Day 4 = one for the failbooks

Remember what I said about homeschooling in the bedroom?
Yeah, it's all that bad.

We made it through 2 subjects each? As a test of our flexibility it was pretty darn telling.

Is there hope? With training, I think so.

Tomorrow we're back in safer territory, no word from the contractors, so if they show, I'll send them home. I'm not particularly worried about tjat possibility.

So, where did we find learning today? Mostly in the area of our group dynamic. Some of us can do writing intensive work ONLY in the mornings. Also, if the little one isn't in the mood to work, if his environment isn't carefully constructed for education, he just won't. And once he falls, the rest go with him.

No surprises, just a desperate hope that we can cope with interruptions.

As I said, there's hope.

It's really nice that the cyber school's calendar doesn't start till tomorrow?

Fragile schedules

Day three dawned tired and uncertain. Our contractors haven't finished installing the backsplash tile over the counter, so our usual workspace is full of the counter's contents. For the first couple of days, since they are almost done, i gave the kids a day off and we worked on the novels we're reading together. (A post for another day)

Unfortunately, they didn't complete the grout on Friday, and further breaks are just a bad idea. We moved upstairs to the kids bedroom. Not ideal, but comfy and roomy enough for all our materials and bodies.

Our morning was also disrupted by sloppy sleep schedules over the weekend. And we all woke up very late.

All in all the result was poor. We skipped our morning work. We made it through half the school day. I climbed up and down the bunk bed and was generally more in the way than usual. People were sleepy and hungry way too frequently. And we had i fight for progress.

I did learn a couple of useful things- i can completely navigate the day without my own laptop. The lesson plan books are delightfully complete from supply lists for the day and broken down stepwise. Also, school at the table is just necessary for now.

Hope your day went better than mine!

And we ride the waves!

Today? A good day.
We all seem about on the same page as far as lessons go. Persephone is one day ahead of the boys. Her curriculum seems to flow the most smoothly. Also, she finds the "sharing mom" aspect of this whole experience much easier. Her Calvert curriculum requires a lot more writing than the boys' Lincoln curricula, so I know we will see everyone waxing and waning in the schedule.

I've got the week laid out in pencil, so I can adjust as we go along.

Today's success came from being ready to go on time. In fact, Havoc decided to start a little early. He's got a brand new video game and this is lighting a fire under his bottom.
I also gave up on the idea of keeping everyone on the same subject at the same time. Just letting things flow naturally seems to be the best. Why I didn't decide to do it that way in the first place, I can't tell you. Actually, I can. I'm just scared of getting behind. Working at our own pace in the past has really meant not paying any attention to completing the material over the course of a year. It's been nothing but bad. But, maintaining a good track of everyone's lessons with this nicely portioned out curriculum is really easy. I might be able to relax about trying to run science and math at the same time and not lose my place.

The other nice aspect is there's a checklist at the beginning of each lesson in the planning manual. I can just check stuff off as it's completed or read. I've lost my place a few times and been saved by this.

I'm really glad we're working with the self-paced materials. I think the virtual classroom might have had some fun aspects, but my moody little people would have either gotten way too excited or zoned out or both. This way the teacher-me-is right there to notice when the wheels are turning and when they've spun off in another direction.

Let's just hope for more good days.

Crashed

More like stalled.
We got up on time, but were dragging this morning. I think the kids need an alarm clock.
Then getting started was hard.
Then one lesson really sucked.
Then a book never got here.
Boom, it's was the end of the day and only about half of the material wasn't covered.

Ugh.

Tomorrow's a new day. And we started a week and a half early, so all the work we get done now is "work ahead."
We'll just spend the evening relaxing and reading, maybe playing rockband 3. (woo hoo! music)

We Did It!

One full school day performed as scheduled!
This doesn't sound as exciting as all that, but it really is a first for us. All subjects covered in a day? Yeah, we really have lacked that.
To the right are my stealth homeschool room decorations. Just a little schedule so the kids can see what's coming and our calendar and weather chart. Not a big deal. They worked very well.
We still have lots of things to work out. Hawthorne aparently is DONE with school at 2 pm. No more of this following directions or using his brain. Certainly he either needs a substantial break or to start earlier. I only hope we can find a solution that doesn't stretch our day out into late afternoon. We all have lives!

Today's schedule went smoothly, I got up, lesson planned, hit the gym and everybody was just getting up and finishing breakfast.
Cross my fingers that we can do it all again tomorrow

Testing the phone post

No way to post a photo?

My hanging stuff is ready, the kids are still asleep. Hopefully i can get their materials together quickly when i get back from the gym!

Inservice day

It's a bit early, but I needed the day to untangle how we're going to juggle three schedules and what I need to make in order to really be able to pull this off. Also the kids friends start school on Monday or Tuesday, and everybody's eager to spend as much energy as possible. Win-Win situation. They all went to a friend's house until 3 oclock!

After sorting and reading for a few hours I feel more on top of things.
I've ascertained that there isn't a formal spelling list for the non-spelling sixth grader. A problem quickly solved by the internet.
I need to dig out a couple of old cork boards for the "word wall" and weather charts and make a space for the calendars. Also one kid has morning work and the others don't so I have a schedule hole to file. Hooray for missing spelling and other projects I'd like to work on. I think I'm also going to make re-arrangeable subject hang cards so the kids can see what they're day's going to look like at a glance. And I'm going to hide this all on the backs of the doors to the coat closet, so we can put school away. My house is just a little too small to have a dedicated school room.

I need to talk to the Calvert teacher. Persephone's assignments in composition are a big deal and there's a very strong formal requirement. I hope it's not a big part of the grade. She loves to be formal, but I'm worried that she'll get caught up in that and will neglect content. I'm sure a short conversation will make me feel better. I really wish there was a Lincoln curriculum for her. The material in Calvert is excellent, but it's more formal than I like. Formality for a year won't hurt, probably.

All I know is our days are going to be full full full.

Day 2ish?

Wailing. Gnashing of teeth. Rending of garments...

The first part of the day was good. But we had a guest and the cleaning ladies were coming and organized school with lesson plans really weren't in the cards.

We were playing Eurorails and the kids were working on their own to figure out reading the map (sometimes we help) and calculate the best advantage of routes and payoffs.

Then we dug out our spelling words in order to play a matching game and create some study aids.
All good stuff. But now I'm still wanting my weekend preparation and digging out Havoc's spelling words is harder than I thought it would be and...

Yeah, same old same old.

As soon as I had that sorted enough to move on, it was time for lunch and our "recess" (read as kids, spend 30 minutes outside!)
OK
and then the wailing began. Suffice it to say, that excitement about school they were feeling as the boxes upon boxes arrived has evaporated in the light of spelling lists and math facts and essays.

We all had a long talk about school and the things they preferred about Edgewood Elementary, the teachers, the kids, the classroom. And it was very productive. Perseph loved the visual lessons her teacher presented and the fact that her math book was a workbook as well. That's too bad as a fourth grade math book is almost never a workbook and this particular curriculum is the only self paced one for this school. However, I think we can make things more interactive. Assuming I get a handle on lesson planning!
We have friends who can act as emissaries to friends at school whose numbers we didn't catch. Arranging outings and inviting friends over should be simple once we rectify those situations.
None of their concerns are very difficult and in general, everybody is ok with working with me to make this all work.

I just really liked the kids saying "When can we start school!!!!!!"

Day 1

I'm scrambling to get my planning done. I still don't know what each kid needs for each day and with three different curricula I've got to do the work times three!

As long as I can accept that today is not going to be a "regular day" but more of an exploration of the materials and classes.

So, for now, I need to plan an hour before school to get our materials ready. Hopefully as the process streamlines, I can get more help from the kids on this.

Havoc's working on his pre-class behavioral expectations lesson-no plagiarism, be nice on the message boards, read lessons carefully and answer to the best of your ability...
Persephone's listening to her first arts lesson and eager to get working on serious school.
Hawthorne's working through online spelling and math videos. Hopefully we won't get into trouble with him doing this out of order.

And I'm madly looking through all the books to plan day 1! yikes.

Hubbub and confusion

Unfortunately these have been a part of our homeschool life from the beginning. And a force to be reckoned with.
Getting all the computers set up and making sure everything is working. Browsers, logins, software.
Making sure we have all our books, paper, pens, manipulatives, boards, etc. And the right ones for each day.
Getting a solid schedule, waking up on time, eating a good breakfast, knowing what's for lunch, making sure friends know not to call during school time.
Managing regular distractions like computer games we'd like to be playing and books we'd like to be reading.

Getting into new habits like daily journals, homework and reading time.
Finding outside activities that are fun and will keep our education fun and ongoing.

Today's day 1 for us, officially. I hope it gets easier.

Floating out in space

We're still waiting the final batches of school materials. The children are each in their own curriculum, one appropriate for second, fourth and 6th grades.

Persephone's in particular is the Calvert curriculum, which required a placement test. We finished that right up, without our usual delay in scanning and sending or finding a stamp! But, it needed to be graded in order for her school materials to be "unlocked".

So, when the Little Lincoln box for Hawthorne and the Lincoln interactive subject boxes for Havoc arrived a week ago, we still weren't ready to start. I had hoped, vaguely that the 5-10 day window would be more like 5 days and less like 10. We can always dream, can't we? We're just waiting for fedex to show up with Persephone's materials.

Never fear, over the summer we've been working on dragging including my kids in my re-read of the Robert Jordan books in hope that we'll finish by the time the last one is published by Brandon Sanderson early next year? We've been getting into our school habits by mommy dropping all things non-kid and reading or lesson planning or playing games with only the children. We've read 1 and a half of the 13 available books so far. At an hour a day we might get done by the publication date? Maybe? They certainly have having a good time getting into theories and speculation about all the crazy characters and plots. Children after my own heart!

Improvement on previous attempts to home school- when I say "school time" is from 9-3 I never get an objection to leaving video games and calling friends for a bit later. I've very pleased.

Administrivia

A term I've stolen from a librarian friend. Today was the epitome of the first day of school. Getting the tech to work, reading the code of conduct and setting up expectations, workout out where we'll sit and how we'll make sure everybody's heard and can work together.

Thankfully, this doesn't count as a day of education and when we get sick of it, we can take a break to walk to the library or something.

I saw a tweet about homeschool, it was clearly from a teenager, talking about how homeschooling was dumb, you need the time to build memories with your friends. It's really funny, that's not at all how I remember school. All my friends of any depth were part of my extracurricular activities. School was a time spent not getting in trouble, making sure I got my reading and work done and listening to endless lessons.

My kids recount their days at public school in a similar way. Heck, my kids even came home to me for months saying they couldn't get their school chum's phone numbers because they weren't allowed to ask during school. I was stunned.

We do have to work a little bit harder to keep in touch with those school friends. It's true. But we find them at our activities and at the library sometimes, not to mention friends from our immediate neighborhood who we see every day. In a place where nobody is saying "you shouldn't socialize." By home schooling, or in our case working on school work at home, we're eliminating the "you shouldn't" from interactions with friends. If they want to work on assignments with their friends, they're welcome to-in an environment where a stressed out teacher is not trying to make sure the entire class is not disrupted by friendly work chatter.

I know all this setup stuff is a bit annoying, but we'll be done with it today. Our materials have mostly arrived, excepting the Calvert materials for Persephone. I think I'll hunt down some low stress writing exercises for her. She's never had to do any substantial writing work, and now she's enrolled in a writing based curriculum.

The nuts and the bolts of starting up

I just had a lovely chat with the IS. I have a lot of reading to do. Tomorrow we'll all go through the get started materials. It's nice to have a direct line and an invitation to call whenever I have questions. What a difference!

I just had a discussion with the kids about language, music and extra curriculars. Hopefully I can find a good balance of stuff to do and money to do it with. I'll be keeping an eye out for free activities. We like free.

New School Year!

After a year and a half too long of public school, we're back in control of our own education. We're going with PA Cyber this time. They're very promising. With several curriculum options for each grade, no necessity of playing games with our records, and a closer relationship with the educational coordinator and no illusions about who is actually implementing the education of my children.

I've collected folders, copied out ID's etc and I'm sitting down with the online materials. Summer is officially over! Well, summer break, that is. I look forward to enjoying each season fully-school in session or not.

The instructional supervisor called me this morning, all our materials are released for us to explore fully.

I'm more than a little nervous. We had to spend those months in brick and mortar school catching up on the RRR's because we'd done a terrible job with the basics. I am not willing to go back to that. I simply don't trust a school with the care and feeding of my kids, keeping them safe from bullies, or to keep then engaged. It was quite clear that kids who didn't make a fuss really didn't get individual attention, no matter how good and well meaning the teachers were. But, the structure worked miracles with my kids. And structure is a subject where I fail each and every time.

What's different this time?
The kids are used to studying spelling, grammar, writing, structure, math, etc. They're a year and a half older and that much easier to manage. And I've seen what happens when my ultimate consequence kicks in-we are not happy in brick and mortar school. We've found a charter school option that's better suited to our needs- we can self pace and, if it becomes necessary, we can use a virtual classroom to bring in the influence of an outside instructor. PA Cyber doesn't have perfect flexibility- we can't switch back and forth at will, but the options are all there for us.