A Weird Day

We had the opportunity to travel out of town for a couple days with my husband as he attends meetings, and we were all set to do so until I looked at the calendar. When I realized just how many activities my son had for those 2 days, I opted to stay home instead. Wrestling practice, play practice, Cub Scouts and volunteering were all on the docket. My daughter, for a change, didn't have a full schedule and would only miss rock climbing so I suggested she go along with Douglas and hang out with relatives during the day while he was at meetings. I was surprised when she said she wanted to do that, so we got it arranged.

This was the first day of the entire school year I think that Denver was here and working but Aurora was not. It was strange. Denver talked to me (gosh darn interruptions!) a lot more and wandered about making his usual noises and flying various contraptions he'd built, which he does anyways, but he did it more than usual today. I think that the little edge of competition between the kids keeps both of them more focused, just as it did with a classroom of kids at school.

The sweet part for me was the lack of squabbling about who gets to use the computer and who looked at who how, and who touched whom. I thought I might have more time to focus on work with just one kid around but Denver made up for it. Apparently the interaction between them is a significant part of their social life and I picked up the slack until I shot Denver a look that said, "No more!" We could get used to this, but I'll be glad to have Aurora back in a couple of days.

Avoiding Work During Break

Since our school is close to the same place as our home I was curious to see if the kids would actually take a break from school during spring break. Denver is already counting down the weeks to the end of the school year (10!) so I didn't think he would have a problem forgetting about school and I was right! He loves to play and keeps himself thoroughly occupied.

Aurora took the first 5 days off and didn't even unpack her book bag from our pre-vacation travels, but a couple of nights ago I found her doing her math in bed at 10:30 one night, and as vacation goes on she's doing more math--just because she loves math so much! And I was talking to her this morning when all of a sudden she broke in and said, "I have a question for you about my math." Obviously her mind was on math and not what I was talking about!

Part of me really wants my kids to just take a break from the school work, while another part of me says, "If they like doing their so-called 'schoolwork' so much, let them." I can tell both the kids are thinking about summer since they've been asking questions about summer plans this week and talking about things they'll be doing during their summer break. So there is hope that they're not total study geeks!

Spring Break

Since we're homeschooling we get to decide when our spring break is. My husband's spring break with the Russian Old Believer school is in April since that is when their Easter is. The rest of the Kenai Peninsula School District's break is this week. My break with the college could have been either last week (UAA-Anchorage's) or this week (Kenai Peninsula College's) since I teach online and my students attend different colleges. Thus, I gave my kids the choice of when they wanted to take break (mine, my husband's, or the rest of the district's). They opted to go with the rest of the district's break so that they could hang with their friends. I find it interesting to have the flexibility to choose when we want break!

Pondering Writing....Making it Fun

This has been an interesting year encouraging my kids to write. Their journeys, like everything else, have been very individual to them.

The kids have to do either their Jamestown reading book (which also involves writing) or else exercises from their Vocabulary for Achievement books (First Course, Pub: Great Source), and they also have Daily Grammar Exercises (Pub: Evan-Moor) which they do.

We started out the year with Aurora doing writeguide.com, an online instructor-student relationship, but the instructor would have her make one word change and resubmit it, so it took an entire semester to write one semi-polished research paper. We dropped that and Aurora focused on doing her Jamestown, middle level, which studies 5 different genre's. That has clicked with Aurora and she has produced some delightful writings. I don't give her huge amounts of feedback on what she writes, yet her writing continues to get better and better. She also started writing for fun in a notebook and I suggested she type it into the computer for her daily typing practice. She did so, and continued it as 'typing practice' each day and is now on page 27 of a single-spaced story. In many ways, schools restrict students simply because teachers cannot have 20 students going 20 different directions at 20 different speeds. Somehow I doubt Aurora would be diving into writing projects like this if she were in a regular school because the school mentality is "Do what you're told to do and no more," while our homeschool attitude is "You make this what you want. Follow your passions and interests."

Denver has been more challenging to guide in the writing process. Jamestown is a bit advanced for his interest level (though not reading level), so he found it hard to muster any enthusiasm for the writing activities. Working with a tutor for 10 weeks on it made it clear that he was understanding what he was reading and had some good thoughts about it, but didn't have much joy in it. Sometime during the fall I added an additional day of writing to Denver's schedule called Fun Write. He could write whatever he wanted. He loves writing short stories about space adventures, and his joy knew no bounds.

Then his idea list petered out and he was having a hard time getting started. Sitting around one day, I started stringing a story together about a sister who steals stuff out of her brother's room and then he discovers it is actually the cat that is doing it through special powers of making lego creations into working machines at night when the boy was asleep. Denver's imagination was caught and away he went. That was a turning point for Denver in writing. Before then he was always trying to follow rules and do things the 'right' way and make them realistic. It was like there was a mental box in his mind for how he 'should' write. When we talked about it and he removed that box he discovered a great joy in writing. The words flowed and he worked on one story for an hour every day for a week.

Denver has been begging for a blog of his own for months and I finally got around to getting one put together for him. That has added a new dimension of joy to writing for him, and he is 100% self-motivated when it comes to keeping up his blog. As he informed me this morning, he only counts blogging as a fun write when it is over 300 words. He set that standard, though we had casually talked about whether it should count or not.

Both my kids know how to put words together and have great imaginations. Their grammar could be better, but then, I teach college writing courses so my expectations are pretty high too. Denver detests revising and editing his stories, especially when I mark all of the errors. I think in the future I need to choose a couple areas to edit (say, just punctuation or correct use of quotes) so that it is not so overwhelming.

Mostly, though, I am so happy that the kids love to write! It is not something I have to impose on them; they have found the spot inside themselves that loves to put their words on paper in a delightful way. Once again, I say, "Mission accomplished!"

Noise & Contact!

I have often heard that boys make more noises than girls. Since I teach in college classrooms rather than elementary, I'd never really noticed this phenomena. However, my son makes lots of noises in the course of a schoolday. I wonder how he would manage if he were in a classroom where noises are discouraged (I wouldn't want to be a teacher with a classroom of boys making airplane sounds!)? Noise becomes part of the background of our schoolroom as our son punctuates his studies with appropriate sounds--kind of like punctuation in the written language. Other times it seems to be a bid to alleviate boredom with a task or to bug his sister. When the noise goes beyond background noise to the point that I notice it, it is time for it to end! Sometimes I will put music on and I have found that that technique does reduce the noises coming out of my child.

Now, noise is just one way to invade another's space. The other is physically invading it. I find that the kids will also do this, though each has a different technique for doing so. We have plenty of space in this cabin; there is no reason why there needs to be any contact. But at times the kids seem to need something to break up their day, and a little physical contact seems to be one way to take a break (I'll bet this happens in the classroom too!). For example, just now Aurora was sitting on the floor doing her math and Denver got right over her. Needless to say, she didn't like that and gave a chase and a few pokes back. Now they're back to work (mom intervened....this time!). Some days I wonder why I am doing this to myself.

Worksheet Dilemma....

Like many teachers, I use worksheets to supplement and test what the kids are learning. While Denver enjoys reading books, he detests worksheets and lets me know each time I hand him some. Today I gave him a packet of worksheets to test him on recall on a CD he listened to about the Assyrians. He groaned as usual. Interestingly, what he did then was grab the globe hanging above my desk and proceeded to spend 10 or 15 minutes looking at Israel on it and ancilliary comments. We ended up having an impromptu learning session. Then he moved on to Russia, thinking about the 2014 Winter Olympics, and so got a geography lesson with that too.

It just struck me that that is how learning often happens in homeschooling. The worksheets don't click, but we have other learning materials around that the kids can get involved in. They have the time to pursue information in other ways than just what I present. I do wish I had more time and motivation to make all learning more interactive and hands on for the kids (our dream is to travel the world to learn history and geography!) but I don't. I do try to keep worksheets to a reasonable level though. (sigh) Seems like some things you just need a worksheet for, though!

Squabbling!

Gee, of course I didn't plan on my kids squabbling now that we homeschool, but it does erupt at times. This morning was a good example. We got one desktop computer through Connections for the kids for homeschooling. It wasn't too much of a problem at the beginning of the school year because both the kids did much of their writing in notebooks. Recently, though, Denver started blogging and Aurora is writing a very long story (now at 25 pages single spaced!) on top of history research and typing and whatever else comes up. The kids' agreement is that whoever gets out to the cabin first and turns on the computer gets to use it first. This morning Denver fell back asleep after his alarm clock went off so Aurora made it out to the computer first. Denver flipped out because he is virtually always the first one out and he has his routine: he checks his email, updates his blog (http://seymours.wordpress.com/) and does his Type Right! When Aurora gets on it is usually an hour before she is done.

Denver's routine was broken and he was mad. Many times I am so busy with my work I don't want to deal with their squabbles; I let them work them out on their own. Today I had the time, energy and gumption to get involved. I asked how they could work this out. Suggestions were not forthcoming. I offered to let them use Dad's computer; neither liked that option. Finally, after 10 minutes, Denver calmed down and stated, "Well, I guess I'll do my work," and he went to his desk and found something else to do.

I really hoped the kids would get along better now that they are homeschooled. Sometimes they do, but many times they don't. Their personalities are just so different, and they both have very strong personalities in their own way. I'm pondering adding "Interpersonal Communications" to their courses for next year--the class I teach online! ( :