Smrt Lernins

Daisy asks, “How do you keep Babypie busy (and Tank when he is home) while you are teaching?”

Babypie is an uncommonly easy baby, so entertaining her has not been a problem thus far. She’s happy to wander around, nibble on a snack, play with her toys, and just generally observe our school lessons. The biggest problem with Babypie isn’t that she is herself distracting, but that Captain Science is often distracted by her. He loves her so much, and if he so much as looks at her, she always gives him the biggest, hammiest grins, which means he’ll keep smiling and talking to her instead of doing his work. This can be a problem.

The solution has been to set up multiple work areas for different needs. We have our school room, where my computer, the books, and homeschool materials all live. The desk has chairs on both sides so Captain Science and I can both sit at it. This is my base of operations, where I explain the lessons, go over the work (pointing out things that need correction or asking Captain Science to explain how he came to certain answers/conclusions), or do discussion/instruction portions of work. When Captain Science needs to read without Babypie milling about the same room, or if he needs room to spread out materials (science labs at home, for example), he goes into the gated kitchen to work at the table. When he needs a quiet place to work on math, grammar, writing, etc., he goes down to the roll-top desk we have set up in the craft room on the basement level. The desk is tucked around a corner so there’s not a direct line of sight to upstairs (he can’t see what the smalls are doing, they can’t see and bother him) and it muffles the sound a bit. That works really well and allows him to get work done with varying levels of family interaction as needed.

The Tank is…well, more of an issue. The main day he’s home during intense instruction is Friday, so I have to work hard to make sure he isn’t bothering Captain Science. I sometimes set him up with a movie or show on the opposite level of the house from where Cpt. Science is working. Sometimes I send him up to his room or down to the playroom for a while. When all else fails, he will happily sit at a table with markers and color on paper, himself, or the table. He’s easy to keep busy for short periods of time, but he likes something never every 15-30 minutes. Luckily, he really wants to start homeschooling with us, so I am going to begin phasing in some “table lernin” (his word for work done at a desk/table) for him to do on Fridays, which will give me another way to keep him occupied.

Our big challenge will be next year, when Tank isn’t re-enrolled in preschool and is preschooling at home. I’ll probably have to rotate their work (and play) stations around several times each day to keep Tank interested and out of Captain Science’s hair. I’ll try answering this question again next year and see what I’ve learned!

That’s how the [Smrt] Homeschooler entertains her smalls!

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Captain Science had a great week. Thank goodness, because I was fixin’ to put him out in the yard in a box labeled “free kittens (large).”

He finally, finally passed the Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents bridge to chapter 20 (we won’t even talk about how many tries that took) and then zoomed through chapters 20-24. Even though chapter 24’s work was as long as a bridge and over new concepts, he finished it quickly and completely correct!

Caesar’s English I is also going swimmingly. After finishing the second chapter last week, Captain Science reviewed the materials and then took the cumulative quiz over the materials . 100% — surprising, as he took it in a noisy coffee shop while I was attending a baby-wearing meeting. He’s such a little peach sometimes that it makes those bad weeks much more bearable.

He has also officially completed Grammar Town, though I have to say, bless his heart, we’re having to go back and do review over a few concepts. He missed 10 of the 25 questions of the post-test, due mainly to zooming through without paying attention. He can identify all the relevant parts of speech, phrases, etc. in a sentence, write an example sentence using the required sentences parts, but totally bombed the multiple choice?   Yeah, I’m going to call that an effort issue, not a retention issue. It was hard to keep him focused through his work on Practice Town today, as it has started snowing to beat the band, a rare treat in Georgia. We went through a little review of direct object vs. indirect object vs. subject complement, then he broke down a few example sentences for me (all correct), before I booted him out into the snow, where he is currently leaving giant footprints all over the formerly pristine snowy driveway.

Our mini-co-op is going swimmingly. We added new students to Daddyman’s game class this week and two of the new students (some of my favorites from my writing class last semester) stayed to do Patchfire’s class on the brain and my writing class. We now have an age spread from 9-12 (maybe almost 13?) and an additional girl, which is nice for balance. They came up with their board game ideas, looked at slides of the brain online, and worked on the main conflict from their stories. The dynamic is just perfect now, as the oldest student is genuinely admired and respected by the younger kids, which lets him act as a leader and keep them on track. Love these kids, seriously. Such a wonderful group, every single one of them, from our morning gamers to our afternoon writers.

Science in general is moving in a fun direction. Captain Science’s Thames and Kosmos Physics Workshop came, so he and EG spent Thursday building various machines to test force and weight. Patchfire et al. have prior commitments on Tues/Thurs of next week, so I’ll be managing the brain class and having Cpt. Science catch up on a couple of experiments from the phsyics kit next week — something to do with dropping potatoes and making a sail car? Or maybe sailing a potato car?

The Tank surprised me this week with his ability to write his name, which isn’t exactly short or easy (and we’ve had some arguments over the inclusion of the letter “v” on a few occasions). He wrote it on 10 valentines for his classmates and teachers, with no help and only one or two gentle reminders that his name doesn’t start with “O.” He missed class on Wednesday due to a mild fever the night before (24 hour fever policy? — homeschool doesn’t have that), and when I walked him in, all the little boys in his completely-male (by lack of girl enrollment, not by sex-segregating design) class were sitting at their desks with giant globs of pink play-dough (made by yours truly) and hollered, “You’re here!” His teacher also gave him a huge hug and said, “I’m so glad you made it today!” Queue moderate guilt over not re-enrolling.

Babypie’s newest skill this week is incessant chattering. She talks almost constantly in nonsensical syllables that perfectly mimic the tone and form of our speech.

I stayed busy with both a La Leche League meeting and a baby-wearing social, plus the co-op and science at Patchfire’s. I’ve been under the weather and am dragging, so I’m amazed our week has been this productive. I just want to drink coffee and snuggle under a blanket all day, but that’s not a good way to get homeschooling accomplished, sadly.

It’s currently snowing all fluffy and Yankee-like out there, so I’m going to take some pictures and document this magnificent snowfall. I’m sure I’ve forgotten stuff from the week, but such is the nature of things.

Lacking an adequate amount of naturally-occurring snow, Atlantans must make do with the manufactured snow at Snow Mountain at Stone Mountain. Stone Mountain is the largest single piece of exposed granite in the world and has this carved on it:

Officer Daddyman (my Midwestern transplant) is unimpressed by the manufactured snow. Patchfire says he looks Canadian in this picture, but really, he looks Toledo-an.

Babypie thought Snow Mountain was the very worst thing ever in her entire life, and she cried all day long.

The Tank worked tirelessly, building snowman after snowman.

Where’s Captain Science?

Smrt Mama and Babypie take a snack break (but only for Babypie).

Back to building a snow fort. Captain Science is super-fierce.

I’m not sure the Tank knew what was coming.

A banner week! This week was pretty much all success, very little arse-dragging or slacking or attitude.

Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents was gangbusters, chapters 16-19 and the first pass at the bridge. Granted, he got all loosey-goosey come bridge time, so he’ll have to do at least one more try, but every other day this week, he finished quickly and with little to no error. He seems to have finally found his pace with the decimals.

I was thrilled to implement the MCT curricula this week. Captain Science absolutely loves Grammar Town. It’s mainly reading, with very little written work, though there are several sections of memorization (pronouns, verb tenses, etc.). I’ve had Captain Science write the memorization stuff down and we have been doing little memory games when we’re at the table for a meal or riding in the care. I made up a poem for the subject and object pronouns, which Cpt. Science enjoyed. He’s already well into the book, covering pgs 3-55, which means he’s about at the halfway point. Good thing we have plenty of other language arts stuff to work on!

Captain Science also began Caesar’s English I. He did the introduction on Tuesday and the first lesson today. Again, little written work, a lot of reading, and then review. I told Captain Science that if he can pass the first review on the first attempt, we’ll start his actual Latin curriculum!

At Patchfire’s recommendation, we started the poetry along with grammar. No actual writing yet, just reading. Captain Science read the first section, “Building Poems.” He enjoys reading the poems, though I hope he’ll also enjoy writing them. I need to compile a list of example poems for each of the topics (assonance, alliteration, iambic pentameter, etc.) covered. Once I do, I’ll post that here.

Speaking of writing, we started our short story “class” with Captain Science and Eclectic Girl this week. The children first wrote down what they thought the components of a short story might be, then we discussed them and talked about why each guess was or wasn’t an element of a short story. We talked about length, conflict and resolution, antagonists and protagonists, then Cpt. Science and EG wrote a paragraph describing their antagonist and his/her main conflict in the story. EG’s story is about a girl from Chocolate World, trying to get to Candy World. Cpt. Science’s story is about a warrior from his imaginary world of Exon and the battle to…well, I’m not exactly clear on that, but he’s got the whole story to explain it to me!

History this week was the final bit of ancient Rome, the Pantheon Project. Next week, we’ll do a quick review and whatever final assessment I come up with. We’ve done crosswords, word puzzles, and Venn diagrams, so I need to come up with something else fun. Any suggestions?

We’re also back on the ball with Science on the same day (Tuesday) EG and Patchfire came over for writing, Patchfire taught a science unit on the brain. Cpt. Science and EG read, looked at CAP, PET, and MRI scans of the brain (which they Googled), and colored a scan of the brain. On Thursday, we went over for a continuation of the unit on water and heat.

Next week, Officer Daddyman starts his first board and card game design class. I think we have a few other families interested, so I think that will be a lot of fun. He’s great with kids that age, too, so I think he’ll also get a lot of enjoyment out of the class. If he hadn’t become a cop, he could easily have been a wonderful middle school teacher. He has the kind of patience for children ages 8-13 that I just don’t have. I’m better with the littles and the great-bigs. The in-between-bigs aren’t my best area.

The Tank also had a great week at school, though it was early release week, due to the public school schedule. Can I get a “and that’s another reason why we’re not re-enrolling him next year” from the audience? The high point of the week was Pajama Day, when Tank got to wear his big brother pajamas to class and bring a stuffed animal. He chose Captain Science’s old Build a Bear, named “Bye Bye Bear” that meows when you squeeze its paw (hey, Cpt. Science was only 2 when he made it, ok?).

Babypie is talking up a storm. I started making a list of the things she says (to me, at least) and I came up with around 20 words! At 10 months old! Another talker like her biggest brother, I guess. Amazing how much she and Captain Science are alike.

My only accomplishments for the week were ticking off some unschoolers and developing mastitis. I recovered from the unschooler thing right away, but the mastitis has been a slower go of it. Still feeling run down and glad it’s finally the weekend.

Babypie has a new game. She picks up a pair of shoes, walks around with them, “drops” them, sits down to pick them up, stands up, and then demands applause – which also cues me to say “You got them!” That quickly because the game of just sitting there and shaking the shoes for applause and “You got them!”

After playing this for a while, she started saying it herself. I love it when they get so good at playing something that I’m totally cut out of the process.

Babypie doesn’t like her medicine. She really, really doesn’t like her medicine. She hates it so much, that now she hates all medicines, even the ones she used to take without fuss, because the delivery method (oral syringe) is the same. Today, she hated taking medicine so much, that she gagged and gagged, which made her cough, which made her vomit her medicine all over both of us and the kitchen floor. Breastmilk and medicine puke isn’t horrible, thankfully, but it’s not exactly what I’d call festive, either.

Can you believe I’m actually missing homeschooling? Without some semblance of a routine, my days feel alternately too long and boring or too short and harried. I’m really looking forward to revamping our schedule, post-Christmas. Piano twice a week, Latin, maybe some new language arts programs! It’ll be like a second Christmas for me!

Spent the better part of the afternoon in the pediatric urgent care, after night two of both the Tank and Babypie shrieking all night long. The final tally was three infected ears between them (two for the Tank, one for Babypie) and a chest x-ray on the Tank to rule out pneumonia (clear, thankfully). Nothing says Christmas cheer like an infected ear. I’m on day two of almost no sleep. Things are getting giddy up in this joint.

Growing up, my mother (Nana) used to always sing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” to us when we’d whine or complain. I’ve continued that tradition with my own children. They, in turn, sing it to each other.

A few days ago, the Tank was whining about wanting something or another (the red cup, maybe) and Captain Science broke out in song with “you can’t always get what you want!” I sang, “but if you try sometimes, you just might find…you get what you need.”

Without missing a beat, the Tank sang, to the same tune, “But you won’t like it…’cause it’ll have a spider on it.”

That’s so true. So very true.

I missed last week’s review, which makes that my first one skipped this year, a bit of a downer and a disappointment. This week, despite Officer Daddyman being in domestic violence training (preventing and pursuing, not perpetrating) and me having to solo parent, has been exceptionally productive, academically-speaking.

I have noticed an irritating trend of learned helplessness in Captain Science, cropping up most noticeable in areas where he’s asked to either apply a general idea specifically or glean an idea based on data that doesn’t spell it out exactly. Now, I know this child well. I know he’s capable of all of that. When he demonstrates he knows how to round decimals, but insists he simple can’t round pi to the thousandth place after the decimal, because the book doesn’t say how to round pi specifically, it’s hard to resist the urge to whack him on the head with the book (of course, I did resist, but it was difficult). When he’s been able to read and extrapolate ideas, even very abstract ones, from reading for years, but he can’t come up with why he thinks Cleopatra was a good or bad ruler of Egypt because the books doesn’t specifically say she was either, that book-whacking urge resurfaces (I resisted it then, too, but golly! Difficult!).

I’m nipping that helplessness in the bud and Captain Science does seem to be responding to that. I told him in no uncertain terms that he was neither helpness nor incapable, and that I wasn’t going to hold his hand through assignments. I also told him that if he could only learn through being spoon fed select bits of information through worksheets and books that give all the answers, I may as well send him to public school, because that’s not what we’re about here. He agreed that being spoon fed wasn’t much fun and didn’t teach him much, and he’d rather make more of an effort at home. Since we had our talk, he’s definitely shown me he is willing and able to step it up. I’m very proud of his efforts from Wednesday onward!
Last week, Captain Science completed his last bridge in Life of Fred: Fractions and started Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents, completing chapters 1 and two. This week, he completed chapters 3-5, the bridge to chapter 6 (only missed 1, corrected on the first try), and chapter 6.

In history, Captain Science read about both Julius Caesar and Cleopatra in History: The Definitive Visual Guide, and wrote essays about his feelings on their respective rules (and in Caesar’s case, whether or not his assassination was justified – he felt it was). He’s enjoying Rome tremendously, everything from history and culture to language…which brings us to our next topic!

Captain Science has decided that he wants to learn Latin! He’s been coming across Latin phrases in his Percy Jackson, mythology, and history books, and asked if he could learn “the Roman language.” Who am I to say “no,” when the main reason he wasn’t learning it from the start was what I perceived to be a lack of interest on his part? I’ll be researching Latin curricula over the break and he will start in January!

Captain Science completed a review of chapter 7 in Growing with Grammar, leaving only the “growing with words and punctuation” section before we take a break from GWG. He finished exercises 5 and 6 in Editor in Chief A1. Unfortunately, I think this level is much too easy for him, and while I like the format, I’m unimpressed by the writing. Despite having originally balked at it, due to its popularity and reputation as the only acceptable program for gifted students, I have become swayed to the Michael Clay Thompson language arts curriculum and am considering picking up Grammar Town for Captain Science to start next semester. I might also replace Vocabulary from Classical Roots with Building Language, since the vocabulary in Vocabulary from Classical Roots has been underwhelmingly challenging. Captain Science completed review quizzes of chapters 1, 2, and 3, then the test for the whole first section. The ones he got incorrect on the test, I understand why he chose the answer he did. The answers he chose also made sense if you looked at the question another way. One example was a fill-in-the-blank that said, “Because young children will often lie to please you, you should question them _____.” The correct answer was “delicately,” but Captain Science chose “delightfully.” I asked him why, and his reasoning was that if you appear to be very happy with them, they will be more likely to tell the truth. That’s apparently the same argument Patchfire’s Eclectic Girl made, when she answered that same question in the same way! Gifted minds, I guess.

He’s also doing some outside-the-box thinking in logic. He completed several Logic Countdown pages over the last two weeks, and in the ones where you have to find the relation between the items or choose which doesn’t belong, the relations he draws are often interesting. Today, one problem had squares with dots on them (1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 dots). The obvious answer was that 1 didn’t belong, because it’s odd and the others are even, but Captain Science chose 8, because the others were all the numbers and patterns found on a six-sided die. I accepted it as correct.

Tonight, we did another water-related science unit at Patchfire’s house. Captain Science, the Tank, and I all did a crystal-growing project on Thursday night, too, which was fun. We grew faux red tourmaline. It does appear to be working, though crystals are growing everywhere but the granite stone, which was supposed to be where they grew. Oh well.

The Tank had his Christmas pageant at preschool. He was one of the only three-year-olds who sang and his hand gestures were flamboyant. He enjoyed himself immensely. It was the exact same pageant performed when Captain Science was two and three, with the exception of the overly long prayer by the new minister at the beginning. Really, you’re not converting anyone at a preschool pageant, sir. Let it go.

Officer Daddyman is now home, but my week isn’t over yet. Tomorrow, we have Captain Science’s birthday, which means housecleaning instead of a much needed morning of sleeping in. Oh well. Maybe Sunday?

MJ has a few questions for the [Smrt] Homeschooler this week. She asks, “How long to do you plan to homeschool? What/how do you base you decision on whether or not to homeschool the other kiddos? And/or will you start Babypie out on the ‘public’ path or just skip it altogether and do homeschool from the beginning?”

Right now, my plans for homeschooling have no upper limit (other than college, obviously). That is going to be entirely up to Captain Science’s needs as he ages. I’m sure there will be many subjects where his needs outweigh my abilities. Luckily, that doesn’t necessarily mean a return to public school, unless he wants to attend one of the magnet high schools in our area, of which we have several. He could attended our local university (or one of the downtown universities) as a joint-enrollment student. He could take classes at Pierian Springs, which offers classes for upper grades with a collegiate style schedule, format, and campus (complete with collegiate pricing, though. Ouch!). We can get packaged curricula or find online classes for Advanced Placement classes, if it’s outside my subject area, and he can take the AP tests to exempt out of college courses. There’s tutoring, co-ops…we have lots of options. Returning to a mainstream public school really isn’t one of them at this juncture, though.

I might do with Babypie what I’m doing with the Tank, and put her in a year or so of preschool at someplace like the little Methodist school where the Tank goes. It will depend on her needs. I have no plans to enroll either of the kids in a mainstream school past pre-K, though. I’ve become too disenchanted with public education’s methods and goals. I think homeschooling is better for my kids and for our family as a whole. If one of them shows a need for a different environment, we’ll address that as it comes.

As a bonus, MJ also would like to know, “What’s the wackiest religious based material you’ve seen out there?”

Oh, MJ. How could I pick just one?