Year 2: Week 18 - My Time4Learning Review

Halfway through our homeschool year and today I am so thankful we are homeschooling in the technological age of today. Thank God for internet homeschool sites!

Today, I just want to say how grateful I am for the Time4Learning homeschool website. We have been using this for the current school year since September as a supplement to our current curriculum, especially on days when I am sick or having a "down" day from my chronic illness. It has been wonderful to have a fallback when I am not able to sit and teach daily lessons!

We started back to school this year after the Christmas holidays two weeks ago and it has been excruciating, to say the least. Last week, I actually had a serious talk with both my husband and my oldest son about possibly returning to public school, because he was becoming so difficult to deal with and is having problems beyond my scope in both writing and math. We made the decision to do our best this year and if things improve, to have our 6th grader finish middle school at home and go back to public school in 9th grade for high school. 

Fast forward to this week and I decided to make this a Time4Learning week to take the pressure off us all, both teachers and students. Aside from daily reading with them and outside subjects, I assigned both boys daily lessons in Language Arts, Language Arts extension, Science, and Social Studies. Since our older son is struggling so much with his current curriculum in math, I had him do his Math lessons on Time4Learning as well this week while keeping our younger son doing his regular math lessons. I let them know that they were responsible for 5 lessons in each to do as they wanted, with at least one per subject per day. If they wanted to finish their full weeks' work in one day, they were more than welcome to do that and they'd have my blessing!

Although with T4L I have the option to pick each days' individual lessons from the grade level lesson plans, this week I opted to simply let them go into their grade level and do the next designated lesson. T4L gives each student a screen which has icons into each subject and an arrow that points them to the next unfinished lesson in their grade curriculum. It is easy to follow and the boys are always able to find all their lessons without any help from me. The math and language lessons are accompanied by cute verbal instruction and walk the boys' through each step. If they don't understand, the program always gives them an opportunity to hear another explanation. The social studies and science programs are mostly read-only lessons with plenty of illustrations and pictures. My oldest son does well with these read-only lessons, but my younger son does find it to be too demanding, so he uses a free downloadable program on his laptop called Free NaturalReader to translate the pages and play them verbally. With this adaption, he does very well with them as well and the material is understandable but complete.

The Time4Learning student home page

One feature in particular that I love is the ability to change grade levels at any time in any subject for each student individually. A few times over the course of the year I have needed to do that for science and social studies for each boy as I realized they were either behind or ahead of their grade level and the change was completed in less than a school day. Also, any questions I have submitted to their support team was answered and resolved in less than 24 hours as well. I was very impressed with this response time!

Long story short, it works well for us...at least in the short term for now. (In fact, my younger son completed a large part of his weekly work in one day so he could get a jump ahead on his work. I've always know he is very motivated to do advanced work and this is a wonderful way for him to play with that option himself!) We don't plan to use this every day for every subject, but I am always relieved to know that if I have a long term relapse in my illness that my boys can keep moving along on their schoolwork with a full-service, full and robust program until I recover. Thank you, Time4Learning!

I've been invited to review Time4Learning in exchange for one month of use. My opinion is entirely my own. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

Year 2: Winter Break review

I haven't been blogging very much recently about our homeschool...I know. I was very happy when Christmas break rolled around and we could just "turn off" the school and "turn on" our regular old homelife, sans schoolwork.

Not that we didn't accomplish much in December. I wasn't really "with it" this year like last year's holiday (note the lack of Advent wreath project this year *sigh*), but we did manage to put some meaningful holiday lessons and fun into our homeschool Christmas 2013:

1) While I didn't have the boys create an Advent project,  we did do - or tried to do - a little thing everyday that I named our "Advent-ure". In a nice holiday basket, I collected enough envelopes for the Advent school days, labelled them with the number of the day and inside put an activity we could do after all our schoolwork was done. One day it was cutting out paper snowflakes (this was a dud with the boys, but a hit with Shayla) and talked about how we were all unique creations of God. Another day we made hot chocolate and played Christmas Bingo - big hit with the boys! Some days by the end of the day they didn't want to have anything to do with me and other days it kept them motivated to finish, but at least we recognized the season in our school.

2) As part of the boys' music studies, they participated in our church's junior choir through the end of 2013. They practiced at church every Wednesday night and sang at Saturday evening Mass once a month. For Christmas, they sang again for the Children's Mass on Christmas Eve afternoon. They weren't "feeling the love" for singing by then, but did a great job and Ben even carried the lantern up to light Baby Jesus in our altar nativity scene. 

Danny wasn't really asleep - Mom's just not good with her new camera phone yet :)

3)  Our new band, Encore Academy, out of Westminster, is truly a Godsend. The boys actually found a music class they really enjoyed, practiced every school day and that - ahem - Mom loves! Our Holiday concert on December 16th went really well considering that is was my and Ben's first instrument concert ever and neither of us passed out or threw up. :) Our family afterward:

4) Our art this month was sparse, but we managed to get to The Pottery Stop in Ellicott City for the first time so the boys could make Christmas gifts for their godmothers. The projects turned out so good that they begged to go back and make something to keep, so that will definitely happen in January before we begin our Abrakadoodle classes at the Columbia Hobby Lobby....

5) We were able to squeeze in a visit to the B&O railroad museum (again :) because I didn't want to miss the Christmas train exhibits. Also, since they have been celebrating the Civil War 150th Anniversary with The War Came by Train exhibit, and we just finished our Civil War unit, I thought they might tie the two together. No such luck, but we did get to see all their new exhibits (Thomas was still there :) and the main exhibit made entirely of Legos with camera-mounted cameras displayed on a TV screen. So definitely a local win!

     So, it was a fun and productive December, even if the actual grunt work of schooling dwindled down to a trickle of holiday worksheets in math and grammar by the last week. We've all spent the last two weeks letting our brains rest and I think it actually worked. I've redone my weekly school schedule to something I think will be more usable to me. Also, I got the Grammar Ace grammar curriculum because I needed something better suited for the boys and I think this might be it - I hope so! 
     My biggest challenge starting into 2014 is Danny's math issues and Ben's reading dread. However, one of those may be on it's way out. Since we weren't doing schooling over the break, I starting reading Ben one of his favorite character books at bedtime (not educational, but not a graphic novel and something he LOVES) and he FINALLY started getting excited about them and not letting me stop each night. This was a surprise, because believe me, I tried before with this same book all fall semester and he was determined NOT to like it. And - miracle of miracles! - when I was sick in bed last night and couldn't tuck him in, he came RUNNING into my room with the next book in his series to read! Since I was feeling so bad, it was good excuse for me to ask him to read to ME - and it went wonderfully. He is really starting to read with expression and comprehension and we both giggled our way through the whole chapter. I told him how good he made me feel when he read to me, so I'm gonna work this angle as long as I can. :)
     I still have to hope and pray for a miracle with Danny's math, but seeing Ben's progress, I have hope now. Happy New Year 2014!

Year 2/Week 14: When Hot is Not

My son was hot today and that's what it finally took to shake me awake today.

The last two weeks have been very difficult – both for me and the boys. Although I thought our weeklong break at Thanksgiving would have given us enough of a break for us to start our third 6-week schedule, we have barely finished a week's worth of work after eight school days. Of course, it didn't help that we had two snow days this week (I know, I know, a homeschooler doesn't really HAVE snow days, but..oh, well, we needed them :), but those actually helped.

Our most serious school work dysfunction started the week before Thanksgiving and I figured it was excitement over the holiday. We took Thanksgiving week off and entertained, visited and traveled to see family in a fun week. We returned from our last family visit from out of state late Sunday night on December 1st...and all forward progress stopped at that point, I'm afraid. Because I hadn't taken time to really figure out our lesson plan for the last month of the year, we didn't have a real game plan and I'm afraid it showed. It really set me up for a rough time, but no matter what I did, I couldn't figure out what to do next. I felt panicked and paralyzed and had no idea why. I was increasely aware that we were falling behind in art, religion and health.

We limped along for the week, doing our daily spelling, reading, basic science and history and some math. Danny is thoroughly stuck on his triple digit multiplication, so I spent extra time just walking him through all his exercises and abbreviating all his work and quizzes, but it is still trying on his spirit. He “got” some parts a little on Wednesday when I tried a new review approach and we had a brief celebration, but he still couldn't complete the unit quiz that followed, so I started foundering at that point. Then Wednesday afternoon our PE teacher at the Y was a no-show due to a scheduling snafu, so the boys lost some decompression time, which didn't help either.

Thursday was interesting at band practice. Our lovely Encore Academy instructor is extraordinarily patient and funny with the kids but after Danny's 5^th or 6^th question about when the class would finally end, she jokingly said that the band wasn't finished but if he was done, he could pack up and leave. Which he immediately did. She was totally gobsmacked and couldn't believe he did it (she had no idea he was on the autism spectrum and takes everything literally)! But Danny did what was perfectly logical and what she offered, so I understood what had happened. After class, I explained it to him and what to do next time (when he needs a break, just asked to be excused to the restroom until he is ready to rejoin us) and explained it to Mindy in an email later. Nothing major, but I felt like a stress sandwich that was getting more and more layers and it was getting more than I could handle.

This past weekend gave me my first breathing room in weeks and Monday and Tuesday were our first official “snow days”, which was a true blessing. We used the weekend to finish putting up the tree and getting some work done on the front yard so we can eventually put up Christmas lights outside...maybe. After a week of being home, I FINALLY got the suitcases unpacked and caught up on MOST of the laundry (this just reminded that I need to get Ben's clothes in the wash if I want him to have ANY clean pants tomorrow...) and the dishes done. Sort of. By Monday we had some semblance of order again and I thanked God all day Monday for this excuse to put school aside for another day and pray for inspiration – along with running errands and going for a huge grocery store run.

Tuesday gave us a second snow “storm” and a true snow day. This was the first time I actually felt like I could breathe. My brain had sorted out a little but the anxiety/panic of not knowing what to do for school was still bubbling under the surface. It's not that I don't have the curriculum – I do! It's more – something about missing something, not doing enough, not teaching the boys what they will really need. When Danny gets totally log-jammed in his brain (usually about math), I go into this panic mode because I know the school system definitely didn't help him when that happened and if I can't, then where do I go and what do I do?! I don't trust counselors or psychologists anymore (this is a long story involving another child and trust me – you wouldn't go back either), so unless I schlep him up to Kennedy Krieger every time I need help, I'm on my own here. Sometimes the weight of the responsibility for all four of my wonderful, unique and amazing children is too much to bear. Not that I don't want to...I sometimes don't believe I am able.

But God always finds a way. You know the old saying that if you are really strong you bend, not break? Well, I am blessed that God always seems to show me a way to bend when I think I will finally break.

Today, we had an “okay” day at school. Danny was still struggling to concentrate at all and Benjamin was being a goofball at a record rate. Both of them kept our progress all morning to a snail's pace and although I tried to be goodnatured about it for the first hour or so, by the second hour I had really lost patience. We did manage to finish our daily spelling, a Nativity bible lesson from the gospels along with a worksheet, the second chapter of Caddie Woodlawn (Yea! Finally a book I know and loved as a child!) and a really good instrument practice. We trotted over to the YMCA for our PE class and got there on time. Check. I took my brief break to run our Angel Tree gifts over to the church and got that checked off my list, along with connecting with my Avon customers from church. Check. When I got back, I was ready to pick up the boys and finish the 3 or 4 final subjects for the day before I picked up my granddaughter after school, made dinner and took the boys to church choir.

And then I bent. Danny came out of the PE gym with his winter coat on over his sweating body. He had the hood up and almost covering his face and I knew something had changed. He had said numerous times all day that he was just having a terrible day. I knew that it mostly stemmed from the internet being out and he couldn't listen to his favorite songs streamed on his tablet, but I didn't realize it had gotten so bad. I just had to stop trying to push all of us forward with our schedule and stop to listen to his pain. Only part of his face was peaking out and he either had sweat or tears on his cheeks when I asked him why he wanted to be hot. He said that “it was the only thing that makes me feel better because the day was so bad”. I'm not exactly sure what words he used, but I knew that what his heart was trying to tell me was that he wanted to make his outside – his body – feel as bad as his inside – his spirit – felt. And that was it for me. All the anger flew out of me and all the love and care came racing in.

From that point on, I threw out the schedule and started ministering to my children's hearts again. And immediately my panic and anxiety totally lifted. We went to our favorite snack shop and we picked out our favorite food, which I usually ration out. But not today. I was blessed again when my granddaughter's other grandmother spontaneously offered to pick her up from school and that was off my plate. Then we went home and watched a BBC video (since the internet still isn't working – wah wah wah) and relaxed. I cancelled the rest of our classes and also decided to take church choir off our schedule for the night, too. I know we will fall behind on our schedule this session. I know I may need to drop back and punt next year, but right now I don't care. I started homeschool to take care of my sons' needs, education AND hearts and that's what I need to do. And by nurturing them, I nurture me, I nurture US.

I get it now. I'm learning. That must be what homeschool is all about....:)

The best part of our homeschool work this week :)

Week 11/Yr 2: Schooling your children is like marriage

Choosing the way you school your children is a lot like choosing your partner in life. You look around at all your options, you learn as much as you can about the good - and the bad - of your partner...and even knowing ALL of it, you still decide they are for you.

Our choice of schooling has been like that. At first, we were public-schoolers like we grew up, as were our older daughters. There really wasn't even another choice for us. We didn't any more information - and didn't think we needed any more.

Then our boys' experience in our "blue ribbon" public school turned from one of education to frustration then demoralization. Thank God there were options available for us, that we found them and that our household situation allowed us to use them. Since this is Thanksgiving and the month for thanks, I'll just let you know that I already have that foremost in my heart each day. 

That being said...schooling is like being married. And some days it just sucks. Just awful, royal, total suckage like nothing else. You hate your life, hate your choices, feel overwhelmed and under-rewarded and nothing helps. Well, sometimes a drink. Or a hot bubble bath. Or a good book. Or a Xanax. Or all of the above. 

But sometimes nothing does. 

Then you wake up the next morning and see your life anew, as we do each day. And just like looking at the sleeping face of your spouse the morning after a bad day reminds you how lucky you are to have him/her in your life, seeing homeschooling the day after a bad day reminds you how very lucky you are to have this option.

To see your sons finish a book report...an unthinkable task just last year.

To see your children practice instruments every day - for FUN - that they never touched until this year.

To see handwriting blossom and math concepts improve - or not. And to know that because they are with their mom for school, they will not be overlooked or hurried or belittled because they can't do it ...yet.

To see them master each challenge that they have in their lives..however slowly it may be.

To explore new concepts with your children and learn together. And when you look up at the moon on the way to choir rehearsal (which they don't really want to do anymore but miraculously don't complain about) and ask them what phase of the moon it is, they both say "Gibbous!". And when I ask them if it's waning or waxing, they KNOW! It still amazes me that they are actually LEARNING. From me. With me. 

And, once again, I love our schooling choice.

Week 10/Yr 2: Lost in Translation...

I lost two weeks. To be perfectly honest, I was here, but our homeschool almost wasn't.

Week 7 was a planned week off for "teacher planning". With Furlough Dad in charge and lots of field trip ideas, the boys had an enriching "unschool" week and everyone was fine with that.

Week 8 was a total Sick Out. I was just miserable with a sinus/headcold/fever thing that made life miserable day and night. School was back "In", but I wasn't. I leaned heavily on Time4Learning.com and Brainpop and hot cider and prayed to feel better before we lost too  much ground.

Week 9 was Halloween Week. If you have any child, this is a wasted week at any school with the adrenaline rush and candy-anticipation at full maximum. If you have a child on the autism spectrum...you have this multiplied by ...oh...a zillion? We had a very productive Monday and Tuesday with starting our Lincoln biography, another chapter in Science (one of the few subjects where we are right on schedule),  Time4Learning and Halloween worksheets for math and language arts. However, our week deteriorated rapidly on Wednesday right after YMCA PE class...in direct correlation to the panic my oldest son started to have about not having a costume as "perfect" as the picture in his mind. So - school stopped and became "art class" until Halloween on Thursday night when the curtain rose on the wonderful costume for about an hour...until the rain started. Happily, my Big Guy was perfectly happy to stop short of a huge bag of candy in exchange for keeping his "awesome costume" (his term) intact, so in the end, it landed in the Win column of Halloweens. And Friday was post-adrenaline crash. Until mid-afternoon. This was when I realized we had family coming to stay for a weekend visit in SIX HOURS and the house was in shambles, so it became Crisis Cleaning Day. I guess I can count that as a Life Lessons class, but I was too tired to bother.

So - Week 10 started today and after a wonderful weekend with my sister-in-law here, I'm totally wiped out. Introvert Classic that I am, spending that much time entertaining ANYONE totally drains my battery, so today was just putting one foot in front of the other during school time. The boys did manage to finish all their work and we covered all our subjects, so in one way it was a success. But after weeks of sickness, holiday crazies and running around, I just don't have an ounce of energy to give to school. And I wonder how long I can do this. How many more years can I do this? Even for a healthy younger mom, this would be a challenge and it is days like this that I'm not sure I can do it.

But I do. I'll give myself until next summer to decide about next year. And I'll do that each year until I can't anymore. Because even this morning, I woke up from another nightmare about one of my boys being somewhere where I couldn't see them or get to them or help them...the way I felt when my boys were drowning in their old school and all my efforts didn't work. So, until I feel safe I can't let them go...even if it is harder than I ever thought it would be. 

I may be lost, but at least I know I'm not traveling in the wrong direction...:)

Week 8/Yr 2: Homeschooling is panic alternating with peace

Every so often, I start the "Homeschooling Mom Panic" phase. This usually happens when I'm lesson planning, like I did during my teacher "break" last week. I look at all the curriculum I am using, try to figure out how to get all the necessary content done by the end of the school year PLUS mix in all the field trips and extras that make homeschooling fun. Finally, I try to make sure we are covering all the materials that are included in "common core" so they will be able to transition back into public school when - or if - it becomes time.

I get performance anxiety because I feel so underqualified. Then, I get hit by another health problem - this time a terrible head cold - and I'm not able to "teach". And panic sets in. How can I teach my children when I can't even open my eyes for more than 10 minutes or read a book to them? And since I have chronic health conditions, I know this will happen regularly for the rest of my life - and the rest of their schooling.

I do have a small place of calm deep inside because I know things would be harder if they were in public school. I could NEVER get them dressed and ready for school on time in my condition AND I could never handle the absurd homework/project/extracurricular work they would bring home either. So - I know this is better and I move to thinking how I can do it.

Most importantly, I know my boys know how to do their work independently by now. I didn't have the energy to stock the workboxes, so I started with the basic Three R's on the white board, then I added instrument practice, glider exercise time and ended with a great Science Inventions kit I had stored for a rainy day. 

For Math, they do their regular Teaching Textbooks on CD, which they love. Boom, one R is done. 

For Language Arts, I am REALLY starting to love the Time 4 Learning website program for Language Arts. They do lessons in Language Arts (today was synonyms for Ben and pronoun nominatives for Danny) and Language Arts Extension (reading comprehension) with great videos and they seem very comprehensive. For the long reading comprehension paragraphs, I even found a wonderful FREE download for web and document audio reading called Natural Reader which will translate any text into audio so Ben can hear the paragraphs while he reads along, since he isn't 100% proficient on reading comprension yet. Second R down.

For reading, Mom can't read today, so we won't be beginning our new Newbery Honor book about a boy during the Civil War called Across Five Aprils, but we have time to start that tomorrow. I checked to see if there was an audio version at the library, but no luck :( However, the boys need to finish their self-reader, By The Great Horn Spoon, about a boy and his butler (!) during the Gold Rush, so they'll be reading to each other today while I listen. Last R completed and we could stop here and I'd still feel good, because the Reading portion also fulfills our History and Geography lessons as well (thank you, Sonlight!).

But...I did add instrument practice and glider exercise time, because we need to get used to doing those daily. And for future reference, please remind me NOT to practice my flute with the boys when I have a head cold!! Ouch in the ears...seriously...

Well, gotta go get another hot drink of something for the throat and a little something to eat, but I just wanted to stop by and note briefly that even sick in bed, homeschooling rocks. *sniff* *sniff* *gurgle* :)

Week 7/Yr 2: Blink And You'll Miss It...

How can it possibly by Week 7 already?!? Where has the year gone? Really?! I do think it is a good thing that I haven't felt the need to stop and document every week of our second year, because it means I have  more of a "feel" for things this year and it's becoming more organic for me to do. 

Even though this is technically Week 7 of our second year, it is really a "planning week" for Mom (me). Daddy was out of work during the government shutdown for 16 days, so this week, he wrangled the boys to field trips while I did alot of lesson planning. Actually, we also did do some "catch-up" things like completing assembly of our solar system mobile, finishing a Sonlight novel called "The Candymaker" that we started over the summer and were reading for fun, finishing a Math quiz and having Homeschool Band with Encore Academy today. This band is great - after watching the boys the first week (and seeing another mom learning the flute), I decided to join the fun and re-start learning the flute again after quitting in the fourth grade - and we are all having a blast!

I can't figure out why it takes almost a week to plan every six week cycle, but it does! I think this is the only way that public school teachers have it easier than homeschool moms...they usually have to figure out lessons plans for one age of child each year. And many years, they repeat the lessons from the previous year! Each year, I have to advance each child a grade AND create a new lesson plan for both of them. Yes, some of the materials for my older son I can repeat for my younger, but for our history, we are using the Sonlight curriculum, so it's the same for both and advances each year. Yes, thank God for Sonlight curriculum! However...I do have to modify it for my boys abilities and speed. Some things we have to skip and some we have to supplement. 

This year, I took this time to review how the first six weeks had gone. Before school started, I had planned a six week "goal sheet" to help me figure out where I hoped to be by the end of this stretch, basically to make sure I don't get too far behind and have to cram everything in at the end of the year like I did last year! So far, we aren't too bad. I found out that we really are only doing full days four days a week, and doing catch-up and field trip adventures on Friday, so I have to adjust my next six weeks for four "real" days of work a week. 

I have managed to work art, PE and music into their schedules pretty well, but haven't found a way to work our Spanish and Programming lessons into the week as well. I know they aren't necessary, but they are the fun stuff, so I'll just have to figure out time!

We completed our first section of the second year of American History and are finishing with the Gold Rush this week. Coincidentally, the Discovery Channel is airing a new, fantastic series on Gold Fever each week and we are loving it! It shows places and events from our Sonlight novel "By the Great Horn Spoon!" and really helps when they can see the landscape of places we have read about all fall.

Our next six weeks is pure Civil War history. I'm feeling overwhelmed. It's a huge amount of very important material to cover and I want to do it justice. We have so many great places nearby to visit while we study this - we even were in Gettysburg last week for a relative's wedding! Unfortunately, I was a late bloomer American History buff, so I'm learning alot about this part with the boys, but I want to make sure I do it right. I know we can always revisit it later, but I know this is a special time with my guys and I just want to be there when they see it the first time :)

Well, I think that catches me up for now. I'm sitting on my bed surrounded by texts, curricula and spreadsheets and it's after 9pm, so I think it's time to hit the hay. One more day of "planning week", then we are off at full speed again on Monday. You may not hear from my again until after the holidays, the way things are going. Wish me luck!