The Sunchild thoroughly thrashed me at Monopoly yesterday. He took risks while I played it safe, and with 4 Cities on each of his orange properties, he bankrupted me completely. He was counting all of the financial transactions himself, although I did have to help him a bit with the 10% tax, but I think he was beginning to grasp the idea.

The interesting thing about our day of Monopoly, is that after the first time I landed on a property of his that had an enormous rent of $750, he was appalled at how broke it made me, and tried to give me back my money. I insisted on playing by the rules. He really did not want to win, and got rather sad at the end of the game. He told me this morning that he thought it was unfair that I had to come up with such a high rent all of a sudden. His aim, of course, at building up one color so much was to get a Millenium Falcon piece for his property... not to charge extreme rent.

I thought that this showed his understanding of fairness in trade. He did not want to be a 'price-gouger' LOL.

The letter from the superintendent came yesterday. I think I should post it somewhere prominently. I know it must be a form letter, but I love the choice of words, "Upon review of the documentation you have provided, I am convinced that you are qualified to educate your children at home and are prepared to do so." I may want to look at those words when I am feeling less than confident, LOL.

Our day was full of learning activities today. We began by tracing some letters, practicing the lower case curves. We also worked with fractions. I had found some tools online that had circles divided into various numbers. He cut those out, and saw how 2/6 = 1/3, and other similar connections. Then we rode the 3 wheeler to the bank, and to Target for some window shopping & price comparison of Bionicles. The Sunchild is going to a birthday party, and we were deciding what we should get as a gift.

After lunch, I printed out the Stamp Game, which I had found online, onto nice thick cardstock. We cut these out together, and then practiced adding various numbers. We added up the numbers of the years we were born, and he got it right. This manipulative is very useful, because it shows the whole concept of carrying over in a clear way. He remembered this game from when he went to Montessori preschool, and jumped into it with enthusiasm.

Later on, he pulled Clue Junior off his shelf. We played a game of that, which is a nice introduction to logic, and process of elimination. He enjoyed these games so much, that he announced he wanted to play Star Wars Monopoly too. We had only attempted that once before, but I became frustrated when I had to do all the calculating. Today was different. We set the game up, and then I needed to begin dinner. So he brought the 'bank' over to the hallway so we could chat while I cooked, and I would ask him to count out a certain amount. Then we moved to adding amounts together. This was so much like the Stamp Game that he took right to it. While dinner cooked, we played for a while, and once we were out of time, we left it set up so that we could continue today where we had left off.

We did take a moment to watch a kid's movie on Leonardo Da Vinci. Afterwards, the Sunchild listed five things that he had learned from the movie, and one of them was that the paint had chipped off of The Last Supper! He really is learning to pay attention to details.

It has been a book day. A rainy, dark, quiet day for reading & playing quietly together.

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Johnny Appleseed, who was from Massachusetts, and moved to Ohio. We read his story this morning, and I wrote down what the Sunchild told me he had learned from it.

We also played around a whole bunch with pennies. I had been directed to check out a cool site about cantilevered pennies, which inspired us to attempt to build something with our own penny collection. This led to several pyramids, or tipis, as the Sunchild liked to call them. Then we talked about squaring numbers, and adding double digits, but I think I lost him on the double digits.

We also read The Lorax, which is a wonderful environmental book, and it is fun to read, too. He has parts of it memorized. We spent some time looking at a book about games, Let's Play: Traditional Games of Childhood. This led to some experimentation with stones and a game like jacks, as well as a determination to get some jacks for the house. Our last book for today was Boston Tea Party by Edwards & Cole. The Sunchild was not too happy about littering the harbor, but he liked the idea of 'No More Kings', which led us to listen to some Schoolhouse Rock afterwards.

We finished off with the Bionicle movie, which was somewhat painful, as the movie was in poor condition & had severe white line issues that could not be resolved with the tracking adjustment. Of course, there was determination to finish the movie despite this problem. It had interesting elements that were somewhat TCM in flavor. There are elementals, and they interact in specific ways, and there was a definite theme of Yin & Yang. I see much more Bionicle play in our future...

The last few days have been pretty busy for me. I worked on Friday & Saturday, and the Sunchild spent those days with Nana & Grandpa, and his Papa, respectively.

On Friday, he went to the library to receive a present from the staff, in honor of finishing the summer reading program, and enjoying books so much. It was a neat honor for him, and they wrote him a letter & gave him an apple shaped dry-erase board to practice his writing on.

We finished Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban last night. Already, the family is clamoring to hear the next one. I love having family story time. It gives us a common mythos to draw from.

I learned that the Sunchild can catch today. I think he learned it too. We have never had much luck with it before. It seemed like a good thing to practice, and this time, he was very good at it. We have never before had such a successful game of catch, as previously it involved a lot of missing & frustration. Now our recreational possibilities have expanded.

We also spent some time messing around with the tape measure today. We learned that we have a 12' tape measure, and that is how long our hallway is. We measured the ceiling too (7'10"), and the height of the Sunchild. After that, he went crazy measuring all sorts of things.

We all took a field trip out to Western Reserve Hardwoods in order for Papa to buy some wood for a project he has in mind. He chose purple heart wood for the guitar he has been planning. We spent over an hour at the shop, lifting & touching all manner of wood, and even got a tour of the shop in back. And there was a tape measure there, which he asked to use, and then he measured different boards, and the dimensions of the room, and practiced getting the tape to snap back into the mechanism.

This evening, we all watched Bionicle: Mask of Light. I figured that since he is so very interested in Bionicles, we should all watch the movie together so that the adults can understand the mythos behind the toys. It is interesting so far, with different 'toa' which represent different elements like fire, water, earth, etc. The finale will be playing tomorrow night.

Today felt better, like I am beginning to feel our stride.

We started off this day with a field trip to Dick's Sporting Goods, to investigate their archery section, and have a general look around. I dreamed of kayaking & shooting hoop with the Sunchild as he gets taller.

We also found a screw for the fastener that keeps the flag on his end of the 3 wheeler. I still need to post photos of that cool contraption of ours. And on the way home, we passed by a yard with a tree that was being taken down. We stopped, and watched the men work, and collected sticks for art projects. It was fun to bid them an 'Adios!!' when we got back on our bikes to leave.

We read a great book, too: The Bee-Man of Orn. I told him he should bring it to granpa's house tomorrow, and have him read it aloud as well. It would be fun to find books that can become part of our family culture in this way, allowing him to consider the story from many angles.

We made apple crisp today, and I made a meatloaf. It was a rather courageous undertaking, and I hope everything turns out well. Later this afternoon, after some outdoor fun with the Boy down the Sidewalk, the Sunchild cut up some juniper leaves that he had harvested, and made a hot water infusion in a quart size mason jar. He chose to work at his table; I guess that my rearrangement of that corner had it's desired effect.

As the dinner cooked, we watched a rendition of Brer Rabbit & Boss Lion, read by Danny Glover with Dr. John on the soundtrack. Dinner is starting to smell really good......

We spent the day with our Chesterland friends. This involved a lot of bionicle play, some computer time, some outdoor play structure time, a visit to a cool geodesic dome, and a hike at the West Woods park in Geauga county. The West Woods facility is great, and we have made plans to go back & explore it more thoroughly.

This evening, we relaxed with some family reading time, and made some more progress in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban. We are trying to finish this one up so that we can watch the movie again. We also want to read the next book, so that we can go to see that movie when it comes out later this year. It will be the Sunchild's second movie theater experience, and I think he is ready for it. It will be fun to see a movie in the theater for the first time with him.

We spent the morning finishing the 3rd book in the Narnia series: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. This led to a dicussion about metaphor, and the concept of the divine within. We also counted money, and played rhyming games, before setting out to ride the half-tandem back from his grandparents house. We discussed traffic & bicycle safety on our journey.

After a stop at the toy store for some window shopping, we came home & he played with the neighbor boy, catching bugs & watering the garden.

After dinner, we attended a fabulous show by a guy named Jungle Terry, who has a collection of exotic animals, which he travels with for entertainment & educational purposes. This show was at the library, and the sunchild got picked to be a volunteer helper. His job was to hold a chinchilla. We are now considering adding some sort of small creature to our household, but much research will need to be done first.

I need to get rid of the spreadsheet.

It seemed like such a good idea in my panic at getting this homeschooling thing off to the right start. 900 hours. I should have listened to Julie right off the bat. I am not legally required to keep records of the hours- so then why did I manage to get all caught up in that trap???

And so I spent the better part of today, our first 'official' day outside of the government school, focused on a spreadsheet & what it was saying than on my son and what he was saying.

Not really. But yes really, too. We had a lot of good learning and focused activites. We covered a variety of things. But in the back of my mind, there was this stopwatch, assessing how much time we were spending on each thing so that I could write it down in my infernal spreadsheet.


And so, this evening, as I was reading Your First Year of Homeschooling, I came upon a section which had lifestyle vignettes of different families. Each was a narative. A spreadsheet cannot convey information like a narrative can. I cannot go back over it and re-experience the day. And it imposes artificial limitations on learning, which is really a continuum.

I bet tomorrow will be a lot more fun now that I have figured this part out.

Today I asked the sunchild what sort of things he would like to focus on in homeschooling. We came up with a list of things which is by no means complete, yet can provide a framework with which to begin.

The sunchilds' list:

take apart machines
lowercase letters
math: counting by 10s & 100s & other numbers
also measuring, time, and money.
cooking
electricity
what happened before. we discussed making a personal history scrapbook
space
knights
how telescopes & microscopes work
go to the art museum
bow & arrow
dinosaurs
how a clock works

Some of the ideas I came up with, and that he thought were good are:
poetry, rhyming, haiku
natural history, observation, journaling & drawing
food, eating, recipes, cooking
history: ohio, american, world, and familial
literature: harry potter, narnia, dr. seuss, etc.
dictation of stories
music, dance
insects & other animals
grow things
how to get along with others
swimming, bicycling
spanish
the state song that papa knows
fonts & ways of making letters.

I know this is just the very tip of the iceberg. I wanted to bring up the idea that he can direct his learning by what it is that he is interested in. As we delve further into this homeschooling adventure, I am excited to see what twists & turns our education takes.

Well, I informed my MIL of our decision today. She is worried that we will decide that we can't do it in 6 weeks. I understand where she is coming from, but I told her that she really ought to have a little more trust in me. She worries that I am going to burn out. I know she is speaking from her experience of working 80 hour weeks to support her boys-- but I have no plans to live like that. I feel she will come to understand, and in seeing us living happily, with the sunchild learning every day (who can stop him from that??) she will understand that this is indeed the best choice for our family.

It is looking likely. This thought is making me grin like crazy. The schedule thing, the money thing. And the paternal involvement-- papa referred to himself as 'professor' today LOL

I am reading Summerhill again, and it is really helping me concretize the 'why' of this decision. Schools are really good at what they do-- train people to fit into society's definition of what they should be.

And as I was pondering this, it occurred to me that I really want to think outside the box. I don't want to stuff my kid into one. I had a somatic realization, in which I remembered once trying to place a cat into some sort of container, and how fiercely it resisted me.

I have felt like that cat since the sunchild started school.

"I just learned to snap!!!" the sunchild just yelled from the tub.

In creating a log of our homeschooling activites, I noticed a distinct lack of Social Studies. That inspired a trip to the library, where we picked several videos with historical themes.

Today we watched Birth of America which gave a concise history of the United States. We also watched a video about Plimouth Village, which took place at the historical re-enactment village in New England that I visited as a child. It is very enjoyable to hear the accents.

We are currently preparing to homeschool. The sunchild will continue in kindergarten for a while yet, and there is still the chance that he will grow to love it. In the meantime, however, I am educating myself on what I need to do in order to homeschool him.

I know that it is important to keep records of what is covered, so that the school system sees what we are doing in our home education. I have begun a spreadsheet that I will be using to track the educational activities that we engage in. In addition, I will be keeping a portfolio of his work, and of information on any outside activities we get involved in.

At the moment, there is not a whole lot to track, as he is still in school most of the time. I want to start now, though, in order to make the transition go smoothly if it happens.

This Kindergarten adventure is not going quite the way that I envisioned it. Or, maybe the truth of the matter is that I have always envisioned homeschooling, so I have invested little energy into visualizing a healthy Kindergarten experience.

The Sunchild has informed me repeatedly that he hates it at school. He askes why we can't homeschool. I have no real answers for him. The reality is that our financial situation is the only reason we have put him in public school. That isn't a good enough reason, really. He has agreed to give it another week, but we are looking into our options in order to figure out how to pull off educating him at home.

I know that he will adjust, eventually, if we insist on keeping him there. I am not so sure that "adjusting" to the system is what I think is best for my son. I am responsible for his education in all areas: intellectual, emotional,and spiritual. I am not certain that public school can meet his needs intellectually, and I am quite certain that they are deficient in the emotional & spiritual realms.

I fear that we cannot afford to homeschool. However, I am not certain that we can afford not to.