We’re here!  Holidays… for real!  But, much to the kids’ chagrine, it’s not going to be all fun and games.  No way.

I prepared long and hard so that we would have interesting things to do, that made for fun, clever ways to achieve some academic outcomes without feeling like we’re actually achieving academic outcomes.  Lapbooking.  It’s a joy.  Despite this being but our first very day at it… a joy!
Like I said… I worked long and hard.  I put together pages upon pages of resource material so that we could thoroughly cover, to first and fourth/fifth grade proportions, Mayan Civilization and Oceans.  Did I say long and hard?  So, I have this organized box full of the kids stuff- prepared items to cut out/colour/fill-in/glue/whatever to add to their lapbooks.

I also have a folder of wonderful activities outlining various aspects of these larger topics.  Things to do.  Ideas for lessons. Terrific information to keep me in a flow of learning… so that I wouldn’t be staring at my shoes, wondering what to do next.

I think it’s on my dining room table.  2500 miles away.  Let’s just say, it looks like I’m gonna get to know my shoes.

Today is the last day home before taking off tomorrow.  There will be no structured school today… OK, there was little to none yesterday too- so, sue me…. I am too busy cruising the blogosphere putting together my little bitty community newspaper before we leave.  In theory this little rag should actually write itself, in that, my friends, neighbors and community compatriots are clamouring to submit their respective bits and pieces of individual community perspective… but, um… no. I will write it.  From largely my own individual community perspective.  In truth, I have a few very generous contributors, for whom I have grown to owe my life to depend on, providing a voice other than my own.

But, back to my point about no school today…. newspaper day for mom means:  don’t ask me for food… don’t ask me for drinks… don’t ask me to turn on the t.v… and certainly don’t ask me to log in to Webkinz because you’ve lost your password.  Please, just leave me be.  I am squeezing out creativity in the form of community news… and believe me that takes some creativity!  And so I sit… blogging.  Ignoring children and their needs… blogging.

Rather than neglecting my offspring, consider it a stirring of the creative juices.  And you can also consider it a valuable exercise in independence for my children….

Oh, and make sure you head on over to BlogNosh Magazine to get a taste of some straight talk with Straight Shooter!  A great post of hers… hand-picked by yours truly… will be re-published in its entirety over there Tuesday morning- that’s tomorrow, folks.  Believe me, she gives good laugh!

So, despite the best of intentions a whole lotta nuttin’ happened on the academic front while we were away. However, the kids got great cousin-time, grammy-time and endless pizza-time.  Not to mention the abundance of beach-time… that is, when the freakin’ weather decided to cooperate.  We smiled smugly to ourselves as we left the dropping temperatures of our Rocky Mountain Valley in happy anticipation at another kick at the summer can, heading south to Virginia and then on to the sunny Atlantic coast of Delaware.  Wouldn’t ya know it, they too get to enjoy unseasonally cool temperatures… the second day we arrive.  And last the entire week.

A perfect lesson in irony for maniacs.

But we’re back in the saddle, so to speak.  We’re home.  I’ve been organizing like a fiend, trying to get some kind of system in place that not only takes care of our homeschooling schedule here at home but on the road, as well.  I am tired of feeling guilty with our lack of structure.  Despite being fairly ‘relaxed’ in our approach…  however, there’s relaxed… and then there’s just so pitifully ill-prepared and disorganized that nothing is getting done.

So, a big thank-you to cousin homeschooling nine kids who has shown me a few fundamental strategies for reigning in this circus… and alleviating what is fast becoming a perpetual case of the homeschool guilts!

Today is the last day of July.  It has been a couple of days short of a month since my last post.

That could simply be all, given that we haven’t yet even cracked a module or math workbook since our last meeting with Boss-lady.  But, y’know.  To this, I say, so what?  It is summertime after all.

And it’s been pretty lazy, hazy, dazy.  But now it’s time to strap on… the bootstraps….?!?  Ooops!  I might familiarize myself a little better with the idioms.  I mean, it’s time to pull up those old bootstraps and get a little learnin’ goin’ on.  We’ve kind of allowed little minds, in the true spirit of lazy, hazy, dazy summer days, turn a little mushy.  Oh, we’ve enjoyed the sun and fun… the boat and camping have been a blast.  But now, thanks to the downright flakiness of Dear Old Mother Nature and the inconsistency of summer in these here Canadian Rockies, the dog days of summer have turned into the early days of fall (yes, it’s only July and we are reaching tremendous highs of only bloody well 20C- almost 70F to my American counterparts!), and so what better time to take a little more structured approach?

We also have a good deal of travelling scheduled for the next several months- each location presenting us with innumerable opportunities for learning.

So, dear chickadees.  School is back in session.  Did somebody say, lunch?

We meet with our Distance Education Liason with the School District tomorrow. Our last check-in/assessment/evaluation before the summer break.

We have not completed this last ‘module’. We will have merely the first of I don’t know how many math workbooks completed, just, to present to her. She will ask Beasley what he’s been working on and he will say, in typical nine-year-old-can’t-remember-past-this-morning’s-breakfast kind of way, “ummmm….. Nothing.” Helpful.

Despite the fact the child is learning to use my big ol’ digital SLR. He is loving taking pictures. He bakes muffins. He is at this very moment dismantling my kitchen making Smoothies. He will, in fact, reassemble and clean-up said kitchen. We have been camping. He has been diligently caring for his new veggies that are growing, while planting with great care new seeds as well as the plants he has been nurturing, like his very own new babies, these past couple of months. He participated in his first Triathlon. He reads all the time. He is LOVING reading… oh God, just writing it makes me all, like… VERKLEMPT! He LOVES reading. His own words. Oh, no… I knew it. Eyes. Dewey.

If I’d asked him if he enjoyed reading four months ago he would have screwed up his pretty little face and stated emphatically, out of squishied-up mouth, ‘NO!’

But, alas, he will say ‘we do nothing’. The insights of a nine-year-old.

And in her mind, he will likely be right. Because in two months we’ve not managed to complete an 18 day long ‘module’.

I’m having highschool flashbacks. Sorry. Homework. Not. Done.

After two weeks of the most horrendous weather, I woke early this morning to find the clearest of clear skies. Our mountains sharp, snow capped peaked against the crisp blank of the blue sky…. Just glorious!

Our mood around here has without doubt been influenced by this seemingly endless string of cold, rainy, windy weather. All of us have been overcome by procrastination, lethargy and just a profound case of the blues. Interesting how it manifests itself in the kids as unlimited, uncontained misdirected and dare I say, somewhat aggressive energy… and in me, well, I just want to lay on my couch. Did somebody say Oprah?

Anyways, today was deliriously lovely. Our new work place, our school-room, our library was flooded in blinding sunlight and my little miscreants all sat in a perfect row… quietly engaged in their work. OMG. I was overcome with joy. It was just the best beginning to a day!

And each child had fresh content for their respective notebooks.

I am loving the notebooking. And I think the kids are all enamoured with having their own big old binder to fill up with their stuff. We’re in the very beginning of getting into a routine with them, but the creative aspect to notebooking seems like it might help us all keep better on track. Regardless the weather.

I love the concept of Notebooking. And given our commitment- or lack thereof- to diligently following the modules of our BC Curriculum, I’m looking at it as a really fun alternative!

I think the kids will appreciate the creative collection of their work and it should encourage them towards filling it up- a tangible, daily record of what we do- of what they do.

It will be particularly useful in keeping Beasley’s new hobby organized. He has taken an interest in my camera. The big SLR, with the big lens. Oh and did I mention, expensive?

So, when he is using big, expensive camera, he is required to wear it around his little neck. At. All. Times.

And so, notebooking will allow us to keep a fun, ongoing record, safely archiving his prints, while also having something tangible to show lady liason with our district. She was concerned in our lack of art- Samson does not like art, per se. Sitting, painting, drawing… as he doesn’t feel it is something he can do. Well, now he has an outlet. A way to make art that he enjoys…

He’s off to a great start!

It’s another Heart of the Matter Meme… today addressing the issue of socialization.

Yay! Despite the fact we’re relatively new to homeschooling, I do love this topic… specifically, defending it. This is the popular contention, the last ditch argument, the last leg anyone- still incredibly limited in their thinking- feels they have to stand on, in expressing their discomfort/misunderstanding in the concept of homeschooling.

In all honesty, it is the last thing we are concerned about in this journey through curriculum and lesson planning decisions, procrastination, frustration, patience- or lack thereof, time management and just sheer busy-ness and sometimes, in the spirit of “all honesty”, truth be told, lazy-ness (mine and theirs). The adequacy of my children’s socialization just doesn’t make the short list. The issue of socialization, unlike the many other aspects of our lives, homeschool or otherwise, is truly a non-concern.
And here’s why: we have neighbor kids they play with- a lot, swim team, ski team, soccer, karate… and the neighbor kids they play with- alot. We are also connecting with other homeschool families and will likely be arranging collective field trips and other outings.

As with other homeschoolers, my kids accompany me on various daily errands that require social skills and their development- just the mere act of participating out and about in life…

Oh my… I do believe I sound a little defensive. It’s just really the least of our challenges as we try to be effective homeschoolers.

I do believe we are falling into something of a routine… a routine relaxed, working with how our family operates best- which tends towards the unstructured- taking cues from the kids and what they are interested in learning.

Certainly, we are still working with our Provincial curriculum and their regimen of spoon feeding, it still provides us with a tangible outline, but at our own pace.  It seems to be working.  As in my previous post, we are beginning to experience learning in a natural, organic sort of manner with a focus on interest rather than catching up.

Every window sill, or surface in the vicinity of a window, is inhabited by a tray of germinating/sprouting plants.  Honestly, Samson’s passion.  He waters and tends to them diligently.  Our greenhouse friend believes he has an intuitive sense of the process.

He couldn’t lay out a direction for where he’d like to focus his learning any clearer, really.  And despite the fact that I have been blessed with a somewhat grey thumb, I have to jump on this and take him as far as he’d like to take it.

Samson’s Herb-O-Rama!

One never knows….

We are now beginning to experience the fruits of our labours.

Beasley Bean is showing such huge improvements: more fluidity in his reading, writing more readily with fewer errors and he is beginning to take some independent initiative when he sits down for our scheduled work times.

Not to mention the development that makes me most deliriously happy:  he is actually DEVOURING a series of books.

Bone!