Sunburn! 7-2-11

I took the kids to the river yesterday after VBS and let them wade/swim for nearly three hours. Everyone got a little pink but for some reason Eldest Kidlet and I got rather more sun than the others. I suppose the fact that we're the two most likely to stay in doors may have something to do with it as the others were all a light toast color to start with while this is the first time I've had my swimsuit on in almost two years and the younger kids like to tease Eldest Kidlet that she must be a vampire since she avoids the sun so much.

I'm also going to count the trip as an hour of science since we did much observation and discussion among the playing. We observed and identified a female black swallowtail, the iridescent blue bands on the lower wings being the indication of gender. Watched tadpoles in a boggy area as well as competition for a burrow between two crawdads, the challenger being the winner and claiming the burrow from the defender. We also discussed how the bed of a river impacts the rate at which the water flows, as was demonstrated by various fast shallow or slow deep stretches we came across, and how a tsunami is formed at sea by the same general dynamic.

The change in the children is dramatic. Before if they had a question and I said, "Well let's go look it up" their reply was almost invariably,"No, that's okay." Now, they make absolutely certain I don't forget to look up the things we saw as soon as we get home. They're also pulling out the various informative books that they've gotten at book fairs and such but never gotten around to reading and going through them of their own free will. I'm so thrilled to see an excitement and hunger for learning that I have long enjoyed but feared my children would never know

Now I'm nervous! 6-30-11

I just handed in the kids withdrawal letter to the school administrators and we are now officially homeschooling. Everyone at the office was very nice and relaxed about the whole thing, so that's not why I'm nervous. Also, I seem to be unusual among homeschooling moms in that I have no doubt of my ability to teach my children, so that's not the cause of the nerves either. I do know that I have a lot to learn as I teach them, but am looking forward to the opportunity of understanding as an adult concepts that eluded me as a child. Honestly? I'm at a loss as to the cause of the butterflies. Even so, they're quite emphatically making their presence known.

Where to start?

There are at least half a dozen post I've started to write in my head over the last week and none actually made it to the keyboard. It's not even that I wasn't sitting here. I was. I just didn't write things as they happened and then the moment seemed to be lost.

I'm mostly writing this post to alert the reader that the emotion or ideas expressed in any of the following posts are the product of the moment in which the given event occured and I'm no longer anxious, glum, etc.

I've also decided to put the relevant date, as nearly as I can remember, in the title line just for this post dump.

Gulp!

Tuesday and Wednesday I attended my second-ever homeschool conference. The first was in PA when Eldest Kidlet was either an infant or not yet born so it's been quite a while in between.

I'm very proud of myself on two counts. The first is that I bought absolutely nothing on the first day, confining myself exclusively to attending lectures and gathering information. The second is that I took all four kids with me the second day. Actually, they were wonderfully behaved even with attending two lectures and spending several hours on the sales floor. Of course the bribe of a book or art project for good behavior probably didn't exactly hurt.

The "gulp" in the title is that we've gotten the curriculum and are really going to do this thing. Something that makes it a little less scary is that the kids are already showing more interest in what they're going to be learning than they did at any time last year. I just checked the accuracy of that statement with Eldest Kidlet and she says she's "More excited for this coming year than for all the previous years combined."

It's hard to believe

But today makes one year since John passed away. Fortunately I have the day pretty solidly planned so I won't have much time to think about it. I probably won't mention it to the kids either, although I'm not sure about that.

Change!

There are some major changes going on at la maisson Mommykitten.

Cosmetically, Son and I have been removing many of the bushes planted by the previous home owner and replacing them with berry bushes, roses, and flowers. I'm also removing much of the volunteer clover to make room for flowers and this makes the neighbors happy as well. It's been a lot of work but will be well worth it if most of the plants survive.

The other major change is that the kids have voted and all would like to try homeschooling for a year. It's something I've been thinking about for a while, but several converations lately have brought the issue to a head. It's not that there's a problem with the teachers, bullying, or poor grades. It's that everytime one of the kids asked about current events, and I tried to explain what was going on, it became quickly apparent that they didn't have the background knowledge necessary to understand the explanation. I could understand a little of that but my going-into-eighth-grader hasn't had any of the international geography and history that I did in seventh grade, and won't until ninth grade. Son has had music class all six years he's been in school and doesn't know who Beethoven or Motzart are. Neither of the two oldest spell well and yet spelling instruction stops after 6th grade. The math and science instruction are respectable but now that all the kids are getting mostly A's they will not be challenged any further, and I know the two younger particullarly can be stretched quite a bit since for them getting straight A's is simply a matter of turning in their homework.

All of that is a long way of saying that the older kid's knowledge foundations need shoring up in some areas while they are being encouraged to stretch themselves academically and the two younger one's need to be challanged to make the most of their academic gifts. This simply isn't possible in a standardized public, or even private, school setting no matter how dedicated the teachers are, and I would like to reiterate that I have no complaint with the teachers just the pace at which concepts are introduced.

Well, we've certainly got the "April showers" part perfected

I just hope the "May flowers" part works out as well, particularly since I've planted quite a few and don't want them to go to waste. I've also planted peas from seed and lettuce, broccoli, and sweet pepper shoots. Once things are a little less soggy I hope to get some pictures to prove I planted them. For my birthday I placed my first ever seed catalog order for some berry bushes, flowers, and groundcover plants so there should be quite a few changes in the landscape. My goal is to move away from the formal beds that were in place and make them into a mix of edible plants and wildflowers that will be easier to care for, and replace the kitchen herb garden I had in Colorado.