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.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
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 ondragging 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.
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
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.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The past week has been very un-schooly with hikes in the mountains and through monuments, writing novels together, and exploring the food of many cultures.
Today we're using the Saxon, kidsflash and abc reader books again. More organized, but a little less fun.
The kids are trying to join me in participating in National Novel Writing Month so we'll be doing a lot of writing!
Today we're using the Saxon, kidsflash and abc reader books again. More organized, but a little less fun.
The kids are trying to join me in participating in National Novel Writing Month so we'll be doing a lot of writing!
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