I'm writing this blog to show everyone what our homeschool days are like, what a real homeschool family does; but most of the time, I don't actually talk about what we've done for "school" on any given day. I guess it's because it would sound like this: Sam finished his science study guide, Rachel did Algebra 2, Sarah did a science experiment, blah, blah, blah.
I could say that Rachel's math today was working on some complicated formula I know nothing about and she totally memorized it. She rattled it off (forever) while I stood there with my mouth hanging open. I could say that Sam's study guide was about the human body. He had to tell the two main functions of hair, which I can't remember right now, and the two functions of sweat, which I'd rather not talk about right now (something about feeding the bacteria that live on our skin).
I could say that Sam helped Sarah with her science experiment. They got a water bottle and put vinegar in it and put it on its side. Then they filled a foil trough with baking soda and slid it inside to float on the vinegar. Then they stopped the bottle with play dough and rolled it over so the baking soda and vinegar would mix. It was supposed to blow the play dough off and push the bottle backwards because every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Do you think that worked? Does that ever work? Do any experiments ever work? Not at our house.
But all those things aren't most of what we do. The academic stuff we do for school doesn't take up that much time most days. And that would sound the same every day anyway. I'd rather talk about the fun activity we did tonight with the teenagers at church. They got 7 parents to dress up in disguises and hang around at the store. Then the kids got into groups of 5 or 6 and went looking for the parents and got them to sign a paper saying they were found. Where's Waldo. It was a ton of fun, but at first I was so embarrassed to go in there looking not like myself. I had on one of Jeff's sweaters and a knitted scarf and a winter hat, but I must be really vain because I was mortified. Well, I don't want to say vain; I mean I don't usually even wear makeup. I just don't like looking funny. I got over it though (sort of).
They say our house is closing on Monday! I'll believe it when it happens. I'm not sure of all the reasons for the extreme delay; I just hope it's for real this time. After that we can start making decisions about what to do next. Our lease is up in May, and we'd like to find a house to buy by that time. I'm just not sure where to buy it. We do have some different options as far as cities, because Jeff could just change locations for work, but I don't know if we'll actually leave here. We've been here so long. I just know I want a little bit of property, because I'm dying to plant some vegetables!
See you tomorrow!
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Friday, February 24, 2017
Day 120--Finally Friday
Jeff was off today, so he did some school with us. He usually interrupts us, but I love when he's here during school anyway. He's decided to read the encyclopedia with Sam and have him write about whatever they read. Sam doesn't complain about this like he does when he has to write other things. I need to have Jeff give him all his writing assignments. One of the things he wrote today was from the point of view of an alligator. It's cute.
"I like to lay here in my own personal puddle pretending to be asleep, but if anyone comes close enough I'll show them that I'm not. I've seen people looking at me and I know what they're thinking, but it's my puddle and I'm not going to share it."
Sam and Sarah are on lesson 21 in the Pre-Algebra book. There are only 30, and some of the topics are things we've done before; so we should be finished with it well before school's over. After we do, I'm just going to have us review the rest of the year and practice some foundational things and have them make sure they have certain things down more automatically, like negative number rules.
Rachel and I are almost half way through editing her book. I don't know if we can finish next week, but I'm going to try. She's totally excited! This is so different from editing my friend's book that was just published. I guess since she's my daughter and it's fiction, it's more like revising than editing. We've made some major changes. We took out the whole first chapter so it could start in the middle of what was going on instead of having any background that wasn't necessary. I don't think there are any more places we'll have to make major changes though, so I hope we can whip through it.
We made a new cover for it. We really just put a new picture on it and chose a new color. Here's the picture. We got it from Kamille. I like it better than the other one.
See you next week!
"I like to lay here in my own personal puddle pretending to be asleep, but if anyone comes close enough I'll show them that I'm not. I've seen people looking at me and I know what they're thinking, but it's my puddle and I'm not going to share it."
Sam and Sarah are on lesson 21 in the Pre-Algebra book. There are only 30, and some of the topics are things we've done before; so we should be finished with it well before school's over. After we do, I'm just going to have us review the rest of the year and practice some foundational things and have them make sure they have certain things down more automatically, like negative number rules.
Rachel and I are almost half way through editing her book. I don't know if we can finish next week, but I'm going to try. She's totally excited! This is so different from editing my friend's book that was just published. I guess since she's my daughter and it's fiction, it's more like revising than editing. We've made some major changes. We took out the whole first chapter so it could start in the middle of what was going on instead of having any background that wasn't necessary. I don't think there are any more places we'll have to make major changes though, so I hope we can whip through it.We made a new cover for it. We really just put a new picture on it and chose a new color. Here's the picture. We got it from Kamille. I like it better than the other one.
See you next week!
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Day 119--Isn't it Friday Yet?
I've decided I have a cold. My throat has been hurting for a week, but just in the morning when I wake up. So I didn't think much of it, but I've been really tired too. I finally put that together and realized maybe I'm a little sick. Well, I guess I realized it yesterday when my voice started sounding terrible. So I can be a little less hard on myself for the amount of school we've done lately (and the amount of laying around).
Today was better as far as school goes. We finished our questions about Anne of Green Gables. Oh my goodness, they just hated the "write about a book" assignment. Sarah declared she would never do another one like it. I told her that she probably would if she goes to college. I want to teach them fortitude in the matter, but it was torture. She was especially unhappy with how badly it came out. It's totally boring for her to read. I let her read mine, and it's pretty boring too. I haven't read Rachel's yet, but she hasn't complained much. She is a grown up though, right?
We were talking about algebra and how you just keep adding to your skills and using them all instead of mastering a concept and leaving it alone. But there are a couple concepts in algebra that you don't use much after learning them, like imaginary numbers. I told Rachel I don't remember learning it in high school, I don't remember learning it in college algebra when I was 18, I don't remember Wilson learning it, and I had no idea what it was when I came across it in my current college algebra class. We decided that's because it's made up. It is imaginary after all. If I had an imaginary friend at my age, I'd have to get counseling; so what am I supposed to do with imaginary numbers?!
Streams to the River, River to the Sea is killing us. I mentioned how it had no emotion already, but we're not sure if we can finish it. I don't know why I want to finish; they don't care. And I'm not the kind that has to finish every book if we hate it. I do like to finish most of them though. I looked in the front of the book and saw that the reading level is 5th or 6th grade (I guess). I'm not really sure what the levels mean. I don't usually read books that have a level, because if a book is good, isn't it good for everyone? I've been reading good, real books to them all their lives. So I guess it was written down for kids. It's so sad. It could have been so much better if the story had been the focus and not the "level" of the reading. Was it C.S. Lewis that said something like: No book is worth reading at the age of 10 that's not worth reading at the age of 50? I wholeheartedly agree!
Here's a picture of Eliza. She's getting so big! See you tomorrow!
Today was better as far as school goes. We finished our questions about Anne of Green Gables. Oh my goodness, they just hated the "write about a book" assignment. Sarah declared she would never do another one like it. I told her that she probably would if she goes to college. I want to teach them fortitude in the matter, but it was torture. She was especially unhappy with how badly it came out. It's totally boring for her to read. I let her read mine, and it's pretty boring too. I haven't read Rachel's yet, but she hasn't complained much. She is a grown up though, right?
We were talking about algebra and how you just keep adding to your skills and using them all instead of mastering a concept and leaving it alone. But there are a couple concepts in algebra that you don't use much after learning them, like imaginary numbers. I told Rachel I don't remember learning it in high school, I don't remember learning it in college algebra when I was 18, I don't remember Wilson learning it, and I had no idea what it was when I came across it in my current college algebra class. We decided that's because it's made up. It is imaginary after all. If I had an imaginary friend at my age, I'd have to get counseling; so what am I supposed to do with imaginary numbers?!
Streams to the River, River to the Sea is killing us. I mentioned how it had no emotion already, but we're not sure if we can finish it. I don't know why I want to finish; they don't care. And I'm not the kind that has to finish every book if we hate it. I do like to finish most of them though. I looked in the front of the book and saw that the reading level is 5th or 6th grade (I guess). I'm not really sure what the levels mean. I don't usually read books that have a level, because if a book is good, isn't it good for everyone? I've been reading good, real books to them all their lives. So I guess it was written down for kids. It's so sad. It could have been so much better if the story had been the focus and not the "level" of the reading. Was it C.S. Lewis that said something like: No book is worth reading at the age of 10 that's not worth reading at the age of 50? I wholeheartedly agree!
Here's a picture of Eliza. She's getting so big! See you tomorrow!
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Day 118--Do You Ever Do What's On Your List?
Every night I make a list like this for the next day. I'm sure you won't get some of my abbreviations, but you get the idea. This is a pretty short list. It's usually longer.
But the next day, I don't do those things. I always feel like I must not have done anything because I didn't do what I was supposed to do. So today I decided to make a list of things that I did do. It's obviously not everything, but I put several things on there that I did get done. Here's that one.
I feel good about the things we did today. I know there were a few more things we could have done. But we can do those tomorrow.
See you then!
But the next day, I don't do those things. I always feel like I must not have done anything because I didn't do what I was supposed to do. So today I decided to make a list of things that I did do. It's obviously not everything, but I put several things on there that I did get done. Here's that one.
I feel good about the things we did today. I know there were a few more things we could have done. But we can do those tomorrow.
See you then!
Monday, February 20, 2017
Day 117--Exploding Hair Dryer
This morning, most of us were sitting around eating or reading scriptures and we heard a loud thud upstairs. Rachel was up there, and I figured she pulled her dresser drawer out too far and it fell out or something; but then she started calling for us. I went running upstairs and found her standing in the bathroom terrified and the hair dryer was in the sink where she had thrown it. I guess after years of wrapping the cord around the handle, it had broken. She said, "The hair dryer exploded!"
The cord had thrown sparks where it comes out of the back of the handle. She said right before that, she had a feeling she should stop using it and she had moved it away from her head. It threw sparks on her, but if she had still been holding it by her head they might have gone in her eyes! We've never had that happen before. I've gone through a lot of hair dryers, but they've always just stopped working or started smelling like they were burning and I would get a new one. This was quite a bit scarier.
After that, Jeff and Sam took it apart to see what it was like inside. Wilson used to do that when something would break. He found out quite a bit about electrical things when he was a young teenager. He even managed to fix a thing or two over the years. It was more simple inside than I expected.
We had to go over the old house today to check on it, because it still hasn't closed. We gave them another extension for two more weeks, but we told them that was it. If they can't get themselves together by then, I guess we'll just put it back on the market. When we got there, it seemed like someone had been in the house. The lights weren't how we left them. Maybe they did another inspection to see if we fixed all those things that didn't need fixing.
We went to the grocery after checking on the house, and we were going to do math this evening since we didn't do any earlier. I don't know why we think we're going to do things like that. It was almost 8:00 by the time we got home, and we hadn't eaten dinner. Like we're going to do math after that!
We read quite a bit of Streams to the River, River to the Sea today. We decided that part of the reason none of us like it is because there's no emotion in it. It's full of short sentences (which I combine as I read) and it just tells what happened. It reminds me of a newspaper article. I think we'll finish it anyway, but we're probably not reading anything else by Scott O'Dell. They never enjoy anything he's written. It's too bad.
See you tomorrow!
The cord had thrown sparks where it comes out of the back of the handle. She said right before that, she had a feeling she should stop using it and she had moved it away from her head. It threw sparks on her, but if she had still been holding it by her head they might have gone in her eyes! We've never had that happen before. I've gone through a lot of hair dryers, but they've always just stopped working or started smelling like they were burning and I would get a new one. This was quite a bit scarier.
After that, Jeff and Sam took it apart to see what it was like inside. Wilson used to do that when something would break. He found out quite a bit about electrical things when he was a young teenager. He even managed to fix a thing or two over the years. It was more simple inside than I expected.
We had to go over the old house today to check on it, because it still hasn't closed. We gave them another extension for two more weeks, but we told them that was it. If they can't get themselves together by then, I guess we'll just put it back on the market. When we got there, it seemed like someone had been in the house. The lights weren't how we left them. Maybe they did another inspection to see if we fixed all those things that didn't need fixing.
We went to the grocery after checking on the house, and we were going to do math this evening since we didn't do any earlier. I don't know why we think we're going to do things like that. It was almost 8:00 by the time we got home, and we hadn't eaten dinner. Like we're going to do math after that!
We read quite a bit of Streams to the River, River to the Sea today. We decided that part of the reason none of us like it is because there's no emotion in it. It's full of short sentences (which I combine as I read) and it just tells what happened. It reminds me of a newspaper article. I think we'll finish it anyway, but we're probably not reading anything else by Scott O'Dell. They never enjoy anything he's written. It's too bad.
See you tomorrow!
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Day 116--Crazy Ideas
We worked on our little writing assignments today. It is going so slowly! I only want everyone to work on it a few minutes each time so they don't get too burnt out. Since it's a boring school-type assignment, they're complaining a little. We're writing about one of our favorite books, so I thought it wouldn't be so hard; but I'm even having trouble with it. Whatever I write sounds so boring! We'll see when they're finished. Sarah wants to change topics. I guess she's not over that disease yet. After this, the only writing we'll be doing for a while is their research projects.
We took a drive today to look at some commercial rental locations for a business idea that I have. Jeff's job is getting to us, so I have this idea to start a "Homeschool Place" where we can help homeschoolers. I thought we could sell books and curriculum, have a lending library, have group activities and discussions, book clubs, parent support groups, and writing workshops. We didn't like most of the buildings. One was very nice though. It was, strangely enough, located in the parking lot of the public high school. It looks like it's owned by the school, but it isn't. I'm not sure I quite understand the arrangement, but it would be a great place.
Jeff would rather sell pizza, but I just can't do that. He has to keep working while we get something started, and I have to be able to do it. I love pizza. Everyone loves my pizza. But I think it would drive me crazy with all the regulations regarding food. Although my sister could totally do it, and she's needing a different job too. She knows all the rules; she used to manage school cafeterias. It's just that I still need to homeschool another 4 1/2 years and I can't do that making pizza like I could at a place where people are there to homeschool.
Also, I'd love to get MyWritingCheck.com going better than it is so far. It's a great service, but I need to figure out how to get the word out better. If I wanted to spend advertising money, I wouldn't know where to do it. I do plan to advertise in the Homelife Academy yearbook this year. I'm pretty excited about that. I was working on the ad today, but my brain is a little tired. The kids said it sounded like I was tired when they read it. That's pretty bad. It's boring. I'll have to get more sleep and rewrite it.
We're having trouble finding a piece of property right in Lima, Peru for our garden project (see day 114). It's total city. We found a couple places outside of Cuzco, but that's nowhere near where these people are that we need to get to help us. We have their email address and Rachel's thinking about what to say to them. We met them at Wilson and Kamille's wedding reception, and they said they were going to go to Lima. We talked about how much Rachel loves studying Peru and they offered to have her come visit them there! It was very sweet, so I think they'll remember us even after 2 years. I hope anyway.
See you tomorrow!
We took a drive today to look at some commercial rental locations for a business idea that I have. Jeff's job is getting to us, so I have this idea to start a "Homeschool Place" where we can help homeschoolers. I thought we could sell books and curriculum, have a lending library, have group activities and discussions, book clubs, parent support groups, and writing workshops. We didn't like most of the buildings. One was very nice though. It was, strangely enough, located in the parking lot of the public high school. It looks like it's owned by the school, but it isn't. I'm not sure I quite understand the arrangement, but it would be a great place.
Jeff would rather sell pizza, but I just can't do that. He has to keep working while we get something started, and I have to be able to do it. I love pizza. Everyone loves my pizza. But I think it would drive me crazy with all the regulations regarding food. Although my sister could totally do it, and she's needing a different job too. She knows all the rules; she used to manage school cafeterias. It's just that I still need to homeschool another 4 1/2 years and I can't do that making pizza like I could at a place where people are there to homeschool.
Also, I'd love to get MyWritingCheck.com going better than it is so far. It's a great service, but I need to figure out how to get the word out better. If I wanted to spend advertising money, I wouldn't know where to do it. I do plan to advertise in the Homelife Academy yearbook this year. I'm pretty excited about that. I was working on the ad today, but my brain is a little tired. The kids said it sounded like I was tired when they read it. That's pretty bad. It's boring. I'll have to get more sleep and rewrite it.
We're having trouble finding a piece of property right in Lima, Peru for our garden project (see day 114). It's total city. We found a couple places outside of Cuzco, but that's nowhere near where these people are that we need to get to help us. We have their email address and Rachel's thinking about what to say to them. We met them at Wilson and Kamille's wedding reception, and they said they were going to go to Lima. We talked about how much Rachel loves studying Peru and they offered to have her come visit them there! It was very sweet, so I think they'll remember us even after 2 years. I hope anyway.
See you tomorrow!
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Day 115--What's That Candy Like?
Yesterday, Rachel went to a Valentine's Day dinner with other 16-18 year olds at church. It was pretty cute. They all made little boxes and brought Valentine cards for each other like in second grade, remember? I haven't been to school in a very long time, so I didn't know that everyone includes candy with their Valentines now. We printed hearts on a couple sheets of paper and taped them to an oatmeal box, then we just printed little hearts that said, "Happy Valentine's Day, from Rachel." We're not crafty.
They melted a BlowPop to see the gum inside, and Sam said, "Why would you chew on something you aren't going to swallow?" To which Sarah added, "What a waste of time!" We spend a lot of time on food around here; we don't want to waste any on non-food chewables!
Sarah decided to do her paper on how the barometric pressure correlates to how people feel--migraines, sluggishness, sadness, etc. It should be interesting. All I know is that when the pressure is changing, I'm miserable. I just wish there was something we could do about it.
See you tomorrow!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)