Changing and Rearranging

So, how many times can I change my mind about the next school year? As a woman, about a million before we actually start. We haven't even finished this year. The good thing about that is that we are down to 3 days!! I scored a huge deal on curriculum. I mean GINORMOUS. I sold the Apologia we had from co-op last year. I had been meaning to post it, but I was lazy. Within a few hours of finally getting it listed on a couple of resale sites, I had a buyer. And within a day, I bought a box of curriculum for the same amount I got from selling the science. It's BJU Press, which I have really come to like. More importantly, the kids dig it. I got just about everything I would need for 10th grade. The set included world history, grammar and composition, literature, biology, Spanish, and bible. Holy cow!! And after talking to the kids about next year, they wanted a change, too. Well, ok. Here's what we're doing this time. As always, watch for updates, because I'll probably change my mind. Again.

• History:  The big girl was going to do American history. I absolutely love, love, love teaching American history. But the big girl wants to study world history. Doh! Fine. Good thing I just happen to have some. There will still be additional reading for her, because I am a mean mama that way. The boy and the baby were going to do state studies. I figured it would coincide with the big girl. Yeah, no. They want to do a study of Ancient Greece. The boy is very much into Greek mythology, so how can I say no when he looks at me with those big, brown eyes? Like this, "NO!" But I didn't this time. After talking to the baby about it, she agreed. So, world history for the big girl and Ancient Greece for the other 2. But there will be American history next year, dangit, if I have to strap them all to a chair!!
• Language Arts: As much as I love history, I wanted to be and English teacher. The English language is so convoluted and hard to get through. I figured if I could help even one person navigate it, then yippee. I guess I'm helping 3. Score! I was going to use A Beka's World Lit, but we are going to use the BJU Press for her. I like the way it's set up. I like the info that's in there. I like that it makes her think a little more. She is also going to use the Grammar and Composition. She hasn't had much of either, so there you go. With those 2, however, I don't think she's going to have much time for the vocabulary I have for her. That stinks, but if there's time next year, she can use it then. Or, I have it for the other 2. I am looking for the A Beka Grammar and Composition II for the boy. He hasn't had much of that either and I think it would do him good. I have the teacher's manual and even had the opportunity to buy it last year and didn't. If I can't find it, I'll drop back and punt.    
• Science: I am running a science co-op for high school biology. I had the most amazing biology teacher and loved it. I have some friends that are not comfortable with the upper level science and I am cool with that. My friend M will be teaching the younger kids, which is 4th-7th grade. I had planned to use a plethora of science unit studies I've downloaded over the years for the boy and the baby. Instead, they'll participate in the co-op. And, really, it takes one thing off of my shoulders. Yea for that! I am going to need something off my shoulders.
• Summer School: I had planned to start when the 2 big kids got back from camp. Now, I'm thinking about summer dance. It's just 3 weeks, and the classes the kids would take would only be one day a week. It would give the kid a chance to try something that they may be interested in, but not sure if they want to invest a whole year to. The big girl is thinking comtemporary, the boy is thinking jazz, and the baby is thinking hip hop. The boy has taken jazz before, but not with Mr. Matt. He has learned so much in 4 months of spins, leaps,a nd jumps with Mr. Matt, he may take jazz again next year, but he wants to try the class first. That would mean dance one day and school 1-2 days a week, but only for three weeks. I want to take July off since we start school in August. So maybe no summer school. Oh, I know the kids will be incredibly upset. Actually, I would get the Mom of the Year Award if I cancelled summer school. Well, crap.  

Not much changed, but enough to make me scrap my original plans. The big girl and I are going to sit down one day after camp so she can do a mock lesson plan. She'll be putting together her own lesson plans next year with some help from her mama, at least for a little bit. We are hoping to take a mini vacation this summer. Just a couple of days somewhere away from the house. A little down time before we start the mad rush that is our school year is always much appreciated. A month on the beach would be amazing!!

Have a great day.

School's Out for Summer...Only, Not Really

We have 7 days of school left. Count 'em, baby!! We're ready. We got a late start on Monday and the boy said we should call school for the day. Um, no. So much to do still and we are headed into the home stretch. Then I looked at where they were in all their school work. Ugh! We need to summer school. Well. Crap.

Part of this is my problem. Well, duh, since I set the pace. I didn't realize with some of the big girl's curriculum that when she takes a quiz, she should also complete a lesson. And really, when she takes a test, she should also complete a lesson. Some of her tests can be as many as 6 pages long. In my defense, though, if I followed the teacher's guides to the letter, she would school from 9 in the morning until 7 or 8 at night. There is that much info that needs to be covered. It's set up for school, but not really homeschooling. It has homework, but we didn't do the work like homework. I assigned that for the next day. And that throws us behind. I had a friend that used this curriculum at the private high school she attended growing up. She said it was intense. When everyone in college was complaining about the workload, she was breezing through it since she had such a heavy load in high school. Which brings us to point 2.

There is so much work in high school. In our public schools, the students don't go all day, every day. They have early dismissal one day a week and they are on an A/B schedule of alternating days. The big girl does almost everything every single day. She has a much heavier load than some of the public schoolers we know. Some of the seniors I know go for one class, then they're done for the day. What?!?! How did you get all the credits you need and still manage to get out early? That is not happening here. My friend S has her daughter start math in June because her work load is so heavy when her co-op starts, that she would never get math done. Although we aren't starting new stuff, I feel like if we don't try to finish some stuff, like math and grammar, the kids will be behind before we even start.  

 I was speaking to my friend G about biology co-op next year. She started 9th grade with her oldest in April and will work all summer. If they are diligent, he will be a 10th grader come September. When he gets ready to graduate, they will have a few extra months to work on credits he may need. I totally get that. My big girl will graduate at 17 and won't be 18 until the following August. If she needs credits, we'll have time. I would rather get as much done now, and not be scrambling come graduation time. I like the "be prepared" way of thinking G has.

I know there are people out there that think homeschoolers are lazy. The reason we keep our kids home is to indoctrinate them in a way of life that is unacceptable to "society". That we buy faith based curriculum because we are religious fanatics. I am a Jesus freak, but that isn't why. To tell the truth, I homeschool my kids because I know they are getting a top notch education. I know that the curriculum we use, faith based or not, is challenging and will help my kids in their future endeavors, regardless of what those endeavors are. I homeschool because I love my kids and they will be grown and gone before I know it. I homeschool because it's the best thing for our family. The summer school thing stinks to high heaven, but we have to do it. I'd rather take a vacation.

Have a great day.    



 

Daybook, Part I Don't Even Know...

It has been awhile, I know. I haven't had a ton of motivation. Lots going on in my mind and we all know that's trouble. So here we go:

• Outside my window...the sun is shining, the birds are singing and the donkeys are braying. Make them stop. They are cute and all, but they are also LOUD. Who knew? They get going and the goats start. Then the roosters and the chickens. They aren't ours. They belong to the neighbors. They have a mini farm working over there. I wonder how much they spend on feed every month? Wait, no I don't. You should see how many dogs they have. I think someone needs a new hobby. The donkeys are super sweet and so are the goats. You pet them and they they almost smile.
• From the schoolroom...We have 3 weeks of school left!! Can I get a woot woot?!?! I am more than ready for this year to be over. It has been a learning experience. I can honestly say that while doing research for high school, attending homeschooling conferences, and learning about state scholarships and dual enrollment, the state has great homeschooling laws, but state agencies have a HUGE problem with homeschoolers. The rules and regulations for homeschoolers that need/want scholarship money are much more strict than the rules for public or private schooled students. I am much more informed and prepared for my next 2. I'm counting that as a win.
• From the garden...The tower is full. We have the most beautiful lettuce. We planted a loose leaf lettuce and it is gorgeous and almost ready to eat. We had also planted a bibb lettuce but that has decided it doesn't want to do well. We also have spinach and chard in the tower. They are so pretty. In the raised beds we have snap peas and beets in 1 and tomatoes, peppers, onions and garlic in the other. The garlic and onions started as an accident. I went to use the onion and it had growth, so we let it grow a little bigger and planted it. The garlic came from the compost we put in the raised bed. It just showed up in the bed one day, so we kept it. I have another bulb (see, that's why they grow. They're plants begging to start.) that's growing. It's getting planted, too. Potatoes are growing and growing and growing. By July, we should have more than we know what to do with. I am not disappointed about that!!
• I am reading...I just finished a Carol Burnett book. It was stories that she was telling in a one woman show that she had. It was some stories from her early life and career and the answers to questions that the audience would ask her. I laughed my patootie off. I was trying to read Snow Falls on Cedars again. Finding some quiet time so I can read it is something else entirely. It's a little intense and deserves some time. The book I turned in yesterday was a hoot. It was The Sweet Potato Queens. It made me giggle. I needed some light reading. Our after dinner book is Buddy by M. H. Herlong. It's about a boy who finally gets a dog and then loses it during Katrina, the finds him again. We have three chapters left and we are all champing at the bit to see how it ends. I may read after lunch today since hubby's home with us.
• From the kitchen...bacon. That should be all I have to say about that, but I'm not that kind of girl. I had originally bought it to make brussel sprouts. It went in the cart first. When I got to produce, no sprouts. But the bacon stayed. And there's some in the oven right now. I'm frying an egg in the grease because that's how I roll. It smells so good. The big girl wanted home made hamburger helper. So we made some. It is so easy and yummy. And believe it or not, there has been some creativity with our dinners and a couple of them included spinach. Cooked. Of which I am not a fan. But it was really good. 
• Around the house...we have a new baby. Her name is Stella and she is super sweet. She is also a puppy, so she gnaws and bites everything, including us. She is 3 months old and she is German Shepherd/Rottweiller/Wolf. She's going to be a big dog. My inlaws have one of her brothers. He's twice as big and twice as rowdy as she is. I'm glad we have her, and not her brother. She follows hubby around like he is her hero. It's a good thing I'm not the jealous type, because I could get that way. Talk about a boy and his dog.

Alright, that's it for now. I'm going to go eat bacon and eggs. My house smells like coffee and bacon. The only thing better than that is a chocolate cake. Hey, now there's an idea. Have a great day.

Finishing Well, OR, I'm Behind Before I Even Get Started!!

Well, crap. That's the way to be positive, isn't it? I went to a Finish Well conference over the weekend. I took the big girl and we both had several friends that attended. (Yet another thing I adore about homeschooling. I know all the parents of my kids' friends and they are friends of mine.) It is a conference on how to homeschool through high school. It was very enlightening. There were so many speakers and workshops and I wish I could have gone to every one of them. The main thing I did find out was that I should have gone last year, before the big girl started high school. I am already behind the 8 ball.

All of that to say that we are on track with what I had planned this year. The glorious thing about homeschooling in our state is that NOBODY tells us what curriculum to use or how much to use or what to do. Not even in high school. We have plowed our way through year after year, loving some things, ditching others. Over all, though, my kids have had a great education. The things I am behind on are those things that my kids would need in high school to earn what we call a Bright Futures Scholarship. That is a state sponsored scholarship (that is decreasing faster and faster every year and may not be there by the time she graduates anyway). It requires hoop jumping because we homeschool. I despise jumping through hoops. It tends to make me a little snarky. So here's what we have to do to catch up. Or get started. Or finish halfway. Or whatever!

• 2 years of a foreign language: We aren't really behind on this. She still has 3 more years to take 2 years of a foreign language. I have the Latin program we are going to start next year. Except for foreign languages, as Bright Futures wants it, cannot be taught at home. It doesn't matter how good or bad your program, it has to be taught by a teacher. It doesn't matter that the program we are using is taught by a Latin teacher. It doesn't matter that it's one of the most highly recommended curriculums for teaching Latin. What matters is that she would be learning it at home. Ready for the kicker? She can take it online through the public school as a homeschooler and it will count. Say what? She could go to school and take the class and come home after the class is over. She could take a class at the local junior college. She just can't take the class at home using a homeschool curriculum that is also used in many private schools. Now I have an extra workbook. Which is not an issue in the grand scheme of things, it just makes me snarky.
• She should have been writing: Apparently one of the things that BF likes is language arts with lots of writing. We're talking term papers, research projects, and fun things like that. There was a research paper that she could have done through her science curriculum and writing opportunities at the end of her language arts stories. I didn't have her do any of those. Her language arts last year was creative writing. She did a bang up job and I am extremely proud of the work she did. Yeah, it's a new dawn. It's a new day. I am not feeling fine. I was trying to give her a break from the constant writing. Apparently, she gets to make up for that next year.
• More grammar, more problems: There is only so long you can teach grammar. A noun is a noun is a noun. Do you think that's going to change? I don't know, but I have 2 words for you- new math. There was nothing wrong with the old math, but I am not the one making the rules. I am the one making sure my kids get a great education, not starting something that parents can't help their kids with because they've never had to do it. But I digress. Again. Duh. I have a grammar curriculum that my other two kids have been using and guess who gets to start there? That would be the big girl. She hasn't done grammar in probably 3 years. And now it's time for a refresher course.

I am thankful that there really isn't that much that we lack. There may be 1 more area, but I need to do some research before I commit. I need to plot and plan the next three years before this one is over to make sure that she has what she needs for a BFS. She hasn't expressed an interest in college much, but that could change. If it changes, I want to know that we have done everything we can to help her achieve her goals. There is a crack down on dual enrolling because of the money it's costing the state and the schools. There may not be a Bright Futures program in 3 years. All I can say is, we start over so we can finish well. And we're not really starting over, we're just going to readjust some things to make it fit the hoops. I don't hate the players, I hate the game. Scrabble is one of my favorites and that may be what this becomes before it's over. All that complaining about how busy we are? It may get worse before it gets better. At least from a big girl.

Have a great day.      

Planning

I have a plan. Well, for now. I am a planner. I like to know where we're going and how to get there. From there, I fly by the seat of my pants. It's about the journey, what can I say? So here are some plans.

• We have all of our curriculum for next year. I've sorted through my curriculum cabinet and taken out everything that I am absolutely not using. I put all of our stuff in that we'll be using now and later. I've made a list of the things I will need to complete sets. I've boxed all the stuff I'm getting rid of. Now I just need to get it posted and sell it. That would clear a spot in my living room I'd like to have back. With Mabel in the living room, there isn't much open space.
• I am thinking of starting a biology co-op for next year. Biology is my favorite science. I haven't decided when, but I may hold the class at our church. The only thing that may get in the way is the storage of our dissecting specimens. I think it would help the big girl to have someone else to study with and I have friends that are terrified of higher level science. I even have a couple of biology projects planned. Eek!!
• I have thought about some co-op classes in different subjects for the big girl. Some things to consider are timing, driving, and money. I'm just not sure if it would be right for her. It might give her the opportunity to get a little more one on one help since I have her brother and sister to teach. She would have to be responsible to someone other than me. I think that would be good for her. Just don't know. Yet.
• I am attending a Finish Well conference. They walk you through how to homeschool through high school. I love that question, by the way. Are you going to homeschool all the way through? Yes. Yes I am. I am excited about the possibilities and the opportunity to get some fresh ideas. I am excited about getting some guidelines (there's that planning thing again. I'll probably show my butt).
• I have gone through all my freebies and picked out some fun things for the boy and the baby to use for science. We are going to start with weather and go from there. I downloaded a ton of freebies from my favorite lapbook company, In the Hands of a Child. I even downloaded a unit study of mythical creatures. That was for fun, but it looked really cool. 

I know we haven't finished this year yet. I know we still have 3 1/2 months of school left. That's a lot of time and then there's summer break. There's dance and piano and girls club and co-op and field trips and so many things to think about and plan. I know where the path is leading, though. Now to play adventurer and see what the journey holds!

Have a great day.
       

More Pics

Just some random stuff.

This was the family that was in town for my mom's funeral. We went and ate Mexican food, which was one of her favorites. Margaritas have never been so good...

My sweet nieces, the baby, and my crazy boy! We were walking to the park to hang out and play. Love spending time with them!

Turn your back on the big girl for half a second and what happens? She makes herself comfortable and starts reading. Wonder where she gets that from? Oh, yeah...

I love the fact that all the people in the background of this pic are family. I call that crowd control.

The babies!!What happens when you get 2 divas in a room? Lots of laughing and trying to out queen each other. But they're so pretty, how can you help but laugh (and put them in time out when they've gone too far!)

Have a great day.

Books

I have always loved books. My mom always had a book in her hand. I have read through 2 children's libraries. I spent more time at the school library my third grade year than I spent in the classroom. I was so far ahead in the work schedule that there was talk of moving me up a grade. I would spend all day at the library on base while visiting my dad for the summer. It was that or sit home all day and watch TV. I have a Kindle app on my phone for when I can't have a book in my hands, but I am a flip the pages kind of gal. That leads me to my two vices when it comes to books: the library and curriculum.

The new curriculum is here! The new curriculum is here! I have fed it, watered it, walked it, and named it George. Hello, my name is Cristy and I am addicted to curriculum. I have a ton of freebies that I download from the internet, but there is nothing like having the mail man knock on your door and hand you a great big box of books! Don't judge. Just accept. I am excited for next year and we're just half way through this year. I keep digging stuff out of the box. I keep flipping through the teacher's guide. My. Precious.

We have been horrible library patrons lately. We have racked up fine after fine after fine. I think when they expand they should name a reading cove after us since we probably paid for it. We are slowly but surely paying for our own wing. It's not going to get any better since the next couple of weeks are pretty much 3 day work weeks for us. Sounds great, but there's lots of school left to do. All that busy means I have to be extra vigilant when it comes to the library books so we don't lose one. Yeah, who am I kidding? I can't be extra vigilant about anything most days, so library books get forgotten in the shuffle some times. There have been two examples in the last couple of weeks where I printed the coupon from Books a Million because I thought I was going to have to use it. Buying a book. To replace the one we lost. That I found. Whew! But what great books I've been getting.

I have gotten some oldies but goodies that I like to go back and reread sometimes. I have also gotten some new to me goodies. I have a full waiting list at the library so I can't request books until something comes in. I'm not much of a biography reader, but I'm waiting for Carol Burnett's book. We picked up books the other day and the boy got more than anyone. We get excited when the library calls and says we have books waiting for us (The library has gone to an automated call system. I can't stand it.) My girls are voracious readers. And they both like to read about fairies. Of course, the baby's fairies are TinkerBell and her crew. The big girl's are not. I like 'em both.

The next couple of weeks are going to be busy. Good thing I always have something to keep me company. A good book. Now keeping me out of trouble? That is something else entirely!

Have a great day.