Homeschooling vs. Slackerville: a fight to the death

(Image picked up from: Your Name University)

Ahhhh, the holidays are coming. This is the point where I start to panic, adding up our hours, shuffling and organizing our school paperwork in an effort to see how far we are behind! So far this year in hours, we're ahead (don't ask me how, I don't know.) However, let's compare how much 'homeschooling' we're actually achieving compared to how much 'slacking' is going on, shall we?

The Little One.

Homeschooling getting done:
1. Math - 4th grade book is finished, 5th grade book is started and we're flying through it. 1 point for homeschool, maybe even 2! Check.
2. Reading - Read Alouds for Sonlight history; we're behind. Really we're so far off the track I don't know where to begin to pull us back on. BUT, the little one is reading her way through The Chronicles of Narnia and has started reading The Edge Chronicles series I gave her for her birthday in August that I do believe she never even cracked open until this week. Even though we're behind in the history reading, so much reading is going on, I have to pry books out of her hand to get anything else in it, even food. I call this 1 point for homeschool. Check.
3. Bible - Quizzing is finished every week and class for it is attended. Dh and the little one are reading their way through the gospels. I think they're in Mark right now. 1 point for homeschool. Check.
4. Music - on the upside, since Choral class is, in fact, a class right before Wednesday night church and DH is in charge of getting her there, we're on track with that. 1 point for homeschool. Check.

Subjects in which Slackercity has been become our home:
1. Science - Sonlight Human Body study... hmmm. Bored. We've dropped it completely. I need to find some activities and projects, books to read. I did find this link while looking up books, so she might play with it today. Yucky Discovery. The worksheets from Sonlight weren't cutting it for either of us. We're doing no science right now unless you count the constant inventing/baking she is doing (today she is torturing my senses and diet with homemade carrot cake, evil child.) But I'm still saying we're behind so: 1 point for slackerville.
2. Piano - Lessons have completely gone by the wayside due to lack of time, and let's be frank here, lack of discipline on my part. 1 point for slackerville.

A Tie has been called:
1. English - We're sort of caught up on Wordly Wise vocab, yet behind on English book & Daily Grams. I call this a tie.
2. History - Sonlight Core 5 has this optional program you can buy (which I did not) called Eastern Hemisphere Explorer package. It covers all aspects of different countries. Instead, we have been ordering country books & videos from the library and drawing/writing about these places in our 'Country Notebook'. It gives her a place to draw and also practice a bit of writing on things SHE finds interesting about those countries. We were going so well, even getting the reading of history books in but haven't done this in a couple weeks. So I'd say we're tied.

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The Teen.

Homeschool vs. Slackerville - TIE.

All homeschooling classes have been suspended until she finishes out this semester of college courses. She has a Sociology teacher who has never taught before and doesn't know the meaning of time management, an English Comp teacher who is obstinate, doesn't give feedback on papers so you have no idea what you're getting wrong, gives no feedback on drafts so you know what to correct. She just tells you to go to the writing lab if you don't know what you're doing (HELLO! Why am I paying YOU to teach my child then, huh?) She also has a history teacher that wants you to basically memorize all of world history. He's is a good teacher, just unrealistic a bit.

This experience has soured her on college, especially this campus in general. We've had meetings with teachers, talked with directors and if something doesn't improve, the dean will be hearing from us next. Incompetent teachers suck. I feel bad for her, she worries too much and has trouble sleeping sometimes because of it. If we can just get through this semester with B's, we'll both be overjoyed. I'm praying for her everyday. Next year should be gravy, all art courses for fun.

So, homeschool is slacking at the moment or really we've prioritized. She'll go back to Algebra 2 studies over the holidays to catch up. Government was almost finished anyway so we'll do a final project over the holidays to wrap it up. Maybe a field trip and a written/drawn presentation. We dropped the Bachelorette Living course entirely. She knows everything I wanted to teach her except how to check things in a car so we'll do something else next semester instead of it. DH will teach her car stuff when we actually get her a car this summer hopefully.

We missed the deadline for Dec's ACT test so we'll shoot for the February one and start studying in earnest for it over the holidays and January. She learning that homeschool has been a cakewalk compared to real life.

So that's an update on the fight between homeschool and slackerland. Not sure who is winning. Stay tuned for a new report by the holidays. Hoping I have better things to share.

Penny Lane & School Update

I meant to post these pictures of our new family member awhile back when she joined our family in July. The little one saw her at church in a giveaway box of kittens and wept, wailed and sobbed to bring her home. Okay, not that bad but she convinced her pushover dad that its 'the only thing' she wanted for her August birthday. (Likely story. lol) These are pics from August. When we got her around July 1st she was a small wisp of a thing, barely 5 weeks old.

Now she is 4 1/2 month old, 7 1/2 lbs fatty. Today we found her stuffed in the Halloween candy bucket. We attempted to 'rescue' her only to have her jump back in. She likes it apparently.

School is progressing with minimal hiccups. Always changing, never ceasing. The teen is taking college classes. Not so much enjoying them (after all, they're not art classes) but enduring none-the-less. The little one is keeping caught up on schoolwork, amidst much strife sometimes. But then I take her to the library and she brings home a pile and I mean a huge PILE of books to read and she's content. How to make English and Mathematics studying as fun as reading is a battle I haven't conquered yet. We're still enjoying Sonlight Core 5. Some of the books are not to our liking and take forever to read. I should be more flexible and let them go but haven't done so, so far.

The teen is starting once again to study for the ACT testing. I picked up a few grammar books at the library to help. English is her strong suit but it doesn't hurt to brush up.
Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing
Writing in 15 Minutes a Day
Great books for refreshing your memory of grammar as well as writing skills. I really need to find some great books to help her with the math studying. We have an ACT book but I would like to see some 'fun' math learning math books to help her know everything she needs to know. She won't be taking the written portion of the ACT until she retests in February. December's test will just be the standard.

It's time to start figuring out how to apply for scholarships for the teen. Next year will be full time college (I can't believe she will graduate this year!) With DH being in a new job, any help we can get towards the college fees will be wonderful. I would rather not saddle the teen with debt right out of college, kwim? Also been talking to a financial adviser about saving for college for the small one. We're so behind on that eight ball. Why didn't my mom/dad ever tell me life would be hard? I distinctly do NOT remember any such conversation. I do, however, remember them laughing at me and saying 'just wait until you have kids'. They weren't kidding!

Weekly Snippets & Facebook

Just wanted to let anyone know who cares about reading my blurbles, this blog is on Facebook now (I will still continue to post here.) If you're lazy like me and like all your eggs in one basket so you don't have to hop around to other places, you can join my networked blogs thingie (over in the left column) and then when I post new posts here, a little link will pop up on Facebook for ya. Just in case you're a kindred lazy spirit, like me. Just sayin'...

Snippets of our week:
1. I need to expect the unexpected more. I get to planning all we need to get done in a week, fretting that we won't finish it all and then things happen. Like this week, 2 kids sick, one by Thursday, the other by Friday. The teen didn't do homeschool after Wed, the little one didn't on Friday. Trying not to panic about all we didn't get done. Go with the flow is my new supposed mantra.
2. My Bachelorette Living is off to a rocky start. I need to make a plan. The problem is she knows so much already because we already cook, clean, and sew some. Need to mix it up and make interesting, and have supplies or whatever on hand. Trying to think of how we can also mix in some volunteering or donating things (like helping cook at a homeless shelter, or learning to knit or sew and donating to the local pregnant teens home, etc...) Planning ahead can sometimes be a bonus. Imagine that!
3. We've switched from using a boring 1980's textbook series on Government to watching videos on Government, after the teen flunked the chapter test, twice. She's taking notes, planning 2 reports and a field trip for the semester. She is already retaining more in the few days watching videos than she did the first 2 weeks out of a book.
4. After reading Martinzoo's blog, I went hopping over to Craigslist to find a fish tank and stand. Might pick up one this week. I wanna grow tadpoles with the kids. Of course now the teen informs me she hates frogs, has a phobia because a little kid in New Mexico chased her around with a frog while they were there on Mission Trip. Dramatic child I have. *sigh* That's like when DH told me we couldn't name one of our children Elizabeth, because a little girl named Elizabeth used to chase him around the block in 2nd grade. *eyeroll*
5. I've been refreshing my brain on Algebra 2. The teen and I sit down every day for 2 hours and do a whole lesson. Every problem, I do with her. It's as much a learning time for me as for her.
6. The teen had her 3rd week of college classes and actually fit in her homeschool work as well. I think we're progressing.
7. The little one has done very well with division. Previous weeks were touch and go, many meltdowns. This week it seemed to flow.
8. This week was a little too like my previous years of homeschooling, ie: textbooks, math drills, etc... I'm supposed to be working my way toward unschooling, not the other way around. Be flexible, is my 2nd new mantra.
9. The little one has been begging all week to bake sweets. I've been nixing the idea, and have lost weight all week instead of gaining like I do every other week she bakes. Now WHY did I buy her all that baking stuff for her birthday? I really didn't think it through.

10. Both the new kitten and the dog have decided on their costumes for Halloween (via the little one.) So glad they're both girls (the jury might still be out on the kitten though...) The little one asked me if there was a way to count dressing up the kitten & dog and grooming them, as a homeschool subject. *sigh*