Again, I Reiterate! The Many Reasons I Choose to Homeschool MrBaby AKA as Karl

Oh, let me count the ways, I mean reasons...

And there are many of them.

1.  Convenience!  If we want to stay up late visiting a friend, or looking at the stars, or the moon, or a storm, or even just a movie, we can, and there's no need to worry about being sleep-deprived the next day. 
If we want to eat breakfast at 10 am instead of 7 am, we can.  If we want to go to the store at 1 in the afternoon, we can.  If we want to do a lesson on shadows and how they move across the yard, we can do that, too, all day!

2.  Health!  Our health isn't compromised by our school district's funny stance on health issues.  One example is that even if your child is sick, has lice, or another communicable disease, you're told that you must send your child to school.  Privacy regulations now prevent school staff from informing other parents when there is an outbreak of lice at FWCS (Fort Wayne Community Schools) so it can spread like crazy!  When you homeschool, you know what your student body has.

3.  Bully-free!  There are no bullies in homeschool environments.  FWCS are full of them, and these bullies are not just students, but some of the teachers.  'Nuff said there!

4.  Better quality teachers!  Yes, I said it.  Homeschools, at least ours, have better quality teachers, who aren't going to gripe about the pay (wow, we get zero, and still do it), go on strike, try to have sexual relationships with the students, or lose a kid on the bus.  FWCS refuses to hire qualified, according to Indiana's DOE standards, substitute teachers if they don't want to become full time teachers.  So someone with a master's degree in Liberal Studies gets told no, and students get substitute taught by, guess who, the PRINCIPAL, or any other staff member available.  No way, I want better than that for my child.  And when the rare occasion happens that I don't know how to explain something, I always have Google!

5.  Better quality socialization!  I get to decide who my child socializes with, not some teacher who doesn't have the same standards I do.  My child socializes with adults, and other children, not just other children.  He is going to grow up to be an adult, not a child.  Right?

6.  Religion!  I get to include religion, and prayer, in our homeschool, and no one can say 'you're fired' to me for doing it.

7.  Tailor-made to my child!  If an opportunity presents itself, I can use that to teach something that otherwise might not have been taught.  I've taught several different things, including cooking, how to clean something up, several different life cycles beyond just the typical butterfly lesson, currents, and so many other things, that will rarely, if ever, be taught in a traditional school.  If he wants to learn about, or I think he's ready, anything, it can be taught.  I can also teach different grade levels at one time.  He's in kindergarten for reading, 1st for math, and about 3rd for science.  Social studies is about 2nd grade.  There are many things he learns that aren't covered in traditional schools until middle or high school, such as psychology, simple mechanics and shop class, cooking and home economics, sewing...  And he gets almost unlimited recess, and arts and crafts that doesn't have to worry about cuts in funding.  There's also music that we get to do, plus he's learning how to make his own videos.

8.  Safety!  I know where my child is, I don't have to worry about not getting him back at the end of the day, and getting a dreaded phone call from someone at the school. 

9.  Consistency and discipline!  I don't have to worry about my son ever being expelled or suspended.  I am the teacher, there are no substitutes, he knows what he can expect, every day, every 'class,' every year.  It won't change.  He knows I love him, I let him throw his fits when he wants things another way, and eventually he asks, almost every time, 'I'm not gonna win, am I?  I really have to try this?'  He doesn't get suspended for taking up time.  Which leads to...

10.  Time!  We have all the time we need to teach and learn that we need.  I'm not on some crazy schedule (except when it's a science experiment, and then sometimes we are) that forces me to give up quality and quantity to meet someone else's expectation of me, him, our teaching or learning experiences.

11.  NO ISTEP!  That's right, we have no ISTEP testing.  None!  My son's education focuses on teaching and learning, discovering, fun, creativity, NOT standardized testing.

12.  Portability!  We can use many different resources, and take our homeschool anywhere we go.  I've taught him in Walmart, restaurants, at the park, while camping, on the bus - everywhere! 

So homeschool is the right choice for us.  It makes me mad that some people suggest he's not being socialized.  Then I have to laugh at them, because it's like they assume I put him in a box and teach  him there.  That's their main concern, is that he isn't socialized.  School isn't about making friends, it's supposed to be about learning, and making friends comes second.  There are no other children being taught here that are going to detract from his learning by distracting him from what I am teaching.  There are no spitballs, or glue hands, or broken crayons being flung around the room.  There is no lice outbreak I don't find out about until my own child has it.  These concerned people, I've found, are usually uninformed about what homeschool really is, and also very conformed to society's standards, and I'm not going to let me son suffer for their shortcomings. 

Socialization?  He gets plenty, and not just from other children, but also adults and teens.  Do kids in traditional school get cooking lessons in kindergarten?  Learn beginning physics and mechanics in 1st grade?  Learn how to build in 2nd grade?  No, sadly, they don't.  Do they get exposed to communicable diseases and parasites, without being told there's a risk?  Yes, they do.  Do they get exposed to poorly qualified teachers?  Yes, they do.  Do they have to go out in the cold, in the dark, to wait on the bus or walk to school, and then spend most of their day inside during the winter, with no sunshine?  Yes, they do.  Do they get homework that keeps them from spending time with their families or hobbies that they want to pursue?  Yes, they do.

I want better than that for my child, and that's what I give him.  I know several children who go to regular school.  Some are brats, mean, petty, stingy children, others, who go to the same school, are great kids, who are respectful, helpful, kind, and listen to their parents.  Schools don't socialize children like many think they do.  Parents, families, they socialize kids for the most part.  Not schools.  If they did, you would see more kids acting exactly the same as the kids in their classrooms.

August 22-28, 2012

We've covered several things the last week, including:

Currents found in nature.  Water currents were brought up after MrBaby lost his balloon he got at the Waynedale Picnic.  He had it on the porch, and Lea tried to warn him that it would fly out the side of the porch, but he didn't believe her.  After a small gust of wind blew into the porch from the south side and blew the balloon out the north east side, he was pretty upset, and cried for another one for quite some time.  I discussed with him about when he had thrown his shoe into the lake when we were camping in Huntington, at Camp Timber Lake.  He had been wondering if it would sink or float, and decided to do his own experiment, and find out.  What he hadn't thought about was if it did float, what would happen then.  It floated away.  This was repeated with the balloon, except it was in the air, instead of in the water.  The balloon could go up, instead of just across, at a reachable height, and it did.  It went up and away out of sight.  I told him, after he was calm, that currents carry things on them, like the water current at the lake took his shoe away.  The air was trapped inside the porch on the west and north sides and when it went out the other side, on the east, it carried the balloon away with it.  It didn't make him feel any better about his balloon taking a trip without him, but at least he knew why it happened.  We'll add to this later when we look at seeds that go airborn in order to propagate themselves.

His balloon floating away...

And it didn't come back, either.













Baby Sammy has also killed a squirrel, so I've covered up the dead tree cat with potting soil, and we'll have a skeleton in the near future.  The kids,including MrBaby 'enjoyed' having something gross around for a change.  I couldn't stand the smell, so needing to 'protect' it from being eaten, they didn't protest too much when I covered it up.

We also got a new camera, and will be able to take better pics, and videos again.  The camera came with a card, which are running in the 420 range, and the camera was only around $12, including the shipping.  Thing is, I need to spend about $30-40 to get a card that will let me take longer videos.  Right now, I am supposed to get about 90 seconds, but I only get about 1!   Here he is riding his bike.

MrBaby also has an Android speaker coming to him, so he can listen to his science class with Aurora, and it's coming all the way from China!

With the money cards, he's still having the common problem of understanding that even though dimes are smaller, you need five of those, or ten of the bigger nickels, to get two quarters to get a toy out of the machine at the gas station.

I took this through the window.  He went and got change all by himself.  We also discussed what happens when paper money gets too old.  One of his ripped on the middle a bit and he taped it to a piece of paper.  We're going to send it, after we write a letter, to the address found on this webpage, so he can get a US Treasury Check. 

We also went to an auction and here are some pics from there.  He actually tried to bid.  Someone bid $50 and he yelled out $70!  I said no no, he's underage!  The unit ended up going for $75, though.

It was after this that we went to the Waynedale Picnic.

As yo can see, a couple of other kids lost balloons that day.  He really believed that the porch roof would keep it 'inside' and keep it from floating away.

It was so quiet earlier this evening, but that's because all the other kids are going to bed at a decent hour in order to get up for school tomorrow morning. It's so much more pleasant now than it was over the summer. Most of the other kids are jealous because our schedule is so much more relaxed than theirs is, though. Over the weekend, my friends brought me an extra monitor so I could hook MrBaby's computer up, and I told MrBaby and another child (who seems unwilling to listen to any of the adults, including this child's mother) to clear a path on the porch so I could bring the monitor in without tripping, and to please not act like neither of you heard me. Nothing was done. My friends both told them to get a path cleared, because they had things they needed to go do. Again, blank stares and nothing was done. One of my friends said fine, you don't want to clean that up so your mom doesn't fall, just go back your overnight bag and you can come home with us. The porch was miraculously cleaned up in a few seconds. This same child came over yesterday and this child is into snatching toys from younger children, which makes MrBaby fuss and I've had enough. I told my friend Dolly what was going on and she sent her home yesterday. As soon as Dolly had left, though, this child was right back at the door, asking for MrBaby to come outside to play. As you probably already know, I work online, and I cannot be continually distracted by fussing, and the toy snatching is usually the reason for any fussing. My work is not only dependent on the quality I provide, but also on the time I spend on each individual task. This means that flat out, I cannot referee two children who should know that when I say 'play nicely' I really mean to do just that. I can't go out on the porch every few minutes to set things right again. So, since the other child won't eliminate the problem behavior, we've eliminated the child from coming over. Period, no more chances. There are several other children MrBaby can play with around here, and they don't seem to ask a hundred questions about why our family is a certain way and not just like their own. Now I'm trying to explain to MrBaby what the nuances are in this type of situation, such as the other children who play with the child who is banned from being over here are shunning him. I told him I didn't want him to play with them anyway. There is something wrong with children who are put in charge of a one year old child who then not only hold him upside down over the street to get him to scream in terror, but also abandon that same child, while strapped into his stroller, in the middle of the street and then run and hide behind trees and bushes. I don't spank very often, but if I have to, I will. It's usually a safety issue, such as going into the street when I've told him not to, or trying to ride his bike when it's getting to close to dusk, and I really honestly do not want MrBaby picking up any behavioral problems. We have been through so much, and come too far, for him to start acting up like I see so many of these children round here doing. If he starts doing similar things, he's going to end up grounded to the inside of the house, which isn't enjoyable for either of us, of course, and if that doesn't work, I'm going to have to start spanking. And that really will hurt me more than it does him. Social studies is such a blast!!! I think we will continue to 'study' from a distance and avoid any 'hands-on' studying in this area. All I can say is 'wow!'

Starting to Count with Monetry Denominations

We were at the grocery store, and among all the school supplies, I found flashcards.  I bought the money ones.  They have different coins on the one side, and the total amount on the other side.  MrBaby was a bit disappointed that it wasn't play money, though.  He's been wanting some, but when we got back home, I gave him four one dollar bills.  Then he asked me for a twenty!  Of course I told him no.  I also told him to save his money instead of spending it in the toy machines at the gas station. 

Today we learned about poisonous berries, namely poke berries. These were used as dyes for ponies by Native Americans, and as the ink of the Declaration of Independence! Here are some pictures of poke berries we have here at Dolly's house:

This is a younger set of berries, with their white flowers showing.

Every part of the poke plant is poisonous, especially the roots. Many people eat poke salad, which is like boiled spinach, but I don't think we will ever try it. It takes several boilings, many people say only two, with the first one being in salt water, to leach out the toxins. I think we will just stick with spinach and lettuce instead, maybe dandelion greens on occasion.

MrBaby's Barbie Collection

We don't go with the boy toys are for boys and girl toys are for girls philosophy. He has asked if I was a tomboy when I was growing up does that mean he's a tomgirl, though.

And it is Leap Day!!!

And I either got through to Karl about what Leap Day is and why it exists (there's a saying that there is no man-made institution that doesn't have a purpose, and I have yet to figure one out that doesn't have a purpose), or he's tired of hearing me yap about it.

This is one of those fantastic things about homeschooling your kid - you can harp on something until they get it, which is not something they do in public school.

How I explained it to him was that the earth doesn't know our calendar, it is something we made up, and it's not perfectly lined up with the seasons. If we didn't do Leap Day, in a couple hundred years, we'd end up with Christmas in the Summer, like they have in Bolivia, and Bolivia would have Christmas in the Winter, like we do now. He understands their seasons are the opposite of ours, so I am hoping that he does understand, and not just telling me he gets it now.

Great Kids

Thanks for the post, Lorraine Gregory

We’ve got some really great kids. They do their homework like they’re supposed to and they spend time outdoors playing sports and they have a lot of great friends. I wish I could get through to them how proud I am of them and how much I think they’re doing to prepare themselves for their future. I recently got some DIRECTV Packages for home so we could institute a family togetherness night – I want to make sure we get to spend a lot of time with the kids before they go off to college in a few years. I can’t believe they’re that old or that things have to change because they’re getting older. I have so many friends whose kids are really getting attitude problems as they get older and I’m just thankful that’s not something we’re dealing with. I can’t believe we’ve been married for 20 years and that our kids are old enough to be out on their own soon. It’s been a whirlwind of a life!

Sisser's 19th Birthday, and She Came Over (With Visitors!)

Sisser is 19 today, and she came over. Dylan and his younger brother came over too. Seth is taller than Dylan, though, so now Karl is hoping he will be taller than Corey and Josh. I'm hoping he is as tall, but I doubt he will be taller.

Karl is still having trouble counting correctly to 20, he still jumps from 13 to 18, so I'm going to try something new, and that's to make a chart where he is 0, then 1, then 2, and so on up to now, where he's six. Then I'm going to put Sisser down, also, because she was almost 13 when he was born. I'm hoping that showing him that Sisser's age didn't jump from 12, almost 13, when he was born, to 18 (and now 19 - and next year, 20, when he will have already turned 7).

It'll look like something like this:

.......0.......1.......2.......3.......4.......5.......6.......7

12.....13.......14.....15......16.....17......18.....19

And, they said that they'd love to go camping with us, too, so the big camping trip is going to have even more people. Looking forward to it!!!

Camping Trip Being Planned

It's Theresa's birthday today and when we talked she told me she is wanting to go camping this summer, for at least a week, maybe even longer, and that she wants it to be a bigger event. So we're going to see ow many people we can get to go, even if they only stay a few days at a time. I love to go camping, and it's the tearing down of the site that I hate to do, unless I know I'm going to go again very soon. I told her since I work online, and she's not working right now, and she said they have wifi, and (yes, I'm rambling) that if she let me borrow her laptop, I could go for longer than a week. I'm shooting for a month. She's worried about her puppy, who can't go (breed isn't welcome at the location we're planning on going to) being let out, but she should be able to go home a couple times a day, or have Gene let him out, too. It's workable, I know it is.

With our two tents, and her two, and then one of the guys having a camper (he's wanting electric), we're pretty set. We already have all the cooking gear, and I told her I can bring the coffee maker, and the electric stove, so with a fire pit or two going, as well, we're set.

This should give Karl a good chance at checking out the nearby river (which is toxic and even has warning signs not to come into contact with the water, joy), ride his bike all over the place, and play on the playground equipment, and maybe, just maybe, get used to taking showers, lol. This is going to be a good field trip for his homeschool studies.

Happy Valentine's Day, Everyone!

Karl has been practicing his artwork by drawing a bunch of hearts, in all different colors. As soon as I can get either a new camera, or the scanner up and working, I'll post some of his creations.

We've also been working on spirals, and not just drawing them, but also cutting them,and seeing what they do when they are held up in the air.

When we were looking on Youtube for spirals, well, he loves UFO's also, and we ended up looking at this video of a rendering of a spiraling rocket, and what it would do to clouds.

Ground Hog Day with Leap Day Soon to Be Here

Well, some say Ground Hog Day was yesterday, but I've always felt it was the second of the second, and that would be today. Then, 27 more days, and it will be Leap Day. Karl wants to catch a ground hog now (I should have known, right?) and we have plenty here. They are all over the place, even here in the city. These are some very large animals, too, for something that lives underground. I really need a camera! I don't care what the news people say, or even if they agree with me - I think we only have a very short time left before SPRING hits, and it's going to be a nice one, without any of the common floods we usually have here.

I think it's Karl's very young age that is making it so difficult to explain that we add a day every four years to the calendar. But, I have all month, so I'm going to try another approach and see if explaining it from a solar system and climate and seasons approach will work. Wish me luck!

Big Brother Corey's Birthday - He's 25 Today!!!

Time sure does fly when your kids are growing up. It seems like yesterday that Corey was Karl's age, and in homeschool himself. Now, Corey's a quarter of a century old!

Wow, that makes me feel a bit old, lol. Even though Corey won't be coming into town, and he has his Facebook privatized so nobody,not even his friends, can post on his Wall, I've sent him a couple of messages.

We also made him a cake, and Karl wanted to put 25 candles on it, but I told him we didn't have that many. I'm using this as an opening to move him up to 25 in addition. In about a week, we'll start the subtraction up to 25, but I have to make some of our own flashcards for that.

Making your own flashcards is quite easy, just use heavy paper or light cardboard, and a marker. Make them all the same size, and write in very small size numbers at the top the numbers, with the answer, on the opposite side, using a pen.

Packing China

Guest post from: Constance Rodgers

I had so much to do today. When I woke up this morning, I was totally over whelmed. I have been putting things off for our big move for quite sometime. Now, with the move only two weeks away, it was time to really get moving. I had to meet the painter at the new house, to make sure that the baseboard work they the previous owners were doing before we moved in got finished. Then, I had to call and make sure that the boarder’s had the reservations for our dogs for the next few weeks. We still don’t have a fence up at the new house. I also had to meet Home Security 101 at the house so that they could install the security system. The last thing and biggest thing that I had to do was finish packing up the china. I was really beginning to regret my habit of collecting vintage patterns when five o’clock rolled around and I was still not done packing up the china. I do know one thing, I am definitely not going to be collecting anymore china unless we decided that we are NEVER going to move again. It is just way too much work.

Reasons Why We Homeschool

1. Socialization in most public schools is of extremely poor quality. Parents have no idea who their child is going to meet, interact with, be influenced by, or if the other children are who they want their child associating with. Worse, bullying is on the rise, and educators seem to be uneducated on not only what bullying is, but how to deal with it when it happens.

2. Educational standards are slipping, and quickly. More and more children leave school with no skills, including the very basics of reading and writing.

3. Pressure to perform, and also to conform, fails to intrigue me, except for the passing fancy I have of it and why so many parents are fine with it being aimed at their children. Then I remind myself, there is no logic behind it, except it's easier to control people who conform. I want my child to grow up to be a leader, not a follower. Nothing wrong with followers, it's just the day and age that's bad for followers. At the rate things are going, it might be harder on those who end up being leaders.

4. I enjoy being with my son, day in and day out. He doesn't seem to mind my company, either. I know what he's learning, what methods are being used, I never have to worry about the dreaded PTA meetings, nor the parent-teacher conferences, where all of a sudden, your child, who you've been told all grading period is near saintly, now has problems that you've never been told about. and I also know what he's eating, without ever having to pack a lunch.

5. Flexibility is wonderful. I can teach at a bowling alley, lecture while he's laying down to go to bed, help him write better while talking on the phone, use his favorite TV shows to reinforce something we covered before, and combine subjects into lessons however I think he'll learn best.

6. Risk of several things is eliminated, and even though they may have been low-risk if he attended 'regular' school, there's no chance of him being bullied, ending up in a poor quality school system (FWCS, where we live, is rated a 4 out of 10!), being a victim of violence, or failing. That's right, he has no risk of being held back a grade. I teach him at what level he is capable of learning, not by his age. He also doesn't risk becoming ill from other students, and I don't mean the flu or colds, I mean contagious diseases that run long-term health risks, such as e-coli. He also doesn't run the risk of being kidnapped while on his way to or from the bus stop.

7. Lack of his time being wasted while a teacher catches other children up with the rest of the class. He's not forced to learn at the average rate of the other students in his class.

8. He's also freed of permission slips for field trips, lunch money lost (or stolen), homework left at home, and so on.

9. His curriculum is actually increased, not decreased. He's learning how to cook, parasitology, beginning chemistry, beginning physics, and not only geography, but also topography.

10. His teacher, me, studied Liberal Arts, and I'm comfortable teaching many different subjects, even though I'm a bit rusty on the calculus.

Last Thursday to today

Covered animal sciences, with Squeaky the mouse, as well as social studies through interactions and observations on the #9.

In beginning addition, in which he did surprisingly well, and even though he refused help, after begging for it, he got every equation correct on the first two pages of the Spiderman workbook he received for Christmas. For practical math, we went today with his sister and Dylan to a book store, where he sold some of his baby books, and received $8.75 for them. (I then turned around and spent about $7.50 on a couple of new books for him, one is a very well-rounded resource fact book, and the other is a bilingual workbook.) He's not as upset as he originally was about selling his baby books as he was before he got the money for them.

With reading, we covered a few different words again, and then he sounded out a few words on his own. We then discussed exclamation marks, because he thought it was an 'i' and sounded it out, as well.

Geography was covered in the usual way, by using the map on his wall. We also discussed the globe, and I again stressed that even though it looks like a ball, it's not able to bounce like one, and it will break. I'm really hoping he doesn't test me on that point!