Recently in Homeschooling Category

Hey Girl.

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Ryan Gosling totally wants to hear all about your homeschool curriculum this year.

I've decided

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I can either clean my home really well or have a really good school day, but not both in the same day. When I try to, I just end up doing both mediocre.

Hambet's teacher has suggested that he read and memorize some poems. Any suggestions of poems or collections? (Yes, "If" is on the list, but for the future.) Hambet, believe it or not, is seven years old.....

Professor Vader explains Pythagorean Therom.

Hat tip to my brother Ed. He's an engineer. He gets a big kick out of math humor.

(Between you and me, Pythagorean therom was one of the few parts of geometry I had no problem with.)

Oh, Peony, Clown of God...

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I am just horrible with that book. It is one of my favorite children's boook, and I think I have two copies. I bought it when Rosey Posey was very small. But to this day, I cannot read the whole thing, I always break up and start crying.
It embarrases the heck out of Rosey Posey. She always starts saying "um, Mom...Mom, stop it..." so I had to hide stop reading it. I think she started saying "You are not going to read that book that makes you cry again, are you?"

I am ridiculous because ever since I had kids (not before) I cry very easily. I cry over Publisher's Clearinghouse Commercials. Well, I was always silly, but I got worse after having children. Hormones.

This year we are doing Five in A Row with Fastolph, and Clown of God is on the reading list.FIAR I think is widely toted as a homeschooling resource, but I do not think it is limited to home schooling. It is a lot of fun and doesn't take too much time, so I think it would be an equally great school supplemental.

More on the Home Schooling Article

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OK, this article from CBS has me scared silly, well because I scare very easily about this kind of thing. Something that will motivate social workers to start investigating home schooling families simply because they home school. Somehow we are more suspicious. Somehow we are more neglectful, which is something I do not understand because it is easier to send a child off to school for a minimum of six hours a day and have no concept of what they are doing during the day (not that people who send their children to more traditional schools are neglectful, I just do not see the logic simply on the basis of "where" they school).

With that said, recently my parents went on a retreat where they met the Parish Life Director of the Novus Ordo parish that my new home is a part of geographically. She said there are a few home schoolers in the area, and that they are cultish in nature and home school to cover for their family problems. In all honesty, I think there is some truth to this. When I lived in New Jersey, it seemed less so, so I am not sure what the difference is here except the horrible formation on a diocesan level. Anywho, the conversation with this lady has prompted a bit of family pressure to put the children in school, even though my father, as the Director of Assessment knows first hand how decrepit morally and academically the public schools are and as a Deacon knows how heretical the Catholic schools are. I guess not seeming "weird" or "cultish" is more important.

Now CBS is doing the "expose" on the hidden life of home schoolers, adding more fuel to the fire. I am hoping it is just a passing frenzy and that it will not incite a new type of witch hunt because witch hunts seem the norm for anything not PC lately.

Yikes

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HSLDA has an article about a feature CBS news ran last night. Can I just say "ick"? I have more to say on this, but it will have to wait until later...

In the meantime, this is the info from the HSLDA email (which I am sure many of you have received):

October 14, 2003

Dear HSLDA Members and friends:

CBS National News ran a negative homeschooling report last night
titled "The Dark Side of Homeschooling" and will run a further report
this evening. The reports focus on a handful of child abuse cases
during the past 5 to 10 years involving families claiming to be
homeschoolers.

Last night's segment discussed the murder of Kyle, 13, and Marnie
Warren, 19, by their brother Brandon, 14, and his subsequent suicide.
The Warren family is from Johnston County North Carolina.

To view the CBS story go to:
http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?ID=1139

Missing from the CBS story was that: Social Services had contacted
the family eleven times, were well aware of the condition of the home
and had been working with the family.

However, to any fair-minded reader the story leaves the impression
that homeschooling equals child abuse.

We are outraged that CBS would ignore the obvious facts and draw the
erroneous conclusion that homeschoolers need to be strictly
regulated. The story is a shameless attempt to smear an entire
community of committed, dedicated parents.

The real story is CBS's bias against homeschooling and it is using
this distorted story to encourage the regulation of homeschoolers.

Please call Viacom (parent company of CBS) and CBS to express your
opposition to the biased reporting and smear campaign against
homeschooling. Highlight the fact that homeschooling was not the
cause of the childrens' deaths and that you expect CBS to have higher
journalistic standards.


Viacom President and CEO - Mel Karmazin
P - 212-258-6000


CBS Evening News - LA Bureau
P - (323) 575-2202


Sincerely,

J. Michael Smith
HSLDA President

Have Not Had Much Online Time Lately...

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We are just starting to get into the routine for the new school year. This year we enrolled to Seton Home Study School because I was stressed and tired this summer. Each summer I get a big kick out of curriculum planning, picking out books, finding books cheap etc. I did not have the energy this summer, so I just sent a pile of money to Seton and they sent me back a big box of books and daily lesson plans. The only thing is the day is much longer, but I am finding the lessons to be very redundant, so I am shaving off a little here, a little there. Normally I do not buy books that are redundant because books are not cheap.

The hardest part of the day is my seven year old's reading lessons. Each day he reads a story from his This is Our Town reader in this terrible little boy monotone like ..."At...St....Francis...Church...Faththth-err...Michaels...met...the...pas...tor...
Faththth-errr....Carl..." I love my son, but man, this is penance. I have not stayed awake for one reading lesson yet. Not only do I fall asleep, I fall into a deep sleep, dreams and everything. My other son will come and nudge me to wake me up and I will get angry at him for waking Mommy up in the middle of the night. Then I come to my senses and Posco is still reading "...yess...Pee-terrr...Mar-tin...anDuh...MaTT...Lay, lay, Lake...are...nice...boyz...said...Faththth-errr Carl..." I love my children, and I love homeschooling. I am so grateful my son's reading is improving because I was going to start begging someone to put me out of my misery.

Attitude Boy

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Ugh, my seven year old, (actually both my children) are giving me major 'tude when it comes to doing their school work. Not at the start of the day, but when something comes up that is complicated, or looks like a big work load. I am sure this behaviour is no different for many school children in the history of the world, I remember feeling the same way as a child with the same lessons. An example of one would be looking up the meanings of my spelling words in the dictionary. The difference is, when Mom is the teacher, my children feel it is OK to whine about being "overworked" and to attempt to find ways to have Mom do their work for them. I am pulling my hair out.

As the school year progresses, getting back into the routine will help, but a secret between you and me (do not tell my kids) that homeschooling can be as much hard work on Mom as it is on the kids.

School

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We started school a week late this year to do moving stuff. All is moving along, but I my not be around for a bit until we get back into the swing of things...

The kids, while are very happy to have a structured day back, are not thrilled with the wok load. Cannot say I blame them...


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