talk about a sign.......

So, I know from my own experience that this is the start of the difficult period of homeschooling for us. The weather makes me not leave the house unless I absolutely HAVE to, and that means the kids don't go out much either. They get stir-crazy and drive me crazy. The lack of direct outdoor sunlight starts messing with me (sorry but those full-height windows we have just don't make up for it, they filter the vit. D right out of the sunlight before it gets to me I think) and I start cycling more than usual. Overall, it just makes for a hard time here and we don't get as much schooling done because I'm just trying to keep a grip on myself so that I can function enough to do the chores and take care of meals and snacks. And this year, I have the added responsibility of attempting to also keep a grip to keep my grades up in college. Yes, it is a difficult period for us (and the reason why we call it winter vacation instead of summer vacation).

In fact, it has been so difficult here this week for me on a psychological level that, over the weekend, I had decided that on Monday morning I was going to go to the elementary school that we are zoned in to enroll the oldest girls in grades 1 and 2. But, when I made this decision I decided to pray about it. I asked God to give me a sign if I wasn't supposed to enroll them, and went to bed.

Then when I got up I looked out the window at my road. We had snow fall last night, and the road is pretty much untouched. Surprising too, since we live on a main road that is one of the main access routes to the freeway ramp here AND we have the branch campus of Ohio State and the technical college both about a block away. So I looked at the local radio station for school closings and delays, and then laughed. Yep, God gave me that sign all right............. There won't be anyone there to enroll the girls if I managed to get my van out of the driveway (I don't drive so well in snow, it messes with my depth perception real bad, that's part of why we don't go out so much in wintertime). Looks like we're just going to announce our winter vacation now and do whatever we get done between now and when things start thawing out. Our focus during this particular season will be retaining math and reading, making a little progress if we want to, and Missa wants to learn to knit so she and I will knit some hats and scarves for her and her sisters (since I'm pretty talanted in this area I will do her sisters' hats and scarves while she does her own hat and scarf, then she can make some for their bears). Other than that, it is survival mode for chores, meals, and my main focus will be trying to keep up in my college classes to at least maintain a C average so I continue to qualify for financial aid.

I do not like admitting that this time of year is upon us, and I know it will be difficult for us for a while, but it is necessary to take the time off. Scott will likely pick up science lessons on weekends if he wants to, and will pick read alouds from our previous cores to continue reading once he finishes Charlotte's Web (which he was planning to finish over the weekend but life has a way of happening like that so he didn't get to it)

homeschool roller skating

The local roller skating rink has a homeschool skate on the 2nd and 4th Friday of every month from Sept-May. I'd heard about it but didn't know when or how much it was, and was too lazy to call and ask. Well, this week I saw a message on our homeschool group's e-mail list about the homeschool skate, and when I saw that it it only $7 a family I thought "hmmmmm maybe we can afford that." Well, today was payday for Scott, and I asked him about it. He left the debit card with me so that I could pull cash to take them, and we went. I even got on skates and tried not to fall on my face, and we all had fun. I think we found something to do twice a month to give us PE for a while........ since they didn't like karate and we can't afford much else right now (hey, skate rentals for everyone is included in the price of homeschool skate, that makes it a VERY affordable $14 a month for us to get some exercise). Enjoy!

science thoughts for my girls

So, I'm sure you've gathered that we don't have a set curriculum for science this year for the girls. There is a reason for that too. See, I ran out of money before I had decided on science materials for our homeschool (thanks to an old house, broke-down pickup truck, and me getting mono and spending a month depending on Scott to bring home takeout almost every night for supper). So I decided that I was going to wing it, more or less, this year and see what comes of it.

Enter my grand idea. I own 4 different Sonlight cores, 1 Sonlight science level, and 4 different levels of Sonlight language arts. Yes, you can safely say that we are a Sonlight family with that stuff on my shelf. Of course, all that is on top of the books we've gathered over the years that we've been parents so far, and the misc. college textbooks I have from my attempts to go to school for a degree. I should have enough to do my own thing with science until we get the tax refund and can buy Sonlight science 1, right?

Now here's my idea. In cores P3/4 and P4/5, Sonlight included science as part of the packages. That gives me uhhhhh 10 books I think that we can really dig into. Now, my girls have read some of these books already with our past runs through those cores, but we didn't really dig in with them at all. So, I'm going to do one book at a time and we're going to read through it, digging deeper in the subject and material it covers as they have an interest. I have the internet (obviously) so we can easily dig in with some searching online without much trouble.

So yesterday I did just that. We started the Flip-Flap Body Book from core P3/4 and I only read the first 2 pages of it to the girls, and they were really interested in it. Missa begged me to read more, then cried when I said no and that we'd read more tomorrow, and then we moved on to history and she got interested in that. Today I'll read the next two pages of that book to them, and again field begging and crying for more before I go on into history and they get sucked into it and want more more more of history. I am NOT stressing over it at all right now, if they ask for more about science once we are done with our schooling this afternoon then we'll hop onto the laptop and do a little digging.

But yeah, that's my thoughts on science. We're going to just start with the books I have and go through them while we wait for the money to buy the curriculum I have picked (which, when I buy SL science 1 I'm also buying core 2 and science 2, plus at least one additional level of readers, which all that should cover me for a couple school years on top of my core 1 stuff we have now)

college for me

Yes, I know I don't post much at all about my college classes, except with the occassional reference to the busy schedule it creates for me. So I thought I would give a blip about that since this *is* our family's blog and my college journey is a big part of our life here.

I'm taking classes online through Ohio Christian University. I love it, I'm almost done with my first semester of classes. The classes run 3-6 weeks, just depending on what it is, and they send me actual textbooks via UPS about 2 weeks before the start of each class so I'm not trying to keep track of a hundred different books at one time with taking 5 or 6 classes at the same time. I currently have a C average because I had a rough time with my first English composition class, but it will be going back up again with this class that starts tomorrow and the one after that.

Anyway, my class that starts tomorrow is called "Bible Study Methods" and I'm really looking forward to it. There was a glitch with the bookstore not sending me the books for my class, so on Friday morning I had to contact them to find out if I was getting books or not. They had my books on the UPS truck that afternoon, and now they are sitting beside me just arrived and taken out of the mailer bag. I have two books in this class, "How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth" and "Bible Study That Works." Hey its a Christian college, of course I have bible classes like this. Of course, I'm also pursuing a degree in Christian Ministry so it is definitely part of the territory to have bible classes.

Anyway, I've looked forward to courses so far that I've taken, even that English composition 1 course I just finished and got a C- in. But this course, I'm actually excited about it. I'm looking at these texts sitting here (I haven't had a chance yet to skim them) and am feeling slightly giddy about starting my coursework. I have the syllabus, student guides, Word document activity pages, and all other materials downloaded and saved in a desktop folder for my college classes (and if you have to know how OCD I am about it, within that folder I have a folder for finished classes and then one for each class this semester, and within the course specified folder I have a folder for each week of the course which is where the individual week student guides and documents are at, and where I'll save all completed work before submitting it). I've read the syllabus and all the week 1 materials, and I've typed up my devotional response for this week to submit tomorrow morning first thing. Now, today when I'm not doing chores or homeschooling the girls I can get going on the rest of my assignments for this week.

I can't stress enough the value of college classes for a stay-at-home parent. Even if I never actually USE the degree I'm working on, just knowing that I'm capable of obtaining a college degree 10 years after graduating high school (ok in June it will be 11 years since I graudated in 2000) helps to boost my own confidence and that is reflected in how I homeschool the girls, do housework, and just live in general. I love being a stay-at-home mom, but it does get boring after a while to be constantly doing things for everyone else and putting yourself on the back burner. My college classes are that thing I'm doing for ME. Some moms may get manicures or go to an expensive salon for highlights and a haircut regularly, but for me the best way to treat myself and give myself what I need to feel good about myself is to be constantly learning and growing. When I finish my Associate's degree in 4 semesters (after this one is finished, I have one more class after the one starting tomorrow to finish the semester), I may or may not go on to the Bachelor's program online. Actually, after this semester and 3 more, I can choose to transfer into the Bachelor's program instead of finishing my AA first. Then, when I finish my BA at OCU, I may decide to work using my degree or maybe I'll enroll at Ohio State as a part time student and take a class here and there online for fun to keep learning and growing. Continuing my education is how I take care of myself and pamper myself. I'm not one for fancy clothes or expensive haircuts, I want to learn. I want to keep going in my own education and never be finished learning.

I also hope that by continuing my own education like I am with college, my daughters will see that learning is difficult sometimes and that you don't give up, that you keep pushing and trying anyway and just do the best you can and keep trying until you get it. I am hoping that watching their mom go through college while they are working on elementary school at home will give them an example to follow about sticking to it and hopefully inspire them to have the drive that I do to keep learning no matter what. I've already had a few talks with Missa about college and learning because she is the oldest of my crew (at 7 1/2 years old). She's the one of my girls who was in the Newark public schools for half of a school year, and the only one so far who has absolutely NO desire to ever go back to public school (yes, our second year at home is almost halfway done and she still flat out refuses to ever go to school again, she loves homeschooling that much). She asked me a while back why I wanted to go to school because I'm a grownup and don't have to do it, and was surprised that I like learning and think that its fun to do schoolwork. I spent some time showing her about what online college looks like. We sat down with my laptop and I logged into my online classroom and showed her how we do discussions in class, how I get my homework from the teacher, and how I turn it in when its finished. She thought it was just the coolest thing to be able to do college at home on the computer like I am, and asked me if she'd be able to do that when she's old enough to go to college instead of going to one of the big colleges and sitting in classrooms. I told her that when she's done with homeschool that if she wants to go to college that she certainly can do it that way for a lot of degree programs.

Obviously that talk with her about it (which SHE was the one to start) led to us discussing a lot more than just that I'm in college and do schoolwork too. We talked about what kind of jobs need a college degree and what ones don't, why some people go to college even if they don't plan to use the degree to work (like me at this point, I'm not sure yet if I'll use it), and a lot of other things about why it is important to work hard in school and learn as much as you can. I don't know that it had too much of a long-term impact on her with learning, but since we had that particular talk I have noticed that she appears to be more focused and willing when it comes to math and language arts lessons, even to the point where she is getting her math workbook and cuisinaire rods out on her own and doing a page or two when we're not doing schoolwork. She is starting to see the long-term value of working hard in school and learning, through my going to college and pursuing a degree with the snippets of free time that I have. I couldn't ask for a better return of the investment in a college education for me, if I inspire my girls to become lifelong learners and always work hard to do their best in all parts of their life then it is worth the student loans we're taking out right now for me to go to school.

"we're excavating, mommy!"

Yes, one of my kids said that to me a couple nights ago. We had decided to go ahead and skip the first two Usborne books in core 1 for now, and just incorporate a bit from those books as we go through the rest of the core. So, that puts us in week 7, and we've been learning about archaeology this week. This is super cute, so bear with me on it. I really wish I had taken pictures to share, but I didn't so you'll just have to imagine it happening. :-)

We had just finished reading "Archaeologists Dig For Clues" in history, and I was chatting on Yahoo with a friend of mine while the girls were playing in the schoolroom area. Kimi and Jojo had recruited their big sisters to help them set up an imaginative play, and I wasn't watching too closely to see what was up. Before too long, they had gotten Missa to draw them up a grid map just like in the book we had read, and they had gotten out paintbrushes and some other things. The little two each picked a square tile to work at, and when I started watching what on earth they were doing (before I asked) they were carefully using popsicle sticks to scrape a layer of dirt carefully and put it into a pretend container, and then use a paintbrush to clear away the loose dirt from what they were digging up. (ok before I go any further, they were PRETENDING here, there is no actual dirt on my floor, maybe a few crushed tortilla chips right now but no actual dirt) Now, I had no clue what they were doing, as I was not paying attention earlier to their talking with their big sister and getting out the book we had just read to show her what they wanted and all that stuff, so I had to ask them what they were up to. Jojo, bless her little 3 year old heart, looked at me with a big grin and said, "we're excavating, mommy!" and then Kimi told me that she had found a kitty buried over here just like they found a doggy in the book we read. Jojo ran over to her, and they carefully dug around it and built the box around it and all the other stuff just like in the book to preserve the skeleton until it was back at the lab to be properly removed. Then Kimi drew it on the grid that they got Missa to make for them, and she "wrote" it down on the log. Oh they had so much fun that night!

I really wish I had gotten pictures of them during their "excavation" so I could share them too, it was just too adorable and I had to watch it as it was happening because it just amazed me at how much they learned from simply listening to me reading to their oldest 2 sisters for history. I didn't think they actually WERE listening, but apparently they were.

I do believe that for now, one core for all 4 of my kids to do history is going to be a very workable option. I'm amazed at how much my littlest girls are picking up regularly from the reading we do together, and I can't wait to start getting into history with them next week.

Which, last night I peeked ahead in the core to see what we're doing with history so I could be ready for it. I got "A Child's History of the World" (we'll call this CHOW to make life easier on me) and "Usborne Book of World History" (aka UBWH here from now on) to look over. Now, initially I did NOT like CHOW at all, I had read the first 3 chapters and thought it was terrible. But then someone at the Sonlight forums told me that the first 3 chapters aren't used at all, it starts in chapter 4. So, I decided to give it a chance and see how it worked before I tossed it aside and replaced it with Story of the World. Last night was my first time looking at it beyond chapter 3, and I skimmed chapter 4 and the pages in UBWH that we would be doing with it. Then I went forward a bit more in the guide and skimmed CHOW chapters and UBWH pages, then added in Time Traveler for skimming when we got to it. I ended up stopping around week 23 or so I think with my skimming. I had so much fun looking over what we were going to be covering that I couldn't stop. I do believe the girls are going to have a blast with the hostory coming up, I can't wait to get started on it. (and I honestly do believe that a parent can not successfully homeschool their children with materials if they aren't excited about them as well, I mean they can teach the material effectively but if the parent isn't excited about it as well then the kids won't get even close to as much out of the material because they will pick up on their parent's boredom or dislike of the material no matter how well mom or dad tries to hide it)

Happy December! new month, new goals

I love this time of year. Honestly, I really do love December. It is that perfect time of year for my breathing, where its cold enough that we must bundle up to go outside but not so cold that even checking the mail is painfully cold. It is December 1st, 2010 and we have our first snowfall of the season today as well! It is a truly beautiful thing, there is just something magical about the first snowfall of the season that takes me back to when I would go sledding on the hill at my grandmother's house with the twins, Amy and Liz (they lived down the street). Of course, I can't remember only the good things about sledding down the hill with them, I have to also remember that one time I slammed straight into the apple tree and almost broke my leg (the upper one on my left leg, OUCH that flipping HURT when it happened too!). Yes, I do love this time of year, when we start putting fires in the fireplace regularly (read: almost daily to keep the gas bill down) and hot cocoa becomes a regular thing at the breakfast table. Hot home-cooked meals almost all the time, the beauty of snow falling, all that great stuff. The only thing I don't like about this time of year is that people seem to forget how to drive.

But anyway, it is a new month, and as you may have noticed already I try to set some goals at the start of each month for our homeschooling. Well, this month is no different. So here's what I'm thinking may happen here.

We've had a major "what on EARTH" time here since October when I withdrew the girls from OHVA. It totally turned things upside down in schooling, but in a very good way. We just finished the book "Archeologists Dig For Clues" today from Sonlight core 1, and the girls are fascinated, as usual, by this subject. Now mind you, a couple days ago I had posted about deciding to drop the first two books in the core history and moving on in history, and not really sure what to do about those two books because there is just so stinking much information in them. Well, I think I figured it out. This month, for December, we are going to add those two books back in and go through them. We are going to spend time learning about archeology and the science behind it, as an integrated history and science unit. This just came to me about a half hour ago, so its still just a beginning idea that I have. I'm going to do some digging at the library's online catalog, in my core 1 guide, and on the world history forum at the Sonlight forums to get some ideas on books and activities and such to add to this. We live less than 10 minutes (maybe about 5 minutes I think) from the Newark Earthworks Great Circle Museum, aka the Newark Indian mounds. I am seeing a field trip in our very near future here........... lol

For math, I am just aiming to work on it with the girls each 4 days a week. Nothing too ambitious, just do some work regularly on it.

With lang. arts and reading, Kimi and Jordan have started Sonlight lang. arts K (see my post yesterday about Kimi's first copywork) while Missa and Liddy are doing the lang. arts 1 program at their individual speeds. I want to continue that momentum, and keep plugging away a minimum of 4 days a week. I also would like to begin working with Missa on cursive I think, she's been asking about it a while so maybe we'll give it a shot and see what happens. For Liddy, we're goign to work on printing lowercase letters and using them in everyday writing instead of using just capitals like she insists on right now. Kimi is going to work on lowercase letters too, but more from the approach of getting it right the first time so we don't have the issues with her that we do with Liddy as far as flat out refusing to use lowercase letters. Jordan will do whatever she does in this area, as we aren't really doing much with her except exposing her to it all right now. The only parts of lang arts K that she is really doing would be the weekly letter sheet, looking at the picture dictionary, and doing some of the activities.

OK what am I missing? Oh yes, arts and crafts! This month I am *hoping* that we can make homemade ornaments for our Christmas tree this year since they managed to destroy all of our ornaments that we had every year prior to this one. I'll make some salt dough and color it with food coloring, then turn them loose on making ornaments to hang. I will also do some of those cinnamon scented ornaments if I can find the recipe for that dough, and we'll do paper ring chains to put on the tree instead of tinsel. At least, that's my plan, and we all know how my plans go sometimes................... *wink*

And for music, I think we'll learn a couple Christmas carols. I'm not thinking of trying to take my 4 kids and teach them to do a flawless "Carol of the Bells" quartet, I'm thinking more like an out of tune Jingle Bells or something. Keep it simple!

For read aloud time, Scott is going to finish Charlotte's Web and move into, and hopefully finish, Homer Price. But that depends on how much he reads to them each night more than anything else.

Of course, all these grand plans depend on the cooperation of my girls and them staying healthy long enough to do even half of it. lol Right now Kimi is sick and on antibiotics, so schooling is much more relaxed than it sounds. But we're still getting things done around here for the most part, when I'm not working on my college homework, keeping up with chores, or handwashing clothes because our washer died over the weekend and we're saving for a new one (it died sooner than we thought, we were already saving).

handwriting 101 for pre-k'ers

So, if you haven't already gathered, I am fairly relaxed about homeschooling with kids under a certain age. I don't actually "do" a formal preschool here with them, they just kind of pick the stuff up somehow (most likely from television, educational computer games, and having big sisters teaching them this stuff). So, a few weeks ago My sweet little Kimi asked me to teach her how to write her name. I started with just a simple "KIMI" for her on the dry erase board, and in about 2 minutes she had mastered that (as we can all tell by looking at certain doors and walls in my home now LOL she likes to practice and doesn't always use paper for that). So, today when we did our core and such with the older two girls, I though to myself that maybe she'd be ready to take on the writing in Sonlight's lang. arts K program. Now remember, she is only 4 1/2 with a January birthday, so she isn't expected really at this point to be able to write her name or much of anything else. I remembered from doing this lang. arts level with my oldest girls that the first week starts off with writing their first name, so I decided to just go for it and see how it went. I got out a sheet of the Handwriting Without Tears paper (its the ONLY handwriting program I will ever use, it is WONDERFUL and I've had a lot of success with it and myoldest 2 girls) and carefully printed out "Kimberly" for her, just like I typed it. She has NEVER written a lowercase letter in her life, so I didn't expect her to do very well with it. I'm more interested in the exposure at this point with her, and getting her started on using lowercase letters.

So how did her copywork for today go? Well, here is a picture that I took of her paper (used my laptop's webcam, pardon if it is grainy or fuzzy or whatever) and you tell me how she did.



How do YOU think my 4 year old did printing her full first name for the first time, along with using some lowercase letters for the first time ever? I count a total of 5 lowercase letters in her name that she wrote, well the M could be a capital but I do think she was attempting a lowercase with it. I just simply told her to do her best with it, and that tomorrow we'd work together on the letters she had trouble with. I don't have much to work with her on as far as those letters go.......... :-)

changes to my core 1 schedule

Well I posted a couple hours ago about the girls spending all of last week on the first 2 pages of Usborne's Peoples of the World. After that post, my brain started cranking and I started thinking about this a little bit. I grabbed that book and Usborne's Houses and Homes (the next book we'll be doing after Peoples of the World) and my core 1 guide, and sat down to do a little thinking and looking.

The first 6 weeks of core 1 cover 2 pages of those two books each day. That equals 30 guide days at pace since we're doing the 5 day schedule. If we do 2 pages a week instead of 2 pages a day as scheduled, that means it would give me 30 weeks in those books. So the way I see it, I have 2 options ahead of me.

option 1: do the 2 pages a week, then go into the rest of the core as scheduled and not worry about taking longer than scheduled or planned. That would put us finishing up core 1 at around uhhhhhhhhhh mu birthday of next school year I think.

option 2: do 2 pages a week from these 2 books, and also go ahead in the guide starting in week 7 at the same time. This would give me exactly 30 weeks of material if I go at pace in the guide with the remaining material, so we'd finish the core right around the start of next school year.

The OCD part of me is screaming to do option 2, so that I can stay "on schedule" and not "get behind". But at the same time, the super relaxed part of me says to do option 1 and just see what happens. But then, I also have that nagging little part of my brain reminding me that on my notification, I said we were doing core 1 and I should try to actually do core 1 to where I'm at least 2/3 done with it when I do portfolio review (we won't be doing standardized testing prior to 5th grade by our own preferences, I refuse to teach to the test like they do in schools, and the standardized testing may or may not be used as reporting starting in 5th grade just based on the scores and how accurately we feel they reflect our girls' abilities and knowledge if we choose to do testing then). It just doesn't feel quite right to say I'm going to do core 1 and then when its time for review have to say that we did all the read alouds and poetry but only the first 6 weeks of the history, know what I mean? So, I'm kind of flip-flopping on this one.

If you have insight, input, or an option I've not tought of yet with this, please comment and tell me! I'm totally open on this, and I have a feeling Scott doesn't have much of an opinion beyond "as long as they are learning dear, whatever you choose is fine with me."

Well, I said I wanted to stretch out our core.......

So, last week I wrote about how we started core 1 finally. Well, we did day 1 of week 1 last week. Yes, that's IT. I did the reading to the girls for that day, and the 2 pages of that Usborne book had so much in it that they wanted to spend more time on that I just said OK fine and we spent Tuesday and Wednesday looking deeper at it, then took Thursday and Friday off since Scott was home on a mini-vactaion thanks to Thanksgiving holiday. So, today I am *hoping* to pick up with day 2 and move a little faster than we did day 1. But then, we have spent the day cleaning up the schoolroom and getting other little things not school-related done, so I don't know if we will get to lessons at all today.

I never expected the kids to want to spend 3 days on the material of 1 day of history, but it was certainly a fun time for us. I can't wait to see where this core takes us, and I'm really hoping that I can find a good pace that will allow us to finish it by the end of next school year. Yes, I said NEXT school year.

But the girls certainly did appear to enjoy spending all that extra time on the material from that first day. I just hope they don't expect to spend a week on one day all the time, I don't mind doing it through these two Usborne books we're reading first in the core but I really don't think I have the patience to do it through the entire core. Heck, 180 days of core scheduled doing one day a week would be 180 weeks or uhhhhhhhh, around 3 1/2 years. Nope, that is NOT happening.

we have OFFICIALLY started core 1 today

Yes I know, we put that off long enough didn't we? I've had a very hard time trying to get us organized to do lessons, so I called it just good enough at getting a little math and language arts done each day for the most part. Well, tonight Scott decided that he was ready to start his evening read-aloud time with the girls again for bedtime, and he pulled the first read aloud book in our Sonlight core 1 schedule. He is reading 1 or 2 chapters each night to the girls until it is done, and then will pick up a book from our bookshelf to read before he moves on to the next read aloud in the core (therefore allowing me to kind of keep up with the history so that it flows a little bit on the same schedule, he won't get too far ahead of us hopefully). In the morning I plan to ask the girls to tell me about what he read tonight, then maybe we'll do the map assignment in the guide (I say maybe as a major maybe thing, we are trying to let the girls take the lead on this stuff) and hopefully I'll keep the momentum going by starting our history materials. I would LOVE to see the girls getting through their schoolwork in the mornings to free up our afternoons, especially since the little 2 kids are normally at their easiest in the mornings. We'll see how it goes though, I've been really flakey for a long time so it is going to take some serious discipline on my part to get this implemented.

our journey to becoming homeschoolers, and a plea from me

I've been thinking about this one a lot the last few days, and decided it was time to put exactly why we chose this route in one post instead of giving hints about it in many posts like I have been up until now. It is a very long story, so please have patience with me as I have 4 children to keep up with and have severe ADHD and the meds that I take make me functional but aren't really enough to keep me fully in check so this could be hard to follow and slightly random.

First I need to give a little background on educational histories for myself and my husband. Scott went to the same public school his entire career, starting at the preschool that everyone sent their children to in town at 4 and moving through the local public school to graduation. He was held back in 3rd grade because of maturity, he has an August birthday and was one of the youngest kids in his class before repeating 3rd grade. That repeat year was a good thing for him, and he went from struggling and acting out in class to getting good grades and being a good kid in class.

My school experience is completely different. I started out with private school for preschool at 3 years old and went through K there. In 1st grade I moved to the local public school and did well. I was reading with comprehension at a high school level, and capable of doing 6th grade math easily. The school bored me, but I did the best I could to jump their hoops. I moved before second grade to a new city, then mid-year again to a new city, only to end up back in the first new city for third grade. Yes, in grades 1-3 I was the new kids 4 different times in 3 different schools. Third grade was when I started having trouble in school. My grandmother had custody of me, and was abusive on top of it, and there was another new kid at my school that year. He moved there from New York City, I think his name was Chad or something like that. He wore a leather jacket and was one of those "bad boy" looking kids. The first day of school, he sized me up and decided that he was going to take me down a few pegs. See, despite my moving out of the school mid-year in 2nd grade and then back again for 3rd, I was one of the popular kids. I started out as one of the popular kids in 2nd grade, everyone wanted to hang out with me and I just had that personality that drew others to me. I was super smart, but acted like a normal kid at the same time, so nobody thought of me as that geeky kid. The other kids would ask me for homework help sometimes, but mainly they wanted to hang out with me and be my friend. I was the one to know, and I didn't take it for granted. I thought it was kind of cool to have so many people like me, and I used that to keep my standards high for my grades and actions even back then. I was one who wanted to set an example for others, and nobody was excluded because they dressed funny, didn't talk like the rest of us, or anything like that. Third grade started the same way for me, until that new kid decided he didn't like me. He started teasing me, telling me I was ugly and fat and dumb. I would ignore it, but soon enough he got everyone else in on it. When I got good grades, they canged it from saying I was dumb to teasing me for being so smart and calling me "teacher's pet." After a few months of nobody at school doing anything (I made sure to tell my teachers, the principal, my grandmother, anyone who would listen) I fought back. My grades dropped, I spent a lot of time in trouble for yelling in class (usually something obscene), and was suspended several times. In 5th grade, the principal sentenced me to Saturday school every week for the school year because I was such a disruption. The torment got worse over time too. The school did nothing, my grandmother did nothing but tell me to ignore it. She used to tell me "every time they start talking and saying nasty things, just pretend you have an eraser and erase their mouths, and if that doesn't stop it erase their entire body from your mind, pretend they aren't even there." I got straight F's in 5th grade despite being as smart as I was. I was in the gifted program in 3rd and 4th grade, until I asked to leave it because the kids there were harrassing me as well. I quit trying, and just shut down. For me, school was an escape from the abuse I endured at home, but at the same time I dreaded it because I was tormented there as well. I couldn't escape the torment and abuse, and in sixth grade I snapped and tried to swallow an entire bottle of buffered aspirin. After getting my stomach pumped and all the physical damage from it repaired, I started extensive therapy to try and repair the damage that had been done to me in public school. I also was moved to a private school an hour from home. There were only 5 kids in my classes at any given time when I was in that school. I was able to work completely at my pace in this school, and over the course of 6th and 7th grade I moved into high school advanced applied math classes (trig and pre-calculus) and I did high school biology. I remember 6th grade with biology, my lab partner was a 10th grade boy with Tourette's. I was the only one who wasn't bothered by his tics, and we worked well together. I did dissections and such, and he did all the lab sheet writing to record the information in labs. It was a great time for me, and I was devastated when my father got custody of me again right before I started 8th grade and learned that I would be attending a public school again. Thankfully, it was a district I had never been in before and they had a wonderful gifted program and pull-out services for anyone who needs them for any reason. My tutor in school the last 5 years of my education was wonderful, and she helped me to gain a lot of confidence with being back in a public school environment. I didn't apply myself as much as I could have, but still graduated in the top half of my class. I didn't have many friends either, as my previous experience in public school had led me to protect myself by withdrawing completely. I shied away from everyone, opting to just focus on my schoolwork and immersing myself in my music. I did it for my own protection, as I was not about to let anyone else close enough to me to cause me the tormet I went through in elementary school.

I swore that I would never let any children I had go through what I did, and when I met my aunt and uncle at 18 I was introduced to homeschooling. I thought it was interesting, parents teaching their own kids, so I looked into it during my pregnancy with Missa. By the time she was born, I was convinced and knew my kids would be homeschooled. I then started working on Scott about this, as he had an acceptably decent experience in school. I don't know if he knows much of what I went through in school myself, but he agreed to take it a year at a time at first and see where it went. Preschool went fairly well, although I doubted my ability to do it so I enrolled Missa in the school Scott attended when he was in school (that's where we lived, he grew up at the address we lived for the first 6 years we were together). Just 3 weeks before school started, we moved to a different city. The school district we moved to is the one I was in the second half of my 2nd grade year. We opted not to enroll Missa in school, but to homeschool her instead. We felt it would be too much change for her on top of moving to a new city and no longer having her own bedroom.

The first half of her K year went pretty well at home, but it was stressful for me. I was trying to do too much, this I know now. So, in January at the start of 2nd semester she was enrolled in the local school to finish the year. I felt like a failure to her, every day was a struggle to get her to school and I had to deal with tantrums every time. She didn't do well in school, and quickly became withdrawn and lost all confidence in herself. We decided to pull her out at the end of the school year, and go back to teaching her ourselves. In a moment of insecurity, we decided to go with Ohio Virtual Academy to help us build our confidence and develop the consistency we needed for schooling. We had a great year in K and 1st grade with Missa and Liddy with OHVA. It helped us to build our confidence and develop a routine for consistency.

We had only planned to do OHVA for that year, but we felt that since it had gone so well we wanted to try a second year with them. That lasted about 6 weeks before we withdrew from the school to strike out on our own. The pace just was too much with our family dynamic and lifestyle, we needed more flexibility than what the school could offer us. So we bought our curriculum and went for it.

I still have a lot of doubts, and wonder if I can pull this off. But honestly, right now my girls are creating stuff with play dough together, playing nicely and having a great time. They are having no problems sharing or taking turns with certain colors and tools. Even my 3 year old is doing well with that. We are reading books together as a family on a daily basis, and that desire to learn has returned to Missa. Sometimes Liddy says she wants to go to public school, but Missa insists that she never wants to go back there. I have considered sending Liddy and Kimi next school year, since both are ahead of the curriculum in our local schools, so they can see what it is all about, but I know that Missa is perfectly content to never go back to public school.

Our journey to homeschooling has been a complicated one, full of a lot of pain and emotional turmoil. It is not something that we decided on lightly, and I suspect still that Scott is not truly on board with the idea of it. He asked me at lunch today what the girls were doing, and when I told him they were enjoying the play dough he asked me what educational purpose it served so I had to break it down (with the motor delays in our home, the motor development that sculpting gives is a wonderful thing, and it serves double duty by providing them with an artistic outlet and working on the skills of playing together, sharing, and taking turns nicely with limited supplies of certain things). But I can honestly say that at the end of the day, I can't imagine ever sending my girls happily off to the public schools where we live for any reason as long as I am able to teach them myself. The social drawbacks of the local schools are just great for me to willingly do it.

(disclaimer: I know that my personal experience in public school for the 3 1/2 years that I was tormented so much are not typical experiences that children have. I realize that my experience was unusual and that my difficult home life at the same time did not help things any, and that I may have a slightly skewed view of what happened to me growing up. I have many repressed memories that I am working to unlock now, the majority of what I know of my own childhood comes from what I was told by others, and from reading paperwork recoding events. I also know that many children who experience what I tell of my own time in school are the ones who either commit suicide, like I attempted to do, or they take an automatic weapon to school and open fire on everyone in sight. Please take my experience to heart and share it with your children if they are in school, and pass it to everyone you know who has children in school or works with public and private school children. Don't let this continue, I am almost 29 years old. This is NOT a new problem in schools, and will not go away unless we as adults step in and do something drastic by getting the word out there!)

New month, new goals and Halloween fun!

Well, as you may already know, especially if you follow my blog and have been reading lately, we decided to leave OHVA and k12 in October. What you may NOT know, however, is that for the past two weeks I have been fighting mono. Yes, our last week of OHVA and first week of independence I have been down for the count. It isn't much of an issue though, as we had decided as a family to give the girls some time to decompress from the pressure of OHVA academics and just enjoy life and learn to love one another and love learning. So, I was hoping that I'd be able to get up and running with our new curriculum today, but I made the decision to take the kids out Trick Or Treating up in Johnstown on Thursday night with my mother-in-law and Scott. The kids had a blast hitting our old neighborhood (we went down the street we lived on and saw all our old neighbors and friends, it was GREAT) and Scott and I enjoyed catching up for a few minutes with some of our friends and neighbors and seeing some of his family. The only way it could have been better would have been if my aunt, uncle, and cousins were going to be home that night so we could have stopped in to see them as well. But we see them at church when we can get there, so it isn't much of a big issue that we didn't see them that night. The girls got enough candy to make a dozen dentists faint, and they ate almost every bit of it within 3 days. Yes, I allowed total free reign over the candy, we had a full paper grocery sack of it and I just wanted it out before I gained 10lbs. So they gorged.

Now, onto our plans for this month. It will require a little information on what we have decided to do with the kids so that you can get a feel for the dynamic here.

I started my college classes up again last week, which is giving us an interesting feel to evenings. I tend to work on my schoolwork after supper, when my mind is usually sharpest and Scott is home to handle the kids. This works well for me, I dedicate 2-4 hours a night (depending on how busy we've been with chores and other things that need done during the day) and am keeping up pretty well for the most part. I have a draft of an essay due today, so I'll actually be working a good bit today on it during chores time since I've opted to attempt to do laundry today as my big chore. I say ATTEMPT because my washer, as much as I love it, has a sensor that is going bad and the part is on backorder for another week or two, so it won't do spin cycle sometimes and I have to let the machine sit a few hours to reset when that sensor malfunctions (what it does, it senses the water draining from my machine and tells the machine to do that high speed spin at the end of its final rinse, its a real pain when it doesn't work). My big goal for ME this month is to keep up and pass my college class, which will be a challenge because it is ENGLICH COMPOSITION 1 and I do *not* do well with English comp classes. I never got that foundational background in grammar and English despite going to one of the best public schools in the state as a child during the critical years for grammar development. However, I am a natural writer so I can muddle a B in this class pretty easily, I hope. I'll be happy with a C though, since this is one of my weaker areas.

For the girls, well we have a totally different plan. We are thinking of starting lessons up with them on a more official level around Thanksgiving possibly, to allow me to recover from my mono since Trick or Treat night set me back so badly (I was feeling pretty good Thursday, then Friday I felt like I got run over by a Mac truck again and still feel that way here on Monday morning). Here's what I have in mind when we do get started.

UNSCHOOLING.

Now, we're not going all-out radical unschooling here. I don't have the trust in my kids for that. HOWEVER, I will allow them to dictate what and when for academics. If they choose to spend a week or two focusing on math workbooks that I've got for them (Miquon for Missa, Horizons for Liddy) or a month working on lang arts worksheets (I have Explode the Code and Sonlight lang arts for them to do as they want), then that is fine. Since we love reading and books, I chose to purchase Sonlight core 1 to read daily to them. Core 1 is the first part of a 2-year world history program, and I am going to follow the guide mostly for this program as far as reading schedules go for each book. We may or may not use the timeline stuff, mapwork, and the discussion questions and such. I'm going to play it by ear mostly on that. Science, we're going to explore science books i have on hand from my earlier cores (core 1 is the 4th core I own, so we're pulling books from science P3/4, P4/5, and K as our exploration). We plan to learn a lot through living life and exploring, and throughv reading great books.

So, that's my plan. We're going to read books in P3/4 and core 1 this year, encourage the girls to do math and lang. arts at their pace and interest, and sxplore a lot of science books and topics. And we'll start once I'm over fighting this mono.

2010-11 homeschool pictures

We went yesterday to Sears to get some homeschool pictures done. We had to keep it short, as I'm still not feeling that great from the mono, but we got some great shots in. I have a lot of cutely edited ones, but I'm just going to share the basic shots for now of my girls.

Missa's 2nd grade picture

Liddy's 1st grade picture


Kimi's K4 picture


JoJo's 3-year-old preschool picture


our official class picture for this school year



I also got a great outtake shot that we are considering for our Christmas card picture this year, but I am keeping it under wraps for now until we print the cards. Although if you are on my FaceBook friends list you have already seen that picture.

changing things up

Yep, I know I do this a lot. I do this in a lot of areas of my life, and if you've known me any length of time you know I change my mind like some people change hair colors. Anyway, things just aren't working for us educationally. I am sure you have read my frustrations within my posts about this school year with Missa, particularly when it comes to her and math. We have spent the school year fighting and struggling to get lessons done at a decent pace with her, spending three or four times as long as our curriculum "says" we should be spending to teach a concept only to have her not retain it. All this extra time we spent with her on her lessons had to come from somewhere, and unfortunately that time was taken away from Liddy. As a result, I have 2 children who are very behind in hours and not making the progress in their materials that they should be making. Something had to change.

So I spent some time typing and filling out a couple forms, and on Friday I mailed these papers to my local school district's attendance and homeschool department to get approval to homeschool independently the remainder of the school year. Then as soon as I put that into the mail, I started the process of withdrawing the girls from Ohio Virtual Academy. This was a very hard decision for me to make, as I don't feel quite confident enough to have the discipline that I'm going to need to do this on my own without having to answer to OHVA and their teachers. However, with the needs of all the girls and of the work involved with my college, I need to find a way to make this all easier on us. Part of doing that is simplifying things in our lives. I have decided that now is the time for our family to return to Sonlight for our history and science, and to use a more individual approach for math with the girls. Our current plan is to do Miquon math with Missa for the first two workbooks, and then we will move into Math-U-See beta (I believe that she'll be at that level after finishing Miquon orange and red). Lydia will finish the k12 math program that she is working in currently, and then will most likely move into Horizons math. Two completely different programs and approaches, which is appropriate with the girls having such different learning styles. Missa learns and thinks like Scott, needing to just DO it and experiment with it to figure out how to do things, while Liddy thinks like me, just needing instruction on how to do what she's working on and then someone available to assist when she needs help.

Am I nervous about leaving OHVA? You bet I am. Am I confident in my plans to finish up Sonlight core K with my girls and then go into core 1 with them? Not entirely just quite yet. I am taking on a LOT of responsibility with this decision. With OHVA I at least had the fallback of the teachers and the curriculum not being right, whereas on my own the blame falls entirely on me. I hope that I am making the right decision for us, but I also know that it will be all right if I just get into a groove and go for it. I am going to rely more on my compuslive scheduling than ever I believe, making doubly sure that I allow myself enough time daily for everything to get done.

The only thing that is holding us up now with the official withdrawal from OHVA is the approval of my notification to our school district. I hope it gets here this week so that I can get it all finished. Since I've been sick all week like this, I'm not able to get up and do a lot of my regular household stuff and I've run out of paperwork and other things to do. I am BORED and out of things to do while lying down in bed.

Another month, new goals

Here we are, at the start of another month. I am going to try this month with setting a monthly goal for each girl in their academics, and see what happens. I start my next class on October 26th after taking the past few weeks off because of paperwork issues with my enrollment, so I need to try and get ahead. So here are my goals for each girl in schooling.

MELISSA SECOND GRADE

4 units phonics 1
28 lessons lang. arts 1
2 units math
3 units science
3 units history
8 lessons one on one with music theory and piano
4 hours structured PE

LYDIA FIRST GRADE

finish phonics K
4 units math (would prefer 6 though)
3 units science
3 units history
8 lessons one on one with piano
4 hours structured PE

KIMBERLY JUNIOR KINDERGARDEN

4 weeks of core P4/5 and Sonlight lang. art K
learn to print her first name without a model reference

JORDAN PRE-SCHOOL

learn to use scissors
keep her from destroying the house

ME COLLEGE

read syllabus for first course
get as much of this course's work done before the course starts
turn in high-quality papers and assignments

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Yep, lots of big goals. Now, I don't anticipate us having too much trouble meeting these goals if I can just get us to focus and stay on track with things, but if we end up falling short in a couple areas that is ok. I am not going to stress over it, we are going to work daily on things and just see where it takes us in the end. Working daily is more important for us than making a specific amount of progress. If we do math daily and Missa doesn't reach the goal of 2 units this month, at least I know that we worked daily on it and that is what matters most. If Lydia does phonics daily but doesn't finish her phonics level like I'm wanting, it is ok because she will get there. I am not going to stress. The science and history units are fairly short, with the first of each of those 3 in my goals being halfway completed already. If we hit those goals that is great, but if we only get 2 units finished then I'm fine with that as well.

doing lessons with a sensory-sensitive child

You may or may not know this, but Missa has some sensory stuff. Loud music, lots of lights, and many textures bother her. This is just one of the quirks that make her special and unique, but this is the most difficult one that we have to work with here. Anyway, I thought I'd share how WE handle sensory sensitivity with her in schooling.

She does most of her written work on a dry-erase board. So, here are a few pictures to show what I mean. A simple math lesson usually looks something like this:




While a writing assignment may look like this with her:




As you can tell, she has a slight aversion to paper at times. I can get her to work in her workbooks and do writing on a sheet of paper, but honestly sometimes it is just such a struggle that I don't fight her and hey, she enjoys doing her work on the board so why not? I find it interesting how she can be so different from her younger sisters some days, especially when she's having a rough day with her processing.

And credit on that math lesson goes to Math-U-See. Their demo DVD that you can get free has a place-value lesson on it, and I got the idea for place value "houses" from there. It totally works with her, after a few weeks of trying to help her understand place value and it not sinking in I did the houses and it stuck almost immediately.

new school year, REAL schooling area

I am so happy to really be into the swing of our new school year finally. It was definitely a rough start for us with Missa, but we got into it finally. Along with our having a second grader and a first grader this year, I have two preschoolers and me carrying a full time college courseload in Christian Ministry. This school year is a big one for us obviously, so we felt a need to get more organized.

So, how does a family get more organized to cover all these needs? Well, we started by creating a dedicated schooling area. Now, if you've ever been in our home you know it is a decent size (almost 1800 sq. ft) but the floor plan isn't one that allows a dedicated schooling area easily. The kids share the only bedroom (20x24 with three closets before you start judging, its more than big enough for them right now) and we sleep in the bonus room. Well, our room is L shaped, so we rearranged things slightly to put our bed in the nook of the room and now the main area is our homeschool/ preschool/ college area. On Labor Day, Scott tore out the carpet to expose the white tile floor under it (with some help from a friend of mine for one section, and from me and the girls for the remainder of it), then we spent that week rearranging and organizing it to allow us to put in the kids' desks, a bookshelf, a desk for my laptop, and our necessary supplies for the older girls' schooling. Since we got this set up, we've managed to pull full days of lessons each school day. Then today, we installed a couple shelves on the wall as the first step in expanding the shelf space in here, so that I could set up our preschool materials. And yes, I have lots of pictures to show where our schooling will take place this school year (and for the next few years while we take care of some financial things and I finish college).







It is far from finished, but it sure does feel good to have this setup going on here. I have a feeling that with all our materials readily handy like they are here, we will have a great year. The only thing that these pictures don't show is our portable large dry-erase board, which is what Missa does a large amount of her schoolwork on right now.

The support of a husband

I was over at one of the chat forums I go to, reading and responding as usual instead of working on my college assignments. Anyway, one of the discussions was about how our husbands support us as homeschooling parents, asking us to tell how they are involved. Many of the responses were typical ones such as him earning the money and being that support person when it gets tough. I posted my own reply to it, and felt that it was good enough that I wanted to share it here as well. Scott, this one is for you!

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My husband helps and supports in many ways. First, he works all the ungodly overtime he does so that we can afford for me to stay home with the kids. He isn't too fond of where he works, but he's still there after 15 years because it pays well enough that we are able to be a single-income family.

Secondly, he comepletely takes over bedtime at nights for me. He does baths, brushing teeth, tuck-ins, and their bedtime story time (which is when our lang. arts books are read to the kids, he reads anywhere from 2-4 books and 3-6 poems each night to the kids). Now this is more of a need so that I can do my college class work at night (thank goodness for online college programs) but it is a HUGE help for me.

Thirdly, after the kids are in bed at night he'll go around and do whatever chores I didn't get to during the day without my asking him normally. This takes the pressure off me to do more than just teach and cook meals during the day, so I can focus on the tasks at hand. I don't have to worry about getting all that laundry folded while I'm schooling because he'll fold it. The toys scattered about he picks up if I don't get to them during the day. He does the dishes and runs the dishwasher so Missa can unload it in the mornings.

Fourth, on weekends he helps out with catch-up lessons we do and takes over so that I can spend a day really buckling down on my college work and I can prep for the upcoming week of homeschool. In fact, he's making breakfast now for them and I'm supposed to be finishing a paper for my class (taking a break) as I type this.

He also is my support person and knows that I need him to not make the local public school an option. That was something that I requested from him when we started this at the start of last school year, if I start talking about wanting to put the kids in school mid-year he is to push me back on that and demand that I'm not allowed to do it until summer break (we don't want to do a mid-year transition into public school, we'd rather do it at the start of the year). He also makes sure that I don't try to flake out on the schooling, we love the program we teach the kids with but its intense for me to teach at times. I have tendency to talk about telling the program that we're done and wanting to not stick with it, but we know that this is the first thing that has worked and if it ain't broke then we shouldn't try to fix it. I'm in that spot right now, adjusting to a new school year, and so he's working overtime to keep me on track and help me come up with ways to juggle it all.

And he handles the snide remarks from family and friends too. He feels that I'm busy enough with it all that he can take on the idiots in life, and besides nobody wants to say something snide to the man that can lift the front end of his car barehanded without struggling............... lol He only allows the positive to filter to me whenever possible because he knows that I can get discouraged when things are tough (like now) and just give up on it all when really I just need a little more time to work out things and get a groove that works for our family.

While we may have a lot of issues in our personal relationship, we do fully agree on teaching the girls at home and we will do whatever it takes to work together so that it can continue to happen for as long as possible. This is literally the only thing holding us together right now, the fact that we are working together to make this happen. I truly appreciate all that he does, and he appreciates the sacrifices that I make to teach them myself (including having to take higher doses of a few of my meds so that I can focus and not flake out on them, and to handle the stress better). its a very delicate balance and I hope it continues to work out for a very long time.

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And that my friends is exactly HOW I manage to pull off all that we do here on a daily basis. Isn't it amazing what a supportive husband will do for you when you need help? I wouldn't be able to do it all without him, that's for sure.

teacher assignments

Well, I got the assignments for the girls' teachers overseeing us this school year. Lydia will stay with the same teacher she had last year, while this year Melissa gets a new teacher. I knew that she'd have a new teacher this year since our teacher last year only does K and 1st grade, and I made sure to tell her that she was going to have a different teacher. She didn't believe me at all apparently until I told her the name of her new teacher a couple hours ago. Now she's all worked up and upset over the new teacher assignment. She does NOT handle change well normally, and this is just another example of that difficulty with handling change. She's that kid that will seat herself under the table at a restaurant so that she doesn't have to interact with the server because its someone new. Social situations for her are fairly structured and consistent because she melts down in situations with new people most of the time.

So, I decided to take charge on this change to minimize the drama. I sent off a k-mail to her teacher letting her know how Melissa handles changes and asked if there was a way she could contact us prior to school officially starting so that Melissa can get to know her teacher a little and start getting comfortable with her before we have regular interaction during the school year. I already got a response, she'll be calling us in the next few days and will speak with Melissa during that time to help ease her into the transition to a new teacher. Hopefully this goes well and she adjusts to the teacher change quickly. If you are the praying type, please keep Melissa in your prayers for the next few weeks while she adjusts to the new school year with a new teacher.

busy busy times

Well, its been almost a month since I've updated here. I guess I should give some background on all that has happened.

As I said in my last post, I hit my head pretty hard and had a pretty decent concussion from it. Well, It took me a couple weeks before the headaches became manageable, I'm still having some headaches from it and even after this long I have tenderness and some swelling where I hit my head.

Also, I started meds back in June for my severe ADHD. Now, if you know me really well, you probably know that I'm pretty close to non-functional because of my ADHD. So, I started meds and it really helps a lot. I am able to focus for a couple minutes now, and I can actually hold a coherent conversation. Another plus of the medicating is that I don't have as much of a problem with getting words out when I'm talking. I think a small part of my problem with this has been that my brain worked faster than my mouth can, so then it gets into overload and I just start saying "uh uh uh" until I get frustrated and just throw out a really obscene word or phrase.

Another fun thing that has happened here is that I started college classes almost 2 weeks ago. I am VERY proud of my 97.77% grade and have worked hard to keep it in that range. Hopefully I can continue to keep my grades up like this for the rest of my classes. However, it was a very difficult transition for me. I am not used to having assigned devotional studies to do each week. I was raised in an athiest home and attended secular schools for my entire life. I have always been a free studier when it comes to my daily devotionals, I just pray a bit then I grab my bible and flip until something catches my eye and I read it and journal how it applies to my life and what I can take from it to apply to current and/or past events and possible future events. I've never been much of one to sit and read a specific passage and then think about how it applies to specific questions I'm asked by the instructor. This has been quite possibly the hardest thing for me, next to being able to get the time I need to seriously think and work on my assignments without being interrupted by constant phone calls or by kids wanting/needing me.

As far as the homeschool front goes for the kids, we are still on summer break here. According to OHVA, our OLS will be updated with our new course materials on the 16th so we've been just hanging out and enjoying our time off. I have a full round of dentist cleanings scheduled for all 4 kids in Columbus on the 25th, and Kimberly starts Head Start in September 4 mornings a week. Also, we are required to start logging attendance on August 25th for OHVA with the 2 oldest kids, and I'm considering signing up Jordan for Head Start in September if they have any openings for a 3 year old when she turns 3 on September 3rd, purely for the sake of being able to spend 4 mornings a week really focusing on homeschool with the oldest 2 kids. But then, we've also considered withdrawing Kimberly and just letting her start on some K work at home instead of sending her off to preschool. She has learned all her letter sounds this summer, and we are starting to blend and work on beginning to read simple words. I have a copy of "Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons" and she's been doing it. Right now we're just taking it slow, I did lesson 1 in the reading this week and now we're working on the sounds writing part. I'm thinking I may end up having to just do the reading portion and ignore the written work, just working on individual letters as she learns them for printing. After all, she is only 4 1/2 so we have time.

For Scott, we got exciting news that will completely change the dynamic of our home. The optical lab he works at got contracts for Medicaid from 2 additional states this month, so starting in the very near future (I think on Monday) there will be a lot more mandatory overtime. This means that we get all our income back, and then some, so we can start working at paying off our debts again to get back on track like we should be. I know that isn't a big deal to some, but for us it is a big deal considering his hours got cut back so badly that we ended up having to go down and get food stamps just so that we could feed our family for a while. I am REALLY looking forward to being able to tell them that we no longer qualify, because this will mean that we've done something good for ourselves. We want to make our financial situation so that we never have to apply again, even when we DO qualify for the aid. We want to be completely NOT dependent on the government for anything, and having to take the food stamps has really been painful especially for me. But it has given me a valuable lesson in not being so quick to judge others who are on assistance because you truly don't always know the whole story. I know that many people who look at my family would think that we manipulate the system because we are well-dressed, own a house, and have decent vehicles instead of renting a dump apartment in the ghetto, wearing ratty raggedy clothes, and having a beat up ugly car that doesn't run half the time. Having this lesson has really helped me to understand better about others and showing a little more grace to those in need. I just wish I didn't have to learn it sitting in the welfare office, by having a caseworker who was rude to me while I did the interview for food stamps because I was wearing my favorite red heels and dressed nicely and I'm a stay-at-home mom who homeschools instead of putting them in daycare and school so I can work. It really is an eye-opening experience, and I'm hoping that I can carry it with me as a valuable lesson learned for the rest of my life, as a reminder that we don't always know the full situation around something.

But that's pretty much it. We've been enjoying summer break, I've been recovering nicely from my head injury, and I started college. Hopefully I can update more after school starts for the kids with a great report on how our homeschool days go for us with me in college fulle time and Scott working what may as well be a second job with all the overtime he's going to be getting.

UPS deliveries, street fairs, and head trauma

Oh what a combination THAT is huh? Yet, that all has happened within a 2 week period at this house.

At the beginning of July, our materials from k12 arrived at our home via UPS. We got our stuff, and all is well. I had to contact k12 about getting lang. arts 1 for Melissa because it wasn't in our shipment, so it came about 5 days later in another delivery (which they also picked up 3 boxes I was shipping BACK to k12 at the same time, so I really got to multi-task that day). We are all really pumped about the upcoming school year for the kids that starts in August, as well as my own school year for college starting up this month.

On the street fairs front, we went to the Granville parade for July 4th. We didn't stay for the festival, but its ok. We also watched the fireworks at the college down the street on the 3rd, which was a TOTAL let-down for us. Next year we are thinking of getting to ajoined hotel rooms in Columbus and seeing Red, White, and Boom instead. And as I type, Scott has the girls all in Johnstown at the fireman's festival. He took them up to see the parade with his mom and a bunch of cousins, and they stayed for festival food and maybe a few rides if he felt like it. I, unfortunately, had the joy of not being able to go.

Now, I know you are asking why I had to stay home from the parade and festival. Well, that one is simple. I have a concussion following a fall that resulted in my hitting my head on the wall in our bedroom on Wednesday night. I had a CT scan done on Thursday at the hospital when Scott realized at lunch break that I didn't know who he was when he called, and there is no bleeding, no contusions, no lesions, and no breaks in my skull. Just a nice bump from where I hit my head and a MASSIVE headache. And before you ask, YES it was an accident. He didn't hit me or shove me, in fact he was about 10 feet away when I fell and hit my head and he felt the floor shake when I hit the wall. I should be back to normal hopefully in a week or so, maybe sooner.

Yep, life is never dull at this house! I'm just thankful yesterday was payday so we can buy a bunch of yucky convenience foods for meals the next several days while I finish recovering since I can't be up too much at a time without getting dizzy. I swear, I am one of the most accident-prone people I know.............. The only one worse than me would be my oldest kid, that kid has it worse than I do!

But on a positive note, at least Scott is getting to spend more time with the kids when he's at home right now. See, there's a positive to every negative if you look long enough at it.

a new year

Well, on Wednesday I got an e-mail. Four, to be more exact. UPS sent me 4 e-mails with tracking numbers for 4 packages from k12, all our school supplies for the upcoming fall. Those packages arrived today while I was sleeping, Scott handled the UPS delivery for me.

Now, I haven't even packed up our stuff from this past school year with OHVA, so I'm terribly unprepared for this new delivery. So, the first thing I had to do today was get ALL our materials out that we've been using and go through them. I threw away a bunch of finished workbooks and activity sheets, stacked up a bunch of books to ship back, and got all the manipulatives together to sort before sending most of them back. I have one box of books and one of manipulatives sitting on the living room floor, I'll go through them later and send back what I need to.

Then I started unpacking what we were sent, and getting it organized for the upcoming school year to start next month. I leafed through the books briefly as I put the stuff away, and I had Scott carry two boxes full of art supplies (paints, oil pastels, modeling clay, and brushes all times 2) into our bedroom for safe-keeping (ok more to keep them from painting my walls and furniture LOL we learned this one this past school year when Kimmy painted half my kitchen with tempra paints). I also noticed that this year, we have a lot less in terms of books than we did last school year. Lydia's 1st grade materials are the same as what Melissa did last school year, but Melissa has about half as many books for 2nd grade compared to 1st. Or maybe that's just because we haven't gotten her language arts materials yet (I had to contact k12 about the mixup on that one, the materials should be shipping hopefully next week sometime).

One thing I did want to comment on though is the new math. This year, k12 has a new math program. The old program had a BUNCH of manipulatives and a workbook, plus a HUGE book of student pages (this thing is at least 5" thick). Most of the instruction is done with me using the lesson plans on the online school pulled up on the computer as reference. However, the new math program has one workbook and a teacher's book, plus there aren't as many manipulatives from what I'm seeing. I haven't seen what all the OLS will have for math there, but it appears that it is going to be a more independent program. I know there will be practice games and the assessments will problably be online after looking at the new math materials, but other than that I don't know what it will have going on.

I'm starting to see the beginning of Melissa becoming more independent, and this is going to be a GOOD thing I think. Especially if I can get her through phonics and lang arts 1 at a faster pace than scheduled so that she can move up to grade 2 there, I'm really hoping that she'll be a more independent learner in 3rd grade for sure. I am really starting to see advantages to a more independent program, especially as the kids are getting older and I'm having to do more daily with schooling them and taking care of everything else (plus my own college for the next 2+ years)

no more TV at this house for a while

This could get just downright scary............

At some point this evening, one of our kids (we still don't know which one) decided to pick up something hard and whack our tv screen with it. Now if you've seen our living room, you know that we love television. We have a nice LCD HDTV that we got on a Black Friday sale dirt cheap (compared to the original price). It has a 32" widescreen and TONS of input ports in the back for all sorts of stuff to hook up (even a computer can hook up to it because it has one of those ports on it). We also have a dish hooked to it and the smaller version of this tv that is in our bedroom. My 2 year old knows how to work the remote and what buttons to push to watch her favorite channels. Yes, television is a favorite pastime in this house.

Sooooooo................

On of the kids broke the tv tonight. Scott threw a fit over it, I threw a fit over it, and the oldest kids tried to demand that we go out right this second and buy a new one. Yeah, right. I'm not a magician; I can not make money appear out of thin air. So, that means no more tv in the living room. And since they aren't allowed anywhere NEAR the one in our bedroom (its not even 6 months old yet, we'd like to keep it in good shape thank you) this means there is no more television for them until we save up the money to buy a new one.

Now there is the interesting thing. See, we live in an older home (built in the early 1950's) and it needs a lot of work still. We need to replace the water heater at some point in the near future (we've rigged it so that the problem is fixed for now but it has to be dealt with) and that is going to cost us a pretty penny. We also have to replace all the flooring, paint inside and out, and do some window replacements (to name a few repairs). Obviously, replacing a tv is not very high on our priority list as homeowners. The kids are going to hate us for this one....................

We're looking at a year or more without a tv in the living room right now, and quite honestly the thought of this THRILLS me. I don't want a tv out here, it is constantly on and it messes with my ADHD something fierce when I'm trying to do chores and other stuff. In fact, I've been trying to convince Scott to take the tv out of this room period so that we don't have to deal with it droning on and on all the time when the kids are awake. Looks like I got my way tonight, what a way for it to happen though.

And already I noticed a major change in my home. Melissa sat down and was reading a book to Kimmy and Jordan (Jordan fell asleep listening to the story in fact) and Lydia sat down and was looking through her new bible that she got today at vacation bible school. The only noises that weren't Melissa's reading out loud were from Scott and I clicking away on computers, the washer and dryer, and our air conditioning. The phone wasn't ringing, the tv wasn't blasting away, and nobody was fighting (which as you probably already know, the fighting is a pretty common thing here, I'm breaking up fights several times a day) Yep, I think we can do this. I'll allow them an hour a day that they can watch shows on Scott's computer since he has the best screen of any of the 4 that we regularly run, and on Saturday mornings they can pile on our bed to watch cartoons while we try to get a little more sleep.

But it is rather strange to look around my living room and NOT see a tv in here. I now have to move around a few things and get the tv cabinet out of this house (it will go into the garage while we decide what to do about the tv situation once we deal with the house issues that are left). Pretty soon, I am going to have reclaimed my girls and their minds. We are hopefully going to start being more creative and get more into books and playing games. And hey, no tv means more time that they can spend doing their chores...............

Yes, this could get interesting around here for a while as the girls adjust to not having free tv access any more.

Melissa's interesting learning style

Well, this summer I had decided to just relax and work on reading and math with the kids, and Scott is going to do an astronomy study with the girls. So, we got the books and I got things set up and cut out to do the lapbooks for the astronomy study, and we have some readers from the library. Well, I wasn't really too sure how its been going with reading and Melissa until today.

Today, the kids were watching a Donald Duck short on Disney, and Melissa read the label of a bottle in the cartoon. It said "rubber cement" and she didn't hesitate on it. So, I had her go get one of the readers that we haven't worked with yet from the library. She read the entire thing with only a handful of "mom what is this word" and not too many missed words either. It was a beginner's chapter book, around a 2nd grade level (I'm guessing mid 2nd grade, which is slightly above grade level for her as she's going to start 2nd grade in August but is only in 1st grade phonics). She enjoyed reading the entire book to me, and admitted to sneaking books into their bedroom at night to read after everyone is asleep (she has been hiding in the closet with her books)

Now, this child learned to walk completely on her own by practicing in her crib at naptimes and bedtime every day until she had it down, and then she just stood up one day before Christmas at 8 months old and took off across the room. She does EVERYTHING like this, she hates people seeing her struggle and make mistakes while she's learning to do it. I really shouldn't be surprised by her doing this with her reading, considering that she's done this a lot with major developmental milestones. Heck she even did this in a way with learning to ride without training wheels. She would sneak outside to practice in the driveway in the mornings after Scott left for work before anyone else was up (and believe me, EVERY time I caught her doing it she got in a lot of trouble because that is just flat out dangerous) and then after a couple weeks she had it down and showed off happily what her new skill was.

I think I need to try and figure out a way to embrace this interesting way she learns to help her with her money skills and telling time. If you've got any ideas to help encourage this organic way she learns, please let me know so I can work with it better.

set up for summer!

Well, here it is 2:30am and I'm wide awake with Jordan. She woke up about two hours ago with a bad dream or something, so I'm sitting up with her until she falls back to sleep. After an hour awake, I decided to go through and get my file box set up for summer with the kids. (background if you don't know it: we use k12 through a virtual academy and I keep all our papers to do in a hanging file box, one hanging folder for each kid and then a file folder in that folder for each subject, within the subject folders I keep the current unit we're in for that subject so that we can go 100% their pace without worrying about pulling more materials in the middle of a lesson) So here's what I have going on.

Melissa and Lydia both will continue to work on math this summer, as well as phonics. Melissa just has a couple units from phonics K that I want to go over one last time before she starts phonics 1 (and the grammer parts of lang arts 1) and we need to work on a few skills in math over the summer with her, while Lydia will continue to do phonics K to finish it and will continue forward with math 1. That alone is the bulk of my formal work with the girls. I'm adding in Explode The Code for some extra practice this summer, and we'll also add some math workbooks for Melissa to work on her struggling skills (time and money) and both girls will start Spanish if they are interested in it.

For science, this summer we are going to do something really fun. I found a lapbook for the song "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" over at Homeschool Share in the preschool stuff, and after looking it over I decided to beef it up a little for my oldest two girls and turn it into a study to introduce some astronomy. So, Jordan and Kimmy will do the unit pretty much as written, modified slightly for their abilities, while Melissa and Lydia are going to do every piece of it along with some other stuff that I'm creating to make a nice fun astronomy study. The local library is putting together some books for me to use, and I have a list of several books to add that they may not pull but I know I'd like. We are going to learn the planets in order, talk about the different kinds of stars and their life cycle, learn some of the common constellations in the sky (along with the zodiac ones), and talk about other things like nebulas, black holes, meteors, and the different galaxies (among other things, we're just going to see where this takes us over the summer). Our theme for this summer is "shoot for the stars!" and we will be decorating our living/dining/school area with stars, the planets, and other things that we'll make. I ordered a free DVD about the life cycle of stars that I found through my homeschool group, I think it was made by Discovery with NASA or something like that. Oh yeah, and we will talk about space exploration including telescopes, satellites, astronauts, and space shuttles. I have a full blueprint of the Challenger straight from NASA that a relative got me as a kid, and I plan to dig it out to show the girls all the stuff it takes to make one shuttle. Maybe I'll even see if I can get hold of some of that freeze-dried "astronaut food" for the kids to try out, I know Rainbow Resource sells it and I'm sure there's a store in Columbus (or 20 LOL) that does also. I've even seen some at the gift shop at the Columbus Zoo if I remember correctly.

And as always, we will incorporate lots of creative play, crafts, and other activities to our homeschool. I'm still finishing off the details on my astronomy study for this summer, but once I get it all done I will be sure to put up my plans for you all to see, and as we do the unit I'll get lots of pictures as well as making a few videos to show off the girls' completed lapbooks. I just have to remember to go to the library on Saturday morning so that I can pick up the books that the children's librarians are gathering for me.............

how do they come up with this stuff?

I'm sitting here in bed with my laptop as 2 year old Jordan sleeps next to me. She woke up a bit ago and climbed into my bed with me. I don't mind it really, she's a cuddly little thing and snores so cutely (although it won't be so cute when she's a teenager and snoring louder than her daddy) So anyway, we were cuddled up and I felt something funny on her back. I asked her about it, and she told me real sleepy "Missy and Liddy glued my clothes on me." So I double-checked this one to be sure its not a half-asleep rambling. Well, her outfit from yesterday does indeed have glue all over inside it, I have an empty glue stick on the floor in their bedroom, and she's got patches of glue all over her little body.

I guess they got tired of her stripping naked and streaking through the house.......... *snicker*

amazing where God leads a person sometimes

I've blogged on this in the past here, about God leading us in places we don't expect sometimes. So far, this year God has led me to transfer to a new college and pursue a degree in ministry, which totally freaks me out. He has also strengthened my desire to continue homeschooling, so now my need to homeschool and pursue this degree both are so strong that I am unable to fight either one. Sometimes I don't like where God is leading me, but I know it is the right thing to just follow Him and His guidance until I get to wherever it is I am headed.

Well, now God is leading me again. Scott and I had decided that this upcoming year we'd be leaving OHVA, and going back to Sonlight full time instead of just supplementing. We had a plan in place, and I started gathering materials to do starting next month. Well, God led me into a completely different direction this week, completely different from our plans. I ended up changing our status for OHVA to reflect us being enrolled in the fall. It will be a very difficult juggle, but I have a great support system with a friend and my husband both willing to step in as needed to do lessons with the kids.

Now, I know you are asking. How did I go from planning to go independent as a homeschooler to staying with OHVA for the kids and doing that much juggling again? Well, its a long story. You see, this past month I've been sick, and have been in and out of the doctor's office and on all kinds of different medications. Through all that, I've managed to finish up our school year with OHVA because I was kept accountable. I had to meet requirements on attendance because OHVA is a public school and they are required to meet certain regulations. Just like sending the kids to Newark schools, I have truancy laws to follow. If we don't log a certain number hours halfway through the year and at the end of the year both, then we could get in trouble. I have always kissed the reporting rules for hours with Melissa, sometimes we're a little ahead and sometimes we're behind. But as a general rule, we do pretty well with it all.

This strict accountability with logging hours and lessons is going to be VERY important for me come fall. With my own full time college courseload, I will need to be organized to get everything done since my husband works such long hours he is unable to help much sometimes. I know that my own college work will push aside homeschooling if I don't have this kind of accountability to get it done daily. I will be spending a lot of time daily working on schooling for both the kids and myself, so chores won't be at the top of my list. This is where the majority of Scott's helping and supporting me will come in.

Also, this school year coming up k12 has some changes that I'm looking forward to. Math will be more online than before, which will help a lot. There are some other things too, but they aren't as important in my opinion. Mostly they are administrative stuff for me as the learning coach. But I'm going to be seeing some more independent learning for Melissa starting up soon. She's becoming slightly more solid with her reading, and this will lead to her being able to do her math more herself and some of her phonics and lang. arts on her own as well. And who knows, she may even be able to do some history and science herself. This will be a big change from last school year when she struggled to do any worksheets at all without my help.

But if I can make it through this upcoming school year, the next year when I add Kimmy to the mix as well Melissa will be doing more independent work for sure. Our teacher this year for the girls has already told me that starting in 3rd grade the kids start doing more work themselves in a noticeable fashion, so I just have to survive that. And then I can decide if we're holding Jordan back a year so that she's 6 when school starts instead of 5 because of her September birthday (we're leaning toward holding her back, I'm planning on letting her join in on math and phonics with Kimmy though as she desires to get a better idea of her readiness)

But isn't it amazing how God can lead us in a completely different direction than we ever imagined at times? I literally had NO intentions of staying with OHVA after this school year, and now I'm planning to stick with them and supplement with Sonlight like I did this school year.