I first heard of homeschooling in college when I was in a library doing research for a paper on math anxiety in girls (my major was math and this was for a class needed to get certified to teach high school and I was a little bit of a feminist in that the only reason I chose math as my major was because not many women were doing it and I wanted to break the asbestos ceiling).  There on the shelf were two lonely books on homeschooling, and because I had never heard of it and because I am a HUGE procrastinator, I skimmed through them instead of taking notes for my paper.  I was hooked.  I had no husband and no child, but I just knew I wanted to homeschool.  It was actually 15 years before I had a child and during those years, every now and then I'd find another book in a library and renew my interest, and I was ripe for all the information that's out there now when Samuel was born 5 years ago.

The only thing I can't get over is him being an only child.  Where I live there is actually a pretty big homeschool community and we have attended a few field trips, but while others are friendly, neither one of us has made any friends.  We also have no neighbor children and our church is so big that we cannot even guarantee he will have the same kids in his room every week.  So, I put him in a preschool - 2 mornings a week at 2 years old, 3 mornings a week at 3 years old, and last year he went 5 mornings a week. 

I never cared whether he learned anything there though, that was my job!  And we read and read and explored and played games and read some more.  I stole all my good ideas from message boards and blogs and homeschooling websites, but I never really did anything formal.  Like Kellie Ann, by the time it was time to think about Kindergarten, Samuel had most of the K skills already down (except for printing, which is typical of boys). 

I looked at schools, but was unhappy with

1. S being gone all day every day, for a couple of reasons, one of them being that Hubby works second shift and would not get to spend any time with S except on weekends and holidays
2. Lack of educational philosphy
3. Lack of individual attention
4. The disparity in kids coming into kindergarten and the teacher having to teach to the middle ground, with some kids getting left behind and others not being challenged.  I don't think the teachers want this to happen, I think it just naturally does when you have some kids coming in not knowing their letters and some kids coming in reading at first or second grade level.

There are two reasons why I felt I had to look at schools for S -

1. I have a very flexible career in terms of hours, but we definitely need my income and I don't feel up to the task of trying to homeschool full time.  Preschool for me was a good time for Samuel to play with others, but also for me to get work done.
2. For Samuel to develop friendships.  I have tried encouraging friendships, but so far I have not had any reciprocity from any mothers of any kids that Samuel has taken to at various functions.

But that doesn't mean I was happy with it.  Then I heard about a school from a mom of a child in Samuel's gymnastics class last fall that had Kindergarten only 2 days a week.  Her child was in K last year and she couldn't stop raving about it.  I looked at the website and called the school for more info and I thought this just might be the best for our family.  It's a very academic school so he would be challenged.  With only 2 days in school, there is still plenty of time for me to "after-school" in areas where he might need extra help or that I feel might be missing from the class time.  Hubby gets to see him more often.  The tuition is actually about a third of other private schools in the area and only $30/mo more than what we paid for last year's preschool.  They teach on a classical education model and include Christian Studies every year.

So, that is why I want to homeschool, but why I am only doing it part-time for now.  This school is K - 12, but 1st and 2nd is 3 days a week, and even 3rd through 12th is 4 days a week.  I have curriculum goals for this year, which from past experience will be very fluid, but I still feel that this gives us the best of both worlds.

Last weekend was full of parties.  On Saturday we held his first "kid only" party.  Because of vacations and other committments, we had 4 out of the 7 we invited, making it "five for five" year old birthday party.  S has been wanting a sleepover, but really I think they are too young at this age, so I planned a pretend indoor campout sleepover.  They came in their PJs and brought sleeping bags, pillows, blankies. 

It started out great...as they arrived they made their own baggies of trail mix from different ingredients I had out, and from there all plans went out the window.  I barely got them to sit still for 4 bites of their picnic style hot dogs, popcorn and carrot sticks.  We did cake when two of the boys fought over the same hiding spot in their own game of hide and seek.  S blew out the candles after the first line of Happy Brithday and everyone stopped singing.  Then we did presents after another mishap (I'm great at diversions). I got two boys to do the hokey pokey with me. 

I had planned a few party games, including "Musical Sleeping Bags", followed by smores, hand shadows and ghost stories (not too scary), but the kids were having a lot of fun just doing their own thing and did not want to stop whenever I would say "Time for (fill in the blank)", so I just let it happen.  Ten minutes before the parents were due to arrive for pick-up, one boy said, "when are we going to do the campout?"  I wanted to cry (lol)!

They had alreayd been playing in the tents, so I said, "OK everyone in the tents for bed!"  They wanted all the lights out and S started telling a "ghost story" which was really a bunch of rambling in the classic preschool story-telling style, but everyone loved it.  And then the parents came.

Here is a picture of my "Campout Cake" that I copied from here  I used plastic trees and did not add as much dirt.  I think my fire came out better and S help decorate the sleeping bags.

Sunday was a Cookie Cake with family and no games.  We only have two other children on either side of the family which was why I wanted to try a kid party for Samuel.  I now understand why a lot of parents go the location party route!  We still may do the at home party again, but it was a lot of work and I'm glad it's over for another year.

Today we gave him our presents and will take him out for lunch to the restaurant of his choice.

Happy Birthday to my precious baby...even when you're a grown-up I still hope you'll snuggle with your Mama.

I'm a couple days late for Kelli Ann's Flashback Friday, but I liked her topic for this week, so better late than never.  Her son's birthday was Friday, so her flasback focussed on his past birthdays, specifically cakes.  I was the opposite of her...I started Samuel with store-bought cakes and then made the foray into homemade.  His fifth birthday is in July and we haven't settled on a theme yet, but that will dictate whether I try it again this year. 

Here is his first birthday trying cake and icing for the first time.  Really this was the first time he had anything sweet that was not a fruit.

One of his favorite toys he got at his first birthday was his Little People Farm, so I decided on a farm theme and added similar farm animal toys to the bakery cake.

The next year he wanted a Cars birthday, like the movie, except that this was the summer the movie came out and I couldn't find a bakery with a Cars theme cake.  So I went online and found this cute race track cake which I thought looked easy enough and then I added Cars diecast cars that I bought at Toys R Us.  It wasn't that easy, but everyone thought it was cool that I even tried it and Samuel was still young enough not to be embarrassed by my efforts.

Last year, we tried the Mystery Machine and it was fun.  I also made cupcakes and tried a tie-dye effect with the icing but it just looked like rainbow colored spider webs.  I can't take credit for this idea either, it came from another web search.

So here's our birthday flashback, and check back near the end of July to find out what we did for Number 5!

Seems like the theme this week is pregnancy in honor of Kellie Ann's news.  Since my long-term memory is not so great, this is perfect for me.  Since I hate pictures of me anyway, I chose the following to sum up my pregnancy:

 Hubby is a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan and had purchased this cap, a little onesie and some socks before Bug was even born.  He was determined to make this little one a baseball fan.  He is almost 5 now and really does not like sports so much as the idea of bonding with Daddy, but I had a good laugh when he decided to pick the Angels as "his" team. 

The memories of the birth and subsequent week are not ones that I like to remember, but since our homecoming a week after he was born it has been like there is a new wonderful light in my life.  Here is a picture my artsy brother took when he was a few weeks old:

That open mouth is indicative of his first months with us...always looking for something to put in it. 

This one is a little sad.  I pretty much live in the present and the future (I'm a planner by nature) and memories of the past are pretty bare.  However, I enjoyed Kellie Ann's Flashback Fridays so much and feel like I ought to participate every now and then. 

So, being Good Friday, I try to come up with some childhood Easter memories and I really don't have any except of opening my door in the morning and finding a candy-filled basket.  There are so many Easter Egg hunts around my community these days and I don't remember a one.  I do remember dyeing Easter eggs every year, using vinegar and Paas dye tablets, and wax crayons. I also always had a new "Easter" dress that I saved to wear the first time to church on Easter Sunday.

Well, that's not really much, so I think maybe I can remember more about High School, so I start thinking about that time.  And here's where it really gets sad.  I think part of what keeps memories alive is people to share them with and I realized I have no current friends from my high school years - not one.  I have such vague memories and maybe this is why.  Something to think about and pray about in the coming weeks.  Maybe next month I'll be able to contribute a happier or funnier memory.

Kellie Ann at Hilltop Academy is one of the funniest blogs I read.  She recently started Flashback Fridays and I decided to participate this week.

Since it's Cookie Time (yes, I've already eaten my first box of Thin Mints), I thought I would Flashback on my days as a Brownie and Girl Scout. 

Here is all I remember about those four years:

• I joined the Brownies in 2nd grade in 1975 because my friend next door, who was a year ahead of me in school, was in it.  I vaguely remember crossing a bridge in some kind of initiation ceremony.  My school picture that year was really my last year of being cute until high school - in my uniform missing my two front teeth.  Sorry I don't have a scanner to show you that picture.
• I remember making a bank out of a coffee can that was decorated like a girl using yarn and fabric.
• I moved up to Girl Scout in 4th grade.  Only one other girl in my class was in my troop.  I still remember her name even though I think that was the last year we were in the same class, but in the interest of privacy, I won't share it...you'll just have to trust me.
• I remember learning the stop drop and roll in the basement of my church.
• I vaguely remember a camping trip, a campfire and a latrine.
• I do NOT remember selling cookies....weird, huh?

So there's my flashback.  And BTW, Kellie Ann, a lot of your flashback rang true with me too.

On Sunday night Hubby and I usually go out to dinner while Samuel is at Awana, but tonight I decided to try a new recipe.  I got it from Allrecipes and it was called Brown Rice, Broccoli, Cheese and Walnut Surprise (so basically you know all the ingredients...no surprise, LOL).  We both decided it was ok, but not necessarily worth repeating.  I have plenty of veg pasta recipes, and stir fry is always easy to do, but I am looking for something that doesn't necessarily fit into a particular cuisine and is not full of cheese healthy.  To recap, I want 7 veg recipes that we really like that I can rotate around.  So far, I have

• any shape pasta with marinara, salad, bread
• eggplant parmesan (although very cheesy)
• vegetable fried rice
• Scrambled eggs and home-fried potatoes (with cheese!...and fried!)

So the search continues.

Today, Little Guy was having a bad day...so bad in his eyes that he could not even remember some of the good things that happened.  To me, these were not things to worry about, but I have to remember that he is 4, so dropping the only piece of a certain candy on the floor and having to throw it away, not being able to draw a perfect likeness of his daddy, having to take a bath, and something else (I'm not even sure what it was) caused a great meltdown and I had to spend about 20 minutes rocking him while he cried it all out.  I even tried bringing up the good things that happened, but he kept insisting his day was "runed". 

I like Thanksgiving because it reminds us to stop being selfish and remember our blessings.  Yes, we should be thankful everyday, but so often we are not (read, "I" am not).  So this is my exercise in Thanksgiving.  May everyone find something to be thankful for.

We've been in Palm Beach, FL the past week.  Although we got home Sunday afternoon, it took me a while to get back in the stream of things...plus, of course, I had to catch up on my favorite blogs first!

This was our fall break, so even though we did, saw and learned some really cool things, none of this was planned and I did not take along any school work.  I did bring a coloring book and Hidden Pictures book for fun and I know you could argue that certain skills were being learned, but freedom from boredom was my motivation here.

Samuel loves animals and I mean LOVE.  So, this was the perfect vacation for us.  There were three animal attractions in this city:  a great zoo, a loggerhead turtle rescue center, and a wild animal safari.  We did a little beach time and pool time, but the weather was a little windy and cloudy, so even with a nice temperature, it sometimes felt a little too cool to get wet.  But it was perfect for walking around.

With Thanksgiving this week, it will be a little light on school work, but we will read some about Thanksgiving and resume some phonics and maybe one Making Math Meaningful lesson.  Along with a LOT of coloring and drawing which Samuel has just recently decided is one of his favorite things to do.  Just a couple months ago, you would have thought coloring was the worst activity to offer a little boy!

I saw this at Such a Time and followed it back to read some others.  It was originally a tag which I am not going to do.  It was also called a "meme" which is a word I don't know.  But I thought it looked like a fun reflection so here goes:

30 Years Ago, I was 9 years old and in the 4th grade.  This was the year my youngest brother was born and I became a 9 year old mommy.  I fed him (no one in my family ever nursed until me), changed him, rocked him, sang to him.  And when he was a little older, we played school and I taught him to read and do math.  My teacher was Mrs. Vittitow and I thought she was great.  She read chapter books to us aloud at the end of each day until the first bus was called.  She also took us on a camping trip where Sarah Wavell-Smith hit Danny Feldman in the head with an ax (an accident on her part and no resulting brain damage or disfigurement on his part).

20 Years Ago, I was 19 and a sophomore at Western Kentucky University.  I still had no idea what I was going to major in, but in the Spring of that year I took a class called "Introduction to Secondary Education" which started me on a road I didn't quite finish (I did graduate, just not with a teaching certificate).  But it was while doing research for a paper in a later education class that I came across my first book on Homeschooling, and I was hooked.  I had no children, but I knew that in my perfect world I would homeschool my children (because also in my perfect world I would have two children, preferably twins as they run in my family).

10 Years Ago, I was 29 and a lost soul.  The previous year had left me divorced and clueless about where my life was headed.  I had moved 2400 miles away the year before  (age 28) to "find myself" and a year later moved back home with my parents (having no found myself at all!) to learn the family business.  I was just about to turn 30 when I met my now husband who was also living at home with his parents!  He loved me almost from the first until I was ready to love myself again. 

Now, I am a happily married mom of one dear son.  My "men" are the pride and joy of my life.  And yes, I finally found myself, right where I always belonged, in the arms of God and close to my family.

I really really really want to continue to homeschool Samuel.  I have spent a lot of time reading and trying out ideas and here are my thoughts.

I like the living books approach, nature study, art study and composer study from Charlotte Mason.  We do read more books than she would probably approve of.  I am not going to stop that, but she has inspired me to spend more time outside.

I like the stages (trivium) of the Classical education, as well as a focus on Latin, Greek and to a lesser extent, the classics.

I like the gentle relaxed style of Ruth Beechick.  She is also a proponent of using living books.

I have decided I do not like unit studies or themes of the week, but I definitely will take advantage of one topic to bring in several subjects (like our crossover of literature and geography this week that I will write about in our week in review).

I already have my curriculum mostly designed for next year.  Of course, I know this will be adjusted depending on what we learn this year, and I know I may not be able to homeschool.  But hopefully this will help us decide the best school if it comes to that, and also I would still plan on "afterschooling", mainly through our bedtime read-aloud time as well as field trips, habit training, religious training, and life skills, but also to fill in any holes I see in whatever school we may choose.

I never follow through with chain letters, which is essentially what this is, but for some reason, I can't stop myself.  I was tagged by Yonit, who has a wonderful new blog from a perspective a little different from most you find here and I personally find her insightful and fascinating.

Seven True Things About Myself
1)  I met my husband through an online love connection

2)  I have lived in Washington State and Florida and now live in my hometown.
3) I had one miscarriage before my beautiful son was born.
4) When I was a little girl, I used to daydream about shrinking to doll size and living in a doll house.

5)  I love libraries and my dream house would include a two story library with a ladder on rollers, like in Funny Girl.
6)  I planned to be a high school math teacher in college, but graduated without completing the last requirement for a certification...student teaching (I did qualify for a math degree though).

7)  I do not feel at home in my church and would really like to find a new one, but my husband does not want a change.  It is a struggle every Sunday for me to go.  The only consolation is that they do have good preaching/teaching.

Now I need to go tag 7 other people. Don't be mad at me.  Have fun everyone!

In a couple weeks, my city is having a special referendum vote for a new library tax.  The local newspaper is running a What My Library Means to Me column each day and I wrote one and sent it in.  I don't think they will run mine in the paper, but they are supposed to have them all on their website, except I can't find it.  ***They ran it in the paper today! (10/18/07)  My high school counselor's wife called my mom and told her she should be proud at how well I grew up (hahaha...little does she know...)

So, here is my entry. 

What the Library Means to Me…

As a child, visits to the library meant getting carsick.  OK, I know it’s strange to start a positive story with something unpleasant.  But the truth is, I couldn’t wait to get home to read one of my borrowed treasures, and I still get carsick trying to read in the car.  Sometimes I just can’t help trying it one more time. 

My first job was at the brand new Middletown branch after moving out of Eastern High School.  It has since moved to a larger space, but that small room was a wonderful world.  I got to know the regulars and I was able to find lots of new treasures while putting away (“shelving” in the library vernacular) books – sometimes they didn’t make it back on the shelves, but checked back out and into my book bag.  I loved the quiet times in that room, as well as the busy-ness of summer reading time.

My second job was also in a library…the reference library at Western Kentucky University, another wonderful world for another story.  Can you tell I love books?

As an adult, the library was always a place for me to learn about any topic that struck my fancy, as well as to indulge my love of fiction.  As a mother, the library has become a place to pass on to my preschool-age son the power and wonder of books the way my mother did for me.  He can’t read many words yet, but we probably spend 30 minutes to an hour every day reading aloud.  I visit my Middletown branch at least once a week to pick up the books I request online now.  A couple times a month, I take my son and we peruse the children’s section looking for new treasures (and we always find at least one).  If it weren’t for the library, I would be in debt from buying the books I need to feed my habit for words.   

Yesterday, S and I went to the Kentucky State Fair.  We started in the animal hall with the cows.  I taught him how to tell the difference between a cow and a bull.  I stepped in some cow poop and S decided cows were too stinky, so we headed to the hall holding the rabbits, goats, and fowl, where we learned that rabbits are cute, but we don't stick our fingers in the cages.  No we didn't learn by experience, but we did learn to read the signs that said "Fingers out, rabbits have teeth."    We also spent time watching baby chicks hatch.  Actually we didn't really see one hatch, but we were in front of the exhibit long enough!

On to the hobby exhibits, where we looked at every entry in the color photograph-animal category, miniature dollhouses, and miniature Christmas trees.  We also spent a lot of time in the hybrid public bus and running around on a huge floor map of KY.  We saw a robot playing the trumpet, a white tiger doing a trick, and a display for the Ugly Lamp contest which was being judged today, so we didn't know who the winner (loser?) was.  My vote was for the ashtray lamp...with a huge pile of real cigarette butts for the lamp base, yucky looking and very smelly too.

Of course we had to ride some rides.  There were several kiddie rides he rode by himself, but we rode the carosel, ferris wheel, and tea cups together.  Also, it was a school day, so it wasn't as crowded as a weekend and one of the game carnies talked me into letting S try to pop a balloon with a dart.  I wasn't so sure, but the carnie was really good with S, very patient and actually let him try about 10 times even though I only paid for 3 darts.  S was so proud of himself for the pink bear he won.  He picked it out himself....yes he likes pink, although orange is his absolute favorite color - there just weren't any orange bears!

All in all it was a fun, hot, educational, hot day.  Did I say it was hot?

We spent a few days last week in Cincinnati, which is just a couple hours from where we live.  The first day was total fun...we spent it at King's Island mostly in the children's area.  The second day we spent at the zoo which is a really good zoo for kids.  S loves animals, so this was our fun educational part of the trip...we were there for about 4 hours.  We also went to the Newport Aquarium, but he wasn't as interested in that.

The last vacation we went on was in Georgia, about 1 ½ hours from Atlanta, so we took a day trip to that zoo also, so now I guess it's a tradition to try to visit a zoo wherever we travel, which isn't a bad way to sneak in science!

I took my first education class at Western KY University during my sophomore year.  I thought I might teach high school math (my major).  During the research phase for a paper on the differences in how girls and boys are taught math, I found a book on homeschooling and, being the procrastinator I am, took it off the shelf and began reading it. 

I had never heard of homeschooling until that day, and I began checking out as many books as I could on homeschooling over the years (and yes, I did eventually finish my paper!).  Without a child or a husband, I knew I wanted to homeschool my children.

I married my wonderful husband, C, later in life, at age 32.  After one miscarriage and one successful pregnancy, our beautiful son, S, was born exactly two years later by emergency c-section.  Well, not exactly two years...he was born on the day before our anniversary, so I actually spent our 2nd anniversary in the hospital trying to figure out how to breastfeed, and really wanting to pee so they didn't have to put the catheter back in.

I never thought I'd have just one child.  I have two brothers and C has a brother and a sister, so we know the value of sibs.  But the timing didn't seem right and now S is 4 and I'm almost 39, so we're just done.  I know other women have children in their late 30's and early 40's, but not me.

So, now I have an only child.  How do I keep him from being the spoiled brat like all the other only children I knew growing up (just kidding...I had some friends who were only children)?  How do I homeschool without any other children for him to play with (no neighbor children)?  How do I homeschool at all since I want to keep my career?

Granted, my career is very flexible and has allowed me to be "mostly" a stay-at-home mom.  My mother watches S almost once a week (they do a lot of travelling though).  When S was 2, C's job turned to second shift, so he's (awake and) home usually between 11 am and 3 pm. My office is a 5-minute drive and I can also have remote access to my computer at work.

I have read and sang to S since day one.  It seems in all our play we were learning something.  So, I guess that was our "unschooling" phase.

However, because I needed a break every now and then, I put him in the mother's day out program at a neighborhood church when he was 13 months old.  It was a co-op type of program where I worked every fourth Friday.  I also like him being around other kids.  Then I found out they had a 2 year old preschool program two mornings a week.  That also seemed innocent enough.  I really didn't care if they taught him anything because I was still playing/schooling him at home.  I mainly looked at it as babysitting and time to play with other kids.  So, naturally, it was very easy to move him into the 3 year class 3 mornings a week last year.  They did have a light curriculum that included some Spanish, letter sounds, colors and numbers 0 - 10, although he already was familiar, if not proficient in most of that.  But he started coming home with some bad habits that he said he learned from this kid or that.

In January, while he was still enrolled in preschool, I began using Sonlight Pre-K (now Core B).  We have read most everything in that curriculum now.  My bad news is that S is now enrolled in the 4 year old class for 5 mornings a week.  I am really trying to work on C to open his mind, if not his heart, to the possibility of homeschooling him for elementary school.  But for now, it looks at though my plans for homeschooling are shifted to "after-schooling".

Here are my plans beginning August 6 -

• Language and Thinking by Ruth Beechick (one or two items per week)
• Beginner's Bible (several pages per week to get through the whole book by April)
• Possibly our own list of memory verses or I may put him in Awana at (another) neigborhood church (our own church does not have preschool or Awana), but I may not start this in August
• Science will be an animal notebook/scrapbook that we just started.  This will probably last quite a while, but also we have the Healthy Eating lapbook from Hands of a Child that we will most likely do when we need a break from animals.
• Math is our own version...we are always counting things, adding and subtracting, and we also love the Stuart J Murphy books we can find in our library.
• Literature...ahh, this is our foundation of everything.  We will finish the Sonlight Core B books, I am also working off several book lists, including Ambleside Online, The Tanglewood School Curriculum, and the NY Public Library. 

I also don't want to forget art and music, but I don't want to overload him right away