Field Trip/Orienteering.

We went on a field trip yesterday, our last official field trip of the year, I guess, although our group doesn't mind doing a few field trips during the summer months. We went to a local park/ forest and did a class on orienteering.  As a mom, my job was just basically to walk along behind, but every now and then, I'd say "Hey, I think maybe you guys are off track" and get them re-grouped.  I have the gift of yelling pretty loudly and could get their attention a bit easier than the soft-spoken park ranger.  It was pretty fun, but not as good as the "Bring a Book to Life" program we did there last fall.  We were very lucky, this time, to go on one of the very few days this spring that it didn't rain.  On field trip days we don't do any additional school work. 

This and that on a Monday.

Various things are running through my mind today.  I may (fingers crossed) finally be beating this illness off on my own with no assistance whatsoever from the medical community.  Yesterday, for the first time in 2 weeks my fever was 99.8 instead of ranging between 100 and 101.  Woohoo.  I'm still having a lot of back pain but I suspect that is because our mattress really, really needs to be replaced.  Since I am an un-reformable stomach sleeper, it seems to affect me more than my husband.  I even slept on my stomach while pregnant! 

Also running through my mind is a question about the hours of school on the Homeschool Lounge.     How many hours of school are too many or too few?   How may hours of actual instruction do the public school kids get each day?  How many hours are spent waiting for others to finish, waiting for others to go to the bathroom, lining up, etc?  I don't know the answers to these questions.   I've heard people say that school kids get an average of 15-20 minutes of instruction each day, but I don't know if I believe that. I think they probably get more.   What my husband did with the math was select the books he wanted the kids to complete this year and then divided the number of lessons by the number of days of school and decided how much they should do each day.  I work out different things for the different types of materials that I have them use, with books, a chapter or lesson each day, with DVD or computer lessons its usually a lesson each day.   When they are done with their lesson, they are done.  They don't have to wait for the other kids in their class to get done.  When they finish their schoolwork, they don't have screen time, so they have to spend the afternoon doing something else, besides video games.  This leads them usually to all kinds of activities that could be counted as school, playing guitar, drawing, sewing,, exercising outside and reading, reading, reading.

I was reading on the homeschool lounge about second graders doing 6 hours of sitting down, writing and book work and I don't think that's appropriate. If you have a little kid, take the 6 hours and give the kid 1 hour of outdoor play for recess (this is longer than the schools get, but it is the amount that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends). So now you're down to 5 hours.  Take off at least half an hour for lunch - the schools do. ( 4 1/2).  Do some art.  (3 1/2)  Do a a nature walk. (3)  Listen to some music. (2 1/2)  Watch an educational DVD (2).  REad a book together.  (1 1/2)  Then in the 1 1/2 you have left, do seat work, writing, workbooks, etc.  Or you could mix them up a bit and do the bookwork interspersed with the more fun, active things.   Okay, down off my soapbox now.

Donna asked about my oldest son's plans for next year and it seems that he doesn't really have any.  He needs to finish school, re-take his ACT which he will do in June and get his driver's license.  Then, he's probably going to try and get a job to help pay for college and in the fall be balancing working and studying.  He's leaning towards taking classes at an online school because he doesn't want to have to go to classes.  He came out of the public schools in 5th grade with a desire to never, ever set foot in a traditional classroom again and I see his point.  He's used to working on his own.  As for the other 2 kids, the ones we'll still be homeschooling, I'm starting to hatch all kinds of plans for the fall in my head.  Against my expectations, I'm getting excited about homeschooling again. 

I think

that during it's difficulties, Blogger has deleted at least one of my blog posts.  Being me, of course, I have no idea what it was about so I can't really replace it.  They said on their blog that they were going to replace it, but they haven't yet.  It may wind up above this one and be really confusing, but I guess we'll see.  Oh wait, I remember it now!.  It was about how we only have 12 days left of school this year.  Now it's 11, counting the rest of today. Another year down.  It's been smoother than most, I think, because everyone's growing up and taking more responsibility for their own work and not whining so much. 

Speaking of smoothness, I have not had a smooth day at work today.  Somehow the IP address settings got messed up and I couldn't transmit my work.  I've got it going now but it's 5 o'clock in the afternoon and I'm still working.  I'm almost done though.  Finally. 

In addition, on the other blog post that was lost, I had a link to this site, Free Homeschooling 101.  The archives on this site are wonderful so go and check it out.  There's a ton of stuff there. 

Twelve Days.

We've got 12 days of school left this year, as my grandma used to say, "Lord willing and the creek don't rise."   That is, if we can avoid the flu, strep, ear infections and the like.  What this means is, that really we need to decide whether to have a graduation party of some sort for my oldest son.  The tradition in my mom's side of the extended family is to have a big party for graduation, serve a huge meal and invite everyone, uncles, aunts, grandparents, first cousins once removed, etc.  My son doesn't want to have such a big deal so we may just take him out to eat or just have a smaller scale version at home.  At some point in the next 12 days, we should probably discuss this.  Today, I've got the day off from work so I will be working on the house this morning (if I ever start, but, hey, blogging comes first,right? Priorities!) and then this afternoon, I've got to take my oldest son out to the local retirement community where he is doing 10 hours of volunteer work so that he can qualify to go to youth group camp this summer.  He's been washing windows for the elderly residents who are responsible for cleaning the windows, but most of them are not physically able to do it.  They all think he's wonderful and that he cleans like "Mr Clean".  Unfortunately, we don't see much evidence of that here at home, but maybe there's hope for him yet. 

You might have noticed that I added a new link to my blog over in the sidebar. It's for  Free Homeschooling 101 and she has got a TON of great links there.  I've tried to do things like this a couple of times, but it is a lot of work to find sites and link them.  Look in the sidebar, she's got links to Free Biology, Free Chemistry, Free Physics, Free Unit Studies .. the list goes on and on and on.  Bookmark this so you can share it with people who wonder if they can afford to homeschool in this horrible economy.  Who doesn't love free stuff? 

A free download from CurrClick.

Homeschool Advice book written by kids now available for free download at CurrClick.com: "Homeschooling Advice For Moms From the Real Experts, KIDS!

In March of 2011, in the face of an abundance of homeschooling advice written by adults, Currclick put forth a challenge to homeschoolers far and wide.  The challenge seemed simple on the surface – to write an advice column about how to homeschool a child written by the homeschooled children themselves.  Many kids stepped up to this challenge and the result of their efforts should be required reading for all homeschool parents! Enjoy and be inspired by the heartfelt, thoughtful, and practical advice penned by these extraordinary homeschoolers.

There are many books written by adults and homeschool veteran parents about homeschooling. But don’t people need to know what kids think? We believe so! In this fantastic, inspiring and informative collection of short stories written by homeschool kids, you'll find all sorts of amazing homeschool tips and advice from the real experts ... the kids!

Click here to download both volumes for free!

 I've just started reading the one written by kids age 12-18 and here's one kid's advice.

"Challenge Students.  Give them a loving push! Challenge your students to try harder
problems and encounter new ideas on their own. Don’t give them all
the answers because that won’t help them, it can only hurt them – allow
them to think for themselves. Struggling with problems disciplines
the student in becoming problem solvers. Before I can ask my mom for
help, she tells me to first try and figure it out independently. At times it
is frustrating, yet I always feel great when I solve something on my own."

Not the best.

I'm still not feeling the best.  I still have some abdominal/back pain and a slight fever, though they both seem to be a bit better.  The fever is in the 99.2 range now, much better than last week's 101.  Still, I'm managing to get some things done.  I've worked every day since I don't have paid time off.  The kids keep doing school.  We've got the garden mostly set out and some flowers in the front flower bed.  We still don't have the wardrobe from Ikea put the rest of the way together and filled up and it's blocking half the kitchen.  Maybe tomorrow?  Sigh. 

I've got to admit.

I enjoyed waking up and being pampered on Mother's Day even though I whined about another holiday so soon.   Today, though, I really am glad that it is (and hope that it continues to be) just an ordinary Monday with work, school and hopefully getting something done.  I haven't been up long enough to know how my back/side/abdominal pain is going to be.  It's not hurting at this moment.  (fingers crossed).   It hurt a lot yesterday and consequently, I did not do much of anything.  Today, I'd like to get my garden set out.  It's pretty small so it shouldn't take long.   We've  already got 5 or 6 pumpkin vines around the front walk that just grew there, probably from last year's jack-o-lantern carving..  (This picture is one of last year's pumpkins).  I have some ideas for what I eventually want my yard to look like.  I want to gradually move into more perennials and more edible landscaping.  I really want to plant some raspberries, grapes and blackberries around the outside of the yard.  Now if I can just feel like doing any of it ...

Happy Mother's Day!

I whined about it yesterday because it's another holiday weekend, but today I got up and my dishes were washed and I had flowers and a card and chocolate and now I'm quite pleased that we're having another holiday so soon.  :-)