A (Cold) Week in Review

Schoolwise we had a much more productive week this week than last. We accomplished most of our school-work huddled in my bed under comforters, and wearing robes, jackets, and in the case of my daughters, multiple layers of socks. The reason for all the layers of clothing is that it has been extremely cold all week, and we have yet to turn the heat on. We live in a 70 year old house, with the original boiler and radiator heat. I detest turning the boiler on for 3 reasons:
*I'm terrified of it, and am so afraid we will one day be the victims of a boiler explosion
*Once it is on, the heat in here is atrocious, and the humidity levels drop to near zero. This results in several months of the girls and I being miserable with dry, itchy, painful skin. My hands become bloody nubs, from doing dishes, laundry, and all the other assorted household tasks that involve me putting my hands in water. This doesn't bother my husband in the least, and he lives by the "warmer is better" theory. It is often 75° in our home. The first thing I do when he leaves for work is shut the heat completely off, and by 6 or 7 hours later it cools down to a more survivable temperature...just in time to finallly stop sweating, and have hubby arrive back home from work. and crank the heat back up.
*The main reason our heat isn't on yet, is that our power bill goes from a managable $150-$200/month to well over $500/month, and in the REALLY cold months of January and February it has been known to be over $600 for one month. That's 2 full weeks of pay from my husband, and we obviously can't afford to spend literally half his monthly earnings on a mere luxury such as heat.

So, with a little extra clothing on, we made it just fine through school this week. We had such a boring weekend last week that we did 2 full days of first grade, and caught up on what I neglected to do for fifth grade the week prior. We continued on every weekday this week.

C began her literature last Saturday, and she LOVES it! I intentionally chose a book she would like for her first book study, "Laura Ingalls Wilder", a biography of the author of the Little House books. I had to read the book first, before assigning it, and I felt it was dry, and poorly written, and probably a little above my daughters reading level due simply to the dryness of it. Much to my surprise, she is an avid "Laura" fan, and begs for more and more pages to be assigned. She doesn't like being limited to certain pages/chapters. She is doing very well with the written assignments, and only has one minor difficulty applying the difference between describing someone's PHYSICAL traits as compared to describing what makes the person unique.

C finished chapter 4 of her BJU English. Her final assignment was to write a persuasive business letter...not an easy task for a 5th grader. Not really an easy task for ME...I can't think of a single time in 37 years I've ever had to write a persuasive business letter, but I do think for someone hoping to eventually run her own no-kill animal shelter it's a skill she will use over and over. If you're going to run a non-profit business, you'd better be good at writing letters asking people to give you money. On her own she came up with an idea for writing her own letter. She chose to write to the local pet stores and ask them to donate any expired or damaged goods and supplies from their inventory that she could then donate to our own local no-kill shelter. We actually mailed the letters, so I'm praying at least one of the pet stores contacts her.

She then moved on to Chapter 5 in English....VERBS. Oh, how she and I hate verbs. If it was simply a matter of recognizing a verb we'd be fine. It's all this other nonsense....linking verbs, state-of-being verbs (which are both the same thing), helping verbs, participles, predicate adjectives, predicate nouns, objects of the verbs. ACK! Who cares?!?! I never learned this stuff. Not once. I think I am able to write fairly well. I've never gotten anything lower than an A in anything English related. This is the point C and I were both in tears last December, and finally gave up on Abeka's English. I still see absolutely NO use for all this in-depth study of a verb. But I am remaining calm. We patiently did day 1 of this chapter. She did much better than I expected, but not as well as I'd hoped. I ran off copies of extra-practice worksheets, and we worked yesterday on the extra practice for the first days lesson. (Thank you, M, for letting me use your printer!)She did better, but still not 100% on the extra worksheet. It'd be nice if there was more than 1 extra worksheet per lesson. I've never needed them before, but with this chapter I need 10 or 12 per lesson. Please pray for C and I to make it successfully through this chapter.

C also did 4 or 5 lessons in math, and took 2 math tests yesterday. She only needed to take 1 math test, but she wasn't paying attention, and did test #12, which she had already done the week before, so she had to then take test #13, which is what she was supposed to take. LOL She got an A on it. She is really flying through her math this year.

We're finishing up with chapter 5 (I think...it's too dark to go double check) in science, and in history we read about Islam. Her history book devoted a mere 22 pages to Islam, most of it a fictional story about Sinbad. Unlike many Christians, I feel it is imperative to learn about other religions, and other beliefs, so we are now taking a break from her history book, and spending a good month or two studying in-depth the middle east, Islam, and the Muslim culture in general. I have 3 AWESOME books for her age on this, and conveniently, have a Muslim neighbor who adores the girls, and isn't offended by any questions we come to him with. He has even been so kind as to loan us his Q'raan to see and compare it to our Bible, and Christianity's teachings.

C bagan her 2nd light unit in Bible, and this one is MUCH better than the first one. Each lesson is one of the parable's of Jesus, and she and I are both LOVING the lessons.

We had a review week in spelling, and next week is week 7 of our official school year, which means we get to skip spelling. C is also still working on one page a day of Daily Grams.

As far as first grade is going...E is currently flying through her math, too. Danny hasn't done math with her for a good 4 or 5 weeks, but she's been working almost daily in it with me, in addition to timing her on her flash cards. I would like to take this moment to say to my husband, "I TOLD YOU SO!!!!!" Yes, I know that is not a proper, humble Christian attitude, but I really did tell him so. LOL The way I see it, I had 2 options. I could have nagged him every day, and angered him, or I could have just quietly noticed he was not doing math like he promised, and done it myself. E's handwriting has also improved by leaps and bounds. It is so pretty (if she has lined paper) I wanted to actually scan some of her work to post here, but my printer/copier/scanner has died, and I no longer have a way to get photos on here. Oh, wait...I have a digital camera, so I guess I could. We'll see if I actually get around to it. LOL

Anyway, E has had a wonderful week. She has worked VERY hard, and done tons in all her books. It's hard to break it down, but I am definitely seeing a big improvement in her attention-span, and her willingness to sit still and write. Thank you, God!

Still going through some personal strife and issues, but I'm used to that, and my main priority is the girls' education, happiness, and well-being. We had an excellent week. Blessings to you all!

Yesterday...(5th grade)

...was just one of those days where school flowed smoothly. C was up at 8:30, ate breakfast, and began her independant work by 9. (Bible, Spelling, and Grammar.)By 10, I'd given her math lesson and assignment, and her English assignment. She and I spent last week writing a Compare/Contrast Essay together. This week she is doing one entirely on her own. While she did those assignments, I finished cleaning the kitchen, and switching laundries around. By 11, all we had left was science. (We alternate science and history/geography.) By lunchtime we were done.

After lunch I made the suggestion that, even though she did very well all day, and had her work done, she might want to consider working ahead, since she had 2 writing assignments today. Her choices were to do her journal writing a day early, or go ahead and begin her rough draft of her essay. I let her know she didn't HAVE to do either, but it would make her day easier today. Shockingly...she chose the essay. Even MORE shocking...she wrote it fairly well. She didn't ask for help one time. She wrote it in the correct format, and had zero punctuation or spelling errors. I only saw one thing she could add, and I'm trying to make her figure it out on her own, without pointing it out.

So...here's my reminder to myself in black and white (okay, technically GREEN and white, LOL) that C CAN write, and she can even do well at it. And some days we can do 6 subjects in just 2 1/2 hours.

What is it About English?

I love teaching my daughters. Some days it's hard to find time, and some days I get incredibly bored, but the teaching itself, is usually actually fun. I loved that my daughters aren't wasting hours waiting for other students to catch up, and I love that when they "get it", we can keep moving on to new material. My daughter used to literally cry over math in public school. They spent almost 2 hours a day on it, and C was done in 1/4 of that time. She still won't admit to liking it, but we do the entire lesson, and homework assignment in under half an hour most days. Science is more of a fun activity than boring. I couldn't stand science in school, but my daughters and I love it now. Rocks, birds, clouds, it doesn't matter, it's fun. History is apparently my strong point. I'm a history buff, anyway, so teaching it is easy, and I always have a flair for turning some boring old war into a funny story. (If I do say so, myself. LOL) I get so into history that I've caught my husband eavesdropping in the hall, and laughing out loud. Whatever it takes for her to remember the stuff.

Then...there is English. Growing up, English was one of those subjects I called a "blow off" subject. An easy A. No work involved. I never really got into poetry, but I could spout something off if I was assigned to. I could write volumes of stories, essays, persuasive arguments...you name it, I could take 10 minutes, and have an "A" paper. We didn't do a whole lot of grammar, but that was easy, too. Noun, verb, adjective...guess the rest. Essay question that I didn't know the answer to?..no problem. Just baffle 'em with B.S. I could cover half a page in answer to said question, and say absolutely nothing, and get one of those little "Excellent" comments written in red pen next to it from the teacher. Another A. Spelling...no problem for someone that taught herself to read AND write at age 4 during naptime. Literature...easy....just read a book, something I did non-stop back then, and still do now. I didn't have to take English classes of any sort in college, because I was allowed to "test out" of them. (I did the same with college math.) I did, however, take some just for fun. Yes, I'm a nerd.

So......WHY IN THE WORLD CAN'T I TEACH IT?!? It is my daughter's weakest area. She's not really bad at English, but she certainly isn't good, either. She loves to read, and thankfully seems to be a natural speller, like me. We do a spelling curriculum, but only because it has really good vocabulary exercises, and there are some thinking skills involved. Up until yesterday I would even have said she's good at the grammar portion of English. Her weak area is writing. She can not stand to write, and will always take the easiest (read...laziest) way out of a written assignment. I KNOW part of it is that I expect too much from a ten year old. I expect that because she excels in other areas that I excelled at, she should go above and beyond in writing. (If anyone has ever noticed that I occasionally let her type "guest posts" here in my blog, that is why. If she manages a decent paragraph, she feels very special to be able to type it up on the computer and put it on Mommy's blog.) I rarely yell at my children, but poor C gets frequent rants from me about English.

We just started the year. I have it planned that, although we will do grammar, we are going to concentrate on writing this year. Her book is set up so that every other chapter is grammar, alternating with a writing chapter. It is written very well. I had high hopes for this English program, after going through 2 last year. (And the second half of last year I wussed out, and did only grammar. My excuse being, that some children need a little more time for their brains to grasp the abstract thinking involved with writing.) C has never (until yesterday) had any problems with grammar. She has a good, solid background in grammar. The first chapter we doubled up on lessons, and did 2 each day. She did the chapter review Monday, and took the test yesterday. She didn't miss a single thing the entire chapter. I didn't expect her to, as it was mainly review of things she has done for 2 years now. She missed SIX test questions yesterday, earning her an 82%. That's a C. On things she's never had a problem with, and should have easily aced. For those of you that know me, C's are completely unacceptable. B's are barely tolerable, but C's?!? I figure if you know the stuff you will get an A. Anything less means 1.) I didn't do my job as a teacher, and 2.) the child is a borderline idiot, and needs more work. (Sorry to offend. If you don't like it, don't read my blog.)

Remember, this C was on a test of things she KNEW. She's done hundreds of times. She had no issues whatsoever on the entire chapter, but when she did the test apparently the word "are" became a preposition, and interrogative sentences suddenly became confused with imperative sentences. (Cute side note.....during my rant after grading the test I asked C, "Why do you think they call it an interrogation when the police question their suspect after arresting them???" Poor C said, "I don't know, Mom. I've never been to jail." LOL!)

So, on day 7 of our official start of 5th grade, I am already having issues with English. I would like to call in a substitute, but as the only legal substitutes for homeschooling are other, immediate family members, that won't be happening. My choices are limited to a 6 year old, and a man that skated through school with D's, dropping out at age 16, and has read a total of two books in twelve years that I've known him. (both having to do with snipers in Iraq killing the enemy.)

I'm not sure who dreads English more, me or my daughter. Yes, I realize she zooms in on the "subtle" little clues I give her, and that my attitude affects hers. My attitude reguarding English has not been subtle at all. I have not been patient or humble. I have a mental block when it comes to people that don't understand concepts quickly. I am, basically, a horrible English teacher. I have no qualms about admitting that. I am not helping my daughter out. If I could afford to hire a private tutor, I most likely would, for this one subject. If it was legal to do so, I would skip English entirely until I get her into high school.

However, the moral of this story/rant is that I, at least care. In school a C is perfectly acceptable, and they move on. In homeschool we CAN work through this, and if we have to do it in baby steps we will. If I feel myself getting angry we should stop for the day. If I see C becoming frustrated we should stop for the day. We school year round, and we are far ahead in every other subject. We have plenty of time. I love this girl with everything in me. I want her to learn, to do well, and to enjoy learning. We CAN make it through 5th grade English.

Today we begin her first writing chapter, and I promise to remain calm. In the event I feel my blood pressure rising, we will stop.