05.14.06
Eragon
Yep, we have a release date. December 15. The consensus in our house is that the characters look pretty good. For anyone who doesn’t know, the best selling novel that this is based on, was written by a homeschooler!
Mom
I was thinking about writing a note about my mother for today. (She lost her battle with cancer in 1985.) But after reading Jo’s note about mothers and motherhood, it got me thinking.
Here’s a little data:
- Women now comprise more than one-fifth of the overall homeless population. The rapidly growing numbers of homeless mothers (i.e., families with children in tow) and homeless women alone (“singles”) account for these numbers.
- Beginning in the early 1980’s, families with young children in tow have become one of the fastest growing segments of the homeless population.
- Families now comprise 40 percent of the U.S. homeless population.
- In Massachusetts the number of homeless families increased by over 100 percent, to 10,000 families, from 1990 to 1997
- The typical homeless family is comprised of a single mother, 30 years of age, with two children under the age of five years.
- Number of families who applied for public shelter during one month of 1992 in New York City: 14,000
- Mothers and children are dumped out of the shelters and on to the streets during the day, no matter what the weather or their health.
- Percentage of homeless mothers who have been physically and/or sexually abused: 89
- Children of homeless teen mothers are three times more likely to experience homelessness numerous times.
- One-sixth of formerly homeless parents said that specific problems engendered by homelessness persisted after the move to more permanent housing.
I decided not to try to footnote where all this data came from. If you want to find it for yourself, try a google search for: “homeless mothers” + “number of” or something similar.
So while we are enjoying our families, please take a moment to consider the other moms.
05.12.06
To test, or not to test?
That is the question. Many homeschoolers don’t have a choice on the issue. Whatever state they live in requires standardized testing on a regular basis and they have to jump through the hoops inorder to avoid trouble.
We’ve don’t live in one of those states. Neither New Mexico (where I am counting these 10 months as an extended field trip) nor Indiana put many requirements on homeschoolers.
So, why do we do it?
Well, it started at the request of hubby, but it hasn’t proven to be a hardship. We found a small company that specializes in offering the CAT/5 test to homeschoolers and we get to do the test in the comfort and privacy of our home. For those that aren’t familiar with the CAT, the test has 10 sections and takes about 6 hours to do. We usually have the test for at least 2 weeks and spread out taking it over about 3 days, working it around whatever our schedule might be.
After they score the test, they send out this very detailed report about how the kids did. But that’s not the part that I like. What I like, is that I have the ability to go over their answers before we send back the answer sheets. So, unlike having someone else do the testing, I can see exactly what sorts of questions the kids are having trouble with and figure out if there’s a reason why. Like 3 years ago when Girl totally blew the ’social studies’ questions. When I looked at what ‘knowledge’ the test was looking for, I realized that she hadn’t spent any time on that stuff.
Did it change what she was doing? Nope, not one bit. I don’t do anything different because the kids take the test, it’s just a baseline.
So the kids spend a couple of days working through the test with no stress or concerns about what score they get. When the scores come back, we all take a quick look and then it gets filed away into their portfolios for the year. Since we don’t do anything that comes close to giving grades (yes, even in high school) those old tests are the only documentation that the kids have that even approaches ‘looking’ like school.
I never thought much beyond that until this week. We’re going to be taking the tests in couple of weeks, and I was talking to Boy that this would be the last year he’ll take it. Next year it’ll be the PSAT and SAT and whatever else he needs. He did the usual groaning about having to take those tests in a formal setting, until I mentioned that they are only one morning and a few hours long. Suddenly, he was totally blase about the prospect. Yeah, the essay gave him pause. (He’s a very slow writer when it comes to getting his ideas down) But taking the traditional part of the exams? He’s totally unphased.
So while we have been taking this standardize test for totally private reasons, it looks like Boy (and hopefully Girl in the future) has been acquiring an experience that will make next year go so much easier.
05.10.06
Country Fair
The Homeschool Country Fair is open!
I highly recommend that you go check it out and then consider submitting something for the next one.
05.08.06
I Am From
This is from Andrea, though she got it from someone else. I thought it would be fun to see it develop. It is based on this poem by George Ella Lyons.
I am from mechanical pencils and stacks of index cards, from yellow pads of paper and a IBM selectric on my mother’s desk. From the 1927 piano in the livingroom where we practiced everyday.
I am from the big old farmhouse with wooden pegs that was built in 1812, and the haunted house with a tunnel to the barn and a private cemetary before that, and the house in suburbia where Pat’s mice project got out on a cold winter night and the horses were too much for the neighborhood, and more houses before that, so that I can barely remember them all.
I am from the old apple trees up in the horse pasture, the ones we needed to stand on the horse’s back to reach the apples that they had left. (The apples were at their best after a light frost). From the roses that grew wild by the old foundation that my mother never wanted brought into the house. From the freshly mowed hay piled high in the barn to become our new forts and playground. From the lilac bush outside the kitchen window, which was always my mother’s favorite and now where her ashes are spread.
I am from nights playing Kick the Can, Christmas Eves spent playing carols around the piano, and TV tray dinners to watch The Wizard of Oz. From books smuggled under covers (with flashlights) and filling every empty shelf around the house. From Hal and Jan, and Billy’s little sister. I’m from Pat’s little lion cub and Liz’s little baby doll.
I am from the family that had a open door to anyone that came by, where you could tell who was calling by whether they asked for Hal, or Mr. or Dr.
From the onspoken belief that any project can be completed and that girls can drive fence posts as easily as any boy.
I am from Sundays spent sleeping in or going to horse shows. Where holidays were meant to be spent being with family. From Hannakah checks coming before Christmas meant I could get something for myself and Passover was a chance to see my grandparents. Where singing Christmas carols lasted for weeks and weeks and Easter was a chance to be creative.
I’m from second generation American and someone that signed the Declaration. I’m from western and eastern Europe and only ‘mutt’ can describe the mix. I’m from Grandma’s Hannakah cookies at Christmas time and a freshly butchered steer in the freezer.
From the fact that Billy thought I was a boy because I had brown eyes (my sisters and Mom all had blue), and from where Grandma got her silver. From the stories of my father’s wild youth (including bringing home a Christmas tree at age 7) and his efforts to succeed.
I am from a private darkroom where the history of the family was printed, to the boxes and boxes that now fill my closests with details that I can’t stand to lose. From my mother’s old piano sitting central in my livingroom.
You can find the instructions here, if you want to try.
05.05.06
5 More Weeks
We’ve been on an extended trip to the Southwest for hubby’s work. It’s been a wonderful experience, but I think as the weeks wind down we are more than looking forward to heading home. Over the years, we have done a lot of moving and traveling, but coming somewhere for an extended, but limited time, is an entirely new experience.
When you move, you’re a turtle with all your stuff on your back. Everything comes with you, and while it may end up in storage, you have some degree of access to it. You leave all your friends behind (to often fade into annual Christmas card exchanges) and start afresh.
When you travel, you’re a hummingbird, darting here and there as lightly loaded as you can be. While you might meet some interesting people, rarely is it more than a passing nod as you share a hotel elevator. The trip is some degree of whirlwind activities that are outside the norm.
Living in a city for 10 months that is over 1000 miles from home falls into a twilight zone that is not one or the other. Being able to share this year with my kids as part of our homeschool experience I would not trade. I also couldn’t image doing this if they were in a concrete school.
I wanted to share a little of the things that we’ve ‘found’ during the past year.
1. Homeschool families are very welcoming. Yeah, I already thought that before, but it’s worth pointing out. I had contacted a couple of different area groups before we even got here and it was amazing how helpful they all were with answering questions. When we actually got here, they were happy to see us coming to their activities and quickly made us part of things. There were no hesitations because we were only here for a short time.
2. It is possible to have too many activities. Going from a small town of 50,000 people to a city of 1/2 a milliion means that instead of reading about all the neat things going on in places too far to travel to, they are being offered right around the corner. The kids declined (after much agonizing thought) the homeschool fencing classes and weekly homeschool bowling to name a couple. We could have easily found a group of kids to hang out with for every day of the week.
3. That Boy can and will exchange emails and talk on the phone inorder to stay in touch with his friends back home. He likes to model the ’silent’ type (hey, he’s 15), but when I’m kicking him off the phone after talking to a friend for nearly 90 mins I’m having trouble believing it. For the record, they are 2 hours later than here, and the other boy’s mom had requested that the calls didn’t go too late on their end.
4. That no matter how well you try to predict what you’ll need for 10 months. (We have our stuff packed up in storage at home and a tenant in our house) there will be many things that you’ll forget to bring and will have to improvise around. Most things we have been able to deal with, but hubby’s computer has been sitting for nearly 8 months because we don’t have the system disc that we need to fix it.
5. That even with about 40 weeks to explore, there will be places and things that we will not get to see. And how much we’ll fit around dance recitals, another grandparent visiting, and packing up in the next few weeks is really up in the air.
6. That even though we made these friends knowing that we were leaving in June, it’ll be hard to say good-bye.
I can’t really quantify all the experiences from this year, but homeschooling while we are here has been a wonderful opportunity to explore and experience everything that is special about this place. And one of the best things has been that Boy’s high school plan has not been disrupted one bit by being somewhere else. Could you image if I had to deal with a public school?
Some of the things we’ve done:
International Balloon Festival
sunrise takeoff
The setting for the American Girl Josephina
sunked lava tube lava tube w/ frozen pool
Girl Soup
Yes, one of these is Girl. 
Her birthday was 2 days after one of her friends and so the 2 girls decided to have a joint party last night. Part of the attraction of having it at H’s house was that they have a hot tub. They were in and out of the water so much that the other mom and myself dubbed it ‘Girl Soup.’
