Summer's coming and we need to finish school!

Why yes, I am still here.

I didn't mean to take three days off from blogging, but I have been distracted with homeschooling.

On Monday I took a look at the calendar and realized that summer is almost here and I needed to see where the heck we were with our homeschooling.

One of the perks of homeschooling is that we can do our learning at our own pace and this has been a real boon for my children, though in equal and opposite ways.

Lily finished her Grade 2 math book about two weeks ago and began begging to be taught multiplication.

Let me repeat that:  Lily finished her Grade 2 math book about two weeks ago and began begging to be taught multiplication.

Readers, I have never, ever, in my entire life begged anyone to teach me math.

Because math is hard! Let's go shopping!

When Lily persisted in her desire for torture multiplication I wanted to make sure that we did it right. I wanted her to understand the idea behind multiplication, but I also wanted her to understand that memorization is the cornerstone to being successful in this operation.

I took the girls to Borders where they read books and I looked at several beginning multiplication books. I ultimately chose this one.

It's perfect. It relies on a lot of repetition, but the fonts are big and the pages are uncluttered. It really takes it's time, which might seem a little boring, but I think that it forces kids to really have mastered each times table before moving onto the next. Lily loves it and I really wish that Rebecca's introduction to multiplication could have been more like this.


Meanwhile, Rebecca has been able to take her time with fractions. Once she finished the fraction section of her Harcourt Learning Math Skills book I knew that she was not ready to move on just yet.


We bought the Master Skills Math, Grade 5 book and spent more time working on fractions and by the time she finished the fractions in that book, I felt that we were ready to move forward.

I really enjoy being able to dip into different workbooks and computer programs to help the girl's understand their lessons.

While Lily was plowing happily through math, she was also wailing, moaning, thrashing and weeping over writing.

"It's so hard! My hand hurts! I don't know what to write!" she whined.

Meanwhile, Rebecca was in her room doing her writing assignments and then writing stories on her own about her dolls and their adventures.

For Rebecca we were able to use the writing lessons in her book. She enjoyed them for the most part. We skipped anything redundant or boring and she just wrote and wrote. La la la!

I decided to take a different approach with Lily and have her write letters. She wrote letters to her grandparents and to her pal Charlie. She complained a bit less about that.

Then Amy and I got together and came up with a homeschool project for Rebecca, Lily and Charlie to do together. We read the poem "The Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll and talked about the use of language in the work. Then we talked about two animals which are mentioned in the poem, but not explained, the JubJub bird and the frumious Bandersnatch.

The assignment was to read the poem and then draw a picture of either the JubJub bird or the Bandersnatch and then write about them. The piece could be a poem or a story. Rebecca immediately got to work on her picture and story. Lily and Charlie needed more prodding, but are nearly done.

I have loved this assignment. So easy to do and so fun.

When the kids and I looked over the work we need to finish by mid-June we got a little nervous.

It's possible that the warm weather has been distracting us from our studies.

We came up with a plan and are now plowing through the work. Spelling should be done in a few weeks, along with Language Arts. Math and writing will continue in some form over the summer so we don't lose too much momentum. I'm also making notes on what I want to do differently next year and what worked well.

In the meantime, bring summer on!

Homeschooling at Shiny Red Houses...

Since we started homeschooling this fall people often ask me how we do it. I find that they usually want to know what the legal implications of homeschooling are, as well as the practical day to day schedule of actually teaching.

The first question is easy to answer in that the laws around homeschooling vary from state to state and to some degree from town to town. Most of this information is easy to find by googling your state and the word "homeschooling". The state of Massachusetts makes homeschooling quite easy and our town is particularly accommodating.

Our first step was to send a Letter of Intent to the Assistant Superintendent of Schools as well as a lesson plan outlining our learning plans for the year. Then I unenrolled Rebecca from school and we were on our way.

Creating the lesson plan was overwhelming at first, so I googled around a bit and saw the huge variety of homeschooling lessons plans that parents have used. Some parents favor a very unstructured "unschooling" approach and others have an extremely structured plan. Our style is somewhere in the middle. I found that going to the Massachusetts Department of Education website was helpful because I was able to see what their standards were and could use that as a jumping off point in creating my own plans.

Because I am a person who loves structure, I knew that I would want to use some workbooks and establish a routine.

I did not want homeschooling to devolve into junking and baking cupcakes every day, though that would be pretty awesome.

Our local Barnes and Noble has a great selection of homeschool curricula to choose from so one day I went to the homeschool section and scooped up every curriculum they offered and looked through them all. I knew that I wanted something engaging and clearly written. I wanted texts which would explain things clearly and logically and which would keep us on track educationally.

I ended up coming home with the Harcourt Family Learning Complete Curriculum.

Rebecca and Lily really enjoy these books. They cover Spelling, Writing, Language Arts, Reading Comprehension and Math. Rebecca uses a separate book for vocabulary which she had been using when she was in school.

Science and History are covered as a family through books, movies and trips to museums. For Lily I also use Brainquest Workbooks. I love Brainquest! I use it to supplement what Lily is learning, particularly with math. Lily loves looking for patterns in math and this book really makes it fun for her. I only wish that they had Brainquest workbooks for fifth grade so Rebecca could enjoy it too.

I am lucky in that both girls love to read and they love it even more now that they don't have to keep a reading log! Reading is a daily activity. I like to let them chose their own books and follow their interests.

Once I explain the materials we use, folks often want to know what an average day looks like. It looks a lot like this.

Rebecca likes to work on her bed. She had a desk in her room but she never ever sat at it. Finally I took it out and put in a dresser.

This was the first page of fractions. She was so happy to be done with long division.

This is her schedule for the week.

What can I say? I like having a plan.

Lily often learns best in her pajamas. I suspect that this is a common trait among homeschoolers.

This is the lesson plan book that I use to keep track of everything we learn each week.

We generally do our work in the morning which leaves the afternoons free for playdates, dance class, Hebrew school, gymnastics and other adventures. A really wonderful aspect of homeschooling is the ability to take a break if someone is sick. In school if the kids miss school they quickly fall behind. If one of us is sick we just pause our learning for a few days until everyone is well.

Homeschooling isn't for everyone. I'd be lying if I told you that there weren't some days that I just wish I could be alone in the house for a few hours catching up on the things that I want to do instead of teaching long division which I could completely live without. Mostly though the benefits outweigh the negatives. As a family we are so much closer than we were and closer than I thought we could be. I never thought that I could do this. I am so grateful that I did.