American History Ends!

Yes, the Mayans were right!  2012!!  THE END!  American History was the topic this past year for my homeschool class of high schoolers… and it ends day after tomorrow.  We started in 1440 (Go ahead and guess why we started there!) and ended in the 1970s.  I told the kids if they want to find out what has happened in the last 42 years, they are on their own!  The Vietnam War ended and we were done.  Kaput.  Finis. 

We did add a bit of culture and art to the study to keep it interesting (for me!) and we debunked several idols from these youngsters’ minds.  “Like what?”  you ask.  Well, it seems of few of them were drawn to the hippies…. the Jesus people… the Kennedy’s… the Beatles… all for glamorous reasons.  Then we studied some of their lifestyles, choices, outcomes and habits.  Not too glamorous after all.  Perfect!  That is why we homeschool!  To look at REAL history.

Another homeschool mom (who might just be crazier than me!) and I sat together today and did some planning for next school year… which we decided will start two weeks after all the public schools here in Arizona.  Because we can!  Yet another reason to homeschool!  We were at an Abeka display/sale in a nearby hotel.  If you don’t know anything about Abeka, it is a Christian based curriculum that is EXTREMELY thorough… so thorough that it actually contains TOO much school work for the average kid to endure.  It is great, in my humble opinion, as a “pick one topic each year” curriculum.  So we used it for American History and I loved it.  Next year we are using it for spelling and vocabulary.

Anyway, back to the two of us rockin’ cool moms sitting at the table amongst sold-out Abeka moms. We had another curriculum opened that teaches Godly character… and we were talking through a list of national parks that we hope to visit this coming school year.  We were discussing weather and what time of year would be best for us to go to each one.  She was explaining, and I was listening, all the science teaching that can be coordinated with the findings at each park.  We were planning our weeks of study at home… and our week at each park.  Eventually we noticed that the workbook moms sitting around us were all staring lustfully at our plans.  One finally blurted out, “I want to school with you two!”  hahahaha…. why do you think we do this?  We don’t want to be bored!  We don’t want to use ONLY books!  We don’t want to wear out the kitchen table!  We want to live learning!  I wanted to scream “Abeka is boring!  Look out the window at what God made for you to enjoy!”  But I didn’t.  The salesman was quite an impressive figure and I wasn’t sure I could take him, if need be.  The looks in their eyes solidified WHY we do what we do!  My friend whispered to me, “I think they just do school at home,” implying that they aren’t truly “homeschooling.”

We want our kids to love learning, to see creation as an organized and amazingly ordered system that WORKS, to appreciate great men and women who have endured and suffered and succeeded and lost and lived out their beliefs. But most importantly, we want them to know God.  To love God.  To serve others.  To use their individual talents for the kingdom.  THAT is why we do what we do!

ESL Fun and Games…..sorta

The sweet Colombian princess and I have been diligently learning the phonograms to sound out the English language for two months.  She almost mastered the frist 26 (single letters) but as she wrote them…. I came to the realization that she is already programmed for printing the letters incorrectly, holding the pencil totally rigid and straight up, as well as copying over the letters two and THREE times each before lifting her pencil.  Drove me nuts. 

After many prayers and whining sent heavenward, I remembered that one of my sons had difficulty printing so I started him with cursive first.  It worked brilliantly.  Thanking God for the wisdom from on high, I decided to switch Nora over because she had no bad habits to overcome in cursive… well, almost.  The rigid pencil grasp made all her letters tilt backwards and look like a lefty wrote them.  After saying 4,678 times, “Tilt your pencil back,” I resorted to taping her pencil down to her hand.  One of my insightful friends recommended this… and it worked.  She fought it all that day (technically for about 15 minutes), but from then on she was determined never to be taped again and carefully tilts the pencil back before writing now.

Another lightbulb went on one day when I realized all the phonogram cards are in printing, not cursive.  So I made a set of cursive phonograms and we STARTED ALL OVER AGAIN… with hardly any recognition.  Oh my.  That was two or three weeks ago and she is getting it…. slowly.  A cursive n does look like an m.  And a cursive k does resemble an r.  I get the confusion!

We have finished the spell-to-write-and-read list A from Spaulding.  Twenty little words.  And I mean little… do, go, is, am, my, run, etc.  We talked through them all.  She sounded them out.  We clapped the syllables.  She printed them quickly in left-angled letters and then carefully in right-leaning cursive in her Spelling Book.  She is doing so well.

Alas, today she had her first spelling test of the twenty little words.  The results were not pretty.  Only three were correct.  It was disheartening for me.  I realized today that she is still translating from Spanish to English with the letters and sounds.  I shouldn’t be surprised by this, as she has only been speaking English for seven months.  This is English as a Second Language afterall!  But still, I assumed she was understanding more than she is.  I texted the principal of our homeschool and told him how frustrated I was.  Being ever the compassionate parent, he asked how she took the news.  I replied, “I didn’t tell her.”  Then he added that at least I couldn’t blame him that it came from his side of the family!  hahaha!  After I secretly marked the test, Nora and I played some card and sound matching games and then put it all away for another day. 

That is precisely what we have…. another day.  One baby step at a time.

End of the School Year

Tomorrow is supposed to be the last day of school for LAKE Academy.  (L = Larisa, A = Austin, K = Keeve and if Zaza’s real name starts with E… it will all be so perfecto!)  However, none of my pupils are finished with their work.  My most hopeful student did not pass his last math test with over 90%…. which is not a passing grade at LAKE Academy.  We have high standards to uphold… and math requires skills that need to be remembered over and over.. and mastered.  He will be doing some review and then retaking the test.  Some of you may balk at my expectations, but the kids know they can live up to them… so I set them HIGH!  If I set them low, they would live up to those as well.  We are not striving for mediocrity in this home school!  No, I’m not pushing my kids beyond their capabilities either.  Calm down.

Pupil #3 got braces put on this week and it has slowed his progress in math and grammar.  I gave him a check-off list five weeks ago with what needed to be accomplished each day.  He has been faithful and diligent until this week.  He may be able to complete his work for the year on Friday… if his mouth is not distracting him.  Wires poking your cheeks can be such a detriment to every day life.  Good grief!  Thank God for wax!

Pupil #1 has had an unbalanced year.  She had way too much of a good thing during the first semester and much making up for the lacking things during second semester.  I also gave her a list of what needed to be accomplished to complete her sophomore year.  Frankly, it will probably take her another month.  But that’s OK.  Her calendar is wide open!  She’ll be winding down the same time as her cousins in Washington who don’t finish school until end of June.  Perfect.

As the homeschool marm, I reflect on my teaching for the past year… right about now…..  Mid-May.  I didn’t do as well as I had hoped with staying on top of high school history.  Spanish for my boys died mid-winter and is still in need of resuscitation.  We may be doing that all summer.  For spelling, both boys advanced more than a year!  They also finished math and are right on course… actually, #2 son is about 2/3 of a year ahead.  Their writing dramatically improved this year thanks to an IEW course.  (Institute for Excellence in Writing)  They know how to take notes from three sources, compile them, make an outline, write a three paragraph paper with opening and closing/clincher sentences… AND know how to add strong verbs, adjectives, adverbs, clauses and sentence openers.  (More than most high school graduates!)  So I feel great about that!  Not so great about high school history.

Out of my nine years of homeschooling my kids, I would only say I did a great job one out of nine years.  That’s not good odds. I’d tell you the exact percentage, but my calculator is missing from my desk.  And I don’t do math in my head.  As soon as I have to carry a number, they all get mixed up.  My great year was last year…. year EIGHT!  But, hey, there’s always next year!  And if we don’t set our goals high… we wouldn’t accomplish hardly anything at all!  Next week I’ll be breathing easy.  Whew!

18 More Days!

Of homeschooling for the year!  Wahoooo!  I do not understand the folks that homeschool year round. At all.  My happiest days of the year are when my job for the past nine months has come to a close…. End of May, June, July and half of August!  Freedom!  This is the first summer, however, that some summer school will be occurring for two of my three pupils.  One just didn’t get her act together to start Algebra when she should have…. and the other needs some remedial spelling work.  Come to think of it, my third pupil could use some review on multiplication tables to speed up the math process.  But still, I don’t have to wake up at a certain time and schedules are optional.  Ok, Ok, those who know me well are laughing loudly and saying, “She doesn’t wake up at a certain time now!”  It’s kind of true, but not entirely.  We almost always get school rolling before 10 a.m.  Stop gaffawing.  That means we had a hearty breakfast and the dishes are washed and put away…. we are all dressed (most days) …. the chores are done and some piano lessons have been played.  10:00 a.m. means we are all sitting at the kitchen table talking about the same subject together.

Today I tested the boys on the spelling for the year.  They both improved over a full year’s worth in eight months.  That is great!  But we still need to keep at ‘er for a bit longer.  Spelling is definitely a born skill.  Some have it and some do not.  Those who do not have a fairly good chance of improving their scores by rote memorization and rule learning…. but then again, there is spell check and dictionaries and editors if need be.  I’m not the best speller on the planet and sadly, two of my children follow in my phootstepps.  Compensation skills can be taught!  And they are being taught.  I never knew any spelling rules except “i before e except after c or in sounding like A as in neighbor and weigh.”  When I started homeschooling I found out that rule only applies about 1/3 of the time.  Great!  I have since learned other rules like “G and J say their soft sounds when followed by i, e or y.”  That one works 99% of the time, but I never learned it in school!  That would have been beneficial to know! I could bore you with more, but I’ll spare you this once.

Anywho, 18 more days to sit at the kitchen table and learn together.  I haven’t announced it yet, but I plan to read a few novels aloud this summer.  We read Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome last school year and the boys loved it.  I discovered that it is the first in a series of ten or twelve books!  So we began Swallowdale this year, but have been distracted by scientists’ biographies like Pasteur, Lister and Jenner.  Also grand architectural stories of Wren, Pippo’s dome and St. Paul’s Cathedral.  There are simply too many books and too little time.

Handwriting 101

So, on the spur of a moment thought while driving north on I-17, I swerved across a lane of traffic to exit for Walmart.  Wally’s World… it solves so many of life’s daily issues…. and has the ambiance of the state fair for your viewing pleasure.  My main thought was “cabbage”…. because there are currently two heads of cabbage in the fridge which I keep purchasing because our family eats CCS  (Chinese Chicken Salad) at least once a week.  The dilemma:  no chicken has materialized at the Crosby home for at least three weeks.  Hence, the swerve and the W-Mart run. 

Larisa was with me as we bee-bopped into the friendly world of helpful souls clad in navy shirts and tan pants.  At the Crosby home, there is a magnetic list on the side of the fridge where needed and even wanted grocery items are listed for such a time as this.  Unfortunately, because this was not a premeditated trip, the magnets were still holding the list on said refrigerator. 

So, with my hot pink cell phone, I called home to have one of my sons (whom I taught to read) relay the list to me while I stood in the produce section of WM.  Keeve answered the phone.  He was my easiest non-reading pupil.  Somehow, he just naturally READ….. and I helped a bit.  There were only four items on the list… he slowly read, “lard, …. um… I can’t read that one…. um…. A-C-E-T-A-M-I….”  “Acetaminophen,” I interrupted his spelling bee recitation.  “OK, yeah…. top ramen…. Mom, I really can’t read the other one.”  Yes, I had written it myself.  I remember writing it… but I couldn’t remember what it was.  So I asked him to spell it.  “Um….. g…v…  your writing is really messy on this word.”  “Yeah, yeah, keep spelling, please.”   “OK, Um… g… v.. i…h..t…e..m.  That’s what it looks like, mom.”  

“Is Austin right there?  Can you please have him read it?” While he was locating his brother, I found a scratch piece of paper in my purse and wrote down GVIHTEM to try and figure out what it was that I had written so messily.  Larisa suggested, “Write it fast and then squint to read it.”  hahahaha  I did, but it didn’t help.  Aus came to save the day… well, sort of.  “Mom, I can’t read what you wrote.”  “Then please spell it, son.”   “OK, GVLTEM.”   “Thank you, see you later,” I replied.    I gave up at that point and went to find lard, pills and noodles.

I couldn’t wait to get home to read my messy handwriting.  Ok, I laughed… the word they spelled over and over was the FIRST word of a double word item on the list…. even if they couldn’t read the first word, the second word was CRACKERS!  And the first word started with a G…. graham crackers, of course!  And my writing wasn’t THAT bad.  I could read it.  Sheesh.