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File Folder Games are a great way to engage kids in learning. I know my reluctant learner, Taz, LOVES file folder games. He would rather play file folder games than do anything else. If it doesn’t involve him holding a pencil, to him it’s not work lol.
So check out FileFolderFun.com and see all the great FFGs they have. We have used the Even/Odd Pumpkins, The Five Senses, and an Addition one. They are great.
It’s almost the middle of OCTOBER! It doesn’t seem possible that it’s October already. The leaves are changing & falling faster than I’d like. We’ve already had our first (couple) frosts and I’m still holding steadfast on not turning on the furnace until November lol.
Schooling is going okay. I’m still struggling with finding creative, fun ways for them to learn stuff…Trying not to teach as much lead, you know? We’re working on volcano stuff. They really want to do the volcano kit that I bought a couple of weeks ago. I’m finding it hard to just say “Do it” without having them LEARN stuff about it first. Why do I do that? Why not let them do the volcano kit. Then maybe they will be interested enough to learn WHY it does what it does? Because that’s not the way I was told learning should be. First you read about it, learn about it, THEN you can have fun with it. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to say…have fun with it, then if you’re interested in it we’ll learn more about it. I need to trust them more and listen to my head less, I guess. I’m wondering if it would be a good method to just do science experiments for science and then learning about the whys & what fors after we’ve done the experiment. Is that a good way to go about it? At least for the younger ones. I haven’t found a science curriculum that Ladybug likes yet….
We’ve found a great homeschool group. We went on a field trip to the fire station. Just me & the boys. Ladybug felt too old to do the fire station thing again. Taz had a blast. Blue kind of enjoyed it, but didn’t want to show how much because he’s in that “I’m too cool for this” phase. He was one of the older ones there. I think their favorite part was going up in the ladder truck….
(excuse the quality, these were taken with my cell phone)
The ladder actually extends 95 feet in the air! Impressive!!
Blue finally finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. He’s moved on to Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. I daresay he likes Ender better than Harry. He dug right in and read 3 chapters in one evening! It took him more than a month to get through the 16 chapters in HP.
We are really liking Ladybug’s new Language Arts curriculum. I ditched the Abeka stuff (all those books were overwhelming and too heavily dependant on Bible content for our liking) and switched to Learning Language Arts Through Literature – Gold (American Literature). I really like how it incorporates everything…literary concepts, reading comprehension, literary analysis, vocabulary, spelling, writing, etc. all in one book. I liked it so much that I bought sets for both boys. I got Purple for Blue and Red for Taz. After looking at the Red, I’m thinking I probably should have started Taz on the Blue. Even if we started in the middle of the book because he’s really not fully ready for 2nd grade reading/writing skills yet. I may try to snag just the Student Activity Book in blue and see how it works for him. He’s extremely frustrated with phonics so we are taking it very slowly. I haven’t started Blue’s LLATL yet because he’s so into Ender’s Game and I’m waiting for Farmer Boy. I decided to just buy it rather than try to get it from the library. We have two libraries that are close enough to frequent, but neither one is very good at having books in that we want to borrow. I ended up buying Ender’s Game because neither library had it available. I could have kicked myself too, because we had a copy & I got rid of it a few years ago when I was cleaning out bookshelves. That just solidifies my opinion that books should never be gotten rid of lol.
Math is still mostly review for Blue & Ladybug. They were both very behind after leaving PS. So for Blue, we’ve been reviewing the multiplication facts. He really didn’t have a good grasp on them at all, which made long division and anything else beyond that next to impossible for him. I’m happy to say, he’s pretty comfortable in his multiplication facts through the 4s table.
For Ladybug we are still using Danica McKellar’s Math Doesn’t Suck along with worksheets from EdHelper.com to review math concepts she never really got in 6th, 7th, & 8th grades. We’ve covered prime numbers, prime factorization, greatest common factor, and least common multiple. Next we are tackling fractions.
Taz is my Math lover. He’d much rather work with numbers than letters any time of the day. We’ve moved beyond single digit addition & subtraction and have moved on to place value. He’s got the tens & ones down pat. I just worry that it will become too abstract when we start adding two-digit numbers with carrying (aka regrouping). He always suprises me though, with how much abstract stuff he really understands.
He’s so interesting…when it comes to math, he can understand the abstract with very little explanation. But with reading/writing, he really doesn’t understand the abstract. Talking animals? Made up cartoon stories? Make up a sentence about what? It’s just interesting how different he is from the other kids. They would all rather write a story than do a math problem. Taz would rather do a whole workbook of math problems than write one sentence of his own making. Or even copy a sentence I give him. It’s just not his cup of tea.
We seem to be finding our niche. I’m not getting all excited about it yet. But we have had a few good days lately. Plus we have also found a great homeschool group. We met with them for the first time on Friday. Unsure of what kind of meeting it would be, I just had the older two bring their books they are reading (Harry Potter for Blue and 30 Days of Night for Ladybug) and Taz brought a couple of Star Wars figures. We got there and there were about 15 kids and 5 or 6 moms there already. The kids were all at little tables, most of them working on what looked to be school work. Oops. But it soon became evident that the kids were not expected to work on school work, it’s just what a couple of the new moms had brought lol. After about 5 minutes, the other kids were flocking around my boys and their SW figures. They turned out to be a great ice breaker. Everyone seems to love SW.
The moms were all at one big table. Turns out the meeting was to discuss the new upcoming year of activities, so it was a good time to join. Soon all the kids were outside playing with each other, playing tag, climbing trees, and finding salamanders (PE and Science! yay). It was a good meeting. The boys brought home phone numbers of friends. Even Ladybug, who started out just sitting at their table with her head down, got up & went outside to sit at the picnic tables to talk with the only other teen there. I was astonished. She’s usually very antisocial.
That same afternoon they were having a meeting to discuss forming a bookclub. Blue joined one for his age group. Taz is still very much a reluctant reader and his age group was doing the whole “classroom setting” ..sit in a circle, listen to the story picked out by an adult and answer the adult’s questions about the story. Not ask your own questions, not pick your own story, etc. He wasn’t interested. Ladybug’s group was only her and the one other teen who was at the morning meeting so they are going to wait & see if they can get any interest from the others who weren’t at the meeting today. Blue will be reading Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. I read it a few years ago and enjoyed it so much that I read the entire Ender series. I hope Blue likes it as well. Also on their “to read” list for later in the year is The House of the Scorpion, which I also read & enjoyed. First he has to get through Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. He’s almost finished. It’s because of him that I am also reading all the Harry Potter books for the first time. I’ve already finished book 1 and am halfway through the second one. I’m hooked. At least now I can read the entire series all at once. I hate having to wait for the next installment. I’m horrible at waiting for fall tv shows to start back up.
This past week we worked on learning about Alaska. I’m still rather disorganized and not in any sort of routine other than school starts around 9am. Everything else is up in the air lol. This coming week is going to be hectic because I have two doctor’s appointments, Ladybug has one appointment, I have at least two errands I can think of right at this moment, plus I have to get groceries at some point. It will be interesting to see how much we are able to fit in around all that.
The other excitement this week, besides finding a great homeschool group…Taz finally lost a front tooth!
Toothless Taz
This has GOT to get better. There’s just no way it’s this hard all the time. Is it this hard for most people who take their kids out of public school to be homeschooled?
My kids have not been to public school since June of this year. We started doing just the tiniest bit of work the last couple weeks of August. Reading about the solar system, a couple of worksheets, a little bit of math. Never all in one day. We only did one subject per day the first few days. Then two subjects, etc. It was okay. Blue is always eager to get going, to do the work and get it done. Not that he enjoys the work, it’s more like he wants to just do it, all of it, and get it over with.
Fast forward to the first week of September. We planned on starting full steam once my oldest started back to ps, which was last Wednesday (9/3). The first day was okay, not great. The second day was pure hell. I gave up, we went to the library then took the next three days off (Friday, Saturday, & Sunday).
Ladybug and I decided out of all her books, the only ones that were “working” were the Spanish and the math. Both of which she likes because “they are easy” (her words). So I put all the others on eBay and am searching out other ways to teach her. The biggest problem is, she does NOT learn well by reading and regurgitating….but that is all she knows, that is what she was taught at school. I gave her textbooks and assignment sheets and had her have at it. She was MISERABLE. She hates all the reading…she’s always negotiating “Can I skim the page then go back & read every other paragraph?”. Jeesh, with all that effort to avoid reading all THREE pages, you could have read all three pages in the time it takes you to SKIM and then go back & read every other paragraph. But she doesn’t see it that way. She says she can’t read unless it’s COMPLETELY quiet then turns around and says she needs the tv on so she can do the work during the commercials. UGH! (there’s no tv on from 9am to 4pm btw)
Taz, who turns 7 later this week, is difficult to say the least. He literally does NOT stop moving. He’s mouthy, rude, out of control, constantly tells me no, and refuses to do his work most of the time. This is not new nor is it tolerated, but nothing makes him stop. Not spanking, not taking away privileges, not standing in the corner, or even making him do push-ups lol. I literally CANNOT find his “currency”. I cannot find anything to motivate him to behave/follow the rules. He doesn’t care about rewards, stickers, treats. If I offer up a reward system, he thinks he should have the rewards regardless of whether or not he’s earned them. And when told no, he goes back to the screaming, refusing to cooperate, doesn’t care about the reward system, little brat.
I am just tired. I don’t know if there’s something wrong with him or what anymore. I’m tired of telling him to stop jumping on or off the furniture, stop running through the house, stop chasing the dog, stop picking up the cat (he hates to be picked up, growls, bites, scratches), stop throwing things, stop bugging your brother/sister, etc. I’m tired of telling him do the worksheet, read the sentence, read the word, write the word, sit down, stop that, don’t do that. It’s INSANE!
Is this normal behavior?
I can’t decide who’s driving me more nuts…the teenager who doesn’t want to move an inch or the 7yo who moves so much he’s a blur most of the time.
While I really have no desire to replicate the public school at home, I find it’s easier to function when everything is in one place. The boys also wanted their own desks. They have desks in their rooms, but they are too big to bring down to the dining room, where we have our school stuff.
We also have a tendency to have school where ever we feel like it. The living room, the back yard, the dining room, in the van, etc. But here is where we keep our stuff. It’s not all in the dining room. The bookcases are in the front foyer of our house.
Kids' reading books
Textbooks, boys' on the left, Ladybug's on the right
Taz on the left, Blue on the right
These two desks and chairs we got at a school auction last night. We got a total of three student desks (third one is to be Ladybug’s and she wants it upstairs) and two Stickley chairs for $10. The chairs cost more than the desks!
The metal cart on the right has our flashcards, play money, extra folders (for possible lapbooking…), construction paper, and the Leappad.
On the wall you can see parts of our US and World maps, as well as the 7 Rules of Behavior, “bed” to remind Taz which way to make his b’s and d’s, and the analog clock. On their desks they each have their own little lined white board and a Math Bingo game. Hanging from the doorknob is a Turbo Twist Math and Turbo Twist Spelling (picked up in a yard sale last weekend for less than $1).
another view of the desks showing the chalkboard easel in the corner
Some posters (and my thumb lol)
Life Cycle of a Frog (and table setting/clearing instructions)
Steps to Multilply and Divide and Number Chart 1-99
This is the tv armoir that holds all the kids’ video game stuff. I took a bit of space in there for the workbooks we have (some of them) and educational games. I didn’t get a good picture of what is on top, but it holds our globe, a tabletop display w/ Spanish words, and two bins full of art supplies (markers, crayons, paints, pipe cleaners, craft sticks, glue, etc) and two large pads of drawing paper. The boys’ Lowes Build & Grow projects are currently housed up there, but I think they going to have to go up on their dressers soon because there are getting to be too many.
Spanish words inside the tv armoir doors
Close up of the bottom of the armoir…workbooks galore, as well as several kinds of bingo games, pizza fractions, planets, maps, parts of a plant mats too.
Lots of workbooks, I know...
This is “my” area. Kind of. This is where I keep my teacher guides (in the bins under the table) as well as my binder and any papers I’m needing right then. In the baskets are more supplies…sticky tack, stapler, paper clips, dry erase markers, etc. Also under the table is our Star Theater planetarium projector (yard sale purchase, $2) and our Frog Habitat, as well as my stash of 5c Walmart notebooks lol. There’s some extra art paper under there too. You can also see Ladybug’s art easel int he corner and her two most recent art pieces 
It’s still very much a work in progress. I’d like a couple more posters. There are tons at the school supply store…I could go broke there. I’d also like to make my own calendar/weather board. I have an empty wall space waiting for me to get creative and JUST DO IT (swish).
Today was another good day. The boys (mostly) cooperated for a math lesson. Taz always has to test me at the beginning, to see if I’m really going to make him do this. But as soon as he sees it’s happening one way or another, he sits down and gets right to it. They were both very excited to have their desks today. They even ate their lunch there *rolls eyes*. Ladybug even did a *little* of her work. Researching Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
I think I realized what the problem with yesterday was. I was reading to them from a textbook. It was NOT good or fun reading. I didn’t enjoy reading it and they didn’t enjoy listening to it.
Today I ditched the textbook and read a book about the solar system from our personal library. MUCH better. I got through the whole book, they made clay planets, AND I got them to do a little bit of math & writing to boot
Here are their planets in order from Right to Left: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth (note the moon), Mars, asteroid belt, Jupiter, Saturn (note the rings lol), Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto (the dwarf planet).
The Solar System, medium: clay & toothpicks
Here’s a close-up of the masterpieces that are Earth and Saturn:
Saturn w/ rings and Earth w/ its moon
We took a break for lunch. After lunch they were eager to do some writing and I managed to squeak in a tiny bit of math for Taz.
Taz preferred the table
Blue preferred a less traditional setting
Now we are finished for the day. Blue is reading his Bionicles book and Taz is about to fall asleep on the couch. Notice I have made no mention of Ladybug starting? She is still in denial and I’m not pushing…yet.
I only got them to sit still for about 15-20 minutes. But we read a bit about the earth, sun, & moon. We talked about the earth’s rotation, day & night, and the earth’s orbit around the sun. We also talked a little bit about the phases of the moon. That was where I lost them a bit.
Blue drew a picture in between showing his brother with the flashlight and the globe how the sun shines on one side of the earth at a time.
Blue's Solar System Drawing
Taz was irritated that he couldn’t play video games RIGHT THEN so he really didn’t want to participate at first. But as I read and Blue was getting into it, he started creeping closer & closer. By the time we were talking about the phases of the moon, he was into it. So he grabbed the Interactive Planetarium (that we just picked up at a yard sale for 75c) and started playing with it.
Taz's first day
That was the extent of our first day. Starting it out slow and still trying to keep it fun and informal.
Ok, this is our first year ever homeschooling. My kids have only ever been in public school so we have been taking the summer off to deschool a bit. My 6yo, Taz, has been really interested in all the stuff we’ve been accumulating for homeschool. Every workbook I’ve brought home, he immediately wanted to do a page.
My 10yo, Blue, has been a bit more standoffish. He’s been taught to dislike learning 
So I’ve been trying to sneak in little bits of learning here & there, fun learning so they don’t even realize they are doing it. Like reading pages in their books equals time on the computer or for Taz, one page equals one piece of candy corn (his fave lol). But if I suggested we start a little bit of homeschooling, I’d get from my older two that it’s “still summer vacation” and that public school kids don’t have to go to school yet, etc.
Well, tonight we were having a snack at the table & Taz asked to use the lap white board to write sentences (it’s lined). So I was writing sentences for him to copy and Blue wanted in on it.. Then Ladybug (13) wanted in on it . I was doing cursive for the older two. It was great.
The best part was when Blue turned to me and said “mom, we really should start our homeschooling”. So I guess we are going to start on Monday. Just a little bit of the fun stuff…reading, science, history. We’ll add the stuff they don’t like (math) in later. I want them to like it.
I’m so excited!!
Ladybug still isn’t excited/interested, but I expected that. She’s been in public school longer than the other two and she’s a bit more jaded. Hopefully that will change…
My name is Heather and I’m going to homeschool this year for the first time. Homeschooling is something I’ve wanted to do since my children were old enough to go to school. When first two were school-aged, financial circumstances did not allow me to entertain idea at all. I was the primary wage-earner, my work hours were constantly changing, not to mention I had no idea how do homeschool, where to start, etc. We lived in a very rural area and I had only known one homeschooling family growing up and they were the “weird” kind. You know, the kind that always seem to be the ones in the news, bringing bad stereotypes down on all homeschoolers.
I have four children. Two girls ages 16 and 13. Two boys ages 10 and 6.
My oldest daughter, who turns 16 this month, will be in 11th grade next fall. She has requested she stay in public school. I have agreed for a few reasons. The first one being she is just suited for public school. She has the personality and adaptability to succeed in that environment. Thrive even. I don’t think it’s because of the “quality education” she’s getting but rather a product of who she is, what she wants to become, and her motivation to succeed in that aspect.
My youngest daughter, age 13, is actually the reason I am jumping in with both feet. She’s always been my free spirit, free thinker, thinker of all things outside the box. She’s just not learning in school anymore.
Wait, I take that back. She’s just not learning what she needs to be learning in school anymore. She’s learning plenty about teen pregnancy, cutting, being “emo”, bi and homosexuality, sex, drugs, gangs. And she’s only just finished 8th grade. She’s been bored in school for so long. She started kindergarten at age 4, two months before her 5th birthday. She was already reading, writing, knew all the usual Kindergarten stuff and was bored. She ended up spending most of her time using her scissors to cut her hair, her clothes, paper into itty bitty bits. It was a downward spiral from there. It did get better when they finally tested her for “giftedness” in the second grade. Going to ABC was her favorite part of the school week. But then we moved to another school when she was in 4th grade and they wouldn’t put her in gifted because she “wouldn’t do her homework”. The same homework that she could do with her eyes closed, she just got fed up jumping through their hoops of ineptitude and stopped doing her “homework”. That was when it really started to go downhill. I should have started homeschooling then. She stopped being interested in learning, stopped participating in school, only gave the bare minimum in everything she did. That’s how it continued until 7th grade. Then we had a bully (or three or four) issue.
Long story short the main points are these: My daughter was assaulted over the entire second half of 7th grade. At first, she would tell a teacher or go to the office to tell them one of these girls was threatening her or pushing her or smacking her as they walked by in the hallway or at lunch. But after telling a “responsible adult” several times and absolutely nothing being done about it, she gave up. I didn’t find out about the bully situation until she was actually beaten up in the middle of the hallway. And even then, they would not let her call home. Yes, you read that right. My child was assaulted in the school hallway and they would not let her call me to come pick her up. My child, the victim, sat in the office all day until it was time to go home. Needless to say, when I found out I was LIVID. Even after I found out & started having meetings with the principal and guidance counselor the bullying didn’t stop. I had to threaten civil action against the school and criminal action against the bullies before it became “tolerable” (they still called her names but didn’t touch her). Thankfully it was the end of the school year and we didn’t have to deal with them. I should have pulled her out then.
By 8th grade she had completely lost all faith in her teachers, her principals, and guidance counselor. I mean, what had they done to protect her? I’m sad to say, I think she started losing faith in me also. We struggled through the year. Her refusing to participate, do any school work beyond the BAREST minimum. She started having a serious issue with math. I met with her teacher, who point blank said she did not like my child. Yes. She did. We tried out their school homework plan. My daughter’s responsibility would be to put her assignments in her agenda (assignment notebook thing), have her teachers in each class sign it, bring her homework home, then return it back to school. The teachers’ responsibility was to sign her agenda and make sure she had the correct homework assignment listed. My responsibility was to make sure my daughter brought her homework home, completed it, sign the agenda stating such, and make sure she was ready for class the next day.
About a month into the program, the teachers stopped signing her agenda. They were gearing up for the “State Tests” (bow down). Apparently they didn’t have time to participate in their own damn program. They stopped signing it, stopped checking it, so of course my daughter ever looking for the easiest route stopped filling in the assigments. Which left me unable to make sure she was bringing homework home. The whole “program” fell apart because the teachers who implemented it were too busy to follow through with it. How can I get my 13yo to follow through when the “responsible adults” can’t be bothered to follow through?
Along the same time we started the homework program, we (the teachers & I) decided it would be beneficial for my daughter to stay after school two days a week for extra help in math & science. By the time the State Tests (bow down) were being prepped for, I find out that the Math teacher is letting my daughter just sit at her desk with her head down the entire time she stays after. Not giving her help, not seeking her out, nothing. Just let her “sleep”.
That was the end of the end. The lack of schooling combined with the “extracurricular” schooling in sex, cutting, etc. that she was learning sealed the deal. I started looking into homeschooling her. At first I was just going to homeschool her. But the more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized I didn’t want my younger two, my boys, going to that school either. They would both have to go to that school eventually if I left them in public school. After talking it over, we decided that it would be best to homeschool all three of the younger ones.
My daughter is not happy about the decision. She is afraid she will miss her friends (and truth be told, I wouldn’t mind if she missed a few of them forever….). She is afraid she’ll never leave the house. She’s afraid I can’t possibly teach her anything because I’m “not a teacher”. That is one of the things that saddens and angers me the most. Our children are taught that only the teachers can possibly teach them anything worthwhile. Anything we teach them is immediately tossed out when they get back into that classroom.
My 10yo son was having difficulty with 3-digit multiplication. He brought home some practice worksheets and we worked on them together. I showed him the way I was taught.
Old Math
He brought it back from school the next day in tears telling me I “taught him wrong” so the teacher marked them all wrong. Apparently they are teaching them “new math”. I don’t even understand it enough to give an example. But they take the numbers apart and multiply the ones, then the tens, then the hundreds place. Then add all those together. WHAT?! He understood it the way I taught him. He didn’t (still doesn’t) get it the way they are teaching it. So yeah, just one example of the teachers telling our kids that their parents don’t know squat.
My daughter is slowly coming around. She’s resigned to the fact that she is going to be homeschooled this year. She wants to go back to public school for the rest of high school. We’ve made a compromise. If she does well homeschooling, she can TRY PS for 10th grade. But if it starts to go back the way it was before, I will give the school their “two week notice” and pull her back out.
My boys are staying home for as long as it works for us.
