Thursday, March 27, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
New Computer At Last!
Well I finally went and bought a new computer! That means I will start posting more pictures as well because I now have an up-to-date computer that I can download my camera software on to. I really want to start putting more pictures of Brenna's work and the experiments that we do. So I think it will be fun for everyone. :) I want to try to put small videos on the blog too - I will have to figure out how to do that.
Anyway, tomorrow night we are going to an Easter Egg Hunt with the homeschool group. The church that the group meets at do it every year. It is at someone's house out on 3 acres and there will be bouncy houses, hotdogs and and an egg hunt as soon as it gets dark. The kids find eggs by flashlight! I think we are going to have sooo much fun!
Well everyone, look for lots and lots of pictures soon! I will also post again later when I have more time! :)
Anyway, tomorrow night we are going to an Easter Egg Hunt with the homeschool group. The church that the group meets at do it every year. It is at someone's house out on 3 acres and there will be bouncy houses, hotdogs and and an egg hunt as soon as it gets dark. The kids find eggs by flashlight! I think we are going to have sooo much fun!
Well everyone, look for lots and lots of pictures soon! I will also post again later when I have more time! :)
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Livestock Show
Brendon, Brenna and I went to the livestock show this past weekend and had a wonderful time! Brenna really showed more of an interest in the animals this year and even asked me if she could raise a pig when she gets bigger. YEA! Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I was in FFA in High School and had animals at the stock show - those were my fondest memories and I absolutely loved it. I would be the happiest Mom in the world if Brenna decided that she wanted to do the same thing. Brendon said that the only reason I want her to do it is so I can do it again too. LOL I did look into 4-H but according to the website she has to be 8 or older to participate. If anyone (maybe Stephanie!??) knows different then please let me know. I don't think that I would necessarily have her raise an animal right away but it would be nice to get her involved with a horticulture project or something. We did see this little girl (maybe about 7?) showing a heifer at the stock show and Brenna was AMAZED and thought she was great. :)
Anyways, Brenna had a blast at the carnival too! We got her a wrist band so she was able to go on all the rides she wanted to. I think that's where we spent most of the day. Oh, and guess what?? She had to stand in line! *GASP* It was touch and go there for a little while but she did pretty good for a homeschooled kid who didn't learn how to stand in line at school. (Sorry - I had to be a little sarcastic there. If your confused, read my previous post....)
So of course I don't have any pictures because I forgot to take my camera. Maybe we'll go again next weekend and I won't be so forgetful. I just feel that I HAVE to get a picture of her standing in line for the blog. That would be too funny. :) Maybe I'll put it on the sidebar with a cute little caption. LOL
Till next time.... off to bed. :)
Anyways, Brenna had a blast at the carnival too! We got her a wrist band so she was able to go on all the rides she wanted to. I think that's where we spent most of the day. Oh, and guess what?? She had to stand in line! *GASP* It was touch and go there for a little while but she did pretty good for a homeschooled kid who didn't learn how to stand in line at school. (Sorry - I had to be a little sarcastic there. If your confused, read my previous post....)
So of course I don't have any pictures because I forgot to take my camera. Maybe we'll go again next weekend and I won't be so forgetful. I just feel that I HAVE to get a picture of her standing in line for the blog. That would be too funny. :) Maybe I'll put it on the sidebar with a cute little caption. LOL
Till next time.... off to bed. :)
Monday, March 03, 2008
Rants of a Non-Conformist
So I'm warning you now - if you don't want to hear/read strong opinions about my thoughts on homeschooling then I suggest you just skip this post. And just for the record - I do not mean to offend anyone.
The thing that really irks me though is when people who know NOTHING about homeschooling open their mouths and tell you what you are doing is wrong. Maybe not in those exact words but they pretty much get their opinion across to you. Most of these people base their opinion on a "couple weird homeschool kids" they knew years ago. So are they weird and a little shy BECAUSE of homeschooling or would they be the same way if they attended public or private school?? I actually worked in a private school for a little while and came across some kids who were a "little off" and not as social as most of the other kids. Did I think anything of it? No, because everyone has a different personality - some are not as outgoing as others, even as adults. It's not fair that people tend to judge and scrutinize homeschooled children more then they do school kids. Perfect example of #20 from the Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List - "Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood." How true that is.
So yes, as you can tell, the reason for this post is because I had a run-in with a person who just does not agree with my choice at all. Not a friend or family member - I will just say that it was an acquaintance.
Basically their whole argument was the "socialization thing". Without even knowing ANYTHING at all about homeschooling they had the nerve to tell me that they were worried about my child socially.
***insert huge eye roll***
"What about having friends?" (She has more than I do!)
"How is she going to learn how to behave and follow directions?" (Because she spends all day with her meanie Mommy who orders her around, makes her clean her room, help with the house work, feed all her pets, take her on all my errands - you want me to go on??? I think what you might ACTUALLY be concerned about is that my kid is not going to turn out to be some cookie-cutter, government raised school child who can't think for herself)
"How is she going to learn how to stand in line?" (You're kidding, right????? What are some of your examples of standing in line in everyday life? The grocery store, bank, DMV - been there, done that - WITH my child. She learns about standing in line just fine THANK YOU. In fact, she acts better most of the time then other children at those places, who I assume learned to stand in line at school)
"Does she get to play with other kids on a regular basis?" (No, she's locked up at home all day and night and has absolutely no contact with other children..... Of course she gets to play with other kids!! I've practically adopted the neighborhood children!)
Ok, so if you know my child AT ALL then you would know that she does, in fact, know how to socialize - I call her my social little butterfly. Most of the time I can not get her to QUIT talking! She talks to EVERYBODY! When we go to the park she is the first kid there to walk up to another kid and say, "Hi! My name is Brenna - do you want to play?" As for having friends - almost every day of the week I have at least two kids from our neighborhood over here playing. Actually, as I am writing this right now she is in her room playing with three little girls that live in our neighborhood. She has friends in my Mom's neighborhood, in karate, Girl Scouts and in our homeschool group. My daughter gets along and knows how to socialize with kids of ALL AGES. She has friends as young as 3 and as old as 10 and they get along GREAT and act as if age difference is not a factor. Would she get that in school? No - she would be segregated into a classroom with children 6 months older or 6 months younger then her. Is that realistic? Does that happen in real life? When was the last time that you were at a job or a party or at any kind of function where ALL of the people were either 6 months younger or 6 months older then you (well besides your High School reunion LOL)? In real life you need to learn to get along with people of all ages, right? Socialization is what happens in society. When we play, talk, work and live with other people - people of all ages - we are socialized by the experience. Very little of this happens in schools.
Here are a few paragraphs from a wonderful article that I found written by a homeschool parent of five years. It says exactly how I feel but I am not able to put it into words as eloquently as he does so I will just share this with you (read the entire article here).......
"In order for children to become assimilated into society properly, it is important to have a variety of experiences and be exposed to differing opinions and views. This enables them to think for themselves and form their own opinions. This is exactly what public education does not want; public education is for the lowest common denominator and influencing all of the students to share the same views ("group-think") and thought-control through various means, including peer-pressure.
Homeschooling allows parents the freedom to associate with other interested parties, visit local businesses, museums, libraries, etc. as part of school, and to interact with people of all ages in the community. For example, my son goes on field trips with other homeschooling families in our community. He recently was able to visit an audiologist, a McDonald's restaurant (to see how they run their operation), and several other similar activities. He gets to meet and talk to people of different ages doing interesting (and sometimes not so interesting) occupations. He spends a lot of his free time with kids older and younger than himself, and adults from twenty to over ninety years old.
Meanwhile, in public school, children are segregated by age, and have very little interaction with other adults, except their teacher(s). This environment only promotes alienation from different age groups, especially adults. This is beginning to look like the real socialization problem."
Brenna interacts with many, many children as well as adults - which is very important too. As most of you know, I am my Grandfather's caretaker and Brenna and I go over there everyday of the week. She spends a lot of time with her great-grandparents. My Grandpa has diabetes and has been on dialysis for the past couple years. When Brenna is around him she is so sweet and she loves to take care of her Papa. She has learned empathy, caring and how to interact with older people. She knows that she has to 'speak up a little' and she knows what is and is not good for Papa to eat (she sounds so cute when she says, "Papa, that's not good for your blood sugar!"). She is getting a priceless life lesson by spending so much time with them. If she was going to school, she would be missing out on all of that.
The bottom line on all of this is that I love my daughter with everything that I have. I love spending time with her and teaching her and yes, I love the fact that I have control over what kind of socialization she obtains and who it is with. If that sounds too protective, then so be it. Brendon and I are the only people in this whole world who are responsible for raising her and making sure that she turns out to be the best person that she can be.
I apologize for being so blunt and opinionated in this post. I told Brendon that I was going to post about this after I had that encounter and he said that I should just let it go and not write this post. I told him though that I would never say any of this TO someone (at least not as ugly LOL) and that I am usually not this obnoxious but this IS my blog and it IS about homeschooling - the good and the bad - and that I should be able to write what and how I feel. I don't force anyone to read this. I love to write and I really enjoy it.
And just for the record - I don't want anyone to feel that they can't talk to me about homeschooling for fear that I will "blow up" and become offended. I LOVE talking about it and I love educating people and answering questions. Questions, even the silliest ones, I don't mind (I actually LOVE them! :) - I just get irritated when uneducated people spout off stupid, ignorant things when they have no idea what they are talking about.
Thanks for letting me vent. Maybe SOMEBODY got some entertainment from it. LOL :) *cringing as I hit the "Publish Post" button*
********************************************************
So I have been 'officially' homeschooling for almost an entire school year and have not really come across very many people that object to my choice. For the most part everyone pretty much supports me and I am grateful for that. My family has stood behind me 100% - maybe not since day one when I first brought it up, but after educating them on homeschooling I think those who were iffy about it have realized that it's not such a horrible thing and is nothing like they thought it was. To be honest, when I first heard of homeschooling the first thing that came to my mind was "Oh, those poor kids!". Since then I have educated myself and have read many, many books about the subject. You will not find a more passionate person about homeschooling. I love to talk to people about it, even though I find myself not offering as much information as I used to unless the person I am talking to specifically asks about it.The thing that really irks me though is when people who know NOTHING about homeschooling open their mouths and tell you what you are doing is wrong. Maybe not in those exact words but they pretty much get their opinion across to you. Most of these people base their opinion on a "couple weird homeschool kids" they knew years ago. So are they weird and a little shy BECAUSE of homeschooling or would they be the same way if they attended public or private school?? I actually worked in a private school for a little while and came across some kids who were a "little off" and not as social as most of the other kids. Did I think anything of it? No, because everyone has a different personality - some are not as outgoing as others, even as adults. It's not fair that people tend to judge and scrutinize homeschooled children more then they do school kids. Perfect example of #20 from the Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List - "Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood." How true that is.
So yes, as you can tell, the reason for this post is because I had a run-in with a person who just does not agree with my choice at all. Not a friend or family member - I will just say that it was an acquaintance.
Basically their whole argument was the "socialization thing". Without even knowing ANYTHING at all about homeschooling they had the nerve to tell me that they were worried about my child socially.
***insert huge eye roll***
"What about having friends?" (She has more than I do!)
"How is she going to learn how to behave and follow directions?" (Because she spends all day with her meanie Mommy who orders her around, makes her clean her room, help with the house work, feed all her pets, take her on all my errands - you want me to go on??? I think what you might ACTUALLY be concerned about is that my kid is not going to turn out to be some cookie-cutter, government raised school child who can't think for herself)
"How is she going to learn how to stand in line?" (You're kidding, right????? What are some of your examples of standing in line in everyday life? The grocery store, bank, DMV - been there, done that - WITH my child. She learns about standing in line just fine THANK YOU. In fact, she acts better most of the time then other children at those places, who I assume learned to stand in line at school)
"Does she get to play with other kids on a regular basis?" (No, she's locked up at home all day and night and has absolutely no contact with other children..... Of course she gets to play with other kids!! I've practically adopted the neighborhood children!)
Ok, so if you know my child AT ALL then you would know that she does, in fact, know how to socialize - I call her my social little butterfly. Most of the time I can not get her to QUIT talking! She talks to EVERYBODY! When we go to the park she is the first kid there to walk up to another kid and say, "Hi! My name is Brenna - do you want to play?" As for having friends - almost every day of the week I have at least two kids from our neighborhood over here playing. Actually, as I am writing this right now she is in her room playing with three little girls that live in our neighborhood. She has friends in my Mom's neighborhood, in karate, Girl Scouts and in our homeschool group. My daughter gets along and knows how to socialize with kids of ALL AGES. She has friends as young as 3 and as old as 10 and they get along GREAT and act as if age difference is not a factor. Would she get that in school? No - she would be segregated into a classroom with children 6 months older or 6 months younger then her. Is that realistic? Does that happen in real life? When was the last time that you were at a job or a party or at any kind of function where ALL of the people were either 6 months younger or 6 months older then you (well besides your High School reunion LOL)? In real life you need to learn to get along with people of all ages, right? Socialization is what happens in society. When we play, talk, work and live with other people - people of all ages - we are socialized by the experience. Very little of this happens in schools.
Here are a few paragraphs from a wonderful article that I found written by a homeschool parent of five years. It says exactly how I feel but I am not able to put it into words as eloquently as he does so I will just share this with you (read the entire article here).......
"In order for children to become assimilated into society properly, it is important to have a variety of experiences and be exposed to differing opinions and views. This enables them to think for themselves and form their own opinions. This is exactly what public education does not want; public education is for the lowest common denominator and influencing all of the students to share the same views ("group-think") and thought-control through various means, including peer-pressure.
Homeschooling allows parents the freedom to associate with other interested parties, visit local businesses, museums, libraries, etc. as part of school, and to interact with people of all ages in the community. For example, my son goes on field trips with other homeschooling families in our community. He recently was able to visit an audiologist, a McDonald's restaurant (to see how they run their operation), and several other similar activities. He gets to meet and talk to people of different ages doing interesting (and sometimes not so interesting) occupations. He spends a lot of his free time with kids older and younger than himself, and adults from twenty to over ninety years old.
Meanwhile, in public school, children are segregated by age, and have very little interaction with other adults, except their teacher(s). This environment only promotes alienation from different age groups, especially adults. This is beginning to look like the real socialization problem."
Brenna interacts with many, many children as well as adults - which is very important too. As most of you know, I am my Grandfather's caretaker and Brenna and I go over there everyday of the week. She spends a lot of time with her great-grandparents. My Grandpa has diabetes and has been on dialysis for the past couple years. When Brenna is around him she is so sweet and she loves to take care of her Papa. She has learned empathy, caring and how to interact with older people. She knows that she has to 'speak up a little' and she knows what is and is not good for Papa to eat (she sounds so cute when she says, "Papa, that's not good for your blood sugar!"). She is getting a priceless life lesson by spending so much time with them. If she was going to school, she would be missing out on all of that.
The bottom line on all of this is that I love my daughter with everything that I have. I love spending time with her and teaching her and yes, I love the fact that I have control over what kind of socialization she obtains and who it is with. If that sounds too protective, then so be it. Brendon and I are the only people in this whole world who are responsible for raising her and making sure that she turns out to be the best person that she can be.
I apologize for being so blunt and opinionated in this post. I told Brendon that I was going to post about this after I had that encounter and he said that I should just let it go and not write this post. I told him though that I would never say any of this TO someone (at least not as ugly LOL) and that I am usually not this obnoxious but this IS my blog and it IS about homeschooling - the good and the bad - and that I should be able to write what and how I feel. I don't force anyone to read this. I love to write and I really enjoy it.
And just for the record - I don't want anyone to feel that they can't talk to me about homeschooling for fear that I will "blow up" and become offended. I LOVE talking about it and I love educating people and answering questions. Questions, even the silliest ones, I don't mind (I actually LOVE them! :) - I just get irritated when uneducated people spout off stupid, ignorant things when they have no idea what they are talking about.
Thanks for letting me vent. Maybe SOMEBODY got some entertainment from it. LOL :) *cringing as I hit the "Publish Post" button*
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Co-op Classes
So I guess everyone is just going to have to accept the fact that I will have a new post about every two weeks. LOL I know I was supposed to post after our first co-op class but now two have passed and I am just getting around to writing.
The classes so far have gone pretty well. We have such a wonderful group of kids and they are all so pleasent to be around and so easy to teach. As I said before, we have been learning about weather in the Kinder-1st class. The past two weeks have been about the water cycle and they have really seemed to enjoy it. I only have two more weeks of playing teacher until it is my turn to help the mom who is helping me right now. I think I am finished with the water cycle so I will have to come up with something new. Brenna mentioned learning about rainbows and I actually came across a cool science experiment involving milk, oil and food coloring. I'll have to try that one out and see what else I can come up with too.
The Mom's Chat that we have been doing at co-op has been nice. As I mentioned before, all the moms take turns and only teach for one hour out of the two. The hour that you are not teaching is spent sitting and talking about various topics with some of the other moms. As I said, it's nice BUT I think it is waaayyy too structured. There is a moderator who kinda keeps things going by following a detailed agenda typed up on a piece of paper. So that might be okay for a bunch of people sitting around who had absolutely nothing to talk about but that is definitely not a problem with our group. In fact, before we 'officially' start with the chat we are all sitting around having a great conversation that is suddenly haulted when our moderator shows up. Our last chat was about our kids and what kind of responsibilities they have around the house. The only thing we had time for (the hour goes by pretty fast) was going around the table and listening to each person say what their kid(s) does around the house. I really don't think anyone got anything useful out of the whole thing. Maybe next week I'll volunteer to be the moderator, stand up, rip up the agenda and say "Ok ladies, let's just TALK!" LOL!! Yeah right.
Anyway, we have been busy painting the outside of our house, FINALLY! When we bought our house almost four years ago the paint was pretty shabby and has done nothing but get worse. We had someone come and replace some boards, which is what was holding us up. So after that got finished I became a painting fool. We have the front pretty much finished except for a few small details. It looks soooo much better and we are very happy with it. This weekend we were supposed to start on the sides but I seriously need a break. I didn't realize how much work it is to paint a house! It's not just the painting though - it's the pressure washing, sanding and caulking that takes up so much time. I seriously went through four tubes of caulking just in the front! So next weekend we will pick up our brushes again and get to work. I will have to post some before and after pictures on here soon.
So Brenna has been doing great with her homeschooling. I have been really concentrating on her reading comprehension lately. Since she is getting so good at reading I kinda wanted to see if she was just 'going through the motions' or if she was really comprehending what she was reading. After she reads a book now I have been asking her questions about the story. Come to find out she really does pay attention to what she is reading and does a fantastic job answering my questions. I also have this booklet with short stories that have little quizzes and she does great with those as well. We've also been doing some math here and there - addition, subtraction and even touching on a little bit of multiplication. My next project I want to do is get a big map of the world and start studying where all of our food that we eat comes from. I want her to realize that food does not just come from the grocery store and that most of it comes from very far away. I thought it would be interesting to hang up the map somewhere and start labeling it with pictures and/or words of the foods we buy.
Ok, well I am off to clean my house. It's gotten pretty bad this week since I used every second of my free time to paint. I am going to send Brenna and Brendon off to play golf while I crank up my music and get my house in order again!
Hope everyone has a great week! :)
(Note - Please forgive any misspellings. For some reason the Spell Checker on here is not working)
The classes so far have gone pretty well. We have such a wonderful group of kids and they are all so pleasent to be around and so easy to teach. As I said before, we have been learning about weather in the Kinder-1st class. The past two weeks have been about the water cycle and they have really seemed to enjoy it. I only have two more weeks of playing teacher until it is my turn to help the mom who is helping me right now. I think I am finished with the water cycle so I will have to come up with something new. Brenna mentioned learning about rainbows and I actually came across a cool science experiment involving milk, oil and food coloring. I'll have to try that one out and see what else I can come up with too.
The Mom's Chat that we have been doing at co-op has been nice. As I mentioned before, all the moms take turns and only teach for one hour out of the two. The hour that you are not teaching is spent sitting and talking about various topics with some of the other moms. As I said, it's nice BUT I think it is waaayyy too structured. There is a moderator who kinda keeps things going by following a detailed agenda typed up on a piece of paper. So that might be okay for a bunch of people sitting around who had absolutely nothing to talk about but that is definitely not a problem with our group. In fact, before we 'officially' start with the chat we are all sitting around having a great conversation that is suddenly haulted when our moderator shows up. Our last chat was about our kids and what kind of responsibilities they have around the house. The only thing we had time for (the hour goes by pretty fast) was going around the table and listening to each person say what their kid(s) does around the house. I really don't think anyone got anything useful out of the whole thing. Maybe next week I'll volunteer to be the moderator, stand up, rip up the agenda and say "Ok ladies, let's just TALK!" LOL!! Yeah right.
Anyway, we have been busy painting the outside of our house, FINALLY! When we bought our house almost four years ago the paint was pretty shabby and has done nothing but get worse. We had someone come and replace some boards, which is what was holding us up. So after that got finished I became a painting fool. We have the front pretty much finished except for a few small details. It looks soooo much better and we are very happy with it. This weekend we were supposed to start on the sides but I seriously need a break. I didn't realize how much work it is to paint a house! It's not just the painting though - it's the pressure washing, sanding and caulking that takes up so much time. I seriously went through four tubes of caulking just in the front! So next weekend we will pick up our brushes again and get to work. I will have to post some before and after pictures on here soon.
So Brenna has been doing great with her homeschooling. I have been really concentrating on her reading comprehension lately. Since she is getting so good at reading I kinda wanted to see if she was just 'going through the motions' or if she was really comprehending what she was reading. After she reads a book now I have been asking her questions about the story. Come to find out she really does pay attention to what she is reading and does a fantastic job answering my questions. I also have this booklet with short stories that have little quizzes and she does great with those as well. We've also been doing some math here and there - addition, subtraction and even touching on a little bit of multiplication. My next project I want to do is get a big map of the world and start studying where all of our food that we eat comes from. I want her to realize that food does not just come from the grocery store and that most of it comes from very far away. I thought it would be interesting to hang up the map somewhere and start labeling it with pictures and/or words of the foods we buy.
Ok, well I am off to clean my house. It's gotten pretty bad this week since I used every second of my free time to paint. I am going to send Brenna and Brendon off to play golf while I crank up my music and get my house in order again!
Hope everyone has a great week! :)
(Note - Please forgive any misspellings. For some reason the Spell Checker on here is not working)
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