Throwing Marshmallows

Whew. When it rains it pours! We have actually been having quite a nice spring, but today we were completely deluged with over 4 inches. A couple of weekends ago we got 5.5 inches in one day. Our new rain guage is getting quite a workout. I love the design…as the gage fills up, the blue plastic section floats up, so you can tell how much rain has fallen by how much of the blue section is extended. Which actually makes it much easier for me to get a general feel for how much rain we have gotten by looking out the window (of course it is more fun to send the boys outside to read it!)

Of course it could be worse (Fredricksburg is only 1 hour south of us…luckily it appears that most of the homeschoolers I know from the area have come through with minimal damage).

The boys really like rainy days. There is something exceptionally fun about running around outside in the pouring rain.

Or scootering outside in the pouring rain.

Especially when there is a huge puddle at the bottom of the driveway!

It does not get much better than this. And on a school day no less! Ahhhh…the simple joys of homeschooling. Letting your children splash around in the puddles during school hours….

where I have been…I have been helping plan this:

VaHomeschoolers Homeschool Enrichment Seminar

Science Museum of Virginia
2500 West Broad Street
Richmond, Virginia

April 26, 2008

There is still time to register online so if you are in the area, be sure to stop by. Walk-ins will be accepted as well.

There is something for everyone for both new and experienced homeschoolers. Speakers will be myself, Celeste Land (VaHomeschoolers Government Affairs Chair), Parrish Mort (VaHomeschoolers Pres) and Jeanne Faulconer (VaHomeschoolers Newsletter editor). I can tell you that my fellow speakers are wonderfully inspirational and definitely worth coming out for.

If you do come out, be sure to grab me during a break and introduce yourself! Most of the fun of these seminars is getting to meet folks in real life. Not to mention the fun we have being surrounded by people who “get” what we are doing and why.

Hope to see you there!

Stephanie (who is still working on getting all her files (including my signature file) moved over to my new laptop and probably won’t have time until after the seminar!)

Brotherly Tolerance Cooperation

I have a new post up at Life Without School titled It’s Not the Child. I wrote this after what seemed like a slew of posts on some of my homeschool lists from parents who seemed very worried that something was wrong because their children were not picking up certain concepts at particular times.

When I first started homeschooling, I was very lucky to find some wonderful homeschool mentors who were able to reassure me that my kids and I were doing fine and that we were all right where we needed to be. That there were no such things as “educational emergencies”. And as my kids have gotten older, I have learned to that they were right.

I find that the longer I homeschool, the more paradigm shifts I have. One of the most reassuring shifts I have had is that if my child is struggling with something, he either is not ready to learn it and needs more time or the information is not being presented in a way that makes sense to him and he needs a different approach. Either way, the problem is not with my child.

One of the things that I truly love about homeschooling is that I am on my children’s side. If something is not working, we can fix it. I don’t have to get them to be where someone else says they should be. I can help them get to where they should be.

Yesterday the Diane Rehm Show (on NPR) did a segment on homeschooling. It featured Mike Donnelly (from HSLDA), Rob Reich (associate professor of ethics at Stanford) and Gretchen Roe (homeschool mom and part-time liaison for Calvert School).

I have lots of comments about the show which, in my opinion, came across as fairly positive to homeschooling. I do not want to get into all the points that I would have liked to have seen made, but I did want to focus on one aspect that Rob Reich brought up…the issue of the rights of children.

At one point, Reich posed a question to Donnelly (who had just said that HSLDA was for more freedom for parents, wanting parents to have more choices and less government intrusion): “Are you also for the freedom of the children? What if the child wants to learn, say science, but the parents haven’t taught them that?”

This argument for additional oversight of homeschoolers is one that I have seen made other times as well, mostly by my fellow progressives and mostly in response to the perceived “brainwashing” of children by Christian homeschool parents. And to be honest with you, on face value, this can seem to be a compelling argument, especially for those with stereotypical views of homeschoolers and homeschooling. The idea that children can be sheltered and only hear “one point of view” (one with which many progressives would have issues with) bothers many people.

But when you start looking closer at the argument about protecting “the rights of the children”, you realize that it is not as clear cut an argument as it would seem. And this is because it implies that children have rights over what/when/how they learn outside of homeschooling and that it is homeschooling itself that deprives children of these rights.

But this most definitely is not the case. Switch his argument around a little bit and ask: “What if a child does not learn best with the curriculum the school has chosen? Does he have the right in school to get a different curriculum that better fits his learning style?” Ummm….no. He barely has the right to get accommodations and the parents usually have to fight tooth and nail to get those.

“What if a child is a right-brained learner who is not truly ready to read until between 8 or 9 years old?” Does that child have the right to wait and not be forced into learning to read before he is ready? No. He gets labeled as “late” and slapped with a learning disability (because of course it has to be the child that is broken, not the school).

To be honest with you, one of the main reasons that I am homeschooling is because I believe that children should be allowed to learn on their own timeframe and in a manner that works for them. I am homeschooling precisely because I do feel that my children have rights and that homeschooling is the best way to ensure those rights.

Reich’s argument seems to be less about whether children should have rights and more about who gets to make the decision about what the child learns. The state or the parent. I prefer to let the parents, who have a much more vested interest in the child, make this call. Does that mean that parents always make the right call for what is best for their children? Nope. But please don’t tell me that the state gets it right every time either.

I find it interesting that people who call for more oversight of homeschoolers often seem to have more of a problem with what is being taught rather than with the actual idea of homeschooling. These are the people who call for more oversight and want, as Reich has advocated for, some kind of “curricular oversight” to ensure “that parents are exposing their children to ideas, beliefs and values that go beyond what the children would encounter naturally in the home”.

Now, I am most certainly not arguing against exposure to alternative points of view! It is something that I consciously try to do. What I am arguing against however is the state enforcing how this is done. And here is why:

In order for me to have the freedom to teach my child what I feel is important (such as the different world religions) that means that others have to have the freedom to teach their children what they feel is important (even if I do not agree with it). It is the old free speech argument…I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say it.

Again, suppose the tables were switched…suppose fundamentalist Christians got to decide what was taught in public schools and only creationism was allowed. Would liberals feel that they should have the right to take their children out and teach them evolution at home? Would they feel that the Christians in charge of the schools had a right to dictate what they could/could not teach at home? If not, then they should not feel that they have the right to dictate what Christian homeschoolers teach at home.

It is a hard issue to grapple with, because we all want children to have the best environment in which to learn and grow. And we all have different ideas of what this “best environment” looks like. What it comes down to for me is that we live in a free society and one of the aspects of living in a free society is that people are going to make choices for themselves and their children with which not everyone agrees.

I have more to say on this subject, but I think that this has been getting a bit long. I will save the rest for tomorrow…

Someone on the Living Math email list forwarded a link to Shapirolab.net, a fun website focusing on optical illusions and patterns. Lots of information about why the illusions work and many have options where you can play around and change the illusion to test different effects.

This came at a perfect time as it ties in with a fun Brain Awareness program that Jason did a couple of weeks ago at the National Museum of Health and Medicine Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (at Walter Reed). One of the aspects of the brain that had been covered was optical illusions so this is perfect (I love when that happens!)

Enjoy!

I love serendipity. Such as when I stumble upon a new blog right when I need it. Like Tara’s Periwinkles and Pine. I am incredibly art/craft challenged and kept thinking that I needed to poke around online to get some inspiration. And then Periwinkles falls into my lap with inspiration to spare. I think that we will try the crayon and hot rocks tomorrow. It looks fun and doable (seriously…homeschool math, no problem…homeschool art and crafts and I run screaming for the hills). Oh and she loves children’s lit too…looks like a lot of good finds in her reading lists.

And if the neat art ideas and books were not enough…I have absolutely fallen in love with her music choices. Because, you see, Tara has a neat plug-in that allows her to have her favorite music playlists playing. Now usually music on websites sends me running the hills…I hate it. It is one of my pet peeves actually. Please don’t subject me to your tastes in music because it most likely is the not the same as mine.

But that was not the case here! I got caught up in the first track by Amos Lee and was hooked. Soon I was clicking through her playlist and checking out artists on iTunes. I ended up discovering three new artists that I absolutely LOVE…Amos Lee, Jack Johnson and Jamie Cullum. And due to the magic that is iTunes, I am enjoying them as we speak (as I write?)

I have actually been on the search (without much luck) for new artists since I discovered Martin Sexton this summer. My friend Joanna’s husband is a musician who plays all over Ocean City in the summer and he played a wonderful cover of Sexton’s Hallelujah that I fell in love with immediately. After finding out it was by Martin Sexton, I downloaded most of his albums over the course of the summer (interesting side note…each summer seems to have its own “soundtrack” to it…last summer it was Martin Sexton, the summer before it was James Taylor (go figure and don’t ask me why…))

I am so surprised any time I find a new artist that I actually love…my music tastes are pretty heavily weighted towards music I loved growing up…Billy Joel, Chicago, Paul Simon, Simon and Garfunkel, Eric Clapton. Lots of classical (Bach, Mozart and others), and instrumentals (like Linus and Lucy and the Canadian Brass). Most of the more recent stuff I have discovered is instrumentals from movies/tv such as the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks (the boys and I both love these) and the Robin Hood soundtrack.

I don’t like much “popular” music…which is why I was amazed to find so many good tracks on Tara’s playlist. I guess that I need to do more hunting in the folk music category.

Another interesting thing is that I just realized that I am most definitely more partial to male vocalists…I had never realized that before. While I enjoyed the female vocalists on Tara’s playlist and would more than enjoy hearing them at a friend’s house, there were none that I grabbed me enough to want to purchase for myself. Not sure if that means anything…

I looked through my music list and sure enough, the only female artists (other than the Indigo Girls) I have are part of ensembles (like The Mamas and the Papas and Peter, Paul and Mary…um…did I mention that I am a bit stuck in the past musically?)

I guess that I should probably stop babbling now. I just can’t tell you how excited I have gotten over all this. (And how much time I have blown over at iTunes) Doesn’t take much, does it?

I know, not very original and there definitely has been lots of talk about the California court homeschooling ruling. But since there is so much information floating around, I kind of felt like I needed to pull some of it together in one place, at least for my own sake. It has been amazing the amount of speculation going on about what this means, both for homeschooling in California and for homeschooling nationwide.

One thing you will see is that I am not going to link to any news coverage. Most reporters really do not understand homeschooling in general and there are so many subtleties to this case that media just can’t seem to get it right and has been full of dire predictions and misinterpretations.

VaHomeschoolers has put out a statement for Virginia homeschoolers who might be worried about the larger implications of this case. It is very unlikely that this will affect us here because, unlike California, we have a specific home instruction statute and in order for us to loose our rights, the General Assembly would have to pass legislation to remove that language from the Code of Virginia and the Governor would have to sign it. VaHomeschoolers closely monitors legislation every year to ensure that this does not happen.

I have found that the best place for information has been the California state homeschool organizations. They are the ones most familiar with the state laws and the political climate (not to mention the ones with the most vested interest in the outcome!) and will be posting frequent updates as things go on.

• Homeschool Association of California
• California Homeschool Net

There was an informative podcast interview with Debbie Schwarzer,HSC Legal Team Co-chair. She talks a little about what they know about the case, what they are doing and reassures folks that right now what they need most is for everyone to sit tight and let them work on it.

National Home Education Legal Defense (NHELD) has issued a Bulletin about the ruling in which they talk a lot about the legal issues involved. I found this to be a good overview of the legal intricacies.

As far as the petition being circulated by HSLDA, HSC has said the following:

Dear List Members

We have seen a post forwarding a letter from HSLDA that addresses the recent court ruling regarding homeschooling in California. Their letter offers a link to a petition, saying that you can help stop this threat to homeschooling by signing the petition. While we believe there is no harm in signing the petition, we do not feel it is necessary.

We believe that it is important to remain calm and allow the Legal Teams of the various homeschooling organizations to address the issues appropriately through legal channels. We certainly understand that you will want to stay informed and be involved in any ways that can help in resolving threats to homeschooling freedoms, and we will be keeping you closely posted as things arise that can be impacted with your help.

So while we do not discourage you from signing the petition, we also see no benefit in signing it either.

We encourage you to read our position recently posted on our website at http://hsc.org/Appellatedecision

Thank you so much for all your patience and support.

Sincerely,
HSC Board of Directors
HSC Legal Team

I find this good to know as I have many issues with HSLDA’s political stances on issues outside of homeschooling and prefer not to give them my personal information (although I would have if it would have helped). It does look as if HSC and CHN are taking donations for their legal funds so that is another more direct and effective way of helping.

One lesson that I think can be taken from the situation in California is that it is is vitally important to support your statewide homeschool organization, if your state has one. California is lucky to have several active groups who already had networks and relationships in place so they were able to mobilize quickly.

Virginia is lucky as well to have two statewide organizations and it is for this reason that I donate both my time and money to VaHomeschoolers. VaHomeschoolers has been working for over 10 years to promote homeschooling, developing good working relationships with both the Virginia Department of Education as well as state lawmakers. VaHomeschoolers believes that all homeschoolers’ interests are served when government, news media, and the public see us as a diverse people united in our love of our children and in our valuing freedom to teach and learn at home.

Education is the key to keeping our homeschool freedoms.

So last week it got really cold for a few days (by northern Virginia standards…below freezing) and today it was 70 degrees. It seems to have been doing this for awhile this winter..days of really cold followed by days of spring.

My crocuses came up probably about a month ago and I keep expecting them to be dead. They would come up, open up, then shrink back and close up, but here they are opening up again (sorry, no picture!) The fragrance today was beautiful and you could smell them every time we opened the door.

The boys spent a lot of time on the trampoline today and Ellie was plain tuckered out (we finally had an electric fence installed so we can take her out and let her run to her hearts content). Spent some time shooting off sling-shot rockets (have I mentioned how much I love our huge backyard?) and did some other miscellaneous fun stuff.

All in all a great day and one that was much needed. I have been feeling the mid-winter blahs creeping in…the ones where you start feeling as if you are in a rut and start having that old “homeschooling panic” of not doing “enough” creep in. A day like today is a great antidote to that!

I realized that I forgot to link to a post that I had up at Life Without School back in December, called To Label or Not to Label.

One of the issues that I have seen many homeschoolers wrestle with (and have wrestled with myself) is when and if you should have your child evaluated. How do you know if the problem that your child is having is a “real issue” or if it is just that he follows a different, normal-for-him development timetable? I know that I worried about having my child “labeled”, yet I also worried about “missing” something important.

This is an issue that many homeschoolers wrestle with. One of the benefits of homeschooling is that we do not have to depend on the “experts” to tell us what our child needs. But sometimes it helps to get an outside opinion. The trick is trusting and educating yourself enough to know which is which.

One of the advantages to living where we do is the wealth of museums, many of which offer homeschool classes.

One such class was the Geodesic Dome class that Jason took at the National Building Museum. This the second class that we took and it was a lot of fun. The class was for 5th-8th graders, so Kyle spent the day with his friends Sean and Ray. They ended up going to the Natural History Museum which, being a major animal-lover, Kyle simply ate up. (Did I mention we have tons of great museums around here?)

It was actually kind of fun to be one-on-one with Jason. We grabbed a bite to eat afterwards and drove through Chinatown.

The class was a lot of fun…the Building Museum has a great history. It was built in 1881 and served originally as the Pension Bureau. It was also used to host the many Inaugural Balls.

One of the things that always hits me when we visit Washington DC is that it was a good thing that many of the federal buildings were built a long time ago, because if they were being built today, I do not think that they would be any where near as grand.

I don’t think in this day and age you would be able to justify that kind of elaborateness for a federal building. The architecture of the buildings is just incredible. Even office buildings like the IRS (in my working days I used be an IT consultant and worked downtown in the IRS building) have grand exteriors, sweepingly wide hallways and tons of marble and pillars and gorgeous accents.

But I digress. The class started out with a bit of lecture about the history of the building as well as a discussion about different roof types and the pros and cons of each.

Some of the kids demonstrated a”dome ceiling”

Then came the fun part! Building a geodesic dome in the lobby of the museum.

The dome got higher…

And higher…

And definitely took a team effort.

Until finally…

The dome was complete!

A few more pushes to make sure it was stable (and to see how strong it became once all the pieces were in place)…

Finished up with a little bit of lecture (made more fun because it was in the dome). And we were done!

It definitely does not get more “hands on” than this. Jason really enjoyed himself as did I. I have even more pictures of the class up over at flickr if you want to check them out.

After the class we walked around a bit and I took more pictures of some neat buildings outside the museum. I hope to have time to work on them and get some up soon.

Not June recently had a post, Should Boys Be Homeschooled and then followed it up today with additional comments on Girls Rule? I loved her pictures of her boys learning “in boy fashion” so I thought that I would add our own pics to the mix. Needless to say, I love homeschooling boys!

So Jason’s best friend Jack from Ocean City came up this afternoon to help celebrate a belated 11th birthday for Jason. They are having a blast.

So far they have done a little of everything…some legos, some pokemon, some Age of Empires, some sword fighting, some pizza, some cake, some air hockey, some laughing, some joking and a lot of fun.

Now the question is how to get them to go to sleep…

My fellow Life Without School author and friend Tammy has written some very insightful posts on Just Enough, and Nothing More about “deschooling”  to which I often refer new homeschoolers. Each time I end up re-searching her website to find them, so I have decided to collect my favorites here to make them easier to find!

• New to Homeschooling? Where to Start
• Deschooling Gently
• Deschooling Tips (for Homeschoolers)
• Top 10 Tips for Deschooling
• More About Deschooling
• Words of Homeschooling Wisdom

And these are just the tip of the iceberg. Tammy has lots of other pearls of wisdom on every aspect of homeschooling. Definitely take some time to pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee and read to your hearts content.

Enjoy!

But I am getting closer…progress not perfection!

I am trying to keep in mind that it has taken me quite awhile to get to the point I am now and that it will take more than a day to get back into balance!

I have made some progress. I have gone no mail on several email lists and am considering a few more. I have also identified several email lists that no matter how good the topic I am only going to read. These lists I have decided can continue perfectly fine without me jumping in <snort>. And the interesting thing is that since I have started doing this, I have realized that usually my point gets made by someone! I want to be able to focus my postings on my statewide and local homeschool lists (VaEclecticHS and NoVaUnschoolers) as well as Homeschooling Creatively. These are the ones that I most enjoy posting to and feel that I have the most to contribute to, so it makes sense to focus on those.

I have unsubbed from some blogs (sorry!) and am really trying to limit my reading time. This is the hard part too as there are so many wonderful blogs and great conversations going on, I just want to jump in on every one. So I am thinking about this as more of a “break” rather than an end. So if you see me commenting on a post that is weeks or months old you will know that I am catching up!

I have been working on re-focusing my work with VaHomeschoolers as well. The problem that we have is that there are so many exciting things that we want to accomplish it can get frustrating not to be able to do all of them now. The good thing is that we have been putting out calls for volunteers and getting them! We now have a new editor for the Out and About (VaHomeschoolers monthly activity and events email publication). This was a hat that I used to wear and am more than happy to pass it on. (Thanks Jennie!) So I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel there. And it has been very reassuring to find that as we do more and more outreach more and more people are stepping in to help. It really is the only way that we can survive.

Another interesting thing that I have noticed this week is that just shifting and realizing that I don’t have to do everything right now has put some space back into my life. I would get an email and think I had to respond immediately or read a post and want to write back right then. I am giving myself permission to wait a little bit. And I am finding that the world has not come to a crashing halt (imagine that!) Being online as much as I am can add an immediacy to life that can be daunting to keep up with.

One little change that has made a big impact is that I no longer get online as soon as I wake up. I used to not even get out of bed before grabbing my laptop! How crazy is that? I have changed my routine now so that I get up, walk and feed Ellie, make sure the boys are awake, take my shower, read a daily reading, meditate (or at least sit quietly) for 10 minutes (hoping to extend that but for now it works), finish getting ready and then go out into the family room to get online. This has helped immensely, although I have been surprised at how tempting it is to jump online to check the latest and see if there are more fires that need to be put out. Yes, I know, crazy.

In this same vein, I have also been working on changing my default mindset…I found that often when I had “free time” I would gravitate to the computer. I am now consciously choosing to do things around the house or with the boys.

It is a work in process, but at least I am trying!

And as coincidence would have it, Jeff and I are leaving on Friday for a 4 day cruise to the Bahamas with Jeff’s company. And I will not <gasp> have internet access! Which I think will be a good thing. It will force me to make a break and hopefully when I come back I will be able to be more balanced at what I start doing again. I am not really a cruise-type person, but I am looking forward to relaxing and getting away for a few days (my in-laws are coming up to stay with the boys). I hope to have time to focus some on my photography which is something that I have not had enough time to do lately. I have a few new photography books that I am bringing with me to read poolside and obviously will be bringing my camera with me.

So I will be offline for a little bit. But I will be back! So please keep checking back. Believe it or not, even though I want to get my online time back into balance, one of the things that I want to find more time for is blogging. I find that writing this blog is a wonderful creative outlet and I have so many things that I want to talk about. So one of my priorities is to find more time to write.

So here is to balance! May we all find what works for each of us…

That huge crashing sound you heard? That was my house of cards falling apart. What happened? Nothing major really. And that is the problem…it has not taken much lately to send me crashing because I have everything balanced “just so” which means that any little bump in the road causes me to crash. And I am tired of crashing.

I often have people ask me how I “do it all”. Well, it has become obvious that I can’t and I am killing myself trying.

My biggest problem is that everything that I am trying to do (well, mostly) is stuff that I enjoy and want to do, especially my homeschool advocacy and support work. But since there is so much of it I have found that I am feeling more stress than joy lately.

So I am going to scale back. I need to put my focus back on the boys and our homeschooling, where it belongs. Don’t get me wrong, we have been doing a lot and they are learning, but I just feel that I have not been putting as much thought into what we are doing as I would like. I have been finding myself not being as “present” as I want to be. Having too many things that I am responsible for means that I am always thinking about how I am going to get everything done and not enjoying what we are doing.

This is not going to be easy for me. I hate letting people down. But obviously life will go on and hopefully as I get more balanced I will be able to judiciously pick more things back up. And start enjoying them again.

I had forgotten that I had taken this test a little while ago and found it remarkably accurate for an online test. I also find it amusing that I am not borderline in any of my characteristics! No doubt where I fall.

My multiple intelligences results did not reveal any big surprises either. Interpersonal and verbal/linguistics are definitely my strong points.

Learning styles, personality types and multiple intelligences are fascinating to me. Guess that is one reason why I am so strong in interpersonal skills!

Go check it out!

I am sure that by now everyone has seen the news stories on how homeschoolers have propelled Huckabee to national prominence. Just had to add my voice to the growing chorus of homeschoolers…HOMESCHOOLERS ARE NOT ALL OF ONE POLITICAL PARTY OR ONE RELIGION. We are a diverse population from all walks of life and, yes, some of us are even <gasp> liberal!

Needless to say that I got a kick out of the the Homeschoolers For blog. Although their Barack Obama listings seem a bit weak…I may have to help remedy that…

A friend of mine, Laura had a great letter to the editor published in the Washington Post:

It would be a refreshing turn, though, to learn more in your pages about the diversity of positions we home-schoolers take, as many of us work to remove partisan political agendas from our conversations about educating children. Because we are accustomed to stepping outside the norm, dissent feels familiar, and we express it in multiple arenas — certainly not only in the limited world of Mike Huckabee’s conservative presidential campaign.

I have been trying to basically ignore most of the news stories that show up in my Google Alerts about Huckabee and homeschoolers as they usually do at least mention that it is evangelical homeschoolers who support Huckabee so strongly. And the truth is that some homeschoolers are definitely playing a big role in his campaign.

But the problem is when reporters start reporting on homeschooling in general and portraying homeschoolers in particular ways. Most reporters are not familiar with homeschooling and homeschoolers and usually don’t do much research when reporting on us. Kind of like this article from the New York Times:

It is unclear how many evangelical Christians in Iowa teach their children at home — some estimates are over 10,000 — but the network of families is tightly connected and highly motivated. They come together in groups and online to share curriculum information, form sports teams, and stage other activities. And many, aware that homeschooling was illegal in almost every state until recently, fear that if they relax their vigilance politically teachers’ unions will push to take away their rights.

First off, homeschooling has never been illegal. Second off, most homeschoolers I know do not live in fear that their homeschool rights are going to be taken away. Third off, the president honestly has very little to do with our homeschool rights as home instruction is handled at the state level.

Yes, we do have to be active to protect our homeschool rights and not take them for granted, but in my opinion, that is better done through supporting statewide homeschool organizations like VaHomeschoolers rather than presidential candidates. The truth is that homeschooling is not on shaky ground and does not depend on a president’s support.

I am not a one issue voter and to be honest with you, a presidential candidate’s opinion on homeschooling is far down the on the list of considerations. Homeschooling does color my views in many ways…I have found that I have more libertarian leanings since starting and tend to prefer that government leave me alone as much as possible. Yet, I also feel strongly that it is ok and even good for government to help those who need it and yes, I realize that these may seem somewhat contradictory. But that is ok…it works for me and I tend to not be a black and white person anyways. Nothing wrong with nuance. I guess that you could call me a Democrat with Libertarian leanings?

So don’t believe everything that you read in the newspapers about homeschooling. We are a much more diverse group than you might think based on the news coverage. Yes, we are passionate about what we do. And yes, we are very networked. But we come in all shapes, colors, religious backgrounds, political leanings, shoe sizes…hey just like the rest of the country!

Just realized that I have not really talked much about what we have been up to lately. This is mostly for family who might be interested, so feel free to skip if you want!

This Fall wound up being really quite busy and I am almost looking forward to things slowing down a little bit.

Kyle had been asking to take gymnastics for awhile now, so I finally was able to find a class through the county rec center that fit our schedule (on Mondays). Jason decided that it looked like fun, so he has just started this session.

Tuesdays were NoVaUnschoolers park days which were pretty much an all day thing…these were a lot of fun (it has been cold lately, so we have not been for the past couple of weeks). The boys have several friends who come and they have a great time playing tag or wading in the creek (until it dried up due to the drought this fall!) This is also a great time for me as it is as much a play date for me as it is for them. We have well over 20 families that come on a regular basis.

Jason also took a Pottery II class on Tuesday afternoons which he really enjoyed. We had to leave park day at 3:30, but luckily a friend (thanks Dena!) kept Kyle and I picked him up after Jason’s class. Jason learned a few new techniques and continues to enjoy experiment and creating with clay.

Wednesdays were free up until this past month when Kyle started taking swim lessons with his friend Sean. He is loving it and Jason likes the free swim time.

Thursdays have been our field trip/homeschool class day…we have done stream monitoring (will post pictures later), Mt. Vernon, the Luray Caverns trip, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, letter boxing at Burke Lake Park and hiking at Huntley Meadows. The boys are currently taking a nature center class on invertebrates which they are enjoying.

We ended up dropping Taekwondo this year.  They discontinued the homeschool class during the day and we tried to make it to the evening classes, but found that they really did not work in our schedule. Most of the times we were so busy during the day, the last thing the boys wanted to do was to head out to class at 5:00. They may give it another shot at another time if we can find a better way to work it into our schedule.

We are also really lucky in this area to have a wealth of opportunities for quality live theater performances. The Kennedy Center has a great program for schools (and homeschoolers) where tickets are only $5…we have tickets to The Phantom Tollbooth, The National Symphony Orchestra: Connections: More Math and Music, Step Afrika, Chasing George Washington: A White House Adventure, and Kite on the Wind: A Tale of Pakistan. George Mason University also offers the Theatreworks series where for $5 we get to see: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, The Mystery of Tut, and Aesop’s Fables. And the Smithsonian Discovery Theater has Nego Gato: Jogo Capoeria! and That’s Not Magic, It’s Science. Don’t worry…these shows are scheduled throughout the rest of the year, not all this month!

When we are home, Jason has been using Hands On Equations, which is a really neat introduction to algebraic thinking for elementary school aged kids. They use a game-type format…using pawns to represent variables along with a laminated scale to help model the equation. I have found that Jason enjoys this type of complex math much more than straight worksheets and the lessons have helped him work out many of the algebra rules (he figured out on his own how you can simplify the equations). I can see the wheels turning when he works on this. And it also gives him a chance to use his math facts which, for him, is a better way for him to learn them. We are also doing a lot of “math through literature”, reading Mathematicians are People Too (which focuses on the lives of mathematicians) as well as lots of great “living math” books. Jason has also been doing Daily Grams to help with grammar, punctuation, and the like. They are just worksheets that can be done in a relatively short amount of time…not the most exciting things, but it gets the job done with little pain.

With the holidays coming up, I have decided that we are going to keep it pretty simple and just do these two things on a regular basis and then supplement with a lot of educational videos. There will just be too much going on for me to really sit down and plan anything out. The great thing is that there are tons of great videos to watch. We watched “Science of the Samurai Sword” (a Nova show) that was fascinating. It used current science to explain why the samurai sword and the ancient methods of making it created such a quality sword. The science was actually very interesting and I always like it when traditional methods are shown to have a reason behind them. And equally fascinating that they were able to figure these things out without the help of modern science!

I am still working with Kyle on his reading. It is coming along, but has not quite “clicked” yet. He knows all his letter sounds and his short vowels and can sound out a lot of words and recognize a few. But he is has not made the jump to recognizing words without sounding them out (pretty interesting that he is the exact opposite of Jason…when Jason started reading he could only see the whole word and had trouble breaking it down…whereas Kyle only seems to see the individual letters and has trouble seeing the whole word. Go figure!) We are using the Bob Book series which Kyle seems to like. We are on Set 2, Book 3. We usually do a lesson in the evening before I read to him. For math we are currently doing a lot of math games…I got the Right Start Math Card Game set which has lots of games that cover a wide range of topics. And as always Kyle loves to play board games and card games.

Kyle cracks me up sometimes…just this morning he came in to tell me that he had figured out what 55+55 was. 110. He was so proud of figuring it out and he told me how he did it step by step (he knew that 50+50 was 100 and so he subtracted 5 from 55 to get 50 and then 5+5=10). I asked him if there was a reason why he needed to know this and he said no, he had just been thinking about it. Sounds good to me!

We also read tons…Kyle and I are almost finished with The Spiderwick Chronicles (the movie is scheduled to come out in February). Jason and I have been reading a really good fantasy book called Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog by Ysabeau Wilce. Hard to summarize and a bit different, but really, really good. A publisher on the Child Lit list was giving away copies so I grabbed one and read it this summer to check it out. I was completely drawn in and did not even mind re-reading it with Jason. We’ll have to post a review soon. I can’t wait for the next one (given the ending, I am pretty sure that there will be a next one).

In the car we are listening to The Capture by Kathryn Lasky which looks like it will be our new series (I think there are 3 so far). The boys are really liking it. Before that we listened to The Phantom Tollbooth (in preparation for the Kennedy Center performance that was this week) and The Secret of Castle Cant by K.P. Bath. Hmmm…just noticed that there is a second in the series, so I think we will have to check it out.

Oh and the boys go through quite a few audio books on their own as well, especially Jason. I am very lucky that the Fairfax County Library has such an extensive selection!
Well, that is it for now, I think. I will have to get back to talking more about what we are doing…if I can find the time. Right now I am starting to enter “survive December mode”…between Jason’s birthday (next week!) and the holidays and the fact that there is still a lot of VaHomeschoolers stuff on my plate, I am already feeling behind. And the month has not even started yet…

Watch this video to find out! I think that most homeschoolers will really appreciate this one.

I will say that Dav Pilkey has a special place in my heart…his Captain Underpants were the first books that Jason read on his own and got him over the initial hump of reading “chapter books”. What 8 year old boy can resist titles such as Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People and Captain Underpants and the Attach of the Talking Toliets. Especially when Mom lets you know that she has absolutely no desire to read them!

And a neat thing that I did not realize…Dav Pilkey also wrote the Big Dog Little Dog board books! These were some of Jason’s (and my) favorite board books. While I have gotten rid of most of our old board books, these are among the ones that I saved (along with the Busy Bugs board books and Bean the Cat board books). Cool!