Do Our Teens NEED to Work Independently?

Have you read this article? If You Want to Work From Home Full-Time, Your Teens Must Be Independent Learners I thought it worth checking out since I am trying to work more hours at home while homeschooling my 15-year old son. There's a section that stuck out at me:

Not only do your teens eventually grow up and move out, but long before that time, they should be learning independently with little input from you.

Having independent learners is critical for a work at home mom because you need time to devote to making money. This doesn’t make you a bad mom or a bad homeschool mom to encourage independent learning. Remember that if your children were in public school, they would be doing most of their work on their own anyway.

(Emphasis mine)

Uh, really? Last time I checked, kids in high school had teachers who were providing lessons, other students to work with in class or even during lunch hour or after school... There's a reason high school teachers are paid to be there and it's not to babysit!

This is not, however, an uncommon attitude in the homeschooling community. I once bought into this idea that at the high school level, my kids should just be working independently.

But then one thing hit me earlier this school year: I love teaching and working with kids. It's why I became a teacher. And in school, kids do have teachers to provide lessons, get kids thinking beyond just a textbook, guide them through things. So, my initial plans of setting things up for him to do everything pretty much independently got changed.

Then another thing hit me when it came to my son: He doesn't want to do it all on his own. He also doesn't enjoy doing some of the stuff at all, much less on his own. Which means that if I want to insist that he do all of his learning independently, he is going to hate it and dislike formal schoolwork even more than he already does. This is not what I want.

Yes, if you can't figure out how to get in full-time hours, and you need full-time hours, while homeschooling your teen, definitely, make sure they have an independent program they can follow or unschool them. But don't use this idea that they would be doing most of their work on their own anyway as some sort of support or justification for doing so. And drop the idea that they should be working independently. Don't we live with enough "homeschool Mom" guilt already?

My suggestion would be to figure out something that will work best for your family. Maybe it will be that you won't work full-time hours. (There is a lot out there suggesting that if we learned to really focus ourselves, we could cut our hours dramatically.) Or maybe you'll use part of your weekend and evenings. Or maybe you'll get up earlier than your teen and get a couple of hours in, work with your teen a couple hours, then leave him with independent work he is comfortable with for the rest of the afternoon. Or maybe you'll work your full-time hours during the day, they'll do what independent stuff they can then and an hour or so in the evening or late afternoon for one-on-one.

I've worked out that, when there aren't extra things to do like get groceries I forgot to get on the weekend, take care of things like house repairs and such, I have about 30 hours available to me--using my Saturday mornings--to work each week. This gives me about 10 hours a week to work with my son. I also have to be the chauffeur for my daughter who goes to school, which, if I didn't have to do that, would easily allow me to add another hour or two, so 5-10 hours, to my workweek. All while working with my son a couple of hours per school day.

I like learning with him. He likes learning with me--some things. So, those are the things we do together. He also likes to have lots of time to do the rest on his own schedule. So he does that.

If you want to have full-time hours, having a teen learn independently absolutely makes that easier. But please don't let yourself think you should be having your teen work independently all the time just because that's what they supposedly do in school (not) nor that you should make them learn independently if you want/have to work full-time hours from home. It doesn't have to be that way if you don't want it.

Project "Bring Back to Life" Is Going Well!

I've written about how I feel like I need to bring my son back to life. The way I'd describe it now is that it's like his spark died down a bit, and the fuel that was good before no longer worked, but new fuel hadn't really been found. Other than video games and hanging with his cousins.

I started considering more his nature and how I could help him come back to life, essentially. Little things like having him help me with supper have actually led to him offering to help me with supper. He started drawing again. I asked him if he'd sit with me for the computer programming videos a bit--we did maybe 20 minutes--and he could help me since he'd already done the early videos, and he said yes. And I could tell he loved already knowing stuff to show me where to find what they were talking about in the video.

Then Carol Tuttle's energy types got me thinking about him. And how I haven't been meeting some of his needs well--but he doesn't realize they are needs, so he was unable to express them. For example: he likes to know what's going on when. He has ALWAYS been like this. This is nothing new. "When's supper going to be?" "When will Papa be back?" "When are we leaving?" But he doesn't really plan things, so I somehow had in my mind that plans weren't his thing. Which means I never realized that he would do well with at least a an idea of what we're going to do each day and how long it's going to take. (Yes, "How long will it take?" has been one of his lifelong questions, too.)

Then I got reconnected with the MBTI--Myers-Briggs Temperament Inventory. Figured out that he's an ISFP with some strong ISTP traits. They don't tend to be school-oriented. (Uh, yeah! lol) And they are adventurers. Now, I wouldn't have called him that, because he's so darn cautious, but I realize that that was part of his spark as a little boy: he was constantly exploring things of interest to him. Sometimes crazy things. Like frightening deep-sea animals, or dangerous animals of Australia (he never wants to go to Australia as a result), and just playing hard in whatever crazy intense game he and his cousin would come up with or just playing soccer or just always on the go, either doing or exploring.

But Lego and those kinds of games have lost their charm. He gets that desire for adventure--the remake of his old shooting games with his cousin--through video games now. Or watching people on YouTube play video games. But he also has various games on the go and changes what he plays. My husband doesn't get that. He likes starting one game and working through to the end. "Didn't you just get a game?" My son likes variety. Another realization.

So, I've started just planning things, and letting him know. And doing it CM-style right now: Keeping it to 15-20 minutes when it's definitely stuff he isn't interested in. Switching it up. Having a bit of variety. Doing more with him. He instinctively knows that going to school, the routine and setup at school, would bore him to DEATH. I need to work with that instinct. He's also someone who often needs to absorb new things a bit before he can use them. He can't just imitate you right away with a math problem, for example. Has to be shown a bit first--and then, if possible, have explanations tied to it. He needs to see how things are working, what they mean, what their point is, before moving forward.

At the same time, all of this reflection about him has had me realize: no wonder I couldn't really do anything with him school-wise when he was little!!! lol. Oh man... I am an INTJ. He and I, other than both being introverts, are very, very different in how we approach things and think about things. lol. I understand now why I didn't know how to reach him better school-wise when he was younger--because I wasn't seeing how he connected with things and moved forward. And hopefully we can move forward positively now through his final years of homeschooling.

We don't hear until we're ready

My 18-year old daughter has always shown signs of giftedness, complete with overexcitabilities. Her emotions being one of them.

She has known for years that we just took it for granted that she was gifted. She often rejected us thinking it. But she doesn't even seem to remember now that we ever told her, as a matter of fact.

This morning, in a bright mood, she told me she'd learned all kinds of things last night. In addition to certain details involving the cast of "Once Upon a Time" ;), she said she'd learned that she was gifted (I laugh now because we've never hidden our belief about that!) and she learned about one of the excitabilities: emotional intensity.

Her reading about the ties with giftedness and intense emotions of any kind, it was like a weight has been lifted from her. And yet, she'd heard things about it from me before. So what's the difference?

She was ready.

She was ready to hear it. Ready to learn from it. Ready to connect with it.

This is sooo Montessori, isn't it?

Don't get frustrated or fall into despair if your children of any age aren't hearing something that is as plain as day to you. It's no different from presenting the right materials/lessons to the young or elementary child. If they're not ready, it's just not going to click.

Please Help 10-Year Old Jorge!

Imagine that early December, you got hit with a sudden, unexpected and out-of-your-control financial difficult. It's bad.

Imagine after that, you found out your 10-year old son has a large cancerous tumour in his chest. So large it's larger than his heart.

What does that feel like? 

A friend of mine, someone I've known since we were in elementary school, has a son in grade 5. I'll call him C. His best friend is Jorge, a young boy whose family is experiencing the above.

C has seen two beloved grandparents pass from cancer in recent years. He knows what it means. He has been found crying in bed at night. (And I can't type that without crying.)

Please, I ask all of you reading, pray for him and share this GoFundMe page. Yes, I want you to share it more than I want you to donate. I absolutely would like everybody to donate. I know that if all of my FB friends would donate just $10 each, the GoFundMe would go up by over $1300. That's just $10. So yes, of course, I would like you to donate, but I know that the reality is, the more people who see this, the more people will donate. So, if you do not feel called to donate, at the very least share this on Facebook, Twitter, your own webpage, anywhere and everywhere. They are in serious need and have not posted all of the details.

THANK YOU!!! :)

https://www.gofundme.com/jorgeandres

Bringing My Son to Life

My son "hates school."

Which means a few things:

• he hates some of the topics we have to cover in order to get the high school diploma (which he sees as a necessary evil; it makes things easier in our province)

• he hates some of the work that has to be done; this is particularly true of math which delves into things that he does not enjoy and sees no reasonable reason to be doing such things. "When am I ever going to use this in real life?"
• he'd rather be watching YouTube videos, playing guitar or playing video games all day long and doesn't like having to be pulled out of that for other activities.

I was reminded lately that the last reason can often be the result of boredom: someone who is bored, who doesn't know what there is to do will turn toward entertainment because it's interesting. Meanwhile, it's like part of them is slowly dying.

This the boy my mother once described as a kid who really enjoys life. He doesn't anymore.

"How are you today?"

"Mm." His body language all day is one of being half-alive.

Me, I end up falling into the, "Omg, there's so much not done and we're running out of time so we need to do more [of all the activities he hates]" and don't help him discovering the more interesting things in life.

Today, I saw that life back in him. What did we do? He started out all blah as usual, upstairs in his room, watching some YouTube video (I was out running errands when he got up). We hadn't gone out to do anything in sometime, so I asked him if he wanted to go to the mall for lunch, then we could stop at the Apple store to pick up a new power cable for the Macbook he's using. Getting him out to the mall just helped liven him up. Visiting the Apple store did even more. Going to Canadian Tire after that (I needed new wiper blades and we looked for a new audio cable for the car), showed a side of him I haven't really been seeing lately. Then we went home and I helped him minimally make chocolate chip cookies and then he got busy covering the power cable with electric tape to protect it from fraying and kitty chewing (grr) and he's just ALIVE. It's so good to see.

I'd had thoughts before Christmas of starting our days with a walk. I didn't implement it. Why not?

Because I stupidly thought that because he wakes up so late, if we take a walk first, we'll have even less time to get work done.

Well, you know what? He is so unhappy about school, he's already not getting much work done. There are things I can do to find different ways to cover what needs to be covered, different activities that we could do together that will accomplish the same things.

What's more important here? To get all this school work done by the end of June and have an unhappy, half (or 3/4)-lifeless teen, or find ways to help him connect with the world around us, get him moving and doing life-filled things? Things can be stretched out to meet the requirements for the diploma. He can take an extra year. He can just accept crummy grades this year. It's not a big deal in the long run compared to raising a young man who know how to live.

So, that's it: my focus is on bringing him back to life. Get him involved more in cooking supper. Going out for walks and skating (we now have a skating rink nearby and he has brand new skates). Reading to him more from books that have nothing to do with school work. Have him think about what he would need to do as an adult to have a balanced, healthy life. Guiding him toward a balanced, healthy life now. I don't need to ban the electronics, just invite him to other things. Yes, still fitting in school work, condensing where possible, getting him WRITING (gah, yes, still an issue), but that's secondary. He needs to be brought back to life. And by golly, I'm going to do what I can to make it happen.

Yesterday was a full moon. And it showed.

Yes, there was a full moon yesterday. And it showed from the very moment I got up.

Started off waking up at the usual time. Was kind of thinking of just letting myself stay in bed until 6. I didn't. But I wanted to (and I never want to). Got myself up but was horribly distractible. Like really, really distractible. Couldn't get anything resembling work done. Finally got myself dressed (that alone is unusual--I'm usually dressed and ready by 6am and today it was 7am and I'm going, "Hm, I'm driving my daughter to the transit station; I should really get dressed").

My husband seemed more tired than usual, although we both had decent sleeps.

My daughter got up and was visibly tired.

She and I left for the transit station. The radio reported all of the accidents. One accident is pretty common for that hour; there were 3 reported yesterday morning and one of them was a 5-vehicle collision. Oh-kaaay...

I dropped her off, came back home, mentally telling myself I'll get work done on my French lessons website. Nope. Took care of other stuff today, but was just mentally all over the place.

My son woke up. Visibly more tired than usual like the rest of us. Didn't feel physically as well as the previous day; his cold had seemed like it was going away. He informed me one of the cats had vomited on his guitar case. I got to clean it up. He ate, then we got to work. Or tried. We sat down and had barely begun when the phone rang. My mom. I answered. We got back to what we were doing. Then we headed to the TV upstairs (a Smart TV) to watch the BBC version of The Merchant of Venice on YouTube. "This video can not be played on this device," or some message like that. We tried the PlayStation. Same thing. Fine. He decided he'd watch it on a laptop later on. We decided to head back downstairs to do some math and science. But the phone rang before I even got to the stairs. The repair guy was on his way. Okay, good.

Of course, because the repairman was on his way, we had barely pulled things out for school work when he arrived. The dog barked FURIOUSLY after the doorbell rang, but then was so ridiculously excited to see the repairman (he'd been here twice before) and seemed to think he was going to play with her, she was running for toys and just bouncing all over the place. OMG.

The repair guy started doing his thing at the stove and I went back to math with my son at the table. My son, whose brain seemed completely incapable of processing math stuff yesterday. "What?!" Not sure how many times I heard that. We quit math early.

Then the repair guy informed me that the part ordered for the stove wasn't the right thing. That it might be a more recent version of the part, it doesn't fit.  Given how the day was going, it really didn't surprise me. lol. The dog, of course, was very excited to have him move back through to the front door and seemed to think she was going to get to go somewhere, too. Oh man...

He left and my son and I got working on science. That actually went smoothly. 

It was 1-1:30 pm by this point. My son hadn't eaten lunch. He was going to watch 30 minutes of The Merchant of Venice on the laptop while eating lunch, and while he was finding it, I was checking to see if the library had a copy. Yes, they did--at the library I was at on the previous day. Told him he could hold off; we'd watch it together.

I decided that I was DONE. Yes, 1:30 pm and I was DONE. I let my son off the hook for everything else (although he did choose to do silent reading). I just wanted to do something fun, distracting, although I thought I could maybe try to work on my French lessons website since I'd gotten nothing done that morning, so I went upstairs to put on Back to the Future and work on my laptop while watching. But, I wanted popcorn. So, I started to heat up the machine (it's a small professional machine next to the TV), but the dog started hacking and acting like she was going to throw something up, which she did, and I wanted my son to get her out the door except that there were workers out in our yard looking at our window well. So, we left her inside and I cleaned up the hack she did on the way to the door.

I got the popcorn into the machine. While things were starting to pop, the doorbell rang. Gah, really?! My son doesn't know how the machine works. I went to the door as I told him to turn it off when it was done popping. It was the window well guys, saying it doesn't really need to be redone, that it's almost at the siding and some such and if I was fine with it, just to initial. Meanwhile, the popcorn upstairs was done and I could hear my son's voice going, "How do I turn it off??" Yes, some of the popcorn got burnt. And the other cat escaped while talking to the window well guys.

I finally managed to get upstairs and settle in front of Back to the Future. I didn't get to do the marathon on the 21st, so that was my motivation for putting it on yesterday. I kind of watched and sort of worked--and then fell asleep with the laptop open on my legs. I woke up about 5 minutes before my daughter texted me, asking me to head toward the transit station to meet her. Getting there, it seemed like it could be iffy in terms of getting home and her leaving for work and getting there on time, so I just drove her directly to work.

On the way back home, the longest line up of cars I've ever seen at the 4-way stop near my house. I couldn't believe it. Went back nearly 2 blocks. That, fortunately, seemed to be the end of the weirdness for the day. Phew. lol

How was your Full Moon Day? Anything weird? :D

Friday Recap--Illness and More Illness

Both my son and I came down with viruses in September. Mine seemed to go away and now I have something new. He just seems to be going and going and going, like the Energizer bunny, with the same thing that just doesn't want to leave him. To the point I'm not sure if this makes 3 weeks straight he's been sick or 4.

What to do? When it's just a couple of days, you take some time off school and recover. But this 3-4 weeks business... In a year where there are things we have to cover, so each day off is a day behind...

Physical education was one of the courses I kind of let go. He's still coughing up a storm, and I'm now coughing up a storm with a sore throat, but I said, "Screw it! The weather's good, let's do something." So, we went on a 30+-minute bike ride today. I'm out of shape; he told me it was kind of slow, but I really couldn't give it more without feeling like I was overdoing it.

We've got a bit of math done this week. He's on a trigonometry unit. I keep thinking he's way behind, but the lessons are set up differently from the usual textbook, so I think he's close to being on track to finish by the end of May. This math is not something he'd be studying if he didn't need it for the diploma. I think it's good for him, make him think, but surely there have to be other ways to get him to think that way...

Made sure he got a writing session in. He asked if it had to be by hand; I said that sometimes I'd require something by hand, but not this week. So, he set up a cloud account and started typing his story idea (from way back, mentioned in my post about "Who are you and what have you done with my son?") on his iPad, saving it in the cloud so he could access it from the Mac. These modern kids, I tell ya! He's been getting some more silent reading in. Pretty good at getting his music theory stuff done, too. And, afaik, he's still been drawing almost every day.

So, not a bad week. Not great. Not what I had envisioned. But I hadn't envisioned us still being sick. And then my daughter was home sick on Wednesday; he wasn't looking great, so I gave him the day off. We spent most of Tuesday Christmas shopping (uh, yeah, we are celebrating Christmas this Sunday with my in-laws because my mil and fil will be soon heading down to Arizona for the winter). I don't know what happened yesterday, I was just so burnt out after my morning French class and my throat and cough getting worse. I know we read. And did math. (Oh yeah! My brain was in such top functioning mode (please read that sarcastically) that I wrote down "408" for "48". You know, 40-8. Oh man... lol)

My brain is feeling rather fried, to be honest. I'm not sure this post is making any sense, but we were both writing together and I got stuck with the story I was writing and blog posting is still writing, so here I am. hahahaha

I'm fine. Truly. Nothing that a good nap can't fix. Hopefully.

More Cool Science: Ants--Nature's Secret Power

My husband somehow ended up learning about an "ant city" and then found the whole documentary from which the original clip he saw came.

By last night, he was watching it his 3rd or 4th time. :)

It truly is fascinating and could make for a good science class. The mass collective intelligence of ants is astounding.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/ants-natures-secret-power/

Science Coolness: You Won't Believe Your Eyes

My 15-year old son might be a near iPad addict, but he also does find some really cool stuff.

He is subscribed to a YouTube channel called Smarter Every Day and this new video from the channel showed up in his YouTube feed. He just had to show it to me--watch it and you'll see why! It's crazy!

Who Are You and What Have You Done With My Son?

I've had another one of those moments with my son. Actually, a few of those moments today. Where is my son? lol. The first thing started off with our morning mini-meeting and looking at the planning sheet I'd set up (available here) and he said something about "the other stuff". I said that's what the Misc. section was for and started pencilling some stuff in. And what does he say he wants to have as extras in the afternoon? He wants to learn to draw. Specifically, some sort of anime/manga he saw before going to bed last night and he now, out of the blue, really wants to learn to draw it.

I can't exactly say no! So, we did a bit of research to pinpoint that it was an anime/manga style and he read about some supplies he would need and we made a plan to get some things later.

We had our academic time and finished it off with a Writer's Workshop session. I introduced the T-chart for brainstorming ideas, as well as the Mind Map; I should perhaps have waited for the Mind Map. In any case, we both did our T-charts ("like" on the left, "dislike" on the right) and then I said I'd set the timer for 10 minutes and we could pick any topic and just write, fiction or non-fiction and that it might be a little rough at first, but in time, it'd become more of a habit and most days would be easier. So, we wrote. And he spent the entire time writing. This alone is surprising. He writes slowly, but he spent the entire time writing. The timer went off and I finished off my sentence. He kept writing.

"Do you want to continue?"

"Yes, I just want to finish this." *Mouth mentally drops to the floor while eyebrows go up high*

He spent another few minutes finishing up and said I could read it. It was about how he wants to learn to draw and why. A proper paragraph. Quite well written. From the kid I'm pretty sure has never written a paragraph in his life. Well, maybe one other. And has barely read anything resembling a full-length book in a few years, although did recently start Thunderhead (only because we insisted he read something and that was one of the recommendations and he decided to read it) and did read Lone Survivor last school year. He absorbs--or can absorb--so much. It's crazy. It just sits there in his brain and simmers a while.

But that's not the end of it. No, no.

I went off to teach my French class, got back and found out he hadn't eaten ALL DAY. He's 14. 15 next week. But he just said he wasn't hungry. There is a virus that seems to have hit all of us in its own way. Okay, fine. We ended up eating supper and heading out to Michaels to pick up a few art supplies of his own so he's not borrowing from his sister. We got back home and although he hadn't yet had a turn on the PlayStation 4 or the computer, and he would normally dash right to one of them, especially since it was already 8 pm, he didn't. He was on his iPad last I checked. I think he still is. It's now after 9pm. He certainly isn't actually playing. What has he been doing?

I'm still so... stunned? Not quite the right word. Amazed. Shocked. In awe. Whatever word you want to describe happy disbelief.

He was writing down ideas for a story he'd like to write.

*Insert massive shock to the point of holding breath here*

He has NEVER written a story of his own accord. EVER. He has always resisted writing. I even used to try to get him to tell me stories to write down, but they were always just nonsense things, so I stopped. I didn't see what it was he was getting in his notes on the iPad today, but it was stuff for a story.

Seriously, who is he and what has he done with my son?

He did mention the other day that he was wanting to continue studying astronomy (not part of the credit courses, but I told him we can't just do only the credit courses; it's important to learn the things we want to, too). Perhaps it's a sign of whoever this is and their alien origins? ;)

First "Week" Done!

Our first "week" of school is done. I say "week" because, well, first of all, there were only 4 days this week. And then on Tuesday, I was gone with my daughter during the day as part of her transition to high school. Wednesday, my son and I looked over things that need to be covered this school year for credits and he did some math. Thursday and Friday, more work done, but then my daughter was home because it's orientation week and her orientation day was on Wednesday.

It's been a strange week.

Add to this, my husband (a teacher) had his first week back and is in the process of packing for a school trip that he, some other teachers and about 80 students are heading on for a couple of weeks. Strange week for him, too.

But it's been a decent week for our first week. It looks like we've already kind of fallen into a pattern of doing academics in the morning and other things in the afternoon. My son's trying to cut corners, of course ;), but it's been pretty good. Next week, it'll be academics in the morning and at least 2 other things in the afternoon, aside from guitar practice. Or perhaps I'll insist on 30 minutes of phys. ed. being done each day and then he picks at least one other thing. Other than guitar practice. That kid has been known to spend 2+ hours straight practising.

But even next week is going to be a different kind of week. I'm starting one French class Monday afternoon; it's a good thing we've already fallen into a "academics in the morning" pattern. I was hoping to get a phys. ed. group going on Tuesday, but I haven't figured anything out yet, so if we do anything, it'll be last-minute. I'm picking up my nieces and nephew after school on Wednesday. Friday, there's a homeschooler Mass and picnic (I think it's a picnic, I should probably check) that I will force my son to. ;) And my daughter will be in school all week for the first time ever.

I am finding, however, that already, there's a feel that things are very focused on what "has to" be done for credits rather than him appreciating the learning. Maybe it'll come as we explore more, or maybe we'll finish the requirements and I'll be able to say, "Just because we're dong the outside requirements doesn't mean we're going to stop learning." I think, though, he is feeling a bit of the "ugh" that we have certain social studies and science topics we have to do rather than just exploring what we would like. I can appreciate that. Hopefully I'll be able to make these requirements as enticing as possible.

Was this your first week back, too? How was your first week, whether it was this week or earlier?

I'm Making an Education Plan--for Myself

Where I live, we need to register as home educators with a willing school and submit a yearly educational plan for each student.

It occurred to me today that I could, and maybe should, make my own educational plan. So, I've begun. :)

I've done lists of goals before although never had anything in place to actually go back and check the goals after a few weeks, much less several months. I haven't decided yet where I'll put this plan, perhaps with my son's plan so that I see it every time I check his plan or perhaps in its own binder.

I make all kinds of goals, from eating healthier to decluttering to things like getting x number of lessons done for my French website. But it's always about accomplishing things and never a plan for just learning things I want to learn.

What have I got on my plan so far?

English Language Arts: Read or listen to at least one novel/book per month. (I have a list of books from our province plus a number of classic books in my bookshelves, books I have yet to read.) I'll be doing a lot with my son's English course, but I do need to have this reading of at least one book per month to stay ahead of him and have things to talk about for our reading workshop "book talks." (Here's one link about book talks.)

French Language Arts: We speak French at home and I have to write emails and such. But I don't ever read in French nor even watch TV or watch movies in French (anymore; when the kids were little, we alternated between watching movies in French and in English) to expand my vocabulary (and even just being used to other accents and regional colloquialisms). I want to read or listen to at least one classic book this year--I'm thinking along the lines of Jules Verne or Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo comes to mind as a good one, especially since I could play it at lunchtime with my son eating with me and it could double for covering both of our education plans). Also, I'm completely unfamiliar with francophone music; my goal is to discover at least one artist/band that I like. (I'm assuming there's got to be something I'll like. My husband has started listening to a band whose music sounds entirely like easy listening/Abba-esque stuff out of the 60s/70s, actually, somewhat like the stuff I find boring on the German station. It just has a certain sound to it that I associate with my childhood--specifically, my friend's grandparents' music. I'd like something more modern.) I do want to put actually reading things--be it online sites or books or what have you--because while I feel my grammar is strong, I'm noticing how other people who didn't used to make mistakes are making mistakes even though their written grammar/spelling used to be top knotch.

German Language Studies: I grew up learning a very limited German vocabulary and hearing my grandfather mutter certain things under his breath. It inspired me to take 3 years of German (one course per year) when I was in university and then I took a semester of conversational German after graduating. But it's been years. And I've been recently inspired to revive this language in my life and even in my family a bit; I've actually been using various little phrases with my family for a few months now, some of them becoming just commonplace and I don't even think it before I say it. My grandfather's first language was German; at least two of his wife's (my grandma's) grandparents had German as their first language. My kids have learned French as part of my husband's heritage as a French Canadian; I wish now I had mastered German better when they were younger and made German more a part of their lives. But I'm babbling. My plan for this is to actually complete a boxed German language learning program I was given several years back. I've started it more than once and never completed it; this year, the goal is to actually do it all. I will also supplement with German radio (either the local program that runs for an hour daily or an online station I can find). I'd also like to see about an online forum where I can have written and/or oral conversations.

Spanish Language Studies: You might be thinking me crazy to be adding a 4th language in here, but my son will be doing an online Spanish course this year. Since he prefers working with me--and as a means of testing him and pushing him a bit to really master it--I'd like to kind of follow what he's doing and learn what he's learning.

This is as far as I've gotten. I've been trying to think about things learned in school or university and just general interests (like in Accepted--what would I want to have as a course?) and not sure what else I'd like to add on. I'm thinking of things like Food Studies--I could learn more recipes for gluten-free cooking. Math? Nah (although I love math). Science? Hm. History--now there's something I could set some goals for. I feel like there's a lot of history that I don't know that I would like to know more about or that would be useful. I'll have to narrow that one down. Music? Maybe. Art? I have Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain kit that I kind of started and never finished; that could be fun. Physical education--that's probably a natural thing with just trying to be healthier, fitter. Health could fit into that (what sort of specific things do I need to learn about health? maybe nutrition). Typing: I never did master the numbers. When I'm going strong with something, I can type upwards of 100 wpm, but not if I have to do numbers and symbols! Religious studies--all kinds of stuff that interest me there. I'm sure Khan Academy has various things I could spend time watching. Perhaps just some time each week for "delighted-directed studies"?

Okay, that's enough thinking for now. Have you ever done up a learning plan for yourself?

Another school year almost here

Maybe you're reading this and you've already started your school year; I know some areas have school years that have begun and some people just follow their own schedule.

Me, I'm so very glad we don't have to start just yet. lol

We've had a busy summer. My husband even commented the other day that other than my daughter and I heading to Orlando for Dance the World, we haven't done anything big (no trips as a family), but we haven't gone more than 2-3 days at a time without having something going on. And it's true. I'm writing this the day my cousin and family have ended their visit with us. I actually have a week ahead of us where there is nothing (yet) going on until the weekend. Well, that and my daughter's work schedule. And while I wanted some calmer times, I kind of feel like, "What? What am I supposed to do with that time?"

I know one thing I will be doing: Figuring out what we'll be doing this year for homeschooling. Well, for the first week or two, at least. ;)

I have a few things kind of figured out. I have vague things figured out. I don't have specifics figured out.

My daughter will be going to high school for her grade 12 year. Yes, I'm now one of those homeschooling mothers who is going, "My baby's first day of school!" And she's 17. That still requires some of my attention since the school has already done something with her course selection and removed from her schedule the course that's the most important to her. And it involves going in with her on registration day to take care of this, that and the other. I'm excited for her, though, because this school just seems awesome, the program kind of a mix of high school and university. I think she'll have a great year.

My son's program is the one I really need to figure out. I admit that it stresses me a bit: we've hit high school credits. And this isn't like in many places in the United States where I get to just decide what is to be done to earn those credits: I have to cover the learning outcomes (and there are a lot of them) as given by our provincial government (and the school we're with has him do a final exam for each core subject). I can decide how we go about them, but that's a large process in itself, especially trying to find interesting resources to learn from rather than just relying on textbooks. Math will still be a text, but everything else... I have some research to do the next few weeks, for sure. All while trying to get things ready to open up my @Home French beginner French course.

We do have the basic subjects worked out (sort of):
*The required courses: English, math, science, social studies, physical education, Career and Life Management (has to be taken at some point during the high school years; figured we'd get it out of the way this year)
*Options (or electives, depending on where you live): music, Spanish, foods (and this will only take up to a month after which point he can continue with the next foods course OR he'll pick one of the othe Career and Technology Studies courses; I have a list somewhere of potential candidates).
*Not for credit: Here and there, add in things like Rich Dad Poor Dad for Teens (although, this does kind of fit in with one of the CALM units), logic, religion...

I'm not sure what I've written before and perhaps this is just repeating myself, but it helps me think to write, so I'll write. :D

For English, I'm not taking the usual read-this-and-answer-these-questions approach. I'm going to incorporate what I can of the reading workshop and writing workshop approach. This means mini-lessons on various things, but also just lots of reading and writing without evaluating every single thing. And lots of discussion and sharing. I know a lot of homeschoolers just find things they can have their kids do independently at the high school level, but not only is my son not like that (despite being a huge introvert, he'd much rather work with me or someone else than on his own), I am a trained teacher. I like being "part of the action", so to speak, when it comes to learning. Even with him unschooling, I was finding things, guiding what I could, asking him things... This time, there's specific stuff he has to cover; I don't want to just leave him to it. I'm actually quite looking forward to these next three years, despite the added stress of having to meet someone else's objectives in a way.

And with that... It's just hitting me really hard right now that this will be my daughter's last high school year and iff things go as planned with my son, in twos year from now, I'll be posting my last "Another school year almost here" type of post. (And then, what will I do? lol)

BraveWriter Shares Helpful Tips

I've started following BraveWriter in Facebook and today's post is just fantastic! You can read it here:

http://blog.bravewriter.com/2015/06/15/homeschool-advice-do-the-math/

Semestered vs Year-Long Learning

I'm still thinking of my son's grade 10 (first year of high school here) year next year and how things will be organized. Even though I don't have resources picked out and more important things that need to be decided at this point, but it's on my mind. Although, the scheduling is part of figuring out how we'll actually go about things, what kind of time we'll have and what we'll be able to do with that time.

Technically, a semestered course should have just as many hours in it as a year-long course. So that's not really the kind of "time" I mean. It's more: How many hours per week are we going to have on a subject? How long are the individual sessions going to be? Then there's, Do I provide structure in terms of what we do on which day? Or do we just have our things to do for the week, the time is blocked out to pick those things? Or a mix: certain things, like reading and writing workshop time, are scheduled (or put on a certain day) and the rest just has a certain amount to work through?

The advantages to doing semestered is that you can be done with that course and move onto the next thing. The disadvantage is that you kind of have to plow through it and don't necessarily get to really absorb it. And if you don't have to kind of student who is prepared to plow through things...

I was originally thinking of doing some things semestered and some things all year, like perhaps social studies and science semestered and the rest all year. But now I'm second-guessing that. Is my son truly prepared to spend 5-7 hours a week on social studies for 4 months? It's doubtful. lol. It's just really not his style. And part of homeschooling him is to make this high school experience fit well with him, to approach things in an enjoyable way so that learning--even topics we wouldn't have chosen--is enjoyable. I'm also thinking retention. Now, I know the one online math teacher here recommends that students do the math course in a single semester because by the time the final exam rolls around, they've forgotten too much of the beginning stuff, but shouldn't that just mean that better review needs to be built in during the year so that it truly is retained? Yes, that's what I'm thinking.

What about you and your family? What do you do for your high school students? Do you use semesters or have you done it both ways and prefer one over another?

I Want Summer to Start

What to do when you want to officially declare it summertime for you and your kids but one of your kids has work still to finish--to hand into an online school by a certain date, so there's no, "Oh, it can be finished during the summer sometime)?

I am soooo ready for summer holidays. Just take a week and do nothing before the reality of doing nothing hits and I start feeling like I need to do something--but it can be whatever I want it to be (well, within reason--I am trying to get the French instructional website ready and definitely to have the first level ready by Sept. 1).

The sun is out, temperatures are rising and I'd like to just go out for hikes and picnics and get my kids together with friends (or just other people in my son's case).

I can't put additional pressure on this particular child, although I have backed off from the other one's work requirements a bit. In addition to not being able to put more pressure on getting the work done, we've been hit by a virus--possibly viral meningitis--day 12 of being sick for her.

But I know it'll get done and really, what's to stop me from doing my own thing even though I have one child who has work to do--which really doesn't involve me much in the first place? Just my own thinking getting in the way.

It'd still be nice for us to all be done and I can just swoop them away to outdoor places or field trips and such.

When do your summer holidays start?

Ninja Squishy Balls!

I'm not sure how I even came to find this, but it looks super cool. I may just ask my teens if they'd like to make some--and also thinking it could be useful in my French class in the fall:

Montessori High School Schedule

I came across this and thought I would share it:

http://montessoriky.org/acedimics/daily-schedule/

I found it very interesting that they have 20 minutes of Care for the Environment and Closing time. I'm not entirely sure what the rest of the schedule means exactly, though. Does each grade have their own subject for each time block? Is the time block simply the time they can choose which of the listed subjects they can work on?


I'm not sure that such a schedule would be required at home with a single student. I do like the scheduled 15 minutes of physical activity, but I think I would make it EVERY day.

I'm mad and disheartened :(

My friend has been trying to raise money to get her and her family moving much sooner than they had anticipated because of an unstable person in their lives--someone who has been unstable enough that it's not unreasonable to think he'd be one of those people you hear about in the news who was never in any real trouble, maybe a few personality issues, but just snaps one day and bad things happen. And they are afraid they could be the target. Having been connected with enough people who have problematic, unstable people in their lives and hearing their stories, my friend and her husband's worries are not unwarranted. There is nothing for them to do legally. There are just warning bells going off that they need to tread lightly with this guy. And ideally, get out of there.

They have, in my opinion, a truly legitimate reason to be raising money. They have in the past couple of months raised $210.

Then you have Nicole and Joe Naugler, whose behaviour (including involving one of the children in threatening the neighbour with a GUN, although he denies it, apparently--somebody is lying and I guess I have to be humble enough to go that I can't know who for sure, but the accusations are there) and words got their children removed from them (after being warned repeatedly that that's what would happen if they wouldn't cooperate). And they, as of this moment, have raised over $40 000.

I'm mad. Disheartened. My friend has a disability that makes it impossible for her to hold down any kind of regular job. She homeschools their kids. She is trying to make a living out of writing. They don't have any run-ins with the law. They have a worrisome person in their lives. And hardly anybody has helped. Then you have the Nauglers, with Nicole clearly lying or not remembering events since she has said that she couldn't be guilty of disorderly conduct when she was in the car (she wasn't in the car) and so much more. It is entirely possible that the cop did not follow things as he was supposed to, as some have alleged; I don't know Kentucky law. But her behaviour, whether she was right or not, was uncalled for in so many ways.

My heart aches for my friend. She's not even looking to get 1/4 of what the Nauglers have made in less than a week. :(

The Nauglers: Victims? Maybe Not.

If you only read one article online about a situation, you may not be presented with all of the facts.

Popular posts right now are defending Joe and Nicole Naugler in a complicated situation. The two claim that their children were unlawfully removed from them because of their unschooling and living off-grid. And people are getting riled up about it, believing only the one side.

Then you do some searching and find other sides to the story. And holy cow, there is a WHOLE other side. Theft of the neighbour's water, trespassing to get that water, asking a child to go get the gun when the neighbour told him he had to keep off his property, piles of garbage, broken glass and nails (and the children roam freely without shoes or anything), another family living the same way and who knows them saying that the family has been banned from their house for a while and so many other things.

But, interestingly enough, the most compelling information on the other side is actually supported by the Naugler's audios found here: http://www.saveourfamily.info/update-raw-audio-of-incident-2/

Should I go into great detail about the issues and concerns these audios bring up? How about a mother telling her child "don't do it, he'll just shoot you because that's what cops do when you don't comply"? About a mother who has police saying the need to investigate the allegations and her resistance is going to lead to her children's removal, who then answers back, when the cop tries to get her to understand by giving an example of her witnessing another woman or a child being attacked, that she wouldn't call the police, she would only intervene if her own children were being attacked.

Nicole is trying to claim the police arrested her for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest when she was just sitting in her car and that if you listen to the audio, you can tell. Listen to the 3rd audio for that--she was not in her car, she was clearly losing it, she was absolutely resisting arrest... I had to admit that upon seeing the photos of her bruised arms, I wondered how poorly the cops had behaved, but then you hear her completely losing it and it was very easy to imagine her physically resisting with all her might and I think the cop said something about her jumping and scuffling. Well, that means the cop has to hold on tighter. He's arresting somebody who is resisting arrest. And if she's resisting strongly enough, he has to hold on tight enough that it will bruise.

The things she said during the conversation with the cop I find truly concerning. I completely understand why the cops had to take the boys and arrest her. She might be all, "Oh, they were going to let me go and then changed their minds without any reason," but enough time passed that I suspected they quickly got approval from somebody higher up to take the boys right then.

She claims all kinds of rights, but doesn't seem to have ANY understanding of what those rights actually mean. She tries to accuse the police officer of trespassing. She, in a strange twist of things, uses US rights and amendments to try to prove her case but then completely rejects the authority of the police and government. It makes no sense whatsoever. Now, this lack of logic doesn't have anything to do with her kids being handed over, but her misunderstanding of and unwillingness to obey the law of the land she's living in is what has led to this situation.

Oh, and when you listen to the audio, you'll hear both her and the cop talk about "the last time"--a year ago, another CPS allegation had been made, but that time, she let somebody talk to the kids. She's not letting somebody this time. Not unless an attorney is present, which has absolutely nothing to do with CPS situations AT ALL from my understanding. But I admit I could be wrong. I've never, however, EVER heard of children demanding a right to an attorney to speak to a cop or caseworker over CPS allegations or even being able to demand that right.

All she did was dig herself into a larger hole, make the police even more convinced she's trying to hide something. She went so far as to tell the cop that she wouldn't call the police if she witnessed a woman being attacked by her husband or someone else's kids being attacked, but she would intervene if someone was attacking her own kids. That is not comforting for a police officer.

The husband can be heard on the third audio, saying something about her being arrested because they weren't around to have the kids talk to them, but he's clearly unaware of his wife's having refused to allow the police to talk them, so at least it wasn't a pre-planned thing on both their parts. She also told the two boys, as they were being taken, to not saying anything under any circumstances. Whether she's just fanatical about her perceived rights or whether she's got something to hide, she clearly has no idea that such behaviour is going to be seen by police as her hiding things.

In a nutshell, this story has nothing to do with homeschooling, unschooling or living off the grid, but about resisting the laws of her country of simply having the kids speak to authorities after her husband's threat with a gun and other allegations led to a CPS complaint. Well, the removal of the kids was the result of not only not letting the kids speak to the cops but the other things she said that the cop clearly found concerning (as did I); her arrest was the pure result of her behaving the way she did when the cops were removing the boys.

Btw, here's a really good page on some of the other side: http://kathrynbrightbill.com/post/118481565656/here-are-7-surprising-things-you-need-to-know