What about Math?

I picked up this book Loving+Hating Mathmatics at The Liberty science center b/c admittedly I thought I was a hater of mathmatics.  Turns out I was taught to hate it as most people are in school by having it drilled into me and being told, I wasn't any good at it.  .  This book is not a book for( or even about) homeschooling and to be honest I jumped to the last chapter about how math is taught in schools.   I wanted to read that first so I could make sure in my homeschooling I wasn't teaching my kids to hate math.
In reality math has not been joy over here in our ecclectic sometimes panicky homeschooling and it is b/c Math makes me panic.  It's not that I don't know how to add and subtract and do all the basic arithmetic, I can, but numbers get murky sometimes with their stubbornness of having only one answer and their superiority over other subjects. 
The book calls for education reform in the way in which we teach students and inspire them to love math or to accept that, just as some kids don't enjoy reading as much as others, some will never enjoy factoring. Highly acclaimed educators and mathematicians say, "that's ok" 
The book talks about NCLB and how teaching to the test is making more haters of math and this has inspired me to inspire my kids with more than just numbers as math.
The book has fabulous quotes about how society lies to kids telling them they will NEED calculus and geometry but the truth is the need is in an arbitrary exam colleges give to weed out certain students.  The highest professors admit this is mistake and admits that Doctors and Engineers are not using either of these in their day to day work.   
When i was in school struggling with Geometry my parents got me tutor and, like all teens, I questioned her about why I needed to learn this b/c I would never use it.  She said, "It's true you may never need but it's good exercise for your brain"  Math can and should be presented as good exercise b/c the more you get to know ins and outs of numbers the more they make sense.  Rote memorization doesn't make sense so is easily lost in years but once you truly get know something you understand it fully. 
I would like to highly recommend this book to everyone who might need a little math inspiration.  Let me know what you thought of it.

Overheard at the sleepover

Kid #1 Do you think school is boring?
 Kids all shrug and look around and mumble variations of " I don't know"

Then

Kid #2 answers:  Probably, b/c in school you have to learn early in the morning but in homeschool you can learn anytime.

Oak Meadow contest

Win a curriculum

If you are going to use a curriculum this one seems nice and nature based and not too rushed. 

We are now reminding kids to play?

There is a commercial that airs on the radio with a child asking for a dollar from mom's purse.  Have you heard it?  The mother seemingly can't remember where she put the purse and has the kid running all over the house to look for it.  The message?  Get creative to get your kids moving.  Wait..What?
What happened to "no running the house, stop jumping on the couch, Take that energy outside."

Doesn't play come naturally to kids? Leave it to the grown ups who ruined education by inventing school to ruin childhood by turning play into a PSA.

There's even a website. 
And here are the great suggestions to get moving:
Make commercial breaks Let’s Move! breaks. Here are some active and fun ideas:

• Jumping jacks
• Dancing
• Racing up and down the stairs
• Sit-ups
• Stretching
• Jogging in place
• Push-ups
• Active house chores
• Come up with your own activities and share them with friends and family

Ah yes the fun of calisthenics!!  Here's another problem, Do kids even watch commercials anymore?  I know here we use the DVR to fast forward through them .
That is another way adults are ruining play they are equating adult excercise with childhood physical play.  These are two completely different entities.  Adult exercise is repeptivie with it's main goal to "get or keep fit.  Childhood physical play surely keeps kids physically fit however it also keeps their brains fit.  Their imaginative play keeps them bright and focused and frankly fun to be around.
They don't how many miles they've run unless they are cars in the game, they don't wait for the show to come back on so they can stop doing military style exercises.

The webiste says it's ok to be quiet and sitting while reading or doing homework.  Oh ok but let's say the kid doesn't want to do homework or read but  says, "I would rather go climb trees"  I want to have a nerf gun war or play with my friend"

Is it that going to be acceptable?  Can you send in the note to the teacher that says, "My child is not doing homework or his required reading this week b/c we are involved in getting moving and we feel that is more important"?

It's all talk.  Lip service.  It makes us feel good that we are doing something.  A website was created the 1st lady is hula hooping and getting the word out.  However if you really believe in play you will Let them play at the risk of not getting homework done b/c play IS that important.  In my humble opinion.

Putting the home back in our homeschooling

.It all started with me yelling, surprise!  Yelling hurry up get ready if you want to play at Karsten's.  Hurry up get ready we need to get the playground (yeah I said that)  I was yelling a lot and asking the kids rhetotrical questions like, "well do you want to go? because you sure aren't showing me that you want togo"
Rush rush rush...and where were we going?  To play.  I never felt so stressed getting kids to go and play, to see their friends.
Last month after a non stop week of , get get ready let's got to;  piano, the museum the sciences center, ice skating, friend's houses, the day came where we going to the highly anticipated Crayola Factory.
Michael refused to get dressed.  Refused to go.  I was shocked and tried reasoning, threats and "are you serious? 
He outright did want to go.  He spent the day at Mike's work with him while Johanna and I went off to Pennsylvania.
Time to slow things down. 

Although all we were doing was in the name fun, all thing my kids like to do, all the activiutes they've chosen and all the friendes they like to see.
Yet it was so stressful.  Most days we don't have the luxury of hanging anywhere past 3 b/c I need to get home for work so everything needed to be done in the AM so we could have "enough time"
My kids were fighting me and with each other.  Our connection needed some recharging.


So now we are focusing a bit more on some home time.  I am not filling each second with playdaes, where the kids play and the moms chat.   I had to face to truth I was not spending time guiding my kids, it was a break for me and I wasn't actually parenting the way I should be.  My kids actions showed me , time to come together again.
We are still attending all of our activites but only ice skating requires us to hurry out the door.  Also I didn't want to leave them to just sit on the floor playing star wars, Brady Bunch , monster trucks or dolls all day.
I wanted to be in the mix but not be playmate. 
So I invented, "Popcorn Literature"  Each afternoon I make a bowl of popcorn and read actual literature to the kids.  No Franklin books, No Nancy Drew,No Puppy place.  Those are all fine books  for the happy quiet reader but reading aloud should be more challenging at this point, in my opionion.
Pop corn Literature starts with humorous poetry. I have book tha we took out the library that was written in 1955 so I doubt it is available in the stores but it really is very funny. We will also include poetry from, If  I were in charge of the World, which we own, when the library book is finally after all the renewals, due back.


Then  we move on to our actual literature story which right now is "Around the World in

80 DAys " by Jules Verne.  It's a good read and quite challenging. 
Our slower pace has made me feel calmer. 
So you will still see us at the zoo, at ice skating and all the fun places but we will just be a bit more absent from other people's homes as we reconnect in our home on our time.

Under construction

I apologize for the look of this blog.  I was trying to get a new background and my layout is all jumbled now.  I am trying to get everything straightend out.

It's not ever all about academics

Nobody ever asks me how will they have strong bodiesd if all they do is sit at home? No one ever asks, how will they know their physical strengths and how will they improve coordination without gym?










Nobody asks about gym, not really. Once at the playground I was asked if my kids were in gym and once a lifeguard at a pool told me she could give them "gym credits"



Otherwise most people are interested in how they will mkae friends, how will they ever learn math and how will I survive being around them all day.

I love watching my kids' cooridation imporve espevcailly Johanna who struggles so much with controlling her body and effectively concentrating enough to mkae it be still and keep her feet going on the right direction. However just like those life skills of cooking and sewing that I find so important but lacking in my own 12 year education I find learning to trust your body and increase it's strength an extremely important life skill. Kids in school lose gym as punishment for being restless and too chatty thereby relegating gym to nothing more than a privledge for the select "good" kids who can be still. Who needs to expend the energy more. I'm preaching to the choir, I know. It just saddnes me what we put emphasis on in this school culture. It's funny that our sports stars are paid the most but gym is ranked as least important. Maybe that's b/c gym isn't challenging enough in school but I don't really know. I only know of one freind who laments that the kids do actual calistenics instead of playing, otherwise I am in the dark about gym class. Mostly I think I don't know what goes on b/c parents rarely complain about, "My kid isn't learning enough in gym. The gym teacher gives too much (not enough) homework. My kid is falling behind in gym" I never hear about gym.

I think along with strong minds you must have a strong body, I'm not talking about 6 packs or muscle arms for kids, I am talking about a strong body the kids trust. A body that moves is being used to it's utmost purpose. Sitting at a desk for many hours is so un-natural for all bodies but most especailly itchy twitchy kids whose bodies are set on the "go" postion.

And for people who wonder how I survive all day with my kids , I survive by letting them play and play hard.

 

.

 

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Wow!

I was sitting here thinking what book to post along with my post when I saw this book for under 2 bucks.  Although this has pretty much nothing to do with the subject of homeschooling it is all about how to teach kids how to move in the world without burdening them or you with "stranger danger" lessons.  It's how to listen to your gut and teach your child the same.  It's how to move through the world and not think every person is about to steal you or your child.  It's pretty much a 180 turn away from telling your kids not to talk to strangers but rather how to talk to anyone.
Sounds like homeschooling to me.
Enjoy!

Hey look A giveaway contest

Enter the contest here: 
http://www.secularhomeschool.com/content/422-March-Giveaway?&page=4#comments

If you win let me know so I can be jealous

Homeschool isn't for everyone

I have to give in to the above statement sometimes b/c you can't can't just go around being all preachy about the way you raise your kids.  Truthfully though the further i go on this journey with still so many more miles to go, I agree that homeschool isn't for everybody but home is still the best place for kids.  Unless a parent is seriously abusing a child then really the best place for that kid is at home.  The use of the word,"home" for this post means anywhere but in a tradtitional school. 
I keep traveling further and further away from accpeting that this is just what works best for our family and I keep running into example after example that this is really what works best for kids.  I understand the complete life change it would mean.  No more free babysitting, no more guarantee that  kids were learning the right thing at the right time and the right way(As if there were such a thing)  That must be a scary hurdle to jump but if we collectively can get off this Fred Flintstone highway of schooling kids and calling each new rule and obstacle and format , Education reform, then we can really educate the kids and no one need worry that the kid wasn't learning, "right" 
From the outside people think we homeschool parents are doing the job of parent and school. This is not true for most of us,   in fact we do only the one job, parent.  I mean I know several parents who send thier  kids to school but still feel like the primary educator of thier child, these parents assure me in light hearted conversations that thier kids will be fine b/c they, the parents, take the kids to museums or on educational vacations or play math games, or even spend hours doing with homework with them.  So why not eliminate the middle man who keeps messing things up? 
I do feel like this country could run so much more efficietnly if we didn't pigeon hole and quarantine off our kids for so many hours a day. 
Let them out in this big world to learn all the time.  Unlock the kids and get them on the streets.  If school is a necessary babysitter than let's call it that and not make anything that happens in there mandatory but just a place to go for some enrichement while mom or dad is at work. 
Take the self importnace out of the school and put it back on the family.  Reconnect with siblings and parents and let the certified teachers take second fiddle row in your child's orchestra.

Story of the world

We are having so much fun with this program.  We don't use it curriculum style b/c we can miss weeks if other things come up however it has so many fun actitivites that we just love it when we do get to work on it.

The Nile

This is ancient Egypt with The Nile.   I never said we were artists.  :)

My Homeschool village

Quoting an old African proverb Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying, "It  takes a village to raise a child".  I will tell you, I think people misunderstand this.  At the time I remember people taking umbrage at this b/c they didn't think it was OK for their neighbor or some other unknown to be telling their kid how to behave.  I get that.  I, as a libertarian attending a UU church with a high democratic population; as a homeschooling mother who believes in  letting the kids get dirty, REALLY dirty and take risks that might cause them some harm(tree climbing, fence climbing) I get that when some stranger reprimands you (or your kid) acting as some unknown authority that they know what's best, I get a litle indignant myself.

However I really do believe in "it takes a village" it's just that in this amazing fast paced world the village does not mean your neighbor in the wig wam, or igloo or even just the condo next door. 

 I have created a village for my children with our homeschooling community.  These are people with whom during a "playdate" the moms  (or dad but it's rarely dads simply b/c the dads are usually working in the day.  We do have some dads but it's few and far between )stay for coffee on purpose to chat. 

 My kids' friends are my friends' children.  So a playdate  often is a time for moms to catch up over coffee while the kids play. Sometimes the play dates are drop off if the "other " mom needs to run errands or has a change in a work schedule.  Since we know each other and the children pretty well few instructions are needed if any. 

  

My village, through my kids eyes, is place where they can play but also feel secure with the parent of the other kid.  They call adults by thier first names , some adding the formality of "miss" before the name.  The kids' lives, however are not seperate from the family even with friends.  The line between family and friend is slightly blurred .  As mothers and as parents we share the same goals.  We know each child's struggles nd personal history.  We know who is allergic to what thereby Birthday party offerings , such as, "Gluten free" "Peanut free" "No artificial colors" and "Vegetarian" reflect our intimate knowledge of each other's children's needs.

Our children learn and grow up together but not the same.  Sometimes they struggle to get along and maybe a parent helps to guide them.  Maybe they will be life long buddies and maybe they will grow aprt but the connection to the homeschool lifestyle is what keeps our village strong. The kids don't change friends each September.  Even as new kids are welcomed into our community the "old" freinds are still constsant.   We mothers lament over sibing discourse together , we share schooing ideas and parenting ideas.  We work together.    We are package deal and we are a a village even if we live miles and miles apart. 

It's National pengiun awareness day

..and on tis day of honor to our lovely penguins I would like recomened this book!
Enjoy!

Curses....

Oh I mean cursive!!!  Now some of you who have been here for a while know that my daughter struggles with handwriting or I should say, struggled.  My lovely daughter who still struggles to get print letters to face the right way has taken a liking to, of all things cursive handwriting. 
Cursive Writing

Using no workbook but simply a desire to learn it she just took off. Her name is gorgeous and legible in all that fancy connected togetherness. 
Yippeee!

Educational Vs. Academic

I was talking about christmas gifts to a co woker recently and as all parents,I'm sure, I was complaining about toys and the "too manyness" of them.  I was remarking that this year we were asking for memberships to various places and during this conversation my co worker stated that b/c we homeschool we must only want "educational" toys.
Hmmm, That is pretty much not exactly true.  What is traditionally considered "educational"; things like Leap frog products and Dora the explorer and anything that is made to outright act like an academic teacher is just not allowed in my home.  I dislike anything that pretends to teach.
I Am Learning All the Time
In my opinion toys should be fun but that is not to say they wont be educational.  My kids learn a ton just from playing with each other and working out compromises with very simple tools: some stuffed animals, some Star Wars people and a Hess Truck or two..  Nobody would really call those educational (and truth be told I do think too many toys are a hindrance to learning) however the education lies in the team work in the sharing. Creativity is where kids brains get the most exercise so in that I find Traditional educational toys a bore for the brain (although often the lights and the sounds make kids happy)  Dolls that don't "do" anything until the child breathes life into it by sheer imagination and stuffed animals that are loved so strongly that they become part of the family do more for kids brains than a frog teaching them to read at ever decreasing ages.
So yes I like to have educational toys but not academically teaching toys.  Santa wont be bringing a toy lap top or Leapsters to teach my kids foreign languages.  

 Rosetta Stone will be responsibe for spanish and I will be responsible for Latin and math.  The books will be in charge of reading and Miss Diane will take care of Piano lessons.  In this way to toys are free to just play and quite frankly I think "shadow" has come a long way in learning his Roman numerals.
I much prefer my kids teaching the toys than the toys teaching the kids; academics anyway.

You must be so patient

Homeschoolers raise your hand if you ever hear these words, "I could never homeschool.  You must be so patient"  Now keep your hands up if you are really THAT patient.  I saw those hands go down.  When people say that to me I always say, "Well you know that's a myth we homeschoolers like to keep alive b/c it makes us look good"  It generally gets a laugh and I follow it with the truth. There is no way I could ever be as patient as they are to have to follow someone else's rules about how my kid should and must be learning, socializing, waking up, eating for lunch and whether or not my kid is at "grade level"

I don't think it takes any more patience to homeschool your kids than is needed to raise them.    So that is not to say the job is without effort just that effort is only equal to having kids anyway.
I find the stressors of homeschooling to be only about parenting woes and I am glad that it isn't exacerbated by someoone else putting pressure on me and my kids to be at some arbitrary level  they deem appropriate.
The number one "issue" that I hear over and over in my homeschool circles is trying to make time to teach the older one when the little one is underfoot.  Sharing comes up and even bossiness of siblings;  things that are just part of the whole parenting package anyway.
 Mostly, we are happy to go slowly to help a struggling kid learn to spell and we are happy to challenge the quick study with frequent trips to the library or more math puzzles.
Better Late Than Early: A New Approach to Your Child's Education


Patience is required when stuck in traffic on your way to meet friends to see the Statue liberty and more patience is needed when it turns out you are never gonna get there.  However , a report on the Statue Liberty will not be "late" and no one is going to fail the test on what is written at the base.
As homeschoolers we only require as much patience as is needed to meet  the day to day life existence but rarely do we need to muster up strngth to hear someone else tell us our kids aren't applying themselves.
We get to choose and that is truly the blessing of the whole thing.

The social experiment needs a change

It has been said that school is the biggest social experiment of the time of humans.  I see the President calling for "Education reform"  I see zero tolerance policies expelling small children for toy guns, I see the NJEA claiming to care about students but seemingly caring more about Superintendents inflated salaries and I see bullying gone so far as to cause young people to take their own lives.

Oh yes we need reform but not in the form of longer days, stricter classes, harder tests.  We do not need more school.  We need less.
Children need one on one supervision and care.  Children need to be heard.   Children need to play and they need to wonder and they need to make mistakes.
They need adults to guide them and show them right from wrong.

You can't win a battle with a bully by legislating behavior or using zero tolerance polices or lenghty assemblies on bullying.
Bullying starts and ends with self confidence and an abiltiy to  feel empathy.  This is milestone and kids don't have it immediately.
Throwing them all together in a classsroom where emotional needs of all can not be met is the makings for bullying. 
I know not all kids can be homeschooled.  It's just not reality.    However while the subject is on Education reform, let's stop and think what the kids need not what we think will make them into smarter faster little robots that can outperform other countries.
Let's slow them down, let them create and show them that the adults around them care about them and will guide them through difficult feelings.  Show them we care more about how they feel  than we care about math grade.
Sounds like an impossible plan , I know.; However as long as reform is on the table let's really reform it and not just make it stricter and firmer. That's not reformation.  That's just more of the same.

Socialization is the number one question people ask about homeschooled kids.  How will they make friends everyone wonders.   My biggest mistake in homeschooling was letting the worry about making friends more important than family life. It's not that I don't think kids should have other kids to play with but it isn't the be all end all that we sometimes think it is.  I think there is a school mentality that is so pervasive that it influences how children are raised. School is not the answer to social children.  With cliques and bullies the experiment shows over and over that children's basic needs are  being neglected yet the rules just keep stricter and kids are being expelled b/c the school can't deal with any infraction (Hey they might get sued for the 5 year old bringing the toy gun to school) 
If the school can not deal with teaching the child then maybe that's where reform needs to start.  Not with grades not with test scores but with making the school enviornment one that meets children's needs.

Let them play let them learn. 

So how do you like your parents?

A shoulder shrug.  A bored or irritated expression.  So the asker wonders, "hmm I guess they don;t like their parents.  They would probably be better off with other parents.  If they had other parents these kids would answer, 'We love our parents!!  It's great and so much better than having other parents'
Or maybe the inquisition begins with, "So how do you like life?"  Again my kids stare off wonder about this odd question and get bored and want to leave this place where people ask strange questions and make them feel "on the spot"  

Well my kids aren't asked those exact questions but they are sometimes asked, "So how do you like homeschooling?" 
Of course it would be great if my kids gushed on about how great it is and how we go to so many museums, and have so much free time for playing and they learn at their own pace  but sometimes mommy rushes the pace but we understand b/c we are well adjusted (more so than you school types)  and incredibly bright for our age. 
..but they don't.

My kids stumble on that question everytime and I see the wheels turning in the askers head. "AHA!" they think.  These kids would rather be in school" 
My kids have never been to school so the question "how do you like homeschooling?" requires a comparison my kids can not make. 
They would prefer not to be interviewed about ths homeschool stuff and would rather go on not feeling different.  They feel like regular kids and do not know why people are so hung up on this subject.