Category Archives: homeschool

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Not Back to School Blog Hop: A Day in the Life

Not Back to School Blog Hop

I feel a little weird writing about our day in the life because we’re really not likely to have something that’s typical, though I suppose we have a flow that we try to work with. I try to get up before the kids so I can make a start on some of my own tasks for the day. When I’m teaching, I try to hit the discussion boards, pull assignments, tackle student questions and so forth, so that I can focus on the kids during their time.

Ben is usually up between 8a and 9a. He has a small morning routine that he does including making his bed, getting dressed, watering the dogs, and brushing his teeth. After breakfast, we usually try to slide in a little “light school” before Katie wakes up. This includes things like Telling God’s Story, Art, Music, or Latin. When Katie is up for “good,” Ben gets some outside play time while Katie gets some individual attention. We’re starting a really loose play-based/literature-based preschool program in the next week or so with her that I think she’s going to adore.

When we finish with her activities, Ben comes in and we try to do PE or some other physical indoor thing so that Katie gets some exercise, too. We alternate between a new curriculum I won at a Twitter party and Wii games. Once everyone is good and sweaty, we read a couple of stories, use a guided meditation CD for children that we have and then make lunch. After lunch there’s a small chore time and then “creative time.” Creative time is my answer to “I’m too big to take a nap, Mom.” He can play with Legos, draw, work puzzles, play some of the solo games that he has, or take a nap if he feels moved to do so.

After creative time, we “do school.” We’re experimenting with our approach on this and this is the first week, so I don’t know how well it’s going to work. The gist is that there are 36 weeks worth of material he needs to complete for me to consider him a second grader. We work for a couple of hours, some days a little less, some days a little more. He also does some general reading with me at various times during the day.

We are also trying to incorporate some of the methods that I’m learning about from Amy McCready’s new book shown below.

There are baths, bedtime rituals and so forth following dinner. They also get a little bit of TV time here and there. One thing we’ve struggled with is bedtime with Ben. Last night I might have hit on the solution. Instead of an arbitrary light’s out time, I asked him to come and get me when he was ready for light’s out. He came significantly earlier than he usually ends up going to bed and he fell asleep right away after lights out. I was pretty impressed. Hoping that is replicable.

Throughout the year there are various activities. Ben does Zoo school once a month at the local zoo. It’s a great experience-based science program that offers cool topics (last year’s raptor class was a HUGE hit, partially because a friend of ours names all of her dogs after raptors, so Ben knew most of the names). He will be playing soccer this year and coach-pitched baseball. He claims after that he will be ready to choose a team sport. Katie is taking dance starting this fall, and that’s going to throw another thing into the works. I’ve been considering putting Ben in a homeschool cooking class, but I may wait on that for one more year of maturity.

Anyway, that’s our homeschool day in the life. If you’d like to read about others’ “day in the life” check out The Heart of the Matter.

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Beginnings

The major supplies have now arrived, so it appears that our homeschooling adventure may be about to begin. I’ve debated whether it might be wiser to wait until fall to start or whether given the particulars of my kid it would be better to start now and be prepared to take time off when he wants to.

I’ve pretty much settled on starting now-ish and let our rhythm and schedule be dictated by his interests and his willingness to try things. We’re working with the materials from Oak Meadow. What we like about it is that it fits with our ideas about slow education. And I know it seems strange that I’m talking about slow education while simultaneously starting my not quite four year old on educational materials, but the thing is he dictates what he does and how much he does. He’s curious and he wants to know what things are, how they work, and he’s fascinated by letters and stories. He loves to do craft projects and to imitate and follow us around.

Today, we watched the popcorn popper (an air popper) pop popcorn. He’d never seen it before, so I set it up, we poured the popcorn in and afterward, we ate the popcorn. He had a blast. I don’t know what, exactly, he learned from that experience, but he did learn that there are ways to do things and that he can do them with some supervision. Of course, I’m not going to think about the fact that my air popper will likely die eventually. We’ve had this one for over fifteen years, so it’s likely to become the deceased popcorn popper someday.

I’m thinking it can’t hurt to start him down the path if that’s what he wants, so that’s what we’re going to do. We just finished reading Carl Honore’s In Praise of Slowness. I think P and I are feeling more confident about our choice to pursue a Waldorf/Steiner type education for our kids than we did before. We both think that this is what is best for them and that they will get the most out of their early years by learning through doing more than filling out worksheets and completing prescribed projects.

Today, aside from the popcorn, Ben and I took Katie on her first nature walk. We took a picture of Ben’s shadow and discovered that Mr. Mark (our neighbor) has oranges in his tree. Ben is considering asking Mr. Mark if he can pick one, but he hasn’t worked up the nerve yet. We also drew chalk pictures on the sidewalk — including a path for Daddy to follow from his “recycling truck” to the house and left a dictated note for Daddy on the sidewalk (Ben told me what to write and I wrote it down).

We also cleared up some sticks in the yard to help daddy with the yard work. Ben was very proud of himself while Katie sat in her stroller in the shade and watch the proceedings. It worked for everyone, I think.

We had a fun day and I’m pleased with the way it went. Now, all my supplies are here to get started, so I have to decide to start :) .

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Schedules

One of P’s friends asked him about what we’ve decided to do with Ben vis a vis education. P told him about the activity sheets and that we have a sort of schedule for him.

The friend asked P what happens if Ben doesn’t want to do his sheets that day.

P was apparently puzzled by the question, but finally said, well, we put them back in the folder and hold onto them for another day.

And that’s sort of right. Actually, we generally don’t do sheets unless he asks to do them. He and I usually talk about our “plan” for the day right before he goes to sleep. He tells me what he wants for breakfast, what he wants to wear, and what he plans to do. Most nights, he tells me that he’s going to do ‘tivity sheets right after breakfast.

I set out the folder for him once he’s had his last snuggles and kisses, and then, sure as anything he gets up, eats his breakfast, and does his activity sheets.

Ben is an odd kid, though, in some ways. He hasn’t gotten out of pajamas for most of the last two weeks. He says he doesn’t feel good and he doesn’t want to get dressed. I’ve checked him six ways from Sunday, and there’s nothing wrong with him. The pediatrician has looked him over and declared him healthy. So, we’re not sure what this is about, but I’m willing to respect his choice — to stay in his pajamas and have quiet play days — and he’s willing to get dressed when it’s an absolute must, so it all works out. My general position on this is that I don’t want him to feel like he can’t tell us when he doesn’t feel well or that someone is going to tell him that he feels fine, when he doesn’t feel like he’s fine.

And, honestly, he could be reacting to all the pollen in the air. I know I am. I haven’t felt really good for the better part of two weeks myself.

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“One Year” — March 2009 recap

Okay, so this is a recap of the March efforts which were on paperwork and the office as a general thing. Unfortunately, March is also when I started having more health problems, so I didn’t get as much done with this as I would have liked. However, I do have a fairly clear desk, an organized filing drawer and a lovely system for organizing Ben’s homeschool materials (Core Knowledge stuff). We’ll have to move to a different system later, but for now this works for us. We have more control over the paper inflow and outflow in the house, and with very little difficulty I think I could lay hands on any of P’s paperwork if I needed to (particularly if I didn’t have to fear his wrath for messing with his desk).

April is bathroom and time-wasting habits month. This should prove interesting as our bathrooms are, well, already fairly well organized and work fairly well for us. I’m taking this as a sign that I should split my focus between my office and my bathrooms. Also, continue working on the removal of things that we’ve earmarked for removal. As I’ve said before, the biggest issue there is P’s difficulty with letting things go. As for time-wasting habits, this is definitely something I need to work on. I have to be more productive with my work related efforts so that I can pursue my other activities (including Ben’s activities — he wants swim lessons, desperately, but not quite desperately enough to use the potty — yet). So, I will be reviewing the material on these two areas this week and getting to work.

It’s April; it’s actual springy weather in Florida; it’s almost Easter. All reasons to recommit myself to this project.

One thing we did get done in the last week is finally hanging our pictures in the front hall. I had this vision for a long time of a wall of pictures, and I finally managed to get off my butt last Friday and hang the pictures. Top row is a picture of Ben with the blanket his godmother made him, a family portrait, and a picture of Katie with the blanket her godmother made her (all I can say is, I know how to pick supremely talented godmothers). The next row is a picture of Sam, a picture of Ben, a picture of Peyton, and there will be a picture of Katie. P moved the frames out of Katie’s bedroom and, well, we have to find them. Katie’s picture is sitting on the counter waiting. The nail is already there. So, I’m on it. The second row is birthday pictures. I take a picture (or have pictures taken) on birthdays. So Sam’s is very new and she’s very grey. Ben’s is his 3 year old picture. Peyton’s is her three year old picture. Katie’s will be her Gene Simmons impression picture because it makes me laugh and she’s not a year old yet :) .

So, progress is being made and I”m pleased with how the house is coming together and how my children are developing. Now, if Peyton would walk NICELY on a leash, we’d be all set :) .

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One Year — March 2009

So, I’ve been sick, but I have made some progress in the office and with paperwork. I managed to clean out the main file drawer and the main filing cabinet in the office. Most of the files are things I can’t get rid of due to school requirements, but they are things that can be less accessible at this point.

I have created a folder for Ben’s preK materials and divided things for five days, since he tends to want to ‘tivity sheets five days a week. He doesn’t always take his breaks on weekends, but it works for us. The office is a work in progress and will likely need to be revisited this year. I’m thinking that I will go back to it when we hit moving month since I’m not moving in the foreseeable future.

I’ve moved some things around and I’m still trying to figure out the best configuration for my school books and for what will be Ben’s school materials. We’ve pretty much settled that we’re going to home school. At this point, I think we’re looking at prepackaged curriculum. While I’m confident in my ability to teach, I need something to help me focus what I’m doing. We’re not sure what we’re going with, but we know we need to set aside space for his materials and work in the house — somewhere. It’s going to be very interesting, I think.

The month of April will bring a focus on the bathrooms. I’m looking forward to tackling the two bathrooms, but I’ll likely also be working on the office as part of my continuing effort to improve the space I work in.

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Out with the . . .

well, maybe not out with much of anything, but we’re trying some new things here in adjunctmom land. We’ve agreed that Ben is not likely to be attending VPK due in no large part to the fact that the programs seem to be disappearing at an alarming rate and we just aren’t committed enough to the project to drive him hither, thither and yon to get him into something that I have giant misgivings about in the first place. So, we’ve started working with him at home on what we’ve identified as basic skills he would need to survive kindergarten in the event that he has matured enough to attend kindergarten in the fall of 2010. See, Ben’s birthday is precisely two days before the cut off. At that close, we can decide to hold him a year and let him start in 2011 or we may decide to skip the regular school thing entirely and homeschool him instead.

There’s been a great deal of debate in this house about which skills he actually needs and how we foster those skills. Where we’ve ended up is adopting two sets of materials that we use interchangeably and that we try to work with four days a week-ish. This has been a no activity sheets week for no reason I can discern other than he feels the need to “invent” this week, so invent is what he’s doing. He created a slide and a magic show in his bedroom (using an old body pillow that he adopted right before I gave it to the dog). What we’ve been doing at this point is leaving him wanting more. We do roughly four sheets each time and he’s always asking to do more of them. Anyway, for this year, what we’ve adopted is a combination of the Core Knowledge program and the Kumon workbooks.

These are ideal for Ben as they give him different activities to try each day and they help him learn new skills by relying on the ones that he already has. For instance, he has excellent descriptive skills (okay, if he were actually in my class, he’d earn a C, but he’s three, so he gets a pass here). To learn some basic science, they give him pictures and he describes, for example, the senses that are being used in the scene that he’s observing.

Right now he’s using these items:
1. What Your Preschooler Needs to Know. This is a great book full of short read alouds that he really enjoys. It’s helpful for me because, well, I don’t know remember the words to half the songs we used to sing when we were kids and they’re all right here.
2. What Your Preschooler Needs to Know Activity Book for 3-4 year olds.The activities here are sometimes a little young for him and sometimes a little too advanced for him, but overall, he really enjoys doing them and he’s increased his confidence about ten-fold by using this book. Two months ago he consistently mixed up red and yellow to the point I was starting to wonder if he was color blind. Nope, he was just confused.
3. My First Book of Tracing. He loves this. He likes having clearly defined paths to follow that he draws in and that creates shapes and he’s learning how to use a pencil. One of his most cherished dreams so far. He thinks pens and pencils are SO MUCH BETTER than crayons and he’s desperate to learn how they work. So far, he’s doing great with this, in fact, he’s almost finished this book, so he has two more that start him with the shapes of letters and numbers.
4. My First Book of Cutting. Again, he loves the idea of scissors and this is helping him learn how to actually manipulate them and use them. His lines aren’t so straight right now, but he’s definitely getting the idea and getting more confident with it each time we pull out a project sheet for him to do. We limit these to once or twice a week.

In addition, we bought seeds from Seeds of Change for Matt’s Wild Cherry Tomatoes and for marigolds. We planted them about two weeks ago and we’re now nurturing our little seedlings as we wait for them to get hardy enough for transplanting. He has five tomato plants and six marigold plants. We’ve already decided that we’re going to plant all the marigolds in one big pot that lives in my rose garden. We’re thinking that we’re going to try putting the tomatoes in three different locations to see what kind of results we get. He loves checking his garden each day to see how its doing and the responsibility for the care of it will fall to him once they’re over this fragile stage.

So yeah, it’s an odd sort of homeschool experiment, but we’re trying it to see how it goes. Will be reporting on this as well as other things during the coming weeks.

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I Know I’ve Been Absent

It’s been a tough couple of weeks here in adjunctmom-land. I haven’t really been doing anything but keeping my head above water with work and trying to rest as much as I can.

Katie’s delivery was not ideal and I have some significant issues to overcome as a result. Some of them are emotional, and those are troubling, but far worse are the physical issues that have resulted from it. I expected that by the time she was four months old (yesterday) I would be over the worst of it. The last week or so has definitely proved that my assumption was incorrect. This makes me less able to organize or consider and review products or really discuss my family in a meaningful way.

However, I seem to be on an upswing, so I will be around more again. I just need to get myself back together a bit more. With that said, my question for those reading is — to homeschool or not to homeschool? What are the pros and cons? How does it work if you have one who is simply too young for school while the other isn’t?

These are the things that we’re contemplating as we watch the economy unravel and the school system in our area start to feel the crunch, particularly at the elementary level.