Looking ahead to High School - Part 1

KM is finishing up the tail end of her 8th grade year and I have been thinking a lot about "high school" lately. So many families are putting such a huge emphasis on buckling down and hitting the books through these years, but I am just feeling that is not the route we want to take.

For those of you who know me, I am a researcher. Put a topic on the horizon and I am going to find out everything there is to know about it. I am going to dissect it and view it from every angle. That is just me and the high school topic is no different. I have spent hours upon hours listening to podcasts and webinars and reading book after book about how to homeschool through high school, but as with everything else in our life there is nothing that feels as though it is just going to FIT for us. I don't want to do "school" just because my daughter is at the age she would be entering "high school."

I want the upcoming years to be filled with the same type of delight driven learning and fun activities that they have been. I want to keep her engaged and interested in the topics that we cover and not just cover things because "that is what you do in high school." I want her to still have time to spend with friends, go to the movies, play piano, draw, play video games, and whatever else she wants to do and still learn in a way that she finds intriguing.

I have heard over and over again about all the things that kids NEED to get into a good college, well I am not 100% sure that she wants to go to college. I am not willing to force her into a box set of guidelines in hopes that she will get to where she needs to be, when she can just be now and we can work on a way to get her into college if that is what she wants to do when the time comes.

Another thing that we have been thinking about when it comes to high school and college is her age. When KM started kindergarten we lived in a district that had a cut-off date of Sept. 30th, but our current district's cut-off is Aug 31st, so according to our district she is ahead a year - in all actuality she is all over the place on several different levels, but I don't need to go into that right now. Anyway, when looking at it this way and taking her personality into account we have seriously been thinking about stretching her high school out over 5 years rather than 4. This would allow her to be an older 18 rather than a much younger 17 if she decides to attend college at that age. It would also allow a much more relaxed timeline and more time for her to discover and work on her own passions or to get a job if she wants without the added pressure of heavy academics.

When I mention to people I am thinking of going this route I am often confronted with some rather odd looks and astonished remarks of "what do you mean IF she goes to college?" So many other families with middle schoolers are buckling down and hitting the books as if that is the only option in life. There are so many career paths that do not begin with college, but begin with learning what you are interested in, what you are passionate about, what brings you happiness. I know far too many twenty-something graduates who are doing NOTHING that has to with what they went to school for. They are so far in debt and have no direction in their life because they were hustled through the system and led down the path without having any idea what THEY actually WANTED. They were just told go to college, get a degree and all will be well, but that is not quite so in our world today. More and more companies would rather employees have life experience than college degrees.

I also know many thirty-something career driven people who HATE their jobs. They have degrees and work in the fields that they went to college for, but they hate it! They go to work because they have become accustom to the life that their path has allowed them to have, but they are miserable. I would really like KM to be happy in whatever it is that she chooses to do. I would much rather that she learn about a wide variety of things as they come up in hopes that something will spark an interest enough that she may want to find a career in it, but I would also like her to know enough about other things that if she finds that she isn't happy in the choice that she made that she can switch things up and try something else.

Maybe I am being naive or too wishful, but I really think this is the route we are going to take - five years of relaxed delight directed academics.

I would love to hear others comments or thought on this, so please feel free to share. 

Finishing up Winter Session and Prepping for Spring!!!

This is our last week of our winter session and KM has continued to do really well and is truly enjoying her topics of study. As always we have tweaked and evolved things throughout the session and will continue to do so as we set forth our plans for next session. I have most of the outline planned and over the next week will be fine tuning things.

First and foremost we have both decided after a long discussion, that we need to slow down a bit. We went FULL THROTTLE through the winter and managed to not get any winter duldrums or cabin fever, however we are EXHAUSTED! I have made a last minute decision to go back to our 3 stay day routine and with all that is coming up I am feeling a NEED to really stick to it.

There are some big jobs around the house that need to be taken care of and we are hoping to address a few this weekend ~ including taking down the snow damaged pool ~ while we are all around. The spring brings different chores and household responsibilities that need to be addressed and with CJ starting a full 6 week course to get his advanced licenses, KM and I are going to have to step up and take on some of the things that we would normally leave for him to do.

As for our lesson plans we will be continuing with a majority of the programs from the fall and winter we have been doing, but have decided to tweak a few areas including -

• Science - After some dissection of the Spectrum Science Workbook we both felt like the last few chapters were so disconnected in their content that it was too chopped up and KM didn't really want to finish it. On top of this KM has been very Science focused over the last two years, doing multiple programs at a time, so we decided to back off a bit. She will finish up the next few issues of Scholastic's Science World and will be doing the Environmental Study - see below - that she had planned on doing over the summer during the spring instead. I think this will tie in nicely to our gardening and landscaping plans as well.
• Math - She will be completing the Straight Forward Math Series Algebra Book 2 this week and will begin Book 3 after the break. She is moving very smoothly through this series and really seems to be retaining the information well. 
• Social Science - 
• History - KM has completed Volume 3 of Story of the World and has just begun Volume 4. It seems to be just as intriguing to her although the style is a bit different in this volume than in the ones before. She has been a bit stumped on the outlining portion, but I think with continued practice this will improve. As she is moving through this program at a more advanced rate and completing two to three chapters a week, I will not be requiring that she complete all the outlines and we will be  doing far less of the activities as well. I have, however, chosen to incorporate more of the Brain Pop! videos into the the history areas to hopefully bring a bit more life into it. 
• Current Events - This is an area that we have been a bit lacking in lately and CJ feels we should put a bit more energy into. KM does read Youngzine each week, but I stumbled across the CNN Student News and I think this will be a great resource! 
• Art - I went back and forth in this area recently. We tried a Great Course series from the library, but it was more than a bit DRY! KM is always working on different projects and crafts, but she also likes well done documentaries and shows having to do with art. So after some poking around online, I landed on Netflix and found this rather intriguing looking PBS series called Art 21 which we can stream live through the ROKU and/or the Wii onto the big screen! There are also free downloadable educator's guides to give some extra insight and ideas on how to use the program in an educational setting! We are both looking forward to utilizing this resource.
• Environmental Study - We had planned on working through this unit study over the summer, but as I mentioned earlier our plans changed a bit! We will be reading the Cartoon Guide to the Environment and going through the Our Fragile Environment Unit on BrainPop. We will also be watching documentaries that will correlate with each weeks topics. 
• Music - This is another area that we tend to focus a lot on around here. KM is more than halfway through the Annenberg Media course Exploring the World of Music and is thoroughly enjoying it. She will continue with and hopes to complete Piano Adventures Lesson Book, Level 2A by the end of this next session. She has been doing incredibly well considering she is self teaching and neither CJ nor I have any instrumental talent! She also continues to utilize the Wii with Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero, as well as a multitude of Sing It games that she has acquired. There has been talk of wanting to take drum lessons next year, but she is wavering as to whether she wants a traditional drum kit or an electronic one. 
• Literature - KM has picked two pieces to focus on this session Old Yeller and Wright 3. For Old Yeller we will take advantage of this online resource, as well as doing a movie comparison. For Wright 3 we will be using this guide put out by Library Sparks. 
• P.E. - Ice skating was fabulous over the winter and KM really took to it! For the spring the kids will be finishing up their bowling league and we will go back to Basketball and Tennis as the weather permits. When the weather is against us we will be using the Wii Sports Resort and Just Dance to get our sweat on! We have also decided to start incorporating more family fitness activities like hiking, bike riding and roller blading on the weekends when DN is here. These are things that we used to do regularly when KM was little, but have just moved away from over the last few years. 

Will you be changing things up for the spring? What kinds of fun activities does your family have planned?

I will be updating the Current Curriculum & Schedule page soon!

What do these things have in common? - Sewing, Quadratic Equations, Ice Skating, Opera, Shopping & Science

They all fit into the week of a home educating family! 

This was the last week for ice skating at our local DCR rinks and though KM will be missing this time each week, she is going to be quite surprised when she finds out what will be going into this time slot - can't disclose this info yet!

For our weekly project I thought KM would enjoy making an owl messenger bag. This simple project kit was a great way for her to build confidence on the machine, follow cutting instructions and have a super cute outcome!

On the more academic front we started a new chapter in Algebra and she is charging through quadratic equations! We finished up the Spectrum Science Grade 8 workbook and she did an excellent job on the Final Test. To celebrate her wonderful achievements we went out to breakfast and did a little spring shopping. I somehow ended up wandering into the infants department where I just couldn't help myself when I saw these SUPER cute tees for the "littles-2-b"! 

Tomorrow we will be heading to the much anticipated Hansel & Gretel performance by the Boston Lyric Opera. This has become an annual tradition and we always LOVE the show! 

What sorts of oddities fit into your week?

Three years have past...

since we started down this road and I don't know where the time has gone.  Looking back to my first few posts about homeschooling I am amazed at how our family and life has changed since taking KM out of PS in December of 2007. When we started out we were much more of a "school at home" family, I didn't know any better, as the only learning format that I had ever been exposed to was the public school system. So when I abruptly took KM out of PS midyear of 5th grade, I knew I could educate her better than they were, but it never occurred to me that she would be such an independent learner and I would become more of a research assistant and event coordinator than a "teacher".

We have had so many fantastic adventures and I cannot imagine where we would be if CJ and I had made a different decision. I am so grateful that we had the confidence to make this choice and I can't wait to see where the next year will take us!

General update....

Things have been flowing rather nicely lately. We have found a very steady groove, but we are both getting at the point where we just want some down time and needing some time at home. This upcoming holiday week should be just the start that we need. We will be finishing up some lessons for the end of our fall session and will be beginning to work on our holiday gifts. KM will be making all her gifts again for her grandparents and aunts. One lucky relative will even be receiving her first attempt at knitting. Postings may be a bit slower than they have been lately, but I will try to stay steady over the holidays!

A FINAL realization on writing curriculums

I am once again having a difficult time with our writing curriculum and I feel that I am at the point of no return. KM is not complaining and does seem to be gaining a good deal of confidence, so those are pluses, but I just really feel like every single writing program out there is so unadaptable. They all teach the same sorts of writing, but in different orders and completly disconnected from any actual content areas. None of it truly makes sense to me, so how on earth am I suppose to help her understand it.

I had decided over the summer to pull back on any structured writing books, we would use the essay response questions in STOW and SOS, to do content directed writing work. However by the time the fall session rolled around I had caved in. KM had mentioned that she had taken a look at one of her friend's Spectrum Writing books and thought it might help her improve her skills. I went online, found it and ordered it. This was my first mistake. If I was going to not do a structured program, why on earth did I order another workbook? Well she had asked for it, it was inexpensive and I thought well she is thinking about it, so maybe I should be taking it more seriously. This then led me to the oh, I can supplement with this and maybe that will also help add to it, which in turn takes you down that slippery curriculum overload slope.

As I have been looking at the 6 different middle school program books that I still have in my house for writing ~ I say still because I don't even want to think about the number that I actually had last spring when I cleaned out the homeschooling book cupboard ~ I came to the aforementioned realization of: “They are all the same and NONE of them make sense.” I then really began to think about how I go about writing something, not that I am an expert in this area by any means, but I do feel that I can get my point across when I put my mind to it....I know, I know, there are some ramblings here and there, but let's just ignore those! I managed to achieve a perfect score on my essays for the GED, had two papers published and never got lower than a B+ on a research or term paper in college, despite NEVER having passed a high school English class.

When I have an idea for a blog entry, I just type. I don't systematically plan things out. When I was in college I did the same thing. When I had to answer an essay question or had to write a research paper, I would just start writing. I would get out as much as I possibly could and then I would edit, move things around, change things here and there, and make it better, clearer, and more concise. I didn't do venn diagrams, writing process trees, story webs, or anything of the like. I just researched and typed. As I sit here right now, I am just typing.....no preset direction, other than to get my point across.

So why do I feel the need to have my daughter do all of these ridiculous things that I DON'T GET?

It is another one of those tapes that blares in my head. You know the ones I mean. The ones that say things like - “all kids should be in school”, “Kids should be seen and not heard”, “What do you mean there is no oversight?”, “WHAT ABOUT SOCIALIZATION?” We all have them. They all say different things for various reasons, be it culture, background, religious beliefs, or some other random reason. While I have managed to destroy most of these wretched thought patterns, some still seem to creep back in and get their tape around the spindals causing a cacophony of negative statements and ideas flooding into my ears and causing anxiety to spread through my entire being!

I am done. I will not be doing any more writing curriculums. Though I will keep the few writing resource books that we have around the house, things that cover grammar and research paper guidelines, I will be getting rid of all the curriculum guides and workbooks. I will encourage my child to express herself on paper and assist her in improving answers to open ended and essay questions in a manner that is clear and concise, but that is IT!  

Some things we have been thinking about lately...

So you might remember the post from just a week or so ago about KM wanting to be more independent and schedule her own week, well she has decided that she doesn't want that responsibility any longer. Personally, I thought she was doing a decent job, but she was feeling a bit overwhelmed by it and really didn't like that she was doing lessons 6 days a week instead of 4. She has asked if we can go back to the previous setup ~ me giving her the weekly list, which is broken up into four days for her ~ but instead of her doing things right off the bat in the morning, she can do them whenever she wants throughout the day. This is TOTALLY fine with me. However she wants to get her lessons done is up to her. She is starting to really understand that she is in charge of her learning.

A few days ago I was asked by a friend what I would do if KM didn't want to do "lessons" anymore and I was a bit taken aback by this one, as I had no idea what I would do and honestly had never thought of it. There have been programs that she has decided that she doesn't want to complete for whatever reason and that is totally fine. However I don't know, for sure, what I would do if she just flat out didn't want to do any of it.

I think that if she really and truly didn't want to do any lesson work, then I would talk to her and see why she felt that way and/or what her plan would be moving forward. As I also mentioned in previous posts, I truly don't feel like you can force anyone to "learn" anything. You might be able to get them to memorize something or test through something, but in order for them to truly absorb, understand and retain it, they have to be invested and interested. I don't think that my feelings on this will ever change.

Having gone to school and having always done work with me over summers and during vacations, it has just always been the norm for her to do academic studies. She really enjoys the programs that we use. She has a huge hand in the decision making process and makes the final picks on what she will be using, as she is the one that has to do it and why would I want to waste money on something that I would have to fight with her to get done. She is even liking the writing workbook that she has been doing - Spectrum Writing, Grade 8 - which is a huge find! She has goals that she has set for herself and now it is my job to help her get to reach those goals. If for some reason she has a change of heart, I will keep an open-mind and work with her in whatever manner she needs me to. 

Building Time Management Skills

We have been discussing time management skills lately and being in the right mindset to learn. It is rather difficult to truly retain and learn information if you are tired, stressed, or just not interested! We have been going through and streamlining some of the things that she is working on and KM has decided that she would like to try to work on her time management abilities.

There are often mornings were she feels as though she is just going through the motions and not really sure that she is truly learning what she is feeding into her brain. As we have done away with all forms of "busy" work, I was a bit surprised that she came to that realization on her own, but I am learning to trust her and her instincts. I am willing to give anything a try as long as I see that she is putting forth effort in her endeavors.

KM really enjoys doing her lesson work and is often inspired by the programs that she is working on to delve far deeper into areas than I ever thought she would want to. So I am going ahead with her request with all the hopes that she will succeed.

She has asked to be allowed more freedom in the scheduling of our days. Now I must say that I have never been extremely strict with our schedule in any manner. I do request that the work be completed on the day it is assigned, unless we decide to bump one or two things, but have always been more than willing to allow bumping to happen. I am not the mom that says, "No, you can't go to the - fill in the blank - because you have to finish your school work."  I feel like learning should be intertwined with life and not be the be all that ends all of our day to day life. So KM would like to have her assignments given to her all at once at the beginning of the week, rather than daily, so that she can work on them and have them completed by Sunday. CJ and I were a bit hesitant at first, but she has been showing a lot more responsibility lately and decided that if this was truly going to work, we would need to have some sort of consequence set up in the event of a crash and burn situation. We decided to compromise with her and have the assignments due on Saturday, so that if they are not done there will be no social engagements on Saturday evening and ALL work will be completed on Sunday.

I have no problem admitting that I am a bit of a control freak and I will not allow things to get pushed and pushed and pushed to the next week so that then the list of uncompleted tasks is so long that I cannot bring myself to look at it without feeling like I will throw up. I will be having enough trouble allowing the work to possibly pile up even until Saturday, but I am going to force myself to be okay with this. It is not the end of the world, it is only 8th grade!

I think that if this project is successful, she will be a much stronger independent person. I will keep you all updated on our progress. Time management skills are important at all ages and stages of life. How are you helping your child develop stronger skills in this area?

Our Computer Elective

KM choose to do an elective unit on computers this session so we have been mixing and matching resources together and so far we have had an awful lot of fun taking apart an old laptop...

So far we have been using the Usborne Computer Dictionary, Usborne Computer Graphics and Animation and Brain Pop! It should be really interesting for all of us!

If you have any interesting resources to share - PLEASE DO!

First Day of Fall Session

Today was a rather dreary wet day, just the perfect day to get us back into our regular learning routine. Not that our learning is dreary, but I will say that it was much easier to feel like doing book work than if it had been a gorgeous beach day! I don't know how people start back to "school" any earlier than this!

Our curriculum lists and schedule can be found through the page links at the top of the screen. I am holding back on our schedule this year. KM is not very interested in outside classes and really only has her heart set on one particular activity with our homeschooling group, so we are keeping our fingers crossed on it coming through. She really wants to make sure that she has plenty of time to just hang out, read, play and enjoy HER time.

Random Acts of Fitness - Free Fitness and Nutrition Info from Subway

Subway is one of our FAVORITE places to stop to get a quick healthy lunch when we are out and about! Awhile back I ordered a Random Acts of Fitness Kit from Subway, fortunately for us we received an actual kit before they ran out! However they are working to get all the aspects of the kit available on-line shortly. There website also has tons of ideas to get your kids up and moving in ways that are outside the box!

Here is the gist of the program:

SUBWAY RANDOM ACTS OF FITNESS FOR KIDS is about making small changes that can add up to big results. The kit includes tools to help kids EAT fit, THINK fit, and BE fit, all while having fun and taking positive steps toward a lifetime of better health.

I have heard from a lot of homeschooling families that health, nutrition and physical education in general, sometimes tend to take a back burner to the "more important" subjects. This program gives some great types and ideas to incorporate little changes and activities into your everyday "school" routine. In the kit we received a planner that covers from Aug. 30 2010 to Sept. 1, 2011. In this planner there is an activity listed for each and every Monday through Friday day for that entire year!

This "school" year we are going to begin incorporating these activities into our week! Since I just got the kit yesterday (9/14) we had a bit of catching up to do so we crammed two weeks of ideas into a 30 minute slot this morning and here is some of what we did:

Pedometer scavenger hunts send the kids hunting for things that fit into a general category. Each month starts out with a different theme and the kids use the pedometers to see how far they had to go to find them:

They had to find 3 different kinds of leaves, 3 things that were natural and red, 3 things that were natural and smooth, and 3 things that were natural and rough. She was reaching on the red one - the cactus has a few little red spots, but I let her have it:

One minute activities give the kids some well needed movement before settling in to work! KM got really silly with the volcanic eruptions and felt the walking hands gave her back and legs a great stretch!

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Be sure to check out back and see what other Random Acts of Fitness we incorporate!

In the meantime, How do you incorporate fitness and nutrition in your child(ren)'s home education?

8th Grade Fall Curriculum Picks

Here is what KM and I have decided to work with this fall -

Math -

She did a great job over the summer on the Straight Forward Algebra Book 1 and we decided to take a break from it before she starts book 2. So she will be finishing up the book Word Problems (Practice Practice)
and she completed the rest of Ko's Journey.

English Language Arts -

We love the Straight Forward Series so much that we decided to try the English Series as well, so she will be using the All-In-One English Series Master Book (Straight Forward) . For vocabulary she will be working on Painless Vocabulary. For Spelling she will be utilizing a variation of the Free Spelling program found HERE. For writing we are going to incorporate some of the review questions from Story of the World's Activity Guide as well as the questions from The Story of Science Student Quest Guide so that we are working on her strengthening her answers to open ended response questions - which in my opinion is the practical writing skill that she needs to work on write now.

Science -

We will be continuing on our journey through the Story of Science on to Newton at the Center. As I mentioned we will be utilizing all aspects of the Student's Quest Guide, but will especially be focusing on the open response questions. We also will still be using the Thames & Kosmos Milestones in Science kit as well as working on K'nex and other projects.

History and Geography -

We will also be moving on to The Story of the World Volume 3: Early Modern Times and again utilizing the review questions for writing. In case you missed how we adapt this for the middle school crowd you can check the post on that HERE.

EXTRAS -

We will also be doing -

• Music - Music Alive Classical Connections to U.S. History
• Piano -Accelerated Piano Adventures, Level 2- Lesson Set (1 Book and 1 CD Set, Lesson Book 2 and Lesson Book 2 CD)
  
• Spanish - Tell Me More and The 100+ Series Spanish, Middle School / High School (English and Spanish Edition)
  
• Health - Human Body & Health: Science Skills : Grades 6-8+ (Basic, Not Boring 6 to 8)
• Global Studies - Global Studies: Social Studies Skills : Grades 6-8+ (Basic, Not Boring 6 to 8)
  
• Computer Technology - I haven't finalized all of the resources for this one yet, but will post as soon as I have them. I do know that we will be basing the main context of the program on the Brain Pop Cool Tech spotlight. We also have a printer, laptop, mouse, digital camera, MP3 player, DVD player and camcorder that we will be dissecting throughout the session.

Transforming Space

One of our biggest changes this "school year" will be the loss of our "classroom". Really this was more of a work/craft/study/play room, but KM liked to tell people she had her own classroom. With the recent events around here though we have decided to give up this space to turn it into a room for DN.

So in light of this change, we reorganized some small lightly used areas to fit our learning tools...

We moved the spare counter shelf into the corner of the kitchen dining room and that will be used as a display area.

I consolidated the totes and moved around the boxes and shelves to get a more organized system for books and supplies. I set up a "command station" for myself in my bedroom. I also consolidated the hall closet and put some things in the attic to make room for the science equipment and extra books. Finally I use a set of old cabinets from when we remodeled our kitchen, for future curriculum storage.

I have heard from many people, especially those that have transitioned from PS, that they started out with a "classroom" and slowly worked away from it. This has been true for us as well, we have done lessons in various areas of the house since we started, but always had a specific "school" area and had the classroom for this past year. KM has been doing her lessons in her bedroom, curled up on the couch and out in the yard, more and more this summer, so really this won't make a huge difference. The biggest thing will be the lack of schoolly posters and such that will be up on a regular basis. We will probably still make some collages and such, but I think since KM is getting older and not really needing those repetitive visual cues.

We slammed this last week of summer session lessons into yesterday, so now we will have three weeks off. I am just about finalized - hahahaha - on next sessions picks and am looking forward to finishing up my responsibilities in the camper as well as getting into some fun fall activities around here. I will be sure to post a few reviews that I have been meaning to get to, as well as our final curriculum choices.

Not Back to School Day - 2010

Every year, since we have been homeschooling, we have celebrated the day that our local public school goes back by doing anti-school things! KM usually plans the day out and I get to tag along. So today was the day and she decided to -

1. Sleep in...
2. Play some games...
3. Go out to lunch...


4. Go to the movies...


5. Watch the smurfs...

Do you do anything special for your "Not Back To School Day"?

More Science Experiments-

Since we are continuing to work through the Milestones in Science Kit this week we did Buoyancy and Atom & Molecule Models -