I spent most of last evening on forms; generating our affidavit and educational objectives (largely cribbed from the Internet) and medical and dental forms (ditto). And then I spent a good hour bashing my head against the Philadelphia School District's web site attempting to figure out where we should send all this. Searching the web site resulted in the names of at least four different offices, none of which could be found in the directory. I found a FAQ which said we needed to contact our Regional Office, which was a link to a 404 page, and there were no other clues on the web site as to where our Regional Office might be.
So it really wasn't a surprise when a phone call this morning revealed that it had to go to an office in the School District's main office in Center City. It can in fact be found in the directory, so this is likely the right place. One hurdle (potentially) down.
We got everything notarized this morning and I stopped by the dentist to get the form signed to prove we're making a reasonable effort to keep her teeth from falling out of her head before their time. All that's left is the TB test tomorrow, which kind of chaps me because we didn't need to do this to actually send her to mingle her germy self with other children in the public schools. I briefly considered filing an exemption request on the theory that I do feel this is a bullshit requirement, but couldn't make myself actually say that I have a religious or strong ethical objection to medical tests when really I just want to avoid a minor pain in the ass.
So if all goes well, I can get the medical form signed tomorrow and we can get this all wrapped up by Wednesday. Of course, we are dealing with big city bureaucracy, so we'll see.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, now that our plans to withdraw from school are underway, we're feeling astonishingly apathetic about getting work done this week. I did make K do some work today, partially just to avoid giving her the idea that we might suddenly no longer be doing any work around here. But I did then let her spend over an hour watching whatever videos she wanted on BrainPopJr, an educational video website. It was educational after all, even if it wasn't fulfilling any actual assignments. Goodness knows what we're getting accomplished tomorrow.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Homeschooling redux
So it took me a while to come around to it, but once I did, homeschooling on our own seemed like the most natural choice. With the online school, we have the worst of school and homeschooling: the constant accountability to someone else, living on their schedule and having no control over curriculum, but we're still stuck with our kid all day. The big advantage of homeschooling is supposed to be having the flexibility to adapt your curriculum to your particular needs. So that's what we're doing.
The logistics:
Starting to homeschool in Pennsylvania isn't very hard: you submit an affadavit to your local school superintendant with a couple medical forms (bizarrely, including a tb test, which K didn't need when she was entering a brick and mortar school), and that's that. We can call and withdraw her from school the same day we submit it. My current goal is having it all done by Wednesday so I can avoid the biweekly teacher call on Thursday.
After that, you need to keep an attendance log and enough work examples to be able to put a portfolio together at the end of the year to prove you've accomplished something. The part that makes me a bit nervous is that we also have to find someone to evaluate K to make sure her learning is on track, but I've decided to file that under "bridges to cross once we arrive at them."
So what sort of curriculum are we planning to try?
The main curriculum I'm planning to use is Five in a Row, a curriculum where you read a storybook five days in a row and do different studies based on the book (an online friend does a good job of making it look like a lot of fun at her homeschooling blog). For instance, I think we will probably start with Make Way for Ducklings, one of K's favorite books. The first day, we'll probably look at bit at the geography and history of Boston. The next day, a science lesson on ducks. The third day, a study on the art techniques used to illustrate the book. And so on. I can see a lot of reasons to try it:
* it looks like fun, and with the issues we've been having, I'm for anything that might produce some enthusiastic participation.
* it allows us to cover most of the subjects we're required to cover without having to have a separate curriculum for each one.
* it looks toddler-friendly - Alec can listen to us read the story and participate a bit in some of the activities, and we can plan messier, more involved things for his preschool days.
* it doesn't require tests or worksheets or any of the required, repetitive output that has been making us miserable.
I do plan on separate math and reading curricula. For reading, I'm planning on starting with Progressive Phonics, a free phonics program that looks like it might be a bit easier to get K to participate in. Instead of having the child read incredibly stilted and boring phonics books with the tiny number of words they know, it has the teacher read the words in black while the child reads the words in red. This allows for more fluent and interesting things to read, and I'm hoping the fact that I will be reading too will make it easier for K to read out loud. It also has a handwriting component, so that will take care of that state requirement. Once we work our way through that, I'm hoping she'll be a confident enough reader at that point that our reading can be from easy readers. We'll have to find another writing and spelling curriculum at that point, but once again, bridge, cross, once we reach.
K has been doing an online reading game called Reading Eggs, and I think I may splurge and get a subscription so she can keep doing one of the few things she's been enthusiastic about. I know there are plenty of free reading games online, but this is a really good one and I think worth the money for this year at least.
For math, I'm thinking about MEP math, largely because it's free, but also because the lessons and exercises look like they'll appeal to K. There are also any number of free math games online, so we'll try to do some of those as well.
So I think our days will go: FIAR, reading, math, plus computer time. I'm contemplating only doing FIAR four days a week and using the time on the fifth day for more science, or maybe doing history in a more organized, linear fashion. And we should fit music somewhere in there beyond what FIAR covers. I'm sure these things will become more clear as we start into it.
The logistics:
Starting to homeschool in Pennsylvania isn't very hard: you submit an affadavit to your local school superintendant with a couple medical forms (bizarrely, including a tb test, which K didn't need when she was entering a brick and mortar school), and that's that. We can call and withdraw her from school the same day we submit it. My current goal is having it all done by Wednesday so I can avoid the biweekly teacher call on Thursday.
After that, you need to keep an attendance log and enough work examples to be able to put a portfolio together at the end of the year to prove you've accomplished something. The part that makes me a bit nervous is that we also have to find someone to evaluate K to make sure her learning is on track, but I've decided to file that under "bridges to cross once we arrive at them."
So what sort of curriculum are we planning to try?
The main curriculum I'm planning to use is Five in a Row, a curriculum where you read a storybook five days in a row and do different studies based on the book (an online friend does a good job of making it look like a lot of fun at her homeschooling blog). For instance, I think we will probably start with Make Way for Ducklings, one of K's favorite books. The first day, we'll probably look at bit at the geography and history of Boston. The next day, a science lesson on ducks. The third day, a study on the art techniques used to illustrate the book. And so on. I can see a lot of reasons to try it:
* it looks like fun, and with the issues we've been having, I'm for anything that might produce some enthusiastic participation.
* it allows us to cover most of the subjects we're required to cover without having to have a separate curriculum for each one.
* it looks toddler-friendly - Alec can listen to us read the story and participate a bit in some of the activities, and we can plan messier, more involved things for his preschool days.
* it doesn't require tests or worksheets or any of the required, repetitive output that has been making us miserable.
I do plan on separate math and reading curricula. For reading, I'm planning on starting with Progressive Phonics, a free phonics program that looks like it might be a bit easier to get K to participate in. Instead of having the child read incredibly stilted and boring phonics books with the tiny number of words they know, it has the teacher read the words in black while the child reads the words in red. This allows for more fluent and interesting things to read, and I'm hoping the fact that I will be reading too will make it easier for K to read out loud. It also has a handwriting component, so that will take care of that state requirement. Once we work our way through that, I'm hoping she'll be a confident enough reader at that point that our reading can be from easy readers. We'll have to find another writing and spelling curriculum at that point, but once again, bridge, cross, once we reach.
K has been doing an online reading game called Reading Eggs, and I think I may splurge and get a subscription so she can keep doing one of the few things she's been enthusiastic about. I know there are plenty of free reading games online, but this is a really good one and I think worth the money for this year at least.
For math, I'm thinking about MEP math, largely because it's free, but also because the lessons and exercises look like they'll appeal to K. There are also any number of free math games online, so we'll try to do some of those as well.
So I think our days will go: FIAR, reading, math, plus computer time. I'm contemplating only doing FIAR four days a week and using the time on the fifth day for more science, or maybe doing history in a more organized, linear fashion. And we should fit music somewhere in there beyond what FIAR covers. I'm sure these things will become more clear as we start into it.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Interstitial
And after leaving on a cliff-hanger yesterday, I'm too tired to go into any detail today. Don't worry, it was just mostly blather about curriculum and logistics, which I will probably find time to do tomorrow.
I will observe that one big difference between the first and second trimester is that a month ago, I couldn't really deal with all of this except with helpless weeping as I attempted to contemplate finding the energy to deal with, well, anything, let alone our teacher issues. And student issues. Now? My dander is up and I'm feeling feisty and excited to try something new. To be honest, I've been pretty bored too. It's not that I expect first grade curriculum to be the most exciting thing in the world, but there are so many fun and exciting things you can teach a kid, even when they're just six.
Once again, more tomorrow.
I will observe that one big difference between the first and second trimester is that a month ago, I couldn't really deal with all of this except with helpless weeping as I attempted to contemplate finding the energy to deal with, well, anything, let alone our teacher issues. And student issues. Now? My dander is up and I'm feeling feisty and excited to try something new. To be honest, I've been pretty bored too. It's not that I expect first grade curriculum to be the most exciting thing in the world, but there are so many fun and exciting things you can teach a kid, even when they're just six.
Once again, more tomorrow.
One of the longer posts I mentioned
I haven't been talking much about school this year, mostly because I've been preoccupied with keeping my eyes open and food in my stomach. Truly, I don't recommend combining homeschooling and the first trimester if you can help it. But as I've started coming out of the first trimester fog, I'm realizing that quite a bit of the difficulty has been K and her resistance to most of what we're doing.
One big issue is she has a combination of shyness, perfectionism and performance anxiety that prevents her from wanting to answer a question unless she's absolutely sure of the answer (and to make it even more fun, when she's bored or feeling resistant, she sometimes likes to play dumb). This is a poor combination for a program where a teacher calls every two weeks to ask her to read out loud, let alone with standardized testing time comes along. Her kindergarten teacher last year had a reasonable amount of success with her, but we got off to a bad start with her teacher this year due to miscommunication, and while things have improved, K absolutely refused to read for her the last time she called.
The other issue is something it took me longer to realize: she's bored. This is too easy for her. The way she moans and whines through a list of three-letter words but brightens up when you start introducing more difficult words makes that clear. But I can't make any sort of case for accelerating her if I can't get her to show what she knows.
So she resists while we slog our way through a program with a heavy emphasis on output - worksheets, projects, constant mini-quizzes between the frequent tests. Just the thing a child who doesn't like to give answers needs. I keep thinking that if we could have at least half of her school day be things she likes, it will be possible to get her to do the stuff she likes less. But so far, that's only science, which is three days a week. No word on when we might introduce some other (state-mandated!) subjects, like social studies, music or art.
So: we have an educational program with only three subjects (reading, math and science), two of which are on too easy a level and which emphasize all of the things that she dislikes most. It demands that a child who is very shy and has performance anxiety when it comes to showing her knowledge get regularly quizzed by someone she has never met in person. A surefire recipe for success!
If we were homeschooling on our own and were having this kind of trouble, we could go out and find a new curriculum that's better suited to her strengths instead of her weaknesses (if we were homeschooing on our own, we would be required to be covering about nine different subjects, so I'm more than a little confused about why it's okay to just be doing three through school).
So clearly the answer is to start homeschooling on our own. More on that tomorrow.
One big issue is she has a combination of shyness, perfectionism and performance anxiety that prevents her from wanting to answer a question unless she's absolutely sure of the answer (and to make it even more fun, when she's bored or feeling resistant, she sometimes likes to play dumb). This is a poor combination for a program where a teacher calls every two weeks to ask her to read out loud, let alone with standardized testing time comes along. Her kindergarten teacher last year had a reasonable amount of success with her, but we got off to a bad start with her teacher this year due to miscommunication, and while things have improved, K absolutely refused to read for her the last time she called.
The other issue is something it took me longer to realize: she's bored. This is too easy for her. The way she moans and whines through a list of three-letter words but brightens up when you start introducing more difficult words makes that clear. But I can't make any sort of case for accelerating her if I can't get her to show what she knows.
So she resists while we slog our way through a program with a heavy emphasis on output - worksheets, projects, constant mini-quizzes between the frequent tests. Just the thing a child who doesn't like to give answers needs. I keep thinking that if we could have at least half of her school day be things she likes, it will be possible to get her to do the stuff she likes less. But so far, that's only science, which is three days a week. No word on when we might introduce some other (state-mandated!) subjects, like social studies, music or art.
So: we have an educational program with only three subjects (reading, math and science), two of which are on too easy a level and which emphasize all of the things that she dislikes most. It demands that a child who is very shy and has performance anxiety when it comes to showing her knowledge get regularly quizzed by someone she has never met in person. A surefire recipe for success!
If we were homeschooling on our own and were having this kind of trouble, we could go out and find a new curriculum that's better suited to her strengths instead of her weaknesses (if we were homeschooing on our own, we would be required to be covering about nine different subjects, so I'm more than a little confused about why it's okay to just be doing three through school).
So clearly the answer is to start homeschooling on our own. More on that tomorrow.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Sick day
Well, on the plus side, it turns out K isn't sick with anything contagious. The drawback is that it's in fact another UTI. Drat. She's been on a daily dose of antibiotic (Bactrim) since early August, and other than a trip to the urologist a month later that revealed an infection so mild we hadn't noticed symptoms yet, we've been infection-free. Only apparently what it's been doing is mostly suppressing infection while letting some other bugs simmer along until she breaks out in the heavy-duty symptoms. Dammit.
I have been repeating until I'm blue in the face that Bactrim doesn't work on her infections. Or rather, it suppresses them for the time that she's on it, and then they come galloping back the second she's off. One memorable time, we missed a single dose six days into the course of medication and within twelve hours, she had a high fever and was screaming at the pain of peeing. And yet, I just keep getting these blank looks from medical professionals every time I say this as they point to lab reports that say the bacteria should respond to Bactrim. Well, usually they do, partially. But clearly there are some other bugs in there that don't, and we keep making them stronger every time we give her this freaking useless medicine.
Ahem. Not that I'm annoyed or anything.
Clearly we need a new daily antibiotic. But we were hoping to get a referral for a new urologist, one with a competent office staff and who actually makes eye contact. And we were also planning to switch the kids from their pediatrician to the family practitioner and I have been seeing (the waits in her office are like, five minutes, whereas I have never waited less than 45 minutes at the pediatrician, even when the waiting room is practically empty). So I'm sure what to do. I really don't want to go back the urologist, but do we ask the current pediatrician for a new referral? Get off our asses and do the paperwork for the switch quickly so the new doctor can give us a referrall, hoping that we can do it before the antibiotic for the infection runs out? Argh. Someone needs to tell K that being in the middle of a doctor switch is a very bad time to develop acute medical needs. Very inconsiderate of her. I don't suppose I could convince the bacteria to just put a pin in it and chill out for about a month until all of the paperwork is properly transferred, can I?
I have been repeating until I'm blue in the face that Bactrim doesn't work on her infections. Or rather, it suppresses them for the time that she's on it, and then they come galloping back the second she's off. One memorable time, we missed a single dose six days into the course of medication and within twelve hours, she had a high fever and was screaming at the pain of peeing. And yet, I just keep getting these blank looks from medical professionals every time I say this as they point to lab reports that say the bacteria should respond to Bactrim. Well, usually they do, partially. But clearly there are some other bugs in there that don't, and we keep making them stronger every time we give her this freaking useless medicine.
Ahem. Not that I'm annoyed or anything.
Clearly we need a new daily antibiotic. But we were hoping to get a referral for a new urologist, one with a competent office staff and who actually makes eye contact. And we were also planning to switch the kids from their pediatrician to the family practitioner
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
It's certainly too early for this
I think the second day of November is definitely too early to be staring blankly at an empty entry box, but while I have a number of longer posts in the back of my head, K threw up tonight and now I'm too busy with my psychosomatic nausea to concentrate on them.
It's a good measure of how far I've come that this is the first time in a couple weeks I've been worried about throwing up. I still don't have any appetite and quite a lot of food is off-putting, but I can see a distant future where I might want to eat again and maybe even enjoy it. Now all I need to do is remind myself that just because K has a virus doesn't mean that I, the person who spends all day with her and has a weakened immune system, will get it too. Norman Vincent Peale, eat your heart out.
On the non-whiny front, my last birthday present from B arrived today: this t-shirt. I am very pleased with it.
It's a good measure of how far I've come that this is the first time in a couple weeks I've been worried about throwing up. I still don't have any appetite and quite a lot of food is off-putting, but I can see a distant future where I might want to eat again and maybe even enjoy it. Now all I need to do is remind myself that just because K has a virus doesn't mean that I, the person who spends all day with her and has a weakened immune system, will get it too. Norman Vincent Peale, eat your heart out.
On the non-whiny front, my last birthday present from B arrived today: this t-shirt. I am very pleased with it.
Halloween
Around 3:30 this afternoon, I decided that sanity dictated I not try to force a six-year-old to do any more academic work on Halloween and called an end to our school day. A couple hours later, I helped dress a princess:
and a dinosaur:
and we went out. Two hours later, all of our children were suitably hyper from sugar consumption. And I do mean all - after filching some candy, I became aware of a fluttery, squirming feeling in my lower abdomen. I guess it's true that you start feeling movement earlier every time - it was 17 weeks with K, 15 with Alec and now 14.
Anyway, a successful Halloween all around. I was particularly pleased that K got a huge charge out of passing candy out to the trick or treaters, which saved me from having to get up and go up and down stairs multiple times.
****
Given my posting record over the past year, I was hesitant to commit to NaBloPoMo this year. But I have more time now and the fog of the first trimester is definitely lifting (although the physical fatigue is still there, probably because I still can't properly breathe two full weeks after first getting this stupid cold), so I'm hoping I'll manage it. And it's technically already November 1, so I have my first entry done!
and a dinosaur:
and we went out. Two hours later, all of our children were suitably hyper from sugar consumption. And I do mean all - after filching some candy, I became aware of a fluttery, squirming feeling in my lower abdomen. I guess it's true that you start feeling movement earlier every time - it was 17 weeks with K, 15 with Alec and now 14.
Anyway, a successful Halloween all around. I was particularly pleased that K got a huge charge out of passing candy out to the trick or treaters, which saved me from having to get up and go up and down stairs multiple times.
****
Given my posting record over the past year, I was hesitant to commit to NaBloPoMo this year. But I have more time now and the fog of the first trimester is definitely lifting (although the physical fatigue is still there, probably because I still can't properly breathe two full weeks after first getting this stupid cold), so I'm hoping I'll manage it. And it's technically already November 1, so I have my first entry done!
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Thirteen weeks, four days
So I had another ultrasound on Monday, which looked just spiffy and I'm almost out of the first trimester, so we're going public. To my great surprise, I'm thirteen weeks pregnant. See?
Nothing even vaguely legume-like about this one (unlike the nine-week ultrasound, which bore a remarkable resemblance to a kidney bean). It's amazing what a difference four weeks makes.
Anyway, I'm freaking out a bit about having three children and homeschooling for the past couple months has been remarkably like trying to swim through pudding and we gave away a bunch of baby equipment. Despite all that, I'm remarkably attached to our little tadpole. In keeping with my tradition of nicknaming fetuses for medieval English saints, I'm calling it Morwenna for now (to be changed if it's cooperative at the 20 week ultrasound and turns out to be a boy).
Nothing even vaguely legume-like about this one (unlike the nine-week ultrasound, which bore a remarkable resemblance to a kidney bean). It's amazing what a difference four weeks makes.
Anyway, I'm freaking out a bit about having three children and homeschooling for the past couple months has been remarkably like trying to swim through pudding and we gave away a bunch of baby equipment. Despite all that, I'm remarkably attached to our little tadpole. In keeping with my tradition of nicknaming fetuses for medieval English saints, I'm calling it Morwenna for now (to be changed if it's cooperative at the 20 week ultrasound and turns out to be a boy).
Monday, October 10, 2011
Items
* Tomorrow is Columbus Day, so everybody in the house has the day off (except for the fact that I kind of slacked off on schoolwork last Friday, knowing we would have the day free on Monday. But still not a full day of work). Everyone gets the day off together! I may swoon from the novelty.
* After swooning, I should go through the childrens' cold weather clothes and find any of K's stuff from last year that might still fit and dig up the 3t clothes and see how much I can get away with putting on Alec, given that that was the age when K discovered she was a girl and stopped being willing to wear so many dinosaur shirts, or really anything except dresses. I am willing to put him in some remarkably girly stuff, including jeans embroidered with flowers, but I'm not quite willing to send him out in public in a dress, unless he asked to wear it, of course.
* Alec is starting preschool this week at the local Jewish Community Center (thanks to the generosity of B's parents, for which I am very very very very very grateful). He wil spend two days a week playing in a well-equipped classroom and on a lovely playground, singing songs, fingerpainting and getting socialized with children his own age, while I will have two days a week with him out of my hair. Win-win. It comes with a family membership at the JCC, which gives us access to the gym and pool and gives us discounts on classes. It looks like K may finally get the ballet lessons she's been pining over and we can get her some very overdue swimming lessons. Yay!
* I have to hand it to Doctor Who: after a season that barely captured my attention aside from a few good moments, the finale completely grabbed me and brought me around from a general "meh" feeling about the next season to feeling a bit sorry it's not coming for another year. The thing I liked the most is that the Doctor solved his problems by being clever like he was in the past, not like the more recent incarnations where he uses his supreme coolness to bring about a magical Doctor ex machina solution. There are a lot of things I love about Russell T. Davies' reboot of Doctor Who, but his worship of the character to the point of actually deifying him at times isn't one of them.
* After swooning, I should go through the childrens' cold weather clothes and find any of K's stuff from last year that might still fit and dig up the 3t clothes and see how much I can get away with putting on Alec, given that that was the age when K discovered she was a girl and stopped being willing to wear so many dinosaur shirts, or really anything except dresses. I am willing to put him in some remarkably girly stuff, including jeans embroidered with flowers, but I'm not quite willing to send him out in public in a dress, unless he asked to wear it, of course.
* Alec is starting preschool this week at the local Jewish Community Center (thanks to the generosity of B's parents, for which I am very very very very very grateful). He wil spend two days a week playing in a well-equipped classroom and on a lovely playground, singing songs, fingerpainting and getting socialized with children his own age, while I will have two days a week with him out of my hair. Win-win. It comes with a family membership at the JCC, which gives us access to the gym and pool and gives us discounts on classes. It looks like K may finally get the ballet lessons she's been pining over and we can get her some very overdue swimming lessons. Yay!
* I have to hand it to Doctor Who: after a season that barely captured my attention aside from a few good moments, the finale completely grabbed me and brought me around from a general "meh" feeling about the next season to feeling a bit sorry it's not coming for another year. The thing I liked the most is that the Doctor solved his problems by being clever like he was in the past, not like the more recent incarnations where he uses his supreme coolness to bring about a magical Doctor ex machina solution. There are a lot of things I love about Russell T. Davies' reboot of Doctor Who, but his worship of the character to the point of actually deifying him at times isn't one of them.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Apropos of yesterday's post
I was rather amused that all of the children's television we watched today was pirate themed. Disney channel had a marathon of "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" and NickJr pulled out all of the pirate episodes of their shows they had. It's kind of amazing that thanks to the Internet, it's now possible to not only create your own silly holidays, but have them catch on to the point that major television networks are observing them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)