There is nothing "Common" about us.

I quit teaching after my third child was born. I came to miss teaching, and that is one of the reasons we decided to home school. I couldn't rationalize paying someone else to teach my children so I could be paid to teach the children of strangers. Of course, there were many other educational, emotional, social, and spiritual factors that you can read about in previous blogs here. But when I say I got out just in time, I didn't know how right that was until lately.

When I began homeschooling my girls, I started hearing a lot about a new teaching method that all of our public schools were adopting whether they liked it or not. It is called Common Core. Now, before you start freaking out, do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Here are some links to get you started...

http://m.cnsnews.com/news/article/alissa-tabirian/gov-scott-rejects-common-core-intrusion-florida-s-academic-standards

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/03/04/principal-i-was-naive-about-common-core/

http://mrsmomblog.com/2013/10/02/how-common-core-is-slowly-changing-my-child/

Now these links obviously reflect my own personal views on common core and what it is doing to our educational system, but you can certainly do your own Google search and read other sources as well, but like I am fond of saying, my marbles, my chalk, my game. This is MY blog, about MY experiences and what I know may not gel with what you know...that's one of the basic and most sacred tenants of homeschooling!!! It can be tailored!! Common Core, however, cannot.

I have a sensitive child. She is funny, bright, loves to create and learn new things, and is an all around joy to be with. Common Core would have destroyed her. She would have constantly come home with confusion, feeling bad about herself. How do I know? I've tried it. I've tried the testing route and I experimented with the different approaches. That is what we do as educators, whether at home or in a school building. There were tears and that general feeling of hopelessness. I couldn't bear it more than once. Her little spirit was so crushed. I can only imagine what day after day of that experience would have done to here. One of the reasons we began homeschooling was that her school was attempting to teach every child the same way and in the same manner regardless of age or ability. We got out just in time!

My oldest child, however, is stubborn. She is gifted and she refuses to learn what she already knows. We DO pre-test with her because it is pointless to attempt to teach her something she already knows. She wants MORE, she wants NEW, she wants BIGGER, BETTER, STRONGER, FASTER. THAT is who SHE is and Common Core would have bored her little gifted brain to tears. How do I know that? BECAUSE I TRIED. We used material that aligned with Common Core last year. She was so bored she ripped through the entire book in one grading period. We attempted a similar feat this year, same result. The mathematics in the books that align with Common Core or are the same as Common Core are just too simplistic and repetitive for her. She needs more. In a public school with CC fully implemented, she would most likely have been in trouble most of the time.

And my youngest? Well, she is still technically "PreK" but she has a love for books and "reading" and she loves to draw and cut paper and learn cool science facts. Those are the things I want to stay with her forever. My concern is that Common Core is so busy trying to teach them to "test well" that they will fail to actually learn well. I want that love she has for learning to continue. She is what we lovingly refer to as 10 pounds of crazy in a 5 pound sack; a complete live wire, but we wouldn't change her for anything.

Where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us where we started actually. We use antiquated text books that teach real history, not revisionist history. Guess what? The Holocaust actually happened. Muslims have been killing people to get power for years. The Crusades were a horrible thing in Christian history...but THEY HAPPENED! Attempting to pretend they didn't only makes us sound silly.

Math is FACTS. 2+2 does not, nor will it ever = 5, regardless of whether you think you can explain how you came up with that answer or not!!! Math is what it is because it is. Period. 2+2 will always correctly =4. It just will. Pretending we can calculate facts by guesstimating them will leave us with just that: guesses.

My 7 year old doesn't need to know what the word "commissioned" means to enjoy Mozart, only to hear it. And she does, although recently we have focused more on Handel and Beethoven...because we can!

And guess what? There is more scientific evidence of a young earth/Creation theory than there ever was of the fallacy that is evolution, so yeah, my kids are going to learn how their God is so powerful that He spoke the world into being.

Spelling is necessary. Good handwriting is a bonus for taking notes and for retaining information. Cursive writing teaches coordination, creativity, and critical thinking.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201303/what-learning-cursive-does-your-brain

These are the things Common Core is changing. I don't want my kids burnt out on learning before they reach middle school, cause in my opinion, that's where some of the biggest fun begins. I can't wait to start teaching them the literary, mathematical, and scientific concepts that will form the foundation for their own creative thinking as adults. Oh wait, I didn't. We started last year when we began this journey. God led us here at exactly the right time. Funny how He does that. And there is NOTHING common about that!

I love to spell! S-P-E-L-L!

Can you tell we watch a little PBS? I love spelling. I love to know how to spell words. I get so frustrated when I am on Facebook and people can't or won't spell correctly. My friends call me the Spelling/Grammar Nazi. It is a badge I wear proudly. I use the Oxford Comma. I know that "reoccurring" isn't a word and neither is "irregardless" (two of my pet peeves). I also know the proper way to spell "spigot" and that Dumpster and Bandaid are proper nouns and that when a preposition is an adverb it IS okay to end your sentence with it. I have issues with "your and you're," "its and it's'" and "there, their, and they're." I hate it when people use "I" and "me" incorrectly and am often heard correcting it.
Yes, it is a sickness, a special kind of OCD that I will carry forever. My children, on the other hand, have not (before this year) been subject to the same demanding spelling and grammar curriculum as I. However, as an A Beka student, they have now! I have discovered two things. One: I cannot do spelling with Kadoodle because it stresses her out to the point of her not learning. I put our spelling book aside before last year's end to attempt a better understanding of phonics, grammar, and sentence structure. We have recently picked up her spelling book again and I am delighted to see that the words she struggled with before, she is now spelling with ease. I am so glad we backed off. The other thing I discovered is that my then fourth grader was losing interest in spelling because she was bored. We were spending two weeks per lesson and I was getting frustrated. I KNEW she knew how to spell these words, but she would NOT do the work I gave her. I tried different tactics. I have an entire arsenal of spelling games and things I used with my fifth graders when I taught. I tried some of them. They didn't work. We were fallling behind in Spelling and I was getting frustrated. So I did what I knew wouldn't happen in many public schools. I asked her about it. I was right. She was bored. She got tired of "learning" words she already knew. So I did what any homeschool mom would do. I changed the way we do spelling.
Now some people are going to read this and think, "Duh! Everyone knows that." Well, I did not so on the off chance that I am not the only one who did not, I am sharing what we decided to do.
Every week, I give Boo 40-60 spelling words. It depends on the week and what we have going on and how much time I want to spend on spelling. On Monday, she takes a test on those words. Every word that she already knows how to spell gets crossed off the list. Then she writes the words that are left three times each. On Tuesday, she tests again and we take the words off that she knows. Then we discuss the words that she missed. We talk about the rules of spelling and why they are spelled the way they are.

My sassy speller

Boo is a whole word reader and never really learned Phonics as it wasn't taught much in her school at the time she needed it. Because of this she spelled words like "furniture" as "furnichure." No one had ever taught her suffixes like -tion, -ture, -cious, -ous, and the difference between -ly and -ely. These were things we would bring to focus. By Thursday, she was routinely testing through two or three lists without issue and we were able to take Fridays "off" of spelling. Not only was she able to catch up the lists she had missed, but she was also able to master about 60 vocabulary words and their spelling, AND finished spelling about four weeks before the "end" of our school year.
Our spelling time went from torture to treasure and I now have a child who spells MUCH better on a regular basis, even when she is in a hurry. I highly recommend this to anyone who has a child who is a competent speller but struggles with sitting still to do "seatwork." It has made a major change in our Spring and as I look forward to her fifth grade spelling book, I do so without trepidation, but with anticipation of what she masters next. To me, THIS is what homeschooling is all about!

Spring "Break" and Easter

So, since we weren't traveling for Spring Break this year, we decided to work through the week. Gave us a week's advantage over our friends who are in county schools and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. We did take a day off to play with our friend and we did do several field trips. We went to the aquarium (twice) and joined "Keeper Kids" where the girls had the opportunity to go behind the scenes and take care of the animals at our aquarium. We live close to the Tennessee Aquarium and bought a family membership for this year, so going there on a regular basis is going to be a lot of fun. We are also going to start Apologia's Exploring Creation book, Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day and we are excited about that. To that end we have picked up a few resources that I will share in a later blog.

 We also visited the assisted living facility where Great Grammie lives and spent some time with the people there. Boo enjoyed looking at all the home made quilts and singing for the re
sidents and everyone enjoyed hunting for Easter goodies and playing with the llamas that were brought in for the event. We didn't get to see Great Grammie since that is her dialysis day, but we sure have enjoyed getting to know the other residents and the people who take care of them.

Easter Sunday brought a lot of good times as well. Boo and I participated in a special worship event during our church service and were very blessed to be a part of that.

The Dickson Academy and Staff
"Boo", Big Daddy, Kadoodle, Nayners, Mama Diva

So, while we didn't do a traditional Spring Break, we did celebrate the beginning of Spring and truly enjoyed working together and learning some new things. Best of all was Daddy's three day weekend (a rarity) and extra time spent with him.

March Madness and Mars

So, for those who do not know, this Homeschooling Mama is a Hoosier girl. Having actually been an extra IN the movie, Hoosiers, having a Daddy who was a star basketball player with a full ride basketball scholarship to Purdue University (which he turned down to pursue a calling to the Ministry), and basically growing up under a basketball hoop, I stole many moments from class to check out the scores. I spent a lot of time staying up with my friends on FB because most of them were actually watching the games. I even discussed with another homeschool mom how we could work watching the games into our curriculum. Of course, once Indiana University was out of the running, I kind of lost interest in March Madness, so we turned our attention to astronomy, particularly Mars. We have been playing around with an amazing curriculum from Apologia that I fully intend to delve deeper into as we journey. We have the Exploring Creation book on Astronomy and have enjoyed adding it to our regularly scheduled science program.

I will admit, however, that Kadoodle doesn't get a whole lot of science in her day as we spend the majority of our time working on learning to read and the basics of math, but we do dabble a bit one day a week in subjects such as History and Science. Now, before you go reporting me to the Homeschool Police, keep in mind that this is Dickson Academy and as the headmistress, I am inclined to spend more time on subjects that are more necessary at the age of my students. A six year old who has a need for intense concentration on phonics and math doesn't need as much science as one who can read on a third grade level. That's the beauty of homeschooling. I can focus on what they need. Boo, on the other hand, has to be pulled away from Science and History on a regular basis for two reasons. One, so she doesn't finish all of her curriculum by the end of March and two, because she will not do any grammar or math if given the choice.

Speaking of math, as an aside, we made a decision at the beginning of this semester to put the A Beka 4th grade math aside in favor of some great workbooks from Singapore Math and a Kumon Division and Scholastic Fractions. Her frustration with math has diminished greatly and she is flourishing with the new books. See, flexibility is such an important part of school, wherever it may be. We also made a decision to put Kadoodle's spelling book aside. With her need to catch up on so many basics she did not learn in Kindergarten, we decided to focus more on phonics. Interestingly enough, she has gotten much better in phonics once we culled out spelling. We will pick it back up later in the year, but for now, we decided to wait.

Anyway, back to the planets. I love Apologia's curriculum. It is SO easy and so interesting for me as well. We have learned all sorts of stuff and in a few weeks the girls will make their own informed decision on whether Pluto is a planet or not. As for me, just because you change the definition of a planet does not change Pluto's planetary status. But I'm old fashioned that way. One of these days I'll be telling my grandkids, I'm so old I remember when Pluto was actually a planet.

Back to the Apologia Exploring Creation series...I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book! I love the way they incorporate scripture. I love the Notebooking Ideas. We made our own notebooks this time instead of purchasing them. What? The book said we could. We also got some cool ideas from some friends who happen to be doing the same book in their co-op. We have really enjoyed playing with this book and learning all the great things about the world God made for us. I love the Creation reinforcement in several of the chapters. I love how they biblically AND scientifically explain creation and use both scripture and science hand in hand to prove what we already know to be true. I also love the way my girls constantly ask me, "Is today a science day?"

They are learning! They are grasping this new knowledge and they are thriving in their own environment. And yes, they are also wearing their pajamas because we homeschool and we like to do school in our pjs. That's part of the fun of homeschooling. And no, before you ask, I have not yet put on my high heels to teach.

January and February stand for GO UPWARD! GO!

It's another Upward season at Dickson Academy and we have had many "PE" days around here making up new cheers and chants, learning new moves, practicing herkies, and trying to learn how to do cartwheels (which is a challenge considering I never learned and can't actually teach them how!). This is my third year as Director of the Upward Cheerleading Program at our church and we enjoy it a lot!

Boo is in her fifth year of cheering for Upward and through circumstances beyond our control, ended up with her mom for a coach. Poor kid, as if she doesn't spend enough time with me as it is!

Kadoodle is in her third year cheering with Upward and has been with the same coach all three years. She is going to be so disappointed next year as her coach is retiring from coaching to become Assistant Director of the program.

Nayners is still not allowed to cheer for one more year, but has learned as many cheers and chants as her sisters.

We have also spent a great deal of time during this season teaching ourselves new techniques and learning new ways to promote our program. We had a great first game on January 5 and a fabulous Awards Night on February 28. The girls made new friends and Kadoodle discovered one of her friends from Kindergarten is also homeschooled now and HB joined us cheering as well! Mommy made a new friend too and is eagerly awaiting what our program will bring next year.

Here's something interesting I have discovered these months. My kids are NOT under-socialized. If anything, we are busier than we were before. We are active in the WALK ministry at church, giving them an hour or more of music instruction each week. Boo is active in 4H, learning a lot and practicing with her friends there 2 hours a week. They are all active in AWANA, supplementing our Bible instruction. They are in Sunday School. They each just auditioned for our Spring Musical with our WALK ministry and will be working with the music and drama directors on that over the coming weeks as well. They have new friends, have strengthened existing friendships, and have grown closer to the adult mentors in their lives. No, they are definitely not under-socialized.

Merry Christmas from Dickson Academy!

FINALLY!!!! I'm not sure who was more interested in Christmas Break...me or the girls. I am tired of writing lesson plans, tired of teaching phonics, tired of wrestling a three year old during instruction time, tired of getting up early, and just in general tired. What? I'm allowed. This is a busy time of year for any family, but a work at home mom prepping for a major event who is homeschooling and directing a major musical production is even busier than I thought I would be.

Not to mention that we spent our entire first week getting the girls back and forth to practice for their own musical. They spent hours the first week of December working on their show. It was all well worth it. I personally thought I had the cutest little shepherd there ever was. I just wish we had been able to see Kadoodle better. The only way I could find her in my pictures was to look for the poofy headband I had bought her that day.

You can almost see Kadoodle in the center.
Look for the poofy headband!

Boo's earring business is keeping her busy and she is working very hard trying to keep up with orders there as well. I am a sewing fiend trying to prepare for my first Christmas Market with our local Market group. I worked the YMCA Market last year, but I had eight weeks to prepare for that. This year, I had TWO, yes that's right, two weeks to sew enough items to fill a booth and keep folks shopping for two weekends. Guess what? I made Christmas this year and next year, I'ma do it all again!

We also started Upward Cheerleading this month. So the girls had sign ups, clinics, and first practices all leading up to their season of cheering. This is Boo's fifth year cheering and Kadoodle's third.

This month also brought a special field trip into the local VW plant where Daddy works. We got to see where they make the cars, run some tests on them, and even play ball with a robot. Outdoor iceskating was a big hit, especially since it was 70+ degrees!

Of course, we had to take a day and go visit Santa at the mall. We were out for the holiday by that time, but since we started our break early, we were able to do other things that we ordinarily wouldn't have been able to do. We had a great Christmas season.

 I loved that when we were on our break, we still used our time to learn and continue several of our homeschool lessons. The girls didn't want to "do school" every day but they also didn't want to be without school the entire time either. We have decided to start back right after the New Year. See you next year!!

On TARGET in November

November brought us a potentially dangerous undertaking. Boo decided that 4H is the thing for her and is pursuing an education in archery. We are staying clear of her for the time being! Just kidding, she is learning a lot and for someone as small as she is, just drawing the bow is a major undertaking. We took her and bought a small beginner bow to practice with at home, but the bow she will eventually use for competition will have to be borrowed for now. I wonder if it is acceptable to do "fund raisers" for home schoolers? We need supplies and equipment too. Maybe I will contact my local Celebrating Home Designer and hit her up for fundraising brochures. Dickson Academy needs some fundraising LOVE! :)

November has also brought a lot of extra classroom time in music as both older girls prepare for our annual Worship Arts Link for Kids (WALK) Christmas Musical. Boo has a drama part as well as a solo and both girls will be singing in the adult Christmas Concert as well.

And of course, just like the public schools, we are taking a break for the Thanksgiving Holiday. When the photos came back from our Fall Trip to Indiana, Mama did NOT like what she saw and so we are all now on a journey to fitness as part of our regular classroom schedule. We are learning about portion control, proper eating habits, and getting daily exercise. We also have done a little research into carbonated sodas and they have been officially nixed from our home (at least for Mama anyway). As a result of a lot of this new information, Boo and I did some research on freezing herbs to use fresh ones instead of processed ones. She also learned a lot Thanksgiving weekend as she cooked the entire Thanksgiving meal for the whole family.

By the end of the month, Mama had lost her first 12 pounds and was much happier with how she felt than she had in October.

We have made a lot of good use of our chalkboard as well. This month we worked on some writing assignments and discussed better ways to say certain words. Here is just a small example of our work.

Only a few weeks are left until Christmas break and both the teacher and the students are looking forward to some out of the classroom down time. However, we have decided that we are going to spend some of our time learning some new skills. In October, Boo received some jewelry making supplies for her birthday. Since then she has been creatively working on a new jewelry line that is available on Mama's website, www.facebook.com/OneDivaThreeDolls and is found under the album "Bailey's Baubles and Bits." We are also doing a lot of research to plan our homemade Christmas gifts and what we are going to give each other this year.

October in Indiana

The girls looking over the falls at Cataract

We decided not to take a "Fall Break" as the county schools do every year. Instead we opted for a week long field trip. And yes, I know that is what many public school parents do with their children on fall break. I even know some who use the opportunity to do educational field trips instead of just, "We're going to Disney and calling it a field trip." Although, Disney has an amazing homeschool education program and a homeschool field trip day every year that we are definitely going to check out next year.



Learning the ins and "outs" of outdoor plumbing

So, when our county schools went on Fall Break, we packed up "Stella" (our Routan) and headed for Indiana. Why Indiana, you ask, when there are so many great things to do in Tennessee? Well, I will tell you. While I may be southern bred, I am Hoosier Born and that is where I went for field trips as a child, so why not? Also, I really wanted one last chance to visit the property where I grew up before a new house was built where ours used to stand. See, in February, my parents' home of 30+ years burned to the ground, taking with it all of my childhood mementos (the fire started in my old bedroom). So off we went on our Indiana adventure. I made Boo research Indiana and learn about the places we were going to visit and we had just completed our History Unit on Prairie times and one room school houses. I giggled when they said, "Our school has LOTS of rooms."

Our first stop in Indiana was, of course, Grandma and Papaw's new house. We are so blessed by how God has blessed them in their new home. It is beautiful and SO much closer to everything and everyone they need. I am so glad they are minutes from the hospital instead of more than an hour (Daddy has a heart condition). They are minutes from my sister and their church. They are much closer to my aging grandparents and my Grandma. And we were so excited to be there.



Mama at the "Lower Falls"

Of course that excitement only lasted as long as it took to discover where the closest adventure was. So after an evening of rest we headed off on our adventures. Places we visited were: Cataract Falls, the Cataract Old General Store, Lieber State Park, Conner Prairie Historical Village, a pumpkin patch, and an apple orchard. After our trip to Indiana, we capped off our month in Alabama visiting family and working on a real horse farm. We also visited our favorite animal friend, Cisco, and took a few rides.



At the Cataract General Store

At Cataract Falls, we took several pictures of the girls looking over the falls. We learned about erosion and the local water shed. Cataract Falls is the largest water fall in Indiana. At the Old General Store, we got lost in the myriad of historical objects on display. The girls enjoyed Coca Cola in glass bottles out of an old fashioned reach in cooler and pickles from the barrel. We giggled at the old sign on the wall from the door that read, "We are out, leave the money under the door" and talked about a time when it was safe to do things like that. There were spectacles, old post cards, widgets, gadgets, mustache wax, scissors, and more in their display cases. We had a great time.

One of my greatest joys as a homeschool parent is
seeing my girls walk hand in hand.

The girls visited with other homeschoolers as well as grandparents and other family. We had a great time attending AWANA at another church and even completed sections. My favorite photo op of the week was this picture of the three of them walking hand in hand down the walkway that used to be the main entrance to the park. After walking the old covered bridge, they decided to take a walk "just the sisters". I was lucky enough to snap this precious shot as they walked off. I think it really sums why we are homeschooling. They are already growing so much closer to each other.



With our homeschool buddy
in IN (our cousin, Caleb)

Sweet Nayners in Pioneer Dress

Kadoodle in pioneer dress
and her homeschool shirt

Conner Prairie Historical Village was probably the most expensive field trip we will take this year, but it was worth every penny. I will admit that I was so frustrated with the fact that if they had been with a brick and mortar school, their admission would have been only $5.00 each and mine would have been free as their teacher. They offer no discounts or special privileges for homeschool families so it was nearly $80 for the four of us to go, but like I said, still worth every penny. We took this trip with my sister and her three children who are also homeschooled which made it much more fun! My teenage nephew and neice (who are a senior and freshman in high school) were a great asset to have as they had been to the Village many times throughout their school lives. I especially enjoyed my nephew and Kadoodle as they are both in first grade and experience things similarly. However, Kadoodle is much more laid back than her cousin so she and I ended up taking a much longer look at everything. The rode old fashioned wooden horses, dipped beeswax candles, Kadoodle roped a bed, they all milked the cow. It was a grand adventure. One of my favorite picture moments was the "dress up" section where they all had the opportunity to dress in pioneer fashions. Nayners stole the show with some of her finds.



Learning how to stencil. We learned that in
pioneer days, people used these stencils for
decorating their walls when wallpaper was too expensive.
Thankfully no one came home and tried this on MY walls!



Kadoodle dipping candles









She roped the bed all by herself!

Nayners was obsessed with milking the cow!



Typical sister silliness!

The girls also enjoyed an exhibit on one of the first balloon mail delivery locations. The balloon "ride" does seem to be more enjoyable for Kadoodle than Boo. It would appear that Boo is afraid of heights. Not to worry though. This particular balloon is firmly rooted to the ground.

At the Apple Orchard wearing their "Homeschool Diva" shirts

At the end of the week, we packed Stella once again and headed home. The girls got tired of sight word videos and such so there was quite a bit of Barbie and Disney on that return trip, but thankfully no one got carsick, so maybe there will be an opportunity to do this again some day.

Visiting Cisco at Pinedale Farm

Later that month we kidnapped Daddy on one of his RARE days off and took him to Springville, AL to Pinedale Farm where our PeePaw and Marilyn now reside. Their enormous estate and working horse farm was a great joy for the girls. Of course, seeing their buddy, Cisco, was a big deal as well. The girls explored the farm, groomed horses, read stories with Marilyn, and got to push the WildKat when it ran out of gas! Of course, lunch and treats at Chick-fil-A with PeePaw were a big bonus as well.


A great way to end the month of October

Y'all come back now, ya hear?!

I'm not a slacker, I've been investing!

So, I was talking about my blog the other day and I realized that I quit writing just after the school year really got into swing. Well, there is a very good reason for that! I was busy, you know, teaching my kids! But we did learn so much and I hope that some of it will be an encouragement to someone so I am going to re-cap a month at a time and share our journey.

First, let me explain why I quit writing. When we got into a routine, I discovered that I could not EVER sit at the computer while the girls were doing seat work. It was the same principle I knew when I was teaching in a classroom. When my back is turned, NOTHING gets done. So I stopped writing so much. Then my computer broke and I couldn't do any writing. Then I started writing something else and got kind of obsessed with that. A while back our Minister of Missions who is also our director of our orchestra and student choir, whose wife is one of my best encouragers in this journey, and whose family is very dear to me...well, he asked me to do something. I said no. Three times (kinda like Peter, ya know?). Then I said, well, I will pray about it and God said, YES!!! So I spent some time writing something else and God took that and turned it into a full length Musical Drama entitled We Are The Light that our student choir performed in January. I just recently got my copyright documentation on it and it's registration with the Library of Congress. Now for some that may seem trivial, but for me it was huge. So I spent MONTHS working on that while I was teaching, running a business, and picking up the slack for my precious husband who works two full time jobs so that we can stay on this crazy journey.

So, I have A LOT to share with you about what I learned and where God has taken us and where we have yet to go! I hope you will be blessed.