I'm sure that anyone who has a child who has differences struggles with this from time to time. Right now, I am struggling with it. I have a child with *mild* health problems, and another with learning challenges. It has been an interesting month for me here so far, with Missa trying to get out of doing her math and reading because it is difficult with her dyslexia, and then last week Kimi's breathing started acting up on us.
With Missa and her differences, we've understandably had to figure out EVERYTHING for schooling so that she could learn effectively without having too many issues with retaining the material. Traditional curricula doesn't always work with her, and I've had to search for just the right fit in each subject or come up with something on my own that will work with her. Thankfully, her sisters are all more typical learners, and the materials that work for Missa work beautifully with her sisters as well because they embrace multiple learning styles at once (we like multi-sensory approaches that use auditory and visual methods along with manipulatives and hands-on activities). But I still feel guilty sometimes over her difference in learning. My mother doesn't help any with this guilt, she told me once that dyslexia and other learning disabilities are either lazy parenting/teaching/learning or caused by not picking one program and sticking to it 100% (changing styles because one approach doesn't work, which is something a LOT of homeschoolers do). She knows that I went through several programs in each subject before finding something that would work well with Missa, and knew it even back when she said that to me. My mother-in-law also doesn't help much either, although her latest comment could be taken as a compliment I think. She's trying to convince Missa currently that she doesn't have dyslexia because "you read just fine honey." The last time the girls were over with her, she watched them for a few hours so Scott and I could go to lunch and Babies R Us without having to deal with all the hassle of keeping 4 kids occupied and happy (meaning I got a meal I LOVED and don't get often at our favorite restaurant, and I got to casually browse all the different areas and get ideas for our nursery and baby boy at the store without being rushed). She doesn't approve of homeschooling, so she quizzes the kids every chance she gets. She tested their reading that day, and decided that they are all doing really well despite not going to a real school and having mommy insisting on playing schoolteacher instead of growing up and coming to her senses about it (yeah we've gone around about this in the past, I'm no longer allowed to discuss it with her per Scott's instruction). Now, last school year I had mono for 6 months, and the ONLY thing I did with her and her sisters was reading. I read to them, they read to me, we listened to audio books, we watched movies and tv shows with the closed-captioning on. Missa jumped during that time from a late K level in reading to now being able to read at a mid to late 4th grade level. She's in 3rd grade. That's something to be proud of, and you KNOW I'm proud of her for working so hard. She's reading the books from our history core (well some of the easier ones, currently she's slowly working through the Usborne Greek Myths book) and she's enjoying reading for fun AND for learning. That was my goal for last school year and this year, now I need to set a new goal for her learning lol
Then there's Kimi's breathing. She has asthma, and was diagnosed a couple years ago. Again, my mom said that I caused it by giving her an inhaler under doctor orders when she had yet another case of bronchitis. For over 2 years I've struggled with this one before I finally decided that my mother has no clue what the hell she's talking about and I've stopped listening to 99% of what she thinks about stuff (she also told me this week that at 24 weeks pregnant, I've gained too much weight and that I'm fat, I gained 12lbs and am thrilled with it, I think she's spent too long on her diet and has lost touch with reality). Anyway, this past week Kimi has had a major flare-up with her asthma and I've had a hard time getting it back under control again. I had her at the pediatrician's office during their walk-in clinic hours on Saturday (Scott had been taking the van to work after blowing out a tire in his car, we had to wait for payday to replace it, so I had no way to get them to the doctor until then) and her asthma didn't disappoint us. She had an attack in the waiting room, and it sent the nurse AND the doctor both running to stabilize her again. We left with a nebulizer and a bunch of medications to get her back in check again. This morning she finished her round of Prednisone, so now she's down to just her 2 daily meds (one pill and one breathing treatment) and her albuterol breathing treatments as needed. Yesterday she didn't need any albuterol at all, which was a first in the last week and a half. I think we are starting to get a handle on it again.
But fighting mom guilt is hard. I feel guilt daily when Missa struggles with her schoolwork, wondering if my mom may be right and I did cause her learning differences by switching around programs so much before we settled last school year on the materials that we are using now. I struggle now especially with the what-ifs and wonder if my pushing for a low-intervention birth with Kimi could have caused all her breathing problems. She was diagnosed with severe meconium aspiration syndrome at birth and needed deep suctioning to get all the meconium from her airways, and has been rattly and suffered with breathing problems from the start. I catch myself several times daily thinking that if only I had agreed to Pitocin in my IV and allowed them to break my water before we did, maybe we could have prevented it from happening.
Yup, the mommy guilt monster stinks. I know none of these challenges are my fault, but still I blame myself because I'm mom. The last thing that any parent wants is to have a child with any special needs, and when it does happen we struggle with blaming ourselves over things that are out of our control. I see my girls, all of them, as unique special blessings from God, and would never trade any of them for another child, nor would I ever wish that any of them were different than they are now. Yet, I still struggle with the nagging guilt that plagues moms everywhere over everything. I may not have a child who is non-mobile with a feeding tube or one with a severe birth defect, but I still fight with the guilt every day. I look at my friends who have children with more needs than my girls have, and know how blessed I am. I also see them as a source of inspiration. I look up to those moms, knowing that their burden is so much bigger while they go through life with grace and strength that I have not yet found. I see what I need to find in them, and pray that I can find it soon. Especially now that I've entered a stage where I'm too paranoid to leave the nebulizer at home even just to take my kids to Pizza Hut for their monthly Book-It coupon pizzas (and I plan to tote it with us here shortly for a trip to the grocery store, hey its raining right now and a chill could trigger an attack, but not going isn't an option as I'm out of a few things that we need for supper tonight).
Showing posts with label family life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family life. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
19 weeks and disappointment
I'm 19 weeks, we have 8 days until that big anatomy scan when they can tell us what this baby will be. Yet, for some reason I am really not looking forward to it. I feel just empty over all this right now. Yes it is our fifth baby, but is it really too much to ask that people try to at least FAKE happiness and excitement for us? I'm so tired of being pushed off like its no big deal, its just another baby in my home. Yes I understand that its important and special that the 14 year old granddaughter of Scott's cousin just had her first baby, and I'm happy for her that she has a supportive family who is there to help and that her baby boy will be fine, but when is it MY turn for a little notice? I act like I don't care that people aren't even acknowledging for the fifth time that we're having another blessed addition to our family, but in reality I am devastated by this. Why can't people at least fake it for me?
I'm not asking for the baby shower I never got or the fawning and "worship me NOW" that most pregnant women get that I never really had. I'm just asking that family at least act like they are happy for us. I'm not asking you to buy all the things we gave away as our youngest no longer needed them, or to go buy anything off my baby registry (which I set up as nothing more than a checklist of what we need to buy still). I'm asking that you smile and say congratulations instead of asking me what birth control we're going to use after this one. I'm asking that you not make "no more babies!" comments before we even announced our pregnancy that we had just found out about. I don't want you to buy us a new minivan or a house, or pay our bills for us. I want acceptance, support, and at least fake smiles and excitement.
Is that really too much to ask for? I don't even WANT to go to my ultrasound next week at this point. I feel like Scott and I are totally alone in our happiness for this baby. I know that I've always been alone doing things and I've never had much support in the past, but that doesn't mean that we should be forced to do it alone all the time. We don't ask for help usually, but we have our moments where we NEED it and we almost never turn down an offer for help. Well, now I need support and encouragement from family, and I'm not getting it at all. Thanks, that shows me how you really see my family.
I'm not asking for the baby shower I never got or the fawning and "worship me NOW" that most pregnant women get that I never really had. I'm just asking that family at least act like they are happy for us. I'm not asking you to buy all the things we gave away as our youngest no longer needed them, or to go buy anything off my baby registry (which I set up as nothing more than a checklist of what we need to buy still). I'm asking that you smile and say congratulations instead of asking me what birth control we're going to use after this one. I'm asking that you not make "no more babies!" comments before we even announced our pregnancy that we had just found out about. I don't want you to buy us a new minivan or a house, or pay our bills for us. I want acceptance, support, and at least fake smiles and excitement.
Is that really too much to ask for? I don't even WANT to go to my ultrasound next week at this point. I feel like Scott and I are totally alone in our happiness for this baby. I know that I've always been alone doing things and I've never had much support in the past, but that doesn't mean that we should be forced to do it alone all the time. We don't ask for help usually, but we have our moments where we NEED it and we almost never turn down an offer for help. Well, now I need support and encouragement from family, and I'm not getting it at all. Thanks, that shows me how you really see my family.
Monday, December 13, 2010
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)
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)
Friday, December 10, 2010
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!
Monday, December 06, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
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).
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).
Thursday, November 18, 2010
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!)
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!)
Monday, November 01, 2010
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.
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.
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