Real Food Homeschool Mom

Monday, March 10, 2014

The Mess that is my Pinterest board....The Middle School Years...

When Pinterest first came about, I thought it was a GREAT way to clean up my bookmarks!! I would find stuff, follow little rabbit trails on all my boards, thing it was cool, bookmark it, and forever forget about it. When I would randomly decide to go through my bookmarks, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why half of my links were even there?! I thought Pinterest was the answer to a need. I started using it as a way to organize my bookmarks even better than I had them in the folders I had, and I was able to put a little blurb under each one as to WHY I was saving the bookmark, giving myself searchable terms if I needed to. I even found other people pinning great stuff!! Then the reality hits. Pinterest will randomly delete your pins. Some of the stuff you pin from other people don't go anywhere. Some of them are spam. Also, it's kind of addicting, so... I probably have close to the limit of pins Pinterest allows.

I'm going to clean up my homeschooling board, and start adding stuff here. I have fallen out of love with Pinterest, quite a while ago actually when they kept deleting some of my pins for various reasons, and then I was hard pressed to find it again to mark somewhere else for my own benefit. Since, you know, that was the point of the boards. My. Personal. Benefit.

Whatever.

Let's see if I can find a not-nonsensical way to post all this stuff! There are nearly 1000 pins on this board (not counting those on my Preschool board, which has close to 200), so bear with me. I'll start with Middle School, since I already have one for high school, then I'll have a separate post for Pre-K and K, and elementary school years.

Middle (5th - 8th)-

Help a Middle Schooler Succeed - Not for homeschoolers, but can glean some information

English -
Punctuation Poster
Hogwarts unity study
Literature CHOLL
Writing Rules
Onomatopoeia
Changing Paragraphs poster
Story Map
How to use a semicolon
Persuasive Writing with Oreos
Personification
Idioms
Similes
Metaphors
Roots
Grammar Helpers
Dr. Seuss for Intermediate
Worksheets for the Hobbit
LOTR audio

Math -
Japanese Multiplication
Butterfly Fractions
Easy Long Division
LOF Intermediate
Fractions to Decimals to Percents

Science -

BFSU 3
Supercharged Science - Usually there's a deal for this at the HSBC

Biology -
Brain hemisphere hat
Google Books Anatomy Coloring Book
Virtual Dissection
Photosynthesis lab
Ecosystem in a bottle
DNA experiment
Genetics lab
Frog virtual dissection
Osmosis/diffusion lab
Genes
Teaching the Digestive System
DNA Experiment
Iron for Breakfast
Minecraft through the elements

Fascinating Biology
The Joy of Chemistry
Anatomy Arcade
Homeschooling Middle School Science
Easter Eggs Genetics

History -
Geography Notebook
Interactive Civil War Map
Animated Atlas of American History
Eye Witness to History
World History Time Map
Viking Voyage
Famous men of the middle ages audio
Discover Texas History
Ultimate Texas History guide
Freedom: A History of US
Texas A unit study
Tour the World Song
Tour the States Song
Famous Texans
GuestHollow - The History Shelf
List of Historical Movies on YouTube
Teaching history without a textbook

Electives -
Primal Health
Photography class
Learning a second language
Digital photography for kids
Manual mode for beginners
Computer Science
Computer Programming
Beginning Web Design

Monday, March 3, 2014

Health and Nutrition, with a little cooking on the side

This week, I was looking into a health and nutrition curriculum for the olders. I've had several in mind, I already have the Real Food Nutrition by Food Renegade. Actually, I have both, the one for the kids as well. I've also been eyeballing the one from the Human Bodies Detectives site. I don't remember how I got introduced to this curriculum; I was so tempted to buy it a few months ago when it was on sale at the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op. But, I talked myself out of it, just because Little Miss isn't quite there yet, even though the purpose of getting it was because she was asking all sorts of questions about blood and the heart and how the food worked in the digestive tract. I appeased my urge to buy the full curriculum with purchasing the iPad apps, which she LOVED. They were like books on tape in a way; it was the book, being read to you, interactively. (I also have that theme song stuck in my head, every time I say or think "Human Body Detectives" I can't not add an "ooh-ooh-ooh-ohoh, Human Body Detectives!" to it. "Yeah!") So; the curriculum is regularly $79. On the HSBC, it's on sale for $29.95 (plus whatever the co-op fee is). I found it on Teachers Pay Teachers last week on sale, I believe it was 10% off. THEN I was given a code for an addition 10% off. So, I got both the Middle School/High school nutrition AND the Teen Health ebooks for around the same price as the single nutrition curriculum from the HSBC. Pretty cool.

So, after looking over all the pages, I really like the looks of it; at the same time, I'm not sure it counts as a full credit hour. I'm thinking about combining the two, Real Food Nutrition and the HBD Nutrition, just to have a little extra slant to the WAPF way of eating (from the Real Food Nutrition book). I'm thinking this, all together, equals half a credit. Which is fine. But, why not add a cooking 101 curriculum to go along with all this health and nutrition information? Ms. Artsy already does a LOT of cooking around here. Most of it is under our direction, of course, but she's pretty good at picking up a recipe book and making it work with few interventions from us. However, I do think that everyone can benefit from learning a little bit more about cooking, and I'm now in the process of looking for some curriculum ideas for cooking 101. (Anti-insanity Tip: It's always better to see if it's already been done before, rather than re-invent the wheel, so to speak. You can find multiple options, and pick and choose what works best for you and your goals, without making yourself crazy with the huge enormous task of creating one from scratch all by yourself.) So, here are a few links that I'm saving to determine what I want to put together to make a half-credit cooking course. (A credit hour, debatably, is 120-160 hours). So I'm looking at 60-80 hours in the kitchen, and 60-80 hours of health and nutrition study.

Cooking 101: 20 Lessons
Basic Cooking Lessons
Alton Brown Curriculum - Already have the books. Can totally watch a bunch of "Good Eats" for inspiration!
MIT Kitchen Chemistry
MIT Advanced Kitchen Chemistry
Forum Post on Cooking and Science
A Pinterest Board with LOTS of ideas
High School Curriculum
Great Courses - This one is more nutrition based, and it has potential, although there are some things that I don't agree with (like "it's all about the calories!" and "Drink your cereal milk" and "watch out for the shine; unnecessary fats"). But it has potential.
Coursera - The Science of Gastronomy
American Test Kitchen - This may be worth paying for for a few months! Principles
MIT Speak Italian with your mouth full

I believe this one is done by a former home ec teacher
Epicurious
Top Chef University

I'm really loving the look of that American Test Kitchen.

Some of my goals in the class include, but not limited to:
Knife skills
meal planning (this can actually be a part of the nutrition course, have her "create" balanced meal plans, and then we can use the cooking course to learn to create and prepare the meals)
reading a recipe (she pretty much has this down pat)
freezer cooking
canning
dehydrating
fermenting (of course!)
herb identification
safety in the kitchen

Wow, I've found a lot of stuff already. I found some information here with ideas on beefing up the health aspect, as well, so the cooking could actually be a full credit elective!

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Homeschooling High School Resources...

Friday, February 28, 2014

Plans for Mr. Scarecrow...

I guess it's only fair, since I put out a huge long post yesterday about Ms. Artsy, that I post today about what we'll be doing with the boy for next year. I'm hesitant to label him with a grade, just because technically, he'll be going into the 8th grade. But I'm not really sure that after next year, he'll be ready for high school. Especially with his writing. I could be wrong; a lot of people do a lot of growing up in a short amount of time. So, we're kind of playing it by ear. He's sort of 7th sort of 8th grade, and depending on his abilities at the end of this year, we will "take a year" to sort of hone those abilities, or he'll be moving on to 9th grade. So, with that in mind, here are my tentative plans for Mr. Scarecrow, somewhere around the 8th grade.

History -

We'll continue along using Story of the World. He'll be in volume 4 next year, so he's perfectly lined up for 8th grade, to start over in 9th with Ancients. (if we end up taking an additional year, it will be a more intensive American History/Texas History course than what we did this year). We're still working on his writing, so basically, we do our best to follow TWTM suggestions with reading, outlining what we read, trying to rewrite in our own words from our own outline, etc. Like I said, we're still working on all that.

I have a few links to websites that deal with this time period that will be useful for next year, as well.

Khan Academy 1700-1900
1900-present

Math -

Math will be prealgebra. If there is one thing he's not falling behind in, it's math. I guess he'll be my STEM kid, and we'll just spend our time making sure he can write. Somewhat.

Saxon prealgebra 1/2 with the videos
Life of Fred prealgebra 1 and 2 - just an added "fun" element, not a full curriculum, but a different approach than the "boring" textbook math
Khan Academy
Jousting Armadillos - This one seems to be the kind of quirky, out of the box thing that he needs to pick up learning. He's not "learning", he's having fun reading a story! I don't know, this kid... he's my struggle. If I suggest it, he doesn't want to do it. If it's obviously supposed to teach him something, he's not going to get it. But if it's through his own devices and his own readings and meanderings, he'll figure it out and blow everyone out of the water with his wit and knowledge. He kills me.

English/Literature -

Sigh. I don't even know. I mean, I have ideas, but I don't know what will work with this child. I've tried everything, all the way to starting from the beginning and working through progressively faster. If it's too easy for him, he's bored. But if it's too hard for him, he completely shuts down. There's a fine line to finding what will grow his mind and challenge him without making him give up. My plan for next year includes reading pertaining to the time period in history, literature evaluation of that reading, and then for grammar and writing, I"m trying something new.

Analytical Grammar
Beyond the Book Report

We'll be using the Three Year scheduling, hopefully this is "slow" enough as not to bombard him with the trivial bits of learning the English language, but also will make him competent enough to pass any college English class that is so required for him to get that engineering degree.

Life of Fred - This is new. As far as I can tell, it just came out this year. It *says* it's geared for high school, but from my understanding of the reviews, it is considered "remedial" high school by those who know more than I. They say, it would be a good "refresher" that is fun and entertaining. Sounds like right up Mr. Scarecrow's alley; a "fun" read that somehow sneaks in teaching?! I'm game.

Science -

So, I could be way off base here, but I have a feeling this is going to be his "thing" this next year. He'll be doing physics; we usually use elemental science for our science, but 1) she's not going to have the logic stage physics ready in time and, 2) I've read some reviews (which I should know because we use it, but sometimes you can't see what's right in front of you) about how "dry" the curriculum is. Read an excerpt. Outline or summarize what you read. Vocabulary, and a lab/experiment that may or may not correlate to what you read about this week. Rinse, repeat. It didn't seem that bad to me, but if others who are science inclined find it boring, then maybe I'm killing any spark in Mr. Scarecrow. So, we're going to use this year to sort of go off the rails, do a little exploring while sticking with the same subject matter. I found these Unit Studies from Intellego:

Physics
Electricity and Magnetism
Light and Sound

I also found other NUMEROUS links to sites with physics information, so we should have plenty to go on.

Berkeley Webcast
CK-12 physics book
The Happy Scientist (we just renewed our yearly subscription for $10!)
Khan Physics
MIT/K12 Physics via Khan
MIT Open Courseware Physics I
MIT Open Courseware Physics II
MIT Open Courseware Physics III
HippoCampus Physics
The Great Courses: Physics in your life
Physics for Superheros
Alice in Quantumland
The Wizard of Quarks
UofV Physics
Physics for Poets: thread with a helpful list of a way to do "living books" physics that might give me some insight to a few read alongs in science.

Obviously, I don't expect to be able to do all of this for science. But, it's kind of like teaching a baby to talk; you don't speak in baby gibberish. You speak like an adult, and as they get a little bit older and more fluent, you gently make corrections. This is just exposing his "baby speak" to "adult speak", so to speak. Most of this will be for "fun", a read or a video to watch. Nothing that will be tested on; but maybe going over his head will somehow make the here and now stuff easier to get through. I don't know if I'm making this all up or if it's actually a thing lol.

So, let's see, we've got History, Math, Science, and Language Arts. We'll probably continue vocabulary with English from the Roots Up 2. Latin will be Visual Latin 2. I'm contemplating adding Greek, but I've learned with him to start slow and make sure he can do the basics before adding lots of extra fluff. We have some ideas about extracurriculars that involve a very popular game by the name of Minecraft. We're also seriously considering reentry into Kung Fu, like his sister, because there needs to be some kind of movement based time going on.

I don't know, I guess that's it. It doesn't feel like a lot when I write it out, but I know we're going to be spending a lot of time in English drilling those basics and getting him to the point of, as so eloquently stated in this thread on TWTM forums:

spend the entire 8th grade year struggling to begin to learn how to:

-Write a short well-organized expository paper
-Produce work that has a heading and date, is legible, has full sentences that actually answer the questions, and isn't half question marks
-Use an assignment book to keep track of one's assignments
-Make and use some sort of study guides
-Show one's work in math (math becomes complicated enough that one needs to show the work now)
-Type

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Plans for next year: Ms. Artsy. Ninth Grade

This is really just a rough first draft; a place to put all my notes for our plans. Usually, I keep a "draft" in my inbox with all these links, but I thought I'd take a stab at the blogging thing one more time; and what better place to keep track of it all for me? Especially since I can go back and look at it later, and see how far off course we've become. So, this is for Ms. Artsy for next year, Ninth Grade. High School, EEP!!

So, without further ado:

History -

As stated previously, Ms. Artsy has chosen to start over with her history studies, so that she gets the full 4-year cycle in her high school career. So, we'll be starting off with the Ancients. Truthfully, I think this is her favorite time period, especially those of the Greeks and Romans. She's big into the mythology. For our spine for History, we'll be using Susan Wise Bauer's History of the Ancient World and the Study Guide that goes with it. A link I have saved that may become useful is from the Khan Academy. Part of history includes reading Great Books, and this is kind of where the line between history and English blurs. She'll be reading the Great Books that correspond to her history time frame, but she'll be analyzing the literature and writing notes and compositions based on her reading. The list includes books of the bible, the epic of Gilgamesh, Iliad and Odyssey, Oedipus the King, Agamemnon, Medea, The History of the Peloponnesian War, The Republic, On Poetics, Rhetoric, Aeneid, and more. We will get through what we get through.

To further enhance her history studies, beyond just reading, we'll be looking into getting most if not all of these Great Courses lectures:

The Other Side of History: Daily life in the Ancient world
History of the Ancient World: A global perspective
History of Ancient Egypt
Great Pharaoh's of Ancient Egypt
Great Ancient Civilizations of Asia Minor
Foundations of Eastern Civilization
Ancient Greek Civilization
History of Ancient Rome

And a class from the Open Yale Courses -
Introduction to Ancient Greek History

Obviously, plenty of resources to provide a thorough and engaging year in Ancient History.

English -

Following the recommendations in The Well Trained Mind (TWTM), high school English is a lot of literature study, and the literature we're studying corresponds to the time in history we are studying. Ms. Artsy has chosen to start over with her history, instead of continuing on, so we will be back at the beginning with the Ancients. So, Here are my links that I have saved for English; maybe going through them for this post will remind me why I have them all saved.

First, Susan Wise Bauer has a great list of books in The Well Trained Mind, as well as The Well Educated Mind. And really, I'm viewing The Well Educated Mind as a sort of outline for high school, or the high school you wish you had if you had had a classical education. So the majority of our choices will be based off of these two books.

There's also The Great Books, Ancient Course. Now, this is from a "christian worldview" which we do not partake in, so it will require some tweaking. But, it gives me a sort of an outline to follow as far as hitting the books that we should be reading over the course of the year, and maybe give me an opportunity to find tests and essay questions pertaining to the books we chose to read.

The Great Courses:
Masterpieces of Ancient Greek Literature
Greek Tragedy
The Iliad of Homer & Odyssey of Homer
Aeneid of Virgil
Herodotus
Classical Mythology
Great Authors - This one can be used to span all 4 years, picking and choosing which authors we watch the lectures on.
History of World Literature - Same as above, can pick and choose lectures that apply
Human Myths - Fine line between history and language arts

These are a collection of lecture series by professors who are wild about their courses. They have a wealth of information to share, and even if just watching and getting a shallow bit of it, I believe she'll be better off than without them. These are a few of the books we'll be reading, so what better way than to have her go through the literature analysis with college professors?

Science -
Science in TWTM is, once again, based on period reading. Lots and lots of reading. I'm not trying to completely bombard her with all the reading all the time, so we will have a "typical" science class, with an actual high school text book, and piecemeal lab that we can purchase and do ourselves at home. In this instance, I wish so much that we could find a local co-op or group of equally aged children going through the same thing, but for the most part around here everyone is of a christian worldview and use Apologia texts, and I'm just not going to do it. So I am going to do the best that I can with online virtual labs, any and all field trips we can manage, and of course, labs at home.

TWTM recommends "source reading" based on subject matter and, of course, history time period. For Ancients/Biology, the recommendations include Hippocrates, Euclid, and Aristotle. These may be interspersed throughout the year, we'll take time off of science principle learning to do a bit of reading and a paper on the reading, and then go back to the principles.

For the book; I still haven't made my decision as to which Biology book I'm going to use. I have it narrowed down, and I just have to make the sticking decision (or buy both. I'm sure my husband would love that). This is the immensity of the links that I have saved for Biology for next year.

First, there is this thread on TWTM forums that has a huge plethora of information that I gleaned a lot of my links from. As far as the rest of it, I'm going to try to remember why I saved the link, and try to put them in some kind of order that makes sense. I'm 99.9% sure that nobody reads this anyway, so we'll just pretend like it's all for my benefit.

Books that are being considered:
Campbell's Concepts and Connections
Miller and Levine "Dragonfly book"
More Miller and Levine
Science for High School - I'm not even sure this one is in the running, but it's a complete kit, with lab and everything, so I'll have to look at it more.

Resources:
This blog post using Campbell
The Home Scientist Main Page
Experiences in Biology - I'm not sure why I saved this one now lol. I think it was supposed to be a great lab book...
The Home Scientist Lab corresponding to the "dragonfly" book
Campbell's other Biology Book
MIT Open Courseware Fundamentals of Biology
HippoCampus Biology
Bozeman Biology Videos
Khan Academy
Online Honor's Biology Syllabus using Campbell
Biology Podcasts
Biology Videos
Boseman Videos
Video lectures
Another resource using Campbell
Biology Corner
What a Plant Knows

And of course, we can't forget The Great Courses -
Biology: Science of Life
Understanding Genetics
Understanding the Human Body
Understanding the Brain
Biology and Human Behavior
Origins of Life

Obviously, there is way more here than could possibly fit into a 9-month, 9th grade Biology course. However, I like the idea of exposing her to some of the more "out there" stuff, just so she knows that this science thing is infinite, the possibilities are endless as to what she could go on to study. She may even rabbit-trail into something off course from just "biology", and that's ok.

We could add in a "health and nutrition" class to be half a credit to go along with Biology when it comes to human body systems. A few I've looked at in the past for that are

Real Food Nutrition and Real Food Nutrition for Kids
This one is completely new to me, I just ran across it the other day. I'll have to look into it more, but it definitely looks like something we'd be into.
The HBD one follows along with The Unhealthy Truth so it seems promising. And, they have a health 101 for teens!

It seems like I had come across one that had The Omnivore's Dilemma for Kids as required reading; I'll have to do some searching and see if I can find it again.

Math -
Fairly simply, math is Algebra this year. We'll be using the Saxon Algebra 1 text, and I'm going to have to decide if I want to get the videos again this year (we used them in Algebra 1/2 this past year). Another option, other than purchasing the videos, are the videos on Khan Academy site and also HippoCampus.

Foreign Language -
She's a little ambitious with what she thinks she's going to do in the Foreign Language department for high school. She's mentioned Latin, Greek, French, and of course, Japanese. I've told her that we can just pick one to focus on for our "credits" and the rest can be at a slower pace, not necessarily anything she'd get full credit for, but maybe could work out as elective credits or something. So far, what I've got saved for links for a foreign language are -

Visual Latin 2 - We're doing Visual Latin 1 right now. I love the guy, the kids love the guy; I'm not 100% sure it's enough as a stand alone for a credit. We may have to find something to supplement it with. The problem with that, once again, is finding something with a non-Christian bias.

For Japanese, I've saved a few courses from the MIT Open Courseware. This may just be a little side-fun, I'm not sure how much of a foreign language you can learn from books and worksheets. Seems to me like a full immersion is needed to be able to get any kind of fluency. But we'll take it one step at a time.

Japanese I
Linguistic Theory and the Japanese Language
Beginning Japanese II
Genki
Irasshai

As far as electives go, we have to figure something out for PE. I'm wanting to put them back into Kung Fu, so they are moving their bodies on a daily basis and also learning the disciple that comes with that. Also, my littles are old enough for it now, as well, and that would just be fantastic to be able to put everyone into something.

She's always liked art (obviously, hence the nickname) and has always taken an art class outside of the home until recently. Our latest art teacher has retired, so we'll have to figure something else out. There are a few things that her dad and I have up our sleeve for her upcoming birthday that might be something we could expand upon, definitely worth looking into for an elective for high school.

I would like it if she were interested in photography, but that hasn't come up as of yet.

Something too that would be fabulous for high school is a debate class; however, she's so painfully introverted (no idea where she gets that from lol) that it might literally kill her to get up in front of other people and talk.

Let's see, we've got history, english, math, science, foreign language... it feels like I wrote out so much but at the same time it feels like I'm missing something. Not sure what though, lol.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

A little update about where we've been this year...

Before I start posting heavy about next year. We've already had lots of tweaks to this year; Ms. Artsy is in 8th, and I gave her the choice of "sticking to the typical order of things", or taking a different approach on this, her last year before high school. Now, for those of you who don't know, I attempt to follow a classical schedule for our homeschooling, meaning we are centered around history and we follow a 4-year cycle. This is ala The Well Trained Mind, and there are other systems out there that are classical in origin, as well, but for the most part nearly impossible to apply secularly. So, the typical schedule goes, History/Science; Ancients/Biology, Middle Ages/Astronomy; Early Modern/Chemistry; Late Modern/Physics. Because we haven't homeschooled since the beginning, we've always been a little off on our scheduling. For the most part, I've kept Ms. Artsy and Mr. Scarecrow together in history and science, to make things easier/more manageable for me. This year, since she's in 8th, Ms. Artsy is supposed to be in Late Modern/physics. They are both actually in Early Modern this year, with a fairly strong significance on American History, and a planned unit on Texas History at the end of the school year. So, I gave Ms. Artsy the option of doing either the same science as Mr. Scarecrow, which actually was going to be Earth Science/Astronomy (told you our schedule was pretty messed up already) OR she could take an "all inclusive" science class that sort of did a refresher of all 4 sciences before hitting it hard and starting over in 9th. I even gave her the option to not start over in history in 9th; I let her decide. She wants to start over, so in 9th we will begin fresh with Ancients/Biology. Anyway, we're using The Teaching Company's DVD lecture series, the Joy of Science, and the book that goes along with that, The Sciences, an integrated approach, for her science this year. History was changed from our usual History Odyssey, because I felt that this along with the writing program we were going to be using was overkill, to reading along in The Human Odyssey. We're on volume 2, and we're also following along in The American Odyssey for additional American History. Latin is Visual Latin. Vocabulary with English from the Roots up. Writing with Writing with Skill. Grammar with Analytical Grammar. Math with Saxon. And a little bit of art/music study of artists and composers of the time period they are studying. Mr. Scarecrow's is a bit different; with Story of the World for history reading instead of the Human Odyssey. He's doing Math Mammoth for math, and Elemental Science for science. Also, the Jr. version of Analytical Grammar.
Whew. I think that's gotten this year out of the way.
For Little Miss Priss (I swear, I'll come up with a better nickname for her. It's got to have the right kick to it though), I started off slow last year, at the "beginning" of the school year, but I didn't want to push her. She didn't turn 5 until January, and I wasn't completely sure she was ready for K. we took it slow; she got frustrated a lot and gave up, and I let it go. We read, she watches a lot of videos, she plays a lot of interactive online games, and she practices writing through dictation. We've actually hit it harder since her birthday, I'm feeling pretty confident that she's ready now. She's totally on the cusp of that reading breakthrough; she can sound it all out but can't quite put it together yet. Any day now, she'll be reading off whole books to me. She also loves to work on her writing, even doing it when we're not "doing school", although she's a hard taskmistress, that one. She loves her school work. For Reading, we're focusing on a lot of different phonics books, Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, Explode the Code, and a new one I just found out about, Reading through Literature. I'm very excited about this last one. She also has a writing program, Writing through Literature, I'm contemplating. I'm waiting on a few books to come in to start working math with her, namely Life of Fred and Saxon K and then I think I'll slowly add in history with a little Adventures in America and some science with Intro to Science. She should be set at least until next January, when her birthday hits, and then we'll move on to first grade work. but only if she's ready.

Long Time, no...

Yeah. It's been a while since I've been on here. Haven't felt the urge to write about it, honestly. I felt like the struggle didn't need to be captured on page... But, apparently this whole "homeschooling" thing is not a phase. We are going on, full tilt, into high school with one, and starting kinder with another. And while I continue to make myself crazy on a near daily basis, finding the next big thing in curriculum that is "way better" than the curriculum I already have, finding new ways to teach something, finding new things to regret how we've already done it, we trudge along, trying to fit it all in without screwing my kids up. I feel like I've got a better handle on what kind of people my kids are, how they learn, and what they need to retain the information. At the same time, I've found out more about who I am and what I'm ok with as far as teaching methods are concerned. Currently, my soon-to-be high schooler is doing pretty phenomenally in everything she does. She's a bit slow, and lazy, and you have to poke and prod her to get her shit done, but her writing has really excelled immensely. I fully feel she is ready for high school this fall. I don't know that I will be ready for high school this fall, though. Still working on that one. The next one; well, he's an enigma wrapped in a mystery. He's just over a year younger than the soon-to-be highschooler (sorry, I've forgotten their nick names. I'll have to figure them out or come up with new ones). I guess he's "normal" for a 12 year old boy? I have no idea. His writing leaves a lot to be desired, and honestly, I cannot fathom that he will be ready for high school after one more year. We may have to add a "filler year" in there, given his birthday does fall near the cut off anyway, and I don't want to push him into anything before he's ready. We've tried that in the past and it doesn't work; he completley shuts down. That's my main problem with him; he won't ask for help. If he doesn't get it, he flat will not do it. Now, little Miss, she's rearing to go, full steam ahead, ready to read and write on her own so badly, she can almost taste it. I'm still collecting stuff for her, but I figure we'll do schooling based on her birthday, so starting at the beginning of the year instead of fall. I'm sure things will even out at some point in the next 12 years. So, that's it for now. I'm hoping I'll be more apt to updating this, especially when I'm making myself crazy for curriculum choices, and I pick something only to realize I had previously looked at it and discarded it for one reason or another.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

There is no one like me. Or my family. There is not a model I can look at to know the right answer or the right thing to do.

I am not perfect. Nor do I profess to be.

There are some things that seem to be something that we want, and we strive for it. Sometimes, there are obstacles in your way; and who knows? maybe they are put there to make sure you really want what you think you want.

But how long do you have to struggle with something to realize, maybe it wasn't the right choice? maybe there is a reason there is such a struggle.

I'm struggling. And I have been for a while now. I keep wavering back and forth, but I'm really struggling right now.

Now what?

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Plans for next year

It has been well over 6 months since I've updated this blog, and last year I had a sort of feeling of ... being lost, unsure and that I was doing something wrong/leaving something out. I have a better sense of what I'm going to do for this year, and I'm already planning it out. I had a moment of "maybe they should go back to public school", I'll admit, after they came to me and said they wanted to go back. They said "we miss our friends". I had a moment of, maybe I'm being a bad mom by keeping them out. Luckily, I have a husband who is almost always opposite of me, so when I'm down, he's up, and he can help bring me up. He reminded me of why we signed on for this in the first place, why it wasn't a "lets see if it will work" but a "this will work, and we will make it work, because this is what is best". and while the kids say they miss their friends, when they are at school, they whine about not having any friends. and when they go to school, they will be gone all day from about 7 am to 4 pm (riding the bus) and have to come home and still do homework. So, he pulled me out of my "bad mommy" funk, and now I am excitedly looking forward to next year's curriculum.

Trying to get my ducks in a row, I started out with a list of the subjects we wanted to work on, and then fill in the blanks from there.

Typing -
art - Class?? (Sister Wendy disks)
history - History Odyssey for the Middle Ages
science - biology for logic stage (elemental science)
math - MM, LOF

spelling - AAS
writing - WWE/WWS
logic -
latin - Lively latin
grammar - Advanced Language Lessons
nutrition - Just an idea I had when I saw THIS

Obviously, I'm still looking for Logic and Art. I seemed to recall there was a list of artists and composers that corresponded with our history of the middle ages, so I'm still looking for that. I keep falling short in logic, though. I originally thought I'd use the Fallacy Detective, but after purchasing the book I found a thread talking about it and how it was very pushy from the author's perspective on certain things (and apparently abortion was considered an ok topic, which is NOT ok with me) and then I get the book and the first pages are all bible quotes and whatnot.. that book is going back. I'm still looking.

Ms. Artsy-Fartsy has asked to sign up for soccer again, and this year will be her last year to be able to sign up with upwards. I'm not sure if the hubs is planning on going back to kung fu, but if they do, that will pretty much take up any and all time they would have for various extracurriculars. I think its a great thing, but it also takes up 4 days a week, which is not always a great thing.

Now that, for the most part, I have my curriculum picked out for next year, I have to start making my schedule to see where it all fits. and I'm looking into some of those "playful preschool" blogs where people give ideas on what to do with rambunctious toddlers underfoot.. that'll be a challenge, as well.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Its been forever.

Yes, I know. I did not feel the need to update/blog anything prior to this moment, just because everything I do feels inferior. Its LESS THAN what needs to be done, and I don't want it scrutinized too intently.

I spent most of the day going over our January lesson plans. The entire month. of January. Having the last 3 months or so under my belt, so to speak, I have an idea of what better will work for us. Now if only the kids will work with me on that…

What works for K is not the same as what works for J. But I am hopeful that this new way of organizing the lessons will help us out much better, and having it all in advance lets me see where we are going much sooner. Its very similar to the file folder system of organizing, which I thought was a neat idea, but was scared to do in the beginning of the year because it was my first year homeschooling. What if I took all that time planning, and ended up hating the curriculum less than a month in?! that would be a huge waste of time. I'm going to try it now, and see how it goes, and if it works, I may very well do it this way for next year, over the summer. That way I don't have to threaten to kill my printer on a monthly basis, like now (before it was weekly).