I am not the least bit shy about my love for They Might Be Giants. John Linell? Genius.
Here's another taste for you science types:
Blood Moblie
(One of these days I'm going to learn how to embed Youtube videos. Until then, we'll just have to click on links the old-fashioned way. :-) )
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Flex Days
One lesson we learned last year is that it's unreasonable for us to expect that every week will be a five-day home-school-a-thon and go by uninterrupted. Sometimes stuff happens that gets in the way. People get sick, schedules get changed at the last minute, emergencies arise.
This happens in public schools, too, but with their class sizes and institutional safeguards in place, the school calendar is pretty much what it is.
But there's no substitute for a home schooling Mom. If she goes down, the day is lost.
Our pipe dream last year was to run school from the middle of August to the second week of May. Our plan was to go only take time off for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and a week-long trip to Grandma's house in the spring. The only other scheduled days off would be for birthdays.
As it turned out, we needed until June 3rd to get the state-required number of days completed.
Sure, there were emergencies. We missed nine days in January because of my grandmother's funeral. We started back from Christmas break a couples of days later than we intended to. We decided to take the Friday after Thanksgiving as a day off.
But what really pushed us late in the year were sick days. There were days when Laura just couldn't go, and we had no real plan for what to do when that happened. (Occasionally we would have a make-up day on Saturday, but what fun is that?)
This year, we have a plan for days (like today) when Laura isn't well. We call them "flex days."
We decided that instead of rushing through the school year, we would take our time. We started on August 11th and plan to wrap up on May 29th. We still have the same holidays planned (2 days at Thanksgiving, 2 weeks at Christmas, a week of Spring Break.) We still give the girls a day off for their birthday, Laura's birthday, and my birthday. We were able to count four of the days of our summer vacation as school days since we visited the Space & Rocket Center, the Chattanooga Aquarium, the Creative Discovery museum, and the Chattanooga Zoo.
But this year we have also built "flex days" into the school calendar. Every other Thursday, Laura gets a day off. If she feels good and wants to teach that day, the flex day goes in to the "bank" for her to use when she needs it. She promises not to "overdraw" her flex day account, I promise not to freak out about the school year running three weeks longer than it's supposed to, and the girls get nine days of school every two weeks. Everybody's happy.
So, homeschool veterans: How long does it take you to get through the state-required number of school days? How flexible are you about whether or not to have school on a given day? And what do you do when Mom gets sick?
This happens in public schools, too, but with their class sizes and institutional safeguards in place, the school calendar is pretty much what it is.
But there's no substitute for a home schooling Mom. If she goes down, the day is lost.
Our pipe dream last year was to run school from the middle of August to the second week of May. Our plan was to go only take time off for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and a week-long trip to Grandma's house in the spring. The only other scheduled days off would be for birthdays.
As it turned out, we needed until June 3rd to get the state-required number of days completed.
Sure, there were emergencies. We missed nine days in January because of my grandmother's funeral. We started back from Christmas break a couples of days later than we intended to. We decided to take the Friday after Thanksgiving as a day off.
But what really pushed us late in the year were sick days. There were days when Laura just couldn't go, and we had no real plan for what to do when that happened. (Occasionally we would have a make-up day on Saturday, but what fun is that?)
This year, we have a plan for days (like today) when Laura isn't well. We call them "flex days."
We decided that instead of rushing through the school year, we would take our time. We started on August 11th and plan to wrap up on May 29th. We still have the same holidays planned (2 days at Thanksgiving, 2 weeks at Christmas, a week of Spring Break.) We still give the girls a day off for their birthday, Laura's birthday, and my birthday. We were able to count four of the days of our summer vacation as school days since we visited the Space & Rocket Center, the Chattanooga Aquarium, the Creative Discovery museum, and the Chattanooga Zoo.
But this year we have also built "flex days" into the school calendar. Every other Thursday, Laura gets a day off. If she feels good and wants to teach that day, the flex day goes in to the "bank" for her to use when she needs it. She promises not to "overdraw" her flex day account, I promise not to freak out about the school year running three weeks longer than it's supposed to, and the girls get nine days of school every two weeks. Everybody's happy.
So, homeschool veterans: How long does it take you to get through the state-required number of school days? How flexible are you about whether or not to have school on a given day? And what do you do when Mom gets sick?
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Co-Ops
Last year was our first as home schoolers. Having no idea what we were doing, we spent three months reading everything we could get our hands on. We found good curriculum, set up a classroom in a spare bedroom, the whole works.
We did make one significant mistake, though. We didn't join the local co-op.
That was not a mistake we repeated.
The support groups in this area are great. But the best thing they've got going for them is on Tuesdays, when all the kids come to a local church for a day of enrichment classes. This fall, the girls are taking biology, art, history, and PE, all from veteran home school parents (and Laura, but still). Even better: there are other kids in the classes. We're trying to break them of the "clingies," and having other kids they're comfortable with helps.
Of course, they call it a co-op because everybody is expected to contribute -- and not just financially. I teach high school quiz bowl, and Laura teaches elementary art. So there is a little bit of extra work involved.
The icing on the co-op cake is the socialization -- and not just for the kids. Being a preacher's wife living in the middle of nowhere makes it hard for Laura to make friends. Now she has a group of other moms doing what she is doing, people she can relate to. What's more, most of them are experienced home school parents, so they can help her when something comes up she hasn't seen before.
Are you part of a co-op? Are you trying to start one? What are the plusses and minuses you have experienced?
We did make one significant mistake, though. We didn't join the local co-op.
That was not a mistake we repeated.
The support groups in this area are great. But the best thing they've got going for them is on Tuesdays, when all the kids come to a local church for a day of enrichment classes. This fall, the girls are taking biology, art, history, and PE, all from veteran home school parents (and Laura, but still). Even better: there are other kids in the classes. We're trying to break them of the "clingies," and having other kids they're comfortable with helps.
Of course, they call it a co-op because everybody is expected to contribute -- and not just financially. I teach high school quiz bowl, and Laura teaches elementary art. So there is a little bit of extra work involved.
The icing on the co-op cake is the socialization -- and not just for the kids. Being a preacher's wife living in the middle of nowhere makes it hard for Laura to make friends. Now she has a group of other moms doing what she is doing, people she can relate to. What's more, most of them are experienced home school parents, so they can help her when something comes up she hasn't seen before.
Are you part of a co-op? Are you trying to start one? What are the plusses and minuses you have experienced?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
