Smrt Lernins

I haven’t been blogging much and when I do, it hasn’t been all that related to homeschooling.

This isn’t because we haven’t been homeschooling. We have been. It’s primarily that I am simply exhausted from the daily task of pulling a decent amount of work out of Captain Science right now. It’s like pulling teeth. We have maximum “tween” attitude and minimum actual effort being applied towards his school work. It’s also wildly inconsistent. The essay he wrote today had the depth I would expect from a 7 year old. The previous essay, about Theodore Roosevelt, was great. I don’t know if it’s that he thinks he has to be completely interested in and invested in the topic for it to be worth his while, or if he simply can’t be bothered to try, because eh, what’s the worst that can happen?

I do have things I want to write about. I don’t want any advice on things to do to motivate Captain Science (I am resourceful and intelligent; he’s just having one of those phases where nothing is going to make much difference). I really kind of need a vacation from my life for a couple of days.

As an aside, as Captain S trudges away at another version of his essay, Babypie is stark nekkid and trying to convince Badge the Beagle to poop directly into one of the tiny blue poo-scooper bags (without success, thankfully).

No, I didn’t forget to post this. Captain Science dawdled so badly yesterday that it resulted in school work carrying over to today.

So let’s see. Here’s what we did this week:

On Monday, Captain Science did the practice tests on oceans in PLATO Science. He completed chapter VII in Caesar’s English and the “Correct Sentence” section in the Essay Voyage chapter on formality. For history, he read a book on heraldry and then we all (three kids + Smrt Mama) made our own coats of arms from felt. Tank worked very hard on his and cut the tiniest pieces possible from felt. Once they’d positioned everything, I glued it on. Now we have beautiful coats of arms hanging in our school room.

Smrt Mama’s, Tank’s, and Captain Science’s coats of arms, respectively — Babypie threw her felt pieces on the floor and demanded markers

On Tuesday, Captain Science started the morning with the mastery test for the oceans unit in PLATO Science, scoring something like 87% — not his highest grade, but I think all this water business has been a letdown after the rock cycle. We then went to the La Leche League meeting, where he finished Beowulf (we’ll pick up Grendel next week for comparison) and did a page of math problems Officer Daddyman wrote for him as practice for Thursday’s Math Olympiad competition. Tank and Babypie really enjoyed playing with the other babies and toddlers.

I found the boys IN the block bin. Silly children.

On Wednesday, Captain Science did work on iambic and trochaic meter in World of Poetry, writing two lovely poems. Captain Science watched the first half of the video on the PLATO science fresh water unit. It’s a LONG video! He wrote his own math problem for later completion w/ Officer Daddyman (worked on it that evening). He also had a piano lesson. Tank, Babypie, and I just played and chilled. I also did some cleaning, which they “helped” with.

He is learning piano and keyboard from great-great-Aunt Elaine.

On Thursday, Captain Science watched the second half of the PLATO Science fresh water unit and completed the application. He had Math Olympiad that night, so Officer Daddyman and Patchfire’s husband took Captain Science and Eclectic Girl to that whilst we moms stayed with the middles and littles. Because we did next-to-no mid-day schooling, I was able to complete some knitting projects!

Finished up the baby to go in the mama monster’s pouch. Isn’t she cute?

On Friday Captain Science did the worksheet packet for the PLATO Science fresh water unit…which took him a good hour and a half. We then had to hop in the car and take Tank to the dentist for his first filling (not an actual cavity, just a little indentation in his tooth they felt needed filling). Once we got him, he worked on Life of Fred: Beginning Algebra pg 109-101 and lesson 36 in Fred’s Home Companion, which took him most of the afternoon, mostly due to some flailing and fit-pitching, but mainly due to a classic case of Dawdle. He also wrote a short paragraph for his “Correct Paragraph” assignment in the Essay Voyage chapter on formality. Tank and Captain Science spent the night with Memomma (their great-grandmother), who also watched Babypie for a few hours so Officer Daddyman and I could go to the shift holiday party.

Babypie waited so patiently at the dentist! She got to pick a prize from the prize chest, too.

On Saturday, Captain Science rewrote his Essay Voyage assignment, completed chapter VIII in Caesar’s English II, and read the sections on the Vikings and the Ottoman Empire in History: The Definitive Visual Guide. We also had a board & card game party, where he did another playtest of his Patheon Project card game, ironing out a few bugs.

Apropos of nothing, my beagle has apparently developed a Wii habit.

I’m putting this morning on notice, Colbert-style.

With Officer Daddyman doing daytime training classes this week, I’ve been the only one here to deal with the children’s morning-time insanity. I have had enough and I am putting a stop to it. Every morning this week and every morning of the week two weeks ago (when Daddyman was also in training), they have woken me up well before my alarm by fighting, screaming, arguing, hitting/biting, tattling, banging on my door, and generally acting like little savages. This morning, Tank bit Captain Science (well, “bit,” because it’s more a symbolic act of jackassery than it is an intent to injure), the Captain Science taunted Tank about how he (Captain S) gets to walk the dog and Tank can’t, and then Tank chanted “shut it, shut it, shut it!” at Captain Science every time him made a sound, until Captain Science threw himself on the ground, sobbing, “You’re torturing me! You’re torturing me! WHY? WHY?!?!”

So, how’s your Eff Off Friday going?

When I came downstairs, shortly after the dramatical sob-fest, I announced a new house rule: if anyone wakes me by screaming, tattling, crying, etc. over anything less than a life/health-threatening situation, all TV, computer, and Wii privileges would be lost for the day. The boys seemed to understand I meant it. Perhaps it was my crazy eyes, as it’s hard to not have crazy eyes when one is awakened from a deep, enjoyable sleep (which is rare enough for me lately) by shrieking hooligans.

Feeling the awesome authoritative glow of having calmly, but effectively asserted myself as lead dog of the pack, I mentally compiled a list of other morning-time behaviors I would outlaw if I were less authoritative, more authoritarian, and just a little more bitchy. If I ruled me children with an iron first, I would forbid:

• Chewing on clothing
• Shouting of the made up word “foofy!”
• Flailing in the computer chair
• Falling out of the computer chair
• Sucking and slurping at an apple as though it were a teat
• Taking an hour to eat the same apple in tiny, noisily chewed bites
• Removing pants and yelling “boopah! boopah!” with no actual intentions of using the potty
• Kicking me when I attempt to put your pants back on you
• Asking me the same question more than twice, despite having been answered twice
• Climbing up me without an express invitation
• Continuing to climb on me after being told not to do it
• Pawing at my chest to nurse
• Pawing at my arm to get my attention
• Barking at that “other dog” in the yard, which is actually just your reflection, stupid!
• That certain tone of voice you use, especially for the word “Mama”
• Repetitively chanting any word, phrase, syllable, or noise
• Eating someone else’s snack when they set it down
• Bragging and being smug about something you’re doing or have done that someone else is/has not (including eating their snack)
• Dawdling through the first activity of the day, so it takes two hours to do a 30 minute activity
• Begging for more “home-stoo” work, then snubbing every activity I come up with
• Taking more than one bathroom break an hour unless you’ve been drinking coffee or have a stomach bug
• Using the baby and/or dog as a distraction method to put off school work

Do you think I’d have any luck enforcing those rules?

Have you ever had one of those days where you covered one subject and feel like you should get a gold star sticker for accomplishing even that much? Yeah, it was one of those days.

I suppose that after so many great post-Disney weeks, we were due a bad Monday, especially since my weekend was swamped with the BOLD Red Tent event that Patchfire and I (along our three dear friends, Mel, Mandi, and Sarah) ran on Sunday. The boys stayed over at Nana’s house and she didn’t bring them home until 11, with my blessings, I might add.

I coaxed Captain Science through one chapter of math, which involved two hours on one problem, partially because he seems to have decided he just can’t master the distributive property. Once I started asking him questions, he was all, “Ooooooh, I didn’t realize you meant to do that!” *headdesk* Whatever, kid. Just finish your math.

After that, I put on The Black Stallion and called it our “comparative media” class. We paused the movie multiple times to discuss what was happening, how it compared to the book, etc. Captain Science said, “I like seeing the look in the movie compared to the look in my imagination.” He’s going to write an essay about it tomorrow.

Because I’m a MOM (mean ol’ mom) and because I think he can handle it, I gave him (one of my many copies of) Beowulf to read. Not a young reader version or a simplified version. Just my unabridged modern English translated text from college. Why? Because I can and because I think he can handle it. Plus, how do I pass up the version that begins with “Lo!”

Tank’s day consisted of computer games, tormenting the dog, and falling off the kitchen counter while sneaking candy. I’m a winner of a mom right there. He did, however, finally tell a joke that made sense and that he actually got: Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other SLIDE.

Babypie asked me for a “bite of water.” Ok, then!

Let’s talk about the weather or international disasters or politics. You know, something less painful.

Captain Science is…well, I’ll just call it “boundary testing.” I believe I mentioned that a little earlier this week. Of course, I made the huge mistake of commenting that he’d improved greatly by Wednesday, which of course means that by Wednesday afternoon, it had all gone to hell in a tightly-woven, decorative, but highly functional Longaberger hand basket*.

Sometimes, Captain Science is not the most forthright of children. He occasionally sneaks, cheats, and/or lies, especially if he’s trying to do something fun that requires polishing off a few chores or some work first. Along with being slow, slow, slow this week, he opted to do a little copying down the answers in Life of Fred and turning it in as his own work. Of course, because the answers to each section of Life of Fred are just right there, I can understand the temptation, but really, if you’re going to lie about having done the work, pick a problem where it’s not so obvious. Pal, I know you didn’t convert .875 to a fraction in your head that quickly.

Captain Science had been warned that lying would result in writing lines, so he got to start a page of lines that said, “I will not lie and I will not cheat.” That took him about fifteen times longer than it ought to have, pushing back even more work. Every task this week, with the exception of the first have of Wednesday and science on Thursday, has been like a long, slow tooth extraction. I’m pretty sure he’s accomplished a few chapters of Life of Fred, perhaps 11-14? He also managed to do a lesson of Editor in Chief and two Writing Strands sections. Before he goes to bed tonight, he’ll do a chapter of Vocabulary from Classical Roots. It’s not that the week has been educationally fruitless, it’s just been rather devoid of joy.

We’re trying some new things to get us back onto track, but it will take a couple of weeks to see how they pan out. Wish us luck and that week 21’s review is more positive than this week’s.

*The Nana collects these. She’s not really the collecting type, but she does love a basket, because “you can put things in baskets” and they are useful in the event of a disaster. The children all have Longaberger Easter baskets. I am not a Longaberger consultant or anything, but if you want to buy an expensive, but very nice, basket, Longaberger is the way to go.

This week, we started back to school after a two-week holiday break and we had our first (and possibly only) snow fall of the winter. We also implemented our new schedule, which of course required some boundary-testing. You can imagine how unproductive this week turned out to be.

Math was exactly what I thought it would be, review by way of doing all the tries for the bridge to chapter 11 in Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents. Captain Science kept getting hung up on the problems requiring multiplying numbers with decimals. With each try, however, he was able to do the problem easily on a second attempt, so I think part of the issue was the dawdling and distractability. We went through it one more time, together, and I think it all snapped back into place, because his only mistakes thereafter were “couldn’t pay attention” errors in arithmetic.

History was…well, he enjoyed his chapters on Roman technology and social status, at least. His essay on Roman technology was good, and I enjoyed his conclusion that, “despite not having electricity, the Romans were in some ways more advanced than we are.” His essay on the importance of Roman social status turned out to just be a list of the different social statuses with a brief description, however.

Because we haven’t gotten our new MCT grammar curriculum yet, Captain Science worked on Editor in Chief A1 a lot this week, doing three lessons of it. He didn’t make any mistakes in the lessons, but it took him forever and ever to finish them. Vocabulary from Classical Roots went much more easily and quickly. He really enjoys vocabulary and the parts of speech. He isn’t very keen on rewriting paragraphs. Fair enough.

This week’s science unit apparently had something to do with boiling water while Captain Science and Eclectic Girl took turns staring at it and muttering excitedly. It also involved a dish of isopropyl (which my browser’s spell check keeps insisting is spelled incorrectly, even though it’s not) alcohol and sticking one’s hands into bowls of water of various temperatures. I guess that means they were learning about heat?

Officer Daddyman subscribed us to the Classics for Kids podcast on iTunes and he and the boys listened to one this morning while I slept in a bit with a bad headache. That was the sum total of our electives this week, I’m sorry to say. Next week will be better, surely.

On a positive note, Patchfire and I did decide on a good use of our newly-emptied Tuesdays. I’m using the mornings to do art and she’ll come over in the afternoons to teach a second science class (on the brain) and for me to teach creative writing. It’s a micro co-op!

I guess the first week back to school after the break could have been worse, but I feel like every single accomplishment was extracted with the relative ease of pulling teeth from a reluctant tiger.

Today is a day for tuning the piano, literally and metaphorically. Tommy Tucker, piano tuner (yes, his real name! how great is that!), is here fiddling around with my piano, getting it back where it needs to be for Captain Science to start piano lessons in January. I am trying to get Captain Science back in tune, after a 5-day absence, which is enough to make me want to never take a vacation again! Dawdling, forgetfulness, and all manner of irritaitons.

It feels like we’re trying to tune most everything at the moment. Babypie is recovering from her illness, rash slowly fading, but she’s still a little sensitive and not sleeping well. I’m shaken and out of sorts over the Lakewood police shooting, because when you’re the wife of a cop, every officer is your officer, so you take every incident like this to heart. The Tank is back at preschool this morning, and honestly, I was much happier having him at home. Our attempts to regain a sense of normalcy seem all wonky and ill-fitting.

Even this post, which should be a celebration of a successful completion of NaBloPoMo, feels out of tune. I need a mental pitch pipe to help get me back to where I need to be, I guess.

Today is just one of those days. You know those days, right? The days where you find yourself leaning into the refrigerator, eating caramel ice cream topping out of a jar with a spoon, praying that your oldest child stops coughing and your middle child stops wailing so they don’t wake up the youngest, who has only just fallen precariously asleep for the first time all day, despite spending most of the night flailing and coughing? Now that we’re all on the same page about what kind of day it is, let’s pretend I never mentioned the caramel thing.

We have some kind of crud at the McLernins house. It’s an congested chest crud that is making everyone cough and be irritable. They’re coughing their brains right out, as can be evidenced by Captain Science’s inability to complete his Ancient Greece quiz/activity. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the answers — he remembered things like perioikoi and hoplite just fine. Ancient Greece has been his favorite topic thus far and we discuss it all the time. He couldn’t figure out what to do with the scrambled letters once he’d answered all the questions. The act of unscrambling was just beyond his ken. Understand, that child has been doing word jumbles and the like since he was three or four, so this isn’t a new concept. He didn’t “get it” today, nor could he (after figuring out the middle word was probably “and”) think of a game he played that had “and” in the title. Finally, he managed to come up with “chutes and ladders,” which didn’t work, and with much coaching, wandered ’round to “hide and seek.” Even knowing something similar to “hide and seek” was what I was looking for, he still couldn’t unscramble “H-A-D-Y-R” into a Greek-related word. In a combination of frustration and pity, I finally just blurted out “hydra and seek,” and he laughed, because it is cheesily funny.

At that point, I decided it was time to fold ‘em and walk away, which was definitely the right call. I called a hiatus on any further learning and instead, am enforcing a nap time for all children, regardless of age. Of course, only the baby is complying (and only after a great deal of coaxing), and the other two are coughing, thrashing about, calling things out to each other, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. As long as they’re pretending to rest, however, and aren’t waking up they’re sister, I’ll play along and pretend I don’t hear them shuffling about up there.

I’ve finally gotten a shower and had a cup of coffee, so I call that a win. We can finish the rest of today’s work on Saturday when we have a better hand.

This week seemed to drag and I feel like we accomplished next to nothing. It was Dawdling Week. WeekFail. Apparently this is normal for November, so I won’t wail and tear my hair too much.

Math hit a stumbling block today with dividing fractions using cancellation. The whole “but we’re MULTIPLYING!!!” thing was just too much and broke Captain Science’s brain. It shouldn’t have, but it did. Same thing in grammar — Captain Science forgot how to identify and diagram a direct object. Both issues have, thankfully, been remedied, but it’s been a muddled up, fuddled up sort of week.

In Life of Fred: Fractions, Captain Science covered chapters 25-28.

In grammar, he covered 6.7 (synonyms and antonyms), 6.8 (homonyms), and 6.9 (good vs. well) in Growing With Grammar. Because he had a setback with direct objects, we did some additional diagramming, 3-4 sentences every day this week, so about 15 minutes a day of grammar. In Writing Strands, he continued with building paragraphs. His essay this week was about preferring Babypie to The Tank, as far as siblings go.

History saw the end of our formal lessons about Ancient Greece. We’ll do the Greek pantheon next week, but we finished up topics of math, science, medicine, and Greek home life. Essay topics were influential Greek mathematicians and the difference between childhood in Greece and modern times.

Science was all about color and light, but it was completely hands on, no written materials. He really enjoyed running around with Eclectic Girl doing all the experiments.

Co-op went well. We’re wrapping up poetry and our class decided to name our upcoming book Chairs with Brains. All students have to have their final drafts in to me for publication.

The Tank’s conference was this week. He is adored by his two preK teachers, who love how he says “nuttin” when they ask him what’s bothering him and how excited he gets when he gets leftovers packed for lunch. They aren’t concerned about his speech issues, but offered advice on how to proceed with interventions if we were concerned. He can recognize all his classmates names in writing!

Babypie is trying to talk. She says “hey/hi” and “dada” (only to Officer Daddyman) regularly, and sometimes says “hey there” and something that sounds like “yeah!” She mimics sounds back sometimes, repeating the first sound of her name and Captain Science’s.

This has probably been the week where I’ve most felt like we accomplished nothing. We did no typing, no logic, no music appreciation. We slogged slowly through our materials, sometimes taking all day to get things done. Patchfire assures me this is normal and that November is just the month that makes you want to throw in your towel. I don’t want to quit — it hasn’t even crossed my mind — but I do need to find something to revitalize us. I think it’s good that we’re wrapping up Greece, because I need a change. Rome is nice in the fall, I hear.

Some days don’t start out as smoothly as I’d like them to be. Captain Science can’t (or won’t) do or remember something that I think he should. We go back and forth. You should remember this! I can’t remember this! You know how to do this! I don’t know how to do this! If you can’t learn at home, you’ll have to go back to public school! If I knew how to do voodoo, I’d poke a pin in your doll’s FACE! (Ok, made that last part up). Next thing you know, I’m on the verge of yelling and he’s on the verge of tears. This can easily derail our homeschooling day and make us both miserable. I feel frustrated with Captain Science for not doing his work and guilty for blowing up him. He feels frustrated with himself for not being able to do the work and angry with me for not listening to him. Yuck.

Lately, though, I’ve been working on techniques to help us regain our equilibrium on days like this. Taking a moment to step back and find our center can quickly repair the rift between us before it grows into a gulf and can get us back on track with our work for the day, two happy people.

Today is a good example of how we’re making this new system work. Captain Science had completely forgotten how to do direct objects, despite coming back to this topic multiple times in the last few months. He just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t pick it out of a sentence. His attempts at diagramming it were becoming more and more ludicrous, with words and lines all over the place. I was fussing at him for not being able to do it, why can’t he remember, is he not making an effort, ARGH! We were both starting to raise our voices and making emphatic, angry hand gestures (have I mentioned he’s sort of, just a little bit, exactly like me?). I was very close to just screaming at him and he was very close to weeping.

I took some advice my mother’s friend once gave her about dealing with errant husbands, “Make him a sandwich.” In this case, I took a deep breath and fed him a cookie, then tried to figure out the source of both our frustration.

My issue(s): I know he has a photographic memory, so I interpret his inability to remember something as an intentional failure to remember, which results in a feeling that he’s not trying and that he doesn’t pay attention to my teaching. In other words, it’s mostly not about him, but about me.
His issue: He doesn’t understand that value of knowing about direct objects, so he makes a subconscious decision not to bank the memory. In other words, it’s not at all about me, but about the relevance of it.
The solution(s) for me: Stop taking it personally. He’s NOT not remembering to spite me or because he disrespects me. He just doesn’t see why the subject is important, which is my failure, not his. The things that aggravate me about him are surely the traits in myself that I don’t like. Don’t get pissy w/ him about that.
The solution(s) for him: Explain to him why grammar in general has value. I know he responds well to the idea of coming across, in speech and in writing, as intelligent and well-spoken, partially because he likes people to know he is smart, but mainly because being able to express himself well is important to him. He is a child who needs to be heard and understood. When I told him that proper grammar makes him sound intelligent and educated, and that throughout his life, using language correctly will help him be understood and respected, I could a visible shift as he re-engaged with the subject. Go back through the topic in two different media (a quick online and then diagramming on paper) and also allow him to explain verbally which part of speech is which, using playful examples (“‘They ran home.’ Are they running the home? NO! Home is where they’re going, not what they’re running. So the home isn’t the direct object. If I say ‘I run the home,” is home a direct object? YES! And it’s also true, because I RUN THE HOME.”) to get him laughing.

Within a matter of minutes, we were being silly, giggling, and he could diagram all three example sentences perfectly, as well as identify with 100% accuracy whether a word was the direct object or predicate noun. Once informed of the relevance, he could turn that memory back on in his brain and use it. Cookies were eaten, work was finished, and now we’re having a grand fine time while he reads his Ancient Greek history lesson for the day and flails in his chair. “I feel suddenly wild!” he just said to me. I’m glad. Better wild (and happy) than miserable and tearful.

I’m glad we found our center. I’m proud of both of us.