• A great strip about socialization, homeschooling, and public schooling
• Why don't we worry about how adults meet peer standards?

• Confessions of a Homeschooling Mom--Facebook humor

My son, Kekoa, really isn't "in" to a lot of things. What he is in to is only bits and pieces of a whole. For instance, he likes to tie flys, but he has never been fly fishing. He'll sit around tying flys like crazy, and then he won't for awhile. Kind of like me and reading books.

Anyway, a couple of years ago we bought him some Snap Circuits. You snap all these pieces together and you can have an alarm, a radio, and all sorts of different things depending on which kits you buy, and the creative genius your child manifests. Kekoa really likes the radio. At first I was worried about what type of music he would be listening to, but he only gets two stations, one spanish and one classic country. I'm talking Mac Davis and Tonya Tucker.

Now, here's the "funny" part. On the country station there is a program where people call in and announce what they have for sale or what they are looking for. It's like the classified section in a newspaper. When I was a girl it was called Tradio on the Radio. I thought it was pretty boring. My girls think it's boring. Kekoa does not. He gets upset if he misses it. Every once in awhile he'll run out of his room to tell us something that is for sale that we might want to buy. I'm not sure why he thinks we'd want to buy some of this stuff, especially as money is very tight right now. I have no need of a Dodge Caravan. My car works, praise the Lord.

So, I'm trying to find a way to make this interest of Kekoa's a bit more educational without killing his interest for it all together. The problem is, I have no ideas. What can you study about the classifieds? That sounds about as boring as listening to that program. HELP!

Wow!  Things around here have been pretty crazy the latest couple of weeks as we prepared for my daughter Eyebright's graduation.   First we had a graduation BBQ that we invited over 90 people to and in which most of them showed up.  The weather had the audacity to storm and pour rain.  Everyone moved inside and finished up their dinner or dessert, watched Eyebright's slideshow, looked at her display table, chatted and then went home.  We had family from out of state here so they stayed with us.  It was fun having them but I was soooo tired I didn't feel like a very good hostess. 

Finally everyone left and we had two graduation ceremonies to attend.  One in the big city where we used to do most of our classes for homeschoolers.  The other here in our "new" town.  The first had 12 graduates and the second had 10.  (That's just the graduates that participated in the ceremony.) 

The whole thing was a pretty neat experience and it was interesting to see the difference between the two ceremonies.  The Big City graduation had cap and gowns, each student had to speak, as well as the parents.  Eyebright prepared a beautiful speech, I felt, and we were told so by many other participants at the ceremony.  The whole affair was very formal and much like a regular public school graduation. Only not so long, unless of course you had a graduating class of only 12.

The second ceremony the graduates chose to wear nice clothes and only caps so they could throw them.  Each graduate also had a slideshow and the parents spoke.  I liked this graduation ceremony much better but I definitely think gowns are the way to go.  It covers up bodies that are a little too revealed.   I'd also recommend taking along ear plugs, some of the music was LOUD and disorganizing to the brain.  I had a severe headache afterward.  My friend was there and she has hearing aids.  She told me she was grateful she could just turn her hearing aids off.  Normally when she does she takes them out so she can hear a little better but she left them in to help soften the blow to her ears.  

The slideshows themselves were WONDERFULL and so neat to see the baby pictures of the graduates and how young  the parents were, and to see them in "action" at their favorite activities and events. 

What I liked about both was how every single male grad cried. (Girls cried too, but the boys surprised me.) They were moved by their parents' speeches and all the grads thanked their parents for the sacrifices that had been made for them.  It was amazing to see that many students stand up in front of an audience of 300 people or so and say, "Thank you."  "I love you."  "I so appreciate what you did for me." 

Of course in the middle of all of this we had a day without internet at all and a power outage in the middle of that.  Right when we needed our computers of course. The next day we finally went over to my in-laws to use their internet just to catch up on e-mail. 

We survived it all!  It's done and unless BlueJane decides to accelerate her courses there won't be another graduation for four more years.  I think we will do the BBQ event again but I don't know if we will do the ceremony.  That's a little bit too much to ask of the people we love. 

Now, maybe life can go back to normal.  Yeah, riiighht.   

 I can't count how many times people have said to me, "I don't have the patience to homeschool."  I'm not sure what makes them think I do.  It's true that I have no problems standing in long lines at the bank, waiting for two hours to finally see the dr. or could care less if that car just cut me off.  When it comes to my children though I'm not that patient.  It irritates me no end that I have to spell everything out.  I get mad.  I yell.  

Yes, homeschooling is hard work but it's also so much fun!  Even in the midst of my yelling I have burst out laughing when my son Cheeko says, "My eyes awr pewfectwy fine!"  

So what keeps me going?  Even though I've said that public school is not an option it doesn't mean that there haven't been days that I wanted to get away from my children.  When things are going wrong I take a look at what is going on and see if I can fix it.  It's not always a quick fix.  Sometimes I have to be really honest with myself.  I will bite off more then I can chew and will fool myself into thinking that I can handle it.  (Makes me sound like a druggie doesn't it?)

More often then not when my children are way out of control the problem lies with me.  I have seen parents choose to put their children back into public school because they don't want to deal with themselves.  If the child goes to school it looks like the problem is solved but it's not.  The problem still lies within them, they've just rearranged their problems so that one or two faults are hidden or disguised.  It's a whole lot easier to spend forever on the computer if noone is standing there wanting to be fed, wanting you to correct their work, or just plain want you to play a game.  

While I've had to get real with myself I've also had to get real about curriculum.  Man, some of that stuff is boring!  I have wanted to keep plugging away because I paid good money for it.  My children are crying, I'm yelling, and that curriculum is still sitting there on the desk.  Again, I have to step back and ask myself, "Just what is going on here?"  "How can I make this better?"  I can't afford a new curriculum but I can afford to change the way I use it.  Curriculums are just guides, not prison wardens after all. 

One year for math Eyebright was really struggling.  One day by accident I started using a Fisher Price Little People king to "teach" her.  His kingdom was falling and he needed her help.  I would talk in a silly, deep voice and waggle the king this way and that.  He didn't have arms so he couldn't write the math problems himself and would "order" her to do it.  Eyebright loved it!  She wanted to help the king solve his problems and save his kingdom. 

Another year, another curriculum.  Same old song and dance.  That  year I had read a book that showed me how to use index cards to make games.  We turned Eyebright's math problems into games she could play over and over.  We were using the curriculum we had, just doing it differently.  Neither of these ideas took a ton of money.  I just needed to figure out how to use what I had.  As long as you are willing to search for a solution instead of the escape hatch you can find a cure to the problem. 

The only reason your situation would require a true escape is if you won't take care of a growing problem sooner.  A pilot doesn't just let a gas leak keep on leaking on his plane.  He finds out why it has a leak and fixes it.  He's only going to need that escape hatch if he was too stubborn or lazy to take the time to fix things while the plane was still on the ground.  While a plane can get a sudden leak, unlike a plane your child doesn't just up and become a problem that is about to blow.  The problem was there you just refused to face it.

So that's my second tip.  Get real with yourself and the situation.  Don't expect a quick fix. 

They will ask to play outside.  Then they will come back in and ask if they can set up a tent.

Once in the tent, they will come back in and ask if they can make hot chocolate to drink in the tent.

After the hot chocolate they will decide they need a snack of buttered toast and candy.

Then they will come back in the house, get their blankets and drag them out to the tent.

They'll come back for their pillows.

Then it will be decided it would be nice to play a game or two but not knowing which game the children will take several back to the tent with them.

Then someone will come retrieve the cat who is for the most part an indoor creature who ventures out on rare occasions to sniff the air and taste the grass. 

Half an hour later a wet, traumatized cat will be dumped back into the house.

Finally, after dark, the children will come into the house for good, laughing, and lugging all of their things back in, and hoping that tomorrow will be another rainy day.

Yes, my children did all of this and I let them. 

I used to be a die hard Spelling Power fan but since the start of the school year we have been trying AVKO.  What I really like about it is that all my children are using the same list of words instead of everyone having their own and doing tests for three different students each day.  Now to understand this next part you need to know that AVKO repeats words and adds suffixes and prefixes to root words as you go along.

Anyway, today we were doing the word, "beginning."  Tiki claimed he didn't know how to spell the word and Neeto said, "We've been spelling this word since the beginning of starting this spelling program!"  Neeto paused a moment and then said, "No pun intended."  

Blue, in regular out of the blue fashion said, "None taken." 

That girl cracks me up! 

© Copyright 2005, 2006, 2007 High Desert Hi-Jinks, and Sagerat Scribbles.

This week i have to say is hosting 

Today's question is, What led to your decision to homeschool?

Our experience with pre-school is what led us to our decision to homeschool.  That and we were living in Hawaii at the time and my husband had attended Hawaiian schools.  He knew how bad they were. 

Pre-school wasn't terrible, just frustrating.  I could not invision myself dealing with all the stupidity for years to come.  The teacher practically had my daughter married off to another little boy in her class, many of the other mothers were more worried about how popular their little darlings were, and we couldn't figure out exactly what it was we were paying for.  Not to mention our daughter's bad attitude when she came home from school!  I couldn't take it anymore and pulled her out. 

I do have to say that I made a wonderful friend out of the deal and she had the cutest little girls with big brown eyes!  We still keep in touch albeit infrequently. 

We gave homeschooling one year to see how it would go.  That one year has turned into 12 years and I wouldn't have it any other way.  Homeschooling has brought our family closer together, I love being able to be right there for all of my children's questions and being able to discuss everything.  Homeschooling isn't just three hours of our day, it's all day, every day.  Everything we do is a learning opportunity. 

It has also helped us to keep Christ at the center of our lives instead of a school schedule and curriculum.  I have been able to give my children room to grow instead of having labels thrown at them.  They are individuals who can make up their own minds without being swayed, unlike other children who's unbridled emotions are falsly called, "expressing themselves." 

It's one decision I don't regret.

© Copyright 2005, 2006, 2007 High Desert Hi-Jinks, and Sagerat Scribbles.

Hello and welcome to my homeschool!  You may be here because of Tiany's tour of Homeschool Open Houses or  you may have just stumbled across this blog.  Either way I'm glad you're here. 

I have four wonderful blessings, Neeto, Blue, Tiki, and Cheeko.  We have been academically homeschooling for 12 years now.  We LOVE it! 

A typical homeschool day for us starts out at around 8 a.m.  We get up, get dressed, do chores, eat, and then school starts.  Each year has looked a little different but this is what I am hoping will happen for this year.  We will meet together for prayer and Bible study, then everyone heads their separate ways for school. 

We have tried to do unit studies where everyone is learning the same thing at the same time but my children became frustrated rather quickly when one child was ready to get on in history and leave Egypt in the dust while another desparately wanted to know every detail about mummification and so on.  I didn't see any reason why everyone had to stay on the same page, so everyone studies at their own pace taking more time in the areas they like best and less time in the areas they wish they didn't have to study at all. 

I have trained my two oldest children to study independently, I'm still working on child number three and child number four will probably need some special guidance for quite awhile to come.  He is developmentally delayed.  

You will find Neeto and Blue studying at their desks, which they love, or on their beds, which they love more.  Tiki studies where I can see that he is actually doing something so that might be the kitchen counter, the table or a chair in the living room.  Cheeko studies with me on the couch where we can snuggle up and share chocolate chips when he pronounces the "k" sound correctly. 

In between teaching Cheeko or helping Tiki and all through out the day, I will be checking my e-mail and doing work stuff on my computer which, if you don't know is being the Senior Editor here at HSB and many other exciting tasks that the TOS staff dreams up for me. 

School is almost always done before lunch.  If not then anything not finished must be finished.  We use a whole bunch of different things for curriculum. 

Over a week ago Tiki finished his history book, Story of the World Vol. 1.  At the end of the book it suggests having a Roman Feast.  Tiki took to this idea rapidly, perhaps because it meant a lot of food. 

He sat down and came up with a menu plan and I helped him choose the meat dish.  First we looked online for an ancient Roman recipe.  What we found didn't look to appealing, mainly because they cooked with wine and I don't own any, it required pine nuts of which I'm not fond, or it required some type of fish I'm not going to find at the local grocery store.  Finally I found a Roman cookbook at the library and chose a recipe that would have been plausible for the ancient Romans to make. 

Tiki made a three bean salad, (it was supposed to be four but I despise garbanzo beans even more than pine nuts,) and while he was busy tossing the beans in their vinegar and oil Cheeko commented that he looked like he was on Iron Chef America.  After laughing we corrected him and said it was Iron Chef Rome.  Tiki also made a no-bake cheesecake.  (Not the box kind, a home made one.) 

Blue made the meat dish.  It was chicken marinated in lemon juice, garlic, and rosemary, with strips of bacon on top.  After marinating, Blue bbq'ed them.  She's become quite the little bbq'er!  The chicken was divine and it was unanimously decided to keep the recipe. 

Tiki invited his grandparents to the feast.  He greeted them at the door wearing a toga.  Neeto wore a t-shirt she had made that said,:

I fought at the battle of Actium 
XXXI
Roman Veteran

She also played The Emperor's Theme on the her keyboard and read a paper she wrote about Cleopatra. 

We pulled out our couch, which is a futon, so that the children could eat reclining.  The adults sat at the table and ate while sitting upright due to a fear of getting heartburn.  Grapes, grape juice and Italian bread topped off our meal.  We stuffed ourselves. 

All in all it was a pretty nice evening. 

The following are just some websites and resources we enjoyed as we studied about the fox.  This is by no means a definitive list on what to read or which websites to go to.  I'm not a fox expert, and I don't play one on T.V.  Cheeko is the one "studying" foxes, so these are geared to a pre-school/Kindergarten level, but I think they would be suitable for first and second graders. 

Video

YouTube - This video of a wild fox playing on a trampoline was cute! 

Every now and then a homeschool mom comes face to face with a hole in her child's education.  Usually this takes place in the midst of an activity, like facing death during a wagon ride. 

Another one of these moments came upon me the other day while Tiki was in the kitchen making cookies.  He asked me if I could come check his batter to make sure it was the right consistency. 

Upon examination I realized it was missing some flour.  I asked Tiki how much he put in.  He showed me the recipe which called for 2 1/4 cups of flour.  I asked him to show me the measuring cup he had used.  He whipped out the 1/4 cup and waved it in front my face.  Further questioning revealed that he had thought the recipe meant he was to put in two 1/4 cups of flour. 

I was now a bit worried about how these cookies would taste, even with the proper amount of flour!  After helping Tiki figure out how much more flour he needed to add to the cookie dough, I gave it a taste.  A little salty, but not bad. 

When a parent narrows down these gaps, fractions are usually the culprit.  Blue made a pitcher of iced tea once.  We all sat down to dinner and she poured the tea.  I took a sip and I nearly went into shock.  One half of my face squinched up so tight I thought I might have to dig my mouth out of my eye socket.  It was SWEET! 

Again the question, "How much sugar did you put in this?" 

"You said to put 3 to 4 cups!" 

I began laughing, and by now everyone was sipping away at their tea, and then gasping for breath as their throats threatened to glue shut from the stickiness of the sugar.  "No!" I managed to sputter out between breaths.  "I said, 3/4 of a cup!"  

At least life is never dull.   

A new, fantastic blogger , (by the way,) asked me in my last post when we started "offical" science.  As usual my return comment wound up an epistle so I figured I'd take advantage of it and just make it a blog entry.

We started "official" science in Kindergarten.  How one defines official though is something else!  Taking nature walks, reading books from the library about animals, plants and body parts, making corn starch goo, cooking and all those little things are "official" science.  Science is the observation of the natural world, making deductions from what is observed and forming a hypothesis.

If however you are wondering about using an actual curriculum and following a schedule using that curriculum, then I started that "officially" at 4th grade.  We did use curriculums before that, but I chose what we wanted to do, we skipped around a lot and it was more delight directed.

My son absolutely loved Apologia Astronomy!  He loved the stories we read recommended by the LBC Guide.  We went from beginning to end, and beyond!  We kept the astronomy lessons going for another two months, using other good astronomy books.

I don't test my children in the normal sense of the word.  Through their writing, narrations and discussions I know what they have learned.  However starting in the 7th grade, Apologia uses tests at the end of each module.  I have my girls take those tests, not to formulate a grade but so they can begin to get used to testing for college and so they understand that an area can be neglected because they put their focus on another area.

My girls may never go to college, we won't push them to do so, but we are tested in our lives from time to time.  Can we give a concise answer to the question?  Do we even understand the topic?  Sharing our faith is much like a test, when we are questioned by a non-believer.

I stunk at tests in school, they make me emotional, mainly because I always studied the wrong thing.  If only they would have just asked for a narration of what I knew and gave me credit for that!  Sharing my faith is basically the same for me now.  Which tells you and me that I'm not studying ALL of my Bible.  I'm always asked the question I don't have the answer for.  Still, when asked to simply share what I know, I am able to do so intelligently.  (I think...)

Just like homeschooing though, the great thing about sharing our faith is that we can say we don't know and then look up the answer.  The truth doesn't change because we offer it later.  Science is like that, even if some theories are proven wrong, it only means that the truth came out. 

Recently a friend asked me what science we used.  I eagerly whipped out Apologia and told her, "I have used this and left it, but I always come back."  Usually it is the lure of some other great way to do science that has caused me to abandon what I know to be an excellent curriculum. 

However, textbooks aren't everyone's cup of tea.  They can be boring after all.  The lures that have drawn me away are those that offer lapbooking, literature based, or the other assorted varieties that offer a different hands on approach.  

Lapbooking isn't going to make a lot of sense to a person who has never seen it done.  That was the experience I had when I purchased a science curriculum that was all about lapbooking.  Reading about it in the catalog sounded great!  In person though, I thought the whole thing was hokey and so did my children.  Never having actually heard of lapbooking, let alone seen a completed one I didn't understand how my children were actually getting anything out of it.  They felt like they were just cutting and pasting someone else's data.

Just the literature approach didn't give my children a hands on experience.  I had to find the right science experiments to go with the books we were reading.  I wasn't about to let my children play with uranium or create their own while studying Madame Curie.  What else did this woman study anyway?  Most biographies only talk about her one great discovery.

I've learned though that I can have all of that with Apologia!  Just look at the following (minus the uranium):

You can buy the lesson plans or get them for free depending on what is available.  The LBC Guide to Astronomy is my favorite lesson plan because it tells you great books to read to go with it.  Unfortunately, it is the only guide they have to go with any of the Apologia textbooks.  I'm hoping that they will have such a great success with the Astronomy guide they will work on the others.

Lynn Ericson sells her lesson plans for Apologia textbooks through Rainbow Resource and a variety of other sources.  These are basic and just take you through the textbook with no extras.

If you want a kit that goes with each book, (all the items you'll need for each experiment) you can find those at Creation Sensation.

Donna Young has lesson plans for only a few of the books (Upper grades) but they are FREE.  She also offers a few worksheets to go with them.

Jeannie Fulbright, the author of the elementary books, has free notebooking pages and scheduling resources.

The lapbooks to go with, Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day, can be found at The Schoohouse Store.  I think a few other places are selling them as well.  Shipping is FREE from the Schoohouse Store though, no matter how small your order.  If you click on the Schoohouse Store icon in the sidebar of my blog and buy anything, then I get a percentage of the sale.  Nice huh?

I understand that the lapbooks for the other books are being created.  I sure hope so!

If you get the LBC Guide you can get an idea of how to break up the other elementary Apologia science texts and then go to this website for Living Science Books.  It has a great list of titles that go with all kinds of science studies.  You might find other/different books as well at Readable Science.

All of the above should fill anyone's homeschooling type be it classical, Charlotte Mason, and even just plain textbook style. 



 

I've been sick for several days now.  I'll keep the horrid details to myself, but believe it or not, in all of that I have been very blessed.

The children went ahead and did school without me.  Blue even helped Cheeko with his schoolwork.  He thought this a happy plan, certain Blue would give him more choclate chips than I normally do for his speech reward.  I think she did but not because she had been duped, but because she's just nice that way.  You can't help feel sorry for a little boy whose mommy is neglecting him because she is sick abed.

Neeto did the cooking.  The smell of food eventually driving me out of the room meant that someone was going to have to do it and about all I could tolerate was the smell of cold cereal.  This is highly unusual for me, I've never been so sick I couldn't eat, let alone stand the smell of it!

In it all I was ever so glad that I had taught my children to work independently, as well as how to cook or this could have been a very expensive week in the eating out department.  My family isn't big on the cold cereal I am willing to buy or peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches. 

I was also glad in my heart at the willingness.  When I was Neeto's age I would not have made dinner for the entire family for one night let alone several days in a row.  Not just because I was selfish, but I didn't know how.

Preparing my children for their futures includes preparing their hearts.  What future will they have if they aren't willing to serve others with the tools they are equipped with? 

While I was down and out, my family wasn't.  It kept right on functioning.  I can often be caught up in the areas that my children still need so much work in that I don't ever notice what they are perfectly capable of.  I think they'll turn out to be a nice little group of people after all. 

I have friends and family who are a bit concerned about my blogging.  They worry I might fall into some other bloggers trap and become ensnared by sin.  The reason for this is that I can't really know who is writing all those blogs I read. 

The truth is I really can't know and yes bloggers can be dangerous, but I can read what the bloggers are saying over a period of time and get a good idea of where they are coming from. 

Oh the danger of a so called woman describing her day at home with her supposedly wonderful childen!  I am compelled to leave a comment thereby communicating with a stranger and opening the door to vagrant Christians. 

For all you know I'm not really who I portray myself to be in my writing.  I'm not really a homeschool mom, I just play one on this blog. 

Several weeks ago my daughter Blue came up to me and asked if we could start a writing project.  I was a little surprised.  The girl has written a book or two on her own and publishes a monthly horse newsletter, and yet here she was asking me to direct her to write on a given topic. Actually this isn't a bad suggestion, sometimes all a writer needs is an idea, which is usually where my own writers block takes a tumble. 

The object is simply for me to give one word, and each child is to go and write something about it.  It doesn't matter how long or how short, it doesn't matter in what form.  Just as long as you write about the given word. 

The first Monday arrived for the scheduled writing and Blue came up to me and asked what the topic would be.  I had forgotten all about it, so sat there a moment thinking, when I decided that the topic would be about thinking.  Off the children raced to get started.  They had all week to complete the composition, but within several hours they were handing them in. 

Blue chose to write a short story about a very weary homeschool mother who went to lay down.  Her son comes in and asks her if she is napping, but the mother replied, "No, she was just thinking."  I have no idea what put such a concept into her head.  Really, I don't. 

Tiki decided to just find out what the defintion of thinking was and then write a few sentences with the word thinking in it.  I decided to let it pass as he did use dictionary skills.

Neeto wrote a poem entitled A Thoughtful Journey, that in my eyes was quite superb.  I truly have no idea where she gets her poetic talents, and that's the truth. 

This week's topic is on weasels.  I'll keep you posted on how those turn out!