What a week

Last week didn't get moving as I'd hoped.

The 16yo was recovering from burnout a bit. She did get some stuff done, but not much. She said, though, on Thursday that she was really enjoying having a break after the several weeks of stress.

Our dog passed away on Tuesday :( , which left us with a no-work day on Wed., then Thurs. was Valentine's Day, and Friday was only a half day. We cleaned a bit Friday morning and then watched a movie.

This means that the 16yo is now 2 weeks behind her original start date for the semester, which was already a week behind the school's 2nd semester start.

However, I'm reminding myself to focus on what I want, so I'm focusing instead on how to make the most of this week, which is a holiday today, tomorrow we're at a ski hill, Wed. and Thurs. are full school days, then Friday is another half-day with yet more ski in the afternoon. 2.5 days, plus an hour tomorrow morning. Since I am so resolved to get work back on track, I'm taking that hour to work with the kids on establishing plans for the week. The 16yo already has a calendar with her subject unit/chapter deadlines, so her job will be to figure out how much she can reasonably get done during her available work time. She'll need to aim to do 1.5 to double what she was originally going to do each day. She'll probably have to work 6 hours both Wed. and Thurs. to make a good dent on her stuff. She doesn't have diving or anything Thurs. night, so she can bring some work home with her, too.

For "Bob," I keep bouncing back and forth between ideas. On the one hand, I'd like to just tell him, "You have to do this, this and this." On the other, I want to work with him. But then thoughts come up of, "It doesn't work well. He's not willing to be responsible/follow through on his plans. Etc." I have to have a clearer image of where to go with him. Let me babble here about the things that need to be worked out in terms of work.

Okay, he needs reading time, obviously. He needs to have time to read silently, and he needs reading instruction to improve his skills. He needs to work on his printing, but it doesn't have to be every day. He needs to work on spelling--at least 3 times a week would be good. He needs to write daily. He needs "remedial math" time as well as time to work on his math text. Since he did NONE of it last week, he now has 75 days to do 100 days of work. He really ought to have science or social studies each day. Maybe he and I can just discuss things and work out a vision from there.

For dd, it'll be the same: work out what kinds of work should be worked on then take it from there.

For ds, it'll probably be more of a discussion along the lines of, "It's important to practise reading and writing and do some math each day. When should we do that?" Other than that, it's really up to me to come up with activities and lessons to invite him to. He's already agreed to telling me all about some bugs he knows and I'll write down the information, but we haven't done it yet. We did do the Golden Bead presentation last week; I can do the layout this week and play some games like, "Bring me 3 tens. Bring me 5 units."

My niece is only coming once this week. I should still probably think of some activity I could show her.

I know one thing I want to bring up (again) during our discussion/meeting tomorrow is what is acceptable in the morning. Bob in particular will need a reminder that going off to talk to someone, especially while they are working, does NOT constitute work and is interfering with the work others are doing. Another thing that needs to be brought up is how he seems to feel the need to take a break after every work item, even if it only took him 5 minutes; I'm not going to bring that up specifically (focus on what you want!), but we can talk about when breaks are reasonable, how long, and what is okay to do during a break. I think we'll create a big "Reminders" poster or something that can be put up and referred to.

I just had the thought that I'd like to bring back something I haven't had going in a long time: classical music playing lightly in the background. One problem with that is that our upstairs stereo's cd player has gone haywire. I could put it on downstairs, that'd still work, since the way our house is built, downstairs is just right there. I should try cleaning the stereo again and see if it helps. The way it's acting makes me think it's dirty rather than actually damaged. I might need to see about a different cleaner since we've lost the actual cleaning solution for the one we have.

Oh, and I put up an Agenda sheet for meetings and it's so strange how meetings help curb certain behaviours in Bob. For example, after coming back from his dive meet, he kept saying to people, "Go home!" Well, up it went on the sheet and when we sat down for a little meeting at lunch, he said he'd stop (even though we'd all asked him before to stop, but somehow, having it brought up at the meeting makes it more 'serious') and he really did catch himself a couple of times and changed what he said. Haven't heard it since.

A new semester!

We are finally beginning second semester. About 1.5 weeks late, but oh well.

The 16yo has a LOT of work to do already since she didn't get started last week as she had planned (did her exam later than anticipated then was gone all Friday morning). She was given things to do on the weekend. I hope for her sake that she did them. We have got another crazy week ahead of us.

Today: park day
Tomorrow: 16yo has an appointment in the morning and all the kids are in a workshop in the afternoon
Wed.: have my niece that day; actually, that'll be a fairly normal day, except we want to have birthday cupcakes for her (she's 3 today!)
Thurs.: 16yo has driving lesson over the lunch hour, plus it's Valentine's day: more cupcakes or maybe cookies instead!
Fri.: skiing/snowboarding in the afternoon--this time, the cold shouldn't cancel it!

Basically, that amounts to 4.5 mornings and 2 afternoons of work for the oldest. Minus cupcake and whatnot time. So, bascially only 3 days to get her work done.

I'm starting fresh with "Bob" today, too. I worked out last week how much math he has left to do: 100 lessons in 80 days. Supposed to be a lesson a day. He's going to have to work steadily, then double up certain days. I've also decided to have him work at his level yet still meet the gr. 8 language arts reading and writing requirements for the school we're with (for those registered to do so; he's not; I know, it's complicated if you're not familiar with our system :) ). He's got what looks to be a lengthy checklist for each day, but it's really not that bad. He needs to get working!!!!

Dd has been remotivated (that a word?) over the past few days and is eager to work on some different things she's got going. She even did division with me last week and was enjoying it. I had started the Jump Math's approach to learning the times tables in 5 days with her and Bob, but hadn't gotten past the first day with them. So I reviewed the first day stuff with her (which is simple things up to 5x5) and then decided to ask her some of the same things but in division form. She did the division faster than the multiplication. What a kid!

Ds has been sick. :( But he's getting a bit better and we should be able to resume some learning activities today. I'm going to re-present to him the Golden Beads today so that he can learn the names of the categories. Then tomorrow, I'll do the bead layout.

But now I have to go get myself ready for the day!


It's been so cold here lately (in the -35C to -45C with the wind chill; about -25C in general). It's now up to -13C! Yay! It'll be around -4C sometime this afternoon. Perfect for our re-entry into park days.

Warning--crazy week ahead!

Things have felt crazy, hectic, busy since we got back from Christmas vacation. I keep waiting for it to be over with, but I think I've got to change my expectations!

Here's our coming week:

Monday
--morning meeting--had restarted then stopped; we'll restart and tackle plans for the day and expectations: like NOT finding things to play with at 9am and you haven't gotten anything done yet!
--16yo's study day plus 2nd semester planning and maybe fit in some CALM or French; we decided to hold off until Wed. morning for her chem exam because she has not practised all of the equation work and more than half the exam is equations!
--work day for the others: have got a list for "Bob" and we'll be tackling his wandering today a bit
--my niece is coming, but she usually comes Mondays so that's not any different

Tuesday
--morning meeting
--16yo's study and work day
--typical day for the others
--library
--my niece will be here

Wednesday
--Bob is gone on a dive meet; no niece--I'll only have 3 kids in the house!
--16yo does her exam in the morning; my two will do something quiet (I will do school stuff with them before the 16yo arrives)
--field trip to a vet clinic
--16yo gets started on her 2nd semester course work! (bio, phys., English, finish up math, finish up CALM, French--sounds like a lot and it kind of is, but she's got maybe a week's worth left of CALM, French isn't super intensive since she's only going for French 30, math will be done by spring break)

Thursday
--still no Bob
--my nephew has the day off school and we've been invited over to his place; his place used to be the 16yo's (former) best friend's house--she's spent more time there than I have! She'll get to see the renos. I don't know when we're going and the oldest definitely needs to work, so I might end up dropping my kids off there and coming home with just the 16yo--that'll be sooooo weird.

Friday
--still no Bob; no niece
--normal work in the morning
--try to reinstate our Friday clean-ups
--ski/snowboarding in the afternoon

With the oldest starting her bio and physics, I've been hoping to make some materials or come up with some lessons to offer to the others related to what she's doing. I haven't come up with anything yet.

It's soooooo cold!!!!

It's -28C right now outside. That's actually warmer than it was the other morning. The kids have still been playing outside, but they're not lasting their 2-3 hours at a time--more like 45 minutes, then they're in. All the schools are having indoor recesses and my lucky guys get to go play out in the snow!

I have to take a picture of something they've created out of the following drift that was created overnight the other day:

It's normally completely flat in there. They've managed to create something that looks a bit like a castle!

The cold reminds me so much of growing up in Yellowknife and I have remembered why we all wore long-johns under our pants each and every day!!

What? January's almost done??

Where did it go???

This last week seemed to drag on forever. By Wednesday, we were all thinking it was Friday. Not sure why. We're probably cooped up too much while the 16yo finishes up her work and studying for her exams. One more week and her first 2 exams will be done and her exam studying will be done.

Not a whole lot got done by dd and "Bob" this week. Part of it was because I was so focused on helping the 16yo. Another part is that everybody's getting so antsy, it felt better to just let them go play. They actually decided to learn how to play chess this week. It's absolutely hilarious to watch because they've modified the rules. It's no longer a competitive game--they're making deals with each other about places they can move. Some of the games, though, are lasting a whole 5 minutes. It's quite funny!

I've been doing not too badly with ds. A couple of times, I gave him is A Beka cursive workbook (K level) and told him to pick any page. He likes that rather than having to go strictly in order. He was sooooooooo proud of some of his letters. It was so cute. Then I decided to do a modified Ray's Primary Arithmetic lesson (orally), but thought I didn't need to go in order like they do. (First question is something like: John has 1 apple and Mary gives him 2 apples. How many apples does he now have? Second question goes to 2+2, then 3+2 and so on.) Actually, I thought he'd catch on too quickly and would just automatically go in order without thinking about the answer. But he got all confused and I went in order and he never caught on. I should just trust the program--it was used for years in the old schoolhouses in the 1800's and the kids learned so much from their approach.

Dd is no longer doing the Saxon math. She was eager to do it before she started actually doing it. Then it was drudgery. I just made up some sheets for her for a bit then gave her The Key to Algebra and had her do a couple of pages. She LOVES it. So there we go. She's happy with math again. I'm thinking, though, that I'm so tired of her and Bob not knowing their times tables that I may have them do a TON of work on them this week. Is it possible to learn all your tables in a week? It's not like it's something new. But there is so much frustration from certain work because they don't know their tables. It's time to get them mastered and be done with. I could have sworn years ago I'd seen something about mastering the times tables in a week. I'll have to see if I can find something. If not, I'll make something up using a variety of approaches. Using just worksheets, of course, would be very annoying. But you mix some oral recitation with some physical games (like go pick up the answer) and some board games and some flash cards AND the worksheets, then you get a lot of practice in a bunch of different ways. Oh, right, and I have a multiplication tables Wrap-Up. I've got lots of stuff. That's my only math plan for them this coming week, except maybe integrate some fun geometry.

Other than that, Bob's reading is making some nice progress. I think his glasses have made a big difference. He's made it clear that he likes having a checklist to tell him what he needs to do, but likes choosing the order. That's fine--if it works for him, so be it. This week, I'm assigning him pages to read in the book Peak by Roland Smith. He's started reading it with/to me and it's going well. AND he's enjoying it. I really think it's a book he'll like. I'm only assigning 3-4 pages per day, definitely doable. Especially since we're restarting our 30 minutes of silent reading in the morning. Somebody reading this might say, "He's only going to read 3 pages in 30 minutes?" Well, his reading is still iffy and this book is actually above his level (although he read "moldering" without ANY assistance last week--woo hoo! and he KNEW it was moldering even though he had no clue what moldering meant!) and he spends half his time fretting about whether he'll be able to read and getting up and getting a drink or going to the bathroom or asking questions... If he can get the 3 pages done in 30 minutes, that'll be great. Then we can start gradually moving him up.

The 16yo is going to be studying social and chem on Monday, mixing it in with beginning to plan her second semester, do her social exam Tuesday morning, we'll go to the library Tuesday afternoon, I think she has a driving lesson Wed. morning or Wed. lunch hour, then she'll study chem and continue her semester planning, then Thursday study chem and do semester planning, then Friday morning, do her chem exam and Friday afternoon, she'll be able to go snowboarding and know she's done her exams! (Well, for now--she has to finish her math still and do that exam in March. And, of course, that doesn't count the 4 exams she'll have to do second semester in May/June.) She can go home Friday night and know that there's not a single thing she has to work on all weekend. :)

For ds and my niece... I'm really trying hard to focus on bringing more Montessori into our days. I have felt so scattered the past couple of weeks, though, and think it's largely due to not getting some good routines in and focus on these exams and evaluations (oh, yes, that's another thing the 16yo has to do--do MY tests/worksheets so I have marks to give). I've started rereading some Montessori stuff and am thinking up ideas. I need to get my own personal routine going so that I can improve upon our environment and have be prepared to show them some great lessons. That's always the key--the outer stuff happens according to how I've dealt with my own things. Always like that. When I slack off, even if my slacking off has nothing to do with the kids' work, then they do. Total mirroring! It's crazy. But at the same time a nice natural consequence to keep showing us how we're off. :)

Wow! A week since I posted!

Yet people keep coming by and reading the blog. I guess I should put up something new. :)



We're just kind of plugging along with the 16yo's coursework (which is essentially done), her study time (which will continue all this week with possibly her first exam on Friday), trying to get the next two oldest into some sort of groove (hasn't yet been happening--I've got ideas for this coming week though), and taking care of things like my computer's power supply dying this week, going to their weekly ski/snowboard time and things like that.



I sat down and had a think session yesterday. I've gone off-course again with our homeschooling and it's showing. The 16yo is doing great--we found something that works for her and sharing little things like, "You don't have to want to study/work to actually study/work," seems to have helped her get herself really going. She's doing really well.



The groove has not come back for the next 2, however, and I'm not getting my time in with my son. One of my realizations is that I need to have him and my niece more a part of the group. I'm recommitting myself to Montessori, as much as I am able, admittedly with some modifications. I know with "Bob" it can't be a typical Montessori jr. high situation because he MUST get his reading and writing up to par first (well, not that I have a farm or some other suitable business for him to work in anyhow, although, if he wants, I could get him involved in the dayhome in some way.... hm...). So I thought back to things that worked well in the past and the first thing that came up was group time, especially in the morning. We had restarted it, then something threw the routine off and it just never came back because it hadn't yet become a habit. I want it to become a habit. Starting off our mornings together, getting focused, thinking about the things we want to learn... It's just a really good routine.



I also thought of our Writing Workshops which we haven't done in a couple of years. Now, the 16yo won't be able to participate in those right away due to her exams and whatnot, but she does have ELA that she will be starting within the next 2 weeks. It could work out to have something set up where we're all writing at the same time. Bob never totally got into the Writing Workshop, but he's since actually put some initative into writing, so this could work. And I'd love to get my ds started on even just drawing stories. I should refresh my memory again by taking out that book on Writing Workshops, or maybe purchase it. But this idea of the workshop got me thinking about how some Montessori schools have a kind of reading group--Great Books or other. There is such a thing as a Reading Workshop (or maybe it's Readers' Workshop) and while I might call our time that, it's not necessarily the same thing. But I think I will propose it this week. A time together to read and discuss some book, story, poem or other. But then that got me thinking: what about Math Workshop--I present lessons/materials or they come with things they want to learn? Science Workshop--pick a topic or book or experiment? There's something about that word "workshop" that sounds so... "cool". These would be scheduled times I'd be available to do group activities with them. The activities wouldn't take up so much time that they leave no room for other stuff, unless they really enjoy it that way. They really like working together more than they are right now. The tough part will be balancing the French and the English!

Then, for my niece, I've pulled out my Gettman and am going to start getting going on that. I can even enlist the help of my son, tell him that he can help "teach" his cousin things and I can show him how to show her. That made me realize that there's a lot of early work I haven't yet done with my son, so I'm going to start in those early math things with him. The language isn't being introduced as often as I'd like, but it's still there. The math... Well... Hm... Time he did some Decimal System work!

Guess that's enough of my written out thinking for now. One thing I want available this week in preparation for the "Math Workshop" (assuming, of course, that the idea goes through, but if not, what I want to prepare will still work) is to have grade-level outcome sheets. This was something Maria Montessori actually proposed, I think, and if not, someone not long after her. Basically, the kids have available to them what the standards for their state/province are and can choose what they would like to work on, even if it's from a different grade. Knowing that all the kids in the public schools are learning xyz kind of motivates them to learn xyz themselves. Just another one of those seeds that can be planted in a classroom. My point: I want to start working on that now. So, ciao. :)

We've Got a Ladybug!

I noticed our one cat last night sitting downstairs in the hunched over in the "There's something moving on the floor" position. I look and see this dark speck. I figured it was some sort of spider she'd found, or at the remotest chance, a little carpet beetle. It was a beetle all right--but a ladybug!! I wondered if she'd found it somewhere, if it was dead. She was going to bat it and I kind of pushed her away and scooped the ladybug onto a piece of paper. It looked dead. I then brought it to my kids and dh and started saying that I think it might be dead when it started moving its legs. We put it in a jar in amazement that we'd have a ladybug in our house in January--especially since where I live, we usually have snow by the end of October, which means no ladybugs from the until next summer.

It was still alive this morning and it was only then that I thought to see what we could do to keep it alive. It apparently needs moisture of some sort to drink--one site said moist paper towel works--and something sweetish to eat, like raisins. I don't have raisins in the house, but I do have some Fruit-to-Go's, so I figured that'd be the closest thing.

The poor ladybug must have been really wanting to drink! It went to the wet paper towel immediately and we could see it with its mouth against the towel. It was so neat to watch. It had spent so long trying to find a way to escape, but once it had its drink, it settled down to 'sleep', we think.

So now we have 3 containers in our "extra" bedroom: one with a... shoot, the name escapes me at the moment--one of those fuzzy yellow-and-black caterpillars (yes, there are many kinds, but I think we only have one kind here) that pupated INSIDE its fuzzy casing (sooo fascinating) and another container with another caterpillar that pupated, but I'm afraid it may be dead. I don't think it was a kind that winters over and should have come out as a moth in August or Sept.

If we weren't eyeing to have dd move into that room this summer so she can have her own room, I think I'd turn it into some sort of zoology room. :)

So far, not bad!

Our first day back was Monday. Despite my schedule for dd and Bob, little got done by them. But I knew that it wouldn't get all done. I also knew that trying to kind of control them in that way after they'd chosen their own things wouldn't totally play out, but I was hoping that having something written out like that would at least stop them from wondering about what they could work on. The 16yo actually had a great work day! Very focused, got a lot done.

Yesterday was better for dd and Bob. He actually let me know first thing that he didn't like the schedule and having to do things in a certain order, that he much preferred having a checklist so he could do things however. I said okay. He got his math done and then played a lot on ds' Power Tour guitar (a Christmas present from my mom). He's quite good! The 16yo had a doctor's appointment that kind of messed up her routine, then we had a visit from our facilitator, which basically cancelled her whole afternoon study session.

Dd has started reading a lot more in French. She doesn't seem happy about it, though. It's like she has decided that she must do it, so she'll do it, but doesn't really want to do it. It's kind of funny. She's started Saxon 65 and other than a meltdown brought on by tiredness on Monday, it's going just fine. I'm only having her do half of the questions and I'm not even sure she needs to do that much with these early lessons. I might go through the first part of it really quickly with her, cover 2 or 3 lessons in one day, and maybe she could even finish the text by the end of June.

Today was a bad day for the 16yo. She's started this medication for her stomach problems, but it's far worse than any of her stomach problems have been. She's gone home. Bob did GREAT work. He practised reading the days of the week in French and then copied them out, he did all of his math and then wrote a very, very short story. (He'd only really done math the past two days, so I asked him to add at least one more thing to his own personal requirements for the day.) He's also played on the guitar and gone outside.

As for me, I pulled out my books and sat at the table with the kids and did my work: calculus. I also looked up something on the White House in the encyclopedia. This idea of working where the kids are working is something that came up years ago on a Montessori list but I also heard it recently in connection with the Robinson Curriculum, which has the kids work completely independently. While I don't really care for the whole approach, there really is something about sitting there with the kids and doing work that seems to motivate them or make things better.

It's still morning as I write this and our school day is pretty much done. I have nothing to do with the 16yo since she's gone, Bob's done, ds is tired, dd is tired and just kind of lounging--although she did do some self-created work earlier today that kept her focused for a good 2 hours. Maybe we should go out this afternoon! But where? It's pretty cold today. I had thought about going to this one sledding hill, but there's no way my niece will last long outside--it's -18C (0F). Her outdoor gear is not warm enough for that. Dd suggested the museum. Bob suggested Best Buy. lol. (Does it show he's a 13yo boy??) Hm... We'll have to think about this.

New start to school almost here!

I have been planning things out a bit and realized that I did as I typically do: totally forgot that Monday morning, when the two oldest arrive, they will need some time to give gifts, everybody will talk and share and my kids will show what they got and all that. So, now it's factored in. I will set a timer after they get here so that it all stops and we get to work! (How un-Montessori is that! lol)

Actually, I'm not going to be very Montessori this week, or really the next 3 weeks (16yo's exams are in 3 weeks). It is vital that the 16yo hop on board, get her work done and study. I also know that the 13yo, sorry, "Bob", needs a lot of structure to get things going. Once things are going, then he's able to make some choices. We have no outings scheduled except for skiing/snowboarding Friday afternoons. I'm not even sure if we'll do our regular Tuesday library outing. The 16yo really needs every hour she can get!! Her sports take up so much of her out-of-school time, plus family stuff, like her sick grandmother. We need to make the most of every minute of school time.

For her, I've done up a time-slotted schedule, but where the subjects will actually fall can be changed. She has 3 hours in the morning, split up between two subjects. That's just to get her basic work done. Then an hour lunch. Then 1.5 hours of a third subject, then 30 minutes of French, then 30-60 minutes of study time, where I will guide her through her studying so she learns how to really study, how to assess how it's going, little techniques to help her learn the tough stuff. I will probably also use that time to give her short quizzes here and there as I need some marks!! Oh, and for her social studies study time, we will work on essays. Probably super short essays at first. I also have scheduled in first thing in the morning that she spends about 5 minutes to work on visualizing herself for her exams: how prepared she feels, how focused she is, etc. Everything how she'd like it to be. Then sending out a little prayer and giving thanks. My hope is that spending 5 minutes a day until her exams will help make a huge difference in her exam anxiety.

For Bob, I have a schedule that isn't based on time. Why not? I was going to put it to time but realized that there have been problems with that in the past: distractions or just lack of effort get to the end of the time and little, or nothing, has been done. So, I've done "blocks" instead. Each day, the block will have a certain amount of work assigned to it. He needs to go through all blocks. Doesn't matter if he finishes before lunch or after lunch, he's got to do all the work assigned. What does his schedule look like?

Monday/Wednesday: math, LA (phonics, spelling, reading, copywork/handwriting), science, French, write, project/interest-based learning (this continues for an hour after lunch if it was started before lunch!)

Tuesday/Thursday: LA, math, social, French, write, project/interest-based learning

Friday: math, LA, health/religion, French, write, project/interest-based learning

Dd has a checklist. She likes checklists. She has also decided to do Saxon math for the next while. What's on her list? Multiplication tables, Saxon (at least one lesson, every other question), French reading, French writing, French grammar or spelling, social studies or science, her choice (English, Spanish, music, art, whatever).

Ds--I just need to make myself do our morning routine. My niece will be coming part-time again, and he spend his time with her. It's so cute seeing the two of them together. He's like a 2nd big brother, and he gets to have a chance at being the "older sibling". Very good. I've just remembered that I haven't done up any new words for him. MUST do that for Monday. I can work on a list of words while the kids are swimming--which I've got to go get ready for now!!!

Last day of 2007!

I haven't been getting as much school stuff done as I would have liked, but it's Christmas vacation. :) We've just been so busy with all kinds of stuff, too, plus dealing with ds being sick. Which he still is. Hopefully his voice will be totally back by tomorrow and his coughing will have stopped.

I have yet to have him practise writing his name in cursive. Has to be today because we'll be filling out cards today or tomorrow. Still have to finish wrapping some gifts (doing a 2nd Christmas tomorrow) and some other stuff. I haven't figured out new words for ds either.

Dd decided yesterday she'd had enough of a break and spent an hour working on writing some story she'd started. Then we did a couple of pages of math. She wants me to give her a French writing assignment today. Non-fiction. I'll have to come up with some ideas.

The two oldest are supposed to be back from Hawaii sometime tomorrow. I've already sent off a couple of things to the 16yo and have to send off her Chem 20 in a Nutshell that I've put together so she can start reviewing. I also have to finish up on at least one of her social themes. I'd really like her to go through it before she comes back to school on the 7th. One less theme means that much more done!

Oh, that reminds me... I haven't yet finished typing up some of the stuff I found really helpful from "Dancing With Your Books". I think I'll work on that now.

Back to the grind

Sort of.

I won't be expecting work from my kids--especially my poor ds--but I have to get back to work!

Right now, I need to brainstorm a bit my vision of the rest of the school year and the things to do to accomplish that, figure out materials to possibly make (like more movable alphabet words for ds) and all that. And I need to take care of my baby. The poor kid is almost never sick. After writing last night, he was in and out of consciousness until just before 8pm. I brought him up to bed. He just got up at 7am to go to the bathroom, then went back to bed. This is a kid with whom I struggle to keep in bed until 6:30!

I'm also reading a book called Dancing With Your Books. It's a Zen-approach book to studying. Not all of Zen appeals to me, but I could not help but see the connection between some of what happens in Montessori and what the author is guiding people to do. The focus, the concentration, the open mind, being present in the moment. It has almost felt like a guide for adults in terms of regaining that type of thinking and working. I've been collecting a lot of quotes and guidance from this to share with primarily the 16yo. Which reminds me that I have some other things to get done. Let me just let out here a list of things I need to work on:

-the 16yo's social studies (summaries for themes, essay assignments)
-the 16yo's chemistry (I need some means of assessing her for her at-home mark--perhaps some quizzes and a test for each unit)
-the 16yo's CALM--need a list of things she has left to do; plus finish up the self-assessment quiz and some other things for her to get rethinking and re-motivated (sure, that's a word)
-the 16yo's French--she needs a checklist to see what she needs to know for her French 30 exam
-brainstorming for Bob, dd and ds's work
-brainstorming for a structure to start off with in January (I know we need structure or it just won't get going!)
-work on words for ds

{Yawn}

I got into ds's bed at 4 because he had called me but I didn't fall back asleep until I went downstairs after 5 and slept until 6. I feel like I could go back to bed!

Merry Christmas! And my poor baby's sick :(

I hope all of you celebrating Christmas had a merry one!

It's Boxing Day here in Canada. We did NOT spend it out shopping like many did. ;)

My poor baby's sick, though--started on Monday and today, lost his voice and everything. He fell aseep on the couch at 5:30, after having had 2 bites of Ichiban (other than that, he'd had a mini-doughnut at lunch, and a bit of chocolate to help with the taste of some chewable ibuprofen he'd had this morning). I thought he was down for the night. He got up at 6:45, had a drink of water, ate some ice cream (but didn't even finish it), then sat down next to me here and just fell asleep. My poor baby! I suppose one good thing is that he'll get a lot of sleep out of this!

I thought this was cute!

So did my dd. I sang out the new version of Rudolph to her. Of course, if you like astronomy, you might just try and find Mars tomorrow night!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071220/ap_on_sc/mars_rudolph

It's almost Christmas!

My kids are so excited. We are starting Christmas tomorrow evening. Tradition from my mom's side of the family is to go out and look at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve (of course, she grew up in part just outside of Detroit, where it's not usually as cold as it is here!), then while we're out, Santa comes, and we get back and... time to open gifts. :) Ds is getting more and more adrenalized over the idea. Although it might not work so well today--he only had about 6.5 hours of sleep because he was just so achey during the night, and he looks like he hasn't slept in days. We'll be having a nap later on.

I'll also be reading him a little Christmas story as he didn't even remember that Christmas was about Jesus's birthday. I'm such a bad Catholic homeschooling mom at times! lol. I'll find some colouring pages, too, I think. We don't have a proper nativity scene, so that doesn't help things either. Maybe I can find a crafty one online where he cuts out the parts of the scene and pastes them.

Other than that, I have to have him practise writing his name again before we have him sign cards! Oh, and dd got a quick French grammar lesson yesterday. She had written "J'aime les cadeau," on our easel chalkboard, so she got the little lesson that words ending in -eau need an x when plural.

Some might say--but it's Christmas holidays! Yes, but that doesn't mean that learning stops. :D I'm not doing any serious stuff, just dealing with the real life stuff that's coming up.

One thing we will be learning today is if Fleischman's dairy-free margarine will work okay in a shortbread recipe. I want to be able to eat the cookies, too. lol. And I can't find the mix I usually buy--I've been to all kinds of stores--so I'm trying from scratch. Yikes. Chocolate chip cookies I can do. Peanut butter cookies I can do. Last time I tried to make shortbread from scratch... Don't know if it was me or the recipe.

Very interesting!!!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20071221/sc_livescience/7medicalmythsevendoctorsbelieve

It's Thursday (or Friday?)!

I can't keep my days straight this week!!!

In any case, it's Thursday. Pretty sure about that now. We finished our basic Christmas shopping yesterday, we started wrapping gifts and the kids did their Christmas candy molds. I didn't do any schooling stuff with ds yesterday, but Tuesday night I did. He LOVES the Reading Reflex/Montessori-style word building with images. I have to make some new ones. He flew through them and was disappointed there weren't more. I'll have to come up with some new stuff. I've also had him read the same book with me twice this week. He's getting better and better at recognizing some of the words and we also look at some of it phonetically. He thought it was SOOOOOO cool to do the first two letters of his name in cursive--connected. That was just so big to him. And I add in a few math questions. I gave him a double-digit plus a single-digit for the first time, I think. No problem. I'll have to show him regrouping with beads and then give him some questions that require regrouping. So, although we're only doing about 20 minutes of schooling, it's going well.

Dd is feeling better and better each day, which is good. She hasn't done any math this week, but I don't really mind. Oh! But I found my materials for a quilted Multpilication Checkerboard that I had started with the oldest... 2 years ago?? Maybe not that long ago. In any case, it had disappeared and I had looked everywhere I could think of. Turned out it was in an end table that turned into a tv stand in the basement. I had forgotten that I had stored some sewing stuff in there. In any case (geez, I feel so ADD!) I'll be able to finish it and work with dd on it. I did show her the old cardboard, ripped version (Maria Montessori would not have been impressed!) on Monday and did one question (okay, so she did do some math), but it was almost embarrassing.

What else? I'm figuring out what the 16yo has left to do and putting together some sheets so she can set up a schedule for herself for January. She will be doing 2 exams the third week, but still has a bunch of work to finish up. And lots of chem equation practice to do. Part of what I've done up is a little "quiz" for her to see what her current habits are as a student compared to what she needs to be doing, or how she needs to see school work, to get the grades she wants. Things like, "How often do you study? Never. Just before a test/exam. Review here and there plus before an exam. Regularly." "How well do you usually know the material before going into an exam? Not very well. Kind of/I understand it/I think I know it fairly well. Fairly well. Really well--I could teach someone else all about it." The options sort of correspond to levels of learning, which are tied with, roughly, grades obtained. This actually fits in very well with her CALM course.

Another thing I have set up for her is to really figure out what she wants in terms of her learning level this year and how important it is to her compared to her diving, friends, job (which she wants to do again), spare time, etc. There's no point in setting a goal of no mark under 75% if it's not something that you really want and will work for. She has beaten herself up in the past over her marks (which were the result of her not really doing what a typical student does when they want to obtain certain marks), but somehow she hasn't connected it with her own activities--it's all tied with a low self-image as a learner. Hence, the quiz above, to discuss with her afterwards how the different habits and attitudes are often tied to the marks a student gets so she can look at her final preparation for her upcoming exams in a different light.

I still, despite how many times I have said it, have not successfully gotten into her head that much of learning we need to do--especially for tests--comes as the result of repeatedly going over the information. She bemoans her "horrible memory" when something she looked at for 5 minutes 2 weeks ago she can no longer remember how to do. Where did she get this idea that because she looked at it once, if she can't remember it, she must have a horrible memory? I guess it's really self-image. She has a far more positive self-image now than she did when she started with me, but there's still work that needs to be done. I really need to get through to her what it means to learn, the work required to learn for school. I even made some comment about weekly reviewing everything in each subject and she said, "You can do that?" But then she flipped it around and convinced herself that it would just mess her up to do that. She has GOT to change her self-image and her understanding of learning if she wants to be a doctor. She can definitely become a doctor IF these changes can be made. I've got a year and a half left with her full-time. I need to brainwash her. Ah, Marva Collins has come back into my head--it's exactly what she did. Brainwashed (okay, bad word) the kids into believing in themselves and knowing that it takes a lot of effort and work to obtain the really big goals. I wonder if I could structure her ELA 20-1 work around that theme...

Wow, I had no idea I was going to write all that when I first started today's post!! I ought to go get some cleaning done.

I've got to stop taking drugs!

LOL. Okay, not THOSE kind of drugs. I wanted to work in the basement, but it's so dusty, I usually only last about 15 minutes. So I took a Benadryl Sinus 30 minutes before going down. At one point, I just started feeling really weak and drowsy. I thought it was a lack of water & food and just all the bustle getting to me. I then realized, no, this is the same type of feeling I had from taking a Gravol after visiting the Galaxyland amusement park and the day after I took a Tyelnol Nighttime Cold. Blah!

I wasn't affected by the dust, though...

Misc.

Silly kitties:




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I never knew a Western country would actually have laws in place that could allow a court the right to name a child! http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071218/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_italy_name



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Yesterday, it was just my 2 and I. It felt like a weekend. Even dd said so! We went bowling in the morning--where one teen there bowled 201!!!! omg!--and ran a few errands in the afternoon, followed by relaxing in front of Meet the Robinsons, a DVD ds got from "Bob" and his sister for Christmas. Speaking of whom, are either waiting at the Vancouver airport or are on a plane to Hawaii as we speak!

I fit in some schooly stuff with ds yesterday: practised writing the first four letters of his name in cursive (his nickname--but he's been reversing letters when he writes on cards, so I decided to scrap the printing entirely and have him work just on writing cursive), read a book with him where he would reread a sentence after I said it (yes, I know this is more sight reading than phonics, but I like to work with both) and we did some little math here and there orally.

Dd photocopied a gazillion reading comprehension worksheets from a gr. 6 workbook I have. She's flying through them. Enjoying the easiness of it, I guess--feeling confident and capable! She needs that now and then, to have something really easy that just makes her feel good. I haven't yet pointed out to her that it's a gr. 6 book and she's only in gr. 5, which would make her feel even more confident, but I'd like her to stop focusing on "grade levels" and how she compares with others. She also finished reading Eragon the other day; her goal had been to finish it before Christmas, so she's very happy. She enjoyed it a lot and wants to read the second book, plus see the movie. She especially enjoys that it's a homeschooler who wrote it! I can see that being very inspirational for her--she's quite the writer herself. It wouldn't surprise me at all if she got herself published before she graduates high school.

Today, I'll have my niece. We'll do some Christmas-related shopping this morning so we can stay away from the crazy streets and stores this afternoon. It wasn't too bad yesterday, but I imagine that each day this week, it'll be worse and worse. The streets were already crazy at 2:30 yesterday. At some point, I'll fit in some handwriting, phonics, book reading and math with ds. We might even make some Christmas "chocolates" with a Wilton Christmas candy mold. That'd be fun to do this afternoon, I think. I'll have to see if I can remember to take some pictures and post them!

Hey, I can post dd and "Bob"'s Lego city. Part of it is created due to a kit, but they've made modifications and set up their own things.

Can you see the soccer field (almost wrote football field--the British influence in my family!), with the multi-coloured nets?

Better view of the soccer with the ref.

How about the 16yo's help message?

Written so that our neighbour could probably read it. It finally got erased after dd added in something about being held prisoner!!! I could just see having cops at the door to see what's going on...

Another week done

This week was kind of a blur. I should really sit down and blog more often because trying to remember a whole week is difficult!

We had a Christmas party--I think there were 20 kids here! omg!

The 16yo got some work done, but in general, they all fizzled.

They did some Christmas crafts.

We went to the library.

I bought A Muppet Christmas Carol on dvd (love that movie!).

And I'm working like crazy on a Christmas gift I'm making and hope I'll have done by Christmas. (Yes, I should be working on it now, but I went grocery shopping and need a break. :D)

The 2 oldest are supposed to be gone next week--but if things worsen for their grandmother, they might not go after all. I'm going to assume they'll be gone. I plan on doing a little school routine in the morning with my 2, then the afternoons will be for cleaning the basement, finishing our Christmas shopping and other Christmas prep. We might also go to Millennium Place one day. And we have bowling with some other homeschoolers. If they 2 oldest don't go, they still won't be hear for Monday, but I'd expect them to work Tues-Thurs.

There's not much else to say at the moment. I think I'll go work on that Christmas gift!

Yikes

I think it's going to be one of those days. I've got sinus issues, a cold and had a horrible sleep, the two oldest essentially spent the weekend at the hospital with their grandmother and are tired and one is particularly irritable... My goal is to get through the day with everybody still in one piece!!!

What have we done this week?

Hm....

I'm not really sure. lol.

Dh and I went to a staff Christmas party last night (he's a teacher). It was soooooooooooo nice to have people interested and supportive of homeschooling!! I sat and talked with the wife of one teacher (she's actually a teacher, too) and she kept saying how great it was I could be home with the kids (her kids are in childcare while she teaches). A few other teachers were talking with us and one just kept nodding his head and said, "That is so great." It was wonderful.

As for the kids... Well... Christmas is approaching. Work is slowing down. The middle 3 (Bob, dd and ds) spent a LOT of time outside. We went to a first Friday Mass yesterday, followed by a potluck and the same 3 outside crazy carpeting on a hill outside the church--for 2 hours, I saw neither hide nor hair of them. They were beat. The 16yo is plugging away still, feeling not quite so overwhelmed. (Although she said she feels she just stressing about everything lately! Just a phase, I guess.) The 13yo--woops, Bob--is feeling more and more anxious about going to Hawaii: he's afraid of flying (and tornados and this and that...) We talked to him supportively about it, but he didn't seem to want to deal with it. I even asked right out if he wanted to learn some things to help him deal with it and he said no. I don't think he wants to really admit that it's a problem. Being anxious is one thing; saying that it's a problem and accepting that you can do something about it is quite another! I might still find some things to read and share about dealing with fears in general this week and not make any direction mention of his own fears.

Other than that... I really don't know. Just been a fuzzy week, I guess. Next week is busy. Last week for the 2 oldest (unless their grandmother passes on this week--it would cancel their trip to Hawaii), which means a major pre-Christmas cleanup around here, as well as trying to get some sort of work done and prep for a Christmas party on Friday. I said I'd prepare a turkey, so I guess I'd better buy one! I suppose it's a perfect week for me to prepare Christmas and Advent stuff to put out for them to choose from: colouring pages, word searches, mazes, etc. Keep the middle three busy with that stuff while I try to help the oldest cruise through as much as she can. Oh, and put some stuff together so she can review here and there over the holidays.

Bob is blind

Okay, not really, but the eye doctor called him that jokingly. His eyes don't work together properly and he also needs multifocal lenses. No wonder this kid complains so much about reading!!! I wonder how long it's been bad. I know it's gotten worse this past year as it's become evident that some things haven't just been a copping out because he doesn't feel capable. He's supposed to get his glasses sometime this week.

Apparently...

Tylenol Cold Nighttime has too much of a drowsy effect on me! Although it stopped my coughing and let me sleep last night, I just can't shake this drowsy feeling. One can only wonder what an actual sleeping pill would do to me.

In any case, it's messing around with my brain a bit. I had all these ideas yesterday--not written down--and trying to put things together in some sort of plan for school tomorrow isn't working so well. Maybe if I babble here it'll help.

For the oldest... I tried figuring out how to bring in the whole "What type of student do I want to be?" thing, but everything I've written so far feels wrong. If it in ANY way comes across as "You should have been doing this" or a criticism, it'll all fall apart. Part of it will depend on her mood tomorrow, too. She's been tired and feeling overwhelmed. Whatever I say or do has to actually be helpful instead of adding to her sense of being overwhelmed. One thing I know I need to really clarify with her, or perhaps have her officially agree to, is to NOT finish her math for the end of January. I don't see how she'd pass the exam. She is behind and has not come close to mastering any of the stuff. Give her an extra two months and I think she'll be ready. That means we can stop trying to cram two lessons into one and give her the extra practice she needs.

The plan for her, therefore, this week is to:

• somehow bring up what kind of student she needs to be so that she can realize her dreams
• have her figure out what's important to her in the long run
• do as much as she can in chem (another area she needs extra practice in; I need to also give her some extra practice sheets)
• I'm hoping she will have done the social studies reading she took home with her; if not, she'll have to finish that this week and will have to consider using Thurs. aft/evening and Fri. afternoon to do it all (dd and ds have a playdate Thurs. afternoon and Fri. morning we're going to a Mass)
• for math, extra practice sheets and just getting her to do as many questions as she can in her lessons
• I probably need to write up specifically what needs to be done. I realize now that for her next semester, she has to be MUCH more involved in the planning. Part of her feeling overwhelmed the other day is that she felt she doesn't really know how much she has left and when everything is supposed to be done by. Although, that may have been her brain stuck in some sort of rut--she's had plenty of calendars given to her breaking down her work and giving her rough deadlines. I think she was just really focused on being behind. For next semester, before she begins, SHE will work out a rough schedule for everything. Then we need to make it a habit to check in with this schedule daily so that she stays on track. She's very quick to stop doing stuff because she just doesn't feel like it anymore, and says things like, "I know I should..." I also somehow need to get her to connect all of this with what she *wants* in the long run. Hard to stay on track with school and not end up overwhelmed when you have no real desire a lot of the time to do the work, much less do extra.

Okay, now for "Bob"

• I have this interesting program out from the library. One of the books is called "Get Ready to Read" and the other is "Get Ready to Write". I want to use those daily with him this week. I also have to get our phonics back in. AND copywork. His little writing snippet the other day was great, but his handwriting is still very immature.
• For math, more work on order of operations and just keep going with this integer/pre-algebra work.
• All I can think of at the moment.

Nothing specific for dd, except that she hasn't done cursive in quite a while.

For ds, I'm being un-Montessorian and insisting that he does some sort of reading, writing and math activities with me.

I think I'll try to write up the 16yo's "What's Left" list now. Wish me luck! ;)

I remembered again!

One thing this week that I did was remember to resume my own studies. It really seems to help to have me doing some sort of work while they have their own work going on--even if my work is just open in front of me and I'm not getting anything done because I'm helping them. In any case, I copied down the categories for the classification of animals (kingdom, phylum, etc.) and did up a table with different animals, finding out what I could. I was able to share with them cool things I'd found out. They added in animals they wanted done. Unfortunately, the first one they came up with was snail (I don't have that volume of the encyclopedia and was trying to use only the encyclopedia) and then snake (same volume). *sigh* But it was fun! And I wouldn't be surprised to see them trying it out sometime.

Hey, I remembered

I remember some stuff that got done this week:

Ds did a few mornings in a row of this French beginning reading program we have. I don't know how much he's learning from it (part of the problem with the way a lot of "educational" software is set up), but we did do some of it together and he's doing well. Other than that, not much. I told him that next week, we'll be looking at minimum number of things to get done each day. He's ready. And willing! He's very excited about his progress in reading.

Shoot, I forgot the other thing I had remembered. lol

In any case, the 13yo/"Bob" wrote a fictional journal entry today. Completely his idea of topic (I had actually suggested a letter to Santa) and it was GREAT! Someone might say that it's far below what a 13yo should be able to do, but for him, it was great. He can go soooooooo far when he lets himself.

The 16yo is starting to feel overwhelmed. I've been trying to think about what to do. I sent her some links about being an overwhelmed student and will need to think and pray about this more this weekend. I've had one thing come to me that right now, she's focused on all the stuff that isn't done that needs to be done. And the confirmation yetserday that they will be going to Hawaii (there was a possibility that they weren't due to her grandmother's advanced cancer, but it appears they are because the grandmother insisted) took a week away from her work time, so I think she's just hit a panic mode. Where do I feel her focus needs to be? On being the type of student she wants to be and what the means in terms of choices and actions. She really wants to be a med student one day. That doesn't mean simply finishing all the work in the course; it means approaching learning in a specific way. I think part of our work on Monday will be looking at this. And it will count towards her CALM course. :)

It's been over a week!

I haven't written in over a week. Wow. Hm. Not sure why not! But now I'm not sure what we did, so...

Dd's been writing a new story on creatures she invented. It's kind of like a research report or informative book, except that it's completely made up. She's also started working on order of operations and is enjoying that.

The 13yo has not been enjoying that math. Even had a breakdown on... hm... Tuesday? But it was after he'd had a blow-up with his sister, so I don't know if it was really the math or his emotions in the way.

Other work? Not sure.

The 13yo has decided to quit diving. The 16yo was wanting to quit--before her parents gave the okay. Now she doesn't want to quit. Even though she was wanting to quit before because she felt she didn't have the time to do other things: more time on school work, chance to volunteer and work... I can understand not wanting to quit in the middle of a year, though.

We went to the Festival of Trees yesterday. It was kind of disappointing. There was something missing. Actually, a few things since at least 2 of the previous activities were no longer there. There seemed to be half the number of decorated trees and many weren't that interesting. I don't know. It was weird. We didn't even stay as long as we usually do. The kids LOVED the endoscope table, though!

All for now. I have to eat!

Addition/Subtraction Board

Well, at least SOMEONE's using it!

Wednesday

My niece is finally here! I looked after my other niece all day Monday, then my in-laws brought over my nephew (niece's brother) after school and the 2 of them stayed over. My niece was born at 2:45pm, weighing in at 9 pounds!!! We still haven't had a chance to see her.

Our Monday work day was weird and kind of fell apart rather quickly. Part of it due to the oldest getting worse and worse with the flu as the morning progressed. We did end up watching all of "Gandhi", which was good. I had seen it in high school, but I don't remember being super interested and it didn't really feel like it was connecting to whatever we were doing in social studies. Yesterday, suffering the effects of the "sleepover", the morning didn't get going too strongly and we ended up going to the library in the morning. Today is going to be Super Work Day! :D Dd has been asking for more structured, but "fun", things to do. The 13yo is wandering around aimlessly. Ds hasn't read to me since the weekend. Add to that that it's Hump Day--I have to have things very structured for anything to get done!

Off I go to read with ds now. :)

It's due date!

And my niece still isn't here! :( Her mom has been having pre-labour/false labour on and off for 3 weeks, and still no baby. The doc will let her go one week overdue and then induce.

Other than that... Ds is on this learning to read kick. It is soooooo cool. He's learned sooooo much so quickly--that or he's absorbed so much in the past that is just kind of placing itself together now. He brought me a Blockbuster receipt yesterday. I asked him if he could tell me which movie it was for (I only keep those that have been shown with the other kids as it counts as a business expense). I show him where it says the movie, he figures out "Meet the...", sees the R and knows it's "Robinsons". He was SOOOO proud of himself, unfortunately, that he whooped and flung his arms up and slightly back and whacked dd in the nose. :-

I had a slight panic over the 16yo and her learning this week--she just has times where everythig shuts down. I got some advice from the Montessori-L plus just did some of my own thinking and am really looking forward to this week because I'm feeling confident things will work. One thing that has really been sticking with me is how well the 16yo did with algebra when she was using materials. Then she stopped using the materials the year after, because, I guess, we both kind of felt that she "knew" the stuff, but she'd forgotten some things and some stuff has been a struggle ever since. She falls more on the tactile/kinesthetic/global side of learning and I've really realized how I need to show her how to incorporate that style into her learning. My initial worry was, how in the WORLD do I have her learn quadratics while learning to incorporate her learning style??? Then I realized: colour coding and little "tiles" with the variables and symbols and showing her how to draw up a table for the comparisons the text is going through... I need to think more about her other subjects, too. For chem, I think tiles will be great for working out how to rearrange equations. For social... I think I'm really going to have to encourage her to work on mind maps or visual posters--oooh, how about visual timelines? This one book I found on learning styles recommended role playing, too. I don't know how comfortable she would be with that, but I know she sort of role played through writing for one of the industrial revolution topics she worked on and it really stuck with her. She's about to start a theme on World War I (which, unfortunately, she has to cover in a week) and the more she can put herself in the position of those involved, the more it'll stick.

Another thing I've realized this week is how much her struggle with texts is the reading comprehension. She can understand every word in the sentence, but the way the sentence is put together, she's not attributing the right things to the right part of the sentence. I think she needs to learn how to do sentence analysis! Of course, that means I've got to improve my skills in that first. Last time I really did sentence analysis was in jr. high--for French class. Fortunately, I've got some resources here. I feel too unsure of the Montessori style to do it that way at this point.

For the 13yo, he did his first essay this week. :) He said a whole bunch of things, I wrote down what he said, added a couple of tips here and there and had him choose between some transitioning options and ta-dah! He copied it all down and feels very proud. :) This coming week's writing assignment: his own report card. :D I've been reading a book whose name I can't remember at the moment and there's something in it about how kids need to be involved in the evaluation process more. That, combined with dh working on report cards and me needing a new writing assignment for this week, led to me deciding to give this as an assignment. I think I'll assign it for dd, too, but hers will be in French.

Other than that, haven't really figured out this week's plans yet, but do need to print off my first little French reading booklet for ds. Dd has agreed to do the drawings for me. Yes, my 10yo dd draws better than I and has probably done so since she was 6! I should also come up with some new words for him to do. (Shoot, that reminds me that I never took a picture of what I've prepared for him to share here.)

Just had to update

I'm supposed to be working on summarizing the 16yo's social studies so she doesn't have to try to force herself through some 15 pages of very dry textbook stuff tomorrow (she'd never accomplish it in the first place; of course, this has me wondering if I'm rescuing her or not, but I feel somewhat responsible for her being behind!), but I just have to share before I forget.

I did the first and second of the Reading Reflex-type activities with ds on Monday. He LOVED it, especially the second one which was a form of auditory processing activity. It somehow had something click. That afternoon, we were out and he read a few CVC words--in English. Yesterday, I pulled out some Bob Books to show him and he absolutely wanted to read them then and there. And he DID!!!! The first book was a total breeze, through to the 4th book where he needed some guidance. He was sooooooooooooooooo proud of himself! And I just couldn't be more pleased. He read the first 4 a second time yesterday evening and wanted to read them again tonight, but we remembered too late. This is so typical of him--lag, lag, lag, lag, then boom. Good thing he's not in a regular school. I'm going to have to scramble to put some little phonetic French books together so he can have French reading practice.

Various things

I did up some Reading Reflex-style activities for ds for this coming week. I thought I'd be able to share it here, but I can't seem to find anything other than inserting a picture or video. Hm... I guess I could take a picture later of a printed off copy.

What else have I done? Let's see... I've worked on a unit 2 math test for the oldest plus a unit 2 chem test. She has 3 tests this week, if she follows the schedule like she should. Social test tomorrow, but that's already done. Chem test probably on Thurs. Math test on Wed. (I hope!).

I've also done more thinking about the 13yo/Bob. It's not that I purposefully sit down and do it, just something pops into my head and I feel compelled to explore it. I'm actually feeling really great about this and am thinking more and more that I will have him switch boards next year to do the online program part-time. Here's how it would look with our current board, using teacher-directed courses:

• home ec. (I chose that because it's super easy and he likes cooking and using the sewing machine)
• math 9
• phys.ed/health
• French
• religion if he needs another course
• if he needs yet another course, some of the CTS courses, or if he must have another core course, science
• everything else would be parent-directed (traditional homeschooling)

If we go with the other school board, his online courses would be:

• math 9
• French
• health
• Computers 1 and/or Food Studies

Offline APS courses would be:

• phys. ed.

Everything else (English, science, social) would be traditional. The decided advantage of moving to the other board is that he'd get used to the online format (which is very different from what our current board does). He would, as well, have the possible chance of taking an in-school class if he wanted to. And the reason for only having math for both schools is that the social courses just aren't that good to start with, he'd rather explore his own thing for now for science, and he's just not ready for LA. I wanted to have one core course for sure so that he gets used to the quizzes and tests and exams and he'll have to take the provincial achievement test at the end of that year. For high school credits, regardless of where he does his schooling and how he goes about it, he HAS to take exams. One course will provide some sort of transition.

I'm also so weird that I've thought ahead to his high school courses. %-p Unless there are some major changes in the next two years, I'll make sure he takes Learning Strategies 15 and 25, his mark in Math 9 will determine if he needs to do Math 10 Prep or not, have him do the English _-2 route, switching either right after 10-2 or 20-2 to the -1 stream (I think if you switch in grade 12, you end up having to take BOTH diploma exams, and that'd just suck!) I suppose his interests and his parents' desires will determine whether or not he'll take a second language. He keeps saying he wants to go into dentistry, so he'll have to take all three sciences. That really fills up most of his schedule!

One last thought about all of this: another reason I feel the need to have him in the online program is I don't want there to be any question about him "hiding" from going to school because of some possible notion that school has too much work and he doesn't have to word as hard here. With this outside stuff set in stone, and it is a lot of work, he's less likely to hide from school for that reason. (It's funny--he was so set in Aug. on going to school so he could be with friends, but stuff going on at diving has had him change his mind because he doesn't want to be in that social environment!)

Let me come back to the present. :)

The 16yo has a full week this week.

MATH
She needs a good fractions review, which she'll do for math tomorrow (with dd and "Bob" being invited to join in). She then has to finish the work for the 2nd unit and do some review (Tues.), do her test ideally on Wed., and do 3 lessons from the 3rd unit on Thurs. and Fri. (Oh, I have to work on that, too, to see what she has to do and what corners we can cut.)

CHEM
She's starting ch. 4 tomorrow. I won't let her take more than 2 days to finish it. Do the unit review on Wed. Do the test on Thurs. Do unit 3 prep (and maybe start ch. 5) on Fri.

SOCIAL
Theme 2 test tomorrow. (Ack--she's supposed to be finishing theme 5--of 8 themes--this week.) Then spend the rest of the week doing Theme 3 work with the test next Monday. (She has no choice: she MUST do a theme per week now.)

FRENCH
Avoir, être and ERverbs in present, imperative and futur proche (sorry, don't know the English word), plus have her do just word reading (and maybe spelling!) from a simple list I found.

For Bob:

LA
Writing: 1 essay or page-length composition due on Friday
Reading: phonics drills, even if I have to bring him to the computer, enlarge them to 200% so that he can do them ;)
Spelling: based on the phonics drills with a focus on those words he messes up when he's reading

MATH
Keep him going with numeration, which means I have to prepare more stuff!

SOCIAL
He said he wanted to learn more about Egypt. I'll have to help him figure out what specifically he wants to explore and help him find resources.

SCIENCE
His chem kit, if he wants. Other than that, not sure!

FRENCH
Oral grammar with the oldest, plus just the regular talking!

For dd:

FRENCH
Daily reading with me. Writing assignment for the week (I have to come up with some topic choices--that's what she asked for when we discussed her actually doing some writing in French). She can also do the grammar with the others.

MATH
She says she still wants to keep going with the math sheets. So there we go.

SCIENCE
I'd like to introduce her to zoological classification. She really likes tigers and had wanted to do a project on them, a project that kind of got pushed to the side, so perhaps this is a way to still look at them. We have a chart that has the classification broken down, so we could work out together what the formal full classification for her specific tigers.

SOCIAL
Nothing special other than EVERYBODY will do stuff on learning the continents and oceans this week. I already have a large map printed off. :D Gotta love that poster feature for the printer!

I already discussed ds in a separate post.

And other than that, we are ALL waiting for my niece to be born!!!!! :D She's technically not due until the 18th, but my sil has been on medical/early maternity leave since the beginning of Oct. due to the high chance that she'd have the baby early. Her first was born 1.5 weeks early; the second 2.5 weeks early. Today is 2 weeks before the due date and she's had false labour on and off for 2 weeks. She is soooooooo ready to have this baby--as are we! :)))

Ds and his education

Okay, let me continue my thoughts from yesterday about ds and his education.

LANGUAGE ARTS
I've started working out a list of phonetic words I could do Reading Reflex style (like the Montessori Object Boxes). Basically, you've got a little picture and the letters that match up with the word the picture represents. Let's pretend it's some lips to represent a kiss ("bec" in our French). I'd also have little squares with the letters b, e, c on them. The Reading Reflex lessons have you write the lines for the sounds on a whiteboard, then ask the child which sound he hears first. He'd take that sound and put it on the first line. Then the second sound on the second line and the last on the last. You then ask the child to write out the word saying the sounds. Here is my list of super easy words for now:

as, os, bec, sec, bac, lac, sac, bol, col, sol, bal, mal, fil, ami

This will get us started for reading and writng and is something he will enjoy doing. I will also keep looking at his cursive book which inspires him to want to do some--especially since I told him the other day that he doesn't have to do the pages in order, he can pick.

On a side note for language arts: he decided during supper last night that he wanted to "work" with me after supper. He picked reading. He read all the easy words in this one book (je, le, la, un, etc.) and some of the harder words. Always makes me feel good to see that he's progressing despite my lack of consistency. I said something to him about how many words he can read now and asked him, "Every day you read, you get better and better. How much do you think you could read by Christmas if you read every day?" The way his eyes lit up was magic. He WANTS to read--I just have to set the right stage for him.

And isn't it interesting: he's had a sudden interest in reading and writing (he was writing stuff the other day, in addition to his cursive workbook, sounding out words to spell in English) JUST after he lost his first tooth? (You ever heard of the research done linking children's readiness for reading with their first permanent teeth coming in?) I remember one Montessori teacher saying she'd noticed a cycle in her school: the kids usually started learning to read at 4, but if they didn't, they didn't seem ready to do it until 7 (when the first teeth have been lost).

MATH
I seem to have some internal issue against showing him various Montessori math materials I have. Why??? I don't know. In any case, I think he'd love using the Addition/Subtraction Strip Board (usually 2 boards in a classroom, but for home purposes, just one!), so I need to find my strips for that and prepare some booklets and let him cruise. Of course, I could be totally off and he might not be interested in doing them at all. lol.

SCIENCE
I want to return to my idea of zoology. I think I feel lost as I don't have something telling me what to do and I don't have a lot of knowledge of my own. Since he loves ocean animals, I'm going to start with fish and look at the external parts of a fish. Then we can look at the internal. However, I don't think we'll use real fish as I'm rather squeamish. ;) We can look at our pet fishes to look at the external parts, but I'm really not sure I can do more than that.

SOCIAL STUDIES
I want them ALL to learn the continents and oceans--I think the oldest knows the continents, but not the oceans. Then we'll progress from there together with geography. Ds might like the pin map of North America, especially since there's a place for Belize, where my former student now lives.

As for history... I can start timeline study with him. I've got a roll of paper and we can do a timeline of his life. I think he'd like that. :)

That's it for now. I've got a headache I can't shake--I think I had too much sugar and chocolate yesterday. Need to go drink a couple of glasses of water. And maybe a couple of Tylenol. I'm supposed to be taking ds out shopping this afternoon--poor kid grew over the summer, didn't wear his pants at all, so we get to our recent weather and all his pants are too short!

I'm so weird!

I don't know if it's affirmations I was doing today--I'm trying to work out exactly how I'd like things to be with schooling--or what, but as I showered, I just couldn't get out of my head thoughts about next year's plans for the 13yo. Woops, sorry, "Bob".

What sort of thoughts? Well, we'd talked this week about how if he's with me for high school, I will have him put on a specific online program through one of the homeschool boards. I didn't explain to him the reasons for this and he didn't ask. He needs something transitional. He resists change and doesn't do well with it, which means that if he goes from the type of homeschooling we're doing now right to post-secondary after high school, it'll flop. He knows things with our current homeschooling are flexible, negotiable. High school requirements aren't that flexible and negotiable. I just feel strongly it's important for him to get used to having someone else to be accountable to, to have stuff somewhat set-in-stone that he knows he has to step up to do or he'll fail. I also want him to have the opportunity to take some classes through the local schools, which he can do only under one of two conditions: he's registered with that board as blended or traditional; he's a fully provided high school student with any Alberta board. He could stay with the board we are at and be fully provided, but the structure that this other program provides will work better. Plus, they have some courses that our current board doesn't have.

But these thoughts led to: what about next year? How's he going to handle going from our current homeschooling to that particular online program? Slight panic set in. Then I remembered that I had already talked to his mom about Bob going blended next year. So that's led me to the computer to see what blended with our current school board would be like and what blended with the other board would be like.

It's Nov. of his gr. 8 year--so, 3rd month of the school year--and I'm already working out next year's stuff!!!!! Why????

Now that I've asked the question, I think, other than the fact I'm weird, it's to be able to orient myself for the rest of this year. I've been planning the next 5 weeks for the 2 oldest (they're leaving for Christmas holidays a week early for Hawaii) and having a sense of approaching halfway through the year. I can not, and will not, let this boy fail. He's capable of a lot more, although he is definitely making some good progress. He started copying out a recipe all on his own yesterday. DO YOU REALIZE HOW HUGE THIS IS????? He's doing more, wanting to do more, feeling more confident. It's great. Yes, yes, I complain we don't get enough done, but I have to admit he's making some real progress. The focus he has when he sits down and does the math I've prepared for him is phenomenal. It's so great to see.

Ok, gotta go back to looking at these two different programs for next year. ;)

This week is pretty much over

Well, we didn't get as much done as I had planned, but we are all just so out of it and affected by lack-of-sleep, weather and ill health. There's only so much you can force a tired and sick brain to do! Poor 16yo even had issues just with simple stuff to read. She's still forcing herself to get through stuff, even if it's not fully processing, so that's good.

The 13yo--sorry, Bob--had his eye appointment and needs to go back in a couple of weeks to do the eye drops thing so the doc can look inside the eyes. Apparently, he's got very strange eyes. He is far-sighted, but if I'm understanding what he understood, it sounds like he still can't see as much as he ought to be able to see, as though his seeable range is short. In any case, the doc told him he's never seen something like it before. He also did something with a laser-thingy and was supposed to say whether the line was above or below something and he had a whole bunch of lines all over, which the doc didn't seem to expect (hence, having to use the drops to see what's going on). So, he's going to get glasses, but after his final appointment. He did say that it was cool being able to see (with the lenses they try) all kinds of things he couldn't see before.

The kids are mighty disappointed that we didn't get the 2-4 cm of snow they were, yesterday, predicting we'd have today. I don't blame them. This dreary weather's just blah.

Some people apparently have long weekends, but we won't be. "Bob" wanted the day off and asked for the day off but I said no. We just really haven't been doing a lot and I don't want to have a short week next week. Besides, there are only *5* weeks before the two of them leave for Hawaii. Gotta get cracking and get the oldest caught up and make up for some of the recent lack of work on the other kids' parts.

I also really want to focus on ds. I feel like he's the one who most needs the type of Montessori style I was using when dd was his age and slightly younger, but he's not getting much. What would I like for him?

Language Arts
-One thing I realize I'm having trouble with is that dd just picked up on reading and she WANTED to do the Reading Reflex stuff. Ds doesn't really have a big interest, although he's much more into play than dd was at that age. But I also don't have the same materials. I don't want to teach him in English (which is how dd started reading) but I don't have things for French so I guess I'm feeling lost. I need to prepare a list of words and materials I can use with him--or near him and have him watch me and want to join or something.

----------

I've been distracted. I won't continue for now. I have to clean.

Misc. babble

I was going to post a picture of my cat watching our 52" plasma tv this morning--I had put The Secret dvd on and he was on the tv stand, sitting with his nose practically on the screen--but he left his spot when I came back with the camera. It was just so funny watching him!

School stuff: (Is today Wed. or Thurs.? Holy cow, it's Thurs.!)

The 13yo (who would like me to refer to him as "Bob") has an eye appointment today. Oooh, that reminds me, I'm supposed to write up a note so that he doesn't forget details in explaining what's going on with his eyes. He is definitely far-sighted--saw a parking lot sign from I'm not sure how far away that none of the rest of us could see. He's been complaining a lot about print being too small--and not just when I expect him to read. The other day, he was reading dd's story as she typed it on the laptop and I asked him how he found the size, because she had the font fairly large. He said it was okay. I took the laptop and started slowly pulling it backwards, asking him if it was getting worse. He got this kind of surprised look on his face: "It's getting better! Why?" All this time, as he had problems seeing words in books, he's apparently been pulling the book closer to his face (that's what everybody else does, right?) and he had no inkling that if he held the book further away, he'd have a better chance of reading it.

I have to wonder how long this has been a problem for him. I'm so eager to see what glasses will do for him. He has always given up so quickly when he gets frustrated with reading--how much of it has been because he simply can't see the letters correctly? I know in elementary, his eye doctor had always diagnosed him as being far-sighted, but for some reason, never gave him glasses. (This eye doctor also refused to give glasses to his sister, despite rather severe astigmatism, until a couple of years ago--she, too, spent years struggling with the print in books.) Last year, the eye doctor said his eyesight was normal, which I found odd. There were still signs here and there of him being far-sighted. He's seeing a different eye doctor today.

This week has been an odd week for school work. We finally started getting back on track yesterday, but still sluggish. We are ALL suffering still from the time change. Which is weird. I remember how we always used to do just fine with the fall time change, but no longer. My kids are going to bed later for their internal clocks, but still getting up at the same time. The two oldest are tired. I've been exhausted--went to bed just after 9 last night, which was good, because my body's waking me up at 4 still (internally 5), so I almost got 7 hours, which is to be celebrated because I had been getting 5.5-6 before that. Even my dh hasn't made the transition as well as he usually does. I don't get it. And I'm not sure what we should do to make the transition. My poor kids have bags under their eyes, but they are just not capable of sleeping past 5-5:30. And I don't really want them to be going to bed at 7pm and up at 5-5:30 every morning! I'll have to see what I can find online.

That was supposed to be a paragraph about odd week for school work. Oh well. We get more of what we focus on though, right? So I'll stop focusing on that. :) Let me focus on today:

16yo:
-lots and lots and lots for math, social (*gasp* Do I have her test ready?) and chem. Need to point out to her how much more she could get done if she stayed focused. Maybe I'll track her time on task and show it to her at the end of the day, ask her how much time she thinks she's spending truly working on her work. We've discussed how she needs to put in a solid 4 hours a day just to maintain, and needs to do more than that or cut corners to catch-up. I think in her mind if she's got 4 hours blocked out for work, she figures she's worked 4 hours. Yesterday's 2 hours in the morning were more like an hour and 15. Maybe not even. Yesterday afternoon she was tired and just sluggish, not really allowing herself to be distracted, which is understandable, but she still didn't actually do 2 hours of work (actually, by the time we were done watching Transformers--which she hadn't yet seen and wanted to see and we didn't have my niece, so it was a good time--she had less than 2 hours left to work). The focus must be on the work to accomplish!

13yo:
His appointment's not until 11, but he'll probably be picked up around 10:30. That's plenty of time to do some math and work on his essay. We've only done one day of that remedial reading drills--he's complained of the print, plus it's just been weird around here. I'd like him to do them today. We can find a good distance for him to see the words. I don't think they should be too small for him.

dd:
She's been working a lot on Spanish. She has wanted to do a flute lesson all week, so I'll make sure I fit that in with her.

ds:
Ds has been doing more work this week! Yay! I'd like to do some letter work with him again today and some oral math. At the moment, he and dd are watching a video about the Mars Rover--science!

Other than that, we finished reading Schooled this week (great book!) and I have yet to figure out what our next read-aloud will be. But now it's 7 and I have to go get ready. :)

Just had to laugh

I was reading something where they mentioned the NEA, which is the National Education Association (for the US) and how they're really against homeschooling. So I decide to look it up and find this article http://www.nea.org/espcolumns/dv040220.html . I laughed too much to be offended. Especially at the part where the author writes about Sam Walton teaching people to do this and that: did Sam have a degree in teaching people to do those things??? I think not. :)

Slow going

Friday's plans didn't happen. I actually don't remember what happened on Friday. Hm... Oh well. I know the oldest wasn't feeling super hot but still made herself get some work done.

Yesterday ended up being a day off. The oldest was feeling worse and just super tired, ds was on pure adrenaline (not getting enough sleep already combined with not enough sleep due to the time change--went to bed an hour later for his internal clock (but same time on external clock) but still waking up at the same time on his internal clock), the 13yo was snuffly and adrenalized and dd just got caught up in all of it. I'm feeling exhausted, too. I don't do well with time changes.

Today... We weren't sure about our plans for today, so that threw off the 13yo (he really likes structure!) and he kind of did this and that this morning. The oldest still isn't feeling well but managed to do some French--easy work. Dd spent the WHOLE morning on Spanish: drawing things then labelling them in Spanish. Ds pulled out a workbook we haven't looked at in a while and did one page with me then did a page in his cursive workbook all by himself--without me asking him or anything. He's spent a LOT of time outside the past few days, since the snow from the weekend.

Right now, I'd really just like to sleep. But I can't because everybody's still here. I think I'll go clean.

Not sure if there's much to update

Let's see...

Monday:

I did some of the Remedial Reading Drills with the 13yo. I think it's going to take longer than I had thought to go through the stuff because he guesses on words SOOOOOOOO MUCH. The first page is all CVC words with short a. The first part has word families, the second part the words in each row start with the same sound, then the third part has them all mixed. He guesses so much he did fine on the first part but complained about the second part because the endings weren't all the same. He changes the 'a' sound here and there. He adds 'n' before final 'd'. He won't simply sit and sound out the words unless I tell him to sit there and for each word, sound out the word. Of course, unfortunately, the 'ag' words are in there which we don't really pronounced with a short a and his thinking tendencies to persevere with what he's already been doing then have him switch the short a to a longish a for the next word... (Before I give the impression that he can't read at even a gr. 1 level, let me say that he can read many complicated words but his previous training in school for simple words really messed with him being able to read them properly.) He got a page of math done and orally worked on some times tables. I also got him started on planning out an essay on "Why I Want to Be an Orthodontist." (Yes, he wants to be an orthodontist.) It's going fairly well.

The 16yo spent the morning working on her social studies (and is actually ENJOYING it--I decided to take the APS requirements and have her go about answering questions in kind of a research style rather than just reading through the textbook) and did her chem test in the afternoon.

Dd... ? Did some math, spent an hour or so working on her story again...

Ds: did some letter work with him and I played addition bingo. It was actually rather funny. this game is designed to play with a class of 30 and has a LOT of call cards. It normally takes us a good half hour to get through because I keep picking call cards for numbers we don't have on our cards. He won within 10 minutes. lol.

Tuesday:

The 13yo went on a focused math marathon. The 16yo worked on her social, French and math. Dd did some math but then laid down as she wasn't feeling well. Then we worked on prepping the house for our Halloween party (kept it small this year!) and ran some errands for the Halloween party.

Wednesday:

Morning: final prep for Halloween party.
Afternoon: Halloween party
Evening: Halloween

Here we are now already on Thursday. Plans for today:

16yo: chemistry--at the very least what she was supposed to have done on Tuesday; have her finish up the social she was doing the other day and hopefully get the social done that I have for her for today so she can do an essay test of the unit tomorrow (one unit in less than a week--rushed, but I think fairly well covered); and have her get at least one section done in math and send her home with some math homework; oral French grammar (verb conjugations) and if she gets all that other stuff done, maybe some written work

13: reading/spelling (ah, we didn't do any of the spelling the other day--he's fine with CVC short a words EXCEPT those that end with d, so I must do those with him); math; continue essay; his chemistry kit this afternoon

dd: I absolutely want to read in French to her at some point today--I've decided to stop trying to get her to read in French and simply spend more time reading to her in French; probably some math and I expect she'll want to work on her story as well as work in MS Paint sometime today

ds: work with some more consonants followed by 'a'; I'll also do either the Golden Bead Tray with him or some Ray's Arithmetic. I really need to figure out some more things I can show him, things he'd enjoy doing and open him up to more learning. I had bought a bug unit, but it seems to be designed for when there are actually bugs outside (which makes sense), so that won't work right now.

My big decision right now is if I go ahead with my plans to do something at park day Monday afternoon for Guy Fawkes day. I just feel so celebrated out right now. lol. What with dd's birthday last Tuesday, Galaxyland on Wed., party on Thurs., party on Fri., party and Halloween yesterday... I think I've had enough. I don't want to bake again. I don't want to think about celebrations again. lol. But those feelings may change between now and Monday. I guess I'll have to play it by ear.