Laura Cook
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Posts posted by Laura Cook
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Bzymama23 and anyone else who does these - can you tell me about the poetry teas?
Today was only the second one we've had! I thought it seemed like a nice way to add a little something special to our week. We just have something good to drink in the teacups that came with my grandma's wedding china and a snack. I've made a batch of cookies each week so far, PB last week and oatmeal raisin this week. But if I didn't have time store-bought would be totally ok! I read some poems from a children's poetry book we already have. This week I was going with fall themed poems. Our book didn't have many so I turned to the internet and we passed my phone around reading the ones we found. I talked about the ones I liked and how the choice of words helped me make a really good picture in my head. Very laid back! Once we were done today my kids had the idea of composing poems. I was more than a little surprised! My kids aren't really what you would call willing writers! But they are all busy writing now and told me they will read their poems next week at our tea. Poetry Tea for the win!!
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Good morning! We had a pretty nice weekend. Saturday was spent with a little housework and a lot of reading, gaming, playing outside and movie watching. On Sunday we cleaned house, went to a birthday party and watched the eclipse. A pretty relaxed weekend overall. I feel like we needed it.
I am mostly ready for this week. Yesterday I made some general plans and did some printing and prep for now through the end of December. I didn't quite get all the printing done that I needed to, but plan on finishing it this morning before the kids get up.
I'm feeling a little concerned about DS10 and writing. He is working through WWE3 and seems to be having a really hard time answering the questions after he reads the passage to himself. I don't know if he is reading too quickly or just skimming it and wonder if reading it out loud to me would help him remember. We are going to try it this week and see what happens.
On the list for today:
Math
Reading
Writing
Spelling
Handwriting
History
Poetry Tea-maybe
Basketball practice - DS8
Time to get off here and get this day started!
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Oops, I haven't got back here for two days! I love reading all the posts, its nice to get a glimpse into the days of other homeschoolers. Tuesday was a good day, except for their science class at our local natural history museum being cancelled because the instructor had an emergency. Wednesday was a stinker of a day! The whining and complaining was out of control. We managed to get math, reading and handwriting done and that's it. I have a really hard time on days when the kids are like that, it's like the constant fussing just drains my energy.
Most of the fussing came from DS8. The main problem is that he is having a really hard time with reading. We went all the way through OPGTR and he mostly did fine during the lessons, but it did not transfer to reading anything else. I think that I was too easy on him by cutting the lessons down some and by giving him more help than I should have. We went through OPGTR in 2 years and he seems to have forgotten some of the earlier lessons. I didn't make him do enough reading outside of the lessons because he was always having a fit about it. I was way too relaxed with him regarding reading, assuming that he would pick it up as easily as his older brother did. And his younger sister, she just took off in reading a couple months ago and has completely outpaced him! So now I am mad at myself, feeling like I've failed him and freaking out a little, trying to figure out what to do next. I cannot go back through OPGTR with him, he hates that book! I don't really have any money to spend on something new at the moment either. I think that I am going to go through Blend Phonics (free) with him. They recommend doing it over the course of 4 months. He has seen all this before so I am hoping that a refresher will get him over the hump. Also going to have him read to me daily. I am thinking about starting with the McGuffey Primer and moving on from there. We also have a free 4 week trial of Reading Eggs that he is using, I don't know if that will actually help or not but he is enjoying it, and at this point anything that makes reading fun is a good thing. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I am considering dropping a couple of his things until he is reading better. Mainly spelling, which he HATES and grammar. DH and I decided that if there isn't improvement by the end of December we should probably get him evaluated in the new year because at that point I won't know how else to help him.
Ugh, sorry, I could have probably done that as a separate post all on its own! Today we are going to try to get all of our stuff done, but we have to be done by 3 for evening activities. DS9 has his learn to shoot archery class, then there are two baseball games back to back. Its going to be a busy day! And I better get off of here and get on it.
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Our day went pretty well. Everyone was up on time, not a lot of complaining, except from DS8 about reading and spelling. Which is usual, he finds those two pretty hard most of the time. After lunch we started our states study, and did a section from history. We were going to do science but we need the bathroom scale for an activity and it is no where to be found. I spent half an hour digging through our remaining unpacked boxes with no luck. Now I'm just peeved and think I will go read for a bit. I'd be willing to bet money that DH will find it for me in a matter of minutes once he gets home. He's lucky like that, lol. Probably just going to push science off until tomorrow. Soon it will be time to get dinner made so DS8 can eat before basketball practice. All I really want to do is take a nap!
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I need some accountability this week! At the beginning of July we started doing light school and worked up until the last 2 weeks, when we took off school to move. The new place is mostly unpacked and all our stuff is ready to go so its time to jump into our full plans. Tomorrow we don't have anything going on out of the house until DS8's basketball practice in the evening so we have a whole uninterrupted day to work our plan. As of tonight the kids were looking forward to starting up again, we'll see what the morning brings but I'm not anticipating any huge problems from them. Hopefully those words don't come back to bite me! The hard part is going to be dragging myself out of bed before they get up, its been an issue since we moved. So on that note, I'm hitting the hay. I'll check back in tomorrow, hope you all have a good days!
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Can I jump in here? I need some accountability this week. We are moving this weekend and I have a ton of packing to do still! Luckily, we are only moving about 10 minutes away so nothing has to be packed extra carefully except the breakables. We aren't doing school this week except for a couple things we need to finish up from last week, so that won't take up much time. Here is today's list:
animal chores - kids (done)
fold laundry - kids and I (done)
school
trash out - DS9 (done)
dishes
bathroom - quick clean (done)
box up toys - kids
pack up most of the kitchen
whole house pick up
dinner
take DD7 to ballet (done)
practice basketball drills with DS8
baseball practice for boys (done)
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Now why do you suppose that is? Is it a lesser crime if you are an unknown? Or is there some moral justification for heaping more coals upon the heads of people on TV?
It's not a lesser crime, not at all. If this had happened in a unknown family it would be just as horrible. Were they an unknown family the media would not have thought it news worthy, or if they did it probably wouldn't have gone much past their corner of northwest Arkansas.
I'm thinking that maybe people feel morally justified about dumping on them because of how they came across to so many people. Speaking for myself personally, I used to watch the show up until Josh and Anna's courtship stuff was being aired. I thought they came across as smug, holier than thou and believing they were morally superior to others.In real life, maybe they are and maybe they aren't, but that is how quite a few people see them. So this news about Josh molesting 5 girls came out, and what appears to be an attempt to cover it up by his parents, and all the people that felt similarly turned off by them are saying, "Ha! Not so morally superior after all are you?! Here's what you did wrong ..." It seems to be human nature to enjoy putting people on pedestals and then we also really enjoy knocking them off. I can't say if it is the right thing for other people to be doing. For me, to be honest, when it has come up in conversation I have not made any bones about the fact that I think he committed a crime much more grievous than they are trying to play it off as, that the way Josh and his parents seemed to focus on themselves and not the victims is disgusting and that his parents handled the whole thing terribly from beginning to end. I'd be happy if they never were on TV again.
It is a good question and made me think, I'm still thinking about it but don't have anything else coherent to add at the moment. I hope it made sense, having a hard time waking up this morning!
I haven't participated in this thread at all till now, but I have been reading and I was irritated at being chastised by someone who(not you SKL), came across as being a bit holier than thou. Apparently that attitude really ticks me off, lol.
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I have read all the comments on this post and all I could think of was, wow, all the wonderful perfect parents have all congregated on one message board. You know, it's really *easy* to condemn another family in how they handled a family situation when you haven't walked through it yourself. There is no handbook to this parenting thing and I'm glad that so many of you have figured it out and think you have the right to school everyone else, from how to handle a deeply disheartening and awful situation such as the Duggars have gone through, to what a "proper" response should be if your child was momentarily lost in the airport. When they answered how they put up safeguards, all of you criticized it. They just cant do anything right. How the Duggars handled the situation may not have been how I, personally, would have handled it, but that doesn't give me the right to condemn and flog them. It sounds like they truly did the best they thought to do TWELVE YEARS AGO.
You have to remember, Josh was their oldest. They were going through the teen years for the first time just like any of us as parents will do or have done. He didn't have to tell his parents what he had done. And you know what, MANY MANY boys do not tell their parents when they improperly touch. He could have kept it his dirty little secret (or lied if they did find out)and if the girls really DIDNT know what happened until the parents revealed it to them, then nobody would EVER know. Is that what you would prefer to have happened? They went to the police, they decided not to press charges. They got counseling. It's none of your business as to whether that counseling is "good enough" in your eyes. Isn't the point of counseling to CHANGE and to repent and to realize your wrongdoing? According to the people that know Josh the best, his parents and his sisters (who were the victims), he is a changed man and there is nothing to indicate I should doubt that. All of this judgment and nastiness towards them is just sickening. Yes, what Josh did was wrong, I did several wrong things as a child that would probably have landed me in Juvenile Detention but you know what, I didn't tell anyone because I was so ashamed. I would hate to think that something that I did that happened when I was young and stupid could effect me my whole life. How many parents are going to be LESS likely to go to authorities now because of how this has been handled in the media? God forbid your child ever run for office, become famous, etc because it could ruin them for life when people who dont know, dont really care, get involved and decide to crucify them.
And I say all this as someone who was improperly touched, while awake, both by a family member and someone at my school, under the clothes. Not everyone is traumatized and yes, some of us do forgive the ones that sin against us. I know, that's very hard for some of you to understand, especially those who dont know and understand the love and forgiveness of Christ. As someone that holds to the doctrine of Total Depravity, yes, this could happen to anyones family and safeguards should be in place. This happens to all kinds of families, all across the board. And that's the ones we know about.
So if and when this happens in your family, I expect you all to blab about it to everyone else so we can all judge how YOU handle the situation and gather our rocks to throw.
They brought this on themselves by putting their family on TV. By becoming "celebrities" they opened themselves up to criticism and judgement from the public. They had to know that people who didn't like them were going to dig and dig to find some dirt on their family. If this didn't occur to them then they were incredibly naive! If they weren't on TV then I doubt the public would have ever learned about it, or given a crap about it. Jim Bob and Michelle can lay the blame for the beating they are getting in the media and places like this solely on themselves, they choose to be on TV and expose their family to all the garbage that inevitably comes with celebrity status.
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Lots to do today so I need this!
Done:
Breakfast
Made jello
Laundry - 1 load
Animals fed
To Do:
School
Laundry - 2 more loads
Get dinner in the crockpot no later than 1:00
Wash dishes
Make a grocery list
Boys make sure baseball gear is ready
Whole house pick up
Baseball games from 5 to 8
Dinner
Tidy up the kitchen
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I'll join, I've left way too much till this morning as usual. Procrastinating is a bad habit I need to break!
-make a lemon raspberry cheesecake
-put together the seven layer salad
-waffles for breakfast
-get myself and three kids in and out of the shower and ready for church
-church at 11
-dinner at my parent's house with the extended family
-Easter egg hunt for all the kids there
-look over school plans for the coming week
-wash dishes
-straighten up the whole house before bed
And with that I'm outta bed and off my phone! Have a Happy Easter!
All of it got done except the dishes and straightening up the house. I think DH will do that because the cold that's been threatening for a couple days has gotten a lot worse this afternoon. I feel awful and I'm going to bed.
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I'll join, I've left way too much till this morning as usual. Procrastinating is a bad habit I need to break!
-make a lemon raspberry cheesecake
-put together the seven layer salad
-waffles for breakfast
-get myself and three kids in and out of the shower and ready for church
-church at 11
-dinner at my parent's house with the extended family
-Easter egg hunt for all the kids there
-look over school plans for the coming week
-wash dishes
-straighten up the whole house before bed
And with that I'm outta bed and off my phone! Have a Happy Easter!
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I read your entire post, and -- wow -- can I relate to it. Usually, when we get to that point, it helps to spend a full day out in nature. When are you going to have a sunny day in MO? Plan to leave the house! Pack lunches the night before, get up and out, spend the day in a park, on a hiking trail, fishing at a lake, whatever. Just go outside and don't come home until the sun goes down.
For me, this works every time. I remember your other post, and thought it sounded like Winter Blahs. I had that so badly this winter, my doctor prescribed light box therapy. I wasn't depressed, I was profoundly worn out with winter -- the everlasting grayness of it, the bitter and unending cold, the lack of light that made a difference. It was like from January until nearly the end of March, the light was on a graying dimmer switch. Bleh.
In this post, I think I detect a case of the post-Winter Blahs. :grouphug: Go outside on a sunny day. Go without guilt or anguish, go without any thought of "school," do NOT try to figure out how you can count the hours as "something," just go and be outside in Nature.
I lived in MO for six years and really enjoyed my time there. You have so many beautiful places in your state, lovely lakes and rivers, parks, forests. Just choose a place and spend a day there. Enjoy the sunshine. If your husband goes along to watch the kids play, you can fall asleep in the sunshine (highly recommended). Recharge your battery.
As for tracking hours... well, I wouldn't. I don't live in your state, but if I did, I would have a document ready-to-go that listed every requirement as being fulfilled, year to year. I would file that somewhere handy, then forget about tracking hours. That isn't "fudging" it, that is getting it done ahead of time. We would fulfill the requirements, but I'm not going to tie myself down to tracking hours on a document that no one will ever see. That, for me, would be such an exercise in futility, like a constant dripping of water on my head. What a nuisance, what a drag.
Yesterday was my birthday and we pretty much took the day off. The weather was overcast and raining so we stayed inside. I spent my time sewing and reading and left the kids to their own devices. We watched a couple things about the American Revolution on Netflix, I helped DD with spelling while she wrote a short little story. I read aloud. It was a nice, relaxed day. Today has been the same and Friday will probably be similar. DH is home and we don't get as much done while he is here, but the kids have been pretending they are at Valley Forge and playing chess. Later we will all read. Hopefully the forecast holds, Saturday is supposed to be sunny and in the upper 60's so we are planning on taking a picnic to a small, local lake and spending the afternoon.
I love MO, it really is beautiful here! We love camping and hiking and exploring outdoor areas that are new to us. We've all been waiting on spring. The last few winters here have had a lot more snow and really cold weather than usual and that doesn't help with the winter blahs.
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I found it very useful to sit down with pen and paper and define the reasons I "hated" a certain subject. After doing that I was able to then articulate what I wanted and to see where methods or curriculum were not in line with my expectations. Then it was easier to see if I needed a curriculum change, a method change or both.
This is pretty much what I did around 4:00 this morning when I couldn't sleep. I focused only on history and science. We don't need a curriculum change for history, we just need to add some more things on to it to make it come alive. We do need a curriculum change in science, and my previous post has what we are switching to and why. DH has a 4 day weekend starting tomorrow and I will have him be on kid duty at some point so I can go to a quiet room and do some more uninterrupted thinking about our other subjects.
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What about scheduling some subjects and not others? What about scheduling a time for child directed learning once a week or a couple of hours a few days a week or in the afternoons every day?
Here's the thing-many homeschoolers don't understand scheduling or its purpose. There is absolutely no way you can schedule everything and do all of it. That's not a problem or a failure. Since there is no way to accurately predict the future 100% of the time, you don't have to equate not keeping up with the schedule with failure. I over schedule knowing full well there will be things I'll have to skip when the time comes. Why doesn't it bother me? Because I know there are far more things I would skip by default than if I were flying by the seat of my pants. It's easier to have it and not need it than it is to need it and not have it.
So, when I schedule SOTW and the Activity Book, (in the summer so it's ready by the first day of school) I know only some the library books listed for literature and non-fiction will 1) be available when I want them and 2) will be read if they are available. There are more listed (Thank you God, for choices!) than most people could ever hope to read. So, I have them in the plan of each week and I check out whichever ones are available when I go do my 3 weeks’ worth of library book checking out and I read what fits into my day each school day. Some days I get a bunch read. Sometimes I'm lucky to get 2 read. Sometimes I have a long literature read aloud related to history going and sometimes it doesn't make sense to do that based on immediate circumstances. I'm absolutely convinced I'm getting more done than if I didn't schedule anything out and I just tried to do the next thing as it worked out. I want to be through a SOTW book each year. The schedule helps me do that very consistently at a reasonable pace. Have I had to skip narrations/copywork and extras listed in the Activity Books and just read SOTW readings aloud? Yes. Very often? No. Maybe 3 times a year on average.
Not all subjects that require skills mastery make sense to schedule for every kid. Math, Grammar, Writing and Phonics are subjects where you should not be moving on to B until A has been mastered. In the elementary years the rate of mastery in a subject often ebbs and flows for a child and some children progress and plateau at dramatically different rates. Those subjects are often very good candidates for "do the next thing" in the earlier years. Just keep in mind that if you want a child college and/or scholarship ready in those subjects, you will need to keep an eye out now and then for how the child is progressing in the later elementary and Jr. High years. Don't let high school sneak up on you.
I think I need a plan, but a loose one. Not exactly flying by the seat of my pants but not as structured as what I have been trying to do. Math, reading and language arts have just become do the next thing subjects. I'm going to decide how many times each week would be ideal to hit upon each subject, but other than that I'm not going to plan. I'm going to write down what we do, after we do it. Then we can move ahead as fast or as slow as they need to.
I already have SOTW planned out by chapter/section but I'm going to remove the dates assigned to it. Then if we miss a day or even a week due to outside activities or unplanned circumstances we can just pick up where we left off. And I won't feel like we are behind. I'm not worried about doing a whole book in one year, if it overlaps a bit I'm fine with that. I am going to make a concerted effort to add in some of the activities and books listed in the activity guide and other online resources in the hopes that they will bring some of the joy back.
We are going back to BFSU for science. We did several of the lessons earlier this year and really liked them. It was a little bit of planning for me, but the style of the lessons really clicked for the kids and I. We did the demos, looked up things online and in our own books, found library books that corresponded and did a lot of talking about what we were learning. The discussion and the fact that for weeks after the lessons they were making connections all over the place to what they had learned was the best part of it. I will do this the same as SOTW, plan the lessons but not assign dates.
I have been up since 3:30 because I couldn't quit thinking about how to make things better. I have a couple pages of notes with ideas. I'm going to decide what I can realistically do right now, and what will take a while longer to implement.
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Also (this seems stupid to say but it happened to me), it is super important to remember that the 1000 hours requirement is the state's requirement to have a legitimate homeschool.
It has exactly nothing to do with the quality of your kids' education. You can do 1000 hours of terrible education and it is worth a lot less than 200 hours of first-rate education, imo.
How is their actual education going? Do you feel like they're learning more or less on pace with what and how you want them to learn, or at least with the baseline? That is what I remind myself often: the state says I have to write down the number of hours we've done this and that, and that I have to average a certain number of ours of instruction per day, but that requirement is largely unrelated to *my* expectations, so I just fit the requirement around what we're doing anyway, instead of the other way around, kwim?
eta: I said to DH last fall: "Ack! We're way behind! We have to do 3 hours of math today or we'll be a week behind in our math hours!!!" DH said, "Aren't they technically working a year ahead in math? Do you really have to make them stop reading (voluntarily!) so they can do a math chapter they don't even need yet?"
I think their actual education is going well. I am satisfied with where they are and the pace they are going at. I suppose they could be considered a little behind in math because they are all still in the A books for their grade level. But they will each be moving onto the B books within the next couple weeks and will work on it all summer. But I'm okay with that too because they are moving at a pace comfortable for them and are retaining what they learn. I just wish that overall we could have less complaining and more enjoyment!
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We're also in MO; I also intermittently started to freak out about the 1000 hours. I would schedule more than enough, then be frustrated that we weren't doing it all (even though I knew that technically it was more than I even needed to get through).
At some point I realized I was going about it backwards , so I reversed it:
instead of writing down the subjects/material/lessons I wanted to get through each day, and then checking the box when the kid had done them, I let the day evolve naturally, and at the end of it I wrote down what they had actually done.
It's kind of like when you're dieting, or budgeting - the first thing you do is write down everything you eat, or everything you buy.
The only thing that I insist happens every day is math of some form (and I do push the actual curriculum a few times a week if it seems like we're slacking on it a bit, but as far as I'm concerned doing 30 minutes of math orally, or reading 3 chapters of Life of Fred, or whatever, counts) and writing of some form.
I have some things I like to do with them, so we do those together; they're fun. I try a lot of things that don't stick - we do maybe a day of it or a week of it together, then abandon it.
What do they do with their free time that you're not able to tie to any learning or write down for homeschooling hours? We don't have tablets, smartphones, tvs, video games, etc., and the family computer is only available to the kids for either artistic or academic endeavors (i.e. Bill Nye), so roughly 1/3 of their "free time" ends up being school, even though they don't think of it that way.
Last year I recorded hours in a similar way, except that I did plan what subjects I wanted to do each day, but not how much. And I didn't worry about it if I missed a subject or two one day, we just picked up with them the next day. We didn't quite reach 1000 hours last year and so I thought that if I scheduled more this year that we would hit that number. We have had a lot more outside activities this year. We joined an art group, took science classes, took a lot more field trips and spent much more time on sports. If I had recorded hours the same as last year I would probably be a lot less stressed.
I'm curious, how do you count hours? Actual time spent or more like in units? The homeschoolers I know seem reluctant to talk about it.
I think they do a lot that could be classified as learning in their free time. Legos, reading, target practice with their BB guns, playing with and observing the outside cats, watching the birds in the yard and field next door, helping their dad with yard work, helping my parents in their garden, helping their other Grandpa cut firewood, creating art on their own, they like to sit down with our different encyclopedias and look through them for fun. They watch shows like Wild Kratts, Liberty's Kids, Magic Schoolbus, and any other documentaries I think they'd be interested in. Minecraft, but I don't really think that's educational. I write some of this down, but not all of it. Sometimes I forget to write it down. Sometimes it doesn't even register with me that I could. I did a lot of the same stuff as a kid, outside of school hours and never thought of it as educational. I guess to get our hours I am going to have to be more diligent about writing it down.
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One last quick question and then I'm heading to bed. Right now we do spelling and grammar 3x each per week. Can anyone thing of a negative to alternating those subjects each week? For example, doing only grammar this week and next week doing only spelling, then back to grammar again. I wonder if being able to really focus on only one of those for a solid week would help us enjoy them more. We will move through them more slowly but I'm okay with that. We would still doing writing every week. What do you think?
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So, is there any way you can gently explain this to them? Maybe spring it on them in a fun way - cancel school (as a surprise), take them to a science museum or a state park for the day, and *while you're there,* point out that you could do this a LOT more often if they could be more efficient (i.e., less whining) about the schoolwork? And then make good on your promise! Ditch anything you can (temporarily), get the "must-be-dones" done, and go HAVE FUN!
I don't think it's wrong for kids to understand that poor attitudes suck the joy out of things; of course, I don't mean to blame THEM for anything less than perfection, but honestly, they're not toddlers - they can understand these things. I think that for long-term success in a home school environment, working out the "style" of the team / the family / the unit, is CRITICAL. And at those ages, it looks like they're settling in to determine what kind of students they're going to be . . . which, of course, is ultimately their choice as a Free and Independent Human Being, but - you can lead the horse to water, know what I mean?
Cheerful kids who are willing to get their work done quickly benefit from a mama who still has energy to take them fun places & play board games & put on ridiculous history plays with home-made costumes.
(When I read over this, it sounds Pollyanna-ish; I don't mean it that way, but I can't figure out how to rephrase it.)
I explain it to them and things are good for a day, a week if I'm lucky and then it falls apart again. To be fair, the majority of the complaining comes from my youngest two. My oldest DS is a pretty laid back kid, he rarely puts up much of a fuss and it never lasts long. My youngest has really just started the complaining and whining since Christmas. Not sure what is going on with her, I'm still trying to figure that out. My middle DS just does not like school, period. He is perfectly capable of doing everything I ask, so its not that the work is to hard. I don't think he'd like any form of school.
I think the style of our homeschooling is changing. When they were younger they were happy to have me be in control of what we were doing and when. I was steering the ship and they were cool with that. I thought they would be okay with that for a little while longer, because they are still really young! But I'm starting to think maybe not.
It doesn't sound Pollyanna-ish, its the truth. Their constant complaining sucks the energy right out of me and leaves me little to do the fun stuff with.
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Maybe switch your schedule around: together and fun things before lunch...individualized math and language arts in the afternoon. It takes more energy for me to read aloud and paint than to tutor one on one.
We might try that. I think that I will for sure move reading aloud to the morning. Part of the reason we haven't gotten as much done this year is because every afternoon when I sit down to read I begin to get very sleepy. Lol, I have fallen completely asleep several times!
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My two are older, so my thoughts may not be useful but I recently realized that if I want the kids to have fun with school I need to be having fun. That means that whatever we do I need to generate my own enthusiasm first before I can inspire anything.
For less "fun" subjects like Latin and Math I work up my enthusiasm by doing them with the boys. By doing Latin with them I can point out things of interest or note areas where better attention will make things like translation easier. We also have a study session a few times a week with snacks in the evening.
For math, I found enthusiasm in doing some algebra while the boys work on their math. I have lost count of the number of times I have been able to look at what they are doing and show them why they need to understand and learn it. The drudgery of learning how to factor was lessened when I showed them what I was doing factoring polynomials.
For language arts, the joy came in integrating what we were doing and in choosing a path in writing that I could embrace and make my own. Writing is now our favorite subject on the day (even on days when it starts out tough!) because I love teaching it. So much of our spelling, grammar, reading, comprehension, vocabulary and logic now comes from our writing day.
For history and science I have now added a lot more study in the form of evening documentaries, tons of library books and a LOT more focus on the people and the ideas involved. Both of these subjects are a work in progress for me. History in particular involved sitting down with pen and paper and really thinking about how I want to learn history.
I don't know that how I learn or want to learn is exactly how my boys learn or want to learn. But figuring out what makes things bright and interesting for me seems to be carrying over into making things bright and interesting for the boys.
Yes, I need to be having fun. I used to have a lot of enthusiasm, especially for history, science and art. I think I just need to start going through our subjects one by one, figure out what I can do or change to bring back my own enjoyment of them and then start implementing it slowly, one at a time. The slowly, one at a time is probably the key. I tend to jump into changing all the things gung-ho and then crash and burn when it becomes too much to keep up with. Thanks for the ideas!
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Is your siggy up to date? Can you give us an idea of how long school is taking with those resources?
We are using some similar things and I am not feeling that same time crunch, so I am wondering about your pace. For example, how much time per week are you spending on history?
Also, agree with OhElizabeth--except February is my self-doubt month. February is the longest short month of the year, or so I tell myself. So this may just be one of those phases.
I had to take a look at it! Yes its up to date. I'm going to list this out by kid, otherwise I can't keep it straight. The times don't seem very long, but once you add in all the fussing about everything, especially from my middle DS, it takes longer.
DS - 9
- Math Mammoth/XtraMath: 1 hour
- Assigned Reading: 30 min
- Typing: 10min
- WWE 3: 30 min
- FLL 3: 15 min
- AAS 3: 20 min
DS - 8
- Math Mammoth: 30 min
- OPGTR: 20 min
- HWOT 3: 10 min
- WWE 2: 20 min
- FLL 2: 15 min
- AAS 2: 20 min
DD - 6 (almost 7)
- Math Mammoth: 20 min
- OPGTR: 20 min
- HWOT 3: 10 min
- WWE 1: 20 min
- FLL 1: 15 min
- AAS 2: 20 min
Together
- SOTW 3: 2-3 times/week 30-45 min
- Science: just reading from books right now 2 times/week 30 min
We do WWE 4x/week, FLL 3x/week and AAS 3x/week. I don't really like that schedule. Around 2 hours for my oldest, close to 1 hour 45 minutes for my middle and 1 hour 30 minutes for my youngest. I don't generally have them working at the table at the same time, they just end up distracted by the others and it takes even longer. My oldest does XtraMath, typing practice and his assigned reading on his own and I work with another kid while he is doing those. We are usually doing school from 9 -12 and then again after lunch from 1-3. I spend a good deal of that time trying to keep them on track and dealing with the constant complaining and whining. Really we have plenty of time to get all this done and still do some of the things we enjoy. I think I'm just so wiped out after we get done with those things that I can't even muster up the energy to do the fun stuff.
ETA: Forgot that we don't do everything, every single day when I first added it up!
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Not to be trite, but you need to find out from someone in your state what is actually legally required and not saddle yourself with more than is required. If "1,000 hours" includes lunch time, etc., etc., then do you have to log that? That's not even developmentally appropriate to do that much WORK. Schools take lunch and recess. You're going to have to come to a more generous way of tallying those hours so you're not unnecessarily burdening yourself. That's thing one.
Thing two, this where did my joy go thing happens to everyone at this time of year. Sit down and list out what you're trying to get done to finish the semester. Set some goals. Make a plan for what you want to do when you finish those goals (take a month for spring activities, garden and can through the summer, whatever). Maybe short term goals of 1-3 month blocks.
Scheduling depends on your style. You might find you like having certain things, say math, with that level of structure, and other things like history might be just as good for you freewheeling. Just because someone is talking a lot who hyperschedules doesn't mean YOU have to hyperschedule. Be a little more confident on these things!
From what I understand, in MO it is 1000 hours, 600 of those have to be in the core subjects which are math, reading, language arts, social studies and science. The remaining 400 can be in whatever subject/activity you wish. Some people count literal hours, so if you did math for 45 minutes one day then you count 45 minutes towards math. Other people say that each time you do math then you can count it as an hour. I haven't found anywhere that specifically states which way is the correct way. The law is pretty vague. You don't have to turn in the record of hours unless you get prosecuted. Many people don't even record them. Some people fudge them. So I guess I just need to figure out what I want to do.
I think its been a slow slide into not enjoying it. The things that bring us joy have been slowly slipping out of our day for months. February just brought it all to a head. First thing I'm going to do is get more consistent with reading aloud to them! Goals for 1-3 month blocks sounds like a good idea.
Hyperscheduling is not working for us at all! I will never do that again. I'm not sure why I did it to start with, it is completely opposite to my personality.
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At the beginning of March I posted this. I was frustrated with how messed up this year has been and our inability to get into any sort of a good routine. I got a lot of good advice and we have been much more consistent with school over the last few weeks but things have still felt "off". I have spent some time mulling things over and just this morning it hit me, we have lost the joy in our homeschool. We have begun to focus way too much on box checking and not on including the things we enjoy. We've almost gotten to the point that our life feels divided into two categories, school and life. That's not what I wanted. I wanted things more balanced.
I feel like math, reading and language arts are non-negotiable. The subjects that should be most enjoyable, especially at my kids ages, like history and science, have begun to feel like we are doing them just to get them done. Very little enjoyment. No going deeper. I have not read aloud to them as much this year compared to previous years. We've done very little art. No poetry memorization. My oldest son and I were going to start teaching ourselves how to play the guitar, hasn't happened. We haven't spent as much time outside and have spent far too much time in front of screens. I wanted to do more baking and cooking with them, hasn't happened. Our school just feels flat, like there is no beauty, no richness to it.We live in MO and I have worried about meeting the hours requirement more this year than any other year before. I don't know why. I know that over the course of a whole year, if you were to count everything that could be considered educational that we would meet and probably exceed the 1000 hour requirement, because you know, as a kid just living your LIFE tends to be pretty educational! For some reason I decided after last year that my rather loose approach to planning and scheduling needed to change, that flying by the seat of my pants wasn't how to properly homeschool. That I was going to fail them if I didn't stick to a clearly laid out plan. I think I read one too many blog posts about planning your school year almost down to the second, at least that what they feel like. Almost every week I type up the plan for the coming week, of course then I feel locked into it and when we don't get everything done in a day I begin to feel stressed because we are "behind". I turn into a mom who yells, orders and harasses her kids into doing their work which results in anger, frustration and tears. Theirs and mine! I feel like this worry of mine about meeting hourly requirements has been a big part of the problem.I know that making sure we are doing the things we enjoy falls mostly to me. I've been stinking at it. I feel like we either can do the academic stuff or the fun stuff but not both. I know that there are homeschoolers are successful with doing both. How do you balance what you feel needs to be done as far as math, reading and language arts with the things that bring joy to you and your kids? How do you keep your plans flexible, but still continue moving forward? Help me help us get the joy back! Thanks!-
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I am thinking about getting them each rain/muck boots and then tying each pair together with some pretty Easter ribbon instead of baskets. I have already ordered them each a mini terrarium (hope they work right!) and a small tin of Thinking Putty, all from Rainbow Resource. I'm putting a Minecraft mini figure and Nerf darts in the boy's baskets and earring and hair ties in my daughter's basket. Then they will each get a book and a little bit of candy. The boots alone will be more than I usually spend on Easter baskets, but I planned on buying them anyway so I figured they would be a unique basket!
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What goals do you want your 4th grader to reach by the end of the year?
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
My oldest DS turned 10 a few weeks ago. Up till now we have had a pretty relaxed homeschool experience, but I think we need to begin setting and working towards some goals. I want to make sure he is prepared to step into logic stage work, with its increase in expectations, when the time comes. I don't want to just flip a switch and get crazy rigorous on him all at once either! I am not sure what goals to set. I have been reading through the logic stage section TWTM and am beginning to form some ideas, but I am still feeling pretty lost to be honest. I am mostly thinking about academic, time management/organization and level of independence goals. The academic goals are really stumping me, I have kind of just done what the curricula we have used has asked for with no specific goals. We have mostly followed the general plan in TWTM and he has found most of the work fairly easy. The only area that he really seems to have trouble with are narrations, we are using WWE 3 and he sometimes has a hard time answering the questions and picking out the important parts to form a narration. I am worried that he won't be ready next year to do what TWTM recommends for 5th grade. And I know that we don't HAVE to follow it, but I really like it and so far, so do my kids. So tell me, what are some goals you want your kids to reach by the end of 4th grade? Maybe by reading some of them it will jump start my brain for me! Thanks!