Category Archives: Homeschool

Learning at home with a second-grader and a fifth-grader.

Homeschool

Sorry, Elsa, the cold is starting to bother me after all

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Poppy was supposed to start soccer two weeks ago, but we’ve been living in an avant garde Icecapades performance and so she has yet to have practice. The kids haven’t had history or drama for two weeks, either. The public schools have been either closed or on a delay for something like 9 or the last 10 school days. I’m pretty sure we’re all done with winter now, so go ahead and bring on the sunshine Weather Man.

Despite all the ice and snow, my little homeschoolers haven’t gotten a single snow day. We have been operating on a two-hour delay, though, because I haven’t been setting my alarm. Here’s a bit of what we’ve done over the last couple of weeks.

  • We rebooted our Geography study. I’m using “Cantering the Country” and “Trail Guide to US Geography,” and we’re taking it quite slowly.
  • Poppy was having some trouble figuring out the mechanics of multiplying two-digit numbers. She found this video pretty helpful:
  • Poppy finished “Harriet the Spy” and the accompanying literature study, and today we’re watching the movie.
  • Pete is reading a comic-book-style book about the Wright Brothers.
  • Poppy tested for and received her blue belt in tae kwon do.

    • And there was a good deal more, too, but I somehow managed to erase all of the notes I’d made and the computer won’t let me have them back.

    How’ve you been lately?

    Wanna read more about homeschooling? Check out the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly linky thing!

    Homeschool

    This week in homeschooling: When homeschoolers play hooky

    I knew Poppy was going to spend a few days with her grandparents this week, but I neglected to send any schoolwork with her. At the rate we’ve been missing days lately, this school year will last ’til mid-June.

    Monday

    Poppy spent Monday with her grandparents, and most of the stuff she and Pete do on Mondays is together-work. So we took the day off.

    Tuesday

    Poppy got home on Tuesday. It was pretty late in the day, though, so we took Tuesday off, too. (This was not the plan.)

    Wednesday

    It was the one and only day that we actually completed all of our assigned tasks!

    Thursday

    The kids started a couple of outsourced classes — drama and US history — on Thursday. The classes take a good part of the day, so our Thursday schedule at home is pretty light. And yesterday it was especially light, because we were busy with other things as well. By the time we got home we were all ready to have a break, and suddenly we were ordering pizza and watching “The Great Mouse Detective.”

    I think next week we’re going to try to get a few things done before we leave for class. That’ll require me to get up when the alarm goes off, though.

    Friday

    We don’t have any outings planned, so hopefully we’ll be more on the ball today.

    Wanna read more about homeschooling? Check out the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly linky thing!

    Homeschool

    This week in homeschooling: We rebounded from the holiday break with minimal discomfort

    Monday

    Is there any Monday more loathsome than the Monday after Christmas break? I think not. We had a very, very slow re-entry to schoolwork this week. After multiple breaks, a trip to the library and a jaunt to the playground, the work the kids normally finish by 10:30am was still looming over us at 5pm.

    We started the morning by listening to a “Story of the World” chapter that covered Metacom (who led the Wampanoag and Narraganset in a war against the settlers and came to a rather terrible end) and Pennsylvania founder William Penn. I’m not entirely sure why they shared a chapter.

    Poppy is still reading “Harriet the Spy” and working through its corresponding study. She says “At least now I have something to say if someone asks me my least favorite thing about school,” if you were wondering how well that’s going. She had to list four adjectives describing Harriet for Monday’s assignment, and we practiced by describing one another. She said I’m “strict” and “comfortable (because ‘sweatshirt-ish’ isn’t a word),” while Pete described me as “funny, huggable, blue-eyed and hungry.” All of which is true enough, I suppose.

    Tuesday

    Between an appointment for me and tae kwon do followed by afternoon playdates for the kids, we didn’t get as much work done as we should’ve. Pete did his spelling and handwriting, and he finished his first-grade math book (he started it midway through last year), but Poppy didn’t do much of anything.

    Wednesday

    I had another appointment on Wednesday, but it was the only major interruption in the day so we were able to get most of our work done. Poppy took a break from spelling lessons for the first part of this year, but it became apparent that she wasn’t ready to abandon them altogether. So on Wednesday she resumed her spelling studies. The kids also started memorizing “Casey at the Bat,” and we started reading “Family Poems” (selected by Belinda Hollyer) together. For history, we tried to talk like William Penn-era Quakers for the afternoon. The kids did not enjoy it.

    Thursday

    Our schedule has changed a bit for this half of the year, so our at-home schedule is a little lighter than it was the first half of the year. It was a breeze to get through yesterday, even though we took multiple breaks. Next week the kids start a couple of outsourced classes; we’ll see if I lightened the workload sufficiently.

    Friday

    Our co-op’s council had its monthly meeting this afternoon, and it was at out house. That meant that any schoolwork we were going to do needed to happen before the meeting. There are many council-meeting days when that doesn’t happen, but this week the kids were focused and cooperative, and they finished everything on their lists. It was rather refreshing.

    Wanna read more about homeschooling? Check out the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly linky thing!