Beginning Anew!

As public school kids across the country embark on yet another droll existence in "the system" my children will take new steps into a new year filled with new life and excitement. There will be no tests, no grade cards, and best of all no school lunches!

Nope, on cold windy days we can stay home wrapped in soft billowy blankets, drink hot tea and read books to each other and nibble warm buttery toast next to the hearth. Warm sunny days we can head out doors to picnic in the sun and talk about all the little things that pop into our heads.

When academics drags us down, we will take a break and paint, draw, make play dough, do science experiments, play board games, and do puzzles.

When being "at school" gets under our skin, we will escape to various museums, events, and nature reserves to learn more by being there.

As the public school kids begin to sit in their seats and "learn" my children will be up and out of their seats moving, talking, and experiencing life!

I am looking forward to the 2009-2010 school year!

With that said I have a small library of books lined up for this years reading aloud time. Or as we call it D.E.A.R Time (Drop Everything And Read).

We have started the year off by reading an abridged King Author and the Knights of the Roundtable, it was not as exciting as unabridged might be, but this book was already in the library.

Now we are reading The Never Ending Story by Ende (American translation). The kids like this one, but one chapter is all they can sit through thus far. I am sure later when the flying dog appears they will want to sit through longer stints.

Here are the other books I pulled from my library that we have not yet and will do so this school year.

Stanley, Flat Again! by Brown

The BFG by Dahl

Matilda by Dahl

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Dahl

The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs by Birney

The Secret of the Old Clock by Drew

A Christmas Carol and Other Holiday Tales (unabridged) by Dickens

The War of the Worlds by Wells

I also have our science and history to read. Not to mention bedtime stories, and helping Jonah learn to read. James reading to Zane while I work with Jonah, and all the other ends and outs of "school."

Let's get to work!

Teacher Dad

I have started going to see my mentor once a week for "help" and advice about my paintings. This is on Monday because Sam has that day off. This means he is in charge of the teacher duties. We have been learning about different states every week. We average about 2 states a week. With this I find words for the kids to write and make sentences from, I write those words on the chalk board. I also write the state and the capital city in different colors to help them remember. I chose words that are unique to that state, like Mormon in Utah. Today Sam was to read the Utah book. I found the words, wrote them on the board, and explained the words to the kids. told them to listen for those words in the book. We are not talking a HUGE book here. A library book about Utah from the kids section. Not even a hard read. Well, Sam failed! He was so bored he fell asleep and read less than a third of the book. He told me it was "Boring" and the kids were asking to stop too. I then think about all the times I talk to him on the phone during the day and he's telling me what they ought to do. I always feel angry because I am doing quite a bit, I do not like the backseat driver without even a permit telling me how to drive. After today I now realize that is his shadow at work there. He has fears I am failing because he KNOWS he would. He proved that today. How did I handle this news? I asked the kids about how they liked their substitute. Zane likes Sam better because he fell asleep while reading, and never told him to be quite, because he didn't know he was noisy because he was ASLEEP!
Jonah likes Dad because he was "easy" and "less bossy." James likes me because I am "not as mean."

There you go, kids like the teacher that lets them fool around, except James, he likes a teacher that is not as "mean."

I think it's funny that when I read about the different states everybody wants to visit them afterward, but when Sam reads about them they want it to end. Oh, this is all too funny.

The beauty of homeschooling...

It was brought to my attention by a fellow homeschooler today about the beauty of homeschooling, flexibility. We can have school anytime and anywhere. She said this in response to the fact I told her we finally got around to Science and History at 9pm last night. You would think that this would be a "bad" time to do this, but it's not. Children retain bedtime stories, right? You read them a story before bed and the next morning they babble endlessly about it, or draw pictures about it, or act it out with their friends or siblings. some might argue that reading history is a bit heavy, even science. "What ever happened to fairy tales?" was one comment.

Fairy tales are horrid. They are gruesome. They are scary. Want you child to have rip roaring nightmares read a REAL fairytale to them. Learning about how Julius Cesar was kidnapped and held for ransom money is not so bad. Learning about butterflies before you close your eyes are delightful. Do we read fairy tales at all? I tried, the kids were bored. In my opinion fairy tales are like a lot of other traditions; completely over rated and ran into the ground.

I do think it is necessary to read fairy tales, I also think it is necessary to read the bible and learn history. You will being to see a pattern emerge. My children now "see" those patterns. They jump up at the story of Moses and say, "Hey didn't that same thing happen to Sargon? Wasn't Sargon pushed out into water in a basket?"

That is besides the point, my point here was flexibility. We can have math class at 4pm, Science at 8pm, and History at 9pm. We wake up at 7am but we need time to wake up the brain, eat, do chores, and get some energy out first. We get it all done, but not like the schools do. Life is becoming less rigid. Public schools were based on work schedules most Americans had. These days schedules are something people make a week in advanced, not something they adhere to day by day. Our school system does not reflect the changing times. Homeschooling does, which is why you see a lot of people doing it today. You can be flexible and "hang out" with your kids more.

Not to mention they are not nearly as jaded and snotty as the PSK's. There are a lot of benefits here. I highly recommend this to many people, some though I am sure glad PS is there for them and their kids. Sometimes being with strangers is better for the kid than the parents.

Field Trip!

I would normally say that going to a movie is NOT a field trip unless it was to watch a documentary on the big screen. Today was an exception. Due to lower than usual funds, higher food prices, etc. We take few trips. Museums are not free, neither is gas, and then there are tolls to pay. It is too cold for free outdoor adventures, so what does one do for fun? We usually head off to homeschool group or open gym time, but my kids are snotty and coughing. I knew very few people would not be at the movies on Wednesday at 11am. I was correct. There was one older lady, a woman with her small child, and a man with his son. That was it. We sat in the back and watched Bedtime Stories with Adam Sandler. It's a great movie, I just love Adam Sandler. It is funny, we are close in age and our humor seems to be developing about the same. When I watch younger Sandler movies I roll my eyes, but at one time I thought they were hilarious. Funny how your taste change with time and experiences.

This was not exactly learning experiences, but it was a nice family time, which is usually teacher/student time.

We are progressing nicely with our state studies I started in January. We started late because Sam kept forgetting to pick up the books from the library. The kids now want to visit so many states to see all the wonderful museums and natural wonders. The first on the list is Connecticut.

I am holding the vision that money will pick up around here for us and we can afford to take trips to all these fantastic places together. Sounds fun to me!!

Mrs Piggle Wiggle

I know this will be blasphemy to some, but it has to be done. I HATE MRS PIGGLE WIGGLE!! I hate reading it. I hate listening to it. By God wouldn't you know it Zane LOVES the books. Gag! I would rather suck on a dirty gym sock. My husband remembers laughing so hard when his mother read those stories to him and his sisters. My mother in law told me to buy them. When James was 4 I bought a 4 book set. I brought them in, set James down and began to read the most uninteresting dribble I had ever laid my eyes upon. James, the kid that was currently listening to The Hobbit every night, could not stand them either. They were promptly placed on the bookshelf to hopefully rot in peace. My luck held out with Jonah. He did not like them either. Curiousity struck him when he saw the books. With my inability to toss out books, because they are fine and not peed on by the dog, you should keep them no matter what. Zane comes along and finds them as I am clearing out the library. "What's this?" he picks up two of the books.
"Oh that is Mrs Piggle Wiggle, give them here, they will go nicely here." I gingerly take the books and smile and shove them between two larger books hoping they will be lost from prying eyes.
That night the Piggle Wiggle curse fell upon my head. Zane asked me to read the "piggie book" with the "old lady on it." I knew when he said "piggie book." It's that motherly intuition that only mothers have and fathers are clueless, standing in the middle of the room looking down and the weeping babe on the verge of screaming, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT."
Nope, I knew, Mrs Piggle Wiggle. I crinched, but thought, "it will not take long, he will ask for Olivia or Little Bear, maybe even Gloria and Officer Buckle." NO, he did not. I ended up reading half that book, several "cures" before he lost intrest enough to find a new book. I was ready to read the Fudge books for the third time after that.

What does this have to do with Homeschooling? Not sure, it was reading to my child. That is about it. And thank you, God, for helping him see the light, ughm....I mean a new book ;)

Get off my back!

This is what I feel like saying to people that give me a hard time about James and his education.
I KNOW he's behind. I have talked with people about this. He's has all the traits of a dyslexic kid. I have done a TON of research online and with the state of Ks about available resources. What I found out was the state of Ks will pay for James to have an IEP at a public school. What it amounts too is going slower than the rest of the kids and he's not expected to do the same work. They do not recognize dyslexia as something to treat differently, meaning the style in which they teach, same way but slower. I did more research, I found out that other states AND privately paid tutors that specialize in dyslexia are using the same math program I am ALREADY using. So why sink $500 for 3 months of math when it only costs me $65 each time we move up a level? What am I getting at here? I am getting at the fact I am working with him. Yes, he is behind. No, it is not because he's homeschooled. He got further behind by going to school last year than if he had stayed home with me.

I have found he advances faster with me than when he's being schooled by "professionals." The reason being I see him "drift off" and call him back. He's a chronic daydreamer. He's habitually slow. He's major procrastinator. He's the worst of Sam and I wrapped into one kid. Yet, I swear on my Grandmothers grave, this childis an idiot savant. He's brilliant, but like Einstein, it's hard to see, right now. Just today he took an old broken down, not working in year ancient CB apart and put it back together, it works now. Yet, last night we had the most unusal conversation about numbers. It went like this....

"Can you take 9 from 18?"

"Ummmm"

"OK try this, what is 9+9?"

"18"

"OK, then what is 9 taken away from 18?"

"0"

I then stood there staring at him with complete disbelief and ahhh.

Finally after a couple minutes he saw his error and figured out it was 9 after all and not zero.

This is typical math time issues. Add on that to his piss poor spelling and you have an uphill battle on your hands, academically. Yet the kid remembers EVERYTHING he hears. He knows ALL the years of important dates; Civil War, death of MLK, birth years of grandparents, friends, friends parents. He listens and hangs on to everyword people say and files it away. Later he comes back with "hey this is like the time so-and-so said......" and is able to fix a problem by having those tid-bits filed away in his brain rolodex. He got our tractor fixed and working last Summer when his Dad threw in the towel and said he did not know what to do. We sat at the table one night after dinner and heard it roar to life. He then gave Sam a list of things he needed to buy so we could fix it up; belts, tires, etc...


It's just no one knows how much I am working with him. We work on this stuff everyday. I even had a retired (recently retired) Special Ed teacher tell me that public school was not good for a kid like James in this state. I have noticed, and private is even worse, for him.

Have you heard of the library programs where the dogs sit in the room and listen to kids read? Well I have one better, a little brother that thinks James is super cool and James thinks Zane is super little and needs his protection. James, the kid that WILL NOT READ, now reads everynight to Zane. Tonight is was The Magic Finger! It is a start. It's something meaningful to Zane and warms my heart to see. Plus the bonus of James actually reading a chapter books and other smaller books to Zane.

It's getting better. I do work with him. He even has special on-line help. I am covering my butt/bases here.
I just wish people would back off and let us work and trust we are!
He's special. He's unique. He's brain works in such a way that it looks lost to us, it's only because we are much to dull to think the way he does.

It's not easy being an Einstein mini-me! LOL!!!