Snow?

We interrupt this homeschooling post series to bring you weird Texas weather.

Saturday 80 degrees…

Tonight…30 and snowing.

What worked this year?

Ann is in third grade this year. She is 8 (9 on the 17th) She is dyslexic and is currently attending a dyslexia remediation course which is for 2 hours a day, 4 days a week for 2 years. She is in her first year.

Here is what has worked and what has not worked for her this year.

Language Arts – All of her LA will be done at Scottish Rite (SR). She will read aloud to me at home and do her homework from SR daily. She will continue to do her journal writing daily. (I love the Love to Learn Daily Journal)

This has pretty much remained the same. She leaves the house at 11am and does not get back until between 2:30 and 3:00, Mon – Thurs. She does her journal writing daily before she goes. I still very much love the Love to Learn Journal. It is just a habit we have gotten into to do creative writing and some copy work every day.

Math – Bob Jones 3rd Grade and Calculadder

This is the same except we dropped the Calculadder like a hot potato when I found the Flashmaster. No more photo copying! And the flashmaster has the added bonus that the kids don’t mind doing it. I am trying not to stress too much about math. We don’t always get it done every day. We also skip a lot of pages. I KNOW she will get to it again next hear and the next year and the next. It is hard to get everything done when she leaves by 11.

History – Sonlight Core 3 along with Bob & Eve.

Honestly, she has not done a lot of the History reading or the History of USA workbooks that go with core 3. There is just not enough time before she leaves. However, she and Eve listen to Your Story Hour tapes. (The ones that pertain to American History) or another history book on tape before they go to bed. Our library has many of the My America books on CD so that has been great for her. I think even though she is usually gone when we do our history in our school day, she is still getting plenty of history for a third grader.

Geography – Simply stated. I posted a while ago about this. I am very excited about this study. I think it will be a lot of fun. You can go check out that post if you like. (I bought the Deluxe Package)

I’ll tell you, I really love, love, love this! We’ve had lots of fun doing the various activities and making a state folder etc. I wish we could do more but we just seem to run out of time. The kids beg for this one so we haven’t dropped it although we don’t find time for it every week. I know we will be doing American History for two years so I am not too worried about it. We’ll get to all the states in two years.

Science – Various unit studies. We watch a lot of documentaries, and she loves to get various science related picture books at the Library.

This is the only subject that has gone exactly as I expected. (the benefit of very low expectations!) She loves to get science type library books with nice big photos. We do watch lots of Nature/science videos too.

Electives –

Typing – She has just started a typing program on the computer. Spell Write Type is the name.

Spanish – We have access to the full program of Rosetta Stone through the library. It will get too tough for her pretty quickly, but for now she is having fun with it.

Sadly, our electives have been a complete flop as the Typing CDRom died and I have not replaced it, and Rosetta Stone has stopped allowing libraries access so we can’t use it online anymore. I am quite sad about this.

American Girl – This is a hands-on classed based on the books. They do two dolls a year. There is also a play at the end of each semester.

She is loving this class! I knew she would. They are doing the Molly play in May and she is thrilled beyond belief! She had her lines memorized in a day!

Book Club – I teach this class. It is based on the Five in a Row model which I love (I used FIAR at home when my kids were younger and loved it!). Obviously we don’t do it for five days, but we have a lot of fun with the picture books.

She also loves this class. I love this class! I really do miss the days when my kids were littler and we did Five in a Row. It is such a gentle, easy, relational way to ease into homeschooling. I miss it.

So Happy Mommy, If I could give you any suggestions it would be to check out Five in a Row. It’s inexpensive and really good.

And just as an aside, I found this site that is a go along for the Five in a Row way of doing things. It is sooooo cool! I have been using many of the ideas for my co op class.

That is all for today. Now it's your turn! Leave me a comment and tell me what has worked for you or write a post on your blog and I'll come check it out.

An Answer and a Look Back.

Happy Mommy mentioned in a comment that she wondered what I was using for school for my kiddoes.

First of all, let me refer you to…
What are we doing this year? Part 1
What are we doing this year? Part 2
What are we doing this year? Part 3
What are we doing this year? Part 4, The Highschooler

Now, I think I am going to start a post series entitled…

What worked this year? (Because I am a creative genius when it comes to titles.)

It this series I will be discussing, you guessed it, what worked and what didn’t.

I have found with homeschooling that no matter how much I plan and how much homeschooling experience I have, there is something every year that does not turn out like I thought it would.

So keep your eyes pealed and your fingers nimble. I’ll work on it for next week.

Also, because I think it would be loads of fun, and I am eternally curious, why don’t you do a post like this too? It does not have to be a complete overview, but maybe just a post about what things you had high hopes for, and it did not turn out like you planned.

Because I am not sure I can figure out the Mr. Linky thing, just leave me a comment and I’ll come check out your posts.

And just to wet your appetite, go check this out. This is the coolest thing since slice bread. All 3 of my younger kids use it and it was worth every penny.

You are now free to move about the Internet.

Afternoon Tea

Saturday afternoon Tea Party with the cousins.





I just love having family living nearby!

Aren't they cute? I made finger sandwiches and let them use my china. They had so much fun.

The days of Saturday afternoon tea parties on the back deck are quickly coming to an end. These girls keep getting older and older. Sigh. One day they will probably have better thinks to do than hang out on the back deck, speaking in British accents and drinking tea with their pinkies in the air.

I took lots of photos.

Because I know you were waiting with bated breath...

I just want you to know that I spent quite some time trying to coax our printer/copier/scanner into scanning the article. The printer/copier/scanner would not be coaxed.

I will however post a small excerpt of the article. You'll just have to trust me when I say it was in the paper and I had a byline. Did I mention I had a byline? Because I did, have a byline I mean, in case you wondered.

So here you go...

Why Aren't Those Kids In School?

You know the ones; you see them at the bank or in the grocery store in the middle of the day and you wonder, is today a school holiday? Chances are they are home schooled. Home schooling has been around since Eve tried to teach Kane and Able to play nice. In our modern era however, home schooling has not always been legal...

...How many home schoolers are there? There is really no accurate count currently, but according to the 2003 study sited in Dr. Brian D. Ray book, Facts on Homeschoooling, there were an estimated 1,700,000 to 2,100,000 children in grades K-12 involved in home education in the United States. Dr. Ray comments that “Home schooling appears to still be the fastest-growing form of education."

What drives people to home school their kids? There are as many answers to that question as there are parents teaching their children at home. For some it is a religious conviction, for others it’s academic. Many feel that the one on one approach to teaching offers a better result. For some it might be because their children are quite advanced and were not getting challenged in a typical classroom, and for others it might be quite the opposite. Many parents have children with learning disabilities or illnesses that make the home environment a better choice for learning and offers the flexibility needed to address special needs...

So that is it. A piece of my little article that was in the paper, with my name under it! (sorry, I'm a little excited, can you tell?)

Today: the local paper, Tomorrow: the Times! (or not)

I'm Published!!!

I can hardly believe it. I wrote a homeschooling article for the local suburban weekly paper and they published it! I have a byline!! My name and under it it says 'special contributor' (or some such title)

Cool!

I'm going to try to scan it in later and see if I can post it here. So now when people ask what I do, can I say homeschooler and columnist?

Where Can I Buy A Backbone?

I had a bad experience at Subway today. This seems to be becoming a habit. Why is everyone in such a hurry? Is a bomb going to go off somewhere if we slow down? Is the world going to come to a screeching halt if someone does not get their sandwich in under 2 minutes?

Some of you may know that Ann has an anaphylactic allergy to dairy. All dairy. Even a tiny drop of say, creamy Italian dressing on her sandwich could kill her. Kill. Her.

It is a very serious thing. We rarely eat out. I check everything at the grocery store before I buy it and then mark with a sharpie the things she can not have. We rarely buy things she can‘t have. It’s just easier that way. We do have cheese and milk and yogurt in the house, she obviously can’t have those, but I mean the graham crackers that have dairy or popcorn that has butter or bread with milk in it. We just don’t buy it so there is no confusion.

I have done some research and I have a the list of ingredients for Subway sandwiches and there is the added bonus of watching them make it, so Subway is one of the only places we can eat out.

So today I’m at our local Subway. The manager was there and he is usually very nice and friendly. I was picking up some lunch on my way home from co op for Sir D and Ann. Sir D stayed home with her this morning while I was teaching my classes. She has now developed a fever so it is a cold not allergies after-all.

Anyway, there I am in the Subway and I am trying to order 3 sandwiches. I am watching like a hawk the way they are fixing them to make sure they don’t do it wrong. I have already annoyed them by asking if they could get a fresh loaf out and not give her the one they pulled out of the box where they store the extra bread. It has been in there touching the cheesy bread and that could kill her.

They were going so fast, slapping things on those sandwiches, that I could hardly keep up with which sandwich was which. Then at the last minute, she puts creamy Italian dressing on Ann’s sandwich. When I said that was the wrong sandwich, she just wanted to leave it. I said that one was for my allergic dd and she said okay, (in a very annoyed way) and pulled off the meat most of the dressing was on. Now the manager had come up behind her. I had to ask her to remove some more of the stuff as it had dressing on it too. The manager made some comment about the line being long and there was not time to remake the sandwich.

In the end they had also put cheese on the wrong sandwich and Ann’s sandwich was completely ruined. They were in such a hurry because there was a line behind me. I waited in that same line too. It was my turn and I just wanted everyone to slow down for one minute so I could order my daughter a sandwich that would not kill her.

She ended up eating PB&J that I made her, and we had an extra Subway sandwich.

Those people would have had to wait probably 30 more seconds for me to order my daughter a sandwich that she could eat.

I’m not about special interest groups; I don’t think the world needs to change to accommodate my daughter. I am not asking for all dairy to be removed from all restaurants. I just need a minute. That is all. A minute to make sure what I feed her is not going to kill her. Can you people out there who are in such a hurry, please try to understand that sometimes things take extra time. The world is not going to end if ordering a sandwich takes 30 seconds longer than you anticipated, but Ann’s world could come to an end If I’m in to much of a hurry!

Sir D said I should have nicely said to the manager that I am sorry about the hassle, but I’m not going to buy the sandwiches after all as It could kill my daughter, since they would not take the time to listen to me and do it right. It was not worth It. And I should have simply left the store empty handed. It could have been done kindly and in a non confrontational manner.

I hate being assertive, but I really have got to learn how to handle those situations better. I get so overwhelmed with everyone else’s busy that I can’t think straight, but I’m simply not willing to risk Ann’s life so the line will move faster.

UGH, I need a bigger backbone!

A Bit Grumpy.

Sir D had two temp crowns put on yesterday again. He already went through the process once and the permanent crowns were not on right so they have to start over from the beginning. Let’s just say he is a bit grumpy.

Will left too much co op homework for today and is behind. He had ¾ of his paper done (rough draft is due tomorrow) and then left for his ortho appt without saving it. Ann got on the computer (with my permission) and closed it, so now he has to start over. Let’s just say he’s a bit grumpy.

Bob is never grumpy, but always loud.

Eve’s eczema has hit an all time high and her face is puffy and itchy and red, she also lost her cream ($10 for 4 oz) and the humidifier broke last week. Let’s just say she is a bit grumpy.

Ann’s allergies are also at an all time high and she is coughing constantly. Cough medicine is not working, neither are the cough drops. She was up most of the night coughing. Let’s just say she is a bit grumpy.

I did not sleep well last night due to the incessant coughing. I am having a painful, and somewhat lightheaded kind of day (thank you Fibromyalgia for kicking me when I’m down) and I have not prepared much at all for my co op class tomorrow. I had to go spend money we don’t have at Wal-mart to buy cream for Eve and a new humidifier. Let’s just say I’m a bit grumpy.

Anyone want to come over to my house? If you do you’ll probably find me hiding under the covers.

Ring, Ring, Go Away!

To all politicians everywhere:

I have already voted in early voting. My choices have been made. I’m pretty sure our constitution prohibits voting more than once so if you could please stop calling my home that would be greatly appreciated.

We are finding it hard to do school or have a peaceful meal at present, because of the incessant ringing.

Thank you for your time.

If the Shoe Fits...

You Are Clogs

You are a solid and down to earth person. You seek and almost always achieve a really sound balance in your life. You are stylish yet comfortable. Mellow but driven. Excited yet calm. You are the perfect mesh of contradictions. No matter what happens, you have the ability to stay well grounded in your life. People know that they can truly depend on you. You should live: In Europe You should work: At a company dedicated to helping the world

What Kind of Shoe Are You?

Okay I had to do it. I'm such a follower. How funny is it that I'm a clog? I think clogs are starting to go out of style, but oh how I love them. I have many.

Land's End Clogs make my feet very happy. I so live in the wrong town! I am totally moving to Europe, or New England. You can always be in style in clogs in New England, right?


And I am definitely a mesh of contradictions, but I'm not sure Sir D would agree that it is a perfect meshing. In fact, I think he'd just call it confusing.