Memoirs of an Unschooling Teacher

Most Fascinating Blog Award

2012-01-20T08:55:00.001+10:00

Apparently my blog post “Musings of Late” has been nominated for an award for The Most Fascinating Blog in 2011, Category: Teaching Blogs.

Wow, who’d have thought? The actual post was written in 2010, so makes me ponder. And 2011 was definitely not my year of blogging. It was more a year of reading rather than writing for me. It’s not like the year wasn’t fascinating or full of surprises, excitement and fun. It was a busy year.

One of our children attempted to spread his wings and explore the world, travelling from Guam to California for a few months then taking buses and trains across the US to live in Maryland for a few more months, until realizing Guam was a lot better place to be. That was Adam.

Another of our children decided that the theater life was for her and spent the year honing her acting and singing skills. She had a part in Guam’s GATE theater production of Camp Rock and was all geared up and ready to tackle the Phantom of the Opera (only to have the show cancelled for lack of interest, though certainly not MY daughter's lack of interest!). As a consolation prize, she joined a public high school Glee club and spent the remainder of the year learning what life was like on a public school campus (even if it was after school, only a few days a week). Now this year she has scored the role of “Anybodys” in West Side Story. That was Stephanie.

Our next child in the hierarchy, grew about 3 inches, learned how to skype and make online friends, created 100 worlds or more in Minecraft, and perfected his video game making skills. All the while entertaining us with his dry whit, endless chatter and crazy antics. That was Eric.

And finally our “baby” is no longer our baby. She also grew a few inches, enjoyed learning how to snorkel, build forts on the beach, expand her portfolio of artistic drawings and discovered the joy of reading. That was Cassie.

Not to leave out our biggest boy, Kevin has continued his career in the air force with a move to Korea to oversee barracks of soldiers. Our biggest joy will come in August this year when he will be stationed back on Guam!

So back to the nomination. I am honored, a little flabbergasted, but more than willing to pursue the bigger prize….so vote for my blog and I promise to bring more insightful unschooling teaching tips to you in 2012!

My Love/Hate Relationship with Facebook

2011-07-15T08:40:00.001+10:00

As the title says, I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook.

I was first introduced to FB via my younger brother. It was probably 2004? I resisted the temptation to join at first but realized if I wanted to keep in touch with my sibling I’d better plunge in.

Soon I found myself finding old friends and relatives whom over time I had lost touch with. It was great! To reconnect with people I had almost forgotten about. But before I knew it, I had over 300 friends on my list and the messages and notes that appeared in the status bars started to overwhelm me.

Who cares if someone is playing Farmville? And really how many pictures of what you ate for dinner do we need to see? Not to pick on anyone in particular but this is how I began to feel.

I love email. I belong to a wonderful group of online ladies that have been corresponding through mailing lists since the days of E-groups and before. Some of them I’ve known for over 10 years now. Over time Facebook has been added to all our lives. It helped us connect even more. And it was great. But I still preferred the more personal and longer letters written via email.

Lately on FB you have to deal with hackers and spammers. Be wary of clicking on a strange looking video on your friend’s page, or you just may end up viewing something you wished you hadn’t and/or sent the same thing to everyone on your address list. I check in maybe once a day and always have well over 300 new status updates I could scroll through. I get through maybe 20 a day. So I miss a lot. What exactly I miss I probably don’t want to know.

Everywhere I turn I’m being told to “like this on FB”, join this fan page or that one. I’m told that if I want to be successful in any of my direct sales businesses, I need to have fan pages and business pages and this-n-that kind of pages. To be honest it overwhelms me. My hat is off to those who can do this. Sometimes I get myself into trouble by making flippant comments like “don’t they have a life?”. Maybe it’s jealousy on my part. I wish I could figure it out and get into the groove. I wish I could just be assimilated and realize it’s the next wave of the future. I wish it didn’t take time to have to learn it all.

Everyday I threaten to quit FB. Then, I get a request or see a picture of my best friend from 5th grade. Or my uncle says “hi” and my other friend from high school sends me pictures of her grandchild. And I see the benefits of FB. So I stick around.

And now there is Google+. I’m fighting hard not to be assimilated into that one. But my email box is not as full anymore. My friends are slowly drifting towards these other social networking sites, leaving me behind in the dust. If I want to stay in touch I just may have to succumb. No matter how much I want to stay in a simpler life.

I wonder if this is how our great- grandparents felt when the telephone came and letters were no longer the only way to communicate across the miles?

Leadership, What exactly does this mean?

2011-06-02T09:06:00.000+10:00

Recently I have been thinking of what it means to be a leader. It seems that if you find yourself in a position of leadership you need to be someone who operates over and above what the average person would do. What do I mean by this?

Well, for example, I teach a weekly driving school class. As the "leader" or teacher of that class it is my responsibility to be prepared and ready to teach on the days that I have advertised. If for some reason I cannot teach (illness, etc.) then it is my responsibility to make sure that a substitute teacher is in place and is fully informed of their duties. And the duties must be performed regardless of how many students show up to class. If there is only one student, it is my obligation to give them the full service and attention that I would give a class of 10 or 20 students.

Now that can be hard at times and takes a bit of sacrifice. It is tempting to say "Oh, there are not enough students today for me to put much effort into teaching". That would be so wrong. It is not the fault of the one student who showed up and they should not be given lesser treatment because they were the only ones to come. It would make that student feel unimportant and "ripped off".

So a leader has to hold themselves to a higher standard.

The other day I found myself in the situation of the lone student. I attend a weekly women's bible study and this particular day the leader was sick and was unable to make it and the study was going to be canceled. Then at the last moment it was discovered that a substitute leader was available so the study was back on. Only I guess I was the only one who got that message. So I and the "sub" showed up at the meeting place. Now this "sub" did not know me at all, as I'm new to the group. And granted it was her last day in town and she was leaving for good the next day. So this was our one and only chance to connect and get to know one another. This was also a prime opportunity for her to minister to me. After all, I have a lot of baggage and issues I need to work out. Not many people know that, and most think I have my act together. How far wrong they are!

Anyway, what happened is the lady realized I was the only one that was going to show up, so after 20 minutes of trivial talk, she took her leave, claiming packing as her excuse. At first I was fine with this and graciously said my goodbyes. But then as I sat there by myself I started to feel very unimportant and unworthy. And I started to think about what I would have done if the situation was reversed. And you know what? I would have stayed. I would have taken that opportunity to pour into the life of the one soul who showed up. Because that is what a leader must do.

So I guess this post is a bit of a rant and a warning. If you are a leader in any capacity and you have an obligation to lead a group, make sure to give that group, no matter how many show up, 100% of what they deserve. That is the mark of a true leader.

Open Areas: Failure or Success?

2011-03-15T10:01:00.001+10:00

Recently I was invited to join a facebook group that consists of graduates from Lord Byng highschool, class of ‘81. This was the first high school I attended in Vancouver, BC. I was only there for my 8th grade year, then my family moved up the coast to Powell River and I eventually graduated from Max Cameron Senior Secondary. When I accepted the invitation to join LB’s 30th reunion group I didn’t feel worthy. After all, I never really graduated from that school. But I was also curious. I had lost touch with all but a handful of people from those days. What were they up to? Do they remember me? It turns out they do! And many have been up to some very interesting things.

Lively discussions ensued where we shared old childhood memories and eventually someone brought up our Elementary school days at Queen Elizabeth Elementary School. Many of us were products of what is now considered a “failed” experiment. The Open Area Classroom model.

I had always known my elementary school days were unique. We did not attend a traditional classroom. For 1st thru 3rd grade I was part of the “pod” a group of four classrooms circled around an “open area”, with it’s own private art room, bathrooms and lunch room. We were kept separate from the rest of the school and only joined them for assemblies and special events. Children were grouped together by abilities so that often you would see kids working together in groups of mixed ages. In 4th grade I was moved to a “regular” classroom. I hated it. So when I was once again chosen to attend the open area class for 5th grade, I remember begging my mom to let me join. So for 5th, 6th and 7th grade I was once again in the “experimental” classroom.

Looking back on this now, I have come to realize that this educational model has shaped how I teach my children, and has been instrumental in my choice to homeschool and ultimately unschool my children. And in discussing my experiences with former classmates there are many of us who were deeply impacted in a positive way. One former classmate says “When I look back at the Open Area, knowing what I now know about myself, I realize that I was able to thrive there because it was a less structured and more creative environment than sitting at a desk all day staring at the blackboard. Strange that it was considered a failed experiment from the seventies.”

So what did we do in an open area classroom? I remember a lot more group activities. We were always being divided up into groups. And it was easy to tell how the divisions were made. Badgers, Beavers and Bears. Badgers were the “smart” kids (I was in that group), Beavers were the “average” and Bears were the, well, ones that needed more help. I remember being placed in 5th grade in the same group as my brother who was in 7th grade. He was not happy. The implication was that we were on the same level of learning. But the truth was, it was all a peer mentoring experiment. The idea was the older kids in the groups were supposed to help out the younger kids. There was no distinction between age and grade levels. We were like one big happy family – reminiscent of the one room school house days, but with 4 teachers to control the group and with only 3 grade levels to deal with. Art and music were emphasized and writing was encouraged. I can honestly say that Mrs. B. was the teacher that got me interested in writing.

I researched why they think this classroom model was a failed experiment. The only research I could find centered on low income classrooms in large cities in Chicago and how the teachers had no control of the kids, and that the classroom environment was “loud and chaotic”. I don’t remember it being that way. But QE was not in a “low income” neighborhood but was decidedly middle class. Maybe that was the difference. Or we just had a good team of teachers. And student teachers. We had a lot of them.

Things changed when I headed off to high school. Classroom segregation, the mingling of several elementary schools into one very large high school, teen age drama as we entered our years of puberty. Bullying. Cliques. Mean girls. Indifferent boys. School was just never the same and I longed for the good old days of QE.

It’s been noted that there is a high number of teachers or people in the field of education that gradated from that class. I wonder if the freedom we had in learning in that environment, helped instill a love of teaching in us all? I know for me, the concept of allowing a child to pursue his/her talents came from those days. I was encouraged to write and to create in art and to explore my interests in science. We had a lot of hands on activities. I remember one teacher came across the skeleton of a deer and brought it back to the class and several of us were allowed to try to piece together the bones to recreate the deer. We had password competitions and talent shows. We sang and danced to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Joseph”. We wrote our own version of the Canterbury Tales. We were encouraged to read and read and read. My favorite corner was a pile of beanbag chairs where one could snuggle with a book and read for what seemed like hours at a time.

Sadly “back to the basics” educational philosophy tore the Open Area classrooms down. Walls were put up and as far as I know QE no longer has this classroom style. Thankfully as an unschooler I don’t have to worry too much about it. But it saddens me to think that educators do not interview those of us who are products of this “experiment” to see how we have all turned out. I’d be very curious to interview all the “kids” from those days and find out just how many of us attribute who we are today to the benefits of this classroom model.

Unique kids

2010-10-24T11:40:00.001+10:00

I have very special kids. Each of them have a unique personality with exceptional talent in different areas. When I really think about it, it amazes me.

Kevin, my first born, was just so highly intelligent that the first 3 years of his life made me think that all kids could be this way if just given the right environment to grow up in. You see, from the beginning I believed in treating children as if they had intelligence. We read to him in the womb, we read to him when he was a newborn. We played special music for him in-utero when we went to sleep at night (Brian Eno’s Evening Star, for those who want to know). Later we played this same music to help him sleep at night, or as a calming music for those times of colic. He was not an easy baby, by far! As my first born I had all kinds of struggles. He never slept more than 20 minutes at a time during the day. Unless it was in the snuggly while I went for walks. But he learned things so quickly. He was holding his head up within the first week and I swear he smiled at 2 weeks of age. You’ve read about his early reading ability. Because I worked in preschools and daycares during his formative years, he was surrounded by learning materials….books, magnetic and felt board sets, educational games, computers (back then it was the Commodore 64!). He grew up so smart. I thought I had all the answers for creating early readers. However, I learned differently.Each child is unique.

I’ve talked about Adam’s amazing music talents. When I think about how he had the freedom and the resources to pursue this talent, it totally validates the unschooling method. At 22 he is getting ready to launch out into the world and see where this talent will take him. We are excited.

Stephanie at 16, is blossoming into a beautiful young woman. She works for our dive shop, is a member of GHSA’s Academic Challenge Bowl team, and currently in the GATE theater program’s Cinderella. In her free time (which she has lots of!) she writes and draws for hours on end. She is polite and friendly and modest. She has a few good online friends and a few real life friends. She has no boyfriend and no bullies. She is not pregnant, nor doing anything that may bring her to into that situation. She is not sheltered or isolated either! She interacts daily with all kinds of customers and people. And she is a great big sister (and little sister too – being the middle child!).

Eric. I’ve written lots about Eric. He’s the child that taught me what it was like to have a real boy! Kevin and Adam were pretty laid back kids when I compare them to Eric. He has always been my “go to” kid,. However, in the past year he has really settled down and matured. To the point that I can actually trust him to be on his own for a few hours and not worry if he’ll cause trouble. He’ll be 11 in less than two weeks. He continues to be loveable and enthusiastic about life, with an incredible imagination.

Recently he had an opportunity to attend a costume event where he was allowed to dress up in whatever he wanted, as long as it was non-scary. He chose to be a hobo. Not only did he design his own costume, complete with “beanie” (I’d call it a toque in Canada), but he also developed the persona behind the costume. Cardboard the Hobo was created – a down-on-his-luck defense attorney who lost his money gambling. Courtesy of Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney video games. For Eric, this kind of imaginative play is so important that it becomes part of his real life. He doesn’t quite get kids who aren’t as into this as he is. Thankfully, little sister Cassie is more than willing to participate!

Eric also has these little tics and thrums. Anyone who has an autistic child, or one with Aspergers, would understand what I mean. They come and go. A few months ago I was thinking he had outgrown them, but then this past month they came back. I started to try to monitor what makes them happen. He rolls his eyes, jerks his shoulders, stutters, etc. usually when trying to communicate with us. And it happens when he is interested or excited about something. Two things have excited him lately. Getting ready for the costume party, and a new computer program – The Games Factory 2. He is creating his own video game on it. It has a squirrel named Gordon as the main character. Presently he is using a free downloaded version of the game but I will be buying the full version for his birthday.

Because I’ve figured out how the tics come and go, I was wondering how aware he was. So the other day I asked him.

“How often does this happen”

His response: “About once a year.”

“How long does it last?”

“About a year.”

After laughing at his response I finally got him to explain himself and he was letting me know that he could go a year without it happening in between episodes. Still too funny.

Do I worry about these tics? No, not really. I know it is a part of who he is. It is just the way his brain is wired. Part of his uniqueness.

Each child is different.

Cassie, my baby, has finally figured out how to read. I have shared many posts about this struggle. Having had a kid read at 3, and then one that is not reading by age 7, did worry me a bit. Not as much as I’ve seen some parents stress over it. I knew eventually she would get it. She still stumbles on longer words or ones that have strange phonetics, but she is reading and comprehending, and questioning. Sometimes too many questions. She is also drawing at a level far above her age. In a little over two weeks she will be 8 years old. I’ll probably have to quit calling her my baby!

At present I’m just so proud of my smart, unique, artistic kids. We are truly blessed.

Learning Styles

2010-10-03T22:07:00.001+10:00

I recently came across an article about the different learning styles. It was complied from several reliable resources and gave a fair description of each learning style, including strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

My first read through of the various styles caused me to squirm. Who would use such a method on a child? This was when reading the “traditional” approach. In other words, re-creating the school in your home.

Strengths included Easy to implement, follows standardized scope and sequence, testing and grading easy, milestones accomplished.

Weaknesses were:

o Doesn't take into account individual learning styles, strengths, weaknesses or interest (Yikes, this is all that I base my teaching on!)

o Assumes that there is a body of info that completes an education and that this can be broken down into daily increments(yeah, who says we need to know this then or now?)

o Treats students minds like containers to be filled with information (Little Robots….)

o Focuses on transmitting info thru artificial learning experiences(And we keep hearing how we need to get back to nature…..)

o Teacher-directed and 'chalkboard' oriented (I smell teacher burn-out….)

o Different ages study different materials(hard to juggle with more than one child)

o Expensive with multiple children (Yup, cost was probably the biggest factor in stopping me from pursuing this method)

o Discourages original, independent thinking (And we all know, my kids are very original thinkers!)

o High burn out rate (Yup, saw this one coming)

Compare those to the Unschooling Approach:

Strengths:

o Takes little planning

o Captures the child's teachable moments

o Children have access to the real world, plenty of time and space to figure things out on their own.

o Children are less likely to become academically frustrated or burned out.

o Children can delve into a subject as deeply or shallowly as they want

o Provides a discipleship model of learning

o Creates self-learners with a love of learning.

Weaknesses:

o May neglect subjects

o Hard to assess level of learning

o Lacks the security of a clearly laid out program

o Is extremely child-centered

o Difficult to explain to others

o May be overly optimistic about what children will accomplish on their own

Let me just focus this post on the weaknesses of the Unschooling method and how I refute them all.

May Neglect Subjects – based on whose idea that all subjects need to be taught? Honestly why do we need to do Advanced Algebra? If needed in a career, the unschooler will learn it. If not needed, why waste the time to learn?

Hard to assess level of learning – I hear this all the time. How do you give your kids grades? How do you know if they learned something? Answers – I don’t give grades and I ask them questions. Simple. You spend time with your kids, you listen to your kids and you will know what they do and do not know.

Lacks the security of a clearly laid out program – Only an issue if that is what you want. For me, it’s no big deal. There was a time in my homeschooling life when a clearly laid out program made me feel secure, but I have come a long way from those days and no longer need that security blanket.

Is extremely child-centered. – And this is wrong because? I have no problem with my child’s learning being child centered. After all, it had created “The Long Dark” which will be a musical masterpiece in its time. (My son, Adam’s music). Education of a child is all about the child! He/She needs to be free to become whom God planned for them to be.

Difficult to explain to others – Okay, I’ll concede on this one because no matter what I say, there are those out there who will not understand. But every once in a while I’ll find someone willing to listen and take some of my ideas to heart.

May be overly optimistic about what a child will accomplish on their own – Here is where the biggest misconception about the unschooling method abounds. That we leave our children alone to do whatever they please. The truth is, a good unschooling home is educationally rich. Our house is strewn with learning opportunities all around. My book shelves spill over with books, the craft shelves abound with paper and craft supplies, the game cupboard is stuffed with teachable games. If a child shows an interest in something we do whatever we can to inspire that interest and provide the learning material for them. Because we do this, our children have a vast array of interests. Some are more focused for a season than others.

But all is good and produces the desired affect. A child who loves to learn. And that is the bottom line and the ultimate strength of our learning style.

The Bitter Homeschooler’s Wish List

2010-07-07T22:38:00.001+10:00

This has been going around recently on facebook and email lists since 2007 but is still worth commenting on.

The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List

I almost want to print it out and keep a small card sized copy in my purse to whip out anytime I run into a person who either has to canonize me for being a saint for homeschooling ( as they exclaim, “ I could never do that!”) or who wants to toss me the “socialization” card.

The above article does come from a secular homeschool magazine but that shouldn’t give it any less merit for a Christian homeschooler to relate to its truths. I for one, fall under #9 on the list. We are Christians who homeschool We do not homeschool because we are Christians.

And #20 is my favorite:

20 Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.

The more I think about it, a laminated pocket card would be very useful.

Musings of late….

2010-07-02T23:28:00.001+10:00

I recently joined a Christian Unschoolers blog ring (see the green box?) and have been enjoying reading some pretty incredible blogs. Blogs written by people just like me. With the same philosophy on education and religion, for the most part. I read their stories and the things they children have been doing and feel like I’m looking into my own life. With variations of course. My kids are not skating across a pond, for instance. But the ideas, the thoughts, the philosophy….all of it matches with how we have been raising our children. And I realize I am part of something so much bigger than me.

I admit I was feeling lately, a little out of place. The homeschoolers I know all use some form of curriculum. They talk about schedules and bedtimes and chore charts. Lesson plans and grading. And how do you teach your child to write? or learn their multiplication tables?

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying these are not good things. If this is who you are and how you homeschool then that is what is right for your family. That is my belief. We are all different and so what I do with my kids isn’t necessarily what is good for your kids. And vice versa.

But I’m really not alone after all, as I have discovered. It is just hard to find a person like yourself living as your next door neighbor.

While I have pondered these thoughts and felt out of sorts, I have come to realize that I need not apologize for who I am or how I raise my children. I shouldn’t have to make excuses or try to explain. If someone really wants to know and understand and is willing to listen, I will tell them.

I realize I have a lot to offer others. I have successfully graduated two of my 5 children. I have children of all ages – adult, teenagers, pre-teen, child. I have experienced all stages of children’s development, (five times up to age 7 so far anyway). There is a lot of wisdom to be shared.

My dear husband must have been thinking similar thoughts today as he said to me that we should write a book together. We have over 24 years of homeschool experience. We have tried everything! It would be interesting to see what we could come up with together to share.

In the meantime I’m happy to be part of a new blog ring that hopefully will help me develop more of a readership as well as make new friends.

My Dad

2010-06-22T08:30:00.001+10:00

My Dad died Saturday morning, May 15th at 5:55am. Hmm….looking at that number 5, 15, 5:55 Wow. That’s a lot of 5’s . Wondering the significance of this?

So I’m thinking of all the little things about my dad to remember. It’s easy to remember the bad things that happened. The fights, or the angry words or hurt feelings. But it’s not healthy. To remember the good things is much better.

I started by going back through the emails we have exchanged over the years I have lived on Guam. I have probably communicated more via the written word, then we ever did in person as I was growing up.

The emails I have had this year from my dad, assure me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he is with Jesus in heaven. My dad knew the Lord. It wasn’t always this way. I grew up in a fairly neutral religious home. I remember going to church as a child, just vague memories of pews and stained glass. When my younger brother was a baby, I vaguely remember (or maybe was told in later years) that it was too hard to take the family to church on Sundays because my dad wasn’t supportive of my mom’s desire. And without that support it was too hard to bring little kids to church and Sunday school. From 1st to 6th grade or so I remember attending Sunday school sporadically with the neighbor family, the Wrights. We would walk to a Baptist church on 18th street. We attended VBS there (or at least I did) during the summer and various other kid club type activities.

After we moved to Powell River, there was no more church for me. My mom went to the Anglican church all on her own. Later, married with 2 children I became a born again Christian and started attending a Pentecostal Church. I think I told my mom something about the Anglican church being boring and stuffy.

When my parent’s divorced a year or two later, my dad decided he would try to change and learn to like the things that made my mom happy. Unfortunately it was too late for their marriage, but in the process he found God. He told me a story about how he attended the Anglican service and during the Peace – where they turn and shake hands with each other – he turned and shook hands with an angel. Most likely it was just a sweet old lady in the church, but something in that simple ceremony touched my dad and I believe he had an encounter with God that day.

So back to the emails. First he sent this simple one:

Here is a question for you:-

"How many times does the word Christian appear in the New Testament of the bible?"

Love Dad

This is such a typical email. Our correspondence would often be short one liners back and forth. A little humor thrown in. A little lesson or seriousness intertwined. With this one I didn’t know if it was a rhetorical question, a joke, or something more serious. I responded with:

My guess is zero. I'm fairly certain it was a word made up after the fact.

I regret I’ll never know what his answer was, as shortly after this email he discovered he had cancer and from there his emails became more serious and guarded.

He also shared a wonderful poem with me. “Truck Lights” by Rene Fumallo. He heard this on a podcast of the Vinyl Cafe.

My dad and I shared recipes back and forth. He sent me humorous email forwards and I in return did the same. Ones that reflected his particular type of humor. Like the one I sent him that showed snowmen in various poses. Kind of a Gary Larson style (He loved Gary Larson cartoons). I said the cartoon reminded me of him. He responded with “my sick sense of humor or are you calling me a cold old fart?”. It was all in fun.

I’ll miss those email exchanges. And the opportunity to see him one more time and introduce him to his two grandchildren, born on Guam, whom he has never met. We will be heading back to Canada late this summer to say our goodbyes.

At least I have the assurance that Dad is in heaven with Maggie and the other children I lost via miscarriage. He is not alone and someday we will be reunited.

Time

2010-06-08T14:47:00.001+10:00

I've been contemplating time a lot lately. Like how fast it flies by. I can't believe it's been 3 months since my last post here! I admit, I have other blogs I've been doing some writing on, but that is a bad excuse.

So back to time. The older I get the faster it seems to go by. It is getting downright scary at times to wake up in the morning and suddenly realize it's time to go back to bed and you can barely recall what took up the time of the day. You know the feeling? As Les and I approach 50 (and we admit, he's approaching faster than I am!), it is like we are on this fast flowing river - perhaps entering the rapid stages, heading towards a water fall - and there is no way to slow it down.

In the big scheme of life, with the hopeful expected lifespan of 100 years, we are only almost half way through life. Which means that we have almost doubled our flow of time since birth. At birth, or let's say 1 yr of age, you have only lived out 1/100th of your life. So time is slow. There is so much still ahead. As a child time moves much more slowly. Remember how long it seemed to take for special holidays to arrive? Or that expected vacation? Looking at my children today I see an endless life ahead of them. Endless possibilities and learning opportunities. And plenty of time to accomplish those dreams.Compared to how many years adults have lived, children have time on their side. It is like they are riding in the lazy river, enjoying life.

So what can one do? As I pondered this it came to me that one of the things that makes me the happiest is that I have spread the births of my children out over a 20 year time span. My first son was born when I was 21 and my final baby, when I was 41. So as a result I still have little kids in my life. Ones who have time moving slower than mine. This makes me have a much deeper appreciation for life. I can still marvel at the little things that children discover. Life is more fun with kids around. For those of you who are beyond this stage, then I imagine Grandchildren would suffice. Grab hold of the nearest child you know and hold on tight. Perhaps we can slow down the river of life that we are in, to match the gentle flow of the lazy river that children play in.

Willamette River, OR: Photo courtesy of Jaci from CCU

Coffee Snobs

2010-03-27T22:48:00.001+10:00

Les and I have finally confessed to being coffee snobs. It crept up on us gradually and wasn’t until we had a recent coffee bean shortage that we realized just how snobby we have become.

It started out over 20 years ago when we started to drink coffee from Amway – Nine to Five brand – sold in individualized 12cup foil packets. From there we moved onto whole bean coffee and grinding our own. We used to buy beans from the bulk buy bin at Safeway. Looking back on that now we wrinkle our nose in disgust. How old were those beans anyway?

I remember one of the first purchases I made upon arrival on Guam was a coffee grinder. And then we searched for coffee beans. Eventually we stumbled upon a very reliable brand of coffee beans from Cost-U-Less (Guam’s version of Costco). A 2lb bag of Columbian Supreme Beans from San Francisco Bay Coffee Co. Up until a few months ago, this was our mainstay for coffee.

But recently our supply dried up and for some reason this coffee is no longer being sold on Guam. We’ve had to resort to the more expensive Starbucks whole bean coffee. Even this is hit and miss. We have dared to foray into Western Family beans, and some other generic brands, but then gag our way back to the Starbucks every time.

Finally out of frustration I started researching online for a good source of coffee beans. Preferably some kind of automatic shipping system that I can rely on.

And thus we found Peets Coffee. My first 2 lbs of coffee beans arrived this week, along with a free complimentary lb of ground coffee. So far my husband and I are pleasantly impressed. The house blend coffee was smooth and went down easy for my morning coffee. Les tested out the Major Dickason’s blend (supposedly their most popular coffee) and now he is hooked. Tomorrow I will discover if this is truly the best coffee ever. Poor Les is worried that he has been tainted for life. Good for Peets coffee. Not so good for any other coffee company.

All we can do now is pray that the automatic shipping will be consistent and our coffee will arrive in timely fashion.

Oh and the coffee grinder? It still works great today, after 15 years.

My Attempt at Vegetarian Dinners

2010-03-07T21:14:00.001+10:00

Not being a true vegetarian, and definitely not heading into the stream of vegan, I have however been doing my best to accommodate my husband’s desires to eat less meat. So here are a few of the meals we’ve had in the past few days.

Friday night I made homemade Macaroni and Cheese and a pot of frozen peas. I used egg noodles for the pasta. Made a white sauce with added Cheddar cheese for the sauce. Served the peas on the side.

Saturday night we had baked salmon (the packaged claimed it was wild caught – but how far can I trust the packaging label?). Served this with garlic toast and steamed broccoli and cauliflower.

Sunday (tonight) I first baked an apple crisp for dessert and set that aside. Then I made a type of vegetarian pizza. Home made pizza dough spread with garlic butter and then topped with sliced tomatoes, mushrooms, chopped pickled artichokes hearts, basil and 4 shredded cheese mix. (On sale at Payless today). I made a smaller pizza with no mushrooms and the artichoke hearts more finely chopped for me and whoever didn’t like mushrooms. I also fried up some steak I had in the fridge that needed to be eaten. Like I said, we are not total vegetarians yet. I did however, do my weekly grocery shopping and bought no meat. (It helps knowing I have some things in the freezer I confess….) And Les and Stephanie did not eat the meat. Les was very impressed with my “pizza” and said it was a “taste sensation”. Highest compliment a wife could expect!

Spring has come to Guam

2010-02-28T22:53:00.001+10:00

I never realized it before, but Guam actually has a “spring”. I don’t know why it has taken me 15 years to notice this. And maybe I’m wrong and there is more than one “season” like we are experiencing. What I’m specifically referring to is the abundance of flowers I’m seeing around Guam lately.

This I think is what as known as a “bird of paradise” though I may be wrong. I don’t claim to be a flower expert. Perhaps it is ginger.

These are bougainvilleas. We have several varieties growing in our garden. These are my favorite color.

This is a mix of a variegated white/purple bougainvillea and the purple (though it looks red here).

Even the weeds sport pretty pink flowers. This is a vine that grows all over the jungle, choking out other plants. But doing it very prettily.

I believe this is really the “bird of paradise”. That other one was ginger I’m fairly certain.

Though they look pink here, these are a lovely purple color and one of my favorite Guam flowers. Don’t ask me the name though!

Our first crop of cherry tomatoes, and the beginning of our vegetable garden.

And finally our lone Palm Tree in our front yard, just to prove we really are in the tropics.

The Game

2010-02-15T23:11:00.001+10:00

I’m not sure what they call it. It seemed to be a cross between Chess and Risk at first glance. When I came home from work tonight, Cassie and Eric were spread out on the floor intent on the game before them. It consisted of an interactive Around the World electronic game board ($10 K-mart special) and chess pieces. The chess pieces were situated on various countries on the World Map.

I watched for a while trying to figure out their game. Eric described it as a mixture of chess and RPG games. I watched as Russia attacked China and the children each took hold of their “pawn” and placed them in a line on the floor.

“I’m throwing a fire spear” said Cassie.

“I’m blocking your spear” Eric replied, with a whooshing sound affect attached. Serious thought prevailed as they both considered their next line of attack.

Apparently this game had been going on for the past hour. In the process, Cassie would ask what country her piece was on and occasionally push the button on the board to hear the country fact.

Geography facts are learned, imagination is used, and creativity abounds when kids are left to their own devices.

History, the unschooling way

2010-02-08T23:12:00.001+10:00

Interestingly enough, history is being learned in my household via an anime comic. Specifically, Hetalia. Stephanie discovered Hetalia on one of her message boards and has downloaded and watched all the accompanying audio dramas and streaming anime videos. She has then, in turn, passed on her knowledge of WWI and WWII facts she has learned to her younger brother and sister, and to anyone else who will listen to her.

In the past few months she has learned more about the Allied and Axis countries and their different idiosyncrasies, than an entire social studies curriculum would have taught her. And what’s more, she has learned about the personalities in power at the time and how they influenced their countries to do what they did in these wars.

What is so wonderful is that she is not only learning history in a fun, interesting way, but she is retaining what she is learning. She is intrigued enough to do further research and to ask questions about events in history. And everything she learns she shares with her brothers and sisters.

Think about that for a moment. Would this happen if we had used a regular curriculum with her? Would she have felt inclined to share this with her younger siblings? I don’t think so. It is the very unique nature of this particular series that has intrigued her. And what has encouraged her to share with others. So much more effective than pages of memorization and regurgitation of facts. What she is learning and passing down, becomes part of my children’s homeschooling repertoire. I love it that when I made pizza last night for dinner my kids were sharing facts about Italy with me that I never taught them! I was learning from them. How cool is that?

For more information on Hetalia and how you can use it in your unschooling journey see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_Powers_Hetalia

Warning, mature themes and language in actual comics and shows.

Writing when Ready

2010-02-08T22:43:00.001+10:00

In the past two weeks Eric has finally figured out how to write neatly and legibly. Or print actually. And to spell. He is 10. This is a boy who would not have done well with a printing/writing curriculum that required repetitive handwriting practice. He has always been a free thinker. Very artistic. He would only write in capital letters and had consistent letters and numbers that he reversed.

Because he has great recall of stories and wonderful comprehension I did not worry too much about his lack of hand writing skills. I learned to decipher his writing and to understand his creative spelling techniques. And I knew that when he was 20 he’d be able to write neatly enough for someone to read what he had written. And that he would be able to spell. And that he would no longer write his number 3 backwards. Because eventually it would all “click” for him.

Well, thankfully it happened long before he was 20. Today he spent an hour carefully writing out a title page, intro and first few pages of a story book. He used both upper and lower case letters. he used proper punctuation and he took extra care to use correct spelling, verifying with me when he was uncertain. All completely self initiated.

I have not had to use an expensive writing or spelling curriculum with him to have this happen. I allowed nature to take its course. Provided him with the material and encouragement when necessary. Stoked his creative genius with appropriate books and drawing tools. And as maturity level was reached he blossomed. By the time he is 13, I am sure there will be no sign that he used to write his “k”’s backwards or could only write in all capitals.

This is what I love about unschooling. I firmly believe that with a mind and talent like Eric’s that a traditional school method would have severely limited his creative genius. As it is he has been allowed to grow in the areas that he wanted to grow in, and when he realized that having others understand his writing, and that writing was just another form of drawing, it all has come together for him and “clicked”.

Today he asked me, “Mom what is your favorite letter to draw? I like ‘g’ and even ‘d’ is pretty cool too.” I had to quickly print out the alphabet and informed him I’m partial to "'f, j and q”. Try it and tell me what your favorite letter is!

The Saga of the iPhone

2010-02-02T23:00:00.001+10:00

I wanted to title this post “My Horrible, No Good, Rotten, Very Bad Day” but in retrospect I realize it really wasn’t so bad. And there was a good lesson learned.

It started last night when two of my cats decided to have a battle royale that careened across the kitchen table, where I had put my barely one month old iPhone a few minutes before. And proceeded to knock over a bottle of bubble mix that Cassie had been playing with earlier. It was only a small bottle, one of those $0.99 ones that hold barely an ounce of the stuff. No one noticed at first but maybe 10 minutes later Cassie noticed my phone in the puddle of liquid. I quickly wiped it off and prayed that it still worked. It did, but the screen had a weird streak through it and the sound wouldn’t work. But other than that….unfortunately I didn’t turn it off right away and continued to fiddle with it. Then it wouldn’t turn off so I put it in a container of rice like it was suggested on several websites.

Morning time and the phone was very dead. I hoped it just needed charging so took it into town and plugged it in for an hour. But still no deal so I headed over to the phone company. After waiting almost an hour, the tech guy assured me it was water damage and not covered so I had to buy a new phone. Except they didn’t have any and I had to head over to their other branch. An hour later I finally get to talk to a sales rep where I am told I can no longer purchase a phone for the great $99.95 deal but had to pay the replacement cost of $539.95! I did some quick math in my head and realized that if I canceled my contract (which I had been advised on purchase a month ago was a HUGE mistake) and realized it would cost me more to cancel the contract than to buy the phone. So I reluctantly handed over my credit card…only to be told that it had expired (though the exp. date clearly on the card was for 3/10). AT this point I’m beginning to wonder what I did to anger God? Was it because I didn’t go to church on Sunday? I’m sorry I wanted a day off! I promise never to do THAT again!

Well, as it turns out we had had a good weekend at the driving school, pulling in triple the amount we usually do. So I was able to pay cash for the phone. Or at least debit card instead of credit card.

So why didn’t the credit card work? Turns out the bank had issued me a new credit card since mine was expiring in 2 months and it produced some kind of glitch in their system that caused my current card to come up expired just for this one day. The bank actually called me to apologize for the inconvenience.

So what did I learn from all this? Well, for one, though I prayed for God to fix my phone, He answered my prayer in a completely different way. Not only did He provide the funds for the phone, but He also prevented me from going further into debt over this little fiasco.

Now I would have preferred to do something else with our extra money. I had plans on sending some to a needy friend and I’ve been wanting to send money to our older son as well. I can still do this, just not as much as I had originally planned.

Could God have prevented what happened? I like to think so. But perhaps not. It was after all, just rambunctious kittens, and my misfortune to put my phone down on a table in our house. I should have known better. If it wasn’t bubble mix, it might have been stale coffee, or a forgotten glass of water. The fact is I need to be more responsible. Isn’t this something we want to teach our children?

Oh and I was pretty peeved at the phone company for '”scamming” me in this way. But then my husband pointed out that these really are $500 phones. I had just originally got a great discount. Can you imagine if everyone went into the phone company, bought a phone, pretend to lose it, buy another one for the great discount and then sell their first one for a profit? It would be a potential nightmare.

So to the nice man who was so kind and patient with a very frustrated lady today, sorry for my behavior this afternoon. You were just doing your job.

The irony of it all is the cat’s name is Applesauce.

Making Lemonade

2010-01-15T21:11:00.001+10:00

One of the perks of living on Guam is making your own lemonade. I prefer using calamansi lemons, tiny tart lemons that grow in abundance on island. Alas, we have no calamansi tree in our new yard so I have to rely on the kindness of water aerobic buddies who give me bagfuls of Guam lemons.

Here is Cassie diligently squeezing the lemons for me. I love the Pampered Chef citrus press!

Eric contemplates the lemons.

Ya gotta put muscle into it.

After squeezing the lemons we had 1/2 bowl of lemon juice. Mixed with a pitcher of cold water, sugar to taste (a lot less than my kids would have liked!) and you have the best tasting lemonade in the world.

25 years ago….

2010-01-12T08:39:00.000+10:00

I gave birth to my first son, Kevin. Where has the time gone? It is hard to believe that the first baby I ever had is now 1/4 century old.

Kevin was due on December 30th and I was slightly hoping to have the new year’s baby with him. But he chose to remain inside for another 13 days and emerged into our world a day before his daddy’s birthday. It was a hard labor, I pushed for 4 hours straight and finally he was born with the aid of forceps. Back in those days a very acceptable birthing tool. Poor baby had a cone head for the first few days. He also had a head of amazing “orange” colored hair. I remember being wheeled to my room and passing some nurses in the hall and they said to me “oh are you the mom with the new little red head? His hair is gorgeous!”

Kevin was my experimental baby. Being my first born I was determined to be all natural with him.Read to him in the womb, played soothing music for him in utero that later we used to help him sleep. Nursed him on demand, made my own baby food, co-slept, carried him around in a snuggly (no slings back then that I knew of), and his first birthday cake was made from the La Leche League Whole Foods for the Whole Family cookbook – a pumpkin cake with crumb topping – no sugar laden icing for this boy. This sugar free lifestyle lasted until his second Easter when he was given a chocolate bunny from his grandma. All my grand schemes went out the door from that moment on.

Kevin was an inquisitive child, who spoke early, walked on his first birthday, was fascinated with books and reading and taught himself to read by the age of 3. I remember his first interest in letters and the sounds they made – at 18 months! He was constantly asking me what words said, what letters meant and he’s the one that put the connection together that there were sounds associated with the letters.

Kevin was the reason I discovered homeschooling. By the time he was old enough for school I sent him off like a diligent mom. I didn’t know I had an option. He hated kindergarten. he had spent three years hanging out with me at various preschools and daycares I worked at and he told me kindergarten was just like preschool. They don’t even know how to read! We made it through K and 1st grade and then I found out about homeschooling. By then the damage had been done to my son though. He had lost his love for learning and his desire to write. it took another 7 years before he once again realized he could be creative. Sad that it took that long.

We had many challenges with Kevin. He was stubborn, opinionated, highly intelligent and thus too smart for his own good most of the time. We totally exploited him at 14 and made him the webmaster of a Web design business that fed our family for 2 years. But it was hard working with a rebellious teen and all his moods.

By 17 he thought he knew everything and moved out on his own. I was busy with 3 other children by this time, and though I regretted having this strained relationship I knew he was up for any challenge that faced him.

Now at 25 he is a productive member of the US Air force. and we are very proud of how he has turned out. He left Guam saying he would never come back or call. But he does call on occasion, and if we call him is always willing to chat.

He’s an amazing young man with a lot of potential. I believe he will go far in life.

The Many Marvels of the DSi

2010-01-04T08:32:00.001+10:00

These hand held video game devices are all the rage. Yesterday when I took two of my children to Wendy’s for lunch after church I counted no less than 5 DS’s on the surrounding tables. One was being used by a grandma! Truly marvelous devices. The newest hand held game system from Nintendo is the DSi. It has internet capabilities with WiFi connection and a built in camera that takes fairly good quality pictures.

We first bought one of these for Cassie for her birthday in November. Eric already had the regular DS,well used. Of course the day she opened her new toy, Eric’s game system had mysteriously disappeared and remained lost until two days before Christmas. By that time we had caved in and bought him his own DSi. The lost one was found buried under garbage in the door of the truck.

Cassie has become quite the photographer with her DSi. It can hold 400+ photos and she has already maxed out her memory card. I enjoy browsing her photos and seeing the world through her eyes. There are also embellishments and effects that can be done to the photos and she has been quite creative with these. The coolest feature is the direct link to facebook. I was able to upload some of the better pictures to my facebook account and share them with my friends.

Eric discovered Flipnotes on his DSi. It is an animation program that allows you to create little animated movies out of your drawings. Perfect for my little budding comic book creator. And he discovered you can add sound to your videos too! Since the photo program had an upload feature to the internet I looked at the flipnotes program and discovered the same. Today I’ll be emailing in permission for Eric to upload his animations to a special website so that I can share his creations with his fans. Check back later and I should have a link posted.

So if you were concerned that DS’s were nothing but time wasters, think again. They are doorways to your child’s creative side.

Cassie’s Story

2010-01-03T18:21:00.001+10:00

Around 10:30pm last night Cassie was industrially working away on a piece of paper writing or drawing something. Every once in a while she would ask me if something spelled something, just to verify she was getting it right.

“Does T-H-E spell the?” for example. Which she knows perfectly well it does. She just lacks confidence sometimes. So anyway, the only word she really needed help with was Dance (with a “c” not an “s” her brother corrected her). And the word “night”, which I just casually recite to her and explain that “igh” makes the long “i” sound sometimes. She always thinks it’s funny when there are weird combinations of letters to make certain sounds in words.

Her final paper read:

THE CAT AND ME

THE CATS DANCE ALL NIGHT WITH ME

IM A CAT WITH A KITIN

She also started one about the Dog and Me. We shall have to wait and see just what the dog will do with her.

Cassie is 7 and my late bloomer when it comes to reading. All the rest of my children learned to read by the time they were 6, some earlier (Kevin at 3 and Stephanie at 5). But Cassie enjoys being read to and I highly suspect she wants to hold onto that privilege just a little longer. Even though I have explained that I will always enjoy reading to her.

I’m not worried though. Her comprehension and understanding of plot subtleties in books and movies prove to me that reading is only one aspect of language arts. She can sit and watch an episode of Lost and remember 2 seasons back what the reference is. I have to ask her to explain situations to me sometimes on these shows!

What I love the most about this little story writing episode is the spontaneity of it and the self directed learning that takes place. It really helps the child retain what they are learning when it is child directed learning. Without a doubt I know she now knows how to spell “night” and I expect to see it appear in future daily writing activities.

Blogging for a New Year

2010-01-02T18:13:00.001+10:00

I’m tempted to change the name of my blog to better reflect what purpose it has. I started this blog when I was teaching in a private school. And then when that teaching year ended, I continued to use it to blog about unschooling my children. There have been times when I’ve deviated even from that purpose and just written a post for the sake of venting, or airing my feelings on a certain subject.

Recently it has been brought to my attention that blogging is not about freedom of speech but about making sure not to offend anyone. Yikes. I can’t agree with this. My blog is my personal space where I have the freedom to write whatever I so chose. I try to be careful. I don’t use names if I can help it. I have no qualms about using my own children’s names on my blog. I know some bloggers who give their children nicknames for the sake of privacy. I can respect that. And if I write about something I have read in the paper or an anecdote that happens to me or to someone I encounter, I will keep it anonymous. But I refuse to apologize for saying what I feel and think. And if the person I’m referring to happens to stumble across my blog and recognizes themselves in the words that I have written, I hope they will be brave enough to ask me what I meant by what I wrote, or to clarify my position. Sometimes I’ll take a situation and expand on it to include the generic “we” or “you” or '”they” and maybe what I write doesn’t come across the way I had intended. Alas, I’m far from perfect and don’t claim to be. And I will be brutally honest when it comes to critiquing a book or curriculum. I probably won’t get any curriculum review contracts out of the deal though.

So should I change the name of the blog? It is my memoirs and I am an unschooling teacher/parent. I believe in this method of teaching and in general most of my posts will be about my children and the things they learn. Occasionally I will digress and write about something completely random and strange. But that is my prerogative.

And to anyone who reads themselves into any of my past posts, understand that I’m only using you as an example and I have no personal agenda against you. I may not understand where you are coming from. You may make me question my religion, my beliefs and my overall view of humanity. But I do not dislike you, nor wish to cause you offense. I am thinking out loud, here on my blog, my own personal space in cyberspace. And that is what blogging is all about.

Reflections on 2009

2010-01-01T22:54:00.001+10:00

This past year has been a tough year economically for the majority of the world. I feel guilty for what I am about to say. This has been a great year for our family. How dare I admit that when so many of my friends are losing their homes, been jobless or lost jobs this year and have had to suffer untold loses and stress? My prayers go out to all those who have suffered this year.

But reality is, it was a GOOD year for our household. We have had our trials and struggles and looking back I wonder if God smiled down on us this year because we have already “been there, done that” and paid our dues. Is it bragging to say that? Or should I have a more thankful tone? Because truly I am grateful and thankful and am blessed that I can say “it was a good year”. After all we have suffered in years past, I truly am thankful that God said, “Well done my good and faithful servant. Be blessed.”

2009 started with Les beginning work for a new wedding company. This move doubled the amount of weddings he officiated for the year as well as earned him a position as assistant manager. He has enjoyed this career move.

With Les busier, I have had to take a stronger lead in the driving school business and face my fears and actually get out on the road and teach some students the practical lessons. I’m still not confident enough to deal with the brand new drivers, but am an expert at teaching parallel park! Both offices have done well this year. We also gained a little fame with some media reviews – both radio and newspaper and even a short TV interview!

The kids have all thrived and grown as well. Kevin almost 25 is still serving in the Air Force and stationed at Travis AFB in California. He recently moved into his own two bedroom apartment and has been promoted again. He also completed his Associated Degree, mostly via CLEP testing. Our unschooling success story, I like to say.

Adam,,21 continues to manage our northern office and compose and write music. Though he keeps to himself, he is an invaluable asset to our family, helping with the business and the running of our home. And he still manages to be creative in his spare time. One of our goals for 2010 is to figure out how to get his music noticed by those of influence.

Stephanie,15, had a wonderful opportunity this summer to spend two weeks in Hawaii with her best friend Miki. Her first solo plane flight. Mom was a tad nervous while her baby was away, but Steph had a great time and proved she is mature enough for more travel adventures. She continues to perfect her artistic skills drawing anime and writing stories to accommodate her drawings. Stephanie is also a member of the Guam Homeschool Academic Challenge Bowl high school team, which currently has lost only 2 matches this season. She has also been actively involved with her church youth group, enjoying paintballing among other activities. She has grown into a mature young woman and we are so proud of her sensitive nature, strong character and loving spirit. My favorite memories this year include the many times I have caught her reading stories to the “babies”, as she affectionately calls her younger siblings.

Eric, 10, has definitely grown up this past year. Many of the concerns I had with his schooling have been for naught as he has once again proved how unschooling can work, especially for boys. Eric has always been my “all boy” boy with his zest for life and enthusiasm for everything. We had issues with his spelling and number writing at the beginning of the year but now he has finally “got” it. Other homeschooling moms ask me what we did to help him improve, but to be honest the answer is nothing. He just had to reach a maturity level where these things mattered to him. He continues to create comics and his humor amazes us.

Cassie, 7, has finally declared her independence and we have seen it displayed over and over this year. Our “princess” struggles with being a princess or a tomboy,and could be seen preening in front of mirrors in pretty dresses, or running down the beach in nothing but shorts, sporting self inflicted tattoos and muddy feet. She continues with the weekly Guam Skipjacks jump rope class and has shown great improvement in her jumping skills.

One major change for us this year was to move from our cute beach house cottage to a larger house in southern Guam. Our living quarters doubled in size with the move, while our daily commute was increased ten-fold. But the longer drive is well worth the increased living space. We have a nice 4 bedroom ,3 bath concrete home with a large extension that is our library/craft/ exercise room. Stephanie finally has her own room and bathroom too!

Our final blessing of the year was the purchase of a third vehicle – a truck – for Les. A man has to have a truck you know! And last but not least, we had a chance to reconnect with old friends and join a new church – Firestarters Discipleship Center – with Pastor Brad and Jessica Dunagan. God has been good in leading us to a new church home without conflict with our old. We continue to pray for the Calkins our former church and pastor who has had many health issues this year.

It truly has been a blessed year for us. Weather has been good. Health has been good. Business has been good. Though the world has been in turmoil, God has smiled down on us and we are very grateful for His abundant blessings.

May 2010 be such a year for all our friends and family.

Christmas thoughts

2009-12-21T06:16:00.001+10:00

It’s 4 more days until Christmas. December flew past and so many of my plans were put on hold so that I could indulge in the true meaning of the season – to give of my time to a worthy cause. I was asked to come in and help out at the Christian school that I had volunteered at two years ago. This time I was in charge of the middle and high school class. It is an ACE school so they use the PACE program – 12 booklets per subject per year that the students work on independently, so my job was more of a supervisor than a teacher.

It was a hectic three weeks and throughout my time I once again questioned those who call themselves Christians. You see, I didn’t need this job. I have my driving school and my husband has his weddings and between the two businesses we are taken care of, not to mention committed time wise. But we had made a promise to the owners of the school that if help was needed, we would be there. This was our Christian duty. My Christian duty, specifically, as I had the flexibility in my time to do this. And my two older children were fully capable of handling our offices and the care of their siblings.

So it’s the season of Christmas. A time to reflect on the birth of our Savior and the reason He came to earth for us. Pastors speak in churches of the spirit of giving and how this is not supposed to be a commercialized time of year, but a time for helping out those in need, giving to the poor, aiding widows and children, etc. As soon as I heard about the need at the school I called friends of mine who were looking for work and put out the word that here was an oppo9rtunity not only to earn money but to offer Christian service to a group of kids who needed to hear the gospel. You see this is not a school full of sweet Christian kids from good Christian homes. Oh there are a few students who fit that description, but the majority of the kids in this school are there because they have been kicked out of every other school they have attended. They are kids who have been in DYA or other similar programs, whose parents are desperate to find someone who will teach them. What a better audience for someone who wishes to share the gospel and possibly have an impact on a child’s life. And what better time of year to do it in?

Sadly I had no takers. Why is this? Because so many of them listen to rumors and hearsay and look at what is in it for them, not what it is they can give. Will I get paid for my services? How much time will it take from my busy season? I have too much to do this month!

Do they honestly think I have time for this? You know what I told my husband? He said to me, “Why you?” And my response was ,“Because who else will do it?” I had no idea how true this was. I’m quite saddened by my fellow Christians who are not willing to step out of their comfort zones, who are not willing to step back from their Christmas programs and family obligations in order to truly give back to the community at a time when giving is so emphasized. I wonder what Jesus is thinking right now?

On another note, I read in the paper about a woman who only gives her children three presents each, to represent the three gifts the wise men brought Jesus. She said this was to teach them the gospel and to lessen the commercial aspects of Christmas. I have to admire her desire to teach her children this lesson, but at the same time I question it. For us, Christmas time is about the birth of our Lord and Savior and we do teach this to our children. We also have explained to them how it is a pagan holiday and that Jesus wasn’t really born at this time of the year. And the giving of gifts is more of a tradition. It is a time of year to give your children the things they need (my kids get a lot of new clothes at this time), we replace things that need replacing and we indulge in a few “I really want this” type gifts. It is a time to show our kids how much we love them. And it is just plain old fun. We don’t have a lot of family around and so, aside from Grandma who sends money every year, all the gifts my children get are from us, their parents. I don’t think giving only 3 gifts would go over so well with my kids.

Anyway, I hope that families that try to use this time of year to teach a lesson or something think about the other lessons that can also be taught. My children saw the sacrifices I made and understand that giving back to the community at this time of year is invaluable.

Late Night Conversations

2009-11-30T23:07:00.001+10:00

Conversations with Cassie while she plays with scrabble letters at 11pm at night making words and having an impromptu spelling lesson:

Resulted in the following exchange.

“What does this say?”

SAT FAT RIS

We decide together that RIS is an acceptable name for a person – boy or girl. Stephanie points out that RHIS was a real name and would be even better but Cassie didn’t have an H. And besides she thinks it should be pronounced “Rice”. Cassie and I both agreed that RICE was a better name anyway and I suggested that Stephanie name her first born Rice.

“What? In memory of my days on Guam?”

We all giggle together.

Everybody’s got a Water Buffalo

2009-11-06T21:46:00.001+10:00

“Is that caribou ours now or something?” This was Stephanie’s question as she swept in the door a few moments ago.

“Oh, yeah, didn’t you know? Everybody’s got a water buffalo,” I started to sing.

And Larry has it right. Cause we really do have one that has seemed to have adopted us.

On Guam a Caribou (pronounced Care – i – bow) is just another name for a water buffalo. They were used by the Chamorro farmers to help them plow the field and make roads. Now it just seems they can be found in southern village yards, eating grass, or walking along the side of a road or highway being led by an old man with a stick. Or perhaps you will see one walking through the village, pulling a little cart, as it is led by an even older man.

This one belongs to our neighbor but we have this luscious patch of grass that he loves to eat. Apparently my husband had seen the mutual benefits of allowing this animal to graze on the corner of our property. Feeds the beast and means less grass to mow.

So tonight as the southern stars come out, a water buffalo is sleeping next to my car in my driveway. He joins our dog and several cats and whatever toads and chickens venture near in the night.

Happy Birthday Maggie

2009-11-01T14:15:00.001+10:00

Today is a special day in the Smith family household. It is the anniversary of our dear daughter Maggie’s birth and death. I’ve never really talked much about Maggie on this blog. Her story has been written before, on other blogs, but today I wanted to re-write it to commemorate her short sweet life.

Margaret Elizabeth “Maggie” was born on November 1, 2005. She only lived about 2 short hours. She was born 8 weeks early via C-section and weighed 9lbs. Yes, she was a big girl. Maggie had Fetal Hydrops, which basically is swelling and fluid retention in all her tissues. It was discovered in a routine ultrasound I had on that day. Prior to the ultra sound I knew things were not going well with the pregnancy. For the past month I had gained 20lbs and had severe swelling in my feet and legs, yet my blood pressure was fine. Since I am overweight the doctor did not take me as seriously as he should have and kept telling me to just put my feet up, that some swelling was normal, especially in our hot Guam weather. I knew this was not normal.

When we were told there was a problem with our baby and that a C-section was necessary in order to try to save her life, we agreed. We also decided it was time to close the “factory” down and consented to a tubal ligation. I also knew that the chances of my baby surviving were very slim. We called our pastor and friends for prayer and I was whisked into the operating room where Maggie was born around 5pm. I was only allowed to hold her for about 10 minutes and then she was placed in her daddy’s arms and I was sent off to recovery. By the time I was taken back to the hospital room, Maggie had died. I never got to see her beautiful blue eyes. I’m sure they were blue, as all my babies had blue eyes.

There are so many things that happened that I look back on and regret that things weren’t done differently. No attempt was made to save her life. It was decided from the moment that she was born that she would not survive. I never found out if medically something could have been done and decisions were made for me that I never questioned. I have learned not to question these too much as it hurts too much to think about the “what ifs?”.

I do think that my life was in danger as what was affecting Maggie and causing her tissues to swell up, was also affecting me. I since watched a House episode where a mom was experiencing all the symptoms her unborn child was experiencing. I can’t remember what they called that, but I suspect that something similar was happening with me. In looking this up in google, I came across Mirror Syndrome. I believe this is what I had. I do thank God that I am alive and am able to continue to raise the children He gave me. I do not understand why He felt He had to bring Maggie home so soon. I do know she is waiting to greet me in Heaven, along with her two older brothers and sister I lost in miscarriages between 1996 and 1998.

So for Maggie……

You would have loved being part of our family. Kevin, your oldest brother, would have been your champion and protector. He would have taught you that reading is better than watching TV and pretended he didn’t know who you were, but secretly would do anything to keep you safe. You may even have had his strawberry blonde hair and freckles.

Adam would have written you songs and played them to help you sleep. He would have made sure your toys were put away and taught you to sweep the floor with your own little broom. He also would pretend that you were nothing but a bother to him when he was busy, but would have protected you and kept you safe from anything that would hurt you.

Stephanie, your oldest sister, would have read you stories and sang you to sleep. She would have walked with you and rocked you when you were upset. She would have been the perfect big sister, loving you with all her heart and wanting only the best for you.

Eric would have been your knight in shining armor. He would have concocted all kinds of plays involving you and his other sister, Cassie, making sure the two of you followed him around and did whatever he wanted. He would have taught you to laugh and to run and to enjoy life to its fullest. He would have taught you to use your imagination, causing it to soar beyond this world.

And finally, Cassie, would have been your best friend. She would have taken such good care of you, being mommy’s little helper and making sure you were dressed up in the cutest outfits. She would have gladly shared her dolls and stuffed animals with you and taught you to crawl and act like a cat before you were a year old.

Sadly I have no pictures of you, but following are a few of your siblings that I think would have looked like you. I love you Maggie and you will always remain in a special place in our hearts.

This is Eric. It is the closest picture I have to what Maggie looked like when I held her in my arms.

Maggie’s sisters, Stephanie and Cassie. I imagine that Maggie would have looked very similar to her two big sisters!

Windows Live Writer

2009-10-17T17:36:00.001+10:00

This will be a short post. Two in one day, I don’t want to overwhelm my few followers.

I just had to brag on this cool new program I found on my mini lappy I got for my birthday in September. Windows Live Writer. It is like a word processing program but specifically designed to work with most blogger programs. Basically you set up each blog you write on, and then when you desire to update your blog you can choose which blog you want to upload to. No more logging in and out of gmail if you run more than one blog using different email addresses like I do. I have my personal blogs, my business blogs, and a few others I write for. And there are cool editing tools like inserting photos, albums, tables, maps and videos easily using the handy tools in the sidebar.

So far it works great with blogger blogs. I have two others that are with a different blog platform that I still need to test but I have high hopes that it will work.

So that is why I have been a more prolific blogger as of late.

Oh, I almost forgot. I have been using way more pictures now too as I discovered the memory card from my digital camera fits into the built in card reader on my lappy. (Lappy is what I call my netbook). So now adding pictures is easier than ever too. Thanks to Windows Live Writer.

The Shirt

2009-10-17T17:16:00.001+10:00

We have this shirt that has been worn by all of my children (who fit it) so far. It is almost ready to be passed down to Cassie.

Here is Eric modeling it for us.

It has a nice little hoody at the back that is great for keeping the sun off the back of the neck when hiking. This is why this shirt has always been the hiking shirt. Kevin first wore it hiking through the woods of BC. Then it was passed down to Adam, who first wore the shirt here on Guam. Stephanie took her turn wearing it, and still on occasion puts it on. It still fits her. That is Eric’s goal too. That when the time comes for him to pass the shirt down to Cassie, that he’ll still be able to wear it from time to time. It’s just that kind of shirt.

I told Cassie that when she out grew it I would turn it into a teddy bear or something. Cut it up and use the parts for some kind of stuffed toy to be passed down the line. But then we all agreed that no, this shirt needed to be passed down to grandkids, and our goal is to see how many kids can wear it before it falls into rags. then turn it into a teddy bear!

I have no doubt all my children will agree. The shirt is THAT special to them all.

A Christmas Sneak Peak

2009-10-16T19:54:00.001+10:00

Today I’m going to step off of the educational track and blog about a hobby of mine instead. Several years ago I started to get into stamping and making my own cards. Eventually I decided to become a Stampin’ Up demonstrator in order to get discounts on stamps and supplies. And maybe, just maybe I’d be able to make a bit of money on the side. Well, I haven’t been able to make much money yet, but I am having fun.

Because Christmas if fast approaching I have been working on Christmas cards. I decided to try a technique called One Sheet Wonder. It is where you take one sheet of designer paper and create as many cards as you can out of it. I found a template and managed to create 15 cards out of one 12” x 12” sheet of designer paper.

Following are some of my favorite creations.

Ug is Enuff!

2009-10-13T22:32:00.001+10:00

I have raised a very proper daughter. So proper I’m thinking she should have been born sometime during the 17th century or something. After all this is my 15 year old who prefers to listen to French operas and read Jane Austin than the Jonas Brothers and Twilight.

Her latest peeve is the way her younger brother pronounces the word “ugh”. I had no idea there was a proper way to say such a word. Apparently it is not to be pronounced “ug” (hard “g” sound), but a more softer “g” because of the “h” after it. How to describe this sound? Like something a French person would say maybe? “uggghhhh”. Kind of like the sound a cat makes when it’s barfing. Hard to explain without audio.

This is a big distraction for her. She really just cannot tolerate it when one of her siblings says “UG!” I have broken up two arguments in the past week over this particular word. I had no idea it caused her such distress when we abuse the English language.

But this is also the daughter after my own heart when it comes to proper writing. She refuses to resort to “chat speak” when writing a note or an email. The closest she gets to abbreviating words is the occasional LOL or ROFLOL. So I really can’t complain.

As I write this blog post she is entertaining her siblings with youtube videos of “Le Petit Prince”, the musical. In French, of course. She says it’s to follow up after reading them Antoine De Saint-Exupery’’s The Little Prince.

Nerd Boy & Technology Girl

2009-10-09T21:56:00.000+10:00

Today’s post has two special guest bloggers – My kids, Eric and Cassie. Cassie started it by dressing up as Technology girl.

So as dictated to me by my “technology girl” (and with some helping probing questions…)

technology girl: she love technology. Like ipods. and computers and video games. Her favorite game is Super Mario 3. Her favorite color is blue. She drinks iced tea while texting on her cell phone. she always talks in a loud voice because of her headphones.

Then of course, Eric needed to get in on the scene. So Nerd boy was created.

(Written entirely with no editing by Eric, age 9)

nerd boy : a nerd of course he loves all nintendo games except for the bad ones.he’s constantly on the computer trying to get the unfinished game:super mario galaxy 2 well he’s drinking Pepsi and cuddling kittens.he loves animes .and hates it that game companies takes parts out of games like some really epic parts he finds on the internet even if it’s not possible to put it in the game. he really likes the comic book calvin and hobbes.oh and his favorite nes game is super mario bros 3 or Kirby's adventure and his name is “chrono”familiar? yep nerd boy is SUPER EPIC AND HIS NAME ON A FORUM IS LOLLAZERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

(End guest post)

Together we have Nerd boy and Technology Girl. Perhaps the next super heroes for the homeschooling world?

Mommy Money and Daddy Dollars

2009-10-04T12:47:00.003+10:00

There are benefits to cleaning your children's room for them. For instance, you know that it is clean, versus it just looking clean. And you get a chance to do inventory on just what is stored in that bedroom! I am still looking forward to that day when the kids are old enough to do a good enough job on their own. It still may be a few more years away for me.

Eric and Cassie share a bedroom, but they rarely actually use it. Because in the past what happens is they totally destroy it by throwing their clothes, stuffed animals, toys, etc. all over the place so that eventually I just close the door and put up a "do not disturb, danger zone" sign. Well, maybe not a real sign, but it definitely becomes an "enter at your own risk" zone.

About two months ago I did a thorough cleaning of their room and got things organized for them. That cleaning lasted about a week before it was once again a "do not cross the yellow safety line" area. Mostly this was a result of our cats. We had a cat, Nobby, who broke his hip and consequently had to be kept inside for 6 weeks to heal. And that necessitated having a litter box. I do not like cat litter boxes. Once you allow a cat to do his duty in the house, then it become s a habit that is hard to break once you get rid of the litter box. We believe that there is enough dirt in the great outdoors that we don't have to have box in the house for this duty. Anyway, we had to have the box. Well, unfortunately it is hard to explain to the other 11 cats in the house that this box is just for Nobby to use. As a result, it was becoming filled way too fast. And someone had the brilliant idea of putting the litter box in the little kids' room! Big mistake. Because this room is already the disaster zone it wasn't long before the litter box became the entire bedroom. I know you are all shaking your heads at me know as I confess at just how lousy a housekeeper I am. But I do work outside the home 6 days a week and to spend my one day of rest cleaning....it just doesn't happen.

Finally though something has to give. My husband and I have no privacy as the kids end up sleeping in our room half the time, or on the living room couches as their room is just "too stinky mom! " The conclusion was for me to take a day off work and clean their room. So that is what happened on Friday.

It's now been two days and they are doing a pretty good job of keeping it clean. To help them out they came up with a system that they think will motivate them.

Cassie brought me a baggie full of monopoly money and said, "Should we call this Mommy Money or Daddy dollars?" Their idea is that when they do a good deed or a job for me or dad, that they will be rewarded with money from this bag that they can collect and trade in for real money to buy things they want. Good idea (and not entirely original as they got the idea from Diary of a Whimpy Kid).

Now the challenge will be for me and my hubby to implement the idea. It is easy for the kids to come up with plans of action to help motivate them, but it is harder for me to follow through. If they can keep their room reasonably clean, maybe I can dole out the cash. It will remain to be seen.

Are your kids friends?

2009-09-20T20:53:00.002+10:00

Lately I've been noticing one of the biggest blessings of homeschooling. My children's relationship with each other. Last night, Cassie announced something about going to the library to read a book and I looked up to see her, Eric and big sister Stephanie walking out to the extension of our new house where our "library" and my craft room are located.

I looked over at my husband and raised my eyebrows.
"Apparently she's reading them a book." he replied.

Ah! As Les and I walked past the library window to spend some much needed quiet time in our outside garden spot, I looked in to see three blond heads, of various shades, leaning together over a book while Stephanie animatedly read to her siblings. Though I couldn't hear her voice, by her facial expressions and the little one's rapt attention I knew she had a gift for story telling.
I really wish I could capture these moments forever in time.

It occurred to me that not all families get along as well as my children seem to. At least not those portrayed in movies, books and t.v.shows. Nor do most parents want to spend as much time with their kids as we do. (When I say "we" I'm not implying that we are better than other parents, but I'm using the collective "we" that refers to most homeschooling families). In fact on a facebook comment one of my friends was looking forward to school beginning again so that she could get her life back. When I commented that my kids were with me all the time her reply was "I'd rather pour hot sauce in my eye." Now I realize she was probably being funny, but the sentiment is loud and clear. Parents actually look forward to having no kids around when school starts up.

I cannot imagine. I love being around my kids. And for the most part my kids like being around each other. They are normal though, so fights do occur. But they don't last long, and they are best friends when they are over.

Is this a product of homeschooling? Or would my children be as close if they were in public school all day? I imagine that full time school, where siblings are separated into age-segregated classrooms, will find their time so absorbed in school, homework and friends that brothers and sisters will be ignored or forgotten.

In a magazine from my hometown of Powell River, Powell River Living, they talked about an innovative program that took place in the public schools. "Roots of Empathy" families visit a classroom and allow the children to interact with a baby assigned to their class throughout the school year. The idea is to help teach the students empathy for others as they watch the child develop over the year and learn to interact and care for the baby during his visits. As soon as I read this article my thought was "they are trying to bring the home back into the classroom". Homeschoolers have it all figured out already! My older kids were intimately involved in the care of their younger siblings, so the closeness and bonds that have developed are strong.

Cassie loves to comment every time I do something she considers "normal". Like when I told her to have a bath and brush her teeth before going to bed, she commented "like they do in a normal family?" Implication is that we are abnormal. If so, I like it. If abnormal means happy and contented. With my kids as each others' best friends.

Time4Learning

2009-09-08T08:13:00.002+10:00

A few weeks ago I met a woman who was using Time4Learning with her 12 year old son. The name of the program sounded familiar and I realized I had seen several email ads for this over the summer. Curious, as I always am about new learning programs, I checked it out. At first I wasn't interested in shelling out $19.95 a month for a "homeschool curriculum". After all, I'm an unschooler and we don't use "curriculum". However, in my pursuit of my new venture, the Guam Home School Resource Center, I felt it was in my best interest to thoroughly check out any educational option that crosses my path so that I could give a recommendation to those that come through my doors and ask questions.

So, Cassie, 6, became my guinea pig. I signed up for the 2 week free trial version (which unfortunately you pay for in advance and then can be refunded if you decide to quit after the two weeks are up). We are entering our second week of the trial. So far Cassie loves it. In fact she is very funny because she will come up to me and say "I'm bored" and then look at me with her big blue eyes without telling me what will solve this boredom. After several suggestions of things she could do to become "un-bored" I'll finally hit on what is her desire. To go on Time4Learning.

I'm not a typical homeschool parent. I have not gone into the system and set up a lesson plan for her to follow. I have allowed her complete freedom to choose what activities to do and what lessons to follow. When you first log in you are required to answer some basic questions about your child's learning in order for them to place them in the correct grade level. Since Cassie is 1st grade and not a reader she is doing some kindergarten level and some 1st grade level. She knows her letters and sounds and can read simple words but hasn't quite got the "click" that will bring reading together for her. The program does read to her, so our new headphones come in handy. It also highlights the words it is reading on the screen so that she can follow along. I know that will help her recognize words and increase her sight word list. Already after the first week I have seen evidence of an increase in her reading vocabulary.

Math she is right on level for. Our work with Math-U-See last year has really helped her and she understands math concepts easily. I've noticed that those are the lessons she follows in a systematic fashion, completing them to the end and moving to the next one. With the reading and science ones, she jumps around as her interest leads. She loves the science section the best and even though her reading isn't up to par her comprehension level is excellent. Language Arts extensions are great too, as stories are read to her and she has to answer questions based on the stories. She is scoring well in that section too.

I have a feeling that once this two weeks is up we will continue this until her interest wanes. It has been a great tool to use to keep her happy when mom is too busy to entertain an inquisitive 6 year old.

Guam Homeschool Resource Center

2009-08-24T14:32:00.002+10:00

My husband, Les, and I have decided to start a new venture on Guam. The Guam Homeschool Resource Center. We plan to operate as an independent resource center for homeschoolers on Guam.

Over the years I have found myself to be on the frontlines when it comes to newcomers arriving on Guam and wanting to know about homeschooling on our beautiful island. Part of it is due to this blog and others that I have. I've also been active in the Guam Homeschool Association as leader (two different occasions), newsletter editor, resource box person, and webmistress. As a result I have in depth knowledge on the ins and outs of homeschooling on Guam.

Our Resource center will be a place where new families can come and ask questions about homeschooling on Guam. I will have magazines, catalogs and sample curricula to share so that families can have an idea what is out there. We also have Wi Fi access and computer stations for families to use to look up resources.

I'm excited about this new venture and hope that we can provide homeschoolers on Guam a safe haven for exploring this new educational alternative.

Check out our website: http://www.guamhomeschool.com

My Budding Comic Book Creator

2009-08-18T09:25:00.003+10:00

Well, I feel it is time to officially announce my son's career choice. It has become abundantly evident that Eric will some day be a famous comic book/cartoon writer. Here is his latest "comic".
These scans don't come out as well as they should so here is the interpretation of each comic strip.
Title: Swearing Causes Nothing but Misery
First Comic Strip:
Tatle Tale
Panel #1: whistling while cooking hot soup on stove
Panel #2: Uh Oh! Earth Quake! (soup splashes out of pan)
Panel #3: Ow! (Bleep) (soup gets in his eye)
Panel #4: (figure in open window) You said a bad word! I'm gunna tell your mom!
Panel #5: Hey She douse [does] as well!

Second Comic Strip:
Bad Past
Panel #1: Ahh...I had such a great past....
Panel #2: (memory sequence begins....)The ice scream store is next.
Panel #3: trips and falls....
Panel #4: Says a bunch of bad words. Girl friend thinks "break up!"
Panel #5: Wate! [wait] what? How? Why? (a little shaken up over the fall and the break up)
Panel #6: (end of memory sequence) Wate [wait] a second!
Panel #7: I had a horrible past!

I believe Eric is getting the idea of quick short gags and jokes. He is constantly amazing me with his wit and humor. You can believe I am saving all of these for his portfolio and to share when he is famous!

Eric's been on a roll....

2009-08-03T19:55:00.003+10:00

This week Eric has totally amazed me with some of his artistic creations and writings. His sense of humor never ceases to awe me. I found an old Whiskers comic that I just love, so it is posted on his Adventures of Whiskers blog. I had a hard time getting that up as it's been so long since I first made it for him that I forgot how to access it.

Here is the History of the World according to Eric.
First panel is the middle row, depicting a cave man in a cave with stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Then it moves to the top row where we have a Shaman outside his grass hut. Reminiscent of how man moved from Cave dwelling creatures to building grass huts and hunting on the plains. Eventually man moved on to build the pyramids so we see the Egyptian phase of history. From the pyramids, we move onto the Viking stage, where Eric the Viking sailed from the cold northern seas and terrorized the rest of the world. Majestic pillars dominate the next panel, showing us the age of Greeks and Romans. Moving on in history, pirates took over the world (according to Eric, remember?). And finally we have the modern age of space ships and walking on the moon. The final panel shows what Eric hopes the future will hold. Anti-gravity boots for walking upside down on the ceiling and cars with antennae and pincher bumpers for picking up stuff in the road.

Finally, Eric wrote a poem.
He still needs to work on his spelling and spacing and punctuation, but he has vastly improved since last year. I've fixed up the spelling and punctuation so that you all can read it clearly and get the full benefit of his writing genius.

A little Squirrel saw a tree top
He saw acorns then up the tree he hopped
He ran halfway up, fell down
Oh how he wished he had the lot
Then he saw the pump station
Climbed up and then jumped
He stretched out his arms and flew!
He got to the tree top!!
Now he has those nuts!

I love when my children have these creative moments.

My Girls

2009-05-20T21:03:00.005+10:00

My girls have been a source of amusement to me lately, so I thought I'd share their latest antics.

Cassie, my youngest, is 6 1/2 and is lovable, cuddly and at the same time a wild gal. She is my jump roper and attends a class once a week to perfect this art. She climbs trees and ladders as high as she can go (much higher than mom is comfortable with). She can hula hoop and skip with a hoop and do other fancy tricks. She would rather teach herself how to jump backwards and do cross over tricks with her jump rope than to work on endurance techniques. She's six. She wants the fun stuff.

She is also incredibly perceptive and has a vocabulary far beyond her age. Once when she was 4 we were driving through a parking lot and some kids were playing in the parking lot area where cars were driving. Looking around she said, "It is very inappropriate for children to be playing here". All I could do was agree wholeheartedly. She is not afraid to speak her mind.

So yesterday, while I was toweling off after Water Aerobics, she said, "Mom, why do you exercise?"
"To get skinny" I replied.
She looked me up and down and then said, "Well, it's not working." I nearly died laughing. I could see this coming from a mile away.

My other daughter, Stephanie, is 14, going on 15. She is becoming an independent lady. She has been attending a youth group at a local baptist church for the past few months and is really enjoying it. Today she told me that they were planning a paint ball event soon. She actually expresses a desire to go!

I'm thinking to myself, "Is this really my daughter? Or is she my husband's daughter?" More like the truth. Thankfully she has a strong dad who isn't afraid of a little fun that involves running. I was never good at running......but this isn't about me!

So while pondering my daughter's courage, my husband pointed out to me an important fact I had not considered. This summer Stephanie is going to spend time with her best friend from 2nd grade, whom she hasn't seen for 6 years. She has some trepidation about this because her friend is planning all kinds of activities that sound a little more daring than my daughter's normal slow walks on the beach, and the occasional water park day. So my husband's premise is Stephanie wants to do the paint ball thing in preparation for her visit with her friend! Kind of a "gear her up and toughen her up" event. Aiy!

So here's to my two girls. So different from their mom. Yet with many great qualities. And they did inherit some stuff from me. Like writing and art.

Midnight Sun Critique

2009-05-18T13:49:00.004+10:00

Just for fun I thought I'd jump on the Twilight bandwagon and do a mini-review of Midnight Sun, the online partial rough draft of a book that I pray SMeyers does not ever finish. First off, I need to give credit for the inspiration to write this blog post to Rachel of http://vampirely.wordpress.com/. Rachel does a wonderful job of picking apart Twilight, chapter by chapter. Funny, inspirational, and well, fairly right on the mark.

I confessed in an earlier post that I have read Twilight. I've actually made it through New Moon and Eclipse but haven't quite gotten up the courage to shell out another $11.99 for the final book, Breaking Dawn. To be honest, they weren't as horrible as I had imagined, and made for a light read while doing laundry at the laundromat.

So...Midnight Sun. This is Twilight from Edward's perspective. I'm not going to attempt to do a chapter by chapter review, but just give my general impressions and point out some bloopers that really stood out to me.

First of all, what is up with the word "chagrin"? For some reason this word kept appearing over and over again. Miriam Webster defines this word as "disquietude or distress of mind caused by humiliation, disappointment, or failure". Bella seems to suffer from this a lot. I didn't count every instance of this word, but trust me, it made its way into every chapter, sometimes more than once. My favorite use of the word: pg. 144 Rosalie turned to glare at me, her eyes sparkling with chagrined fury.

And then there is the whole breathing issue. First of all we are told that as a vampire, Edward does not need to breathe. Okay, makes sense since technically a vampire is dead. Yet he does need to breathe in order to smell his prey, or Bella - even if he does do a lot of breath holding to avoid smelling her "delectable" scent. I just found it unnecessary to read about every breath he took. I found myself yelling at the computer screen (remember this is an online book) "He can't breathe!!!" every time I came across a reference to Edward breathing. eg. pg 72. Tyler was paying us no attention at all, but Carlisle was monitoring my every breath.
Uh why? Were you breathing too much Edward?

But it's not just the breathing issue that got to me. It seems that even though vampires are "cold ones" and therefore do not themselves have blood flowing through their veins, they still seem to be able to exhibit similar blood loss to their faces as humans do when confronted with a shocking situation. eg. p64. (ref. Carlisle) He jumped to his feet, his face paling to bone white. And how exactly is this supposed to happen? Humans' faces turn pale because the blood rushes away from their faces in times of stress or shock. Can you honestly say this would happen with a vampire??

In defense of Edward, Midnight Sun does a good job at addressing many of the creepy issues that are brought up on Rachel's blog. Like his stalking. He admits to being a stalking vampire. p.75 Like a stalker. An obsessessed stalker. An obsessessed, vampire stalker. Uh, good thing this is a rough draft 'cause obsessessed is not in the dictionary! I sure hope her editor would have picked up on this if it made it to print. Though I've read there is some question as to whether her books were edited at all.

I also found it funny to read from Edward's perspective how his attempts to be chivalrous just end up looking creepy. Friends who defend Edward remind me that he was originally from the early 1900's where chivalry was not dead. So his desire to drive, to carry Bella (since she is obviously too delicate to walk), and to open doors for her makes sense. I'm not convinced that Edward is as controlling as some make him out to be. He does get very frustrated that Bella will open the door for herself before he can do his lightening fast vampire walk around the car to open it for her. eg. p.178 She already had her door half open before I'd walked around the car - it wasn't usually so frustrating to have to move at an inconspicious speed - instead of waiting for me to get it for her.

For someone who has read Twilight, there are vast parts of Midnight Sun that make me want to pull out my copy and compare to see if the scenes match. I'm thinking it is a bit of a cheat for an author to pull a scene from another book, word for word. Putting in names for characters that are not mentioned in the first one just seemed unnecessary and lame to me, as well. Do we really care that Lonnie is the name of the guy who leered at Bella? And what's with the Ben scene? Are we really to believe that this Ben guy is so stupid that he would believe that Edward wanted to ask Angela to the prom? After the whole school has witnessed him eating lunch with Bella? These vain attemps at "plot" just don't work for me.

And that is the bottom line for this entire series. Plot is severly lacking. Sure there is a premise and interesting characters, but we are subjected to page after page of intense, mind numbing....drivel (for lack of a better word) that makes me want to scream "get on with the story will you!"

A Day in the Life of Cassie

2009-05-09T11:56:00.004+10:00

Yesterday was such a great unschooling day for Cassie, my youngest daughter, that I thought I'd share what she did.

Cassie woke up around 9am and immediately started to be bothered by her older brother Eric. Typical conversation emanating from their shared bedroom consisted of "Errriiiicccc!" and "Casssssssiiiiieeee!" as they greeted each other and complained about whatever the other one was doing. Not to be daunted for long though, Cassie bounced out into the living room where she gave her dad a very long morning hug. On the table she spotted her "passport" from the previous day's geography fair that she attended with the Guam Homeschoolers.

"Did you know I have a passport to go to the moon?" she asked her dad, then eagerly showed her the "moon" sticker she had in her passport booklet. Her dad was notably impressed.

Around 10am, I loaded the kids into the car to make the drive into town and to my driving school office. On the way, Cassie sat quietly in the back seat, looking out the window and singing along to the songs on the CD I was playing (Voltaire in case any one is wondering). I love listening to her sing to herself.

At the office, the usual "I'm hungry" complaints began, so I told the kids to make themselves ham sandwiches. I love that they are at an age that, for the most part, they can feed themselves. For the next three hours, Cassie contentedly amused herself in various activities. She found the Story time Felt dolls we had used the night before at our display of international costumes. So her first play involved these dolls and a felt board with a meadow and trees as background. For at least a half hour she occupied herself with these, singing, telling stories to herself, making up situations for the dolls to dress up in different costumes. I was busy inputting receipts and clearing out my inbox so didn't catch all that she was saying, but I could hear her little voice prattling away.

A while later I looked over at the table to see what she was up to and found her occupied with a microscope. She was intently setting it up all by herself (I had first showed her and her brother how to use this very cheap microscope about 3 weeks prior). She figured out how to shine the light so she could see through the lens, change slides and find things to look at. I wasn't sure if she really had it set up properly until she came over to me and said, "Did you know salt looks like a square?" She then bounced off to find more things to look at under the microscope. She even went out to the beach and brought in some sea weed, sand and other interesting items she found. Unfortunately Eric finally noticed what she was doing and had to get in on the action and refused to let her show him how it was done. The two of them are so different in this way. She is willing to listen and follow directions, and Eric is like a bull in a china shop, barging his way in, knocking stuff over and then wondering why it doesn't work for him, refusing to listen to any form of instruction. So after separating them, Cassie was able to finish up some of her experiments in peace.

Some other things she did included drawing pictures, looking at some scholastic book fliers and picking out books she wanted, making herself a bowl of oatmeal as an afternoon snack, riding her bike behind the building, and playing at the beach. She also played some on the computer, once Eric gave up his spot.

At home in the evening, after eating dinner, she practiced her jump rope, played with her hula hoop (where she has learned to hula for at least 6 or 7 turns now), watched a few episodes of Corner Gas with me (wonderful Canadian sitcom), and then fell asleep laying on top of me on the couch. It won't be long before she is too big to do this, so I treasure these moments.

And that was a very typical day in the life of Cassie, my 6yo.

Another reason for unschooling

2009-05-06T10:12:00.003+10:00

This morning I was reading a Calvin and Hobbes comic in the library....er bathroom. This is the preferred reading room in our house. I've mentioned before that Eric learned to read by reading Calvin and Hobbes comics so that is one reason this is popular bathroom reading material. Here is the comic that caught my attention.

Here is the crux of the problem in any school setting, even for those who choose to do a more traditional homeschool curriculum. What is being taught is not necessarily what a child is interested in. So how then can the child's attention be kept?

Look back at your own experience in school and what are the things you remember the most? If you are like me, the things I learned in school that I remember reflect those things I was interested in. If the subject matter did not interest me, I did not retain any of the information.

This is why I love unschooling. By catering to my children's interests I am guaranteeing that what they learn they will retain. This has been proven to me time and time again as my children come to me and spout facts they have learned or share an interesting tidbit they remember.

I know there are those out there who will cry "But what about learning things you aren't interested in? Isn't that just as important?" Sure, there are many things I have learned and am knowledgable about that were not initially in my "field of interest". I have learned them out of necessity in order to function in society. Like doing my taxes. Not very interesting, but a necessary part of life. The key, of course, is teaching your child how to learn, so that when something comes up that they need to know about, they have the resources, ability and even desire to learn about it.

Instilling a love of lifelong learning is my goal with my children. When they learn the facts is not important. How they learn them is. This is why we unschool.

Confessions of a Supermom

2009-04-15T23:22:00.006+10:00

Well, today was tax day on Guam, and as usual, I was down to the wire on getting them finished. But I was successful. The tensions that lead up to tax time for me, always leave me a bit drained afterward. As a result, I arrived home from the day with a raging headache.

Alas, Supermom cannot take time off for headaches, so I whipped up dinner (teriyaki chopped steak with rice and peas). After dinner, I was resting my chin on my hands at the table when Cassie brought over an alphabet stencil card and asked me what it was for.

She stood before me in stained shirt and shorts, grubby hands clutching the plastic purple stencil.
"You need a bath." I said, before answering her original query.
"You mean a shower, " she said, since our new house doesn't exactly have a bathtub, more of a high tiled large shower stall.
"Bath...shower.....whatever. You need one before bed." I answered.
"You mean like other kids get before bed?" she asked.

Uh, oh. My supermom status was at risk here! I had been found out. No regular nightly baths for my kids? Truth is my kids are always in the water - whether at our beach office or at a swimming pool, and so often the rinses after swimming sufficed for their daily bath time. But sometimes, like today obviously, where Cassie had had an active day playing at the office, inside and outside, riding her bike and attending jump rope class (she can now do "kriss kross" jumping!) a real bath was necessary.

But before bath time, we needed to address the alphabet stencil question. I found an old bill on the table and flipped it over to the blank side and showed her how she could use the stencil to write her name. That lead to her wanting to try and she wrote "Mom" and "Dad" after a few hints on how to find the letter "d". Some letters just like to give kids trouble! From those two words, Cassie proceeded to find and strace out "Adam", "Stephanie", "Eric" and "Kevin", (learning some important phonetic rules along the way). Her interest in the process lasted through some cat names too - Daisy, Pillage, Wafflebox, and Nobby.

At one point during this impromptu writing lesson, Eric came along and bet me $5 he could write "Pteradactyl aquarium of the legends in industries" with less than 10 spelling mistakes or "wrong letters" as he put it. So the game was on. He made it with only 8 wrong letters and then wrote the sentence "Thanksgiving plan doesn't work out as expected." with only 3 mistakes. So as soon as I get some more money in hand, I owe him.

What I loved about this evening is that both children enthusiastically initiated a learning task appropriate to their level. More learning occurred in that half hour of interaction than an entire day in school would have accomplished.

Bath time happened (shower actually). Chocolate cookies were baked and eaten. Legos were played with, and now one child is asleep curled up on a bean bag chair while the other is reading a science book "Kid's Ask Where" and sharing tid bits of knowledge with me as I type. My headache has abated and it's time to call it a night.

Who's Business is it?

2009-04-06T07:56:00.002+10:00

In the past few weeks I have had various people comment on my children and their future plans. It seems that people are concerned that my children seem directionless and too "shy" to amount to anything. Hence the title of this blog post.

I have been homeschooling my kids for over 20 years, with a few minor forays into public or private schools. Over the years I have come to follow the unschooling philosophy. It suits our lifestyles, my personality and the personalities of my children -- which are varied.

My oldest son was very self motivated. Taught himself to read at 2 1/2. Knew what he wanted (most of the time), and how to get what he wanted. During his stint in private school he saw his own learning gaps and figured out how to fill them in. Now at 24, he is an active member of the US Air force and has just CLEP tested his way to an associate's degree. He's currently taking a break from his learning to assess just where he wants to go before declaring a major and pursuing his Bachelor's degree. Unschooling was ideal for him as it allowed him to pursue his own interests and excell in them.

My second son is an artist and a dreamer. He is the one "people" are most concerned about. Friends and family seem to feel it is necessary to question whether we are doing the "right" thing with him. From birth he idolized his big brother. As a child he was sensitive to sounds, smells and touch. He never liked to play in the sand at the beach. He liked to line his cars up in rows and he liked to keep his toys neat and organized. In 1st grade, his one year in public school, he hid under his desk during times of stress, had few friends, didn't talk to people and was labeled as "shy". His teacher tried to blame my homeschooling him through kindergarten for his behavior. However I had been a preschool teacher, and he had come to work with me for the first 5 years of his life, so was always exposed to groups of children and learning situations. Since kindergarten in Canada was just an extension of preschool, I really don't think he missed a thing. This was just Adam. After we moved to Guam, Adam and Kevin were forced to spend a lot of time together, and with their uncle Mike, (same age as Kevin). Together they wrote their own newsletter and created their own videos. An artistic streak began to emerge for Adam. He loved to draw and create and write stories and poems. At the same time he prefered to keep to himself and did not attempt to make any friends. And he was happy. When he was 11, our family had a little snack shop in the preschool I worked at, and Adam became the main counter attendant --selling the snacks to the parents and children, keeping the shelves stocked, making change, using his organziational skills to keep the counters neat and clean. And daily interacting with people. Still he prefered to keep his thoughts and voice to himself. At 16 he expessed an interest in music and asked for an electric guitar for his birthday. Alone in his room, he taught himself to play guitar and later piano and before I knew it, he was composing his own music on computer. When he turned 18 we declared him graduated from homeschool. Now it was time for him to decide what he wanted to do with his life. He told us he didn't want to move out. He wanted to stay home and work on his music. Since he was such a great asset to our household, helping out, looking after his younger siblings, cleaning, cooking, and (once he got his license), driving them around, we agreed to let him stay home as long as he was willing to help us in our family business. So now at 20 he has composed over 50 songs and compiled them on CDs. He has competently run our northern office for the last year, keeping it clean, maintained, dealing with clients and employees, and handling the finances. He is learning business and management skills that are invaluable. At the same time he is allowed to continue to pursue his music. So what if he still prefers not to talk unnecessarily, or he has no "friends". Sometimes I think his silence is what scares people. They can't understand why someone would prefer to keep their thoughts to themselves.

Then there are the rest of the kids. All different. All unique. And since this is getting so long I'll have to tell you all about them in another post.

More on Writing

2009-02-18T18:56:00.003+10:00

Today I was talking with a new homeschooling mom who was very concerned about teaching writing to her daughter. She showed me an example of her girl's writing lessons and my first reaction was "did you write this for her? " The printing was impeccable and the spelling and punctuation perfect.

"How old did you say she is?" I asked.
"She's almost 8."
"And what is your concern?"

I really didn't get it. I saw nothing wrong with this young girl's writing. Sentence structure was fine. The sentences made sense. And the handwriting floored me. I know that often girls are more meticulous than boys but when I thought about my son's handwriting I have to admit I was a little embarrassed. I'm not sure I'd want to show this particular mom a sample of Eric's writing. Especially since she obviously has very high expectations. You see, she was concerned because her daughter had struggled to write this paper. She had complained and whined and fussed. She wanted to go outside and search for bugs not write a paper. Mom was worried that her daughter wasn't up to par with others in her age bracket.

I did my best to reassure her. At the same time, inside of me I wanted to say, "cut the girl some slack!" She has been having her daughter write a daily journal, as well as do all other kinds of writing depending on the curriculum assignments of the day. No wonder the girl was whining! I would whine too if I had to sit for 3 hours a day writing when the world outside was calling me.

Even as a seasoned homeschooler it is hard for me to get parents to understand that this kind of coercive writing is not going to encourage a young child to be creative. She complained to me that her daughter didn't have any ideas for what to write and had a hard time using her imagination. My best advice to her was to ease off. Have her write one story a week. The rest of the time, let her explore her world. As she is given the freedom to do this, I have a feeling the ideas will start to flow.

Beta Testing

2009-02-13T13:32:00.002+10:00

Back in January I signed my 9yo son and myself up to be beta testers for a writing curriculum. I was probably too ambitious in doing such a thing. The product, Write Shop Primary, Book C, is a wonderful easy to use writing curriculum for children in 2nd or 3rd grade. Our job was to test and evaluate this product.

When the intro and first lessons arrived in my inbox, I eagerly printed them out. In my effort to be conservative and thrifty, I printed it double sided and reduced the text to fit two pages per side of the sheet. This was my first mistake! I keep neglecting to factor in, that at 45, my eyes are just not as good as they used to be. As I read through the introduction I found myself straining to read the small text and ultimately straining to understand it! But really this was a visual problem and no fault of the material. So after realizing that I just wasn't getting it, I printed it out again, still double siding the paper, but in it's original font. So much for saving a tree! And now I was a week behind in my "testing" schedule.

Eager to prove that this unschooling mom could in fact follow and implement a lesson plan when necessary, I proceeded throught the first 3 activities for week 1. Only it took me all week instead of 3 days. Oops. Getting further behind now. Other participants were already commenting on Week 2 lessons and I had 5 more activities to do to finish week 1! Now granted this program is designed to do the Lessons (each consisting of 8 activities, plus bonus levels...I mean extras ...sorry to slip into video game speak, my kids are rubbing off on me) in 3 weeks but we are supposed to be on the fast track in order to finish this evaluation in 10 weeks. Yikes.

So maybe we'll skip some activities to speed things up. One activity is a Daily Writing Activity, or Guided Writing Practice. The accelerated schedule would mean we would have to do two of these a day. So we skip the second one. Thankfully the consensus from the group is in agreement on this. Granted every day we are supposed to do the GWP as a warm up for the rest of the lesson. Eric found this hard to do everyday. And since our educational philosophy balks at "forcing" a child to do something, I tend to let it slide. Eric does write everyday. But it is what he choses to write. He has a whole video game/comic book series going on in his head day and night. So as the muse hits him he draws these out - cartoon style with more drawing than writing. But a story is being told, so I encourage this form of writing. However, it is not what the curriculum requires....

It's been three weeks now and I have basically let this "project" slide further down the hill of procrastination. We have several things that have occurred in our lives - my husband started working for a new wedding company which means more work & more stress as we all adjust to his new schedule. I've had to assume more responsibility at the office. At the same time I've been battling depression and weight issues and trying to get to the gym more often. And we decided to move from our beach house. We have given ourselves lots of time to do this move, but it still requires us to do some planning and packing and lots of cleaning. Needless to say, making sure I do a lesson everyday with Eric has not been happening.

But all is not lost. The ideas in this writing curriculum are really valuable. I sure could have used this and implemented it well when I was teaching at ECA last year. I will highly recommend this to anyone looking for a good writing program for their children.

How does an unschooler utilize such a great program? Ideas!! I collect books, curricula, magazines, e-books, lesson plans, etc. so that I can strew them before me kids. Yesterday I told Eric that we really needed to crack down and do some story writing and that tomorrow we would start. Later in the evening I asked Cassie where Eric was and found out he was in the bedroom working on one of his Whiskers stories. When I later checked, sure enough he had written two full pages. His spelling and punctuation where non existent but the sentence structure and thought were wonderful.

Using hints and pointers from the Write Shop program, I photocopied Eric's story and we used the copy to edit his spelling and punctuation. Then I showed him how to open up Word and type this on the computer. He has just recently been playing with typing on the computer so this is great practice for him. At first he was silly and started banging on the keyboard, typing gibberous. I have to be careful not to get exasperated with this behavior as it is part of his personality to try to irritate his mother. So I walked away saying "never mind, I can see you're not ready for this" which made him stop and say "no I'll do it proper now" and he began typing his story. He managed to work for about 10 minutes dilligently before he grew tired, announcing that it is much harder to tpye than to use a pen. I showed him how to save his work.

So in one day's time we covered "computer capers", "editing", and we also went back and did one of the lesson activity pages from lesson two - the secret file. We are waiting on his dad's opinion on whether to pursue turning that into a real story due to the "RRRRRRRRR" rating Eric gave his story (due to extreme blood he said - the hero is decapitated and the monster drowns in the ensuing blood).

We may not be the best beta testers for this program, and we may not be following the lessons to the "t" but Eric is having fun and mom is learning how to roll with the flow.

The New Reading Method

2008-12-08T09:59:00.004+10:00

I've been reading John Holt's book "Teach Your Own". He quotes from the Chicago Tribune (1977) a story about the new reading program that has been 10 years in the making. "A program that may be the pacesetter for the nation...". It involved 500 elements or skills that children needed to learn in order to learn to read. They whittled that down to 273. John Holt was incredulous about this new method, and describes his own learning to read process:

"When I taught myself to read, I didn't learn 500 skills, or even 273; I looked at printed words, on signs, in books, wherever I might see them, and puzzled them out, because I wanted to know what they said. Each one I learned made it easier for me to figure out the next." (page 17, Teach Your Own)

This was essentially how my first son taught himself to read before the age of 3. He asked questions about letters, asked me what sounds they made, read signs at the grocery store, made me read the same books over and over as he puzzled out the words.

Further in John's book he talks about other reading programs and classroom situations where children were not allowed to read certain books because they weren't at that level yet. He further describes a substitute teacher's success at implementing a silent reading program to a class and having children suddenly interested in reading....because they were allowed to read a book! What a concept!!

Can you imagine a class situation where a child enters a class and is told "No Johnny, I'm sorry you can't read that book. It's on the 3rd grade reading list and you are only in 1st grade." In a sense this is what happened to my son. He entered Kindergarten already reading and writing these wonderful stories. His spelling and penmanship were atrocious, but I figured that was what school could teach him. His teachers had other ideas. The poor boy was bored to death being forced to stay with the class, do phonics worksheets, and read simple sentences like "the cat sat on the mat". When I asked for him to be moved up a grade I was told he was "socially immature" and therefore not ready for the 1st grade. Because he was a loner and chose not to interact with a classroom of "babies" as he put it. Thank goodness I learned about homeschooling. Today that socially immature child has just been promoted to Senior Airman in the US Air Force, a full 6 months ahead of the normal schedule for such promotions.

From the website:http://usmilitary.about.com/od/airforce/l/blafrank.htm

here is a description of what that entails:

Senior Airmen (SrA) wear a chevron of three stripes with a silver star in the center. Pay grade is E-4. Personnel serving as SrA are in a transition period from journeyman/worker to NCO. They must develop supervisory and leadership skills through PME (Professional Military Education) and individual study. All SrA should conduct themselves in a manner commensurate with established standards, thereby asserting a positive influence on other airmen. The SrA must, at all times, present the image of competence, integrity, and pride. The official term of address is “senior airman” or “airman.”

I'm thinking he rose above that kindergarten label.

Over the years I have encountered many new reading programs. Currently on Guam there is much debate over D.I. - Direct Instruction - which is a reading method that was originally developed for underprivileged communities. It was brought to Guam several years ago and has been forced upon the public schools as THE learning to read method that will improve test scores for the children of Guam. All that I have seen it do is take away a child's love of reading by making reading a rote exercise. Other subjects like art, music, science, and social studies have been set aside as the DI takes up too many hours of the instructional time in school. So at the cost of the arts and sciences, Guam's children are forced to endure the most boring teaching method around.

In John Holt's book he predicted that in 10 years there would be a new reading program. That was back in 1981 in Chicago. Twenty-seven years later I'm sure there has been more than one new program. What will the next new one be?

As a homeschooler, I never need to know. I will continue to teach my children to read successfully using the method that works. Reading books, books, and more books.

Happy Swapping

2008-12-02T20:54:00.003+10:00

'Tis the season to start getting rid of STUFF. I have too much of it as it is. As the children get older I need to start letting go and cleaning out. Each year they accumulate more and more items via gifts or just acquiring. And with Christmas coming more stuff is going to appear.

Some is much needed like new clothes, or to replace broken items. And some is just for fun because we can. It is nice to be able to give your children something they really want. Why not? As parents shouldn't we desire to give good gifts to our children?

With those two thoughts in mind, here is my brilliant solution to the too much stuff syndrome. I have good quality used baby toys, mostly from Discovery Toys that I acquired as demo toys for my business, and of course they were well used by my own kids. The great thing about Discovery Toys is they are good quality and therefore, even after being well used, they clean up great and look almost brand new. Lots of play life still left in them. Now I could probably sell them at a garage sale for $1.00 a toy. Or I could do a trade with a family that has a new baby in the house, but whose 10 year old son has outgrown his bike. A perfectly good bike that my son could use. What is one man's junk is another man's treasure, right? (or woman's).

So here is my challenge to all you who read this post. This Christmas start up a toy swap with your friends, or a dish swap, or linen swap or whatever kind of swap you can think of. The bartering system is a viable option. You can clean out your cupboards at the same time as helping someone else clean out theirs. Happy Swapping!

Twilight, the book

2008-11-24T22:22:00.003+10:00

Okay my 14yo just gave me her feedback on Twilight, the book. We have yet to see the movie as she wants to finish the book first. At first I wasn't into letting her jump on the Twilight bandwagon. After all, she is sweet and innocent and do I really want her to start reading love stories? Especially ones involving vampires? Unfortunately I'm fighting a losing battle as she will grow older. She will want to read some romance stories. And inevitably a vampire will be involved. 'Cause that's what's out there.

Confession time. I bought the book and read it first. Okay, I'm just a teen at heart. I love reading the teen books. I bought and read and encouraged my children to read Harry Potter. I like an easy read. I can get lost in a good book.

Which is why when I first picked up Twilight and started to read it I was wondering what the big thrill was. It didn't really "grab" me at first and I didn't finish the book with an insane desire to jump to the next one. Not like other books I've read. But it was okay.

So I asked Steph what she thought.
"At first I couldn't figure out what I didn't like about her (the author) style. But I got it now. It's like fan fiction."

"Fan Fiction?"
"Yeah, you know, I read a lot of it online. Some is good and some is not so good. But it reads like a better fan fiction......"

She confesses to me that maybe she feels this way because she just finished reading four Terry Pratchett books. Whose writing style is far from Fan Fiction style. I'm reminded that this is the child who read Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame for fun when she was 11. Who started reading Redwall books at 7 and missed out on a whole genre of books written for 7-9 year olds because she skipped right on over them. Who listens to French operas (in
French of course) because "the language is soo beautiful...."

Such discernment for a 14 year old.

Our mutual consensus is that Twilight has an interesting story line, is easy to read, but doesn't make you go "oh wow" and want to read and feel the taste of the words on your mouth.

I'm sure the movie will disappoint me, as it has others by not following the storyline properly, but it does sound like it will be a fun vampire movie.

Getting rid of Sin

2008-11-23T00:40:00.002+10:00

Eric had a bit of a bad day today. Not super bad. He just had some issues. As a result he got into some trouble for his behavior. What was interesting was how he dealt with this. After a brief crying moment, I heard him conspiring with his little sister. Then he came to me and said.

"Me and Cassie are going to go look for a super smart man who can invent a time machine so that we can go back in time and kill Satan before he makes Eve eat the apple. That way there won't be any sin in the world and I won't be bad anymore and get into trouble."

I love how his mind works. I was in the process of making cookies, so told him, "Fine, just make sure to be back in 10 minutes or so, cause cookies will be ready by then."

"Oo...cookies? Well, it might take a long time but we'll try." And off he went armed with a water gun (the kind that you pump and it shoots out a spray 10 feet away), while Cassie had a cape and a stuffed tiger in her arms.

The brave team was back in plenty of time to eat lots of warm out of the oven oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I'm not sure how successful they were in their mission. I suspect there is still sin in this world, unfortunately, but it's not for want of a 9 year old boy's imagination and desire to do better.

Explaining Unschooling

2008-10-27T13:32:00.003+10:00

The following essay was originally published on Gather, a writing place for uh...writers. I was browsing through my old posts and came across this one and felt it needed to be moved over here. So with no further ado I present.....Explaining Unschooling.

Recently I found myself wanting to explain exactly what unschooling is all about to various friends and fellow homeschoolers. However, I find it to be such a difficult task. How do you explain that learning is living? Everyone is so indoctrinated into believing that children must attend some form of "school" and that they must by "taught" by a "teacher". I even read an article that stated that unschooling would violate most state homeschooling laws because the laws state that the parent must be the primary teacher of the core curriculum. I suppose the assumption is that if you are unschooling you are not using a "core curriculum" and that you (the parent) are not "teaching".

So let's define "core curriculum". My definition is the subjects you teach your children and the content of those subjects. For unschoolers, who believe learning is a natural state of being, then the subject is whatever your child is interested in at the time and the content is what he learns about the subject.

Take my son, 8yo, for instance. He became fascinated with Calvin and Hobbes comics when he was about 5 1/2. At the time, he wasn't a reader, so he just looked at the cartoons, asked us to read the ones that interested him, and proceeded to copy the cartoons in his own drawings. He also wanted to know all about tigers and the concept of an imaginary playmate. "Why does everyone think Hobbes is a stuffed tiger mom? He looks real to me!"

By 6 1/2 he had learned to read and proceeded to devour his Calvin and Hobbes books. In the process he learned vocabulary words and concepts way beyond his age level. He skipped over reading the "cat sat on a hat" type books and went straight into reading "Calvin wakes up one morning to find he no longer exists in the third dimension. He is 2-D". This prompted Eric to ask about dimensions and to learn about spatial relationships. Look also at the words he read -- "dimension", "exists", "morning"-- much more than the usual 3-letter word you read in regular phonics books.

What about the parent being the "primary teacher" part? Let's see. I provided the Calvin and Hobbes comics. I read them to him when he didn't know how to read. I explained the concepts to him that he didn't understand. I provided the paper and crayons he needed to draw his own comics.What more should a teacher do? Seems to me I fulfilled the roll of "primary teacher".

Do we start each day with Math from 9:00 to 9:30? Reading from 9:30 to 10:30? No....math occurs when the kids want to know how many eggs to put in the pot for boiled eggs if each child wants 2 (multiplication). Math occurs when they do a treasure hunt for loose change around the house and then add up who found the most money. Math occurs when they collect shells on the beach and compare who's shells are larger or smaller. It can happen at 8am in the morning or at 10pm at night.

Reading is an ongoing, every minute of the day task. There are books in the bathroom, books at the kitchen table, books in the car, books on their bed, books in the living room. Video games require reading skills. Cooking directions are a reading skill. Choosing a soup to eat for lunch requires reading of the label so they don't get that nasty "asparagus" stuff.

As for science and social studies? Lately my kids have been watching Simpson episodes. Would you believe they are learning all kinds of science and social studies information from these? There was the science fair episode, the president episode, one on the Salem witch trials, just to name a few that I can remember. Even the heart attack episode prompted a serious discussion with my son on what the heart does and how it works.

And books. What would we do without books? My children learn the most by reading or being read to. They enjoy fiction, non ficiton, historical fiction, science books, travel books. One of the best investments I ever made was in a series "Let's read and find out about science". I bought these books for my first born son through one of those book clubs. They have lasted through all five of my children and have taught them interesting facts about bats, tornadoes, snow, rain, hiccups, and numerous other things.

My children may not know what a subordinate clause is, but they know how to use one correctly in a sentence. They may not know all the presidents of the United States, but they can name all the animals in RedWall. They may not know where Arizona is in relation to Texas, but they know how to look it up on a map.

Unschooling works as long as you provide an educationally rich environment. That is my philosophy anyway.

Unschooling Success Story

2008-10-23T09:31:00.003+10:00

My oldest son, Kevin, is the reason I unschool. He is now 23 and in the Air Force. But the story started way back when he was around 12. Or perhaps it goes back even farther than that! He was always a precocious child teaching himself to read at age 3. By the time he was 12 we had tried all of the various curricula out there - ACE PACEs, Alpha Omega, ABeka, unit studies, a computer based curriculum....you name it, we tried it. He hated it all! He wanted to learn what he wanted, when he wanted. I had a new baby at the time so was busy and stressed and told him to go ahead and teach himself then!

Well, Kevin went on to teach himself computer programming, HTML, web design, C++, Perl, Java, and a slew of other programming languages. All we did was supply him with the tools to learn - books and computers. When he was in 11th grade we put him in a private Christian school (I was working there) and within 2 months he was promoted to 12th grade and graduated a year early. He became an apprentice for a company that did videos for Japanese tourists and he learned video editing, did all their computer programming for them, and also learned business management and bookkeeping. He decided to join the Air Force and so just after his 22nd birthday, moved to the states to start his basic training. By this time he had "burned" himself out on computer stuff (or so he says) and because he wanted to get off of Guam, took the first job opening that came up - Power Production. Which means he works on generators.

It's been over a year now, and Kevin is excelling in the military. He has risen to the top of his crew and manages them all, even those who are higher ranking than him. He has also begun to take advantage of the free college education afforded by the military.

In order to get his degree faster, Kevin has been doing CLEP tests. A CLEP test is where you test out of a course based on your life experience and knowledge. So far he has CLEPed English, Technical Writing, Managing and Supervising (not sure exactly what this course was called), just to name a few. His next one he plans on taking is Astronomy.

What makes this so amazing is that Kevin does not study for these exams. He looks to see what is available, thinks about what he knows and signs up and takes the test. And aces them. Why Astronomy next? He figures he knows a lot about the stars based on all the science fiction books he has read. He doesn't read science fantasy - but hard-core, fact-based, science fiction books. I figure he will ace that test too.

Why is he able to do so well on these tests? One of the main reasons is because he is well read. He has been reading since he was 3 remember? That is a lot of books over his 23 years of life. Not only does he read, but he knows how to research. When he was in 11th grade he discovered he had some gaps in his math. So after school he would come home, look online for math tutorials and taught himself about 4 years worth of math in a little over 2 months. He is fascinated with words and language so has taught himself Spanish and Japanese, and knows the etymology of most words.

Now Kevin may be an exception. I'm sure his IQ is "up there". But I feel that unschooling him was the best thing I ever did. It gave him the opportunity to learn what he wanted to learn, and as a result retain that knowledge more than if he had been forced to learn things that didn't interest him.

My other children have their own success stories. Eventually I will share them here as well.

Where do curls come from

2008-10-12T23:49:00.005+10:00

My daughter Cassandra (Cassie) has beautiful blonde ringlets. They hang half way down her back in golden curls. When brushed out they are wavy lines of soft down. Her hair is still baby fine and tangles easily. And of course she has her older sister's sensitivities when it comes to hair brushing. Needless to say we sometimes neglect brushing as often as we should because I hate to cause my baby pain. A few weeks ago, Cassie's hair had really gotten out of hand. It was clean, don't get me wrong. She swam daily and her hair was always being washed to get the sand and sea salt out. But not brushed after wards. Eventually the "rat's nest" in her hair really could house a small mouse.

One night I went to a lady's night out. My husband was out too for some reason and we both ended up home around the same time. When I walked in the house I saw Cassie siting on the living room floor watching or playing a video game. Her hair was neatly brushed and hung in smooth golden waves.

"Wow, who brushed your hair?" I asked her.

Stephanie, my 14 yo came out of the kitchen and admitted to the task.

"I saw a brush and said, 'Cassie, let's take care of this mess' and I brushed it."

"Were there tears?"
"Oh yeah, but I tried to be gentle."

From the queen of tangles, this was quite the remark. Takes a sensitive scalped person to deal with a sensitive scalped person I guess.

And after all, I deserve it. I gave my mom such a fuss over my hair. My girls were doomed to inherit the same issues.

Tonight I aso discovered proof that I also passed on the ringlet gene.

Googling

2008-09-21T23:11:00.003+10:00

Eric learned to google. Which is my excuse for not blogging more. You see, now that Eric can google, I have one more person competing to use the computer now. So of course, that computes to less time for Mom to blog. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

So was does it mean, for my 8, soon to be 9 year old, son to be googling? Sometime about two weeks ago, Stephanie taught her brother how to type a word or a question into the google search engine to find the answer to anything you want to know about.

Suddenly a whole new world opened up for this little boy.

You want to know how to make Root Beer? Look it up. <>

Curious about the weather? Ask Google.

The plus side of learning to google is spelling begins to count. Sure mom and dad can decipher his spelling, but if google doesn't recognize the word the hit results aren't as relevant. So now Eric is understanding that spelling is important and it is faster to spell it right than to sift through the guesses. Typing skills are being learned. And knowledge is gained as a little boy's questions can go beyond the meager knowledge of mom and dad.

And the secret is out that mom and dad just google it anyway.

The Notebook and a New Blog

2008-08-31T23:38:00.002+10:00

First I want to explain about the Notebook. I don't want any of my unschooling friends to gasp and faint dead over my reference to the "notebook" in my last entry. My kids are always coming up with interesting facts, ideas, things they've heard on TV, things they've read in books (at least for Eric) . You know STUFF. I want to encourage them to record some of these ideas - either in the form of pictures, writings, 3-d projects, or whatever! So that is what the notebook is primarily for. A place for them to organize the huge mound of paper they manage to accumulate. We have this pile on our piano....it is scary. Someday I'm going to have to face that pile and decide what comic, drawing, silly saying or scribble I should keep or what to throw away. If I don't want to be buried in a pile of paper, I need to start teaching my children how to organize their own papers. That's the plan anyway. And I will use the Notebook for those projects we do from the FIAR books.

This week we will be "rowing" Peter Rabbit. I'm hoping Eric will be happier with this one as it is one of his favorites from when he was 5.

I also want to put in a plug for my new blog I started over on the Homeschool Blogger. A Canadian Gal lost on Guam. Catchy title?

I'm hoping to get it listed on one of those homeschool blog carnivals, where if you are witty enough you get noticed. I'm still working on the wittiness.

Rowing our first book

2008-08-28T20:41:00.007+10:00

Well, this week I decided to try to row a book with my two youngest, Cassie, 5 and Eric 8. What does it meant to "row a book"? Five in a Row, or FIAR, is a very relaxed curriculum that has you read a particular book, 5 days in a row, with an emphasis on something different each day. I had gotten a great deal on FIAR volume II from a homeschool friend, and about 8 of the related books. So I picked "Mirette on the High Wire" to "row" this week (read each day).

I have to say it was a lot of fun, for me and Cassie anyway. Eric, is a different story.

Monday we began at about 10:30am only about 1/2 hour behind the "schedule" I had set for myself. I've put quotes around that word to help emphasis how much I hate having to follow a schedule. Appointments, that is different. But having to do something like learn at a set time just seems off to me. Must be the unschooler in me. Cassie wanted me to set up the Story Time Felt Calendar for her to do each day, like we did at GICA last year. For her, our coming to the office to do school is like a great game to play and she is eager every morning to get up and go to school.

Eric, doesn't like all this reference to "school" and starts to whine right away. I made the mistake of really catering to Cassie's excitement about starting school, that I forgot to figure out how to make it exciting for Eric. The only real change in our whole schedule/routine is that I want to get to my office 2 hours earlier, with just me and the kids, to spend some quality time together, reading books, exploring together, doing art projects. Fun stuff.

It wears one down to hear a child constantly whine about school when he isn't doing anything different than what he had been doing for the past year or more. The chief difference is little sister is giving a name to what is normal for Eric. Freedom to learn, study, draw at his own pace, is suddenly being called school. The horror.

All kidding side, we did have a productive week. Eric didn't enjoy the story as much as Cassie - and so wasn't keen on us reading it everyday. But after encouraging him to sit beside us while I read, I have compromised to letting him stay where he is in the room as long as he doesn't interrupt. Twice today he had to be reminded to save his non story related questions to the end of the story.

On Tuesday I bought the kids 3 ring binders, a pack of paper and a set of dividers and we put together notebooks for the school year. The dividers were to divide the notebook into sections for the typical school subjects. In our case it is Math, Reading & Writing, Science, Social Studies, and Art. Eric asked if he could decorate the dividers in his notebook, so I told him yes, and he carefully made his subject sections. Later, Cassie asked for help to spell all the subjects and then Eric helped her draw pictures to help her remember what section was what. Numbers on the math section, a globe on the socials studies page..... Cassie is very proud of her notebook.

For Art day we made color wheels and the kids learned about primary, secondary and complimentary colors. Cassie cheerfully colored her color wheel and attached it to a page in her art section of her notebook. Eric made a color wheel of sorts too. In his own order. He's a non-conformist and I'm never going to change that. But he did understand and ask intelligent questions about the color wheel.

Today we did Science and after reading the story we discussed copper and why they used copper pots to cook with. We then looked up and read some about copper, found some copper pennies and put them in a cup of vinegar to see if they will shine up, and Cassie colored a picture of a copper pot and read and spelled "pot" and then put that in her notebook under science, and wrote copper above it.

We also found Paris, France on the world map and we explored all the different places that the book mentioned.

Aside from the reading, and calendar time, we also did a bit of Math-U-See, starting with the Alpha books. I had used this in my class last year and Cassie had good success with learning her numbers and math facts. So I want to continue this with her. She asks to do Math if I forget.

Eric is being allowed to work on his numbers as he wants, but he's watching Cassie and I know that soon he'll want to join her. If I force him, he'll balk, so I have to entice him into wanting to show what he knows. Which is way more than I thought. I haven't done any formal math program with him, and yet he has figured out facts on his own and shares them with us as he learns. He actually has a firm grasp of place value and adding and subtracting. He can't stand it when Cassie calls it "take aways".
"It's minuses!" He'll exclaim to her as she sings, "8 take away 2 is 6," while she fills out her paper.

Let's see, we also started reading together "A Child's Story of America" by Christian Liberty Press. Just reading a few pages with them has already resulted in lots of discussions about why people used to think the world was flat. Science and Social Studies is being covered there.

I'm also trying to review Cassie's phonics. I picked up a copy of "A Writing Road to Reading" and like the way they present the phonemes necessary for reading. I started with the first few letters for Cassie and she practiced her writing. Eric needs to work on his letters and numbers as most of them are backwards due to bad writing habits, starting from the bottom, not paying attention to which direction it should face. Nothing dyslexic, I don't think, as he's perfectly capable of writing them all correctly if he tries. We made a deal with him. If he can write correctly "his way" then it's a good way. If he continues to make mistakes, then he has to agree that maybe "his way" isn't the best way and to try to do some of my suggestions. We find that gentle coercion like this works better with him than any other forms of correction we have tried.

Tomorrow is the last day of our first week using this new plan and I think this will work for us. Gentle, relaxed, with something tangible (the notebook) to show for all our discussions and learning.

What's on your skin challenge

2008-08-22T23:47:00.002+10:00

Okay, my friend Dawn posted a challenge on her myspace blog. I'm still waiting for her permission to share the actual link, but in the meantime, here's what she asked us to do:

Go ahead.. I dare you to pick a 'main stream' beauty product, soap, or shampoo that you have and look up 5 ingredients.

She went on to write what she found in her beauty products, and it wasn't pretty.

So I thought, hey, what do I use on my skin? I'm mostly a water gal. I don't often wash my face with soaps and tend to just use water. But I'm getting older and getting worried about the sags and bags under my eyes. I was just telling my other friend that when I hit 45 next month that is halfway to dead. Sorry, too morbid. But hey, at least I'm predicting I'll live until I'm 90, God willing.

I recently joined a health and beauty product company. Why I do this I still haven't figured out, as I'm not into trying to sell products but saw a good deal to get a bunch of stuff at a discount, and then, of course, buy it from myself for cheaper than retail. The company is Jordan Essentials, formerly Country Bunny Bath & Body (I prefer their old name, more down to earth).

As my birthday looms closer, I figured it was time to invest in my fading beauty. I bought Age-Defying Serum to help counter the aging process on my face. Let's analyze this product first.

Ah...minor glitch. There are no ingredients on that bottle....might have to go dig up the literature that came with it somewhere (less than 25% chance I still have it). I'll be back with that.

Let's try this one: Kiwi Cooler, Shower Gel (love the smell!)
Water (#1 ingredient....starting off okay)
Sodium Laureth Sulfate - depending on who you believe this is nasty stuff. From Wikipedia: Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association (CTFA) and the American Cancer Society have stated that the common belief that SLES is a carcinogen is an urban legend, a view confirmed by toxicology research by the OSHA, NTP, and IARC.[6] SLES and SLS, and subsequently the products containing them, have been found to contain parts-per-thousand to parts-per-million levels of 1,4-dioxane, with the recommendation that these levels be monitored.[7] The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers 1,4-dioxane to be a probable human carcinogen (having observed an increased incidence of cancer in controlled animal studies, but not in epidemiological studies of workers using the compound), and a known irritant (with a no-observed-adverse-effects level of 400 milligrams per cubic meter).[8] While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration encourages manufacturers to remove this contaminant, it is not currently required by federal law.[9]
A lot of words to say this may or may not be nasty stuff.
Okay....
Cocoamidopropyl Betaine: Hmm...all I can really find on this stuff is that it is spelled wrong in Wikipedia, and that it can cause skin & eye irritant. Yup, most soaps hurt my eyes, but not my skin so much.
Sodium Chloride: I'm pretty sure this is just salt.
DMDM Hydantoin: ugh, contains formaldehyde. I know that stuff is used as a preservative, but I've heard some pretty bad stuff about formaldehyde. Wonder just how much it contains and what else do those letters stand for?
1,3-bis(hydroxymethyl)-5,5-dimethylimidazolidine-2,4-dione
Yeah that helped me too. I'm not even going to try to figure out what that all means. But it does say that it is a preservative that works by releasing formaldehyde into the product.
And helps prevent mold from growing on the product. Maybe your skin too?
Methyl Paraben: I found this quote on one website " The EPA states that all parabens -- methyl, propyl, butyl -- have been proven to have endocrine-disrupting effects." The website?

Can the Methyl Paraben in Your Shampoo Make You Fat?

Just what I need. Soap that makes me fat.

I'm almost scared to continue this research. Let's see, have I covered 5 so far? Gulp, that was 6! I think I'll quit while I'm still willing to use the product.

Maybe I won't look so hard for the ingredient list for the Age defying serum. Sometimes ignorance is bliss?

But in all honesty, and all kidding aside, this is scary stuff! Here I *thought* I was buying something organic and "safe". Lesson learned, always read the labels!

Reading And Writing

2008-08-19T11:08:00.003+10:00

I have always loved to read. Consequently I have always loved to write. I suppose not everyone reaches the same conclusion. But it is true in my life. It is also true in my husband's life. And as a result, it has become true in our children's lives as well.

I firmly believe that if you emulate a love of literacy in your home, that your children will pick up on that love. Books are an integral part of our home. We have book shelves that line our hallway, books on the knick knack shelf that separates the kitchen nook from the living room, a book shelf in the corner of the living room and book shelves in each of our bedrooms. All of them are overflowing with books of all genres. We also have three bookshelves in our driving school office that are full of books. Books abound in our lives. If I'm not reading a book I feel lost.

Along with reading comes a love of writing. When I read a particularly good book I'll often think, "Hey I can write just as well! " So I write. On blogs, in journals, in emails, wherever!

And what have I discovered in my reading and writing? That as I do these things, so do my children!

Currently my 13yo DD, writes an average of 2,000 words a day. She started writing a few years ago because a story was in her head and she wanted to put it on paper (or computer screen). She toted around Strunk and Wagner's Elements of Style in her backpack so that she could consult it for proper grammatical writings. When she attended a private school from 2nd to 4th grade, she learned some basic grammar and spelling rules. Since then she has had no formal writing curriculum. Reading good literature (she read Les Miserables when she was 11 because she loved the musical), and practicing writing everyday, has made her understand correct style, sentence structure and grammatically correct writing. It's very natural to her. When she communicates with her friends online, she refuses to write in "chat speak" but writes complete, well though out sentences.

My older sons, too, are great writers. Occasionally I have come across something my eldest wrote from his days in 12th grade and I'm amazed at his writing ability. Yet, I shouldn't be amazed as he comes by it naturally.

Now, as my husband, Les, and I reach our mid forties, we look to our future and wonder what we will do. Both of us have concluded that writing is the "new career" that tantalizes us. Les has taken this dream one step further and actually started a publishing company so that when our books are written we can publish them ourselves. The result is his first published book: Monster Doctor. We actually have it for sale on his publishing website: Read For Fun Press.

To help promote Monster Doctor, I have been working on a blog Monster Doctor, MD.
I'm planning on having contests for illustrators interested in trying to create the various monsters described in the book. If you are an artist or know someone who loves to draw, make sure to check out the blog!

A peek into an unschooling day

2008-08-15T14:37:00.010+10:00

I'm always reading about a typical day in the life of a homeschooler, so thought I'd share a "typical" day in our lives. Though no day is ever the same. Being unschoolers and owning our own business (Driving School), our days are far from typical, nor do they emulate what many homeschoolers' days look like.

On this particular day (Thursday) I woke up to the sound of cats yowling outside our bedroom window. We have over a dozen cats, so cat fights are common. I struggled out of bed to open the sliding glass door and yell at the offending cats, glance at the clock and realize there is no point in returning to bed. It's 8am. Time to put the coffee on, hit the bathroom, and then sit down and log into gmail and check my email. Okay, I'm addicted. I've already confessed that. My first morning emails usually involve notes from CCU - Christ Centered Unschoolers - a group I have been on for at least 10 years now, where OT doesn't stand for "off topic" but rather than for "on-topic". Since we are a group of unschooling moms we chat about everything and anything, and only occasionally hit on actual "school" topics.

One cup of coffee and several emails later, Cassie my 5 yo, the only other early riser in our household, is demanding breakfast. This could be toast, with her newest discovery, cinnamon sugar; oatmeal (which she can make herself now - I love Quaker instant oatmeal. It is so forgiving. Too much water, nuke it longer. Too little, add some more.); or cereal. This morning it is toast. Once she is happily munching I realize that it is getting close to 9am and today we have cake decorating class for the teens in our local homeschooling group. Today I am the chauffeur, so a few quick phone calls to the families who need a ride, a knock on Stephanie's door to let her know she has to wake up and be ready to go in 30 minutes, and I'm out the door and on my way to pick up the other girls.

First stop is at my blind friends' house to pick up their 12yo DD and her cake paraphernalia. Then off to the next home, where we are picking up my friend and her 16 yo DD. Who still has her cake in the oven, and the icing in the process of being made. I roll eyes at S. the first teen, who like us, had baked and iced her cake the night before as per the instructions. Sigh. By now I'm thinking I could have told Stephanie she could sleep an extra 15 minutes. And my Steph usually needs that extra time. Especially since she has been deeply involved in an online RP game lately that keeps her up until 3am most nights!

But soon we are off, back at my house to pick up Steph, who it turns out is STILL in bed because her dad, who had been up before I left, didn't realize he was in charge of making sure she was ready! Finally all in the car we drive south to Santa Rita where the cake class is. Only 30 minutes late. But since the entire class was in my car it worked out okay.

After I dropped the girls off, my friend and I decided to go visit another homeschooling mom who lives in the area. It's not often that I have the luxury of visiting down south, so we take advantage of the two hours we have to wait for the class to be done. We have a good visit and fellowship, then it's back to pick up the girls and admire their creations. Today they learned how to do a basket weave and to make roses, so each cake was topped with a gorgeous basket overflowing with flowers . And here is the picture!

I drop Stephanie off at home where she has the house to herself, as the rest of the gang has accompanied their dad to our driving school office. After dropping off the rest of the girls, I head to our office where my work day will officially begin. Except I'm starving by now, it's 1:30pm and I never did get more than that one cup of coffee! It doesn't take much to convince my hubby that we need a lunch date, so we leave the little kids in their big brother's care, to watch the office, and we stroll down the block to Linda's Coffee Shop where you can get good old fashioned lunch counter type food. For me it is a grilled bacon and cheese sandwich with fries, and Les has the club house sandwich. We always turn our lunch meetings into a business lunch so we can justify claiming the expenses. We discuss our newest venture, launching our online driving school class, which we have spent hours on this summer preparing and implementing. This week was our launch week and already we had two gals taking the online class and testing.

Back at the office I finally get to sit down with the two younger kids and find out what they have been up to. I can see evidence that they have been taking advantage of our educationally rich classroom - papers are strewn over the tables with drawings and various writings on them. Cassie has the felt dolls from Story Time felts posed and dressed in interesting costumes. There are books on the couch and Cassie is clamoring for me to read one to her. She hands me "Letters Home from Turkey", a book that is part of a series that I got for a great price from Library Educational Services. This is a book I started with them a while back and we never finished, so we glance through the first half until we find our starting place and begin reading about mosques, minarets and the food of Turkey. Eric snuggles up with us as well and asks questions about the book. I really need to get a world map up on our wall soon.

After reading I need to take care of a few business related phone calls and paperwork. Les has been doing driving lessons so has been in out and of the office all day. Adam has been working on our driving school videos , editing them so that we can upload them to our website. When my pile in my inbox has been significantly diminshed I once again check on the kids. They have been in and out of the office playing at the beach which is less than 100 feet from our back door. Cassie shows me some toy she found in the sand and Eric tells me a long story about a fish he claims he caught but then let go. It's a tall fish tale for sure!

In cleaning up the mess created by my children I find the Discovery Toys Learning Tiles and sit down with Cassie to work on some math problems with the tiles. Eric is interested too, so I find the other set and a science book to go with it and he works on that for a while with the help of his dad. He gets frustrated easily when the instructions aren't as easy to follow. So while Cassie goes off to find something to eat (again! I swear she never stops!) I help Eric figure out the page he is on.

Soon it is 5pm and time to close our office for the day. A quick clean up and load the kids into the car and within 5 minutes we are home. It is so nice to live so close to our office. At home the children immediately glue themselves to the TV to watch some insipid cartoon. When we decided to get cable a few months ago we were determined that our children would only watch Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and the National Geographic shows. Yeah right. Nicktoons and Cartoon Channel have overruled all our educational ideals.

While I work on dinner and Les works on this laptop at the kitchen table, the kids watch TV and harass me about dinner. Sometime around 7pm dinner is finally ready and my starving children eat. Why did it take almost 2 hours to prepare dinner? Well, because, as usual, in order to even start dinner I had to first wash the dishes from the previous day! Which included a lot of extras from the cake baking and icing making.

By 8pm, exhausted, I sit on the couch and we watch the Olympics together. The little kids are in and out of the living room, sometimes staying long enough to watch an event and ask questions. The big kids are ensconced on various computers in the bedrooms. It is near midnight before our household winds down and children are all in bed (actually one on the living room couch and the other in my bed, even though they have perfectly good bunk beds in their bedroom they could be sleeping on). Stephanie is just starting her evening marathon writing on her RP. She writes over 2,000 words a day. I warn her that I want her in bed by 1:30am and then I'm off to bed, to read for a while and then sleep.

And thus ends a day in the Smith Family household on Guam.

Gmail not working?

2008-08-12T08:16:00.004+10:00

I'm suffering here! My gmail account is "temporary unavailable" but I'm being assured that all my data is safe. This worries me. I have come to rely on gmail for all of my mail correspondence. It is my lifeline to the outside world. I have canceled all my other email accounts. I no longer save anything to my unreliable hard drives. Am I a fool? Have I settled for a system that will let me down? At least blogger is still working. I was rather concerned that if gmail is down then all my blogs, my husband's blogs, and our business blog would be affected too. I do breath a small sigh of relief to know that I can come here and find this still working.

We have come to rely on technology too much. What if the great Internet itself were to crash? Like Wall Street. Would there be suicides? Would we all be lost? I feel I would, and that is a scary thought.

Guess I'll go see if facebook will work. At least I can communicate with some people over there for the day. Is this a sign I have become an information junkie? Addicted to email. Perhaps I should start looking for a self help group or a 12 step program. Sigh.

Evaluating a Curriculum

2008-07-30T19:04:00.003+10:00

So, while my children have been off enjoying VBS this week, I've been spending time over at my friend's house helping her go through a new curriculum she wants to try for her children this coming school year. My friend is unique. Both her and her husband are blind. Try homeschooling your children without eyesight! What a challenge.

Anyway, O. was very excited to test out what she hoped was going to be a great curriculum to use with her 3 children. Without sight her and her husband rely on their ears to take on the role of two senses. So, to aid them, their computers (and many other appliances/electronics in their home) speak to them. An online screen reader can read any text found on a computer screen. The key is "text". Screen readers cannot read an "image".

So what is the curriculum? The Robinson Curriculum.

The Robinson curriculum consists of 22 CD-Roms full of volumes of books that are used to form the basis for their curriculum. The only thing that is not included is Math - and Saxon Math is recommended. In fact, one of the tenets of this curriculum is that children should progress from Saxon 54 all the way through Calculus before even attempting any science program. When I told my husband this he said, "Actually that makes so much sense. Math is one of the 'languages' of science and if you know math, then all the scientific equations & formulas will all make so much more sense." He should know. He taught high school sciences for two years at GICA (biology, chemistry, physical science...even some physics).

The first hurdle occurred when we realized that all the "text" on the CDs were image files. So much for a screen reader! Then, nowhere on the CDs can you find any kind of Scope and Sequence to follow. Books weren't even categorized into grade levels. From what I could tell, the recommendation was to find your child's reading level and start them at a book that would match and then have them read the books in order to the end.

At first glance that is what I saw. But as I looked more, I realized I was looking at a fantastic library of old classics, original books, biologies, autobiologies, old readers, the bible. All on computer disk. Now personally, I like to hold an actual book in my hand and am not too thrilled with reading a book on a screen. But for my friend O. this is the only way she can read a book, other than listening to a book on tape. Such a wealth of information. The trick was to figure out how to use it!

O.'s husband was able to get one of their reading programs to convert the image to a PDF file, which then could be read from another program they had. It was a complicated process to figure this out and then teach me how to teach O. how to use it. Do you know how much we rely on a mouse to navigate on a computer? Imagine having to navigate over a screen, blindfolded, using only your keyboard and a robotic voice telling you where your cursor is on the screen? That is how O. and L. navigate without sight. It's a learning curve for me, trying to explain that they are on the wrong spot "move left, no down, up. over 3". LOL. You can imagine!

It will take several meetings before O. will feel comfortable finding the books on the CDs. Luckily her kids should be able to figure it out and help mom and dad.

I'm not sure if the Robinson Curriculum will be the right one for this family. I'm not sure it's the right one for any family. It is a strange philosophy, yet has its appeal. The 3 R's are the focus - reading, writing, 'ritmetic. The children are to read the books, write essays and do their math - for up to 8 hours a day. Theoretically, at this pace they could finish school by age 15, easily. And probably have a very interesting and well read vocabulary and outtake on life. Or be burned out. Depends on the child.

For me, I see it as a great library resource. But I'm an unschooler and reading is what my kids do.

Getting ready for school?

2008-07-28T07:24:00.004+10:00

In about 15 minutes I will be waking up the two little ones to get them ready for school. Okay, not school school, but Vacation Bible School - VBS. At least once during the summer months I like to pick a good VBS to have the kids go to. In the past we have always done the evening one at NCLC, our former church. Lots of benefits to an evening VBS - you don't have to wake up kids to attend. They come home tired and usually go to bed (unless they are wired, in which case you are in for a treat). And it used to be that taking them to NCLC I could visit with my old friends. However, the last time I went to one there I was pregnant with Maggie. My sweet baby, who only lived for a few short hours. I tried to attend NCLC for another event after Maggie's death and not one of my old friends even commented to me about her! No condolences, or even if they didn't know about her, no comment on my lack of baby in arms. I'm tired of excuses from people who try to defend others by saying "oh people are uncomfortable with death" etc. etc. The truth is, all those whom I thought were my friends had no idea what had happened in my life, they didn't care to ask or find out, so that is why they didn't comment. I haven't been back to that church since, and it will probably take a miracle to get me to try again! Casting Crowns has some excellent songs about churches like these - "Stained Glass Masquerade" is one that comes to mind. Over the years Les and I have realized that larger churches tend to put so much focus inward - to their programs, ministries, youth groups, music teams, etc. that the people become so inward focused that one never sees who they really are. Masks put on, smiles plastered to their faces, "blessings" come from their mouths but not their hearts. It's all so fake to me.

Whoa, how did this blog turn into this? I was trying to blog about VBSes! LOL.

So needless to say my kids are not going to a VBS at NCLC, instead they are attending CBF's VBS (try saying that 3 times fast!). Christ Bible Fellowship puts on an excellent VBS every year. A lot of hard working Christians in a church that sees the importance of reaching the children. Whereas other churches seems to have a budget for their music ministry alone, CBF appears to put a great deal of their budget into their children's programs. I hear they have an excellent sunday school program. Too bad they are so Baptist based (no offense to Baptists reading this I hope!). It just means, with my Pentecostal DNA, that I'm not 100% comfortable in a Baptist based church.

So now in less than 5 minutes I need to get the kiddos up and ready for a week of fun and Science - as the theme this year is Science Lab. I sure hope my Science oriented son will enjoy this!

Bananas - Guam's Zucchinis

2008-07-25T21:51:00.001+10:00

What the zucchini is to the PNW, the banana is to Guam. In the Pacific Northwest of the United states, and on the coast of British Columbia Canada, zucchinis grow to incredible sizes. This hardy squash grows quickly and abundantly in the temperate "rain forest" of this area. A single zucchini can grow to be 3 times bigger than a football. Jokes abound in the PNW that you don't dare leave you car unlocked while at church or other social functions, for fear that you will return and find several giant zucchini squashes sitting in your back seat. People will go to any extreme to rid themselves of their abundant crop. The zucchini features in many culinary dishes in the PNW - main dishes like spaghetti, get a boost of vitamins from cubed zucchini. Freezers are overflowing with shredded bags of zucchini waiting to be made into breads, muffins, and even zucchini pie (similar to pumpkin, but with a greenish tinge). Fried zucchini, boiled zucchini, baked zucchini...you name it the inventive housewife has tried it.

In a way I miss zucchinis. The wee little ones I find in the grocery stores of Guam just don't quite do the vegetable justice. So what to do? Find a substitute that grows in as great abundance. And that is the banana. While surveying my yard this afternoon, I counted no less than 10 bunches of bananas in various stages of readiness. Small, sweet eating bananas - never hard to get rid of as the little ones will eat them almost as fast as they ripen. The bigger "ice cream" bananas, too get eaten swiftly - as along as the family has not been "banana-ed" out. In which case, peeled and bagged in zip lock baggies, these end up in the freezer to be used in smoothies and baked dishes. The larger "cooking" bananas....they tend to be given away to the first person who knocks on my door asking for bananas. Typically a Micronesian family from Chuuk will be the lucky recipients of our over abundance.

Still, I hate to see all this great food go to waste when we can't quite eat all the bananas that have a tendency to ripen all at once. What I need are some good banana recipes. Unlike the zucchini which seems to have no trouble being served as vegetable or a fruit, the banana is all fruit in my opinion. Bananas in your spaghetti? I think not. Bananas in your soup? I think I'll pass. So what to do with all those bananas?

Banana lumpias are a tasty treat, but obviously not too healthy. Whole bananas are wrapped in thin egg roll wraps, and then deep fried in hot fat until golden and crispy. Many locals like to then sprinkle on sugar or roll them in cinnamon/sugar mixture while hot so that the sugar forms a sticky glaze on the treats. Delicious, but not so good eaten as leftovers.

Baked bananas are delicious too. And then there are all the banana breads, muffins and cakes one can think of - similar to zucchini a banana is a great filler for these.

Some day I may figure out just how to use a banana as a vegetable and serve it with my steak and salad, but for now I think I'll just keep advertising.....want bananas? Here they are!

Zippy & Zappy or Mi & Mo

2008-07-18T18:20:00.002+10:00

Unschoolers like to seize the moment when it comes to learning. That is just what I did this morning. As I was sitting in my living room I noticed two flies buzzing around in an empty rootbeer bottle. Spying the lid nearby I grabbed it and screwed it on, tightly sealing the flies in their plastic tomb. I hate flies in my house.

As I watched the two flies buzzing around in the bottle, I felt inspired to call the younger kids over to check out my capture.
"Come on over and see Mi and Mo!"
Eric was immediately enthralled and wanted to know why I called the flies "Mi and "Mo". No reason, it just seemed like a good idea.
After a few minutes of watching the flies he said, "You can call them that, but can I change my fly's name?"
"Sure" I replied.
"My fly's name is Zappy. Cassie, you can name your fly."
"Which one is mine?" she asked peering at the two identical flies.
After deciding that the one wallowing in the rootbeer dredges was hers, and still not able to come up with a name, I suggested "Zippy" and Cassie immediately agreed.
"They are kind of like twins, you know," she said.

For the next ten minutes a discussion ensued about how to take care of flies, what they eat, etc. Eric ran to get a kitchen knife so that I could poke holes in the bottle, but I convinced him a needle would work better. After a sufficient number of air holes were made, the two children sat down to watch their flies and to discuss their food issues.

"What do flies eat?"
"Sugar water. That is why they are in the bottle. They were attracted to the leftover rootbeer."
"What happens when they run out of rootbeer?"
"I bet that rootbeer will last them a long time, but if they run out we can add some sugar water."
"How do you make sugar water?"
"Take some sugar and mix in a bit of water until it dissolves."
"Oh....."

It was then time to get ready to go out for the day. Eric was very concerned for his flies so before leaving asked me if he could write a note for his older sister.
Here is what the note said:

Take care of my flys
1. Dont throw my flys out
2. Don't drain their root beer
3. If thay run out of rootbeer add sugar water four half a teaspoon of it.

Two flies were drawn at the bottom of the note. I'll have to scan them and attach later.

How I have been spending my Summer Vacation

2008-06-29T20:31:00.003+10:00

Many are probably wondering just what I have been doing since I no longer have to teach the little kids every day. Well, it seems I just traded 9 human children for 5 other creatures. Namely kittens.

About 2 months ago we rescued a very sweet black and white female cat from an apartment complex where she was being mistreated by the guards and some of the tenants. She is a very loving cat, so we suspect she started out as someone's pet. But then she became pregnant and was abandoned to fend for herself. We took her in and she delighted us with 5 little babies about 3 weeks later.

My children love kittens and we have been good stewards and had all of our current gang of cats fixed at the annual GAIN (Guam Animals in Need)Clinic. So it's been at least two years since we had kittens around. So needless to say they are thrilled with the newest additions to our family.

With new kittens comes new names. Our family has a tradition of having rather unusual names for our pets. The new momma cat was named Consuela by my husband, Les, who said that she reminded him of a maid who was expelled from her home due to her delicate condition. So "Connie" was named.

My children, the oldest two still at home, 13 and 19, conspired together to name the kittens using a pirate theme. So the largest male cat earned the title "Pirate". A grey and white spotted tabby, he lives up to this name by being the first to do battle, the first to enter the food zone, and the first to explore the dark depths under the fridge. Next the two calico cats were named "Pillage" and "Plunder". Aptly named they are known to pillage and plunder their way around the kitchen. The tiny tortoise-shell with the orange stripe on her nose is "Pilfer", the only "P" word the kids could think of that meant something similar to pillage and plunder. And finally we have "Plague", a black and white spotted male whose name came about primarily due to the alliteration qualities to match the rest of the litter.

Six weeks have flown by and the kittens have grown from a tiny mewing pile in the back corner of the closet, to a wild, prowling band that has taken over my kitchen and living room. You must watch where you step when in those rooms for their dark colors, when curled in a ball, can easily blend with the dark wood floors. One of their favorite hang outs is just under the fridge so that whenever the door is opened they are threatened with decapitation! And they are fast to crawl into the fridge if you are not careful.

It will soon be time to send them outside to live. I worry about the wild dogs that live out there -- we lost our cat Coach Z just a few months ago -- so I'm not quite willing to let them out all night yet. We have taken them out to our garden a few times this weekend to introduce them to the wild and so far they have loved it.
Connie seems tired of kittens and not as lively as when we first got her, so I think these kids are wearing her out. Imagine a teen mom with quintuplets. That is how I picture the poor girl.

I will post pictures soon!

Cassie at the beach

2008-06-28T20:58:00.001+10:00

Well, this is my first attempt to put a video on my blog. Let's see if this works!

All's well that ends well

2008-05-26T19:28:00.006+10:00

It's all over. I survived my year of teaching, or unteaching as I like to say. The last week of school went by in a blur, finalizing the lap book projects, dealing with puking kids (yes you read that correctly), planning the kindergarten graduation and making sure all the little kiddos got all their art and other projects home safely.

I wasn't really planning on doing a kindergarten graduation, but one of my K5 girl's grandmothers called me up and prodded me into doing something. With very little time to plan, I was able to acquire some cute little graduation hats, plan a short ceremony and issue the "diplomas".

Because this is the official last year for GICA (Guam International Christian Academy) it was more emotional for me than I had anticipated. I have been teaching or working or volunteering at GICA for over 6 years now, since I first met my pastor in 2002. Over the years I have been the secretary; bookkeeper; librarian; high school English, bible and math teacher; substitute taught in all grade levels; and finally this year, was the elementary class teacher. Some were paid positions, some were volunteer. It didn't matter to me, I worked hard and loved the school and the children. So when I began the graduation ceremony I found myself suddenly emotional and teary eyed. I managed to choke down my emotions, give my little speech and hand out diplomas and certificates to my children.

The graduating K5 class

My daughter, Cassie receives her "diploma"

M. with the traditional Guam Graduation Leis

Creativity amidst Tiredness

2008-04-23T21:45:00.003+10:00

I've had a tiring couple of days. Just felt yucky and tired on Monday and very drained of energy. Yesterday was better and today was so-so. I haven't had a full class of kids all week. At least one or two kids have been absent, each taking turns, so it's kind of been nice and not too stressful.

We've been working on a lap book in phonics, courtesy of the lapbook page I mentioned in my last post. There is a lot of cutting and pasting involved so to offset the tedium that could result from lack of variety, I have been teaching them to recognize the color words by going through a workbook I put together of the various color names.

For art I've been getting a bit more creative. Monday we made fish out of paper (I drew, they cut and decorated their fish) and I made them each a fishing pole out of string, a magnet, and either a chopstick or a straw for a handle. (I only had 3 chop sticks). Then I attached a paper clip to each fish and they got to take home their fish and fishing poles.

Yesterday we made tic-tac-toe games out of foam board with foam shape pieces to play the game. I stapled a little pouch out of cardstock for them to store their game in. They decorated and personalized their pouches and then each got to take home their own game of tic-tac-toe.

Today I made stencils from the scraps of foam board from the previous day and we "stamped" the images onto card shaped card stock, using tempra paint and painting sponges. It was a challenge to keep them from putting the templates down into the paint dish and to stop some of them from mixing the colors. Not that it would be so terrible, except for the conservation factor. I can't really reuse mixed bleh paint. You know what I mean. The color you get when ALL the colors get mixed together. The final product of our painting endeavor was each child had a 6 card set to play games with. There was a heart, a star, a sunburst, a hand, a diamond and a twirly thing for the shapes. I'm going to combine all the sets and play some games with them tomorrow.

Maybe this is what is tiring me out.

Just so you don't think I'm a genius of creativity, all of these ideas came from a book that I found around the house. It pays to be a book junky sometimes. This one is called something like Paper Fun for Kids. I'll get the correct title and info tomorrow and update this.

Lap Books

2008-04-13T22:46:00.003+10:00

Wow, after a busy weekend fighting a beast (see my other blog at Stampinstories.blogspot.com)
I decided to spend the rest of the weekend relaxing and browsing the net looking for ideas for school. Only one month to go now, and the days are counting down.

I've been at a standstill, trying to figure out how to get through to the kids. They can't seem to remember from one day to the next what they learned the week before. Not all of them, mind you, but they all seem to take turns at selective memory. Makes for a frustrating last few days of teaching.

Hopefully, my research has payed off, as I stumbled across homeschoolshare.com. Here I found a wealth of resources to teach lapbooking. And they have FREE ones!

I've always been fascinated by lapbooks and the professional look they give to a project. So I have decided to help my class finish the school with a bang, and two or three lapbooks. We are going to make one concentrating on phonics and phonemes sounds (pl, bl, sh, ck, etc.), a Fact Family one for their math, and then a butterfly book for science and literature.

Over the summer, I want Eric and Cassie to collaborate on a Tiger lapbook, and maybe even a penguin one, to finish off and tie together all they learned over their years of fascination with these two creatures.

So here is the confession. As an unschooler, I really don't like the rigid form of school, and would rather follow a more delight driven education path. At the same time, I know that radical unschoolers wouldn't even consider introducing a "project" to their kids. Yet, I have learned that what children love are "projects" and sometimes they need a little help to get interested in one.

So please don't mind me if I do carry on with my own kids doing some cool projects. I'm actually looking forward to what we can do, when working together. Hopefully I'll be sharing some great lapbooks here soon!

An Eric Day

2008-04-11T06:52:00.002+10:00

Eric doesn't come to school with me anymore. It just wasn't for him. And since we have brought him back home, he has really mellowed out. To the point that, for a treat, I decided to bring him to school for a day. Originally, this came about because the senior class was doing a breakfast fund raiser and had promised to bring pancakes, or "flapjacks" as Eric prefers to call them. And Flapjacks are his favorite breakfast food!

Eagerly, he came to school hoping for his beloved breakfast. I had warned him that this senior class tended to be "flaky" and did not always come through on their promises. Good thing I warned him as this was the case. Thankfully, Auntie Jo, the school secretary and everyone's "auntie" had made fried rice, ham and eggs, so Eric at least had a good breakfast that he enjoyed. Donuts were sold at snack time, another of his favorites. And then I splurged on KFC for lunch, so my food addicted 8 year old was quite pleased with the day.

I noticed that having Eric in the classroom greatly increased the imagination level. Even N. whom I had noticed lately seemed to have a serious lack of imagination, was caught using hers! For Art Eric instigated a castle drawing contest (he loves a good competition, especially if he thinks he'll win). I provided paper, paper scraps, glue, scissors, crayons, and foam shapes and told the kids to come up with their own castle creation.

Eric preferred to use crayons and pens as his medium. As he put it "I'm more comfortable drawing than cutting and gluing".

Cassie diligently put together paper scraps to create a very artistic castle.

And N. surprised me the most. At first she was in shock that I didn't provide her with a model to copy. But then, after quietly contemplating the materials she managed to produce a very nice castle replica.

J. carefully drew a castle in pencil, but ran out of time to add any embellishments. He had limited time due to a math test that he was struggling through.

M. was in a whiny mood and told me castles were "boring" and did a sloppy job at her project. Usually she is my queen of gluing and cutting so I was rather surprised at her lack of enthusiasm.

And the rest of the class glued and cut and colored and created, well, something I guess. If you really stretch your imagination I guess you could call them castles. After all, art is in the eye of the beholder. Or is that beauty? Whatever the case may be, it was a fun day. Pictures will be posted soon.

And Eric's conclusion is that maybe one day a week at a school would be a welcome change from his usual routine of sleeping in until noon.

Christian Service

2008-03-02T22:55:00.003+10:00

This may be a little off topic, but relevant nevertheless. This year of teaching has been entirely a volunteer endeavor. I've been told that I am crazy. People don't understand what I do and why I do it. They say "I could never do that". They quote bible verses at me like "a workman is worthy of his hire".

Here's the bottom line. Last July, my DH and I were sitting in our garden discussing the plans for the coming school year. We were asking ourselves, "How can we help out GICA this year?". Last year, both Les and I volunteered our time to teach a few high school classes. We knew the school was in financial difficulty. We knew that every year, Mr. C. would hire teachers who demanded too high of a pay for the finances of the school. By volunteering, we were assuring that no teacher would go unpaid and that the school would perhaps be financially viable to survive the year. So Les taught two classes - 12th grade bible and 12th grade history. I was willing to teach whatever and since 9/10th bible and 11/12th English were the classes needing a teacher, that is what I taught. So from 8 to 10am everyday we worked at GICA, no strings attached, on a strictly volunteer basis. We survived that year and were blessed at graduation by a speech from the school valedictorian (a student we had watched grow over the past 5 years from a difficult pre-teen to a considerate young adult). He thanked us personally for our commitment to the school and gave us credit for teaching him the way Christians should act.

So here we were sitting in our garden and contemplating what we should do. I thought about my own kids and how best I could help the school without neglecting my own children's education. Teaching the elementary class, which I knew would be small, seemed the most logical answer.

We didn't think, "let's negotiate for pay". We didn't think, "this is too much". All we thought about is "how can we help?" And I suppose it crossed our minds, "will this be mutually beneficial for all?" Which meant, will this help our family and the school? And the answer was a resounding "yes!"

It has been a hard year. It is almost over. Yet I wouldn't trade it for any other year. Cassie has excelled in school, learning the value of friendships. Eric discovered that school really wasn't for him. Stephanie discovered that sleeping in was more important than having friends. Okay, that one is a given for most 13 year olds I think....or maybe not.

And we've discovered that to truly serve the Lord you have to step beyond what the world thinks. Not everyone can volunteer full time. We've been blessed with a business that allows us to have the time to do this. I think there are more people out there who could do the same if only they would quite looking at the verse "a workman is worthy of his hire" and start looking at verses like 1 Corinthians 9:24-25 where Paul talks about running a race and receiving a prize...he speaks of the crown we will receive in heaven as being much more valuable than the temporal one we receive on earth. In other words, getting paid now for working isn't as valuable as the payment we will receive in heaven for the good works we do on earth.

I'm not trying to brag or boast but to just somehow get the point across that I do this more because SOMEONE has to than anything else. I wish more people would view life in this manner.
We know people who have money and means and could easily afford to take a year off and volunteer their time in a Christian school, or in the mission field, or wherever, but would never dream of doing such a thing for fear they would be taken advantage of. These same people look at me and say "fool", that I am "enabling" only because they can only see in the physical world and do not attempt to look beyond.

I am saddened by humanity at times. If I am saddened, how much deeper saddened is our Lord?

Finding the perfect Reading Curriculum

2008-01-13T23:13:00.000+10:00

Christmas break was over much too soon. January 2nd we were back at school. I've been negligent in updating this. Must be a sign I've been a diligent teacher or something. Truth is, I just run out of steam by the end of the day, and blogging gets put on the list somewhere after sleeping.

This year's #1 goal is to get my girls to read.

I needed something to use with my K5 girls to start putting together the sounds of the alphabet they learned last year, into actual reading. While browsing my school shelf I once again pulled out the American Language Phonics K book 1 that I had looked at and rejected several times over the past few months. Finally I figured the girls were ready for this.

Lesson one covered the short sounds of "o" and "a" and combined them with L for "la" and "lo" words. Soon "i" and "e" short vowel sounds were added and the consonant blends of "m", "d", and "t" came soon afterwards. Five days into this book, M. looked up from her paper and said "P...a....m....PAM!" and a reader was born!

I really wanted to find an actual book for M. to take home and share with her parents. I spent the better part of art time looking through my books, browsing online in between glue emergencies, and wondering where those easy phonics books were that I knew I had seen somewhere. Just before the end of the day I found them. Frontline Phonics books! I knew that program would come in handy someday.

My problem is that I look at all these "programs" out there and like bits and pieces of them, but have never found one I can embrace completely. I really need to sit down at the end of this year and put together what I used and try to create my own "perfect" curriculum for reading. Or Math. But that is another blog topic!

In the meantime, M. and even A. and my own daughter, Cassie, are slowly but surely putting the pieces of the puzzle together to read. A major milestone in any child's learning life.

Little Drummer Boy...and girls...

2007-12-16T20:02:00.000+10:00

I was given the best compliment of all. One of the high school students told my husband that "Mrs. Smith is the coolest teacher of all." What did I do to deserve such praise? I didn't torture the high school class with a long drawn out Christmas Pageant! Don't you just hate those pageants that carry on for hours at a time, where children are crying, and parents are ''oohing" and "ahhing" at how cute little Johnny is, even though he's got his finger up his nose?

Originally I had planned on reading a book that told the Christmas story, while my little class acted out the scenes. I wasn't even able to get them to stand still for 5 seconds while I directed them on what to do. Nor could I stop them from giggling. It didn't help that my "helpers" kept commenting on my choice for Mary and Joseph. With only two boys in the class, J. was the only choice for Joseph as I surely couldn't use little 3-year old N. for the part, especially when his older sister was Mary! And so J. and N. (big sis) were Joseph and Mary. I might as well have said they were dating or something. Even in the primary grades, kids get silly over such pairings! And all the K5 girls wanted to be Angels. Four angels, One Mary, One Joseph and a lamb. Hmmm....somehow I don't picture the manger scene looking quite like that.

So I opted for singing and performing one song. Just one. And one that lends itself to some kind of performance. What better song than my all time favorite: The Little Drummer Boy. I searched my house until I came up with at least 7 ice cream buckets (the 5 quart size), covered them with paper and had the children decorate their drums. Then while I sang the song, and those who could joined me, the children marched into the room, drummed their drums, took a bow and the show was over. Thus earning me the title of "coolest teacher ever". Simplicity wins every time.

Gingerbread Houses

2007-12-15T19:45:00.000+10:00

Christmas was interesting this year. I had no plans on doing anything really dramatic in school with my class, but then the high school teacher showed up with a full blown gingerbread house and announced that her class was going to make gingerbread houses....so of course I couldn't let my class be left out of the fun! I have done these before and know from experience that actually making gingerbread (the real stuff) was too time consuming, potentially frustrating, and not what I had signed up for. So I took the easy way out and had the kids make houses out of Graham Crackers.

Because I was working with one 3 year old and three 5-year olds, a 7-year old and a 9-year old, I wanted to make the process as painless as possible. While my helpers took the kids out for lunch time recess, I assembled the houses using an end of a Capri Sun Juice box (the 10 pack box) as a form, Graham crackers and Royal Icing that I made on the spot. When the kids came in I used my one icing bag to pipe icing onto their houses and then had them attach the candies as they liked. It was the easiest, least messy way to deal with 6 kids at once.

Here are the results:

2007-11-28T22:06:00.000+10:00

I tried to start out today with a positive attitude. I greeted the kids enthusiastically when I entered the classroom, even though I was feeling kinda grumpy. You know, TOM grumpiness.

I have been wanting to move on with the K5 girls and start trying to teach them to read by helping them to put the sounds of the letters together that we've been learning all year. They seem to know all their letters now and can readily identify them. They know the basic sounds of most of them. I think we have only Z to cover in the ACE phonics books I've been using. So yesterday I put together some Abeka vowel worksheets and made a 4 page booklet for the girls to do today.

After explaining what we were going to be doing and then handing the booklets out, I began to assist the girls in doing the papers correctly. M. has a habit of just plowing ahead, appearing to know what she is doing and doing it with confidence. I've observed that she has been doing this for all of her seat work. Finish it as fast as possible so that she could go play. Today I decided that enough was enough. Even if she "gets it" faster and can zoom through the paper, she was going to have to sit and color quietly while the other girls finished their paper. Whenever she finishes first, she doesn't just go play quietly, she rushes off, loudly calling out, "who wants to play...??" with no regard to the rest of the class. The truth is sometimes she "gets it" and sometimes she misses it completely. Today was one of those days.

So the tables were reversed. While the other girls had the papers discussed, line by line and learning took place as they discovered where the vowel sound was and what pictures to circle, M. spent the time randomly circling whatever, with no regard to instruction. The result? The other 3 girls were able to play and M. had to sit an extra 10 minutes while I helped her correct her papers.

At math I began the lesson on such a good note. I had read in Eric's Alpha Math-U-See book to use a grab bag game to help teach the children the colors of the blocks. We have been working with the unit blocks for the first quarter but had moved onto the colored blocks depicting numbers 2-9 for the past month. So I loaded up a paper bag with various unit blocks then had the children take turns reaching into the bag without looking, feel a block, tell me the number it represented and what color it was. They had to get all right in order to "keep" the block. All of the kids, including my K3 boy, were successful. All that is, except M. She was too quick to count the blocks and I had to help her on her last turn in order for her to guess correctly. She's a smart girl, but just in too much of a hurry.

From the block game I went on to do a few rounds of "guess what's in the bag" and filled the bag with a variety of items found around the room. I need to do more of this as the kids just loved the game. Guess I'll have to break down and make a real "feely can" - have to ask someone who uses the big coffee cans to save me one. What you do is glue gun an old shirt sleeve, large sock, or other nicer material (you can even sew a tube like sleeve with a draw string top, or elasticised one) to the top of a large empty coffee can. Decorate the can in any way you want. Fill it with different common items - plastic animal toys, cars, glue stick, eraser, sponge, stick, paper clip, safety pin, etc. etc. and the child puts his hand into the can and has to feel to identify the item. Great for teaching reasoning skills, tactile manipulation, imagination, and identification skills.

Today was also chapel day so I did a special felt board story as our lead in to discussing the birth of Christ next month. The Tale of Three Trees. This is the story of three trees who had big dreams of what they wanted to be - one a treasure chest, another a beautiful boat, and the third wanted to forever grow to show God's majesty and point the way to Heaven. I'm sure you know how the story goes. I'll have to leave you with that and have you read it on your own someday. My version of the Tale of Three Trees didn't quite match the Story Time Figures to Tell set that I had, but I managed to improvise enough. ST actually has the story included in the set that works better with the figures, so sometime next week I'll retell the story again and see if they kids can notice any differences. That would be a good exercise for the older kids.

Though it had it's moments I'd say today was a good day.

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T08:31:00.000+10:00

It's Turkey Time! This past two weeks we have had a definite Thanksgiving/Fall theme going on in the classroom. Last week Friday, the school had its annual Thanksgiving feast. Lots of turkey, ham, dinner rolls, stuffing, mashed potatoes - you know the traditional thanksgiving fair - along with some not so traditional foods only eaten on Guam - Chicken Keleguan (chopped chicken, coconut, green onions, lots of lemon juice, hot peppers and salt - mixed together and served with tortillas), barbecued ribs, fried chicken (almost as good as KFC!), red rice and pies galore! We managed to have only one or two near disasters with food plates; otherwise the kids did okay.

The classroom is decorated with the fall artwork. Construction paper leaf people hang from the ceiling, crayon leaf rubbings adorn the wall, seed collages are displayed on another, and our non-traditional egg carton caterpillars (usually a spring project) stare at me in a row from atop the computer monitor. The kids have been coloring turkey pictures, pilgrims and Indians, and cornucopias - but these have all gone home now. In fact we had a big "clean-up" of the class yesterday before dismissing them for our 4 day weekend break (which I am sorely needing!). I sent home all the blankets, miscellaneous clothing items and toys that somehow make it to the class, and threw away all the half-drank juice containers that were accumulating on our lunch shelf.

It has been a trying month as I work on figuring out the classroom dynamics. We had to make some major adjustments so that things could progress smoother. Our first change was to bring Eric back home again. School, or the traditional classroom setting, just didn't work for him. Even though I allowed him a lot of freedom in doing his work, he works better on his own agenda. He is sensitive to noise and distractions and sometimes a classroom is just full of those. Once we let him chose what days he wanted to come to school and when to stay home, my happy creative boy returned. He has learned more in the two weeks we have taken him out of school than he had learned in the past two months of school. Math was a big issue. He was so frustrated and so far behind his fellow 2nd grader (though she is admittedly doing 4th grade work and so we really can't compare). Since coming home he constantly talks about math and does his own problems and actually wants us to give him oral quizzes on math questions! At school all he would do was cry about math.

Let's face it. Some kids are just not cut out for the school setting. Eric is such a kid. It's too bad most parents don't have this freedom to homeschool. Another thing to be thankful for in my life.

Well, coffee is calling me and pumpkin pies need to be baked. Hope all my readers are/will have a wonderful thanksgiving day!

PTC and other stuff

2007-10-18T06:37:00.000+10:00

Well, I don't want to set a precedent for only one blog a month so thought I'd better get blogging! Tomorrow is Parent Teacher Conferences - my first one as an elementary school teacher. I'm used to being on the other end of such conferences so am unsure exactly what I aim to do. I actually get to start the PTC today as one family wasn't able to make it tomorrow. As I only really need to see three families (I PTC with my DH on my own two kids daily LOL), that leaves only two for tomorrow. Guess today will be a trial run at this. Maybe I'll even shock myself and blog more on this subject after tomorrow!

I was working on report cards and trying to come up with a format that reflects what we do in class. You can imagine how hard that would be. Can play be a category to grade on? How about block building? Lego? Go Fish? Or the current popular and favorite game of the 2nd graders, Eye to Eye Jr. edition?

Eric and N. are thoroughly enjoying playing Eye to Eye daily. This game comes from Simply Fun, a game company I joined last year but decided not to renew this year after having a difficult time competing with the low cost games you can find at Ross here on Guam. In Eye to Eye you are given a question that you must find three answers to and then compare your answers to the other players. The idea is to "think alike" and match your 3 answers with your fellow players. If you are a unique thinker, this counts as points against you. The points are tracked using wooden cubes that are stacked in a five by five pyramid. The first player to complete his/her pyramid loses. Questions cover such topics as "Star Wars Characters", "Things you eat that are messy", and "Foods that are brown". The Junior version has more kid appropriate questions than the regular version. It requires quick thinking (you are timed if you want to be), creativity, using your imagination, and trying not to be too unique. Ideally you need 3 players to play or it will always end up in a tie game, unless Eric is keeping score. He has the ability to sneak in points against the other player if he/she is not looking! I suppose that would be called cheating, but he sees it as creative scoring.

After my PTC today I'll be rushing over to the Guam homeschooler's support group meeting where hopefully I'll be in time to share my Story Time Felt products with the few moms who stay to the end. I'm hoping to sell a few felt dolls and maybe a toggle book or two. With the dolls on sale this month, I'm hoping they will sell themselves. It would have been nice if the order I placed at the end of September had arrived and I could then share even more great items - like the calendar and felt bible collection I'm eagerly awaiting.

Anyway, pray that I'm able to come up with creative ways to tell the parents today that their sweet K5 child is bossy, an instigator of fights, and doesn't follow directions - oops I mean assertive, knows her own mind, and independent.

Professor Eric

2007-10-02T19:03:00.000+10:00

Lately Eric has been drawing detailed pictures of the innards of dogs and cats. The large white board in the classroom has become one of the popular free play resources. I tried to fight it to save my dry erase markers, but have faced reality and realize you can't squelch creativity.

You can view my Picasa Web Album to see more pictures of what we do in the classroom. Just click on the link to the left.

I was amazed at the details Eric puts into his drawings. You can see the valves on the heart and the shape of the bones. He even includes the blood cells and what a broken bone looks like. He needs a few more lessons in anatomy as he has the dog's lungs located right under the jaw bone. But I love the "stuffy" nose on the poor dog! You can even see a pup in the dog's "stomach" (Think it's time to teach him where the baby really comes from?)

His cat picture is just as detailed and hilarious. It is pretty obvious that this boy is a cat lover!

Does it look like school?

2007-09-21T18:11:00.000+10:00

I'm still trying to figure this teaching stuff out. Each day I try to make sure that some form of learning is taking place in the classroom. I have filled the shelves with all my discovery toys games, Usborne books, Lets-read-and-find-out about Science books, Story Time Felt stories and dolls, and various other educational items. I have set times where I teach a "lesson" - usually introducing the sounds of the letter of the day, or some math concept - interspersed with plenty of free play time. I worry that it looks like we play more all day than actually learn. So I've started to take "snapshots" of moments in the class to see what is really happening.

I started this snapshot idea when the principal and high school teacher, entered my class to get something out of the file cabinet. I wondered, at that moment, what the class looked like to her. Was learning taking place?

Looking around I saw my 2nd grade girl playing a game of Tooty Fruity (Discovery Toys) with one of the aides. This game is similar to "Snap" where the players turn over their top card simultaneously and if the same fruit or the same number of fruits appear on each card then the player that rings the bell first, gets the cards. Learning skills: counting, color recognition, cooperative play, sportsmanship (can't cry if you're not first), fine motor skills.

In another corner two of the K5 girls were playing with the Story Time Felt dolls. Learning skills: cooperation, matching (outfits), creativity, imaginative play, sharing.

On the floor the K3 boy and another K5 girl are building with lego. Learning skills: fine motor skills, dexterity, cooperation, sharing, creativity, imaginative play, color recognition (they were sorting legos into color groups).

The 6th student, my 2nd grade boy, was working on a math pace, using popsicle sticks to figure out addition facts. Learning skills: counting, number recognition, addition facts, writing skills.

If you look hard enough, children are learning at all times. It may look like play, but in reality there is learning taking place.

They're Gone!!

2007-08-31T17:30:00.000+10:00

Finally, after three weeks of stress, my Japanese exchange students have all gone home. When I first agreed to teach the elementary class at this small Christian School, I had forgotten about the foreign exchange students that always come each year. And I had forgotten that usually it was the elementary class that took them in! I do not speak a word of Japanese. I can barely pronounce their names...though by the end of the three weeks I have to admit that I think I figured it out. I even said my DH's wedding boss's name today and got the pronunciation right!

It's been such a tough three weeks and not a good way to start out school. I feel like having the disruption of foreign students in the class has set a precedent for unruly behavior with my own kids. With mixed ages as well, it is hard to teach to everyone's level. And not being able to communicate just made it worse.

Many days I would spend the majority of the lesson time writing words on the board for the Japanese students to copy onto their worksheets. Is this cheating? I do the same for Cassie and Eric and anyone else who asks "teacher, how do you spell.....?" I could tell them to "sound it out" or ask leading questions like "what letter makes a "K" sound?" but honestly, writing the word out is so much easier. Especially when I have the K5s crawling under the table or trying to climb shelves to reach books/puzzles/games etc that are put out of reach for a purpose.

I remember one day leaving the room to make some photocopies and coming back to discover 4 kids writing on the white board with various markers - not all of them dry erase pens! One was even a permanent marker!! This was done under the watchful eyes of my "helpers". Needless to say a lecture erupted out of me on what exactly the children were allowed to touch/climb/do and who needed to be monitoring this when I was out of the room! Thank God for Magic Erasers!

It is Labor Day now and back in Canada, school would officially start on the day after Labor Day. With my class finally free of the Japanese children, I feel like school will really "begin" tomorrow. These past three weeks have been the "assessment" phase. In other words, tomorrow is a new day!

Tigers and Elephants

2007-08-30T06:50:00.000+10:00

Unschooling at school takes its toll on me. From one moment to the next I have no plan, just a vague direction I think I want to go.

The day starts with just getting the children settled, chairs found, packs put away. I clean off the board and gather markers and bible book, quickly glancing at the title and accompanying drawing to see what the story will be. It's always a surprise for me, just as it is for the kids.

"Is it about tigers?" calls out Whiskers, our current tiger obsessed 2nd grader, AKA Eric my own son.

"Not today. It's about..." I say and then hear a sweet voice say, "Elephants?"

"Did you peek?" I smile. N's shy nod confirms, and it's an elephant I get to draw today. Nino to be exact. Apparently Nino strolled off of a circus train, had a chat with some forest friends, and then realized he was lost, but then was found.

This bible story book had appeared on the bookshelf the first day of school. It's been a life saver. Each story has some kind of picture you draw to help illustrate it. The kids love it when I draw on the white board. It doesn't mater how well I draw. Whiskers will always give his professional opinion of my art work and is more than willing to assist me in my endeavors. Unfortunately I can't quite trust him yet not to behead poor Nino the Elephant or perhaps sick a tiger on him. But in time I hope I can count on him.

I had a special project that really made his day. As mentioned in a previous blog I found a comic book template on Enchanted Learning (my current life-saver lesson plan site) that I printed out and made several copies of. I gave it to Eric in hopes it would appeal to his artistic nature. I first told him about it in the car on the way to school. That might have been a mistake. Maybe I overplayed how cool it was. Anyway, he took one look at the comic book pages and announced "It's not what I expected!!" in a high pitched wail....his signature cry. I cut him off with a sharp look and that threatening under the breathe "Ericcccc" with the "c" part drawn out between clenched teeth. I don't want to deal with hysterics before my coffee has fully kicked in. Diverted by passing out worksheets to the rest of the class, when next I look up, Eric had completed the title page and cast of Characters and came over to tell me his first scene.

"It's where Science Cat teaches Whiskers how to catch lobsters without being pinched." Some day Science Cat is going to pay for my retirement...or at least that's my dream.

The "Help"

2007-08-29T23:13:00.000+10:00

My biggest problem with teaching (aside from foreign exchange students...but that is another story) is my aides. I have two 20+ year old aides - both special needs students who graduated from the school a few years ago and now come in to help in class. They have the mentality of about an 8-year old, with little or no common sense. I'm not putting them down, just stating facts. Both are very sweet girls, but they aren't really aides for me....rather more of liabilities. They do provide some very basic help for me...like taking kids to the bathroom, helping with snack and lunch issues (opening bags/bottles, etc.) - but unfortunately not able to help with cooking anything that needs to be heated up (microwaved)...at least not yet in my eyes; nor can they do photocopying for me or help me do lesson plans. Most of the time they are just another body in the room that I have to try to maneuver around in an already overcrowded room.

One girl has some physical disabilities as well, so when she sits on the floor she has a hard time getting up (as do I, but at least I have the common sense not to sit on the floor!), her back is often sore and the noise level in the classroom makes her have a headache. I'm not sure how pleasant it is for her to be there...but she does love the kids and is always asking for prayer. The trouble is, in class when I ask the class for answers to a question, she is always saying it out loud or saying "I know Mrs. Smith!" I usually just include her in the answer process rather than fight it, but it gets irritating when I'm targeting a specific child and she interrupts.

The other girl is a bit more capable and can actually help kids with paper work, but she needs to be constantly prodded to help, or she will sit in a chair, right in front of whatever area I'm trying to get to (like bookshelf, desk, white board, door, trash can....) and not move until I ask her to. It just makes my job a bit more exhausting than I had anticipated. Today they did go down into the playground and played with the kids, allowing me to clean up the class in peace. I keep telling myself that for "everything there is a purpose".

Make it Fun!

2007-08-29T23:11:00.000+10:00

We made pig puppets this afternoon and did an impromptu variation on the 3 little pigs with volunteers. We had 3 girls, so of course the 3 pigs were sisters. Eric had turned his pig puppet into some kind of Frankenstein monster Pig so instead of a big bad wolf blowing down their houses, it was "Monster Pig". The kids loved it. I, of course, narrated the story while the kids acted it out. I do find I have a knack for just making up stuff on the spot and the kids think I'm really wacky. But that's good. Les's advice, when I agreed to do this job, was "just make sure to have fun" so I act as silly as I want. I think I even crossed my eyes today....

Age Doesn't matter

2007-08-29T23:08:00.000+10:00

My primary class often gets to interact with the middle school kids and I love to see how they all get along. It honestly is like a big family. There are 5 middle schoolers - 1 6th graders, 3 7th graders, and Stephanie, my other daughter in 8th grade. There is also one 11th grader that likes to hang out in the middle school class as the high school class intimidates her. Stephanie has fit in well with the class and is already friends with the two girls in her class. She has no problem with the PACE booklets and even claims to be learning something. Last night's lunar eclipse was especially interesting for her as she had just had to do a unit on the moon in science. She did get frustrated during a math quiz (though she aced the first one) because she couldn't remember how to divide and was trying to solve the problem by guessing and multiplying. I think she finally remembered out to divide now. She was the only student to get 100% on the reading quiz - the next highest grade was less than 50%. All in all I'm proud at how she is showing my pastor (who is her teacher) that homeschooling didn't damage her. She's becoming more outgoing and has already established herself as the classroom artist/writer. She's even instigated a reading day and was excitedly picking out books to share with her classmates to try to get them interested in reading. Her book choice included: The Princess Bride; Brian Jaques: Pearls of Lutra (her favorite of the Redwall series); The Little Prince; A Terry Pratchett book that Adam recommended (can't remember the title); and Brian Jaques: The Castaways of The flying Dutchman.

The Strew Method

2007-08-29T21:59:00.000+10:00

The Strew Method:

I'm using the "strew" theory in my class right now...just "strew" all kinds of educational items in front of kids and eventually they will learn. Today at least an hour was spent with several children working together to stack all of the peg board pegs into a tall tower.(Discovery Toys) It involved cooperation, balance, and interaction amongst kids aging in range from 3-8 years of age,including one of my 21 year old aids. This was completely child instigated and was a big hit as a "game" to play. I loved watching them figure out that the person standing on the chair, trying to reach the top of the column, could only reach so high and a taller child was needed to take over.

Eric, my own child, needs constant attention. I have to find specific things to keep him occupied, or he wants to be the center of what is going on. Even if this means getting negative attention. I did find a cool comic book template on EnchantedLearning.com (My $20 membership is finally paying off!)and gave this to Eric yesterday. It occupied him the entire day, with various times for snack/play/recess/lunch etc. But basically he was engrossed and excited and made a super cool comic. I plan on scanning and putting it online soon. It will need a bit of explanation notes for non-Eric comic book connoisseurs to understand...but it is really cool. He started a new one today and we read his first one in class. It has prompted some of the older children to create their own comic too.

I also had to allow him about 15 minutes of alone time in the class during lunch, while the rest of the class played outside with the middle school kids. He really needed this "quiet time" on his own to regroup and calm himself. He can be quite boisterous and loud in class - both when he is excited about something and when he is disappointed. Which is often...sigh.