A report card to myself

I hesitate to write this, but...

The year is going excellently!

SHHHH!!!! Don't tempt the Gods and read that out loud! Knocking on wood and throwing salt over my shoulder and looking for a spot to spit as I type this...

But seriously, I'm happy. We're not perfectly timed like a digital clock; checking in and out, ticking this off and filing that. We run loosely and freely. There are issues to cover and details to complete for sure; but those details are most definitely not dictating the flow of our lives.

Justin is slowly wading into algebra this year. Don't tell him, but he's actually doing well with it. He doesn't like to admit that he's able to retain information (one of his favorite phrases) but that kid, on a good and happy day, can learn anything. He just needs to give himself more credit. I keep hoping that the "drive to learn for learning's sake" will kick in. Sometimes, I can see it taking hold, only to slip back again and be hidden behind the "I hate school" mantra. He's a tough cookie to figure out, but he always insists that he never wants to go to public school again. This is a question I pose to him whenever he claims that I am asking too much of him or presenting him with too much work. I remind him of the homework that would take us all into the late evening hours, should he be in public school. I remind him of the earlier bedtime and early alarm clock wake ups that we would all be enjoying, should he go to school. And then he usually grumbles and plods through whatever I've laid out for the day. :)

Evan is still Mr. Active. He likes to stand up to do his schoolwork and sometimes does his best stories while he dictates as he walks in circles. No joke. His mind works way faster than his hand can keep up, so I have him dictate to me, and then have him copy the work afterwards. His spelling and writing abilities are slowly catching up to his grade level and he continues to do well at his math and reading comprehension. I keep meaning to look for a good health/human body curriculum but haven't found something as of yet...

Corinne reads well above her age level. What level does she read at? I don't know. Don't really care. I just know that she is ABLE to read. And that everything we're doing with her seems to be working. I don't set any age restrictions to the math or reading or science that she receives. If the boys are doing it, and she's interested? I pull her onto my lap and she learns alongside them. And she RETAINS it. Not all of it and not perfectly, but WOW. She remembers! It's interesting to think of what she'll be doing when she is Evan or Justin's ages...

And, with that, I have to jet so that I can take them all to our homeschool co-op where they will do a writing class, 2 different history classes, P.E. (run by me!) and a reading/art class. The group has gotten larger lately and there are tons of kids that my children are becoming good friends with. Basically? Our school year (and family year) is off to a fabulous start!

My New Mission Statement

It's summertime. My kids don't deliberately "do school" in the summer because

a. I am lazy

and

b. they would kill me. Truly.

But my 5 year old, who has never been "to school" but loves homeschooling, has been working like a maniac this summer! Reading all the time, asking to do Freerice.com, randomly sitting at her desk to work on writing and math workbooks and on and on. Just a moment ago, I helped her tug out the big box of Math U See manipulatives and she is currently stacking and counting and building and LEARNING without an agenda.

That's what I hope to accomplish this year: Learning without an agenda.

I think I'll make it my mission statement....

Braggity brag

Corinne's counting by 12's. Holy shit. She's really DOING it and I don't really know how to stop her...

Also? Evan is a geography genius. I'll have to record him with his cards. It's amazing.

Where we are beginning from... and our plans for the year.

I was starting to freak out a bit regarding the upcoming school yera. I mean, it was AUGUST and I didn't have ANYthing planned yet! So I sat my butt down yesterday and got the first week done for both boys. Yay! Corinne is SUPER easy (she's 4, for crying out loud) but I will have a plan book for her, too. I don't want her to feel left out so we'll have things like "reading time" and "math cubes" and such on a sheet for her to check off. She's just a happy little unschooler, anyway. She reads the digraph words I have on the fridge without any effort, picks up Dick and Jane and the Phonics books we have without any issues... It's quite fun to teach her, actually!

This year our curriculum and plans include:

Justin:

Story of the World I, II, III. We will be using #2 for the IEW group effort through our homeschooling group. We'll be focusing on the Middle Ages for arts and activities. Hopefully a Renaissance Faire or two will be fun field trips!

Life of Fred I, II. Good word problems for math. Some of it is below him, some of it is above. We'll just have to fit it into what works for him. But I'm liking the layout of the chapters so far.

Painless American History. I haven't actually purchased this one yet. It's on my list! We loved Painless Life Science and Painless Algebra (which we are also going to be continuing this year, at a verrrry slow pace!)

He picked out some Grade 6 workbooks from Barnes and Noble that have decent worksheets for the filler time...

Rereading Painless Life Science (just to get a better grip on it)

I want to have him start off by studying the Revolutionary War because there is a reenactment at Cantigny Park in Winfield 2 weeks into our school year. I know he loves those!

A better focus on classic works of literature (which he may have issues with... Ugh.)

I want him to accomplish several merit badges for Boy Scouts and so many of them have great ideas that will work well with a school curriculum!

For Evan:

Focus on SPELLING and handwriting. Big time. His reading is finally closer to that of kids in his age but his spelling leaves a lot to be desired.

Math U See. I have several levels for both him and Corinne to browse through and figure out where each one falls.

He will be fishing in Canada with Pat and grandpa for the second week of school so we will be starting off with the leftover curriculum from second grade as a refresher. I will send a workbook or two that can be done in the car and traded in for a treat if completed before he gets home. He'll be doing some reading and writing on Canada the week before he leaves (I have the spelling list with things like "grandpa, walleye, adventure, etc.") to help him understand that all of life is educational!

I need more ideas for Evan... This year is more difficult for me for him and I'm not sure why...

For Corinne:

Math U See. We have all of the levels up to Delta. She has to fit into one of them!

Piles and piles of letter and number work.

I've made some of the magnetic cards that we are sticking onto the fridge for word recognition. Right now we have digraphs. Soon we'll do rhyming words and then the sight words that just don't fit into any category. I then plan on making a pocket board thingy to make sentences and stories out of. Should be fun!

We will be doing a lot of the same stuff we did last year. Lots of hands-on math, learning to read, tons of art projects and just enjoying preschool education.

For all of us:

I HAVE to get the ants for the ant farm. Geesh.

Field trips to Springfield (with Grandma!), Science and Industry, Field Museum, Renaissance Faire, Zoos, Cantigny Park, several war reenactments, Naper Settlement, etc.

I see a year of better cooperation between kids and teacher. Without Patrick sleeping during the school day, the stress level of getting things done by noon won't be there and the pressure of keeping them quiet will be GONE. Thank you God for the new job!!

A cozy, happy morning...

It's 10:52 am. Most of the schools near us are closed today or will be closed tomorrow. You know, a few (or 12) inches of snow and they get all wimpy about opening their doors. ;) My kids have been doing their work since they got up and are taking a late breakfast break of bacon and eggs and a kid tv show. This break follows Evan's own P.E. regiment (I do believe he can do over 100 sit ups and 50 push ups. HE'S SEVEN.), Justin's cookie baking break, several chapters of Jigsaw Jones read by Evan on the couch (in our jammies) and 15 minutes of absolute bliss where I stood by the stove frying bacon, listening to Justin explain a worksheet to Evan while Corinne colored paper doll clothing. All of this happened before 11 am and includes the two youngest kids following me into the snow drifts at 8 am to "help" clear the fluff off of the driveway before it piles up to my waist. And even though the house is quite messy and the laundry is beginning to form legs of its own and I probably won't get a shower in before the baby that I watch in the afternoons comes over, I am quite happy in my cocoon...

Today? Today is a good day.

A slow morning...

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

How many times do I say "Evan" ? How many times do I say "Keep working!" or "Focus!" ??

First person to answer correctly gets the privilege of coming over and being a teacher for a day! You lucky, lucky person!

Some pics. Some captions. Enjoy.

Baking brownies in the afternoon, just because we can! My kids are excellent egg-crackers and I've been making a conscious effort to have them read the boxes or cook books as we bake. Corinne and Evan are already grasping the whole "fraction thingy" much earlier than I expected!
Not brownies, but one of the biggest perks of homeschooling: home-baked breakfasts without the rush to get it down the hatch and get out the door. Today we made baked French toast and it was HEAVENLY to eat it with my children at 9:00 am. It baked while Evan did spelling. If that's not a perfect way to start a school day, then I don't know what is!
Best $1 I ever spent at a clothing/toy sale is this floor desk. Evan does 90% of his work here...
Her handwriting is going to quickly surpass Evan's. I'm keeping that fact on the down-low, though... Can't be beat by a PRESCHOOLER, you know!

Guitar Hero TOTALLY counts as music appreciation. Ok, ok... I know. I'm working on something a little more educational. But, for now? This will have to suffice.
I dug out my good old Discovery Toys to find other preschool stuff for Corinne to occupy herself with while I'm working with the boys. She is adoring the shape sorter, even though most of these foam pieces have cat teeth marks on them...

Both of the boys are working on lap books right now and I'll update more about that once they're finished. I'm finding that they are a great stand-in for the traditional book reports or class projects that children would normally work on in a public school classroom. Plus, they're perfect to use as a marker for that question every homeschooler hears: "What did you learn this year?"

Oh Crap

Corinne (age 3 years, 10 months), as she colors the shapes in her preschool book today:

"Circle, circle, triangle. Square, square, rectangle. Hey Mommy? Where's the Crapezoids?"

The child made me pee. Just a bit.

A little update.

Poor little homeschooling blog. All alone and neglected. Waiting for me to update with any tiny little post. Waiting for a tiny nod of attention...

Things have been... ok. Justin is still doing great at homeschooling. He takes his work, does it with little complaint, and completes most of the work correctly the FIRST TIME through. We're using his math and spelling books from public school to finish out the year and he has done so much better on them than he was doing on his own. Having the ability to have things explained more than once and not moving on until the information is more secure is definitely good for him.

Evan... Well. Evan is still struggling. He and I haven't found the proper way to communicate regarding school work. I don't feel comfortable using an unschooling method with him or anything much looser than what we're doing. I just want some basic work to be accomplished at the end of the day. That's all! The arguments he has been giving me every morning are painful and only add to the stress of my already overburdened load. Seeing as how public school ends on Wednesday of next week, we are ending at that time, too. And seeing as how public school is usually review work and parties the last week of school, I can't say that our days will be much different, either. In that regard, I don't feel worried about Evan for the rest of the school year. I know that we will have to start from scratch come the fall, anyway, so I am trying to let this one issue roll off my back for now.

My plans for the summer and homeschooling will simply be to make sure that everyone reads every day, and to get some science experiments done. Just wait till you see the chemistry set I was sent to review! If it's anything close to as cool as it looks, the kids will get more science in the summer than most kids get all school year.

I hope to make at least 3-4 lesson plans each week to be used in the fall of next year. I'm hoping to do unit studies that the boys (and Corinne) can do together, but tailored to each child's level. We'll see how that works out. Some of the themes I think we'll be doing will be:

Marine life - sharks, fish, food chains, fresh vs. salt water..

US government - chain of command, bills to laws, what does "freedom" mean?

Human body - how does each part relate to the other, labeling parts, how does the heart work, what does living a healthy life mean?

Dinosaurs - knowing the different times of the periods and eras, how the Earth was formed, what animals evolved into animals we know today?

Civil War era - causes of disagreement, what does "slavery" REALLY mean, living situations of the different classes of people, were the arguments ever really resolved? (reenactment field trip)

Fractions - Having everyone in the family really REALLY understand fractions at their own level, how do we use this in real life?

Geology - how was the earth formed? What makes gems and stones different, what geological features are in our area? (field trip to natural geological formations - Starved Rock, etc.) (field trip to gem museum)

Local history - native Americans' history of Illinois, settlers in the 1800's, their lifestyles and how each side impacted the other.

Piano - I'd like to reteach Justin the piano and have Evan learn the basics on reading music and finger placements.

History of holidays - as each holiday approaches, provide the true history of each one: Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.



More will come to me and I'll update this list so that I can use it next year. If anyone has any ideas (small or big) please let me know in the comments. I would appreciate any help from anyone who has homeschooled the lessons, too!

No title comes to mind...

What a day!

We spent the day at the Field Museum in Chicago. Despite the fact that I didn't realize I had left our lunch bag on the grass beside the driveway until I bent down to get it out of the car, we had a great time. Thank GOD I had $6 singles, a $2 bill and $5 in quarters. We were able to get McDonald's downstairs and drank the juice boxes we had in the Flex's refrigerator.

We were lucky enough to go on a beautiful and uncrowded free day. The kids had lots of questions about everything we saw. In the Ancient Americas section, a museum employee who had gone on excavations to the sites we were looking at was very informative. It was really cool to talk to someone who had helped to pull the artifacts from the Earth.

Justin watched and did just about every interactive show they had. His favorite sections were the Ice Age and DNA. Oh, and any of the gems and minerals they had scattered about the museum, of course.

Evan loved every single diorama we saw. We couldn't pass up a single one! Sadly, the interactive children's area with the "make your own diorama" didn't have the pieces out and available to play with! They were being WASHED. At 3 pm. On a FREE DAY. I was not impressed with this poor planning, but he got over his disappointment even though he had been talking about building his own set-up ALL DAY. :( I'd post a picture of him playing with the 1 figurine they had left (a German shepherd, of all things!) at the ready-made Native American site, but, well, the cameras were in my bag, on the grass, in front of my house. (Thank God for a good neighborhood, right?)

Corinne was most interested in annoying her brothers and getting in and out of the stroller. She succeeded in the first and was able to add "annoy Mommy" to the list.

And now? Now they're killing each other in the other room. I have tons of things to organize and clean and my voice is pretty shot from yelling across the house. Gotta jet.