Week Two: Getting the Hang of It

Week 2 was definitely easier than week 1, and now I feel a little more in the groove about how a day should go, but I'm still amazed at how fast the time flies and whether it's realistic that we're done by 2 or 2:30 p.m., but that's still my goal. So far, we haven't gone past 2:30 p.m. yet, to the delight of our eldest!

This week, one of the highlights was our "sailing ships" activity, meant to illustrate the challenges Columbus had in navigating ocean waters with nothing but wind power to propel his three vessels. I shaped aluminum foil into boat shapes, and Harry and Ron labeled the sails, then we put them in our bathtub for their maiden voyage:


The boys had fun creating their own gusts of wind and sending the boats from Spain (the right side of the tub) to the New World (left side of the tub). And of course littlest brother Dobby had to get into the action as well:


Harry is getting the hang of the kinds of activities we'll be doing often and regularly this year, including the hallmarks of neoclassical education, such as narration (listening to a story/text and retelling what he heard to demonstrate comprehension), copywork (reading a selected piece of text then copying the text as a way to learn spelling, usage, and grammar), and nature/picture study. I'm sure it's very different from the kinds of things he regularly did in school--we don't do word searches, for example, and we do math every day, with drills several times a week. We memorize poetry, we read living history books together with the little brothers, and we have started cursive. I am still stressed out during the day but much calmer once we have finished school, which is delightful to experience. It's still hard to tell how much of what we're doing Harry will truly internalize and remember, but thus far this new path has been both challenging and rewarding. We'll see how long the positive feelings last! Hopefully they will remain all year.

Week One: We Survived!

I'm happy to report that we've made it through the first official week of homeschooling! Here is a photo of the munchkins enjoying their "first day of school" supply bins that awaited them on the kitchen table the first day:


It hasn't been ideal timing-wise, with DH out of the country last week (he arrived on Sunday and then we were set to start on Monday!)...I've been up late each night past 2 a.m. and am exhausted...but nonetheless, we began!

Our kids were excited from the get-go. They burst into our room around 7 on Monday morning and announced with great excitement, "It's the first day of school!" The schedule is still a work in progress, but generally speaking, we do something like this:

7-8:30 a.m. Get ready for the day, morning chores for kids, breakfast
8:30-9:15 a.m. Music practice time for older boys
9:15 a.m.-9:30 a.m. Bible
9:30-10:15 a.m. Math
10:15-10:45 a.m. Break
10:45-11:30 a.m. Language Arts (Spelling, Classical Writing Primer, First Language Lessons, New American Cursive)
11:30 a.m.-12 p.m. History/Geography/Science
12 p.m.-12:30 p.m. Break/Lunch
12:30-1:30 p.m. Quiet Reading Time
1:30 p.m.-2:00 p.m. Language Time (Latin or Chinese)
2 p.m. Done!!!

The math and language arts are mostly for my eldest, Harry, (DS, 7 yrs old) although I try to fit in more informal time with brother Ron (DS, 4 yrs, old) as well. I include all the boys when we do Adventures in My Father's World for our basis in Bible/History/Geography/Science; otherwise, with Harry we have started using Singapore Math 1A and a combination of Classical Writing Primer, First Language Lessons, New American Cursive, and Spelling by Sound and Structure for our Language Arts time. More specifically, this week we learned about the Vikings, a topic I haven't thought about for decades if at all, as well as having fun with learning about the origins of the kids' names and doing our first science experiment ("Yes, eggs float in salty water!!")

Not that it's all been smooth sailing...I find it stressful to manage several different needs at once, particularly when I'm trying to balance teaching Harry with handling an urgent issue from one of the other brothers. I also sometimes find it hard to relax the schedule, such as when a topic takes more time than I expected or when I feel the weight of trying to get through a particular assignment I had planned for the day. I keep trying to tell myself to be flexible with the schedule and hopefully I'll be able to take my own advice!

The things I find enjoyable: I like learning alongside my kids, although I wish I had more time to be prepared to a deeper extent, particular in the area I consider my weakest subject, which would be history. I would love to spend the time to read everything I can on a subject before I introduce it, but it doesn't usually work out that way. Still, I have a feeling that the person who will end up learning the most in the end will be me! And that's not a bad thing...hopefully the kids are learning something as well!

Another thing I've discovered is that homeschooling makes the day FLY by. We are constantly busy and it doesn't feel like any time is wasted! And yet, I still think I can say that we've begun to achieve one of our goals for doing this switch in the first place, which was to be done with school earlier than Harry's peers, leaving more time for play and resulting in a more relaxed pace. Although it's still a little early to say this for certain, and there is definitely a modicum of stress for me throughout the day, I'm hopeful that by the end of the year we will be able to say that homeschooling has resulted in our year being much more relaxing than our previous year. It's wonderful for Harry that he is usually done with schoolwork by 2 p.m.!

I do think Harry misses his friends from school somewhat, and we were hoping to catch them on the playground one day this week, but by the time we arrived after Dobby's nap, everyone had already left the school playground except for one friend. But at least Harry had the chance to talk with that one friend and make general plans to have a playdate one day. I will have to work hard to make sure he continues those social connections, because I would like him to not feel too separated from his school friends if at all possible.

We school for four days of the week, then Harry will start his Friday co-op classes in drawing, gym and computers on Sept. 4th. So this Friday, we made it a fun day--a day to go and do activities that we normally wouldn't during school. DH took Harry and Ron to the local par 3 golf course, which has become one of their favorite activities this summer, then I took them to another of their favorite jaunts, Chuck E. Cheese. We continued our weekend of fun with a trip to Sugar Grove, IL, to see the U.S. women take on the Europeans at the Solheim Cup. We tried in vain to get near the pairing of Michelle Wie and Christina Kim (fellow Korean-Americans! see below) but the crowds were just too much--but then their golf cart drove right by us twice through the course of the rest of the afternoon, and that was a big bonus for the boys who were getting very patriotic with their "U.S.A." cheers.


Lastly, this week I was able to get some confirmation that our efforts at home haven't been in vain; we have been working on math this summer, trying to solidify Harry's basic math facts, and on his latest drill, he was able to hit perfect 100 %s on all of his exercises, which was a first for him. The practice is paying off, and I'm extremely encouraged by that.

So now it's on to week 2. We will be covering Christopher Columbus and begin our study of the names of Jesus, in addition to math (subtraction facts), spelling, handwriting (more cursive!), and the beginning of Latin! Should all be very very interesting!

Creating a Homeschooling Space

Originally, I was planning to make our dining room the center of our homeschooling. We had recently purchased a good-sized table from Overstock.com, and I had cleared out our antique cabinets of their previous contents of plates and dining linens and replaced them with all our curriculum and school supplies. It was all nicely hidden away and seemed in theory to be an ideal solution.

That is, until I actually tried doing some school activities this summer as a test run. The dining room has ended up not being a practical space, at least not at this stage of life. The younger boys would always want in on the action and would be a pretty big distraction. It was hard to keep them occupied in such a way at the table that I could spend concentrated time with our eldest when needed. So, I started to brainstorm ideas for how to create another homeschooling space in our house that would work better for us. My handyman came down with me to our basement and asked me about one of the walls in that room, whether I could transform that wall into a homeschooling space. I had never thought of it before but decided to try it out. I also realized we had a perfect little niche in our basement for a narrow bookcase that could hold our curriculum and other items.

Four late nights and one IKEA run later, in addition to repurposing some existing furniture we already had, I was able to create the following area. We tried it out for the first time today and it has been a much better solution for us. We also have a futon in the basement that is a great place to read together and talk about whatever we're learning, plus since most of our toys are in the basement, the younger boys have plenty to occupy themselves when we're in school mode. I love how it has all turned out and am getting very excited for our first day of school in TWO WEEKS!

The Secret Lives of Squirrels (and Birds!)

For our upcoming year using Adventures in My Father's World, one of the subjects we'll cover is a section on birds. As part of the curriculum, we were encouraged to purchase a bottle cap bird feeder, very inexpensive, which would attach on to a regular 2-liter empty soda bottle that would be filled with birdseed and hung up. I decided to do this during the summer to give the birds a chance to find our feeder in advance of our studying them. I had no idea what an adventure it would be to do so.

Within 24 hours of hanging the feeder, I saw no birds. But squirrels found the feeder in no time. It was hanging from a tree limb, and the squirrels had no problem scaling down the tree to the feeder, then hanging onto the feeder and grabbing the seeds by the fistfuls. Before long, they had eaten half of the bottle, with nary a bird to be seen anywhere near the feeder. The next day, the feeder was no longer even hanging. I found it discarded in our backyard, all the food gone, a big hole chewed out of the bottle. The squirrels had had quite a party in the middle of the night, apparently.

To make a long story short, I bought another feeder, outfitted it with a "squirrel baffle" to prevent the critters from climbing onto the feeder from above and stealing the food, then I hung it in a different location, but it was still too close to the tree trunks and the squirrels attacked that feeder as well. Again I found the feeder in the morning some distance away from its original location with parts definitively gnawed on by the squirrels. It was salvageable, but I needed a new solution. Finally, I strung a thin but sturdy length of picture wire between two trees and suspended the feeder that way. So far, it has worked out, although there are times when multiple squirrels are beneath the feeder, circling below it like a brood of vultures, waiting for the scraps that the birds drop when they come to eat. And they have started coming--at least black-capped chickadees, in frequent numbers! We are looking forward to seeing other feathered friends visit in the near future now that we've solved the squirrel problem. Who knew that I'd be spending so much energy in homeschooling prep on squirrel deterrents?

One last comment...I never understood why people would get into bird watching until now. It's a little addictive to keep checking outside to see which birds might be there if at all, and trying to catch a glimpse of a new visitor to identify. And when you do find a bird sitting happily at the feeder, munching away, you feel a little bit like you've made a new friend, albeit one that flies away whenever you get too close!

Testing the Waters

This summer, I decided to start to dabble in homeschooling, in part to get an idea of how it would go in the fall, and also to help Harry catch up in some of the areas where I felt as though he were a little weaker--math, most notably. I'm not sure how I expected it would all go, but suffice it to say that things have NOT gone as I had imagined. I did not imagine that there would be so much challenge to being able to teach and help Harry with what he needs while keeping the other two from melting down or getting into life-threatening situations. As soon as I start doing schoolwork with Harry at our dining room table, which will serve as our school home base, the other two are instantly nearby. They want to participate and similarly do activities at the table, which is both cute and also utterly distracting. It's nearly impossible to be able to explain what I need to with all the ruckus around us. Our toddler in particular has become extremely vocal and LOUD. I have no idea how to manage all the chaos and noise so that Harry is able to learn and practice what he needs, not to mention the time I try to spend with Ron in learning how to read and starting basic math. I have put a post up on some message boards at The Well Trained Mind forums and hope the online community of homeschoolers will be able to provide some good suggestions. I don't want to start the year off with big doubts about whether or not I can do this going forward! But right now, I confess that I'm asking myself more often than I'd like, "What have I gotten myself into????"

My First Homeschooling Conference...and Curriculum Plans Shaping Up!

I have just spent a decent portion of the last three days in the company of about 500-700 homeschooling parents, at the annual convention of the Illinois Christian Home Educators (ICHE). The organization was established in 1983, more than 25 years ago, which was evident in how well the convention was run. I was impressed by their attentiveness to many small details, and it was a treat to have the convention so close to home, just a ten minute drive away. My goal was to go for inspiration, encouragement, and to finalize my remaining curriculum questions; I'm happy to report that all three of my goals were met. I didn't necessarily make many new friends, but I chit-chatted with numerous attendees and exhibitors, and once they learned I was just starting out on this journey, they poured out their support, their phone numbers if I ever needed them, their soundbites of advice, and their numerous exhortations to "stick it with, even when it gets tough...and it will get tough!"

Never having gone to any sort of parenting conference before, I found myself enjoying the talks that went beyond homeschooling issues to include general parenting topics, such as helping your children develop their talents and gifts, which is a worthwhile subject to mull over whether you're homeschooling or not. I spent long hours in the exhibit hall, where a bevy of homeschooling products awaited my perusal. (OK, I confess, I brought home more books than were absolutely necessary...but I do think I managed to show some restraint, such as buying only 7 books from the used book vendor when I could have easily bought 20!)

I had specific goals--choosing a math curriculum at long last, finalizing some sort of plan for the holes in my curriculum plan (geography, science, history). I had read The Well Trained Mind and Latin-Centered Curriculum over and over, and I thought I had largely settled on some combination of one or both approaches. But, although the typical neoclassical educational approach favors a chronological approach to history, I was swayed by Cheryl Lowe's article about teaching chronologically after K-2, and so I needed to find some other way to structure the content about history as a result.

To make a long story short, I have ended up with the following plan for J.'s 2nd grade curriculum:

Math: Math-U-See (Alpha), supplemented by Singapore Math, Right Start games, and Calculadders

Language Arts: Classical Writing Primer, supplemented by First Language Lessons

History, Geography, Science, Bible: My Father's World, Adventures series

Handwriting: New American Cursive

Foreign Language: Prima Latina; weekly Chinese school

Music: continue piano lessons and supplement with occasional composer studies

Art, Computer, Gym: weekly co-op classes in Naperville

As for why we are learning Latin...this is a key component in a classical education and the reasons why can be better explained by others. I was not enthused by this part of the classical approach at first, but now I've become a convert and am thrilled to delve into this language with Harry. The first time I browsed through the Prima Latina curriculum, I fell in love with it. We'll see how I feel by year's end!

Time will tell how well these plans hold up but if we need to tweak, we will tweak. If I had to identify my "spine", I would say that language arts is our main focal point, but I'm putting together a somewhat eclectic mix of this and that and hoping it will all gel at some point. So, there is our plan! I think we'll actually begin some aspects this summer--Math, definitely, and getting through as much of FLL as we can. Looking forward to starting the adventure!

Why Are We Homeschooling?

As mentioned in the previous post, I wanted to provide a more detailed explanation for why we are planning to homeschool. Here are the reasons:

• Improve Harry's math and language arts: he has not progressed much this year in either area. He entered 1st grade with a strong reading ability, but much of the year, his class time was spent learning basic words. He has had very little phonics and he is not encouraged to learn correct spelling at this age, a philosophy that we are finding that we disagree with. Also, he hasn't done nearly as much math as we were expecting. Harry has not even quite mastered addition and subtraction, and we're already near the end of 1st grade. We feel that in the two areas of math and language arts, we can do better than the public school setting. We don't fault Harry's teacher for this; she has no choice but to teach to a group of 25 and there is no way to provide individual attention to every child. We've learned that the average public school student receives 3-5 minutes of individual attention a day. Even though I am not a teacher by training, if I can even provide Harry with direct one-on-one teaching in math and language arts every day, he should be able to progress at a faster pace than he has this year. We're not trying to create a super-genius, but we do want what he studies to match what he is capable of, and to this point, his public school experience has not been able to do this.
• Control over subjects: I admit that I am a bit of a control freak, and once I began learning more about different homeschooling educational philosophies, I loved the idea that I could choose a path for Harry that would be of our own preference, not restricted by what the public school deems appropriate. I'll explain more about this in another post, but we'll be adopting a largely classical-based education, which means an emphasis on great literature, a focus on the development of the mind in a systematic way, with the end result being that the children growing up learning how to learn, loving what they learn, and being able to communicate in the written and spoken word effectively and persuasively. It feels like a children's version of a liberal-arts college education, something I'm very familiar with myself.
  
• Concurrently, homeschooling allows us to let the kids focus on areas of interest and design experiences to help them deepen those interests. We took a day off school this year to take Harry and Ron to the Chicago Auto Show, since cars are such a passion of J. in particular, and homeschooling would allow us to continue to do activities such as that with more frequency and without the guilt of missing school.
• More time to enjoy childhood: This year has felt extremely stressful for us all. Every day of the week feels stretched and rushed, and we think that moving to homeschooling could actually ease the pressures for us all. Right now, Harry comes home around 3 p.m., and sometimes even later than that. By the time he comes home, has a snack, and has a little downtime, he has something to do homework-wise, plus piano time, with the end result that he barely has much time to play before dinner--and I highly value the benefit of play in young children. Our hope for our homeschooling schedule is that we would be largely done with our schoolwork and 30 minutes of piano time by the time or before school typically gets out for his peers (2:30 p.m.) After the younger brothers are awake, we will have more flexibility for outings and field trips before dinner, or for more unstructured play time than we have had this year. We just think this will result in a lot more joy for us all.
  
• Family focus: Earlier this year, I was wrestling with the question of, what is our family's purpose? Instead of trying to do so many things and not do them all particularly well, I wanted to gain a sense of mission so that we could pare down those things that don't fit with the mission and put more emphasis on the things that do. Homeschooling will absolutely force us to do this. There is no way around the fact that to do this well will require time, energy, creativity, and effort. I'm committed putting in that time, because I do feel we are being called to do this, and so for me, being "missional" in this season of life is to focus on my kids' educational development. But it means that we will be paring down and/or letting go of other time commitments that were, frankly, wearing us thin this past year in particular. Homeschooling will help me say "no" to many wonderful opportunities that are just not right for us at this stage in life. This will be a big switch for me because I'm used to being super-involved, especially in my church context. But I just sense that right now, we need to have a simpler life. Homeschooling itself may not be that simple, but it provides us a focal point for our energies that makes sense to me right now.
• Strengthen family bonds: I like the idea that should we continue with homeschooling, sibling and family bonds will become even more important for our kids, as opposed to being replaced by peer relationships. Not that peer relationships aren't important, and at some point that shift has to happen, but especially when the kids are young, I see the value in building a foundation of family relationships that will stay with them as they move into later childhood/adolescence/adulthood.
  

Why we are NOT homeschooling:

• To create a pristine, bubble-like environment for Harry and the other boys. No, this is not our desire, although we do confess that if Harry learns fewer slightly offensive, 1st-grade level jokes as a result of homeschooling, we will not protest! We know that we will need to be extra attentive to make sure that Harry has enough opportunities to connect socially with other children. We also know that we are not to retreat from the world, and that we must find ways to engage and enter into the lives of others. Of course, knowing this in our heads and making sure we take the right steps in reality are two different things! But we don't necessarily believe that the only way to become socially adept is to spend most of one's time primarily with one's own age group, and we'll be looking for ways to help Harry engage with other children without being necessarily restricted by the idea that being in a class with 25 other children is the only way to do so.
• Because we think that homeschooling is the only right way to educate children. No, this is absolutely not where we are. We have come to the place ourselves that we want to at least try this out for a year and see how it goes, but we certainly do not believe that this is the only right way. We don't even know at this point if all three boys will be homeschooled entirely or in part, or for how long. All these questions will be answered in time, but right now we'll just take it a year at a time. And by no means as we embark on this journey do we mean to communicate that others should be joining us. But, that having been said, if anyone reads our story and feels led to investigate the option themselves, we'd be happy to chat more about our decision!

Next post: more about the classical education philosophy that we are leaning towards adopting. Does this mean our boys may learn Latin??? Find out next time. =)