October recap

Yeah, yeah, I have been less than impressive at updating this regularly. Sorry about that! October was a major mixed bag this year, but we're staying the course and after a full month, I'm relieved and happy to report that we're still not scared off by this whole homeschooling thing. We're refining as we go, the kids are thriving, and we're finding our own, weirdly unique routines.

This month, both kids wound up getting a nasty cold virus, and David even wound up in the ER with an allergic reaction to his very first antibiotic, while we were out of town, no less. No more sulfa drugs for him!

We've done lots of science this month, especially.


We grew our own crystals:

          

              We created approximately 975 baking soda and vinegar volcanic reactions:

The tall cylinder worked much better than the wide beaker. We learned about lava tubes, and this made total sense.

We also made bubble paint, and decided that we didn't start with the right kind of paint, but that it was still fun to paint with soapy paint:

                                                 

I got all crafty and made a homemade duct tape Indiana Jones whip for Anderson's Halloween costume:

This is really easy. 1. Stretch out your duct tape in three rows - across chairs works great. 2. Fold each piece in half lenghtwise, all the way down (don't worry too much about air bubbles or exact alignment). 3. Move strips together and braid tightly. 4. Attach a duct-taped wrap handle of your choice 5. (optional) Add a twine "popper" on the end. We didn't do that. 

There were plenty of other activities we did that went unphotographed (oops), but we did wrap things up with a well-documented trip through our neighborhood to gather just an obscene amount of candy:

Check out the cool whip!

Indy insisted on wearing his new snow boots. This made it easy to spot him in the dark, so he must have been thinking ahead.

I'll try very hard to be more diligent with my updates as we move into the Season of Indoor Activities. We do have a couple of fun field trips on the horizon still, though - we're going to visit the Dinsmore Homestead and the Trammel Fossil Park. 

Today we're studying Dia de los Muertos - a fascinating, colorful holiday that Anderson is especially excited about. 

Keep Moving Forward

“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” -Walt Disney

I considered recounting our 9/11 story here. Everybody has one, and I'd venture to say most people could be moved to tears while recounting their own. But somehow, as time has passed, it feels more like something I'm loathe to share much anymore. It's not that I care less, or god forbid, that I've somehow forgotten about that day, but time has a way of shedding light into the dark corners, if we let it. I'll never be at peace with what happened, but I think I'm finally at peace that it did happen. The world in which my children live, grow, and will one day maybe raise their own families, will forever be touched by 9/11. I used to kind of rail against that, but it wasn't a particularly helpful frame of mind. The best we can do in this life is to simply live it.

Nobody can promise me, or you, or my beautiful children, that we'll get another tomorrow, but the unbridled human spirit wants to keep moving forward anyway. I choose to work on recognizing and embracing that sentiment, in this life, which I personally feel is the only life I'll be given. It's sometimes easier to dwell in the house of grief, to wring our hands with worry and too much anxiety over what the neighbors will think, but the only people we're shortchanging when we fall into that pit of despair are ourselves and the people we love, who aren't being allowed to rise to the occasion of trying to love us for all that we are. 'Cause they do, you know, warts and all.

So yesterday, on the 10th anniversary, we spent our day in the light. Both boys were finally past the point with their yucky colds where I didn't feel like it was detrimental to them or the general public to take them out into the world, so we ventured to the Cincinnati Nature Center's extremely awesome playscape. We told them to go explore, and explore they did. They floated twigs down the stream, climbed up slippery creek rocks on their bare feet and played an intricate game of hide-and-seek with a friend they made there. It warmed my heart when I heard Anderson ask her if she wanted to play with them, and I couldn't help but beam as I watched the three of them hide in the little caves pretending to be lions. She was 8, so a little older, and she watched over David (who will be THREE on Friday, eek), especially. We were so happy to encounter such a kind, peaceful family on our trip. The whole experience reminded me how valuable it is to relax into a moment under a gorgeous blue sky, out in the light of the world.

We finally coaxed our two exhausted, filthy, happy boys back into the van/Goldfish cracker habitat, and made our way back to the life that didn't exist 10 years ago, a little lighter despite all the mud.

By they way - the Disney quote is shown at the end of one of our favorite kids movies, "Meet the Robinsons." This is a great movie with a fantastic message. 

First Day of School Bust

We were so ready. We were going to kick things off with a visit with friends to the Cincinnati Nature Center Playscape Tuesday morning, have a little brainstorming in the afternoon about rivers and so on and hit the riverbank this morning to gather up mud-covered gross things for neat art projects. Instead, I woke up to a small voice saying "Mommy, the back of my throat, well not really the BACK of my throat, hurts really bad and I want to sleep in your bed." Doh!

Here's poor Andy taking his first sick day from school, on the would-be first day of school.

At least I didn't have to call anybody! Yay for flexibility. Pushing things back a few days will really make little difference and I'm reminded of one of those cool intangibles - he's not missing anything and can take his time getting better without that added stress. Now, here's to hoping his germs aren't the extra-friendly kind. Little brother is just fine so far.

In the meantime, I have a ton of organizing to do after hitting up the Half Price Book's 20% off sale over the 3-day weekend. Wow. I managed to score a ton of great books, including several that are part of series we have started, and all in the clearance section. 20% off $1.00 or $.50 is an incredible deal, and for non-fiction kids books, HPB is a treasure trove. There were tons of DK Eyewitness books, beautiful almanacs and visual dictionaries, great science books with pull-outs and posters, workbooks, etc. Probably my favorite find was a stack of Cricket and Muse magazines at $.50 a pop before the discount. These magazines are $35 a year for 9 issues, ad-free, and really wonderful.

We also hit up the Cincinnati Friends of the Library annual warehouse sale with a 50% off everything coupon for being members. Let's just say we had to carry those out in a couple boxes. They actually had all kinds of art supplies, and lots of fiction with library binding and dust jackets, which means super durable books, super cheap. I picked up some DK books there, too.

So for less than $50, I could fill another bookshelf. I was really pretty picky about what I bought, but knowing how much they both click with book learning and how often picking up a random book around here leads to amazing, rich learning experiences, it was hard to resist the bargains. I'm positive once everything is on the shelf, there will be hours and hours spent in there just pouring over books and endless "Mommy! Look at this!" moments. $50 well spent.

Here's to hoping we'll have some Ohio River experiences to report on soon. Down with germs!

Rollin' on the River

Following a great deal of passionate discussion-bordering-on-debate, we have arrived at our first homeschool unit study topic: The Ohio River (not to be confused with The Ohio State University).

It's broad enough to serve as an umbrella for all sorts of activities, localized enough to make field trips accessible and on target, and conceptually basic enough to serve as a good starting point. I mean, really, you could go on for years with a topic this broad, but I've been working studiously to brainstorm all kinds of activities and projects that will help to make sure we hit all those Ohio guidelines for Kindergarten (and frankly, first grade) this year. 

That said, it's a friggin' art to figure out how to both meet those standards and not get bogged down with curriculum that isn't always particularly thoughtful or imaginative. In other words, this is the point at which we figure out if what we're doing here is "unschooling," "homeschooling with a curriculum" or "eclectic" (somewhere in the middle). I suspect we'll usually land in the latter category during these early years at least. 

Anyway, so far I've made an outline that I don't think is crazy ambitious, reserved some relevant library books, and I'm working on creating a really awesome laminated map for the classroom table, along with laminated river-related clipart that they can dink around with in the course of me casually throwing out vocab terms like confluence, rapids and tributary. Then I'll quiz Andy on these terms and demand that he recite the definitions and correct spellings on the spot. OK maybe not. We'll make a vocab list for the wall, which always works great with him. He can't help but stop and read what I post on the walls, again and again. I guess I should take down all those Playgirl spreads. Sigh. Kids really just cramp your style, don't they?

The map/clip art is partly to hopefully occupy David while Andy is working on other parts of this project, but again, this whole juggling act is going to be part of the learning process.

A few highlights of my outline include:

- Examining our fossil collection, review of Ice Age deposits etc. (mostly a review since he's really into fossils but we'll get into more depth here)

- Looking at gross river stuff under the scope

- Visiting the Cincinnati History museum

- Compare/Contrast different Ohio river cities and towns (we'll visit a handful)

- Identifying Cincinnati's Ohio River bridges

- Learning about landscapes, sketching our own by the river

- A brief intro to Mark Twain and creating our own river stories (comic, written, puppetry, however it happens)

- Taking a trip on the Anderson Ferry

- B&B riverboat trip

- Creating a high level outline of Ohio River history (American Indian tribes, pertinent European explorers, very brief overview of Cincy history)

- Walking the Ohio River history trail at Sawyer Point

- River-related manipulatives for our math stuff

- Found art from stuff we drag home from the riverbank

- Other stuff we may or may not hit

So it's lots of stuff, and we'll play it by ear and then evaluate what worked and didn't. I have a feeling this will be the post I look back on in a year and laugh and laugh about. "I thought I was going to do WHAT? Ahahahaaha. Stupid Sarah." But really, I've tried to be reasonable, and many activities are really just more pointed than things we'd be doing anyway. Andy is an extremely active reader, so I'll be introducing related books into that mix, etc. He will also be doing Kendo for the first time, a Super Saturday science class, and they will both be participating once a week in a 1/2 day music/art enrichment program at a place we love near here. 

Local Homeschooling Blog Directory

I'm trying to compile a list of local* blogs related to homeschooling, unschooling, etc. I'll update this list when I come across more, and I'm happy to include any you may know about, too.

Unschooling Snapshots features picture essays from a local unschooling family - a great way to get a peek at lots of local activities.

St. Francis Academy details the adventures of a very active local homeschooling family with kids from 3 to 17.

Ramblings of an Unschooling Family follows the Riesenbergs, an unschooling family with TEN kids. Lots of great pictures and ideas for off-the-beaten-track activities your family can try.

Our Eclectic Homeschool Journey details another unschooling family in our local area. Love the Top Ten lists and I've already discovered umpteen things I want to look into for the coming school year.


I know there must be more out there, but this is all I'm finding. Please share in the comments.

*Cincinnati, Northern KY, SE Indiana, SW Ohio...

Not Dead Yet

Gotta love Monty P.

I'm not, though! Still alive and kicking. I've been busy with all sorts of stuff, but namely we've been gearing up for our first year of homeschooling. Anderson, who insists he'd like to be called Andy now, is 5 and while we aren't required to report to the district until he's 6, we're moving ahead with Kindergarten this year. It's been an education just preparing everything for our first few months.

I won't launch into all the reasons we're embarking on this journey today, but I tend to think of us as weirdos among weirdos - a family homeschooling not for religious reasons in an area where the vast majority of homeschooling that does exist, is deeply tied to Christian values. On the other hand, we share some basic commonality with those folks and have been happy to find nothing but support from other families out there. Somehow, we have more in common than not, even if we won't be sharing certain science materials. :)

I will clear up a couple of really basic misconceptions right here at the outset, though, if for no other reason than being able to refer people here when we're asked about these things:

1. Yes, this is legal, and yes, there is oversight, just in case you are worried we'll let them watch TV all day.

2. No, we are not worried about so-called socialization. Not only is there plenty of research-based evidence out there that homeschooled kids do just fine, socially, but we strongly believe regular school provides a pretty unrealistic simulation of real life when it comes to interacting with other people. Homeschooling actually provides kids with more opportunities to interact with not only groups of similar-aged peers, but people of all ages in various parts of the community and farther afield. I suppose we could just lock them in the TV room, but the real dilemma we face is narrowing down the myriad activities available to us to a few manageable choices.

3. No, we do not think we are better than you. We were both traditionally schooled and think we "came out just fine," just like most people we know. We simply feel we can offer much more at home, that standardized testing is too big a focus and too big a waste of time in public schools, and that modern ideas about schooling don't seem to be keeping up with the modern realities of the world. It is difficult for schools to concentrate on cultivating creative, big thinkers when they are forced to worry so much about flawed, often meaningless testing. Perhaps even more extreme to some people is that we firmly believe children can, and should be able to, have a much bigger say in their own learning experiences. Learning, to us, is best when it happens organically. One discovery naturally leading to another discovery and so on. At home, these experiences aren't interrupted by bells, or 30 other students who also need attention. We will likely use some structured materials as well as allowing plenty of room for self-discovery.

4. No, despite all that, we aren't anti-school or anti-teacher. It is important to us to support our local school district and to encourage real change and improvements in the public school system because we'd like to live in a world where everyone has equal access to knowledge and the tools to succeed (i.e. the ability to make true choices as adults). Right now this isn't happening. At all. The disparities among schools in the same district are shameful and many children are certainly being "left behind." This doesn't spell good things for our future. On the other hand, plenty of kids come out of traditional school and go on to do great things. Why on Earth would we have a problem with that? Good teachers, and attentive parents, affect kids profoundly, and our kids will certainly have educational experiences led by some of them throughout their school years. Besides, you never know - if this whole at-home thing doesn't work out, we'd like to have a decent place to send them!

5. Yes, I do feel qualified to teach my own children. Even if I hadn't completed most of a master's in teaching before it dawned on me that I had major issues with the system in general, I would still feel qualified to guide this process. We aren't sure, yet, exactly what "homeschool" will look like to us as things progress, but we are sure it won't look like school-at-home most of the time.

6. No, we won't be sitting around a big oak table every day doing exactly what they'd be doing in school anyway. Our classroom, as cheesy as it sounds, is the world. There will be traveling, local exploring, hands-on research, digging around in muddy creek beds, and lots of community interaction. We will meet artists, writers, musicians and scientists. We'll volunteer as a family more, cultivate our own garden (one where everything doesn't die by July, hopefully), create a portfolio of all the trails we hike, create art, music and film, get some pen pals from across the world... and yeah, we'll do some reading, writing and arithmetic along the way, too.

7. Yes, they will be able to go to college. In fact, many homeschoolers complete their first two years of college requirements by attaining associate's degrees at community colleges or taking CLEP and AP exams during their high school years. Many colleges, including Ivy League colleges, recruit homeschoolers because they are often some of the brightest thinkers and most well-rounded students that enter their doors. We also feel the concept of college will evolve dramatically over the next few years as the value of a college degree becomes more and more questionable. It's hard to say what "college" will look like in 13 years, but we feel hopeful that they will rise to whatever challenge awaits, and that they will be open to a host of options.

OK, so that was 7 pretty big ideas. Sorry! It's hard not to rant. I have tried to maintain a reasonable tone here and hope I haven't come off as too defensive or critical. The bottom line is that we deeply respect individual choice when it comes to educating our children. We are positive our friends and loved ones make decisions about their children's education just as carefully, even when they reach different conclusions, and for the most part, we've been pleased to feel that sentiment in return. We are also happy to be in America, where this choice is respected and supported by the law of the land.

So that's that for that. Watch this space for the latest on our homeschooling adventures. I have a feeling this first year will be one of major discovery for all of us. Our first unit study will begin after Labor Day and I can't wait to share the experience with you.