One Day at a Time - Homeschool Blogger

Private Percussion lessions

Eleventh Grade Samuel LaVictoire LaVictoire
Algebra II Saxon - tutor Mr. Marty Drexler
Apologia Biology/Chemistry
American History II- CLEP book and websites
World History - CLEP and web sites
British Literature - Hewitt Homeschool publishers
Rosetta Stone - Spanish I
Writing Course- Bravewriter

Family Life

Sun, 7 Sep 2008 12:54:00 -0500

Family life

Family life is busy for us. We are fortunate that we have been able to find ways to get the kids involved in the same activities at the same time and for reasonable costs.

Saturday the kids, Mr. Pete and I met at the local park with the rest of the cross country team for their practice. The team ran the course, and Mr. Pete and I got a good walk in. There's a killer hill on this course but this week it didn't seem as bad as last week. I think the team is starting to feel that way too because this week the coach had them run it twice!

After cross country there was a quick dash home so that the kids could change and make it over to a different park for Saturday Soccer.

Needless to say they were hungry and tired when they finally made it home, but not too tired to play with their friends and run around the neighborhood.

Today was the start of PSR! which means all of the leisurely Sunday morning stuff is over! Our first order of business was trying to decide what mass to go. We made it to 9:00, Mr. Pete went to PSR because he is the 6th grade catechist. After mass we made it to the rest of the PSR open house and then Mr. Pete went to mass at 11:00. I hate breaking up the family like that but at least while he was at mass I got lunch ready and we ate as a family.

Then by special invitation, my all of the kids (including Calvin) made it over to Grandma's to help her celebrate Grandparent's day! They had a big band and ice cream sundae's!

Doesn't get much better than that.

A quick ride home and then the kids made it to cross country practice at 5:00. Right now they're playing with their friends and I'm relaxing writing this blog post.

I'm looking forward to Monday to get some rest!!

The Witch of Blackbird Pond - a Review

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:46:00 -0500

I have just finished reading the Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. I have been reading this to my three middle school children as part of our study of American History and Geography studies.

This is a very fast paced and interesting story of a young woman named Kit who leaves her home in Barbados after the death of her grandfather to live with the only other living relative she has, an aunt in Connecticut.

Kit's upbringing has been free and easy. After the death of her parents, her grandfather raised her on his Barbdose plantation. While she did learn to become an avid reader, Kit spent much of her time in what we would consider unschooling! But after her grandfather's death, Kit had no choice but to sell all of her grandfather's estate to pay off his debts. She then fled to Connecticut not only to reconnect with her mother's only sister, but to avoid a marriage of convenience to a much older man.

Kit's free spirit are immediately at odds with her Aunt and Uncle's Puritan community. Feeling much like an outcast it isn't long before she befriends the community's other outcast, Hannah, an elderly Quaker lady who is an alleged witch, living on the edge of Blackbird Pond.

But being an ousider in a closely knit Puritan Community can come with a price, one that Hannah has paid dearly in the past and which Kit is violently forced to deal with.

I love romance novels and this book has a number of involved and complicated relationships woven throughout the plot. The plot also involves a lot of potential geography lessons regarding Connecticut and the sea routes down the eastern coast of the future United States.

Historical topics are part of the action as well as religious freedoms and communities fight between themselves, royalists clash with colonists, and even the treatment of women and children during colonial times.

There is a lot of food for thought and potential rabbit trails for the homeschool family to explore. I found it to be a real page turner towards the end (yep, I sneaked ahead and read to the end) and I have a feeling my kids are going to be eager to get back to where we left off today, as soon as we we're done with breakfast tomorrow.

This is a Newberry Winner - an award it well deserves!

Fall Hikes

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:44:00 -0500

Hiking with a group - sort of.

The kids and I attempted one of the homeschool hikes today. This was our first time since last year's ordeal. Rosie is year older, but it wasn't much better. What puzzles me is that other preschoolers did the walk just fine! Miss Rosie lollygags, and looks at stuff and savors the path she is on. It's very Charlotte Mason - it's also very annoying!

So I think I need to look at my objectives:

1. I want my older kids to have homeschool friends. Gabe and Noah said they met up with a girl from the group they met at Calvin's graduation. Izzy said that she walked alone (sigh). Sam didn't even want to come with us!

OK so if that is one of my objectives it isn't working out so well. It might work out better if we stayed for lunch but I didn't have time to pack one for us this morning and I hate a lot of things to do this afternoon. I am willing to give this another try.

2. Much needed socialization time for me. This was a bust. Although I had some nice conversations with my homeschool mom friends before the hike and a few during the hike for the most part, not being able to keep up with them because of Rosie meant I spent most of the time alone. By the time Rosie and I got out of the woods, everyone else was gone. So again this part of the objectives is NOT being met. However, if I stayed for the picnic, or if I didn't even go for the hike but waited for everyone else at the picnic tables, I might have a lot more opportunity to socialize.

3. Fitness. I have enough opportunities for fitness. If I want to walk, I can do it early in the morning. With Rosie I'm walking fast, and then stopping to look at a bug, or a twig, or a flower going at a snail's pace for 15 minutes, and then carrying her on my back for 10 minutes. I guess it's exercise, but I don't enjoy a minute of it.

So I'm thinking if next week's hike is not too far away, I'm just going to send my older kids on the hike, and then Rosie and I will hang around and wait for everyone to get back. We'll see how that goes!

Red Cross Swimming Classes 2009

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:40:00 -0500

Created with flickr slideshow.

Library Shows

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 10:49:00 -0500

Once again we did attend the library shows for the summer! Here are my pictures of those! 2009 library shows

Nature Journalling

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:32:00 -0500

Izzy and Noah took a nature journal class through Bravewriter. Some if it was drawing and some of it was photography. Here are some of the photographs the kids actually took. Izzy and Noah's nature photographs

Sam the Soccer Ref

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:30:00 -0500

Saturday Soccer Homeschool League! Spring 09

Sat, 30 May 2009 10:27:00 -0500

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:02:00 -0500

I am thankful for... good health and a thrifty husband. The van he bought on eBay is wonderful!

From the learning rooms...we are in the big push to get work done before our assessment.Gabe and I have completed two assignments in the Bravewriter Kid's Write Basic Class. I also signed Sam up for this online class studying Chaucer.

I am reading...
Grieving the Death of a Mother I. Love. This. Book.

I have written before about grief and grieving and some things to say or not say to someone who is bereaved, but my experience with mom's death have added some things to my perspective. This part really touched me.

As a grief educator, I encourage thorough grief. No "light" grief, no short cuts, and no time off for good behavior; the day-in day-out work of grief is necessary and important. Unfortunately, I grieve in a society that aggressively limits grief that reprimands, "You should be over your mother's death by now" (sometimes punctuated with an exclamation point)> It's as if a game clock somewhere determines how much grief time one gets.

After my mother's funeral, I frequently felt as though I had run a gauntlet of questions: "How old was your mother?" When I answered eighty three the frequent response was, "Oh then she lived a good long life." "Oh" felt like a slap to my face. What would be wrong with her living eighty four or eighty-eight years? "Was she a Christian?" Yes. "Well then, she's in a btter place." "Had she been sick?" Yes. "Then her suffering is over." Yes, but what about mysuffering? Grief, particularly for an aged mother, is disenfranchised. Jeanine Cannon Bozeman writes: "I perceived that many people felt tht because mother was "old" and I was an adult child, the loss should be less significant."

It does not matter who you are or how high or low your status in society: how old or young you are
how experienced you are in the black and blue realities of life
how clever you are with words
losing a mother wounds.

For the rest of life, some will have a great difficulty finding words to wrap around a mother's death. A song, a scent, a taste, a fabric or a memory will leave us wordless.

It does not matter how self-confident you are-losing a mother deprives you of a chief-cheerleader.

Mary Poppins which is much, much better than the movie!!

150 Bible Verses Every Catholic Should Know

A picture I am sharing:

Izzy was a volunteer at one of the library shows. This is the Weird Science show! I'm not sure what scientific principal he was illustrating, but it was a lot of fun to watch that toilet paper fly forcefully into the center of the crowd via the leaf blower!