Mar. 11, 2007 Creative Expression by William
Prompt: Suppose you owned an unusual pet. What would it be? What would you do with it? Ten sentences.
The oddest pet anyone has ever owned would be a bull shark. And the most strangest pet in the world would be a bull fish. They have horns. And the strangest pet in the world would be a big eared rabbit. The biggest pet I would get would be a bull shark, and they are cool. And you would have to feed it ten fish every day. And you would have to build an aquarium in your house. I would look at it. I would put it in the bathtub. I'd play with it--like dance with it.
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Feb. 7, 2007 An Explanation by William
How to cook eggs:
1. Get the box of eggs out of the refrigerator.
2. Open the egg box and get some eggs out. Usually I like two.
3. Put the eggs you got out inside a pan with milk and water inside. I think?
4. And then crack the eggs.
5. And then pull them in half above the pan.
6. Then turn on the oven and put the pan on.
7. Then you eat it and enjoy it. |
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Jan. 23, 2007 A Description by William
Assignment: Describe your house in eight sentences (from Sonlight LA 1).
My house is on the third floor of our apartment. My house is very messy, but my favorite toy is very, very easy to find. I have an elephant and a bear--well, I barely play with any of them. My house has a back porch. In the playroom we're going to make a castle--well, at least sometime. There's five lights in the playroom. My front hallway is a little bit sandy. My bathroom almost always has a light off. |
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Nov. 29, 2006 An Explanation
How to reheat pizza:
1. Open the box.
2. Take the pizza out of the box.
3. Put it on a plate (how many pieces you want).
4. Put the plate in the microwave.
5. Microwave it for one minute.
6. Then you eat in and EN-joy!
This is part of Sonlight's LA. We've been practicing our "explanations" for over a month now, and he's getting really good at not leaving out any steps. But it is a sort of sad commentary on what we have for lunch after school. :)
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Sep. 19, 2006 Blahs? What blahs?
I keep forgetting to update this blog. I want to do it regularly, but I forget.
At any rate...the blahs are gone. We've really been cruising the past couple of weeks. Don't know for sure where the renewed motivation came from, but I'll take it.
William's seems to have hit another "growth spurt" academically. We've been finishing up in record time -- 2 to 2 1/2 hrs. His spelling and writing are coming a lot easier, which was our main time consumer. But his math has taken off too. He finished 4 days worth in 15 minutes one day last week!! So we'll be buying some new math supplies soon most likely. He claimed boredom more than once last week, so we're forging ahead as fast as he's willing to go.
I'm still loving Core K, but ready to move on to a more structured study of history because that's William's favorite topic. So we're forging ahead there too.
His reading is coming along great. He's becoming a more willing and enthusiastic reader too, even reading on his own time without prompting from me 2 or 3 times last week. This is rare. He'd rather be read to, or watch the history channel and try to build everything he sees with his legos. His current passion is the American Revolution, but I must say I am sick to death of the sounds of battle. He's too young to get what fighting really is, but I'm not. So I've put a moratorium on all playing or watching of anything having to do with fighting. My little lawyer has required me to tag on several addendums to that ("No fighting means no battles or forts or soldiers. Not even retired ones.") because he's in constant search of a loophole. If his math skills ever catch up with his loophole finding, I'll start letting him do the taxes.
I have plans to purchase a piano. But we know what happens to the best laid plans of mice and single moms, and this one hasn't happened yet.
The best part of the past couple of weeks has been William's sunny disposition. He's been at his cheerfullest and most obliging. I don't know why he's suddenly decided to be positive, but I'm loving and reinforcing it. He even didn't whine when I announced the "no fighting" rule! Anyone who knows him, knows this is amazing. My favorite moment from last week was when I was cuddling him at bedtime one night. I love the fact that at six, he still loves cuddles! I've been know to answer his whining about school with an explanation that "Everything I do is for you." Homeschool is the best option for him right now, and I try to open his eyes to appreciate that as a single mom, I'm making some sacrifices to provide this option to him, with God's help. Well, we're cuddling and he comes out with, "You remember how you told me everything you do is for me. That's true. And it's really nice. You're the best mommy in the whole universe." That makes it all worth it, doesn't it?
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Aug. 17, 2006 The blahs??? Already???
I didn't really do school with William at
all this week. Unless you count letting him watch "Stanley" and
"The Revolution," which sometimes I might.....but not for an entire
week. I think it's way too early in the school year to have the
blahs, but I've definitely got them. Just feeling overwhelmed
with everything and school's taken a back seat to keeping my head above
water in all of my non-school responsibilities. And technically I
school year round, so the beginning of the year doesn't stand out so
much.
Anyway, Crystal did Monday and Thursday school this week, and took the
boys swimming multiple times. I really need to make sure I don't
start to lean on her too much, and also that I let her know how much I
appreciate her help. So I've pretty much resigned myself to this
week's being a complete wash. We'll try again next week...maybe without
the blahs.
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Yesterday, we had our first official
Contenders for the Faith meeting. Jarek did a presentation on the
parts of an arrow, as the pin he's going for is Archery.
William's pin is for Wildlife, and he gave a presentation on our visit
to the Wildlife Ranch. I think the public speaking experiences
are going to be very valuable for the boys, and I'm thinking it would
be a lot of fun to use Thursday school, or at least part of it, to
write a play for the boys and me to perform for Crystal and Jonathan as
a surprise.
I went through the CAT-5 with William and the little stinker only
missed 2 on the whole thing. Apparently, he just got bored with
it while we were taking it. I guess I should have broken it up
more. That seems really obvious now that I look back on it.
It did take almost 2 1/2 hours. I gave them little breaks in
between sections, but not nearly enough. Probably just enough for
William to get distracted....yeah...I feel like a genius now. I
am relieved that he did understand it. We sat on the couch
together and went through the whole thing in 30 minutes. I feel
much better prepared to work on his attention span than I do to work on
test-taking skills. And he feels better knowing that he can
do the tests, he just has to pay attention!
I haven't done a "full" day of school in ages, but I really want to try
to tomorrow. Of course, that is one of my nanny days, so we'll
see what kind of luck I have. I need to be thinking about source
material for a play...I really like that idea. William and Jarek
are always role-playing when they play together, so it would be really
fun to have them put on a production.
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So testing went somewhat like I thought it
would. Jarek whizzes right through it, William doesn't get
it. Seriously. I mean, I know that he sees the world in a
different perspective, but times like these it hits home to me how
differently he sees it. I really need to get that book on
visual-spatial learners because I don't know what to do with him half
the time. How do I get him to look at standardized tests in the
standard way?
He did really well on the objective parts of the test--word analysis
and vocabulary. But he bombed the comprehension part, which makes
no sense. I do comprehension questions with him all the
time. He comprehends! We have great discussions with our
read-alouds. But the answers were very objective. And they
were in picture form. He very seldom interprets a picture like I
do.
There are those "which picture comes first" problems in the DEL
series.....he never put them in the same order I would. But his
story behind why he did it always made sense. Like there was one
picture with 3 candles--one not yet lit, and 2 in various stages of
burning down. He picked the smallest one as the 1st one, then the
unlit one, then the slightly melted one. His reasoning...I had a
candle burning, but then it all melted, so I got a new one and lighted
it and it started to melt.
Anyway...I'm feeling a little overwhelmed about the whole thing right
now. I want to make sure that I don't try to force him into my
way of seeing things, but I do want him to be able to do well on
tests! For school this morning, we're going to go back over the
test so he can explain his thinking to me.
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Aug. 2, 2006 An interesting field trip
So this Monday school was field trip Monday. I don't do the scheduling, I just follow Crystal's instructions :)
We went to
Natural Bridge Wildlife Park . William is working on
the wildlife pin for Contenders for the Faith, and this was intended to
fulfill part of the requirement. The highlight of the day for him
was seeing the rhinos. The kid loves rhinos, and he's never seen
one before. He was sooooo excited. The highlight of the day
for me was sneaking a stuffed rhino out of the gift shop. I paid
for it first. But I want to surprise William with it. He's
gonna love it.
Another highlight was feeding the zebra that tried to eat my
watch. The lowlight was when the big elk thing slobbered all over
my hand then wouldn't come close enough for me to wipe it off on
him. That and the car overheating so that we had to blast the
heat on an already not cold day.
So next Monday, William is going to give a presentation on the park at
our Contenders meeting. I hope to get video. It should be
pretty cute.
Tomorrow for Thursday school I'm administering the CAT-5 K level to
both boys. I'm really interested in seeing the results.
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Jul. 27, 2006 Thursday School
So today was our first try at Thursday
school, and despite my slumping enthusiasm last night, it went well
this morning. It was definitely "school lite" by my usual
standards, but it was fun. We did spelling, some LA1 activities,
reading, Saxon Math and wrapped things up with Science and Core.
The boys were so cute. My two favorites were when I asked Jarek
to define a yam and he said "Yams. There's two kinds of yams I
think. Yam chop....is that one?" And then there was our
indepth discussion, sparked by our read aloud ("Family Under the
Bridge") on how money affects people. I concluded our discussion
with "So see, money can't make you nice or mean or happy or..."
At this point William interjects "Yeah...it can only make you rich."
Crystal is now downstairs swimming with the boys. I went for a
while too, but now I'm "working." (oops). And so apparently
just minutes after I left, William decided he could swim and he swam
half way across the deep end to Crystal. So that was pretty
cool. I mean it was cool when he reenacted it for me. So
fun times in Thursday school today. :)
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Way too much time has passed for me to even
attempt to catch up, so I'm going to follow Flylady's advice and just
jump in where we are.
I've graduated William to first grade, although we haven't finished
Core K yet. I'm not sure when we will. I'm not sure what
we'll do when we do. My sister has a bunch of the Well-Trained
Mind materials that she's offering to give me in the fall when she
finishes, and free sounds lovely. I like Well-Trained Mind's
approach too. But I also really like Sonlight. I'm
torn. If only I had twins and could do WTM with one and SL with
the other. Or maybe I just need a split personality. Or I
could just choose one. It's probably going to be WTM 'cause money
and homeschool supplies don't grow on trees. Free is too good to
pass up.
In other news, our first 6 weeks of the new school year went really
well. And in this 2nd 6 week period we're adding in a few
things. On Monday we're combining with Crystal and Jarek to have
"Monday School"--Crystal's creative name. :) We meet them at the
park and I do a PE with the boys. We're starting with golf.
Last week was the first time and it went really well. Then we go
to their house and do an activity--art project, board games, sports,
and Contenders for the Faith. These are rotated each week, so we
only do one each month and if there's a fifth Monday, we do a field
trip. Crystal is taking the lead in this one.
Another innovation is "Thursday School"--again Crystal's creation.
:) This is where Jarek comes over here and just sits in on a
regular school day with us. It's kind of a trial run to see if it
would be feasible for Crystal and I to split the schooling of
Jarek. She doesn't feel like she's doing enough with him or that
she has a teaching style that he enjoys. She thinks he'd enjoy
doing school with us. I think William would enjoy having a
schoolmate. We're probably both crazy. Right now...I feel
like it's not going to work...but that's because it's late and I'm
tired. I'm sure I'll feel better in the morning. Jarek's
really a cool kid and the boys feed off each other in such a cute way,
that I am really looking forward to it...in my mind. In my body,
I'm exhausted from a full day of nannying and 5 hours of computer work
on top of that. Plus I ran 3 miles this morning...go me! So
that's my cue to go get some sleep so I can be a bright, shiny, fun
teacher in the morning.
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Feb. 22, 2006 Well, back in the saddle didn't exactly work out.
But I think we're on a roll now. I've
added part-time nannying to my list of at-home employment. I love
it! But, it's been yet another challenge to my already
finely-balanced schedule (finely balanced as in, make the most
infinitesmal change and my whole day is suddenly out of whack).
This week has gone well though. I'm even finding time to read and
blog!
So...where we are in school:
Just finished the Bible story book that came with Pre-K.
Working on addition with a number line in Horizons Math.
Working on subtraction in MCP math. Four lessons from finishing the book.
Working on tens and ones in Singapore math.
Working on time, ordinal numbers, and more counting in Saxon math.
Half-way through 2nd Pathway Reader.
Just started week 9 of Core K.
Just finished week 31 of LA K.
Just started week 9 of Science K.
Still plugging along. Some days are more difficult then others,
but the recent consistency has really helped. William just does
better when we do the same basic thing each day.
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Dec. 21, 2005 Back in the saddle again
So last week got eaten up by moving and
unpacking and mommy can't function on chaos. This week, mommy has
moved all of the chaos into the bedroom, out of sight, so we're back in
the saddle again. Except we haven't done Language Arts or Science
this week. But that's ok because William can completely handle
doing a weeks worth of Sonlight Science in one sitting. He loves
it! And Language Arts K we've been doing 1 week's worth every
day, so we're kind of ahead on that one. The important thing is
we're marching through math and the Core and his reading.
We finished Earlybird 1B yesterday (THANK YOU!), which was such a
relief to me because I hadn't done ANY math with him when I ordered and
I didn't want him to miss anything and we were both horribly bored with
1A and 1B. But I spent the money, so we WILL write on all of the
pages. So there! Of course 2A is not significantly harder,
but we should finish it in 3 or 4 weeks time, then 2B in the same time
frame then we can get into the good stuff. (Hopefully.) We're
also doing Horizons Math K and MCP Math (K I think?) so he's getting
other more challenging math. Oh and Saxon K which is such
fluff. But once again, I spent the money, so... And Miquon,
which is by far the hardest and by far his favorite. We were
doing grids this week that I can't begin to describe in words and have
no clue how to draw. But he loves them. And I was all
prepared to explain to him how to look for patterns in the numbers, but
before I could open my mouth, he'd already figured it out. He's
really wired that way--the seeing patterns way, that is.
So yeah...that's my update. Now that life is calming down
somewhat, I'm going to try to post more frequently. These moments
are so precious, I want to preserve and share them!
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William has had a few light bulb moments
this week in spite of my lack of time/motivation to do structured
school with him. The concepts of 10s and 1s has really
clicked. I was working and he was playing "Master and Commander"
(he loves ships) and narrating constantly like he always does. I
was tuning him out like I usually do, when I caught "So how many ships
is that?"
"How many ships is what?" I asked.
"10 ships plus 11 ships."
"Well, how many tens in 11?"
"One ten and 1 extra....oh...wait I know...it's 21."
"Right! Good job!" Then I went back to work and he went
back to playing and talking (he's started trying to use a British
accent when talking for the sailors...it's really cute) until I heard
"So how many does that make?"
"What?"
"10 + 10 + 11"
"Well..."
He interrupts and says, "Nevermind. I know. It's 31."
It's so fun to watch them really make a concept their own.
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On Sunday we were able to drive to the land
my dad grew up on. Now that he's living close to it again, he has
big plans for it. My aunt and her grown daughter and her husband
live own half of the 80 acres and my dad has 20 and plans to acquire
the rest from other siblings. Then he wants to put some animals
in there...horses, cows, goats...whatever. I personally would
LOVE to live there and have a farm! William would thrive on a
farm. As it was he got to see my cousin's 6 horses and he got to
feed my uncles goats. We also saw my uncle's cattle. It was
just a really enjoyable day.
This part of the country hasn't changed much in the last 50
years. It's like stepping back in tim when we make the turn onto
that red dirt road. I've been visiting this parcel of land for
all of my life. Because we moved around so much growing up, my
parents purposely took us to "the home place" as often as they could so
we could have a place to put down some roots. I'm so thankful
that I now live close enough to do the same with my son! The poor
kid will be moving into his tenth home on Monday. He's 5.
That's just wrong. Hopefully he and I won't be moving again for a
while, but an 3rd floor apartment is not an ideal place for an active
little boy. It would be great to spend weekends in Pleasant
Grove. Get him a calf to raise, maybe a pony. He'd be in
little boy heaven! 
I'm ashamed to say we haven't done any school this week. Well,
maybe not ashamed. On Monday my throat was really sore...not at
all up to all the reading required my Sonlight. And yesterday I
was being deposed and listening to deposition of my ex in my custody
circus all morning. Thankfully it went really well. On
Sunday we'll be heading south again in preparation for moving in on
Monday!! I can't wait to get my homeschool area set up in our new
place. But homeschool area or no, I have to go do school
today. Now.
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Wow. Where has November gone??
For that matter, where has 2005 gone?? Life is so busy right
now. I'm sure I'm not the only single mom out there who in
addition to trying to pay the bills and be a mommy has to deal with
legal issues as well. Aargh. I really do not like lawyers
and courts and the way the whole system works (or doesn't as the case
may be). But soon soon soon, it will all be
over and William and I will finally be able to leave that distasteful
bit of history in the past.
In the meantime, I'm so excited, joyful, thankful for how school is
working out this year!! Last year was so hectic...getting William
up at 6:30 and feeding him, getting him dressed, then just trying to
cram in as much education as possible before bustling him out the door
to "preschool" where he received a valuable (hah!!) education in
various terms used to describe your posterior. He was well and
thoroughly "socialized" and I spent most evenings trying to explain
that it didn't matter if his teacher said "ain't", it's very poor
English and......wow! I'm getting stressed out just remembering
it!
This year is so different. I think I was a little mental to be so
committed to homeschooling even when I was working full-time out of the
home. But I'm really glad I did, for many reasons:
1. This year seems so EASY by comparison.
2. In this our first "real" year of homeschooling, I feel like an old pro.
3. I believe that God was testing my commitment last year, and this
year He's really just blessing us so much! It is such an exciting
feeling to feel like you're really walking in God's Will for you!
4. I really appreciate the time with my son so much more, and vice versa.
Yeah....I think I'll stop the list there. I could keep going on
and on. It was only this year that I really felt like I'd made
the right decision. It's such a huge relief to have that
confidence. Now if it will just carry me through my stay here
with my parents!
My dad keeps slipping in things about the local school and...oh just
little things. I love my dad. Honestly, he is the greatest
man I have ever know personally. He's just really not very
comfortable with homeschooling. He likes
everything I mention to him as far as curriculum and philosphy go, but
he is really an advocate of public schools for some reason.
Hehe...it's actually kind of funny because he doesn't get homeschooling
and I don't get public school at all. I mean, really what is the
point?? I did public school. I remember how much time was
wasted. And as far as socialization goes, I didn't really do much
of that. I remember in high school being just disgusted with the
"honors" students and their deplorable lack of self-motivation or
interest in ANYthing. Drove me nuts.
Goodness.....I need to stop before I crash the server with this monstrous post.
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Nov. 19, 2005 Of playgroups and co-ops
I've been thinking about how I can
provide William with opportunities to be around someone other than
me. With that in mind, I've been looking at some local
co-ops. I've found one that I like, but I just don't feel like a
classroom setting is what he needs right now. He just needs to
play with other kids. And so yesterday we joined a homeschool
playgroup. I think this is going to be perfect. They had a
park day yesterday, with about 20 kids from ages 2-13 in
attendance. William had a blast. And got a lot of exercise,
too. I enjoyed talking to grown-up women who, like me, love to
talk about homeschool.
My sister-in-law and her son,
who's 2 months older than mine, are members. We've been staying
with them for 2 months now, and while I love her and her son, and I
think the feeling's mutual, we drive each other crazy sometimes.
I'm so thankful we'll be moving into our place next month. We've
been getting along much better since we stopped trying to school our
kids together. She doesn't see it, but she's definitely a
school-at-home person. I didn't fully realize it until now, but
I'm definitely NOT. In fact, I like to do the entirety of school
on the couch with William using a big book as his desk for the writing
parts. I really do love Crystal, and I think I'll just appreciate
her more when I'm not being annoyed by her at odd moments of the
day.
So I'm glad I found a group where William can play with some other kids
besides Jarek, and I can interact with adults other than Crystal.
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Nov. 13, 2005 Early reading
A homeschool mailing list that I belong to
has had a recent flurry of comments about young readers. I posted
a comment this morning, but didn't go into a lot of detail because I
didn't want to come across as bragging. I was an early
reader. I was my parents 5th child and the closest in age to me
when I was born was 5. My mom says she wanted to give me
something to do when I couldn't play with them, so she started teaching
me to read. At 9 months old. I couldn't even say all the
words, so she would just have me point. She used flash cards
exclusively...no phonics at all.
I have no memory of any of this. I have no memory of learning to
read at all. The only memory I have of using flash cards is
trying to teach one of my friends to read with them at about age
4. What I remember is teaching myself to fingerspell from the
back cover of the Annie Sullivan biography I read at about age 4.
And teaching myself to play the clarinet at around the same time by
sneaking my brother's clarinet and band book down to the basement
steps. (It was too heavy for me to hold so I sat on the steps so
I could prop it up on the steps below me.) I remember my parents
giving me my first Bible at age 5. I immediately curled up in my
favorite chair and started reading it. I remember when we did
family Bible study, I loved reading the crazy names.
Parents wonder when to start teaching their kids and worry if they
aren't reading by a certain age. I have to say that reading early
was a tremendous advantage for me. But I not only learned to
read, I learned to love reading. I read voraciously and I don't
think you can do that without learning at least a little. In my
case, I made the connection early that books contain the information
you need to learn something you want to learn. I followed up
clarinet with teaching myself flute and French at age 6. I've
been teaching myself things from books all my life. My younger
brother was not an early reader. I tried to teach him at 9 months
too, but he couldn't be bothered. However, he's now (at age 24)
the Director of Web Operations for the world's largest managed hosting
company. He taught himself to program out of books, so his
reading skills are just fine. I don't think that when
you learn to read is nearly as important as having intellectual
curiosity and learning that books are a place you can go to get the
answers to your questions.
I think the miraculous thing that my mom did was not to teach me to
read at such a young age. I think it was to teach me to make the
connection between reading and knowledge at such a young age. I
still have an insatiable desire to know, so maybe that's an inherent
trait of mine. But how did she get me to research my own
interests at 3 and 4 years old? I think that's the most valuable
lesson I've ever learned (academically speaking), and what a blessing
it was to learn it so early.
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Nov. 12, 2005 Hello World!
I've been homeschooling my son...well,
since he was born really. But I bought my first curriculum in
2004. So I consider this my second year of homeschool with
him. We just completed the first week of Sonlight's K program and
absolutely love it so far! My son is a challenging student in
some ways, but an absolute joy to teach in many other ways.
I am so blessed to be able to work from home this year. Last year
I was working in an office 40 hours a week and homeschooling for 1 1/2
hrs every morning. That went well as long as I took it easy on
myself and didn't give in to the perfectionism bugabear. Being
home is so much easier after that trial by fire.
So that's where we are right now! More about how we got here and where we're going in subsequent posts.
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