Ordinary Time

On my new neat and tidy schedule (that I still have to print out), it says we start school on Sept. 7. (Note that is the day after the day after Labor Day. We celebrate our educational freedom around here by going to a museum on the day after Labor Day and enjoy having the place to ourselves.) Anyway, if we are really going to start school, I still have a little more work to do.  Today I spent some time copying and printing bird poems and then printing out pictures of the birds the poems are about. (Of course, I laminated all of it.) I saw something like this at the children's museum in Pentwater, MI a couple of weeks ago and decided to steal it. L. has been my helper and has been quite smitten with the bird pictures and poems. They are now hanging on the schoolroom walls, because I find passive learning (as in putting things on the walls that people read despite themsevles... or books in the bathroom) to be quite effective. It's actually how we work on sight words, adding...

During H.'s EEG yesterday I was able to read a book recommended to me by a reader, The War that Saved my Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. It's a chapter book written for children (I would probably hand it to a child older elementary and up), and is set in London and the English countryside during the evacuations of children during World War Two. The part of it that I want to share with you though, is that it has some of the best descriptions of what goes on inside the head of a child from a hard place that I have ever read. For instance, I didn't know what to say. Somehow Christmas was making me feel jumpy inside. All this talk about being together and being happy and celebrating -- it felt threatening. Like I shouldn't be a part of it. Like I wasn't allowed. And Susan wanted me to be happy, which was scarier still. (p. 206) Or,      My mittens looked like they had two thumbs apiece. Susan showed me how one thumb-part went over my thumb, and the other wen...

Yesterday I did a general overview of how multi-grade homeschooling can work. It all sounds good on paper right up to the point where you have nine people asking you what to do all at once. For this to work for us, a schedule is definitely called for. I had delusions last spring that we could just sort of wing it, with everyone doing their thing and me calmly and serenely wandering from child to child helping as needed. (Bwahahaha!!! Excuse me while I snort into my coffee at the memory of it all. There was nothing calm or serene about any of it.) So, we are back to a schedule. It's just better for everyone involved that way. But how was this imaginary schedule going to work? Nine children, approximately eight different levels and abilities, and one mother. Oh, and I wanted to get everything done in three hours or so. I really strongly believe that academics don't need to take longer than a morning. There are so many other things in this world that are interesting to learn a...

With school starting again, I've been seeing lots of questions being asked about multi-age teaching. Since I've had a little experience with this, I thought I would share how we make it work. This could promise to be a fairly long and detailed post. If you are not a homeschooler, I give you permission to just skip this post and tomorrow's and come back on Wednesday. Of course, even non-homeschoolers are welcome to read along. I know this is one of those, 'I don't know how you do it!' questions. I did the math and figured out that this is my 19th year of homeschooling. For this school year I have P., who is a high school junior; H., doing early elementary work; TM, 8th grade; D., 8th grade; R., early childhood activities; K., 2/3 grade work; Y., will be doing 3/4 grade work once she gets the English reading piece down; and G. and L., 2nd grade. (That's nine children, if you lost count.) I will admit that the crazy spread of ages and abilities made it a bit ...

We are a bit of the plague house around here these days. There is a dreadful head cold that various children seem to be passing around and last night it hit K. This morning when he woke up, he felt a bit better, but has the cutest gravelly voice at the moment. The reason I tell you this is that you need to know that K. is under the weather to appreciate the heart-stopping moment I had this morning. I was in bed, drinking my coffee and waiting for my brain to wake up. You would think the parade of noise that had been trooping through my bedroom for the previous half hour would do that, wouldn't you? But, no, it doesn't. K. broke off from the parade and came and sat on my bed. He was talking to me about something and I happened to glance at his arm. This is what I saw. Let me tell you what happens when your pre-coffee-fogged brain glances at your son's arm and sees red spots like that. The internal sirens start going off... WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP!... and the early ...

Today was R.'s sedated MRI downtown. When we were first called yesterday, it was originally scheduled for 4:30, which meant that I would get to spend the whole day trying to explain to R. why she couldn't have food. Fun. When I expressed my dismay at the time, the scheduler said if they had any cancellations for an earlier time they would call me back. I wasn't going to hold my breath. But they called! Instead we were given an 8:30 am time, with an arrival time of 7:00, which meant medicine had to be taken at 5:30. Even with not being a morning person, I jumped on it because it was just going to be easier all the way around. So that's what we did. We were out the door by 6:15 this morning, though having done it now, I would leave fifteen minutes later. There's not a lot of traffic at the time in the morning. The MRI went as expected... there was a lot of waiting, Versed still tastes nasty, and anesthetic is just hard to come out of. It's always interesting t...

The laundry's piled and piled upon the floor And dread o'er takes me when it comes to mind. The loath machine, I kick and kick some more For cleanness means I cannot e'er be kind. A call, one truck, two men, the vile thing goes Instead, a large, so large, machine that sings. Without a kick, it washes soil-ed clothes My soul, as viewing daff'dils, now has wings. For two loads are as one and wash as quick My days are spent in leisure and in bliss. An empty basement floor my eyes do not me trick One load, three hours of labor, I won't miss. There is one thing that clouds my joyful thought 'Tis that my dryer won't work as it ought.