Changes again?! Unsocialized?

Once again I am changing things up a bit. Actually more than just a bit. We started our homeschooling adventure using an online k12 program. I love the curriculum and the program is very well structured and nicely put together. The problem we have had is that it is so much work. Not just for the kids, but for me as well. I was constantly putting in passwords when any of the kids had a quiz or assessment or they needed to add their time that they put into an assignment. I did tell them that I would add their time at the end of the day and that they should just log it on a piece of paper. This helped a little bit, but I was still trying to keep up with helping everyone with every subject. I had a difficult time making sure that everything they needed to do was getting done. It wasn't and it showed in their grades.

As I mentioned, it is a wonderful program and curriculum. If I only had 1 or 2 kids in the program we would have been able to make it work for our family. Having 4 in the program just didn't work for us. It was not the homeschooling experience that we were looking for.

The biggest reason we used the program was that it was free. The school sent us couple of computers to use and we were also sent TONS of materials for the kids to use. I was amazed at how much stuff we were given to use. I LOVE the phonics portion for Lulu, but even with all of the pros it just wasn't working for us.

We have started using other resources for our homeschooling and things are going much more smoothly. Less stress=more learning. We are able to do so much more together. The program we are using is designed in a way that several kids can learn most of the subjects together. We do science, history, art, and health/PE together. Life is so much better and we are able to enjoy our school days instead of trying to fit everything in and stressing about getting it done.

This curriculum is also designed in a way that helps the kids become more independent in their learning in the main subjects. They do math, reading, writing, and English on their own. I am able to quickly look over what they are working on and see how they are doing in each area. I can actually keep up with their assignments and know whether or not they 'get it.'

Unsocialized?

We still get comments about our decision to homeschool. Positive and negative. The negative comments don't change the way I feel about it in the least bit. One of the biggest concerns people have is about being socialized. I understand this concern. I had these same concerns in the past, but I have since changed the way I feel about the social aspect of homeschooling.

I attended public school my whole life and I was never "socialized." I was extremely shy and kept to my small group of friends throughout high school. Being in public school didn't help me be social. Why do we have this misconception that kids need to have the public school experience in order to be social? What is being socialized anyway? When I googled it this is what came up:

 

past tense: socialized; past participle: socialized

1. 1.

   mix socially with others.

   "he didn't mind socializing with his staff"

   synonyms:

   interact, converse, be sociable, mix, mingle, get together, meet, fraternize, consort; More entertain, go out; informalhobnob "these are not the type of people we want you socializing with"

2. 2.

   make (someone) behave in a way that is acceptable to their society.

   "newcomers are socialized into orthodox ways"

Well that makes sense! I can see why people are so against homeschooling for social reasons. My kids will never speak to anyone since they aren't at public school. Sorry for the sarcasm. The interaction and "socialization" public school provides isn't exactly cohesive with our family values and standards. I would rather my kids be civilized than socialized.

I remember what school was like and I'm sure it isn't better now. In fact, it's probably worse. Kids are cruel and disrespectful to everyone. Even their 'best friends.' I could see how the influences from school were changing my kids' attitudes. When they were around certain people at school their attitudes would morph into something less than pleasant. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be responsible for their actions or behaviors. I am saying that when kids are around certain behaviors so much they are likely to accept them as normal and okay. This is not okay with me.

I'm not saying that public school is bad and that anyone that sends their child there is a bad parent. For us, right now, homeschooling is a better option. Besides, this is only one of the many reasons we chose to homeschool. I just don't want everyone to worry that my kids aren't going to be social. They are involved in several activities where they can be social with kids their age.

Instead of worrying so much about homeschool kids being "unsocialized" I think people could put more effort into helping their own children be civilized and respectful. I'm speaking on general terms here. I have read so many blogs about homeschooling and see the rude and disrespectful comments that people leave on the blog posts. Why? If you're so against homeschooling why do you read the blogs? So you can just bash them? Makes perfect sense. Worry about making your life and the lives of those you love better. That's all we're trying to do. If everyone could just try harder to make life better for themselves and everyone around them would there be so much opposition? No. I think we would live in a better world. We can make a difference by the way we treat people. Respect goes a long way.

Witch's Brew

Want a fun and memorable activity to add to your Halloween party? This has become tradition in my family and I thought I'd share. I didn't get the pictures I wanted since I was the one doing the Witch's Brew, but it's the idea that matters. =)

I used two pots for my witch's brew. One pot was for homemade root beer. The other for a snack mix. Depending on the size of the group of your party will determine how much to make and how big the pot will need to be. We have a large family so we make quite a bit of root beer. We doubled the recipe. Here's what you need to make it:

• Big witch pot to make brew in.
• Root beer extract (2 oz. bottle)
• 6 cups white sugar
• 3 1/2 gallons warm water
• 4 lbs. dry ice

I start with the water already in the pot. Warm water helps the dry ice bubble better. Then I tell the kids that they get to help me make a special brew. As you get the sugar ready to put in the pot you tell the group that it's ground up bones. Stir the sugar into the water until dissolved. I like to have them say some 'magic' words while I stir to make it more fun. Double double toil and trouble is what I used, but you can make up your own.

Next you add the root beer extract and tell the kids that it's something else. I think I said that it was bat juice or something like that. We also had some potion bottles that we bought at the craft store and put potion labels on them (you can find them online). We added food coloring to the water so it looked like strange ingredients. One label said it was truth serum. This was great. The kids were loving it.

I am not an actress by ANY means, but I love kids and I love Halloween so I try to add as much as I can to this little presentation. Add little things to make it more interesting and to keep their attention. After each ingredient I would stir the pot and have them say the magic words with me.

After everything is mixed together I add the dry ice. Be sure to use gloves to protect your hands. DO NOT touch the dry ice it will burn your skin. This should go without saying, but if you've never used dry ice you may not know how dangerous it is. This is the best part of the presentation. I tell the kids that to activate the potion the final ingredient is compressed spirits. As I add the spirits (dry ice) I tell the kids that once it touches the potion the spirits are released. Now, if you have kids that scare easily I would make it as light as you can. Last year we had one little boy who would not come near me or the root beer and was terrified. I felt so bad. This year I tried to keep it as light as I could without making it a scary thing. It went over much better.

As you carefully add the dry ice the vapor rises and the brew will bubble. I like to add the ice a chunk at a time instead of all at once. After about an hour the brew will be ready to drink.

 

 



You can make this as scary as you want based on your audience. It doesn't even have to be an elaborate presentation, but I will tell you that the kids will remember it. It's something we look forward to every year at our family party.

In my second pot I did another mixture with snacks. Here's what I had and what I said it was.

• Rice chex - spider webs
• Bugles - witch fingers (we witches lose our fingers and grow new ones)
• Cheerios - cat eyes
• Pretzel sticks - bat bones
• Chocolate chips - Dracula moles (he picks them off all the time!)
• Craisins - scabs
• Mini marshmallows - skeleton teeth
• Candy corn - chicken toes
• Red hots or hot tamales - drops of blood

You could add just about anything and give it a different disgusting name. Have fun with it!

Halloween History

Ever wonder why we celebrate Halloween? I've heard bits and pieces of why, but never the whole story. I decided we would research it and find out the details. Here's what we found. On History.com they have lots of information dating back 2,000 years. This was a great site especially for my older kids. I had to explain things a little more to the youngers, but they still enjoyed learning about the origins of Halloween. Another great site that's geared to kids is Time4kids. This has pictures and has pretty much the same information as the other site, but easier for kids to understand.

One thing we found interesting is that the tradition of trick-or-treating may have stemmed from an old tradition called "going-a-souling." Basically poor people would go door to door begging for food. They were given "soul cakes" if they promised to pray for that family's dead relatives. And now we give out candy to kids. Interesting. Funny how traditions get tweaked and changed through the generations and meshing of cultures.

Anyway, we decided to make some "soul cakes" to see how they tasted. Oh. My. Goodness. Yum! Here's the recipe we used. I don't know how traditional the recipe is, but I'm sure the beggars back in the day enjoyed their "soul cakes." They aren't much like a cake. More like a sugar cookie. A really scrumptious sugar cookie with nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and allspice. Oh and sprinkled with powdered sugar. I think I ate half the batch.

 

 

We also made some haunted house pop-up cards. Find it here. The kids weren't quite as into it as I was hoping. I knew the older two wouldn't be as excited, but I thought the youngers would like it. They still turned out really cute.

 

 

What's a Halloween day without caramel apples and popcorn balls? Yeah, can we say too many sweets? This does not happen often and I was in a treat-making mood so we did it.

What a fun day that was! Not only did the kids get a fun history lesson they also got to do art, cooking, and taste a bit of history. Have any suggestions that I can add to our day next year? I'd love to hear them!










On a budget

Last week the kids were able to learn about budgeting. Even though my husband and I talk to them about this topic on a regular basis I wanted them to experience it. I gave them the task to make a menu for an entire day. Each child would come up with their own food choices for a full day. I told them that I wanted them to choose healthy options though and not just something that would be cheap and taste good. My kids aren't huge fans of macaroni and cheese so that's not what I was worried about, but pop tarts for breakfast would have made it to at least one of the lists.

I also encouraged them to think about how much it might cost. PKB would have chosen steak and potatoes, but once I gave them a budget, he quickly changed his mind. They went to work going through recipes and jotting down ideas. It was so fun to see their minds at work. They each showed me their menus and for the most part, they chose good foods. Next, I had them make a list of the items they would need to buy from the store. As I went through their menus and compared them to the lists, they were missing items that were essential to making their meals. For instance, PKB wanted to make sausage breakfast sandwiches (not the healthiest choice, but I wanted them to make the choice) and he had biscuits and eggs on his list, but no sausage. =) They had to keep adding things to their lists until they had everything they would need for their meals.

Once they had their lists ready I wrote an estimate of the cost next to each item. They added up the costs of each of their items and had a lot of revising to do. Most of them were $10 -$20 over their budget. I told them that they could compare their lists to see if their were duplicate items. They circled all of the duplicate items and talked about whether or not the item could be shared between multiple meals. This dropped their cost quite a bit.

These are the moments moms live for! To see my children all working together to figure out how to make it work was so awesome!! They finally got their lists in order with their budget and decided they would just put all of their money together when they went shopping.

Looloo stayed with me so I could let the older kids focus on making their lists work. I let Looloo do what she could in finding what she needed, but she did need a bit of help. Baby was happy to be along for the ride.

At the store I wanted them to go by themselves to figure out where things were and what they should buy. I did give them some advice before sending them off. I told them to check the prices of the different brands of the item they would be buying. The first one they see may not have the best price. I showed them how to compare prices by looking at the tags that have the price per item. They did a pretty good job. They spent an hour going back and forth through the store trying to find everything they would need. Obviously this was good for them to find out where things are in the store. All the times they've been with me didn't help much.

They passed me several times in the store. Always going the opposite direction from the last time I saw them. =)

 

 

Although this isn't exactly how my cart would have looked, they worked hard and did great! PKB took their cart to the checkout on his own. I was worried they might be over their budget, but I didn't jump in to try to help. He was clearly confident about their budget because he didn't hesitate one bit. After he paid I went over to see what the total was and they were $15 under their budget! 

 

After loading the groceries into the car we talked about their experience. They said that it was more fun than they thought it would be. They had to change their menus as they shopped because they were worried about going over. I came to realize that they scrimped so much that the meals may not be enough to feed our family of 7. Two of the kids have done their days. They were so excited to be able to make all of the meals for the day. We did have to add to a few of the meals for them to be filling enough, but overall they did super! I'm so proud of their hard work.

 

This was basically a trial run to see how they would do on their own. I will now add to their knowledge and see if we can make it even better next time. I'm thinking we may do this once a month to give them lots of learning opportunities. We will be learning more about nutrition in the coming days to help them come up with even healthier menus. 

 



Feel the flustration

Ah, where to begin? Frustrated and flustered is how I am feeling...obviously as my title suggest. The struggles that accompany homeschooling are not what has me flustered lately. Although, they do add to it. =) My flustration comes from feeling like there are never enough hours in the day. I know I'm not alone here. At least, I don't think I am. Help me out here. Tell me you're feeling it too.

Homeschooling clearly takes all of my time during the day so I have to utilize my time before and after school. My 'plan' was to get up around 5:30 so I could exercise, shower, plan the day, and make breakfast before waking the kids up at 7:00. Ahem. This hasn't exactly happened that way, yet. There have been a few days that I am able to get myself out of bed and get a small workout in, but these days have been few and very far between. Oh who am I kidding! Not you, I'm sure. It's only happened a couple of times since we started school.

I do make breakfast nearly every day though. That's something right? When we first moved here (about 9 months ago) I vowed that I was going to make the kids a good breakfast nearly every morning. I still allow them to have cereal maybe once a week. Mostly on Saturday when I have to work in the morning. I have to say that I'm doing fairly well at sticking to it. (I'm grasping at anything I can get to boost my attitude about how out of whack the rest of my life feels right now.)

Part of the problem is that I work a few nights a week. Some nights I don't get home until around 11:00pm. Then it takes a while to actually get to sleep. I just need to get into a better routine during the day so that I am able to get a little done here and there. I haven't quite figured out how to do that yet. With 5 kids needing my attention at different times during the day I don't get anything other than school done.

I have been trying a lot more crock pot recipes so that I can get that ready in the morning and just leave it to cook all day for dinner. This has helped tremendously. Otherwise, we may not ever have a home cooked meal. We'd be eating sandwiches and top ramen. Some days I have to leave for work around 4:30pm so having dinner in the crock pot is the best, and maybe the only way, we would have dinner ready. I hope to buy a deep freezer to put in the garage so I can make freezer meals. Before I had my baby last year I made a bunch of freezer meals and loved having so many meals made. Here's a link to a great blog about freezer meals.

Ok, so I'm feeling totally stretched to my limit with my time. I'm happy that most of my time is spent with my kids though. It would be much worse if they were at school all day and then I had to go to work 3 nights a week. I am grateful for that part of my crazy life. I would rarely see my kids if we weren't doing homeschool. This is not a complaint about being busy. Rather, a release and a beginning of trying to organize my time. If you have any suggestions I would LOVE to hear them. I have tried a few different ideas, but sticking to them has been a bit difficult. I guess the biggest thing is finding a daily schedule that will work for me and my family. I'm open to suggestions. =)

I feel so unorganized in my life that it's making me nuts! I keep telling myself that 'tomorrow I am going to force myself to get up early and get things done!' I'm still waiting for tomorrow. =/

Keep Moving forward

For some very strange reason my last post disappeared. Weird. Rather than try to go back and post it again (not likely that I will remember everything, or anything for that matter) I will do as Lewis always says and "keep moving forward." Love that movie.

This is also something that I try to remember as we are doing our homeschooling. I want me and the kids to keep moving forward as we learn. I can't get caught up in trying to make my kids do their school work. I don't want to be bossy...no one likes to be bossed around. I've been trying a new strategy to get them to do their work. They have more choices when it comes to what they are going to do with their school work. For instance, Looloo can choose whether she wants to do math or literature, or writing or vocabulary. Giving her the choice seems to make it go smoother instead of telling her that we're going to do math (or whatever subject I decided she needed to do at that time). When she didn't have the choice she was less cooperative.

Yesterday I gave her the option of working from her math book or practicing time on her clocks. I bought some dry erase clocks at a yard sale so she can use her markers to practice time. One of the best yard sale purchases ever. ;) She, of course, chose to do the clocks and did a great job with a happy attitude. Success!


Looloo has struggled the most so giving more choices has helped her more than the others. At first, I tried setting up a schedule for each of the kids. Each hour they would work on a certain subject then move on once that hour was up. If they got done early they could go back and finish something that they didn't get finished earlier. This worked ok, but I decided to change things...again. I've realized that I may never feel like our routine is perfect. I feel like I'm going to be changing things a lot as we make this journey together. I think it's good to keep things fresh instead of staying the same all of the time. Not to say that we won't have consistency so they will feel secure. We will be consistence in the general aspect of our schooling, but I will be changing little things here and there so we can get out of ruts we might get in. Not only that, but some things might work for a while and then not. Changing things when they aren't working is a must. Now, I have their schedule for the day on the white board with everything they need to complete for the day. It is up to them to get it done. They can do it in any order they want as long as everything gets done. This gives them more responsibility and more freedom to do their work. Except Looloo. I still give her options, but not as much freedom since I need to help her more than I help the others.

I have also changed their daily schedule to include double lessons in some areas so that we can take Fridays off to do other activities. They stay on track to finish all of their lessons in each subject area by the end of the year, but they get a day off from lessons every week. When I first told them of the plan, they thought they would just get a day off completely. Umm...not so much. I will still utilize the day to include learning, but in different ways.

On one Friday a month we will be getting together with one of our homeschool groups for a field trip. This won't take the entire day so I want to add another activity such as visiting someone who might be lonely. Maybe someone at the assisted living place or at the hospital who doesn't have family close that can come and visit. This is out of my comfort zone, but I am determined to teach my kids compassion and the joy of serving.

Another Friday we will be learning about the culture of another country or area in the world. I want to find some recipes we can make together and maybe watch a documentary and read books about the culture. I'm super excited to learn about different areas with my kids. I want to expand their knowledge of our world to teach them to embrace the many different ideas, styles, abilities, etc. that different cultures experience. Not only will they learn to accept the differences of others, they will also learn about the cultures. Learning tolerance is not something that I want to teach. It's one thing to tolerate the differences in our world, it's another to embrace them. I want my children to learn to embrace the world, not just tolerate it.

We will have a project day on another Friday. This could be for art or science and it would be a major project that we would work on together. I want my kids to learn from each other and enjoy working together. The goal is to become united in their efforts when working on and completing these projects.

The Friday that is left will be another field trip day. If it's possible we might travel to the city and go to some museums and have a brief visit with family and friends. If a city visit isn't possible we will find something local that we can do for a field trip.

The goal is to build on what they have already learned or are currently learning in their lessons. Also to grow closer together and have a fun time together. I hope they will look forward to Friday and will learn while having fun.

Take a breath...

School started last Thursday and I would LOVE to say that it started off great and without a hitch. However, that's not what has happened. I knew that it would be a rough start since this is our first year homeschooling. Actually, before I get into my post let me just say that I don't like the term 'homeschooling.' At all. Whenever I hear that term, and probably when you hear it, I think of awkward families that aren't getting much of an education. The typical stereotype that most people think of when they hear 'homeschooling.' I'm not even sure that I've ever even met someone that fit that stereotype.

Anyway, homeschooling, or home educating (is that better? Not sure) is not what it once was. It's an option that many more people are starting to do versus the traditional public school. It's something that I have always thought about doing with my kids, but never knew where to start or what curriculum to use. That's one of the reasons I decided to use the k12 program.

As I mentioned, we started on Thursday. Oh and what a day it was! Trying to get 4 kids situated with an online schooling program was not easy. Luckily Roo Roo just bought her own laptop and Parkour Boy (PB) has a chromebook. Without these devices it would have been nearly impossible for all of the kids to complete what they needed to in the first few days.

After being in a traditional school setting for all of their schooling so far, this was a big change for my kids. On the first day, Looloo and Gogie were less than pleasant. (I'm really trying to put it politely how big of stinkers they were.) I knew they would be a struggle, but I was not prepared for what they put me through. I was beyond ready to give up and send them back to school. So why don't I you ask? That is not what I want to do. The decision to educate my children at home was not something I took lightly and I feel that it really is what is best for us right now. They too begged to be put back in school because this was "stupid." After telling my husband about our day, he also suggested that I sign them back up for school. Not helpful.

So after everyone (including myself) was telling me to quit and send them back to school you might think that I should have really considered following that advice. You bet I did! There were moments when I thought, "Why am I doing this to myself?!?!" I had a couple of kids screaming at me and telling me that they didn't want to do their work and to send them back to school where they would have a nice teacher (yeah, I had less than happy moments). BUT, there were also moments when the kids were happy and cooperative and actually having aha moments that made me realize this is a good thing.

The second day was slightly better. The kiddos cooperated more and were more involved in their lessons. The attitudes are ever so slowly improving. Looloo still has her moments when she doesn't want to do the work. We had the same problem with her last year in kindergarten. I think she did most of the work at school, but I couldn't get her to do any of her homework. I'm hoping that as we grow a stronger bond in our family that the kids will learn to lean on me and we can have a good, close relationship. This will, in turn, create a better attitude in Looloo as she begins to enjoy our time together.

I think that the biggest reason Looloo has a bad attitude towards me is that I was working and going to school full-time for so many years. I was constantly busy and was rarely around. She learned to lean on others for things she needed. She was in a crucial learning stage and I missed out on being there for her. I'm paying for it now. I am trying really hard to repair the damage that my absence caused her. Some kids may have been fine, but the way her personality is, she needed me and my time. Of course, I feel absolutely terrible and I feel like I have failed as a mother. However, I can't change the past. I can learn from it and work toward a better tomorrow. That is my goal in educating my kids at home.

I have decided that Looloo needs more breaks and changes during the day than the other kids. Duh! She's only 6. I am starting to add more learning breaks during the day. Including games (PE games are always a good thing) and music time. This gives her a breather from the pencil and paper or computer time she is used to. This has helped her stay focused and gives her more motivation to keep going. She did SO much better today. YAY!!

To help our day run more smoothly, I get up early and print off the pages that the kids will need throughout their lessons. I also prepare their lunches and put them in the fridge (just as if they were taking 'cold lunch' to school). I try to have a weekly menu planned so I don't waste time trying to figure out "what's for dinner?" or lunch, or breakfast.

Here's a schedule of our day...for now that is. I'm sure that as the year progresses we will be continuously changing our schedule to mix things up to keep us going.

7:00 am - wake, dress, breakfast, make beds, brush teeth, quick clean sweep of the house
8:00 am - Power hour: family prayer, pledge of allegiance, common knowledge, article from a church magazine, journal writing, memorization (poem or other short passage), read-aloud, writing to pen pals (once a week) and anything that we might need to discuss for the day.
8:20 - every other day PB will have seminary over by the high school. We'll have to alter our power hour for these days.  
9:00 am - start our online work (this varies every day based on the kids' class connect sessions. These are times when they need to be on with their class and their teacher.)
11:30 lunch (PB has class connect at 12 so we do lunch before that)
12:00 back to working online and in the books!
2:00 pm - we usually wrap up around this time

Even though we only have about an hour less of school than other kids in the area, it seems like we accomplish so much more than they did in a traditional school setting. Not only that, I am able to give them more one-on-one time so that if they don't understand something I can help them through it. I am able to see if they really do understand what they are learning and I also get to be there when they have those aha moments and the light bulb comes on. Awesome!

I'm getting a glimpse at how very smart my children are (even though I already knew) and get to experience so much with them this year. I am loving the program we are doing (so far) and the curriculum is wonderful! Once we get adjusted to this new schooling option, I know that we are going to have the best year.

I will post some pics soon. We are thinking about changing things up a bit (already?). We have been doing schooling in the kitchen, but it is so cramped in their that I'm going to move the desks into the front room next week. Hopefully we can stay organized through this journey. =)