September News Now!!!

This September must have been the most exciting yet tiring September in my life (I think.) We started going to a new homeschool group, the youngest member of the Murphy family (our best friends) slept over for the first time, I started a new instrument, and, well, I'll just let you hear the story yourself.

We'll start with VHE (Valley Home Educators.) This is the new homeschool group we have joined. When we went to the kick-off meeting, I met a bunch of people my age. A few of them I already knew. At the kick-off we had a potluck lunch. After a few hours of chatting, all the kids around the ages 10 and up (as long as they were kids) went outside for the TNT meeting. TNT stands for teens-n-tweens. Every year in November, they have a yard sale to help a charity. This year will be there fourth annual, or that's what I remember. The next week we went to the Sea Life Aquarium with the rest of the group. We saw many different fish and sea creatures. During the tour of the of the aquarium, we answered questions that were painted on the wall. Then we scratched out the answers on the cards they gave us to turn in and get a sticker. Some facts I learned from the trip were that lion fish are one of the most dangerous fish, that manta rays are most closely related to sharks, and much more. At the end of the tour, Brenna and I played in the tubes with Ailish. Then I went to Brenna's house for a sleep-over. On the second day of the sleepover (the day I was going home) Brenna was going over to one of her friend's house to help her do something. While she was gone I babysat Ailish. It was fun.

A few weeks later, Brenna, Ailish, and Devin came over to spend the night for five days. It was exciting since it was Ailish's first time sleeping anywhere, but home. During our un-sleepover, (Ailish chose not to sleep at night, every night, but the first one) we took Ailish and Brenna to my French horn lesson. I should probably put more detail into this picture. Back in the second, or maybe the first week in August, I went back to my two-day-a-week enrichment program, Eagleridge. As you know, (or should know) I play flute in our Monday band. Actually I used to play flute in band. This year we added a lot of flutes. We took up 1/3 of the band all put together. Mr. Hink, our band teacher, mentioned one of us playing French Horn. I told it to my mom and she said I probably should try it because she remembered when she was a girl, she played flute and she knew this girl who played French Horn and had always wanted to switch, but her mom said no. So I switched and I'm glad I did. It has been six weeks and both my band teacher and my French horn teacher said I'm doing great for a kid that started six weeks ago. I really enjoy it.

Just this Wednesday I went to Open House and Mr. Hink told my parents about how good I was. At Open House I performed a song with  my fellow classmates, about 1/4 of them. We also did a hand clapping routine like the one from the Kleenex clapping commercial with 6th grade Wed., 6th grade Fri., and 5th grade Fri. It was great. I did the clapping almost perfectly. It has been busy, busy around here, but September was fun.

What is Age?

Well, I've now been to more book signings than movies this year. I look at this as yet one more feather in my cap towards Ultimate Dorkdom. My husband brought me a glass of water last night while I was lying in bed, and he was at a loss as to where to set it down because of the 17 books (and he counted them) on my nightstand that I am currently reading. I love books!

My brief interchange with a quasi-celebrity went like this: my 12 year-old son and I stood in the bookstore line with a copy of Dave Barry's, I'll Mature When I'm Dead. When we got up to Dave, he asked for whom he was signing the book. To which I told him that it was for Mike, my husband. So he wrote in the book, "Mike, Do NOT grow up - Dave Barry." And I said to him, "That's perfect, I'm married to a child." To which he turned to my son who was holding up his cellphone to take a picture and said, "So who is this?" And I said, "That's the child's child. He's the only one that can work the cellphone camera." We all had a good chuckle out of that, then we sat down to listen to Dave tell us excerpts from his book. It was a pretty packed house, and Dave was very funny. My son was CRACKING UP. Until this point, Patrick was pretty much along for the ride, hoping that I would buy him something later. People sitting in front of us were actually turning around to see my son laughing so loudly. I looked around the room, and Patrick appeared to be the youngest person there -- by a lot. This observation got me thinking about why that might be. If you have been following this blog, you know that my kids partake in their fair share of kid-specific activities: everything from scouts to camp to their homeschool band. But my kids are equally comfortable around a variety of age brackets, and I think this is yet another wonderful aspect of homeschooling.

Starting with homeschool park days, kids all play together with a variety of ages -- there are toddlers all the way through teenagers. I remember one of my first impressions of homeschooled kids is how sweet they were with all the other kids at park days and not cliquey at all. Homeschooled  kids get used to welcoming new families into their group all the time so they are not standoffish with newcomers like some schooled children are. These park days are often pretty unstructured so the kids become resourceful at starting and making up new games to play, unlike P.E. classes at school where the activities are directed. Even when they go to their homeschool enrichment program, they have many multi-age classes. Right now, my kids are knee-deep in group-work building a medieval castle, a cardboard boat that they will be sinking sailing in next week, a balloon orchestra for the talent show, a reader's theater, chorus, and band performance, and that's all just this week! Sometimes they are the youngest in a group, and sometimes they are the oldest, but isn't this how it is in the real world? Don't we work with people that are all different ages? We must get along with all of them. We are not segregated by our chronological age. I'm always puzzled when I'm filling out something for one of my kids that asks what "grade" they are in. My 10 year-old is technically in 4th grade, but she looks 14 years old, acts out imaginative games like an 8 year-old, enjoys going up for children's story-time at church with the 6 year-olds, works out of an 8th grade math book, and knows her Greek mythology like a 54 year-old college professor. So what grade is she in? Here's where it just doesn't matter in homeschooling -- you can be in whatever grade you want. So on top of getting along with all different age kids, my kids also seem to really like adults -- or atleast their parents. I don't know if this is because we spend so much time together with them day in and day out, or if it's just because we are way-cool (I'm sure that's it.) However, I certainly never wanted to hang out with my parents when I was a kid, and I have to think that there is a closeness that develops between the parent and the child when the parent is also the teacher. I wouldn't trade these years for anything!

Eagleridge: What is It?

Mondays and Wednesdays are not the same old wake up at ten and take your time through math, writing, and music.


On Wednesdays, we wake up at 7:00, get dressed, have breakfast, and then head to Eagleridge via my best friend Devin's mom. Eagleridge is pretty much just a school for homeschoolers. It's all the ordinary classes (except math) just without homework, and you can choose which days you go. Once we get there at 8:30 AM, Rebecca goes off to some class I don't know of and I go to Physical Education. There, we usually do fitness then move on to the lesson (the sport were working on) and then move on to Science. Every month we work on a different type of science. This month we've been working on the physics of flight. My next class is Student Council. This year I ran for treasurer, lost, found an organization for our Christmas toy drive, was home sick the day we decided on a different organization, seconded the motion to make cards to sell for a fundraiser, tried to make a motion to do crazy hair day again this year, failed unanimously,and my idea for the school dance was the chosen. After that, my next class is Yearbook. In there, we are currently making houses on Google Sketch Up because there is not much else to do, but all we did was made pages for the yearbook. (I made the student council page.) Next, we have lunch. After 30 minutes of recess, we have Composition, Computers, and finally, Art. School ends at 3:30 PM on Wednesdays.


On Mondays, I wake up at 6:30 AM, get dressed, and then again get picked up by Devin's mom. The day starts at 8:00 AM with Medieval History were we are currently writing business letters to the teacher about applying to NASA to go back in time to retrieve lost history. My next class is Compass Learning Math which is an online math program. Next, I have Chess Club where we learn strategies and play chess. After Chess Club, I have Sports Math in which we are currently doing fantasy football. Next I have lunch. After lunch, I have Pre-Algebra. In here it is a lot like school just made easier by the best teacher in the world. Next, I have Physical Education which is just like on Wednesdays. After that I have Microsoft Office in which we do different projects using Microsoft Office. Finally, I play clarinet in Band, my last class of the day. School ends at 4:30 PM on Mondays.


One of the most frequently asked questions is if I miss anything from when I used to be in school. My answer to that is Eagleridge has all the stuff that I might miss from school!

The Scarlet Letter "H"

I still find it very difficult to tell people that I homeschool my kids, and I've been doing it for three years. I've been told that it gets easier, but I haven't noticed that yet. You'd think that with estimates being close to two million homeschooled kids in the United States, people would have a better acceptance with the idea of homeschooling, but I think homeschoolers are still hotly prejudged.

One of the benefits of homeschooling is that we can do "school" whenever we want, and we are able to make use of the less-crazy hours of the day to schedule dentist and doctor appointments, go shopping, and have fun. Unfortunately, it's during these "school hours" that we encounter the most ridiculous questions. They usually start with, "Is school out early today?" and end with, "But how do you know if they're learning anything?" when we attempt to explain our lives.

I've thought of different ways of handling these questions such as: handing the questioner a pre-printed fact sheet, answering my new response: "See my blog," or just deflecting altogether: "We're happily living the lives of morons." Better yet, maybe we should just go out in public with the big scarlet letter "H" for "homeschooling" around our necks so everyone knows our crime.

My dental hygienist is a personal favorite "questioner." I've gone to the same hygienist for over ten years. Being the dental snob that I am, I actually request her when I make appointments, and she keeps notes on what equipment to use on me. If she ever moved or retired, my teeth would probably fall out of my head. Plus, I like her. However, I think it's because I only see her every six months, and where I always remember every conversation I've had with someone, she can never remember that I homeschool my kids. We usually get started slowly. It usually goes a little something like this:

"How's work?" (She knows this because it says I'm a nurse on my chart.)
"Busy, everybody decided to get drunk and go to the ER over the weekend."
"Oh, do you only work weekends?"
"And Mondays, some Tuesdays."
"Oh, so what do you do the rest of the week?"
"I homeschool my children."
(She backs away from the teeth scraping with a puzzled look.)
"But how do they get their socialization?"
(This is fun to give a one-liner to when your mouth is full of sharp objects.)
"Well, they've done scouts, ballet, Irish dance, hula dance, tap dance, church, choir, youth group, chess club, soccer, baseball, basketball, golf, karate, archery, science classes, art classes, drama classes, music lessons, play in a band, gone away to camp numerous times, and go to a homeschool enrichment program that is essentially a 'school' 2 days per week."
"But aren't they missing something?"
(Here's where I give the puzzled look. Seriously? Am I really being asked this?)
"Like what?"
"Like tests, how do you know how they're doing?"
(Wait a second, I guess she gave up on socialization.)
"I let my kids take the AIMS (Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards) test every year, and they always pass despite the fact that I have not taught from the test the whole year as the schools do."
"But how will they get into college?"
"Colleges love homeschoolers because they are self-starters. There are also community colleges, online universities, ACT tests, and SAT tests that can get them where they want to go."
"I just can't imagine doing that."

I can't tell you how many conversations I've had that have gone just like this!!! And then I'll have the same conversation with the same people again! Homeschooling is still an idea that people just consider "weird" despite whatever evidence there is to the contrary. Compounding the problem is that many homeschoolers remain quiet about their practices for fear of losing their right to homeschool. If you're interested in seeing how this right has been threatened, there are many cases documented on http://www.hslda.org.