Busy, Busy, Busy, but not too much to report!

Things have been going very smoothly around here lately. KM has been keeping up with her lessons and staying very busy with ice skating, theater, sketching and spending time with her friends. We are enjoying the flow of things lately and the occasional snowstorm to keep us in the house for the day is a wonderful winter bonus!

We have been starting our days off with household responsibilities, yoga and meditation. Then after lunch we work on lessons and this leaves the late afternoon and evenings free for her to spend however she likes. It seems to have worked out that Tuesday and Thursdays are VERY light lesson days, to accommodate for ice skating - and spending the rest of the afternoon with one of her very best friends - and theater. When CJ is home he has been taking her skating at a more local place on Wednesday afternoons. This leaves a lot of the main lesson times to Monday and Friday which seems to be giving a natural flow to our week.

She has chosen to do her research report for this session on owls - BIG SURPRISE to those who have seen her lately! We have decided that she will follow the outline form that the writing mentor used with her in the fall. This method focuses on researching, getting the info down, and then editing and cleaning up the content. As I have written what feels like hundreds of posts on our thoughts about writing and the writing process, I will not go into length about it again. I will say though that I have noticed a huge improvement in her open responses now that she has no writing "guidelines" and just has to present the information clearly.

Other than that, there is not much else to report as it is pretty much status quo around here - Just enjoying our family, home and learning - all together! Hope you can find some time to do the same!

Opera Preview for Hansel and Gretel

We are going to be going to the Boston Lyric Opera's Hansel & Gretel performance in March, so Monday we went to an incredible preview performance. This is such a fantastic opportunity for the kids to get to see professional performers up close and personal. The kids had a great time and they had such fabulous questions for the performers. We can't wait to go to the show!

Another MOS Trip

We tend to stay away from museums and such during the summer because we are just NOT big on crowds and as I have mentioned before, often feel spoiled because it is generally so quiet when we go during the school year, but I decided that we needed to brave it before my passes ran out and the kids needed something extra to do this week!

We specifically went to see the Whale Exhibit and Omni Film as part of KM's ocean film study she is doing over the summer and although I couldn't take any pictures of those two things, I did take some of others. I have to say that I really like taking just the older kids to the museum, as it allowed me to not have to count heads as often and be able to enjoy the exhibits myself as well as pointing things out to the kids along the way. I can't believe after all the times we have been to this museum there were still things that I hadn't noticed before, some were new and some were not, but here are some of my favorite shots -

7th Grade COMPLETED!

I can't believe it, but it is true! We are DONE with 7th grade! KM had one last field trip yesterday and now our "school year" is completed! We finished three weeks early. So we will be having a full 5 week break before summer session starts in July! We have had a fantastic year and I can't believe the amount that we have gotten accomplished. I am so very proud of the progress that KM has made! I can only hope that this next year will be just as excellent!

Check out some of the great photos from our trip -

As we will be on break, it may or may not be quiet around here! I will try to post here and there as the learning never really stops, but I am going to be focusing on getting my house in order and enjoying some much needed down time!

Great Creations -

I was reminded, by a very frequent reader, that I hadn't posted the outcome from our Day With Clay post...so sorry!...here is her masterpiece:

I love, love, love the texture choices that she made!

Glass Museum

Our homeschooling group went on a FANTASTIC field trip to an incredible glass museum today! KM had a great time and got picked to press the glass!

A Day with Clay

It doesn't get much better than a day with clay, a great teacher and friends!

Corn Maze Day

We had a fantastic Homeschooling Day at a local Corn Maze yesterday!

First we did the maze!

Then there was a Cow Train - which went a LOT faster than some of the kids were expecting!



Then they had their faces painted! I was amazed that SC sat and let the woman paint on her cheek! SC got a dolphin and KM got cherries!



Next they visited some goats...



and played in a corn box!



We finished off the visit with a Hayride!


Despite it being FREEZING out we had a great time!

Changes...again...

We have been revamping how things work again!
~~~ BIG SURPRISE I KNOW~~~

The first thing is our vocabulary program - KM has been using Wordly Wise 3000 second edition, since I brought her home from PS last year, as she "really liked the way it was set up." Last year they had let her keep the workbook copy that she had started with and since it was a fairly inexpensive system and she did seem to be learning from it we kept it going this year. However over the last few lessons, I noticed that she was having more and more problems with the testing part of it. She just did not seem to be understanding the definitions, when they were taken out of the content of the book or if she couldn't check the definitions. You see the workbook is set up with the words and definitions listed at the beginning of each lesson, then through out the week you do one part each day Monday through Thursday and then you test on Friday. So I sat down with her and had her show me exactly HOW she goes about doing the work. What I found was that she was never actually "reading" through the definitions of the words, she had been taught/instructed by her PS teacher in 4th grade on how to figure out the answers to the different sections using different types of context and scanning clues. Great for building "TESTING" skills, but not so great for "VOCABULARY" skills. I spoke with CJ about this for awhile this afternoon and we have decided to scrap the Wordly Wise for the time being. I am by no means knocking the product at all. I really do like the way it is setup and the different approaches, but my daughter has been trained to cheat her way through it and that just seems like busy work to me. By the way on the test she doesn't have the definitions available and that is why she can't use the system that they taught her in order to pass this test, so I wonder how well those testing skills do actually work?

So in lieu of the Wordly Wise for vocab skills we have decided to try a few different things. For one I had gotten her the My Word Coach for the Wii for Christmas - before the price shot through the roof, guess people found out how great it is!! - so we are going to incorporate that in, as well as some really cool free sites I have found online for vocab building including -

1. Number2.com
2. Free Rice
3. Learning Vocabulary Fun
4. Prepme.com

We have started Ancient History and I think the outline that we have planned is going to work really well. The hands-on project booklets, lapbook sets and ancient science are going to tie the information from the textbook together really well. I downloaded the audiobooks of the Story of the World from our library network site and I think that as we get into each section I will introduce it by using one of the stories from the set. I am stressing to her that they are stories though. I know that many, many, many people have said that SOTW is a secular program and I get why they think that since it covers all religions. At the same time, in my opinion, the way they present the stories just doesn't feel right as a "History" curriculum. However the stories themselves are great little tidbits of "this is the type of stories that they told at this time" or "these are the things that they believed at that time." I will be sure to post pics as we get more into our ancient science and kits that we will be using.

We are also adding in some more math practice review days as she is starting to get into some unfamiliar territory. Each time she comes across a new concept I am shocked at how much I thought she had learned at PS, but she really never even touched on the subject. She is using the Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra as that is where she tested into in the system and she really likes how the system is set up, but it also assumes that you have a really good understanding of a lot of the basics and while she does in some areas she is REALLY lacking in others. At the moment we have taken a step back and are spending some extra time with percentages. These can be tricky little buggers and she just doesn't seem to want to follow all the steps in the process. She starts out fine and gets so close to the answer, but somehow gets tripped up on one or two steps. The weird part is that each time it seems to be different spots as well. So we will be taking this next week to reinforce the concepts with some hands on things and real-life math problems to see if I can get her to understand that completing ALL the steps is the only way to get the right answer. As I have said a gazillion times before, I really do not like to bash the school system, but they teach the kids that any answer is better than no answer. You see on the MCAS test they get points as long as they put something for an answer. If they leave an answer blank they get 0, but if they at least take a guess, even if it is the complete wrong answer, they get 1 point. If they take a guess and get the answer that is "almost" the right answer they get 2 or 3 points. If they get the right answer they get 4 points. ---hmmmm

I adore math! I always have and the 1 and only reason for that is that math is not a subjective topic. The answer is either right or wrong, even if you can have more then one solution to a problem ~ i.e. name a prime number that is less than 11 - the answer could be 1, 3, 5, or 7 ~ the answer that you give is either right or wrong. There is no arguing about it. There is no teacher saying that THEY don't interpret it that way. It is a truly black and white subject. So it baffles me that things like this are going on in our school system and I am having to retrain my daughter's brain.

When I started typing I never intended for this post to turn into another rant about the PS system - HONESTLY I DIDN'T! Since it has been a year out of that system I really should be beyond that by now - shouldn't I? But the more I am thinking about it, the more amazed I am that I am still discovering things about the system that I somehow missed when she was there. I also think that the scary part of that is that I was a very involved parent ~ I was even a substitute teacher for a while at the school and volunteered all the time ~ so how much are the uninvolved parents missing. The parents who barely have time to read through the mass of papers that come home from school or to check their kids homework. I am not saying that they all choose to be that way or making a judgement on them, but it is a little bit frightening to me to think that their kids are just being shuffled along and taught strategies to get through the test instead of being educating in order to be a productive and prosperous member of society.

I do apologize for the twisted route that this post has taken...I guess you just never know where you will end up once you start out -or what kind of changes you have to make along the way - so maybe I didn't get so far off topic as I thought I had!

Another Revamp ----

While I was traipsing around the blog-o-sphere last night I came across the post of a fellow homeschooling mom blogger Summer Fae - here - who had typed about her case of HMP - Homeschool Mom Panic!

This of course is the worst sort of mom panic, because your child's entire FUTURE rests in your meager little hands. There is no "awful teacher" to blame it on - except yourself - no "student peer pressure" to blame that behavior on - except those other children you have in your house - and no "school bus driver" who they picked up those bad road rage words from - I would never say those things!

Once you get past those wretched truths, you can soon come to realize that this is also the best sort of mom panic because you have total control over the situation - of course you may want to consult that co-principle that some of you have and then again you may not. You have the right to decide when, where, what and how your children are learning! The best part of homeschooling is that revamp policy that says "hey if it isn't working try something different or scrap it all together".

Here at GCK Homeschool we are working on an experiment in timing. We have found that trying to get KM to wake up, eat breakfast, brush her teeth and get ready to start her bookwork in the morning is just not worth the fight! It was getting to feel like we were back to the rush rush rush out the door feelings we used to have when she went to PS and I just don't have it in me to fight that battle anymore!

So instead, we are letting KM get out of bed and have breakfast at a leisurely pace. She has been watching some great Discovery Channel DVDs on the laptop during breakfast - presently she has been enjoying the Secrets of Archaeology Series which we got from the library. We then ease into our geography/holiday project we have been working on "Holidays Around the World" - pictures of that will be posted later in the week. We have been doing some yoga, silly games, exercises and chores after that, which brings us just about to lunch time. While I start lunch KM goes in and gets her daily estimation, daily writing, daily science question and Wordly Wise assignments done - which generally takes about 20-25 minutes to get done when she wants them to. During lunch we have been listening to audio books together - we just finished up the Redwall Collection by Brian Jacques, which is such a great story for audio books! After lunch we work on History, Science, Foreign Language, or whichever elective we have planned for that day. She has some free time in the afternoon, which she has been spending either on the computer or reading a lot lately. Then KM does her Teaching Textbooks assignment on her own in the later afternoon early evening.

Some days it feels like a lot or like the day is dragging on forever, but there are no fights in the morning to "get into gear" - CJ's favorite morning euphemism - and besides her daily things, she seems to be getting most of her other work done in 2 or 3 days instead of 5 - which is FINE by me! She seems to be much more able to focus and get things done when she hasn't been rushed into starting.

I don't know if this revamp will last forever and I am sure that it won't be our last, but I do know that at the moment it has calmed my HMP attacks quite a bit!

Me Time!

Two months ago I received my initiation in the First Degree of the Usui System of Reiki Natural. Since then I have tried several times to sit and go through the paperwork and books to prepare myself for the Second Degree training, but it seemed that every time something happened ~ the phone rang, SC woke up, KM needed help with something, the dryer buzzed - you know the inevitable something that causes every parent to not take time for themselves. This evening - after my sister called 5 seconds after I sat down with my books - I shut the ringer off, blocked out all other things and went over my notes.

I did not get anywhere near as much done as I would have liked, but it felt good to really engulf myself even for a few minutes in something other than next year's curriculum, pre-revolutionary America, 5th grade math or board books. It is often difficult to find time for oneself, but you have to or you are no good to anyone.

You must create a sanctuary for yourself, even if it is just a corner of your room, where you can recharge your own energy. Now this often means different things to different people ~ reading "girl" magazines, doing spa-at-home treatments, scrapbooking, meditating, listening to an audiobook, getting outside and being in the sunshine ~ but whatever your "thing" is, do it!

I have a meditation area in my room that is about 6 by 4 and nothing else is done in that area, but the thing is that I have not done any more than step through the area to grab a book in months! I must get back to my practice to balance things out again. I have bumped my yoga up to two classes a week, I am getting back to my regular daily yoga routine as well and I have scheduled my first shamantic-angelic-reiki session.

I am trying to remind myself on a daily basis that a burnt out mom - leads to a burnt out family!

There was also a quote within my notes that I felt compelled to share:
"Energy can only ground on the one who sends it out, and your job now, each one of you, is to measure carefully your own choices in interaction and step away from those who continue to participate in the darkness and negativity. Love, honesty, and kindness may now need to be tempered with a sense of finality when those in your life do not behave with honor, or choose to stay locked in negative behavior patterns. Justice is taken care of in the flow of energy itself, and will leave you free to move on to better days and wonderful new relationships when you make the choice to walk towards greater peace that you claim for yourself. Like attracts like." - Elaine Read-Cole

Feel free to share your ideas on how to recharge by leaving a comment!