I debated about whether to share this with your or not, as it might gross some of you out.  But I’ll just warn those of you who are squeamish not to read any more, and if you decide to read anyway, well – it’s your choice.

Yesterday our cat caught a mouse, a large mouse.  Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t eat them (because they’re perfect complete packages of feline nutrition), so he deposited in the side yard.  My kids saw him put it there, and asked me if they could dissect it. 

I can’t say that I enthusiastically agreed to this idea.  Frankly, it was slightly outside of my comfort zone, but I didn’t say no.  I try to say yes as much as I can, especially to potential learning opportunities.  Remembering the memorable and educational dissection I did in high school, I kind of half nodded while slightly gagging.  They didn’t need more than that before they raced back outside excitedly.

Three of the kids dissected the mouse.  (Don’t ask me what they used, I didn’t watch and didn’t ask.)  They showed the rest of us what they learned.  It was very, very fascinating.  They found five mouse embryos inside – each about the size of a large pea.  By looking closely, you could see clearly the shape of the mouse it would be, though they weren’t fully developed. 

They took a picture with the digital camera to bring it in to show me – and with the camera, we were able to zoom in on the picture already taken and see minute details.  They didn’t have a book, but based on their knowledge of human anatomy, they identified the placenta, and looked at the other organs.  They were able to identify the heart, and probably could have figured out which were the intestines, etc, if they had more time.

You never know when an educational opportunity will present itself.  Hands on learning!

Avivah

I’ve been feeling very fractured in terms of time lately, pulled in too many directions with the new time demands involved in having my 14 year old son home for part of the day.  It’s great having him home, but it has really changed my schedule and I haven’t yet integrated the changes in a way that feels smooth to me.  So that’s why I haven’t been posting much recently.  Plus, by the time everyone’s asleep and it’s quiet enough to sit down, I’m so tired that I hardly have any intelligent thoughts left! 

Anyway, this week I watched a documentary on dvd with the kids called ‘Maxed Out’.  (I was able to get it at the library.)  It’s only the second time I’ve shown them a dvd in this kind of format – the first time was Supersize Me.  Maxed Out is about credit card spending in the US, and a look behind the scenes at credit card industry and its victims.  I thought it was well done, definitely had a strong emotional pull, but it was lacking balance in terms of adequately defining the problem and the solution. 

Afterwards, I asked my kids what they thought the message was.  My eleven year old said it seemed like credit card companies were killing people.  That gave us a chance to discuss what techniques the makers of the presentation used to make it so emotionally effective, and to see what the agenda of it was.  But more important was the talk we had about the danger of irresponsible and uncontrolled spending when using credit cards.  Many of those who were portrayed sympathetically were preyed upon, but I don’t doubt that the majority of them used credit cards irresponsibly.  That’s the part they didn’t show in the film that was crucial but missing.  And I know that some of the experts interviewed believe in personal responsibility (from reading their books), but they obviously edited out any reference to consumer responsibility because it wasn’t part of their message.  It was all about the people as victims – no one has a credit card forced into their hands, and even if they did, you don’t have to use it!

I want my kids to understand the motivation behind the credit card industry, and that was effectively accomplished with their film.  But they need to recognize that people don’t become victims of credit card companies by standing by passively.  Kids need to know what they can do to avoid credit card debt and the kind of sad things that can result (some shown in the film).  Feeling like a victim leaves you feeling helpless, but when you know you can do something to improve on the situation, you feel empowered.

When a person uses credit cards, it’s been proven that they spend more than they buy with cash, because there isn’t the same consciousness of spending money when using plastic.  That’s why credit card companies want their terminals in every possible location, even for small purchases, because they know people will buy more.

When you combine that with the desire for immediate gratification, you have large numbers of people buying things they can’t afford because they want it now.  So lesson number two for my kids is, you have to be responsible when you spend your money, and the first part of being responsible is having enough money to buy what you want.  If you don’t have the money right now, then you shouldn’t buy something.  It may be old- fashioned to teach kids not to buy something until they have the money for it, but that’s what I tell my kids.  It’s okay to wait for what you really want.  It builds self-control, discipline, patience, and responsibility, and when they finally get whatever it is they are saving up for, they’ll appreciate it in an entirely different way. 

I find programs such as these provide a great springboard for discussion, which is why I don’t have a problem using them as educational material with the kids, even though the answer they presented was more governmental control.  I don’t need to show them things that agree with my perspective on life, because part of what I’m trying to teach them is how to evaluate information.  This film was definitely worth watching – it isn’t intended for kids, but my kids benefitted, and an adult audience would definitely benefit from it!

Avivah

Okay, so you all know that we put our ninth grade son in a private high school this year, after seven years of homeschooling.  And he has been doing incredibly well for the most part.  Except for the part where he’s doing really, really badly.  There are a variety of factors, which I can’t really get into here.  But that’s what I went to speak to the principal about.

I’ve been paying close attention to this situation from the beginning of the year, but was reluctant to jump in and take over.  But finally my husband and I agreed that we needed to take steps to deal with the issue.  I told the principal that I want to homeschool him for the four afternoon classes – one of which he’s doing fairly well in, one is a complete write off because there’s a new teacher who can’t control the class, and two that he’s doing poorly in.  I told him that I don’t expect the school to bend to meet my son’s needs, but I’m not willing to watch him spend hours every day and put in the effort and not get the education I want him to have. 

The principal countered and said that the school will do whatever they can to make it work for him.  Knowing that this flexibility only exists in words and won’t extend to anything meaningful, I thanked him and told him that it won’t help.  The school day is obscenely long – my son is up before 7 am and out the door by 7:30, and gets home at 8:45 pm.  Then he does homework and studies for tests, prepares lunch for the next day, or just relaxes a little – until midnight.  On the days he’s off, he totally crashes – he just falls asleep on the couch for hours in the middle of the day, something he’s never done before.  I told the principal that the day is very long – too long.  By 3 pm, when these classes begin, he’s put in a full day and done well.  He just doesn’t have any energy or motivation left to keep him going in the later classes.  Will the school shorten it’s school day? Clearly not. 

So the principal tells me it must be some social or emotional problem, because he doesn’t raise his hand to ask questions and sits in the back of the class.  I didn’t expect it to be hard to understand that a kid who doesn’t want to be there and isn’t understanding all the material doesn’t want to participate.   Why look for deep psychological motivations?  It’s pretty obvious what’s going on to me. 

Anyway, back to the principal.  He told me I could hire a tutor to work with my son in the class he’s struggling with.  I told him that was unreasonable, given the long hours and the private school tuition we were already paying, that there literally was no available time for tutoring and even if there was, I wasn’t going to do it.  Then he suggested that he only take the first two classes, drop the second two, and come back for the night.  I pointed out that picking him up from school at 5 pm and then having to begin working with him on his most difficult subjects wasn’t realistic or fair to him. 

He admitted he had a bias, that kids need the social structure of school, and asked me how I would handle the credit documentation.  I didn’t bother pointing out that my son was the best behaved in every class (that’s what all the teachers say, I’m not just saying that), had no behavior issues, and got along with all the kids – the social thing is so ridiculous that I just don’t have patience for it.  I’m at the point in my life that I’ll just let anyone look at my kids and they can judge for themselves how they’re faring in dealing with others.  If they want to ignore the obvious, why should I bother pointing that out?   And I didn’t mention that he’s in school to learn, not for vague ‘social’ stuff.

I told him how I’d deal with the credits, and then told him that my biggest concern is that my son gets the skills and education that he should, and that if I had to choose between him getting credits and getting an education (meaning staying in school, though I didn’t directly say that), I’d choose the education every time.  The skills and abilities are my priority, not a piece of paper.  He countered by saying that a student needs to be successful in school to be successful in life.

Now I’d been quite polite until now, and I remained polite.  I’m not looking to change his philosophy about education, just get my son out of a difficult situation into something that would work better for him.  But time to take off the kid gloves – I couldn’t let something like that go by.  So I told him, ‘I can’t disagree with you more.  There is never another time in a person’s life once they are outside of school that they need to spend hours a day in a place they don’t want to be, doing things they don’t want to do, with people they don’t want to be with – and to have absolutely no say about any of it.  And not only that, if you look around at the vast majority of hugely successful people today, the majority of them weren’t superstars in school.  There is absolutely no correlation between success in school and success in life.’  He reluctantly conceded the point.

So he agreed that I could take ds out for four hours, if I got him back in time for the evening class.  And if I got permission from the other principal, who is responsible for a different part of the curriculum.  So off I go to the other principal, who fortunately was in and had time to speak with me.  This principal loves my son – he told me he’s a real asset to the school and student body, can’t say enough good about him.  He was very surprised to hear how poorly he was doing in the two classes I mentioned, since he knows he’s a smart and motivated student.  I explained the situation to him, and he understood my concerns, but told me he doesn’t have the authority to release my son from that part of the program.  Who does?  I inquire. The board.  The problem is, that the only reason they allow something like this is when a student has special needs that the school can’t meet.  And since ds is in honor classes, the argument that he has special needs isn’t going to go over well, because the response would be to put him in a lower class. 

So he said he’ll have an answer for me in a week.  Interestingly, both of the principals mentioned in passing that the tuition might be an issue – meaning that I would want to pay less if he wasn’t there for all of those classes and that had to be taken into account.  I told them that the tuition has been paid for this year, and we have no desire to get a refund at all.  Just a desire to get our son in a situation where he’ll be learning again.  Then I was told that they’re afraid to set a precedent that other parents will want to do what I’m doing.  I found that amusing, as I know full well that very few parents of high school boys want to pull them out of school and be responsible for them academically, especially as that means dealing with their child for hours more a day. 

As I said before, you have to look out for your child.  No matter how wonderful someone else is, your child isn’t their child.  All I care about is what’s best for my son, not what’s easiest for me, or my ego.  Both of these principals are wonderful people – really, good quality people.  But they have to juggle other agendas besides my son’s interests when they make decisions.

Avivah

I realized that I’ve hardly written anything here about homeschooling, even though that’s a big part of our life.  So today I decided to share some of what we’re doing. 

I don’t believe in using a boxed curriculum, because a family can easily lose the flexibility and fun of homeschooling when they get caught up in a program like that.  I also don’t like the idea of trying to do whatever the schools are doing, which is based on the assumption that whatever the schools are doing is the best thing to be doing.  So I create our curriculum myself. 

This has meant different approaches in different years, but for the last 2 – 3 years, I’ve been using whatever historical period I want to cover as the spine for our reading, and occasionally writing.  I find that it ties things together well and naturally integrates history in a way that isn’t usually done.  Don’t you remember history being the most boring topic in school?  But as a homeschooling mom, I’ve learned how fascinating history actually is.

This year, I decided to do American history, beginning with Christopher Columbus.  My basic approach is to choose some nonfiction books on an appropriate level for each child and some historical fiction books for each child.  Then I make up a list for each child of what books need to be read in what order, so that they can independently learn without needing to wait for everyone to be ready.   Everyone is simultaneously learning the same material but on different levels. I get picture books to read with the kids who aren’t independent readers (and they’re so interesting that often the older kids listen in :)), so all of us comfortably can discuss whatever we’re learning.  I’ve also found historical videos to watch with the kids that have been a very helpful supplement to our studies. 

Here’s an example of how it works.  We’re currently studying the French and Indian War, (which was pivotal in changing the face of America, leading directly to the American Revolution – I never knew anything about it before :)).  We watched a four hour dvd by the History Channel (from the library) over a period of time.  Meanwhile, the kids were reading fiction books like Calico Captive, Calico Bush, The Ransom of Mercy Carter, Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison, Sign of the Beaver, to get a view of what it was like for the pioneers of the frontier, the native people, those who fought for Britain and France, those who were taken captive by natives and what their lives were like. 

Together with this, we read factual books about the buffalo, lives of the pioneers, and Native American life.  We watched a reenactment of a buffalo jump after reading about it (when large numbers of buffalo were driven over a cliff in a hunt), and watched a couple of videos about different Native American tribes and their history.  We’ve had many discussions about what we’ve read, why things happened in the way they happened, and though provoking talks about different aspects of what we’ve read. 

I’ve found this an enjoyable and natural way for all of us to learn together.   The kids use the books I assign for their mandatory reading time (an hour daily), so I know that they are reading quality literature during that time.  We use the videos or dvds for our free time, never during our morning learning times.   I’m also hoping to make a trip to a living history place to further boost up all that we’ve covered.  Colonial Williamsburg is having a special price for homeschoolers for the next three weeks, and I am longing to take advantage of it.  The kids know so much that they could really benefit from interacting with all of the reenactors.  But it’s so far away that the costs involved in that trip right now are too high. 🙁  So I’ve been researching places closer to home that we could go.

Hopefully this gives you a clear enough idea of my approach to be helpful!

Avivah

I decided recently to change the way I’m posting to make it easier to categorize and for people to find in the archives.  I often hesitated to post about things that were happening because it made for too long a post when I put a bunch of things together, and then I ended up not posting about lots of things that were on my mind.  So if you’re wondering why I’ve changed the format and there are now several short posts in one day, that’s your answer! 

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah, and we’re having a homeschooling family of 10 that we met last year on a shopping trip to PA (we were both families of 9 then, and since had babies within three weeks of each other).  Since the first time we met (I mentioned it in passing the day we met them here on my blog), we’ve gotten together several times.  My kids are really looking forward to having them, and so am I, of course. 🙂 

My kids built a beautiful wooden puppet theatre several weeks ago, and have been working intensely on writing a puppet show (Chanuka theme), making the puppets, decorating the theatre and this last week, practicing for the show.  When they began, I had no idea how much effort they would be putting into it, but they’ve all put in hours to get ready for it. 

Tonight will be the first night they perform it, for our guests, and then tomorrow night my mom and dh’s parents will be here for the second show.  They want to invite another large family we’re friendly with to see it, so hopefully we can have them over for one afternoon this week.  I haven’t yet seen it – they expressly want me to be surprised, so they are practicing in the basement where I can’t hear them. They showed my husband the script and he thought it was great.  I’m looking forward to seeing the result of all their hard work!

Avivah

The kids picked up a picture book at the library that I took a quick glance at and approved, but didn’t get to read until yesterday –  Cinder Edna, by Ellen Jackson.  It didn’t look like much by the cover (and you know what they say about judging a book by its cover – but I do it anyway), and I personally wouldn’t have picked it up without knowing what it was.  Fortunately, one of my kids chose it, and wow, what a great book!  You know a book is good when everyone in the family, including the parents, enjoy reading it!

It’s a modern day version of Cinderella; it portrays the typical Cinderella and simultaneously shows Cinder Edna, a spunky modern day girl who doesn’t complain about her life and instead uses her opportunities to better herself and takes responsibility for what she can.  I often tell my kids that they are the ones who choose their attitudes and thereby determine to a large degree how happy they are going to be in life, and this book highlights that message beautifully.  It’s very fun and had me laughing out loud when I read it to the kids.  Definitely put this on your list next time you’re at the library, and let me know if your family enjoys it as much as ours!

Avivah

It’s been cold and wintery around here, but today was one of those perfect autumn days that are so beautiful that it almost takes your breath away.  Well, mine anyway.  I had to take dh to the train at noon, and as I got into my van, I happened to look up the street and see the incredibly striking yellow and scarlet leaves on the trees against the clear blue sky – it’s one of those sights that could be made into a picture.   I love the autumn.  As soon as I got back home, I told the kids to stop what they were doing so we could head to the arboretum to enjoy the day.

 I’ve only once taken my  kids to the arboretum and that was two years ago, despite a really nice one very close by.  My kids loved it and at that time, I wanted to make it a weekly outing and have the kids bring their nature notebooks to sketch the changes in the trees and plants they saw, ala Charlotte Mason.  Well, it never happened – it was a nice idea but somehow having to go out to see the trees and flowers was unappealing to me every time the kids reminded me of my idea.

Until today.  No, we didn’t bring notebooks, just ourselves.  There’s something powerful about taking kids into nature – different from playing in the typical backyard.  It awakens the senses in a way that’s hard to explain, and everyone becomes so relaxed and happy.  Even the baby stopped fussing and just looked around with wide eyes up into the sky and at the trees above.  

As I was watching them run all over, I thought about how lucky we are that we can take advantage of a day like this on the spur of the moment.  By the time most kids are home, the day is almost gone.  By tomorrow or the weekend, who’s to say the weather will still be like this?

Except for us it was almost empty, which is something I’ve always found a hidden benefit of homeschooling.  We regularly get to go to places when it’s off season, quiet and no crowds to battle!  It’s so much more relaxing for me to be out with the kids when I don’t have to be hyperalert every minute about who is where.  It’s not only a big bonus to me, it’s a big bonus to my kids since it means they get to go on lots more trips than they would if they had to go during the hours everyone else is there. 🙂  

Avivah