The First Day (....for real this time)

Well, here we are again, getting ready to start the first day of school.  I think I'm as ready as I'll ever be for this.  I've got the big whiteboard, the US and World maps on the walls (along with a couple of other educational posters), and a schedule that should help keep us all on track.  I even managed to get this week's lesson plan down for both boys - although, Devon's is missing a couple of important subjects.  I just haven't been able to find anything on them/figure out how to start.  A lot of things are going to have to wait until I get my financial aid from school....

In the meantime, I'm already starting to get some resistance from Devon.  When he saw on the schedule that we were going to do bible study at the end of the every day, he started to lock up.  He tells me he hates the religion. I tell him it really doesn't matter whether he likes it or not because we're going to study it just like we're going to study Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and all of the other major religions of the world. He was decidedly not happy about it.  We're reading the bible this year along with the Dhammapada.  I'm excited because while I'm not a religious person by any means, I've always wanted to read the bible....to really see more of what's in it besides just the stuff that everyone talks about in casual conversation.

On another subject, we've had a household vote on the "official" school name, mascot, and colors.  And the winners are:
(drum roll please!)

School Name:  Starfleet Academy for Earthlings
School Mascot:  Spock
School Colors:  Rainbow

I get to be the Starfleet Commander.  Best.  Job.  Ever.

I put this on the white board for the boys to see tomorrow when I'm at work. :-)

Random thought before going to bed:  We watched the new Star Trek movie today to get ready for school tomorrow.  You should be jealous.

The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List

I love StumbleUpon.  It's quickly becoming my favorite way to surf the internet.  I got up earlier than Aidan this morning (a rare occurrence - especially since he kept me up until 2:30am watching Stargate Atlantis last night) and while I was waiting on him to get up I had some donuts, a cup of tea, and some free time to surf.  I managed to find this little gem.


So that I'm not stealing any copy written material, here are just a few of the points.  If you'd like to read the entire article, you can find it here:  Secular Homeschooling Magazine

Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize.

If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please understand that you're calling me an idiot. Don't act shocked if I decide to respond in kind.

Please stop questioning my competency and demanding to see my credentials. I didn't have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don't need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can't teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there's a reason I'm so reluctant to send my child to school.

Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child's teacher as well as her parent. I don't see much difference between bossing my kid around academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else.

Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.

Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she's homeschooled.

Crazy Summer Maddness

Okay, things didn't exactly work out the way I'd planned.  I ended up having to get a job to pay some bills while I waited for grad school to start.  In the meantime, Aidan was freaking out because I didn't give him enough of a "summer".  We tried one day and here are the results:

There was just no fighting him on this.

He really did try...

So we came to an agreement.  He still had to do his daily writing prompts but I would postpone the start of "school" until August 1st.  He was very quick to agree to these terms.  In the meantime, we did very well with getting the writing prompts done on most days at first, and then that quickly dwindled down until we weren't doing it at all.  I blame my tiredness from my new job. 

We also did a volunteer bit at the Blue Plum Festival.  We got to direct traffic for the runners of the 5k.  You can see that Aidan had a blast with this and afterwards we got to enjoy the festival!

At 6am, on our way to the festival.  We had to walk because the buses didn't run that early!

He loved that orange flag.  We saw a lady from church and they had an epic flag fight.  Not sure what I did with those photos though.

Here we are at our designated station, ready to protect the runners from traffic!!

Afterwards, we headed over to the Hands On Museum and had some fun!

This wasn't the day of the festival, but he looks so darned cute in my hat :)

We can't wait for Devon to get here next Monday!  I'm on sick leave from work until next Tuesday (I hurt my shoulder at work) so I think I'm going to take this time to get us ready for the August first deadline.  I still need to get all of our paper work together and find an umbrella school, though I'm thinking about the Home Life Academy.

I'll keep you all updated!