Wordless Wednesday

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Weekly Wrap-Up: SPRING BREAK!!!

School was out for the week, here in this house anyway. In my small town, they really don't have a Spring Break as I know it. They [students] end up with a 4 or 5 day weekend. So while my kids took this entire week as a vacation, everyone else had to go to school through Wednesday. Homeschool WIN!

And since we did very little this week, I will just share photos from this week. :)
(those viewing this through my LJ, the original post is at http://spiral-goddess.blogspot.com/)

Monday: We did some Read It-Write It-Draw It books for kicks. Then we headed out to the store so I could make mental notes of things I would like to have to make storing homeschooling supplies easier. As well as stuff and things.


Tuesday: Absolutely not a thing.

Wednesday: Happy St. Patrick's Day! We were set to have a play-date, but our friends were sick. :( However, they did drop off some tasty treats for us that EVERYONE enjoyed.



Thursday: It totally felt like SPRING today. All of the snow was gone and the temp rose up to 60 degrees F!! So we walked to our public library, then walked to our public playground/park, then walked back home. On the way home we greeted wild-life, such as two garter snakes and some bugs. :)
`

Friday: We got 4 inches of snow and spent the entire day in the house incredibly annoyed with Mother Nature.

Secular Thursday: Minority

Being a minority within a minority WITHIN A MINORITY sometimes makes me want to punch people in the face if they make one of those kinds of comments.

First, ethnically, I'm a minority. I am Hispanic, and in this incredibly small town in Iowa, there are like 3 of us. Two living on the same street (me and my neighbor). LOL. Normally this doesn't bother me. Even though English was my second language, I've mastered it to a point where I sound like the average American. Hell, I have better enunciation, spelling and grammar skills than most Americans I have met that are my age. But if I'm in a store, talking to my mother in Spanish when I'm on the phone with her, people start to stare. The customers stare, and then the clerk(s) look at me like I'm about to shoplift or something. (Yes, because a woman arguing with her mother on the phone while trying to keep her 3 small children from hiding in the racks and making it a jungle safari is there to shoplift.) I've even been FOLLOWED.

Second, I homeschool. Fifty percent of the people here are farmers, 40% are corporate workers in one thing or another, and the other 10% work here in town. Most parents send their kids to public or private school because they cannot make the time to homeschool, or just don't have an interest in doing so, and that's cool. I was a public school kid growing up. I was a LATCH-KEY kid because both of my parents were working, and my older siblings had their own lives going on. To each their own. But not many people homeschool. It's difficult. AND you don't get paid for it. PLUS you're stuck with your kids all day. :) I don't know many parents who find that appealing in the least. People keep thinking I'm SuperMom or something because I *want* to be with my kids all the time. (Though sometimes I would like a vacation)

Third, I am Pagan. When most people accept you homeschool, they think you do it for religious reasons, which is fine. But they automatically assume it's Christian based. But if I say no, I am not a follower of Christianity, a whole new stream of negativity is thrown at me, which is also accompanied by the last minority in this "list"--I'm a SECULAR homeschooler.

Religion is not frowned upon here. On the contrary, it's discussed quite frequently. My mother is a Christian pastor. She created her church, does her own thing, and we discuss the teachings of Christ, the older scriptures, and how it can easily meld with Science frequently. (I lucked out. My mom's not a crazy, she knows Science is fact built by many theories that were proven through extensive research and experimentation. But she also finds [and I agree with her] that it is overseen by Divinity [though we don't agree on who].) I study religion as a hobby and my husband and I both collect religious texts for educational purposes. I believe that you better understand people if you can better understand their beliefs, their faith system. My husband is an atheist. His only religion revolves around his nerd, lol, but he knows that if it is a healthy way of life, something that helps you be a better person, there is no reason to bring it down or "ban" it from the house. Everyone has the right to believe the way they are most comfortable as long as that way is not harmful to them or those around them. And though we do discuss openly about beliefs and the mythology surrounding those beliefs, it is never set as truth, because we have no proof. So I try and keep my religious views out of our schooling. I want my children to decide what they believe on their own terms. If my children ask me a question that's religion-based, I have no problem answering, but I always emphasize that it is what *I* believe, and that it is ok if they believe something differently because there is nothing to prove any of us wrong, so no one can be right or wrong.

But I digress...

I've learned that sometimes it's easier to just keep my big mouth (and I mean that in a literal sense) shut. It's not that I'm not happy being this or that, or being a "minority" six different ways from Sunday, but it seems that people just keep getting dumber. So when anyone finds out that I'm a Hispanic secular homeschooling Pagan mom and they feel like adding their negative two cents, I just want to slap them. Slap them in their pretty mouths. But instead I have to do it the easy way and just ignore them. Violence only ever teaches that it hurts to get hit, even if you are wishing you could smack them smarter.

Lapbook Giveaway

Tristan over at Our Busy Homeschool is doing a lapbook giveaway. She bought a lifetime membership after already paying for one year, so now Hands of a Child is giving the rest of her membership (seven months!) FREE to one lucky person!

Truthfully, I'm hoping it's me. :D But, you should go and try a chance at winning it, too! Go click the above linked text!

Secular Thursday: Why Homeschool?

The past forever, everyone has asked us why we are choosing to homeschool our children. Like each of my pregnancies, this wasn't something I had originally planned. I had planned to work outside the home, have my children go to public school, until I actually had my children and watched them learn and grow.

My husband is a genius. While most people retain 50% of what is taught to them, he can retain 70-80%. I was a "gifted" student. Not anywhere near my husband (who graduated high school with academic honors without even trying) but still above the average. My children seem to have inherited our awesome. LOL

I have absolutely no problem with public school. Both my husband and I went to public school, and I know I have fond memories of my high school years. But academically, I was never challenged. I wasn't "smart enough" to skip a grade, but I was "smart-enough" to finish my tasks before all the other students and space out. When I was put in the Talented and Gifted program, the teachers expected us to already know everything; "You're a TAG student, you should know this". My education was stunted, I plateaued at an early age, and never felt motivated enough to challenge myself with other things.

Lily is currently going to a private preschool, and though the standards of that preschool are higher than the public school's she is STILL two years ahead of everyone in her class. Iris, who is two years younger then her older sister, is also two years ahead of most children her age. Because of their age, I cannot put them in a higher grade. Because I cannot put them in a higher grade, they are stuck with the children their age, who are at a different level, and get bored. Because they get bored, they end up being naughty. Lily has gotten into the habit of painting all over herself when she is done with an activity b/c everyone else is still busy with theirs. If she finishes early, which she usually does, she gets bored and then gets up and leaves the room. Sometimes, she just straight up refuses to participate.

What I've come to know about my children makes homeschooling the best opportunity for our children to learn. I know how Iris learns. I know how Lily learns. I know what works with what children and can adjust to better suit their learning abilities. In public school, the problems assessed would only be the majority. Unfortunately that would not work for my children, since they are not part of the majority. Also, I have more one-on-one time with each child, since I only have three children and not 16.

One thing that seems to go along with the "why homeschool" question is socialization. What irks me about those statements is do they honestly believe I'm going o keep my kids cooped up in the house all day every day? There are activities that they can be placed in with other children. Sports, of all shapes and sizes are incorporated AND we take them to areas where there will be children their age that they can interact with, such as the park, or the play area in our local malls. (By local, I mean 30 minutes away.) I am a social butterfly. I LOVE people. I cannot imagine not having my children out and about making new friends and acquaintances.

For now, with how "smart" our children are, homeschooling is the best option to better harness their awesome. And studies show that there is a direct correlation between my kids and awesome. :)

Wordless Wednesday: Rearranging the Playroom/Classroom

2010-2011 Curriculum

I can't afford it. No matter how cheap someone can find it, we just do not have the money to buy any sort of curriculum in any subject. So, what do I plan to do? Completely pull it out of my butt and do the lesson plans myself. I think my brain just imploded.

I am at a complete loss. OK, maybe not a complete loss, but I'm still at some sort of a loss. Lily is supposed to be in pre-K next year. She was going to go again to the preschool that she is going to now, but she's been deliberating because shes been bored out of her mind. We are almost completely done with her Kindergarten workbook. She's been retaining everything; I'm super proud of her. So for now, I will be "reviewing" most of what she's learned in pre-K and K, and starting 1st grade work with her next year. There are some things I want to make sure she understands and has in her head before "leaving" Kinder.

I have NO IDEA what 1st graders learn, so I'm pulling ideas out of thin air right now:

• I've planned time for Foreign Language (which will be Spanish, French, German, and Chinese)
• We will have time for Phonics/Reading, Writing & Spelling, sentence structure
• addition and subtraction as well as skip counting; sequencing and sorting
• I'm thinking of covering the Human Body for Science; muscles, digestive system, nervous system, skeletal system, endocrine system, the like. The weather and seasons, astronomy, states of matter.
• Start off with US history in the fall, starting with the States, and then Iowa and Nebraska and working from there. Later doing Britain, medieval times, Ancient Greece and Rome.
• I want to make time for art, music, and physical play.

Once I have a schedule set out for when to do what and for how long (like Foreign Language will be an hour long: 15 minutes per language) I'm hoping to be able to plan out the ENTIRE year. If any of you readers out there do, or have done 1st grade, what have you done and do you have any advice? All comments are welcome!