More Frustration

This week I received an email from our instructional supervisor saying, "I'll be ordering your materials after the first of August". !? I went back through all of the recent emails and found one from July 2nd that said, "Email me when you receive your curriculum". Silly me! I thought that implied the materials had been ordered at that point. After a few heated emails and one subdued phone call, I am resigned to the fact that the bulk of my books will not arrive until August 17th. I was told that the school CAN NOT order from Calvert until August. I asked if it would be possible to write into our GIEP that in order to compact the curriculum and create a plan with (what they call enrichment material and what I call the REAL learning) I should be allowed to order the next year's Calvert package in June. GIEP is supposed to trump school policy. However, in our state, cybers are not actually required to follow a GIEP. At this point, no one at the school seems to know the regulation and they follow the rules as if they could get called on it if they didn't. I'm hoping to use this to our benefit for next year. I just don't know if I can feel fully prepared with so little prep time.

We have set our start day for August 24th. The school's first day is actually the 31st, but we are taking a week off in October, so I'd like to put in 6 weeks before that break. At this point, I have done little with the piles in the classroom. I did begin looking through the 4th grade math text. JT will be taking the lesson 20 and 40 tests after we review one or two concepts. When I asked him, "How would you like to cover 40 lessons in one hour?" He said, "Cool!". We will probably then move back into the Life of Fred books that we started at the end of last year. I might throw a day or two of Calvert math in, but probably won't really start it again until after the October break.

I also went online to the Calvert website and found that I could look inside most of their text books. I was able to look at the table of the contents for the 1st grade math for EM. It looks like he will have an extremely compacted year with the math. I only found about two concepts that I think we will need to explore. Depending on how that pans out, I may move him directly into Singapore Math.

I also found out that first grade has science as an optional class. We will not need to worry about sending in tests, which means I can attempt to teach similar units for the boys together, going more in depth for JT. We will also have more opportunity for hands on fun!

My game plan now is to leave the entire week of the 17th open for planning. Maybe my material will come when expected and maybe not....but since my new goal is flexibility, we will just have to go with the flow!

Oh, How I Wish....

This picture really has little to do with what is on my mind tonight, but I had to share! The pile of books in the foreground came from a local book selling fund raiser. All of those for $15! The handle on my bag broke twice while I was shopping. The mess in the background is the material I am planning to use in addition to the as of yet unseen Calvert. So far, I have sorted them into piles according to subject. The next 7 days I plan to REALLY get to it!

Now...How I wish....my son could have access to a school that is something like what he is experiencing this week at Kids' College. A local university puts together a day camp every summer geared towards gifted kids. They don't advertise it that way, but that is really what it is. He attends 4 different classes every day. In the morning the sessions are titled, "Think Like Leonardo", "Westward Ho!" and "CANS of Creativity". Afternoon he is in "Bug it Up!". He absolutely LOVES it. They dissected frogs, they ATE bugs, they are thinking outside the box from the minute they walk through the doors. After the first day, he was so excited he could barely tell me about what they had done. Tuesday afternoon he was already worried that the week was going to end too soon. Tomorrow is the last day and I'm a bit concerned that the let down will be a bit too much for him. I am trying to come up with something fun for our evening to try to bring him down slowly. On our ride home Tuesday, he said, "Mom, wouldn't it be great if I could go to a school like this every day?"

Obviously, the educators involved in these programs have the ability to pull out all the stops for one week worth of activities. Teachers in traditional settings couldn't possibly put the time and energy into a learning environment like this one for a full school year. But I am not an educator in a traditional setting! I am trying to look at the excitement this week has generated and translate that into my need to push myself to allow learning in non-traditional ways. Yes, we need to do the worksheets and testing the school needs to show what we have learned. However, this week has cemented my goal to do as little of that as possible in our next school year. It's time to think like Leonardo!

The Long Wait

While talking with a friend today, I realized I could find out exactly when we received our Calvert material last year by checking my old blog posts! It seems things arrived August 1st. Now I can stop getting excited every time I see the UPS or Fed Ex truck coming down the road...it's probably not coming yet. I really don't want the Calvert material in order to know what we are doing for the year, I actually want to see it so I know what we are NOT doing. After I see how much of it we can toss aside, I'll know how much other material I can squeeze into our days.

In the last week, I realized that our first year of homeschooling was not what it could be for one big reason. We were trying to create a 'school at home' instead of homeschooling! I found this comparison in the book I am reading, "Homeschooling" by Sherri Linsenbach. She says in her book, "A school is an institution or a facility. A home is where you live with your family. Homeschooling is a way of living." That really struck me as where we had gone wrong. Instead of homeschooling, I was playing school. I am trying far too hard to make our day follow a school-like routine.

So, I'm scrapping the old plan! This year may be a bit messier, but it should also be less stressful. That will be important since I want to lose as much of the Calvert script as possible and explore JT and EM's interests as often as possible.

I have been spending lots of time on the web looking for the perfect things to supplement this year's learning. So far I have purchased Susan Wise Bauer's "Story of the World: Ancient Times" text book, activity book and test book. I think I will use this series for both boys. The reading level will be beyond our 1st grader (for now) but he will still be able to participate in the study. I also ordered, "Mysteries in History", by Wendy Conklin as a supplement for JT.

At a yard sale last year, I picked up a set of science activity books put out by the PA Energy Office in the early 90's. The material appears to still be valid and is put together very well. Each unit has teaching tips, reproducible worksheets and suggested activities.

I also borrowed some study guides put out by Educational Impressions for a variety of children's literature. I am planning to order a few for this year, mostly for JT.

My problem now is deciding what I want to do for EM. He is more of a hands on kid. He does not enjoy reading as much as JT, but when he wants to, he does a great job. I think I'm going to use the provided material to begin and get a good feel for where he really is. His Calvert work should take no more than 2 hours a day from what I have seen on their website. If he joins JT for the science activities and the Story of the World, he should have a pretty good day.

I am STILL tossing around the idea of traditional homeschooling. This will be the year that decides. If I can find a way to use the Calvert only as much as necessary and still provide what I would like for the boys, I will stick with PACyber. If not....we'll strike out on our own.

Flexibility

I have tried to keep myself from thinking too much about schooling this summer....but now I really need to get my act together! When I look at the calendar, I see July packed with fun and interesting activities with August lurking around the corner.

First, let's talk about summer! I had hoped to keep summer free of too much activity, but that plan failed. June was packed with wedding prep for my daughter, followed by one week of peace. Since then we've had things happening almost every day. JT now has a weekly violin lesson. So far, so good there. He likes it and seems to have some natural talent. These lessons are just our 'trying it out' period. If he wants to continue, it will be added to the fall schedule. We have also been participating in our library's summer reading program. This year's theme is 'Being Creative'. The boys both feel it's more for the girls! I don't know if I agree completely, but I did allow them to skip the day with the theater make-up. Next week, we will have the first of our 'summer science' days. This is our third year getting together with other moms and their kids to do experiments and learn about science. Later this month, JT will spend a week in day camp at a local university. Our youngest, EM, decided he would like to take piano lessons this year, so we will probably have the initial lesson in August.

Today we took part in a GATE/STARR activity that PACyber offered. We drove 2 hrs west to Parker Dam state park for an environmental day. It was wonderful! The boys learned about predators and prey, camouflage and aquatic life. We also got to link up with friends who also use PACyber, but live 2 hours further west. However, the day did present a few challenges...

I do not always adapt smoothly to new ideas...people who know me well are laughing at this understatement. My boys do not swim yet. They are just beginning to learn to be comfortable in water. My parents have a pool and I grew up swimming. We've just been slow to get them over this hurdle. One of the activities today was kayak safety. This included putting my kids in a kayak on a lake. Granted, they were going in the tandem with an adult (the adult ended up being my husband) but I still had a mini anxiety attack and claimed they weren't going in. Fortunately my husband is used to this bizarre behavior and stood back until I felt comfortable enough to allow it. My friend that was there kept assuring me they wouldn't drown, they had pfds on..etc...

When it was all over, the boys had a great time, my husband was convinced he should buy a couple kayaks and I calmed down. I also learned that I need to work hard to become more flexible! I watched my friend's children happily jump in the kayaks on their own. They had never been in them before but she was calm and positive and there they went.

The flexibility issue made me think about the book I'm currently reading "Homeschooling: Everything You Need to Know to Educate Your Child at Home" by Sherri Linsenbach. It's your typical, 'this is how to homeschool book'. But reading this book, it is becoming clear to me, I am not being flexible enough with our schooling. Next year it's going to be so much more important to be able to go with the flow when I have both the boys in the classroom all week.

I'm hoping my little kayaking lesson will be able to remind me to focus on the big picture in our boys education. I want them to be prepared for life. Not just in an academic sense, but ready to tackle new situations. Ready for all the adventures on their distance horizons.