Random Homeschool Thoughts

• Anemone made an A on her Saxon 8/7 math test today.  Actually, she makes A's on all her math tests, but she rarely makes an A on her daily work.  This is the pattern with Saxon; you're always working on something new, but by the time you take a test, the new stuff has become old stuff and is second nature.  In other words, the topic has been mastered.  Knowing that helps get me through the rough days.

• I bought Singapore's Primary Challenging Word Problems books 5 and 6 to see how The Goobs would fare with them.  It is just as I suspected; book 6 is too easy for JellyMan, and book 5 is about right for Anemone.  She can solve the problems easily once she understands what they are asking.  Instead of providing just the information necessary to solve the problem (as Saxon generally does), Singapore provides all sorts of information and expects you to sort out what's needed.  That is just the sort of practice Anemone needs.

• Now I need a similar book for JellyMan, who is working through Algebra 2 - he never misses a Saxon word problem, and that makes me nervous.  I can't find a word problem book for older students on Singapore's website.  Any suggestions?

• I have been busy cobbling together JellyMan's 9th grade science curriculum.  The textbooks we'll use are Understanding Earth, 4th ed., and Laboratory Manual for Physical Geology, 12th ed.  Both are from my college geology class.  We watched a fantastic video series in that class, but I didn't write down the title or the host's name (silly me - I wasn't thinking far enough ahead), so I bought The Teaching Company's How the Earth Works video series.  I am matching up those lectures with the textbook chapters.  (It's a pain, because the text presents, say, volcanoes in one large chapter, and the video series splits volcanoes up into several lectures throughout the course.)  To lighten things up a bit, he will also read Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything.  All I need to do now is purchase rock/mineral samples and a few testing kits.  I'm looking for an extensive kit I can buy all at once - I want at least thirty samples for identification.  Does anyone know where I might find such a thing?  I'd rather not make a dozen small purchases from a dozen small companies.

• Poor Anemone has not gotten very far with First Start French this year.  (She requested French lessons.  She never requests anything school-ish, so you can imagine my excitement at the time.)  I have absolutely no experience with French, and I just can NOT add another language to all the stuff I'm supposed to be learning.  (Why, why, WHY don't either one of my Goobs want to learn Spanish?)  I wouldn't have let her start if The Man hadn't told me he'd take over the French lessons when he came home from the desert.  Well, you know what they say about good intentions.  I have a few options.  I could buy the Rosetta Stone Homeschool French program and have her muck about by herself, or I could hire a French tutor, or I could just tell her to learn French in college and start her on Greek.  All three options sound kind of crappy to me.

• I am always fretting about JellyMan's handwriting.  His work is legible, but only just.  I recently had the opportunity to view samples of several high school boys' penmanship skills, which makes me feel a little better about things, but I still wish I could start over in that area.  I tried to interest him in calligraphy, but his calligraphy looks just as bad as his everyday writing.  I don't know why I worry about it; my handwriting isn't very nice at all, and I've gotten by.  I suppose it's because we all want our kids to surpass us in every way, right?

• Today I have spent more time thinking about schooling my Goobs than I've spent actively schooling them.  (And my Goobs need lots of schooling.)  I'll catch you later.

*** Oops - I have one more thought.  When my hard drive crashed, I lost a link to a neat-O thing I wanted to get Anemone for Christmas.  It's a math puzzle type of toy.  It was a series of linked tringles, I think, one side silver and one side gold, that folded up a gazillion ways to make this really nifty 3-D star shape.  It was about $50 and I have no idea how I stumbled across it in the first place.  Maybe the WTM forum, maybe one of the math forums . . . I just don't remember.  If anyone has any idea what I'm talking about, please let me know!

*** Okay.  Never mind.  I found it.  It's the Yoshimoto Cube.  Here is a video:

*** Oops - I have one more thought.  Today is the last day to enter the DK/Google Mummy book giveaway.

Library School

Every once in a while The Goobs and I have too many appointments to justify running back and forth into town, so we pack up all our school books and spend the entire day at the library.  Oh, how I love library school.  If we could bring snacks, we'd do this every day.  Do you see how The Goobs aren't poking each other?  Do you see how they are not throwing things at each other's heads?  Do you see that Anemone, though quite obviously miserable and cursing me with all her considerable mind powers, is not weeping copiously or sinking down under the table to hang out with the dog?  Do you see that JellyMan, though he is clearly aching to tell Anemone to get over herself and just do the stupid work already because it is not that hard - in fact, it is so easy that he could do it with his eyes closed with one hand tied behind his back and on an empty stomach too, is studiously minding his own business?  Of course you see.  You have your own Goobers and you understand.  You also understand that when we're at the library, I can't exacerbate things by screeching, "You punks think I LIKE doing this, don't you?  You think I lost sleep as a child, all hopped up about homeschooling my own children!  Well, I DIDN'T!  I never thought about it at all!  I thought I'd finally be able to have FUN by now!  But I can't!  Because YOU won't finish your work!  Blah, moan, blah, snort, blah, slobber, blah...."

Yeah, you get it.  I know you do.

Mossified

Homeschooling in South Carolina

Homeschooling in South Carolina is okay.  It isn't great.  It isn't the free-for-all that is Alaska, but it's okay.  I have been able to grudgingly handle it for the last four and a half years.  Here are the rules that apply to everyone:

• The compulsory ages are from five to seventeen. (Okay, because I'm schooling them anyway.)
• The required subjects are math, reading, writing, social studies, science, with composition and literature being added in grades seven through twelve.  (Okay, I'm teaching that stuff anyway.)
• The school year must be 180 days long. (Okay, we homeschool year round anyway.)
• The homeschooling parent must have a high school diploma or GED. (Okay, I have that anyway.)

The law gives homeschoolers three options to choose from.  The cheapest and least restrictive option (which is of course, what we went with) is option three, which requires joining a homeschool association of at least fifty members and submitting proof of following all of the above requirements, plus semiannual progress reports (Not okay!  What business is it of theirs?).  I must also keep educational records, including a plan book (or other record) of subjects taught and activities and a portfolio of the child's work, though I am not required to show these to anyone.  Annual testing is not required, but is available through the homeschool association.

For those of you who don't know, military homeschooling families are required to follow the homeschool laws of the state in which they reside.  It doesn't matter that we are all legal residents of the free-for-all that is Alaska - we have to follow the silly legislation of whatever inferior state we are being forced to live in.  This means that I'll have to follow a whole new set of ridiculous laws when we move to Hawaii early next year, and I'm not happy about it.

So, can any of you tell that I really want The Man to tell The Man where to stick this stupid job?  He has this thing about making sure The Goobs eat every day, though.  It's beyond frustrating.

Brain Fog

It's been 29 hours since my last dose of caffeine.  

Ughfth.  

Library Shelf #5

Here's what we found at the library this week:

• Mariel of Redwall; Brian Jacques
• The Complete Idiot's Guide to American Government; Mary M. Shaffrey and Melanie Fonder
• Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White's The Elements of Style; Mark Garvey
• Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots; Scott Hahn
• How to Cook Everything: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food; Mark Bittman
• Julie & Julia; Julie Powell
• This Year You Write Your Novel; Walter Mosley
• Draw Cartoons; Noel Ford, Pete Dredge and Steve Chadburn
• Amphigorey Too; Edward Gorey
• And Another Thing; Eoin Colfer
• The Naked Chef; Jamie Oliver
• James Beard's Simple Foods; James Beard
• The Lost Art of Gratitude; Alexander McCall Smith

Have you read anything good lately?

Anemone in PSE6 and a Book Giveaway

Yesterday I thought my new Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens made people's noses look weird.  Today I decided it probably isn't the lens.  It's probably me standing too close to people's noses.  Well, whatever the reason, Anemone's nose still looks weird to me in this picture:

In fact, the whole middle of her face looks a little bulbous to me.  I'm sure you're all thinking, "Whatever, it looks fine," but you know how it is.  I'm Anemone's mother, and I know that is not quite what her nose looks like.  So I went into Photoshop Elements 6 to see if I could maybe do something about it.  I went to "filter" and chose "Correct Camera Distortion."  Then I slid the "Remove Distortion" slider two degrees to the right.  Then I cropped the photo slightly and ended up with this:

There isn't much of a difference, but it took me from saying, "Wow, Anemone's nose looks weird," to saying, "Well, Anemone's nose isn't quite right, but it's still a nice picture."  But the whole picture seemed sort of dark to me, so I created a new background layer and selected "Screen."  Then I moved the opacity slider to left until it looked reasonably normal and ended up with this:

I liked it at the time, but now I think it might be a little too bright.  It's hard for me to say; I like PSE6, but I always want my pictures to look like what I actually saw, and if I saw an Anemone in dim light, then that's what the picture should reflect.  And even though the brightened picture might be better, it isn't what I saw, and it makes me uncomfortable.  

Anyway.  Here are the first and last picture side by side:

Leave a comment and tell me which of the above pictures you like best, and I'll enter you in a drawing for Mummy: a DK/Google E-Guide:

It pains me to say it, but I'm in the process of editing our bookshelves for our upcoming move to Hawaii (books weigh a TON and our weight limit is, well, limited), and I'd like to pass along some of our excess to fellow homeschoolers.  I'll be giving away a book every Saturday until moving day, or until I run out of books - whichever comes sooner.  Now, these books I'm giving away have all been used by real, live homeschoolers, so the book jackets are scratched and/or wrinkled and/or missing, and you might find cookie crumbs between pages 132 and 133, but they're all in basically good shape.  We're just letting them go because The Goobs have outgrown them and I can't justify making the Air Force schlep them to Hawaii.  (And the Air Force, in turn, can't justify making the American tax payers pay for said schlepping, so they will make us pay for any excess weight.  I have to consider the cost of schlepping every book, and Mummy just doesn't make the cut.  It's a fine book.  But it's been nearly two years since anybody in this house was head over heels for mummies, so it has to go.  Maybe to you.  Lucky you!)  

You may enter until 12:07 a. m. (Eastern Standard Time) on the 21st of November, 2009.  I'll announce the winner (and the next free book) at some point between breakfast and lunch.  Thanks for playing!

Slow Blog Day

• It's been raining for the past three days, and it's bringing me down.
• JellyMan just asked me if the ozone layer is in the ground or in the air.  That is also bringing me down.
• Moving stinks, but moving day can't come fast enough for me.
• I took this picture of Anemone in very low lamplight with my new Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G camera lens that UPS brought to me on time even though it wasn't nearly as important as Anemone's Latin books, which they lost:

• I like the lens, but I think it makes people's noses look weird. 
• My Goobs are never home in the late afternoon/early evening.  I don't like it.
• I'm tired of art appreciation videos.
• Some days I really shouldn't be blogging.  This is one of those days.

Moving Stinks

Military moves are tough on children.  They're given just enough time to stop grieving the loss of their old home, their old friends, their old routines and start getting used to their new home, their new friends, their new routines before they have to pack up and do it all over again.  It's rough.  

Most people don't think of this, but military moves are also tough on pets, especially overseas moves. Poor old Norman.  He's ten years old now, and I hate to put him though another PCS, especially a PCS to Hawaii.  He's got a bad heart, arthritis, and several deep-seated neuroses that I try hard not to take personally.  (Norman was a pound puppy.  I'm pretty sure someone beat him at some point.)  Just look at that sweet grizzled face:

Does that look like the face of a dog who can handle a sixteen hour flight in a cage and/or a longish quarantine period?  No, it doesn't.  So our Norman is going to go spend his last years at the farm with my parents.  We think it's the kindest thing to do; he loves my parents, and they love him and will take good care of him, even though he's a big, hairy, stinking thing who needs to go see the vet or the groomer every five minutes.  And what with my mom and the farm and the cows and his best buddy Sherman (Sherman is my mom's schnauzer) he probably won't even have time to miss us.  Much.

Of course being kind to Norman means I am being cruel to my Goobs, who will have to grieve for their old home, their old friends, their old routines AND their old Norman.  Oh, moving stinks.  Sometimes I think it might be hardest on the mom.  

Last Man Standing