Mowing in the Dark

Things got a bit crazy around here this week. My husband and I are going out of town this weekend for a parent's getaway. Of course that means nothing would run as planned.

It all started over the weekend. Our cat had not been eating well for about a week. I took him to the vet and he needed emergency surgery for a stomach blockage. I had little time for getting ahead on housework, but did manage to plan a week of school. Monday, even though it was a holiday, we had a bit of school work, knowing things would be busy later.

Tuesday morning, JT had an allergy shot appointment. He had a major reaction, which culminated in him being given the Epipen and staying in the office for 2 hours. Not much schooling THAT day.

Wednesday we did manage to put in a full school day! We also were able to check out our protozoa we have been growing from a kit we purchased. The boys fought a bit over who should be looking in the microscope. I have now added one of these to my wish list for the classroom.

Today was a day where nothing seemed to go smoothly. We started late. JT did spend a good deal of time working on his Life of Fred book, completing 3 chapters. EM spent some time with me reviewing time telling on analog clocks using one of the center activities we put together.

Then the trouble began. Composition. I dread even mentioning it to JT. As soon as I say something about the need to write...he sets his face with his most defiant look and glares at me. I gave him a choice between finishing the final draft of last week's composition or beginning one for this week. He sat there for a good 45 minutes before he realized he wouldn't win this one. My husband discovered last week during a similar stale-mate, that the best way to make him act seems to be to remove the actual paper from the room and make him come to us and ask to start it when he is ready. In the meantime, he sits at his desk and stares into space. No amount of logic can budge this child. Explaining that if he really wants to be a biologist when he grows up, he will need some writing skills, seems futile when he's 8. (Not that I haven't tried it!) Threatening, pleading and yelling are all worthless. You just have to walk away and wait.

That was when I had to run the cat to the vet because he decided to remove his own stitches.

All of this ended with me riding the mower in a nearly pitch dark back yard.

Next week will be smoother. Right?

Keeping it Simple

We seem to have established a good rhythm for this week. I am far more relaxed this year than I was last year at this time. My evenings are being sacrificed to planning more often than I would like, but as the school year progresses, I'm hoping to find a better method for prep work. It does feel nice to have a routine again. Over the summer, we would slip from one day to the next. I think we were all a little tired of the lack of structure.

Our current game plan is: everyone up by 8am and finished with breakfast by 8:30. We have school time from 8 until about 11:30. When I need to work individually with one of the boys, the other one moves into the library and uses the table there for independent work. After lunch and recess time, we come back to the classroom to complete any unfinished seat work. Then we move on to the shared lessons in history, science or art. We usually wrap up by 2pm. If we have somewhere to be (piano, violin or library) we quit by 1pm.

I have been able to incorporate the 'fun' stuff more often this year. It has almost been a necessity with both boys schooling at the same time. This week we were reading about the origins of writing in "Story of the World". A few years back, I had picked up a set of stamps and book called "Fun with Hieroglyphs". This was a big hit! The boys spent a whole afternoon working on notes to one another. JT wrote a short story about a crocodile using the stamps.

At another point this week, JT suddenly said, "Can you find me a diagram of the inside of a tornado?" I helped him find one online. He then proceeded (completely unprovoked) to make his own diagram, look up information in two books and write a short report on Tornadoes. Yet another of my goals being met! "Provide opportunities and direction for the boys to explore their own interests."

We are keeping up with our Calvert material as well. JT is working his way through a bit of review before he takes the Lesson 40 math test. I promised him when he takes that test, he can spend a week working on the Life of Fred fractions book. I think we will follow a 2 week of Calvert/ 1 week Life of Fred routine until the Calvert material has been completed. Then we will continue with Life of Fred and a Pre-Algebra workbook that I ordered. JT also finished reading the abridged version of "Robinson Crusoe" in a couple days. The Calvert material expected him to spread it out over about 50 lessons, so I will have him complete the reading section of the first 3 tests now.

EM has surprised me with what he knows. He is not as outgoing as JT when it comes to showing his ability. He pulled off a 100% on his spelling pretest. He also zips through the reading material set for the first 20 lessons. I need to look ahead and find a good place to start for him. For now, I am reading books I borrowed from the library with him during our reading time. I also learned something interesting about his math skills. He does much better with addition of larger numbers. Ask him what 4 + 5 is and he has to think for a bit. 40 + 50...he answers quickly. Interesting. I also found that he has a hard time with flashcard math, but does terrific with dice. Good thing I bought that tub of 90 dice from Lakeshore Learning. :-)

One more thing I found this week. If you are at all interested in incorporating Bible study into your child's homeschooling, I found a great site! ABC, I Believe has free Bible lessons for younger children with fun activities that you can work into many different subjects. I especially like the worksheets that you can print. The first four lessons are completely free, if you want to purchase all 26, it is $12.95. We used the first lesson and the boys had fun following the "ant trail" to the clues.

In the end, this has been a good start to our year. I am feeling positive and enjoying finding things that benefit both of the boys' learning.

Here We Go Again

We are well into our first week of school and I am t-i-r-e-d. I spent many hours since the Thursday arrival of our material trying to get a good handle on my direction for this year. My first attempt at planning was to go through both of the boys' lesson manuals provided by the publishers of the curriculum and decide which individual activities we should do. That idea turned out to be very overwhelming. I threw plan one out the window and tried a different approach. I went through the first week of lessons and looked for the key concepts that were being introduced or reviewed. Then I went through the text and work books and found material that I judged worthwhile that taught those concepts. After that, I added my own things from my immense pile. This plan suited me much better and also fits the new flexibility theme.

Now...do you remember the schedule plan? EM was to start the day at 8:30 with JT coming in around 9:30. Monday morning both boys were up at 7:30 ready to go. JT NEVER gets out of bed that early. I decided to stick with the plan and sent EM downstairs to wait for me. JT was told he could finish breakfast and read until it was time for him to begin. When I walked in the classroom, EM was sitting at his desk with his hands folded. How cute is that?! That will probably be the only time it ever happens. My plan worked fairly well the first day. I felt like we accomplished some learning and some schedule adjusting. In the afternoon, we had an archaeological dig in our sandbox (strainght from the activity book for "Story of the World: Volume 1"). Hands on learning. Check another item off my new goals list!

The second day was a bit more of a struggle. JT had an allergy shot in the morning, so we had less time for schooling. EM was home with my husband and did some worksheets while I was away. I couldn't get the rhythm back that day. We did manage to do a couple experiments involving buoyancy from Janice VanCleave's Physics for Every Kid.

As the week has progressed I have realized this juggling act will require me to have less balls in the air. I am trying to pack so many things into a day, that I keep dropping the balls. Today we went with the 'less is more' method. We had to be somewhere a little after noon, so I planned very few things for the morning. We finished all of our work and I resisted the urge to add more to that free time. I felt a bit less stressed.

This weekend I will have limited planning time due to a Saturday family reunion 4 hours away. I think keeping it simple may turn out to be more complicated than it sounds...but I'll give it a try.

Wouldja Look at That!

The big brown truck finally backed into our driveway this afternoon. We will be starting our school year Monday. How nice that they arrived in time. (read with much sarcasm) The large pile to the left is EM's first grade materials. 19 separate books! I have 4 lesson manuals just for him. JT's is not as overwhelming, but I have issues with that as well. (of course) Calvert offers two different versions of it's curriculum, Scholastic or Academic. Here is a description of the differences from Calvert's site:

Calvert Academic (Pre-Kindergarten through Eighth Grade)

The Calvert Academic curriculum is our traditional instruction with the rigorous pace that our families have come to expect from Calvert. Students enrolled in Academic courses cover more topics in history and science; write additional, more complex compositions; and complete more advanced work with literature selections.

Calvert Scholastic (Fourth through Eighth Grades)

The Calvert Scholastic curriculum provides Calvert's challenging and integrated core curriculum, but it is structured in a way that gives students extra support in grammar, composition, and critical thinking. Its instructional focus meets the needs of students who require extra support in these key subject areas through additional review and skill reinforcement while maintaining the challenge of a Calvert experience.

Hmmm, additional review...just what we need.

PACyber used to purchase the Academic version for all of their students. This summer they decided they didn't like the History text offered for that version because it was thought to be 'too religious' and didn't follow PA standards closely enough. Now all students using Calvert have to use the Scholastic version of the curriculum. I have only made a quick survey of what we received at this point, but I can tell from the tests we won't be having much challenge from this material.

I still haven't made up my mind if this is good or bad. I have LOADS of things I can do in addition (and would actually prefer to use) to what they have sent. EM's first grade books seem a bit below where he is now, but I can see some value in a few of the things I have looked at so far. So it's not a total loss. It just seems so ridiculous to keep up this routine. Have I said all of this before? I am compiling a list of questions for the homeschooling liason at PDE. That call is on my list of things to do in the next month. I want to do my research before I call, but it is definitely a direction I am interested in heading.

In more interesting news...I am almost done with the centers box. I made a great find at Wal-mart last week. They had a whole pile of learning activities on clearance! I bought an Active Minds Pocket Chart and sets of cards to go with it. They had Spanish/English words and some 3 and 4 letter word matching games (good for EM). I also found an Addition Facts bingo game. Yes, I could have made it myself...but it was only $2. I did make my own flashcards for rhyming words (EM), time telling (EM) and at the suggestion of JT, cards to build sentences. I had to come up with nouns, adverbs, adjectives, verbs..etc to print onto cards that he could arrange into 'funny' sentences. I color coded them to parts of speech so EM could also use them to master that concept. I also made cards (at the suggestion of a friend) with things like, "make 48 cents using 7 coins". We have a nice set of play money from Discovery Toys that will work for that one.

I read an interesting article this week about parents hiring tutors to prepare their children for Kindergarten. In the article they mentioned how cut-throat Kindergarten can be now in the United States. Children who can not read by the end of that first year of school are being held back to repeat. The author brought up how we are trying to compete with other countries and falling behind. However, it was mentioned that in other countries children typically begin school later and are not expected to read until age 8. What are we doing wrong? Are we trying too hard? It really hammered home how I want this year to be a less structured year...especially for EM. He is 5 (will be 6 in October) and is enrolled as a first grader. He will be expected to complete that level of work. I believe it will not be hard for him to master the concepts, but I will not expect him to sit and do seat work for the amount of time they recommend. He will be exploring the world in a more hands on way. Whether using the center activities or Legos or just hanging out in the backyard checking out nature. I want him to seek out information, not force feed him from a big box the UPS man brought to our door.

Promises, Promises....

Still no books ordered by our cyber school! I can not get a good answer as to why they can't order yet. I was told on Tuesday, that they will be ordered by the end of the week. Sure.

In the meantime, JT and I had a long talk about our schedule for this year. He was used to having me all to himself most of the time last year. Now that EM will be joining our happy little group, things will be changing a bit. I asked JT if he thought he could be responsible enough to get up on his own, get some breakfast (if I leave some helps along the way...i.e. milk in the creamer for his cereal) and be dressed and ready to join us by 9:30am. EM is an early riser, so I figure I will work on his reading and math for an hour before JT joins us. Then we can do some shared learning, move on to gym and then EM can go work on some independent learning while JT and I work on his instruction time. JT seemed to think it was a good idea and promised to work on following the schedule. All of this sounds lovely...until the first day when EM is running late or JT won't get up or.....

Oh yeah, flexibility!

I also felt ambitious this week and put together some index cards for our "fun" box. These activities are things we can do together. Some of the cards say things like 'take a walk', 'play an educational game' or 'watch an educational video'. I am thinking I will need some stress relief as I adjust to two kids in the classroom. These cards will be for days when we are starting to feel the pressure. Educational activities...but ones I don't need to direct. I am still working on activity cards the boys can use independently when I am working with one of them. I have found several teacher sites with 'center' activities. The problem I'm having is that most are geared for more than one child. I will need more than what I have put together at this point, but I have a few for the beginning of our year. I want to be able to say, "Go work on an independent activity" and have it be a packaged, ready to go kit.

Finally, I found a new site/catalog that I LOVE! Home Science Tools. I placed my first order this week after poring over the catalog for days. I have page after page marked for my wish list. We ordered a slide making kit for our microscope, a protozoa hatchery kit and a cool laminated photo elements chart. At the rate I'm going, I won't need the curriculum from the school! I could teach for the next 5 years with the things I already have in my classroom.....and maybe I just will.

A Little Progress

I finally forced myself to go into the classroom and begin tackling the piles. I went through everything on the floor and have one small stack left that will take a little extra thought. I also cleaned the desks and the windows and took every last thing off the bookcase! Now I have the top shelf dedicated to reference materials and the bottom will hold our current textbooks. I also ordered a new larger bookcase for my office for all the material we will use in the future. For some reason that pile has grown quite large this summer....maybe something to do with book sales? :-)

I also made a discovery. I have far too much in mind for this year. So, I pulled a few things from each pile and set them aside for 'later'. Maybe we will get to them this year, but if not, that's perfectly alright. I made 3 groups of with the remaining books. Things for JT, things for EM and things for both. History, science and Spanish will have a lot of overlap. I STILL don't have the Calvert material. I think there may be some benefit to NOT having it. I am spending more time and energy planning with the 'supplemental' things, that maybe I'll have an easier time ignoring what I feel to be the inferior material.

Finally, I took some time to put together our list of general educational goals:

1. Teach PA standards through Calvert material.
2. Provide opportunities and direction for the boys to explore their own interests.
3. Expose the boys to a wide variety of things they may not have been exposed to yet.
4. Develop a love of reading. (not a problem with JT...could be a challenge with EM)
5. Create life-long learners.

Light the fire!

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!