Homeschooling with Dad - Homeschool Blogger

A Productive Week

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 20:09:00 -0600

I love it when a plan comes together.

I also love that quote from huge 80's hit 'The A-Team'.

But, I do love it when a plan comes together. It's great when everything you planned on doing for the week is accomplished and you're at the point where you envisioned you would be.

That happened this week.

We started out Monday with a regular work load but began tapering off during the week to get ready for Christmas and a week off of formal studies.

Here's how it brokedown...

Kaitlynn is beginning to read and I didn't want to let off. I put off a lot of math work and we worked together with her phonics lessons, edhelper.com worksheets, and the book we're using that I found at Old Fashioned Education, Word Master. When we started this reading thing during the summer, she really didn't want to do it. It was a struggle just to get her to sound out any letters of the alphabet. But, now it's a different story. I can't keep her from wanting to read something.

We also worked on handwriting this week. I'm not using any type of handwriting curriculum right now. We're sticking with copywork. I will write down a quote from a book and she copies it a few times. I then go over it and show her any mistakes and how to form the letters correctly. This is working great.

This wasn't planned, but she wanted to do it anyway... this week she began learning how to type on the computer. I am working with Matthew right now and using a great website, BBC Schools Dance Mat Typing, and Kaitlynn thought it was pretty cool. She wanted to learn. So, this week she went on the site and worked with her home row keys. They also have a place where you can actually print out the exercises and do them offline. This was great. Kaitlynn, and Matthew, both typed them into a Word document as practice. Then I could time them.

That was Kaitlynn's week pretty much. We did do a little social studies and science, music (she's playing the piano and learing it by herself), and bible studies.

Matthew is the one that I worry about the most. Here's why. He is 7 years old and if following the public school system he should be in 2nd grade. However, everything we do for him is between third and fifth grade. I worry that I push him too hard. But, everything I give him to do, he can do easily.

For example, we started division this week and he picked it up pretty fast. We begin dividing with remainders and multiplying with two digits after vacation.

Also, we went to the library and got the Usborne Internet linked book "World of Plants". If you've never used one of these types of books... they're awesome. They have links to a bunch of different places on the internet with videos, slideshows, worksheets, diagrams, etc. It's great. Anyway, this week he's studying how plants eat and breathe. I mean the inner workings of it all. He wrote out the definition of vocabulary words (using a dictionary), filled in four diagrams showing how roots draw in water from the soil, learned about photsynthesis from a video at this site.

He did some reading in Literature, wrote out vocabulary words, did some latin translations, studied about Elijah and Elisha, and past and present tense verbs. He also studied Alaska and Hawaii. I don't think I left anything out.

Kimberly had a pretty easy week. Her math lesson this week was on using angles and triangles to help with orienteering. It was a great lesson and she picked up pretty fast. I really like this CIMT math program. It's free (that's always great) and pretty thorough. After vacation we start with angles in circles though. I have to really do a refresher on that one. I didn't do well with geomerty in school and it's coming back to haunt me!

Her bible study and history were all pretty straightforward. Reading, discussion questions and essays. She did do an online study of Thomas Becket this past week and did ok with it. In English we are studing how to write a play and in Literature it's a Hunchback of Notre Dame study. She has a test tomorrow and I hope she does pretty good as she is slacking a lot these past couple of weeks. It seems that she doesn't think she has to put as much effort into her work at home as she had to in public school. I hope it's just a phase.

My goal with her is by the end of June we start seriously looking at colleges and preparing for what she wants to do. I have to begin working on her study habits and focus. I am also going to start introducing her to books like "The 7 Habit of Highly Effective People", by Covey. I believe that high school should be approached like a full time career and that it's not too early to begin learning how to succeed.

That was our week. I think. I probably left something out, I'm sure but it all went rather smoothly and as planned. We accomplished a lot and I know that the kids are pretty much on track with where I would like them to be.

A lot to catch up on

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 18:51:00 -0600

Sorry again for the lapse in posts. I couldn't figure out the new update to the homeschoolblogger system. Each time I wanted to post a new entry I couldn't get a text box. Finally, after posting on the support forum, I downloaded new java plugins and an updated version of firefox.

Now it's working again. And that's good because I have a lot to catch up on.

But, for this post I'll just leave it as I didn't go anywhere and now I'm back. (Does that make sense?)

Friday at school

Fri, 8 Dec 2006 21:13:00 -0600

Today was a good day, but I wasn't here for the schooling part. I was actually substituting at the high school.

However, when I got home I did get to spend time with the kids and their lessons. Kaitlynn was doing some addition and phonics work. It took awhile for the whole reading thing to catch on, but now it's coming really fast. We are using an online book that I downloaded and printed out. The book is 'Word Mastery - A Course in Phonics for the First Three Grades' (clicking on this link will open a .pdf file) and I like the way it works Kaitlynn through the words. She is picking it up pretty fast. I also used some sheets from Edhelper.com. This site isn't free but it's cheap enough so that it's worth it.

Matthew did some reading in History. We studied a little about Ancient Persia and Cyrus the Great. He loves this time period and eats up every bit of information I can find for him. This site has a lot of lesson plans for ancient history study.

Kimberly took a history test over Thomas Aquinas and Saint Anselm. We are now using the Beacon Lights of History Series for her history study and it's working out pretty good. It was a little bit of an adjustment as it's more reading and in depth discussion, including a lot of narrative writing and essay type "tests". But, I am seeing a greater like (she used to very strongly dislike history) for this subject.

We are also using a completely free math program for her this year and the other two kids next year. It's from the UK, but besides being in metric, I love the program. It's called the Center for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching, or CIMT, (this link is for the year we are using). She tried to work out the lesson on finding symmetry in three dimensional polygons, but needed to wait until I got home to understand it. Geometry was my worse subject in school and now I remember why. Yuck.

Today was a good day. How was yours?

Ok, ok a little more time has passed and free homeschooling.

Thu, 7 Dec 2006 17:41:00 -0600

Wouldn't you know it. My last post was on Nov. 3rd and the next one is a month later. I thought I had the time, but as with everything else, if you wait for the best "time" you'll never get there.

So, here I am with less time on my hands and blogging. I love blogging. I maintain several of them for my business (and I'm starting one for youth minsistry) and it helps to clear my head.

Anyway, this school year is going fantastic. I have almost weaned us off of textbooks altogether. Right now the only text book we use is a math text for Matthew that I bought at the discount book store here in town. Other than that it's exclusively library and internet resources.

I always knew that there is a ton of stuff on the internet to enable the person with a lot of time to put together a great curriculum. However I now feel that's a great misconception. The time issue isn't really a factor for us.

Especially when there are great sites like AmblesideOnline.org and An Old Fashioned Education. I love these two sites. My kids have literally jumped grade levels, become more self-directed, think through problems much better, and like doing their work.

Then there are mailing lists that abound to show the best places, that I never would have found on my own, to get worksheets, free books, unit studies, online videos, and other things that make learning at home much more productive and fun.

I even feel more energized when preparing the kids weeks out. I actually enjoy getting things together for their lessons, planning them out and having a goal at the end of the study. It really is a lot better than just giving them a workbook or text and telling them to do excercises 1-20, correct them and then put it in a folder somewhere.

What we do know is actually talk about the study, read about it, go more in-depth with internet resources and learn more intensely.

I like this approach much better.

One thing that I think made the biggest impact was a piece of software I downloaded for record keeping. I'm horrible at keeping records and organizing the kids attendance, grades, papers and the like. In one of the email lists I'm on someone sent a link to HomeschoolTracker.com. What an immediate blessing this thing is.

It has two versions. A Basic free version and a paid version. I haven't upgraded to the paid version yet, but am very happy with the free one. I can put in all the lesson plans, attendance, grades, hours put in for each class, books read, and other things and then if I want, it spits out printouts of everything! It even calculates grades and averages them out in a nice neat report card.

If you're struggling with organization maybe HomeschoolTracker will help you. It did for my family.

Until next time....

A long time has passed...

Fri, 3 Nov 2006 08:59:00 -0600

... but it has been a productive time.

I apologize for my immediate halt of postings. Things just got... well..... crazy.

Many things have happened during the summer that I had to make some decisions about priority wise. Unfortunately, my blogging pursuits (both personal and business wise) had to take a back seat for awhile.

But, everything has gotten back to normal (or at least I can manage it a lot better) and I can finally start keyboarding my thoughts, happenings, and hopefully words of wisdom.

God has been stretching me a lot this summer in several new leadership roles, keynote speaking, teaching as a substitute and more coaching. I love it all.

The kids are progressing much better than I would have imagined through the summer and now the new school year. I'll make sure to give a detailed rundown of what is going on with each of them shortly.

Anyway, this is just a quick post to let all of you know (the two or three that actually read this) that I'm back and very excited about what's around the corner.

To school or not to school?

Wed, 7 Jun 2006 07:46:00 -0500

Summer for us has always been just another day.

What I mean is that even when the kids were in public school, summer vacation was no big deal. We did the same things we always did. The kids were just home a lot more.

Which was good because we could spend more time playing outside, going on walks, riding bikes, having cookouts, working on projects together, reading, and visiting family.
Pretty much the same thing we did while school was in.

So, summer isn't that much different and the question of to school or not to school isn't an issue. Of course! We will continue our "school" during the summer. Reading, writing, english, math, history, and science will all be part of our summer school time. It will be different though.

Reading will be classical and history books. Science will be in the form of nature studies, hikes, camping, and experiments. I don't feel it's right to stop math during the summer. When fall comes around again you have to reteach it all again. English will be mostly creative writing. Plus we will all be working on life skills as a group during the summer. Things like cooking, woodworking, yard and house projects, sewing (my wife will be doing pretty much all of that), and a little mechanics.

Yeah, we're going to do school during the summer. We're going to take a week long family vacation plus some little two day excursions, but we'll still be learning.

Science

Sat, 3 Jun 2006 11:27:00 -0500

With everything going on the last couple of weeks I haven't been keeping up with what we're doing for school curriculum.

For those of you just joining our little adventure, we use primarily a Classical approach by loosely following the suggestions in "The Well Trained Mind." I am also really liking the Ambleside Online free curriculum and in the fall will make a more concerted effort to use it as a foundation for the school year.

So with that said, here's what we do for science.

Starting with the oldest, Kimberly, we started by going to the library and hitting the books on energy. We would pick it apart, write out definitions, do some experiments, report on the findings, and write narrations on the reading. It was going pretty good, until I started to get a little worried that we weren't moving fast enough. I also had a bad feeling we were missing "stuff" that she needed to learn.

So, we went to our awesome used book store and looked for a physical science text. Now, we do the same thing but we have a guideline to follow in the textbook. I know now that my worries were just a slight attack of the enemy getting me to second guess what we were doing and will not be falling into that trap again.

Matthew is strictly classical. We started the year by picking a new animal each week and finding books on that animal. He would read it, do a narration, and do some coloring. We the subscribed to zoobooks and he now sits and reads them as soon as they come in.

Now we are in the human body. Again, we go to the library and pick out human anatomy books. He will sit and read them, look at the pictures and can pick out all the major organs and bones. During the summer we will be strictly nature study.

Kaitlynn, while she's just four right now, started with a basic study of animals. She would just following along with the readings with Matthew. She sits and looks at the zoobooks herself and will pick out picture books on animals.

Right now we are also learning about the human body with her, but we are using the A Beka K-5 science book with her.

This summer all the kids will be starting a nature study notebook and will basically follow the Charlotte Mason method. We will be taking walks and they will be spending time drawing and illustrating what they saw. I'm excited about this summer and can't wait to get started.

There it is. Our science class. It's not earth shattering, but it works. I'm comfortable with it now and as we start doing a lot more Ambleside Online stuff our science will be a lot more involved.

I'm still alive.

Thu, 1 Jun 2006 11:39:00 -0500

It was probably the scariest point of my life.

And I can't figure out why. It's not like this surgery was my first. I had a back surgery eight years ago and wasn't anywhere near as scared as I was for this gallbladder operation.

I'm talking white knuckled, stare into space, colorless fear. I looked whiter than the sheet I was laying on. I tried. I fought it. I prayed. Others prayed. Man, I was scared. Until I woke up anyway. Then I wasn't scared anymore. Just a little apprehensive about the pain and recovery process.

But, all is well now. The surgery was Thursday and I have been following, to the letter, the Dr.'s orders.

I am glad that I went through with it, because the pain is gone. But, I have told my wife that under absolutely no circumstance will she bring me to the hospital again.

Anyway, that's all done. I can now move ahead with some big projects I"ve been working on and look at the future.

Summer is going to be full this year. I am planning on continuing with school until the middle of August when we will take a few weeks off and do some vacationing. My family hasn't taken a vacation, of any substance, for quite some time and I'm itching to get away for a few weeks. Where? Don't know yet, but the kids really want to see Niagara Falls and I'd love to see some Civil War battlefields.

Hopefully we can work that in this summer.

Going under the knife

Mon, 22 May 2006 20:38:00 -0500

My worst fears have come true.

Well, other than the New England Patriots winning the SuperBowl.

I have to undergo surgery on Thursday to remove my gallbladder. I'm not too happy about it, but at this point... I guess I'll concede. The pain is rather intense.

People have been telling me to look at it like God is providing a way for me to slow down. I don't think that's true. But.....after Thursday I have to spend at least three days doing nothing.

Anyway, Thursday is D-day.

I probably won't sleep until then.

On another note, Kaitlynn is doing some intense rehearsal for her first ballet recital this Thursday and Friday. I know, I know... the same day I have surgery. I'm hoping that by Friday night I can go to it. I really don't want to miss it. It's not the same watching it on video afterwards.

She has been practicing so hard and is doing so great that it is so essential that I go on Friday. I pray that I will be able to.

School had been put on hold also for a few days. Since we are planning to go most of the summer that's not a big deal. Kimberly says she wants to double up on her work this summer and during the fall to get through two grades this year. I really don't mind it, if she does the work to the best of her ability. It's one thing to do the work to get it done and another thing to actually learn it. So, we'll see how far that goes.

I think I have really decided to use more of the Ambleside Online curriculum. I really like it and the kids have loved what we've done so far.

Well, I'm rambling... nerves I guess. I think I'll try to get some sleep.

Homeschooling to our family

Sat, 20 May 2006 09:41:00 -0500

I've had a long week to think and pray.

Ideally that would sound like the perfect time to spend the day. Unfortunately, it's not because I had nothing else to do. I've been waiting for doctors to figure out what's wrong with me. I feel it's gallbladder. They think it's gallbladder. Everyone else around me, especially those who have gone through this before, know it's gallbladder. But, nothing has been done yet.

Well, except for "medical tests" (we know that's just another term for twenty first century torture techniques) that seem to find nothing. Then you wait for results that never seem to come.

Anyway, back to my original train of thought with this post. I've been doing a lot of thinking and praying.

Why does homeschooling mean to my family?

In a simple one word phrase... change.

A few weeks back I received an email from Homeschool.com with the heading, "Are Your Kids Ready for the World?" I thought it was interesting, until I read the email. Now I know that most of these emails from Homeschool.com are ads for one thing or another. But, I thought this time it might be something useful to my family. And to be fair, it was. But, I've done a lot of thinking about it.

Here's how it began;

"Make a checkmark for readiness factors you want for your kids:"

A big red flag jumped out at me. Why would that carry a red flag for me? Because of the words "you" and "your". That sounds fine at first and in "theory" it's fine. But, is that homeschooling is? About my kids. About our tiny little family. I hope it's about more than "your".

Then it goes on to list some readiness factors for meeting the world.

"I take ownership for my choices and actions.
I have the confidence to make things happen.
I use academic strategies to make schoolwork easier.
I am learning new skills for new challenges in my life.
I know how to learn about myself.
I want to know people from other states and other countries.
I can make friendships easily.
My parents share in my successes.
My parents see me in positive ways.
I have a set of principles to achieve personal excellence.
I know how to set and reach goals.
I am amazed at what I can achieve.
I know how to learn and succeed at anything."

Again, a big red flag popped up at me. And, again, there is nothing wrong with this list. It's just not all that my family wants from homeschooling. Another problem I have with this type of list. Now, please remember that I'm talking generally, and not all inclusive. Just because I say something does not mean it's targeted at you personally.

But, I just don't see the items listed in this "readiness list" happening in some homeschools. What I mean by that is there are a lot of "outward" things in there that a lot of homeschoolers don't want.

I have to ask myself this question.... "Is homeschool suppose to be inward or outward focused?"

For my family it's both. A balanced homeschool should be, shouldn't it? I mean is it enough to make sure our kids are well trained and forget the rest of the world? Here's why I say that. If we just worry about our kids; make sure they get a great education, have a strong biblical worldview, and are lights of this world (can't happen if only inward focused); it can't happen if our kids are the only ones we are concerned about.

We are spending a lot as a family learning about worldview and how it is changing from bad to much worse. And it's only going to get worse. The Bible says so, but we don't have to sit back and let everyone around die with it. I want to be able to teach as many kids as possible a few things.

1. To love Jesus. The way I do it is a lot different than most people are comfortable with. Why? Because I won't do it the way man does it. I follow Jesus. I see Him as the model for life and ministry. Why not follow Him? A lot of times it because it's too hard and people are too concerned with their own lives to bother with other people. Harsh, but true. I want kids, all kids and their families, to know Jesus and love Him.

2. To learn how to live. The biggest thing my family is learning, and adjusting too, is a biblical lifestyle. We never lived that way before and the last few years have been a huge learning experience. But, it's wonderful. So much better than the worldly way of living. With that said, I don't just want my family to live that way. I want everyone else to learn to live that way. It's a travesty to focus on teaching our own kids and neglecting others.

There are authors, actors, sports figures, and even fictional characters that don't have a problem with sacrificing their times, money, and talents to teach kids their views. And they're achieving their goals. At an alarming rate. But, Christian homeschoolers, simply won't put in the extra effort to do the same. Sad.

My family isn't just concerned about us. Jesus wasn't concerned at all for himself. He wanted to teach others. And did whatever he needed to. Even die.

3. To be better educated. I do have a problem with public schools. It's not the peer pressure. I've seen much worse behavior and peer pressure at the local christian school. It's not the socialization. It's not the "mixing of churched and unchurched kids".

It's the education. Kids are simply not learning that much. My own daughter, Kimberly, went to public school and then a private christian school (the one mentioned above) for two years. And she can't write a book report. She doesn't know much about history or geography. But, the last year has seen her jump leaps and bounds.

I want all kids to be that way. I think it should be the goal for every homeschool family to educate other kids as well. I see a lot of homeschool co-op's. And that's great. But I don't see a lot of initiative to start new "schools" with a homeschool philosophy.

Think of a place where kids can come, sit in small classrooms, have personal one on one teaching, learn the classics, and become healthy, mature christian leaders. Awesome isn't it?

How does change it into all this rambling? Because homeschooling needs a change. More and more families are taking their kids out of public school and keeping them home. Great news!

But, they are doing it with only their kids in mind. Bad philosophy.

I pray that my family will be able to help other families and break out of the routine of it's all about us.

What do you think? I know that some people are going to be upset. That's ok. But, I can't sit back and watch the divison between Christians and "those other people" get any bigger. If it does, we grieve the heart of Jesus.

I have adopted a new viewpoint of what I'm doing for Jesus. It's not a ministry, it's a movement. A movement means that things are to change. Not stay the same.
What's your movement?