Twin baby moose in sprinkler

This is soooo unbelievable cute - you have to take a look!

Transferring Trends

One of our wonderful moderators for an on-line support group in our state MHLA shared some very interesting statistics with the list yesterday:


For the second year in a row, over 1300 public school students (and their families) decided to leave the system and homeschool in MA.

Last year, 2006-07, the DOE ran their new SIMS stats for me (with the new Transfer to HS code) and determined that some 1371 students had "transferred" to homeschooling.

They have just run the stats for the 2007-08 school year and another 1323 have also decided to homeschool.

As stated before, this only tracks students that were enrolled as public school students and have left the system in the past year. It does not include those who previously left the system to HS, nor those who have HSed from the beginning and were never enrolled. Nor those who have left private schools for HSing.

Since my daughter is one of the 1323 students from the 07-08 school year, I thought I would comment on it. I have seen the term "accidental homeschoolers" popping up more and more in articles for parents who are new to homeschooling. It has been used to refer to the parents who never intended to homeschool their children, but have pulled their kids out of PS. I get the concept of it, but really I think it would be more accurate to call us "Parents that are Utterly Disgusted with the Public School System," "Parents who don't want to FIX their kids!" or "Parents for Truly Educated Children".

We didn't just fall out of bed one morning and say "Oops I guess we can't send her to school anymore!" For most of us it was a process that took a lot of wasted time, energy, and aggravation. We have been let down by a system that was suppose to educate ALL students that walk through it's "hallowed" halls. We have undertaken a huge responsibility in the structure of our children's futures. We have broken away from the norm, taken criticism from family and friends, suffered through our children feeling alienated and broken, in order to give them what they truly need to be well rounded responsible educated adults.

When I see that the numbers are as high as they are two feelings cross my mind:
1) Pride - I am proud of the fact that I can be included with such a courageous group of parents!
2) Sadness - for all the children whose parent's cannot, for whatever reason, give them this wonderful gift!

With the numbers this high, how can anyone say that these children would be better off in PS? Really can we ALL be wrong? Can we ALL be crazy?

For those of you who are also part of the 1323 - welcome! No matter what curriculum you use, what style suits your family, what religious background you come from - you are now "Homeschoolers"! You are brave, you are caring, you are wonderful! You are giving your child the very best gift you can give them!

Gotta love Freecycle!!!

That would be the consensus around this little house anyway!!!

Although it is not in perfect condition, SC had the biggest smile when she went into the backyard today and saw this little house waiting for her. It took me nearly 3 months of trying, but I finally got picked to receive something. I am so glad that this was the one I got! Kids outdoor toys are one of the hottest items on the Freecycle lists that I have seen. I think it is mostly because they charge so much for the items new that when you have only one or two kids, it is just not economically feasible to spend that much on an item that really doesn't get played with for that long.

If you don't freecycle already, I highly recommend that you go on to Yahoo and search for your local areas group. It amazes me some of the items that I have seen on there and how quickly things go!

There is something growing....

I DID IT!!!

I am not really a spontaneous person, gee bet you couldn't guess that one! I am pretty sure most of you would not even consider what I have done spontaneous at all,but here in my world it is a huge event! I finally found tickets to visit my father in FL for a reasonable rate, so KM and I are leaving in two weeks! Now as I said to most of you that would probably be a reasonable amount of time to book a trip. However I am one of those annoying people who plans trips months in advance and would normally already be pretty much packed by now. I just could not pass up the deal though. I think the biggest reason it is such a good rate is that is over Labor Day weekend and around here that is "Back-to-school" time. So yet again I get to gloat about homeschooling!
So now my spontaneous self gets to take the next two weeks and plan out our spontaneous trip to FL, so that we can have some really good spontaneous fun!!!!

OK stop laughing now! I know it is sad to admit how much of a control freak I am!

Curriculum and Planning Question

One of my favorite blogger mom's Fairyluver asked: "about your school year planning what curriculum do you use...if any, and how do you plan, I just ask because I look at your blog and your class days look like SO MUCH FUN, and your daughter looks like she has a blast too!!"

Well thanks so much! We try to have as much fun as possible!

As you may have figured out by now one of my favorite words is eclectic! My family is eclectic, my music selections are eclectic, so of course our homeschooling style is eclectic as well!
Deep down somewhere inside of me I really would like us to be unschoolers, but as I know I have mentioned several times in previous blogs we NEED schedules in our house and I am a bit of a control freak so...don't see it happening anytime soon. I do try my hardest to allow our curriculum and studies be led by what KM wants to learn about. We school year round and will not be going back to full time school until 9/29 as we wanted to take 2 full weeks off around mine and KM's birthday (which happen to be 3 days apart).
With that being said though here is what we are planning on using in Oct - must of the titles are linked to Amazon or other sites so you can actually see the book if you are interested! -

Math - my favorite subject!
Daily Estimation Adventures - for some reason she can understand fractions, ratios, decimals, and conversions, but she just does not get how to make or use an estimate. We will be doing this everyday.
Math Problem of the Week - I can't find a link for this one, but it has word problems that you assign on Monday and then throughout the week there are hints and strategies to use to help the student figure out the answers. The student is suppose to need less and less of the hints throughout the year.
Teaching Textbooks - Pre-Algebra - we are both very excited about starting this series! We will be doing this Tues - Fri most weeks. As we have our local coop on Mondays.

Language Arts - This is a difficult area for us because, as I have mentioned before, KM does not like to do writing. I have several different plans to try to address this area, but not sure how long we will do each or if we will get to them at all.
Writing to Inform
Writing to Explain
Writing to Persuade
We will be doing these workbooks in this order one page a day to help reinforce sentence structure and genre.
Spelling and Vocabulary - Houghton Milton - this is one that I am very iffy on, I am thinking of going back to the Wordly Wise series as she really liked it when she was in PS, but I got this workbook at a local book sale and figure I will try it. Worse case I end up going back and ordering the Wordly Wise Grade 6 set. (added note - we did end up getting this as KM really wanted to do it again this year! so we will be starting out with this, but it is only a 22 week program so we will fill in the rest with my original choice!)

Literature - along with the immense amount of reading that she does each day on her own these are the titles that we will be doing cooperative reading with -
Dragon Slayer Academy Book 1 & 2
21 Balloons
A Wrinkle In Time
Hitty Her First Hundred Years
Island of The Blue Dolphin
Kira-Kira
Left Behind: The Kids Books 1 & 2
Number the Stars
Shiloh
Sounder
Strawberry Girl
The Giver
The Tale of the Despereaux
The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle
Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze
- We will be using efantasmic, resources from Scholastic's site and some lapbooks & literature studies from Currclick .

Science -
Science Question of the Day - this is just to reinforce learned skills and to supplement.
Classic Science: Elementary Life Science - I was pointed in the direction of this FREE curriculum and KM walked in while I was looking at and thought it was something that she would like to try so...we are doing this first. It has a ton of interactive aspects to it. I also have an Earth Science Curriculum in the makings for when we finish the life science or just in case it doesn't go as well as we hope.
Ancient Science - this is an experiment book that we will use along with our Ancient History studies.
Museum of Science - We got a yearly membership and plan on going at least twice a month, to research whatever we happen to be working on and to use their fantastic library and teacher resources!

History - this is the area that I had the most difficulty deciding on a curriculum for so we are winging it.
I realized that all KM really knew about History was the Pilgrims, Native American and the Pre-revolutionary war. You see given our location on the South Shore of Massachusetts these are the hot topics. So I decided to kind of go with The Well-Trained Minds approach and start at the beginning. I have an Ancient History textbook that I got at a local book sale, that I will be using as kind of a guideline, but we are mostly going to use living books to work through history. Starting with the dinosaurs, cavemen and prehistoric periods and work our way to the ancient civilizations. I really did not like the way that a lot of the curriculum jump from time period to time period and there is no real sequence to them. We will be working on a time-line basis which goes around our playroom/classroom area. Here are some resources that we hope to do -
Mayans, Aztecs & Incas - thematic unit
Ancient China - thematic unit
Ancient Rome - history pocket
Ancient Egypt - History pocket
D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths & the literature unit to go with it
We will be doing geography along with this and I have a lot of plans for lapbooks that we can do!
We will be doing science and history one full afternoon a week - each of the two days that I don't have SC here so that we can really focus on them and do the experiments without the little one running under foot!

We will also be doing the following Electives:
Exchange City - We are doing this for a second time, but are doing the curriculum with our Homeschooling coop group.
Spanish - we are going to be trying out the livemocha.com site.
Health - using this free curriculum -Road of Life - as well as a lot of websites.
Typing - using several different websites and programs - KM's favorite is Dance Mat Typing
Current Events - using thematic studies as well as Flash Five - PBS Kids News site.This will also cover the upcoming Presidential and Local Elections.
Art & Music - we will be using the Core Knowledge Book What Your 6th Grader Needs to Know as well as supplements for music history and of course lots of arts and crafts projects. I am also thinking of using some of the activities from How to Teach Art to Children.
Yoga once a week.
Cooking as interest is shown.

Now this may seem a bit extensive to some, but I like to be prepared and a lot of these things KM just really wants to do. How are day actually works will be different than how we did it last year and I am hoping that it will work.
Here is my plan for that:
Since I have SC generally three to four days a week we will be doing science and history one full afternoon a week - each of the two days that I don't have SC here so that we can really focus on them and do the experiments without the little one running under foot!
Mondays is our coop group so she will not having any other full subjects on that day - though she will be responsible for doing her daily math & science questions, writing, spelling/vocab & reading. However we may try to sneak in Health or Spanish on this day in the evening if it is workable.
Tuesday - Friday ~ she will be doing Math every day as well as the daily things mentioned above in the mornings.
Electives will be done in the afternoons on the days that SC is here. We will also try to include her in these activities if possible and/or do some while she is napping.
Literature reading will be done in the evenings either during dinner prep or after dinner.
We use Saturday Mornings for catch-up if we need it. This allows us to do field trips without having to adjust the plans too much.

Well I feel like I left a gazillion things out, but of course that is always the way. How can really account for everything that goes on in a household.

What Happened to the Garden?

I got an email today from one of my wonderful blogger mom friends asking about how our garden had turned out as I hadn't mentioned anything about it.
I think I hadn't mentioned it because it didn't turn out nearly as well as we had hoped, but we did get some things out of it.
Here is what happened -
First we had everything growing beautifully and when we went to start transplanting them outside we had a downpour for 3 days and most of the seedlings did not make it. Then we got them up and going again on the back porch this time and we had another wash out that lost about 2/3 of the plants. When I finally got a dry enough day to transplant we realized that all the sticks had gotten mixed up and we really weren't sure what some of the things were, so we just guessed and put them in the ground. We knew that we had cucumbers, carrots, peas, squash, lettuce and watermelon once they started growing a bit more and things looked good once they got in the ground. Then came more torrential rain! It was the long leaf variety so the weight of them with all the rain water made them topple over. They were growing so well too! We had lettuce coming out our ears.
The cucumbers and the squash have not produced anything. Don't know why they had huge flowers blooming, but their is no sign of squash forming. Some say we did not water them enough, but I don't know how we could have watered them more.
Here is a picture of the beans KM got out of the garden today and the mini carrots that she pulled up because she did not believe me when I said that they really were carrots growing under there!
We have been discussing our plans for next years garden and the big thing we will be doing is RESEARCH!
We really kinda just went at it this year with very little information or guidance at all, so I guess with that in mind we did really well.

STUFF

This time of year with everyone getting ready for "Back to School" - or in our case "Not Back to School" - organization has been a big topic of discussion. As I am sure I have mentioned before I am a bit OCD with organization in my house. Honestly I just can't focus or feel settled if there is clutter. Now I don't mean that you can eat off the floors or that my house is spotless by any means, but things need to be neat and close to its place. One of the moms on a yahoo group I belong to brought up the question of beyond organizing how do people deal with the accumulation of "stuff" and I thought I would share my suggestion to her -

When KM was younger we moved a lot - 8 times in 5 years. We were lucky when we moved to our current home to have the ability to move in very slowly over a four month period so that KM could finish kindergarten at the school she was in and I could really get the place organized. As we were moving I started discovering boxes with things I hadn't seen in years, there were literally 14 large boxes and 5 smaller ones that I hadn't opened in years. CJ made a really good observation - if we hadn't looked for it in "X" amount of years when would we? We had moved those boxes each and every time we moved thinking hey we could use that for this or will have somewhere to hang that picture in the new house, but of course we never did and we just kept moving them from place to place. So we really went through them this time and found two items out of all those boxes that we actually wanted/needed to keep, since then we have tried to live by if you don't use it - it goes.

Here is my suggestion:

Starting with the attics, basements, and closets go through the boxes and bags and such where you have things stored. Look at the things that you have and besides sentimental children's things and such, think whether you will really ever use it. Now I know it is difficult to get rid of stuff so start by boxing those things that you aren't sure if you will use. Seal the box with tape, date it and put it in the corner. In six months if the boxes seals are not broken then off they go. Don't even open them or have someone else take them and open them - this helps you from the temptation of "Oh, but I might NEED that."

In the playroom we have a tote that I use to store things that aren't touched. For instance if I see the Polly Pocket castle hasn't been touched in weeks, I simply put it in the tote. If my dd doesn't ask for it in a month, I move it to a larger tote in the garage. Then at the end of each month KM and I go to the tote and take it to the donation & recycle center. She has one chance to say why she hasn't used it, why she wants it or when she thinks she will use it. Like in the summer there is more leg room as she tends to play outside so the smaller inside toys don't get touched, but then we put a tote on the back porch and do the same thing with the outdoor toys. Generally everything in the tote gets taken away. It is up to you whether you want to give your child the last chance effort or not. I do know some parents, especially of younger children, who just get rid of the stuff without asking or telling the kids. Honestly I used to do the same thing with some stuff, especially with the little do-hickey items - like BK toys & birthday favors - until KM started being responsible for the recycling in the house and able to understand why she didn't NEED all the stuff.

I also do this in areas where I store things that don't get used all the time, like carafes, pitchers and serving items. I am generally the one in our family to do all the hosting, therefore I have a lot of these items. Recently I have begun to discover that there are certain items that don't come out anymore and I just keep moving them to get to the things that I always use. These items have been put in the garage tote as well to go to the donation center.

So this is what works in our house - maybe it will work for some of you guys as well. What is your strategy to deal with "stuff"?

Night-time Suprise

For a while now I had thought that the art area in my daughter's room was not being used and had been thinking about moving it. Today when I went in to bring her laundry I was pleasantly surprised to see something on the easel. Come to find out she has been sketching at night when she can't fall asleep. Gee - that might be why she has been having such a hard time waking up in the morning!


This is her art area that we had to consolidate when SC started getting mobile, we moved everything into KM's bedroom so that we could close the door.Here is her latest sketch. She used glitter tape left over from a project to make the rays shimmer. She has been into this rapid line approach lately as she says it gives the picture movement!

Award Nominations!

A fellow homeschooling blogger mom - Leigh - nominated me for the Brilliante Weblog Premio 2008 Award!

Thank you, thank you! Hold the applause!

According to what I have found the rules once you receive this award are:

Put the logo on your blog.
Be sure to add the link from the person that sent it to you.
Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
Be sure to add those links to your blog, too.
Leave a message on their blogs so they know they are nominated.

Here are my nominations -
Bore Me To Tears
Building Castles in the sky...
Different Brilliant Colors
From the Rubber Room
Life at Chez Smiffy
Live Free in Harmony
Throwing Marshmallows

Thanks Leigh - I would have had you at the top of my nomination list if you hadn't gotten me first!

FINALLY - she got a pic!

She finally did it....KM got a pic Oreo. I don't know how, but she did. She wanted me to make sure that I pointed out that he is not a "Black Cat" as he has a white spot on his chest and belly, so he is not scary at all. However these pics make him look a bit scary to me as his eyes are all weird, but anyway this really is a feat as he is hardly in the house long enough to eat and when he is he usually hides under, behind or on top of the most absurd things.

Final Summer Art Class

For the final class they sponge painted paper and made origami wallets...

I love the mix of colors that she chose. The shades of purple look just right.

This one reminds me of fall leaves.

This is a mini one that she made so that she can remember the right way to fold it.

She is sad that this class is over so soon, but we are discussing her taking a cartooning class in the fall with the same teacher. We will see what comes of that.

Are we spoiled?

Disclaimer: for those of you who read this and aren't homeschoolers I truly apologize ahead of time and suggest that maybe you skip reading this entry. I would also like to reiterate the fact that we have only been homeschooling for 8 mo, so for those of you who are homeschoolers I believe you will truly understand what I mean by this...

KM and I took a trip into the Museum of Science today. I just got an annual membership a few weeks ago because she has always loved going and exploring this museum and with all the other benefits you get with a membership I managed to work it into our homeschool budget. So I planned this day in so that I could really look around and see how I could incorporate what they have with what we were planning on learning in science this year.

We started out -as always - in the math section. KM was a little bit disappointed as three of her favorite areas were down and needing repairs. In all the times we had gone to this museum we had never managed to see the whole Lightning Show presentation that they have so we decided to head in there early to make sure we got a clear view. We parked ourselves on the second level so that we could get a really good view of the lightning, but not too far away from the speaker. We had been sitting there for about 15 minutes waiting patiently for the show and when it started there was a sudden mad dash of people hovering in around us. This women with her three very young children shoved her way onto the end of the bench we were sitting on and her son kept poking KM who was trying very hard to listen to the description and be polite to the young boy at the same time. At the first crack of lightning all three of her kids let out these unbelievable ear piercing screeches, to the point the man running the show (a level below us mind you) said "and that is why we don't recommend having young children present!" Glad he said it cause I was thinking it. She took her children out of the room and we would have thoroughly enjoyed the remainder of the show if people hadn't kept pushing in around us. We were sitting on a bench with no back and I just don't understand how in those types of situations all respect of other's personal space is shoved out the window. The just keep inching forward and leaning in on you - it drives me CRAZY!

After the show we went and got lunch, checked out the live animal center where they have endangered and rescued animals, and then into the Science in the Park area - another of KM's favorites. In here the children were running everywhere, pushing and shoving, paying no attention to who was in line next just getting to where they wanted to go. I also noticed that there were quite a few attractions that were being repaired in this area as well. We then decided to go through my favorite area the butterfly exhibit, we got our tickets and while we waited for our time slot to come up we walked through and area I don't really remember ever seeing before...

This whole area had all different optical illusions and art pieces.

Maybe she will do her chores now?

This one showed how photography had developed through the ages. When you clicked the trigger it showed how differently images looked through the lens of cameras throughout their development.

Then it was time to go visit the butterflies...

These were some of the better pics of the day. I didn't get as many from the area as I usually do because we had to be ushered through because there were a few boys that were trying to "free" the butterflies.

As we were leaving this exhibit I asked KM where she wanted to head next and I was very surprised when she said, "Would you mind if we headed home?" Now it is not like we had just gotten there we were coming up close on our 4th hour in the Museum, but the surprising part was that I usually have to fight the "can we just look at this - I didn't get to look at that though" the whole way out of the museum, through the lobby and into the parking garage. When I asked her why she said - "I just really think we should come back in September." Out of the mouths of babes as they say & I must say I gladly agreed with her.

Museums are different places when Public/Private/Traditional/Whatever Schools are in session. If you are not a homeschooler and you don't believe me, keep your kids home for a "family field trip" one of these days and you will see what I mean! As I said in the beginning those of you who homeschool surely understand what I am talking about.

Please understand that it is not that I think that other people don't know how to behave in these situations or that they don't have a right to be there as that is not the case. I just think that we have been spoiled by being able to go to the museums, gardens, parks, movies, etc during "regular" school hours when there are not gobs and gobs of people attending. I also feel sorry for the children & parents for that matter, who are rushed through these exhibits and barely get a chance to really see what they are about because either someone else is waiting or they need to get through the entire museum in one day. I am glad that our family is fortunate enough to be able to really enjoy the museum at our own pace - at least 9 months out of the year we are anyway!

2nd Anniversary

Today is the 2nd Anniversary of Noni's passing - it seems like yesterday really. I don't know how 2 years has gone by in such a blink. I think this year we are all feeling it more as their is less chaos around. Last summer SC was born and we were planning MC's wedding so although we missed her terribly there was too much to get done to leave any time to process feelings.

MC's & my relationship has become stronger through these two years without a doubt. There have always been times when we want to maim one another, but hey doesn't that happen with all sisters. Our mother was our rock in everything that we did. She had most of the answers and when she didn't she knew the words to say to help you figure it out on your own. There were those times of course when the answers that she gave were not the ones that we wanted to hear, but they were always the ones we needed.

Noni loved her grandkids more than anything in the world. She would have done anything for them. She always said that since she couldn't have children herself that the greatest gift that she ever received was being able to see KM be born. They had such an incredible bond with one another. I am so glad that I was able to share that with her. I truly believe that she is watching over SC every day. There are times that I wonder if SC is talking to her as well because every so often she looks up toward the ceiling with this concentrating look on her face and babbles away. I hope that she is.

So MC & I are heading off to the cemetery this morning with the girls and then to have lunch with some of our Great Aunts & Uncles. The torrential rain has finally cleared so we are hoping that Noni will make sure the humidity stays down as well. In memory of Noni I thought I would post the poem that was printed on her prayer cards:

Mother, A Light

A light is from our household gone,

a voice we loved is still,

a place is vacant in our home,

that never can be filled.

You can only have one mother,

patient, kind and true,

no other friend in all the world,

will be the same to you.

When other friends forsake you,

to mother you will return,

for all her loving kindness,

she asks nothing in return.

As we look upon her picture,

sweet memories we recall,

of a face so full of sunshine,

and a smile for one and all.

Sweet Jesus take our message,

to our dear mother up above,

tell her how we miss her,

and give her all our love.

May She Rest in Peace.

Amen.

Added later in the day:

We stopped and got some flowers and KM wanted me to take some pictures of all the pretty things we had added. This was also the first time that SC was awake at the cemetery, so I got some cute pics of her helping...

We added the flowers in the front and KM brought a small vase that you can just barely see that had Noni's favorite flowers from our yard in it.


SC wants to be just like her mommy, so when MC put the shovel down and stepped away for a second SC was there to try the shovel work too.


After watching me and KM make several trips to the water spicket with the Dunkin Donuts cup ~~of course we forgot the watering can, but at least we remembered the shovel this time~~ SC decided she would go over and try to get the spicket to work as well...luckily it was too hard for her to turn.

After the cemetery we had a wonderful lunch with our favorite Great Aunt! She is the most wonderful women in the world. Then we headed to the next house over to see my favorite Uncle. KM and I went wandering through his garden and he sent us home with enough veggies for a week. It was a good swap though because the only thing he didn't grow this year was lettuce - the one thing I have TONS of since the torrential rainstorms knocked mine over. It was a very very nice afternoon!!!

Summer Art Class Week 4

Today's class was on weaving...very interesting use of left over yarn and straws!!! I will post directions after KM teaches me how to do it! Not really sure what she will use it for but I am sure she will think of something...