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Sunday, May 27, 2012

Wow.

Curious Boy's Book of Adventure

This is the latest book my youngest son is reading. It's about building treehouses, learning to fish, safe ways to build a fire and make S'mores and various other things. He's really enjoying it and has been scouting the area around our house for the perfect treehouse tree. Yesterday, he said that a book he had read recently said to put down the video games, turn off the TV and do some fun stuff. He said "I already have all day long to do fun stuff because I don't have screen time." I asked him if he was glad we did screen time the way we do and he said that he was, because if we allowed him to play video games all day long, he would and he'd miss all the coolest stuff. Wow, validation on screen time control policies from my baby. They really are growing up.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Shopping success?!

My daughter and I went to the store to look for something for her to wear in the Easter concert. We have to wear black bottoms and white tops. We found a really cute ensemble for her in only a couple of hours, only 4 stores, 1 parking place, which I think may be a miracle. :-) It's a black flowered swishy skirt and a white gauzy blouse. It's adorable. As for me, I'm going to try and borrow a white shirt from a friend and wear my black pants, not as cute, but then I'm kind of old and with a few exceptions, cute marches on ... :-P

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Murphy's Law?

It's not been the best day. Not terrible, just kind of annoying. I got up feeling all dizzy and went to the doctor thinking I probably had an inner ear infection. I had one maybe 6 months ago with the same symptoms and she treated it with an antibiotic and I got better. This time, she only gave me an anti-dizziness pill. Since my dizzy episodes only last about 5 minutes or less and this pill is for the symptom, not the underlying cause, I don't know that it's gonna help. Then I came back home and had to finish work. I had a particularly irritating, really, really long report ended up being 7 pages, single spaced typed and at the end, he said that he wasn't sure why he'd been consulted because this patient's problems were outside his specialty. I still get paid for it, but otherwise, what a waste of time. Then I took the kids to youth group, ran a bunch of errands, came home and spilled an entire gallon of tea when I was trying to get it out of the fridge. The towels we used to clean it up are in the washing machine right now and I am going to relax quietly for 1 hour before bed. Sigh.

Homeschooling Advice.

1. Try it. You might enjoy it. It might change your life. It might not be your thing, but you won't know if you don't ever try.

2. Find out what your state (or country) requires, the bare minimum. Do this and then with the rest of it, have fun with it. It doesn't have to be all serious and it doesn't have to look like the inside of a classroom. You're at home. Relax. Play. Read. Learn together. Enjoy your kids. They grow up way too fast.

3. Don't let a written curriculum boss you around. If it works, great. If it's not working for you, throw it out. If only parts of it work, use those and throw the rest out. It's not the boss of you. When shopping for curriculum, read reviews. Try to go somewhere where you can actually hold the book in your hands and look through it. Print out a sample day or week and try and implement it or borrow it before buying. It's kind of hit and miss buying books without being able to see them.

4. Find a homeschool support group. Or two. If you can't find one in real life, find one online. Get support where ever you can.

5. Make a mess now and then. Go outside and put some mentos in coke. Make alka-seltzer rockets. Make some great art. Make a timeline and a map. Grow some borax crystals. Use levers to lift things. Make a trebuchet out of whatever you can find around the house.

6. Go on as many field trips as you can.

The point of this blog.

"there is a theme, if you read, you'll get a growing conviction that homeschooling is a lifestyle that is worthwhile, that it is extremely good for kids and families, that it promotes bonding, is a personalized education that is superior to what you can get anywhere else for your kids, is fun and can be done even if you have a 400 track mind, no math skills (thankfully my husband does though), through working, job changes, bad hair days, home remodeling, deaths, illness, surgery, broken bones and various other things and it actually makes dealing with these things easier, not harder, than it was when we were in the public schools, because homeschooling is so incredibly flexible. That's the point I've been trying to make for the last 5 years or so."