It's all in the details

From Jon's narration of Heidi:

"And I felt a little nervous about saying, 'Aunt Dete' because it didn't really feel normal to me, but I thought you might like to know her name."

This was a great weekend

Which is probably not what all them public schoolers are sayin'. See, they all had to go to school this week, and I've been doing it all summer anyway. Allow me to start this post with yesterday morning, for that is where the action began.

Yesterday morning, we all got in the truck to go to Chisholm, way north of here. So we thought maybe we should stop at the post office before we began our long journey. Much to everyone's surprise, Lynae came out with two large packages, a magazine, and an envelope, all of which were addressed to me. So, I began frantically opening everything. The contents were as follows:
Box #1. Hat, large catalog with gunsmith supplies. I may never need it, but another catalog doesn't hurt.
Box #2. Gun case, gun cleaning kit, and ear muffs for sound protection. I used that all the way to Chisholm, since the siblings were being loud.
Magazine. Ummm... Didn't really look through it. It is a little kid magazine, kinda.
Envelope. A bunch of paintings for Christmas cards that Ducks Unlimited wants me to buy.

So, I put on the earmuffs and the hat and started working on school. My big assignment was to make a set of rules that I would enforce in my house. I labeled this assignment "The Exceedingly Just Rules" and they are as follows:

1. Anyone who breaks anything or makes a mess will restore everything to normal. But if this incident occurred when the person was disobeying or using something without permission, they will be sentenced to community service of a magnitude directly proportional to the magnitude of the damage done.

2. Dawdling in any task may result in (but is not necessarily limited to) loss of privilege, extra work, or missing a meal.

3. Any aggression (hurting, yelling, unkind words) will get the offender(s) put in a separate room to calm down, and will not be permitted to leave or get up until they have calmed down and are ready to make it right. After this, the offender(s) will lose a privilege.

4. Any profane or obscene language will result in loss of privilege for one week and washing mouth with soap, in addition to everything listed in #3, and shunning all contact with the noun responsible for educating the child to speak that way. If that cannot be performed, then the noun responsible for educating the child to speak that way must stop.

5. Any sign of disrespect to anyone, superior, inferior, or equal, will result in extra work on the part of the offender, possibly for the offended, after appropriate apology, and committing Bible verses on humility, meekness, or respect, to memory.

6. During church, devotions, prayer, and school time, full attention must be given. There must be respect for these things; no goofing off or distracting people. Any such behavior will result in extra work, after an appropriate apology.

Well, then we finally got to Chisholm. We went around in this labyrinth place called Ironworld.

After wandering around, getting lost, and finding ourselves again, we saw Charlie Maguire in concert. That was cool. And if that isn't cool enough, I got to talk to him. And if that isn't really super cool, I told him that I can play some of his songs, and he gave me a business card and told me to send him a tape.

And if that last paragraph wasn't so cool you fell out of your chair, wait till I tell you about what happened today...

... Oh yes. This morning, Mom told Michael and me to get up and do what we want. We started fantasizing about what we should do: catch a cottontail, kill Grace's dollhouse people with our knights, make another birthday cake. We immediately got to work after breakfast.

We got bored with our other ideas and made a giant catapult instead. It shoots stuff about 3 or 4 yards, which is really pitiful, but it looks impressive. We made it out of logs and rope, no 2 x4s. And the fulcrum is about 5 1/2 feet high. Wait'll you see the pictures!

Talk to ya later, and by the way, I didn't post this so late at night. I had it saved and it just got published late.

A real, live school day

Here's what we did before lunch:

Read and discussed Proverbs 5
Read Genesis 25 and 27
Lynae and Grace did some sorting
Jon, Michael and I reviewed addition, subtraction, equal, and unequal
Michael read two BOB books and did several phonics pages
Jon wrote a Bible verse and read Heidi
Grace practiced writing her name and numbers, then did some coloring
Lynae learned some words with Latin roots
Toby did lots of science and some Bible reading

So much more to do... after lunch and a nap!

What did your school day look like?

On responsibility

Instead of dropping our work and heading to the lake, we did the right thing.

The back window is almost entirely scraped and sanded. (Not yet picture-worthy.)

All the ripe apples have been gathered.
Apples are being peeled, cored, and sliced as I type, on their way to becoming applesauce and maybe apple butter.
Dozens of ears of corn are being husked, on their way to the freezer.
School plans are being finalized, and books stacked in a meaningful way.
It occurs to me that the first week of school will fly by, leaving me torn at the end of the week between planning the second week and transplanting bulbs or picking apples or mowing or canoeing... I think I'm ready for fall vacation. But alas, I will take responsibility for my change of plans. We didn't (all) do school in July and August, so we cannot take September off this year.

At least the cooler nights mean we will sleep well and wake up refreshed, ready to pack a lot of living into each day.

Tax Season

Because I have nothing better to do love creating silly things on the computer, I have created tax return forms for my paycheck-receiving children. After figuring exemptions, income, adjustments, tax and credits, other taxes, and payments, they will each find that they are receiving a refund.

See, when we pay the kids, we withhold a percentage for the "family fund" which is used for trips and other fun stuff. That's their taxes.

Here are some of the highlights of this year's tax return:

They get to claim exemptions based on the expenses they're expected to cover. There are adjustments for college fund contributions and any expenses for eyeglasses, glass eyes, and prosthetic limbs. They could itemize deductions, but after wasting several minutes on Schedule D, they will find that they'd do better to simply claim the standard deduction.

They are free to donate money to their parents just for fun, which would be added to their tax. There are credits for helping old ladies cross the road, hauling wash water from a nearby aquifer, and correspondence via USPS (also hardly worth their time, since they would qualify except they can't prove it).

There is a self-hair-cutting tax, as calculated on Schedule SH. Poor Jon! There is also a tax on vehicles driven on public highways, complete with its own form. There is a bald eagle feather tax which requires one to attach the feather and form EGL.

We then figure their total payments by adding the tax withheld, price of family entertainment tickets or restaurant meals (with accompanying receipts), and a plane ticket credit if they are due one according to attached Schedule :P.

Finally, they can subtract their tax from their payments and find they are due a refund. They can even have it deposited electronically to their savings accounts.

I think this will give them a healthy dose of the fun and frustration we all experience each year.

So now you know why I haven't finished my to-do list lately!

This week on the homestead

It will continue raining until the rain turns to snow. What a lovely mess that will make! We're discovering the extent of our basement leakage. We found two sump pumps and a box fan down there when we moved in, with everything else up on bricks, so we knew this was coming. Hopefully the rains will significantly lessen the drought conditions.

Our chick order has been placed. I have until May 7th to draw up coop plans and submit them to the city council in order to get a building permit, then get to building the coop. I think we'll actually start the chicks in the garage, so that will buy us a little building time.

Unlike the past several years, this week we packed up some of the winter clothes and unpacked the summer clothes. Yes, we're enjoying actual spring weather rather than going from chilly to hot in one swell foop. Have you ever switched out clothes for seven people? It looks like our closets threw up. Thank goodness it's only temporary!

Some good reading

Toby and Lynae will be blogging about once a week for school. They're much better at this than I -- enjoy!

I'd Like to Thank the Public School System

Your Social Anxiety Level: 60%

You have moderate social anxiety. It's possible that you have a serious social anxiety problem. But it's also likely that you can help yourself, by getting out more and trying new, scary activities. No one's secretly judging you. So be yourself, and if you screw up, just laugh.

Are You Socially Anxious?

(Planting tongue firmly in cheek...) I'd like to thank the public school system for its role in my socialization skills. The guidance and supervision they provided when I was in school were priceless. And you get what you pay for.

Honestly, being picked up by the sides of my head on a regular basis may have been a wonderful show of S. B.'s strength, but did nothing to help me understand proper boundaries. Being stabbed in the knee with a pencil for asking a boy why he was doing his homework on the way to school taught me not to ask questions. Having my hat and books kicked and tossed around on the bus and muddied and spat upon taught me not to feel safe in a crowd. Being insulted and rejected daily by "friends" taught me not to reach out or speak up, and to consider carefully who I call "friend." Being told repeatedly by my best friend that I look like a bug when I wear sunglasses made me very cautious about trusting my sense of style. Trying and failing in front of my peers and being mercilessly ridiculed year after year taught me that sometimes it really is better not to try.

Thanks to the socialization I received in public school, I know now that being smart can be a curse. (I have since given it up.) And being short is a horrible thing. I still feel self-conscious around tall people, and breathe a sigh of relief when I'm around someone shorter than I am. I even secretly (until announcing it on the www) worry that my own children will treat me differently when they are taller than me.

I know now that no one is secretly judging me. Their judgment has never been a secret.

You ask of my homeschooled children, "What about socialization?" Yes, I wonder, too. How different will their lives be for not having learned those lessons in public school? How will their lives be affected by interacting so often with adults who discuss relevant topics or conduct transactions without insulting or tormenting them? How will they understand life if they spend time with other children, most of whom are also denied daily age-segregated socialization? And what does it say of their character if they respond to the occasional bully either by being kind in return or walking away? How will they form relationships with people who are different from them if they don't see prejudice every day? How will they stand up for what's right if they don't spend their days surrounded and bombarded by what's wrong?

Gosh. I don't know. But somehow I think they'll be very well adjusted compared to their mother.

The State of Education

Quite often, when my husband is interviewing a high school student for a position in his restaurant, he will ask about school. A recent conversation went like this:

"What's your favorite subject in school?"
"I like History."
"Great! What period are you studying?"
"Third."
"No, I mean what period in history?"
"The Civil War."
"So I guess you're learning about the President during that time. Do you know who that was?"
"We haven't got that far."

Just a few weeks later, he interviewed a young man:

"So what's your least favorite subject in school?"
"History."
"Sure... but I bet you know quite a bit about history."
"Oh, yeah."
"Like the President during the Civil War. Who was that?"
"I don't know that one."
"How about the first President of the U.S.?"
"No, I don't know that one either."
"George Washington."
"Oh yeah, that sounds about right."

Now granted, one can make sandwiches without knowing the names of previous rulers of one's country. But this is "Kentucky, where education pays!" Makes ya wonder.

Seriously, as an educator, I feel compelled to give these students the benefit of the doubt. Surely they are learning something. It just isn't what he asked them about. I wonder what it is.

On to something more uplifting

This morning I found out that I'm not the only one who cannot use Explode the Code due to a strong aversion to the illustration style! I have heard many trustworthy homeschoolers say that it's a wonderful curriculum, and I believe them. I just can't bring myself to use it, for that one reason.

Thank God for choices in homeschool curricula!

Life's a dance...

Tango: Just over two weeks ago, I told hubby that what I really wanted was for him to tell me that he would take my to-do list and work on the (relatively) small projects on one of his two days off each week, and that I should focus on keeping the house showable and working on school with the kids. He said he would work on my to-do list, and that he'd like me to keep the house showable and work on school with the kids. Well dontcha know, I spent that weekend unpacking school books and setting up an assignment sheet, and we dug in the following Monday!

Breakdancing: It's been going very well. Ok, there was that time someone decided to take 12 hours on a simple assignment and didn't finish his work until 5:30 am, but having chosen to fight that battle with him, hubby and I had to win it, and by the grace of God, we did, and everyone survived. And there have been other, smaller battles engaged with that same someone, leading me to wring my hands and scratch my head, yes. But five years of parenting him has taught me that he likes keeping me a little off-balance, and sometimes the best response is to return the favor. I think I'm getting the hang of this exhausting dance. I do fall flat on my butt sometimes, and we both hate that part. But he and I are equally determined (stubborn) and between us and God, I think we'll be all right, though "all right" might not look anything like what I have in mind.

Electric Slide: Yes, it's been going very well. The big kids are working independently, and we're all pleased with the curriculum we've chosen. I've begun holding "meetings" with them... one-on-one time to go over their work, help them with anything they don't understand (they're always welcome to come to me with questions, but sometimes it's a concept rather than a specific problem, and they don't bring it to me right away), and talk about any changes we need to make.

Chicken Dance: My little guy is thrilled to have school work to do! Sometimes he shakes with excitement when we do workbook pages together. He wants to read so much he can taste it.

Bunny Hop: Baby girl likes being involved, too, but at 4yo I'm not putting much effort into that. I tend to keep her occupied with toys, books, puzzles, and other stuff she can do on her own until the big kids are done with their work and can teach her letters, numbers, etc. That's as good for them as it is for her.

Hopefully, school will continue to go well until we get a closing date and turn our attention to packing and moving... or until the end of the school year, whichever comes first.

Holding out just a little longer

It's been a month since I started itching to unpack all the school books. The kids are looking forward to it as well. So I finally made a list of what we need to get done before we can unpack the books. Hopefully we can finish the painting and spiffing and repairing and packing on the list by the end of June. It doesn't change anything... we'd have had to finish those things before starting anyway, and we'd have started in July most years anyway... but I think it'll keep me focused. I love lists.

Spring Banquet

We had our PACHEK Spring Banquet on Thursday evening. It was more wonderful than I could've imagined. We entered to find the room full of balloons, and the tables... oh! The tables! Each table was covered with paper, on which we found questions, quotes, and discussion starters. There were books for answering various questions, crayons, rulers, pencils & erasers, Skittles, and M&Ms. The kids had lots of fun with all that, and so did the grown ups!

Families displayed some of their children's schoolwork from the past year. We saw a huge bug collection, a castle model, a Civil War display, marshmallow sculptures, paintings, and several other neat projects. There was a potluck dinner with more than enough food to go around... and around.

As we finished eating, some of the children gave musical or other presentations. We certainly have talented young people in our homeschool group! This was followed by each family leader introducing his (or her) family and recognizing special achievements.

The last presentation was very special to me. Two of the other PACHEK leaders presented me with a thank-you gift -- a poster of Kentucky memorabilia to remember them by. I plan to have it signed before I move!

The evening was a beautiful celebration of homeschooling. I hope it becomes a PACHEK tradition!

Here is video of Toby and Lynae's presentation: