Smarter Than A Ninth Grader Part 2

Some of you have expressed an interest in my homeschooling progress, and by "some of you" I mean "one of you." (Shout out to my new favorite lurker, Amanda, who did not leave her email address or else I would have sent a happy little note thanking her for her kind comment.  Although I must say Amanda is quite right to be cautious about giving out her email address willy-nilly.  There are a lot of kooks around here out there!)

So without further ado, I will tell you what I have accomplished thus far in my homeschooling venture.  I will also tell you in list form because that makes me feel organized.

1.  First, I researched the homeschool laws in my state.  They're pretty flexible as far as required courses, number of credits, etc.  There is some standardized testing that will have to be done but that's no biggie.  Basically, all I have to do right now is turn in the proper forms (which were helpfully emailed to me by my bestie, Amber) by August 15th.  Then we're official.

2.  I went to the local school district website and downloaded their graduation policy for an advanced diploma.  We'll follow pretty closely so that IF we want to return to public school we'll be on track but we won't be using any of their curriculum.  I also downloaded their course catalog so I can make sure that our classes cover the same basic material as theirs does just in case.

3.  I found a GREAT website with every kind of printable form you could ever want to use for homeschooling and all kinds of great resources.  I even found a schedule for our science curriculum that someone else had prepared and posted.

4.  I prepared a course of study using the info I gathered in #2 to be sure that we'd end up with the right courses and number of credits.

5.  Then I wrote a four year plan which divided up the required courses into the proper sequence and year.

6.  Now the fun part--shopping for curriculum!  Here's a list of what we'll be studying this year (and I do mean we as I'm going to have to re-learn this stuff too!)

• English 1 - Introduction to Literature by Smarr Publishers .  I'll also add some grammar and spelling.
• Geometry - Geometry: Seeing, Doing, Understanding by Harold R. Jacobs.
• Biology - Exploring Creation Through Biology by Wile and Durnell (Apologia). This is one place I'm deviating from the public school plan which calls for Physcial Science.  Since Hayley wants to go to med school eventually we're jumping right into Biology so that we can end up with Anatomy her senior year.
• Civics - The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen (National Center for Constitutional Studies) I am SO excited about this one! I'll also supplement with some of the original sources written by the founders and also some of the works that they studied. Next semester we'll do Economics.  Another of my FAVES!
• Spanish 1- Spanish 1 LifePac by Alpha Omega
• Computer Applictions 1 - I'm going to wing it on this one.  I'll use my noggin and resources found online.  Basically it's just word processing, internet searching skills (what skill, just Google!), citing Internet sources, Powerpoint and simple spreadsheets (Be still, my heart!)
• Health - Total Health: Choices For A Winning Lifestyle by Susan Boe.  Next semester we'll do a PE credit.  Boo!

So that's it in a nutshell.  Now my task is to plan a schedule for the year and make lesson plans. We're right on track to begin mid-August.  Yippee!

Smarter Than a Ninth Grader

I have ordered all of Hayley's homeschooling curriculum for this fall. 

I couldn't wait to crack open the new books.  I LOVE me some new books.  The smell of fresh ink, the crisp new paper, the crack of the spine when it's opened for the first time.  Sigh.

I was in the midst of new-book-sensory-overload and I happened to look, really look at the actual content. 

YIKES!

I know I took Geometry but, HELLO, IT DOES NOT LOOK AT ALL FAMILIAR.

Neither does the Biology.  Or the Literature.  And do not get me started on Spanish.  I didn't even take Spanish.  I took French in high school.  WHHHHYYYY???  French is not at all useful.  But I remember I felt very sophisticated.  That and five dollars will buy me a Starbucks coffee.

So...panic is beginning to settle in.  But so is excitement.

Why am I homeschooling?  I'm so glad you asked!

Although there were many considerations that went into this decision, I think it really boiled down to this:

TIME.

I woke up one day and felt like I'd been punched in the gut with the realization that Hayley is 14 and I only have FOUR MORE YEARS to influence her life decisions.  I thought of all the things I want to be sure she knows before she enters the shocking reality of the world.  And I realized that public school has made me lazy.  I've been passive, even content, to let strangers prepare my child for life.  Please, if you are happy with public school, please don't take this as a condemnation of your choice.  Just because it's right for us doesn't mean it's right for your family.  I just realize that I need to be very intentional about preparing Hayley for life and I know myself too well.  I won't make the effort unless I don't give myself a choice.

I also realized that seven hours a day at school plus all the extra-curricular stuff that goes with it doesn't leave much time for anything else...much less quality time sharing life lessons. 

So this next year will be about TIME.  Time for learning and laughing.  Time for living.  Because life is just too ding dang short.

Stay tuned this fall and find out if I'm smarter than my ninth grader.

Start Where You Are

I'm going to just jump right back in to this here blog like I've never been gone.

 My wise friend, Krista, once advised me when I was overwhelmed at how behind I was in scrapbooking that I just have to dive in and start where I am and keep it going forward.  I can always go back and catch up the other stuff as time allows.  I have spent hours to day trying to organize all the pictures on my laptop.  I am not nearly done.  And once I 'm done, I still have to blog about them.   So in the words of my wise friend I will start now.  I may get the heebie jeebies from working out of chronological order.  If you find me curled up in the corner slowly rocking back and forth and muttering Dates! Dates! The dates are wrong! please ignore me.
   
This product is NOT the be all to end all adhesive.  You may recall I tried to hang my window treatments with velcro.  Over time, the treatments keep shedding section by section until the entire thing is in the floor.  And they stayed that way for months.  And then along came UGlu.  It promised it would change my life. I believed you, UGlu.

Somewhere Billy Mays is rolling over in his grave.

He would have never pitched this UGlu product.

They looked lovely when I first put them up.  I even UGlued my super-size wooden spoon and fork over the main window.  It was FAB and of course, I failed to take a picture.  The next morning...half of one window was dangling down.  Stuck it bank up and gave it a stern talking to.  Later in the day Wes saw it dangling and stuck it back up firmly.  Then by that evening I found most of the window treatments just hanging by a thread.  And the supe-size fork...had met a bitter end in 1,000 pieces on my kitchen floor.

So, don't believe everything you see on TV even if it is Billy Mays' friend Andrew Sullivan that wants you  to buy it.  Run away.  Run fast.

BlogPress: Liar, Liar Pants on Fire

Hi there.

Apparently I've been on an unplanned bloggy hiatus.

Although, I haven't been gone as long as it appears I have. 

We're down to one laptop in our house right now and with four users that means a lot waiting my turn.  Also, you may remember that my previous laptop died and although I have a new one the restoration of my backup files is taking a SWEET FOREVER.  (That's a bone I have to pick with Hughesnet.  But that's a story for another day.)  So a couple of weeks ago I decided that if I was going to update my blog so you people would know I hadn't dropped off the face of the earth I was going to have to use the BlogPress app on my iPhone.

Y'all, I wrote the wittiest, most clever post EVAH about Wes and cantelopes.  And super-secret spy codes(Are you intrigued?!) And BlogPress told me it published it.

IT LIED.

It did not publish said clever post.  Nor did it even save said clever post as a draft.

It's as though I never wrote it.

I suppose my GREATEST POST EVAH is floating around cyberspace somewhere.  How does that work? 

Is it like when the dryer eats socks? 

Is there a giant, ethereal cyber-world out there filled with orphaned blog posts and emails that never arrive?

It's a mystery that may never be solved.