Some random, recent pictures...

The kids in their "vests of many colors" (after reading SOTW)

Elf cooking dinner for the family

Fairy helping with the side dishes

Good day today too. We did homeschooling early (for us), starting with calendar work, moving on through math, then some phonics work (from Elf's old Houghton Mifflin book we never completed last year for a change of pace). We finished up with a really fun book, called 1001 Things to Spot Long Ago from Usborne. Kind of like an I Spy crossed with Where's Waldo. Not a lot of stuff, but we covered the basic. After that, and some time I spent figuring out if we're "on track" with my plans for the year (which we mostly are), we headed off to the park. When we got there, most of the kids were off on an adventure, but mine settled right in anyway, having me push them on the swings. Eventually everyone else came back, and there were a lot of kids today! They played running-and-chasing games, climbing games, burying-cars-in-the-sand games... I think the idea of the "game" changed every 15 minutes! All the while my Fairy sat happily in the sand, digging with her buddy Cassia (I understand they are twins now). I met a mom whose daughter goes to the same charter school as Elf, which was cool, and we really got along well. She even gave Elf some car-related toys she was planning on donating. Anyhow, it turned out to be one of the best park days I've been to in a while. I do wish we had gotten there in time for the adventure, and that it hadn't gotten quite so cold, but it was still great fun.

Now I'm off to enjoy my first whole work-free weekend in months!

Our mummified apple slices...

Here's a picture of the apples about a week and a half ago... the one on the left is the "control" apple, which was, at this point, slimy but still fairly hard, and the one on the right is the musch lighter, and dried out "mummy" apple. Since then, the control apple slice completely rotted inside its ziploc bag, so we declared that we are fnished with the project and threw the control apples away!

Back in the saddle...

so to speak. We've actually sat down and done lessons this week! Tuesday, in math, Elf did a couple of pages of review, some of which included adding up the value of x # of dimes and x # of pennies. Warning - brag here! He's doing it all in his head, and getting every one right! He read aloud another book, drew some silly pictures for geography (how people alter the landscape), and colored a page on Ancient Sumeria while I read chapter 6 from SOTW out loud. Then he and Fairy made "vests of many colors" out of grocery bags. We also finally stopped our apple mummification project. The mummy apples are like very salty dried apples now, and the "control" apples molded completely inside their ziploc bags. Eeeeeeeewwwwwww. We finished up with a spelling test I meant to get to last week. Elf got one word sort of wrong because he made the "p" in "stop" backwards, so afterwards I had him go back and rewrite it. During all this, Fairy also colored, worked on a couple of pages from ETC, did a shape-matching work sheet, and played with math manipulatives.

Yesterday, we had a meeting with Elf's IST, so we spent the morning prepping, which mainly meant printing pictures of Elf at work (ex: picture of him working on his clay tablet) and having him copy over a sentence about each thing that I wrote in highlighter. After the meeting, he had Spanish, and then we had art class. This week's subject was the Snowy Egret, which we painted using feathers to get a nice wispy look.

I've been studying hard myself. Algebra is getting increasingly difficult, naturally. Plus I missed two essays from Political Science when I was having some computer trouble, so I've been working on making those up. Then the Child Development project, etc. I did register for spring classes this week - more algebra, World History (to 1500), and biology.

Well, off to work on another essay!

My essay on Homeschooling & Socialization...

I would just put a link, but the web site has my name on it, so I'm just cutting and pasting...


I have noticed, since posting about our site, a fair amount of interest in the socialization process for kids that attend school at home, so as a parent that does school my two at home, I thought I might address some of these issues. Please keep in mind as you read this, that this article is intended only to show some of the socialization opportunities available - I am not saying that homeschooling is a better option than public schooling, as each family needs to make their own choices for their own children.

First of all, yes, there are a lot of socialization opportunities out there for homeschooled children. I belong to a local homeschool group that has park days, field trips, and more. With them we have toured pumpkin patches, a sticker factory, an ecology center, and more, just as public school children go on field trips. Children on these ventures range from tots to near-adults, giving all the children a wide range of people with which to socialize. 4-H is another option, with a homeschool group of its own. Many regions of the U.S. have numerous groups to which a family can belong, all with unique offerings. There are also charter school programs tailored to meet the needs of the homeschooled child, offering academic assistance and a variety of elective classes, so that even a devoted at-home-scholar can enjoy a classroom environment once or twice a week, or even more if desired. In addition, there are sports teams and classes, dance classes, art classes, Scouts, music lessons, and much more. According to Time Magazine (Seceding from School, August 2001), “98% of homeschooled children are involved in activities outside their homes, with persons other than family members”. For many homeschooling families, the issue is too many outside activities!

Then there are the more mundane aspects of socialization, those that come about through daily life. Grocery shopping, going to the library, running other errands, all provide social opportunities, chances for children to meet with and mingle with people of all ages, in real-world settings. Older children, in their teens, often seek out part-time employment (just as public school teens do), or internships, that provide them with more socialization, while instilling the sense of responsibility we all hope to see our children develop.

Of course, part of the role of being a parent who homeschools is to seek out and fully utilize these opportunities, just as much as it is that parent’s responsibility to act as teacher for their children. A parent interested in homeschooling is often a parent willing to do all types of research to find the best teaching tools and experiences for their child(ren).

And yes, there are always homeschooled kids that are not well socialized, but then there are kids like that in public schools too. My brother, for example, went through second grade, in a public school, without saying a word to anyone. No socialization "system", at home or at a school, is perfect.

I would like to finish by saying that, in my personal experience, I have noticed a striking difference in homeschooled kids versus their public school counterparts, and that is the willingness of older kids to play games with younger ones. Often in schools, children are very much age-segregated, and the older child that plays with a younger one can become a target for ridicule. I have not yet witnessed this at a park day, 4-H, or any other homeschool gathering. To me, that says a lot about homeschooled socialization.

So many questions...

For my Child Development class (which is online), I had to work with a group of people to create a web site about schools and socialization. Afte developing, and posting, the site, we started getting questions about homeschooling and socialization, so I wrote an essay on that and added it to the site. Now I am getting flooded with questions, ranging from "how do I homeschool when I have kids?" to "Do you feel you are depriving your kids of a normal adolescence?" In a nutshell, yes I am depriving my kids. They don't deal with bullying (except from each other), they don't have to stand in line, be taught for the purpose of testing, wait for bathroom breaks, get excluded from cliques, have to be inside all day at a desk.... so yes, I am depriving them of that. Socially, I would have to say they are not deprived. As I type this, Elf is at "school" (his "homeschool school", as he calls it), having classroom time with probably 15-18 other kids near his age.

Anyhow, the responses have been interesting! I am doing my best to answer the questions fairly, and calmly (no, I didn't say to the deprivation question what I wrote here - that's just what I wanted to say. I was much more polite in my actual answer!). I think the teacher assigned me to this group, and this particular topic, on purpose, because if she read my class intro, etc., she knows I homeschool!

Speaking of which, no, we didn't do much last week! The kids did do Thanksgiving activity books, and we did talk alot about Thanksgiving, plus they helped clean the house, Elf made the mashed potatoes, and Fairy helped M make gravy, but that's it. We did have a lovely Thanksgiving though! Everyone that was supposed to came, we ate tons of yummy food, kicked back in front of the living room fire, chatted, until eventually everyone drifted off to their respective homes, and then E trounced me in a game of chess, as always (there has got to be a way to defeat him!!!).

Today's plan, when Elf and Fairy are home this afternoon (my mom takes them on Monday mornings): a new poem for memory work, some phonics work, an intro to grammar, and then I plan to have Elf read a new book aloud... maybe a math worksheet, but not sure yet. Not a heavy load, but then he had class this morning.

Just wanted to say....

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Just a quick link...

Here's a link to our science/art project from last week. I am very pleased with them!

Woodland Animals

Oh, and on a sidenote, I was in the breakroom yesterday at work, and one of the other women, who has small kids, was asking me about homeschooling (seems she's not satisfied with the education her daughter is recieving). Anyhow, a male co-worker suddenly jumped into the conversation and it turns out that his five children were all homeschooled (the youngest, age 14, is still being homeschooled), and today he has a lawyer-in-training, a freelance writer, an actress, and an intern/doctor in his family. Not a bad turnout!

Science pages for Temperate Woodland Animals

For this semi-project, the kids painted the backgrounds (Fairy did ask for some help a number of times) and the animals/birds, which were then cut out and glued to the appropriate layer of the forest - canopy, brush, earth and subterranean. The animals are: brown bear, deer fox, hedgehog/porcupine, raccoon, squirrel, mouse and worm. Birds include: eagle, thrush, cardinal and hummingbird.

Here is Elf's. He had originally put the worm in the earth, but then decided the bird needed to eat it:

And here is Fairy's, complete with a magic purple deer:

Finally, an update...

Thought there's not much to report! It's been a slow week, and we honestly haven't gotten much done, school-wise. We have gone to a buddy gymnastics day, started cleaning the house for Thanksgiving company, gotten M's arm in a proper cast, and so on, but we really only hit the books on Tuesday. I do have lessons planned for today (phonics/spelling, math and science) to finish off a few things for the week, but that's about it! I found a website with free printable grammar lessons, so we'll start with nouns on Monday.

I have been working on choosing my classes for the spring semester at the community college, as I can register in just over a week. Biology, more advanced algebra, world history, and maybe an online typing/keyboarding class. I am trying to get my typing speed up, as this is one of the major things administrative jobs look for, and I honestly can not stay working for a grocery store forver, or even the next few years while I finish college and credentialing. Anyhow, it looks to be a busy semester, but manageable.

I am also trying to reorganize our homeschooling lessons. I have ordered (well, the charter school ordered) a couple of actual science workbooks for Elf. Each one has 10 units - one book is biology and one is chemistry. I asked around on several message boards about these, because I had heard yes they were secular, no they weren't... eventally I got enough good feedback to try Real Science 4 Kids. We ordered the pre-level ones that are supposed to be good for 1st-2nd grade. I did like the sample pages I viewed online. Anyhow, I need to really be a little more diligent about hitting all our subjects each week. We;ll go for a couple of weeks without touching certain books, and then I feel like we're behind, which we aren't really, but it feels that way. So, I am looking back over my plans, and trying to actually incoporate them into our homeschool days.

In other news, M and I are celebrating our 12th anniversary this weekend (it's technically Monday). Twelve years.... I won't say it has all been an easy ride, but definately worthwhile! We're just going to go out to dinner tonight, by ourselves.

Have a good weekend!

Weekly Report: Nov. 5-9

Language Arts:
Elf got halfway through lesson 6 in ETC, after finishing Lesson 5 on Monday. He read aloud a Level One reader called "We Are Singing" and colored the corrosponding section of his bookworm chart. For copywork (and a quick grammar lesson), he copied the poem "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, and Jack jump over the candlestick", which was also his memorization work for the week. He also wrote about snails in his journal: I fand a snale in our garden (I found a snail in our garden).

Fairy worked on "k" sounds from her Get Ready for the Code. I realized just yesterday that she is more than halfway through this ETC primer already! This means she will likely get through all 3 primers by the end of our school year and be able to start on ETC 1 next fall (yes, I plan ahead). She also worked in her HWOT book, while repetitively singing the alphabet song. She learned the same poem as Elf this week.

For bedtime read-alouds, we're reading the first Harry Potter book. We also read a couple of Amelia Bedelia books, a Frog and Toad book, and several of the Curious George stories.

Math:

We kept up with our Saxon Meeting books. Fairy's color pattern this month is brown-red-red. Elf is keeping his weather chart up-to-date as well.

Elf did 3 drill pages this week - two were adding single digit numbers, and the other was filling in ___ + a given number = 10. He also did 4 regular worksheets, with word problems, simple fractions, telling time, money, number patterns, and addition/subtraction. He used his manipulatives a fair amount for this, especially the (plastic) coins, 10-sticks and 1 cubes.

Fairy worked on 2 worksheets for counting and two for matching a number to a group of objects this week. I need to print out some more worksheets for her from LearningPage or Enchanted Learning, as soon as I get some more ink! She worked with linking cubes and pattern blocks too.

History:

We read Chapter 5 in SOTW - "The First Sumerian Dictator" - and I had Elf do a narration: Sargon wanted to be the ruler of all of the land of Mesopotamia. He fought all the cities. He sent soldiers into all the cities and they made sure the people obeyed without asking questions. Sargon ruled for a long time.

Fairy enjoyed the story too, and wanted to know if she could be a cup-bearer to a king someday.

We also worked on our apple mummification project (see Science below).

Geography:

Elf worked in his MGG (Maps, Globes, Graphs) book on a section about how people affect the land around them. He narrated labels for pictures, and then drew pictures of people building houses, building roads, and gardening.

Fairy colored, at her request, a simple outline map of the continents.

Science:

We are wrapping up our apple mummification project, and I'll post pics of the results next week. The mummified apples are quite light in weight, soft, and dry, whereas the "control" apples are nasty brown slimy things.

I had decided to drop the Animal Encyclopedia studies we were doing, but then the kids saw me shelving the book and asked me to read another section. So we read about animals of the woodlands. I am going to copy a project Elf did last year at his charter school: I will give each kid a forest picture to color, with the canopy level, brush level, earth level, and sub-earth level, and then some cut-outs of animals to color and place in the appropriate areas.

Memorization:

As mentioned before, the kids worked on the "Jack be nimble" poem this week. We also go through the days of the week each morning.

Art:

On Wednesday, Elf has an art class at his charter school. As I am now the classroom assistant for this hour-long class, Fairy gets to go too. This week we made leaf prints with leaves and tempura paint.

At home, we did Advanced Scribble art. I did one as a sample and then had the kids do them. The hardest part was getting them to understand that they did not want to make them really complex.

Gee, last night was fun...

Ha ha. Actually, it pretty well sucked. I got home from class (algebra), dinner was ready to be served... so far so good. The kids were even already in pajamas! But then, Elf decided to go outside to see his glow-in-the-dark skeleton pajamas glow, and M followed him to get him back in at the dinner table. M, walking across the dark yard, slipped in a pile of leaves he had raked up a couple of hours earlier, fell, and broke his left wrist. Instead of having dinner with my family, I left the kids at home with E, and spent 3 and a half hours in the ER with M, waiting, listening to a drunk 17 year old kid get a Tazer dart pulled out of his shoulder, waiting, waiting... you get the picture. I am just glad E lives with us and could take care of the children for me. When we lived out of county a while back, M cut his thumb in his shop, and I had to drag the kids to the hospital with us, and amuse them in an ER waiting room for a few hours.

Anyhow, long story short, he fractured (into several pieces) the rounded end of one arm bone (radius) right at the wrist. He's in a splint now, getting a cast next week. Unfortunately, my job is running late on getting my benefit paperwork to me, so we don't have insurance for the adults in this family at this point, and M will be missing some work, but we'll get through it, and I think my insurance will be retroactive to October.

In regular household news, I got Elf and Fairy started on some memorization work today from the Treasury of Children's Poetry, which I picked up on sale for $3 two years ago and have barely opened. I thought we'd start small, with "Jack be nimble, etc.", and I gave it to Elf for his copywork. I'll have to post a picture as he did a lovely job. Then on to math, where Elf filled in the blanks on ____ + a given number = 10, or vice versa: a given number + ____ = 10. He got 25 of 25 right! Of course, a lot of them are repeats (no other way to have 25), but I guess that's the point of a drill page. We also did 3 pages in ETC, then read Chapter 5 in SOTW, after which I had him give me a narration of the chapter. In the meantime, Fairy worked on her HWOT book, her Meeting book, her ETC primer, and had a lot of math manipulatives play. She also listened in on SOTW and had her own points to add to the narration.

I had really hoped to head to a park day tomorrow, but I don't think we'll make it this time. My SUV is leaking oil all over my driveway, and my brother can't look at it until Saturday. I've been driving my mom's car, but it goes in for new tires tomorrow. I also have loads of housework to catch up on, homework to finish (political Science & algebra), and some homeschooling stuff to get the kids through. Maybe I'll do a fun art project with them in the afternoon instead. Oh, and speaking of art, I again had a great time as the teacher's assistant for Elf's art class this week! I got to direct the kids (15 this time, in small groups) in making leaf prints with tempura paint.

Well, I think today helped make up for the last few, school-wise that is! We sat down to do lessons at about 11 and worked through to about 2, with a couple of breaks in there for playtime, running and the ever-popular jumping jacks.

We started with our Saxon meeting books, and then Elf did 2 pages in math - one regular work sheet, with a word problem, fractions, telling time, counting money, and double-digit adding (no carrying or borrowing though), plus a drill sheet on some basic addition. Fairy did a math worksheet where she matched groups of objects to their numbers and traced the numbers, plus she spent some time playing with various manipulatives, and I worked with her on counting.

After that (and break #1), we moved onto ETC and GRfTC. Elf got halfway through Lesson 6, by himself, before getting tired of it, and Fairy did 6 pages in her book, with minimal assistance (basically I read the directions and let her do all the work). Break # 2, and we checked in on our apple slices. The mummified ones are very light and dry now, while the "control" apple slices are getting pretty gross - slimy, dark brown... good thing they're in Ziploc bags! We finished up with a few pages in Maps, Globes, Graphs for Elf, on how people alter their environments, with Fairy looking on. Then we had lunch and watched a documentary on the ancient wonders of Egypt.

So, I call that a very good school day! We also spent 15 minutes, approximately, reading a Curious George story aloud, and Elf read We Are Singing to me. Definately a productive day, and I don't know if it's because we took a few days off, or the breaks, but for once there was no whining! With Elf's progress through ETC today, I know he can read better than he lets on. He read all the silly sentences to himself, chuckling the whole time, and got all the right answers. I guess he just needs to keep building his reading confidence?

Getting back on track...

is not easy. We've skipped altogether too many "school" days in the last week. Ooops. Somehow, time has just been getting away from me. So today, I gave Cyrus a math assessment in his book, and thankfully, we can skip ahead a bit. He did catch up on his ETC, finishing (finally) Lesson 5. Tomorrow we'll get a fresh start! Cassia worked on matching shapes in a mermaid coloring-&-activity book, and worked a little in her Code book. Cyrus did write a great entry in his journal about snails! It was inspired by time spent out front, ripping out the last azalea and putting in pansies. We found a half a dozen snails, which both kids found absolutely fascinating! Science? I think so. Speaking of science, we're abandoning the Animal Encyclopedia for now, and instead are going to just focus on nature studies. I got 2 great blank books for nature journals (plus I have an old blank book for my own nature journal). When the weather turns wet and wintery, we'll move on to human anatomy, etc. I have discovered that the children are much more interested in plants and animals they see first hand than in reading about them, and coloring pictures.

Speaking of seeing things first hand, my mom drove the kids and I to Cyrus's class today (as my car has an oil leak - yaaay), and we were looking for hot air balloons, since there's usually 1 or 2 around on clear mornings. Well, this morning we saw 3, and boy, we got a good view! There was apparently no wind up there, and they came down right next to the highway we drive on. The kids were in absolute awe at how huge they are close up, and just beautiful too - all deep rich colors. We were late to class due to stopping for a few minutes to watch, but it was worth it! It took me back to my childhood, when hot air balloons used to fly over our house on weekends, and one day, one came down in the field across the little street we lived on.

That was our excitment for the day. The rest of it was pretty ordinary. We did the aforementioned homeschooling, gardened a bit, did a little housework, I had algebra... Oh, and on the job front, the good grocery store offered me fewer hours at lower pay, with no benefits, so it's a no go. So, if you hear of a good part-time secretarial job that pays pretty well, let me know! I'm getting really frustrated with being out of the house every evening and never having weekends to do anything with my family. The pay isn't really worth it. Enough already, though, right? Other than work, things are good, so I can't really complain too much!

I've been so bad about blogging....

So I'll try to catch up! Happy Halloween btw, a day late!

As far as school work goes, we've been keeping on track with math, phonics, spelling and our apple mummification, but all the "extras" have kind of gone by the wayside this week. We started a small unit on measurements in math for Elf, and his IST loaned us a bunch of new manipulatives to help with number placement as well. We finished Lesson 5 in ETC and Fairy has just wrapped up her section on "m" sounds. I hope to get a fresh start back up now that Halloween is over, since we took that day off.

Our Halloween was really fun. The kids got up early, had their oatmeal and jumped into costume. Elf was Optimus Prime (a Transformer just in case you don't know) and Fairy was Snow White. My sister bought their costumes early this year, and they were great costumes:

Elf's charter school (or as he called it last week, his "homeschool school") had a Fall Festival in the morning, with scarecrow building, apple peeling & slicing (with those neat spiral slicers where you just turn a handle), corn grinding, fresh hot apple cider, beading, pumpkin carving, and a snack from the garden. I can't say I particularly care for rice flour crust on a pizza, and neither did the kids, but oh well. Despite an extra layer under their costumes, the kids and I were unfortunately freezing all morning, and it made Fairy cranky, and Elf whiny, but we managed to have some fun.

After that, we headed off to pick up dinner stuff, and then home for some hot lunch... bean-cheese-&-tomato tostadas, which are the kids' new favorite lunch. The kids took their costumes off and played in the yard for a while once the sun came out. Then, back into costume and down to visit my dad!

We wound up the day by going out trick-or-treating, both around our block and around several blocks over near my mom's house, while M stayed home to hand out candy. Last year, at the apartment, we had no trick-or-treaters at all, which was a big disappointment, but this year, in our new neighborhood, we had a flood of them.

Oh, and here are our jack o' lanterns, at the kids' request. Elf carved his own, all by himself this year, and Fairy carved a fair bit of hers. I'm pretty happy with how my own turned out too!

Elf's goblin pumpkin

Fairy's princess pumpkin

My oak leaves and acorns pumpkin