School Plans

A decision has almost been reached for next school year about what to do with the children. We've decided to keep them.....just kidding. The two older boys will probably attend the local high school, while the younger three girls will homeschool. It was a difficult decision and may still change depending on circumstances. Joe has wanted to attend school for the past year. He'd like to meet more children his age and would like to not be thought of as "Steve's little brother." He also wants to do some sports and public school would give him that opportunity.

Steve would like to attend public school, but doesn't want to take the bus at 7:00 a.m. I think it would be good for him to work with other adult teachers, meet firmer academic deadlines, and experience group learning. He has pretty much worked on his own for the last few years, with occasional assistance from me. I think the experience could make the transfer to college a little easier.

The three younger girls would like to go to school also, but Mike and I have too many concerns. Paige and Allie are still to easily influenced by their peers, They also don't have penmanship skills that are up to their public school counterparts. Academically, they are ahead of the public schools, but I don't spend a lot of time on penmanship in the early elementary years.

Madelyn is entering 8th grade. There is nothing meaner than a group of 8th grade girls. I'd rather not have her start her school experience this year. Madelyn is still VERY small for her age, about 4'7" and 50 pounds. It would be easier for her to have another year to grow.

Next year will be quite different for us. With only three students, we will complete our school day much earlier. It will be lovely to have afternoons to do more art, music, exercise, field trips, and fun. Hopefully, the lighter school load will give me some relief from the high stress that I've been under the last few years.

I'm going to try to combine as much work as possible with the three girls. History, geography,science, literature and writing assignments will be easy to combine. Using unit studies might be a fun way to combine much of their learning. So many decision to make! I'm also considering using lapbooks. We haven't used them in a long time. It's been so long that I'm not even sure if Paige and Allie have done any lapbooks.

Catching Up

We got off to a good start this school year, but had some problems by day 2. Would you believe that two expensive school books are missing already? Steve's chemistry book and Madelyn's math book cannot be found anywhere! We tore the house up on Thursday without any success. I was so frustrated that we blew off school and went letter boxing all day. I know that I should have persevered, but the sun was shining, the wind was softly blowing through the open windows, and Mike had the day off from work. What's a frustrated mom to do? Everyone was much happier searching for letterboxes. We did go on a nice walk in the woods, so we accomplished nature study and all got a little exercise.

Friday, I forced everyone to complete their assignments in between loads of laundry. Everything got finished except for Madelyn's math and Steve's chemistry. We still haven't found the books. Mike was out of work early and got the pool taken down and packed up for the winter. After Mike finished with the pool, we headed to our nearby large town to purchase Amy's birthday gifts and look at clothes dryers. Our dryer broke 3 weeks ago and I've been hanging out all our clothes on clothes-lines in the backyard. The laundry smells fantastic, but all of the people with allergies are miserable. We should get the dryer early next week.

We reached a decision about our church situation. After our move in February, we began to visit a local Missouri synod Lutheran church, but hadn't formally joined the church. We belonged to the WELS church about 1.25 hours from our house. The drive is simply too much for us to attend each week and getting everyone dressed and out of the house by 7:30am is a huge problem. Mike spoke with the WELS pastor and explained that we would be joining the Missouri synod Lutheran church.

It was a difficult decision to make for our family. I have been a WELS member since birth; Mike has been a member for 23 years. The WELS church that I grew up in has changed and some of the churches no longer conduct services or practice the traditions of WELS. We don't agree with all of the practices of the Missouri synod either. I prefer that the pastor do the Bible readings, instead of a layman. I believe that my husband should have a voice in the church and do not wish to vote on decisions. The church that we have been visiting is much closer to the WELS church of my youth than the church we are leaving.

School Postponed

I am a reasonably intelligent woman who misplaced one week this month. On Tuesday, I discovered that Madelyn's birthday is today, not next Friday. School was supposed to start next Monday, not the following Monday. After countless hours trying to organize and complete lesson plans, I have given up. The only possible way to complete everything before next Monday involves bringing out Really Crabby Mom. She doesn't need to appear and spoil the good memories that we have of this summer. Therefore, school is postponed until after Labor Day.

The school preparation can be completed easily over the next 10 days, leaving enough time for some fun with the children before we hit the books. The children will begin music lessons and do math next week. I'm planning on doing a zoo trip with Paige and Allie, letter boxing with the younger 4 children, and maybe some hiking with everyone. After a leisurely, pleasant week, we should all be happier.

School Preparations

My poor blog has been neglected lately, as I rushed around getting ready for the up-coming school year. There is still much too be done, but the task is no longer daunting. Our school books arrived and I've been determining manageable assignments for the children. Amy has been organizing our home library with Katie's assistance, which saved me several day's work. It is such a blessing to have former library workers who are willing to straighten out our book cases every now and then.

While looking through Steve's 11th grade English book, I realized that I had forgotten the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. During my school days, English was an easy subject for me. When I began teaching high school English to my own children, I realized that I'm not that great at English grammar. My test-taking skills were wonderful, but didn't truly measure my understanding of English. Amy (who majored in English/writing) spent 20 minutes tutoring me, so Steve and I should be able to get through his English class this year.

Results of My Procrastination

School begins in only 4 weeks! What have I done with my summer? What happened to my good intentions of having the school year all mapped out by August? I need to get motivated and organized, to pull off all the things that still need to be accomplished.
Wasting time goofing off and reading books needs to end, if there is any hope of getting ready for the school year. It's important to me that we aren't rushed off our feet this fall. I want to focus on the children's schooling, while still having time to enjoy being with family and friends.

Here's the to do list:

* Finish organizing the school cupboard.

* Organize all the book cases, so we can locate reading materials when needed.

* Clean out and organize the storage closet in the dining room.

* Complete all the lesson planning.

* Determine which activities to incorporate into our schedule.

* Freeze peaches and apricots.

* Make and can tomato sauce and salsa.

* Freeze broccoli.

* Solve storage issue in youngest girls' bedroom.

* Find time to visit zoo, bird sanctuary, Lake Michigan, and museum.

* Squeeze in small camping trip with family.

It seems like to much for me to accomplish, but I'm going to try anyway. The easy things to cancel would be the trips and camping expedition, but we haven't done any small trips as a family this summer. The kids are growing up so fast that I hate to miss out on fun experiences with them.

Home School Organization

It's that time of year again....time to figure out the organization method for the upcoming school year. The older children all have separate shelves in a storage armoire for their books and supplies which works really well. When picking up daily clutter stray books are simply returned to the proper shelf. Keeping a science book and science notebook together isn't important. The older children just search their shelf.

This method doesn't work too well for Paige (age 7) and Allie (age 5) due to their poor "finding" skills. They grab the reading books, but can't find their sight-word flash cards. We spend a LOT of time looking for the all the items necessary to complete an assignment. My solution is to make tote bags for each of their subject areas. The tote bags have pockets to hold flash cards, pencils, crayons, and rulers. Both girls will get a language arts bag, a math bag, a science bag, and a history bag. I'm hoping that this will give us more usable time and less frustration at the beginning of each day while we search for the elusive green crayon and a sharpened pencil.

Learning Without Teaching

My 1st grader and I have been working on beginning reading. She's doing fairly well at recognizing some sight words, but still does a lot of sounding out letters phonetically to figure out the words. We haven't done any spelling yet, but I'm planning to get her started with small lists after we get settled after the move.

During church yesterday, she wrote me this note, "Mom can we go to Sunday Skool" She's been writing a number of large words in notebooks the last week also. She tends to go for large words fearlessly. Not all of the words are spelled correctly, but I'm glad that she's not limiting her vocabulary. The following are some of her recent words:

curtun (curtain)
prettie
pickle
Sinderella (her favorite Disney princess)
Webkinz
toosday
bedroom
kittie
Valntin (Valentine)

She is so excited about writing notes and messages. Yesterday, Paige helped Allie make Valentine's Day cards. Paige has decided that she is a great speller at is helping Allie spell out words. I love this stage of learning. Even though we're taking a mid-winter break, creative spelling is flourishing at my house!

Life Skills Home Schooled Students Lack

My 16 year old daughter recently began a job at our local library, following in her older sister's footsteps. Katie is really enjoying her work and her co-workers. After her job orientation, she was provided with a locker and combination. Poor child. Her terrible homeschool teacher forgot to teach her how to work a locker combination. After some good-natured ribbing by some of the other teen librarians and a couple of days of practice, Katie was able to open her locker without assistance.

Katie (the 16 year old) was bemoaning her lack of locker skills at the dinner table recently. Amy (who worked at the library for 4+ years) commented that she never did figure out how to work a locker combination. She leaves her purse at home and carries her drivers license in her pocket!

If this is the biggest problem from homeschooling her, I guess we did okay. :)