Science and History

After learning about ancient Egyptian farming methods the girls decided our local river was The Nile, and the surrounding "farmland" needed irrigating, so they built canals.

Science and History

They also dug up quite a collection they call the "Museum".

Just a Rant about a few Things

Two incidences have had me angry this week.

The first incident: 14 year old graduated 8th grade public school Wednesday. Why should this anger me? It angers me because she did not deserve to pass to the next grade or attend a graduation. She has done nothing all year. I know because I have so many conversations with her teachers, her dean, her assistant principal, and her social worker. She averaged a 37% in English the third nine weeks, and a 33% this quarter. Her school sends out weekly "what your child is failing this week" letters. I have one for every week this semester. Out of 4 core subjects (Pre-Algebra, Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science) she has consistently been failing a minimum of three. This is in addition to Band and P.E., which she also is failing. She returned to school Monday after her suspension. I spent hours last week attempting to help her make up some of her work. She didn't turn it in. She threw it in her locker, and was a smart-alek to the teachers when they asked for it. So....even though she was failing 5 out of 6 total classes BEFORE her suspension, and got zero's for the 6 school days she missed, she graduated. Her highest grade was a D- in Pre-Algebra. She was quite angry with us when we weren't gushing over her "accomplishments". Oh well! I feel she didn't accomplish anything this year other than to drive the middle school staff as batty as possible so they would get her out of their hair! Oh, and they accomplished sending off another "successful" student to high school next year, and thus get their state funding for another student well-taught....

The other incident that has me upset involved my 9 year old. She was invited to a friend's house to play yesterday. They have been friends for several years, so off she went. When she came back home she was noticably subdued, so I asked if she had fun. "Not really", she replied. "There were some bigger kids there, and they were mean." The older girl is a friend of our 14 year old,(the graduate) and insisted on arguing with a 9 year old. She called my daughter, "gay" and a "wimp" and a "loser" because my 9 year old wouldn't fight her. WHY in the hell would a 9 year old want to fight at all, let alone with a much older girl? She was arguing with her over where big sister was. This girl insited she was at a boot camp for "bad" girls, and C kept trying to tell her, "No, she isn't. She's right down the street at home." The older girl repeatedly threatened C, and C was unsure how to handle it. Where were the parents during all this? Inside on the phone the whole time. Luckily the bigger girl didn't actually get physical.

I explained that with a sister like C has, she will have to deal with people saying things all her life. I know. I went through it all my life due to an older sister's issues. (a sister that left home before I was even born, for crying out loud!) The best thing to say is, "I am not my sister. I can not control what she does or has done. I don't like to fight because fighting is for people too ignorant to use words."

From now in, C may see her friends, but not at that home anymore. If they want to play, they can come here. I have kicked plenty of children out of our yard in my years as a mom, and I have never felt the slightest bit guilty for it. If you can't be civil, and follow the rules, you can get out. If I wanted my daughters to be bullied I would have left them in public school. If I wanted them to graduate with failing grades, and no education...I would have left them in public school.

Amazing Coincidence

I frequent an online homeschooling forum. One of the women on there made a few comments through the months leading me to believe she lived near where I grew up. That in itself, is amazing, because I grew up in a very tiny farm community. No one has ever heard of it unless they live within 20 miles of that town. She never gave any specifics; I just had a feeling. I made a half joking comment to her yesterday, and we decided to e-mail each other. Lo and behold, she lived very near that little town, had actually been there that day, and attends church in the even smaller town 5 miles away that I moved to after high school. I don't personally know this woman, but we have many mutual friends. I really do find that an amazing coincidence: I joined the online forum because of the excellent curriculum reviews and advice on the site. There are thousands of women there from all parts of our world. I never would have dreamt that I would meet someone on the internet that is from the area I spent 24 years of my life in!

Not a Productive Week

This week was crazy. It began with 14 year old step-daughter managing to get suspended until the 19th, so she is home for ten days straight. That meant me having to run across town to her school every two days to pick up her homework. She has not done a thing all quarter, as usual, so is failing 5 out of 6 subjects, and in danger of failing 8th grade. I informed her she WILL do her work here at home, and not be sleeping all day. This was fine in theory, but in reality she drove me crazy. She accomplished quite a bit, and hopefully enough to pass, but she needed me to walk her through every single assignment. She and I spent tons of time revising, researching more material, and finishing her report on Edgar Allan Poe. It actually turned out to be a good report. We spent quite a bit of time with me trying to teach her 6 years of WWII in one day. Maybe if she had paid attention in school she would have a clue! She did well, but I had to "hold her hand" more than I do the younger two! With B taking up all that time, I schlepped on poor C!

We also had our newest dog, Shadow, neutered Thurdsay. I had to have him to the vet at 7:00a.m., and pick him up Friday. We waited 40 minutes to pick him up. His pain medicine makes him nauseaous. He threw up most of the afternoon/evening yesterday, so several clean-ups, and one carpet shampoo were unexpectedly thrown in my day.

I guess E's week wasn't bad; we finished two of her books, so she currently has 3 to work in. We did school 5 out of the past 6 days. E is only 5, and we get tons done in about 45 minutes-an hour. Most of E's work is done near bedtime. She gets wound-up in the evenings, and school-work gives her something fun to do, while keeping her and C seperated. Much quieter than no school. : )

C, however, accomplished virtually nothing. As posted earlier, she did complete her 3rd grade Math final exam with an A+. Wednesday she did flash cards and wrote a beautiful essay for her sister (A...17) as a birthday present. Her writing is improving. Thursday we finally got back to History; it had been 6 days. We also did math orally together....a page of think and solve problems, and we began on dividing with a remainder. That could have waited until next year, but we have been doing division basic facts anyway, and it came up with one of our word problems, so we just went to the first lesson in our extra textbook, and discussed remainders, and worked through 30 simple problems together. Friday we did only History. I can truly blame the poor dog for this, though. Luckily C's official year is complete, and we are just killing time with review, and the "fun" subjects for a few weeks until our official summer term begins.

I was discouraged over our lack of school this week. But all I have to do is look in my box of finished work, and in C's binder. We HAVE accomplished more than I thought we would in 4 months times. Several completed books (the box has room for only one more), and her writing skills have dramatically improved from even just 6 weeks ago.

I hope we get A LOT more work done next week.

Finished with 3rd Grade Math and Phonics K!

C officially finished math for the year yesterday. She only had a few pages left in her book, and all of it was repetitious. I decided to offer her the final exam. I made her a deal that if she got an A+ she could be done with school for the day and play Guitar Hero. C chose to try it, and and an hour later proudly earned the right to play hookie the remainder of the day. Awesome job! The child who hated math in public school was now asking when we could begin 4th grade so she could "get ahead". She finished 3rd grade grammar a week or two ago, and basically is doing all 4th grade level studies now, with the exception of writing.

E also finished her Kindergarten level Phonics book yesterday, and only has 2 pages left in her Critical Thinking book. She loves her workbooks, so will be moving on to 1st grade Phonics within a few days. She is also in the midst of several other books, but her favorite is "Number Skills K" We usually do at least 4 pages a day in it. She is reading, spelling, and sounding out basic CVC words well now as well as knowing many sight words such as "a, the, you, little", etc...)

Both girls will work 2-3 days/week through the summer, so we don't have to waste a month in the fall reviewing. This also will give us some lee-way for taking time off for field trips or sick days through the typical school year.

First Month Complete

Wow! It actually seems like longer than a month, maybe because I've been doing this all along. Up until a month ago I was homeschooling after school, and on weekends. Now I don't waste 40 minutes per day dropping off and picking up my daughter, and she doesn't waste six hours sitting at a desk daydreaming while the rest of the class catches up.

We've had a good first official month. The hardest part has been in my realization that a third grader had virtually NO writing skills. I clearly recall many writing assignments in my own third grade, but here and now they just haven't gotten to that. I began assigning my daughter essay type writings. She composed very sloppy "list" type papers with atrocious grammer. I explained she needed to write in paragraph form. She drew lines and labeled them "Paragraph 1, paragraph 2". So, instead of typical 3rd/4th grade assignments, we have gone back to 2nd grade for writing. We began with the very basics of topic sentences, and supporting details. We learned about indenting, which she had never heard of before. We have also been learning proper grammer. She knew simple nouns and verbs, but had no idea what "plural" meant, or "possessive", or common versus proper, or any other gramatical terms, such as adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, or conjunctions. We have touched on each of these for a brief introduction, and next year we will have full units on each grammer concept, and much more in the way of writing skills. Her paragraphs are not great, by any means, but they have improved considerably from what they were a month ago. There is so much to good writing; neatness, punctuation, form, grammar, spelling, and a natural flow. Luckily, my daughter shares my spelling ability. We both just seem to know how things should be spelled, so I promised her no spelling for 4th grade.

She has gone from hating math, to it being her favorite subject. I am so glad, because after reading, math is foremost in importance to me. I think her opinion changed when she realized that you do not have to sit for an hour covering old concepts. She has learned much in 30 days, and each lesson plus homework takes her on average 10 minutes. The longest one was about 30 minutes, but it was actually quite difficult. This particular assignment involved locating 2 numbers on a chart, one 4 digits, and multiplying them, and then adding or subtracting a third 4 digit number to that. She long ago mastered all multiplication facts from 0x0 to 12x12, and has now completed basic division facts, too. I find it interesting to watch her do problems in her head; I always hated showing my work as a student, and she does, too. I understand the neccessity of it, though.

An interesting side note on math. Our oldest daughter (17 in two weeks) applied for a job. The application involved a test of her abilities. She came out furious because they asked several fraction questions, and she didn't know how to figure them. We asked what she meant, and she gave the example of, "1 1/3 + 1 1/3" She said she didn't know, so just guessed. Little Miss Nine Year Old said, "Isn't that just 2 2/3?" Boy was our high school junior mad when we informed little sis that she was right! I'd say, "LOL" right here, but actually it is pathetic. That's a simple problem, and she is almost out of high school, and hasn't learned simple addition of fractions! Yep, public schools are great....

We have also spent time on reading comprehension, science, history, and geography. Geography is, by far all of our favorites. We save it till afternoon so the five year old can be included. She gets really excited about "playing with the globe". We finished up our Map Skills, and have begun an in-depth study of Africa. Our first choice was North America, since it is familiar, and we will be studying U.S. History all year for 4th grade. The company I like didn't have the North America books, so we decided on Africa, instead, as it is where civilization began.

For science we have been working through a worktext, with short, simple lessons. We have ended up with several impromptu projects, however. With all the earthquakes, both here, and where the girls' adored uncle lives, we have learned quite a bit about quakes, tectonic plates, and seismic and volcanic activity. We also ended up having a fun day with magnets and their properties. Who knew? LOL Our most interesting science activity resulted from a day at the park. We found a skeleton, complete with teeth, so spent about 4 hours on forensic science. First we spent quite awhile studying the remains. We decided it was a young animal, due to the teeth....no tartar buidup, no decay, but not a baby, because these were full-size teeth. The rib-cage and pelvis were interesting. It couldn't have been a large animal because of the short spinal column. We guessed a dog, more specifically a pug, because of the size, and the shape of the skull. After much googling of mammal skeletons, we proved our hypothosis correct! Don't worry! The girls did not ever touch it, and it was not gruesome at all. It was actually very cool.

I can't stop writing without keeping folks updated on my youngests' accomplishments this month. Technically she is in pre-K, but she works at K level here at home. She has gained the all important skill of blending and sounding out words, both in reading and spelling! This is huge, because she now has all she needs to read! She already wrote all lowercase and uppercase letters well, but until the past few weeks, hadn't quite grasped the concept of actually blending them together. We will continue working on reading skills for many years, but she actually can read well, now! Little One's other MAJOR accomplishment just two weeks ago was taking the training wheels off her bike. She had no problems what-so-ever. Much to our surprise, she took right off on two wheels, although she needs to work on her turns still. This girl is smart AND catches on quickly. I'll have to be careful not to push her too hard. She tested at the age of 4 into 1st grade math. I originally thought to start her there, but have decided for the next few months to concentrate on her reading, and bought a kindergarten math curriculum, just to keep math fresh, and review with her. Whenever we finish that we will go right into first grade math, which I've had for 5 months now.

It's been a good month. I am SO thankful I pulled my daughter out of the public school. Her stress is gone, and she sleeps all night, now. I feel better because I see how much she is learning, and I'm not forcing a miserable, crying child go somewhere where people hurt her physically and verbally. I have had a day or two that I've thought I wasn't doing a good job, but overall I know I have, and after only 30 days I can't expect to undo 6 years of public school damage. (2 years of pre-K, K, 1st, 2nd, and most of 3rd.)