Back to school

We enjoyed our break but it was time to get back into school today. I think everyone was ready, but we are still keeping a day free this week for a visit from Grandma.

We are studying electricity and magnetism and yesterday I read half of a biography of Nikola Tesla and started preparing questions for the kids so that they can begin reading when they are finished with the current chapter in their science book.

What a story!

His life was characterized by both his amazing mind and his equally hard challenges socially, including not being able to assertively stand up for himself. He was a sensitive and smart person who seemed much less macabre than most stories seem to depict him. I think part of that whole persona was what partly affected him socially as well. The idea that he was a wizard made people take him even less seriously, but he was truly amazing. He predicted television and sound waves and he invented alternating current, which is what we use in homes today. Edison had invented direct current, which was more costly and less safe. The book discussed a bit about why Edison did not want to jump on the alternating current bandwagon - but not only that - it became a personal vendetta against seeing Tesla become successful. Edison created a very damaging public campaign against alternating current so that he and his direct current wouldn't become obsolete and lose $$. Ahhh, the psyche of an American tycoon.

For hands on lab, the kids have been also working with their snap circuit set and learning about that basics there, as well. They love it!

I have my oldest delving even deeper in her social studies unit by reading the biography of Sojourner Truth. I am really trying to make the hardships of slavery a reality because it's something that I believe is sort of glossed over. Once again, I'm able to stress and dig more deeply into topics I feel are very important in history. Hopefully, I can raise critical thinkers who have an accurate view of history and can make sound judgement in the present day and for the future as well.

Chill out!

Read it here

I definitely felt this from Jesus last week and this is in all total seriousness. Hormones can be serious business.  Nothing ever felt like it was enough and I was ready to give up! Then I heard it to my soul. Chill out. I realized that they are learning so much everyday but the pace needs to work for us. I don't need to outpace public school and a child can have a scholarly mind and not care for others. I need to not freak out and then fail modeling my very own values to the kids. Kindness, gentleness...direction rather than condemnation to their hearts.

Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. Colossians 3:21

Being a mom that does many of the things listed in this article...feed baby mushed up food vs jar, cloth diaper for first year, teaching kids to sew, homeschooling and baking from scratch and cooking 95% of meals, I think maybe other moms think I'm "that" mom. Goodness golly, I hope not. I say the F word, I get grumpy and I hate my existence sometimes. There. Now we are equal.

Shall I go on???

Seriously. We "homeschooling" moms don't think we put together, so don't think that about us. If anything, our frailties seem to be put on display to ourselves. We're in a bubble. We struggle with isolation. These are real struggles. Yet, it is OUR decision. Don't tell us "you'd never do that" as if the decision was stupid, our beyond ability of a sane person. Because we're already fighting that idea. Sometimes more than others.

Parenting is hard, folks. Do you ever have any idea how hard before you become one to make an educated guess either way. No. So don't judge those with kids. And don't judge those who choose not to have kids.

Seriously.

Don't judge public school, homeschool...

Don't judge yourself. Life is a continuum and no state of mind, bad habit, or anything else is eternal, nor can separate us from God's love.

Just some encouragement that I felt fit well with my experience this last month with my emotions, mistakes, and contemplation.

Fall Break!!!

We are enjoying our fall break!

Meanwhile, we ordered this: http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-SC-100-Snap-Circuits-Jr/dp/B00008BFZH/ref=pd_sim_t_1

Snap circuits should be here today and we will be ready to talk more about currents. We're also going to discuss Tesla - his life, his contributions, and how he is somehow ignored in every science book. Not sure why he is ignored, but my kids are going to learn about his genius a little bit.

I'm planning on having the kids mount some of their poetry from our poetry unit and make a fall-themed display when we start back.

We are also going to talk more about the history of our country. A Young People's History of the United States is anything but tame, but I am going to try to find some things to give the children a broad picture of how life was vastly different for the classes and how life was pre and post slavery. Being poor is not deviance, but kids are taught from a young age that you control your own destiny. This can be true, but is also a bit of myth as well. Ken Burns is also doing a special on the Dust Bowl coming up on PBS and we will talk even more about the poor farming practices of the early settlers whose only concern was the immediate bottom line. What a costly error. Again, we see history repeating itself today in energy and agriculture. ie. genetic engineering, use of pesticides, etc. This is all apart of my plan to teach them to think critically and try to be observant of patterns in behavior that societies tend towards. In this way, they can hopefully become civic minded and engaged. 

But this is all mixed into plenty of "being a kid" time which is valued a lot around here!

We are reading through The Action Bible for devotion that I purchased last year. I really love this graphic representation. The artists did a great job!

It's a bit above my younger son's head, but he still likes the other devotions we have that are more to the point with questions and a verse to contemplate. He is full of questions and ideas but he is also still literal, which makes for some funny questions. 

non-traditional week

The public school will soon be taking two solid weeks off for fall break. I use these times as a guide to allow our little school some breaks. I definitely needed it. Some days I really don't feel I have my sanity left. It isn't school so much as it is the particular stages that each child is currently in. Baby is still clingy. We also found out she is a bit low-iron and I think it makes her tired and more grumpy than normal (I know how she feels, as I am also low iron etc, etc.)

We took Monday and Tuesday "off", even though we actually did activities. I think I am going to call it like it is, "unschooling". Unschooling weeks can be even more hectic, draining, and just more "busy" as they are *doing* things. I spent all afternoon Tuesday with ALLL the kids in the kitchen looking over shoulders as they learned to bake a cake from scratch. Measuring, pouring, stirring, and following directions is NOT something to take for granted as a skill. Making your way around a kitchen can save them thousands of dollars and their health in the process as we talk about healthy choices (I hope I am never audited on this claim because I seriously doubt we are "healthy". Maybe just not "unhealthy".).

It really is a priority for them to learn to take care of themselves and all three of them have a passion for cooking, baking, and fixing food. It's really wonderful.

So we did that.

And then today we spent houuurssss once again learning how to draft a plan, cut out a pattern, and stitch (properly).

For my eldest it was a lesson that has taken many tries to accomplish. Slowww down. Learn it. Take direction. Lose the attitude. Those are things we struggle with. But, you know what? She did it! She asked for help, she got frustrated a few times, but she kept at it and completed a project correctly.

I am proud.

My eldest son made his little creation more interesting but he was getting tired and some of it was learning even more types of stitches since he mastered the blanket stitch. It is just easy to mess up and these exercises are great for learning focus.

A really great visual resource

This morning I am looking for some videos to help the kids understand symbiosis, a concept that their science book only called "helping each other".

I think they should know the term and watching some short videos would go much better than hearing a lecture.

I came across THIS!!!!

It is organized by topic

Are you kidding? This is awesome!

http://www.watchknowlearn.org/Category.aspx?CategoryID=3091

More resources and thoughts on grading

OK, I need to some free time, so I am going to try to make this snappy. Excuse the editing if I miss a run-on sentence or something.

In a nutshell, this week was a challenge. I think it was only a challenge in my mind. I think we are all disengaging from the culture of trying to be just like public school at home and realizing that things are just different at home. A conversation that I have with an inquisitive child that only happens because he has the time and energy to even think and ask me these questions counts as learning. What grade can you put on a learner's spirit. I'm wondering about grades right now and I find myself questioning the idea of grading entirely.

I remember the program that we as parents were allowed to log on in real time and check the exact assignments our kids did and what grades they received in public school. First, I realized in a whole quarter of a year for my "high ability" student, that there were literally only a handful of things that were graded. A handful of things, people! I have no idea what he did all day, but I have a feeling that she was more like me than anything. She loves sparking curiosity and if I were to wager, the projects that they did were graded on a rubric, but a very kind rubric. I think she felt the students were successful if they were engaging and participating. She set the whole classroom up like that. No rows of students staring at a teacher gabbing all day...this is what I grew up with and it's hard to imagine what her classroom was like, I just know that it did not consist of rote memory work and classical drills all day. They were discussing, exploring, reading, researching, and doing things. She  personally developed the high-ability curriculum for the school and has I'm sure her very own philosophies on  how to make a child successful and how to engage the thinking skills in her students. But, the idea that I should have hundreds of graded worksheets assessing the smarts of my kid for all to see just kind of turns me off, and I think she got that, too. As a dear friend said of her child who was diagnosed with learning disabilities, "We like to create more successes than failures."

Shouldn't that be true with anyone?

Now, my fifth grader also had less work than expect, but her grades were tallied at the very tail end of the quarter with little to no explanation. When I looked at her work I felt that the problems did not allow for a small misunderstanding of material. In other words, there wasn't much work that was actually graded, and when it was, if you made a mistake, it was a weighty mistake because of it. I know she was kind of upset that work she would have spent a whole night on was not actually even read or graded. "OK" was marked on the top showing that the teacher recognized she did her homework - it was just that. Home work...not to be actually graded and applied to her final grade. I have a hunch that this is somehow because many students simply don't do their homework anymore and assigning it is a way to seem like you're actually doing school, when in reality, the kids that didn't do it, simply don't get a sticker that day. Dumb. And it wasn't teaching my daughter that doing your work actually matters. So she began to not take it as seriously and she would lose her work sometimes. This was simply unheard of in my day. In fact, NO ONE ever DIDN'T do their work. That would have been punishable with a detention and a bad grade.

So I'm grading work but also letting myself recognize all of these valuable moments during the day that they are learning and their simply isn't a grade you can put on it. With that said, one of the my top objectives is to get them test ready and ACT/SAT proficient. Which means reading comprehension skills, and learning math techniques that will be helpful to solve harder problems. We will also be working a little more with word problems than I think the public school does.

As promised, here is a list of more resources that we are using:

Each child has a Spectrum Math book which covers the testable core objectives for that year. In addition we are using this text for my sixth grader:



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0967991595/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_9?ie=UTF8&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

I will also start using this for my third grader soon when I feel he is comfortable with all the things he needed to learn in his fourth grade text (jumped up for high ability last year in public school).

We use these for grammar practice:





For English we are also encouraging lots of reading and we have already done a big project in relation to science where each of the two older kids did a presentation on any living thing that they wanted to do. They had to list which kingdom and other classification information, habitat, human interaction, challenges, diet, etc.

Sis did a presentation on sharks and brother did a presentation on European Glass Lizards. It was cute and fun. They both had to use proper grammar and also learned how to research and start remembering how to organize web pages and such for works cited.

Owl Pellet Photo Journal

Today we took out the owl pellet that we had bought on a homeschool shopping trip with my friend awhile back. I wanted to wait until we had finished our chapter on ecosystems which also covers adaptations.

We will also be working on chapters coming up that have to do with anatomy, so it was a perfect linking exercise into that as well.

The owl pellet itself is an ecosystem for smaller insects like a moth - interesting! The pellet had a guaranteed entire skeleton of a starling bird inside. 

The following is a photo-journal experience of the kids opening up the pellet and finding the feathers and the bones of the starling. 

Starling skull

Brother trying to determine a bone part. 

Brother sketching the bird claw and making observations...

Piecing the skull and vertebrae together with the hip bone.