doing this year.

Welcome to our School

I haven't been so good at keeping up with this blog, so I decided today to just start fresh for the new school year and get things moving forward.  So in honor of my re-committment to my blog I thought I should re-introduce our little school house. 

The Administration:

 We are a multi-cultural family living in a typical suburban neighborhood with four lovely darlings.  Our school is a mix of all types of schooling which I guess classifies us as ecclectic.  We use a mix of traditional, classical and un-schooling to achieve our goals as a family.   Mom "the teacher" is a certified educator working on a masters in curriculum development and works part-time at various odd-jobs as needed in addition to homeschooling duties.  Dad aka "The Prinipal" is active duty military which keeps him very busy during the day. But he is very active in the evenings in the homeschool teaching science units, volunteering at scouts, and offering insight at the dinner table on work done during the day. 

The Students:

Our oldest (AKA big brother) is the reason we started on this journey over 6 yrs ago.  He has been a tremendous blessing to our family and continues to surprise me as he grows and matures.  He is a visual-kinesthetic learner which is completly opposite of his poor momma, thankfully momma is willing to work through this difference and find what will work for this amazing young man. 

The next in line is "Billy" he is only 3 yrs old but bright as a lightbulb.  He loves trains hence his codename is his favorite train.  When he learned his colors he learned them first by trains, imagine the dismay on a mothers face when she's trying to get a poor child a plate to eat his dinner on and he's screaming at the top of his lungs NOOOOOOO!!!!  I WANT GORDON.  After about 15 minutes big brother finally said, mom he wants the blue one, Gordon is the blue train.  Well since then we have graduated to the fact that everything must be Billy (who's orange by the way) and he does actually know that now we just enjoy the train game so we keep using their names for colors just for fun. 

Little Princess is my only girl and oh how she knows it.   She is also 3 years old (billy and her are twins) and smart as a whip.  Of course she doesn't get treated much like a princess but I am certain that every bone in her body is definatly girl despite the fact that she can bounce a ball as good as any boy.  A few weeks ago she made it clear how much of a girl she was when she couldn't find a baby doll anywhere in the house so she decided that balls would make a good baby doll.  It was the cutest thing ever as she wrapped them in towels and took them on horsey rides and put them to bed.   The balls were twins of course but must have been fraternal since one was a football and the other a basketball. 

Finally, there is Little Man, he is the youngest of the family and I think he knows it as well.   There's a long story behind it but he was a true gift from God, somehow his presence just seems to make the family whole even when they are hitting and kicking on each other.  He's not quit 2 yet but has a definate personality thats all boy.  true to form his first word was Ball, but thankfully he didn't getr stuck on No for near as long as my other children, in fact Yes is probably the clearest word in his entire vocabulary.  When he says yes, you can see the gears turn on and he carefully pernounces each sound as he says it very slowly to make sure you heard it sounds a little like "yeeeesssssssss".  I'm not sure what that means but I like to think its an indicator of his positive outlook on life.

Science Fair

The annual homeschool science fair at the Arizona Science Center was a huge success.  There was a bunch of kids there with great projects.  Kids were full of discoveries from what kind of cereal to buy to the science of volcanoes.  Can you tell that Big Brother was the Volcano expert :-)!  He had a great time telling all the visitors about his volcano research and errupting his volcano for everyone that came by.  He gave one of the centers staff some professional advice on how to make a proper volcano that could be exploded over and over and over again.  But in the end decided that he would donate his volcano to the museum so that little girls and boys would be able to benefit from his creation for years to come.  The science center was very happy to recieve it. 

Bear Hugs for Kids

Big Brother is working hard on a community service project by kids - for kids called Bear Hugs.  Him and a group of other kids have got together to raise funds to purchase 100 asthma friendly bears for the Phoenix Children's Hospital.  They have already applied for a mini-grant and got accepted, giving them a $400 jumpstart, they have a committment from build-a-bear for every 7th bear free and the Asthma Society of America has Pledged to match whatever the kids do so if they are able to reach there goal of 100 bears the Children's Hospital will recieve 200 Bears, giving 200 sick children a much needed bear hug :-)  There in need of $1200 more to reach there goal of 100 Bears.  If you'd like to help out they've created an ChipIn Widgit where you can donate, you'll find it on the right side bar.

Programming for Kids

I've been looking for some tools to teach programming to my 9 yr old.  This has been quit a journey, there just isn't a lot out there for his age group to get him started but he really wants to start.  Today I came across a great FREE program called Scratch.  It was developed at MIT and uses drag and drop technology similiar the Lego Mindstorms Programming Platform.  Kids can use it to begin to get a basic understanding of how programming works and start building some of there own stuff.  The great part is its not online, you actually download it so they can get one whenever they have time to work on it.  I can see a ton of great applications for this including illustrating stories and just being creative.  I am really excited that I found this resource for my son.  I am still looking for some more in depth stuff to further his understanding of computer programming but for now he'll have a lot of fun playing and creating some of his own programs with this.

If you want to check it out its at http://scratch.mit.edu

Homeschool Dad's Survey

My husband is doing a survey for homeschool moms and dads on his blog.  If you have a minute stop by and give him some feedback.

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/InnovativeSciences/

Wiki's

Have you heard about the newest thing in Internet collobartion, its called Wiki's.   I just found out about this cool new way to communicate via the internet.  I had heard about Wikipedia, even used it a few times.  But it never occured to me that I could use Wiki's for my own personal use.  Well I have just discovered these cool new tools and I am imagining all the great ways that these could be used in a homeschool setting.

One of the first ways we are going to try using them is with our First Lego League group.  They often have to work on programming and robot designs outside of class but until know they didn't have a practical way to share those ideas with each other.  By setting up a Wiki they can easily create, share and edit as they work through the challenges together. 

Basically there are several services that offer free Wiki's and there similiar to having an editable webpage.  You have the option to set them as public or private so only those you invite can view and edit them.  

Once you have your account set up you create your document by choosing edit at the top of the page.  Then you invite the rest of your friends/group members to the wiki.  Once there they can each get on and edit the page and then save it again so the next person coming sees the changes and can add more changes or revisions and so on until the group has a finished project.

So how are we going to use these in our group, well the plan at this point is to give each of the kids there challenges and then set up a round robin where each person in the group logs in on a particular day and works on the assignment and so on around the group until they have what they think is a polished answer to the challenge. 

I'll let you know how it goes but in the mean time you can check them out at www.pbwiki.com and dream about how you might use them in your homeschool or even in your daily life.  Me and dh are using one too to help keep track of we are at on various projects were working on.

Innovative Sciences

I finally talked my dh to start his own blog.  He is an amazing teacher and I know he has the power to inspire others on this journey with us.  I am so proud of him.  You can check him out at: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/InnovativeSciences/

He's Here!

My little Angel finally arrived on November 29th after a harrowing journey to life at least for his momma, he made here.  It was an amazing birth, a wonderful culmination to motherhood.  It started the night before I had been having contractions for a week and was anxiously awaiting for things to get going.  That afternoon things seemed to be getting a bit more intense than usual.  I called my dh and told him that it was looking up for this baby to be coming soon. 

Nap time for the twins came and went and when little miss woke up she was running a fever.  I could tell from looking at her that she was rather miserable and she was very insistent that she had to ONLY be on mommy's lap.  And thats when the journey began.  I knew this baby was coming but I couldn't leave little miss feeling miserable so contractions and all we loaded up the car and headed off to urgent care.  I called my mom on the way and told her to get ready becuase she was probably coming to spend the night tonight.  She didn't believe me apparently and just said call me when your done at the urgent care.  Got in the Urgent Care and contractions were getting stronger and stronger and closer together.  The nurse asked me when I was due and I said any second now :-)  Thats when she realized that she'd better hurry this along or I might have the baby on the floor.  The dr came in, within minutes I might ad, confirmed it was an ear infection, dispensed a prescription and hurried us out the door.  Next stop the pharmacy and another call to my mother.  This baby is coming Please meet us at the house so you can be there when were ready to go to the hospital, I'm staying home as long as I can but I am going to the hospital sometime tonight.  Go to the pharmacy, 30 min for the prescription so we drive around to try to find a Starbucks so dh can get some coffee.  This is going to be a long night!  Finally, we get the prescription, contractions are getting stronger and stronger, by the time we get home my 9 yo is propping me up to get me in the house, mom still not there.  I make my way into the kitchen and drape myself over the birth ball.  Thankfully little man is sound asleep but little miss is worried, she doesn't understand whats going on with mommy.  At this point the contractions are coming faster and faster, almost on top of each other.  I am desperate for some relief so I get my 9 yo to push all his weight into a fist in my back, it helps a little.  Little miss wants to help so she comes over and starts leaning on my back too.  Finally, my mother gets there and she scoops up little miss and cuddles her.  Its nearing midnight.  I have an intense need to go to the bathroom so head off, loose all my clothes and scream for dh who comes in and says we need to go.  I tell him to grab a dress out of the closet, easier to deal with the on and off of.  Give mom some quick instructions on the antibiotics, tell her we'll call her once we know how close it is to the babies arrival and head off to the hospital.

At the hospital they check everything and were at 6cm, they rush me off to a room, get monitors hooked up and get the epidural ordered.  I swore I didn't want one but changed my mind at that point, the pain was so extrememly intense I really thought I might die.  I know I'm a wimp.  We got things settled down around 3 or 4 and I drifted off to get some rest, that was my big mistake, but thankfully we got past it.  Labor stalled out at that point, I suspect becuase I laid down.  6:00 the dr comes in and is concerned that were not progressing, he says we need to see some progress or we might have to consider a c-section.  Thats when I freak out, no you are not slicing me open again, I don't have anyone to take care of my 20 month old twins.  I just took a deep breath at that point, they weren't scheduling anything, so I sit myself up in the bed and we wait.  I give my mom a call and say get to the hospital, just in case I want to see the kids before they take me to the ER.  6:30 the nurses change, my new nurse comes in and says so your the VBAC with the twins, I totally understand your motivation I was in a similiar position a couple years ago when I VBAC's my 2nd baby, we'll get through this.  Thank you G-d, you are truly in the details.  She helps me move around get upright and 7:00 comes and in comes the dr.  Lets see how were doing 9 cm, yeah!!!  He gives me another 1/2 hr to fully dialate and then we'll have this baby.  The kids arrive and come in to give me kisses and hugs before there newest brother makes his appearance, its a surreal kind of moment, my last moments with them before adding another life to the family. 

Everyone leaves the room and the Dr comes in, we go about the business of having a baby.  20 minutes latter his head is crowning, I reach down and feel the hair on his head.  A couple more pushes and he slides on out.  Dh cuts his cord and the dr swoops him up onto my chest.  The nurse lays a blanket over him and I am just in tears, he is so beautiful.  I forget about everything else and for a while its just me, baby and dad while the dr is doing whatever it is he was doing, I really didn't care anymore.  I had my baby, on my chest where he belongs, no slices in my stomach and my family was complete.

Everyone came in after the dr was done and all the kids got to hold there baby brother and I got my momma hugs.  After a while the rest of the kids left and headed off to have some fun with grandma, little miss was definatly feeling better and me and dad got some much needed rest with the newest little man sleeping soundly on my belly. 

We've got a name!

Lego League finally has a name....were the Lego Storm Troopers.  Look for our updates as we continue on this facinating journey.  These kids are great!

Under the Bridge Community Service Project

Our 2nd community service project is a project called Under the Bridge.  We're working with another non-profit group to put together care packages for homeless youth that are living under a bridge as a community.  These are kids that have been failed by the "system" and have taken it upon themselves to take care of each other.  Some of them work and some don't those that are able to work help provide for those that aren't.  They are drug free and trying to work together to put there lives together.  Our group is gathering donations and putting together care packages designed for there lives. 

We get personal care essentials like soap, tooth brushes, deodrant etc... and put it all together in a pillowcase with a tie for ease of transportation.  In addition were sewing special sleeping mats out of denim and other durable fabric that will also go in there pillow case for them to either use as a pillow or to lay on at night for a clean, dry place to sleep. 

Robot Man had his first outing last week for this project.  We went to several nearby stores to ask for donations of goods or gift cards to buy what we needed.  Robot Man was really excited and wanted to do it all by himself.  He went to the customer service desk and asked for a manager and then explained what he was doing and asked if they would be able to contribute to the group.  He didn't have a single store turn him down and was able to collect $50 in gift cards to purchase supplies for the care packages. 

I am so proud of him and he felt great coming home knowing that he was helping out kids who needed it. 

Community Garden Service Project

I had been looking for a place for my son to do some community service projects for some time.  The problem I kept running into is that a lot of the places to volunteer don't want kids, so finding the right fit for diverse aged family was not an easy task.  I stumbled across a homeschool group called Resources for Health Roots Roots and Shoots that organizes community service projects designed for kids.  We have been working with them for several months now to get a couple of projects off the ground. 

Our first project we started a couple of weeks ago was to put in a community garden at a local farm.  You might be thinking how does that work, a community garden on a farm?  But this isn't any farm its a dairy farm that happens to be in the middle of a growing city, where just 2 years ago there were no houses for miles they are being surrounded by sub-divisions and in an effort to preserve there farm there turning the farm into a great community resource for residents.  They are installing a botanical garden walk which our vegetable garden is part of as well as offering eduational opportunities to the community about conservation and farming.  We live just a few miles away and are enjoying the project immensly. 

Big Brother helped till the soil, placed rocks to line the walkways and planted some vegetables about 2 weeks ago.  Unfortunatly I wasn't much of a help as the pregnancy had me nearly fainting in the heat but I keep reminding myself that this is for Big Brother, not me so if he gets the opportunity to help and be a part of something bigger than I have achieved my goal even if I'm not at the top of my game. 

Today we went for our 2 week check-up and several of the plants we planted are now sprouting and the garden is really starting to take shape.  We also transplanted some small mesquite tree seedlings into containers to sell to raise funds for the garden.  And the kids really enjoyed flying the Giant Peace Dove for International Day of Peace.  Below are some pictures of our garden and the dove for you to enjoy...

Our Peace Dove on the march...

The Garden Growing....

The garden...

The peace dove marching around the garden....

First Lego League

Well its official were starting a First Lego League club in our homeschool.  My son has been asking for a lego mindstorms set for a couple of years now and is finally old enough for one but I thought wouldn't it be great to set up a club or something for him to work on the robots, make new friends and do something he loves.  So I did some research and I found the First Lego League designed for ages 9-14 and each year there is a big competition that they get to build a robot for and present at a local compeptition.  If they do well they advance to higher levels the next being a statewide competition.  So I presented the idea to my science minded husband and asked him if he wanted to facilitate a group.  He said Yes.

I am pretty excited, ds is really excited and can't wait to start and dh is enthusiastic (thats best you can get from him).  We decided to skip the competition this year, start a club with the purpose of officially joining as a league for next years competitions, and in the mean time recruit some other kids to our "club" and have weekly meetings to learn about the robots and set up fundraisers to raise the funds for the competition season next year which will require somewhere between $600 and $1000 to participate in.

So please pray for us and we'll let you know how it goes.  We're planning to have our first meeting in October.

How do your kids get to school?

NASA Website for Kids

Technology in the home and school...

I am on a quest to help both my house and my school run more efficiently.  I know sometimes the computer can be more of a hinderance than a helper but what I have found is that if you carefully analyze the intended use and alternative options that you can strike a balance between where technology can truly benefit your household and where it will just end up being more time consuming.  In my evaluations I have decided that using the computer as my primary filing system will benefit me in saved time and increased efficiency in both my house and homeschool as well as increased space thanks to the greatly reduced amount of paper that needs to be stored. 

I guess I should preface this with the fact that paper is a big problem in our house.  I have tons of it, I save everything, have trouble getting rid of anything and I love to keep all the little creations my little ones make...unfortunatly it all takes up a lot of space and often times I can't find what I need when I need it because there's just too much. 

So my journey starts this weekend.  I upgraded my printer to a better printer with a scanner (got a great deal on it from Costco) and purchased a software program that helps you in setting up an electronic filing cabinet.  I have the software all set up and have been working on making some adjustments to fit my household needs, like adding electronic portfolio cabinets for storing photo's of projects and scanned images of completed papers.  So far I love the software, it provides a pretty comprehensive skeleton from which to work from and is really easy to adjust and change to fit your families needs.  It was originally $50 but I found a discount code for 30% off which made it only $35 for the software.

I posted the link previously...the discount code is "dummies", if you want to purchase it.

Stay tuned for more information on how were using technology to improve our home and school....

New CM Style Planner

This is a link to a new Charlotte Mason Style Planner for use in your homeschool.  It really makes keeping track of homeschool hours, subjects and work completed a cinch for those that live in states that require this type of record keeping or even for those that don't and just want to have a record of what they've accomplished for the year.

https://0096cce.netsolstores.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=229