I Will Not Let February Get to Me: Ending Quietly

We've had a busy month:

• Two snow days
• One son's physical
• Swim lessons for two boys
• Taekwon Do for one
• A movie making co-op
• Bible study every other Friday
• Retreat planning
• Retreat cancelling
• Going to visit a friend
• Having a cousin come visit here
• Tae bo workouts
• Tebow's autograph
• Volunteering for picture day
• Babysitting for a single mom
• TNL each Tuesday
• Free the Girls event
• Meeting with a right-brain tutor
• Doing the left-brained taxes
• A co-op Valentine's party
• Our homegroup on Sunday
• Two parent/teacher conferences
• Coffee with two friends
• Classes for B on Fridays
• A tour of Celestial Seasonings
• Two boys to the dentist
• One unit on water
• And now... sickness.  Which means we missed out on the aquarium and a play.

February didn't get to me this year.  Our regular schedule was interrupted, we found new inspiration, we accomplished a unit of study, I focused on being intentional, we played and I'm not frazzled, worn, discouraged or derailed.

We've been purposefully busy.  So now, it's okay for my two littlest to chill on the couch -- albiet coughing and moaning -- and let February slide on out.  We will greet March with healthy new bodies, a new unit of study, longer hours of daylight and the beginning of Lent.  

We made it.

Whew.

Starting Earlier Than I Planned

Our tradition is to begin school after this little dude's birthday at the end of August:

 He'll be four this year.  I love using his birthday as a marker of a new beginning and I love holding off on school until we've celebrated one more important day.

I was also looking forward to a couple more weeks of summer to finish all the projects I said I'd get to and haven't finished yet.  I was looking forward to a couple weeks of no running around.  I wanted to set up some coffee dates with various ladies in my life.  But, B & S have both said, "We want to start school NOW!"  I know enough to realize that in two weeks, reality will set in and B will tire of school. But I also know that if they are enthused I should go with that momentum.

So, we're beginning on Wednesday. 

Here's the plan:
Fun (Shhh, actually "review") Days:  August 18-20th & August 23rd-25th.










Plus: 

• Games:  I'll bring out Games for Learning: Ten Minutes a Day to Help Your Child Do Well in School-From Kindergarten to Third Grade and Games With Books: Twenty-eight of the Best Children's books and How to Use Them to Help Your Child Learn-From Preschool to Third Grade to add some activity to our days.  There's a lot of ways to use games that we already have so we'll pull them out.

• Notebook Review:  We'll also go through B's notebook from last year and skim it again (because he says he doesn't remember anything.  *sigh*) and I'm thinking we'll pick an activity/game/craft to do in relation to what he learned last year. 

• Phoneme Cards:  I went to a great workshop this summer and learned a basic way of re-enforcing phonemes to my struggling reader while teaching them to my preschooler for the first time.

Hopefully they'll love these first six days and then we'll move into our first unit of study with just as much enthusiasm.  Hopefully.  But, you know...

Social Schedule Week of March 15th

Monday
Taekwon Do for J
Tae Bo for me

Tuesday
Library
Worship at TNL

Wednesday
Tae Bo for me
Co-op on Equipment for the Visually Impaired
Tae Kwon Do for J
Karate for dh

Thursday
wii games at the library

Friday
Options classes
Play practice for J

Saturday
Celebrate dh's birthday.

School is in there Monday - Friday too. This is just all of supplemental stuff we do. Next week is even more packed. If you ever assumed that homeschoolers stay home all day and don't interact with the world, your assumptions are off.

Just sayin'.

Trying a Schedule, Part 2

We are in week 12 of our school year and we were all growing weary of 7-hour learning days. If school work takes until 4:00 in the afternoon then J and I are wasted, B is bored (because his work doesn't take as long) and S turns into a pest because he needs some attention.

I could resort to empty threats ("If you don't finish by such-and-such a time, then we can't go to Tae Kwon Do/swimming/insert other calender event here today.") But I'm not going to ever follow through with them because the calendar events are part of their education too.

So, I tried to lighten the load.

Two weeks ago, because of other forseen interruptions to our schedule (see this post), I took out two subjects. Bye-bye spelling and Topic #2. We don't have time for you right now.

That should do it.

Nope. School was STILL taking until 4:00. Part of it was my fault...I was distracted by my own stuff and tended to give them longer breaks, which means we went longer in the afternoon. Not good. They, in turn, were wiggly and disrespectful... yadda, yadda. I needed to help prod J along because he was dragging miserably. Both boys were goofing off, blaming S for distracting them, stopping their thought process when I left the room to answer the phone and so on and so on.

Then I remembered: A few weeks ago, we had an afternoon field trip planned so I tried a time schedule so we could get there on time and still finish some work at home. It worked really well and I rewarded them accordingly.

Today I tried the time schedule again (see previous post). It worked but J really felt pushed. I don't mind pushing him a little bit. I haven't asked him to do anything that's too difficult for him. If he maintains focus he can get through everything and I built in time at the end so he could finish up what was left undone.

B was done right on schedule (2nd grade is such a piece of cake).
J was encouraged to keep to the schedule and I made note of what he couldn't finish in time so he could wrap it up at the end. We made some negotiations when we did two days of work in one subject. As long as he was focused and moving forward I made concessions and let him succeed. In the end he was only 9 minutes over time. So, I asked him to spend 9 minutes on cleaning his room and we would be square.

B likes the time schedule. I think it keeps me accountable. S liked knowing when his brothers would get a break. J saw that it really IS possible to do everything that's expected of him before 3:00 and we are now headed out to Tae Kwon Do... on time.

Trying a Schedule

We're trying a time schedule today.
9:00 Read Aloud
9:40 Science
10:15 Independent studies
10:40 Math
11:00 Break
11:30 Colorado History
B is done
11:50 J's reading questions
12:30 Lunch
1:30 J's Cause and Effect Article
Then finish what you didn't get done
3:00 Done

We're done with break. I need to go stick to the schedule. I'll be back to give you my thoughts at the end of the day.

A Day of Classes

...can take over your life.

Tho it's not my first reason for homeschooling, I do this thing because I want to be in control of my kids' education. I want to customize it. I want to build up their weaknesses by using their strengths. I want to be able to say, "That's enough" when I can tell they're are mentally checked out. I want to cross out rows of math problems when they "get it" and just do enough to keep them fit.

Under the guise of "enrichment" I enrolled my kids in a one day a week program for homeschoolers. And the homework from just that one day a week took over our life this week. I don't know if my kids felt pressure, but I sure did. All those overachiever, people-pleasing feelings came rushing back to me this week as I tried to not only implement the lessons I had planned for our family but to also incorporate the lessons these other teachers imparted to us.

It drove me nuts.

You can be sure I'm doing some deep thinking about this.

Year's End

We have 8 more days of school. We are finishing up:

• the last four U.S. Presidents
• math books
• Latin review (J)
• letter writing
• A JFK report (J)
• government lapbooks
• a President's Trivia game
  
• grammar review (b)
• skills evaluation (b)
• and our read aloud... set during the fall of the Berlin Wall.

We also have several field trips next week because we're close to the required 172 days, but not quite there yet. So, as we cross things off our list above we'll spend the rest of our time out and about at:

• soccer club
• dragrace time trials (check out Chip's blog soon)
• park day
• Young Eagle's day

All I can say is that I'm so grateful Colorado only requires 172 days.

If you have to do an inter-state move mid-year then make sure you're moving to one with less requirements.

Just a free tip.

Crazy Overachiever Mom

I think it's entirely possible to simply do tooo much of any one thing. Since we're studying China right now I'm scanning the internet for a few ideas based on what the boys said they wanted to learn. (See, I'm following through on what I said I'd do!) So, as I was looking for some ideas on Chinese weapons last night I found a web site with lots of ideas and I groaned. "Oh no! We're not doing Chinese proverbs or music!. " Fear swept over me and I thought about how to add these things into what's left of our four week study. Then the site reminded me of pandas and ping pong. Oh, those are fun too! What am I gonna do?

Nothing.

Seriously, the country is over 3,000 years old so there's a lot to cover. We aren't even touching the whole dynasty thing -- just mentioning their existence and moving along. It seems like an injustice, but when they're only 9 and 6 I think they still have time to recover.

So, today we read briefly about Chinese warriors and weapons, refrained from making our own kite (which were used in warfare in case you were wondering what that connection was), had them write just a scosh about the Terra Cotta warriors and then let them draw their own funny comics about them (which is a big hit with boys). J's was pretty funny actually! Then we learned how to write the Chinese character for "marry into, marry," talked about the difference between western marriages and arranged marriages and painted the characters with black tempura onto red poster board.

From there J read a Chinese legend, worked through his Latin (this child CAN handle two languages at once!), and wrote the third paragraph of his own Chinese legend all while B read aloud to me, worked through some mapwork and pushed through Math (B is tired today). After a break we finished up math, practiced saying the days of the week in Chinese (Friday is a fun day to say), read our Chapter in Eric Liddell and talked about John 13:34-35.

We're skipping Calligraphy today.
Because the paper we made yesterday is still drying.

And it is o.k.

Monday Classes

My older two boys are signed up to take two classes for homeschoolers on Mondays at the local community center. The classes begin at 11:15 so we have from 9 - 11 at home to get some basics done. This morning part of our time was spent learning how to paint the Chinese character for "love."

We also made their notebook covers, worked through their math and began reading about Eric Liddell. Then we quickly packed their lunches and left for their classes.

They have art, a little lunch break, and then sports. Today was their first day. It turns out that the "art" class was a little lighter than I anticipated and they spent their time free-painting with black tempura -- which we had sort of just done at home so guess what they chose to paint in class too... I guess they did some art interpretation for a little while too ("What do you see in J's painting?") . I'm a bit disappointed, but I'll give the teacher (a Reed College grad) the benefit of the doubt since she was spitting a crown out of her mouth into the sink when we arrived. It could have just been a day for her.

The sports class was fun for them and luckily a good mix of boys/girls of various ages. They played field hockey in the gym and their coach was the same one they had this summer during basketball camp.

So, for two hours on Monday I have just S to myself. I gotta say, it makes for a nice day. I ran a few errands and cleaned the kitchen while they were in class. Tempting to think about how much I could get done if they were in .... nevermind. I won't go there because it's really not about me.

Homeschoolers for Heifer International

I found out about this too late to participate with my boys, but we are going and buying! The event is a chance for homeschoolers from all different locations, styles, and philosophies to come together, share their talents and contribute to a good cause. I have two friends who will be participating and donating their proceeds.

Portland Homeschoolers Children’s Market

A fun festival of child-created, child-run booths offering services, activities, food and wares to other home schoolers and their family and friends!

Friday, December 12th
2pm - 5pm
Liberty Hall, 311 N. Ivy, Portland

With a performance by The Vibrations a local homeschooling family band!

Please come and join us for this fun event. There will be many gifts, edibles, and activities that appeal to guests of all ages and all budgets!

Carnival Games -- Holiday Ornaments -- Baked Goods -- Raffles -- Arts and Crafts -- Jewelry -- Face Painting -- Live Music -- Handmade and Altered Toys -- Gifts for All Ages

Free Admission! Portion of all proceeds go to charity.

Please join us! Bring your friends and family!

A Perk I'm Thankful For

Non-Traditional Days Off.

It’s finally happening. DH and I haven’t been away by ourselves for 4 ½ years. The kids have been to my parents’ overnight without us, however we have always just stayed at home (and missed seeing them in their beds at night). But next week we get two days AWAY and the kids are staying here. I get two days and nights with my man (and two days and nights without cooking or cleaning or internet or t.v.) and they get two days off school. Everybody wins. Except maybe my parents who are kind enough to come stay with them. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Week 8

We are cruising along in school at a terrific pace. Maybe too terrific.

Yesterday we (they)

• read aloud from Nate Saint's biography and discussed it briefly,
• worked on memorizing Psalm 23,
• colored in and labeled a map of South America,
• did several pages of math,
• hand addressed 20 envelopes,
• played a Latin number game online,
• analyzed and diagrammed sound transmission,
• did a keyword outline about South America,
• looked up facts about Ecuador,
• drew a rainforest primate,
• solved a logic puzzle,
• listened to B read
• and labeled some nouns.

I would love to find out what the first and fifth graders at the school down the street accomplished yesterday.

Oh -- nothing. It was a holiday. I'm not sure which one of us missed out. Today will be less. And therefore (hopefully) more.

1

And we're done.

Not the last day I was dreaming of. But we accomplished it all.

Notes to self:

• When one has a super-competitive son any kind of bean-bag tossing game in which you keep score is never fun.
• When introducing the summer calendar to the kids, never START with the item that states, "We will have media turn-off days Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays."
• When it's the last day of school, they will unexpectedly get up and get dressed and start all on their own at 7:30 a.m.!
• It's not about how much they can say back, it's the process of learning that is important. Even a "test" is a learning experience.
  

Next up:

• Dad gets home.
• We eat spaghetti.
• We have cupcakes and certificates and "Hello, Summer" gift buckets.
• We put the baby to bed.
• We watch The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in our pjs.
• We call it a year.

2

Almost there, al m o s t t h e r e.

J:
Got up and took care of three things on his list and helped his brother out a bit as well. Managed to wade through more research for his mountain report and had fun drawing stick figure pictures to go along with all the ratings on the Beaufort Scale (wind speed).

B:
Reminded me today that we haven't done marbles in a long time (at least two weeks) and so when all was said and done, we called it even and I let them get something out of the prize box.

Marbles are our way of inspiring cheerfulness and cooperation. They can earn about 12 a day doing their various school tasks. Once they fill their jar to a certain line, they get a prize. Simple. Yes, I realize it's a form of bribery, but I'm not concerned. It's a motivator and most of the time it works well. They work pretty hard for their prizes which are around $1 for me to purchase.

So, tomorrow there's a page here and there to finish up and a review of EVERYTHING from the past four weeks. And later on there's a party. Oh, yeah!

3

J:
Got up and decided to get going on schoolwork because Dad said they could go to the store and buy the new Indiana Jones computer game when he finished. J has been saving his birthday money for this day. So, he completed handwriting, listened to B read aloud to him, and helped B with his maps book before I was even ready for them to begin. It's always nice to have a carrot to hold out for them.

B:
Finished his maps book completely, added animals and a rock climber to his mountain model, recited a very long memory verse and drew a pretty good picture of a lichen.

• We had a pretty good discussion on what makes a Jew a Jew and why Jesus was one... but we're not.
• S decided to take an early nap and we got a LOT accomplished before lunchtime.
  
• Almost lost today's work on J's report when the computer froze up... but we recovered it. Whew!

Tomorrow's Carrot: Gram and Grandpa are stopping by and if the boys are done with schoolwork they get to go with G&G on a little outing involving ice cream. Gotta get done by lunchtime, guys!

4

J:

• Started his report on Mauna Kea yesterday. Oh, my. This will take a while.
• Breezed through map learning, handwriting, geology vocabulary and memory verse drawing (his favorite).
  
• I had a hard time explaining their last mountain project and getting them to understand it. In the end it may just be a cardboard model of a mountain, but we'll see how the next four days go.

B:

• Finished phonics reader #39 and began #40. He's on course to finish by Friday!
  
• Breezed through map learning, sequencing skills, and geology vocabulary.
  
• I worked with him on turning his memory verse into a rebus... never realized how many skills it takes to create a rebus (rhyming, drawing, communicating accurately...).
  
• This mountain project was his idea. I get the feeling I distorted his idea a bit by the backlash I felt from him today. We'll have to go back and redefine it tomorrow. Has yet to finish math for the day. Little brothers are way more fun than math.

Me:

• I'm so antsy to be done. And yet, I don't have summer figured out yet (meaning I don't have all the funds necessary to sign them up for everything they want to do) so I'm actually hesitant to dive into three months of bored kids...
• I'm working on a list of things I want to learn this summer and I'm trying to come up with a way for them to make their own list as well. If we can explore these things together it just might help us make summer more meaningful.
  

Back tomorrow for more countdown!

5

J:
Two more lessons in his map book
One more page in Handwriting -- practice the whole cursive alphabet once more.
Two more geology vocabulary words to define and draw and put in a sentence
Two more chapters in The Bronze Bow
Review one long memory verse from this year
Locate and plot Oregon's 8 tallest mountains
Daily Bible
Study the effects of glaciers on mountains
Work on report on Mt. Mauna Kea

B:
Two more pages in Math
Two lessons in map book
Two pages of cloze sentences with Mom
Two geology related words to draw and put in a sentence
One time through phonics reader #39
Review one long memory verse from this year
Locate and plot Oregon's 8 tallest mountains
Daily Bible
Study the effects of glaciers on mountains

Four More Weeks

J is almost finished with fourth grade. Every year that goes by things not only get more challenging for him, but they are also harder for me. I'm constantly trying to weigh the value of pushing him to write that complete sentence or just letting him answer the question verbally. He needs both skills. If he had his way, there would be an appropriate shortcut for everything in life. He will not be the one to wax eloquent on his own blog one day. He'll be the one who bullet-points everything. (He's obviously not his mother's child. I'm waaay too verbose in my writing).

B is doing well. I have never been able to nail down whether this is his Kindergarten year (he'd be the right age if he were enrolled somewhere) or his First Grade Year. His skills in reading leave me thinking that he's not quite First Grade level, but his math, comprehension and social skills easily put him in Grade One. So, I guess we could say he's finishing his K/1 year and leave it at that. It makes people in the store look at him funny when they ask what grade he's in, but that's just part of the deal when homeschooling.

S is learning so much. He's learned that if he hits brother number two hard enough that he could make him cry. He's learned that he can pretty much climb up and take over any chair a small person might be sitting in -- and win. He's learned that when we are all buried in book learning he can leave the room and come crashing back in with his chubby arms flailing in the air and yell, "Yeah!!!!" and we'll stop what we're doing and laugh at him. He's still our favorite interruption.

I don't really want this school year to end because then I'll have a fifth grader and that is perilously close to someone who is nearing Jr. High... oh, my. I sure hope I've done well for him. All indicators say he's thriving in this situation, but it's not unlike a homeschool mom for me to second guess myself at every turn. There are just less and less turns with each passing year. I'd like to finish this one off on the straight and narrow.

"Lower Your Expectations, Raise Your Satisfaction"

At a friend's baby shower recently we joked about this phrase. (She actually heard a whole sermon on it once.) So when she said she is expecting her baby about a week after he's due in order to keep from feeling frustrated if he's late, we tossed this phrase back at her and laughed. Lower Your Expectations, Raise Your Satisfaction !

I actually use this technique when parenting. I have one particular child who struggles with following directions. So, rather than expect him to respond at the first request I have to change my expectation to 10,000 requests. If I have to ask him 10,000 times it is okay. I can't get frustrated or angry I just keep on getting his attention and asking again... and again. It's not what some of my Christian friends would call good parenting, but for this child it's better than him feeling my wrath every time he fails to respond immediately. Lower Your Expectations, Raise Your Satisfaction!

For these next couple of weeks we are pouring it on academically. We had a full week this past week and we've got another one coming. J is learning oral storytelling (and knocking my socks off), metaphor / similes, fractions, taking comprehension reading tests daily, and he and B are both working on a nature notebook (which takes an hour) and then they are making lapbooks about native plants and local crops (which can take another hour). And that's not their entire day! So, during this season, I had to step back and say, "We will work on school until 5:00. We will not be done by 2:00 as we usually are. We will not be done before lunch as we sometimes are. We will just be finishing up when it's time to make dinner." So, see -- I lowered my expectation of making quick work of the learning process and I am not hearing myself whine (oh yes, it happens) when they take all day to finish the projects. And I'm okay with it. Lower Your Expectations, Raise Your Satisfaction!

See, Kobie. It's working for me. :-)

Day 1 Play-by-play

I won't do this every day, but today has gone along pretty well. No funny stories to tell, or frustrations. The key to getting it done and done well I think is #1 make sure the baby is sleeping and #2 do everything in small bites and only as far as their attention will allow. I remembered these rules today. And it was good.

6:00 baby wakes up. Chip gets him because he knows I have a cold and I will have to be getting him every day for a week. Pretty considerate, eh?

7:00 get the family ready for the day.

8:30 Take Chip to the airport.

9:15 Begin school

• Read through B’s spelling words with him while J and S snack on some more cereal.
• Read Chapter 11 in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe aloud. S actually cooperated so we could do this today.
• J and B choose to work on their dioramas for the LWW. They drew the white witch’s castle to put in their background today. (Seriously, dioramas… we had to do at least one, right?)
• We go over adjectives together…new for B, review for J. Then they work on a few sentences to identify or add them. S gets loud and can’t keep his mouth off of B. So, it’s nap time
  
• J & B practice their memory verse while I’m trying to get S to sleep. J does handwriting practice. (Yes, they actually accomplished something while I was getting the baby to bed).
  
• B writes on J’s handwriting paper spurring J to write on B’s drawing page. Time outs all around for disrespecting each other.

• Giving things another shot, they recover beautifully. We sit down for Bible and book time. Talking about Jesus healing the paralytic today and how people actually become paralyzed. J shows great interest. B gets it well enough.
• Math is five division word problems for J. B and I work on filling in blanks in an addition table with some old Think it Through Tiles from Discovery Toys.
• B and I give a half-hearted attempt at reading, but it’s past lunch time and S has just woken up.

J just has spelling left and B just has his drawing book to finish.
Chip calls and says he’s there safe.

12:45 LUNCHTIME!