What DO We Do All Day

It seems like an inevitable part of homeschooling. Someone is bound to ask, so what DO you do all day? Some people envision children seated at desks in a special "school" room in your basement with you standing over them with a ruler.

Others think you most likely just watch tv and let your kids play all day.

The truth is generally somewhere in the middle.

For our family, (and there are a lot of families like ours) we try to keep goals in mind for the year, have ideas or books to get our kids there, and have a general schedule of when we'd like to hit steps through the year. For example; with our oldest starting high school this year, I knew we'd like to go all the way through history before he finishes up, so we chose Story of the World. Because that curriculum is geared toward elementary age kids, I spent a lot of time (but not money) creating a list of high school appropriate reading  and projects to flesh it out a bit. Another example is our boys total lack of knowledge of spelling rules. Honestly, they have always bothered me. They are more like vague suggestions. Anyway, we have a goal of learning one a week.

As former unschooler/free schoolers, all these pathways aren't a new thing, but the smaller paths we have chosen to take are helping to keep us nearer our goals. I think part of the frenzy this year is the crazy idea that I have to stuff all this stuff in his head in the next four years - like his brain has an expiration date. I have been reminding myself that the goals we have set are good things, but that I'm not the learning Nazi. No one can MAKE you learn anything. It's my job to make sure they want to know new things and sneakingly lead them onto the paths I have planned.

This year's plan:

English - Joy of Writing by Cathy Jaime, NANOWRIMO and The Write Stuff Adventure, Spelling Rules and Games
Math - Each boy has goals based on CCS
History - Story of the World Volume One (We took this one from Dinosaur Ages and it will end with the fall of Rome. This four book series is really fun and I'm learning a lot too!)
Science - C and G are doing the last of the Fifth Day Apologia books: Land Animals and A is working through an online Physical Science class with videos and projects.
PE/Health - We start every morning with "Morning Moving" to get them going for the day. Since they each have very different health issues, I make time to have one on one talks about seasonal dressing, hygiene and STDs depending on age.
Art - Time is what art takes and I make sure that there are supplies around. I have to push A to be creative, but C and G do it automatically.
Music - 30 minutes a day of practice with any of our five instruments or theory games
Bible - Each morning after morning moving we take time to read devotions, pray together and memorize scripture.

That is our day. We have lots of time left to play afterward. Even Austin's work only takes about four hours. Well, maybe five if you add in the extra history reading in the evenings for "homework". Free time is, sadly, an unusual commodity for most kids, but one I feel is necessary for them. I make every attempt to make sure that the boys have that in addition to their studies.

When raising boys into men, I feel like Calvin got it right. Not the theologian, the comic...

September Ends and October Begginings

It's hard to believe that September flew by without a word from me on here, but with our new schedule, I'm finding it hard to squeeze the boys off the computer in the afternoons and in the evenings I'm wiped out! I'll post more about our school "curriculum" soon.

We did manage to get in a few fun days as September merged into October.

Park Day with our Roamies

His Bama game day Crimson.

C on the ice.

This was G's big excitement for the week!

Cub Scouts are in full swing with Popcorn Sales filling empty weekends.

Sometimes thrifting pays. This costume that looked to have never been used was $2.

Cats are hard to photograph

 This was today's fun activity. The library we frequent in the next big town held a homeschool viewing of the J. K. Rowling webcast this morning. G was really excited AFTER the fact when he realized it had been live although he was still disappointed it wasn't in PERSON. :o)

 Just for fun, as we were leaving the Cub Scout meeting, I saw what I thought was a caterpillar on my car. After a closer inspection it was revealed to be... a mustache! With a house full of boys I supposed it was just a matter of time before "Ol' Bessie" turn on me as well! HA!

Summer School

We tend to start our school year earlier than the public schools here and with Alabama's push back of the school year well into August, we got quiet a head start. Here are a few things we fit in early in the year.

McWane Center's Slime and Goo Day

Prehistoric fish or silly boy? Hard to tell...

US Space and Rocket Center

Rocket Demo

Bernoulli Principal

The Mammoth Exhibit was really cool - and no photos...

Mr G with his favorite "planet".

 Burritt on the Mountain

We spun wool, learned about the animals and played checkers.

Alas King Poultron, we meant him well...

So some school projects go well and others stink. Literally. King Poulton was unceremoniously sent to rest at the local dump after three days of treatments left him smelling like... rotting chicken. Was I disappointed? Yes. What woman hasn't always dreamed of mummifying her own chicken? I decided that we needed to figure out why an experiment performed by so many others had failed.

Results of our scientific inquiry? The head embalmer didn't pay enough attention to what kind of salt she bought.

This is the salt I bought:

This is the salt we needed:

So what did we learn class? That Epsom salt is not really salt. I should have been thinking chemicals - magnesium sulfate and sodium chloride are harder to confuse. Mag sulfate is no good at preserving anything, with the exceptions of preterm pregnancies and moisture in your skin, which were both very unhelpful to His Royal Stinkiness, King Poultron.

The boys have I have decided to try again in a few weeks, but on a smaller scale. Maybe mummified Cornish hens?

Mr Montgomery and his class

(at St. Helen Catholic School, Pearland, TX)

Our Ninth Year Begins!

It is hard to believe that I have been lucky enough to homeschool for the last NINE years, even though that number makes me feel old. Wasn't I in high school then?

Today is actually our 22nd day of school for the 2012-2013 year. We have been very busy getting into our new schedule and it's been going really well. Maybe it takes ten years to really know what you are doing in any job. I wish I'd had the guts to put my troops on a schedule like this years ago, but I think at the time, having no schedule worked just as well for them. Maybe not for me, but they thrived on it. This time I wanted to come at the school year as a whole and with a plan. Strange as that may sound to some, it's new to me. We have always done child based learning where we have flown through some subject and lingered for weeks on others all based on what they wanted to explore. This time I had a list of things that I really wanted to do with them.

Our schedule:

Breakfast
Morning Moving (PE)
Devotional and Bible Memory
History (Monday and Tuesday) or Science (Wednesday and Thursday)
Lunch
Math/Music/Game rotation
Daily Assignment (Art, Home Care, Library, friends, ect)

So far this schedule as worked out really well for us. We don't always stick to it, but we managed to get everything done everyday. Homeschooling Gold!

Today's assignment is History and we are making our way through Story of the World Volume one. It's perfect for the younger boys, but for Austin's freshman year, it is too light, so I've added a book list for him to read in addition to our regular work. After studying dinosaurs this summer, we've hit prehistory, earliest writing and the uniting of Egypt. This week we are in the Old Kingdom of Egypt and are studying Mummies and Pyramids.

This is King Poultron. What, you've never heard of him? He's huge on Jimmy Neutron! Hardy harhar. Anyway, we have begun his mummification process as lined out in the SOTW activity book.

Removing the organs - ew.

Digging for organs

Patting dry and mixing the soda and salt

Pouring in the mix

This little man is VERY excited!

We can't wait to see if this actually works. I hope it does. I have a weak stomach! HA!