I Did It Again

I told you that background wouldn't last for long. How could it when they posted a hoard of NEW Christmas templates like this one? I didn't like the last one because you couldn't read much of the text at once, or see a full picture.

So here's a new background, and it's making me excited to head back to the land of snow!

Blogger Friend School Assignment #104 - Wacky Week

Have you done something crazy in your homeschool? Do you fingerpaint with your toes? Do you let your children do your hair? Do you wear your pajamas during homeschool? Oh, the list is endless, but it’s up to you and how much fun you want to have.

I'm late in doing my assignment this week because I've spent most of the week sick. And if I'm too sick to write, then you know I'm sick! Armed with a fresh load of drugs from my allergist, today I'm able to look at a computer screen without covering it with spray. Rejoice in all things!

What do we do in school that is wacky? The pure fact that I'm homeschooling my kids feels a bit wacky to me. When I tell people that's what we do for school, I get that brief bewildered look and then the obligatory comment that implies I'm some sort of saint. Well, the Bible does say I'm a saint, but not because of anything I've done, and certainly not because of homeschooling.

But back to the wackiness. Since it's taken me awhile to get into homeschooling, we haven't ventured too far off the beaten path. On occasion we mix things up and write all our subjects on pieces of paper, then pull them out of a hat to see what order we'll study things. The kids enjoy that.

This year I think I've become more relaxed, so we've had days where I said it was ok to watch the Olympics for two hours during our normal school time (it's educational! and the coverage here was incredible). The wackiness for me (which probably seems quite normal to people who've been gung ho about homeschool from the beginning) is seeing all of life as teaching, and not being so wound up about seeing tangible, boxes I can check, kind of learning. That gives us the freedom to follow rabbit trails throughout the day.

Oh, and the best kind of wackiness - the freedom to call a "teacher mental health day."

New background

I told you I would change my background frequently. I actually tried three different fall backgrounds before I settled on this one - it seemed the easiest to read. I have to use things like this to remind me that it is fall. Since we are leaving in less than 2 months to spend many weeks in Minnesota, my kids have upped the number of questions they ask about what it's like in the fall. I think a lapbook on seasons may be in order, though I don't know that it will even help. I'm sure stepping out of the Minneapolis airport into the frigid air on November 24th will be a learning lesson in itself.

A Fruitful Day

Some days in homeschool confirm every good reason to do it. Today was one of those days.


After reviewing our spelling words (because we didn't have time yesterday) we read Psalm 46. We made a list on the board of all the things God is and does in that Psalm. It's so cool that my kids are at a point where they can actually dig into the word! Next we read more about the Samurai for history. I had the kids tackle writing a haiku. I wasn't entirely sure how to teach them, but as I began I thought, "Wow, this is a great way to teach syllables!" Added bonus. I wrote a few haiku on the board, ignoring this one my brother wrote long ago when he was on a haiku kick which kept coming to mind:

Wind blows through the trees
It is blowing in the leaves
Preparation H

That's just a little glimpse into my brother's sense of humor. Anyway, at first they moaned and stared at their paper, but once I gave them each a topic - hippopotamus for Ethan because it has 5 syllables, and cats for Megan. They both came up with some great verse. I told them to take a break and do their readers, to which Ethan replied, "I already read mine!" I told him to find another book, expecting a protest, but he happily grabbed one of our library books. Afterwards, as is my habit, I asked them what the stories were. I was surprised when, instead of hearing, "I don't know" Megan launched into a summary of her chapter. It's those moments that are such a joy!

We moved on to some music games (double bounce - extra curricular and fun!). I showed them the clip from Sound of Music where Maria teaches the kids "Do Re Mi" and then we played some games focused on that.

Next: quick! Outside before it pours to do nature journaling. I love watching my kids doing their nature journals. Back inside for an impromptu lesson on "Why does the wind get so strong right before a storm?" Thank goodness for the Eyewitness Weather book.

Spelling test time is always an anxious one for Ethan because he is not naturally a good speller. But they both pulled off perfect scores and were quite creative in writing their original sentences once I gave them the goal of including as many words as possible (one star for each word). Admittedly, their sentences were a little more creative than made complete sense, but who wants to squash the fun?

Finally, writing. I gave Ethan the task of writing a short dialog. Megan is learning to write paragraphs. She wrote one on what she wants to be when she grows up. She said a homeschool teacher! And also, a taxi driver. Not sure where that comes from.

Sigh. I wish all days could be this easy. I felt like I could see tangible ways my kids are growing, and really enjoyed all the activities we can do together. I have to admit this was punctuated by a few trips to the bathroom (designated discipline room) for some discussions about attitude. But that's character training, and is as much a part of homeschool as anything else. I'm thankful for this encouragement today. Next week, ask me how Monday goes. :)

Back to School

We started school again this week, and I think it went pretty well. It was a little off beat, punctuated by breaks for watching the Olympics (but hey - there's tons of learning there!) and going to the chiropractor. Highlights of the week included:

1. Something clicked with Ethan on the piano this week, because he opened up the book after not playing all summer (some things you just let go) and played his last piece with little effort. I knew he was encouraged when he went back and played the whole book to that point, and practiced his new song without complaining. Megan is determined to be better. The competitiveness comes from Erik.

2. We started a new language arts program in the spring called Spell to Write and Read. The kids both placed at 2nd grade, 7th month in May, so we started the program a bit into it. Even so, the first day this week Ethan said, "Mom, can you give me something harder to do?" It's fun to see that he's feeling confident.

3. Ethan is highly motivated to write in cursive, and he's quite good at it too. For a boy who, at the end of 1st grade, was still writing in huge block letters, this is amazing.

4. I decided that we'd have a more flexible schedule this year, where each day the kids can choose in what order they want to do their subjects. We just did it yesterday and today but it's cut down grumbling considerably.

5. Megan is turning out to be a bit of a sanguine (where this comes from I don't know). Everything is, "This is the BEST __________ EVER!!!!" or "I LOVE __________!!!!!" We actually heard a few of those comments this week in regard to some of our activities.

6. My personal favorite - today when I picked up the Bible (we've started reading the New Testament) Ethan decided he wanted to read along, so Megan grabbed a Bible too. Ethan stopped me after two verses and said he wanted to read the next one. Of course Megan didn't want to be left out, so we ended up taking turns reading the whole thing. It was wild to hear my kids read scripture like that. When we were done Megan wanted to keep going. I told her she'd just have to wait for our next day of homeschool.

Well, so far so good.

Homeschool . . . it's a lot like running

If you read my other blog, you know that I've been slowing torturing myself for the past eight weeks by training for a half-marathon. I've already posted there about what I am learning from running, but here I want to write about how it has been leading me to reflect on homeschooling. In fact there are several parallels for me in both activities. Here they are:

1. Running and homeschooling both require perseverance. You have good days and bad days, but you don't give up.

2. It's good to vary your activity to strengthen different muscles and keep your body sharp when you run. In the same way, it's good to change things up once in awhile for homeschooling. We do this by adding activities like art, music, science, nature walks, computer. And by throwing in fun games here and there. And my personal favorite, calling a "Teacher Mental Health Day" and doing nothing.

3. When you say, "I can't" what you really mean is "I don't want to." I used to say this about running, but the truth is, I CAN run. It's taken time to build up my stamina, but I can say now that running five miles isn't a big deal.
The most frequent comment I get when I tell people I homeschool is, "You're so brave. I could never homeschool." And really what they mean is, "I don't want to homeschool." That's cool. But don't limit yourself with "I can't." If God calls you to something, you can do it.

4. People ask me if I'm enjoying running. My answer is, "Sometimes." It's true of homeschool too. Sometimes a whole mile passes without me realizing it because I'm just enjoying the time Sometimes I even feel something of a runner's high when I think I could run forever. And there are days when homeschool is great - the kids are happy and learning, and I get comments like, "This was really fun mom!" But there are also days in both activities when I want to drop to the ground and stay there. I keep going because I enjoy the benefits.

5. Snacks are helpful. That's pretty self-explanatory.

6. Rest is good and necessary. I know last year because we started later in the year, we didn't take enough breaks. I tried to plan more free time in this year so I don't stumble over the finish line come June like I did this year.

I've spent a good part of this morning planning homeschool for this fall. I decided to go crazy this time and plan out everything for the whole fall. In the past I just planned history to get my big picture, and planned other subjects week by week. But this year, maybe fueled by my running stamina, I am planning all my subjects through January. I know, it's now how a lot of people operate, but I think my Strengths Finders (communication, belief, strategic, focus, input) would back me on this. It's how I work best.

Ah, the freedom

No, I'm not talking about the freedom of summer. You'll know when we hit that because it will evoke an old testament, Davidian dancing in the streets in our underwear kind of celebration. I love my kids, really, but who would rather work than not?

I'm talking about the freedom I'm about to exercise today called "Teacher Sick Day." I just announced to my kids that we aren't having school today because I feel like a lump. I want nothing more than to sleep my morning away, after the accumulation of 2 1/2 weeks without my husband (he streaked through here for 12 hours a few days ago but that was insufficient), an off and on tension headache, and a year of homeschool.

So I laid out the 3 R's for them on the homeschool desk with instructions to do a few things, then entertain (and, they insist, EDUCATE) themselves, with the Jump Start 3rd Grade computer game. Granted, if they were in school I could sleep every morning away. But my responsibility quotient is too highly strung to do that. As it is, I'm barely comfortable doing this, even though we could really quit school right now and my kids would be none the worse for it.

I'm yawning and will soon be incapable of making coherent sentences. Rejoice with me in my freedom to zzzz . . . .

I'll Make a Writer of Him Yet!

Ethan is not particularly interested in writing, unless it involves making lists of the Legos he doesn't have and how much they are in both US dollars and Singapore dollars. This grieves me, naturally, but I will not give up on developing, if not a love for writing, a competency in it.

I was encouraged on Friday when Ethan willingly submitted to an exercise in making acrostic poems. He did such a great job in fact that I feel compelled to share them. Here they are, with almost no prompting from mom:

Excellent at building
Tough wrestler
Healthy person because I eat a lot of fruit
A smart person
Not that musical

Musical
Excellent at reading
Gentle when someone's hurt
Always singing
Not into Star Wars Legos