Kindergarten Photo

We started this school year in July since we are homeschooling year-round, but I wanted to take a "first day" picture since it's that time of year. Kitty wanted to do whatever her brother was doing.

Kitty is in Pre-Pre-Pre-K so I didn't make her a sign. :) After the photo Raccoon wanted to rip up the sign, which reminded me of a particular 6th grade Christmas concert of mine where we ripped off itchy aluminum colors and spontaneously celebrated, much to the dismay of our choir teacher, as we later found out. Apparently it seemed rebellious. We were just glad to be done, as was Raccoon. Photos are still not his thing but he's come a long way.

Our School Corner

Our "schoolroom" is mostly just to store supplies and books. My mom helped me organize this space during her visit in June and I will be forever thankful. We recently rearranged the shelves slightly to make our house more earthquake ready. The center one is tied to the bars on our windows (we don't live in the U.S.), and the other two will fall on the center one. This isn't really important to the functional setup of our schoolroom, but it's been on my mind.

Anyway, the basic setup is my books and the kids' videos on the left, learning materials and games in the center, with curriculum, art supplies, science stuff, etc on the right. The washing machine and dryer are just out of sight on the right.

 

This is our living space. Our house is small, so there is one large room then two bedrooms behind where I stood to take the picture. That's it, but it's all ours so I love it. You can see our schoolroom in the center corner, but Raccoon and I sit at the bar to the left to do science and writing activities. The rest of school we do all over. So our schoolroom is more of a corner storage area, but having everything at my fingertips has been an amazing time-saver.

Why are we homeschooling?

So it may seem a little late for this post since I've been blogging about why I want to homeschool Racoon for a while now, but I wanted to record our main reasons in one (hopefully) concise post.
Age: Raccoon misses the cut-off for kindergarten by six weeks, but I feel like he's ready for more than another year of pre-k.

Flexibility: Neither he nor I are morning people. We currently start between 9 to 10 am, once we are both fully awake and functional. Love it. I also like the flexibility with his speed of learning, slow or fast as he needs it, and that we can do school anywhere or anytime. It also lets us continue to travel for our work and bring the kids along.

Time: I want my kids to be with me, at least while they are so young. This isn't in a smothery way, just in a why not spend time with the people I like best? way. As we all need or want more freedom we will adjust, but I suspect that the older they get, the more I will continue to enjoy their company.

The extra truth: I was bored in elememtary school, but I was a meek, well-behaved little girl who wanted to please my teachers so I mostly coped by reading in class. My son, well, let's just say that he's none of those things, as lovable as he is. I don't want him labeled as a troublemaker or whatever. I don't want his curiousity and love of learning squashed by having to stay in his seat for hours a day. Needing a wide level of help and challenge, having SPD, being bright... it seemed like a lot to ask any classroom teacher to handle. Once Raccoon has more self-awareness and self-control (I'm thinking 3rd grade or so), we'll revisit our education choices together.

Money: International English schools are very expensive, from $500 to $800 a month per child. It may be worth it for middle school onward, but right now I feel like I can do so much with less. Our current salary doesn't provide enough for that kind of tuition, so I would have to get a job at the school for a discount. I don't want to leave Maddie yet.
Location: We live an hour away from our school of choice, making our daily commute a nightmare. We may move back into town at some point, but I think ruralandia has a lot of advantages for our kids right now.

Language: We want both Raccoon and Kitty to easily transition to college in the US if that is their choice. My husband and I feel that a US-style education in English fits best with that goal. There are not many schools like that available here, and the ones that do exist are expensive and far away, as I mentioned above. I do plan to have Spanish curriculum in our homeschool to ensure that they are functionally bilingual. If Raccoon dislikes homeschooling at some point, we might look at a Spanish school, but everything under "extra truth" still applies to make school in any language not a good fit for him right now. That said, our very poor but generous local school, about six houses down our dirt road, has offered to let Caleb join their K class, called Basic 1 here. I may take him for one day a week so he gets a feel for traditional school and forms friendships with kids in our neighborhood, if they have found a teacher by then.

So those are our big 7.

I envision our list for homeschooling Kitty, when her time comes, consisting of one thing: because we love it.

Disclaimer: I would like something with more peers starting anywhere from 5th grade on, but what that looks like depends on Raccoon's needs at that point. I'm not opposed to traditional school, homeschool just fits us better right now.

Candlemaking and more

Here's a peek at some fun stuff we've done (in random order): dipping string in hot wax, rubber band guitar, water jar scale, a river expedition, playing in the sand, fractions, and learning about life cycles with our pea plants.

15 school days down, 165 to go...

Year E Month 2

These are the books Raccoon and I will be using this month and perhaps longer. And a picture of his latest "invention," an airplane. (I'm posting this from my phone and don't know how to rotate pics.)

The Kindergarten Scholar book is to help his pre-writing skills since he's pretty much got the concepts. But I want to expose him to traditional formats, following directions, and some pencil/paper stuff. I thought the Dust Bowl book would be fun because it's dry season here and very dusty/windy.

Kitty is having fun with sensory activities and gross motor tasks, like running and forward rolls. She doesn't talk much yet but I'm expecting a language explosion any day now. Her receptive language is great in Spanish and English. She's 18 months old. She's in Year B. :)

And I figured out something about myself. I love my children and I have a wonderful life but my brain is bored. I don't have a lot of time or energy for a big pursuit, but I am going to start teaching myself Quechua, a local language here. That is what the Busy Words book is for, me to make a picture dictionary. I'm hoping that the kids will pick up a few words too. Otherwise I've been driving my husband to distraction collecting pets. I need some sort of intellectual outlet because my brain feels like it's turning to mush. We'll see how this goes. I wonder if there's an app for that...

Year E begins!!

We have a schoolroom! My mother and father came to visit for a wonderful month, and while I was busy with kid stuff, my mom organized my new shelves and learning materials in what used to be our laundry/storage area made into a room with a bookshelf wall. The last step is to hang a curtain to keep visiting kids out of the fragile things.

Another important homeschooling step was the decision to try year-round schooling, so our schedule will run from July 2014 to June 2015. Although I don't have to register as a homeschooling family in WA (our state of residence) until Raccoon is 8, I feel concerned about getting in the required 180 school days. I am not so worried about the 11 required subjects: reading, writing, spelling, language, math, science, social studies, history, health, occupational education, and art and music appreciation. Having a soft start in July is like school days' extra credit before our more structured schedule begins in September. We'll see how it goes; we're three days in so far.

What are we up to? Raccoon's current passion is catching bugs for his two insect boxes that his Grama gave him. He has all of his neighborhood friends also chasing after tarantulas and grasshoppers along with him. So far the only thing we can sustain in captivity is garden spiders. We have abundant flies and a nifty little jar with a pivoting door to catch them. It has been interesting to have an arachnid on our kitchen counter. We are now onto spider #4 because spider #1 was released into the wild, spider #2 hid in the container instead of being released with its roommate #1, then it ate spider #3. We got spider #4 from a beautiful web in our back yard. I was hoping it would spin a web in the box, but with the abundance of flies it seems to be content with a few silk threads here and there.

My mom also brought down a lot of hands-on kits (pictured below), so we jumped right into those. What we're doing doesn't even feel like school to Raccoon, which is why I like the year-round model for now.

Spider #4

Sneaking in some pre-writing activities

Music, Art, and Language

Science

Raccoon's first microscope! Unfortunately it only works on at 100X but not at the 300X nor the 600X settings. It was pretty cheap though, and my goal was just to familiarize with handling the slides and microscope. He was so excited when we bought it and says he wants to be a scientist when he grows up. The next thing he wants is his own lab, like Johnny Test's sisters. :)

The chemistry kit is pretty basic but Raccoon likes it since it came with balloons, straws, pipets, etc. He's more interested in combining things to do his own "experiments," but we've done several of the activities so far.

Math

This is a bit beyond Raccoon, but we've put together several of the circuits. I think it's good exposure to a grid system (the instructions give coordinates like A4) and for following directions. We made a Star Wars alarm today. My only complaint is that I still have no idea how electricity works even after making the models. I plan to do a little research of my own so I can explain it better to Raccoon. He thinks the parts can just be put together willy nilly. The plastic cases are good for protection but they also make it so that neither one of us knows what is actually going on.

This was Raccoon's book at occupational therapy in the US, which his therapist kindly gave to us when we left.  He has never been much of a pencil and paper guy, so I think the activities in here will be good practice for him. He does not like to color at all, although he will draw or paint things occasionally. This is the only school thing that he would not choose to do on his own, but I have promised him a prize upon completion of the entire book.

Boosting Structure

As a teen, I think I pretty much spent my summers reading. I read this post on the summer doldrums and her last sentence in tiny writing caught my eye, "Help yourself and autistic loved ones by boosting structure (schedules) and encouraging the pursuit of special interests."

No one in my family is on the spectrum as far as I know, but there is some overlap with our sensory issues and I find her blog comforting and familiar somehow.

All this is to say that more structure is looming on our horizon! My mom's visit has given us a fully organized and very functional school room in what used to be our laundry/storage corner. Thank you, Mom!

Celosia School will begin with a soft start this week and continue on until our "official" start in September. Year E here we come!

On the docket for this week is an electric circuit board my mom brought down, a USA puzzle with Grampa, and some building projects with Dad. And maybe more chocolate chip cookies.

Raccoon wants a lab. This is percolating in my brain right now. How to keep things safe yet still interesting... :)