Mommy Wars

I'm pretty sure I've posted something about this before, but it's been a while.

It seems like once you are on a site for a while you begin to see how mean and nasty people can be. I don't know what it is about the internet that lets people be so cruel, but I'd like to know why people tear others down to make themselves feel better as opposed to just seeing if there's something that they'd like to change.

Not that I've always avoided cattiness or meanness. I'd be dishonest to say I have. I do try my best to think before I post on forums about how the other person would feel reading my response and I've actually completely removed myself from a once loved forum because it was encouraging me to be unkind.

It seems like a lot of homeschooling mommy wars center around housework and doing enough school.

That people with clean homes aren't spending enough time with their kids and people with messy homes are slobs.

That having little school actually happen is realistic because life happens or doing too much is hotboxing.

Wouldn't it be better to just assume that everyone is doing the best they can in their circumstances and each of us are on our own road of success? Some further then others, some rounding back to the beginning to start fresh.

I like blogging because it lets me share. I don't only share our roses, I try to share our messes and mishaps, too. I hope everything that I say is received in a spirit of kindness and everything that I write is intended in charity.

Smarty Pants

Little Bird wrote, "AT" on a piece of paper- and then told me that it says, "at"!

Can vs. Should

This is one of the toughest questions I have/am facing while homeschooling. It's one I think I'd face no matter how we schooled to a certain extent, but it's especially acute for me at the moment.

Just because Sweet Pea is capable of doing something- should I have her do it? Expect it? Let her read it?

There's no easy answers, and it's a somewhat disparate question.

The should I have her do it right now is math. Sweet Pea has done all of the concepts for our year's worth of math work- and there is a LOT of school left for the year. So what do we do? Move forward? Move horizontally? A little of both?

I don't know.

Expect is right now is writing. Sweet Pea can write really well when she wants to. When she doesn't it's the single biggest area of contention in our day. She can drag an assignment out almost indefinitely just for the satisfaction of asserting herself, or she can do it in five minutes. So do I push it and daily expect a high output, or only when she's willing? Especially since most kids her age are writing a few short sentences and working on spelling?

I don't know.

Let her read it is that hardest part right now. Sweet Pea is a voracious reader. She's read the first two Harry Potter books and has 2 more books to read to finish the Chronicles of Narnia. She'd love to read the rest of the Harry Potter books, but some of the content concerns me based on her age. Emotionally I don't think she's ready to face all the themes, but she's ready from a reading level perspective.

So what to do?

I don't know.

Try my best. Be grateful to have such an eager student. Try more. :)

Here we go again!

I think Little Bird is on the cusp of reading. Wasn't it just yesterday that Sweet Pea learned?

Time goes too quickly.

I am pleased that the same strategies that worked with child #1 is working with child #2- lots of reading, lots of playing with letters, and lots of patience.

Go, Little Bird!

The Blogdrums

Is that a real word? It should be.

For some reason I'm not on the internet quite as much right now. School is going well, but I'm not working up the verve or zest or whatever to come type about it.

It all seems so general sometimes- did math, did writing, ect.

Something to ponder.

Review- more then half done!

I haven't put a review up in a few weeks, but we're still merrily chugging along.

Little Bird is getting closer and closer to doing a real school week. It's really exciting to see! She's working solidly through Get Ready for the Code A. Once she turns 4 we'll start Singapore. And possibly Cursive First.

This week Sweet Pea finished Unit 3 in math. She's now a total pro at adding and subtracting double digit numbers with regrouping, and pretty good at triple digit numbers.

For writing we are still free writing, although we did do a lesson from Maxwell's this week.

We've almost finished Sweet Pea's spelling book! She's spelling so well right now that I don't think we'll start the next level right away.

In science we did amphibians and reptiles. The girls were really interested in frogs because they see so many of them in the summer. I think it'd be neat to do one of those tadpole kids- but I don't want to have to keep the frog once it's grown, so that probably won't happen.

History- we are winding through the Greeks. Sweet Pea can locate different parts of Greece and the Persian empire on the globe with pretty good accuracy. We're also working on geography in relation to our home and country.

I've uploaded some pics of two lapbooks we made this week- Sweet Pea made a 10 Commandments one to go along with Catechism and Little Bird made one for the letter A.

Little Bird's.
Cover.


Inside.


Back.


And Sweet Pea's.
Cover.


Inside with flaps closed.


Inside with a few flaps open.


View from the back.

How much is enough?

I struggle as a homeschooling mom with how much is enough. It's across the board for me. How much math practice? How much time on spelling? How much time on school, on free play, with other kids, with other teachers?

It's easy to feel like it's never right, and never enough. I've been thinking about this a lot specifically with math and writing.

Math is something that I think should be done frequently, without big breaks for primary students. We do math five times a week, and sometimes it's more then that. We are using two math programs together as well as extra practice sheets I print off online. I fall under the, "Deep, not wide" wisdom here- we are cementing math facts until I am nearly dreaming them. I'm fairly certain Sweet Pea is, as well. This is good, though. I know when we move on (gulp, multiplication) that we won't lose the ground we've already covered.

I think it's a fairly widely talked about fact that most homeschooled kids write less then their public schooled peers. It's not all a bad thing. Sometimes kids are pushed into churning out volume before mastering quality, and that's not how it should be. It's also easy to go to the opposite extreme and I'm always a little surprised when I hear so many kids Sweet Pea's age described as writing reluctant. How can you really know if you like writing or not when the process is still so new?

I expect 10-20 sentences a day. It's usually a combination of writing across history and science and doing a writing assignment I've made or or from Maxwell's Primary Lessons.

I know it's more then a lot of homeschooled kids in 1st do- but is it enough?

I guess we'll see.