I can’t believe I haven’t posted in a year! Life has been very full. There have been so many changes to Wordpress and my blog functions that it will take some time to get back on track and update everything. I expect there will be some glitches along the way.
I’ve been ill for all of February so far and it will take a few more days to get back to my regular life.
In the meantime, check out the older posts. Cheers. 
I keep waiting until I have something interesting to say about our life or our school, but sometimes it seems like it all is so mundane. So, here’s to the mundane.
Our holidays are going well. We have a trip to the relatives under our belts, gifts opened and candles lit and extinguished. The grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins really came through for the boys. We had a bare minimum to spend this year and I was afraid they might be disappointed. No worries. They are immensely happy with their haul.
We have a New Year’s day festival of pirate movies at a friends house, then a slow weekend. The boys are arguing on when the official last day of holidays is. T says Sunday. D says Wednesday. R is amenable to anything as long as he gets to participate.
Tomorrow…the joys of toilet cleaning.
I’m going to post soon…I promise. In the meantime, please enjoy this article over at Lorem Ipsum.
I really don’t have much to report, but didn’t want to neglect this blog for long. I haven’t been writing because, well, we’ve been busy with school and life. Both boys are finished (or will finish in a couple of days) with their current Greek books. I’m starting to compose my supply list/book order.
So far, here’s what I have:
All that and a holiday gift or two for each boy. Oy!
I’m back. We actually started back promptly on September 2 and have not missed a day yet. I’ve revamped our schedule so that we have 5 weeks on and 2 weeks off year round. I felt that there were many things around the house that weren’t getting done and that was frustrating me. I am a true perfectionist and like to try to do more than is humanly possible. T balked a bit upon hearing this, because disruptions really bother him. I told him that he could continue on in the subjects that require minimal Mom time, so that he can keep his schedule. Someday, he’ll make a great project manager, if he, too can let go of that perfectionism. During the weeks off, I will attempt to paint the little boys room and catch up on some household projects that have been nagging on me. We’ll probably do a lot of yard work as well.
School-wise, I’ve finally learned that we don’t have to do it all. For Ambleside, it seems to be taking T longer than expected, so we’re stretching one year out a bit. He’ll still be keeping up his grade level work in subjects such as Math, Spelling, Dictation, Latin, & Greek. I’m just not packing so many readings in, but spreading them out a bit more.
Here’s what I have scheduled for both T & D (I’m teaching R to read and write and life skills):
Daily Work
One thing that I have been lax about is a history time line. T has expressed the need for one. I am not crafty, as evidenced by our untouched time line notebook. My school project for the next month is to find a ready made time line to post or copy one from our book.
Finally, I need to remind myself that with more children, comes the necessity of focusing on the basics of Math, Spelling, Reading and Handwriting. Everything else is icing on the cake. Some things are sprinkles.
UPDATE: I’ve been doing a little research on time lines. I found this and this. Still looking, but getting closer to a solution.
We’ve been taking a hiatus from our studies lately. We did complete 175 out of 180 scheduled school days. But, I’ve really needed a break. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be planning & purchasing for the next year. Stay tuned…
We have had school every day this week, though at a reduced pace. I really need a break, but don’t think we can really afford to take a long one. T has been doing most of his work solo, concentrating on math, italics, Latin and his readings. D has been doing math and a little Latin.
It amused T and D yesterday, as I lie in bed with a dehydration-induced migraine (don’t ask), that they were able to get ahead of me in Latin by watching their next class on DVD without me. They also drilled R in the Gloria Patri and the Sanctus . R likes to make a pun on the words, et terra, pretending to tear a piece of paper and giggling! Smart boy!
Finally, it’s so hot here that I want nothing to do but crank down the air conditioning and sit in a cold tub. Alas, due to the recent bill from the utility, that is not to be. I’ll just have to move slower.
I’m a bit tired today. The Full Strawberry Moon is coming tomorrow evening. It’s also called the Rose Moon. I guess I’m already feeling its effects. I went to the gym on Saturday and again on Monday. Of course, I skipped Sunday, my exercise-free day. This morning, after staying up with R until midnight, I felt tired when the alarm rang at 5:30. I allowed myself to take my time waking up, and finally getting up. I ate a good breakfast and did a full yoga routine. So, though I didn’t sweat as much, I did exercise.
The days here have been extremely hot for the last month. Already this year, we’ve had 12 days of 100+ heat. I glanced at the thermostat at the gym as I passed it on the track and it was set to a blissful 71 degrees. At home, I try to keep it at 78, no lower than 76. I am so thankful that I can go to the gym to exercise in near polar conditions. If this is June, I am fearful of July and August.
We plan to visit the library today, as we will have workmen at the house retiling our tub surround and replacing the siding on the outside of the house for the remainder of the week. As for school, we’ll just work that in this afternoon. Tonight is family Nova night.
I am proud to report that D finished his first grade math book 40 days before the end of our school year. His new math book arrived today, so he can get started on second grade math. Way to go!
I am proud to report that D finished his first grade math book 40 days before the end of our school year. His new math book arrived today, so he can get started on second grade math. Way to go!
Remember this post at the beginning of the year? Well, as you can see from the lack of posts, I’ve fallen quite short of my 2008 goal # 2. As for #1, well, the yoga didn’t make it. Nice idea…love yoga…but it was a flop. Here we are at the beginning of June. I’m proud to say that, with my husband’s gentle prodding and selfless offer to watch the boys and help them with their bedtime routines, I have been going to the YMCA to work out for the last three weeks. OK, so I’ve only been able to make it barely 2 or 3 times a week, but it’s a start. Ideally, I’d go in the morning, before DH goes to work at 8, but so far, I’ve only gone once at that time.
My new goal is to consistently go to the gym 3 times per week for one hour. This is a sub-goal to my larger goal of walking at least an hour, 5-6 days per week. During this hour, I plan to walk and ride the bike. I have already suffered from shin splints, so am taking it slowly to minimize further injury. My primary focus will be getting there at all – i.e. forming the habit. My secondary focus will be distance and getting my heart rate at 126 or above for at least 20 minutes.
I plan to add in yoga (for stretching and strength training) and hand weights at home at least 3 times per week. I’d also like to lose 30 lbs over the next year, though I’m not focusing on this yet. I hope this is not too all-encompassing of a plan. We’ll see.
Lest you think I’ve gone into hiding, never to return, well, I’m back. School has been rambling along. Some days are good. Some days are, well,not good. I’ve had a lot of things going on besides school, so have not had much time to post. In a nutshell,since my last post:
I’m sure there’s more. There’s always more.
"Where does reading for pleasure stop and reading to learn begin?"
Midway through the second grade, we switched to Ambleside Online, a Charlotte Mason based curriculum. It is just as thorough as other classical curricula, but presented in a more relaxed way. This curriculum is literature heavy, and each level (1-12) is about 2 years ahead of the reading levels used in most public schools. That means that if a child is using Year 1 of Ambleside, the books are really on a 3rd grade level. The way you get around this is by reading aloud. In Ambleside, the teacher is expected to read the material aloud to students until about the 4th Year. Now don’t panic. I hear those of you who have multiple children groan. While I only have 3, it is possible to schedule the readings so that you can read aloud to all of them. There is lots of info on the website and in other, Ambleside Yahoo groups about just that subject. Personally, I rarely read aloud more than 2 hours per day, including bedtime stories.
My kids all began to read at age 4 (I’m just lucky). My eldest started late in Ambleside and so was already able to read some of the books on his own. Now, at 10, he reads all but the hardest books on his own (Level 3). I still read Shakespeare and selected others to him. We have also tweaked the reading list to fit our family. We left out books that weren’t a good fit. We skipped a couple so that we’d have time to focus more on the ones I felt he needed most, like history. My 7 year old is currently in Year 1. He started Ambleside in Year 1 at the recommended age of 6. He reads the poetry and Aesop’s Fables, some history, and some natural science on his own. Some books we read in tag fashion, one of us reading a paragraph, then the other reading the next. Still others are better if Mama reads them. Remember that kids are widely different in how they best receive information. Some are visual learners, some are kinesthetic, some are auditory, etc.
I believe reading to learn starts when kids first sit on Mama’s lap and listed to a story. Is my 4 year old not learning about doodle bugs from the book we read just because he can’t read it himself? I’ve heard that many boys do not naturally pick up non-fiction books. Does this mean that they are not reading for pleasure? I think there can be a distinction between assigned reading and non-assigned reading, but that does not mean that a child doesn’t take pleasure from reading "school" books or that he does not learn from reading for pleasure.
I can’t believe that I’ve been missing in action for more than a month! Life does get in the way. This will be a short post, as we haven’t started school for the day. Hopefully, I’ll whack my schedule into gear once more and make time for writing.
For now, here’s what’s been going on…
We weren’t left without a television for long. Less than a week later, my Dearest came in the front door with a brand new flat screen, high definition TV with a built in DVD player. I have to admit, it does look good. In keeping with our ultra frugal needs, Dearest bought it on Craigslist for 1/4 what it had cost new. However, upon plugging it in, we discovered that it had never even been plugged in. Our guess is that the person who we bought it from probably opened the box, decided it was too small (it’s one of the smaller ones), and then sold it. Gold for us!
Our TV died today at exactly 4:30 PM today. Yes, just minutes into the 2 hour Super Bowl pre-game show. My husband had informed us all that he might want to watch, so we could adjust our activities accordingly.
It was a slow death, starting several months ago. As we were watching one day, the screen suddenly went blank. No picture, no sound, no power. We finally figured out that it was probably short-circuiting and overheating, then turning itself off. A good thing, as that may have prevented its going up into flames. We soon discovered that with a sound smack on one side, the picture and sound would return. After smacking the TV, the menu of settings would appear on the screen. A push of the correct button cleared this from the screen. Even R, who was only 3 1/2 at the time, mastered the smack and button push technique. This continued for months, occurring more and more frequently until it happened several times an hour, interrupting countless movies and shows. The family all took it in stride. T, especially took the initiative of jumping up to quickly fix the TV before we lost the plot of whatever we were watching. Tonight, It refused to be revived.
I’m not a real football fan. I didn’t even know which teams were playing. Personally, I was looking forward to the commercials. Nevertheless, there was some mourning. My sweetie offered to run out quickly to a pawn shop and pick one up. I convinced him that, as much as I’ll miss it (I’ll have to teach Latin myself) we can wait until the next TV moves in, whenever that will be.
So instead of vegging out, here’s what we did:
I just heard a sound coming from the purple bathroom. (Yes, we actually have a purple bathroom.) It was the sound of the toilet flushing. What’s so notable about that, you say? Well, my just turned 4 year old has a hard time remembering to do this. All day long, he screams "I have to go potty". I reply that the bathroom is down the hall. Minutes later, he returns and I say "Please flush." This happens over, and over, and over again, ALL DAY LONG! Just now I heard the toilet flush. I never knew he was even in the potty. I only heard the blissful sound of the flush. Good boy, R!
T woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. It was not even 10 am and he was growling at everyone. When I asked him to narrate his first reading, the tears came quickly. Normally, I would work with him on the material until he was able to give an acceptable narration. Often, his stubbornness and my demands for perfection would drive both of us to tears.
Today, though, I tried a different tack. Today, I was able to stop viewing his tears and refusals as a behavior issue. This is something that I know intellectually that one shouldn’t do with someone on the autistic spectrum. Try as I may, I always fall into that authoritarian parenting style.
Today, I did a few things differently. First, I backed off. I acknowledged that he was feeling down today, and that , like Alexander, "Some days are like that…even in Australia." We talked about whether it was the schoolwork that was making him sad, or whether it was something else. Turns out, it was both. The something else was just a sadness that he was unable to pinpoint. When he said that he couldn’t do any school work today, I said that that was OK.
Secondly, I encouraged him to find something to lift his mood. I gave him some examples of things I do when I’m in a bad mood. I knit, read, take a bath, do yoga, etc. I suggested that he wrap his brother’s birthday present, to which he readily agreed. Wrapping gifts is not his forte, and he needed help, but he was willing to give it a try.
After that, I gently encouraged him to look over his school schedule and decide what things he thought he could accomplish. In the end, he read a chapter from Little Pilgrim’s Progress, completed two pages of Greek, and practiced piano. This is not anywhere near a full day’s work for T. However, his mood was improved FOR THE REST OF THE DAY! Folks, this is big. T’s bad moods can last decades.
I hope I can remember what I did today so I can repeat it. We’ll try that reading again another day.
On another note, my baby turned 4 today! Happy Birthday, R!
Not much happening here. School’s on schedule, nothing earth-shattering.
I’ve decided that Tuesday afternoons will be our errand days. Today we went to the post office and to the fabric store. One cushion of our sofa is wearing out, and since there is no $$ to fix it, a patch will have to do. I bought some, hopefully, matching denim fabric and some fusible cloth to patch where the tapestry is falling apart. I really love the tapestry, a scene of an English fox hunt, but it’s not possible to match it. Instead, I’m matching the fabric with the rest of the couch.
We just made a batch of brownies, the kids are settled in to watch a bit of PBS, and I’m off for a teeny, tiny nap before I have to make supper. We’re watching NOVA tonight, so dinner needs to be over by 7.
Tomorrow, we hope to try homeschool chess club. Details on that later.
I frequent a number of blogs, mostly in the categories of homeschooling, autism, housekeeping/organization, life hacks, and personal finance. Occasionally, a post crosses from area of interest to another. One blog I read regularly is The Simple Dollar. On it, Trent recently wrote a very good article on cultural literacy.
Wikipedia defines Cultural Literacy as
"… the ability to converse fluently in the idioms, allusions and informal content which creates and constitutes a dominant culture. From being familiar with street signs to knowing historical reference to understanding the most recent slang, literacy demands interaction with the culture and reflection of it. A knowledge of a canonical set of literature is not valuable when engaging with others in a society if the knowledge stops at the end of the text – as life is interwoven with art, expression, history and experience, cultural literacy requires the broad range of trivia and the use of that trivia in the creation of a communal language and a collective knowledge. Cultural literacy stresses the knowledge of those pieces of information which content creators will assume the audience already possesses."
This is an invaluable life skill that we as homeschoolers must not neglect. In many ways, we, as homeschool educators have more chances to teach Cultural Literacy than do public educators, who have to keep their numbers, meaning test scores, up. We have all day, every day to point out items that are worthy of being known to our children, as well as modeling the skill by engaging in a little research ourselves. Check out Trent’s blog and this post in particular.
Happy Reading!
They say that one way to help a person keep a New Year’s resolution is to write it down and tell others. I only have two:
That’s it. Nothing fancy. Maybe that way they’ll actually become part of my life.
I haven’t posted much lately on T and his struggles. Sometimes, it seems that our day to day struggles are just too private. We have to deal with T’s difficulties daily and often in public. I constantly find myself defending T’s behaviors or our family’s choices, which are often based upon T’s needs. For instance, our family doesn’t go to big city festivals; we spend July 4th at home, watching fireworks on TV. We don’t frequent malls. We never go to the movies as a family. In fact, none of the boys has even sat through more than the first preview; we had to leave because it was intolerably loud. After more than 2 years at our church, T still won’t sit with us in the sanctuary, preferring instead to stand against the back wall. Only in the last month has he been comfortable going to his religious education classes at church without me sitting in or just outside the classroom. So, you see, by the time I post here, my emotions are raw. I would prefer to post about other things.
Last year, we tried several "interventions" to help T. He attended weekly counseling for a year. He attended summer classes to improve his social communication skills. We tried some new supplemental curricula to help him in his weak areas. Finally, we enrolled him in one-on-one speech therapy sessions to continue the work that we had begun in the summer.
As time went on, T’s behavior plummeted. We pulled him out of counselling at his request. We also pulled him from his speech therapy because he had dug his heels in and refused to participate. His Daddy and I felt that he was only going to profit from the sessions if he actually participated. Plus, with money being tight, we could not justify the high copays if he wasn’t improving or at least trying. Upon discontinuing the speech therapy and counseling, his behavior improved dramatically. He smiled more. He acted responsibly, completing his chores and school without a fuss. He became more outgoing at church, actually looking people in the eye, shaking their hands and engaging in small talk. He no longer scowled all day. Last night, he enjoyed fireworks at a friends house for New Year’s Eve. He really enjoyed them!
Now the initial effects are fading somewhat. His main problem is that he seems to totally lack respect for others and their feelings. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time he is a delight to be around. But when he chooses to be ugly, he is very ugly. He speaks disrespectfully to me and his Daddy and treats his brothers worse than slime. I want to squash the disagreeable behaviors without losing the great strides he has made. I’m not very consistent when it comes to charts, stickers, allowances and the like, and so don’t use those methods much. I’ve been trying to give him more chances to try activities that take more responsibility. He has recently learned how to scramble and fry eggs, and has made two cakes from scratch (with supervision, of course).
I don’t know what to do. I want to help him become an adult, but sometimes, I just don’t know how. I really wish there were a manual, or a help file at the very least. Sigh…
I am one of those people who routinely check out several bags of books from the library at a time. Early on, I found out what the check out limit was at our library. I was astounded to find out that it is 999. Most of the librarians don’t even know this factoid. Though I don’t check out that many, I often come home with around 50. Three kids, each of which needs books for school, books for pleasure, and a couple of different reading levels (independent, to read with Mama, and challenging).
My rule for buying is that if I check a book out 3 or more times, it goes on my buy list. When I have spare money, I go to that list to decide what to buy. For school books, I do check out many, but I buy an equal amount. I only go to Amazon if I can’t find a used copy elsewhere. I’m a big fan of Half Price Books. If it weren’t for the library, our homeschooling endeavor would come to a screeching halt.
Thanks to Audrey from A Small Corner of Nowhere for the impetus for writing this post.
In an effort to write more, I’ve decided to expand the focus of this blog. At first, I had planned to only post about school and school-related things, with a little home life thrown in. I now find that I am continuously "writing" other blog posts in my head. In order to get these down, I plan to use this blog…for now. I thought of starting a new blog, but was at a loss as to what to name it. I will add new categories and write more of non-school related topics. Just blogging about school is boring to me. I’ll try not to get too personal, though. Enough for now.
D’s cast is off. The result… two weeks of itching and being very patient in exchange for NO BREAK! While I’m thankful that D’s arm is OK, I wish he didn’t have to go through that.
I, on the other hand have been suffering from the worst case of allergies ever. After two weeks of little to no voice and general misery, I went to the doc Monday, fearing a sinus infection. Nope. Just major allergies. But, I got to fill almost $50.00 worth of prescriptions, plus a copay for the doc. The over the counter meds just weren’t doing the trick. I now feel much better. Now I can catch up. I feel so much better.
In the meantime, the kids are feeling the effects of allergies, as our pollen counts soar and the weather moves back and forth from warm to cold. We’ll all be doing preventative allergy meds until late February. I don’t want any more illness here.
As for school…nope. I’ve been like the walking dead, and so haven’t enforced much study. It’s been all I could do to get food and laundry done. T finished up his readings for Year 2, Term 3 (except for Robin Hood, which is waiting on my voice). I’ve ordered the books for Year 3, Term 1, set to begin in January. D is still in the middle of Year 2, Term 2. R is almost reading!
Not much here, except, oh, D is in a cast. He fell while climbing bluffs with his friends. The doc isn’t sure that it’s broken but wanted to cast it anyway since he was still in pain 3 days after the fall. The x-rays at the ER were negative for a break. The pediatrician took additional x-rays, and thought the elbow looked funny. He referred us to an orthopedist, who was the one who decided to cast it for two weeks.
D has been very stoic about this from the beginning. Other than crying right after it happened, he hasn’t let out a peep of complaint. He didn’t even cry at the ER. Today it all came out, though. He was very angry that he couldn’t climb a tree in the backyard and proceeded to try to take his cast off by himself. I had to restrain him for 30 minutes until he could stop trying to bump, bang and pull on his cast. Finally, through a flood of tears, he said that he was angry at the doctor for putting on the cast, angry at me for letting the doc put on the cast, and angry at the entire situation. I felt so bad for him. He has to have the cast on for 7 more days. UGH. I’ll bet money that it isn’t broken.
Just a quick link to an interesting article in the New York Times. This takes a load off of teachers and parents, who believe that there are some things a child will grow out of. I don’t want to say that there aren’t developmental disorders that are there for life, just that it may pay to be patient. Charlotte Mason was right on when she advocated lots of outdoor time for kids in the early elementary years.
Bad Behavior Does Not Doom Pupils, Studies Say
Enjoy.
November is now in full swing and T is only two weeks away from finishing the readings from Year 2 (we make take a little longer with Robin Hood). We did take a week off to fully enjoy the flu. By the end of the month, he will be starting Year 3. I’ve fallen into the trap of trying to do too many things that are unrelated to Ambleside. I’ve decided to discontinue Explode the Code for both boys for now. They just don’t seem to need it, and it is really too easy for them. We’ve had great success with Sequential Spelling. It just seems like overkill to include an extra phonics program. Ambleside recommends that, in addition to the readings, kids should study "…daily penmanship, phonics, math, and foreign language, as well as weekly nature study, art, music, and handicrafts." We already do Italics and copywork; Sequential Spelling counts as phonics; and we’re using Greek as our foreign language (we’re planning to start Latin in later in November or in December). I’ve been too lax about remembering to include artist & composer studies, poetry, nature study and handicrafts. Also, both boys are learning to type and play piano. Enough is enough!
I know I haven’t posted in a long time. But, you know what? I am not going to apologize. Lately, life has just been more important. Nothing spectacular, just regular, everyday ole’ life.
Life is more important than the internet. Just in case you missed that, LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE INTERNET. However, the internet is fun. And interesting. And exciting. And boring. And often, a waste of time. There is a place for all of that.
The other day, my oldest pulled me away from checking my e-mail for the umpteenth time. We played several exciting games of tic-tac-toe. The difference was, I was playing with my son. We only played for 5 or 10 minutes. We tied most games. Each of us won at least once. We talked, we giggled. We decided that the pencil really won. That was way more important than the internet.
So, if you’re reading this instead of playing with your kids, talking to your spouse, or petting your cat or dog with undivided attention, I urge you to log off, put the computer to sleep, and spend some time with the outside world. Even staring into space has its benefits.
