Registration Time!

We have just four activities planned for November and the first of the month is our registrations deadline.  Please check out the website for all the information.  I will give a brief summary of our plans here. 

First up is our Quarterly Meeting—so important that is deserves its own post!  Attendance to our QMs is required to maintain membership.  This one, in particular, is important because we will be announcing and explaining some big and needed changes going into effect. 

If you are a member and cannot attend, you need to contact us before the meeting.  If you are not a member, this is the perfect activity to attend to get an idea of what KidsROCK Academy is all about. 

We will be going over business the first hour and then having an open discussion the second hour about how to balance our schooling with the rest of life.  Child care is provided for free by KidsROCK members.  There is a $3 request to help cover the cost of the building.  Consider bringing a little extra cash to partake of the rummage sale for school supplies.

The Quarterly Meeting is on Monday, November 8 from 3:30 to 5:30 at the Seventh Day Adventist Building on the corner of 5th and Cedar in Susanville.

Next comes the Veteran’s Parade!  I am so excited about this.  KidsROCK Academy has gone to watch the parade as a group in the past, but this is the first year in which we will actually be in the parade!  That takes place on November 11, of course.  If you want to participate, register as though it were for any other event, and the coordinator of the parade will contact you with further details.   Of course, if you want to support KidsROCK by attending the parade as a spectator, no registration is required, and we would be blessed by the support!!

On November 15, we will be taking a town tour to the Frontier Communications Building to learn a little about the company and its work.

Finally, on Friday November 26 we are meeting at the college track for our second annual Turkey Trot!  Bring the family to meet up with fellow KidsROCKers to get your body moving after the big Thanksgiving meal.  Reconnect with others after the holiday, let the kids play while we tackle our goal of 12 laps round the loop!

Feel free to contact us about any questions!

Documenting

I do not harbor hostility for the State of California.  If I can forget that it has been illegally skimming the top off my husband’s paycheck for over a year, I harbor even less of the non-existent hostility for the State of California.  Even so, it is an entity for which I hold little trust.

I was always taught when dealing with bureaucracy to document, document, document—it really isn’t bad advice in dealing with certain individuals, either.  The other thing I have learned is to give no more than is legally required.  What you will provide can be used against you!

By California law, I must teach all the standard public school subjects and keep attendance.   If I ever were to have to turn over proof of my homeschooling, it would only be the attendance I would submit.  (The subjects covered would go to my lawyers.)

With all that in mind, I have been on the hunt for a good book to use for documenting our school.   I have been using Homeschool Tracker, which is an awesome program, but I am doing this weird convoluted thing with it this year that precludes me from using it for attendance.  I have a notebook logging our actual work, but nothing that holds our attendance exclusively.

In my search, I found lots of great books that are predated or show only weekdays.  Since we started school in October and school can happen seven days a week, these options simply aren’t options for us.  I have found that generally homeschool record keepers don’t have set-apart attendance pages, and institutional record keepers provide attendance for 36 kids.  Everything required modification.

I realized that I was really looking for a chart.  So, I opened up Word and made one!  I am so jazzed and a little embarrassed that it was so easy.  Now I have a year’s worth of attendance ready to be recorded.

If you’d like to look at it to see how easily you can create something similar, check it out.  KidsROCK Academy also offers a full consulting program, if you’d like help with other aspects of your school year—though, I guess this could be seen as a cautionary tale.  Unless you choose to look at it as a demonstration of our diligence to never give up!

Product Review

This blog actually has a review page, but no one has posted to it.  So here is the first review.  I will copy it to or review page, as well.

Here is a toy worth its weight in gold.  I have pulled this toy out to entertain a variety of ages, group sizes and both boys and girls.  It has never failed me in providing constructive, creative and engaging play.  It is the ultimate toy.

And in keeping with the simplicity theory that kids have more fun with the box than the expensive whatever that came in it, this toy is about as simple as it comes: straws and plastic jacks.  That’s it, folks!

With these two components I have seen kids become inspired, cooperative and focused.  I have seen shy kids forget their timidity, aggressive kids work in conjunction with others, older kids lose their self-conscious ‘big-kid’ status and younger kids stand in awe because they helped to make something amazing.

Autumn’s Breath

Autumn is my most favorite season.  I think the marks of the season that most stand out for me are the colors and the cooler temperatures.  But there is so much more to it.

In  my mind, it is a time for outdoor walking.  I don’t personally do well out in the heat of summer, so when autumn comes, I feel this burst of energy because I am finally free to get outside.  In addition, my memories of walking with my grandparents and cousins always include wading through the piles of leaves on the side of the road.

Autumn also seems to mark the time families and friends make more time for one another.  Summer vacation is over, holidays are approaching and I experience families reaching out and reconnecting this time of year.

Those warm feelings, coupled with bundled bodies walking through fiery colors just fills my heart with expectant joy.  Add to that the scents of the season and it is perfection!  Chili, soups, homemade breads, and pumpkin everything; this is even a mouthwatering season!

Today we were blessed to get out and celebrate creation in autumn with some cherished friends.  I immensely enjoyed the whisper of the wind, bringing back to mind memories from my childhood.  While old pictures played through my mind’s eye, before me I watched my own kids skipping, running and climbing their way along the trails.  I find it magical when the past, present and future all press in to be close at the same time.  It was just a wonderful, wonderful day!

Being an Artist

I was making breakfast for my family this morning and pondering the state of things.  I have been struggling with school the last week or so.  While things are improving, I’d like to pinpoint the cause in case I could avoid the problem in the future.

I don’t know how much is my attitude, or my hormones, and how much is just the natural adjustment that takes place at the beginning of anything new, and how much is the attitude of my kids.   I am sure all play their part.  We aren’t quite in the perfect storm, but things aren’t as good as they could be.

I continued making breakfast and I remembered the oatmeal my grandma used to make for me on cold rainy mornings like this one.  Gosh, I appreciate her so much now.  I think I appreciated her then, but I also have enough memories of her complaining I didn’t to know that I at least didn’t express it well enough. 

So, here I am, feeling unappreciated by my kids thinking about my grandma who felt unappreciated and it hits me: being a mom is like being an artist.  The true approval and comprehension come only after the artist is dead.  Hopefully we can do better for our own mothers than this, but I feel this analogy holds some water, don’t you?

Artistry and raising children are not hard sciences.  You have to go with your gut, take a few steps in the wrong direction before you know it is wrong.  You have to make mistakes and get dirty.  You have to spend money you don’t have, because it costs more than it makes to live this life.  It takes time and vision to do a good job.  A little faith goes a long way, too!  We could even talk about the relationship an artist has with his art and compare it to the words of our own hands.  Oh!  And there is public opinion!!  Being different garners all sorts of disapproval from the outside, doesn’t it?  Only after all is said and done will someone following the path he thinks is right be celebrated.

And only when your works are out there on their own does the fruit of your labor get any recognition. hmmm…

Have you thanked your artist today?

Aloha!

Can you resist that??  Even our pup participated in the festivities.  We are completing a study on the Pacific Islands, and to celebrate we staged a luau!

Everyone got a new outfit—including Beagle Bailey—and we decorated the dining room with raffia, shells and starfish.  When the steel drums and ukulele were playing in the background the feast was ready.  Since I am not personally up for  burying a pig in the backyard for an all day cook, we settled for a simple glazed ham.  Everything was delicious!

Each kid gave a short report on how two different types of islands are formed, and we discussed how volcanoes erupt. 

Such a fun evening that I hope the kids will remember for a long time to come!  I know I will!

This is your brain

To demonstrate that the fluid between our skulls and our brains provides a very necessary cushion, we ran around the house with a raw egg in a sealed bowl, then again with a raw egg in a sealed bowl filled with water.  I love when a simple demonstration is available to drive home a lesson.

How blessed are we to have a God who so wisely made our bodies!  He knew the strain under which they would need to perform, and created us with safeguards and the ability to heal. 

And He is so much more interested in our souls.  We need cushioning there, as well.  We get knocked around and need something that will soften the blow.  It could be friends, family, or the comfort of routine.

Where do you find cushioning?  How do you stand back up after getting knocked down?

Just because this doesn’t work, doesn’t mean that won’t either.

I remember when I first got caught by the teaching bug.  I kept this little book of lesson plans, subjects and activities I wanted to do with kids at different levels.  The vastness of science never ceased to inspire me.  My pen couldn’t scratch across the page quickly enough to keep up with the my thoughts pouring forth.

Now I am living the dream, baby!  But…I haven’t always been.  When I first started formally schooling my own kids with purchased curriculum, the science didn’t really ‘gel’ with me.  I thought all that excitement I once had must have been just unrealistic youth or something.  Really teaching science wasn’t as cool as thinking about teaching it.

But then I found a curriculum that resonated with me.  I have a practiced habit of interrupting my own reading to the children in order to rephrase or comment on what I’ve just read to be sure the kids are understanding.  When I read this science, I still interrupt myself, and every time I return to the book I find that I am repeating myself—often word for word—as I read the next lines.  That has never happened before, and now it happens every time I open the book! 

The excitement and inspiration are back!  We can’t wait for science now.  It is a glorious feeling.

This is an important lesson for me.  I have preached it before, but I still need reminding.  Homeschooling is big.  Huge.  If what you are doing isn’t working, it may not be homeschooling that is the problem.  It might be your curriculum, the teaching philosophy or not communicating within your child’s learning style. 

Writing on failure and science begs the quote from Thomas Edison.  In my hunt online for the exact words, I found this site full of quotes regarding failure.  It seems one would be keeping good company if one embraced failure as a dear teacher. 

I have not failed.  I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.  ~Thomas Edison

So if the going gets tough, and you still remember why you chose to homeschool, don’t give up.  Keep looking.  There is so much out there.  You aren’t alone!

Our fantastic workers

We have some wonderful people who volunteer for KidsROCK.  Without them, our two-person council would be swamped to the point of defeat.

We have two fantastic tour coordinators who have infectious enthusiasm and go the extra mile when they set up our field trips. 

This is actually a rather dreaded job.  Trying to contact, coordinate and confirm tours in our town is far more complicated than it should be.  Just getting a business to return a call seems to take an act of God.  And even if every “i” is dotted and every “t” is crossed, there is no guarantee that our tour site hosts will remember we are coming.  I can’t count how many times I personally made calls the day before or the day of a tour and still arrived to be met by blank stares from our unprepared guides.  But our intrepid tour coordinators plug away with such cheerful spirits that we are all abundantly blessed by their efforts. 

We also have Club PALS hosts.  These wonderful ladies represent KidsROCK in such an intimate way.  They invite families into their homes to love on them for months.  Supplementing supplies, getting their houses ready to be welcoming, and keeping adults and children engaged are just a few of the essential duties they take on as easily as they take in breath.  Our hosts are gentle and warm, and are like that duck—all smooth on the top, but working diligently under the surface to help ensure a worthwhile class time week after week.

KidsROCK also boasts editors, fund-raising support, a registration manager, a club facilitator and homeschooling consultants.  We have several ladies who wear a number of hats and help KidsROCK in multiple capacities. 

I am so thankful for these wonderful ladies and their families.  I read somewhere and have since adopted a now-favorite phrase: support is not a spectator sport.  You have to get involved.  If you need a little (or a lot of ) help getting through this adventure of homeschooling, there is no need to go it alone.  Reach out!  And if you have it all together with plenty to spare, consider extending your own hand to one that is outstretched looking for help!

  To learn more about KidsROCK or our Support Positions, please check out our website.

Prayer Request

A family living behind us lost their five month old baby.
Please pray.

Fun Class

We had such fun at our last Club PALS.  For PE we played a more interactive version of hot potato.   The kids passed around a bag full of clothes as the music played.  When the music stopped, the player holding the bag had to blindly pull out and don the random article of clothing.

The game brought tons of silliness and giggles.  The kids in my house wanted to add to the bag to prolong the game, and when it ended, they wanted another round.

In addition to the fun game, we also painted hippo banks, tested the effects of varied surfaces of friction and made up words with our own definitions. 

I am just eating up this session of Club PALS! 

Room for the two of us

Hormones.  Oh my goodness!  Sometimes there are so many that I feel positively pressed up against the nearest wall to accommodate their volume! 

Part of our school this year is sex education, so we are talking about puberty and hormones and feelings and changing bodies ad nauseam.  I always felt like I got too little or not enough help through my own transition into adulthood, so it is interesting being on the other side of the proverbial table.

Our focus in our health lessons for my son have been puberty—signs, what is normal, what to expect.  It is very detailed and technical.  Our focus for my girl is much more touchy feely.  We have a diary/journal type book where she answers questions about her favorite color and white type of flower is most her.  I give each of my kids special mommy -and-me time for this particular subject, so I go from stickers and poufs to scrotum skin thickness and gauging puberty stage based on pubic hair. 

Sometimes I feel like I need to drink some Alice in Wonderland potion to help me with the transition.

My son is 11 and showing sure signs of maturity.  He is growing like a weed and his voice is dropping.  I love how matter-of-fact he is about everything.  I don’t know many people as confident as he is.  The books we are reading repeat time and again assurances that varied start times and speeds of maturity are ‘perfectly normal.’  We laugh about it, but I also strive to remind him that this can be a trying time for some, so those repeated reassurances can be a real blessing.

Enter my daughter.  Newly nine years old, she might be on the brink of some big changes.  Today during spelling she had to stop for a cry.  She didn’t know why and didn’t want to cry but just had to.  This evening she had her brother come tell me that she thinks he is the favorite.  Oh, my!  The drama!  We had another cry—mixed in with a bit of snarkiness directed my way. 

After the third barely controlled testy retort delivered between sniffles I gasped.  “I think I know what is wrong with you.”  Frankly, I am not sure there is room in this house for two hormonal women.  I mean, it isn’t like with guys, where once puberty is done, everything normals out.  No.  I am possibly more hormonal now than I was when I was 18.  And it could get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

We may be in for a bumpy ride!

Christmas?

As a kid, I don’t think the Christmas season came before Thanksgiving.  Black Friday seemed to start the season—as far as I can remember.  As I grew, Christmas decorations began going up in stores before Thanksgiving and people began grumbling about the commercialism—though I admit my age and growing awareness of the larger world could play a part in how I remember things.

I do remember a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that came out on November 1.  Calvin finished counting his Halloween Candy and was bored, so he said he would go check out the Christmas decorations in the shop windows.

As a young mom, I resisted the early coming of Christmas, in an attempt to stave off the commercialism.  I discovered, however, that, after several years of this, that Christmas creeped up on me and was over before I knew it.  I felt robbed; I’d missed Christmas.

So, now I embrace the season.  You want to start it early?  Bring it on!  Stories, movies, music, mistletoe!  I’m ready.  I want it.  My attitude has changed completely and I love it.

What I hadn’t realized was that it is contagious.  Want to know what is on the TV as I type?  The Santa Clause 2!  The Santa Clause (1) was on last night.  We certainly prefer the Truth of Christmas, and focus primarily on that, but this series of movies is a favorite for us.

Having it on in the background of my day is having a terrific affect on me.  I am smiling for no reason.  :)  I am making plans, enjoying memories and praying thanksgivings.

Christmas in October?  Sure, why not?

Negative Talk

Do you struggle with inner voices who aren’t so kind?  Voices that lead to self doubt?  I do.  I criticize myself endlessly, critiquing my own efforts and coming up short.  I fear I am doing the wrong thing, or the right thing in the wrong way. 

All this can paralyze me.  I am mired in fear, doubt and a not-too-fondness of myself.  When this happens in regards to schooling my kids, it is tough.  The cycle of trying, failing, and cursing myself for it affects my kids, whom I am trying to train in the way they should go!  I sure don’t want them following me!

Goodness, it is destructive!  And I have to remember that anything that destroys good is at war with the new creation that is me.  I don’t have to accept it.  I don’t have to believe it.  I renounce it.

Do you ever get fooled by the liar?  How do you deal with tough days?  What do you do to hear the still small voice over the storms of life?

Private California homeschoolers

http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/ps/rq/affidavit.asp

If you are homeschooling in California and not associated with a private or public school that maintains legal records, today is the deadline for filing your private school affidavit.

It can be intimidating to file something so very legal and declarative, but it is simple to do online and doesn’t need to take more than five minutes.  You will need to make just a few small decisions and the rest basically consists of writing the same name and contact information over and over again.

The two decisions involve choosing a name for your school and deciding if you want it to be listed as religious.  Neither is a big deal.  Many people choose their last names or their street names for the name of the school.  Others enjoy the chance to get creative!

The main thing is to just get it done.  Fill out the fields, print it and file it someplace safe (and where you can find it again!), and you will have the peace of mind that another “i” has been dotted.

Shots From the Patch

We had a wonderful time and a great turnout to the pumpkin patch.  The weather was warm, the friends were inviting and the tradition is a treasure!  I think pictures will do better than words to describe out visit.  I hope you enjoy!

The farm with the pumpkins, of course.  And I promised the quintessential barn.

 

KidsROCK!

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

We got a hay ride and a talk from a most delightful teach about the wide variety of pumpkins.

 

Great faces!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kids got to try out the tractors.

 

Just before picking out pumpkins the kids traipsed through the maze.

Pumpkin Patch Today!

This is an annual event that screams for the camera.  The views are best described as picturesque.  Fields of pumpkins, autumn colors, hay rides, and even the quintessential red barn.  Photo opportunities are everywhere.

We will be meeting as a group to hear about pumpkins, share a snack, ride in the hay, and enjoy the hay maze.  It will be a day to remember!  If you’d like an opportunity to meet some KidsROCKers, head out to Wemples today at 9:30!  You can’t miss us in our shirts.  

Happy Birthday, my little girl!

My girl is nine today!  By baby is nine today.  Last single digit year!  Whew!  That is something, isn’t it?

It is because of her arrival that I began schooling my son.  He was only two-and-a-half, but I wanted him to have guaranteed time with me each day.  We did Bible, crafts, games and stories. 

My girl began our school career.  She’s been exposed to these things for as long as she can remember.  Now we are at our mid-way point.  It is easy to wonder if I have done enough; have I missed something essential?  How many opportunities have passed by unheeded? 

Oh, and then I can make an art of future-dreaming!  Will she go to college close by, or travel away?  Will she pursue a career, or follow in my footsteps?  Which is best?  One reason I homeschool is to provide a superior academic experience for my kids.  Would becoming a mom waste that?  Am I a waste?

Isn’t it funny how birthdays play tricks with time?  I stretch back nine years while reaching forward even further!  It takes will power to calm myself and stay in the here and now.  I force myself to remember Matthew 6:27 and Matthew 6:34.  The truth is, getting lost in the past or future works something like a self-fulfilling prophesy.  If you worry about missing something, you’ve already missed the present.

I am eager to see who she becomes as she develops from girl to woman.  She has such big dreams and a tender heart.  I am privileged to witness the lives of these two special kids.

You can school here or there, you can school anywhere!

Isn’t Dr. Seuss wonderful? 

Being a one-vehicle family has its upsides and its downsides.  Depending on my mood, it is debatable when we are experiencing one or the other.  For example, when I am being positive, I can say getting up at o-dark-thirty to take Daddy to work so that we can attend KidsROCK classes or run errands affords our family the luxury of starting the day together.  On the other hand, when I have had little sleep, and could sleep another two hours if I had my own car, I am less positive.

This morning, I was just tired enough to be indifferent to our condition as I made my way, bleary-eyed to the van.  We traveled most of the way in silence, made it through the manned front gate, kissed Daddy goodbye and headed back home.  (Oh, we stopped by a certain coffee place and got some pumpkin latte, too.  Mmmm.)

The truth is, my biggest problem with one-vehicle family setup is that I have to often drive in the dark.  I honestly don’t do that well.  My eyes just aren’t good enough and I always drive with tension and prayers.

That is what I was doing when I came upon flashing red lights in my lane.  I slowed, seeing that the oncoming traffic was lined up at a stand still.  In front of the headlights my kids and I could see moving legs.  Lots of moving legs. 

What was going on?  The police car facing me swerved slowly into the correct lane and passed by me.  Then I saw cows.  A whole mess of them filling both lanes of the road, and coming right at us!  It was such a shocking scene that we laughed—only in a small town can traffic be stopped by cattle, right?

But then I had a moment of sincere panic as they closed in around the van.  I flashed my lights and rolled down the window to see if the police officer, now out of his car, would give me instructions.  He flashed his light and spoke gently to the cattle to move them back in the direction from which they came.  He looked my way and told me to move forward slowly. 

I followed his directions, and the cows, down the road a bit—the other side of traffic hadn’t moved at all.  As I came closer to the line of vehicles filled undoubtedly with men and women late for work, another police car was coming at me in my lane.  I came to a halt and the two officers persuaded the cattle into the field from which I can only assume they came.

Excitement over, we made our way home.  But, no self-respecting homeschooler could pass up all the opportunities for learning now!  So we talked about cattle, their temperament, the police, how they might have been notified and what my kids could do if they ran into similar situation (only in a small town!).

We also considered the possible aftermath—what the police would say to the owner of the cattle, and what would need to be done to prevent this from happening again and if the owner deserved some sort of penalty.  We also considered how it happened in the first place and praised the Lord that an accident hadn’t occurred when the escape was discovered.

A nice normal day of car schooling.  :)

It can get Lonely

For school we are reading about a missionary family in New Guinea.  They arrived with a 16-month old son and a one-month old daughter.  In the following nine months, the mother suffers from appendicitis, blood poisoning, severe weight loss, fainting spells, ear infection and threatened encephalitis.  Combine these health problems with living in rugged conditions where it rains every day, disease and dirt are daily companions and the demands of motherhood are no less than for any other mother.  She was trying to learn a difficult language and couldn’t exactly run next door to borrow a cup of sugar while getting a little grown-up conversation.

Her husband, on the other hand, was starting schools to share the Gospel, literacy programs, building airstrips, visiting neighboring villages, and teaching the people about how to live healthier lives.  He was smart and well-trained, so he knew to never be God to these people.  He trained the people to train more people.  As a result, he was able to see a lot of progress in those short nine months.  Being fully immersed in the people and their culture, he picked up the language quickly and was adopted into the society.  He was respected; people listened to what he said, and he saw the fruits of his many labors in short order.

Meanwhile, back at the hut…  She was not running any programs.  She was stay-at-home-mom-ing.  Changing diapers, kissing boo-boos, tending to the sick in the village and stalling people who couldn’t get enough of her husband.  Lonely doesn’t even begin to describe how this woman felt. 

I took this opportunity to let my kids know that they don’t have to go to the far reaches of the world to see a husband and wife function in this way.  To demonstrate, I asked my son how often he feels lonely.  He said not very.  I told him that his sister feels lonely at least once a day.  She confirmed.  

Women long for companionship, but our duties tend to further isolate us.   A man is out of the house for his work-time.  Often the work shows progress.  He finishes a project and starts a new one.  And don’t underestimate the reward of earning a regular paycheck! 

A mom’s work shows results at a much slower pace.  Or the job resets itself naturally and there is no such thing as getting ahead.  You can’t wash the dishes twice today to avoid having to wash them tomorrow.  And sometimes the results leave us scratching our heads at the wisdom in pursuing them. 

Yay, the baby can crawl!…Oh, the baby can crawl.  Yay.

Not only are the rewards different when homemaking, but the adult interaction is missing.  How much more true that can be when we add homeschooling to the mix.  We work hard and it is a labor of love.  Good.  Right.  But also often lonely. 

Hopefully we can train our boys to be sensitive to this state of being.  I pray my kids stay close and they support one another through trials.  I also pray that it doesn't take a trial to bring them together!

In the meantime, for homeschooling moms today, for myself, it is a comfort to know we are not alone.  Someone understands and is steadfast.  He is so faithful and understanding that He will even provide much needed support in the form of fellow homeschoolers.  He is good.

Expertise

I like to feel accomplished at what I do.  Sometimes I am and often I am not.  I make mistakes, and frequently they are quite public.  I guess I am one who struggles with the sin of pride, so the good Lord knows to keep me humble.  I can say I am relatively accomplished at apologizing—thanks to a whole lot of experience.

But even if one were an expert in a field, since we are flawed humans, exploring for all of life, there is almost always more to learn.

I am blessed to know several experts in homeschooling.  However, since the term homeschooling refers to something so vast, no single expert can actually be expert in the whole thing.  There are aspects of homeschooling where I feel reasonably knowledgeable.  In other areas, I am ranked lower than a novice.

When I began this blog, I thought I would have a list of contributing writers.  Because of that, my heading for the blog said something like, ‘hear about homeschooling from those ‘in the trenches.’ 

Months later, I am still the primary writer.  My words not only promised something akin to expert advise, but advice from multiple experts.  Boy, have I got egg on my face!

So, I have changed my heading.  I am not an expert in all things homeschooling.  I am passionate about it enough to make it my lifestyle, and to talk about it with anyone willing to join me. 

Since I have never made the invitation clear, I would like to do so now.  This blog can be more of a forum for dialog rather than a series of monologs from a single homeschooler.  No matter your experience level, I’d love to hear from you!

Questions, comments, your own stories…Please come to share. :)

Schooling today

I filed my private school affidavit the other day.  This is the legal way to homeschool outside the charter system in California.  Every independent homeschool files an affidavit as a private school between October 1 and 15.  Mine is filed. I am legal—not accredited, not ‘approved,’ as California is hasty to point out at the bottom of the form.  Just legal.

I printed out my papers, and filed them with the others, and thumbed through them all.  My first affidavit was filed in the fall of 2005.  I have six years of documents marking my ‘legal’ history of homeschooling.  I actually started nine years ago when my son was two years old. 

I look back and enjoy the memories of crafts, plays, foods, stories and messes we’ve shared.  I also cringe with shame over the stress I infused in our lives over arbitrary standards and deadlines I installed.  We live and learn, I guess…

Today my kids are trained to say they are in sixth and fourth grades.  That isn’t what their math books say, or their science, or their history, or their language arts…I can’t think of anything we use that says they are in sixth or fourth grade.  But that is the beauty, right?

This year we are doing most lessons together—Bible, History, Geography, Science, Music, Drawing, Spanish…  It is nice to streamline the day and to reinforce the lesson when each has to explain what they’ve learned in their own words.

I told in my last post that my daughter’s learning style is more visual and kinesthetic, while my son is highly auditory.  This year we are tailoring to both with lots of reading out loud coupled with themed days that include dressing up, traditional meals, and crafts.  This is the first year I have built into our lessons time to have frequent ‘theme days.’  These days will serve to wrap up the region we studied. We are beginning with the Pacific Islands and will have a luau, with a volcano eruption at some point in the evening.

How has your school evolved through the years?  Would you have done your first years differently if you knew then what you know now?  Do you miss anything about the early years of schooling? 

Celebrating the Learning Styles

I think one of the first things homeschoolers discover is that the decision to homeschool opens a door to a room full of more doors.  So many more decisions lie ahead: to test or not to test (and if so, when, by whom, how often, in what subjects…), school-at-home or unschool (or something in between), curriculum-in-a-box or piece together your own lessons (or something in between), farm out or teach it all by yourself (or something in between)?  You get the picture.

One of the elements of schooling, whether in a traditional building school, or driving in a car (or—say it with me—something in between), is to understand how important it is to tailor lessons best as possible to a child’s strengths and weaknesses.  To effectively convey information, it is important to know the audience.  An important part of that is to know about learning styles.

I have a great curriculum.  I knew I was going to use it when my firstborn was a baby.  My older sister used it and I read the catalog—worth the read, whether you choose the curriculum or not—and I was sold.  I loved the heart of the family who founded the company.  I loved the style of teaching through stories.  This was my future!

My son ‘came of age’ and we began.  It was a wonderful two years of reading to my wriggly boy.  I read for hours.  We had fantastic conversations.  I saw him playing out the story lines and taking on the persona of the characters we’d met.  He shared with his little sister the Truths being planted in his heart.  Life was a sepia-toned photograph, if you ignored the sticky fingers, the pile of laundry and the boy who learned best either by hanging upside down or perching like a frog on the coffee table.

Then my daughter ‘came of age’ and we began.  I was excited to visit old friends.  I read for hours.  But our conversations went more like this, ‘Why do you think Wilbur did that?’  “Jesus?”  “What?”  “I don’t know…is Jesus the right answer?”

I will leave the reenactment there, since the rest doesn’t color me in sepia tones. 

I couldn’t understand it.  What was this girl’s problem?  These are great stories, she sits still far better than my son does (still), and she is even older than he was when I read these books to him.  What is the problem??

I rented the movies that corresponded to our books.  All of a sudden, it clicked.  I saw her playing out the story lines and taking on the persona of the characters we’d met.  We had fantastic conversations.  What was the difference?  Had I let my kids watch too much TV and ruined them for books?  Was I a horrible mother?

All of a sudden, it clicked—sad to say, my sudden clicking took far longer than the sudden clicking of my daughter.  She is a visual learner.  She is a kinesthetic learner.  She is NOT an auditory learner.

Oh!  The suffering I could have avoided!  I dutifully set aside my beloved curriculum for another year, and found one that used picture books, even for older children, and a lot of repetition.  This armed her with skills while allowing her to continue in daily lessons.  It equipped me, as well.  I learned to read aloud with more inflection, with more explanation and a lot more gesticulation.

I am so thankful for the mercies of the first years homeschooling.  I learned far more than they did.  I know my kids’ strengths and weaknesses.  I know when they are listening and when they’ve tuned me out—even when there is no discernable difference in their demeanor.  I know better how to teach and reach both of them. 

Personality

I just got back from my daughter’s dance class that has a whole slew of KidsROCKers in it.  At first glance, there are about ten girls ranging from teeny to svelte moving around the dance floor in an almost-pattern.

But then grab a spot on the worn-carpeted bleachers and really watch.  It takes less than a minute to begin seeing the unique individuality of each of these young dancers.  Some are silly, some talented, some gleeful in their every move.  All are delightful.  Their teacher is so very kind, encouraging the expression of personalities.  Each girl so clearly feels special and important, no matter how big the crowd of ‘pretty arms’ in their midst.

I am so blessed to be able to hang around these homeschool families and to get to know the personalities budding all around me.  Yesterday I had the son of an electrician in my home for Club PALS.  He managed to grab all the hole punches he could find and slip them into his pockets.  An instant ‘tool man,’ so proud.

 

 

How wonderful it is to let these kids be kids.  They pretend, experiment and play with as little self-awareness as possible.  The freedom to develop unimpeded by the pressures to conform is priceless, and I am endlessly thankful to be a witness to it in so many young families.

Great Club PALS

We were missing a beloved family at our Club PALS group today, but we worked through it and ended up having a really nice day together. 

For free time, we just gave the kids free reign with a variety of supplies and an assignment to make their own simple machines.  Oh, what a treat it is to watch kids truly engage in a project!  They are so smart, and so creative!  Here are some shot of the kids working out their plans and their finished project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Science!

We are studying Anatomy and Physiology this year for science.  The program we use is such a good match for our family.  When I found it, I felt like I had come home, and I no longer worry about competitively equipping my kids for college in this subject. 

We opened the year with a little history, beginning with Egyptians.  So cool, because we are also studying sailing and that book began with the Egyptians, too.  

Our first project was to mummify apples.  How cool is that?  Fun project, visual, tactile but not really asking a whole lot of time, space or supplies from me.  Love it!!

My son threw a little art in by peeling a face into his apple.

 

My daughter, not to be left out, peeled the silhouette of a puppy.  ‘Woof.’

They are covering one apple with salt and baking soda.  A stereotypical homeschool family can’t be stereotypical without doing school in pjs! 

Homeschool Foundation Ambassador

I have something rather exciting to share.  I recently became an Community Ambassador with the Homeschool Foundation, which is the charitable arm of the Home School Legal Defense Association.  Must be cool if there are that many capitals in the sentence, right?  But what does it really mean?

First of all, it means I need to get the word out.  There aren’t any other Ambassadors in this area, and I hope that will change soon.  The Homeschool Foundation’s mission is quoted below.

The Foundation’s mission is to provide assistance to homeschooling families in need, preserve parental freedoms, promote homeschooling, and support like-minded organizations.

So our goal is to find homeschool families in crisis, such as loss of a family member, loss of wages or a natural disaster that would stand in the way of homeschooling and bring relief. 

This is what makes getting the word out so very important.  I want people to know where to go when there is a family in need.  I’d like people in need and people with a heart to help to have a central place to ‘gather.’

So this is my first announcement!  I will be posting contact information here at the blog permanently as well as at the website.  If you are interested in learning more about the Homeschool Foundation, you can check out their website and you can ‘like’ them on Facebook

School Spirit

I love being on a schedule.  Well, let me rephrase to be a little more honest.  I love the results of being on a schedule.  Actually sticking to a schedule or routine is quite difficult for me.  I am woefully lazy and can let a shocking amount of time slip by while I do nothing.

But when I dedicate myself to something and we have more of a purpose to our days, the blessings just rain down.  The kids get along better, we all sleep better and the sense of accomplishment simply feels better than the alternative.

We started our new school year on Thursday—with my darling husband’s off-tilt work week that is our Monday.  Things weren’t quite right that first day.  We had to be someplace just after lunch and we got started a little later than I like.  But we made the most of it by just getting our hands on our materials and becoming familiar with our course of study this year.  I called it our orientation day and left it at that.

Yesterday, October 1, was our first ‘real’ day of school.  Oh!  Even as I write that I feel like I am betraying my own beliefs that school is everyday, every hour.  We did great learning things on our month off, but I still need the discipline of a schedule to help me expose my kids to all that I want them to see.  So, forgive my duality when I say that we did school yesterday. 

And it was great!  We started two new novels, will be praying for the 100 Gateway Cities in the 10/40 window (referring to the latitude lines above the equator that run through northern Africa, the Middle East and southern Asia where Christ’s name is not known by all), played the recorder, explored Greek root words, did a little math, practiced principles of English (this is actually the one subject area I rarely stick with through the year because I believe it happens naturally) and so much more.  We were so productive!  We mummified a peeled apple, played on the Wii together, washed the dog and fooled around with the balance scales.

Ah….I love doing school with my kiddos!  I am so grateful for our curriculum.  I guess alongside lacking personal drive to get off my derrière, I also lack creativity to plan all those wonderful conversation starters!   

Hope your school days are full of connection time for you and your kids!