One Room School

   So today is like most days this month.  We are wrapping up a lot of loose ends for portfolio review.  We have been concentrating on history because that is the subject that suffers the most during the times I am busy with school.  My goal was to make it through the revolutionary war.  I am however making an executive decision to pause at the French and Indian War.  It just feels like I am rushing to “get through” a time period that is so important and interesting.  We have kind of a weird schedule.  Joe is taking July off, but then we will we be back to work in August and September.  Once I start student teaching Joe will lay low and unschool for that time. 

    I am not sure how well I am handling the concept of summer vacation.  I would rather do maybe 4 weeks on, 2 weeks off kind of rotation.  With my own school schedule, it just doesn’t quite work.  I know that it is hard for Joe when all of his friends are at their leisure and he has to get his work done before he can go outside.  Honestly, I am not forcing him to slave away by candlelight like some medieval scribe.  Especially right now… it’s just a few things we need for portfolio filler.  I have always been in the year round school camp.  Joe thinks I am torturing him slowly.  I feel like, we don’t get time off in the real world (because what is more real than homeschooling, honestly?)  and it cuts down on incessant reviewing.  Plus, it’s not like we are stuffing him in a classroom for 8 hours.  Sheesh.

   So what are your feelings on summer vacation, do you vacate the learning just because it’s warm out?

Well, this year has gone fairly smoothly, save some scheduling and completion issues.  I can definitly tell that Joe appreciates the opportunity to homeschool after having been in public school some last year.  We had to rearrange some things in our schedule to help it fit my school schedule.  I am student teaching in the fall so we are working through June, taking July off, starting again in August and September, and then having a fall break in October and November.  That made my head hurt just to write it.  He is not loving working in the summer, I do however remind him frequently that if he would do the work when he is told to do it in the morning…. he wouldn’t be missing time with his friends later.  Honestly that has been our biggest issue this year.  If Joe is not completely feeling up to it he either “forgets” to do his work or says it was hard and “I answered the best I could.”  Last time I checked, “sort of” was not even a mediocre answer to the question, “Did Johnny Tremain agree or disagree with Sam Adams’ actions via the Sons of Liberty and why do you think so?”  We have really been in get it done mode, so maybe it is time for a break and things will be better in August.  He is excited about starting some new texts that he views as advanced.  I think I take for granted the things I believe him capable of.  He is superhuman, right?  Capable of understanding 7th grade literary analysis in a single bound! 

   Well we made through the first week of homeschooling with few hiccups.  It is really amazing what a short stint back in public school did for Joe’s attitude.  We are focusing on tying up some loose ends while we wait for his books to come in.  This past week we reviewed our Latin from last year, restarted Japanese, and picked in history with the War of the Roses.  He is doing a novel study on a Wrinkle in Time and just finished The Candy Shop War  by Brandon Mull who also wrote Fablehaven series.  Oh yeah, and Writing Strands Level 4.  I thought I would be incredible nervous going back into this, but honestly?, it feels like coming home.  I love doing this.  I love knowing what he is learning and passing on the topics, subjects Ithink are important.  I love giving him the space to choose how he arranges his day and get a peek inside his creative mind.  I thrill at being able to provide the atmosphere that lets him learn and grow, not be stressed and weary.  I’ll probably have more thoughts to relate next week about some topics that have arisen this past week in education.  But for now, I am content and blessed to have a happy, healthy, and eclecticlaly educated 10 year old boy.

    I haven’t written anything for a long time.  Mainly because we haven’t been homeschooling and I lost my haphazard drive to blog once I didn’t need to document anything.  We tried public schooling with Joe this year for 5th grade.  I am sure it could have been more disastourous.  He was pretty miserable right from the start.  “What do you mean I have to raise my hand to go to the bathroom?!?”, “Why do we have to eat lunch sitting in alphabetcial order?!?” (honestly that one threw me too), “We never do anything interesting!” and on and on and on.  The probelm I had was that all of his statements were completely reasonable and valid.  If these children are in 5th grade, ready to shoulder some responsibility, why not give them some?  I will not digress into all the reasons we disliked 5th grade.  That isn’t the total reason we are back to homeschooling. 

    When Joe first started homeschooling a couple years ago, we noticed some motor tics creeping up.  His doctor said let’s keep an eye on it and see what happens.  If you think it is getting worse we will reevaluate.  For two years he had them on and off, but not really a big deal.  Once he started 5th grade, all of sudden we had full blown simple, complex, motor and vocal tics.  Everyday, all day.  In October Joe was diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome.  This is not some devastating thing to us, he is still Joe.  I also kind of thought that was what we were dealing with all along.  It does however, give me the iron clad reason to homeschool again.  Not that we felt we needed a condition to homeschool.  We approached this year as, “ok you wanted to try out public school again.  We will finish an entire year.  No quitting just because you don’t like it.”  We wanted him to be a finisher.  But clearly this is something beyond finishing what you start.  He is withering.  He is trying to inhibit his tics all day long, which is impossible.  He hates it there, is under enormous stress.  Some children are making fun of him and there seems to be little intervention in that department.  We decided that the next few years of his education were to crucial to risk being turned off by education all together.  So we are bringing him home.  Maybe, in a way, this is what God had in mind all along.  He really did want us to finish what we started.

  Today is a weird day.  Tomorrow my precious baby turns 10 years old.  We are hosting a sleepover tonight.  I will have no food left tomorrow.  I know that most of you see the passage of time like the hands on the clock spinning out of control.  I definitely see it that way.  I was updating or What We’re Reading section and it floored me that Elijah has now discovered the beloved Dr. Seuss.  These were Joe’s favorite books since infancy.   He would rock to sleep in the rocking chair every night to The Sleep Book, or If I Ran the Zoo or the Butter Battle Book etc, etc.  I guess the fact that our family has made it  this far amazes me because of where we started and all the bumps we endured along the way. Joe’s birth marks the fragile beginnings of our family life together. I was 18 years old when I found out I was pregnant with Joe.  My husband and I had only been seeing each other a few months and secretly at that because of the disparity between our ages.  It was a nightmare.  The guilt and the shame are incomparable to anything I had ever experienced.  I had grown up in the church.  I loved God.  But I think I was always looking for confirmation of love elsewhere.  At barely 19, I gave birth to a son. My adult life began with his first breath.  Joe and I are so close, it is like we have a vulcan mind meld going on.  But it isn’t that strange when, for the first few years of his life, he was my best friend.  I was so very alone.  As we tried to deal with being thrown together, he kept me going, kept em from running away.  I get sadder every year as he pulls away a little more.  It’s the way it is meant to be.  I can’t hang onto him forever.  I can already see the stirrings of adolecence creeping up in his speech and glances (read: glares). 

   So many times I would begin to guiltily wonder what my life would have been like had I toed the line.  I don’t get too far into that daydream though.  After the first few steps it feels wrong, meaningless.  God’s providence has given us a wonderful life.  We have made a lot of mistakes, and not all of them in the past.  But God always steps in, dusts us off, and says, “My, my you have really made a mess of things.  Let’s use all this for the something wonderful I have in mind for you.”  How blessed we are.  It is sad to watch your kids grow up. But how glorious it is to know that God will turn their nightmares into sweet dreams. 

I feel  little like Mr. Rogers updating on what is going on in the neighborhood.  I will probably add some more stuff this post later.  I just really need to document my life in a medium where thousands of people could look at, but most likely  no one will.  :) 

    We found a super cool math quiz for metric prefixes.  There is also a ton of other math stuff at this web site.  Really cool for the older ones.  Joe was drivin me crazeee with the constant guessing of answers.  After a few tears, I finally got him to sit down and slowly go through the problem to get the answer.  Then he used our little chart all by himself.  Then he didn’t need the chart at all.  I love it when I am right! 

  Joe also worked on this art/science project.  Step 1 is to draw the world map onto a piece of poster board.  He got the Americas done today.  I must say, he is an excellent sketch artist.  I was way impressed.  This will eventually lead to a lesson on plate tectonics but we’re takin it easy for now. 

I have been so neglectful about posting.  Even though I know that we will still consider ourselves homeschoolers after this year is over.  But I started this blog to chronicle what we did all day.  And so come what may. I will try my best to do that.  I have been very pleased that even with my intermittent posting to find some really nice peeps to share ideas with.  Thanks! *hugs*

  So as per usual I planned this totally awesome unit on plants….AND now we are interested only in rocks.  Figures.  If this journey has taught me anything it is 1) Don’t plan anything and 2)Don’t buy anything.  #2 is by far the hardest for me.  Our bookcases are groaning with my rehabilitative backsliding.  Anyway, we read about minerals and started a crystal growing experiment.  His interest was peaked after a cub scout field trip to the geology lab at our local college.  So rocks and the rock cyle will be next.  That Geology Badge is in the bag,baby.  Math we reviewed a bit.  Joe does really well with concepts, but computation still frustrates him.  I think we need some more fun ways to play around with basic facts, especially multiplication.  He checked out The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the library, but ended up reading Matilda for most of the day today.  Fine with me.  I did find a great reading motivator web site.  Joe was having trouble starting a book and then never. finishing. it.  :(   Drove me crazy.  Then I found Bookadventure.com  … so cool.  This web site is free and run by Sylvan Learning Center.  You and your child register, then pick a list of books to choose from.  You select grade level, challenge level and interest categories.  Then they read some of the books on the list and can take little 10 question quizzes on them to earn points (You can only take the quizzes twice, be forewarned!).  They can redeem the points for the FREE prizes on the site or you can make your own prizes.  They cannot receive a prize until you approve it by email.  It really gave Joe the little push he needed to get back to reading again.  Give it a whirl and tell me what you think.  Slacker Mom is singing off to go lay in the bathtub.  I might shave, meh, whatever. 

  I am feeling a little sad.  We have been making lots of decisions about school around here.  My husband and I decided a few months ago that we would keep Elijah in public school next year for 1st grade.  I have 1 year of school left to complete and to homeschool to kids with that schedule would have been to much for us.  Our family would suffer, our education(s) would suffer, and our business which is our only source of income right now.  From these discussions Joe has decided that he would like to go to 5th grade next year.  He wants to use his “last chance” to be in elementary school and be with his brother. 

   I have to say that I don’t feel like a failure; I always thought I would if Joe decided to go back.  He seems to be approaching this with the attitude of an anthropologic field study.  We’ve talked about still continuing with history, science, and our foreign languages at home (because they for sure do not come close to covering them in ps).  You know, just for fun.  Joe looked at me and said, ” Mo-om (just like that), I’m still homeschooled, I just go to a school at the same times you do.”  He is so cool.

   I am however pretty certain that he will not be going to middle school.  It scares me.  Even more after being in the teacher training program.  I sense this very toxic environment of children who are trying so hard to prove they are grown up.  Many of them who have no compass to guide them.  There is so much focus on peer groups and how they dominate everything from what you wear to how you feel about yourself.  No thanks, amigo.  What do you think about middle school?  Or is high school worse in your opinion?  I find the subject interesting.

    Remember when you were in college and you did research for a paper in one class and wrote another paper for another class based on the same research?  I’m not saying I’ve ever done that (No way, not me!).  But if I had?  That’s how I would explain the feeling of posting my homework and calling it a post.  Although, I do find your feedback and comments interesting and appreciate those of you who are nice to me.

    So, that being said, I am not fond of this paper.  I feel like it doesn’t quite express the passion I feel for the subject.  I also tried to stick with the subject of public schooling and how it could be improved.  While I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to free my child from public school, there are many more just as deserving kids who must attend for one reason or another.  Nor do I even believe that homeschooling is right for everyone.  I homeschool for purely selfish reasons: I want to be in charge of what my child learns and give him the chance to pursue what interests him.  History and culture and foreign languages and art and a million other things are so important to our family and they are sadly lackng in our local schools.  Maybe I should write my beliefs about homeschooling next?  Nobody around here ever does that. 

  Friday was our big field trip to the Clay Center for Arts and Sciences in the big ol’ capitol city of Charleston.  It’s just an hour drive from us, but as my father found out, an hour is a looooong time when you are in the car with an inquisitive 9yo.  What started as a conversation about the word “Kanawha”, as in the county, river, road, etc., turned into a discussion of Axis and Allied forces during WWII, to a comparison of the Holocaust and Native American displacement, to the war in Iraq and why can’t we just leave?  Yeah.  I am not sure how Papaw felt about encouraging critical thinking after that. 

   The main attraction was the planetarium show on Mars and the Night Sky.  We haven’t done much on the planets themselves because Joe was really into the constellations and stars.  Learning about all the different satellites and probes we have sent was fascinating.  They even gave us a websiteto see the images that the current rovers are taking right now!  Coool! The constellation part was mainly review for Joe, but it was awesome to see what it would look like without all the streetlights.  If anybody wants to study the stars and solar system I highly recommend A Kid’s Guide to the Night Sky . It has great projects and the explanations are fun to read.  It is well-organized and crammed with great (but thankfully easy)projects and stories.

    After the show we hit the Earth City exhibit where we learned how dams, sandstorms, geysers, and formations work.  It showed how WV developed as a land formation from pre-historic times.  They also had a kids health exhibit where you could test your reaction time and look at weird X-rays and guess what you were looking at ( i.e. broken leg).  The best was an arrow that a hunter had accidentally shot into his own patella.  EEEWWW!

    After lunch we went upstairs to the art exhibit.  They had a cool huge screen TV show called Art at your Fingertips.  You could play with and learn about the portraits and paintings interactively.  There aren’t many places you can play bouncy ball with the Portrait of Henry Gibbs.  They were featuring an artist who created these wonderfully colorful sculptures using the Fibonacci sequence.  Then we went to the Gizmo Factory which was a huge room full of physical science exhibits.  It was like one big playroom.  They covered sound, waves, light, gravity computers, magnetism, weather, etc.,etc.  After That we watched a movie in the planetarium called Africa:  The Serengetti.  It was awesome to watch but let me warn you: it is not pleasant to watch lions mate on the big panoramic screen.  I’m just sayin…

   All in all we had a great day.  Joe, who is such a serious boy, felt like a kid in a candy store for a day.  He smiled and laughed and forgot to be brooding and introspective.  Not that those are bad qualities.  It’s just nice to have a little levity with your learnin’.