Travel with us on our journey into the unknown. We are relaxed home schoolers, not 100% unschoolers. I use curriculumn from here and there and not just one area. Please join in our adventures! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:07:00 -0500 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:07:00 -0500 http://blog.thenatureschild.com/2008/06/beat-heat-summer-con-test.html check it out! sue http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/553512/ Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:07:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/553512/ We have been trying to conceive since Dec./Jan. time frame and we got our positive.  Our expected Due Date is Jan. 22, 2009 but since I typically deliver around 37weeks we are thinking around the 1st week or so of Jan or maybe even the last week in Dec.  We would love to have a boy but are just as happy with another girl. John is moving home this summer and I will continue to home school Shelby and now also John.  He comes home June 17th we cant wait!! Karis is officially 2!  I cant believe it has been so long. The end of our school year is winding down with just a few more days of Ca history and Math left to work on we will be closing shop soon:)   http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/544868/ Sun, 8 Jun 2008 23:20:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/544868/   (copied from home school group i belong too)- This is scary and other states will follow if this is upheld!!  No matter what type of home schooler you are or even if you dont home school dont you want the right to choose!! Hello all - I received this lead from another HS group. Click the link below or paste it to your browser for the full story. ~Michelle Judge orders homeschoolers into government education Court: Family's religious beliefs 'no evidence' of 1st Amendment violation A California court has ruled that several children in one homeschool family must be enrolled in a public school or "legally qualified" private school, and must attend, sending ripples of shock into the nation's homeschooling advocates as the family reviews its options for appeal. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=57679 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/491504/ Mon, 3 Mar 2008 10:24:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/491504/ I have not been able to find the time to figure out how to personalize my blog.  I have seen your work and love it but we cant afford to buy one from you so a contest like this has me really wanting to win.  The past month has been full of sickness here.  We delt with the flu one after the other about 4wks ago now and now we have a "cold" or something here so with a sick toddler i have no free time....  I want to writing on my blog again, but havent got the time with a new makeover it is the motivation i need to get back at it!! Thank you! Sue http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/484844/ Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:43:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/484844/ We jumped right back into our studies.  We have started really getting aggressive with our math and writing... I found a way for her to do her writing without complaining.. a topic she loves!  Most recently she has started a writing about "My Idol" in the hopes of someone she likes will motivate her, it was Hannah Montana (with a total of three names) which gave us a lot to write about.  Handwritten it is the front of a page and 1/2 the back, we start the typing (publishing) part tomorrow. Math has been one of our biggest struggles.  The fact that she didnt know how to tell time, simple addtion and subtraction, or any of the other things she "should" have known in 3rd grade last yr when we pulled her out of school makes me feel like she has done great!  But i do know we have a long way to go and we take it one day/ one task/ on topic at a time.  I am very proud to say she can tell time, she cooks and therefore can read and work with measurements and fractions, can do simple addition, hard addition, and subtraction as well.  With time she is still not 100% on lapsed time (start 2:15 finish 3:00 how much time did it take?).  We will continue to work on it. thanks to some help from other home school mommies I talk with we started reading Bingo.  she loves to read and that isnt a problem but i wanted to reward her for her reading, and have her reading a variety of material so this is her bingo chart we just started this month:   Reading Bingo         Science Fiction           Read to sibling 20min.     Spanish picture book     Your choice     Magazine Article     Poetry           Humor     Comic Book     Famous Artist     Newspaper Article Nature:  about Animal, plant, earth, insect, human body         Music composer                FREE     Non-fiction     Book on Manners     Sports           Biography     An Inventor     Safety Book     Your choice     Fantasy           Adventure     How to book     A book from the Bible     Government   Any 5 in a row_____Go to Jumba Juice____ Two rows _________Go to Cold stone________________ Three rows_Go to the bookstore spend up to $20______ Four rows__________ Movie:  Your pick___________ Blackout____________ Scandia Golf ____________ I didnt know how else to put it in here but to copy and paste it... I am trying to also use a lapbook for one of our lessons to try it out.  I am also trying a few other things as well and hoping we find something that will really help her retain the information better! gotta go for now! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/461925/ Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:43:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/461925/ Jamin is giving away a FREE copy of Vision of Sugarplums A Collection of Christmas Cookery on her blog.  Click HERE for more information. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/448013/ Thu, 20 Dec 2007 11:05:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/448013/   "Death of a Child" Sorry I didn't get to stay. To laugh and run and play. To be there by your side. I'm sorry that I had to die. God sent me down to be with you, to make your loving heart anew. To help you look up and see Both God and little me. Mommy, I wish I could stay. Just like I heard you pray. But, all the angels did cry when they told little me goodbye. God didn't take me cause He's mad. He didn't send me to make you sad. But to give us both a chance to be a love so precious .. don't you see? Up here no trouble do I see and the pretty angels sing to me. The streets of gold is where I play you'll come here too, mommy, someday. Until the day you join me here, I'll love you mommy, dear. Each breeze you feel and see, brings love and a kiss from me. By Sandy Eakle   http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/443735/ Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:38:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/443735/ I cant believe we are a week into December already... I havent had time to breath let alone update my blog:(  We have done so much from math to science and everything in between... Shelby got to sing with the girlscouts at our city tree lighting ceremony, and has practice with Solohomeschoolers for our christmas caroling of the senior citizens home on the 13th... We picked out our tree, the girls decorated it, and the house is decorated as well now:)  I have gotten a few christmas gifts early and a couple of the family (mainly dh) gifts as well... we are loving the season and the time we have together:)  This season has a sad side for our family as well.  In Dec. 05, on Christmas morning our son William Ray Otwell died in our arms.  He was home with hospice care after finding there was nothing more that they could do to help him... We are very fortunate to have had the 9mos with him before he left us:) here are some pictures of the events! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/440073/ Thu, 6 Dec 2007 16:26:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/440073/ I have mixed feelings about this.  Kevin says he is ready and doesnt mind me finishing my pack of pills i am on and then not taking anymore, or taking another month if i want to... that is just it i am not sure.  At first i was ready, but now I dont know if i want to wait till after the 1st week of Jan.  If i stop after this pack of pills i am on we will be over those pills next Sunday... Although it could take us a couple months (i have not had a cycle since conception of Karis in Sept. 05) or i could get pregnant right away so i have to know that i am ok becoming pregnant right away if it were to happen... I dont know i guess i will decide by the end of next week:)   http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/436216/ Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:35:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/436216/ The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List By Deborah Markus, from Secular Homeschooling Magazine, Issue #1, Fall 2007 1 Please stop asking us if it's legal. If it is — and it is — it's insulting to imply that we're criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it? 2 Learn what the words "socialize" and "socialization" mean, and use the one you really mean instead of mixing them up the way you do now. Socializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you're talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet, and you can safely assume that we've got a decent grasp of both concepts. 3 Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize. 4 Don't assume that every homeschooler you meet is homeschooling for the same reasons and in the same way as that one homeschooler you know. 5 If that homeschooler you know is actually someone you saw on TV, either on the news or on a "reality" show, the above goes double. 6 Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you know, know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by homeschooling. You're probably the same little bluebird of happiness whose hobby is running up to pregnant women and inducing premature labor by telling them every ghastly birth story you've ever heard. We all hate you, so please go away. 7 We don't look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear they're in public school. Please stop drilling our children like potential oil fields to see if we're doing what you consider an adequate job of homeschooling. 8 Stop assuming all homeschoolers are religious. 9 Stop assuming that if we're religious, we must be homeschooling for religious reasons. 10 We didn't go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing of options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling just to annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision, tailored to the specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of our being homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your own educational decisions. 11 Please stop questioning my competency and demanding to see my credentials. I didn't have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don't need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can't teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there's a reason I'm so reluctant to send my child to school. 12 If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please understand that you're calling me an idiot. Don't act shocked if I decide to respond in kind. 13 Stop assuming that because the word "home" is right there in "homeschool," we never leave the house. We're the ones who go to the amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in the off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and holidays when it's crowded and icky. 14 Stop assuming that because the word "school" is right there in homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every day, just like your kid does. Even if we're into the "school" side of education — and many of us prefer a more organic approach — we can burn through a lot of material a lot more efficiently, because we don't have to gear our lessons to the lowest common denominator. 15 Stop asking, "But what about the Prom?" Even if the idea that my kid might not be able to indulge in a night of over-hyped, over-priced revelry was enough to break my heart, plenty of kids who do go to school don't get to go to the Prom. For all you know, I'm one of them. I might still be bitter about it. So go be shallow somewhere else. 16 Don't ask my kid if she wouldn't rather go to school unless you don't mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn't rather stay home and get some sleep now and then. 17 Stop saying, "Oh, I could never homeschool!" Even if you think it's some kind of compliment, it sounds more like you're horrified. One of these days, I won't bother disagreeing with you any more. 18 If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class, you're allowed to ask how we'll teach these subjects to our kids. If you can't, thank you for the reassurance that we couldn't possibly do a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a better one. 19 Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child's teacher as well as her parent. I don't see much difference between bossing my kid around academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else. 20 Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood. 21 Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she's homeschooled. 22 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I homeschool my kids. 23 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I homeschool my kids. 24 Stop talking about all the great childhood memories my kids won't get because they don't go to school, unless you want me to start asking about all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because you went to school. 25 Here's a thought: If you can't say something nice about homeschooling, shut up! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/436213/ Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:34:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Smilesaroundhere/436213/