Graduation

Today my Bump – now 6 years old – is graduating from Kindergarten. He has one math assessment left to take and then we’re done! Whew. Sometimes I wondered if we’d make it. We did.

It was a little over 5 years ago that I started reading blogs and began to see the pluses of homeschooling. In my life, I only knew a handful of homeschoolers and had not been submerged in the culture at all. But the internet opened the door to the possibilities and seeing that there is no “one way” and that the world was ours in our little learning room. And then, after we decided to pursue, we had to wait and wait and wait to really dive into it.

Finally, we did some PreK stuff and went all out Kindergarten this year. Which really, still isn’t much. Our structure was all over the place, but the basics were core. And in the end, we were just praying to get through. We did.

Next year is the real deal. I’ve already started accumulating my materials and looking at stuff. In three weeks we will visit the homeschool convention in VA and then start our summer review, along with PreK for my little E.

I think these early years are the easiest to teach, but the the most time consuming, as I must be there to read and teach. Even now, Bump will be doing most of his Summer Review on his own – since his reading skills afford me the luxury of having him read his own instructions.

So now it’s the next step forward – and we seem to be walking more quickly.

 

Easy Peasy Dinner

There’s a miracle going on in my house. I cooked dinner two nights in a row. I haven’t done that in FOREVER. Neither meal was extravagant, but you got to start somewhere. On tonight’s menu, an old favorite from way back – Pizza Burgers

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. of ground beef
• 8 oz. can of tomato sauce (I used pizza sauce)
• 1 T Oregano
• Salt and pepper
• Shredded mozerella cheese
• 1 Package of your favorite hamburger rolls

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to broil.
2. Split your hamburger rolls and line up on a large cookie sheet.
3. Brown ground beef, drain.
4. Add sauce, oregano and salt and pepper to taste. Let all ingredients warm through.
5. Add mozerella cheese – I used about 1 cup – stir into meat mix and immediately remove from heat.
6. Spread mixture on open faced buns. Sprinkle a little bit of mozerella cheese on top.
7. Put under broiler until cheese melts and you can see it and bun turning a bit brown.

It’s really easy and great. I’m hoping someday my kids will like more than just yogurt, cheese sticks, hot dogs and goldfish crackers!

Today we did our lesson 5 in reading. Long e was introduced in this lesson. Bump didn’t do so well. He seemed very distracted and really didn’t want to pay much attention. It was a little bit of a longer lesson, too – now that we have four sounds. But I do really like how they are putting it all together, and I don’t even have to think about it! We also did some color and shape worksheets (matching) and a little bit of geography. Afterwards we built some dog houses with blocks, and then made a swimming pool for the dogs.

It was the first day we haven’t gone anywhere (except for a run and walk) in a while. Even in the midst of the rain last week, we still ran a few errands. Staying at home makes our days VERY LONG.

Tomorrow is the big Halloween celebration in the neighborhood. We’ll be out for the first part and then coming home to bedtime. I usually put a small sign on the door saying that we don’t do trick or treat, because people will stumple up our dark driveway if they see one teeny-tiny light on – and we’ll definately have some lights on. I put the sign so it hangs right in front of the doorbell. I don’t hide in the dark. When I was a kid, no porch light, no visit. People today just don’t get it.

I don’t have a problem with people who want to do Halloween, it’s just hard for me because most don’t respect your right not to celebrate. Some people have their kids play sports, some don’t. Some people do the arts, some don’t. Why can’t it be the same for Halloween, Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny? I’m not taking it as personally as I once did, but it still irks me that there’s not more grace in these situations. I guess it’s kind of on the same line as homeschooling – just different. And I tow that line every day. I should be used to it by now.

 

Monday Motivation

I’m always hyper on Mondays. No matter how tired I am or how sore I am from a weekend workout, I always seem to cruise on Monday. I think it’s because weekends are disorder in my life. Our days are ordered M-F and then the unpredictability of my husband (you know, like remodeling the bathroom on a whim) just sends me over the edge. I’m in a holding pattern. Once he’s out the door on Monday, I make the world ours again.

So how did I make it ours?

I vacuumed.
I cleaned out a box of items from the storage area in the bathroom.
I packed up some other stuff for storage in the garage.
I did 2 loads of laundry.
I rearranged/cleaned out the everything closet in our kitchen.
I organized some homeschooling material.
I played ball with Bump.
I went grocery shopping.
I cooked dinner. (shock, surprise, wonder – recipe to follow)
I cleaned up my boys’ rooms.
I cut out some stuff for sewing projects.
I cleaned up the living room – 2x.
I cleaned up the kitchen – 3x.
I took the dog for a walk.
I tried to get Zach to walk.
Bump and I did lessons.

It was a day where I went from one thing to the next.

Our lessons today consisted of Lesson 4 of reading, puzzles on shapes and numbers, and science books (why leaves fall and butterflies.) The kids is so smart sometimes is scares me.

And now for delicious dinner – simple, and fast.

Ingredients
1 package of chicken breasts (3 split breast in mine) – cut in halves or thirds
6 small red potatoes – quartered
1/3 cup of mayo
3 TB of Dijon Mustard
2 cloves of pressed garlic
salt and pepper
frozen veggie of choice

Directions
Whisk the mayo and mustard together in a large bowl. Add potatoes and chicken. Mix to coat.
Pour into a 9×13 glass baking dish (don’t forget to coat with something to keep your meal from sticking)
Add garlic. Salt and pepper to taste. (I use it liberally.)
Optional: Add some frozen veggies on the top. I poured on some green beans to make it a little more healthy, although potatoes are very healthy. They get a bad rep for being white like rice and bread, but they are full of vitamins and a great carb.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. (That’s what the recipe says, but I baked mine for an hour, but I have an old stove that might end up on the garbage pile with the kitchen vanity if it’s not careful!)

Putting this together was so fast. I even did it with Zach in the high chair.

By the way, we ordered one of those little plastic slides for Zach. Yes, ordered. I scoured the town for one to no avail. Bump got a slide in his room. I have to photograph that. Gil got an old plastic slide from someone at work, cleaned it up and mounted it on the side of Bump’s bed. Both boys love it. I thought that Zach might like one his own size for downstairs. Bump loved his (we bought used), but it’s now out in the backyard and not possible to get it back in the house. Finally, it came. Yes, it came in a big brown cardboard box. I pulled it out, set it up and ran in the kitchen to finish putting away my groceries. When I came back, there was my beautiful slide on one side of the room, and my two boys fighting over the box on the other side. Oh the ironies of life!!!! Zach eventually got into it some – especially the ladder. Then he started rolling cars and balls down it. So fun!

More insanity tomorrow and maybe even sewing. I’m heading upstairs to wind bobbins in all my project colors!

 

Lessons – Day 3

We sat down today for our third day this week of structured learning. We started first with our reading lessons, learning a new sound (a). Bump did really well. He knows his alphabet inside and out – including sounds, so this is really a breeze for him so far. The writing is the challenge, and I worked with him on his level just to go through it, visualize it and make the sounds. He can’t write any letters at all. Not even close, but we make the best of it and the new pen and board make it fun. He loves to see me wipe of the board with a napkin.

Next was animals. I used My First Animal Encyclopedia and just randomly picked out some of the animals to talk about and read the facts about. We ended up hitting dogs, which opened up another area for us since we’ve been talking about the different breeds of dogs. Our Casey is a certified MUTT, but between her and Winnie, we knew they were Corgi, Chow and Golden Retriever. I pulled out my dog breeds book (did any of you know that I had dreams of starting my own boarding kennel 6 years ago?) We went over a lot of breeds of dogs in the neighborhood, and the things that Casey is. We also pulled out some pictures of my old dogs, and talked about them. The discussion went on for a while.

Finally, we hit geography. I knew Bump had just about had enough, so we kept it simple and just talked a little about Africa – since we have a friend currently on missions there. I also have an episode of Little Einsteins that talks about the Pyramids, and we’ll look at that today. The Pyramids were also covered in our book.

That’s week one finished. I actually enjoy our learning time and am very blessed to have lots of resources around to pull from. Technically it’s still 3 years before we officially begin our homeschool journey – Virginia does not have mandatory Kindergarden.

Next week I hope to get some crafts relating to colors and numbers into the picture, and continue with our reading lessons!

 

Reading – Part 2

Today, we came back to our reading. Bump didn’t want to, but we’re going to. I plan 3x a week to do about 1/2 hour of learning stuff. He wants to play hide and seek and chase. Zach is down for his nap, so this makes the playing field wide open as far as Bump is concerned.

And I have this little problem with him. He tells me “no” all the time. Gil, too. We battle it constantly. He doesn’t want to do something and then breaks into tears if we try to make him. We were not going there today.

We sat at the table with the book and began. Instead of saying the “m” sound, he says the “s” sound – which is not what I’m directing him to do. He starts messing around and telling me he doesn’t want to do it. I tell him, “The faster you do it, the faster you get through it.” I wonder if he can wrap his three-year-old brain around that. Then I mention faster and peanut butter cups…well, need I say more.

He does pretty well staying on task with these exercises. Sometimes he doesn’t want to do them, and I have to remind him that we’re almost done. Truthfully, they are about 10 minutes each. The writing part is too hard for him, but we try anyway. I help and we make lots of sounds. I got him a “special” dry erase board for it and he thinks it’s cool. Hopefully, by the time we finish, he’ll have a better grasp on it.

After our lesson, he ate his peanut butter cup and I wondered what other fun learning things we could do. I opened up the “shape game”. We’ve just started playing with this one. He doesn’t usually get too excited about it. But today I pulled out the card with a rocket ship on it and started pulling out shapes to do it. Bump jumped in, and before he knew it, we had the cards and shapes in front of him and he was doing most of the work. He did very well. I hope it won’t be too long before he can play this one by himself at times. I think it’s great fun myself!

Now, we have a few days off because of other morning activities scheduled. Next, I plan to look at animals and a little geography.

 

The Beginning of Reading

Today was the day that I began to teach Bump to read. I’ve been talking about it for a while. I searched all over the internet and looked at expensive phonics programs. I looked at lots of curriculum. Finally, I remembered I had a copy of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

Since we’re just testing the waters here, I thought I would start with that. It seems strait forward and simple for me. Plus, no real thinking on my part…just reviewing the material.

Our first lesson went okay. Since Bump and I have been sitting down the last couple of weeks and doing a few things, he’s been mildly resistant. So, I had to offer him the incentive of a peanut butter cup when he finished the lesson. That approach worked.

We’ve been reviewing our sounds all day today. We learned MMMMMM and ssssss – which he already knows, but really enjoys saying them throughout the day. I also have incorporated some of the little exercises in speech throughout the day – using his favorite words, too.

We also did some season flash cards from Baby Einstein. We’ve had them for a while, but have seldom used them so far. He’s not so keen on what seasons are what, but he’s starting to catch on. Winter is the only one he’s 100 percent on.

This afternoon, we’re going to read a book and I will get him to talk about it some – like Charlotte Mason you know. I think he will enjoy the narration perspective – especially on some of his favorite books.

Zach is doing better these days, but still goes through the tired mommy moments. He’s been cruising around more and standing alone some. If I try to coax him along, he drops to his knees. I think one of these days, he’ll just walk.

And I found a solution to my poly filler dilema. Walmart. Yes, our Walmart still has it’s fabric section – and some great stuff really – especially kids. I’ve made a number of things using their fabric. But anyway, they have 5 Lb. boxes for $9 and 10 Lb. boxes for $17. They were all out of 10 lbers, so I grabbed 1 5 lb. box. I need about 35 lbs. total for my Christmas projects – 5 pillows. I was happy to see that. I hope they are getting more in. Otherwise they have 20 oz bags for $2.50 – which is still beating the heck out of anything else I’ve found.

 

12 Days of Homeschool

I received this in my email box today from the local homeschool association.  We're still aspiring….

 

The Twelve Days of Homeschool
(To the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas.)

On the first day of homeschool, my neighbor said to me,
"Can you homeschool legally?"

On the second day of homeschool, the store clerk said to me,
"Are they socialized?"

On the third day of homeschool, a teacher said to me,
"Who will give them tests?"

On the fourth day of homeschool, my doctor said to me,
"What about P.E.?"

On the fifth day of homeschool, my sister said to me,
"YOU ARE SO STRANGE!"

On the sixth day of homeschool, my pastor said to me,
"Why do you do this?"

On the seventh day of homeschool, my best friend said to me,
"I could never do it!"

On the eighth day of homeschool, my mother said to me,
"How long will you do this?"

On the ninth day of homeschool, my in-laws said to me,
"Look at what they're missing!"

On the tenth day of homeschool, my florist said to me,
"What about the prom?"

On the eleventh day of homeschool, the librarian said to me,
"They'll miss graduation!"

On the twelfth day of homeschool, the reporter said to me,
"Can they go to college?"

On the thirteenth day of homeschool, my support group leader said to me. . .
"They can go to college,
They'll have graduation,
They won't miss the prom,
Look at what they're learning,
You can teach through high school,
You can really do this,
Love is why you do this,
YOU ARE NOT STRANGE!
They can have P.E.
You can give them tests,
They'll be socialized,
You can homeschool legally!"

Original author unknown

 

 

War Rages on in Our Local Public Schools

I’ve meant to post something here previously about the battle that is waging in the local school district. Our area is growing so quickly that the schools can’t really keep up with it. They’ve been overcrowded for years, with some children as young as grade school age taking classes in trailers that have been hauled on site. Finally, there has been a breakthrough with the addition of a new elementary school and high school, both scheduled to open fall 2007.

The war involves districting for each of the schools. In each of the proposals that has been presented (I think five in all), there has been some objection. The primary goal of this re-zoning is to create “neighborhood schools”, in doing that, socio-economic status, race, and tradition has been ignored, igniting parents in every part of the district.

The biggest hoo-haw now comes from “the city” portion of the district. In Virginia, some larger cities function as a “county” would. They have their own property taxes, schools, vehicle taxes and stickers, etc. Some 50 plus years ago, the local “city” merged their school district with “the county.” At that time, they were probably of equal size and it really meant sharing of facilities on the middle and high school level. As time has gone on, the county has grown by leaps and bounds while the city is limited to its expansion. The grade school in the heart of the city is one of the finest in the district, one that people move into the city to be able to send their children. This re-districting knocks that formula right off its rocker.

Now folks in the city are talking about breaking off and doing their own school district – even though there isn’t a middle or high school inside the city property lines. They start complaining that all the problems that are going on in the district aren’t their fault, but the responsibility of the fast-growing county. It’s ugly folks.

If I had children who were going to be a part of the public schools here, I would be up in arms as well. Two more schools are set to be constructed in the next 5 years, meaning more redistricting. They can’t win. No matter what happens, people are going to feel disenfranchised. And, it’s pulling the whole system apart.

As a future homeschooling parent, I can only sit back and shake my head and affirm in my heart that the politics of schooling are more than I’d want to be involved in. We’ve enough battles to fight keeping our children on the strait path without battling one another.

 

Is There Such a Thing as Oversocialization?

I heard the big lie again this week. This time from my sister-in-law. Now never mind that at 50, she has never been married nor had children (or even custody of children.) While she may be a great babysitter, we repediately run into problems with her because she cannot objectively judge discipline situations with her nieces and nephews. But now, she’s 100% against us homeschooling. She won’t even talk about it.

I find this so funny in a way, yet so tragic. Here’s the facts…

She does not know one child who has been or is being homeschooled.

She knows absolutely nothing about the homeschool process or success stories.

While she knows some things about the school systems around this country, she often defers to her own experience more than 20 years ago.

She has never listened to our plans on how to accomplish homeschooling.

So what’s her beef. The buzz word.

SOCIALIZATION….

My head begins to throb everytime someone like her mentions that word. It means absolutely nothing. Zip. Zero. I ask a purely meaningless question. Since when did we send our kids to school for the socialization side of things? I thought school was about learning? Then I look at our evidenced three children in progress (my stepkids) and I find the following.

1) Kevin – now 23 – not a social animal. Stayed home with his mother and had almost zero contact with other kids until he was 4 years-old. Attended public schools his entire career.

2) Mark – now 19 – socially dependent. Started daycare almost immediately after birth. Attended public schools his entire life.

3) Allie – now 14 – oversocialized. Started daycare almost immediately after birth. Attended public schools for most of her career. Spent one year in private education.

I ask is there such a thing as oversocialization? Do children in today’s world become socially dependent? Don’t get me wrong, I think having friends and social contacts is very important. What I think is more important though is that a child’s life be centered around his family and God. (Well, that’s the Christian side of me. But even if faith isn’t a part of your life, your kids lives should be centered around your family and your values.)

I look at Mark and Allie. Even though dad left when they were 4 and 9, the ball was already in motion for their social lives. I believe, like so many other things in a child’s development, that the Toddler years set the stage for what direction we are going to go. Since both of them were in day care (actually private baby sitters) with many other kids, their whole lives began with those 8-10 hour days being filled with constant social interactions. Their sitters were not formally teaching them. It was not a pre-school environment. School just continued to foster that friend-centered environment, along with a single-mom trying to make her own life easier.

I make these assertations, because then I look at Kevin. Essentially, Kevin was nutured in the home. He is a very smart person and always has been. They put him in preschool at 4 because he hated interacting with other children as he had been kept separate most of his early life. He never gained the social savy that Mark and Allie have. His friends list was always shorter. He often found solace in his own company and in activities like reading and writing – a polar opposite of the other two. He also had a greater family-center than the others.

Is this because of personality differences? Or is this because of the environment?

So back to my original statements. I believe that homeschooling and socialization have not much to do with one another. Schools afford the parent a convenient opportunity to expose their children to a large number of random social contacts their own age. In homeschooling, parents have to look to different means to select social contacts for their children. Isn’t it funny that my sister-in-law would think that we’re going to lock Bump up in a room all day and not let him talk to anyone but us? Is that responsible parenting? If we go to all the trouble to make sure his education is the best, why wouldn’t we go to the limits to make sure he also receives the social contact he needs? That’s right – he needs. What is it that he needs for social contacts? Is it what is defined by the public school systems?

I could go on. One thing that’s painfully obvious to me is that my in-laws as a whole are not willing to look outside the box on this one. Sadly, it will make it much more difficult to share Bump’s successes.

Enought of this rant!!!!!

 

In the Best Interest of Your Children

I read an article in the paper this morning about Matthew Whaley Elementary School, located in the historic district a stone’s throw from Colonial Williamsburg. One of the huge problems the Williamsburg school systems have been having is overcrowding. There are articles in the newspapers almost weekly about projects, over crowding of current facilities and scrambling to try and build new ones. While Matthew Whaley is the premier school of the district supporting many specialized programs not available in the other elementary schools. However, the overcrowding has seeped into this school as well.

Other schools have combated the problem of overcrowding by parking trailers on the school grounds and shifting some classes into the trailers. No, it’s not an ideal situation, and it’s gotten a lot of parents upset. Now as Matthew Whaley is full to capactiy, they district will not add trailers to the property because the school is located too close to the historic district of Colonial Williamsburg and it would be asthetically unappealing…give me a break!

While the idea of trailers does not appeal to me as a parent, it’s much preferrable to having your child in a large class. It stuns me that the school would put the agenda of local tourism ahead of the education of the children.

Every week that passes, I see more and more reasons to homeschool.

Note: We are not in the Matthew Whaley district, but I found this story interesting simply because of the politics of what’s going on. And the website for the Virginia Gazette only shows a sampling of their stories. The one on Matthew Whaley is not included in the site.