Homeschool chatter - 3/30

[Valgal]

Good grief I can't believe it's the end of March already! 2 more months and we'll be done of the year. I can honestly say I am looking forward it as much as the kids. It has been a loooooooooooong stressful school year.

I'm hoping to find a homeschool convention this summer somewhere near us. I wouldn't mind staying the night if it's too far out of town. I just need some new motivation, ideas and info. Has anyone been to one before?

[Kara]

I'd hoped to go to our convention since it's right in town this year -- but it's much more expensive than I was expecting and would eat up a big chunk of my homeschool budget. I've compromised with listening to speakers online and visiting our awesome homeschool store to look at curriculum.

Things are going well here, just busy. We start spring break on Friday and all next week. Kids are looking forward to that -- hopefully the weather will finally be nice enough to spend lots of time outside.

[MamaBee]

I've been to our state conventions three times... they aren't that big and don't attract a lot of venders. We are skipping them this year... information hasn't changed and I probably wouldn't go again until Jake is older and getting ready for high school. I would LOVE to go to a national one with a classical education focus, but the dates never line up will with our schedules.

I'm so ready for this school year to be done! Then we launch into summer school... I'm really looking forward to it - I hope it will be lots of fun with Magic School science experiment kits, Life of Fred math, and Moving Beyond the Page - a curriculum I bought two years ago and then changed my mind...

Anyone else school in the summer? Last year we didn't and we really struggled getting back into the swing in the fall and Jake was really frustrated about the things he forgot... so hoping to do at least a couple of hours a day, it will help...

[Valgal]

Eden would STRANGLE me if I did school during the summer. I know my dh would disagree too. It really wouldn't be fair since her brothers will be home (public high school)

Originally Posted by Kara

I'd hoped to go to our convention since it's right in town this year -- but it's much more expensive than I was expecting and would eat up a big chunk of my homeschool budget. I've compromised with listening to speakers online and visiting our awesome homeschool store to look at curriculum.

Things are going well here, just busy. We start spring break on Friday and all next week. Kids are looking forward to that -- hopefully the weather will finally be nice enough to spend lots of time outside.

Homeschool store???? How cool!

[kristijoy]

There is an awesome homeschool store in one of the suburbs of Seattle. I went there looking for science books for making 'science camps' for my son's summer activities. It was a resale type of store that was PACKED full. It was like being in a candy store!

[adi&co.]

Originally Posted by kristijoy

There is an awesome homeschool store in one of the suburbs of Seattle. I went there looking for science books for making 'science camps' for my son's summer activities. It was a resale type of store that was PACKED full. It was like being in a candy store!

omg do you remember what it's called? I should go there and see what they have

[Kara]

Rebecca, we will keep doing math and maybe some LA over the summer ... not more than 30 minutes a day, but enough to hopefully prevent them forgetting too much.

[YepBrook]

I decided NOT to do the big yearly homeschool convention this year. I'm bummed because we missed last year due to the new house. This year we will have a new puppy and on top of that I forgot to register for the state H.S. association (which lowers the cost of the convention significantly). So... yeah. I do kind of know what I plan to buy, but I will miss the encouragement from the speakers and the little mini vacation with DH.

I always SAY I'm going to school through the summer, but I don't. We all need a break.

[kristijoy]

Originally Posted by adi&co.

omg do you remember what it's called? I should go there and see what they have

Here it is!

http://hspbooks.com/

[kristijoy]

We've been on Springbreak for the last week and a half travelling. When we travel though we all like to do educational type trips. My DH's family is in Springfield Illinois which is also prime Lincoln country. Talk about awesome learning! Nothing like actually being at these places in person. My son asked lots of questions which were great opportunities for family discussion. I can tell he was quite moved by the experience (he's 8).

These are the places we visited:

Lincoln Museum
New Salem

And at the bookstore I purchased this book which has a beautiful poem about the penny and then lots of 'character' building activities to do with kids in the last half of the book. Thought you all might enjoy this book:

Power of the Penny

[MamaBee]

thanks, kristi! I went to Lincoln's Memorial in high school as part of a band trip... I would like to take Jake some day... and I'll be checking out that book - Jake is coin obsessed.

[Valgal]

So here's my new experiment... Eden has a hard time with non-fiction reading comprehension. I think she can't focus on what she's reading because her mind is all over the place, so she gets to the end of a section she can't remember what she even read. Her science is really text-heavy and it's taking us a loooooooooong time to get through each chapter. I picked up this book at Barnes & Nobel last week and decided to try reading her science book out loud to her.

We did it this way: I read 1 section out loud and let her stop me when she wanted to talk about it. It took us about 15 minutes to read just 2 pages but we had some great discussion about it! Then I had her read it on her own, answer the question at the end, then fill in a reading response sheet. I'm going to keep doing this through the chapter and see if it makes a difference.

What do you think?

[kelley]

We used to school through the summer, I really personally love the idea (in a scaled back way). Now that the kiddos are older though, they started to resent it since all of their friends don't do school in the summer. Plus, breaks are good too. For me as much as for them. Honestly, summers feel like a vacation for me too even though I still work - it is just so much less stressful! We do reading in the summer and that is it unless I get a brilliant idea for some sort of activity. They go along with the reading because it's a requirement before any video games can be played.

[kelley]

Originally Posted by Valgal

So here's my new experiment... Eden has a hard time with non-fiction reading comprehension. I think she can't focus on what she's reading because her mind is all over the place, so she gets to the end of a section she can't remember what she even read. Her science is really text-heavy and it's taking us a loooooooooong time to get through each chapter. I picked up this book at Barnes & Nobel last week and decided to try reading her science book out loud to her.

We did it this way: I read 1 section out loud and let her stop me when she wanted to talk about it. It took us about 15 minutes to read just 2 pages but we had some great discussion about it! Then I had her read it on her own, answer the question at the end, then fill in a reading response sheet. I'm going to keep doing this through the chapter and see if it makes a difference.

What do you think?

That sounds like a great plan Val! I had that same problem when I was in school and was totally lost in science and history partially because of it.

[Valgal]

Well, our eye exam turned out to be rather eventful. Eden's brain decided the eye dilation was too much stress, so she passed out, had a seizure and when she came to... threw up.

THANKFULLY I was able to half-drag, half-throw her in the direction of the sink. My poor baby. And of course the sink had one of those drains with the little holes in it and she had just eaten lunch, so... yeah. gross. This is the 3rd time this has happened in medical situations. I do the same exact thing.

She's in bed sleeping now.

[Valgal]

Pretty quiet this week, eh? We've been in the groove all week and are totally finished. Sweet! She is going to a youth retreat starting this evening, so we HAD to be finished by today. We actually got a lot done and I get to sleep. in. tomorrow. Spring break is next week. Haven't quite decided how I'm going to spend it.

[kristijoy]

HI gals...I'm feeling a bit of a curmudgeon...and was hoping I could grumble to you all....

The last couple months I've had a couple experiences about kids and learning. The first was my son's magazine 'Appleseeds' that talked about the industrial revolution. One of the articles talked about child laborers who worked in candy factories. What they desperately wanted was to go to school and learn to read. Then we visited the Lincoln museum and saw Lincoln who would've loved to go to school more than he really did and then ended up teaching himself to read.

Then I look at the kids I'm helping and they grumble about the simplest things, they don't even want to be at school and learning something like reading or math is just the most miserable torture being inflicted upon them.

My grandparents grew up in the dust-bowl, they migrated west to find any kind of agriculture job, ate food out of a dumpster to give their kids a better life. My mother was the first one in her family to marry someone who had gone to college. Both my sister and I went to college. My sister's in-laws immigrated to this country to give their kids a better life (under political persecution). They barely spoke English, but managed to put both their son's through college. Both sons are now important contributors to their communities.

Somehow though now in our affluence this next generation takes learning and education for granted. Is it because they've grown up with a life of leisure and never been exposed to a hard-days work or we've shielded them from the realities of this world and why we are where we are in the first place? And what is it we are really teaching???

Thanks....grumbling over.

[crystalbella77]

I can relate to your post Kristi. I think one of the biggest things is that our kids are growing up in a culture where everything is NOW and EASY. Want to look something up? No need to go all the way to a library, whip out a phone/iPod or computer and there you go! Everything is just right there all the time that I totally think they take things for granted!

Even through struggles we have had in our home life, we tried desperately not to let the kids feel any of it. I suppose that is good and bad in some ways. It's hard to find the balance!

[MamaBee]

I've had the same thoughts, Kristy! And I agree with Crystal... life has become so easy and handed to (most) kids today... Hubby has made comments about work (he works for a company with only 100 or so employees) about their "junior" engineers coming out of college - when there is a problem that they have to solve, the "old timers" are sitting down with pencil to paper, brainstorming, doing the math to solve it... what are the newbies doing? They are jumping on youtube and watching a video on how to fix it or they are googling to find the math equation and tutorials on how to do it. Even going through and interviewing candidates... most don't know the most basic equations that are used daily because there is no push to memorize them and know them... it's there at their finger tips. I remember my grandpa "yelling" at me when I wanted to use a calculator... "Girl, when that calculator runs out of power, what are you going to do?"

It really is sad... this country was built on hard word and ingenuity... and somewhere along the line that has been lost and what will the US look like when our grandkids are adults?

[Valgal]

I'm trying to remember what book it was, but I was reading a parenting book that took a chapter to discuss adolescents and teenagers. He said that 'teenagers' did not even exist till after WWII (I think). That you were a child and then you were basically an adult as soon as you could be of use to society. There was no 'in between' like we have now, where you learn about life and pretty much just 'have fun' till you hit your 20's. A family farm can't have 15 year olds that sleep till noon, kwim?

I would say taking education for granted all falls into that whole thing. It's not 'fun' and it doesn't seem to enhance the right-hereight-now.

[sprauncey1]

Hi guys!!

I'm new to homeschooling this year and to say I'm ready for the end of the year is being nice!!
We basically moved twice in our first year and so we are "behind" in our school and I think that is part of it for me. 20 days behind in a program that does 170 days. We are currently doing the A Bekka video program but I'm not sure what we will do next year. Definitely not the videos for my now 2nd grader as he just listens and doesn't learn (basically tunes out or spaces out for most of it). My now 5th grader though goes through a lot of information and such and I am not sure I can keep up with "teaching" two kiddos especially if they are feeling lazy. So I might stick with the videos for my oldest.

So my question is....for older kiddos (6th grade and up)...what have you done? What are you doing? Do you feel like they are getting enough?

And secondly, ugh...please tell me this gets better!!

I've been off-line for months now trying to focus on other things (unpacking, settling, homeschooling) and I feel like I'm so out of it everywhere...especially here at SSD.

[kristijoy]

Thanks gals! We had a much better day this morning! Whew. I find your comment about teens interesting Val. And I don't think it's so much our 'education system' as it is a fundamental attitude about energy. There is no 'freeide' in life, in whatever you decide to do. Even if you decide that college isn't for you, it takes effort and energy to learn a trade. That, to me, seems like an attitude that really underlies everything. Can you put out energy today? Can you direct your energy to a certain outcome? Can you apply energy even to something you don't really like? How are you applying your own energy today?

[MamaBee]

I thought this article was interesting, in light of what we were discussing here...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tracy-...b_5826816.html