Day 24

Today I discovered the Thomas Jefferson Education site.  Their basic premise is that you cannot teach someone who does not want to learn, and this is a basic flaw in the entire education system of the country.  One must figure out the goal of the education (Enlightenment?  Employment?  Career?  Politics?) to figure out how to go about it.  One more building or a few more computers aren't going to change the education in schools.
I was intrigued with this whole idea, as that seems to be part of the problem in my house.  I'm trying to get facts into their heads that they don't really care about.  While this philosophy may not make me throw out the history text or math sheets, I think it can play a very important role in Luke and Emily's education. 
One of the suggestions was if one is not truly educated oneself, to start getting educated as the parent.  Read the classics.  Read the Federalist Papers, Asimov, Einstein, Aristotle, and others.  This is the basis of a Thomas Jefferson Education.  They don't really believe in using textbooks, but as I looked at the list of resources they recommend as Classics, Saxon math was among them.  Actually, MANY of the books we have read to the kids or they have read themselves were on the list, so I feel pretty good about that. 
The other point that a Thomas Jefferson education makes is that, as the kids get older, use mentors, not teachers.  I think it's an interesting idea, but not sure how one goes about it in this day and age.  I guess that having them take a music lesson from an inspiring musician is a good start.  From there, I think they have to wait a while.  I'm doing well if I get them another teacher at all, never mind a mentor, but I think we'll get there when they are older. 
I am most intrigued...

Days 22, 23

Here's what happens when I have a good day or two.  I get totally distracted and don't post! 

We have now caught up with Math from when Luke was sick, and everything is rolling merrily along.  Unfortunately, I'm getting the lousy cold now, and it's going to be lousy weather tomorrow.  Yuck.  Still have to go out as we are doing crafts for our history class tomorrow. 

Picturing America did a great job of collecting works that really represent the history of our country, and the teacher's guide does a good job of going over what the kids should learn, and ways to help them learn them.
Tomorrow we will be going over the Native People's baskets.  There are examples from pretty much all over the country (ok, not the northeast, but what can you do?) and we will be making coiled clay vessels much like they made in the American Southwest.  And this is only the first one! 

If you want to access the art online, go to http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/ The whole collection includes photos, paintings, stained glass, quilts and architecture.  There is an amazing amount of info available online at this site.

Day 21

Monday again!  How does it come around so fast? 

MUSET, the homeschool orchestra, was good.  Luke is hanging on to his cold for all he's worth, so he did not play (or even bring) his trumpet.  What I didn't find out until later is that he did what I asked him to, which was to follow along in the music and try to see where he would be playing.  That was one of the up points.  Another was when the leader complimented Emily on her enthusiasm.

On the down side, which really isn't a down side, I found out that Emily is truly lacking in music-reading and tracking ability.  No, not ability, but skill.  This isn't really a negative because now we have a point to start at.  This is what is missing from the public school scenario.  If a kid is lost in band, he's lost, and he MIGHT get help, and he might not.  More than likely he'll eventually find himself out of band.  Homeschooling, I can find out the problem and address it.  Now we have a unit study to do! 

This reminds me of math.  Not math now, but when I was in high school in NYC.  I had taken algebra and geometry in junior high, so by the time I was a junior, I was in trigonometry.  I could not make heads or tails out of what the teacher was saying.  My not-so-bright solution?  "It's the first semester.  I'll fail this, and they'll let me repeat it next semester."  Not so bright.  I sat in the back of class and read fiction all through the semester.  When I think about it, I'm appalled at myself, but more appalled that a teacher would allow that to go on!  And my plan backfired, as it turned out that they didn't offer the first semester again, so I got pushed onward anyway.  What a mess. 

Had I been homeschooled, I may have gotten lost, but it would have been noticed and rectified.  Rectification, the signature of homeschooling!  Now, I have rectification of my own to do with Emily.  I think she'll feel good about getting the hang of it.  We started going over the notes and rests, beats and time.  It will be good for me, too, as I try to beat my clarinet into submisson.  I hope that my playing a new instrument will be inspiring to both Luke and Emily.  I hope it will show them that you can always have a passion for learning something new.

Day 20

Today we went on a field trip to one of our favorite almost-local places.  Trevor Zoo is a zoo run by the students at Millerton School across the river from us.  It's a private boarding high school (one of the few places I wouldn't object to sending the kids to, but we couldn't even near afford it). 

A Red Panda

A Porcupine

They have over 180 animals, many exotic, some endangered.  Today we actually took part in a class for homeschoolers which was really well done.  The man who taught was really great with the kids, taking it in stride when people didn't raise their hands, either from excitement or not knowing about the whole raise-your-hand-to-speak thing (mine would fall into that catagory.  Oops.)

He discussed how animals 'make a living', either through hunting, grazing, whatever it takes for them to eke out an existence.  We learned that our jaws come in two parts, connected by ligaments, tendons and muscles.  We learned about homologous (birds of different feathers have the same parts but don't always use them the same way, such as an ostrich and a hummingbird) and analogous features (such as wings of a flying bird, a bat, and a butterfly.  They all do the same thing, but are not built the same way).

Another topic was classification.  He left us with homework (yay!) which was a sheet to fill out with all the animals of the zoo in their proper classification down to Order.  I was surprised that I could remember the names all the way down:
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species

The mnemonic I was given in high school was King Phillip Came Over For Good (um) Spaghetti.
It's amazing, the things you remember. 

Anyway, even though Luke is sick, and Emily now has a fever, they both enjoyed the class, and loved the zoo.  It's not huge, but it has a lot going for it.  I love the porcupine.

Day 19

Day 19?  How did I get here? 

Anyway, somehow, it's 7:30pm, and my daughter is in the dining room working on her math without complaining.  It's a mystery to me.  Not just that she's not arguing (though she was earlier) but that somehow school is taking longer and longer.  How can we not be done before 7:30 at night? 

I have heard from other homeschoolers that fourth grade is a tough one.  Maybe it's because we finally realize that we ARE doing academics, and we need to really buckle down but I think what it comes to is that this is the age where independence and youth are at war, and the homeschool parent is in the middle of the battlefield.  There is nowhere to hide.  I know some homeschoolers who went to school in fourth grade.  One returned to homeschooling the following year, one stayed in school.  It is hard to be in a constant tug-of-war.  On the one hand, you want to give independence, on the other, the kid is too young to handle "Take these papers and have them done by 3pm."  So we have been trying to meet in the middle.  Seems like it's always the middle!

In other news, Emily is now coming down with the cold, which could explain why she seemed so out of it in History class.  Ah, well, may as well get it out of the way early.  Hopefully we won't be sick all winter.  Ugh!

Day 18

A new day, a new experience!  Luke is still sick, but we managed to get Emily to Dance, and we all went to Rocket Day.  Steve had built the launcher this past spring, and we really enjoyed it.  All the kids build rockets and buy engines and igniters, and we go to the park and launch them.  Today, it was just as good!  We sent the rockets up a bunch of times, and this time only lost two of them!  Last time, we launched them until most of them were gone.  I think we would have this time if it hadn't been for the fact that the kids lost interest since we were in the sun and the temps were in the high 80's!  However, a good time was had by all, and no one got hurt or even upset particularly, so a good day in my book.

In math news, Emily has decided that she likes the timed sheets!  I'm amazed, I'm astounded, and I'm thinking it may last because she's been getting more into it as the days have gone by.  Very cool!

In just plain other news, found a web site today that I think I have to use.  Lots of games, and organized by grade and type, it seems a bit flashy, but I think it will be good for them to use.  http://www.vocabulary.co.il/ is the web address. 

All in all, a good day!

Day 17 Positive

Positively sick, that is.  Luke has a terrible cold, up with which he does not well put.  My boy hates like blazes when he can't breathe through his nose, and makes no small noise about it.  Since I am operating on ONE cup of coffee, and he had me up last night, I am less than in a good place.
However, it showed me rather glaringly that homeschooling is the option for him.  If he went to school, I would have kept him home today, to be sure, but tomorrow I'd be thinking about sending him in.  I'd be worried that he's missing too much school for a cold. 
Today, he managed a page of English.  That's fine.  Tomorrow, it will be something else even if he is still sick.  Homeschooling allows us to keep him in the learning zone.  It seems like homeschooling is less like regular school, and more like a vast number of Venn diagrams.  Sometimes I'm not even sure how many of the circles we're in.  What did we learn today?  We learned that sometimes it's easier to sleep in a car when you're sick.  We also learned that it's a good idea to bring the vomi-pot in the car with us, but that it would be an even better idea to bring water for rinsing said vomi-pot. 
We learned that we (Emily) can do her work when someone else needs attention.  We learned that she outgrew all her clothes from last year.  We learned that something that costs $8 would cost us $32 if we want 4 of them, and $24 if we want 3, but that maybe we can make them ourselves.

We'll return to more strict academics tomorrow, or maybe the next day for Luke, but meantime, it isn't like he's not learning something.