Day 47

Last night at the moms meeting, we talked about how long we've been homeschooling and how we started. There were 4 ladies besides me last night. We have about 4 more that couldn't make it. So we have a variety of methods, curricula, and "years of service" in our group. One lady was even homeschooled herself. I think we'll add her mom to the group.

We also talked about getting into college and high school transcripts and diplomas. We talked about staying in our pajamas all day and how our kids can tell we're going out or someone is coming to dinner because of the level of clean in the house and the amount of food we're cooking. It was just so nice. I've never felt like anyone was against what I do, but I've never felt like people can really understand it. Most people seem to think we're just hanging around at home with nothing to do. But you and I know it's a full time job. Actually it's 2 full time jobs isn't it?

I decided today that only a couple truly academic things can happen each day. Is that reasonable? Maybe that's why it feels like all we do is math and science. Today, we mostly read The Sherwood Ring. The chapters are excessively long in that book, but we don't want to stop in the middle of one. Each one is a complete story on its own. Who can stand to let a story go unfinished?

I really need to get my ideas together on the book report assignments. I'm going to make them interesting. No summaries. They're going to do things like interview the main character, or write a letter from one character to another or make up a story line that might be going on in the background of the plot. I guess that's called a sub-plot. Should be fun.

Rachel watched 2 or 3 MathUSee lessons today. I ordered her the Geometry because she hasn't done that yet. It's on its way, but in the meantime she's watching the digital lessons. Sam and Sarah worked on a math sheet where procedures and rules were involved. I'm going to have to back up and get logical with Sam. The rules just drive him crazy. They make him forget what he already knows how to do logically. Sarah just blasted through it loving the security of knowing the rules. It honestly amazes me how different they can be. Lots of different personalities here!

See you tomorrow!

Day 46--Moms support group

I had so much fun with the other homeschool moms talking about things that no one else has ever understood! It's after midnight, so I'm going to have to write all about it tomorrow. But I think I'm going to love this. We decided to go on field trips together about once a month too. So excited!

We got an offer on our empty house today. It isn't as much money as we'd like, but we're going to take it anyway. And I don't think we'll have to put in carpet or resurface the floor after all. It will be such a relief to not have to maintain that house and yard any more.

We're liking The Sherwood Ring still, and we've been listening to 101 Dalmations as a dramatized audio book this week too. That's pretty fun. We've never done audio books, but it could be something we do a bit more of. I just have a hard time listening to a book and getting the story. I'd rather read it myself.

That's it for tonight. More about the moms' group tomorrow.

See you then!

Day 45--Protecting "school" time

Do you ever have trouble getting people (or even yourself) to respect your school time? I know not everyone does school during the day, but whatever times you're working should be respected by yourself and others. I usually have several phone calls a day from people I don't know, and I've had to try different solutions to not let them disturb school. I use a land line at home, so I have the ringer off. I don't want to be absolutely unreachable; sometimes my extended family has had emergencies I needed to help with.

So I have the answering machine on and when people start talking I can tell if I have to answer. I never do, but we have to hear all those messages and that gets old. Since the little car accident last week, doctors and lawyers have been calling me. Someone from a lawyer's office even came to my door today! The same places have been calling over and over.

I also had to defend my school time firmly today with a lady that keeps wanting me to do things before 4:00. I've been telling her for months that I can't, but she doesn't agree. I even told her that if I was a teacher in a school and I left during the day, I would probably get fired. No effect.

So what do you do to protect your school time? Let me know.

We read chapter 2 of The Sherwood Ring today. Looks like we're going to like this one. Finally! So far, it's got a little history, a little mystery, and a few ghosts.

Right now, I'm sitting and waiting for the kids at their church youth activities. Sam is at a scout court of honor. Maybe I should have gone with him, but he's not into awards and recognition; so there's not much reason for me to go in. I could go support the other boys, but I guess I'm not going to tonight. They really don't know me very well yet, so I think they'll be ok. Rachel wants me to work on editing her book while I wait, but I haven't yet. I guess I'd better go do that. I have about 20 minutes left to wait.

See you tomorrow--and I'll tell you all about the Moms' support group!

Day 44

We registered Rachel to take the ACT next month. She isn't looking forward to it. Tests aren't her thing. She seemed pretty worried today, so we went through some of the questions on the practice test on the website. She did much better than she was expecting. I knew she could handle it, but my kids have so little standardized testing experience. I intend to keep it that way, but it's hard when they do have to take them. I told her that even if we'd had more tests in our homeschool, she would never have felt the same pressure kids feel when they take tests at school. We just don't have that here.

Even just sitting there with other kids taking a test causes things. Do you remember? You don't want to be the first one done, or the last one done (to avoid looking like a show-off or like the dumb kid). You even feel self-conscious turning the page. Someone might notice you. You wonder if the other kids are having a hard time remembering the answers; but no, they never have any trouble. You can't quite figure out exactly the answer the teacher is looking for on that one question. They never want to know what you learned, only what you can't remember. I guess she'll know those feelings soon enough. We'll have to set up a timed practice for her.

Sarah started learning about chemical formulas today. She seemed to like it. I remember thinking they were fun. I forgot to do Sam's science test with him today. I was going to go over it orally one more time. I guess I'm not really sure when I'll have him start writing them. He's so good at explaining things to me, I don't need to test him. But I guess I will anyway.

We started to read The Sherwood Ring today. If this one doesn't work out, I'm just going to read Anne of Green Gables again. It seems like it'll probably be fine though. I wonder why I'm having so much trouble picking out books this year. Maybe we're getting too picky. We like our books to be good.

I am totally excited! I honestly don't remember if I mentioned that some of the homeschool moms at church decided to start a little support group. I've never had anyone at all to talk to about homeschool in 18 years of doing it. I mean, I can always talk to my family who is completely supportive and positive about it. But I've never had any homeschool mom to talk to. They're coming over Wednesday evening. I can't even imagine what to talk about with them. Usually when I talk about homeschooling, people think it's interesting enough, but they can't relate. It's going to be so fun!

Today I put this new picture of Eliza on my desktop, and every time I opened up the computer I had a "cute attack" about it. That's what Rachel said. Tell me you didn't have a cute attack when you saw it!

See you tomorrow!

Day 43--It doesn't always look like school

Since I was pretty much falling asleep on the couch all morning, and we spent the afternoon getting Sam ready for a campout, I thought I'd list some of the things we've done since we started school in July, that don't always look like school. Was that a run-on sentence? I say no.

road trip across the country
the kids taking care of the baby
Sam making a stop action Lego video
Rachel writing a book
Rachel and Sarah editing the book
making a book cover
putting a dining room table and chairs together
Sarah learning to play piano
making the MyWritingCheck.com introductory video
the kids writing my blog post while I was at the Brave Writer retreat
trying to prepare for the election
registering Rachel to vote
painting the living room
having a car accident
line dancing
entering a photo challenge
learning how to use the new camera
playing with cousins we only see every year or two
family history research
studying google maps
making plans to travel the world and write books about it
Sam's colon twisting
Sam going camping for the first time without Dad

Ok, I'm stopping there. If you've been reading my blog, you've read about most or all of these things. I just thought it would be fun to see a list so I wouldn't feel like we never do school. We've  done plenty of things that are more easily recognized as school, but so many things happen like those on the list, that you can start wondering if there's any learning going on at all. What I've found out is that they learn all the time; I can't stop them. So I have to appreciate all kinds of learning opportunities.

See you next week!

Day 42--This is as far as I got last time

I thought it would be fun to name my posts with more than just the day number. I don't know if I'll go back and name the ones I've done, but I'll try to name them from now on. Last year I was blogging every day of school, and I couldn't do it any more after 42 days. I don't remember exactly why I had to stop; but this time, I'm hoping to get much further. This time I realize that a day might slip past without a post. I'm trying not to let that happen, but I don't want to put too much pressure on myself.

I took Sam to have a test this morning to get ready for his surgery in a few weeks. We were gone 2 1/2 hours, and the girls read for school the whole time. And then they made lunch. The test was rough on Sam, but I don't think he wants me to go into it. Needless to say, I didn't have him do any school afterward. He gets to go camping tomorrow. He's pretty excited about that, because he's never gone with a group of boys before. It should be fun.

I got at least a few calls from chiropractors and pain clinics wanting to know if I needed help with any injuries from yesterday's accident. Ridiculous. They got my number off the police record of the accident online. I called the police records office and asked them to take my number off the report. I get enough calls I don't want, don't you?

I had to talk to the drunk guy's insurance company today. That was a new experience. They told me to go get an estimate for the damage and let them know. I think I'll have Jeff do that. I would think they'd want to replace the bumper. There's not that much damage, but I definitely wanted to file a claim. I wonder if the guy is still in jail. Or how long it will be before he gets his license back. I hope it's a long time, because he probably needs to get help. I'm thinking you're drunk pretty often if you've been caught driving drunk 5 times!

See you tomorrow!

Day 41

Ok, so you know we're studying the Constitution this year. Well, we didn't today because we ran out of time before going to put the last touches on the paint at the other house. But we definitely got a civics lesson tonight. On our way home from the painting, we were hit by a drunk driver. We're all totally fine, and the car has very little damage. The guy must have been almost stopped. We were waiting at a light, and there was this thud. I thought it might be something in the back of the car that fell over, like the weed eater.

Then I realized that we hadn't taken any lawn equipment and there wasn't anything in the back; so I looked in the rearview mirror and the pickup truck behind me was suspiciously close, and the guy was just looking down at something like nothing had happened. I got out and went back to talk to him and he said, "Did I hit you?" It was a completely legitimate question; he had no idea. He was so drunk, he didn't know he hit me! We decided to pull into a parking lot, but I checked his license plate first because I could see he was drunk and was sure he would just drive on past.

He didn't though, and we looked at my bumper. It was hardly damaged, but I decided we should call the police. I'm sure he was really happy about that. He knew he'd be arrested for drunk driving, but he didn't try to leave. Also, the lady behind him pulled in to make sure we were ok, because she had been behind him for several minutes and knew he was totally drunk. She called the police and told them all about that, and they got there pretty soon.

I had told the kids they could stand by the car so they didn't get hot sitting inside it, but one of the officers gave me a form to fill out and said for us to wait in the car. We all got back in, and Sarah asked why we needed to wait in the car. I said, "Because you always do whatever a policeman says to do." She said she knew that but wondered if there was a specific reason he said to. Then pretty soon by the back of our van on the side we had been standing on they were handcuffing the man. That was something new for the kids. Well, me too. This was his fifth time being arrested for drunk driving! I guess that was why they wanted us in the car instead of standing around for that.

It was absolutely crazy! I honestly feel like if he hadn't hit us that way, he would have had a much worse accident. He had already almost hit another car right before he hit me. It's a little terrifying that he was drunk. It could have been so bad. I'm so thankful it wasn't.

The kids learned a lot from that experience. I'm not sure they could list it. Sam wasn't sure he learned anything, but of course he did. We learned to always call the police no matter how small the accident is, we learned that there are people willing to help like that lady who was a witness, the kids learned that a person gets arrested when they're driving drunk. I don't know that we've ever talked about that specifically before. As a new driver, Rachel has had an experience I've never had before. I wasn't sure whether to call the police at first--until I realized he was drunk of course. Now we're going to learn all about what happens when dealing with the car insurance company. So much in the world to know!

Oh, Rachel filled out her voter registration too. She'll be voting this November for the first time! Civics all over the place today!

I honestly don't remember what we did before we went painting. We did have school, but my brain has an overload after the accident. I even drove right past the highway exit on our way home after that. Guess I'd better get to sleep!

See you tomorrow!