"Break" Week

This is co-op break week for us- glory, glory! It's been a *very* busy several weeks. JM, Becca and Philip have worked with the youth group several times to clean up yards, hand out food, or help in other ways after the ice storm. John has been busy cleaning tree debris in the yard, and I've been trying to get the rest of our life back into a groove, with mixed results. The February 4-H meeting, a co-op Valentine's party, a children's chorus fundraiser, and PMS added just enough extra chaos to send this mom to the edge of crazy and back again. (I knew it must be PMS when I woke up one morning unreasonably upset because I had dreamed that John brought home a second, much younger wife. Now, there have been times when I probably would have done a happy dance if John had brought home a second wife, but this was apparently NOT one of those times. John said he couldn't imagine why any man would want more than one wife- one was plenty, thankyouverymuch- and I'm pretty sure he also said something about a gun and a hole in his head too, but we won't go into that.) Oh February, you will soon be over! This was a particularly wild (but fun!) weekend:

Ben, Philip and Becca competed in the county 4-H Communications Day competition on Friday night, and John Mark was a room host. We are all so glad that is over! The storm really threw off speech preparations, so everyone was stressed out. This was Ben's very first time competing, and he did so well! I am particularly proud of him because he is my quiet child, and the one least willing to take risks. The three of them will all compete in the regional competition at the end of March.Becca's best bud, Lauren, spent the night with us on Friday night, and on Saturday, I took the gals to a new ceramic place for Becca's 14th birthday. They painted tiles and ate cake, and were very silly!
Before we left yesterday afternoon, Nathanael came up to me and asked, "Mom, what's an inferno?"

"It's a really large fire. Why?"

"Because Dad's making one in the yard."

!!!!!

SO... John spent the afternoon playing with fire burning the tree debris in the back yard, and when he got done, my honey made me chocolate-covered strawberries and took me out for a late dinner at my favorite restaurant! For all the times that man drives me absolutely nuts, the times he gets it right makes up for it many, many times over. I love that man of mine!

Today, after teaching the middle-schoolers at church and leading CARE group, John went out to burn again, and my soot-covered husband just informed me that he still has both feet only because he was wearing steel-toed boots while cutting logs. Within seconds, the chainsaw had hit his boot, cutting all the way down to the steel. Scared us both silly, and I will be very happy when this mess is cleaned up and life returns to normal (some people in our church and community are still without power, so I really can't complain too much.)

This week, I'm going to do some deep cleaning, catch up on laundry, get the consignment stuff ready to go to the sale in a few weeks, take Ben to the orthodontist, and maybe stress a little more about the Praise Team workshop at the end of the month. The two teens head to Winterfest in Gatlinburg next weekend, and maybe John and I will eventually get to go pick up our new chairs, which have been patiently waiting for a couple of weeks at the furniture store. And now, I must head out to pick up the teens at youth group. Have a good one!

A Medieval Feast

Welcome to our Medieval Feast, good noble Lords and Ladies all!

The King has decreed that all noble guests present their Coats of Arms
Let the feast begin!

The Procession of the "Boar's" Head The Cup-bearer samples the wassail for purity before serving the King
The Laverer and the Aquamanile help the King and Queen wash their hands before the feast is servedThe Pages show off the swordsmanship skills they are learning under the tutelage of their lordThe ladies of the kingdom dance for the court
The princesses dance too...
The court is honored to witness the knighting of Sir Philip
St. George takes on a two-headed dragon and saves the kingdom!
It was a feast to end all feasts!

Thursday Thirteen: Favorite FREE Homeschooling Resources

It's been a long time since I've done a Thursday Thirteen, but in honor of Back-to-School, I thought I'd share some of my favorite FREE online homeschool resources! These are sites I have used myself and can heartily recommend. Enjoy!

1) Color Me Physics Activity book and Coloring Book - Perfect for elementary ages, the Activity book has fun science worksheets, and the Coloring Book features a coloring page with a rhyme to learn about 10 famous physicists such as Galileo, Copernicus, Newton and Einstein

2) Classic Literature online- Dickens, Melville, Kipling, Twain, Bronte, Stevenson... wow!

3) Need more books? Here's a list of 25 places to find free books online

4) Music Theory Workbooks... 'nuff said- check it out!

5) Lots of free notebooking pages, planning charts and printables at Notebookingpages.com- one of my favorite sites

6) More free notebooking pages- mostly Bible and Ancient History- from the Notebooking Nook

7) For the younger set: Magic Tree House worksheets

8) The best clipart site evah for Timelines!

9) Because we keep notebooks in history, I am always on the lookout for good clip art, printables, and coloring pages. You can sign up at Dover Publishing to receive free weekly samples of their books. There's also a link specifically for teachers somewhere on the site, but I can't seem to find it just now. I'll keep my eye out for it.

10) I've really enjoyed Homeschool Freebie of the Day, where a free homeschool resource is offered every weekday! Sometimes it's a great audio book, a link to a great online resource, or sometimes a homeschool publisher will make one of their books available for free, but each offer is only good for one day. Sign up for their weekly newsletter, or subscribe in a reader for daily reminders.

11) Currclick is a great place to buy downloadable curricula, and even better, each week they offer a free resource from one of their publishers! Sign up for their newsletter to receive a weekly newsletter with each week's freebie and special offers

12) Need some work on US states, capitals, or bodies of water? Sheppard Software features lots of different online games of various degrees of difficulty. It's a painless way to learn geography! You might also explore the rest of the site for vocabulary, history, science, math and health games.

13) If you've ever been frustrated with Enchanted Learning because you just want that one worksheet! but don't want to pay the subscription price, then you might check out Activity Village. It's not nearly as comprehensive as Enchanted Learning, but it's got some good printables and I especially like some of the coloring pages we've used. You can sign up for a newsletter, or subscribe to their feed for regular updates on new freebies they've added.

Funny?

Did you catch this in Sunday's paper? I think to really appreciate this, you have to have had the experience of a friend or family member look at you- in full sincerity- and explain their concerns about homeschoolers being properly "socialized" :-)

The Last Tuesday...

...before it all begins again. The Girl had a pool party with her friends as a last hurrah this afternoon, and her father fed them all grilled hamburgers and hotdogs before they all went back to their homes to dream dreams of periodic tables and verb tenses. Or more likely, the cute outfit they have planned for their first day back to school or co-op, as the case may be.

Tonight there is a serenity in our house that won't be present on Tuesdays from here on out. Nobody has any assignments to be lost or held hostage by an uncooperative printer, no last minute spelling or vocabulary words, no science experiments to gather, no cramming one last bit of reading in before class. But Tuesdays from here on out will have a certain degree of desperation, especially once AWANA begins and there are Bible verses to be memorized on top of everything else. John and his dumb old PS3 and his giant TV (The Precious) have actually come through for me, though. Sure, I'd just as soon not have the thing at all, but he has used it to bribe the boys, and a very effective bribe it is too. Generally, we only allow PS3 playing one night a week IFF all co-op work is completed and there are no bad grades or other complaints from teachers. Whoever said you shouldn't bribe kids never had kids.

Even though co-op has not started yet, the Math Wars have begun. Well, that's overstating it just a bit, but there has been much unhappiness on the part of the 10th grader who managed to forget some critical information regarding quadratic equations and imaginary numbers over the summer. But even with this brief memory lapse, he has officially surpassed my knowledge of all things math. I barely squeaked through Algebra II and I have no desire to learn it again, so it's just a really good thing that I am married to The Engineer, for whom we spent the first eleventy years of our marriage paying off the college loans which allowed him to become such an expert in imaginary numbers. He's pretty handy to have around, because it allows me to get back to doing the things which I do best, which would seem to be commencing projects destined to remain unfinished forever and for always.

But anyway, tomorrow it begins again. I'll be sure to keep you updated.

August Again

You know, when I was a kid, August meant that we still had one last month of summer left... no longer! The schools around here start next Wednesday, and co-op begins on Wednesday too. With all the planning and prep, it seems as though I've spent most of my summer "doing school", but at least I wasn't having to make the kids do anything, and that's the harder thing by far. But on Monday, we'll be ready! I have an annual list of school to-dos:

• Recover and return all last year's books to their proper shelves or tubs
• Purchase any new curricula
• Sell or paperbackswap books that won't be needed again (I've done lots of this the last week)
• laminate any flimsy book covers- especially on books and teacher manuals that have to last more than one year
• create the "math calendar," which lists all assignments for each child for every school day throughout the year. This is the only thing that has ever worked long-term and kept us on track all year long
• make copies of any curricula on CD (I know you're not supposed to, but better to scratch or lose a $1 copy than part of a $150 math curriculum, right?)
• label all workbooks with name and year of each kid (because the number of workbooks seems to multiply exponentially each year, causing much confusion unless you tag those suckers right at the start)

And it's almost all done! I've been on a school shopping binge too, purchasing all the loss leaders at every store (.15 packs of looseleaf paper, .01 folders, free scientific calculator with rebate, .05 notebooks... love it!) and I went on a book binge at the library used book sale, where I found almost everything JM and Becca need for literature, as well as a bunch of other great stuff. I am torn between being delighted with my great finds and annoyed at the library for getting rid of these things in the first place, but oh well.

This year in co-op, we're studying the Middle Ages and Renaissance, which is probably the kids' favorite time period to study because they love the projects and preparations for the Medieval Feast. I overheard John Mark explaining to a sibling how he was going to build his Viking longhouse this time around- and he's in high school! I negotiated with the Sunday School teachers, and today, Becca and I went over and decorated the history classroom:

Cool projects, brand new crayons, sharpened pencils, shiny new notebooks... the kids are eager to get started again. I guess you can only lay around so much before even textbooks begin to sound appealing. And just like when I was a kid- and against all reason- I am eager to get started too.

We Have Run the Race

Co-op is over for the year, and there was much rejoicing! Final exams were yesterday and we celebrated last night with a Pizza Party instead of the usual big co-op production. I think we might be down to one large production a year now, unless someone with a penchant for productions moves in, because by the time April rolls around, I am worn out! But we have definitely run the race this year and finished well.

In spite of all the frustrations involved in co-operative teaching, it is very satisfying to look at a school year and see such tremendous progress with each child. It's good to step back and look at the big picture again because it's so easy to get caught up in the week-to-week chaos and conflict. But the big picture looks really good and overall, I am very pleased with the results of this school year. We still have another month of school, including standardized testing this coming week. This will be the first year in the history of our homeschool that all five children will have met their math goals for the year- no "math guilt" this summer! We have worked hard, and so help me, it better show on their standardized scores! :-)

We are spending the day in "recovery", and the kids are having piano lessons upstairs as I type. I am sorting through papers and notebooks to decide what to toss and what to keep for their yearly portfolios, and I hope to get all the textbooks put up on their proper shelves again. Paper piles seem to be a way of life around here, but at least this will make room for whatever new ones the summer brings. I also have to alter the length of the Philip's tuxedo pants for chorus pictures tonight- ugh- but this is the last week of rehearsals for that too. Just a little while longer- summer's almost here!

****************
In other news, the six-year-old is no longer six; he is now a proud seven-year-old! We had a cookout at GranMartha's new place to celebrate, and then we brought cupcakes to co-op to share with his buddies. My baby is getting big.

Quiet is Relative

We sent the Two Teens off on a youth group trip to Winterfest in Gatlinburg for the weekend, and it is very quiet around here. John Mark seems to think it's his personal duty to manage all his younger siblings, and it generally keeps things stirred up, since the siblings do not particularly want to be managed by John Mark. It's very quiet without him, although that seems an odd thing to say, considering that I still have three boys here...

Anyway, we had the homeschool group Valentine's Party today, a day late- don't ask me why 'cause I don't know. It's been the little boys' hot topic of conversation for the past two weeks, so they were beyond excited. Considering that, you would think that they would put a bit more work into their Valentine boxes- the church gym was full of shiny, glittery, heart-covered boxes, but no! Philip shows up with a taped-together granola box. I am such a bad mother.

Ok, in all fairness, I just had other creative priorities this week. The 4-H Communications Day competition was tonight, and Philip and I spent our "break week" throwing together a demonstration together for him. I was so sick back in January when the registrations were due that I figured we would just have to skip the competition this year, but our Extension agent told us to go ahead and pull something together. Philip is his father's child- all he needs is an audience- so he loves to do the speech competitions. He also loves science, and he had his heart set on doing a presentation on Super Novas and Black Holes. I told him that was way too much research for one weekend. "Ok then," he replied, "how about geology- all those rocks we have downstairs?" I told him he does not know anything about those rocks and he would have to do a great deal of research to find out about them. He was going to have to choose an easier topic this time around! In desperation, he begged, "What about gravity??" So much for easy topics. In the end, he entered the Health category and talked about "Bones: The Inside Story" and all was well. Now he knows all about the four bone groups, Haversian Systems, rickets and osteoporosis. We went to Steak n' Shake for celebratory cheeseburgers and shakes afterwards. Sometimes it pays to be a talker!

Inauguration

Earlier this week, the kids sang at the Governor's Inauguration. I went along for the ride because I enjoy watching history take place, even when it involves the wrong political party. It turned out to be rather a prestigious invitation; although there were many bands and other groups across the state that took part in the parade, our chorus was one of three groups that actually performed as part of the ceremonies. They sang the prelude music as people were coming in and taking their seats. It was televised, so the kids had fun watching themselves later that night.

This was probably the scariest bus ride I've ever had in my entire life however, and I've taken many, many bus trips over the years. Bus #2 was driven by a totally incompetent driver who hit a light post, got stuck in the mud and almost couldn't get out again, hit a gas pump and almost knocked it off the foundation, and later, hit a car in a parking lot! We all had to wait for the police to come and fill out their reports. Becca, Philip and I were on the other bus, but just watching all this was scary enough. While I am pleased to know that one can hit a gas pump and not have it burst into flames (something I had always wondered), for the first time in my life, I found myself checking the emergency exits and trying to figure out how to get the windows open just in case. We were very thankful to make it home safely and it was plenty of adventure for one week!

Seder Preperations

The Haggadah (the "program" for the Seder) is written, printed, copied, folded and stapled
Kids (mostly) know their lines for the Passover Play
Tables are set
Church hall is decorated
Gefilte fish are in the fridge
Photographer is engaged (thanks, Stephanie!)
Two Egyptian costumes are made
Six Biblical costumes are laid out on the couch

Our homeschool co-op Passover Celebration (seder) is tonight. I know it's not the "right" time of year, but we just studied Egypt, and well, you know those crazy homeschoolers... Anyway, this production has been an enormous amount of work, and definitely much more work on my end than our normal end-of-semester celebrations. John joked, "Seders sure are a lot of work! Haggadah do this, haggadah do that, haggadah go here, haggadah go there...." We shared a much-needed laugh together. He has been practicing blowing his shofar every morning at the top of the stairs to call the kids out of bed. It sounds awful, but believe it or not, he has improved! I told him this was not the right holiday for this, but John does not care- he is determined to have the shofar. I am worn out, but I believe we are as ready as we are going to get. Now I'm off to do the last thing on my list before the craziness begins... take a nap!

When Math and Lunch Collide

"Mom, we ate all the Roman Numerals."

Huh?

Yeah, it took me a minute too.

You see, what I really needed to win in the drawing was a new microwave. Our current one bit the dust this past week. For some inexplicable reason, it just quit. Oh microwave, how I feel your pain! But this microwave was just purchased this past March during our Broken Appliance version of "When It Rains, It Pours." That makes it still new in my book, way too young to give up the ghost yet. Fortunately, it is still under warranty, which is a rare bit of good news considering the appliance catastrophes we've endured this year. The bad news is that we are out of a microwave for two weeks while Sears sends it to Memphis or Dayton or Kalamazoo or wherever it has to go.

To help our family deal with a crisis of this magnitude, when I went to the store yesterday, I bought lots of heat n' eat stuff my kids could cook on the stove for lunch: soup, ravioli, ramen noodles. Today, lunch happened to follow math time, but it still didn't quite prepare me for the moment when my 6-year-old reported that all the Roman Numerals had been consumed. After the fall of the Roman Empire, I'm sure it was only a matter of time before the Roman Numerals also met their demise... but who knew it would happen in my kitchen?

Halloween

Among homeschoolers, Halloween is a tricky business. As a whole, Christian homeschoolers have certainly demonstrated their willingness to "walk the talk" when it comes to the importance of teaching their kids about God. The flip side of that is that homeschoolers can also come across as very judgmental of those around them who do not make the same decisions, and there's nothing like a good, old-fashioned Halloween party- or even a "Harvest Celebration"- to bring all those tendencies right out into the open.

During my years as a homeschooling mom, I've learned that for any given issue or activity, every family will draw the line at a different place. My neighbors who explained to my children that "they don't do Halloween because it's S-t-n's birthday" (don't want people searching for that to end up here!) were also the same ones who let their elementary aged children watch rated-R movies and listen to Brittany Spears and Eminem, which certainly wasn't allowed in our house. Some things you just gotta leave to God because there's no figuring it out. When I ran across this article today, I thought "My sentiments exactly."

What's up with Halloween?
Jim Liebelt

You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the evil powers of the world. So why do you keep on following rules of the world, such as, "Don't handle, don't eat, don't touch." Such rules are mere human teaching about things that are gone as soon as we use them. These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, humility and severe bodily discipline. But they have no effect when it comes to conquering a person's evil thoughts and desires (Colossians 2:20-23, NLT).

At HomeWord, we receive questions from time to time about Halloween. Should parents allow their kids to "celebrate" or not? To avoid "giving the devil his due," so to speak, some Christians change the name of their festivities from a Halloween party to a "Harvest Party" (while pretty much everything looks exactly the same!). Churches throughout our country use Halloween as a means for outreach to the community. So what's up with Halloween?

There is no doubt that Halloween's origins can be traced to
pag_n beliefs and rituals. S_t_nic groups have also attached meaning to Halloween, celebrating it as a special holiday. These origins and meanings can be researched pretty easily on the Internet. Christians of good conscience differ on their views of whether or not believers should have any participation in Halloween celebrations. Certainly, Christians should not participate in the "dark side" of Halloween -- to in any way approve of the s_t_nic, or the focus on pag_nism, evil, death, etc.

Yet, the reality of Halloween participation for many - believers and unbelievers alike - is that of exercising a bit of fantasy, dressing up in costumes and having fun trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. To many, this is what Halloween is about, without any connection to occult or pag_n practices. I have a hard time saying that there is anything wrong with this.

Let me give an illustration: We know the source and heritage of Christmas. We also know that for many people, Christmas is a very non-religious holiday. People give Christmas their own meaning, regardless of its origins. We would never say that everyone who celebrates Christmas is a follower of Christ or honors God. Halloween, I believe, is similar. People give Halloween their own meaning, regardless of its origins. Consequently, just because people participate in Halloween does not necessarily mean they are promoting or encouraging occult or pag_n practices and beliefs.

Whatever conviction you hold about participating in Halloween, live it out for God's glory! In all these things, a person should follow his or her own convictions, while understanding that Christians may differ in their beliefs about this issue. So, if you run into those fellow believers who differ from your stance on Halloween, give them freedom to live out their own convictions. The Apostle Paul said it this way, "Who are you to condemn God's servants? They are responsible to the Lord, so let him tell them whether they are right or wrong. The Lord's power will help them do as they should" (Romans 14:4, NLT).

Works For Me Wednesday: Spelling Time

Let me begin by saying, "I'm cheap." Just so you know where I'm coming from. If it can be found at a consignment sale, on ebay, or better yet, a yard sale, I'm all over it. However, this thing cannot be found at any of the above, ranks as "overpriced" in my book, and is worth EVERY PENNY. It's called Spelling Time and I love it.

I have to give a hat tip here to It Coulda Been Worse, who happened to mention Spelling Time in an offhand remark on her blog. Since spelling has been a source of much wailing and gnashing of teeth in our household during past years, I decided to give this thing a look-see, and I've never looked back.

Spelling Time is an online spelling program for grades 1-5 and you can use it with any spelling curriculum, or with words sent home from school. You create the spelling list at the beginning of the week and you can use Spelling Time's premade lists, adapt their lists, or scrap it altogether and create your own. The first lesson is a pretest, and then the program instructs the student to write each word a specific number of times, depending on whether they got it right or wrong on the pretest. Each day has different spelling games followed by word writing, and the best part- after completing a day's worth of activities, the student earns a coin to play at the arcade. My boys love this! They have been known to hang over each other's shoulders during the entire spelling lesson just so they can coach each other during the game session. I figure this a good thing and it encourages a little healthy competition because really, do you want your little brother spelling your spelling words better than you can?

The parent receives an email from Spelling Time after the pop quiz, which allows me to help with the extra-difficult words. I also get an email after the "real" spelling test. If the boys do poorly on the test, I can choose to have them repeat portions of the lesson until they master the words. You can also have them go back and review previous lessons. If they get all their words correct on the spelling test, they are part of the "100% Club" for that week and they either get an additional coin to play in the arcade or they can choose to play a special "100% Club" game.

At $2.99 a month per child, this is a little pricey in my book, but some things are just worth the money: the boys literally beg to do spelling now! I even use it as a treat: "Finish your (math/sweeping/bath) and you can play Spelling Time again!" They love it, therefore *I* love it. Spelling is no longer a miserable experience for my little guys.

Check out more Works-for-Me-Wednesday tips at Rocks In My Dryer!

Fall Into Reading: The Ultimate Book of Homeschooling Ideas

I'm making good progress on my fall reading list! This is partly due to the fact that we somehow managed to endure Word Problems in Algebra and have moved on to happier topics (at least for the time being), and partly due to the fact that John and Co. are gone almost every weekend camping. I stay home and man the fort, i.e. keep life running smoothly so he can spend every weekend camping.
Anyhoo.
I finished three books in addition to Corrie Ten Boom's Tramp For the Lord. The first was A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute which was *wonderful!* I ordered the Masterpiece Theater movie from ebay and hope that the BBC did it justice. They usually do. Tonight I finished The Nazi Officer's Wife: The Story of How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust by Edith Beer. Her story is remarkable, but it stands in stark contrast to Corrie Ten Boom's story. I've got some thoughts on that, but that's more than I want to go into now. So we'll concentrate on the easy read, The Ulimate Book of Homeschooling Ideas: 500+ Fun and Creative Learning Ideas for Kids Ages 3-12 by Linda Dobson.

I generally am not drawn to books like this any longer. I read them like crazy when John Mark was young and really, after you've read the first 10 or so, how many more can you read? But I picked this up at Books A Million, was in the correct frame of mind, and I liked it enough to go home and order it online (sorry BAM- I'm cheap!) As the title indicates, it's geared for ages 3-12 (with more younger ideas than older ideas). It's an easy read and is full of tips sent in by homeschool moms on creative ways to teach various subjects such as math, writing, science, history and so on. Here are a couple of tips I liked:

One day, when my younger son was really bugging me and I was desperately trying to finish an algebra concept with his big brother, I turned on the the closed captioning [on the TV], turned off the sound, and told my son he could watch television for a while. What a surprise! The child who wouldn't read to me giggled as he easily read the captions.

Genius born out of desperation- I love it! My kids are willing readers, but they also beg to watch TV way too much. This might be a satisfactory compromise on the cold, wet afternoons which I have faith will eventually arrive. Here's another easy idea:

Have your child cut out pictures from old magazines: a house, tree, kitchen table, chair, characters, cars, food- nothing is off limits. Attach the pictures to individual sheets of paper. Lay about a dozen pictures face down. Ask your child to choose four (or however many you want), then invite him to create a story with those four pictures (orally or written, depending on his skill level.)

The book is full of ideas like this- nothing earth shattering, just ideas that are easy to incorporate into your day-to-day life or that give an activity which may have become monotonous (go write in your journal!) a new twist. My verdict? It's a keeper.

Why Teach History?

"If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free . . . it expects what never was and never will be."

Thomas Jefferson

One of the things I've noticed among homeschoolers is that people tend to be either "science" people or "history" people. The reason I noticed this difference in the first place is because on different occasions, I've had "science" mothers from our homeschool co-op come to me wondering why I assign so much history in my classes. This always seemed odd to me, especially when compared to the science classes, which easily assigned as much or more work than what I had assigned. To be fair, it's not that they don't think history is important; it just doesn't seem to be as important or as necessary as other studies. Yesterday, one mom explained to me, "These kids have to be ready for the SAT, which is mainly science and math and writing. They need that to get into a good school."

It's an interesting comment in light of a recent study done by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute entitled, "Failing Our Students, Failing America" which asks the question, "Is American higher education doing its duty to prepare the next generation to maintain our legacy of liberty?" Suzanne Fields commented on the report in a recent column:

"Civic literacy" is found to be declining at some of our finest (and most expensive) colleges and universities. Many graduates leave college with less knowledge of American history, government, foreign affairs and economics than when they entered as freshmen...

"Though a university education can cost upwards of $200,000 and college students on average leave campus $19,300 in debt," the report concludes, "they are no better off than when they arrived in terms of acquiring the knowledge necessary for informed engagement in a democratic republic and global economy." (italics mine)

USA Today picked up the story and noted,

"The study from the non-profit Intercollegiate Studies Institute shows that less than half of college seniors knew that Yorktown was the battle that ended the American Revolution or that NATO was formed to resist Soviet expansion. Overall, freshmen averaged 50.4% on a wide-ranging civic literacy test; seniors averaged 54.2%, both failing scores if translated to grades.

"In general, the better a college's U.S. News & World Report ranking, the less its civic literacy gain."

Apparently, Harvard seniors had the highest scores at 69%, but the study points out that this is still only a D+. Our best schools may be turning out educated scientists and entrepreneurs, but it seems that they are not turning out educated citizens.

Fields' column concludes,

"The study ... was aptly titled, "Failing Our Students, Failing America." Thomas Jefferson knew that education was essential for the republic to remain strong. He wrote that the purpose of education was to "enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom." That was crucial in his 18th century, and it's crucial in our own 21st. We forget at our peril."

And that's why I teach history. My kids may not learn it anywhere else.

Want to take the quiz that stumped the best and the brightest from Yale and Princeton? You can find it here.

Hat tip to Why Homeschool and Right on the Left Coast

Wordless Wednesday: King Tut Lives Again

Who needs horror movies? This is the scariest group of mummies I've seen in a long time!

The boys in my 3rd-4th grade co-op history class: Ben, Rook, Andrew and Ethan

For more Wordless Wednesdays, check out 5 Minutes for Mom and Wordless Wednesday!

Back to Homeschool Week: Our Activities

The topic for today's "Back to Homeschool Week" is Getting Out There. What does our family do, other than sit around and do math problems all day? *cough-cough*

Since all of our kids are roughly two years apart from each other, John and I had to make some decisions early on about how to handle activities. It's very easy for homeschool families to get sucked into so many outside activities that they're hardly home enough to do school! What's really ironic is that the general feeling among public school advocates is that homeschoolers are too "sheltered", i.e. our kids don't get enough socialization.

I generally try to stay off my soapbox on this blog, but I just want to say two things:

1) Every parent should be sheltering their children. That's your job as a parent. No child is ready to face all of the things that life is ready to throw at them and public school teachers daily face the daunting task of dealing with children who ought to be a lot more sheltered than they are. Each family will make different decisions about how and when they want to expose their children to different types of people and situations. Homeschoolers understand the importance of letting our children experience the difficult things in life. The only difference is that by spending our days with our children, we have more control over when and how it happens.

2) On socialization: when most people ask "What about socialization?" they are really asking, "How will your child learn to interact with and get along with others if they spend all day at home?" There are a lot of homeschoolers who address this by pointing out that having your 13-year-old spend 7 hours a day surrounded by a few hundred other 13-year-olds is probably not the best way to insure that they are learning positive social skills. I believe this is the primary reason that, when asked, most adults would say they would rather eat dirt than go back to high school again.

But that's not the argument I'm going to make. I'm just going to point out that most homeschooling families are highly involved in their churches and communities, as well as community sports leagues, clubs such as Scouts and 4-H, and a whole slew of other activities ranging from the theater, dance and chorus to academic and service clubs.

As I mentioned before, with five children, we had to make some decisions about how to handle outside activities. After watching our friends spend every evening and weekend running from ballpark to ballpark to watch their children play ball on different teams, we decided to pursue activities that mutiple children could do together. This automatically precluded sports, since the kids are grouped by age. Instead, our kids joined AWANA, 4-H, Scouts and the Children's Chorus, in addition to piano and church youth activities.

During the summer, our activities include a variety of camps (Space Camp, Carpentry Camp, Bible Camp, Sports Camp...) as well as community service at the local pregnancy crisis center. Believe me, this is plenty! All of these activities have the added benefit of having a great deal of adult involvement by parents. In addition, this year, John and I talked it over and decided to allow the three little boys to play Upward Flag Football. All the practices and games are in the field at the end of our street, so this is do-able for us: no driving involved, and an older sibling can walk the younger ones back and forth.

And now you can see why one of my biggest challenges as a homeschool mom is not Getting Out There but Staying In Here!

Back to Homeschool Week: The Story of Our Co-op

The topic of the day in Back to Homeschool Week is "How do you homeschool?". Like Randi, we also co-op. I have had the opportunity to be a part of our co-op from the very beginning, so I thought I'd share our story.

Our co-op grew out of a weekly, area-wide "Activity Day" offered by our homeschool support group. It offered a variety of classes for 8 weeks each semester which ranged from scrapbooking to ballet to German to aeronautics. As my children grew older and their studies became more time-consuming, it became harder and harder to justify spending several hours a week in subjects which were essentially just-for-fun "add-ons" to our regular curricula. A group of moms began kicking around the idea of a more structured day which would focus on academics. We would share the burden of teaching; each mom could teach in her area of giftedness; and our children would benefit by the opportunity to learn from other teachers, be accountable to a more structured schedule, and experience the fun of group learning.

A number of moms came to the first organizational meeting and we agreed that we'd like to teach Latin, history, writing and science. Five of us finally made the commitment to join the co-op. That first year was fun in a lot of ways. Our eldest student was in 8th grade and the youngest was preschool, so we were pretty relaxed. We did lots of hands-on projects in history; my two-year-old wandered from class to class throughout the afternoon; and I completed my Beth Moore bible studies during my break! We spent a lot of time preparing for a Medieval Feast in which all guests came dressed in costume; we ate "authentic" Medieval fare; and the kids performed plays, dances, and displayed their work. That spring we all took a road trip to a Renaissance Festival to cap off the school year.

We realized, however, that we would have to require more accountability from our students. Teachers did not grade work that first year, so if moms had a busy week or students were unmotivated during a particular week, they would come in without their homework. The teachers found it very difficult to teach unprepared students. During Year 2, we began report cards and became a little more rigorous in our expectations. We held a big Pilgrim Thanksgiving feast in the fall and began performing the American Girl plays for our end-of-semester banquets as we reached the appropriate era.

Each year we had some moms bow out of the co-op and new moms join in. We added or deleted classes, such as Art or PowerPoint, based on the students' ages and interests. We learned the importance of clearly communicating our expectations and goals to new members. During Year 3, there was a good deal of conflict over course and teacher expectations as well as conflict among some of the 4th-8th grade girls. We had a stressful couple of months before it all worked itself out. Afterward, we made the decision to personally invite families whom we felt shared our academic goals and mindset, rather than extending the "come one, come all" invitation we had offered in the past, and we decided to cap membership at 10 families. When a co-op gets larger than that, you are really dealing with a whole different ballgame: the organizational challenges increase, the space requirements increase, and the potential for conflict multiplies with each family added to the group.

Our co-op is currently beginning its 5th year. We have classes for grades K-10 and we meet once a week from 10am-3pm at a local church building. We begin the first week in August, which is painfully early, but it allows us to take off the week of Thanksgiving through the week of New Year. We then meet January through the end of April. We also have two 1-week breaks each semester, for a total of 29 weeks. Each family is free to determine how they work in the remaining 7 weeks of the school year, and that time allows us each the opportunity to focus on family school subjects and other at-home projects.

Our co-op has a changed a lot over five years and it's been difficult at times, but we have now reached a point of equilibrium where peace generally reigns and things run pretty smoothly. We have a website (actually a wikipage which all the teachers can access and edit) and this is where we send moms who express an interest in joining the co-op. Many read the expectations and realize our co-op would not work for their family. Others read the website and find that the co-op provides the perfect blend of "home" and "school" that their children need. If you are considering beginning a co-op of your own, here are my suggestions:

*You'll need someone who communicates well to be a planner and an organizer. She'll be the one to create the schedule, calendar, phone list, etc. and make sure each school year gets rolling again.

*You'll need to decide how to handle co-op expenses. Our co-op treasurer collects $50 per family per school year and purchases copy paper, construction paper, art supplies, building fees, etc with the money.

*Clearly define your expectations for teachers, students, and attendance in writing. You will continue to change and refine your expectations from year to year, but this is the only way to be certain everyone is "on the same page".

*Plan on conflict and be flexible. There were semesters where it seemed the co-op might completely fall apart, but there was always a core group which was committed to the goals of the co-op and made it work. We were able to push through the tough times by remaining flexible, open to change, and giving each other lots of grace!

My kids love co-op, and I think it's also one of the reasons they really enjoy homeschooling. It keeps our family accountable to our educational goals; it allows my children the benefit of learning from teachers who are gifted in areas which are not my strengths; and it allows them the opportunity to challenge and be challenged by their peers in a positive environment. Our co-op has been both a challenge and a blessing to our family, and it's a homeschool option I can highly recommend.

Back to Homeschool Week: Curriculum

Well, I missed Back to Homeschool Week last week at Randi's, so I'm just doing it this week. Always late to the party, that's me! And I'm not going in order either. Maybe I'll stretch this out and have a Back to Homeschool month... or quarter. Then I'll have half a chance of getting through it all. I so admire people who every day can write things that are both thoughtful and coherent, rather than endless posts about piles of laundry and pepper shakers behind the toilet. Ok, so I'm giving this a whirl: Back to Homeschool!

Friday's topic was curriculum. I believe my ducks are finally in a row here. We began school the first week in August, because that's when our co-op starts. We start with all the co-op subjects and then I add one or two other subjects a week until we get everything in. John Mark is in 9th grade this year and is fortunate to be taking Biology, Literature, Latin and History at co-op. I teach co-op history and I love, love, love Tapestry of Grace. I wish we could really do Tapestry at the high school level, with all the hands-on activities, literature tie-ins and all, but I only have an hour a week with the co-op kids so I have to pick and choose. This year is ancient history: Egypt, the Israelites, Greece and Rome. Fun stuff! JM is also taking Videotext Algebra, which he enjoys so much more than Saxon.

In co-op, Becca, 7th grade, is taking history, literature, writing and grammar (Easy Grammar), and Apologia General Science. In history, we are using Story of the World Vol I and the History Portfolios from Homeschool Journey. She is doing Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra, and next week, I plan on starting her in Phonetic Zoo spelling and one of the Critical Thinking puzzle books. The boys love the logic and visual puzzles in the Critical Thinking materials, but that's not her strong suit, so maybe this will help her strengthen those skills.

Philip, 5th grade, is taking the same co-op courses, with the exception of Apologia Zoology I instead of General Science. He will be doing Italic Handwriting, Phonetic Zoo, and Teaching Textbooks Grade 6, which is due to be released this month. The kids really like Teaching Textbooks, therefore *I* like Teaching Textbooks, but I think the levels are on the easy side so I have moved Philip ahead.

Ben is in 3rd grade this year and in co-op, that's a big step. He has big-time work compared to last year. In co-op, he is also doing Story of the World history, as well as literature, writing, and Considering God's Creation science. He is studying Abeka Arithmetic 3 this year, Pathway Readers and workbooks, and we will be starting handwriting and Natural Speller this week.

Nathanael, 1st Grade, takes science, art, history, and Draw Write Now at co-op. At home, we add Math-U-See, Handwriting Without Tears, and Pathway Readers and Workbooks (after reaching a satisfactory point in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons).

I have supplemental materials we use when time allows, such as Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and Quartermile Math. In addition, all of the kids have in-depth Bible study with their dad every morning and piano every week.

My list of curricula probably looks overwhelming for new homeschoolers, but then again, I've been homeschooling now going on 10 years and I've had lots of time to do trial and error. Early in our homeschooling career, a speaker at a convention warned the homeschool dads that moms need the freedom to try different curricula and make mistakes- it just takes time to figure out what works for your children, and perhaps more importantly, you!

So It Begins

The first day of co-op went well. The kids were all highly excited for the co-op to begin again, but this year, older and wiser. They knew that the best day is the first day and from here on out... homework. Such is life.

It's been a frantic few days since picking them up from Indiana this weekend. Uncle Mike and Aunt Laurie kept them for an entire week last week and they had a ball playing with their cousin, aunts and uncles and grandparents at the zoo, the water park, the children's museum, the park... Nathanael even got to conduct the Greenwood Community Concert Band and Philip won a big trophy in a limbo contest!

While they were gone, John and I used our "vacation" to stay home and enjoy the quiet. Ahhh, peace. The house stayed nice and clean all week long. And quiet! We went on a cheeseburger binge; spent a day at the lake on a pontoon boat (John fished, I read the new Harry Potter book); stayed out late at night; saw four movies (Transformers, Harry Potter, Die Hard and Hairspray), and lollygagged in bed. It was fabulous.

Now they are home again and I am happy to have my babies back, but I am having a hard time adapting again to the messier State of Being that five kids entails. Sigh. This week, the school train begins moving down the track again, first with co-op, then over the next month, slowly picking up all the other activities we do during the schoolyear. So it begins.