Friday, August 06, 2010

Buttons

There's a story here. Did your mom or grandma have a container of buttons? 

 

We have one. Although it lacks character. It's a ziplock plastic dish with a lid. Dishwasher safe, recyclable, and stackable. My grandma's buttons were in some sort of clear jar that would be considered "antique" today. My buttons lack character, as well. They were a "lot" that I bought off ebay for about $10 a little over a year ago. They serve their purpose in our house, though.


This child got up this morning, made her bed, got dressed, then pulled out the buttons. There seems to be some sorting by color going on. Oh, I feel for her. What on EARTH is going to happen to all those buttons that don't fit neatly into the red, orange, yellow, green, blue or purple cups?!? I'm sure she'll figure something out. I didn't give any feedback on this little project, except to confirm that she DID plan on picking all those buttons up when she was done, right?


What's this? Little piles of buttons. There seems to be a pattern here.

Apparently the whole goal was to COUNT the buttons. Kind of a round about way to get to where she was going, via the color sorting, and all, but hey, that's how she rolls. Piles of ten. So pretty, like a rainbow.


518, in case you were wondering.

And yes, she did clean up when she was finished. Without even being asked.

You Never Know

You never know who is going to be a blessing in your life. Today it was Luke. Luke works at the church where the kids play soccer and my kiddos are strangely taken with him. I mean, Charlotte is just almost obsessed with him. You will understand why later.

Tuesday and Thursday evening are spent at indoor soccer practice. With three playing soccer, we are lucky to just have practice two evenings per week and it's really not a hardship. It's kind of rough that Jack's practice is Thursdays from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., but it's a short season, so we deal.

The gym where the kids practice and play their games has a "rec room" of sorts, with foosball, air hockey, ping pong, and pool tables. There are couches and TVs and large round tables and chairs, where we often eat dinner between practices on Tuesdays. Luke is the guy you ask for the air hockey paddles, or a ping pong ball, or a foosball, should you want to play any of those games.

Tonight we ate Chicken Express at the church. I ordered a family pack, and I tried to be really conscious of the amount of food we were getting and not order too much. But, alas, there was way too much food. So, of course, we asked Luke to join us. After we shared our meal together, he played with the kids. Now, with John being gone, the kids are not getting a whole lot of "roughhousing" type play around our house. Luke played chase and tickle wars and all sorts of games. Then, Mitchell asked Luke to play ping pong with him. Well, the last ping pong ball had been smashed earlier that evening and Luke didn't have any more. So, he suggested that he and Mitchell should play with an imaginary ball. Here's the result. Note the happy dance at the end when Mitchell declares "My point!"



Thanks for the blessing, Luke! (And can you see why Charlotte adores him?)

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

The Beginning of Our Homeschool Journey

I think I'm getting it all together for our first year of homeschooling. If you haven't been reading my blog lately (and why would you? I mean, before last week it had been almost a year!), we are full-time homeschoolers now. Which means that we are setting our own schedules and picking our own curricula. Also, I will be growing my hair down to my knees and will only be wearing denim jumpers from now on. And the kids will, most certainly, become very socially awkward. Because this is how it is with homeschoolers, no?


First of all, we're moving from Texas (where homeschoolers have it really good), to South Carolina (where homeschoolers don't have it quite as good). I'm not saying that it's going to be a hardship to homeschool there; just that there are some requirements that we have to meet. South Carolina, it seems, has made it a bit confusing (imagine that!) to get started homeschooling. Basically, there are three ways to homeschool in SC. The first has a list of requirements a mile long and, as far as I can tell, has the parent reporting to the school system and the child participating in state-mandated testing. The second option also has the child taking standardized tests and the family must be a member of the South Carolina Association of Independent Home Schools. The "third option", as it is commonly referred to, is to join another homeschool association of not less than 50 students whose requirements of members include:
    (a) a parent must hold at least a high school diploma or the equivalent general educational development (GED) certificate; 
    (b) the instructional year is at least one hundred eighty days; 
    (c) the curriculum includes, but is not limited to, the basic instructional areas of reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies, and in grades seven through twelve, composition and literature; and 
    (d) educational records shall be maintained by the parent-teacher and include:
      (1) a plan book, diary, or other record indicating subjects taught and activities in which the student and parent-teacher engage; 
      (2) a portfolio of samples of the student's academic work; and 
      (3) a semiannual progress report including attendance records and individualized documentation of the student's academic progress in each of the basic instructional areas specified in item (c) above.
So, basically, with this option, the kids don't have to participate in standardized testing. Also, the local "third option" associations tend to be much cheaper (SCAIHS is $328-$448, depending on how many students you have in your family). Most local associations are $40-$75 per family, it seems. Fortunately for us, all the above requirements are not going to be a problem. I hate that we have to document 180 days, but I guarantee that if John does science with the kids on a Sunday afternoon, I will be documenting it as a day!

All that said, now I have to find a homeschool association and join it! So, writing this blog entry has prompted me to do some checking and that's a good thing. I don't want to be considered "truant" on our first day in SC!