Participating in Peace Day

Today the kids and I participated in the International Day of Peace by making our own pinwheels, and sharing our wishes for peace.

I found out about the Pinwheels for Peace Project in an email I had received from our local Girl Scout council, and I really liked the idea of incorporating this hands-on project into our discussion of peace. The concept of "peace" can be polarizing from a political standpoint, but I like this website's explanation of what this is all about:

This is not political. Peace doesn't necessarily have to be associated with the conflict of war, it can be related to violence/intolerance in our daily lives, to peace of mind. To each of us, peace can take on a different meaning, but, in the end, it all comes down to a simple definition: a state of calm and serenity, with no anxiety, the absence of violence, freedom from conflict or disagreement among people or groups of people.

As we created our pinwheels, the kids and I talked about our wishes for peace. Big Sister went with a very broad wish "for peace in the world". Little Brother was having a really hard time coming up with something. He agreed that peace was something he wanted, but he couldn't think of what he wanted to say. I told him that one of my wishes would be for people not to put others down and make them feel bad. You know his response to that? He laughed. He laughed and told me that I was dreaming. How sad is it when a seven year old is already so jaded that he can't see the possibility for kindness between human beings? I was really surprised by his response, and it makes me all the more aware that there is a need to keep compassion alive in our kids. And we're not even living in a war-torn nation - imagine how ridiculous peace must seem for a child growing up with war and violence in their own backyard.

In the end, Little Brother settled on a message for his pinwheel: Peace means no more fighting. Someday... (oh, the irony of the Kung Fu Panda pencil, lol)

The 2010-2011 school year is underway!

After a busy summer that did not go according to plan in the slightest, we started a fresh school year this past Monday. I'd had high hopes of doing school a few days/week through most of the summer, to keep the kids fresh and in somewhat of a routine, but for a variety of reasons that just didn't happen.

August was a busy month, prior to the start of school. The kids and I spent the first week at Girl Scout Community Day Camp, which all three of us love. This was our second year, and I've volunteered each year. Sons of volunteers get to go to camp and be in the Boys Unit, participating in all the same activities as the girls, but mostly just hanging with the guys. Last year I taught Map & Compass to all the campers (K-6th grade). This year I was the Program Director, writing lesson plans for the station leaders to follow, and generally making sure that Program runs as intended, with volunteers getting the support they need to be successful. I also got to work with the teens more than I was expecting, and I found that to be eye-opening and rewarding - in the way a scientist observing a hive of bees would find that eye-opening. LOL - only joking... a little.

At the end of the next week that followed, the whole family went camping with friends down at Seaquest State Park, near Mt. St. Helens. We had a group campsite with four other homeschooling families, and it was a LOT of fun. We made some pretty exciting meals with dutch and box ovens, did some biking, frisbee throwing, beer and wine drinking, and went to the Mt. St. Helens Visitor Center. It was really relaxing, and a nice way to get to know our friends even better.

After camping, Hubby had to drive back north for work, and the kids and I drove to southern Oregon to visit with my MIL. It's always fun to go visit Grandma on her ranch, and spend a week playing in the creek and having adventures. By the end of our 10 days away from home, we were ready to return home and get back to some nice, quiet, normalcy.

The kids have started back up with great attitudes, and it has made this week a lot of fun. Big Sister must be going through a developmental shift because she is so much more engaged and interested, asking lots of thoughtful questions, and making connections between various things we've read, and time periods we've studied in the past. I absolutely love it. Little Brother is pretty motivated to learn to read more fluently, so has been much more willing to sit down and read to me. Need to find him some better stories - A Friend for Little Bear is right at his level, but he finds it pretty boring. When Big Sister was a struggling reader (older than he is) I was able to find stories she was interested in, but he's really not into ponies, LOL! I'm sure I'll come up with something.

We've become much more "schooly" than in past years, spending a few hours/day (give or take, and depends on the kid) on school stuff. Focusing on Sister's writing this year. Brother is younger and not doing as much book work as Sister, which really bugs her, but she's being a little more mature about it this year. They're doing history together - Age of Exploration. We're finally breaking out of Ancients and Middle Ages - time periods we've exhausted in the past few years. We haven't done ANY American History, which I want to work towards. I'm using our Encyclopedia of World History as our spine, with the kids putting together their own timelines as we go, and getting books from the library for all the jumping off points, and more in-depth info. This week we're reading A World Made New, which is a great look book at what was happening in the New and Old Worlds just prior to contact, really stressing the fact that there was indeed an advanced civilization in place over here in the Americas prior to European arrival. It also stresses how important religion was to the Europeans, and how they really felt stongly that sharing Christianity with the world was their duty.

Also trying, yet again, to really be consistent in my use of Homeschool Tracker Plus. I've owned it for four years, and never managed to utilize it for more than a couple weeks in a row. My follow-through? Not so good at times. I think I've finally figured out how to make it work with our style of schooling, which is definitely NOT to make a plan and adhere to it. I've been entering the kids' work after they complete it, and that's finally working fairly well (lol - one week in. I'll have to get back to you later...).

Classes start up again shortly! A vocals class, and Homeschool PE for Sister, Aikido, Homeschool PE, and music at the elementary school for Brother. Plus Girl Scouts for Sister. Need to work swimming back in, as it's the one thing Sister really, really begs to do, but our local pool shut down and I'm having trouble finding a suitable, affordable replacement. Busy, busy around here!

Like clockwork

I knew we were coming into the end of May because I started re-evaluating all of our homeschooling materials and methods. I do this every year at this time! It's, not that I do it intentionally - I don't have "Have a Homeschooling Life Crisis" marked on the calendar, but it seems to happen to me every year around this time. I find myself noticing everything that my kids do NOT know, and trying to figure out how to cram in everything from ancient chinese history to sentence diagramming to how to re-build small motors. The world is a complicated place, with a long past and an even more complicated future - my kids need to be ready for that! Right? The weight of my children's futures on my shoulders.

There are a lot of cool programs, resources, curriculum, etc. out there on the market, with vendors ready to prey upon my insecurities as a homeschooling mom. I know that I could spend $600-1000 today, and still find myself hyperventilating next May. Thank goodness I know that about myself now (you should see the pile of oh-I-can't-get-rid-of-that-because-we-still-might-use-it-someday homeschool "stuff"). I think it's important that homeschooling parents aren't complacent, and I believe re-evaluating things from time to time is worthwhile. Revisiting your homeschooling goals, and knowing what you want out of your homeschooling is a good way to stay focused.

I have two primary goals in our homeschooling:
1. To help my children learn the skills required to teach themselves anything they should want to know.
2. To help my children to become effective at verbal and written communication.

And I have a whole laundry list of secondary goals...
1. That my kids will have plenty of time for unstructured play, to get down to the business of being kids.
2. That my son and daughter will be more than siblings - they will see each other as friends, and learn that friendships aren't restricted to same-age peers.
3. That my children will be properly socialized. That is to say that they will learn how to behave appropriately with people of all ages, particularly adults (given that they will spend most of their lives as adults).
4. That they will discover their passions, and have the opportunity to explore those before going off to college and wasting thousands of dollars trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives.
5. That my kids will see that there is more than one way to achieve a goal, and not to be afraid of the road less travelled.

So after this most recent evaluation of our homeschooling, I am doing some minor tweaking. Nothing earth shattering. I'm mostly trying to get refocused, and also pulling Big Sister into this process more (or attempting to). I'd like to introduce the concept of goal-setting for each of my kids because I think they are failing to see the value in working towards an end result. Rarely are goals "magically" achieved. I know that I enjoy the hardwork of pushing past an obstacle to obtain an end result, and especially the feeling of achievement when I get there. The hard part is when the goal is not something you've set for yourself, but one that someone else sets for you, and right now it seems that my goals are not necessarily their goals. It's revelations like this that make me feel for classroom teachers who are trying to sell a goal to a room full of uninterested students. At least I only have a room of two semi-interested kids of my own!

A River Runs Through It...

Our backyard that is. We've finally started a "Rivers" unit study that I wrote a few years ago (which I have posted on a blog somewhere on the internet, but can't locate at the moment). On the schedule for tomorrow was to "build a model river", which I hadn't really worked out the details of, but was getting inspiration from this webpage. Presented with exceptionally gorgeous weather this morning, I asked the kids if they'd like to get started on it today, and I'm so glad we did. I can see this is going to be an ongoing project for them (especially since they created a watering hole for their miniature animals four years ago and still use it regularly) - a backyard river system is a natural fit for my kids. Little Brother said it's "our best homeschooling project ever", even better than ice cream in a bag.

Facebook has brought my blogging to a stand still

I'm a little embarassed that I've gone so long since my last blog post! Time to dust things off over here, I guess!

Shall we step into the Dolphin Valley Academy time machine and go back in time to what's been happening these past few months?

February 2010:
We started out the month celebrating Little Brother's 7th birthday! He had his first friend party ever, and it was a lot of fun. He had three buddies over (one from school and two from our homeschool group), and we celebrated with a LEGO theme. Our pinata dumped LEGO pieces all over the floor - isn't that better than candy?

Big Sister went on a 3-day overnight with her troop where they held a special late-night ceremony, complete with candle-lit pathway to receive their bronze awards. It was her first overnight without Mom, and she did great! Sister also had annual homeschool testing this week. Once again I used the PASS test, and remain pleased with it - primarily the focus on measuring the child's own path on the continuum of knowledge in the three subject areas. Sister was a pill about the test-taking, but was also distracted by houseguests that week - sometimes life throws unexpected curve balls your way, and we rolled with it all the best we could.


March 2010:
March brought the end of Girl Scout cookie season in our area. I was our troop's Cookie Mom again, and was quite ready for the crazy cookie selling season to be over! Hubby and I also celebrated 13 years of marriage this month, and honored the day by taking a day hike, minus our children. It was wonderful. Not that I mind our family hikes - I love them, but there's something nice about being able to cover more ground and see more sights that was very freeing.

Little Brother had an exciting month. He had his first belt test in Aikido, and he got a hand-me-down bike from Sister! Brother started taking Aikido at Aikido Kids! back in mid-January, and has absolutely loved it. The classes have been really good for his self-confidence, and I love watching him help another student when he understands a concept and his partner needs a little help. I'm mostly proud of the manner in which he does it - very matter-of-fact, and without judgment in his tone of voice. Not at all like he talks to his sister at home. ;D

We also turned Big Sister's old hand-me-down bike into a new bike for Brother. We took a very pink, girly bike and painted it a metallic blue. Little Brother is very happy with it (in fact, this past weekend he rode 8 miles on it with Mom and Dad)!



At this point, in March, Big Sister was still going strong with all of her regular activities. By this time, we were drowning in activities for the two kids. Sister was in a year-long drama class that was getting ready for their shows in April, as well as swimming lessons on Wednesdays, and a Girls Tri Club that one of the moms in our homeschoool group started up. This mom is nothing short of phenomenal, and decided to use her passion for triathlons to help create an opportunity for her daughter to have more "girl time" with others her age - a problem many of us were having in common with our 10-12 year olds. They're feeling too old for parkdays, but too young (and really, too silly) to hang out with the teens, so this was a great solution. So, Sister is in training for a Kids Triathlon!

April 2010:
April was show time for Sister's class play "The Ozard of Wiz". She played "Glinda, the Good Witch of the North", as well as a couple of other smaller parts. The whole cast was a little rusty going into dress rehearsals, but they pulled it off in the end, putting on a great performance. It was extra special to be the last show on the old Studio East stage. We're looking forward to seeing the new digs very soon!

April also brought Easter:

And trips to the local park with a farm:

And fun homeschool science (ice cream in a bag):

And overnight camp outs with the girl scout troop:
(Thankfully this 20 minute, torrential thunderstorm was the only nasty weather we had that weekend!)

May 2010:
We went over to Yakima, with my sister and nephew, for Mother's Day weekend. My dad had arranged for the kids to participate in a Fish-In for kids, where the kids got their own rod and reel to keep. My kids weren't particularly successful with the fish that day, but have continued their excitement for fishing. They spend part of each day practicing their casting technique in the backyard. I need to get them back out on the water soon!

Gorgeous, sunny weather coaxed our homeschooling outdoors. With my various volunteer commitments seeming to be kicked into high gear all at once, I've had to resort to homeschooling when the opportunity strikes. This arrangement has us down to doing book work roughly 3 days per week, and I plan to go ahead and work through the summer.




So that's us in the past few months! LK

Update, Jan26

All is well! We're just keeping busy. We all survived the flu in December, recovering in time to enjoy the holidays.

Big Sister continues to read voraciously. She's struggling with rote memorization of math facts, so we continue to plug away in the math book while doing daily times table review. This makes her scowl, but she admits it's needed at this point. She's also doing daily journal writing, which is off-limits to teacher mom - I just wanted to see her getting comfortable with daily writing, without the pressure of spelling things perfectly. Seems to be working. Retention of spelling words is a struggle - she aces the tests, but can't seem to remember them in her writing. Not sure how to make that connection.

Little Brother is happily homeschooling. He's my eager learner right now, waking with a smile, and running downstairs to start his day. He's progressing nicely, and isn't being held back by a lot of the perfectionism that was paralyzing him when he came out of school in October. He's really into building k'nex and LEGO models right now - builds them, takes them apart, builds them again. He likes following the instruction manuals. Brother also just started an Aikido class last week. He tried it out last Tuesday, and while he did enjoy the class, he initially told me he didn't want to do it again "because they do stuff in there that I don't know how to do". See? The whole perfectionism thing. We talked about how that's kind of the point of taking a class - to learn how to do something you don't know how to do from someone who can share their knowledge with you, or to enjoy doing something with other people, even if you're "not that good" yet. He must have thought about it for a couple of days and decided that it was fun enough to take the risk. His next class is this afternoon - I'll be sure to take a picture in his new uniform!

I ♥ Homeschooling...

When I sent Little Brother off to get dressed this morning, he came out dressed in a hand-me-down bat costume. No problem!

November wrap-up

Pathetic, eh? Doing a single post for an entire month? It turns out that between homeschooling, driving kids all over, and too much time spent on Facebook, my little blog suffers. Here's what we've been up to...


Big Sister's Spanish class had a Dia de los Muertos celebration, complete with sugar skulls, pan de muertos (I was able to make some that was dairy and soy free, for our friends with food allergies), and marigolds on display. They learned a lot and had a great time.

Little Brother's last day of first grade at public school was Friday, October 30. He had a Halloween party in class that day, which was a nice way to say good-bye. He also came home with a very nice, spiral bound book of pictures and notes that his classmates and teacher created for him. A nice momento from his time in Ms. P's class.

Lil'Bro' is continuing to participate in music with his class twice per week. I knew that homeschoolers in our state are allowed to access classes through their neighborhood school, but wasn't sure how much resistence I would run into. It ended up being no trouble at all, and the principal was very gracious about the whole thing. It's a really great music program, like nothing I could provide for him, and I was very happy that it fits into our already busy schedule. He would have preferred to continue with P.E., but the timing didn't work out. Maybe next year.


In November we hosted Flat Stanley, who came to us all the way from North Carolina (after stops in Texas and Missouri). I've always wanted to participate in a Flat Stanley project (Flat Stanley has his own wiki), so I jumped at the chance when it came up. Flat Stanley is the story of a boy who gets smashed flat when a bulletin board falls on him at school. He learns that a benefit of being flat is that he can travel all over the world for only the cost of a stamp. We took Flat on a fieldtrip with our homeschool group (to Petco - not very exciting), to dinner at Teddy's Burgers (where he had his picture taken in front of the wall mural), and to the Visitor Center at Microsoft (where he was photographed with the founders of Microsoft). He also got to experience some typical fall/winter weather while he was here. His next stop is Connecticut, and we wish him well. Before he left, Big Sister filled out a form that tells about the activities he participated in, as well as interesting facts about our area. It was a fun learning experience for all of us.

We're wrapping up a unit on Thanksgiving. I recently subscribed to Evan Moor's Teacher File Box through a group-buy at the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op, and I'm really enjoying it. I've always liked the Evan Moor Pocket Books, but found myself put off by the cost of purchasing each of the books, plus the time involved in taking the book to be photocopied. The reasonable cost for the subscription, plus the ease of printing at home makes it totally worth every cent. Some of the Pocket Book themes are a little on the young side for Big Sis, but we can beef things up a bit for her - she's just excited to finally be doing more of this crafty-type stuff.

Our other activities lately have included: girl scouts, lego club, a fieldtrip, parkdays, Spanish class, drama class, swimming lessons, and homeschool PE class.

We just completed Thanksgiving/Christmas number one with the grandparents over on the east side of the mountains this past weekend. It was a little early to breaking out the holiday cheer, but necessitated by the fact that the grandparents will be making their annual flight south to Mexico in less than a week. We won't see them again until summer, and were thankful to have the chance to see them one more time before they go. Thanksgiving number two will be celebrated with hubby's family, and we are looking forward to it.

Enough complaining and whining - time for action...

Friday is Little Brother's last day of public school! We've been going through a rough patch with first grade, and it didn't make sense to keep trying to muddle our way through when there's another option available to us. I'd obviously not been won over by school this fall, but was trying to be supportive of a choice that was making my boy happy, and certainly wasn't damaging him - until it started damaging him.

One night I heard him crying softly in his bed - turns out he was worrying about the next school day, and feeling like he's "not smart enough" for first grade. I immediately emailed the teacher to let her know what we were dealing with at home, so she could either shed some light on the matter, or work with him on her end. After all, with him away from me for 7 hours/day, she's the one who has him for most of his waking hours - plus she's "the professional" and I thought she might have a few tricks up her sleeve. She is a nice woman, and my boy thinks she's amazing, so I have no gripes against her really - it's just that her methods of trying to build his self-confidence back up were hugely unsuccessful. She let me know that she's constantly telling him how smart he is, and publicly pointing out her own mistakes and foibles to him in an effort to make him feel better, but to no avail. The fact is we can tell him these things until we're blue in the face, but if he doesn't believe it and really feel that he is successful, our words matter little.

Unfortunately, after weeks of working on this issue, Little Brother's attitude towards himself and school has not improved. He began asking, daily, to homeschool. So, after many long discussions with dear husband (who agreed that when our intelligent boy believes he's stupid, there's a problem), I set the wheels in motion to home school. I filled out the paperwork yesterday, had it signed and date stamped, and then let his teacher know. She was very supportive, and agreed that the home school environment was likely a good fit for him right now. Today I go to the school's office and let them know officially. I also want to talk with the principal about having my boy continue taking music with his class twice/week (state law allows homeschoolers free access classes, such as PE and music, on a space-available basis at their neighborhood schools). After a Halloween party at school on Friday, he will officially be a first grade drop-out!

This will be a big adjustment for all of us. Big Sister is worried about having less one-on-one time with me - a valid concern. She's also worried that Brother won't like her humming and fidgeting as she works - he probably won't. She does agree that school isn't working for Brother, and that he deserves the same opportunity to learn at home as she is having. I'm confident we will make this work, and that we will all be happier for it. Wish us luck!

A rant from a home schooling mom with a child in public school

A recap: Little Brother is in first grade at the neighborhood elementary school, and Big Sister homeschools. Little Brother says he likes school. Mom doesn't like school. Little Brother frequently comes home and shares things about school that make Mom cringe. Little Brother is a grumpy beast every single morning when we are getting ready to walk to the bus. Mom has told Little Brother that she doesn't understand how he can like school but be such a rude crab while trying to get him out the door to this wonderful place. Mom isn't having a good time.

Shall I count the ways in which I dislike school (in no particular order)?

1.We can start with the three weeks of mind-numbing math review that had Andrew in tears at homework time because "I already did this in school. Why do I have to do it again?" Honestly, I don't know. But if you want to play the school game, then this is what you put up with. And even though I would like to have kept him moving forward on the math he'd been doing over the summer, he was burnt out after a long day, followed by homework. "Afterschooling" would be cruel, for both of us.

2. The ridiculously long school day. He leaves home at 8:45am and returns to the house at 4:10pm. That's nearly 7 1/2 hours. These are children, for Pete's sake. I completely understand that the long school day is a huge blessing for families that do not have an adult home during the day, and relieves some of the financial burden of childcare. I would like to have the option of a shorter day for families that are able to accommodate that (oh, wait. i do have that option - home schooling).

3. Homework in first grade. Dumb. It's all part of the trend - cram more academics in earlier, extend the day, and you're supposed to have some magic recipe for higher test scores 11 years from now. I think the experiment is failing. If I remember correctly, when I was in school we did NOT spend all day in school and our test scores were higher. Quantity (time spent in school being stuffed full of information) does not equal Quality learning.

4. I can't even pick my own kid up from school. Last Friday I sent him to school with the proper form filled out so that we could pick him up as our family was heading out of town at the end of the school day, rather than him riding home on the bus. When the school day ended, Brother's teacher wouldn't let him get in the parent pick-up line, even when he reminded her that he did bring a note that morning. She had forgotten, and told him he didn't have a note and made him get in the bus line area. When we finally found him he was sobbing - full body-shaking sobs, afraid we were going to leave town without him. When we homeschool, I don't have to fill out anyone's form to leave town on a Friday afternoon.

5. His class earns marbles in a marble jar when they're being good. Last Friday the jar was full to the top, so the class got to vote on what kind of "party" they wanted to have for the following Monday. Brother voted for an extra recess, but watching a movie won. Monday rolls around, they start watching the movie during snack time, but a lot of the kids are talking so the teacher turns the movie off part way through and the entire class loses their earned reward. Andrew was not talking, in fact is such a strict rule-follower he probably earned half those dumb marbles for his class... and he was enjoying the movie because it was about his favorite book characters of all time: Kevin Henkes' mice. He was so sad and disappointed. I asked him (and I really shouldn't have said this, but the whole thing was ridiculous) "So did you turn around to the rest of your classmates and say 'You guys all suck! Can't you keep your mouths quiet for 15 minutes?!!'" Fortunately he said he hadn't, and you can't say stuff like that at school. Too bad - they deserved it. I hate when the good kids get punished because of idiots they can do nothing about.

6. Other kids are annoying. Really. And they don't listen to politeness and respectful behavior. What's wrong with these kids? There's a girl that is constantly in Brother's space every single day after school in the bus line. She touches him and tickles him, and doesn't stop. For the first couple of weeks he would politely say "Please stop." which only fell on deaf ears. This caused him to revert to behaviors we haven't seen in over a year, where he self-harms out of frustration - biting himself, scratching his face hard enough to leave marks, pounding his head into the ground. Nice, huh? I realize he needs to learn other ways to manage frustration, but this annoying kid needs someone to teach her that when someone repeatedly asks you nicely to stop, you stop. Neither kid is being helped by a guiding adult in this situation. If my kid someday smacks her (rather than hurting himself), I will applaud him.

7. Not enough time for my slow eater to finish lunch, and he's not drinking liquids. Not the school's fault entirely, but something that could be completely avoided if he were eating lunch at home. He never finishes all his food, and he doesn't have enough time to finish his apple juice. Because he doesn't have time to finish his apple juice, he's stopped opening it up at all. Why? Because any liquids have to be squeezed out over a strainer into a garbage can at the end of lunch, and he has a hard time coordinating a proper squeeze that doesn't get juice all over him. Rather than face that stress (since everyone is in a hurry at that point, and the line is growing behind him), he has determined it can be avoided by simply not drinking. This is my kid who is just overcoming 4 years of severe bowel issues and is finally weaned off of daily meds, and needs to be drinking fluids so he doesn't back slide. But I can't be there to say "hold on and drink your juice before heading out to recess".

8. The bus is completely inconsistent. This is a gripe, but it's related to my overall dissatisfaction with our school experience. The bus shows up sometime in a 10 minute window on either side of his appointed drop-off time (morning too, but slightly more regular). I have to block 25 minutes out of my afternoon to make sure that I'm at his stop in case she's running early, leaving Big Sister home to mill about. I'd just like some predictability, that's all I ask.

9. My boy is starting to read, but can't really read yet. Sometimes he doesn't quite get the directions right on the work he does in class. The other day he was supposed to draw and odd number of shapes, and an even number of shapes. He ended up drawing two shapes of odd-numbered sides (triangle and pentagon), then added all the sides together and wrote "8". He did the same for the evens, drawing a square and a hexagon, then adding all the sides and writing "10". We were looking it over when he got home, and he said "Hey! Why'd she mark that wrong?" Well, dear, it's because the teacher is expecting the same conventional responses to these questions out of each of her students, and it's too much to expect her to figure out that your answer shows understanding of the concept - and then some. There is little room in public education for thinking outside of the box.

This is all just a rant. School is not killing my boy (yet), or me (but almost). I think the reason the first month of school has been so hard for me is because I see daily that everything about it is unnecessary. We could avoid all of this by homeschooling. When I think about what he's gaining that he wouldn't be receiving at home, there's very little I come up with. This all struck me yesterday when Little Brother spent a school day at home with us. He woke up around 4:30am with a cough and never fell back to sleep, so I decided to keep him home for the day. It was great - we all homeschooled, he came along to Natalie's Spanish class and swimming, he learned to play tether ball, he picked a chicken egg from our friends' hen house, and we met some very rude and obnoxious homeschooled boys (and I was able see everything happen and talk to him about it later). It was a fabulous day, and it all felt right. I don't think we'll be playing the public school game much longer, as it's just not worth it to us on so many levels.

I can't believe what a joy it has been to get back to serious homeschooling with Big Sister. With her reading falling into place last year, and her overall willingness to learn, it's been a breeze these last couple of weeks. Her attention span is miles beyond what it was just a year ago, and we can work together through the morning, moving from one subject to the next, and the time is flying by. It's a little creepy how well it's going.

Some of what is helping it to go more smoothly is settling on a few key bits of curriculum that we're both equally happy with. Still loving Singapore Math (just about ready to move on to Primary Math 4B), with some math games, and multiplication review thrown in. Still using Spelling Power, which I'm not convinced is helping her to retain words past the week that she studies them, but is at least systematic and modifiable to fit our needs. I have noticed that as she's reading more, her spelling has improved, or at least her ability to recognize that a word doesn't look right. We've been using a workbook for modern cursive (which she chose as the style of cursive she wanted to learn) and adding in some additional copywork to help her become more comfortable with the flow of the writing.



We just started using Four Square Writing Method for grades 4-6 for writing, and Big Sister was immediately hooked. I chucked Writing Strands out the window then and there. This was our second try with Writing Strands, and we both found it excruciatingly dull.



I bought a subscription to Aha! Science through the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op, which she is really enjoying. We've been supplementing lessons on astronomy in Aha! Science with activities and reading from Exploring the Solar System: A History with 22 activities, as well as additional biographies of famous astronomers.

We will likely flip back and forth between science and history this year, still using K12 History. I think it will work fine to finish a unit in one area, and then switch gears to do a unit in the other subject.

Other than that, Sister is continuing her outside activities from last year. She's still taking drama through Studio East, and she's starting her last year as a junior girl scout. New this year is a weekly spanish class that she'll be taking with three other girls. All these activities start next week, so we'll see how our schedule holds up!

Space: The Final Frontier

Little Brother said he wants to learn about space, so we're off on a voyage through the galaxy, where we'll explore planets, stars, and other out-of-this-world objects and phenomena. As we go along, the kids are going to be compiling their own Space books using resources I found at Enchanted Learning's Zoom Astronomy, Learning Page.com (membership is totally free, and there's a lot of fun stuff for the under 10 set on their site), and the (paid) Printables section on the Scholastic website.

Oh, and Brother also let me know last week that he would really like to have "theme" days, like they did at his school. If you stop by tomorrow, I want you to know that it's "Bring Your Stuffed Animal to School Day"...

Getting back into the swing of things...

It's been one crazy summer. July was filled with one road trip after another, with only 12 or so days spent at home. The first week in August found me and the kids at Girl Scout Day Camp - I volunteered (teaching Map & Compass), Little Brother was in the boys unit (for sons of parent volunteers) and Big Sister was in a 5th grade unit. We had a fantastic week! The morning after our final day at camp, we started on a whirlwind revolving door of house guests. It was a lot of fun visiting with friends and family, and taking them around to various touristy activities - however, we are all now exhausted and trying to remember how life goes when it's all back to normal.

We've been on the fence over whether to have Little Brother homeschool this coming fall. He reminded me the other day that I had said early on in the summer that we would try out homeschooling the two kids together and see how it went. If it didn't go well, we would likely have him return to ps. Well, he was essentially firing me as his teacher, saying that homeschooling this summer has NOT gone well AT ALL! I explained that we haven't been anywhere near home for the past six weeks, and would make it up to him once our last guest was gone. Grammy went home yesterday, and school started back up this morning.

One thing I noticed I need to work on with Sister is her summarization skills. They are sorely lacking. We'll focus on that a bit in the next few weeks. Also need to polish of the rusty multiplication tables after 6 weeks of sitting idle. It's amazing how quickly that knowledge drifts away.

Brother read to me for a bit, did some math, played with cuissenaire rods, and put together a puzzle. While putting the puzzle together, he said "This feels like homeschooling." I think that was a compliment, LOL!

Off to a couple of playdates to reconnect with nearby friends we have been missing due to all the other fun we've been up to...

Happiness is a perfect day...

Yesterday was a terrific day! The kids finally woke up shortly after 9am. While they ate breakfast, I reminded them that I wanted to get to our schoolwork before they got involved in their game, and they were both totally fine with that. They finished eating, got dressed, and met me downstairs. Big Sister covered handwriting (she's working on learning cursive), spelling, and math, and Little Brother did some math, handwriting, and reading. We were done by 10:30, and then they went upstairs to watch a Voltron cartoon on Hulu.

Shortly before 11am, I got a call from the mom of a friend of Little Brother. Her boy was in LB's class this past year, and the two of them started getting together for playdates in the last month of school. He's a really nice kid, and the boys have a lot in common - it's nice to see Brother finally having a friend of his very own. Anyway, we invited this boy down to our place for a few hours, and had his mom drop him off with a lunch and a swim suit for the slip-n-slide and wading pool. He showed up wearing a brown, hooded sweatshirt, hunched over and using a little stick like a cane, and announced that he was Yoda for the day. See? The perfect buddy for my boy! Each of them dueled with sticks for 3 hours straight, and not so much as a scratch on either one - shows pretty impressive self-control for two 6-year old boys.

When Big Sister found out that Little Brother was having a playdate, she wanted in on the action, too. Until this past fall we didn't know any other kids in our neighborhood. It's an older neighborhood, and there just aren't a lot of young families. In the few families that are around, the kids seems to play indoors, or in their backyards, so we've rarely seen children in the three+ years since we moved here. Fortunately for Sister, that all changed last month because the family of a girl in her girl scout troop has moved in around the corner! She is so happy to finally have a friend within walking or biking distance. I held Sister off for a few weeks while her friend finished up the school year and her family got settled, but we finally had her friend down to play on Saturday for the first time. Yesterday I let Natalie walk up to her place, and they played there for a couple hours while the two young Jedis kept me entertained. Eventually both girls ended up back at our house, and I treated them to a snack of watermelon and popcorn.

Maybe I'm a freak in the Mom World, but I loved having kids over to our house. This is what I've wanted for my kids for so long - something that more closely resembles what I remember from early childhood. My kids have always had friends, but they're friendships that require phone calls, car rides, and scheduling in advance. These are friendships that have grown over time, and we would never trade them for the world, but I've really always yearned for them to be able to wander over to a friend's house to knock on the door and ask if their friend can play, and I want their friends to be able to do the same. I hope our summer will be filled with many more days of friends dripping water through my kitchen, and eating me out of house and home! And for any of you out there? Stop by, anytime (after our schooling is done, lol)! ;D

Summer school...

Summer. The sun comes out, and suddenly I want to do nothing more than relax and shrug off any sort of constraints to the pursuit of nothingness (constraints being schedules. and any tasks pursued for reasons other than my personal enjoyment). Consequently, in the past couple of weeks, there hasn't been a whole lot happening in la escuela de Koch. Late bedtimes for the kids, followed by equally late awakenings in the morning, have led to days that are terribly out of sync for all of us.

I'm awake by 6:30 every morning, usually earlier. I sip coffee, and spend time reading email, blogs, and playing on Facebook. When Little Brother was going to school each morning, I had a perfect pattern of: coffee, computer, shower, wake the boy, sit together while he ate breakfast, he gets dressed, I finish getting ready, jackets on, say goodbye to Big Sister, and we'd head out the door. I'd return to the house to find Big Sister fed, dressed, and ready to homeschool. We'd do all our schooling while Brother was at school, and be done by noon at the latest. The kids had the whole afternoon to do as they pleased, and so did I. I was happy. Kids were happy.

In the absence of a real driving need to be out the door at 8:30 each morning, our routine has greatly suffered. I'm still up at the crack of dawn sipping coffee, but my hour on the computer has stretched into two. The kids are up nearly as late as Mom and Dad, and they stagger out of bed at 9, 10 or later. They sit, half-asleep, on the couch in the living room until their growling stomachs eventually drive them to the kitchen to seek out nourishment in the form of oatmeal, fruity pebbles, or (if mom is distracted) a bag of chips. The remains of yesterday's ongoing "game" (it's how they refer to the days-long sagas of pretend play they create) are strewn across the living room carpet, and both of them are drawn in. Not being in any real hurry to accomplish anything, it's now almost 10am and I'm still unshowered. By 10:30 or 11am I'm clean, clothed, and feeling ready to take on the day, but the kids are now fully engrossed in the game. By noon they are hungry again, and I take advantage of the break in their play to at least have them get dressed so we can do something, anything outside of the house. At that point, shifting gears to sit down and do some schoolwork is unappealing to all three of us. The end result is that I end up feeling like we've been incredibly lazy, with nothing to show for our time but a floor full of star wars characters, littlest pet shop animals, and various magnetics pieces scattered from one wall to the other.

I really can't see taking two months completely off and losing whatever progress Big Sister has made over the course of the last few months. Plus, I much prefer to spend the year working hard for a couple of months, and then taking a week or two off - much more manageable, in my opinion. I do need to find some kind of balance so that I'm not sucking the fun out of these long, sunny days, but right now the scale is tipped way too far in the other direction. My intention today is to get us back on track. Hmmm... how to make this work? I think what I'm going to do is let them continue to follow their own sleep patterns, and make sure I have myself ready for the day before they wake up. That way I can be ready to jump in with a little school time in the moments before they find themselves sucked into taking General Grievous to a birthday party for the spotted dog. Wish me luck!

Math games...

We just got together with some friends the other morning for the first meeting of the "Monday Math Club" - which met on Tuesday... but that's another story.

In preparation, I went searching for printable math games online. Little Brother's kindergarten teacher has been using a number of dice games with printable game boards during small group time in his class, and they're a fun way to reinforce math facts and concepts. I love the internet - my search did not leave me empty-handed!

Here are a couple of sites I wanted to share right away, but I'll add to the list as I find more...

Dr. Mike's Math Games for Kids - Well organized with straightforward instructions. Includes .pdf downloads of game boards and game cards, as well as worksheets, fun mazes, etc. You can even order a real game board through a link to Zazzle, if you want something more permanent than sheets of paper taped together.

Learn-with-math-games - Printable Math Games. This site includes rules for all kinds of math games. At our math club, the kids enjoyed playing a dice game called "Stuck in the Mud". We also had two rounds of Fraction Feud going on at either end of the table - we printed the deck of fraction cards off the website, for a game that is a twist on the game "War". The kids playing were often quick to just guess which fraction was bigger (hmmm... 10/12 or 7/8?) so parents supervised and kept paper and pencil handy so the kids could work through the process of finding a common denominator, etc. Who knew fractions could be fun?

*graphic from stock.xchng

Why I need to trust the process...

For the longest time, one of the biggest obstacles to feeling like our homeschooling was going well has been the fact that my kid couldn't read. It didn't matter that she has always been kind, caring, attentive to the needs of others, assertive, able to talk with adults, a whiz at math, a history buff, a budding conservationist, an animal lover, etc. The big "marker" of our success or failure was whether or not she could demonstrate an ability to read, and she just wasn't getting it.

I had heard time and again from parents of other late readers that this would all be okay. My child would eventually read, and that homeschooling was a gift for these kids who aren't ready to read when school needs them to be ready. I was skeptical, and I guess I was also frankly unwilling to be okay with my child not reading until she's 12 years old. Having a 9 year old who wasn't reading was far enough out of my comfort zone.

What a difference a year has made.

This morning my daughter spent 45 minutes reading to me from a book that's listed at a 5th grade reading level. So what's cool about that? A year ago she was only reading at a first grade level, and doing so reluctantly and with little fluency. What's extra cool about this morning's reading? When I asked her this morning what she wanted to do for school, she asked if she could read to me. Twenty minutes went by, and I told her she could stop anytime, but she pressed on. I finally got her to stop reading aloud to me, and she's still reading to herself on the couch.

What did I do to get her to finally read? Nothing. Well, maybe it was a guided nothingness. A huge break through was when I got over myself and accepted graphic novels and comics as a literature choice. I have also continued to read aloud to her each and every day from books that were within her interest level, but above her reading level. We got hooked on the Warriors series, which is where she has taken off - she started out reading the Warriors manga back in January, and is moving on to reading the full novels on her own. I could have chosen to force her to read, as is often recommended by well-meaning folks, but I have noticed that in all areas of our homeschooling, trying to force learning brings slower and more reluctant results than learning that is joyful and less stressful.

And that, my friends, is my lesson to myself today. Trust the process. It's so hard to trust the process when the going is really tough, and voices (my own, and others around me) are causing huge doubts! Today's snapshot really did a lot to help me have more faith. This is a work in progress, and (as a wise friend told me recently) it's not time to take her out of the oven yet. When I peeked in today, I did see that my daughter is coming along quite nicely....

Having a great week

Little Brother is on spring break this week, and I've been reminded how nice it is to just go out and have fun with the kids.

Monday we went to the zoo (with half of western Washington, it seemed). Surprisingly, even with a half million people piled into the Woodland Park Zoo, we somehow managed to run into a group of friends when we got there. We were about to join them when I realized that what the kids and I really wanted was to hang out just the three of us. Sometimes it's nice to do stuff like that with a big group, but doing our own thing was just what we needed. No regrets - we had a terrific day.

Tuesday I took the kids with me to our friends' house - Moms were lifting weights, kids were (supposed to be) playing outside and enjoying the sunny morning. We moms had a nice workout, and the kids mostly kept themselves occupied (Little Brother being the exception - he liked hanging out and exercising with the ladies). Afterwards we ran a couple errands, then came back to work in the yard. Big Sister is such a huge help in the garden this year! I can't believe what a difference a year makes. I can delegate tasks to her, and she can complete them with little to no interference/hovering from me. She planted a section of the front walkway with impatiens, while I dug up and transplanted six blueberry bushes to new locations (hopefully they'll produce better than in years past, unless they suffered too much shock). I also cheated and bought some broccoli starts. Slugs got to them before we did last year, so I'm on guard this time - they better watch out.

Today (Wednesday) we've had plans to participate in a tree planting event that's taking place for Arbor Day. We'll be meeting some other girls from Big Sister's girl scout troop there, along with moms and siblings. I'd figured I'd bust out some homeschooling this morning, since the tree planting won't be happening until late afternoon, but then I had another ingenious plan - swimming. I've been wanting to get the kids signed-up for swim lessons so they're ready to jump in the water this summer, but hadn't gotten around to making the necessary calls. This morning I called the community pool and found out they could assess the kids at the family swim if we wanted to come on down. We hopped in the car, went swimsuit shopping, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and headed to the pool. Little Brother had to take care of getting his suit on and showering by himself in the men's locker room, which was a little nerve-racking for me. He took forever in there, and eventually I went and stood outside the entrance to the pool and called for him. Same story when we finished up to head home. Turns out he was enjoying a relaxing shower. Anyway - I did get them signed up. Sister starts tomorrow evening, twice/week, and Brother will start in a few weeks.

Tomorrow's forecast calls for rain, so we're planning to go see the movie "Monsters vs. Aliens". The kids are really looking forward to it. We don't see many movies, so this is a real treat.

Friday we have LEGO club with our homeschool group. It's loud and crazy, but we don't like to miss this monthly gathering to free-build with thousands of LEGOs of all kinds, while hanging with friends. Blocks and buddies - how can you go wrong?

Next week it's back to the usual routine - not bad, just different. Prior to this year, when we didn't have an established routine, our weeks often looked like this one. While it was nice to drop everything and head to the zoo at the drop of a hat, I don't think we appreciated it as much as we have this week, nor did the outings stand out the way they have these past few days. There may be something to saving everything up for a crazy, fun-filled week here and there.

Self-education and unit study prep...

I'm dabbling in geology, writing my own Rocks and Minerals unit study to do with the kids in another month or so. It's coming together nicely! I was inspired to get us going on Rocks after a family bike ride that took us across the Tolt River a few weeks ago. The four of us made our way out to a gravel bar that had formed, and spent close to an unplanned hour poking our way through all the fascinating rocks. We kept picking up new stones, exclaiming at their shapes and colors, and wondering what they were. I really want to go back with the kids and have some idea of what we're looking at, and how those rocks came to be. With the massive rainfall we've had since then, I'm not sure what we'll find next time we go. The river channel is in a constant state of flux out there in Carnation.

My knowledge of Geology is limited, to say the least. I never took "Rocks for Jocks" in college, never really having much more than a passing interest in earth science. I taught a Geology Hike back in my days working at the outdoor science school (BC "before children"), but remember very little. So what does one do when one wants to know more??? Well, first I went online and refreshed my memory on the Rock Cycle, which was also a great vocab refresher. I looked up a few course syllabi to see what the key features a survey of geology might include. Then I went to the library and checked out books about Igneous, Metamorphic, and Sedimentary rocks, as well as a book on experiments to do concerning rocks and the rock cycle. I've been reading, reading, reading, and paying special attention to the areas that always had me stumped before. Now I'm trying to piece it all together so I can teach the kids in a way that's structured enough to provide necessary information, and fluid enough that I won't try to resist the "rabbit trails" I know will pop up. Once it's done, I'll post it on the blog.

In the meantime - could you think sunny thoughts for us, so we can soon walk safely along the riverbank again without being washed away? We can't take much more of this liquid sunshine.

Who doesn't love an epic adventure?

We checked out book #3 of Mary Pope Osborne's Tales From the Odyssey from the library the other day:

Sirens and Sea Monsters.


You may know author Mary Pope Osborne from her incredibly popular Magic Treehouse series of early chapter books. In her Tales From the Odyssey series, she spins the tales of Odysseus' journey in a way that's entertaining and accessible to young kids. Little Brother, in particular, really enjoys these stories. Usually not one to sit through a reading that doesn't involve large illustrations on each page, he remains captivated for multiple chapters when listening to the Odyssey. What little boy wouldn't be entertained by tales of six-headed dragons, and deadly whirpools? This is the third book we've read from the series, and they've each been well-received by both kids (and parents), making for a great family read-aloud in the evenings.