No more Home School for Hippie Witchlings? Maybe...

Dry Erase Crayons FTW!

We are still on 'Summer Vacation' but when I bought supplies a few weeks ago we got some Dry Erase crayons. I had never seen them before, and they were kind of an impulse.

We do a lot of Ladybugs schoolwork on Dry Erase boards. We have the 'workbook' type ones, blank ones, and ones with lines for writing. I even found a cool one that's clear with a removable back so I can put workbook pages in it and reuse them. Dry Erase boards are my friends, Dry Erase markers are not. They get left out without caps and dry up. Mojo likes to draw on the furniture with them. they don't work as well on a vertical surface, like the peel and stick board on the fridge. 

The crayons (the kind we got are Crayola) are smooth, bright, and erase easily. They have the same issue as the markers in that if you wait a while they get harder to erase, but just color over the old writing and then erase.

I'm really glad I bought them, not just because I think we will use the hell out of them, but because when I went on the Crayola site to find out more about them for this post I saw that Crayola has lesson plans on their site. So not only do I have new awesome stuff, I have new awesome resource for home school lesson plans!! The projects I looked at were really cute. Ladybug really likes creative, visual projects, so I think this will be a good match for out schoolwork. There was one for a diorama of Amish quilters that we will probably be making after our next trip to Northern Indiana.

Home School Round-up 6/10/11

So we finished up our 180 days the end of May, and are taking June to relax, regroup, and goof off. Well, I guess that's relative. Jilly is goofing off, Mama is scouring the webternets to get the materials together and start the new school year in July. We have a great Family Tree project I downloaded FREE from CurrClick and I have several other projects I downloaded for the future. They have a lot of cheap and free books and projects for all grade levels. There are, as expected if you have spent any time cruising for homeschool materials, a lot of Bible based materials, but much more secular stuff. The only issue is I used up all my ink printing the Family Tree project, and have to go get some more to print the other projects! I have most of the summer mapped out, as much as I ever do. We are "structured unschoolers" and so I mostly plan one project a week and we do what Ladybug wants to do the rest of the week. Speaking of Bug, she has been busy teaching her baby sister, Mojo (who is turning 2 tomorrow!) to count! I have heard them get up to 13 before Mojo loses interest, and she can count on her fingers to 5 on her own. I have been telling Bug she will be one of her baby sisters greatest teachers, and she apparently took that right to heart. Although we will not be schooling for the next few weeks, I will keep you posted on anything I find in my preparation.

H.W.

Paper Altar Quilt

This week our big home school project was starting an altar project for Jilly.  We made an "Altar Quilt" out of construction paper to map out the areas of the altar, quarters, and color and element correspondences.  She helped me glue it together, then I drew pictures we thought would help remind her of each element and the Pentacle, and she put the glitter on Lady, Lord, and Spirit patches.

  Now we have a basic setup to start learning about the altar, the elements, and the Lady and Lord.  We put empty baby food jars on each quarter and on Spirit so she can collect things that go with each element.  For example, on East she put some little bells, a yellow bead, and her meditation feather we got at Camp Chesterfield at the Spring Equinox service.  It will be a challenge to come up with objects for Fire that do not actually involve fire.  Hopefully we will find a lot of red stuff, and maybe a small cauldron.  She is already irritated I will not let her have candles on her altar!

We have always included Jilly in our practices,such as rituals, meditation and prayer.  She even likes to help me when I work with my Reiki grid, so if I have ever put you or yours on the healing list you got a little extra dose of Ladybug energy!  Recently she has become very interested and likes to 'cast spells' in the incense smoke and so I felt it was time to more directly teach her.  We have a family altar in the living room, and she has started to 'arrange' it, so to keep that area neat we decided she needed her own altar.  I donated some small Moon and Sun tea light holders, minus candles of course, but the rest of it she will be coming up with herself with toys, knick knacks, and found objects.  We have it laid out up on her dresser so Mojo can't reach it, and next week we will be making a box to keep her magickal tools in.  I can't wait to see what she comes up with to put in her element jars!

H.W.

Home school Review

First off, Mrs. B over at Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom posted a great list of resources for Pagan parents on her blog.  We use Pagan Moonbeams and just discovered Pooka Pages.  Check out the list, and let me know about other good spots.

Secondly, I had the nicest chat at the hardware store yesterday with a man whose grandkids were all home schooled, and just lit up when we told him we home school Jiji.  His oldest grandson apprenticed and became a farrier...how often do you hear that!  It was so awesome to talk to some one who got so excited that we were taking our kids education in our own hands, and to get such random encouragement.  We have always been lucky in that I have never had a 'bad' reaction from people over home schooling, and have only gotten into one 'argument' about it, that was shut down when I asked the teenage boy how many kids he had to be such an expert... Most people I talk to are mildly surprised, curious, or have really good questions.  I am finding that it is way more common around here than I thought.  Most likely because Indiana's home school requirements are among the most relaxed in the country...pretty much just keep an attendance record and you will most likely never be asked to even show that to anyone!

Thirdly, scroll down or click here and enter to win my give away for a Stone mix and bracelet from Spencer Lapidary!

H.W.

The Wonderful World of Water!

Wow, two home school posts in one week!  I do like to get on a topic lol.  As I mentioned earlier in the week, we went to a home school program at the Indianapolis Children's Museum Tuesday evening.  Because our oldest, Lala, is on Spring Break she is with us till Thursday before going back to her moms and got to go as well.    The program about water was a little young for her, but she dove right in there with Jilly and they had a ball.  I have to say, it was a great time and a great program.  Apparently they are beginning to open up the programs they take to schools around the state to home school educators by offering them in the classrooms at the museum.  We started at the huge water clock in the lobby area and had a little mini-lecture about how it works, how it was designed and made.  I have been to that place 100 times and I learned things I never knew about that thing!  We then went up to the classroom, where we made family water clocks that timed out 5 minutes.  

We were all given bags to take out projects home, and were turned loose to work at our own pace on several other projects set up in stations around the big room.  We looked at pond water under the microscope.

We made nori rolls with seaweed and rice, which both grow in water, we made soap boats, which Jilly tested as soon as we got home in the bath.

We tested surface tension by counting how many drops of water fit on a penny...Lala got 41!

We planted seeds in peat pots soaked in water, we now have sunflowers, gourds, and sweet peas added to our seed starting.  We traced letters with a drop of water on a plate...harder than it sounds...

We tried, and of course failed, to mix oil and water and learned why we failed.  I think I may even be missing one.  It was very cool and well put on. They even sent home a packet for follow up projects and everyone got their own snazzy blue water bottle.Thank you, thank you Children's Museum for offering these programs and workshops, and thanks to Judy and Pam for presenting it so wonderfully.  I know we will be back, and I know I will be attending the health teaching workshop for home educators in May.  If you home school, or plan to, and live anywhere near go to their site, they have a lot to offer.  Not just these programs, but unit study materials based on exhibits and field trip planning materials.

H.W.

Homeschool Reveiw

As far as "official" record keeping goes, We are 3 weeks away from the end of our school year.  What does this mean?  Basically just the next school year will "officially" start in May this year.  I am what I call an "almost unschooler".  My home school style is we have structured activity like worksheets, reading time, a project, or a field trip about 3-4 days a week, and the rest of the learning is student-led.  If Jillian sees a frog, we spend a few days learning about frogs.  Jillian got to ride on a tractor, we are learning about farms that week.  I strive for some kind of learning to be happening every day, whether it is reading signs on a walk, or labels at the store, doing math with money or measuring while she helps me cook, or learning about nature through our animals, garden, or a trip to the park.  I only "count" the days I have a planned activity for the record, but making sure she learns something every day is one of the major reasons we are home schooling in the first place.  Our non-trip school day is the morning she gets to watch PBS kids (we are an evil, no cable/dish household lol) while I either work in the shop or clean the house.  Then at noon I watch the news while we get going on school.  She works on Starfall or another site if we have a "unit" topic, like the frogs for instance.  I help her with worksheets and/or a project and we read a few books (this is becoming more her reading to me than the other way around YAY!).  We have a work station set up, made of a lap desk, with all her work for a week in the pockets.  Worksheets, books, unit books with projects, and her journal ready to go, so I know what our goals are for the week and she can sit down and get right to work.  Here is Jilly hard at work at her worksheets. 

She also is liking her journal, which is an idea suggested to me by a home schooling friend, and I can see her really getting into the journaling process, even though it is mostly drawings right now.  I have also made her some worksheets in her journal about planning her own garden box this year. There are so many resources, either online, from books and workbooks, and field trips in the ares, I can always find something she is interested in for her to work on.  This is an on and off process through the afternoon with a lot of breaks, as I have found she works better that way and if I can't help her with something because of the baby or working in the shop it can pause till I can come help her.  We usually wrap up school work about dinner time, then maybe another book after dinner.  We have a few books...thank you retireing teacher on Frecycle!  The purple cube is full of supplies, i.e. paint, glue sticks, colored pencils, paper etc.  You can see our little seed box, all organized to be started inside or planted into the garden, and the pop bottle "greenhouse" project from a while back.

We have had field trips to Minnetrista, the Indy Childrens Museum (which we are going back to tonight for a home school program), local parks, etc.  I look back now to when we decided to get started with home school and realize I had nothing to fear with finding "curriculum"...it's EVERYWHERE!  I know as she gets older, I might need to buy curriculum for topics I am not strong in, like Algebra, but for now we are cruising along, the world is our classroom.  

H.W.

Lucky Dog

Next Thursday I will be going before the zoning board here in town to hopefully be granted a variance to run a dog grooming shop out of my house. I have been grooming dogs for almost 12 years now, but have always worked for someone else. Owning my own business has been a dream of mine for most of that time, and I finally decided to stop wishing and start acting. Lucky Dog Grooming will open it's doors right after Christmas, and is the gift I am giving myself this year. I am so excited about it, since I will be running it out of my home, because it will allow me to provide an income for my family doing what I love while being here at home with my children the majority of the time. Even when they go to 'daycare' they will be across the yard at the neighbors who are so awesome and homeschool so can sit Jiji down next to their kids to do her schoolwork! My dining room had been transformed into a grooming shop, the tub is sitting waiting to be installed, and as of this morning my sign is on the front door. I am excited, scared, but ready to rock. Please send me positive energy and prayers on Thursday the 17th for me to be granted my variance. Lucky Dog is me building my future, and I know if I get the chance I can grow it into something fantastic!
H.W.

Home School Cool

I saw this article today. It is about how families who had been sending their kids to private school and can no longer afford it are deciding to home school rather than send them to public school. Maybe if the 'upper classes' begin to see and show the value of home education it will dissipate some of the stigma about homeschoolers and their families being weird or having something to hide. Homeschooling is not for everyone, but I think a lot of parents never thought of it as an option because of misinformation or lack of information. Unfortunately, trends start at the top and trickle down, and maybe these 'upper class' families embracing home schooling will help to begin mainstreaming it as an educational option.
H.W.

summer school lol

OK, so I am feeling pretty good, am getting around much better, even have to back myself off from over-doing it sometimes, so there is no reason to keep putting off starting up homeschool for Jiji for the year. As I did last year, I like to start in the summer because there is so much more outdoor/nature science and walking field trips that can be done in the nice weather. To be honest, I meant to start last week but did not get enough lesson planning done. I am not 'done' now, but have enough to get rolling, and I tend to only stay about a week or so ahead anyway, makes it easier to adjust schedule/subjects as we go along. Jiji will be 5 in November, so we are starting on Kindergarten curriculum, as we started Pre-School early last year. Technically she was young to start, and so people do not expect her to be in school, so we have had little negative reaction, but people do ask if she will be starting school soon, and when she tells them she does school at home w/Mama we sometimes get that look, if you homeschool, you know the one. The only really negative reaction has been a woman who's son is in public school, and is a juvenile delinquent (really, I am not just saying that) who told me Jiji won't get enough socialization, needless to say I ignored her. Socialization in public school really helped her kid! On that particular topic, what socialization are the kids really getting, other than recess, which we go the park for and always meet up w/ other kids to play with. My stepdaughter told me they have to take a book to lunch because they are not allowed to talk, how is that socialization? Anyway, I don't really want to get off on a big rant, it could last for days. So, today is the 1st day of Kindergarten, I better get back to work!