Hip, Happy and Homeschooling

The Vote is in

2007-05-18T09:41:00.001-04:00

Last night, I attended my first ever executive committee meeting for our Homeschool Group. It was an emergency meeting to vote on whether or not to dissolve the group. When I received the announcement about this meeting, I had felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I never took into account what exactly this group did for me until the thought of it not being here made me launch into panic mode.
I am happy to say that the motion was unanimously defeated. Enough people have stepped forward to run this volunteer organization now. (including myself) I am looking at this group differently today. Its more than a social event for me and my kids once per week. I have a drive to help make it succeed. Time will tell.
How many of you belong to home school support groups? Why did you join them? Just curious.

Almost over

2007-05-02T10:21:00.000-04:00

We are in the last day of testing. The kiddos all are doing well they say. I personally am counting down the seconds until I can pick them up and call it over. They have coerced a park trip out of the deal.
My kids amaze me sometimes. The way they plot and scheme is brilliant. Yesterday, I got a whole 30 minute spiel about how they will be so stressed after testing that they will need to burn off some anxiety. "The park would be perfect", they said. My children, little Einsteins. Gotta love it.

Dr Mom to the Rescue

2007-04-30T08:59:00.000-04:00

Is it possible to get a concussion from jumping on a trampoline? Snoog came to me last night, looking very haggard. She was almost in tears and told me that her head hurt. It was her "I have a fever" look. I felt her, no temp. After a few moments of mommy therapy, we had determined that her entire day of playing in the 85 + degree weather and bouncing almost non stop on the trampoline may have been the culprit.
I am not doctor of course but if my butt was jumping up and down for a few hours at a time in the Florida sunshine..I think I would have a headache too..not to mention a couple of black eyes. Ahhh to be young again.

Fun Friday

2007-04-27T18:16:00.000-04:00

Recipe for guaranteed fun on a Friday afternoon:

4 wire coat hangers (no mommy dearest acts please)
1 leatherman type tool
1 disposable pie tin
dish soap

Bubbles are fun for EVERYONE including the dogs. It was fun to make our own bubble wands and see what shapes would appear. Happy Friday everybody.

To test or not to test ...

2007-04-24T14:10:00.000-04:00

That is the question of the day. I started this year saying that I wasn't going to test the kids. AT. ALL. Then I started talking to other HS Moms and realized that it might actually be easier for all of us if I did test. So I registered the kids for the testing that is offered through my HS group, paid the fee and felt better. Now, the testing date is a week away. The kids are stressing over it. And I am second guessing my decision. Aggghh!! Don't they make a book for this parenting thing?
I know the pros and cons of testing or not testing. When you are dealing with having to turn in an entire year's worth of work for "evaluation" or turning in a copy of your test scores...I thought the answer was obvious. Now, I am not so sure. What are your two cents?

Media Rant/New Day

2007-04-23T08:19:00.000-04:00

Last week was a sad week for many students around the US. The massacre at Virginia Tech has been splashed across the TV for days now. I know it was a tragedy. It is sad. I feel for the families that have been directly affected but why must we only pull together as communities when there has been a tragedy? Why do the criminal minds become the forefront of our nightly news? This maniac has been idolized by our media for the past 10 days and frankly, I am well over it.
Why are we as a nation so obsessed with the trauma and yuck in the world around us? I personally would rather focus on the more positive side of life. Yes, report the news but don't glamorize it.
Sunday was Earth day. Do you know how much coverage that the volunteers got on my local channel? A 2 minute clip. Millions of people out there cleaning up trash, recycling, freshening up the parks and they get 2 stinking minutes. Do you know how much coverage psycho shooter boy got? 10. Plus a media special after the local channel did their bit. Yeah. Its a sad day.

Danger Will Robinson, Danger

2007-04-20T08:14:00.000-04:00

My parents arrive today. I feel like I have been run over by a semi and we need to finish book reports today. Oh yeah and I. Must. Clean.

Pleased as punch

2007-04-19T19:16:00.000-04:00

We took the morning off and did some caching. Snagged a FTF and got some fresh air in the process. We left from one park and headed over to our Park Group park. Hanging out with other ~~freaks~~ home schoolers. Park group is always good for me. I enjoy talking with SOME of the other moms. The non political, chit chatty FUN moms. Those are my kinda visitors. We drove home from park group and what is setting at my front door? 2 gloriously brown cardboard boxes!!! They contain our new curriculum. I am soooo excited. I opened the Saxon Math and guess what? It didn't chew me up and spit me out. I think it may work out great for us. Keep your fingers crossed, and your toes, and your eyes. I need all the help I can get.

Back to the land of the living

2007-04-18T09:12:00.000-04:00

4 days without a server. No email. No web sites. No blog. I had my blog here of course but this isn't my primary place of writing. I put all things mommylike here. The rest goes on my domain. Which was inaccessible for 4 days. Agghh.
A few things about me: I am a mom of 3. Ages, 6, 9 and 11. I home school my kids. I read. I play World of Warcraft. I work from the comfort of my home doing computer related "stuff". Mostly but not limited to web design. I am newly addicted to Lost. I love my family. I have 3 dogs, 1 cat, some fish and a garden. I geocache and I hike a lot. My family likes to camp and I am an avid blogger. We are a family of geeks. When our servers crash, our lives are in an upheaval. I communicate with almost every one of my extended family members via nextel radio and EMAIL. Let's not even discuss my client list. Who of course were without web sites and email as well for those 4 long days. It hasn't been fun in my house.
What is a geek mom to do when the computers are not working for that long? I called a teacher planning day and ripped apart my house. Rearranged furniture, scrubbed walls. It was therapeutic. The kids enjoyed the day off. I got the house spruced up. I have found that I sometimes feel bad when we take a day off though. Like we are being irresponsible. Shucking our duties. Does this happen to anyone else?
My new curriculum is arriving on Thursday and I am dying to get started working with it. Only 2 spelling books were back ordered. Ohhh happy day.

I have seen the light

2007-04-16T07:11:00.000-04:00

You might have noticed that I am missing some of my graphics here. That is because my server has decided to head on up to that big server place in the sky. Or in our case, in Texas. Motherboard croaked which caused a processor failure and that has now caused a meltdown of our hard drive. No biggie. 100+ clients are ready to lynch me at the moment, yet here I set - blogging. Carry on.

After 6 months of blindly stumbling my way through lesson plans and nearly blowing up the kitchen with "science experiments" my neighbor brought me a copy of A Well Trained Mind. I think he might have been trying to save the neighborhood from being on the evening news or something, I can't be sure. Oh. My. Gawd. Not only do I feel like a complete idiot, now I realize how much damage I have caused my kids. Ok not really. First year is supposed to be rough right?
I highly recommend the book. It pretty much paved the road ahead of me. I do not agree completely with everything in the book but it is definitely a handy dandy tool for anyone who is home schooling.
I just sat down this morning, before the sun came up, while drinking coffee out of my own coffee cup, wearing very little undergarments and ordered my entire curriculum for the upcoming year. I did not have to drive to the convention that is happening 4 hours from my house. I was not required to sleep in an overly hard hotel bed so I could spend my 5 bazillion dollars on books either.
I have decided to switch over to Saxon Math. I had been using a curriculum that has left me wondering if my kiddos were getting anything from that waste of trees. I inquired at park group before making my decision and I found out a couple of very important things about Saxon: You either swear by it, or you hate it like roaches hate Raid. I hope we will fall into the happy group. I was quite excited to find CD's with the lesson lectures on them. I hope that my son will not stick too many pins in that mommy voodoo doll for it.
I am curious though, are any of you using Saxon? If so, how do the kids feel about it? I am just trying to figure out how many pins he will need.
Also, TC has inspired me. I am going to find a beautiful Miami like backdrop and try to take some decent shareable photos of the munchkins this week. The whole experience ought to make for excellent blog material if nothing else.

I think I am confused

2007-04-13T10:12:00.000-04:00

Today feels like Christmas to me. I have that feeling of excitement. There is a buzz in the air. I checked the patio, no lights up. There is no tree in my house, except for the pile of leaves that blew in with yesterday's thunderstorm. I looked at the calendar. It SAYS its April. Yet, here I set. All excited. My long awaited paycheck arrived yesterday and today - I get to order the remainder of next year's curriculum. :) Ahh the joys of being a Home School mom.
Happy Friday the 13th everyone.

Aggghhhh the Pressure

2007-04-12T10:37:00.000-04:00

I think my kiddos are finally relaxing about school. We have been at this since August of 2006. Yep, newbies. It seems that we have spent more of this year trying to find our way than we spent actually doing any kind of learning. Documentable learning anyway. I am in the process of getting our portfolio organized so it can be sent off for "evaluation". I am not looking forward to this. Only because I look at the samples of work that we have for this school year and think to myself "What was I thinking?" I didn't actually keep a cookie from the batch that helped Des learn to add and multiply fractions. I didn't keep every photo that Bug took of the animals that we learned to classify. I also didn't keep every scrap of paper that Snoog wrote on to leaarn to make her letters all face the same direction. McDonald's napkins are considered school paper for us right?
I went to park group a couple of weeks ago and spoke up about my concerns. It seems as though I am not the only mom who is having panic attacks and taking vallium during this time. That somehow comforts me.

Is it worth a fight?

2007-04-11T13:22:00.000-04:00

Library trip. My kids have a list. They are to get 1 biography, 1 book of poetry, 1 chapter book and then a book to do a book report on. I allow them to select their topics. Des, my gamer head boy, who will do ANYTHING to not have to leave the world of WOW, comes over and proudly announces that he has found his book report book. He is way beyond excited. He spins said book around in front of me ....the cover is graced with beautiful photos of armor and swords. Helmets, mail, knight battle helmets. The History of Armor.
He is standing there puffed up like a thanksgiving turkey. He is watching my face to see my reaction. Yeah......I decide that it isn't worth the fight. Especially if I can swindle an enthusiastic book report out of that subject.

Whats in a day??

2007-04-10T13:49:00.000-04:00

Too many days, I find myself running around trying to accomplish way too much. I wind up frazzled and usually grumpy. So, I ask myself what is in a day? What makes it up.
Every day you receive 1440 minutes. They are yours to spend as you want. Those are 1440 opportunities – minutes in your life to be a difference maker—to be that someone that makes a huge difference in the lives of children, your own family, and friends. You can spend it, but you cannot save it.
Sometimes this fact slips my mind as we are pushing to get through a project. Or we are trying to complete math lessons before park group. I almost always have to make a constant effort to recall the above facts. I think I need to post a sign on my wall. It will sure make things easier while my world spins out of control.

Begin again

2007-04-09T19:46:00.000-04:00

Try as I might, I can not seem to get things to a point where I am happy here. I feel like I am floundering with my blog space and its making me insane. I have decided to just jump in with both feet and adjust as I go. Hope some readers that may trickle in, can be patient as I find my direction.
I am hoping to use this place for all things educational. Add in some humor and a bit of sarcasm as I stumble along my path and maybe find a few people to help along the way. So, with that said, WELCOME...again.

A Witch Wanted to Eat my kids

2007-03-05T08:20:00.000-05:00

We got up on Sunday and drove north to the Renaissance Festival. My first. WOW! It was a blast. We tried to clue the kids in on what to expect. I had read about them. J talked about them. It didn’t prepare them. LOL! We told them about the actors. How they would perform right in the street in front of them. How they would be talked to by everyone and today, it was aok to play along and talk to the wierdos/strange people. We arrive, witness a skit, meet the welcoming committee/the king and a few of his wenches and then step inside the gates. We walked maybe 500 yards in and a nice witchly lady approaches the youngest, sniffs her hair, and says to her “You smell good. I would love to have you for dinner” Then she smiled. I don’t think the thought of being eaten by this lady freaked Snoog out. No, she didn’t say a word about that. She said “Mommy, that lady had no teeth and she smelled funny” We decided not to point out that the woman wanted to eat her for dinner. Parenting Advice 101 - If a witch tells your kid that she wants to eat them for dinner and all that your kids gets out of it is that the lady needs a dentist and has BO...For the love of god, DO NOT clue them in on the minor details. It might scar them for life. Or in the case of the Royal Kids - it might make them attack the witch in the middle of a public event and get ya tossed out on your ear.
Des got his first taste of astrology from the town alchemist and the girls both were enchanted by a few gypsies who gave them hip shaking lessons. Just what my girls needed. Hub fell in love with a wench with a nice set of melons and I ....I, the good and loyal queen...got seduced by a duelist dressed in black leather that had the most gorgeous hair that could possibly be mustered up in a steamy fantasy - besides hub of course. *angelic look* Yep, interesting day for the royal fam. We are already planning to attend next year in full costume. He He.
I need coffee and my Latin work books arrived over the weekend. Duty calls. Ciao.

All in a days work

2007-02-28T08:05:00.000-05:00

So Monday, I load up the kids and we head out to pick up some errr...supplies we need to put together a few geocache that we have been planning. Cammo'd duct tape, fake plants, craft wire you know, the normal stuff. We get home and I get to work. I build the most splendid geocache containers on the planet. I am way beyond excited. Hub gets home and sees the examples of my genius and gets excited too. We talk to the kids, toss dinner on the back burner and off we run to place them all in their perspective homes. Mind you, we need a few tools for the plantings. Wire cutters, a hammer, flashlights because it is dark ya know, and the GPS units. Oh and these 5 creative things that slightly resemble pipe bombs only they are covered with fake plants. No no, don't worry yet folks.
We plant the caches, take GPS readings and come home to log them so others can find them. We planted 4 on Monday night and saved one that we weren't willing to do at night. Its a rubber chicken. Yes. I said rubber chicken. We split him open like a thanksgiving turkey and lodged the cache container inside the body. We have a special place for this guy.

Tuesday, kids and I get up bright and early and head out to plant the dead, stuffed and NOOSED rubber chicken. We get to our location of choice. I am standing there with Des and the girls. Things unfold like this:
Des: (looking around) Ummm Mommy, I don't think we can just lay him down here.
Me: Nahh..we got better things planned for this bird.
Des: (looking confused) OOOOOOOOOOO k.
Me: If something is hanged, sweet boy, it needs to be up in the air.
Des: (spots the perfect tree ahead of us about 50 feet, grabs the robe/noose) Hold on Momma, I am going in.
Me: (tossing the bag of breaking and entering tools to Bug) Lets hang a chicken

Des uses my shoulders to get off the ground and almost above the Burma Reed (grass people, really high grass....stay with me here) He wraps his really long legs around the tree, puts the rope in his teeth and proceeds to shimmy up about ten feet to a branch where he tosses the rope over and down to me so we can "hang" our bird. Jumping ahead, chicken is hanged very beautiful along a canal bank about 5 miles from our house. We have placed a total of 5 geocache and asked the reviewer to post them all at once. She does. Rather quickly. She must love us...that process is usually not that fast. Now the fun begins. We await to see the logs that others post for our 5 wonderfully creative caches.
We got part of our long overdue geogift last night about an hour after they posted. 2 of our fellow cachers, who we have a pretty good yet competitive rapport with found only 2 of the 5. They DNF'd (DID NOT FIND...come on you are slowing me down with all this explaining) at least 2 of them. Another hunk of happies for us at 6 am. 5 more DNF's from another seasoned cacher. WOOOOOOHOOOO for us.
Yes, when you place a cache, you want people to find it BUT...we placed these caches with a bit of planning in hopes that they would be challenging. It looks like we did well. *sigh* All in a days work.

Next post: How to make geocaching look like homeschooling for the portfolio.

My Gush over "Visual Manna"

2007-02-27T07:46:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago we attended an art workshop. I thought it would be a great day for the kids. A break for a few hours of doing something they all three loved. Little did I know that I would learn about art in the process.
Visual Manna, more specifically, Josh and Christie Jeffus, came down to our neck of the woods for this seminar. The theme was to be Chronicles of Narnia. We loved the movie, haven't attacked the book quite yet. There were 2 age groups that divided the kids rather well. I had 1 in the younger group which went for 3 hours in the morning and 2 in the older group which ran from 9 am - 3 pm. That was a cram full day of art fun. The kids learned about some of the great artists of our time. Saw reproductions of those artists work. Then they got to create several of their own masterpieces. They covered concepts on shading, shadows, contrast, warm and cool colors. They used charcoal, chalk, pastels and the highlight of the day was when they busted out the terra cotta clay.
The kids all brought home their work for the day, which we promptly took photos of and posted on the blog for the family to see. We had a 2 hour drive through traffic to get there and I would go twice as far if Visual Manna came back to Florida. I have ordered their full curriculum. Less than 50 bucks for a full art program spanning grades 1 - 12. You have to provide your own folder and materials. A must have as far as I am concerned.
I can not gush enough about Visual Manna and this class. Josh and Christie were amazing. Fun and sweet. Josh was home schooled his entire life. His family owns the company. Visual Manna also has several books published. And I just read on their web site that they are doing summer camp!!!!!
I am off to link them up here. I hope you can take a few minutes to check them out.

The 6 YO on life in Miami

2007-02-26T09:35:00.000-05:00

I am in the kitchen. My 3 lovelies and I are whipping up breakfast this morning when the 8 YO asks, " What are we doing in school today Mommy?"
To which I reply, "History, Dictation, Math and then we are starting Latin"
The 6 YO looks at me with her gorgeous brown eyes and says "I already know Latin...Hola, Como Esta"
The 11 YO rolls his eyes and says "Not THAT latin, she means the old stuff they spoke before there was a Miami"

*sigh* This may be a bigger challenge than I thought.

Park Park who has a park ???

2007-02-23T08:05:00.000-05:00

We missed Park group for the second week in a row. Last week was a legit reason. We were at an incredible art program. This week, I just wasnt feeling it. I know the kids love going and socializing. Its great for me to go and be around other parents who homeschool. BUT I feel completely overloaded right now. You know the feeling. Like you are carrying around 2 200 lb suitcases full of all the obligations you have at the moment. Sometimes the load just gets to you and the last thing you want to do is go be social. Yes, this has been one of those weeks for me.

I registered the kids for testing yesterday. I was against it for quite some time atleast until I realized that I wanted some sort of marker for their progress. So off I went to register them. I am sure they will be planning my demise shortly.

I have high hopes for this place. Well, for the concept here. I hope I can fifnd two minutes to work on the skin. I suppose html work can be squeezed in between ancient history and latin right?

Setting Up

2007-02-12T12:26:00.000-05:00

What the hell am I thinking? No really, what am I thinking? Another blog? Another venture. The fact is, I have been thinking about this for quite some time. Just now finally getting around to it. I am homeschooling my 3 kiddos. First year. Its not for religious reasons. Which puts me in the minority in this whacked out group of wierdos. Yep, I feel like a wierdo because I am homeschooling. Its a fact of life. Most things I do make me a wierdo. I am used to it.
I am one of those self taught kind of ladies. If there is something to be learned or figured out, I do it myself. Reality is, I do most things myself. Just easier that way. This blog is going to be the home base of all things homeschooling. I have stumbled upon tons of links, articles and lovely bits of advice in my search for knowledge. I have tried and failed more times than I care to admit but I have one thing going for me - I am one stubborn woman.
I hope that this tiny piece of the web will help someone who will wants to walk in my flip flops in the future. May god be with all of you nutjobs.