These Go To Eleven

In their free time, they do school

Not June Cleaver — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:59:47 +0000

So, parents of schooled kids wonder what schooled kids do in their free time. They play video games, of course.

My kids? Well, in their free time, they do school.

I’m being completely serious.

Alasandra just linked to a relatively positive article about homeschooling in Illinios. The article just made me think about how we homeschool. People are positive when they think you are doing school at home. You know — the way they imagine school should be. That has to be better than school, right? It’s one-on-one and individualized to the learner. But what about people who don’t do school at home? What about those of us who completely buck the system? Are they so congratulatory then? Probably not. It doesn’t fit into their educational paradigm.

Tonight, we visited News Channel 8 studios. The kids actually got to be on live TV (that was a surprise to all). When we got home, they got out their video camera (we got them a cheap digitial videocam last year) and pretended to do newscasts. I was chuckling over things I heard them say like, “Back to you, Phil,” and “We’ll be live in 5-4-3-2-1…”

You may have already read my recent post about how Simon has decided to become a writer. He has continued to write about 2 pages every day (handwritten). He is choosing this as a fun thing to do. I’m so happy! He only does this at night though, after a good long day of video gaming!

Nighttime around here is filled with educational activities. Their days are spent on the computer playing games — which, by the way, include an amazing amount of learning about economics, math, and social interactions/getting along with others/cooperation. I’m not ready to argue that computer time is a positive thing, but I’m beginning to believe that it is.

At night we do our AVKO Sequential Spelling tests (all three boys do it together at the same level). They complain and laugh and try to get out of it, but we do it anyway. They know that spelling is important. That is really the only non-unschool thing we do. We have math books that we work through, but not consistently. They are great with math, all of them, but in different ways. I truly believe that when they are ready, they will learn it.

So, the big difference I see with homeschooled and schooled kids is how they spend their free time. Do you see that too?

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Unschooling

Not June Cleaver — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 15:37:36 +0000

I never push writing. I worry about it a lot — too much, I’m sure, but I never push. It’s scary for me, but I really want them to want to write.

Last night, Simon (age 11) came to me and said, “Mom, maybe as one of my learning things, I could write stories.”

I said, ~~“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Yes! Yes! Yes! Please write stories!”~~ “Gee honey, that’s a great idea.”

He went up to his room and wrote two full pages of an adventure of some sort of fight the hero is having with a huge monster. He is soooooo excited. He wants to become a famous author now.

Be still my heart!

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Greed Sucks

Not June Cleaver — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 03:55:33 +0000

Remember about a year ago when I posted about the contractor who found money in the walls of a house he was working on? (sorry, the link to the original article within my post is now dead)

Well, apparently, there were heirs, but the homeowner spent most of the money (though she claims it was stolen). As a result, the heirs were left with pretty much nothing.

Since there were rightful heirs to the money, they should have gotten it all. The new home owner should have tried harder to find the heirs. The original article said there were no heirs, so I felt the money belonged to the homeowner and the contractor had no claim to it.

The thing I find surprising (or not, I guess) is how the attorney suggested that if they had just kept their mouths shut and worked out a deal between them, they could have kept it all. Sick.

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I voted, did you?

Not June Cleaver — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:27:03 +0000

Ward Cleaver and I walked up to the school to vote this morning. Cars were all over the street. We got to the polls at about 6:05. I have NEVER seen a line so long. I almost turned around and went home, but I figured it wouldn’t get any better. It only took about 50 minutes to get through the line. That surprised me given how long the line was, but they were very efficient inside and there were lots of options for casting a ballot (Virginia is using both paper and electronic ballots this year).

While waiting in line, lots of people were taking the Democratic sample ballots. I only saw one person accept the Republican sample ballot.

When we walked home at 7:00, the cars were parked all the way to the corner of our street, which is several blocks away from the school! It was worth the wait to cast my vote for change. I just hope the rest of Virginia did too. It has been 44 years since Virginia voted Democrat.

Don’t forget to vote!

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Happy Halloween!

Not June Cleaver — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 04:54:54 +0000

Wow! What a week. Thankfully it is (almost) over.

I actually MADE a costume for Simon this year. He really wanted it. We went to the fabric store and found a pattern and fabric and I spent several hours sewing this tunic thing he wore. He still doesn’t exactly know what he was, but he looked good. There was a moment yesterday where I thought I was going to have to sell him to the lowest bidder though. Just minutes before our halloween party at a friend’s house, I completed the finishing touches on the costume. He refused to wear it.

All was well tonight though. He wore it and even spiked his hair to look tough.

Here are the chipmunks and our honorary daughter, Anna, who is in most of our family photos.

Hair spiking was the big thing tonight, and we are now out of spiking gel. Our next door neighbor told Simon he should spike his hair all the time, so now he wants me to go buy more gel. Hmmmmm.

Once again, they all carved their own pumpkins. Simon did his completely on his own (the one on the left), the others got a little help scooping out the guts. The little guy up top is the last remaining small pumpkin from our trip to Cox Farms. It’s the only one that didn’t grow the cool hairy mold.

Stephanie’s kids came over to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. They had heard about the 7 pound bags of loot the kids got last year and wanted a piece of the action. Here’s the entire gang:

And no Halloween story would be complete with out pictures of the loot. Ugh. At least this year, the bags only weighed between 5 and 6 pounds.

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Quick Update

Not June Cleaver — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 05:01:51 +0000

Here is a quick update since I’m a pathetic blogger.

I made a Halloween costume (yes, I got a pattern, fabric, and sewed the damned thing) for Simon and he refused to wear it to the Halloween party today. I still love him (I think).
I joined Facebook and have been wasting an inordinate amount of time reconnecting with people I’m not sure I really want to know.
I successfully talked my republican mom in to voting for Obama on her absentee ballot (she’s traveling abroad as of Tuesday). She’d kill me if she knew I posted this. In her world, votes are private.
My youngest competed in his intrasquad gymnastics meet tonight and won 1st place all around. The first “real” meet is in 2 weeks.
My hair is too long.
We are on AVKO Sequential Spelling test 16. All three kids are doing it, and I think the youngest is learning the most from it. He’s also bitching the most about doing it.
Halloween is tomorrow and I still haven’t bought candy.
We are going “family camping” with the Cub Scouts on Saturday (after the 3 soccer games and final soccer game parties). I haven’t pulled one single camping item out of the basement. I’m hoping it will not be freezing because 2 of my kids have “fake” sleeping bags (the kind you take on sleepovers).
The little pumpkins the kids carved last week have grown really cool mold hair. They carved the big ones tonight, so hopefully they will last until tomorrow.
Obama! Obama! Obama!

Updating to add (how could I possibly forget these?!):

Ward Cleaver locked himself out of his car today and had to call AAA.
Ward Cleaver got his car unlocked by AAA and drove away only to discover he had a screw in his tire and it was flat. This, of course, made him late to pick up the kids at a friend’s house, meaning they missed soccer practice. I was happily attending a gymnastics meet and oblivious to his distress (cell phone conveniently left in car).

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I’m a SLIder

Not June Cleaver — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:31:27 +0000

This morning, I had the weirdest sensation. It was about 8:15 in the morning. I was sort of sleeping (at 8:00 when Ward Cleaver got up, I sat up and looked at the clock, so I wasn’t sound asleep), lying on my left side with my arms stretched out straight in front of me, wrists touching each other. I was having a dream, but the dream got interrupted somehow, though I was still asleep.

I felt myself outside of my body looking at my body lying on the bed, but I wasn’t too far away. A huge and painful energy field waved over me like a white circle starting at the top of my head and moving down. It was like being radiated or having having an MRI or something, except it hurt. As it reached my arms, I remember trying to lift my right arm but I couldn’t. The wave continued down my body and back up. It was painful and there was a humming/buzzing sound, like being electrocuted. Then it stopped. I layed there thinking about how weird that was and then fell asleep again. I actually continued having the dream I was having before this happened.

Then about 5 minutes later, Ward Cleaver came over to say goodbye to me. I was still lying in the same position as when it happened. I told him what happened and he said, “That’s really weird. The lights dimmed about 4 times a few minutes ago.”

** insert Twilight Zone music here**

I was all freaked out. Did some sort of power surge go through me, or did I have some sort of power surge that made the lights flicker? It was unbelievable. It was so real, I knew in my sleep that it was really happening and was not a dream. It hurt, but also felt weird. I was worried about it at the time, but then it ended and I fell asleep into my dream again.

It was the weirdest sensation. I felt the top of my head tighten up and the feeling moved down my body. It definitely happened. It wasn’t a dream. But what was it?

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Updating

Not June Cleaver — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:56:59 +0000

FYI for those of you seeing updates in your reader. When I changed themes awhile back, I didn’t notice that some pics were oversized. I’ve been resizing pics and reposting. Sorry for the false alarm!

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More on the Socialization Myth

Not June Cleaver — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:22:29 +0000

A great article called “The Real Job of Socialization” was just posted on Life Without School. In it, Steph W. says:

…we all know that “socialization” — the process by which kids acquire values and learn to relate to other human beings — takes place within the family and community. Schools can certainly play a part in that, but real socialization always — for better or worse — occurs in the heart of the family and community.

She goes on to say that she feels that the schools are failing in part because they are trying to shoulder responsibilities for which they were not designed to handle.

Check it out.

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Little House Series

Not June Cleaver — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 03:37:17 +0000

Who knew that boys would love the Little House on the Prairie series!?

We have listened to numerous recorded books this summer, among them “Matilda”, “The Witches”, and “Story of the World vol. 1″. Most recently, I got “Little House on the Prairie” and then “Farmer Boy.”

We started out of order. We should have had “Little House in the Big Woods” first. However, the kids didn’t mind a bit and even today when the first set was available, they chose not to listen to it. The next in the series, “On the Banks of Plum Creek” wasn’t available. I chose “The Cricket in Times Square” instead. Theodore was bummed. He said he liked listening to the Little House series because he liked the narrator (Cherry Jones). Later today, I did find the next book at a different library, but it is on cassette tape. Better that than nothing! They are really enjoying these books. Not only are they listening intently (and telling each other to shut up when the recording is on in the car (be still my proud heart!)), they are telling Ward Cleaver about them when we aren’t evening listening to them.

Really, these books are an amazing look at 1800’s life. The kids have observed that the author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, talks a lot about food. Ward Cleaver and I told them that is because in those times, the preparation of food was a huge part of daily life. They didn’t have prepared foods and microwave ovens! I love to imagine what they are thinking about as they listen to these stories.

So if you have boys, don’t steer clear of these books just because you remember the Little House on the Praire TV show! They really are gender neutral. I’m so excited that we are learning American history without knowing it.

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