The prompt's the thing...

Oh how the boys make me laugh.  Devon is still doing well with his work.  I started him off slowly with just a couple of subjects to warm up with.  I'll give it a couple of weeks and add more.  I got his computer programming sample lessons in the mail today so I'll look over that this weekend.  Aidan, on the other hand, is not doing as well as I thought.  He's not completing his work and seems to have difficulty understanding what's required of him from the directions listed.

This is where I have my own "a-ha" moment and remember his processing disorder and how he had to have everything read to him when he was in PS.  My bad!  I'm going to have to re-think his schedule.


Today's laughter comes from Devon's writing prompt:

Write a one page story using this story starter: "During the winter a hibernating bear dreams about..."

During the winter a hibernating bear dreams about, walking down the street with his parents.  While they are walking down the street the bear sees a brand new pair of roller blades, in the window of a skate store.  The bear begged his parents to get them, but sadly they said "grrr" which meant they had no money... The bear was very upset at this but he knew it was true.  So the bear knew what he must do...  He has to get a job!  So he went to the skate store and asked if they were hiring.  The guy at the counter said "sorry we don't hire animals".  The bear was very upset when he heard this he fell to his knees and roared...Fin

What makes this even funnier to me is that this is almost the same story line he used for yesterday's writing prompt. I think he wants some roller blades...

Sleepy time for me!

The end of the day and penguins

I'm overwhelmed with things I need to do tonight so this post will be short.  Sorry in advance.

The boys did great on their first day.  They both did a very good job of doing their best and following their schedules.  I'm so proud of them :)

I did want to share with you Aidan's writing assignment because it was adorable.  The prompt was:

What is your favorite animal?  Write one page telling why it is your favorite.

Penguins are my favorite.  Because they can not fly and I can play with them and they wont fly away.  While they are sliding on there bellys I can ride them.  And they are furry so they are nice to hug.  They have cute babys.  You can feed them and they won't bite you.  They nice to play with in the bath.  They don't need a towel.  Penguins don't eat your homework.  Penguins don't eat you.

I mean really...how cute was that???  (he writes very big so that paragraph was one page for him.)

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!

Fudge!

I know you've been wondering what holidays we're celebrating today so I'll tell you!  Today is National Running Day and "Yell 'Fudge' at cobras in North America" Day.  Kind of a ridiculous holiday huh?  Aidan's EXCITED. We'll pull up photos of cobras and yell 'fudge!' at them as loud as we can.  I wonder how long I'll last lol.  I'm going to try and sneak in some learning...we'll see if he catches on lol.

Tomorrow's writing prompt is:
We've just learned a lot about feet.  Write a short story about where your feet would go if you couldn't stop them.


Just to clarify, I bought a composition notebook for the writing prompts and to keep the boys from getting overwhelmed they never have to write more than one page (1 side).  They are free to write more if they want, but they never have to.  I'm also going to try and switch it up so they're not always writing essays and such.  Yesterday's prompt was just a list.  Also, to keep the prompts simple, I write them on the top margin with the date on the side so we can have a record.

Anywho, that's the plan.  We'll see how it works out today.

The aftermath

Oy, today was definitely a learning day for me!  I did the lesson plan.  I filled him in.  I even spaced it out over the entire day.  I had enticements and flat out bribes.  I even had the pleading puppy eyes down pat.  I still barely survived.

He had 7 math problems, a spelling list, and a writing prompt.  Easy peasy don't you think?  No...he broke down into tears.  There were some math problems he'd never seen before, words he didn't even know the meaning of (and weren't in my dictionary...I need a better one) so how could I expect him to put them into a sentence....and the biggest thing that he just couldn't understand was that he hadn't even had a summer vacation and how could I be such a horrible mother to not even let him have a summer vacation!?!?!?

I had to run an errand in the afternoon.  I had given him his list of spelling words to write into sentences and the (obviously lacking) dictionary to look words up while I was gone.  After going through everything above I finally gave in.  I didn't have time to sit and console my child about how everything would be fine for two reasons: 1. I was going to miss my bus and 2. He was absolutely right.  I was a horrid mother who didn't even let her child have a summer vacation.  So I told him he didn't have to do anything and that we could discuss it later.

We came to a compromise.  First I asked him how much time of summer vacation he needed and after some bargining, we agreed on 1 full month.  Then I told him that I would agree to a month of having fun on 2 conditions.  First, we had to continue doing the things from the calendar.  I mean really, tomorrow's holiday is to "Yell 'Fudge!' at cobras in North America"....who wouldn't want to do that - plus I could sneak some learning in about snakes and stuff.  Second, he still had to do his writing prompts every day.  He agreed very quickly and so it seems that our journey has started.

Now, as to what we learned today about feet...we stumbled onto an article about "Why do my feet stink" and here's a particularly interesting snippet (talking about sweat):

"The smell is actually caused by bacteria on our skin that eats the sweat and excretes waste that has a strong odor. "

Here are some photos we found along the way.

 And one more thing for you to enjoy.  Here's a video of a man with backwards feet, dancing.  He's pretty inspirational.

The first day!

Tomorrow is our first "official" day of home learning! We're not going to do much...just really ease into it all.  There's a spelling list and a writing prompt and do you remember the calendar I created with holidays for every day?

This week's spelling words:

1. media
2. medium
3. immediate
4. vibrant
5. chisel
6. chiseled
7. pulse
8. pulsate
9. pulsation
10. ecstasy
11. temporary
12. critical
13. begrudge
14. irritable
15. magnificent
16. contempt

Tomorrow's writing prompt is:
Electricity is a recent discovery.  Think of 12 things to do when there's no power.

Tomorrow's holidays are:

1. National Heimlich Maneuver Day
2. National Go Barefoot Day
3. Say Something Nice Day

Obviously we're going barefoot all (or most of the) day.  On the learning side of things, we're going to learn about the man who created the Heimlich Maneuver and why he did it and for the barefoot day I thought it would be nice to see what different cultures didn't wear shoes...Aidan decided he wanted to learn about feet.  So we're going to learn about the wonders of feet!

Eventually I think I'll post our calendar so you can see all of our holidays and maybe come up with ideas we can use to learn about them!

First meeting with "Authority"

I met with Little-A's 5th grade teacher yesterday morning.  I wanted to let her know we were going to home learn next year and even though she wouldn't be responsible for him anymore I really wanted her opinion on how to make this transition smoother for him.

I have to say that I was nervous about this meeting.  I've read so many bad experiences that parents have had all across America when they remove their children from school.  I'd steeled myself for a confrontation (even though his teacher is amazing).  It turns out that I was worried needlessly.  His teacher was very supportive of our decision and had some great ideas.  She expressed some concern about his need for socialization and I acknowledged it.  We brainstormed some ideas to make sure he got the high level he needs.

I face a challenge with him and home learning.  Everyone worries that home schooled kids aren't socialized....and they just worry about regular socialization.  Little-A is an extremely social child.  He thrives on person to person contact.  In fact, if you'll remember in a previous post, his biggest concern was that he'd never see his friends.  This bothered him so much that he was close to tears.  If he doesn't get enough socialization, he gets depressed and starts acting out.

I'm a great mom and because I am, I'm well aware of his "special" need of extra socialization.  It's going to be a challenge, and more then likely it's going to be exhausting for me (I'm not a social creature - except online - and I'm very introverted.  The complete opposite of him) but because I'm an awesome mom, I'm going to continually push myself outside of my comfort zone to make sure his needs get met.  I'm also going to have to find extra ways for me to be alone so I can recharge.

His teacher also gave me the website to find the state standards to make sure he stays on track in case I decide to send him back to PS.

As I've said before...he's always had exemplary teachers and I've always been grateful and appreciative of them.

A breakthrough!

I finally go through to Little-A yesterday.  We were sitting down for a nice Ramen dinner (which he fixed for us) and I casually asked him a simple question.

"If you could learn anything in the world you wanted...what would you want to learn?"

He said he wanted to learn how to take care of animals to help him in college when he's studying to be a Veterinarian.  When I told him we could learn everything there was to learn about it I saw that spark in his eyes.

You know that spark....your kid gets it after days/weeks/months of fighting you on something that you know is a good idea and you'd bet your life that they'd enjoy it but they disagree with you either on principle or simply because they can't see the bigger picture.  You try every way you possibly can to get their interest.  You beg, plead, cajole, threaten, put your foot down, ignore, and even bribe...but they still won't give in.  

Then comes that one innocent moment.  You probably didn't even plan it.  It just happened....and it finally clicks in their head.  "Wow!  Mom might be right....this could be fun!"

That's the look I was waiting for and I could see his brain working and thinking about all the possibilities that one answer held.

He's totally into my idea now ;)

He did ask how he'd know if he was learning and if he'd get grades so I agreed to give him tests and grades if and when he wanted them.   Oh, and we've decided to not call it home"schooling" and instead we're calling it home "learning".

On a side note,  I'm really looking forward to starting D's learning.  I think he'd love learning how to do computer programing so I'm going to start him on that.

This is me excited 

Never thought it would happen to me.

My friends decided to play "devil's advocate" today and proceed to tell me that I had no clue what I'm getting into and Little-A is going to be an unsocialized freak who will never be a functioning member of society....simply because I'm taking him out of school.  One of these friend's cited the few homeschooled kids he knew, as did another.  One friend said he had a background in teaching so he knew what he was talking about.

These friends are barely into their 20's and NONE of them have kids of their own. 

I listened to them in the beginning, because they are my friends.  I tried to have a conversation about it, to let them know that yes I do realize this is going to be difficult; yes I know my reasons for taking Little-A out of public school are primarily selfish; no, I never said either way of schooling is better...it's just different; and damnit, NO...homeschooled kids are NOT unsocialized lepers!  And for the record, I have more teaching experience than the previous mentioned friend.  

They didn't listen.  They kept changing their words to say the same thing.  I told them to stop, that while I respected their opinions, this was my decision and I wasn't going to accept any negativity about it and that the conversation was over.  It didn't stop.   I left.  I hope that my son never hears cruel words like that because if he does, he'll never come around to the joy we can experience on this journey.

I'd like to say that those will be the last tears I shed over this matter, but I'm a lot more realistic then that.

Why I decided to do it.

First of all, I'm not exactly the type of person you would expect to homeschool.  I'm a single mom, a full-time student, and I don't have a job....but I love my boys and I want what's best for them.  Let me explain something right away.  My older son...my hummingbird, D...has had difficulty in the public school system ever since 1st grade.  He doesn't have the type of personality that thrives in that atmosphere....and he's suffering for it.  My younger son, Little-A, has never had any issues in school.  He's always been on honor roll, he's had stupendous teachers, great schools, and even better friends.

So why do I want to pull my son out of what appears to be something good for him?  It's selfish, and I know it.  I want to spend more time with my baby before he gets too old to want to hang out with me.  I want to experience him as the wonderful kid he is.  I want to be able to explore the world through his amazing eyes....and I want to do it before the public school system drains the creativity from him.

I want the same for D but it will be different for him because he's already going into 9th grade.  He's at the age where he's trying to be an adult but isn't exactly sure how.  I want to be his role model.  I want him to understand that learning shouldn't be stressful or something you have to do.  Learning should be fun and exciting and something you do every day simply because that's how life is.

D is ready...this goes without question.  Little-A is fighting me tooth and nail.  His biggest concern is that he'll never see his friends again.  He won't accept when I say he will, just not every day.  He wants to experience Middle School (he's going into 6th grade).  He doesn't want to be the new kid again and have to make new friends.

Am I nervous?  Yes....but I have faith in my abilities as a mother and a teacher and I know that my boys will turn out alright.  I believe in myself and my children....and my ability to find help when I get lost.

I'm also realistic.  I know it's not always going to be sunshine and rainbows, especially since they've both been in the PS school system for so long.  There's going to be a long period of deschooling before we start.  I'm prepared for this, and so far I've gotten nothing but encouragement.

Here's hoping it continues.