Oh the shame of it all. Yesterday’s post was incredibly short. I hope those of you who grow weary of our pontificating, rambling, tome-like blogging enjoyed the brief respite. Perhaps you were even able to get some work done.

Daniel was obviously mortified.

As for me, I was thoroughly rebuked. Yes, my children, those greedy paparrazzi seeking little stars cannot stand for me to post such sparse works.

“Whoa! That was a short blog, Mom.“
“Yeah, I thought maybe the computer wasn’t loading. Only one picture?”

Even David was shocked.

The little shake of the head, a pitying glance. You’re losing your touch, implied in their looks. The younger kiddos (not yet insatiable blogging readers) patted me on the arm, not really understanding the topic of the conversation but clearly recognizing the subtle rebuke coming from the older children.

This week has been incredibly busy as we throw ourselves more fully into our schooling. PE at the YMCA started back as well as my BSF classes. I feel myself being stretched as I attempt to cover all of our academic subjects, teach each of the 5 different grade levels, correct assignments, maintain high standards (“please rewrite that dictation in legible handwriting”), and somehow make school “fun.”

This is fun! Does rough housing in the garage count as school?

Thankfully, Joshua has decided to move at a more independent pace this year. I don’t know what I would do if I had to manage all of his course work in addition to the younger ones. He is a highly motivated and disciplined student. As it is, Joshua has an hour scheduled with me for geography and logic, and has to fight every day for our time.

We dealt with all sorts of discipline issues today. It was exhausting. There were tears and fussing and whining, the children had trouble as well. At one point I was pretty much prepared to cut off recess for the year.

It was not a particularly shining moment of our homeschooling day.

With five extra sets of hands around all day, I do have many helpers available to pick up the house. I feel very overwhelmed when the clutter begins to creep down the stairs, covering the floor and furniture.

It is a great delight that the children are such hard workers and so very bribable. A few pieces of candy and the entire downstairs (including laundry room with a load of sorting/washing completed) is picked up. One of these days we’ll get a house cleaning schedule in place. Right now I’m just grateful Will Work for Sugar is stamped on the kids’ foreheads.

That’s not to say they wouldn’t like me to find some other slaves helpers.

When Tim got home from work today we had a long family meeting. The first several points of business involved getting a dog or cat. Those suggestions were hurriedly shot down by Mr. and Mrs. Chairperson. Sorry kids. If you think we have trouble keeping up with things now, try adding a puppy/kitten to the mix. I shudder to think about it!

It was inexplicably rejuvenating (cathartic even) just to sit around and share some of our struggles of the day. I did my best to protect the anonymity of the children as I unloaded one difficult circumstance after another.

No need to rub their faces in the memory of the afternoon’s strife and conflict, I thought generously. This proved only so effective as the guilty child, hearing his or her “story,” would leap to his/her feet in a sudden need to use the bathroom (or get a drink, put on a band-aid, sharpen a pencil, call Grandma, really we’re a creative lot here). At the same time, several other children quickly spoke up, “I was 20 feet away, in my room, with the door closed and the radio playing.”

Daniel was wiped out by the end of our school day.

I had at least forty minutes of reading left to do with Daniel and Rachel when we interrupted our school time for the Family Huddle. As we concluded our powwow, Tim announced he was ready for dinner.

See how hard it is to get everything done in a day. Just when it looks like you are ahead (or at least not drowning), someone mentions food and the time is lost.

Maybe we’ll get to all of our subject tomorrows. Of course, they’ll probably want to eat then as well. Sigh. I think I should try out one of those flying leaps that Daniel and David have perfected out in the garage. Might take my mind off of any lingering schooling stress.

Kathy
Project 365 - Day 263

“I hear you started school Full Blast today.”

Hmmmm. Since she was sitting at the airport in Chicago, I had to wonder where my mother got that little school update. Surely CNN isn’t running stats on local homeschoolers. I can almost picture it:

“This just in, summer is now officially over as Washington homeschooling family of five begins school, full blast.”

I don’t know. Full blast sounds more like something relating to fire hydrants and stereo systems, not homeschooling. We do have our share of fights over music during the day –

“Mom! He changed my song.” “He’s heard this one 20 million, zillion times, it’s my turn to pick the play list.”

– but that happens all year round, not just during school time. And, of course, doing dishes always brings the temptation to squirt a sibling with the new faucet. Again, this is completely unrelated to homeschooling.

Our First Day of School signs definitely count as art and computer graphics studies.

It turns out there is a Full Blast Family Entertainment Center in Battle Creek, Michigan. 85000 square feet of swimming, computer games, and dancing. Impressive. There’s also a Full Blast Fitness Club in downtown Toronto.

Neither of these things sound particularly academic but then, despite reports to the contrary, we didn’t get a huge amount of schooling done ourselves. It was more like Half Blast, at which point we ended the day with a full regimen of entertainment.

Joshua picked up a friend and went to a beach outing with middle school, promising to bring a group of guys home with him (he’s considerate that way). Rachel scooted off to spend the night with the girls (anything to avoid Joshua’s sleepover). Sarah snagged the little sister of Rachel’s friends and brought her home for a visit. Daniel called up a neighbor boy and asked him over to play.

It’s obviously very important to balance a hard day of school with plenty of fun and games.

Joshua made an awesome sign, as did the rest of the crew. Sarah wants me to take a picture of her and then print it out. A print of a printed page. Cool.

Of course, even amidst a busy school day, you never know when some celebrities will drop by for a visit.

Autographs anyone?

Tomorrow, after we return all the children to their proper homes, we will attempt to get back to school.

Full Blast!!

Kathy
Project 365 - Day 248

Last weekend I said goodbye to my darling husband, adorable children and set off for the big city. Since we live in the suburbs this doesn’t have quite the dramatic flair it could have, say if we still lived out in the country. Ah well, we take our flair where we can, exaggerated if necessary.

I wrote about my search for beauty during the weekend (found it in my feet, of course) but I never blogged about the homeschool conference itself. I thought it was obvious that the conference was just an excuse to go away for the weekend, enjoy some time with an old friend and shop, but I guess I should at least write a little bit about the conference.

I would certainly be remiss if I didn’t mention one particular individual I saw at the homeschool conference - Lee Binz. Lee is an amazing woman I first “met” through an online homeschool e-mail group. Last year we visited over coffee with another loopie, Cynthia. My family has learned to accept the fact that a good portion of my “friends” and homeschool buddies are known to me only through cyber space.

I met Cynthia and Lee “in real life” at Starbucks June 2006. Nothing bonds a trio like legally addictive stimulants.

Lee homeschooled her two sons through high school, graduating them both last year. Since then she has developed a consulting business for families homeschooling high schoolers. She offers help with transcripts, scholarship search, general record keeping and assignment scheduling. Her website, The Home Scholar provides more information on these different services.

Lee also has a wonderful blog and e-mail newsletter available. Her blog features links to articles, tips, product samples and more. I highly recommend grabbing a cup of coffee (or mocha smoothie) and spending some time reading Lee’s blog. You can even listen to a radio interview of Lee and her son from Seattle’s KGNW 820 AM.

Lee and her husband had a beautiful table at the conference. They probably had the most stylish and attractive display of any of the vendors. Featured at one corner was a drawing for a lovely (huge) gift basket. At another spot they had small give-aways for the children. Everything was coordinated, the colors bright and fresh. It was a delight to look over all of Lee’s materials and talk with her about her business.

Last summer Lee came to my house and directed a course on teaching math through games, using the book, Family Math. She was an accomplished teacher and did a wonderful job. She could easily have led us through another entire workshop. Perhaps next year she will be one of the speakers at the homeschool conference as well as one of the vendors.

It was lovely to see you, Lee!

Kathy
P.S. The rest of the conference was nice too.

Too many books, games, teacher’s guides, puzzles, manipulatives, workbooks, novels, toys, magazines, computer games, books, books, books, and too little money.

Rachel and I went to a used curriculum sale this morning. She didn’t find as many treasures as I did but she was a lovely companion and good sport (especially as the hours dragged on and I continued shopping).

We ended up staying until the bitter (or sweet depending on how you look at things) end of the sale. At this point I definitely scored!! Almost all of the tables dropped their prices in half and several people started giving away their books for free. I think I got almost as many things free as I did at cost. Delightful!

I meant to spread everything out and take a picture but didn’t get around to it. Here are just a few of the things I found.

Of course, all of the homeschooling moms out there know that most/half (?) of these treasures will end up unused on my shelf. Sigh.

That doesn’t stop the glee of a good bargain and the roving eye of a curriculum junkie. Until next year!!

Kathy
Project 365 - Day 160

Sarah is obviously starved for some math study time. Look at what she pulled out and played with (for a good 30 minutes) this evening.

Perhaps other mothers wouldn’t immediately leap to the math manipulative conclusion. They might just think it sweet that their little girl has found some new toys. Some might even be grateful that the Easter decorations were out of storage and ready for use. I, however, am a homeschooling mother and my mind instantly translates these moments into school applications. In this case, preschool and kindergarten math.

Sigh, I am NOT a good kindergarten teacher. I am terrible at crafts and hands on activities. I do NOT have buckets and containers full of cool manipulatives. This site has literally 10 pages of items for sale under the math manipulatives category. I have deep envy for other homeschoolers who are gifted in this area.

My math manipulative sense is heightened because this afternoon I was talking about math with another homeschooling mom and she mentioned how much her children are enjoying their new program (I believe it was Right Start Math) and all the creative ways it approaches math. Homeschooling moms have a perverse desire to talk about curriculum with other moms - it usually leads to some online shopping and, if you aren’t careful, a serious inferiority complex as the ‘curriculum is always more engaging on the other side of the homeschooling fence.’

Thankfully I stumbled across an article on creative (i.e. CHEAP) math manipulatives. It’s already late (I do my blogging in the evening when the distractions are in bed) but I immediately wanted to do further searching for other handmade manipulatives. I think I just like typing out the word manipulatives. It has such a great ring to it.

I have to be careful or I spend all my time reading and researching about interesting, creative curriculum choices but never actually do any teaching.

It doesn’t exactly look as if Sarah is suffering with her Easter egg manipulatives but I still might start praying for some good spring garage sales or a used curriculum sale (perfect places to pick up these type of things).

Kathy