But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promised joy.
-Robert Burns

Before you get really impressed, I had to look that one up.  The point is the same though:  I plan; God chuckles.  Yes folks a grand 2 1/2 weeks into my school year,  I've realized that I should have just gone out and enjoyed the mentos because most of what I came up with is not going to work.  I've planned myself a one-way ticket to Burn-Out Ville.  Did that last year.  Didn't like it.  Wasn't pretty.

Sooo, I decided to shut up and let God tell me what to do.  Please try to control the collective "DUH!"  I'm enjoying creating my own history curriculum, and I think, once I get used to it, I'll come up with something that's best suited to our family.  However, and this is where the big collective "Duh!" comes in, I can't do two seperate curriculums and maintain my thin hold on my sanity.  It's just too hard.  

So, God told me (through various and sundry ways - no burning bush but still quite clear), that I am to stop trying to be the uber-teacher and just have both boys do the same units at their own levels.  This is quite a change for us, but I think we're going to like it.  We're also going to drop the four year history rotation that's been driving me so crazy.  I mean, how can you possibly study the Civil War, WWI, AND WWII all in one year to any decent effect?   We're now going to a 6 year rotation, and we'll be starting the year over, back at the beginning.

Here's how it's going to work, roughly.  Paul will finish the Civil War unit because he's really digging it and we might get to go to Gettysburg soon.  He'll then do his 5 weeks of Physics as planned.  During that time George will start his 10 week earth science unit.  Paul will join him for the last 3 weeks of that, and from then on they'll study the same units.  This way it won't be as jarring a flip-flop as if we did it right away, and, since the science units are pretty simple from a planning standpoint, I'll have some time to reconfigure the rest of the year.

 I realize I probably sound like a raving nutter switching things around like this, or maybe by not doing it this way from the beginning, but I really think this will be best all around.  I also had my reasons for not giving them the same units from the start, but it's beyond the scope of this post.  You'll just have to scratch your heads and wonder.

I'll let you know what I come up with when I have the details hammered out.

Semper Gumby! (Always Flexible)

Jennifer

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In my post about this year's school plans (here), I almost forgot to tell you the plans I made for my little Ringo!!  Now, some of you might be thinking I'm crazy for making school plans for a 2 year old, but I know myself well enough to know that if I don't, I'll just let him wander around the house all day doing whatever occurs to him.  THAT leads to all sorts of trouble.  I know because that's what I did last year.

So here are my goals for my oinery bundle of cuteness (in no particular order):

• Focus for a relatively extended period of time
• Speak clearly enough to be understood by non-family
• Improve gross motor skills
• Improve fine motor skills
• Achieve first time obedience
• Love books
• Speak in a respectful tone
• Sleep in a toddler bed
• Use the toilet reliably and independently
• Complete simple chores with guidance
• Learn primary and secondary colors
• Recognize the numbers from 1-20 and count that far
• Recognize simple shapes
• Say full name, parents' full name, and phone # when asked
• Learn the alphabet (capital and lower case) and at least some of the sounds
• Learn to dress and undress himself

Most of this will happen through day to day living as a family and reading books together.  I think I may go ahead and do a letter a day with him for fun and to help him focus on the letters better.  I've never had to do this with the other two, but I had a lot more time to spend with them also.  Besides, I think he'll like having "school work" to do alongside his brothers.  We've also been singing the ABC song when he's on the potty to help him take his time instead of rushing off before he's finished. 

As with all my plans, I recognise that they are subject to change as needs arise.  We may only get to half of these things by May, but that's better than what we'd achieve if we didn't set any goals at all!

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Well, I warned you!  Here are the plans I spent so much time on while the boys of the house were tinkering with Diet Coke and Mentos.

Our school year will be 40 weeks, and in general, we'll be moving even further away from the prepared curriculum.  We've been doing Story of the World for history for the last 3 years, and well, I'm soooooooo bored with it!  I don't like how it stays so chronological that it splits up great civilizations.  It was really hard to get into Ancient Egypt or Greece when we were moving away from it every three days, so I'm gonna be brave and create my own history curriculum. 

Thankfully, my hubby and I were both history majors who focused on different periods.  I was the more early modern/modern type while he really got into the ancients and middle ages.  The only problem, as you'll see below, is that we have a hard time whittling things down.  We want to study everything.  That's not so bad right now though, because I planned to give the boys  a sweeping study of everything in the first four years anyway.  Then we'll go back and really dig into the stuff we like, once the historical context has been established.  Now that I've cleared that up, here's the more specific stuff.

Paul

Now that Paul has his basics down (ie spelling, grammar, reading) I'm going to move into a unit study approach.  We'll still be studying those subjects, but since I don't have to worry so much about presenting basics in a logical order, it'll be easier to work it into a unit.  *For the non-homeschoolers who read this, a unit study is where you wrap most of the school subjects into one larger subject like butterflies or WWII through literature selections, field trips, etc.*

Here are the units we'll be studying this year:

• Civil War (5 weeks)
• Physics (5 weeks)
• US Geography (4 weeks)
• Intro to Computer Science (1 week)
• US Government (1 week)
• National Elections (1 week)
• Native Americans (1 week)
• Westward Expansion (1 week)
• Imperial Britain (1 week)
• The Russian Revolution (2 weeks)
• WWI (5 weeks)
• 1920's (1 week)
• The Great Depression (2 weeks)
• WWII (6 weeks)
• The Cold War - including overview of Korea and Vietnam (4 weeks)

Other subjects:

• Math:  Singapore 4 A/B with lots of review time and drilling of math facts
• Latin:  Work through Latina Christiana, Memoria Press.
• Piano:  Simply Music:  Learn at Home Level 1 (DVD)
• Typing:  I have a program for this, but it's not working.  I'll list it after we see if customer service can fix us up.  I plan on doing this for a month before we start piano.  If he doesn't take to typing fairly quickly, I'll drop it and try again next year.
• Handwriting:  He needs some cursive review, so we'll be doing a page a day in Handwriting with Grace by Michael McHugh.  We were using Zaner-Blozer, but decided to try something different. 
• Faith:  Between Sunday School and our Wednesday night program, I'm pretty comfortable with the amount of formal Bible training Paul's getting.  We do, however, have a devotion time every morning, discuss the theological implications of things, and are working on building Godly character.
• PE:  We've made the difficult decision to drop AYSO soccer this year.  It wasn't helping Paul make friends, was encouraging some poor character traits (over-competetiveness, bragging, etc), and was the thing that most interfered with family life.  We've decided instead to get the boys involved in running because it's more of a lifetime sport and can be worked around our schedules.  They can still compete in charity races, etc, and we won't have to sell donuts or pay for fees and uniforms.  YEAH!  We'll also practice their ball handling skills at home in case there's a good way to get back into it later.
• Life skills:  We're tweaking our chore structure this year based on something I saw somewhere (Malia Russell at homemaking911.com) about giving kids official job titles around the house.  So, this year the boys will be rotating throough the roles of Sous Chef (kitchen helper), Assistant Custodian (cleaning and maintenance helper), and Farm Hand (outside work and caring for the dogs).  We'll rotate every week, and their duties will change based on their abilities.  They'll also have to do their personal chores like making their beds.

George

George is still in his basics phase, so he won't be on a real unit approach yet.  However, we do use what I call a block schedule for the "fun" subjects - history and science.  Instead of doing both of these subjects all year, squeezing them into every week, we do them in blocks, making them the big focus of our school day.  I know, it sounds a lot like a unit study, but it's not quite.  We mostly wrap reading, music, and art into the history units. 

Here are the blocks we'll be doing:

• Early Middle Ages (3 weeks)
• The Middle Ages in the Middle East (2 weeks)
• The Middle Ages in Northern Europe (3 weeks)
• Earth Science (10 weeks)
• Charlemagne & the Crusades (3 weeks)
• Chivalry & Feudalism (3 weeks)
• The End of the Middle Ages (4 weeks)
• Weather (1 week)
• Renaissance & Reformation (4 weeks)
• Space Science (6 weeks)

Other subjects:

• Faith:  Same as Paul.
• French:  Hooked on French  We are loving this.  It's a workbook and CD-ROM.  It goes very slowly covering the basics.  The games are engaging, and most importantly, the voices have fairly accurate French accents instead of computerish or Americanized ones.
• Math:  Singapore 2 A/B
• PE:  Same as Paul.
• Grammar:  Complete Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind
• Reading:  Children's versions of literature that fits into the time period for history - Beowulf, Grim's Fairy Tales, Shakespeare, etc.  This continues even when we aren't doing a history block.
• Writing:  Handwriting with Prayer - Like I said, we're new to this series.  I like it, but it doesn't have the arrows to help the kids remember in which order they should form the letters.  We'll alternate this with copywork from Beatrix Potter and the original Winnie the Pooh stories.
• Spelling:  review phonics rules and complete Basic Spelling Rules 2, Christian Liberty Press.  We were doing Spelling Workout, but again decided to try something different.  It isn't as entertaining and doesn't present the phonics rules as clearly as Spelling Workout did.  George is a strong speller, so I think we'll stick with it.  I don't think I'll get it again though.
• Lifeskills:  Same as Paul
• Music:  George is showing a strong aptitude for musical instruments.  I showed him how to play Hot Cross Buns on the recorder, and not only did he practice on his own until he got it, he also taught himself how to play it on the piano.  I don't however want him learning piano at the same time as Paul  (Paul is VERY competitive.), so we got him a book on how to play the recorder.

Well, that's a basic overview of what we'll be doing.  I'll probably post my plans for each unit/block as we hit them, although I'm not sure I'll get to posting the ones we're doing now.  I'm thinking about posting the tracking and organization methods I'm trying out this year, but that might wait until I've had a little more time to tweak them. 

If you have any questions or want some specifics on something, let me know!

Take care!

Jennifer 

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Sheila asked for more specifics on the point chart I'm using to make my older boys earn their sand/water table, so here goes!  Note:  I wrote this on the day I said I would, but somehow I hit save as draft instead of posting it.  Oh well!

I got the general idea from the book Child Wise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam.  They have a whole series of books from pregnancy through the teen years.  Although I don't follow their approach exactly (I'm a tweaker; I can't help it.), these books most closely reflect my general parenting philosophy. 

How it works is super simple.  Basically, I pick an area in which one or more of them need improvement.  Then I decide on a reward.  Ezzo and Bucknam talk mainly about giving points, but I've found that my kids are helped more when I combine positive and negative reinforcement. 

The main problems we're working on right now are ignoring instructions, bickering, and whining.  We're offering a reward mainly because John's and my attitudes have definitely contributed to these problems.  We've been distracted and stressed, so we didn't think straight punishment was appropriate.

To help with the bickering (or maybe making it worse), we've made them work together on the chart instead of each of them having their own.  Here are the points:

To earn 1 point:

• Go 1/2 day without fighting
• Cooperate on a chore
• Obey instructions the first time

To earn 2 points:

• Do an extra job without being asked
• Finish morning chores before breakfast

To lose 1 point:

• Whine
• Fight

To lose 2 points:

• Ignore instructions
• Argue with Mom or Dad

Other points can be added or subtracted at parents' discretion.  I don't usually take away points without ample warning.  For example, I added a point when "George" remembered the first stanza of "Mr. Nobody" after only one practice session and another when "Paul" spontaneously shared something special with "George", but I took one away when after 3 reminders the boys were still playing more than they were working.

We track the points with little fridge magnets throughout the day, and then at bedtime we add them to the chart.  Once a point is on the chart, it can't be taken away.  If they are in the negative numbers at bedtime, they'll be back at 0 the next day.  That way one bad day won't leave them trying to dig their way out of a hole.

We don't use this method very often, so it stays fresh when we do use it.  The biggest thing we've used it for up to this point was to help "Paul" earn his first two-wheeled bicycle.  He needed one anyway, but we wanted it to be meaningful for him.  He was 4 or 5, and we called it his "heart chart".  We listed all the fruits of the spirit on the top and put smaller hearts inside a larger poster of a heart every time he displayed a fruit of the spirit.  When the heart was full, he got the bike.  Honestly, he was so proud of himself watching it fill up that we probably could have used it without the reward.

I hope that explains it ok.  We love charts and posters, so it works well for us.  Feel free to tweak it anyway you want! 

Jennifer

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I've been nominated for the Mean Mommy of the Year award. 

You see, we bought this cool sand and water table for the boys to use in the backyard because, well, there isn't much for them to do back there.  The only problem is the boys have not been behaving very well lately.  I know that at least some of that problem behavior has been because of my burned-outedness, but nevertheless, we need to do something about it.  SO this was the answer we came up with:

The two older boys have to accumulate 116 points (1 point per dollar spent) before they may play with the table.  We're just finishing up the 2nd week, and they still have a long way to go.  We're mainly focusing on ending the bickering and whining and reinforcing 1st time obedience.  

Ringo does get to play with it because he's still too young to understand a point system, and it helps to motivate the big boys.  But he doesn't really gloat . . . much.

So yes, I'm mean Mommy,

but I'll be a lot meaner if we can't all start getting along a little better.

Have a great weekend and an awesome Mother's Day!

Jennifer

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