Divide and Conquer

My sons were born on opposite sides of the day. Not literally, since they both came into the world after midday, but they have operated on opposite time zones ever since. 

Danny was a nighttime baby from the beginning. He didn't want to go to bed before 11pm or midnight at all, and we tried everything. Sometimes it would take hours of walking, bouncing or rocking before he could calm his never-ending energy and sleep. And then when he slept, he slept! He was the only baby on the block that slept all night and woke up when the other babies were going down for the their first nap, usually around 10am. I LOVED that part of his schedule, BUT we were totally out-of-sync for playdates! Because he slept so well at night, we gave up his naps by the age of two- exactly the same time his brother came into the world to bookend my day.

Benjamin was up with the dawn right away. For the first 3 years of his life, his day (and mine) started at 4:30am. I am not kidding. I saw more sunrises in that time than I ever need to see. It would have been doable- because he was such a sweet little thing - except that darling son #1 was still going to bed at 11 or 12 at night. Hubby and I didn't get eight hours of sleep for years. When Ben started sleeping late - until 7:30am - it was a party at my house!

So, to make a long story short (too late, I know!), I have started to realize I need to reorganize my homeschool day. Ben will get up before anyone else and start to play with his games. I will follow, guzzling coffee and catching up on my emails and business stuff. Then we wait for Danny. And wait. And wait. He wakes up late and he wakes up slow, regardless of poking and prodding by brother, parents or dogs. (I think he's giving us previews of his teen years..) So yesterday, when analyzing where I could make our school day work better (if you don't know what I mean, see yesterday's blog..lol), I realized that since Ben needs more one-on-one anyway and Danny is loving the independent folder work in the afternoon, I'll just split them up!

If today is any indication, I'm really onto something. Before Danny woke up, Ben and I did reading, handwriting and math and he really needed the individual time with me. Once we shook Danny out of bed and he had breakfast and woke up, we all came together for geography, spelling and science. It was a zoo, which is normal and how our whole day used to be. After we split up again, Ben did cello practice and Danny settled down to his folder work with me nearby for questions and one-on-one help while Ben played. I really think this is going to work.

Yes, it took longer than usual, but they really did much better and the only time I felt a migraine coming on was when they were in class together and if that  continues, I'll just split the whole day up. Problem solved! For now....:)

A cool place to check out: Hip Homeschool Moms :)

Week 17: A bump in the road...

Tomorrow starts Week 17 in our homeschool and it isn't going as smoothly as I remember. 

Last week was our first week back after Christmas vacation. We took a nice, long break after Christmas to visit my husband's family for five days and then unwind and unpack after we returned. I had a whole month's worth of lessons ready for Monday morning and the day went fairly well...given that neither of the boys wanted to do work! We got alot finished since there was no pressure for the next day, because we were scheduled to go to the Homeschool Days classes at the Maryland Science Center all day Tuesday. 

The MSC was so much more fun this time! The first time we went in September, it was literally our second week of homeschool. I was much more tense and uptight, just trying to find my way around this thing called "homeschool". This time, I really just enjoyed being there and the classes were really enjoyable and I learned alot (and the boys did, too :)! 

Our return day on Wednesday didn't go as smoothly. Danny couldn't wake up, so we got a late start and I had to finish studies early to make sure I picked up my granddaughter from kindergarten as early as possible (since I had been at the end of the pickup line on Monday and they had given her to someone else to take home...ugh...but that's another story). So I left them with their independent work to do at 3pm and, different than before the holidays, it didn't get done.

Thursday was a loss. My granddaughter was with me all day because she had a fever, but that wasn't really the distraction I expected. Danny started to feel bad (which was also the reason I suspect he couldn't wake up Wednesday) and was too sick to go to PE at the YMCA. They completed their Unit #2 Test in Science (both with 97%, I must say), but that was really all we got done besides Ben going to PE. And I didn't feel that great anyway, so I gave up.

Needless to say, I'm a  little discouraged. I had a whole weeks' worth of nice lessons planned and only about half of it got done. This weekend, Danny and I have had the darn headcold and we both feel blech, so I'm not sure tomorrow is going to be much good either. At this point, I'm thinking of canning the actually lesson plan and just doing miscellaneous little things like Math Bingo or things out of our Mad Science kit or watch our new Schoolhouse Rock Earth video (did you know they even MADE a new one? Got it free with my Disney Reward Dollars - very cool :) just to keep them learning. I get so frustrated because we can never stay caught up with our Bible reading, regular reading, Religious Ed classes or writing assignments. I do feel like the universe is just telling me to "give up" and relax and do something different this week. I kind of have to - I don't feel up to doing anything else. 

And Ben's birthday is Wednesday. My baby is turning 9 and this is my very last year of having a child in single digits. Momentous for me, because when my "other" baby (my youngest daughter, Kelly), turned 9, I just knew that one day I would have more children, so even though it was sad, I could handle it. This will be harder. This is IT. And the grandchildren are following fast and furious behind him already (I already have three grandchildren, ages 5, 4 and 2 months)...so I need to figure out how to transition in to Nanamom,  not just Mommy. This is hard.

So, Lord, give me strength this week to be the best teachers my children need me to be. Maybe it's not what looks good on paper, but lead me to give them what THEY need this week. I guess I'll be a little more unschooled that usual. And hope that helps :)

Week 15: Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus...and when he comes I will be so happy!!!

It's Week 15 here at Varga school, and for those of you who wonder if trying to get children to homeschool during pre-Christmas week is as hard as getting them to do homework for public school - the answer is YES. Big, fat, definitely YES.

I'm having a hard enough time getting geared up for teaching this week. I'm not sure if it's because this is probably our last "Santa" Christmas at the house (having 8 and 10 year old boys, this is about time), or because I always miss Mom at Christmas, or because of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings last week or just because I'm an emotional basket case at random times anyway - but I've been miserable, horribly, painfully depressed for days now. So school has not been getting my full attention. Thank goodness I had a weekend to try to recuperate. 

So today, we started with ornament making. A little de-stress for me, a chance to catch up on the many Art projects we never got to this year and a reason to put off academics til after lunch. For whatever reason, we made awesome ornaments with clear plastic balls and acrylic paint and it worked for everyone. This afternoon I only attempted to do our daily spelling, math worksheets and weekly household chores  - and if it fails, I don't have the heart to be wicked, so ....as my kids say...WHATEVER!! 

Take it easy, don't stress it, enjoy your kids every minute of every day and Happy Holidays, everyone!!

Little things are the biggest breakthroughs...

Homeschool days are long, but they are full of important moments. I don't remember what I did during the day when  my boys were in public school, but I do know it was easier on my nerves and completely unfulfilling compared to what I am doing now.

Today was destined to be a good day anyway, given the fact that I woke up without a headache. A first this week, so things were already looking up by the time I got my first cup of coffee. My shower happened before school started, so that meant I was already ahead by two things before I even started teaching. Got started only 15 minutes later than usual - good again. But nothing compared to what happened when we got to our writing lesson today.

I need to explain first that we are 5 weeks or so behind in our writing curriculum. I did some of this on purpose, because last year was such a fiasco with both our boy in writing, both in writing mechanics and process. I consciously "unschooled" them on writing when we started homeschool because I wanted to "start over" and undo some of the damage that had already happened. Danny need to relearn how to make his letters and numbers correctly in print before we moved forward at all. So the first month, we only did Handwriting without Tears. Benjamin also, as well as the fact that he held his pencil very awkwardly with all his fingertips. Last year at school they had started having him use a pencil grip, but that hadn't done much. So I worked for his first month just having him hold the pencil correctly and make his letters correctly with HWT.

Fast forward to week 13 of school this year. Danny's handwriting is amazingly better and he has a wonderful easy grip. His writing is legible for every assignment and he writes his letters correctly  - most of the time. Note to self: Need to remember to have him work on numbers now... :) Benjamin is holding his pencil correctly for the first time - EVER - without a pencil grip. His handwriting is still a work in progress because he's RElearning how to write, but it is really very good. I need to do more HWT on him for letter formation, but I'll go through some of that on our "off" days.

So, needless to say, actually "writing" was put aside until I could get the mechanics down. The last few weeks, I started to bring basic mechanics in, like noun/verb/adverb/adjective usage. (This always works because it gives us another chance to watch Schoolhouse Rock! lol) Everything went pretty smoothly and Danny even said "this is writing? it's easy!"...so I bit the bullet and pulled out some "real" writing. It worked out well when our LA writing assignment  was about Jamestown - and we are working on our Jamestown field trip scrapbook! We worked on some who/what/when/where questions and Danny gave some good, solid answers - but only in partial sentences. So last night I Googled for "rephrasing the question" and found TTQA - Turn The Question Around. Probably a very old teacher tool, but it was perfect for me and I created a personal worksheet for the boys for them to practice the concept. Once we did a few, I actually saw the the light dawn in Danny's eyes! He totally "got" the concept - and then he worked on his Jamestown piece. He took all his partial answers, created full sentences with the TTQA concept and finished a beautiful paragraph. When I showed him how good he did and he realized it WAS good, he started talking about how he can go back to school one day because he "can do the work like everyone else" because he misses his friends - especially Bryan. I was just flabbergasted! He hadn't mentioned going back to public school ONCE - and I now I realize it was because he KNEW he couldn't do the work. Just giving him the hope that he CAN do what the other kids can do and that he could join his friends again brought all that cheerful school attitude back that he had lost over the last two sad years. It was amazing!! So now we'll see if we can bring him up to speed and what grade he might "re-integrate"...what a change!

And what about Ben? He swears he'll "never go back to public school"...and he does have alot of anxiety issues that we'll need to work on. Plus, I realized he has a reading retention problem that was hidden because he was so quiet and shy. He's sure not quiet and shy at homeschool!! I'm sure we have years with him to see what develops - who knows?

Every day is a surprise - good and bad - at homeschool! :)

Week 13: The beginning of the end (school year, that is...)

Last week completed Week 12 and today we officially enter into the 2nd third of our homeschool year - HURRAY! It is a weird feeling...we're no longer beginners...however we are still so far from the end of our first year. And yet, I have started thinking about how we will end this first year. 

Since my oldest child started kindergarten 22 years ago, the last day of school has been IT for my kids. A children's holy day, in so many ways. When I was a working mom, it was a bittersweet day for me, because it meant that we had survived yet another year of the public school rat race, but it meant another summer of "free days" that I would miss with my children- again.

This year, the "end of school" will be a first-which is rare at my age, unless you count new age spots or new creaking joint pain. :) I have so many questions. 

• When do we finish - when we are done our last subject assignment? This is difficult, because in some subjects we are "on target" for finishing in 36 weeks, but other subjects were started later and won't be "finished" by then. 
• On a certain "day", because I can always stop when I feel we are are mostly "done"? 
• Do we stop when it is good for our family and celebrate alone or have our last day with the public school children? This one is hard, because we already feel so separate from the public school schedule that it doesn't really affect us at all....but we're not completely separated from that entity that used to be "us". It helps that last year's "last day" was so completely and hideously painful for me that I almost RAN to get away...this year will be completely different!

Then it hits me - we'll be moving onto a second year before I know it. What will we keep? What will we change? It seems to be constantly changing, but refining greatly over time. I just developed a health and art curriculum that we can follow through the rest of the school year. It took this long to figure out how to do that! The downside of using a "canned" curriculum when I started - I only had to create curriculum for the subjects not covered by Sonlight...and I had no clue how to do that! Thank GOD for the internet! lol

So, here we are in Week 13 and I had more questions than when we started. I guess that's good, since that means we are learning what is right for us....right? One thing I do know...these questions are ones that *I* am asking and that *I* can find the answers to, not someone else. Yee-haw!!!

Week 12: Homeschool is like Kauai - with noise...

How in the world could the world of homeschooling be like a tropical paradise vacation? It's not anything like I expected at first and the longer you are there, the more things you find to do!

This week we are in Week 12 of most lessons although I think technically we should be somewhere near Week 13, but only being a week behind in our core work makes me happy :) We are behind in Science because I switched curriculums (which I am SO happy I did and the happy little experiment on our kitchen counter is a good thing) and Writing because I consciously went at that very slowly to "unschool" them from things that were disasters at the end of last year. Danny still doesn't "like" to write, but since we have been doing Handwriting without Tears printing with both of them, both of their writing is MUCH more legible than the beginning of the year and Ben holds his pencil correctly SOME of the time now :) 

We have taken care of PE and Music with outside classes at the YMCA, church and the music store for cello lessons, but sadly, I haven't tackled Health yet. The last frontier. Not that it's hard, just that formal lessons weren't included with my curriculum and I have to piece this one together myself. Doing good and ready to start our first unit next week and then all the pieces will be in place.

Whew! It's alot of work, but truly I have to say how much I enjoy putting the lessons together and working with the boys - once they are on track. Most days we have some version of the "Abbott & Costello" show in our homeschool room, though. It's funny the first 5 minutes...then, you know what I mean. I have never yelled so much in my life as I have with these two boys. And it's not usually in anger! It's more like a referee - to get their attention! I know I'm ruining my voice, but until Santa brings me a referee's whistle for Christmas (wink, wink Honey....:) I've got no choice.

This weekend is our first big Homeschool Family LongDistance Field Trip with our second visit to Jamestown/Powhatan Village/Yorktown - and I'm very excited! Even though it comes at a busy time after Thanksgiving and my granddaughter Freya's birth last Friday, it comes at the tail end of our early colonial History unit and the boys will be able to see again the places we've been reading about for months - and now they have a context to see them in because Pocahantas, Captain John Smith and all the others are now "real" to them from the stories in the Sonlight collection. Really, really pleased with how Sonlight works good children's literature into their core study program. Aside from the History text we occasionally visit, all of our real learning about culture, vocabulary and geography come from the books and the boys get it without even knowing they are "learning"...:)

Well, lunch is over so back to finish our experiment and work on afternoon classes. Ciao!

P.S. By the way, have I said recently how LOUD BOYS ARE?!?! Argh...I'm hiding in my bedroom with the door shut and the TV playing classical musical and I can STILL here their conversation over lunch downstairs. *sigh*

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Week 9: Hurricane Sandy and Halloween....

...seriously, does this school week even count?! LOL...With all the panic about Hurricane Sandy this week, I didn't even bother to "school" on Monday and Tuesday. Although Danny DID buy a weather station at the Maryland Science Center at the Members' Halloween event, and he put it out both days. When he brought it in, we read it, talked about hurricanes and I followed that up with a great video about causes of tropical storms, cyclones and hurricanes on www.brainpop.com, so yes, it DOES count for science :)

Today was ALL about Halloween...we didn't even have time to  miss our traditional public school Halloween Parade, which I thought we would. It really helped when I found out their "old" school didn't have one as well with the rain being so soggy and all. So we spent all day making pumpkin shaped sugar cookies and decorating them with icing and sprinkles while we watched ALL the episodes of Schoolhouse Rock. That DEFINITELY counts...I can't remember a word of the Preamble to Constitution without singing it! :)

And we spent the rest of the afternoon - right up until the first doorbell rang - finishing up making foamboard swords and pickaxes to go with their Minecraft costumes. They really rock, if I do say so myself! Thank you SO much to the wiz who created the files on the internet so all I had to do was print them, glue them and cut them out. So VERY cool!

So, tomorrow we are already on Thursday and it will definitely feel like Monday in our homeschool doing "real" work. I know we "could" have done our schoolwork while the storm raged, but I've been busy as all getout for the last FOUR weekends, so I decided to call some "hurricane days" so I could get caught up on laundry, pulling out winter clothes and packing away giveways, Avon orders  and Cub Scout popcorn orders. Got a lot done! Now, to move onto Avon management duties and paying bills. Fun.

Only 9 days til my long-awaited (17 months) weekend away with my darling hubby. Not one night without the kiddiewinks in all that time and now that they are with me 24X7 with homeschool, I will appreciate every minute away even more! See ya next week when we get to double digit weeks!