Night Skiing

We tried a different ski area today as a special treat. This mountain offers a special deal on Saturday afternoons-evenings. The boys had a lot of fun but it was so busy (must be that special deal thing!) a lot of time was spent in line for rentals or in line for lifts. One thing the boys wanted to do was ski at night, which the mountain they had their lessons on doesn't offer so today was their time to ski under the lights.

Tristan and Colin are in this picture somewhere around the middle, Colin in front, Tristan coming down behind.


Tristan is doing SO well now, he's going fast! The kids lessons have now ended so Colin has been teaching Tristan more. Colin is very good about looking after his brother when they ski.


This mountain has another big draw....snow tubing. The tubes are attached to a lift and pulled up the hill.


Then they slide down at quite a speed.

Tubing after dark

Skiing after dark

Tired and Happy!

A scattered day

Today was somewhat scattered. I worked on reading with Tristan for quite awhile this morning since he was the early bird. He likes it that he can read more and more every day. I worked on some cub scouts communicators items with the boys. We went to the library I use in another town. I joined the library in the town where Hayley's girl scouts meets because it is much bigger than my local library. I had to sheepishly return a paperback that Freeze the puppy had chewed. I felt so bad about this that I didn't return it until all my renewals ran out. The librarian was very nice about it and said her dog has chewed a few library books too. The cost was $7.99, I must think of a way for Freeze to work off this fee!!

We went shopping after the library because we needed to get some items for the cub scouts Blue and Gold dinner this weekend. I need to make a dish, going to do pasta salad. We need to make a table centerpiece for our den and the last thing was that both younger boys needed new pants badly, they have both outgrown the trousers I was using with their scout uniforms. I found them each a nice pair that will go with their current blue scout shirt nicely yet will also match the tan shirt they'll transition to after the Blue and Gold when they officially become Webelos, the last step before Boy Scouts. The pants also had big belt loops, which is essential since they wear a cub scout belt, which holds metal belt loop awards. So finding pants to go with their uniform is not as simple as it might seem!

While at the shops I happened to notice some kids knit pants and sweatpants for $3 each so I got the kids 1-3 pairs of pants each depending on what sizes were available. Tristan still fits in little boys sizes so he ended up with 3 pair, mostly little kids sizes were left. He needed new clothes badly so this was a good find. For some reason boys clothes don't last through Colin so Tristan doesn't get many hand me downs...I wonder why! Colin went through a shirt chewing phase during the year he attended co-op. Looking back co-op was terrible for his ADHD. So many kids, fun but overwhelming, trying to behave in classes and all the cakes and things full of colors and preservatives that are given away there. All that to say that a whole years worth of Colin's shirts were not able to be handed down to Tristan. The necklines and sometimes the sleeves were chewed! Pants don't seem to last anyway with active Colin!

I need to find a pair of Khaki pants for Hayley who is right in between girls and women's sizes. Her Girl Scout troop has started requiring that the girls wear full uniform of scout vest, white shirt, khaki pants for any official outings or events. In the past they only needed their scout vests. I didn't find suitable khaki pants and then realized, once home, that the pants I need I may well find in the BOYS section. I'll try that next time! There just weren't pants in that color in girls or women's.

The last thing we were searching for was a ski helmet for Colin. We've been accumulating all the needed ski stuff as we come across deals. Both boys got goggles but so far only Tristan has a helmet since we found one in his size highly discounted. Now we need one for Colin. Didn't find one though so he'll have to continue to rent a helmet. Now that the boys are out of the beginners area I want helmets on them!

It was a bit of a wild goose chase trying to find many different, and quite specific, needed items but at least we found the main ones for this weekend. I really don't like shopping at all so this day was a trial for me.

Communicator-cub scouts part 2

Tristan's book and movie reviews.

Movie Review
Beethoven's Big Break
by Tristan

Beethoven's Big Break is a great movie. This movie has some interesting parts and some funny parts. It's a movie about making a movie. Beethoven is a Saint Bernard dog who often gets things wrong in the movie they're making but the people think it's funny. One of the funny parts was when Beethoven was supposed to take some food off the movie dad's plate but he jumped on the table and made a big mess. That was a mistake but the director like it. I recommend this movie to others, I think people will like it.

Book Review
One Wide Sky- author Deborah Wiles, Illustrator Tim Bowers
by Tristan

The book One Wide Sky is a Poem. It's about Squirrels and the things they do in a day. The story is about things in a yard but the pictures are about things some squirrels do in a day. The illustrations are very nice, one picture is a funny one of a a squirrel holding a sandwich crust with all the middle eaten. Another funny part is that the squirrels carry away food and the kids don't even notice. You might like this book if you like poems, squirrels or books with some pictures.

Communicator-cub scouts

The boys are working on the communicator requirements in cub scouts as well as extra communicating belt loop and pin requirements. They need to publish some of their written work they will be working on a den newspaper and I will publish some of their writing on my blog.

Book Review by Colin

The Moon
I read a book called The Moon. It is written by Melvin and Gilda Berger. This book is interesting because it's about the sun, the earth and the moon. A fun fact I learned from this book is that the moon takes about one month to go around the earth. There are many illustrations and fun facts in this short book. I think other cub scouts would like this book.

Movie Review by Colin

Space Buddies
Space Buddies was a great movie, I liked everything about it. The buddies are 5 golden retriever puppies who find all the fun in life and have adventures. In this movie the Buddies are accidentally launched into space. The funniest part of this movie was when the buddies said "don't pull his paw" about Budderball. You will have to watch this movie to find out what happens! I give Space Buddies a High Five, go ahead and watch it, you will laugh a lot!

A Warm Up

A good warm up in the temperature today meant that we could do several things. One was give the ferrets a much needed bath. The kids handled that. Another was that we could spend some time at the lake without freezing. It was a balmy 50 degrees farenheight!

The boys read their news. They have really enjoyed getting their own copies of God's World News this year. I didn't go exactly with the age ranges suggested for each magazine but spread it out a little more so that each child could have a unique version of the newspapers. Tristan gets Early Edition, Colin-Taking Off, Hayley-News Current and Trevor Top Story. This has been a fun addition to our homeschooling, they like getting their own newspapers.

Homeschoolers were in the news today on tv so we made sure to watch that. There is legislation in place to try and put much stricter requirements on homeschoolers in our state. We couldn't get to the State house to protest this due to the timing, we were thrilled to see the huge turnout though!

I'll Help you with that math Tristan, the ferret says!

The afternoon was spent outdoors sledding and at the lake.

Tristan sledding.

Colin Sledding.

The boys were having a snowball fight. Tristan went indoors and got on his ski helmet and goggles for protection. Good thinking Tristan!

At the lake

Freeze loved fetching sticks in the lake during the summer, he is thrilled with this massive stick pile left from a broken tree back during the ice storms. Freeze seems to think all these sticks on the ice were put there just for him!

Self-control

Today I was comparing the Boy Scout Law with the Fruits of the Spirit with the boys. They're learning the scout law because in one year they will graduate from cub scouts and become boy scouts. Part of this transition is learning the Boy Scout Law. The scout law is not the same as the fruits of the spirit but I thought it would be interesting to compare the similarities. We came to Self-Control. Colin said that's a very hard one. I was glad that he seemed to acknowledge that self-control is hard for him. He does well at home but in busy or large group situations Colin seems to find self-control a lot harder. He seems to feed off the energy in groups and gets very ADHD-ish. I mentioned that I think he is getting better at self-control as he gets older. I thought to myself that he must be maturing to realize he has difficulty in this area. He thought about this for a moment and then said very seriously "yes that Tristan he really needs to work on self-control it's hard for little kids". ROFLOL, Colin thinks he is fine but his little brother needs some work. He after all is a big mature kid and is doing just fine! Let's just say our discussion didn't stop there. It was hard not to laugh and to make a serious point right then!

Boy silliness when winter starts to get old: Tristan and Colin were playing hide and seek today. I suddenly noticed that Tristan didn't have his glasses on. I asked where his glasses were and Colin said we're playing. I in all good faith thought to myself they put the glasses away in case they play rough so nothing happens....I quickly realized that they don't generally do this and hide and seek isn't rough so I better clarify. I asked are the glasses put away safe while you play? Colin said no the game is that I hide Tristan's glasses and he tries to find them, you know like hide and seek!

I re-directed them to a new activity and the glasses were put back on the boy!

Mixed up Monday

Freeze, your ears are inside out.


Am I cute or what?

Today was a little convoluted. A mixed up Monday in some ways. I think part of the problem was that I tried to fit too much into the day. In our 365 days of celebration and praise book the day was Boy Scout Birthday (yesterday actually but I was using it today). We have been doing a lot of cub scout and girl scout things lately anyway and I tried to fill in a few blanks that the kids needed towards badges. I'm big on tying things together but all that resulted in today was a big knot of confusion! The kids are using a learn to play guitar DVD and also both Hayley and the boys had a few loose ends in music requirements for scouts AND I had some musical things I wanted to show the kids. It all seemed to go well together but all the parts were interesting to the kids so it all took longer. For instance in some cases we needed to listen to 1 or 2 samples of a musical genre but Tristan loves singing so wanted me to keep playing more samples of folk music and historical music. Also I had found a video online of John Williams conducting an orchestra in a medley of his Star Wars music. The boys were all so surprised and wanted to watch it again and again. Seeing the Star Wars music played by an orchestra gave it a whole different light to the kids and they were fascinated.

So it was a musical Monday but also a mixed up Monday. A neighbor who is a friend of Bobby's stopped by early and wanted Bobby to help him with something and he also wanted to help cut some of our wood. He also wanted the boys to help and so I lost a couple kids for a time and at other times we could hardly hear ourselves think since the chainsaw was right outside roaring away! It's great to have help but Bobby hadn't planned on this and it messed up his plans for the day a little too.

To add to the confusion the DVD player was acting up again and we ended up having to play the guitar DVD on my laptop! Not exactly a big screen. In some ways it was an ok day, we did get a lot done but not everything I'd planned. I had a headache too, maybe due to the fact that the Eastenders Christmas show was on last night and it went very long! We get Eastenders about 6 weeks after it's aired in the UK. We also get a week's worth all at once. Christmas week out there is something like 6 or 7 episodes, rather than the usual 4. So that meant rather than it being on from 9PM-11 PM it was on from 9PM-12:30 AM! I'm not much of a night owl and that it late for me. It was fun to see nasty Nick Cotton back...Happy Christmas Ma!

Hopefully tomorrow will be less crazy. We have two busy weekends in a row coming up so I wouldn't mind if the weekdays stay calm and relaxed.

Future guitar band or just kids who like to make noise?

For Christmas Hayley, Colin and Tristan wanted guitars. I'm not sure that they understood the fact that one can't instantly play songs just by owning a guitar. So far they have made a lot of noise but nothing that sounds much like a real song. We have started trying to learn from a guitar lesson DVD. How well they have done with this so far is pretty much proportional to how old they are. Hayley kinda gets it, Colin gets it occasionally and Tristan is still pretty clueless.

Tristan pays rapt attention to the guitar lesson..



until he drops his pick in the hole...


and has to try to get it out...

again....and again.....It happened 3 times just today.

Colin looks downright baffled here, maybe he does not realize that he's holding his guitar upside down. The chord won't sound right that way!

Hayley is lucky enough to have a guitar stand to balance on, it's name is Freeze.

A wikked new guitar band in the making???

Only time will tell!

The Big Clear Out

How did it comes to this? My shelves are a mess, not to mention over flowing. There is no room for new books and curriculum so those get piled on the floor. The science kits are mixed up and the math manipulatives...where did they go? To the bottom of kids toy boxes? Math is on the history shelf. I can find 25 books my kids have outgrown in less than 5 minutes...with my eyes closed.

I used to have neat bookcases. I really did. I probably need an intervention but I'm trying to sort out the whole situation before that. I have not had a Big Clear out in 5 years. It's time.

This one below is the current bookcase. All that should be in here are the materials we are currently using. I can easily see that many books not currently in use are spending time here.


Here are some of the homeschool books I AM currently using- they're under things I'm not currently using and behind the big lego bin! No wonder it's so time consuming to find what I need for the week.


This book case (below) should be the most organised and I'll give it credit that it's not too bad. Top shelf Language arts, 2nd down math, 3rd down history 4th and fifth general readers and resource books. There is a tall, tall pile on top of this bookcase that I missed getting in the picture and I have no idea what some of that stuff is.


This book case is meant to be teaching resources on the top 2 rows and science books on the bottom three. It's very mixed up. The overflow sits beside it.

The green plastic thing (below) is supposed to be all science kits and math manipulatives. It's not TOO bad but could be better. The plastic shelfs beside it are arts and crafts materials and it's a true mess. It used to be that each drawer was for a specific category but it's all mixed up.

The goal. Sort one category at a time and try selling online or readying for local spring curriculum sales and give away days. I sorted math (most of it) this morning and find that I have so many math books my kids have outgrown. Fully 3/4's of our math books are for grades 3 and under. Even Tristan will be past the oldest of those very soon if not already. I even found half a dozen counting books! I get terribly overwhelmed selling lots of individual items, which is probably why this has all built up. I sell or loan the big ticket items easily enough but all these individual things what to do with them? I do some paperback swap but sometimes that gets too overwhelming for me. I don't always know when I can next get to the post office.

Excuses, excuses, all excuses aside. Math is sorted and ready to put out to pasture and hopefully to homes that need it. Next stop, language arts.

The Card Table of Organisation

The morning begins all quiet and organised, here it is another Friday.

I have a winter system and a summer system, of course right now, being in the northern hemisphere and in the north at that...we're in the winter system right now. That means we do our main homeschooling in the living room since that's where the wood stove lives. In the summer system we use the dining room table for any crafts or seat work...it's bigger but not near the wood stove!

I have a system which seems to work well for me, a disorganised, flighty person. I set everything possible out for the day ahead of time, in the winter I use a card table for this morning set up. Four kids work is put in or on their lap desks ready for them. Pencils (plenty of them) glue, scissors, ruler, pencil sharpener, any craft materials needed. Any books I plan to use or videos or DVDs we plan to watch. I get it all ready on my card table. It doesn't stay nice and neat for long but it gives me a starting point for each day.

Ready for another day. Here is the Card Table of Organisation.


And the kids get up! Hayley and Freeze seem to be semi awake!!


The mornings tend to be fast paced for us. Today was:

Tristan math and phonics

Colin math and LA plus he read a short book for me about comets

Hayley math and LA

All four children, reading from today's event in 365 Days of Celebrations and Praise. I don't remember to use this every day but I try. The kids enjoy all the fun and sometimes crazy special days in the year. Today was National wild bird feeding month there was a fun craft to make, it was a lot like the pine cone feeders we previously made but this involved paper cups.

You take paper or plastic cups, cut a hole in two sides, tie string in the holes and tie string together at top. Cover outside of cup with peanut butter (or shortening which I let Hayley use as she despises peanut butter)/ Roll cup in birdseed and then fill inside of cup with bird seed.

Colin and Tristan particularly liked this activity.

Silly boys want to be in ALL the pictures! Close up of the completed cup bird feeders, these are a good idea! Even when the birds have pecked off the seed outside the inside of the cup can be re-filled.

We hung the cup feeders on the Christmas tree outside. Our pine cone feeders are bare. We have been re-loading them about once a week but it's harder to do now they're tied to the tree. These cup feeders will be easier to refill.

and right away some birds find these new feeders!

Back indoors we settled down with some popcorn and a movie, the movie is Beethoven Lives Upstairs. It was very good. I made the popcorn holders out of rolled up 12x12 scrapbook paper. I find that I have an over abundance of those great huge mixed packages so I end up using the paper for many things. LOL

Flower is more interested in the popcorn than Beethoven! Whenever we have popcorn we have to give Flower some, it's his favorite food and there's no peace unless we share.

After Beethoven with popcorn Trevor did his math & LA.

Trevor and Hayley viewed Teaching Company math and world history.

I cooked dinner, spinach whole wheat pasta. Ugh. I had high hopes for this but I don't like whole wheat pasta much at all anyway and the spinach did nothing for it. I made cookies (we needed a reward for getting through the whole wheat spinach pasta).

The mail arrived with the usual junk and also the newest God's World News issues, we'll incorporate those next week, a Netflix movie, we'll watch tonight or tomorrow, a postcard....

I read the postcard and became distressed. I didn't understand who it was from but they would apparently see me soon and would have photos to share...the kids are picking up some Spanish it said...I don't get it??!! It made no sense and I was truly worried that someone I didn't know was going to come stay with us for some odd reason and show us many photos of....where is this postcard from I hadn't even noticed...Honduras...OH I think it's coming to me...I had a student in my animals class whose Mom was from Honduras, the names make sense now! Awwww that was nice of them to think of us and send a postcard. That Mom was a nice lady, she had a hard time with her English, had a very, very busy toddler in addition to her two older children and I tried to make conversation with her when I could...yes, I do know these people and they're not stalkers or impending, unexpected house guests, phew.

The afternoon seemed to be taken up with computer games, drawing, tic tac toe, hamsters, ferrets, Freeze the puppy, running around making a lot of noise with a toy laser gun set (boys), screwdrivers of two different sizes were needed by two different boys (Trevor, Colin) no idea why, watching the birds at the new feeders and identifying a few, Tristan thinking he'd seen an ant which I highly doubt at this time of year in NH. Tristan is scared of ants (baffles the mind, his brother is bug boy and he is scared of ants!) so he kept trying to see if he could find another to prove they were already back for summer. That is soooo wishful thinking, it was below zero this morning and hardly made it to 20F. Supper-leftover spinach pasta was offered and refused, pizza and sandwiches were decided upon instead. Madagascar 2 from netflix was put on and soon it will be bedtime.

The end of a productive day a messy card table and my ever present diet coke.the little bottles are soooo the best!

Ski lessons week 5

I FORGOT MY CAMERA!

Tristan made it off the easiest slopes and I forgot my camera! He did great and so did Colin. Tristan has had trouble stopping and that meant the instructor couldn't try him on a higher slope because it's important to be able to slow down and stop! He really got it this week though and was able to go down the big beginners slope many times and did great! The instructor had Colin and another boy about his age try a bumpy run after going up in a chair lift, Colin thought it was fun but he prefers the regular slopes and going fast!

Late in the day we witnessed just why one shouldn't go on the faster slopes when one doesn't know how to stop well. A group of people who I think were vacationers, due to the fact that they were speaking in another language, were trying to ski. They had several children- ages around about 4-12 with them most of them very young. They let the kids go right down the slope without any instruction and kids were crashing fast into the snow wall at the bottom. One child went so fast he launched quite high right over the wall, his ski's came off and he landed several yards down the embankment. Everyone in the area thought there was going to be a bad outcome but the kid was actually OK or appeared to be anyway, once they got him back up. Then those families went right back up the lift to try again (baffles the mind). I hadn't seen anything like that happen in the 5 weeks we've been skiing and it was quite distressing! I worried a little more each time Tristan went down the slopes but thankfully he always remembered to stop!

This was the last official week of ski lessons. The group leader was going to inquire if our group could sign up for one more week since we didn't cancel at all and one cancel is figured into the lesson series. It will be great if we can get another week but if not we're already exploring other options. Another nearby mountain has weekend afternoon specials and we'll head there a time or two before the season ends and this mountain we've had lessons at has midweek specials.

Skiing has been a wonderful experience for Colin and Tristan. They are both saying that skiing is now one of their all time favorite things to do! Tristan figures he may even be a professional skier some day!

Ski lessons week 5

I FORGOT MY CAMERA!

Colin's Birthday!!!!

Today is Colin's birthday!

Colin is such a comical boy, he decided that he didn't want to know when his birthday was this year so he would wake up surprised. I went along with this and didn't change the calendar to Feb. when the time came but left it on Jan. So Colin went to bed last night unsuspecting and woke up this morning to find balloons strung around and gifts to open. He was very happy and said he was truly surprised. He got a couple Nerf shooting type toys (oh why must boys shoot things all the time!?) but his main gift will be tomorrow when he goes skiing. It's the last day of ski lessons so we will stay the whole day rather than come home at 2:00 like we usually do (Bobby is taking a vacation day from work) get a treat from the cafe at lunch time and hopefully buy Colin a pair of ski goggles as he really wants a pair. If he doesn't find what he wants in our price range we will order a pair online. He is very excited about skiing all day tomorrow and hopefully getting goggles!

At lunch time we had cake, Freeze the puppy REALLY wanted some cake, Tristan held him back!



You stuck your finger in there and tasted it while I took pictures, didn't you, Colin?!

Of course we had a day off from our homeschooling. We watched Space Buddies again and watched the extras at the end. It was very cute. Some of the extras are a handful of interesting space facts. I just love the Buddies, glad I took time to watch it with the kids before we send it back to Netflix. It almost made me want another puppy...almost. I don't think we could handle another Freeze anytime soon though he has been quite a challenge compared to any other dog we've ever had. He does seem to be calming down...a little.... now that he's 9 months old.

Colin at 11:

Wants to be a vegetarian chef when he grows up.

Favorite color is orange.

Loves soccer, skiing, swimming, archery, shooting targets, ice skating, running, jumping and climbing trees.

Loves video games, shooting toys, knights and castles, star wars games and playing "war".

Loves animals especially his hamster named Whiskers and his ferret named Cinnamon.

Enjoys finding or watching frogs, toads, turtles, snails, fish, salamanders, birds and bugs.

Is trying to learn to play the guitar.

Tolerates schoolwork and bedtime but they are not his favorite things in the world!

Dislikes sitting still and too much quiet!

Another day and a moment on the soapbox for independent homeschoolers

Ah what is this-no pictures again, boring, boring, boring! I must make sure to take some pictures tomorrow. We had a fairly productive day, Tristan and Colin did their seat work then we got a snack and settled down with disc 3 (of 4) in the Getting Ahead Math (also called Star Maths) DVD program which we've been going through this year. Today Numberella and crew taught about metric measurement and decimals. As this is a UK series the measurement sections are all in metric so some may wish to skip those. After our visit with Numberella we went to Middle Ages Africa in lesson 17-or so of the Teaching Company world history course. The man who teaches these history courses is quite the performer and he was dressed up in a robe and head wear for this lesson. Even though it's a high school level course sometimes the lessons hold the attention of the younger kids too, the teacher, Mr. Thompson is quite good and obviously enjoys history a lot! The younger boys went off to play after world history and the big kids and I viewed a Teaching Company basic math lesson and then practiced some problems. We use the Teaching Company tapes 1-2 times a week, they have proved to be a wonderful resource in our homeschooling. At this point Trevor was done for the day and Hayley and I had to tackle the math which she didn't finish yesterday. For all she had a tantrum and tears about the math yesterday she was just fine today, back to normal. We finished "yesterdays" lesson and then did today's. Then we had a grammar lesson involving Polar Bears to end the day. It was sooooo late by now and had to cook dinner! It was a packed morning with random readings and conversation in between the planned work. Some days go very quickly and some take until well past two o'clock, you just never know.

We had dinner, Bobby headed off to work and the kids played outdoors, on the computer and did some drawing during the afternoon and probably other things too but those were the things I noticed. Colin decided to try to destroy some empty plastic soda bottles and I had to put a stop to that since his methods were loud! I asked why he was doing that, "just to see how easy they were to break" he replies...ok but do it outdoors and then clean up after yourself!

We got Space Buddies from Netflix today and although I wanted to watch it with the kids I had cleaning and other stuff to do. I may just play it again tomorrow and watch it with them, Space Buddies looks SO cute!

I read some emails dealing with possible stricter homeschool regulations for our State. People are fighting this of course. Among the emails was also something from members of our old homeschool co-op who are starting a testing service. One potential new regulation for our state would require that standardized testing be done each year and parents would no longer be allowed to give the test to their own children. I, like many, am furious about this. Currently we can test (and a parent can administer the test) or have a portfolio of work reviewed by a certified teacher. If the new regulations are enacted people would need to test (with someone besides the parent administering) AND have a portfolio review, not one or the other. I feel that this new requirement will not go through, thankfully many, many homeschoolers in the state are working hard to fight it. So back to the testing service email from co-op and what that has to do with this. An email was sent out stating that some co-op members would be starting a service to provide standardized testing. There is a fairly significant charge above the actual test fee for this service. I feel like the timing of this new service is not good. We need to fight for our freedom to take charge of our own childrens education not give them over to someone else who is supposedly somehow more qualified to test them. We need to encourage newer homeschoolers to desire homeschooling freedom and not fear that they can't do it by themselves. I hate to think that some will sign right up for this testing service out of fear. How far backwards do we go before the homeschoolers, especially Christian ones it seems, have worked their way back into a school format again. Another thing the testing service will be providing is classes, in addition to the co-op ones and at a cost since they won't be part of the actual co-op, -classes, testing, tutoring...helping homeschoolers to homeschool, it says. Yet it's getting further and further away from home education the more we give over our children to others educate and test. I'm sure they mean well but it seems like a step backwards to me. If the kids are in co-ops for a couple days a week and taking supplementary classes a couple more days, then being assessed and tested by others...how is it even homeschooling any more? It's not exactly school, but it's no longer homeschooling in my mind if most of the childs education is taken in classes taught by others.

Twenty or more years ago homeschool pioneers fought for more homeschooling freedom, are we giving it all back? The bigger and more prevalent the co-op's, classes, tutoring, virtual schools and testing services get, the more new and even existing homeschoolers will wonder if they can homeschool on their own or if they are doing a good job or would the kids be better off with the bulk of their education coming to them from large co-op's, supplementary and virtual classes and tutors? The successes of independent homeschoolers is what gives new homeschoolers courage. If they don't see that some before them could do this homeschool thing some may not have the courage to try. I have to say that although there were some good things that came out of our 1.5 year foray into the world of homeschool co-op's, it was the worst 1.5 years of homeschooing for us.

I'm not against any form of schooling that works for a family. I think it all is needed, different people need and want different things. I just feel dismayed to see such an influx of large co-op's, virtual schools, classes and tutoring aimed at homeschoolers. We do need choice but we don't need others to homeschool our children for us. We simply can't let the door to homeschooling close for the next generation.

I'll continue to raise my children and facilitate their education in the way that works best for them as individuals. I will find the least intrusive way to meet my state requirements each year. This year we will probably test, the shortest test allowable, and we will joke about the silly hoops we jump through to pacify the State and keep our right to homeshool.

So that is my mini soapbox for the day, one small voice for homeschoolers to know they can raise and educate or facilitate learning for their children by themselves.

Just another homeschool day

I realized that I rarely blog about normal everyday homeschool kinda days. I'm pretty sure I used too, maybe it started to feel monotonous. Today was pretty typical. Most days have a certain flow to them which is something like: younger kid seat work, followed by "other stuff", usually for all 4 kids together and then older kid seat work. The reasoning is that the younger kids wake earlier and the older kids either like to ease into the day (Hayley) or have started to sleep in a little bit in that teenage growth spurt thing (Trevor, although he's generally up by 9:00 the younger guys are up by 7:30).

The first thing I usually do upon waking is feed Flower the cat. He protests loudly if I don't. Then I turn on my laptop and/or the morning news. A little later I feed the other pets, except for the ones some of the kids take care of themselves (gerbils, hamsters, frogs).

Sometimes I make breakfast for all and sometimes everyone gets what they want by themselves. Today we made toast on a rack on the woodstove. We do this a lot with everyone spreading on whichever topping they desire- such as cinnamon, marmite, peanut butter, jam or cheese. It's easy and saves electricity. Colin and Tristan decided to turn their toast into toasted cheese sandwiches today. After making his toast on the woodstove Colin decided to make another cheese sandwich in a pan on the stove top. He did this completely independently for the first time (even washing a frying pan first!) and even made extras to share.

Today Colin was first for book work. He read a book for me, something about SpongeBob (yes I must admit that we are not 100% twaddle free anymore, how did that happen???). Then he did his CLE math and only needed me for a couple sections. Finally Colin worked on his spelling/advanced phonics with Explode the code. These seem to work well for him so I figured we'll stick with it all the way through book 8. Usually we alternate the CLE language arts with ETC spelling/phonics.

Next up was Tristan. He had a reading lesson with CLE's learn to read, he learned more sight words and some phonetic words that start with T. He's reading so well now and I can tell he's happy about that! After reading Tristan worked on his CLE math. He loves math and does it almost independently which is nice. I never intended him to but he likes to do his math independently and only asks for help if he comes to something new. A story in Tristans reading lesson was about a turtle so I had a read aloud about a turtle ready. I read this to the younger three.

Next was the mix it up part of the day where we typically do any or all of these: history, science, art, music, living math, current events....Today we talked about Groundhog Day, groundhogs in general, the weather and seasons. Then had a drawing movie, which I'd picked up at the library, called Squiggles, Dots and Lines by Ed Emberly. It was not the best movie I've ever seen but the kids seemed to like it. The premise was that you can draw anything with Ed's art alphabet of squares, worms, ants, beetles, circles, etc. After the movie the kids tried drawing some things. I paused the art alphabet on the screen so the kids could refer to it. This took up a good hour since eventually some people decided to make cards for Grammy using the art alphabet in their drawings.

After art we had snacks and then it was Hayley's turn for some math and LA. There was a new concept in her math which not only took a lot of time to go through but also upset her (and so that did not go too well, we'll try again tomorrow). She ended up going to her room for some quiet time. I rarely have to do this with the kids anymore but I was at a loss and she clearly needed to calm down. I think she even napped for a little while. Hope this isn't a sign of impending doom...err... illness! That kinda threw the day off since it was now time to start dinner, we have our main meal at 1:00 or so due to Bobby's 2nd shift work schedule. Trevor got off lightly with only math today since I was now pressed for time.

Trevor, Colin and Tristan went off to play a medieval computer game, Hayley rested in her room and I started dinner. Dinner was a little late but not too bad. The kids played with the ferrets for awhile and I cleaned the ferrets icky litter boxes. Other pet care and pet supper time was done, the wood stove tended to as needed and supper of leftover dinner for the people. That is the good part of cooking the big meal early, I can make extra for supper later. The bad part is not having much time to actually prepare dinner if our homeschooling runs long!

It had seriously warmed up today into the high 30's and right after supper this resulted in more chaos, a burst pipe in the kitchen area, or under the kitchen in the cellar, I really couldn't quite tell since it got wet both on the kitchen floor and in the cellar but I found the shut off dial for that part of the plumbing fairly easy. This has been a terrible winter for the plumbing! I AM learning where all the shut off valves are, is that a positive thing??

I cleaned up from the day, piled some wood near the wood stove for the evening and got the homeschool stuff ready for tomorrow.

At the moment, 6:30 pm, I hear giggling and a little shouting, the three boys are playing at being knights I believe. Hayley felt better after a rest and I let her quickly check her online pets such as webkinz, in case there was anything special for Groundhog day. I was not going to let her have any computer time due to the math tantrum but it is Groundhog Day and I am a reasonable Mom, LOL. She just got a new copy of Spider magazine in the mail today, which a relative gives her a subscription, so she is now reading that. I have a movie from the library the kids can watch in a little while and then it will be bedtime.

Oh My Words!

Tristan is really taking off with reading now! A big success for him and we are all very excited. He wanted a picture with the words that he read last week. There were too many to hold so we buried Tristan in his words!

Terrific reading Tristan!