the continuing adventures of us
One day, Sarah asked me if we had a book on style sheets. I pointed her in the direction of our lone HTML reference book, and said there was a couple chapters in there on it.
Sarah’s way of learning is to point her where she wants to go and let her loose. So I did.
Every so often she asked for clarification, but she’s also learned to say things like, “I just want the 30 second answer, Mom, not the five minute one.”
Kim asked what a typical day is like for her home-edjumacatin’ friends. We had a couple of doozies here, methinks.
Tuesday was interesting and busy. I started the day off early, with a trip to the eye doctor. When I left the house, Meaghan & Emma were cuddling on the couch, the only kids awake. When I got back, Addison was drawing pictures with Emma in the middle of the living room. Mostly space aliens, for some reason. Sarah would have written up a storm in her journal, mostly while I was gone, but her time has recently been cut back. Meaghan & Sarah both got themselves ready for the day and listened to music via headphones & CD players. Sarah also read part of a novel & made herbal tea.
I gently reminded them all they have stuff to do since they are still in a March Break groove. (re: LAZY! 
)
We had a pot luck / field trip with more homeschoolers and were gone until mid-afternoon. I found out when I got there, I had mis-remembered the time and was an HOUR LATE. We took an extra kid with us, one of Sarah’s friends. It had a multi-cultural focus.
After we got home, Addison did stuff on his computer. He’s making some sort of card game and he also worked on math, writing and history. There’s also a program he’s working on making. Meaghan figured out how to make custom Tomb Raider levels with the level editor we have. Sarah did more writing and I think some math. After supper, Sarah & I did groceries because Emma had a big nap. She was overtired from her meltdown at the field trip. Go figure. Sarah & I also discovered the cell phone doesn’t work inside the grocery store, but it does take funny pictures.
Later, I dug out some Egypt books for Emma. We have one with a lot of cardboard accessories hidden in the back of the book, and she spent the rest of the evening making “pretty pictures” of her name in heiroglyphics. (Not *really* just pretend!)
Yesterday was more a “normal” day. Meaghan & Emma make Egyptian honey buns using an ancient recipe. I tinkered with Carol’s site some more. My uncle came over to take advantage of our high speed access to download stuff, so he and Addison got to geek out all over that. I cleaned the dining room while I was talking to him, so it was a Good Thing he visited. The room looked like our filing cabinet exploded, which is fairly accurate becuase we are working on (you guessed it) taxes. I practised violin and tortured people.
We collectively figured out how to get stuff from this machine (no floppy, no working CD burner) to our Win95 machine that doesn’t even do USB. We used Addison’s computer to burn a CD with what we needed, then discovered we needed WinZip on the Win95 machine. Which of course it’s not on the home network! That would be easy! 
The big kids normally do their work in their rooms, and I check it on a semi-regular basis, so I don’t know specifically what they’ve done, only that they’ve done some stuff. (Um, that’s not as bad as it sounds.. really!) Meaghan also has a rock candy experiment going on that she tinkered with. She also looked after the flower seeds she & Emma planted in a pot. I walked to the post office. Emma watched Spongebob twice in a row and rested. (Powered-up for the evening more like it.) She also told me she could read the words “Goofy Goobers”. As in, “I saw da words, and da g’s and da o’s and I knowed it said Goofy Goobers! I read it!”
Later that evening, we talked to both Sarah and Addison about a business idea we have that we’re going to launch locally (as part of our current business) and eventually they will be doing the bulk of the work for. Ron talked a bit with Addison about some career planning, and with Sarah he went over some accounting. I also finally worked on this art journal project I have going, and Emma helped me. I shared my stickers so I get a gold star. Emma went to bed dressed as a mermaid, and while waiting for me to finish up in the bathroom so I could read her stories, she rolled over and fell asleep. The big kids were watching Survivor. Ron stayed up doing some business paperwork and work on the computer, like he does every night.
Scattered through that all were daily chores, playing with Emma, meal prep, computer games & turns, tv shows, reading books and having actual conversations with the people who live here.
You know, life. And I wondered why I didn’t seem to get around to writing a decent entry yesterday.
Just some notes on the kids’ work.
Meaghan: (age 12, grade 7 equivalent)
History/Geography – I need to check over work done on Africa. Start Australia with Sarah, let Emma join in. Mom or kids will divvy up sections, will start next week. Text used is Around the World in 180 Days.
Language Arts – Learn at Home book, grade 6 level. I got this for $2 at Value Village, brand new. Just the grammer & spelling lessons. 4 weeks behind. Must catch up by end of month. Continue personal reading, plus writing online. Didn’t like Wordsmith Craftsman, so we will re-evaluate next time. It’s above her level and we were working only in part one.
Math – Key to Geometry, book 3, page 32. Can skip ahead to page 38. Ron or I need to check work done with answer key.
Science – decided to start Exploring Creation with General Science next year. Can do some in L@H book if bored, but it’s stuff she knows already.
Concentrate on doing each subject neater, with more written work.
Household- Help with Emma. Establish and maintain routine with chores. Continue with art (watercolors, quilting) & cooking projects (still in baked goods phase, up to Cream Puff complexity).
Computer- 30 minute turns x 4, roughly. Covers things like using the internet, games and creating/manipulating graphics. One recent game played is Age of Empires 2, which covers a good chunk of history.
Sarah: (age 14 grade 9 equivalent)
Math- with Ron. Key to Algebra, book 6, page 5. Check over & continue as per his instructions. We’re going slow, concentrating on comprehension, not speed.
Science- Exploring Creation with General Science, module #16. Must finish by end of January so she can go to next book. I need to mark test for #15.
Language arts- also hates Wordsmith Craftsman. Continue with writing on computer during online time (pretty much an hour of constant typing), as well as concentrating on neatness and accuracy in other subjects.
History/Geography – I need to check over work done on Africa. Start Australia with Meaghan & Emma. Copy pages from student book for her use.
Household- Help with Emma. Establish and maintain routine with chores. Continue with guitar practise and hand-sewn quilt project.
Computer- two 30 minute online turns. Up to one hour maximum for other computer-related things, like writing journal entires. She has at least a half-dozen websites she works on but doesn’t like me to visit.
Anything school-related, or “non-fluffy” Google searches (i.e: “free lip gloss samples” is fluff), or work done with me online is not counted towards computer time.
Addison (age 17, grade 12 equivalent)
Most of Addison’s work, at this point, is geared to either studying for standardized tests (rolls eyes) or directed by him. And remember, he did just spend a few months trying to get his neck working, let alone tax his brain with acedemics.
Math – just reading the trigonometry/calculus text so far, at college level. Will push himself to start getting stuff done with Ron overviewing.
English- reading a whole stack of books, including
Lord of the Flies, some Terry Brooks novels, books for history and 7 Men Who Rule the World from the Grave, with discussions.
Writing – Wordsmith Craftsman. Part Two finished, will start Part Three: The Essay and work on that the rest of the year. Also writing history reports, his Taranto novels, and various other online writings. (emails, chats, mailing lists)
Computers – his intented future career.
Reading a Visual Basic textbook, and currently working on setting up some sort of program in his computer to write programs. We have one on ours, but need a license or extra copy to run it on his (at least to be legal 
). Also visits various websites on regular basis (NASA, Wizards of the Coast for two examples) and can find his way around the Internet enough to show someone else how, and even email me interesting links he finds.
Work on own website, eventually move it and run with a content management system, which he will install & set-up.
History- needs to finish report on Industrial Revolution. Reading about Spanish Revolution. Also reading A Short History of Canada. Will move on to the Depression after this.
Science- we decided to drop Exploring Chemisty with Creation, as we had some problems with the CD, plus we decided he didn’t need chemistry after all. He’s taken Biology already, and physics will be covered in the level of math he’s taking.
As well, he has had intimate first-hand knowledge of the brain, spinal chord, spinal column, and muscle groups of the back and neck.
Various extras include: Ventures, life skills, how to manage a home and money, getting a (new) job, dealing with business people and possibly taxes.
Notes: The main site for the Exploring Creation with… series is here. I know some of it might not seem like a lot, but we’re really just get back into the swing of things. Any percieved gaps (like Meaghan & no science) will either be covered or was (in Meaghan’s case) already covered.
Every so often, I sit down with the kids formally, go over their books, and write down where they are and what they need to work on, with flexible deadlines.
The last time I did this was October 1st, and I skipped Addison. He had his accident that night.
Anyone interested in seeing my list what they are doing?
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