Dear Blog, I promise, I have not abandoned you. I look at you daily and feel like I have nothing to write, because we haven't been doing anything super exciting. Except that we actually have. I just have been writing those "doings" on my other blog, Sweet Honey Iced Tea. No, dear blog, I'm not cheating on you. Also, it's December. It's the busy season. So I've been sidetracked. And there was NaNoWriMo. And I feel like we're not doing anything blog-worthy school-wise. Tuna's been using Time 4 Learning during this busy season. I'll be blogging about that in a few weeks, by the way. Here are a few photos of what we've been doing, sweet blog. I will return to you full force soon. As soon as I can.
There were some sick days that called for piles of blankets, pillows, puppies, and movies.
We saw St. Nick at the Rothenburg Christmas Market.
And we ate roasted chestnuts which were delicious.
We've made Christmas crafts. Starlight Mint Tray.
I made gluten-free sugar "Lofthouse" Christmas cookies. Recipe on Sweet Honey Iced Tea blog.
We made bath fizzies.
...and a Santa tulle wreath.
We "put up" our live tree and decorated it.
Tuna rode a kiddie ride.
We're visiting all the Christmas markets we can during this, our last Christmas in Germany.
Tuna's digging up dinos.
on my dining room table.
We went to a gingerbread house party.
And tonight we're going to the post's tree lighting ceremony. In the blowing snow. There you have it. Our life for the last couple weeks. Two more weeks of busy then I should slow down a bit. Be well, dear blog. I will come back to you soon. Love, Michelle
I don't understand why this is still a question in the mind of anyone who knows my child. However, I'd like to say that it's a little insulting if you do know her and you're still asking me if I'm worried about her socialization. And if you don't know her, well,
But let's sit with this a moment. Let's talk about socialization. First, a look at the dictionary definition of the word:
By asking if I'm worried about Tuna's socialization, you're asking me if she knows how to act in public. And you've seen her act in public. So what you're really saying, even if you don't come out and say it, is that my kid is a freak.
And I can try to convince you that Tuna is socialized. I can. I can try to tell you how social she is. I can tell you that on Monday, she goes to gym class and critical thinking class with her peers (from several grades)
Look! She can even raise her hand! They ALL can!
I could tell you that she does community service.
I could tell you that she donated her hair to Locks of Love and that it was her own idea. I could tell you how she thinks of others constantly.
If I wanted to convince you that Tuna is, in fact, socialized, I could show you that she is a well-versed world traveler who knows how to use public transportation and how to ask for help anywhere she goes.
Or,
I could remind you that you're not socializing your child by sending them to school.
But, funny, that. You don't hear of homeschoolers asking public school parents if they aren't worried about socialization. Here, let's turn the tables for a minute.
Questions Commonly Asked of Homeschoolers Which Ought to be Asked of Parents Who Send Children to Public Schools, Turned Around on Said Parents:
1. I could never send my child away all day. I don't know how you do it. I can't imagine not spending my day with the person I helped create because I wanted a child. I would lose my mind. Don't you get sick of having them gone all the time? (I fear the answer to this one, though)
2. What curriculum does the school use? What? You don't know? You mean to tell me you don't know the brand of textbook being taught to your child all day? Don't you think it's your job to know what's being taught to your child? Oh, wait.
3. What are your children's teachers' qualifications? If you think they all have teaching degrees, you are mistaken. Do you know? Do you ask? Don't you think it's your right to ask?
4. What about socialization? Aren't you worried that your child is being socialized by the wrong people, the wrong influences? I would be. Hell, I am. I have a high schooler in the public school system. I know what "socialization" looks like.
Tuna is not a weird little hermit freak because she doesn't go to school. She actually gets to lead a full life while the kids who do go to school leave when the sun comes up and comes home minutes before it sets. You should see them running off the bus. They scream, almost uncontrollably, letting out all the pent-up energy they can't expel at school. It's sad. They can't control their little bodies any longer and they lose control. It's insanity.
Oh, hi. Have you ever noticed that your life -- homeschool or otherwise -- gets super busy this time of year? This is my busy season. Events to attend. People to visit. Shopping to get done. Food to cook. More events. Events which require shopping. Events which require food. One thing that is in danger of going by the wayside is homeschool. This time of year, we always slack a bit. And that's okay. Sometimes. I found a pretty decent fix for this year. Since I'm taking on novel writing in addition to the rest of my holiday season commitments, it was imperative that we find a way to continue education, even in an unconventional way. I thought I'd share what's been working for us with you. Because surely I'm not the only mom who turns into a crazy person this time of year. You all have full schedules, right? It's not just me? (tell me it's not just me) Workbooks: If we're not using them all the time, they are a novelty. I picked up this one from Kumon on fifth grade writing. And this one from McGraw-Hill on fifth grade math. One page from each per day gets math and language arts out of the way painlessly. We're still reading through Life of Fred. We don't use it every school day, but it entertains Tuna and she's still learning from it. It still bugs me. But she loves it. Online School: We just signed up for Time4Learning. Tuna used it today for math and language arts. I'll be posting a review of the program soon, after I have had a chance to use it a while. Reading Aloud: This is so important. Even as Tuna gets older -- especially as she gets older -- reading aloud helps us connect and exposes Tuna to great books at the same time. Kids who are read to generally become kids who love to read. Right now, Tuna and I are reading Bud, Not Buddy. Read alouds help center us, giving a calm period of time in our hectic schedule. Games: We love games. This is another way to center our day while giving Tuna a great education. A simple one we like to play: Take a deck of flash cards (we're using multiplication and division right now) and lay them in a circular pattern on the kitchen table like this:
You'll need one die and a marker (steal marker pieces from another game -- we use our Harry Potter marker pieces) for each player. Rolling the die, move your marker that many spaces up the spiral of flash cards. Answer the fact. Answer correctly to move on for your next turn. Answer incorrectly, and you're given the answer, but you have to re-answer on your next turn in order to advance. Winner is the first to the center of the spiral. Other games we love:
Blokus
Monopoly
Scrabble
Yahtzee
Battleship
Real-world learning: Field trips, cooking, shopping, car care -- I recently had to put washer and power steering fluid in my car and used the opportunity to teach Tuna how to do those things.
Co-ops: We still have homeschool P.E. and critical thinking, though we don't always make it to class. We've got some holiday-related activities coming up with our co-ops, too.
Random stuff we do: We have been loving Brain Quest cards. We're learning random facts on multiple subjects. Tuna does art on her own, making several pretty fantastic chalk pastels. We'll be making Christmas crafts at home, too.
So as you can see, even though we're crazy-busy, we can still get a solid education in our day for Tuna without having to send her to the big brick block down the road. As a matter of fact, I still think what we're doing is superior to the public school system, particularly because it demonstrates self-discipline during busy times, and adaptation based on personal needs.
One thing I've learned this year: Our educational needs vary from season to season, year to year, and even week to week. Being flexible and creative helps ensure Tuna gets the best education I can offer.
I usually talk about Tuna on this blog, but this was fun to compile for a Facebook game going around, and I thought I'd share it here so you could all know a little bit about Tuna's mom. ;) 1. When I was five years old, maybe a bit younger, I was excited to try my new skates in front of my house. The old man who lived next door, Mr. Costa, told me I was going to fall and get hurt if I skated. That's exactly what happened. Two bloody (scarred, now) knees. I thought for years he caused my fall.
2. I can't eat meat if there's any sign there was even once a bone attached to it, and if I see anything vein-like, I'm done. No skin. No fat. That pretty much limits my meat consumption. I think I could be a vegetarian except whenever I try I miss meat. Weird.
3. I hate confrontation to the point that I will avoid it at almost all costs. But if confrontation is what you provoke out of me, you will awaken a beast and I just might take you by surprise.
4. During seasons of insomnia (just about every summer), I use movies to lull myself to sleep. I'll use the same movie for several nights in a row. One of the movies that is best at getting me to sleep is The Exorcist. Remember that if #3 applies to you.
5. Like He Who Must Not Be Named, I feel like I leave little horcruxes behind at all of our duty stations. Only, I don't kill people (see number 3), but rather I find little places I love dearly, or people I hate to leave behind, so I feel like I leave a part of me with them. I am spread across the globe.
6. I was raised on a small farm. When I was about ten years old, one of our old, crotchety ducks named Dickie flew full force into my left temple. That was the first time I actually "saw stars" and understood.
7. I think my house is haunted. I do not think every one of my houses is haunted, but this one is different. I do believe in spooks. I do believe in spooks. I do, I do, I do believe in spooks.
8. I remember in smells and sounds. A song will come on the radio and I'll think to myself, "ninth grade" or "that time we went roller skating" ...or I'll smell something and think "grandpa" or "my mother's perfume" -- and when we PCSed to Fort Benning, around the Alabama mark, I started smelling the salty air of the ocean coming from the coasts. Yes, that far away. I can also smell snow coming.
9. I don't want all the best things in life. I want all the simplest things. A small house. A tiny car. A simple existance. I'm not out to keep up with the Joneses.
1.) Having a child, who doesn't fit perfectly into a square mold, in public school is exhausting, both physically and mentally. I recently got back from a marathon conference with my oldest daughter's principal, vice principal, and guidance staff about how she's "not fitting in" and they all basically told me that Bay is claiming she's being bullied and that there are vicious rumors spreading about her, only, Bay is the only one telling them, so it must be in her head. Like, they're interviewing the alleged rumor mill and they're all -gasp!- denying saying nasty things about my daughter. They asked me if Bay sees someone in mental health. They told me I should get her involved in the church. She is not an average ninth grader. For starters, she dresses like an adult, no hoodies and sweat pants for Bay. Second, we're fairly certain she's dyslexic (and I got them to agree to testing today). She's awkward socially. And she's not a perfect student academically. She doesn't fit into their little mold. Also, she's being gossiped about by more than one adult in the school. Yeah. We have never, not once, had a smooth year with the public school system. We've had a teacher ask Bay if she forgot to take her ADD medicine before in front of the entire class (in second grade, and no, she wasn't on any medication, nor did she have any diagnoses of any sort). We've had teachers lose work. We've had schools refuse to deal with physical violence. So if you're wondering if homeschool is for you, reread this entry in my blog. The system is awful. Thankfully, we've only got 3.5 years left in it. I don't know how we'd handle any more. I really sincerely never want Tuna to go to school. Ever. (Oh, and yes, there's only one reason in this post. We can talk about more reasons later.) In other news, check out our view on the way home from that meeting. I love Bavaria.
Please bare with me as I try to write a novel in less than thirty days. NaNoWriMo is consuming my existence. This is a new addition in my delicately balanced life, so give me a week to adjust and I will be back to posting.
Meanwhile, we've shaken up our entire fifth grade curriculum in preparation for Moving Beyond the Page for sixth grade. I've all but ditched Life of Fred. As it gets to the middle grades, it gets muddy and I do not need muddy. We're just reading Story of the World, not doing maps, which we've found do nothing to improve geography skills, and we've stopped doing the activity book completely. We're ditching Elemental Science. It's so dull that it's hard to pick up and do. We are only on week three. It's not worth it. Gone. We're going to do some experiments, nature study, and dissections, and study some scientists. Still going strong: Brave Writer. Added: math games weekly, some awesome trivia cards called Brain Quest, flash card work, and a math workbook.
Today is our last geology class with the co-op. It's been a wonderful addition to Tuna's education, and we're sad that it's over, but those five hours a week will be a welcomed addition to our schedule.
See you in a week, hopefully with well over half of my novel finished.
As I was scrounging the Internet and Pinterest for homeschool + middle school + Thanksgiving, I noticed something. It doesn't exist. All the Thanksgiving homeschool stuff is for little kids. Gluing popcorn onto paper cobs. Toilet paper tube pilgrims. Feather headbands and paper pilgrim hats and stick pilgrim houses. Nothing for the big kids. Well, it's out there. It's just hard to find and there's not enough of it. So, I'm going it alone, forging the way for my middle grader. Over the next thirty days, I'll share Thanksgiving teaching ideas: lessons, crafts, recipes, projects. Tuna and I are embarking on 30 Days of Thanksgiving. Won't you join us? Here's our plan for activities: Sundays: nature and science activities Mondays: art activities Tuesdays: poetry activities Wednesdays: cooking activities Thursdays: videos and movies Fridays: reading and writing activities Saturdays: craft activities Day 1 We're thankful for... Tuna: I'm thankful for having parents. That's my top priority. I have to have parents. Mom: NaNoWriMo, which has inspired me to finally put pen to paper (or, well, keyboard to word processing software) and write my first novel. Activity: Sign up to receive letters from a Pilgrim girl and Wampanoag Boy in your email throughout November. Link is under the header "Letters from the new world" on the right side of the page. Begin working through the lesson plan here. We aren't doing all the writing. We're just picking one writing activity and doing that.
OK, I know. It's only October. But I've planned Tuna's sixth grade year already. Thinking about what's worked for us and what we want to change, and keeping in mind that we want a more rigorous curriculum, I went shopping. I found our curriculum. Seriously, I can't be the only one that plans this far out, right? We're going to use Moving Beyond the Page for science, social studies, and language arts. And we're going to use Teaching Textbooks for math. For music, Tuna will be taking up an instrument and receiving lessons. For art, I'm not yet sure. I love it. It's so neat and tidy, short and sweet. And it's geared toward gifted learners, so I know it will be challenging enough, in the right ways. I can hardly wait to get my giant box of new books in the mail. But I'm holding off for spring fling, MBtP's annual sale. Yay for new book smell!
Baby Tuna with (wow, he looks so young) Daddy at The Royal Gorge in Colorado
You're familiar, I'm sure, with the expression looking through rose-colored glasses. It means seeing things optimistically to a fault. Well, I think I'm guilty of looking at Tuna through baby-size glasses. Or something like that. She's my baby. But she's also a tween. Almost a middle schooler. We're halfway through with fifth grade already. The other day, we got together with some friends we haven't seen in nearly a year. We've known them since Tuna and her friend were in first grade together. I watched that boy lose his first teeth, and knew his brother before he was born. We made plans to get together for dinner a few nights ago. When the boy opened the door, gone was the young boy I knew, and standing in his place was a tall, awkwardly handsome in that pre-tween way young man. I couldn't help but remark, "Wow, you've gotten so tall!" Then, Tuna stood beside him without saying a word. She's taller than her friend. Taller than the boy I, not three seconds earlier, recognized as having matured, grown, changed. My baby. She's a big kid. She's nearly to my chin now. She's changing, growing, maturing. And somehow, I didn't see it coming. In an instant, my view of Tuna changed. My brain readjusted, somewhat unwillingly, and I began to view things differently. I knew it was time to start giving her more responsibility to work on her own in several aspects of her life, including her education. So here are some changes we're going to slowly make over the next several months:
Tuna will read her math chapter in Life of Fred and complete the Your Turn to Play on her own, bringing any difficulty to me for help.
I'll start giving her long-term assignments to keep track of: memorization, reports, silent reading, to name a few.
And I'll begin researching online classes that would interest her, that she can take from home, learning from other teachers.
It's weird, seeing her as getting big. Even in this photo above, I see my Baby. I know that others see her differently. She will always be my Baby. I will hold her hand crossing parking lots as long as she will tolerate it. I will always read aloud to her. I will always have time for a cuddle. But, for her own sake, it's time for me to see her as growing and changing. I'll be better able to meet her needs if I do.
I wonder: Have any of you had a similar issue, seeing your baby as a baby and not quite so mature as others seem to see?
*Important: This unit study culminates in a dissection, and this post contains photos and video of dissection. Sensitive readers should proceed with caution. Ever since the owl pellet dissection, Tuna has been expressing interest in continuing with biology and dissection. So, I ordered some specimens and got a lesson plan in motion. It was somewhat difficult to find straight-forward, middle school level lesson plans online. Most of what I could find was cutesy, lower grade, arts and crafts stuff. Knowing the end of our unit study was a pretty serious matter, I wanted to avoid the cutesy and cut to the chase. Here's what we did:
Frogs
Time Spent: 3 Days Purpose: To facilitate curiosity of frog anatomy. To provide an introduction to middle school level biology and dissection. To explore and learn about the internal and external structure of the grass frog in a hands-on manner. Materials required:
We discussed the life cycle of the frog in further detail.
No need to be overly serious. Some fun with basic amphibian information:
A Brain Pop on amphibians (subscription required) has a good video, worksheet, and quiz.
Day 2: Learning about frogs' bodies and preparing for dissection day
We used the following websites to familiarize ourselves with frog anatomy before our dissection: eTutor The entire set of links at Biology Corner
And, finally, we watched two dissection videos (actual dissection shown):
This one from Teacher Tube and this set from You Tube:
Day Three: Our turn (The actual dissection) If the videos from day two didn't scare you off, congratulations. You've got guts. Much like our little friend here. I, on the other hand, am very squeamish, and I'm having a hard time even typing this. My head is a little bit spinny and I keep averting my eyes. Throughout this process, I have maintained my badass stature. No big deal, I said. I can do this, I said. Tuna thought it was the coolest thing ever. I had to keep pace. So don't feel bad if you ...feel bad. I know how you feel. Really, I do. If Tuna wasn't into this, we wouldn't be doing it. This is definitely not for my benefit. Ready? Right then. Away we go. I printed this PDF Frog Dissection Manualto accompany our dissection, because the dissection guide that came with our frog was tiny print and I didn't find it particularly user friendly. We donned our gloves, put on play clothes, and went to work.
We first took a good look at all the external structures of our frog: the head, the trunk, the arms and legs, the cloaca, the eyes, mouth, and external nares, the tympanic membrane, the toes and webbing, the skin (not slimy), the belly, the jaw (pretty firmly closed, not slack like I was expecting).
Then, we look a look inside the frog's mouth. In order to do this, we had to cut his mouth wider where the jaw hinged. We checked out his tongue and manipulated it to demonstrate how it catches prey. We felt his (oh, right, our frog was a boy) teeth and looked at his eye sockets (if you poke them gently, you can open the eyes, but don't poke too hard. trust me.)
I've decided not to share more graphic images. The videos cover everything in detail. Tuna was able to identify almost all of the frog's parts at the end of the dissection. She was amazing throughout the dissection. Lots of guts, that kid. Pun intended. If I can survive frog day, anyone can. I breathed through my nose (though he really didn't stink, more psychological than anything). I wore gloves. And I put on a brave face for Tuna. So, we did it. Our next specimen is a perch, but that's a few weeks off yet.
For several reasons (in-laws extended visit, lots of awesome field trips, to name two), we've found ourselves a bit behind where I hoped we'd be by this week. In an effort to catch up to where I want us to be, I've implemented a catch-up week. Regular schedules are set aside and we work on just one subject each day for a week and a half. Here's what it looks like: Days 1 & 2: Science. Day 1 will catch us up and day 2 will complete the current week's planned lessons. Days 3 & 4 : Math. I'll split up the assignments over two days to catch us up. Days 5 & 6: Art, music, and German: These will be fun days. I want to finish up with chalk pastels, and we've got a music study going that we keep setting aside.
Days 7 & 8: History catch-up. Lots of reading and hands-on activities will be completed. With that, we'll be caught up. Normally, I wouldn't care that we're behind, but I do want us to finish our curriculum before our move next summer, with plenty of time to pre-plan our sixth grade year before chaos ensues.
I woke up in a bad mood! I'm just irritated today, with no real cause. It happens to the best of us. So, what does a homeschool mom do when she finds herself grumpy? I don't want to take it out on Tuna. She's done nothing remotely wrong. So, I don't know what other homeschool moms do (we just don't talk about the bad stuff enough, you know? and when we do, it's laughingly. we should talk about this stuff), but here's what I did:
I sat at my desk, drinking overly-sweetened coffee, and puttered around on Pinterest (here is my Pinterest page, by the way. I think it's pretty great.) while Tuna played her bells upstairs. Until I asked her not to. Because the ting!ting!ting! was grating on my nerves.
So, I asked her if she wanted breakfast. She asked what she could have, and I told her anything at all that she wanted in the kitchen.
She wanted to bake cookies. I don't want to bake cookies, I thought to myself. But, wait. She's old enough to handle a cookie mix on her own!
I gave her simple instructions: use the microwave to soften your butter, don't forget the timer) and went back to Pinterest. I needed some time, some time alone, to feel better.
She set about the task of baking cookies and called me over when her whisk was full of cookie dough (why a whisk? she thought it's the tool she needed, as she's never done this before). I helped her mash up her cookie dough, and she took over from there.
Ten minutes later, she presented me with gingerbread cookies, which I devoured happily.
Next, she watched a movie while I still needed some alone-ish time. She was all of fifteen feet away from me, but the different engagements helped. Again, it's not Tuna, it's me. But I find when I'm cranky that working quietly alone helps.
And that's where we are now. I'm writing, she's watching a movie. I'm hoping this mood blows over soon. I'm deep breathing, about to go soak in a tub for a while, and I'm sure I'll feel better.
The bottom line is this: Every mom has bad days. Heck, I remember my teachers having bad days. Out came the board games, the rolling television, the indoor recess, the other teachers monitoring us while our teacher stepped out. It happens. And life goes on. And no one's education is compromised.
So if you're cranky, go soak in a bubble bath! Pop in Home Alone for the fifteenth time this month and just unwind. There's always tomorrow.
And for the love of sanity, share your bad days with your fellow homeschoolers, so they don't all feel isolated, alone, and bad for being cranky sometimes.
This week found us in Kallmünz, Germany, a charming, typical Bavarian town situated on the river Naab. We didn't get to spend much time there due to needing a toilet (public toilets are few in Germany and when you do find one, it's not free). Still, we enjoyed it while we were there, and we might return to explore some more. There's a castle ruins in Kallmünz I'd like to see.
Look at these formations on the underside of the bridge above. Stalactites! I thought stalactites only formed in caves, but they were all over this bridge over the Naab River. So cool!
Committing ourselves to weekly Sunday Strolls makes sure we see lots of Germany in the little time we have left. This short stroll was worth the 30 minute drive from home, proving you don't have to go far to see much. Where are you strolling this week?
