My Nine Year Old is NOT Taking the SAT

Because she's 9. Ella is 9 years old. She's in 4th grade. Why am I even listening to completely unnecessary and stress inducing "guidance" about college? She's 9!!!

I'm not normally like this. Really. I know I can be a bit high strung and I have a slightly off-beat sense of humor, but I'm not a mom who stresses about every little detail of life. Usually. I didn't have my kids on wait lists for preschools that cost more than my car. I didn't hire a tutor for my 6 month old to make sure she could read in both English and Spanish before she could contain her own baby drool. I'm really not neurotic...but I'm starting to encounter some icky "your daughter's entire future rests solely upon whether or not you choose this curriculum" pressure and I don't like it.

Here's the sitch (see, in addition to being non-neurotic I'm also hip and happening), I've started looking for next year's curriculum for our homeschooling adventures. I'm in love with our math and language programs, but I am no longer pleased with history. So I have started searching and sifting and comparing different history curricula for both kids. And some of the sites are freaking me out.

Because Ella will be in 5th grade in the fall, there's this strange, and I think made up, timeline confronting me with all the stuff she needs to know or be exposed to or have memorized before she starts high school...in four years. So the helpful helpers have laid out these master 4-5 year plans to cover everything she "needs" to know for high school in order to be properly prepared for college...in eight years! And since I've only got four years left until HS-day I'm apparently already behind the curve and now my daughter will be doomed to an unforgiving string of rejection letters all because I didn't cover the shifting political and religious ties of Reformation Europe. Seriously?

I can't plan eight years in advance. I can only deal with one year at a time. And even that is a minor miracle. I'd say I'm about an 8 on the "organized and plan-ahead" scale, but plan my curriculum four years ahead? Eight years? There's no way. See, I also register pretty high on the "let's try something new and dangerous" scale. Yep, organized adventure...that's me. And you'd be glad to have me on an adventure because I'm the one who remembers to pack toilet paper and bug spray. Just sayin'.

Anyway, I'm not trying to be an iconoclast here or a boat rocker or a trouble maker or anything else, but can't we ease up on the parent stress just a wee bit? Isn't one of the joys of homechooling being able to think outside the box a bit and do things a little differently? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with setting your kids up for success, we should all be doing that, but can't we plan for the future without sacrificing the joys of the present? And can we please stop raising the imaginary good parent bar? No one likes it, no one needs it and I'm pretty sure it was made up by someone who never had kids.

And thus ends my rant for the day.

So, who has a homeschool history curriculum they really love?

The Emotional Complexities of eBay

We're finishing up this homeschool year and Ella is counting down the days until summer break. She's suddenly gotten a massive second wind now that the finish line is in sight and she's starting to ask to do extra lessons every day so she can hurry up and be done. We have a few more weeks to go, but the end is in sight.

Well, it's in Ella's sight. I'm already plotting, planning and preparing for next year. And, as I have mentioned earlier, I am philosophically opposed to paying full price for curriculum. So I have been busy stalking used curriculum websites and eBay in an attempt to find a good deal on the books I plan on using in the fall.

Ah, eBay. The worlds largest, and most diverse, yard sale. And I'm not bashing eBay. I'm a fan! I love eBay. I have a whole system for eBay bargain hunting. I'm a sniper. That's right, I'm that sneaky person who swoops in with only 10 seconds left and outbids all those unsuspecting suckers....uh, bidders. Nice bidders. Forgiving bidders who will continue to read my blog. (Sweet smile)

Anyway, I have learned that eBay is not the best place for people with competitive natures. It's far too easy for those of us who have been gifted with a strong inner drive for success (ie. I would trip my Grandma in a three legged race) to lose sight of the bargain hunting aspect of eBay and start taking things personally. If anyone else has the nerve to bid against us we see it as a personal attack and must retaliate by clicking that bid button. And then it just escalates into some Butter Battle bidding war over a chipped kitty statue that inevitably ends with someone screaming "No!" at their slow loading computer and someone else overpaying for shipping.

So, in an attempt to show great maturity and restraint, I have set a spending limit on my curriculum searches. And so far I have managed to keep my trigger finger off the sniper bidding button. But consider yourself warned...especially if you're looking for Sonlight books. Dun, dun, dun duuuuuuuunnnn.

PS. You get bonus points if you got the Dr. Seuss reference.

Presenting (drum roll).....Our Curriculum

By popular demand (ok, two people asked me) here's the post that reveals all my homeschool secrets. Well, not my secrets so much as the curriculum that we're using this semester. But honestly, I give a lot of credit for the success of our homeschool adventure to the curriculum we use. God gets the glory first, my children next and these books third.

I've done some trial and error in the past year to find the right fit for Ella. Some curriculum didn't make it past the first two lessons. But that's part of what makes homeschooling amazing. You can change what doesn't work as soon as you know it doesn't work.

So, here's what Ella's doing this semester:

Bible: Bob Jones Grade 3

Language: Easy Grammar 3, Daily Grams Grade 3, Horizons Spelling 3. Love the Easy Grammar series & Daily Grams. The spelling is a little on the easy side for Ella but she likes the colorful pages and the activities.

Math: Horizons Math 3. Love it! Seriously, it is awesome...but just so you know, it is spiral (which works great for Ella).

Science: Apologia Exploring Creation with Zoology 3, Land Animals of the 6th Day. Great series. The notebooking is at times a little hard for Ella, but the text is fabulous.

Penmanship: Horizons 3. I like that the copywork uses Scripture passages.

Spanish: Switched on Schoolhouse Elementary Spanish. Ella loves being able to work on her own on the computer. She seems to be picking up a lot of vocabulary but there are some of the on-going story elements that bore her.

History: Sonlight Core 3 Intro to American History. This also covers Ella's reading...she has to read everyday and she really likes the books. I have loved this curriculum and we'll be doing it again next year.

Fun stuff: Lifepac Drawing Basics with Thomas Kinkade. It's pretty good. The dvds are very helpful but I think we'll be doing something different for art next year.

And Jack...well, Jack is a little less structured. He's doing pre-k work and these are the best resources I'm using with him:

Leapfrog dvds. He loves them and I'm convinced he learned all his letter sounds from the "Letter Factory."

Teaching Tiles: Math Readiness Center. This one is a little hard to explain. It involves matching, pattern recognition and counting. It has a card with pictures on it and Jack uses the corresponding tiles to either match the card, fill in the pattern or show how many somethings are in the picture.

Backyard Bugs Counters. Don't laugh, he loves to sort, count and stack these little rubber bugs.

Number Puzzle, Board & Pegs. He likes to assemble everything (which he mastered really quickly) and then stack them all like building blocks.

Books. Lots and lots of books. I think if I read Hunches in Bunches one more time...oh, who am I kidding if Jack wants me to read it, I'll read it.

And the best things...a white board and markers. He loves to write his letters, copy simple words and do very basic math. Ella likes to play teacher and give him work assignments.

I have the Hooked on Phonics series, but I haven't cracked the code on how to use it in a way that works for Jack yet. We used the flashcards until he learned all his letter names and sounds, but the books and the transition to reading haven't appealed to him yet.

Later this week (cause I hope you'll come back) I'll share some of my avoid-paying-full-price secrets.

Friday Frustration

So my day started out well. I woke up, peeked out the window, saw snow...day went downhill from there. First, a word of explanation. I am from California. Southern California. I don't do snow. I don't do cold. A "snow event" for me is when my ice maker overflows. So when I crawl out from under my electric blanket and see white stuff falling from the sky, my mood is less than jolly.

However, today as I looked out upon the cold, snowy, snowness, I felt a tiny stirring of glee. Now that we homeschool our school is never closed. Bwaaaahaaahaaa! (That's my merciless mommy laugh). Snow day? What's that? Get your books!

Ella was great about starting the school day. We did our family devotional and Jack even helped pray. His adorable 3 year old prayer goes something like this, "Jesus. Amen." Then we sat down to do her Language work and her sunny disposition disappeared. She can't stand her Language Arts curriculum. And I mean she loathes it with a captial "oh please don't make me do it"

And unfortunately my patience level was just not there today. I woke up with the sniffles (stupid snow) so I was already not feeling well. And when I don't feel well, I'm not exactly a people person....even for little people. Finally, after much whining, complaining and procrastinating (and it wasn't me this time), we got through her lesson and moved on to math. Then they got to go outside and play in the snow.

Now, I'm back to researching curriculum. Cause even I don't like this Language course. But that's why we are experimenting this semester. Everything else has been a hit, so one bad apple in the curriculum bunch isn't too bad.

Have a happy weekend!

Workbooks and Textbooks and Reading Books...Oh My!

So, the UPS guy probably hates me. I finally received the rest of Ella's curriculum today...in five boxes...all delivered by the nice people who drive the big brown truck. Now it wasn't that I ordered five boxes worth of books, but I ordered from three different sites. It was just a happy coincidence for me (and probably a less joyful experience for the UPS guy) that everything was delivered on the same day.

Perhaps you are at this moment scratching your head and wondering why I would shop at three different sites. It's simple, I'm thrifty. Not cheap, not stingy, not miserly because those words made me sound like a wrinkled old man who brings up the Great Depression every time he buys groceries. I, on the other hand, am frugal. So once I decided on which curricula I would be using with Ella and Jack (which is a whole other tale of research gone wild) I spent hours of my life searching online bookstores to figure out who had the best price. So I ordered a little bit here, a little bit there and today I was confronted with the end result. Stacks of books and nowhere to put them.

Which in the grand scheme of poverty, human trafficking and global warming is not a big deal. But in my little world of manic organization to keep away the demons of chaos, it's enough to make me twitch. Ella and I had a blast opening all the boxes and examining every single book. And it didn't take me long to realize that the teacher's guides are thickest books in the bunch. Hmmm...I'm not entirely sure which of us in school here.

So now, as I am standing in front of stacks of workbooks, textbooks, readers, teacher's guides and random beads and tiles from the math set that somehow escaped their plastic baggies (Jack!), I have no idea how to organize it all. Fortunately Ella already has a desk set up and we have a nearly empty shelf on the kids' bookcase. Current plan, file everything neatly on the shelves so I can once again see the carpet and avoid a catastrophic bead slipping injury and wait for organizational inspiration to hit me.

And by hit me, I mean a gentle pat on the shoulder not the cartoon anvil that squashes at will. I've found it's best to be specific in these things.