What the Future Holds

We are plugging away at our schooling, making changes here and there. I am constantly tweaking our schedule and our materials, trying to find the right fit for our family. It has been a delicate balancing act for boy #1 to work a part time job along with completing his school work and he is looking forward to being completely done with high school. One item that we found last school year that has worked extremely well for us is the Notgrass history curriculum. Boy #1 is finishing up the Exploring America through history, literature and Bible and then we will start Exploring World History. I love the readability and thoroughness of this curriculum and it is laid out in a fashion that is so easy to use. At this point in our schooling, I am all about easy to use. We have also had success with Institute for Excellence in Writing materials and we started using Teaching Textbooks for Math, which has also been a blessing. Boy #1 is working through the geometry text and Boy #2 has started the Algebra I. I have been using Homeschool Tracker to keep us organized and that has also been a big help. Currently, I have been looking ahead to what we want to finish up with Boy #1 so that he can be graduated and next year looks to be mostly Life Skills and Language arts for him. Boy #2 starts high school next year and so I have been looking over what I did with our daughter and Boy #1 to see what I want to repeat with Boy #2 and what didn't work. I get a bit more organized with each child - so by the time Boy #3 hits high school, we should have everything down pat. This year Boys #2 & #3 and I were reading through This Country of Ours for American History. It was going slow and they wanted to study World War II, so I decided to jump ahead (we did a timeline from where we left off to about 1940). We are reading a text together and they are each reading a book set in the time period. We will spend the rest of this school year learning about the 1940s, the countries involved in the War and various other aspects of the war. This unit will be a bit free flowing as that is what seems to be needed at the moment. I will post more about how next year will look for us, as I pull it together.

School has Begun

We started back to school yesterday and so far so good. We haven't added everything back into the schedule yet - slowly but surely. I hope to have everything back on for next week. Here is what we have to start:

Boy #1 (11th Grade):

Notgrass American History
Reading: Christy
Teaching Textbooks Geometry
Devo time: Bible reading and In His Steps
PE: Choice of activity (will get more of a schedule later)
Drawing: Barry Stebbing video
Art Appreciation: "The Arts" by VanLoon
Boy 1 also has a part time job at a local fast food restaurant.

Boy #2(8th Grade)

History: This Country of Ours, Colonial Living and other resources
Saxon Algebra 1/2.
Bible Reading
PE: Choice of Activity
Biography: George Washington's World
Apologia Exploring Creation with General Science
Geography: The Complete Book of Marvels
Easy Grammar
Literature: The Story of King Arthur and His Knights

Boy #3 (6th Grade)

History: Same as Boy #2
Saxon 87
Bible Reading
PE: Choice of Activity
Biography: Carry on Mr. Bowditch
Nature: Pagoo
Geography: A Child's Geography of the World
Literature: Heroes
Easy Grammar

We will add our IEW curriculum back in later this week or at the beginning of next week. I haven't had picture study at all this school year and so I want to get that started again. I would also like to have a group geography time to play games and read through "You Can Change the World" and "Material World". Both of these books show the vast differences between our society and those around the world. We will also add our typing software and geography drill software back into our schedule. Auto shop is on hold for now, as my husband has another project he needs to finish before he can get back to it.

Life around Here

It has been quite awhile since I have written anything here, it may be that the few readers I had have given up on me. It seems that time just flies by and I am not sure where it all went. Lets see, we have done pretty well with keeping up with school. I am very pleased with how the boys writing is coming along. We have been using video courses from the Institute for Excellence in Writing. I am not confident in my writing abilities and was not sure how to help the boys develop their skills, this course has lifted a heavy burden from my shoulders. We are plugging away at all of our subjects and learning much. All of my boys are reluctant learners and reluctant writers and reluctant readers. This can be trying at times, especially because they are more than able - but just don't have the desire. It has helped that we use the Ambleside Online booklists for literature suggestions - the boys, though reluctant, enjoy the books.

Along, with plugging away at school our oldest son is working his first job at a local fast food restaurant. This has brought more changes into our family life. The job has been a good experience for him as he is learning time management skills and responsibility.

With the coming of fall, came Thanksgiving. We were supposed to go out to my sister's house, but our son ended up having to work and so we had a quiet Thanksgiving dinner at home and played games as a family. My mom joined us for Thanksgiving and spent the night with us. The day after Thanksgiving, our daughter, oldest son and I went shopping a little after 5 am. We went to two stores and purchased some clothing, a couple of games and a few items for Christmas and treated ourselves to our first Peppermint Mocha of the season at Starbucks. It was the first year in several that we weren't able to join my sister for our shopping expedition and she was missed. After our shopping trip, we took the boys and my mom to see The Bee Movie. Although it was cute, I would say wait until it comes out on DVD. Fall is speeding by and now we are almost at Christmas.

We are now in the midst of the Holiday whirlwind and I feel like I am being swept along with it. We are making some changes in how we celebrate the holidays this year and I am feeling good about them. We are trying to scale back on some of the activities and the gifts. My side of the family is having our Christmas Dinner on the 9th and this year we are bringing gifts to donate to Toys for Tots instead of giving gifts to each other and I am excited about that. Well thats some of what we have been up to over the past couple of months.

Update on Autoshop - homeschool style

I have posted here before about how my husband is doing autoshop with our teen boys by restoring a 1965 Mustang and I thought it was time for an update. It is a long term project that is taking many hours of labor but will prove worth it in the end. Occasionally, I am able to help some too. A year ago in October my husband purchased a 1965 mustang that was not running. The body was in pretty good condition and it came with two engines and a transmission. The project started with a gutting of the interior and removal of both engines, one from the engine compartment and one from the trunk. One of the engines has blown cylindar walls and is therefore not able to be used. They will use the engine from the engine compartment to which they need to add a new carborator and headers. After gutting the interior, they started to strip off multiple layers of paint. There are a couple of areas that need metal cut out, due to rust, and then new pieces welded in, nothing too major. Stripping the paint has been tedious, but is close to being finished. When they strip an area of paint, they apply rust convertor. They have spray painted the interior and sealed the seams. My husband has picked a paint color and we have a friend that paints cars for a living, who will help them paint it when they are ready for that. There is still a long way to go, but now things get exciting as they get to start putting things back together.

Planning for the School Year

I am a little late in my planning for the school year, I usually start before the previous year has ended and here we are getting ready to start up again in a week and I haven't even finished my planning. Part of planning for the school year is evaluating where we've already been and what of that worked and what didn't. This year I will be schooling the three boys, who will be in 11th, 8th, and 6th grades. The oldest boy may be at the community college the following year doing the dual enrollment program or running start as it is known in our state and so I am looking at what I want to accomplish with him this year before he moves on and out of our homeschool. He is also thinking that he might want to go to college and work towards a degree in Graphic Design - so I want to keep that in mind as I plan out our year. I recently finished reading A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver Van DeMille and got some food for thought from it. I am considering scaling back our subjects for a time and focusing on Reading good literature and writing - we will, of course, still do math. I have felt a little scattered as of late with our schooling, struggling with boys who are not strongly motivated in their education and one thing I learned from reading TJED is that I "can't" educate my children, they must do that themselves, I can learn how to become a better teacher/mentor - but they need to take some ownership of their education. That said, here is our tentative program for the fall:

11th Grade:
Exploring America: History, Literature and Faith by Ray Notgrass
(we started this last year and found it to be interesting and challenging. It will take us through the Holidays and then we will figure out where to go from there.)

We started Institute for Excellence in Writing Student Intensive level C last year and will continue on with it this year. Writing is our weakest area, and this program has helped us tremendously. I won't say that it is a miracle and the boys love to write now, but it is helping them to develop the skills that make it a bit easier.

He is working out of a book called Practical Math. He also started this last year after he finished up his algebra and will be done with it early this fall. We are going to give Teaching Textbooks Geometry a try next. I prayed about this a considerable amount and looked at many curriculums and reviews of curriculums. I have taken algebra but not geometry and decided that we needed some help. It is a pricey step for us and so I am hoping this will be the answer we need, we shall see.

We will be adding in some other subjects too, such as Art Appreciation - which went by the wayside last year and he will finish up his Barry Stebbing Art Course videos and continue to work on the Mustang with his dad and brother. He also has a part time job now and we will have to work around that schedule too.

8th Grade and 6th Grade:

Last year I had both boys together for history and we used This Country of Ours and some other books I had to start our journey into American History. I used Ambleside Online year 4 for ideas of what books to use for literature readings. It worked OK for us, but the boys don't want to read and they are not fast readers so it is a constant battle. It seems as if we get through very few books in a year. I am pretty sure we will continue on our course of history study and probably pick one or two books each outside of that for them to read.

Last year my middle son started into Exploring Creation Through General Science from Apologia and he struggled with it. He dreaded science each day. I am not sure I want to continue on with that. I worked through one of the Glad Scientist books with my youngest son and that went OK. We then did a unit on Reptiles because he wanted to study them. I am really undecided what to do this year with either of them.

My middle son is working through Saxon Algebra 1/2 and doing fine with it. We are going slowly and I think that helps. My youngest son did Saxon 65 last year and will move into Saxon 87 this year because that is the next text that I have, we will take it slowly and I am sure he will be fine.

Both boys will also use the Institute for Excellence in Writing materials, except level B instead of C like their older brother.

This looks so scanty to me, but I am feeling called to cut back and work on some basic things such as habit/attitude training and doing well with the little before we move much more into our schedule. It is amazing to me as I continue on this journey of homeschooling at how each child is SO different and their needs, likes and dislikes are so different. Trying to plan what they NEED is important to me and proves to be a challenge. I am confident, though, that with God's help we will persevere.

Enthusiastic Homeschool Carnival

Melissa from The Lilting House has done a beautiful job of compiling this weeks homeschool carnival, her theme is Enthusiasm and yes there are many wonderful posts. Make time to check them out and be ready to learn and be encouraged.

Impromptu Nature study

It has been much fun to watch the birds come to our yard since I put up our new bird feeders and bird bath. Prior to this we rarely observed anything other than crows, robins and starlings in our yard, with the occasional visit from some passing juncos. Since installing the feeders, we have regular visits from the cassian finches with their beautiful singing, redwinged blackbirds, sparrows, evening grossbeak and today we had a little goldfinch at our window feeder for a long visit. Even more exciting to me is the way the boys have taken an interest in the birds and will come tell me when they spot a new one. These are the same boys who have no real interest in observing nature, when it is planned. Installing these feeders for my own enjoyment has had an added benefit that I hadn't planned on and I am truly pleased.

Reptiles

Ben wanted to study reptiles for the remainder of the school year and so I thought it would be good for us to visit the Reptile Zoo in Monroe, WA. We visited a couple of Saturdays ago and Dad took some pictures for us to remember our trip by. The baby tortises were everyone's favorites, they are the babies to the large tortises also pictured.

School

As I said in my previous post, spring has sprung and along with that comes spring fever. It has shown in all of us - but probably in me the most. I am really ready for a summer break and we are planning to be done with most things by the end of May. The boys will have testing the first week in June (required by our state), and we will still be finishing up a few of our books over the summer. We keep the summer pretty light, usually just reading and math drills and this year the boys will continue to work with dad on the mustang. It has been a good school year this year and we have accomplished much. I tried to stay focused and on a good schedule, along with challenging the boys a bit more. We tried some new things such as Institute for Excellence in Writing and Notgrass American History - both of which I am really pleased with. I have been looking ahead to next year and thinking about things that I want to add and looking back on this year and checking to see what worked and what didn't. One subject that we did pretty well with and that challenged boy #1 was biology. We used Apologia's Exploring Creation with Biology text and did the labs too. We did the labs with a friend and learned a lot. It is not an easy course, but very thorough. We also learned that boy#1 will not pursue more formal science. Working with another family, who is reporting hours to an umbrella program helped keep us on track and working through our text. Due to scheduling issues we won't be working with them next year and I will miss that accountability and fellowship.

Auto Shop continued

Here are a couple more pictures of the progress being made. I am learning that things get or look worse before they start to get better.

Dissection

This year boy #1 and a friend are study Biology using Apologia's Exploring Creation with Biology text. We get together just about every Friday and perform many of the labs in the text. Here they are performing their first dissection. The subject is a worm - they were a bit squeemish at first, but found it very interesting. We have since dissected a crayfish and have yet to dissect both a perch and a frog.

What's Up or as my boys say wassup?

This blog has been neglected once again. I have been trying to focus on organizing and staying on top of our school work and along with that decided to give some organizing software a try. I looked at several and reviews of those several. I really liked the looks of the Organizer for CM homeschoolers at Simply Charlotte Mason but couldn't justify the monthly fee. I decided to give Homeschool Tracker a try because the reviews I had read were fairly positive. It is a lot of work initially to input resources and divide up assignments, but I think it will help me in the long run. There is always a learning curve on new things and I am sure that I can modify this to work for how we homeschool. Sometimes certain items go by the wayside and I think this will help me to stay on top of things better. The jury is still out on how much help it will actually be.

Hubby and I will be away for the weekend. As a Christmas gift to me, he purchased an Amtrak voucher. I have never been on a train trip and have wanted to for a long time, so this was a perfect gift. We won't be travelling very far, just about 4 hours from home and will stay in a hotel, go out for a nice dinner and maybe a movie, then come home the next day. I am very excited to have a weekend alone with my man!

We are taking next week off of school for "spring break". I am hoping to get some deep cleaning done in our home and also have a few days of fun. We will be visiting with some friends that we rarely see and maybe take in a trip to the Reptile Zoo too. I think it will be a week that will help refresh us and our home.

Homeschool Carnival #61 Fresh off the Press!

Extra, Extra, read all about it! The Homeschool Cafe has overcome printing problems and now has been able to release this great edition of the Homeschool Carnival. Be sure to read all about it!!!!

The Changing Face of Homeschooling

Last week, our friends at Beth Spera in Domino posted about A New Breed of Homeschooler
and it got me thinking about our family's experiences.

We have been homeschooling since our oldest was born in 1985. She has since graduated from our homeschool and is now attending College, working toward her Landscape Design Certificate. Over our years of homeschooling we have participated in many different activities and homeschooled in different ways. We started out doing mainly unit studies and have since moved toward a more literature based learning in most subjects. During our homeschool adventure we have seen the face of homeschooling in our area change tremendously. When our oldest was young, we had a group of friends that we got together with every week and we did many learning things together, everything from sewing to a unit on trees. We participated in 4H together with these other families and the children formed friendships and had fun learning together. For the most part these times were very valuable to our family, sometimes they were frustrating, which is a common result of working with other people. Currently our family has very few outside activities for school, we do work with another family once a week. I work with my boy#1 and her Boy #1 and we are working through Apologia's Biology Book. She takes my boy#3 along with her three youngest children and is doing a geography study with them. During the fall my boy#2 was at football practice during this time and now works on his own school work. Although this arrangement is working for now, it is not exactly the way I would envision a group time.

The truth of the matter is, if I wanted to have a group learning time again, it would be almost impossible or I would have to travel about an hour to get together with some friends who still homeschool on their own. There is a local group of homeschoolers that co-op together, but they offer very few activities for older children. Most of the people that we know that still homeschool are using school based programs, online or otherwise. Very few people that we know homeschool all the way through high school on their own. It is not that these programs are inherently bad - but they have definitely changed the face of homeschooling.

Homeschool Carnival #60 is UP

This weeks carnival looks to be full of interesting articles. Homeschool Hacks has done a wonderful job. Be sure to surf on over and check it out.

Auto shop - Homeschool Style

Previously, I posted about our biggest homeschool project ever. It is a 1965 Ford Mustang - and when I say "project", I mean it. Here are the latest photos of this wonderful journey.

Top Photo: Boy #1 and Dad looking the engine over; Middle Photo: Boy #2 with the transmission; Bottom Photo: Project car

So far they have gutted the interior, removed the cracked windshield, cleaned up under the car, removed, cleaned, painted and reinstalled the rear end, replaced the brakes, pulled the engine and transmission. The boys work out in the garage with their dad twice a week for an hour or two each session. They are learning a tremendous amount and are getting to know their dad better. This time spent in the garage is the highlight of their school week.

Homeschool Carnival #55

The Parents Meeting Edition Carnival is up at Dewey's Treehouse. Grab a cup of coffee and join in for a real education.

Homeschooling and the Real World

It is interesting to me that people think that children who are homeschooled are being sheltered from the real world, as if spending 6 or more hours daily, five days a week for 180 days or so a year is representative of the the real world. It also surprises me that parents so willingly give up their parental authority to the system. This week, we had our second snow during the school year and tomorrow we have a memorial service for a friend's wife to attend. If my children attended public school, they would have missed being able to play out in the snow, which we usually get very little of in our part of the world, as the schools were still in session. They would not be able to attend the memorial service tomorrow without missing class. Now playing in the snow may not be a necessity, although I feel that it is a treat that they deserved for working so hard the two days beforehand and I like for them to enjoy it because we see so little of it around here. The memorial service, on the other hand, is a very real part of life and it also will teach them to care for and comfort others. In both cases it was, us, the parents of these precious children who were able to make the decision as to when it is appropriate to miss "class" or not, instead of some school district bureaucracy and they will be much more exposed to the real world with their family and church family during the memorial service than if they were to be spending that time sitting in a classroom with 25 other children of the same age. Two more reasons that homeschooling fits our family.

Homeschool Carnival Week 42

Homeschool Carnival 42 is up at Homeschool Hacks and it attempts to answer many questions that you may have concerning homeschooling. It looks to cover a great variety of topics - something for everyone.

Auto shop - Homeschool Style

Our family is embarking on a new adventure. We have purchased a 1965 Mustang Coupe in great need of restoration. It was one of our goals for the boys to learn how engines and other automobile systems work prior to their graduation from our homeschool and now we have a hands on way for them to learn. The first step, as we see it, is to completely strip out the interior and see what we have to work with. Two engines and a rebuilt transmission came with the car and so we have something to work with there. This project will be a fun way for our boys to learn all about automobiles - from the inside out and to spend quality time with dad. I will post pictures periodically as things change.