Not Planning to Stop

I cannot imagine a day in my life that we consider ending the homeschool journey. Don't get me wrong, there are threats to put Faith into the public school system just so she knows what it is about. She is the one child that has not been there. She is also the one child that finds a way to challenge a soul's patience. I am certain she would hate being bored as she would be in school with children her own age. I am sure she would use that show off attitude and be put into place by the teacher.  Other than the occasional threat there is never any real consideration of the girls attending the public school again.  I see that others are winding down the year and planning on sending their children on to the public school.

I am so baffled by this action. Perhaps they are worn down and tired. Perhaps they feel the children are now old enough to handle the pressures of the system better. Perhaps they have not been able to make progressive learning and find they must put it into the hand of an actual trained instructor.  I cannot begin to understand why a person goes from the home system to the public system.  The only way I can see that happening for Grace and Faith would mean that I have gone to heaven. I hope by that time, Kelley feels very confident and continues on with their home education.

Let me tell you what we have been busy doing. Tomorrow we will launch our rockets from the rocketry class that they attended.  I have taken some time to teach more about rockets but have great plans for next week to cover the subject more. As usual, there have been doctor appointments and procedures that take our focus away from the text book. Weeks like this one, we find a way to incorporate what we can and teach the importance of family structure and support.  Massive work has been accomplished in the work toward our school house as well as clearing out the horrible mess that the girls created in their basement.

I find that I am not always patient and kind. I went into our old classroom at their house and let us just say, the girls saw me shoot to the sky like a rocket.  The mess that they dug into was horrible. The items that I felt were my own personal possessions that I use to aide with instruction were not as I had left them.  I really need to get this school house completed. I need to move from my kitchen as soon as I can. 

I know many use their kitchen every day. I use mine as well. The point is that I have the ability to have a great area that is not part of my kitchen to have traditional lessons held.  We will still have couch time, we will still have outdoor time but I want my kitchen table to be free. If I did not have an area to move toward then I would be thrilled to use my kitchen, my couch, my bed and my yard as usual as I am sure it does not diminished their ability to learn.

Next week the replicas of Nina and Pinta are gong to be in Grafton, Illinois. We plan to take a visit there and enjoy the experience. We will also attend the Magic House in St. Louis as the Magic School Bus display will soon be gone.  Owen will be in the hospital for a few days as they conduct a video EEG and seek the focal point of his seizures.  When Kelley and Owen are at the hospital it is a stressful time for the girls. We can decrease it by taking some field trips during the week. 

Seems I have been so busy helping the get the girls basement in order that my own house has suffered. Therefore, I will close for now and get to work on my home. I will work again this weekend. I pray it goes better than last weekend. I ended up crying myself to sleep due to the pain. It was my first full weekend back at work after my long illness.  Now...up and at 'em, there is work to be done.

Rocket Building

A new opportunity has presented itself to us. It was a chance to be with a group of other homeschooled children to build rockets, learn a little about the rocket and then next week we will launch the rockets.

The class was held in the home of a friend's mother. The friend was homeschooled by her mother and now teaches her own children. We have attended group classes before but it was always in a public setting.  So lesson one was about bringing a small hostess gift. On the way there we stopped at the florist and Faith picked out a small but nice bouquet to give the hostess of the house.  She was tickled to do this rather old fashion activity.

Overall, they did well paying attention to what Mr. Fischer had to say. I noticed Grace trying to look around him so I know was paying attention.  Putting the project together required my assistance to a very small degree. Grace did will in following the directions she was given.  Mr. Fischer had determined that the two youngest ones were go have a rocket that was mostly built already. It meant that Faith did not have much to build on her rocket and so she was bored a bit at the end. 

We will launch the rockets next week and the girls are excited. I am sure Grace will count down the days along with Faith.  In the coming up week we will have some extra learning opportunities about rockets and the role they serve in today's world.

I Want to do It All Syndrome

It is a terrible thing indeed. I have so much that I want to do and I want to do it all right now. Why now? Because so many opportunities are presenting themselves to me.  I want to do the science as it is in their books but I want to do it as it is in my mind and I want to do it as the Lord presents it to us in our daily lives.  I want to incorporated the bird identification with United States Geography. I want to do it all. I get these moment of great inspiration and need to have the time and energy to do it during those times.  Of course that would require constant lessons being carried out but I have fun ideas and ways to do it.  Still, I think I would have a mutiny on my hands if I never stopped lesson time.

I hope that sounded as enthusiastic as I feel.   We had planned a trip with a group of peers to a local watershed. In preparation for it Grace checked out some books for herself. Many of the books involved turtles, frogs and toads. Just in time we had a huge influx of toads in the yard.  We were able to look at the examples in the books to identify them and to find the ears and poison glands on the toad as well. So far we have temporarily captured only three toads. One is a real singing fool so they know they have a male as well.  Learning more about the life cycle of a frog seems silly as we have covered that topic in the past but it seems that when they can teach the teacher and learn even a little more then review is a fun thing.  I managed to incorporate math with our toad observations.  WORD FOR THE WEEK IS OBSERVATION.  They measured the distance each toad could jump. They compared them with each other. They made determinations about why one was able to hop further in one jump and the other was faster instead. 

You may ask how we did this. We made a line in the middle of the living room floor as a start point and then placed a coin at the location where they landed. That is right, it seems more fun to let them do this in the living room.

We have done so much more than just toad stuff but I once again am lacking the time to place it here. I guess I will need to do that in the middle of the night.

Here is a great picture of Grace's toad, you can clearly identify the ear and the poison gland.

 Below, Owen is not sure he likes this activity. He has been around more and more. He has begun to pretend he is writing as well.

 Here is Faith giving her toad an encouraging talk for the leap frog contest.

 Grace's was fast and she had to hang on to her well.

 

 

Listen to Faith's fella. 



 

Please know that all toads are released back to their environment and were left unharmed. They were provided with a tasty snack as well.

I Have Grown in this Process

The past several months we have had so much activities to participate in that it has really been a challenge to get all of our "regular schooling" completed.  Each activity has been a valuable learning experience.  Some has been planned and some just becomes so natural and spontaneous.  I cannot imagine being any different kind of grandmother.

I am often surprised at how different I must be.  For instance, there are times that I am with people and find it necessary to correct the children's behavior.  People will speak up and tell me that it must be difficult to not spoil the girls.  I laugh out loud every time.  What makes a person think that just because I am not a "granny" style that I am not able to spoil them.  I can expect proper conduct, go places without whining and hearing the "I wants" and still spoil them.  They are showered with affection several times per day. They are praised constantly for their excellent school work. I can be the disciplinarian and the grandmother and the teacher all wrapped into one package.  I have come to see that as a well rounded individual.  I can't imagine somebody else teaching them.

I teach them about more than just book knowledge. I teach them about human nature, personalities, diversity, and life skills as well.  Can you imagine how hard it would be for a teacher, with 20 students in a room, to lean over each one several times a day and tell them how wonder they are doing?  My students get that each day. Sometimes they get that several times in just one lesson, which is about 30 minutes on average.  Can you imagine seeing the daily advancements, even the tiniest ones that often go unnoticed when you are just part of the crowd.

Several days ago my youngest grandson was here. He is 5 months old.  He had an orange triangle block in his right hand.  I offered him the yellow circle and he looked at it.  Reached for it. Wait! His hand was full. In a slow manner with awkward motor skills the orange triangle ended up in his left hand. His mother was holding him this entire time and watching him. He then reached for the yellow circle and had both. His mother chuckled but being a new mom with a  first child had not realized what had just taken place.  SEE!  That is why I am a great granny teacher.  I was in tune enough to recognized the subtle development that he had just demonstrated.  That is a skill I did not have as a mother.  It is a skill I developed since teaching Grace and Faith.  I have come to look for subtle things like that without even thinking about it. It has become second nature for me.  I know, it sounds like I am tooting my own horn. 

I am not trying to do that.  I am trying to let you know that as you take the time, demonstrate patience of a grandmother along with the discipline of a parent then you will become well rounded. If you are well rounded then you will guide your children to that point as well. As you develop yourself as your child's teacher you will begin to witness the subtle things that are accomplished every day.

Because people tend to look at my blog more when I post a picture, I am going to post one below.  It is of the tree kangaroo at the St. Louis Children's Zoo.  It usually just lays there when we visit because it is nocturnal.  But it had a baby this year and had to be up during the day.

Spoke too Soon

It seems that my last blog was heard. No sooner did I talk about how blogging has become such a business, that I don't find new and creative ideas anymore, than several bloggers I tend to read have shared something I can relate to.

Well, off to do a day of school. Have a good one.

Blogging as a business

When I first began reading homeschool blogs there was a plethora of information that I found helpful. Perhaps that is different now because I am not new. I do not think that is the case however.  I was never insecure about homeschooling or my ability to do it.  I was indeed looking for some ideas to enhance the experience. But in just three years there seems to be a huge trend. People offer "freebies" on their site but to register to win or get so many of those items you have to take multiple steps that require sharing your information with many.  If forces you to "like" things that you normally would not take the time to look at or consider valuable to your time. 

The business of blogging is really limiting the quality of information that I receive. I considered getting linked to some of those sites that are boosting their income but then I would have to censor the information that I would want to talk about from time to time.  I have considered writing reviews but think that I would not get much business when I say things like "enjoyed the material but it was not unique or creative from other things I have seen in the past".  So, you can see why blogging as a business is not likely the right thing for me.

Unfortunately, it is not the right thing for many. I no longer find unique and creative information on homeschooling blogs.  I hope to see that change again soon.

This week has been riddled with reasons not to teach. Monday my mother had to see her doctors and Grace and Owen needed to see the doctor. Today, Grace was unable to attend lessons as the dizziness from an ear infection has feeling horrible and my mother developed another medical issue that I had to attend to so Faith missed lessons.

This evening we had a great girl scout meeting and Faith is staying the night so that  we don't have anything to interfere with our ability tomorrow.  Faith believes that we will stay up as late as we want tonight and she tells me that tomorrow we will let the "chips fall as they may".  We call her little wit a FAITHISM.  Our entire family has several of them we have committed to memory. 

So in part we failed with being good homeschoolers this week but at the same time we succeeded as that is the beauty of this environment.

God Bless!

WHAT A CRAZY SPRING!

It seems that we get one or two days of pleasant weather then several of cold and wet. I don't mind wet. I expect wet in spring but I do not like the inconsistent temperature changes.  It is difficult to follow through with the lessons at times, simply because so much of what I plan for science this time of year goes outside.

We tend to "do science" in the nice months. When we do experiments then we can be out on the back deck and not worry about the mess or if we finish it up for the day. Material can be protected and the clutter is not part of the house.