Here I go!
What are your kids ages and names/pseudonyms?
David is 11, I call him "Flipper" on my blog because he's a gymnast and loves dolphins. And is hyperactive, always tumbling about...
Caileigh is 2-and-a-half. On my blog I call her "Pomme" because she's the apple of our eye.
Tell us a little about your family.
David is, as I said, hyperactive. Possibly full-on ADHD. Certainly sensory integration problems -- needs to constantly be in motion, touching things, fiddling, fidgeting, grabbing things, chewing on things, wiggling, I tell you it's enough to drive me mad. Possibly mildly asperger's? Just starting to consider that idea. He's bright and creative but has low self-esteem and is very negative about everything. He's the lazy type of perfectionist with no self-motivation whatsoever. It's a handful homeschooling him for sure, but I can only imagine how much worse off we'd all be if he were in school.
Caileigh is a little angel in contrast. She's keen and attentive and patient and cooperative and loves discovering and learning.
Hubby Brian is a computer geek who works for the city's IT department. He's David's stepfather, David's dad and I divorced when David was almost 4.
I'm a professional musician... trained as a concert pianist, also lots of experience with band as I also play the trombone. Used to teach lots of piano students, but I'm taking a break from that since we moved back home last year. Now I'm focussing on playing and just took a job conducting the city band (which I first joined when I was 12!).
How long have you been homeschooling? Is there a story behind it?
We've always homeschooled. I can't recall exactly what point I decided for sure that that's what we'd do. No particular story except for the usual dissatisfactions with public education and the desire for closer family ties. I'd decided long before we were aware of David's issues, so that wasn't a factor in 'starting', but it's certainly a factor in 'sticking with it'!
Does your homeschool have a name or a mission statement?
Nope.
What is your general homeschooling philosophy?
Eclectic. Do what works. Unschooling-inspired, Montessori-inspired, Charlotte Mason-inspired. Still searching for the perfect mix.
Do you use a curriculum?
For some things. With David I started out very curriculum-y and probably caused way more problems than I needed to, sigh... So we were unschooley for awhile, but have gradually been building in more structure as he's getting older and really does seem to thrive best with structure.
What he's using right now:
Math -- RightStart level E and Life of Fred Fractions
Science -- Noeo Biology II and Earth Logic
Grammar -- Daily Grams Grade 5
French -- L'art de lire
History -- History Odyssey, Ancients level 2
Handwriting -- A Reason for Handwriting, level F
Spelling -- Natural Speller
I think that's it as far as "official" curriculum right now... but we're also using a Reading Detective book, a Mind Benders book, a "Christian-values-based-on-Aesop's-fables" book (we're not "Christian homeschoolers" per se, but slant towards a liberal Christian worldview, DS enjoys it anyway)... Anything else that we do is self-developed or built out of the day or whatever.
Do you or your children have any special interests or hobbies that influence your homeschooling?
David wants to be a marine biologist, he's just crazy about whales and dolphins. He even got picked as the 'volunteer' during the dolphin show at Marineland last year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2xBpOyddUE
Talk about a highlight of his life! He still talks about it. I try to show him how the things we do relate to stuff he needs to learn and develop in order to be a marine biologist (even if the connection is not immediately obvious).
He also wants to be a rock guitarist. It all started with Guitar Hero, of course, but we got him a real electric guitar and some books and he's doing amazingly well. It affects our homeschooling because he's constantly playing his guitar instead of doing what he SAID he was going to do.
I do include some guitar practice as part of his "official" school stuff, though, and we're looking into getting some lessons for him.
He also is a competitive gymnast. Here's some videos of the Provincials from a couple months ago:
http://motherbynature.ca/2009/04/pro...nships-videos/
His first competition at that level and he walked away with lots of jewelry.
He then competed at the Atlantics, where he got 5th place in the pommel. Not bad!
This affects our homeschooling positively because it's an outlet for his incessant motion.
Caileigh loves dance, but she's still so young it's not a big part of our lives yet. Probably start classes this fall, though. Her biggest interests right now are letters (you can see she's trying to figure out how words work, it's very cool) and numbers (she can count by rote to twenty, and count objects accurately up to 4, and identifies all the written digits EVERYWHERE SHE SEES THEM lol...) She also loves drawing, helping around the house, doing things herself... typical Montessori toddler things.
What is your typical daily routine? weekly routine?
Do you want the "typical" routine or the "intended" routine lol... Since David does gymnastics and also Tae Kwon Do (he has a junior black belt in karate, we switched to TKD when we moved because we couldn't find a karate school here we were happy with), he's out at activities pretty much every night of the week. We try to do the school stuff in the morning so that he's free for the afternoon, but he often stalls and fusses and it takes all day.
I've started using a Charlotte Mason inspired schedule, which works fairly well at keeping him on task. I've posted before about our struggles with this, and why just letting him unschool or set his own schedules etc doesn't work. Just recently we've come to a good agreement (again) and although he hasn't got everything done every single day, he's done it most days and we didn't have any big battles when he didn't.
Basically I've been planning a week at a time based on a long-term 'vision' of how much we'd like to get done, and slotting it into the days with short lessons and doable, enjoyable tasks. Recently modified the way I've been organizing it, more on that below.
Caileigh, we're being fairly Montessori with but only loosely so, in that we have lots of Montessori-type activities around for her but I don't schedule any "school time" for her. She takes them whenever she likes throughout the day.
How do you evaluate progress?
We actually do third-party standardized testing once a year. It started as part of the separation agreement with David's dad... he didn't trust me to homeschool when he wasn't there to watch things
: but agreed to give it a try provided we did testing to confirm he was progressing.
David actually enjoys the testing, go figure... so we've continued even though his dad is now satisfied that things are fine. It also just helps ease my mind when after a year of struggle and feeling like we just wasted so much time and did we REALLY get anything useful done... he tests above his grade level.
We had been using the CAT-3 from Canadian Testing Centres from the beginning, but last year we also did the PASS test from Hewitt Homeschooling, which is actually designed for homeschoolers. We really liked it so we're doing it again this year.
Do you have any special methods/tips for planning? household organization? storage? record keeping?
I've just today started a new system that's sort of based on the workbox idea... or maybe it's more like the system that the workboxes were inspired BY lol... I've made a bunch of index cards, one for each subject, written in pen at the top along with which days of the week we'll do that subject (according to the weekly plan I'd worked out before).
Then each day I write the assignment in that subject in pencil and put it into a "to do" box. As he does them, he moves the card to the "done" box. So it isn't a separate box for each item with the books and everything, it's just a card describing it. I just don't have room for a whole workbox thing. I might work out some kind of thing like where you take the sticker for each thing and put it on the master to make a rainbow or happy faces or whatever, like with workboxes... or I might not bother lol...
So far (and it's only been a day -- and a half, since I've prepared tomorrow's cards now) I'm finding it easier to organize than my written-out weekly planner, since it's easier to adjust if he doesn't do something one day and needs to do it the next day. It's more flexible. I still have a rough weekly plan in my head.
And all the more detailed advance planning I had been doing was about organizing a history program (based on info and methods from some Charlotte Mason websites) but while that was okay, I wasn't really completely happy with what I came up with. So we're trying History Odyssey, which is exactly what I was trying to do by myself only someone else has done the hard work for me lol... and done it better!
All we do for storage is he's got a shelf in his room especially for his school-ey books, and a drawer for all his math manipulatives.
Hm, I guess I can also mention that Caileigh's room is organized a-la Montessori, with neat shelves of accessible activities and books, a set of drawers for her clothes she can access herself, a floor bed (though she only naps there, she still spends the night in our room), hooks she can reach for her jackets, bags, etc. I TOTALLY think every toddler needs a Montessori room! She is so confident and independent, loves putting things away, can get herself completely dressed, there's no clutter... (all the 'junky' toys are in a playroom downstairs). We're really, really, really happy with this arrangement.
Whew... thanks for making it all the way through this... if you have any questions please ask away!
What are your kids ages and names/pseudonyms?
David is 11, I call him "Flipper" on my blog because he's a gymnast and loves dolphins. And is hyperactive, always tumbling about...
Caileigh is 2-and-a-half. On my blog I call her "Pomme" because she's the apple of our eye.
Tell us a little about your family.
David is, as I said, hyperactive. Possibly full-on ADHD. Certainly sensory integration problems -- needs to constantly be in motion, touching things, fiddling, fidgeting, grabbing things, chewing on things, wiggling, I tell you it's enough to drive me mad. Possibly mildly asperger's? Just starting to consider that idea. He's bright and creative but has low self-esteem and is very negative about everything. He's the lazy type of perfectionist with no self-motivation whatsoever. It's a handful homeschooling him for sure, but I can only imagine how much worse off we'd all be if he were in school.
Caileigh is a little angel in contrast. She's keen and attentive and patient and cooperative and loves discovering and learning.
Hubby Brian is a computer geek who works for the city's IT department. He's David's stepfather, David's dad and I divorced when David was almost 4.
I'm a professional musician... trained as a concert pianist, also lots of experience with band as I also play the trombone. Used to teach lots of piano students, but I'm taking a break from that since we moved back home last year. Now I'm focussing on playing and just took a job conducting the city band (which I first joined when I was 12!).
How long have you been homeschooling? Is there a story behind it?
We've always homeschooled. I can't recall exactly what point I decided for sure that that's what we'd do. No particular story except for the usual dissatisfactions with public education and the desire for closer family ties. I'd decided long before we were aware of David's issues, so that wasn't a factor in 'starting', but it's certainly a factor in 'sticking with it'!
Does your homeschool have a name or a mission statement?
Nope.
What is your general homeschooling philosophy?
Eclectic. Do what works. Unschooling-inspired, Montessori-inspired, Charlotte Mason-inspired. Still searching for the perfect mix.
Do you use a curriculum?
For some things. With David I started out very curriculum-y and probably caused way more problems than I needed to, sigh... So we were unschooley for awhile, but have gradually been building in more structure as he's getting older and really does seem to thrive best with structure.
What he's using right now:
Math -- RightStart level E and Life of Fred Fractions
Science -- Noeo Biology II and Earth Logic
Grammar -- Daily Grams Grade 5
French -- L'art de lire
History -- History Odyssey, Ancients level 2
Handwriting -- A Reason for Handwriting, level F
Spelling -- Natural Speller
I think that's it as far as "official" curriculum right now... but we're also using a Reading Detective book, a Mind Benders book, a "Christian-values-based-on-Aesop's-fables" book (we're not "Christian homeschoolers" per se, but slant towards a liberal Christian worldview, DS enjoys it anyway)... Anything else that we do is self-developed or built out of the day or whatever.
Do you or your children have any special interests or hobbies that influence your homeschooling?
David wants to be a marine biologist, he's just crazy about whales and dolphins. He even got picked as the 'volunteer' during the dolphin show at Marineland last year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2xBpOyddUE
Talk about a highlight of his life! He still talks about it. I try to show him how the things we do relate to stuff he needs to learn and develop in order to be a marine biologist (even if the connection is not immediately obvious).
He also wants to be a rock guitarist. It all started with Guitar Hero, of course, but we got him a real electric guitar and some books and he's doing amazingly well. It affects our homeschooling because he's constantly playing his guitar instead of doing what he SAID he was going to do.
I do include some guitar practice as part of his "official" school stuff, though, and we're looking into getting some lessons for him.He also is a competitive gymnast. Here's some videos of the Provincials from a couple months ago:
http://motherbynature.ca/2009/04/pro...nships-videos/
His first competition at that level and he walked away with lots of jewelry.
He then competed at the Atlantics, where he got 5th place in the pommel. Not bad!This affects our homeschooling positively because it's an outlet for his incessant motion.
Caileigh loves dance, but she's still so young it's not a big part of our lives yet. Probably start classes this fall, though. Her biggest interests right now are letters (you can see she's trying to figure out how words work, it's very cool) and numbers (she can count by rote to twenty, and count objects accurately up to 4, and identifies all the written digits EVERYWHERE SHE SEES THEM lol...) She also loves drawing, helping around the house, doing things herself... typical Montessori toddler things.
What is your typical daily routine? weekly routine?
Do you want the "typical" routine or the "intended" routine lol... Since David does gymnastics and also Tae Kwon Do (he has a junior black belt in karate, we switched to TKD when we moved because we couldn't find a karate school here we were happy with), he's out at activities pretty much every night of the week. We try to do the school stuff in the morning so that he's free for the afternoon, but he often stalls and fusses and it takes all day.
I've started using a Charlotte Mason inspired schedule, which works fairly well at keeping him on task. I've posted before about our struggles with this, and why just letting him unschool or set his own schedules etc doesn't work. Just recently we've come to a good agreement (again) and although he hasn't got everything done every single day, he's done it most days and we didn't have any big battles when he didn't.
Basically I've been planning a week at a time based on a long-term 'vision' of how much we'd like to get done, and slotting it into the days with short lessons and doable, enjoyable tasks. Recently modified the way I've been organizing it, more on that below.
Caileigh, we're being fairly Montessori with but only loosely so, in that we have lots of Montessori-type activities around for her but I don't schedule any "school time" for her. She takes them whenever she likes throughout the day.
How do you evaluate progress?
We actually do third-party standardized testing once a year. It started as part of the separation agreement with David's dad... he didn't trust me to homeschool when he wasn't there to watch things
: but agreed to give it a try provided we did testing to confirm he was progressing. David actually enjoys the testing, go figure... so we've continued even though his dad is now satisfied that things are fine. It also just helps ease my mind when after a year of struggle and feeling like we just wasted so much time and did we REALLY get anything useful done... he tests above his grade level.
We had been using the CAT-3 from Canadian Testing Centres from the beginning, but last year we also did the PASS test from Hewitt Homeschooling, which is actually designed for homeschoolers. We really liked it so we're doing it again this year.
Do you have any special methods/tips for planning? household organization? storage? record keeping?
I've just today started a new system that's sort of based on the workbox idea... or maybe it's more like the system that the workboxes were inspired BY lol... I've made a bunch of index cards, one for each subject, written in pen at the top along with which days of the week we'll do that subject (according to the weekly plan I'd worked out before).
Then each day I write the assignment in that subject in pencil and put it into a "to do" box. As he does them, he moves the card to the "done" box. So it isn't a separate box for each item with the books and everything, it's just a card describing it. I just don't have room for a whole workbox thing. I might work out some kind of thing like where you take the sticker for each thing and put it on the master to make a rainbow or happy faces or whatever, like with workboxes... or I might not bother lol...
So far (and it's only been a day -- and a half, since I've prepared tomorrow's cards now) I'm finding it easier to organize than my written-out weekly planner, since it's easier to adjust if he doesn't do something one day and needs to do it the next day. It's more flexible. I still have a rough weekly plan in my head.
And all the more detailed advance planning I had been doing was about organizing a history program (based on info and methods from some Charlotte Mason websites) but while that was okay, I wasn't really completely happy with what I came up with. So we're trying History Odyssey, which is exactly what I was trying to do by myself only someone else has done the hard work for me lol... and done it better!
All we do for storage is he's got a shelf in his room especially for his school-ey books, and a drawer for all his math manipulatives.
Hm, I guess I can also mention that Caileigh's room is organized a-la Montessori, with neat shelves of accessible activities and books, a set of drawers for her clothes she can access herself, a floor bed (though she only naps there, she still spends the night in our room), hooks she can reach for her jackets, bags, etc. I TOTALLY think every toddler needs a Montessori room! She is so confident and independent, loves putting things away, can get herself completely dressed, there's no clutter... (all the 'junky' toys are in a playroom downstairs). We're really, really, really happy with this arrangement.
Whew... thanks for making it all the way through this... if you have any questions please ask away!
: and without fussing and fighting. He was still pretty slow about it, lots of heel-dragging in the morning, but once he was into it after lunchtime, he really knuckled in and got it all done quite quickly.
When you've assembled the layers, you cut through the middle to get a cross-section.
That's what we like about RS math. It started today with a couple easy ones, where you could count the sq cm blocks the triangle covered on the grid, easily matching up half-blocks with each other. Then they got harder, so you couldn't just do it by counting them. Then we looked at the rectangle grids they were on, noticed the relationship between the triangle and the rectangle, and he said "OHH!!!! I know how to do the rest of them now!!" And indeed, he did. Wheee!!
I wonder every day about this kid... sigh...
