Homeschooling Update........



My Youngun is getting close to 12 years old!



I haven't blogged about homeschooling in quite awhile, so I just thought I'd catch you up!

WE LOVE IT!

This is our first full school year with homeschooling.  We formally started back after Labor day and that in itself was an utter blessing.  The local districts start back the second week in August and I was never a fan of that. 

The Youngun has always been a straight A student because she was afraid of getting in trouble with the teachers.  However that didn't mean she was actually retaining any information past the day of the test. Being able to set our own curriculum and schedule has been simply amazing.  Math has always been her kryptonite but since we began homeschooling, she is finally getting her math, and really truly understanding what she is doing.  She is retaining so much of History, because we are allowing her to lead us in what she wants to learn about.  The most recent historical topic she was interested in was Amerigo Vespucci and we had a great time learning about him.  We are now on to pirates as that is where she wants to go.  By allowing her to lead, she is really learning and retaining and that's awesome!

She is doing a report on a state of her choosing each week, she's reading the Redwall Abby series of books by Brian Jacques, we are learning how to diagram sentences with ease, how to read and create maps (which she absolutely LOVES by the way), and we just finished learning all about bats for Science.  We are learning good health guidelines and about how important fresh fruits, veggies, and whole grains are to our health and development.  

As a family we love not being tied to the school's schedule.  She is a changed child, in that she's no longer so anxious and stressed about school and learning.  She is taking joy in learning again, and for that I'm so thankful. 

Homeschooling isn't for everyone I'm sure, but I'm very thankful that it's where God has led this family!

God Bless..............

Yard Sale Goodies..........

Last Friday Darlin' Deb, The Youngun and I went yard salin'!  Whoo hoo, the bargains to be had!  All this loot........and mind you the trunk of my car is full.........

for only 2 bucks!  That's right, I said 2 bucks!  That yardsale was a homeschoolers dream!  These are just some of the educational books I got.  I still have to unload the trunk of my car, and yes it's still in there from Friday!  I had a large stack of books, mostly just all the educational books and they said if you will take them all it's only 2$, so I said why not!  You can never ever have too many books!

A wonderful spelling primer, several health books, a reading book, some math books, geography, and social studies.  We've already begun using some of them and they are wonderful! 

I got some other goodies at the first yard sale, but will blog about those in a later post. 

Till next time..........God Bless!

Homeschooling Update.....

Well we've been homeschooling for about a month now (I think).  It truly seems like we've never done it any other way and I'm so thankful that God led us to this decision! 

We are still studying Alaska for social studies.  We finished up our study of wolves and are now studying tapirs.  This is going to be really fun and we are going to conclude our study of tapirs by making a tapir habitat complete with our own little tapir.  The Youngun has a fan-tab-u-lous imagination and will really enjoy making this and then playing with it in the future.  We are taking math so incredibly slowly and are just focusing on the multiplication tables right now.  Her math foundtion is sorely lacking and I feel like you can't move on until you've got a firm foundation in the basics!  In language arts we are reviewing nouns, common and proper and long and short vowel sounds.  This is stuff that The Youngun is good at, we are just reviewing to give me a solid idea of where she is at.  She is reading Racso and The Rats of NIMH right now.  Our Bible study is still in Genesis and we are learning alot about character issues, such as honesty, integrity, and obedience.  In geography (which is a part of every subject we study) we are learning about floor plans and their uses for every day life.  The Youngun really enjoys floor plans! 

I have been telling everybody I know how wonderful homeschooling is for us.  God truly does give us the strength to undertake the tasks He gives us.  I was worried about having the patience to do this.  It was something that was a concern for me.  I am a solitary person and enjoy my time in the house by myself.  I know that God was tapping me on the head about this homeschooling thing and I'm glad that we listened and pulled The Youngun out of public school.  It has been a constant source of joy so far.  I know there will be rough patches ahead, but I also know that God will guide us through those difficult times! 

God Bless!

Project Update.....

Remember this?  The Man and I had this dresser done the weekend that I bought it from Goodwill, but then we started on the kitchen remodel and I sort of forgot about it.  It was out in the Hillbilly Hotel patiently waiting for me to remember it was out there.  I had been going to put it in the back room, as an apartment for Steve but  hadn't gotten the room cleared out enough to get it in there.  God works in mysterious ways because then we started homeschooling and I needed a place to keep all of our books and supplies.  The Man and I carried it in and it fits beautifully on the wall behind our dining room table (which is where we do most of our school work).  

It's so beautiful, and the entire time we were refinishing it I kept saying to The Man, I can't believe anybody would paint this!!  To each his own though, and I'm just thankful that God led me to stop into Goodwill that day, and that He kept me from getting it all set up in the back room for Steve.  It's suiting our purposes much better as the chest for our homeschooling treasures! 

 Till next time...........GOD BLESS!

The Elusive Tapir......

Right now we are flying by the seat of our pants for our science curriculum. The Youngun loves animals and wants to be a zoologist or biologist when she grows up, so for science right now we are just picking an animal and learning all we can about it. We did wolves first and really enjoyed it. I asked her what she wanted to learn about next. Tapirs, she promptly replied. Hmmmm Tapirs.

I logged onto the library network and started searching. In the entire library network I found one book on Tapirs, and it is actually Animals of the Tropical Forests by Sylvia A Johnson. It has one small page about Tapirs.

Off on a wild internet search I went! I was thrilled to find this site which is just chock full of wonderful information about Tapirs!  I emailed the chief Tapir lady Sheryl to see if I could print out some of the information for our homeschooling use.  Sheryl got back to me within hours to say absolutely and to let any other homeschoolers I know about the site.  I, of course, thought of you my awesome blog readers!  If your children are interested in Tapirs at all, this is the site to go to for wonderful information and photos. 

Thanks Sheryl for all the wonderful work you are doing to promote and take care of the endangered Tapir! 

Till next time........GOD BLESS!

A Broken System..........

I saw this article online and it just makes me shake my head.  This is the kind of thing that makes sense on PAPER, but not in real life.  There are far too many variables in real life.  This statement is particularly annoying to me.. 

Take away time, take away learning. As the co-founder of the Knowledge Is Power Program, a national network of extended-day public charter schools, I know there is no substitute for the hours a student spends with an effective and inspiring teacher.

The key words in that paragraph are an effective and inspiring teacher ....... perhaps other districts are different and I know that there are a handful of teachers that truly care about children and want to shape their little minds, but the majority of teachers in our school district are there for the paycheck and summers off.  I know this because I worked there for two school years.  I truly believe that God provided me the job to show me what was going on in our schools.  It was after beginning that job that homeschooling became so important to me.  I was privvy to the inner workings of our local school system and it terrified me!  With the teachers who do truly care, the spirit is quickly sucked out of them by the political machine (the local school board) or the demands the government  puts on them regarding state testing and the like.  It isn't the fault of the teachers, most of them do the best they can.  It's a broken system and I'm thankful that we removed The Youngun from it before she was broken as well. 

The Youngun and I were doing some schooling today and she did a couple workbook pages and took a little quiz that I made up about wolves.  I graded them and she said......... Mom, I hope I didn't get an F!  I said.....We don't have F's here, just Good jobs! or Ooops, we need to work on that!  My friend Darlin' Deb came over to visit and we were talking about this subject.  Take an average public school classroom of 27 kids..........they take a test.........5 of them receive F's.......5 receive D's..........the rest of the class C's B's and A's.  Those 10 children obviously didn't get the material.  They obviously didn't understand it, so common sense dictates they need to remain with the subject, and do more study on it.  Do you think that's what happens?  Nope.........they get the tests handed back to them and they move on to the next topic.  Even if the kid takes the test home (which wasn't allowed in my daughter's public school class, because of the fear of cheating.......they use the same tests year after year after year, so they won't send graded tests home, but that's a whole 'nother blog post!!) the average parent isn't going to go over it with the child, and even if they do they may not know the answers, or how to reteach the material.  If the classroom teacher stopped moving forward for those 10 children, in order for them to understand and retain the material, that wouldn't be fair to the other children in the class.  How in the world does a piece of paper full of red marks inspire a child?  How does that teach them what they so obviously didn't know, retain, or understand?  It breaks kids and makes them think they are dumb, so eventually they just stop trying!  See.........a broken system.  It just doesn't work!! 

The Youngun is a fabulous reader, good at english and grammar, pretty darned good at science (as long as it's in regard to life sciences) and isn't very strong in math.  The beauty of homeschooling for us is that she can read whatever she wants to read (her school wouldn't let her read above her grade level) and we can take math as slowly as we need to, and believe me we are taking it slowly.  She was bored out of her mind in reading and grammar, and getting left behind in math.  Having her home with me, we can tailor the curriculum to her needs, and with enough prayer and preparation she will have an effective and inspiring teacher!  I love homeschooling and struggle with wishing we'd done it sooner.  I don't play that game though.........God puts us where He wants us, when He wants us there and that's a beautiful thing! 

Please forgive me if this post seems random and rambling.....I've read over it several times and it even seems that way to me, but it's stuff that I wanted to get off my chest!  Thanks for reading!
Till next time...........GOD BLESS...

Homeschooling Update......

Week 1 of our homeschooling adventure has been a rousing success!  We are reading Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighhead George, consequently we are studying Alaska in social studies/cultures and wolves and animal adaptations in science.  Today for our art project we made origami wolves.  The Youngun enjoyed this so much that she made an entire wolf pack!

For our Bible study we have read the book of Jonah, and the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den.  The Youngun has expressed an interest in starting at the beginning, so we started in Genesis as of today. 

I can't tell you how happy and relaxed we all are in this new arrangement!  Of course we are in the "honeymoon" stage as my good friend Rhonda puts it, but I'm hopeful that things will continue to go well as the days progress.  Our next big hurdle is conquering her math anxiety which is SEVERE.  We are taking things very slowly in that area, just to get her confidence built up.

Till next time..............GOD BLESS FROM GOODWIFE FARM!

Something on our Hearts..........

We've been doing some heavy duty praying, soul searching, family discussing and we've come to a decision.  We have pulled The Youngun out of public school and will be schooling her at home.  This isn't a decision that we came to lightly.  We have considered it since she was born, but with her being an only child we wanted her to have other kids to play with.  She has never liked school.  I have been dealing with her not wanting to go to school every single day for 6 years.  She is 11 and still gets sick to her stomach every morning before school.  Pain in her stomach that will double her over that only happens on school days.  It has never once happened on a weekend day, a school holiday, or a day in the summer.  I knew that it was anxiety. 

On Monday morning of this week, she said she was sick, so I went ahead and took her to the doctor.  He (of course) said that he would put her on antibiotics but that she really didn't have anything.  Great.......I then mentioned the stomach thing, letting him know that I was almost positive it was anxiety.  He said......yeah we really don't have any diseases that are only Monday-Friday and not on school holidays.  We kind of laughed and then he proceeded to ask her about her grades (which are wonderful) and her friends (of which she has many) and then frowning he asked her why she didn't want to go to school.  This is a question that we've asked her many times.  Always the same answer, I don't know, I just don't like it.  I sent her to school on Tuesday and the school called me at 9 AM to pick her up because she was sick.  She was still feeling under the weather, but she wasn't at death's door.  Wednesday morning, didn't want to go to school.  Cried and cried.  I told her we had to figure something out.  She burst out with I just don't want to go to school.  I called her Daddy and that was pretty much the last straw.  The Man and I told her if she'd just make it through Thursday and Friday she didn't have to go back.  We've talked with her about it before and she was never ready.  She always adamantly said she didn't want to be homeschooled.  Wednesday she was ready, she didn't even want to finish Thursday and Friday.  Today was the last day for her and she is so happy and relaxed that she hasn't stopped jabbering since she came home (after a few tears about leaving her friends that is)  We've prayed and prayed, asking God to guide us and I'm certain that he has led us to homeschool her.  I don't know what else to do, but I do know that what we are doing now isn't working. 

I think it's going to be good!  We have a plan in place and will start feeling our way next week.  God is good and I'm thrilled to have my girl at home with me where she will be taught by someone who loves and understands her.  With His guidance we will be directing her down the right path, the path to true knowledge and self sustainability, the path of a person who loves to learn and seeks out knowledge on her own.  The Man and I have been homeschooling her in a fashion ever since she was born, she just attended public school as well.  Now we will be able to teach her in every way, and she will not be pulled in two directions........the worldly direction, and our direction. 

Till next time..............GOD BLESS FROM GOODWIFE FARM!