Reality

This week was spent debating whether cyber is truly the best fit for our situation. I have only had fleeting thoughts of traditional homeschooling, mostly due to the fact that I would have to document so much of what we are doing instead of the cyber school taking care of that for us. I feel sometimes like I spend too much time working through tedious, unnecessary material just because it's in the Lesson Plan. I bought a lot of educational material from many different places as soon as I made the decision to pull JT out of brick and mortar school. I never seem to have the time to supplement with those activities.

Two of my friends who are cyber schooling as well helped me work through my dilemma. I am a list person. I write lists for everything. I LOVE to check things off of the list. The problem with Calvert's material is that every lesson plan is laid out in list form. When I don't 'check' things off the list, my little mental dysfunction screams, "You can't skip that, you need to check it off the list!"

So yesterday I decided not to look at the list during our school day. I made up my own list and followed that instead. We did a little better. Last night, I went online and found a good site for challenging math word problems. Today instead of the monotonous worksheets, we did math that took up the whole chalkboard. We found the volume of two tubes we made out of paper. We calculated problems involving speed and distance. We had fun and JT learned useful math. He will still have no problem passing the math tests as long as I am sure to instruct him in their definitions and methods for specific problems. Hopefully as I work through my own behavior therapy I can come up with a happy medium that allows JT to learn with flexibility.

JT finally experienced his first virtual class on Wednesday. It is an enrichment class meant for 5th-8th graders. I signed him up anyway based on his reading level. The class had 4 students. JT is the youngest, but he did fine. I listened in for the whole session to help him with the little details of the technology. I think he'll be fine on his own for the next one. The kids had a good discussion on the elements of a mystery novel. They will be reading a book and doing enrichment activities covering math, art and history. The book is 'Chasing Vermeer'. The only problem is that the teacher only wants them to read the first 4 chapters before next week. JT had already read 3 before the class began. Luckily he's preoccupied reading 'The Fellowship of the Ring' for now. He's only a couple chapters from the end, so I'll have to throw something else his way to keep him from jumping ahead too far in the book for his class.

This week was not the best week we have had. I think JT had an ok week, but I had a sudden realization; I will be doing this until 2021. With our youngest in K this year and his projected graduation date in mind, I saw my life pass before my eyes. I spent a couple days being a little negative (my friends know this is stating it mildly) and now I'm going to press on trying to keep John Lennon's quote in mind. "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans."

Technical Difficulties

One day this past week, I asked my husband to fill in for me for a couple hours while I ran a few errands. He had taken the week off of work to do some odds and ends around the house. I said, "Could you just help him review his multiplication tables?" The picture to the left is what I found them working on when I came home. I guess he figured why cover them all individually when you can put them into one massive problem?

JT's first virtual class was set up for this week. It was supposed to be held Wednesday from 2pm-3pm. The day before, I checked if we had it listed in his "courses". It wasn't there, so I contacted his IS (Instructional Supervisor) and she assured me he was registered. Wednesday at 1:45 pm I attempted to get things set up. The class wasn't showing up. I started worrying that I was doing something wrong. I had used the software once for a parent forum, so I figured we were probably good to go.

2:00, I really start to panic. I send an email to our IS and the gifted education coordinator. I also call and put in a tech ticket. Around 2:15, JT says, "Is it ready yet?" Then I get the email. Don't worry, you are all signed up. It's a virtual classroom tech issue. It will be ready next week.

I'm not feeling very impressed with the technical know-how here. This is a "CYBER" school...right? The tech guy called me today, nearly 24 hours later. I said, "Never mind."

This was also the first week that I was sick. I have a nasty bit of congestion going on. Unfortunately, there was no substitute available. So, we had a very lame day on Wednesday. We covered Math, Composition, and a little Science. Then I said, "Let's watch a video for History today." I slept on the couch while he watched Liberty! The American Revolution. It's a PBS series that is very well done. I had watched the first volume with him when I wasn't sick. I felt a little guilty dumping him like that, but considering the fact that we are already on lesson 81 in math...and there are 160 in the year, I think we can afford a day of slacking off.

I am still struggling to find a way to make the Science curriculum fit our situation. The third grade material is too simplistic and the sixth grade material isn't quite right either. I guess I'll really have to work to find an acceptable substitute while still covering enough of the curriculum specific terms in the Calvert material to have him pass the tests.

I also need to complain about math....WHY do these kids need to be able to explain how they answered a math question? Why can't the state just be happy that they know the right answer? I struggle to teach my child how to answer these questions. When I was complaining to a friend of mine about this problem she said, "Yes, I also hate needing to explain math with language instead of math. It is like playing baseball using your feet. Why? Why not just use your hands?"

Amen to that!

Test Packets

The Calvert curriculum that we use through PA Cyber has a packet of tests that you send in for grading every 20 lessons. We sent our lesson 20 packet in a little under 2 weeks ago. Today we received the graded tests along with a pile of information. We have been assigned our ETF (Elementary Teaching Facilitator). She sent a nice letter to JT, introducing herself and explaining some of the things she was looking for in his testing packets. We had been asked to fill out a student survey to send in with the first group of tests, so she knew some things about our family to allow for a bit of conversation in the note. She had also graded all the tests and sent a summary on each subject. JT had A's in all subjects. She did point out that he made a few spelling errors that she had overlooked for the first test, but would not on future testing. After we read the letter, JT said, "I think she'll be really good for us." It's funny to think of the long distance relationship we will have with this woman. It's so foreign to the standard student-teacher relationship we think of nowadays.

One of the other things that came with this package, was a new incentive the school is offering. PSSA's are a big focus with the cyber school, just as they are in our traditional schools. In fact, they are probably even more important to them, since they can lose their charters if they don't make AYP (annual yearly progress). The students are being offered a chance to add percentage points to their grades if they complete worksheets geared towards test prep. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I haven't looked at all of the materials. If they are below level, I can't see wasting JT's time (and mine) doing any busy work. We have a hard enough time squeezing in our regular subjects!

This coming Monday, we are going to attend our first "meet and greet". It's a lunch get together hosted by "family link". Family link is a cyber version of the PTA. We will have a chance to link up with other families in our area that are using PA Cyber. I'm hoping JT will find someone in his age range. He has lots of local friends, but it would be nice to have someone local within the same school system.

He will also be starting his first virtual class this coming week. Gifted students are offered a few enrichment courses throughout the year. JT has signed up for a class that will be reading the book, "Chasing Vermeer". There will be discussion and activities every Wednesday from 2-3 pm, virtually. I thought this would give him a chance to see what the virtual classes are like and maybe make a few connections with other advanced learners.

Once again we have had a good week. Today we were working on a little Spanish. JT said, "Let's practice having a conversation in Spanish." We have done this in the past. It usually consists of me saying, "Como estas?" (How are you?) He says, "Muy bien, gracias." (very well, thanks) I usually also ask him how old he is and if he likes school. He used to say that he didn't like school. Today he answered..."Me gusta escuela. Gracias por el aula." (I like school. Thank you for the classroom.) It was a good day.....

5 weeks down!

Time has been flying by in our house. I spend most of my hours either teaching or planning what to teach or having conversations about teaching. I will certainly enjoy all of our holiday breaks this year.

This last Friday our youngest spent his first full day schooling with us. Up until now, he has been in school (private K, 3 days a week) or with another child care provider most of our school hours. I was avoiding the time he would need to be integrated into our little system. Things went much more smoothly than I could imagine! Granted, we didn't get as much 'hard-core' learning done that day, but it wasn't bad for a first attempt. We started the day with Geography. JT and I had been studying the 13 colonies. I had E (3rd child now dubbed) work on putting our giant USA floor map together while we were working on the colonies. During math, JT learned about Roman Numerals while E used a yard stick as a number line and did simple addition problems. We also had art...easy stuff for mom! We did a Science experiment with yeast and went on a bike ride late in the afternoon. The only time all day I had to send E to find something to keep him occupied, was during JT's Spelling test.

I know next year it won't be as easy when I actually have a lesson plan I need to follow for both boys. If E continues to progress at the rate he seems to be going, he should be reading independently by then. That would make things much easier. If either of them could be told to read something while waiting for my attention, I could juggle things a little better. Fortunately, I have almost a whole year to dread that step!

Thanks to a friend who took pity on our caterpillar situation, we now have two Black Swallowtail caterpillars living in our jar! We are hoping these guys will put on a real show for us. They are feasting on dill and slowly turning green. JT said they are, "turning into pickles". :-)

What is the right answer?

It's been another fairly good week. I keep waiting for the crisis when I say, "I CAN'T do this anymore!". There are definitely moments. Most of them involve JT completely ignoring my pleas that if he'd just finish the 5 problems left on the paper, we could have free reading time. Stalling is certainly one of his strong characteristics.

Our new schedule seems to be working fairly well. Sometimes we don't get through all I want to do in one day, but neither do teachers with a classroom full of students. This week JT did his Lesson 20 tests. Every 20 lessons there is a series of tests that are completed and sent in to the school. Some of these tests have questions that have wording I consider confusing. JT proved the point today when he came across the fill in the blank question:

The ability to do work is called ____________.
Instead of using the words in the box he was supposed to choose from he wrote "a learned trait". The correct answer (I assume, as I do not have the answer key) should be "energy". I thought his answer made sense. He did a couple others in the same way. Now if he was in a traditional classroom, the teacher would have spent the last 2 weeks being sure he was programmed with the correct answer through tedious review. I took my chances with just reading the chapters in the Science book and going over the review questions once or twice and then jumping into something JT had more interest in learning. Does this mean I have not taught my son well? I can't believe that that is true. Last night as he was getting ready for bed he said to me, "I think we should use some of the words in my History lesson as Spelling words. I think they are probably on my level and I would really like to be able to spell declaration, independence and constitution". By giving him the desire to learn I have opened far more opportunities to him than by teaching him to recite the answer I expect to hear.

On a side note, last week I posted about our capture of the Monarch caterpillars. It turns out, I should have done my research better. My poor child trusted his mother to know a Monarch caterpillar from a Tiger Moth caterpillar. (see here)
They both like to munch the Milkweed....who knew? Since the Tiger Moth overwinters in his cocoon, we won't be having any excitement for quite some time. At least we learned something new this week!

Settling In

The classroom is almost complete! We just need some curtains... eventually. Things are coming together in other ways this week too. I have finally set up something remotely like a routine. We now have a weekly schedule that I try to stick to. Calvert provides a suggested schedule, but it wasn't working for us. Calvert's schedule has History two times a week and Mythology two times a week. I found that we needed more time for History and less for Mythology, so we borrowed a day from the Mythology schedule and compacted it. We like to really immerse in the History discussion, so we do!

I had another 'duh' moment this week. As I've said before, the Spelling list is definitely below level for JT. I hadn't really even looked at the book closely. I would pull out the list, orally pretest JT and throw it back on the bookshelf for a week. This week, I happened to look at the book closely. It turns out, the entire Spelling list is in Spanish in the back of the book. Over the summer, we started a little introduction into Spanish and I had been planning on adding Spanish to our day. Now I have my material! I guess I should investigate all of the material they sent me a little more closely.

We went on a nature hike on Wednesday. We wanted to find some Monarch caterpillars and we came home with two. Now we just need to wait for them to turn into butterflies. JT is keeping track of their every movement in his Science Journal.

Also this week, the Reading assignment included a short version of a story of Sacagawea. So, we went into a little more detail. I had JT read a more thorough version of her story. In Geography, we were learning how to measure distance on a map, so I incorporated the Lewis and Clark journey into that. I had JT plot the route on our large USA map with a dry erase marker. Then we measured the distance.

None of these things we've done this week are part of the curriculum provided. I have been staying up until midnight every night planning the next day's work. That will have to stop soon! I think now that we're getting a rhythm, I should be able to lay out at least a couple day's worth of work. Overall, things are good. Every morning, JT and I have a prayer to start our day. This week he thanked God that his mom could be his teacher now. That simple thought makes it all worth the effort.

Realizations

My friends were right. I am exhausted! I think things are starting to move towards something like regularity. It's still hard to judge.

I spent the first week attempting to follow my own altered version of the Lesson Plan book provided with the Calvert material. I pretty much disregarded the Phonics book, skipped through the Spelling book and massively compacted the Math. What I was left with still felt too much like busy work. Then I began to panic. What things did I absolutely have to use from the curriculum in order to allow JT to pass the assessments? Was I short-changing him by skipping too much? I am so incredibly thankful to have a friend that has been cyber schooling longer than I have. She is full of encouragement and advice. The kind of advice you can take and use!

I called her and vented one day because I could not get JT to sit and do one lousy math worksheet. It took one ENTIRE hour to complete. Now, this had nothing to do with the level of challenge. He just didn't want to do it. He wanted to draw a picture of a space battle (which he did in the space between the math problems). This was a creative drawing, spaceships and planets named after elements; planet Neon being attacked by the spaceship named Hydrogen. However, it was not the right time for Art! How strict must I be with our schedule? An important thing to know about me is that I am a list person. I get great joy from crossing things off the to-do list. In fact, right after I had our last son, I felt like I could never get anything done. I would write things on my list after I had done them, i.e., "took a shower", and cross it off to feel that satisfaction. My friend was straight with me and told me to stop trying to pack in so much stuff that really wasn't necessary. She made me realize that JT will get more new learning time in half an hour at home than he would have in a whole day in a brick and mortar school. That idea really struck a chord with me. I had the power to give him that learning, if I could just stop feeling the need to follow the drill I had been given.

So, this morning I said to JT, "I think this 3rd grade Science book is too easy for you. I believe you already know most of what is in here. What do you think?" He agreed with me. I happen to have a 6th grade Science text book from the same series. I told him if he would look at the chapter in the 3rd grade book and be sure he could answer the questions, we would move on to the 6th grade book instead. We had a wonderful day! The stress level was much lower. We went outside and dropped rocks off the deck to prove that objects of different weights really do fall at the same speed. I did have to do a little arm twisting to complete the dreaded Composition assignment. But as a reward for minimal whining, we did the enrichment activity included in the History assignment about Molly Pitcher. We cooked Johnny Cakes for lunch!

So, my new plan of attack will be to keep the individual subject lessons as brief as possible. I will also attempt to offer fun, hands on activities after every lesson that requires sitting still. When JT asks a question requiring more information than I can pull from my brain, we will spend the time to look it up. I realized I was doing the same thing to him that his previous school had done. He would ask a deep, probing question and I would say, "Not now, we have to finish this worksheet." Wasn't that one of the reasons for bringing him home? I want to allow him the chance to immerse himself in something he's interested in. Why continue having him do the busy work, just because it's in the box. Sometimes I can be so dense.....