Home Is Where My Heart Is.

Well, so much for my career as a lunch lady! When one goes through cancer, one experiences a lot of different feelings and thought streams. I would guess that I am not the only woman to have cancer and think, "What if I die? What will happen to my children?"

For awhile I danced with the idea that my homeschool friends would take them in for school, and help them make it through. I have no doubt that many of them would be willing to do it. I'm pretty sure I even pleaded with my husband to not ever put them in school. I'm pretty sure he had moments of panic about the whole thing too.

Then I came to the idea that putting them in school might be okay, so that if something did ever happen, they would at least know the drill, be able to "swim" and better to do it while I am here to help them get accustomed, right? So that's what we did.

#1 was already in public high school by this time. She wasn't crazy about it, but God proved Himself faithful in her situation, many times. I thought #2 should go for 6th grade, so she could join band, and sports or whatever interested her. And little #3 begged me to see her local school, since her sisters were "getting to go". So we visited and she liked it a lot. It helped that it is a lovely new suburban school with primary-colored ramps and banners from the ceiling, and it was recently named the #2 elementary school in our state! I felt so much better.

So they went. And, I immediately decided I should get a job while they're gone, so I can bring in money to help remodel this place. So I did. And it was fun. I got a job in the main kitchen at a large high school in the city next door. The pay rate was great, the fellowship was nice and the work was strenuous, but invigorating.

That was last year.

This year, after #2 and #3 had gotten to hear every single cuss word ever invented, on the school bus and beyond, we prepared to do it all over again. Only I went back to work 2 weeks before they went back to school. My mom was in town, so we muddled through, sans kitchen and everything.

Then the middle school notified me that #2 had scored poorly on a statewide test, in math. And their plan to rectify this was to remove her from art (her special talent which I have paid extra to indulge, for years), and put her in a second period of math wherein she would do an online math program that would help her solidify her math foundation.

When she continued to struggle and the regular math class teacher started spending a portion of the class teaching an individual who did not speak english, I met with the guidance counselor to see what my options were. He thought she would be able to get out of this lower-level class, away from the poorly-behaved, unmotivated students, to get into a better environment for learning. When I contacted the math teacher directly, she disagreed. She said #2 should stay in her class, and perhaps stay after school also, for homework club.

So I had her stay. #2 explained to me that homework club involved sitting in the library (sorry, media center), where the math teacher gave her flash cards. This after spending two hours during the day, in math classes.

Something had to give. The homeschooler in me reared her American-born, mother-bear head and said, "Not with my child, you're not." So the lunch-lady career careened into the ditch, and we made major life decisions.

Thank heavens for choice in education! We have friends who have been attending a charter school that is 60% online, 40% brick and mortar, for several years. This year, that same school opened at 100% virtual option, using curriculum I had already admired, developed by the man who wrote The Book of Virtues.

We applied at Thanksgiving and got in for second semester. I went ahead and transferred #3 also. I had spent many years homeschooling #1, and felt like I was missing out on that time with #3. She liked school, but like most children, loves being at home.

Is it perfect? No. Is it easy? It's not HARD. It is a terrific hybrid of homeschooling and accountability/diligence/tutor-type education. We can be online live with the teachers every day if we want or need to. We can motor along on our own, following their pacing guides to make sure we make adequate progress. It is an amazing option that I actually enjoy.

The most wonderful thing about this type of program is that the student doesn't move forward until they exhibit "mastery" of a subject by scoring 80% or above on an assessment. These assessments are frequent and immediately scored by the program. There are oodles of optional activities to assist you when you struggle, and you may retake the assessments as many times as you need.

Isn't that the way education should be? Last year, #2 got left behind when she had trouble with fractions. The class had to move on. Essentially, her can was kicked down the road for next year's teacher to deal with it. If she didn't get it in the time alloted for this year's class, too bad--movin' on. ACK! How many others are being rolled to the side of the road by this type of program?!

Next thing you know, she's giving up on herself and any hope of post-high school education. No one cares WHEN you learn fractions. No one ever asks that. You just need to learn them. If it takes you one month to get them down pat, rather than 2 weeks, no one cares, EVER. But you do have to get them down. This system handles this rather large dilemma wonderfully.

Do I wish I had all my time to myself, to clean house, or read books or post on my blogs? Absolutely. But the confirmation of my decision became clear last week, when #2 told me she wasn't smart enough to attend a college-prep, charter high school I am considering for her. --What?!

She was sure that since she had been relegated to that math class, and its various entities, she would not be able to cut it in a college-prep program. Only halfway through seventh grade and the label is firmly ensconced on her self-esteem. Ugh. I knew right then I had made the right choice, not waiting until the end of this school year.

Change is always hard. My parents moved me in the middle of 7th grade. It was HORRIBLE. Honestly, I think it damaged my academic progress permanently. I thought about that a lot when I was deciding what to do with my daughter. I wish I had never sent her to public school. But what's done is done. And the experience there will teach her many things I cannot.

Thank you, State Legislature, for allowing us to have charter schools. Thank you, Mr. Bill Bennett for developing the K12 curriculum. Thank you, Sally N., for telling me to go home to my children.

The Art Museum

Took the kiddos on a field trip to the Art Museum last week. It's been awhile since I've been to the Art Museum, thought we were about due for a trip, since we no longer need strollers and wipes, etc. I did remember my last trip to the Art Museum, where we encountered the GIANT piles of painted, knotted, piled nylon rope in the entry. These are piles bigger than furniture, some bigger than automobiles, uniformly knotted and coiled and stacked into massive structures, with little signs that say "Please Do Not Touch".

You're kidding me, right?! These things are indestructible and randomly placed in the ENTRYWAY, so that you have to walk around and through them, but we can't touch them?! They are made of rope, like from Lowes rope, and coated with seriously heavy coats of shellac..."Kids, don't touch the giant piles of painted rope. It's delicate."

But I digress. This time the entry was still in a state of un-pack, we thought. We were wrong. There were these frames, the size of patio doors, that had unfinished strips of plywood on the vertical sides and between the plywood there were different types of curtains sticking out. The frames were at all random angles and there was a second tier on top, that had shards of mirror sticking out of the edges. We could walk through them, and OF COURSE, not touch them. It was stupid and unattractive.

Of course, the descriptive card off to the side went on about how the different curtains and positions made the viewer feel different things, blah, blah, blah. Since my friends are just as shallow as I am, we could only feel endangered by the big shards of mirror sticking out of the edges of the unfinished plywood. Actually, the unfinished plywood made me think of my kitchen, but mostly all I could think about was that someone was actually able to get paid for such a piece of rubbish.

And then I remembered my favorite exhibit ever at the Art Museum...the unravelling cacti. I think that's when I realized how very shallow and uncultured I am. A man had paid some South American women to knit coverings for plastic cacti. These cacti were set up in a large diorama. Each knitted cacti had a yarn coming off it, running up to a powered spindle on the ceiling and at random times, the spindles would spring to life and unravel some yarn from the pieces. The "art" of this exhibit, was that it was always "changing" because it would be unravelled at random times, making it different. Huh? I've got stuff at my house that changes every time I look at it--the ring in the toilet, the stacks of laundry, even the litter boxes--perhaps I need to market myself more...

The "artist" didn't even do the knitting. Head banging on desk* Still don't get it.

We found our way to the clothing area, where we last saw women's outfits from each decade since the turn of the century, only to be disappointed--and shocked--at the display of coture from the 60's on, that included a swimsuit that was a brief attached to two suspenders that joined at the navel area AND NOTHING ELSE. The mannequin had other parts that weren't covered, fortunately the one boy with us was busy with the "artwork" that was simply a poorly-lit HOLE IN THE WALL, that you viewed from across the room.

I'm sure this description does little to explain the circumstances. There were some terrific things there and I am, for the most part, glad to take the kids. I just wish I could go without the whole Emperor's New Clothes feeling.

I know, I know...

the summer is waning. Every day, a few more minutes "lost". I have pretended for several months now that I am not a homeschooler. Sure, I had these great intentions to do math and spelling and handwriting all summer. But, I quickly decided to forget it. I don't even remember the specific reasons. I'm sure I could dredge them up if I needed to, but I don't.

I believe the kids needed a break from me and I needed a break from them "educationally". So, for the summer, I've been a horse owner, a small business manager, a housekeeper, a 4H volunteer, a really bad gardener and a wife and mom. That's it.

In the back of my mind though, I knew it was coming around...so, here's a great post from a blog I found that resonates with me:

The Ten Habits of a Happy Homeschool

I wish this lady was my next door neighbor!

Oh and P.S. Got to visit another ER today! #3 crashed off the couch onto Handyman's cool new coffee table (an old hand truck covered with plexiglass) and gashed open her forehead, just two days before her birthday. I want some of that glue stuff they use, just to have around. So now all three girls have facial scars; what a heritage!

Unit Study

We did a unit study today. Okay, probably not a real unit study. I did not go to the library to pull a lot of things together. In fact, I did very little, okay NO research at all. I did draw on past experience with the topic, which I've had some. Here's what happened.

First, shock of all shocks, the glowing orb made an appearance today, right over my house, slanting in through my glass-paned door so boldly that I called the children from their rooms to gaze at it, for perhaps the last time this year! We soaked it up. I headed out to the barn where my very crabby 800 lb. and 1100 pound gorillas horses were imprisoned, testing the ground to see if I darest let them out.

I did. The almost galloped over me before I got the gate open. Once they settled down a little I did some maintenance work on our trench. We call it the pasture scar. We just laid the cable to hook up power to the barn a couple of weeks ago. (It's my Christmas present.) Said cable went in a 3 foot deep trench which I filled in that day (250 yards of shovelling and raking, thank you very much.) Madonna never had such biceps--and you should see my latisimus dorsi! Hoooooo!

As all trenches do, this one is settling and filling in. The glowing orb thawed enough of the dirt (that and the 60 degree weather this week) to allow me to fill in some more, which I did. That's when I had the delightful experience with our soil. I am using the term "soil" pretty loosely here. While it looked a lot like mud, when I would scrape it up, it would not come off my shovel. Now I know you have all experienced mud clinging to a shovel. There are several approaches...you can bang the side of the blade on the ground, the clump of mud will break loose and fall off...tried it, many, many, many times. Did not work. Not once. I would bang the side of the blade on the ground and the first problem was that the blade would slice neatly into the soft earth. No jarring impact. Mud is firmly seated on shovel. Shovel is completely vertical, no change. I tried banging the straight bottom edge of the shovel into the ground...same result. I tried turning the shovel over, so mud is "hanging" upside down. There was no hanging. The mud had no fear, did not budge.

I come prepared for this stuff...I have the coolest boots, Muck brand chore boots. They are serious outdoor boots, rubber and neoprene. Love 'em. I put 'em to work. I tried scraping the mud off the shovel with my big black boot. Mud loves my boot. Adheres immediately to my boot. Not some of it, while some falls off. ALL of it transfers smoothly to the bottom of my boot. We're talking mud the size of a half a cantalope or more. Sooooooo, I scrape the bottom of my boot on the shoulder of my shovel and mud returns to the shovel. No sagging, nothing. I thought to myself, this should be a Lucy and Ethel show. I could not, COULD NOT, dislodge this stuff. I was lucky to be able to scrape it into the trench at all. When I left that work, I dragged the shovel behind me in the damp grass, thinking this would sort of clean off the blade as I walked. Nope. Not a bit. It was kind of creepy. I should sell it for Christmas crafts or something.

Anyway, the unit study...I went to check out the water tanks that are now being filled by the downspout from the metal roof. Way cool system, I must say. That end of the paddock holds water pretty badly, must be that terrific soil we have. So I started trying to dig little trenches under the fence to move some of the water out. It got a little fun making little rivers and dams. I remembered that the Children's Museum in town has an activity a lot like this, but with way less horse manure in it. I decided to head up to the house, while the orb was still showing and see if I could recruit some help.

I burst into the kitchen calling them to come. I'm having fun out here you guys--yeah right...but I did convince them to come. We took the pointy hoe and a little kiddie hoe and sure enough, it got to be fun and then obsessive. Each horse footprint in the silt was a little pool of water waiting to be released. #3 of course fell to her knees more than once in the silty, poopy, muddy muck and then the orb headed off to Colorado or New Mexico or wherever it winters, so I volunteered to head up and make lunch and begin the industrial laundry. #1 admitted that she thought I was just fooling when I said I was having fun, but it was indeed, fun. She stayed behind, working on, considering a career in drainage, hopefully not sewage, but we all know and must admit, that advances in plumbing have saved civilization. I don't know if ditch digging qualifies for DOE credit, but it certainly helps out around here.