Giving Homeschoolers a Good Name

Me, to Nate, who supposedly (long story there) starts his first-ever public school course tomorrow morning: "So, should I find the school handbook and make you read it so you don't break any rules?"
"Mom! NO! If I read it I won't have plausible deniability!"
"Nate, there is no such thing as plausible deniability in the public school system."
"Oh, shoot. I was hoping for some lag time."

Sometimes 'Homeschooling' is the Wrong Word

I guess we could call this sailboatschooling? Zac Sunderland is about to become the world's youngest solo circumnavigator. I can't tell exactly what his educational history has been from his website, but I can tell you that clearly traditional school has not been an option for the last year! If that isn't unschooling I am not sure what is! LOL Anyway, it caught my eye because Nate started Sailing class last week, but I thought I would share it with my homeschooling friends. Get a load of his reading choices on board, and the classes his experience is counting for (in the FAQ section).

The End and the Means

Nate decided yesterday that he wants to take German at the local high school. He has wanted to learn German for a while now and I have balked at spending nearly $600 on Rosetta Stone and he has refused to consider another program (for lack of speech recognition software) and so we have been at a stalemate. Well, last night Li'l Sis said she was taking German at the high school next year because they apparently take 8th graders for that class. Nate jumped on this, figuring it was the best of all worlds-he and Li'l Sis could speak German with one another, I wouldn't have to spend any money, etc. So now I have to figure out how to get the school to let him into that class. They are required to do things like that but when I called it became pass-the-homeschooling-buck time. I am still waiting for a return call.

In the meantime I discussed with Nate the things he didn't want to hear. Like, you have to get up and go every morning. No more traveling on school days. No more working for mastery, you are stuck with your first score on homework and exams. Can't work at your own pace, so it'll take a whole two years to get two years in, have to take notes and write things by hand in class, etc.

Nate asked how long each class was and I said it was about one hour. He answered, "Well, no wonder it takes the whole year!" LOL

I don't think this is best for him but since I don't think it is bad for him, I'll let him do it. If nothing else it'll teach him a few things, and I don't mean German.

I Heart Numb3rs

Do you love the TV show Numb3rs? We do! And guess what I found? Texas Instruments (another fave of ours) has math activities to go along with the first four seasons of the show. Check 'em out! Definitely educational programming.

Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land

When I was in public school, this was my favorite film. They showed it every other year. At least it didn't make me cry like The Velveteen Rabbit. Anyway, I made Nate watch it today and thought my readers might want to torture their children likewise, so here you go:

Part 1
Part 2

I had never heard of Teacher Tube before searching for that movie, but it looks neat.

Lisa, Saying What I'm Thinking

Lisa has a blog post that is not only funny and informative, but also encouraging to those of us better-late-than-early folk. Everyone should read her blog regardless of their educational viewpoint anyway, simply to stand in awe that a mother of six daughters under the age of 18 can accomplish as much as she accomplishes!

Way Cool Math Site

My mom found this link while looking for parabolic equation help for Brandon. He didn't find it terribly useful, but I think it's way cool!

Interactive Math

Subtitled: Where you learn math by playing with it!

Schoolwork Is as Schoolwork Does

We are running late on school today. Why? Well, when I went to get Nate started, it seemed he was engrossed in writing a computer program. You see, he's doing Computer Science Pure and Simple this year and it teaches programming through MicroWorlds EX. Both boys love the program and every time I turn around they are whipping up some program or another. I didn't have the heart to stop Nate this morning, and he doesn't seem to believe that when he does this for 'fun' he can mark off minute boxes on his tally sheet.

When he was finally finished, he looked sleepy to me and I suggested we play a game. We pulled out Blokus. It's our current second-favorite game. We couldn't play Apples to Apples 'cause we only have two people at the moment and that game requires more. But Blokus sure looked to me like a study in strategy, logic, math...basically, it was schoolwork again. Don't tell the boy, k?

The other day, my mother tells me, Nate was chipping away some concrete in her basement to make way for the plumber. He commented that he'd like to take a more brute-force approach but he was afraid he'd "jeopardize the structural integrity of the floor." Mom asked him where he got that, and he said he'd been watching Engineering an Empire. Schoolwork disguised as fun yet again. Or is it the other way around?

I'll have to make him do some less-fun schoolwork sometime today, but it's nice to see my theory that kids will learn without being forced is holding its own.

Quick Trip

Nate and I had to take a semi-emergency trip to the Wet Side of the state. We stopped and visited friends and my grandmother along the way, and actually convinced her to come along with us! So it made for three, and I am glad. I rented a Kia Rondo (?), which was comfortable if a tad noisy, and put 700 miles on it in two days, which is more than I prefer.

Grandma and I stayed at the Comfort Inn in Port Orchard. It's an adorably little place. It has a quaint little breakfast room where you can have everything from cereal to waffles (note--READ the instructions on the waffle iron before using), yogurt, bagels, just about everything you could want that they can do self-serve. The room furniture is pretty, and the pillows absolutely marvelous. I think they get their name from the pillows, really, it was very hard not to steal one or two! My single complaint, and it really isn't bad enough to call it a complaint, but I don't know another word, is that there was not much floor space in our room. Just walking paths around the furniture, lol. We had two double beds, though, perhaps other rooms have more, um, room.

The day we came back, we took Nate to the Naval Undersea Museum. It was very cool! Torpedoes, diving exhibits, underwater robots, a ship's bell exhibit and, dear to mine and Grandma's hearts, the half-size rescue sub used in the filming of The Hunt For Red October. They also have a reproduction of the living quarters on a Titan Submarine, which I had hoped would make Nate think twice about being deployed on one, but no such luck. Kid doesn't like to go to the grocery store when it's busy because of all the people, but thinks he can live on a shelf in a wall of shelves, all housing full-grown men?! Sigh.

We were lost about 50% of the time we were driving, but we did make it back home. I want you all to know, I stopped and asked directions FOUR times during that trip, and TWO of those times, people gave me bad advice! Grandma says I am pretty good at finding a way...eventually, lol.

Making the Grade

Our happy and free not-quite-unschooling process just ran smack into a brick wall called The System.

Nate has been enjoying his Navy Sea Cadet unit immensely. He gets to do all sorts of fun things like SCUBA class and so on. (alternatively, I seem to have taken up a new hobby--patch application!) There are plenty of awards and ribbons to be earned, one of which is the Academic Achievement ribbon. Here are the standards:

a. Is officially declared on his/her schools Honor Roll for a
semester.
b. Makes no grade below B.
c. Makes the Honor Roll during the regular school year.
d. Carries the required courses to be considered a full-time student at the
enrolled school.
e. Provide Commanding Officers with a letter from the school verifying the
Honor Roll status.

You can see where we might have a few problems. Honor Roll? The whole school has only one student-you can't get more honored than that. Officially declared? Um, 'cause Mama said so? Full time student? How on earth do I determine that? He lives here. Full time. And then there are the grades. We don't have any!

So I had to have a chat with the kid today. He is entering a portion of his life where these things matter (to other people, anyway). After a discussion, this is what we came up with:

One of the chief reasons to school at home is that you can move at your own pace. If you are moving at your OWN pace, then you are never forced to move on when you have not mastered a concept. If you master the concepts, that's an A grade, right? So the way he figures it, and I agree, is that he should never have anything less than an A. From there it's just a matter of me determining if he's executed 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 or 1 whole class credit, I guess. Although I haven't been counting hours or anything on below-high-school-level courses. And that still doesn't tell me what to do about a child who is working at so many different levels, or finishing one math class and starting another partway through the year.

Now I just need to figure out what my requirements for the 'honor roll' are. I suppose being a straight-A student, as we have just decided Nate is, would be good enough for most schools...but that word 'honor' in there makes me think there should be more to it. Then there's the 'regular school year'...again, we don't have one. Do I now need to be dividing up our school years into semesters? That makes no sense for us since courses don't begin and end on particular dates. Carrying required courses...hmm. I do require him to do things. Now I guess we need an official letter. And since we are going to be needing more and more official proclamations in the future, I think it must be time to buy a seal embosser. Only problem? Nate's school has no name.

Last night I asked him to name his school and his ONLY suggestion was, "Nate's home for the chronically insane." Which brings to mind the questions: When you graduate, does that mean your are sane or insane? If you become sane, does that make you a dropout? All I know is that I am not spending money to have that embossed on documents!

The Joke's On Me, It Seems

Two Christmases ago, my mom gave Nate her old laptop computer. Nate was thrilled. Not only was it the first computer he could call his own, but it was also the only laptop in the house.

Over time, the poor thing began wearing down. A button came off the keyboard. The screen went black. When things broke, Nate would plug in an external version, and eventually his 'laptop' became the hub of a borg-like mass of cables and electronics.

Nate saved up money to buy a new laptop, and I promised to help. After all, he needs a computer for his schoolwork and it's nice to have a laptop around.

About a week and a half ago, though, I came home to find Nate's crippled but still functioning laptop had become a box of dozens of pieces! Trying to remain calm, I said, "Nathan, that is without a doubt the stupidest thing you have ever done. I am very disappointed in you, and what you have done is disrespectful to both Grandma and me. I will not be helping you buy a laptop since this is how you treat them." I know, that sounds really harsh, but his laptop still worked before he dismantled it. And I was absolutely appalled. Nate did not fuss at my proclamation, just asked me if I knew of anyone hiring 13 year old boys, and about a day later he told me that he would put his laptop back together in order to earn my trust back.

Still horrified at the jumbled box of pieces, I merely acknowledge his promise and went on, believing there was no way on this earth that this child could reassemble a laptop computer.

I was wrong. It is now functioning just as it did before.

I will never say 'no' to handy-down computer carcasses again. My basement can turn into a PC graveyard-slash-dr. frankestein's workroom. I won't care! Now my only question is what do I get this child that will help him, since he claims much of his success is owing to a computer science text that I used in college nearly a decade ago, and that was a very backward college indeed? I have already bought him a computer science program but it does not cover hardware, only programming and applications. Does anyone have any suggestions?

That Stings!

I just completed (I hope!) my annual tax-refund-curriculum-buying-spree. Sersiously, I have never spent this much. I didn't buy anything that wasn't a good buy, the lowest price available (and many items were available from my employer at a discount to me, and everything I ordered from all three companies was free shipping) and a boon to Nate's education, so I don't think I did anything wrong, per se, it's just that as he's gotten older and more advanced, his educational needs have gotten more expensive, and while I could hodge-podge stuff much cheaper, I simply don't have the time while working, so the trade-off is worth it to me.

Like the past year, we will be using Teaching Textbooks for math. Nate will begin both Algebra and Geometry next month. It was his choice to do them simultaneously and I guess we will see how that works out.

I have decided to use Jump In! because of his resistance to writing of any kind.

We are going to try Mystery of History after we are done with our current Rome unit. I think we need a bit more orderly approach, and I think MOH will be a good fit, despite being a tad put off at the fact that two volumes are not yet released.

We will be using Getting Started In Latin because Nate doesn't know if he wants to learn Latin, and so I didn't want to dive into a more involved curriculum. We will also be using English From The Roots Up.

Then there are some long-drawn-out type of things--Balancing The Sword, Blessed is the Man, Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers, etc. Also, a science kit, a couple of reference works, that sort of thing.

Nate chose Computer Science Pure and Simple as his computer science program, and I think it will do him good, at least as a beginning course.

Thank goodness for tax refunds, huh?

Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

So, who stole the sun and refuses to share? Seriously, I haven't seen it in over a week and today it remained so dark that the parking lot lights at work never turned off! I don't do well with continuous lack of sunshine. Work news: They don't know yet if they will be keeping me. My boss says I will be the first to find out after her, mainly 'cause I will hear her screaming with joy. Fairy Godmother: Still conspicuously absent and I am without a dress as this month, with very little notice, I have been deprived of both child support and food stamps and *poof* there went my budget. School news: Nate and I are beginning a unit on Ancient Rome. Toga party, anyone? Rant of the Day: I am so sick and tired of the 'come weigh-in' emails being sent out by the (obviously mis-labeled) Morale Boosting team at work, which is hosting a biggest loser knock-off. Pardon me, but group self-flagellation is not morale boosting! It is also not effective. Other: I did not win the t-shirt contest at work. No, no, not THAT kind of t-shirt contest, the kind where we submit designs for the backs of the shirts. I rather liked my design, too, but oh, well.

Decompression and Math

Just when I thought I was in the swing of things, work-wise, it changed.

I really love my job. Honest, I do! I have had frustrating jobs where I didn't get to help people, and I don't like that. My current job is all about helping people. I love that! And unlike working in JoAnn's, I only have one customer at a time. Should be easy, right?

Somehow, though, the mere doing of my job raises my blood pressure and makes me tense. On my short breaks there is no time to decompress and on my lunch break, about the time I am breathing normally again, it's time to head back.

After work, I have to sit for 30 minutes. I can't watch a movie or anything, because I am still so tight from work that I wouldn't enjoy it.

I am not sure how to combat this. Breathing exercises? Who knows.

Sorry the posts are so few and far between these days! Should get a bit better when my schedule changes next week...perhaps I can post in my sleep, lol.

Nate seems to me to be mathematically gifted. Problem with that: He abhors rounding and repeating decimals. It bothers him to no end that the answer is imprecise. On a certain level I sympathize. On a certain other level I want him to get over it, lol.

Tuesday

It is dreary, wet and cold today. It's also a holiday of sorts (I can't figure out what is running and what isn't today. The college is in, but the schools are not? No mail or library but the gov't employees at the plant have to work? Who makes all the rules and why are they falling down on the job?) and one would think we could take the day off schoolwork and do something holiday-ish, but that's not how it's going to work. We didn't get nearly enough done yesterday, and Nate is about to take his final-final-last-ever Key to... end-of-book test. I don't want him to break right before a test, for obvious reasons, even though no one but me will ever see the score. And even though Teaching Textbooks Math 7, which he is also working through, is about to review the same subject matter.

Fortunately, Nate and I found a Geometry book that will last him a couple months, since the thought of doing only one math program at a time is a bit foreign to him, and he keeps saying he needs more challenge. This Geometry book is very hands-on, no proofs or anything, just fun with shapes. I want that for him before he goes on to in-depth Geometry. He is considering doing TT Algebra and TT Geometry at the same time, and Mr. Pevensie, who was once a PS math teacher, said that is perfectly acceptable. Nate will begin TT Algebra in Feb. according to our current schedule. I already have that program, since we used it with Brandon, so I would only have to buy Geometry with tax refund money.

I loved Geometry when I was in high school. My teacher, Mr. Presto (is that a cool name or what?), had a great policy. You could choose to be graded in one of two ways: 100% of your grade from the test scores, or 50% from test scores and 50% from homework. Quite a progressive PS teacher, IMO. Since I thought homework was basically useless and I always got good test grades, I went with the first option. Mr. Presto stuck me in the back corner of the room with the following year's math book and left me to myself. He was a really thoughtful guy. We had an assignment to draw a pictures using only a straight edge and a compass. I still think it was the best piece of art I ever produced. He hung all the pictures on the wall without names and had the class line up and go from picture to picture rating them on a 1 to 10 scale. I got a 10. I would NEVER have been given a 10 if the kids had known whose picture it was, but he did it in a way that mostly avoided popularity as a grade.

Mr. Presto also let my mom sit in on his Alg. 1 class when she decided to go back to college. I thought that was a very brave thing for her to do. Only two problems--my boyfriend at the time was in the same class (and boy did I give him strict instructions to behave!) and Mr. Presto called me by my mom's name for the rest of the year.

So, I think schoolwork, hot cocoa, and maybe a movie is on the list for today. And maybe I will grab Nate's straight edge, compass and box of colored pencils and make some memories.

Is It Cold In Here, Or Is It Just Me?

For the last few weeks I have worked with real, live scientists. It was cool. Brought back memories of my days working in the high school chem department, wearing a powder blue lab coat (because I couldn't figure out where to buy one that I could tie dye!), turning down dates with guys who only wanted one thing from me (access to chemicals), and finding new freckles when I went outside after spending the morning reclaiming silver.

Anyway, the other day I overheard one of the real, live scientists say something about polar ice levels being very high, as high as they have been since I was kicked out of preschool. I was fascinated. It sure SOUNDED like this real, live scientist was saying something that I had been very careful not to say in that building...manmade global warming is a hoax!

I tentatively broached the subject with him and indeed, there are lots of crazy people like us in the world, many holding science degrees. He shared some links with me that I, in turn, am happy to share with you. That last one might be especially fun, if you can figure out what it says (set your homeschooled middle-schoolers on that).

Greenie Watch
Watts Up With That
Solar Cycle

Take Your Kid to Work Day

What? You say it isn't Take Your Kid To Work Day?! Well, it was at my house. It was now or never!

Today was my last day working at this temp job. Unlike 'the hay place,' this was a job Nate wanted to visit, so he took the bus out and got a personal tour through the labs from a forensics expert. Way cool, huh? And now I will have a week home before the next job starts, which is a mixed blessing (time home is good...unpaid is not! LOL)

Typical Day in Our HomeSchool--October

I frequently hear both homeschoolers and non-homeschoolers wondering what a typical homeschool day ‘looks like’. That or they think it looks like public school, which is rarely true. So I thought I would share a day from each month, to give people an idea.

Note: I am currently unemployed. Actually, I have been unemployed for far too long and it’s a serious problem, but that isn’t the point of this post. Obviously, when I am working, our days are quite different.

Up at 9 a.m. We have been staying up rather late at Nate’s request. I think it’s puberty, ‘cause he used to be quite a morning person. Now he needs about an hour to laze around after he gets up, before he can accomplish much with any enthusiasm. So this morning he put on a Magnum P.I. episode while I checked my email and fixed breakfast (smoked sausage, eggs and hash browns). After his show was over, he got dressed. Handwriting comes first nearly every day. I am using a modified version of Donna Young’s instructions for making remedial handwriting lessons in a composition notebook (handily acquired for 25 cents apiece during the crazy back-to-school sales). Today I will also have to make more entries for his handwriting book, as he will run out tomorrow. I use tongue twisters for his practice sentences because I find them funny, they are easy to Google and they tend to repeat letters, which is good for practicing. His handwriting has improved quite a lot in the last couple months, and that is a relief! (I used her printable worksheets first, and then moved to the composition book method when we ran out of the worksheets)

After handwriting I gave him his Key to Percents book. He’s on the very last one! (Some other day I will share my theory, scope and sequence of math ed. with you.) Today he did three pages, and completed them with few mistakes and plenty of cheerfulness. But wait! It has not always been so. He used to complain at nearly every Key assignment, beg to do one or two fewer pages than my schedule called for, promising to make it up tomorrow (when I knew he’d beg again), and take two hours to do the work. However, not long ago, something in his brain finally clicked and not only is he enjoying his math, but he is ‘seeing’ things that he was not ‘seeing’ before. That is to say, he could follow the processes and do the work, but he is now discovering for himself WHY things work the way they do.

Then break time—for Nate that means heading downstairs to play on his computer, and for me that means doing the dishes and putting a load of laundry in. Since I had to go downstairs anyway, I commandeered my son to help me work on the still-packed boxes from our move over a year ago. I have a theory: if I can just spend 10 minutes working every time I go down, eventually I will actually make progress. Nate vacuums.

Once we are finished with that, we find it is noon, and thoughts of his coming hunger haunt me, so off to the grocery store we go. Come home, eat lunch, and then work on grammar. On Mondays I have him do Spelling and then Grammar is spread throughout the rest of the week. While he does that I organize school papers and such.

Because it is Tuesday, we have a bit of a time crunch. In addition to Jukido Jujitsu class in the evening, we know that DVDs are coming in the mail from Netflix. Since we haven’t gotten any for a few days now, and we don’t have regular television, when they arrive it is difficult to get the kid to concentrate on anything else. Fortunately the mailman doesn’t usually show until late afternoon!

Tuesday is also a typing day. I am not as militant about that as I would like, but I am improving. He will also do his Teaching Textbooks Math 7 program on the computer. He will take out the garbage, put away the clean dishes, and then be free for the afternoon.

The movies will arrive, during which I will probably strip the turkey I roasted the other day and put the carcass in for stock. Dinner is turkey and rice pilaf. Because it is my sister’s boyfriend’s birthday, we will bake some cookies, as well. Off to Jujitsu, home to feed the boy once again, probably stay up later than we ought watching the presidential debate (I know I said we don’t have regular TV, but we have bunny ears and can get OK sound and a really fuzzy picture of four candidates. Yes, I know the rest of you can see only two. That’s my point.) and something off the DVDs.

Standardized Test Scores

'Real' teachers must have to take a whole class on reading standardized test scores in order to be certified, I am sure.

Anyway, Nate's scores came in the mail today. So did an instruction sheet on how to read them, thank goodness! It was his first fill-in-the-bubble test, and I am pleased with the results. He scored average or above average in everything. His average Stanine score is a 7 (with no score lower than a 5), and his average grade-level equivalency is a 10.6 (meaning that he scored on this test what a student in the 10th grade, 6th month would be expected to scores on this test).

He is just beginning the 7th grade.

I don't think the math computation section is an accurate reflection of his skills, but other than that the only thing that surprised me was his spelling score, which was higher than I had expected.

All in all, I guess I haven't ruined him yet!

Engineering An Empire

Nate and I have been enjoying the Engineering an Empire series by the History Channel (through Netflix since we are TV-free). What an amazingly cool show! This is history for boys! It actually covers ancient empires from a civil/military engineering persepective. So far we have watched the segments on Carthage, China, Russia, Greece and Greece in the age of Alexander, and the Aztecs. We have been astounded at the feats these peoples accomplished, and it has spurred a unit on Carthage, which my own education sadly lacked. Why do they skip such a wonderful piece of history?

Engineering an Empire is not directed at kids, but we have found that at 12 Nate understands nearly everything being said (and besides, there is a pause button for when he doesn't) and is fascinated by how things worked and how advanced some people were. It does cover a lot of military history, so there is some talk of bloodshed, and in the Aztecs section there are re-creations of human sacrifice (you don't actually see anyone being killed, but you do see hands holding hearts). There's a teensy bit of historic facts about prostitution and such, but nothing shown, and it's really not dwelled upon.

We are halfway through and Nate is begging for more, so if you have kids who need a little something to catch their interest in history, this might be a good choice for you. I would also recommend the corrosponding segments of the Drive Thru History set by Focus on the Family, for a more Biblical perspective (not available for all segments, though).

Enjoy!