A week in the life of me - Tuesday

The alarm went off at 7am. I hit the snooze button a number of times. I was tired from staying up too late last night, something I have a tendency to do when Rand goes to bed early. I have to take advantage of the quiet, alone time when I get it, you know. I actually only stayed up until 12:30, but I am an 8 hours of sleep kind of girl and I get pretty cranky when I don't get it.

I shuffled out of bed, got the laundry started, and did 1/2 of the P90X yoga workout. The full workout is an hour and half for heaven's sake. Who has that kind of time to exercise? Not a homeschooling mom, that's for sure! Then I ate breakfast while doing my morning computer routine - email, facebook, google reader. Eventually I knew I needed to get up and get the day started, but I was lacking motivation. At 9, I told Sierra and Kali to get started with their school work and I got in the shower. When I got out of the shower, they both needed help. Kali with a science experiment and Sierra with history. Eventually, I got started working with Arwen. It must have been about 10am by then. Arwen and I did math, phonics, and language arts. At this point, Kali and Sierra needed my help again, but it was getting to be lunch time, so we took a break. Just before lunch I made some phone calls - renewed library books, called about Rand's student loans, and talked to the housing office about our rent and a maintenance issue...

Rand was home for lunch again, so we got to hang out, which was nice. He was also done with work for the day, so he was able to help with school, which was doubly nice since the most of the rest of the work that all 3 girls had for the day required help. After lunch he worked with Kali and I worked with Arwen. Sierra had an art project to do, so she worked on that.

We didn't get done with school until almost 3 today. Some neighbor girls came over while their mom was running errands shortly there after. They played while I tidied up the house. Normally, I would have made the girls help, but since we had guests, I was on my own. I got everything cleaned up, cleaned the bathrooms that got skipped yesterday, and switched the laundry. Oh, I had to plan out and pack up the school work for Kali and Arwen to do while Sierra is at her classes tomorrow. At this point it was almost time to take Kali to her violin lesson. I am sure I took a few minutes to get on the computer.

Just before violin lesson time, Kali fell on our front porch and really banged up her knee. She was in no condition to stand for a 45 minute lesson, so I ran over to the teacher's house to let her know that Kali wouldn't be coming and to pay her for the month. I then headed over to the library to return some books and get some holds.

I returned just in time for dinner. Rand, who normally cooks on Tuesdays, was asleep. He had to be at a church activity in an hour, so we decided it would be spaghetti night. Dinner and Jeopardy followed. I would rather sit at the table, but I am a sucker for Jeopardy especially now that I can answer some of the questions with all that I have learned from homeschooling ;)

After dinner involved the usual kitchen and bedroom/playroom cleaning. Rand is off at his activity and here I am. I still need to pack lunches for tomorrow and fold all the laundry that I did today. When Rand gets home we will do our plyometric workout while watching Biggest Loser, an improvement over our previous routine of eating really unhealthy food while watching people trying to lose weight.

Hopefully I will get to bed earlier tonight. I have to get up by 6:15 to get Sierra to her classes on time.

A week in the life of me - Monday

I was reading a friend's blog recently and she did a series of post where she chronicled a typical week in her life. I thought it would be fun to do the same. My weeks are not exactly typical these days since we turned our world upside down by enrolling in K12, but this is what it looks like right now.

My husband and I are attempting to do P90X. We have been doing it for about 7 weeks with a few weeks of skipping quite a few workouts. Last week was pretty bad with the holiday... But today we got up at 6:45 and worked out. Then I ate breakfast while checking email and Facebook and Google Reader. After that I showered and reminded the girls to do their morning chores.

I took Arwen to her Monday group at 9am. She and some other first graders that are doing K12 get together every Monday to do Science and History together. The moms take turn teaching. Next week is my turn. Sierra and Kali started working on their school work while I was gone. When I got back I alternated working with them until 11:30 when I needed to go pick up Arwen. When Arwen and I returned I checked off the lessons that Arwen did with the group and then it was lunch time. Rand was home for lunch, so I ate and hung out with him while the girls watched Saddle Club and ate their lunch.

When Saddle Club was over we got back to the school work. We were done by 2pm, which is about the earliest we have gotten done since we started - woo hoo! At first we were trying to catch up and then we added in some Story of the World History because I already had some books from the library from before we started K12 that I wanted to read before they were due back.

Monday is cleaning day, so we did chores after school time. Vacuuming, dusting, sweeping and mopping the floor. I helped Sierra with the sweeping since most of our house is tile, but then I didn't get to my job for this week which is cleaning the bathrooms. By the time we finish cleaning and I go the lunch dishes cleaned up it was about 3:30. I made some phone calls and checked email, facebook, etc. and then headed to the grocery store around 4pm.

I got back from the store about 5:20 and unloaded and started to put away the groceries. Once I got the perishables put away I started working on dinner. Rand grilled burgers and I made guacamole. We watched Jeopardy during dinner. I don't like to watch TV during dinner, but we do some especially when we have something like hamburgers. I knew the answer (question) to Final Jeopardy - "Who is Lady Macbeth?"

After dinner I cleaned up the kitchen and the girl's cleaned up their rooms, wait... I think they cleaned up before dinner, so they must have gone off to play (which means their rooms are probably messy again). At 8pm we made hot chocolate and watched Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas.

Then it was time to send the girls off to bed. I finished tidying up the house and looked over tomorrow's school plan. At 10pm, Rand announced that he was heading to bed early. I did the second part of today's P90X workout - Ab Ripper... then got on the computer, remembered that I wanted to do this blog post and here I am. I still need to pay some bills and send a couple of emails. Then I am off to bed to start all over again.

K12: an update

We've been at this K12 thing for 5 weeks and I'm not gonna lie, it's been tough. I spent a lot of days thinking about quitting, wondering when we could quit, wondering what our next plan would be if we did quit. Yet, here I am still planning to continue through Christmas break and probably through the rest of the school year.

And here is why:

When we first started out, it was very overwhelming. Arwen's school is entirely with me. All of Kali's lessons are adult guided, so I at least need to teach her concepts before she can work on her own. And Sierra still needs a lot of help understand what she is supposed to do.

I was overwhelmed and I also felt stuck. Even if we quit K12, I still had to figure out how to make sure all 3 of my kids were being academically challenged. At this point I was thinking that public school may be best choice because while teaching elementary age felt within my ability, teaching a middle schooler AND 2 elementary aged kids was seeming to be almost impossible. But now we live in Hawaii where the schools are horrible, so Rand felt that public school would not be an option. So I felt stuck.

And feeling stuck made me cranky and made me have a bad attitude about K12. I finally came to terms with the fact that right now homeschooling is the best option for my kids and that for this school year K12 is what we should be doing. It is still hard and time consuming, but at least now I have a better attitude.

My plan (at least for this week...) is to keep doing K12 this year and then go back to doing our own thing next year. One good thing about K12 is that it has helped me to see the things we were missing in our homeschool. After doing K12 for a year, I feel like I will be better prepared to create an appropriate curriculum for each of my kids. Also, I think it will be a good experience for my kids to attend the classes (even if they are an hour drive away and take way too much time out of our schedule...). I am hoping to work on getting the most out of using K12 this year and trying not to get stressed out over it.

Livin' in Hawaii

OK, enough of the homeschooling stuff. There have been a few moments recently where we haven't been busy figuring out this new way of doing school and we have been using the time to enjoy living in Hawaii.

Thanks to my wonderful hubby we have been going to the beach A LOT. Even when I have been feeling overwhelmed and worn out, he says let's go to the beach. And you know what? It has been a great way to relieve stress!

We have gone boogie boarding at our local beach. (It is a 5 minute drive from our house!)


Played in the sand at Waimea bay


Avoided the blue bubbles after Sierra got stung the first week we were here.

Went snorkeling in Shark's Cove (There are no actual sharks. Legend says that it was given the name to scare people off and keep it from getting crowded)

Eating at the Hukilau Cafe - rumor has it that Jack Johnson frequents this joint.

And taking care of the baby geckos that are living in our house.

Using K12: days 1 and 2

Excited, nervous, and overwhelmed, I began our first day using K12. Because the school year in Hawaii started at the beginning of August we are a quarter behind. I haven't met with my girls' teachers yet to find out what it expected of us, but I am thinking we can just breeze through a bunch of lessons and get caught up in no time. Side note: my kids have teachers for school. How weird is that? Technically they are public school students. I feel like kind of a trader to the homeschool world...

Anyway, the first day was pretty rough. The older girls needed my help figuring out what they were supposed to do. My youngest was pestering us all because we weren't paying any attention to her. Everyone was jealous of my oldest who has her own laptop. I was flipping out because I was already missing the old way we homeschooled. I was quickly realizing that we weren't going to be able to get caught up as quickly as I thought. And did I mention the it has been like a sauna in our house all week?

Day 2 wasn't any better. Oh, there were some good moments like discussing what happened after the Civil War with my oldest and my youngest pulling out her history book and asking, "When can we learn about the Egyptians and the hieroglyphics!" and listening to my youngest narrate the stories she read. But then there was the time that I was trying to read to my youngest and I was interrupted 5 times by my other daughters needing my help. And the fact that I hadn't been able to do anything but school for 2 days in a row and the house was falling apart. And have I mentioned the oppressive heat?

My dear hubby came home for lunch on day 2 and I broke down crying. I had been trying to keep a stiff upper lip while chanting inside, "we only have to do this until December..." But when he asked me how my day was going, I kind of lost it. He talked me off the ledge and we finished the rest of our school day.

Now you might think after all of this that I would be ready to return all of the stuff, quit, and go back to our old way of homeschooling, but actually I am not. My husband has been my rock. He has helped me to see past my emotions and realize that even though this is hard now, it will get easier and that it is helping our kids to learn things that they weren't learning like how to learn independently, how to manage their time, how to study, and take tests. And that, despite what homeschoolers worldwide are chanting, worksheets are not always evil. It is funny that I am struggling with giving up our relaxed homeschooling methods when I am the one who would have sent our kids to school if it weren't for my husband convincing me to homeschool.

My kids have also been amazing through all of this. I believe that part of my fragile emotional state has been due to all of the changes that we have had recently - moving, living in a place so very different from what we are used to, and now changing our homeschool method. But my kids have just soldiered through it all. Oh sure, they have had some whiny moments. OK, a lot of whiny moments, but all in all they have been handling it pretty well.

I am just so proud of my oldest. This change in homeschooling affects her the most. Being a 6th grader she is expected to do a lot more work than her sisters. Both days that we did school, she worked hard without complaining. We both knew it was time for her to move on from the big comfy couch homeschooling, but it has been a harder transition for me than it has been for her. We are both hoping that once we get used to this program we can add back in some comfy couch time.

The jury is still out on whether this program will work for us for the long haul, but for now we keep trying at it. I will keep you posted...

The Big Change

No, not menopause. Although it has been super hot here in Hawaii because it is the time of year that the trade winds stop blowing and it has been like I have been having one continual hot flash all week. No, I am talking about the change in how we homeschool that I mentioned last week.

Here is how it came about. A month after we moved, I felt like we were settled in enough to get started with school. I decided that we would start on the following Monday, but on Friday I met a mom who mentioned that she was homeschooling her 6 year old and was using an online program called Hawaii Technology Academy. When I got home, I decided to look into the program. I discovered that it was the K12 charter school program that is available in most states in the US. I had looked into K12 before and decided that I liked planning my own lessons and didn't want that much oversight in how I homeschool. At that point I pretty much disregarded it.

The next day my husband and girls and I went to Polynesian Cultural Center to see the night show and sitting in front of us were the homeschool mom and her husband. We chatted a little about homeschooling and she mentioned that Hawaii Technology Academy offers one day a week classes. When we lived in Colorado my girls went to a one day a week program for homeschoolers. They loved it. I loved it. Hum, I thought, maybe this program would be worth the oversight, so we could take advantage of these classes.

I ended up spending the rest of the week obsessing over it. Should we give this program a try or not.

Getting lots of free stuff. Good.

Having to keep track of every little thing we do each day. Bad.

Having everything planned out. Good... and Bad. (I am getting tired of the planning, but I might miss it)

It will help my older girls become more independent with their school work. Good.

I will miss doing history, science, art, and music with all of the girls together. Bad.

It fills the gaps in areas that we haven't worked on in our homeschool thus far like test taking and studying skills. Good.

The Learning Center classes are an hour's drive away. Bad. Almost a dealbreaker.

It follows the Core Knowledge curriculum (aka What your__ Grader Needs to Know). Good.

And the list goes on. I talked about it all weekend and about drove my husband mad. Will it take too long to finish school each day? Will it be boring? Will there be too many worksheets? Will it be like school at home? Will we be able to take days off without getting "behind"?

Finally we decided to give it a try until December and then see how we are feeling. It was definitely a hard decision. My husband made many valid points about why this curriculum would be good for our kids, but it was a struggle for me to give up the way that we have been homeschooling.

On Wednesday our supplies arrived. I was excited for them to arrive, but when the Fed Ex man showed up with 10 huge boxes, I felt a little overwhelmed. Oh yes, it was fun and a little like Christmas to open all of the boxes, but once that was over I had to figure out what to do with all of it. The oppressive heat that day did not help. With sweat dripping down my back I took all of our previous homeschooling books out of the cabinet to make room for the new stuff.

I admit that I was a bit emotional about displacing all of the curricula that I had spent hours and hours researching and, I might add, had recently decided was just about perfect. Why is it that as soon as we think we have homeschooling all figured out something happens that changes it all up? Something to think about. I'll stop here and post later about using K12 days 1 and 2.

Booklist Realization

Like most homeschoolers I am obsessed with book lists. I remember when I first checked Rebecca Rupp's The Complete Home Learning Source Book out at the library and spent weeks pouring over it and compiling my own book lists by topic. I then proceeded to find every book list available online and add those books to my hand written lists. Eventually my paper pile of lists was several inches high. I finally decided to put the lists into Excel documents to eliminate some of the clutter from my desk (I am still not quite finished with this project). I put those lists into google docs and have them listed in my side bar.

Those of you that love booklists like I do will want to check out those lists. but let me tell you what I have recently realized: THERE ARE WAY TOO MANY BOOKS TO EVER USE THEM ALL IN OUR HOMESCHOOL.

Oh yes, I have left the library with huge stacks of books in my arms, including once when it was icy and I slipped and the 30 books I was carrying went flying across the parking lot. And I have spent hours reading all of those books to my kids. Many of these books were very good and others were just OK. So if we were learning about say, Cleopatra, I would come home with 5 books about Cleopatra. All of them had about the same information, so I didn't really need to read them all. Probably one would have been sufficent. But how to know which one to choose. After 6 years of doing this thing called homeschooling, I have come to recognize that there are some authors that consistantly write good books, so when faced with a choice I will always choose these authors.

Here are the authors that I love ( yes, it is another list...)

Diane Stanley
Franklyn M. Branley (for early science)
D'Aulaire
Besty Maestro
Kathleen Krull
Daivd Adler
Gail Gibbons
Ruth Heller
Aliki
Brian Cleary (grammar and math books)
Ann Rockwell
Melvin Berger (early science)
Stuart Murphy (math readers)
Loreen Leedy
Margaret Hodges
Mike Venezia