New Set Up

Argh.


I went through my precious darlings work product and did a little scrutiny on the grades. I usually go through each week and take a look at where their grades are landing, but I noticed a trend towards downward marks. Yes, the material does get harder, but these changes looked more like a critical case of Lazy Boy Syndrome.


It might be terminal.


As we get more comfortable with homeschooling the training of public school has waned. They feel much more at ease moving around and taking breaks. Unfortunately they're not terribly experienced with self-regulation. A byproduct of being told what to do every second of their day so it's not surprising we are having issues with the freedom. Time to tighten things up a bit.


At first the boys were at their desks in their rooms and I would check in on them, but their falling grades (I expect at a minimum grade of 85) require me to reassess that plan. Today I have set us all up at the kitchen table (which was my plan in the first place).

5th Grade left side and 7th Grade right side

Already I see improvement. All of us sitting at the table allows for immediate answers to questions. I can look up their grades on the spot and review trouble areas. They ask each other questions about whatever subject they're working on and the discussion ranges from the provocative (global warming) to the hilarious (Gilligan's Island attempts at rescue).


We take a break to share YouTube videos just to keep it fun.


I can log in to a server or my local network to do my work which helps me stay on task. The other day J asked if I could teach him accounting. He wants to take over my business so I don't have to work so hard. So. Darn. Cute.

Miniature Greenhouse

Spring has sprung!

Well, okay we didn't really get a winter here in Texas. At all. Usually we get at least 1 day of "Deep Freeze 2012" or some other equally apocalyptic title assigned by the media. We Texans can stretch this one cold day out for a weeks worth of news. How we'll prepare for it (buy all the canned goods and bottled water on store shelves), the actual day when the meteorologists give a play by play of the storm's path and the wrecks on the ice-covered roads.  Then the news follow up of insurance claims from the fools that actually took to the road (we Texans do NOT know how to drive in inclement weather and should not even attempt it). 

But I digress...my point was Spring is here!

This year we are going to further our urban homesteading by planting a garden. They boys and I picked out seeds and, given our lack of experience, purchased a mini greenhouse. Just to be safe we also bough a few plants in case our seeds don't sprout. 

My suburban farmers

We have seeds for serrano peppers, tomatoes (forgot which kind) and cilantro. I plan on giving away some of the cilantro to one of my girlfriends whose husband wants to start a garden too.

Do your seed thing!

We still have some space for more tomatoes since the package with all of 10 seeds. I think it will be fine to stagger out the seed production so that we'll have a tomato harvest throughout the summer. We'll have a container garden this year. I wanted to have a stair-step raised garden bed made, but time got away from me. Again.

This year Tracy is excited because it means we can swap herbs, plants and veggies for our life selectively off the grid. I can't wait for our monthly Hippie Moms lunch to share what we've grown, made or created!

Setting Goals

One of the reasons we decided to homeschool is because we thought project management and planning in the public schools didn't give our students enough practice. Yes, our kids had a spiral agenda, and if we're talking ways to make things easier for a teacher with 25 or more students, then paper planners are the way. However, in this day and age, most kids, or more importantly to me, my kids think digitally. I wanted my middle school students to be able to use his smartphone for information management, but that wasn't an option in public school.


I am a small business owner. I work with other small business owners. In order to communicate and collaborate it's necessary to have the tools that bring us together. I have not met one small business owner that uses a paper planner. Most independent contractors, self-employed individuals and small businesses use Google products. E-mail, calendar, tasks, documents and several industry specific applications that make it easier for people in remote (read not in the same building) able to work with one another. Pretty snazzy, huh? So to my way of thinking, the students should use a system from the onset so that their learning curve is limited when they become gainfully employed someday (please, God).


The first thing I did when we brought the boys home to school is get them on Google calendar, docs and they had been using email. Already we've seen improvement with their ability to manage short to medium range projects. Public schools create an artificial deadline for projects such as Science Fair or an Essay contest, but there is nothing like a real-world application to bring a goal into focus.


We've created a spreadsheet to manage our week. I input the lessons they are responsible for during the day as well as the household tasks they are required to complete. When they get off track they check the spreadsheet, refocus and get busy. It also helps that we have a work first, play later policy. This weekend we chatted about how the lessons are worked and both agreed they'd like to do several lessons of one subject a day rather than a lesson on each subject every school day. Pretty exciting that they were able to make the connection that something didn't feel quite as productive as it could be and offered an idea for renegotiation. I'm pretty excited about the change because it makes lesson planning easier for me and I think they'll actually finish their assignments quicker because they don't have to spend time mentally moving from one subject to another.


So now we are stretching this goal-setting skill a bit further with a middle range goal. I consider a mid-range goal to be in the 90 days or 3 months range. Over the weekend while chatting with my sister-in-law she brought up loving holding a garage sale. Ew. There is nothing I hate more that having a yard sale, but I think it's a valuable skill and she's darned good at it. So I agreed to provide the "stuff" and she agreed to hold the sale and split the proceeds. This sounds like a fine set of tasks for the boys (since most of the "stuff" is theirs). They have a plan for a June or July sale and will split the spoils of war 50-50. They're already deciding what to do with their haul. Good on 'em.


For a larger, longer project we are tackling the back yard as an outdoor living space. After our decision to homeschool we considered moving out of the county to lower our property taxes. We trolled the internet to see what was available in a the surrounding counties and ultimately decided to stay put. Looking at our options was great exercise because now we know we're in the right place to maintain our quality of life and keep our financial obligations in check.


Over the past week we talked about what we wanted the back yard living area to look like, rendered our own drawing and made a list of supplies that we would need to collect. This served as the outline of our project. We also talked about when we'd like to have our Backyard Oasis complete and listed the tasks that we could complete without additional resources. So towards that end we built a compost bin (more about that in another post), primed the chicken coop knowing we would get at least 2 chickens in the near future and trimmed several bushes (several of which croaked in the summer drought). This weekend provided immediate results and really gave us all the motivation to continue our work on this two-year project.


I love that I can see the "buy in" from the guys on these projects. Isn't that how it is in real life? In real life you either open on time or land the client or get the product to the consumer. Public school does it's best to simulate these experiences, but really when comes down to it the brass ring isn't the grade it's the result.

Texas History

In 7th grade and a bit in 4th grade students in public school are required to take a Texas History unit. People who aren't from Texas think it's crazy that we give that much time to particular area of study. To them we say, "I know you are, but what am I?"


Mature. I know.


The State says we have to have citizenship as a part of our homeschooling program. Other than that the State of Texas pretty much stays out of our home education business. And we like it that way. So as much as I'm all about doing my own homeschooling thing, I really love Texas History, Geography, Cultures and, well ALL things Texas. So while I'm not devoting a whole year to the subject I do plan on interjecting as much Texas studies into our curriculum as possible. There is not box curriculum for this so we're working off units and basically taking advantage of living in the great state of Texas to learn.


Tonight we watched Texas, The Big Picture, the IMAX movie that was shown at the Bob Bullock Museum when it first opened. The movie was probably way more spectacular on the big IMAX screen, but it didn't exactly bite at home. The imagery was amazing. The narrative helped them to make connections about places we've been and where they fit. Watching the movie brought up several questions that gave us ideas of what other units of Texas to study. I love questions in my class because it means they're paying attention to the material.


Yee Haw.

Current Events & Government Classes

Dad has picked up part of the teaching duties.

He's always been a fan of politics and with this being an election year he is like a pig in slop. Truthfully he's really good about vetting the news coverage and giving a concise summary of any given issue. It's one of the reasons we keep him around.

Isaac, that's my husband and, as point of clarification, my kid's dad, works quite a bit. He manages the administrative functions of a medical clinic. He's good at what he does, but he's gone from the our little Urban Ranch about 12 hours a day. He wants to be a part of the homeschooling process, but we're all figuring out where that should happen.

Enter current events. We're learning about History, but applying history to what's going on now in our world is a critical thinking exercise. So a few times a week Isaac, J and Z get together pick out a news article, read it aloud and talk about it. So simple, but we are really learning about what's going on in our kid's minds. They're developing opinions and practicing using that "articulation muscle".

I can't wait to see how they view this election season. They won't be old enough to vote even next election, but they'll know the issues that are important to them and where the candidates stand. I love raising free-range thinkers.

Civil Rights and Frugality Lesson

Today was "training day" at the new Alamo Drafthouse. Training day is sort of a soft opening for an establishment. The staff gets an opportunity to work out the kinks in their system with real patrons and we get to see and movie and eat cheap. 


Awesome.


Part of the reason we were able to take advantage of this opportunity is because we homeschool. The training day movie was shown on a Tuesday at noon. If we were in public school, despite what I believe to be a legitimate learning occasion, this would not qualify as reason to be out of the building. Shame that.


So there we are at noon on a Tuesday at a movie theater. I paid $2 each for the boys and I to see a first run movie and the food was half price. Order what you want boys, spare no expense (that doesn't exceed a $40 total bill). They certainly did. We had burgers, chicken tenders and I went with the chicken sandwich with chipolte mayo. Delicious. They serve Coke Zero and not just Diet Coke so I'm in love. My bill was $22 for all three of us eat. Now that is a lesson in thriftiness.


Since as homeschoolers we are looking for lessons everywhere, in everything we do I had to make the movie a learning experience. Civil rights lesson anyone? We had read about segregation in the South and we've heard Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, but I thought the story The Help told would allow the boys to understand the issues of the time in a less abstract way. And it did. When you put a human face on a history lesson it resonates in a way that a textbook cannot.

Goodwill Austin Computer Museum

We took a round about way to get to the museum field trip, but in the end all turned out well.


Late last year a flyer landed in my inbox offering tours behind the scenes of Goodwill Austin. I thought this would be a great opportunity for the boys to see a non-profit in action. I sent an e-mail, signed us up and told them about our field trip plans.


Let's just say we were not their target audience.


What the flyer did not make clear (or omitted) is that this presentation/tour was intended for potential employers for GW "graduates". Sorry we've got nuthin. Actually that's not entirely true. As a small business owner I'm always looking for good help, but first I have to go through all of my family as potential employees. That could take awhile so we're back to we've got nuthin.


The boys made their hasty retreat and I quickly followed, unfortunately walking out on the CEO of Goodwill Austin. Well it wasn't a walk-out so much as a quiet exit. No matter I'm sure he's over it.


As luck would have it the GW Computer store makes its home in the same shopping center where the tour was to take place. At the back of the GW computer store is the GW Computerworks Museum. This has been on our short list of field trips so we decided today was the day!

Hello, robot made of old computer parts. It's science...no, it's art...no, it's history. So many lessons all in one exhibit.

That big gunmetal gray box they're standing in front of holds a whopping 4 Gigs of memory compliments of 1980. To put it in perspective for them I explained that the computer in my office has 1TB of memory. That means we'd have to have an additional 25 big ol' computer cabinets in my office to replace my current set-up. Neither thought that was good idea considering how messy my office is usually. 

Total geek humor. It's a cassette fossil. Huh huh. I asked J if he knew what it was and he said "something that used to play music", but it was Z that actually came up with the word "cassette". Way to make me feel old, guys. Don't y'all remember waiting by the radio for "Open Arms" by Journey to come on so you could press record even if a little of the D.J.'s voice got on the tape? Okay, maybe that was just me.

So what started out as a bust turned into quite a fun trip. We topped it off with lunch at the Chinese food buffet and that beats cafeteria food any day!