Time4learning

time4learning review

My son and I have been looking at online curriculum lately. He definitely needs more structure and he's very motivated to take on more lessons. In the past we have never even considered doing lessons in this way, so the entire world of online curriculum is new to us, except for courses like those from The Great Courses through The Teaching Company, which have been truly excellent. 

After spending a few hours together looking at various online curriculum, John and I have decided to give Time4learning a try! First, it is affordable. Second, I love that we can select various "levels" of a given subject at any time. Being hardcore homeschoolers we're never really sure what grade he is working in and it has simply never been important to us. So the freedom to move through the levels is essential to figuring out John's starting point and his trajectory through the material.

Third, while looking at animation on other sites John would just cover his eyes and shake his head. How is an educational site going to compete with the animation on games these days?! They can't, of course, but the animation that we demoed on Time4learning didn't attempt ridiculous humor and didn't... try too hard, if you know what I mean. It was entertaining at times, but didn't use stupid humor like others we looked at.

Fourth, the Time4learning lessons seem preferable and more flexible to us than other online programs we looked at, which include Calvert, Oak Meadow, and a few others I can't recall the names of right now. Fifth, John actually looks enthusiastic about starting the work...and I'm happy about that. Sixth, I'm looking forward to not having to purchase hundreds of dollars of materials (as Calvert required) because all materials with Time4learning are all available online.

If you are using time4learning

 please comment below 

and let me know what you think!  

And STAY TUNED for our experiences with this program!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Posts you may also enjoy:
My Son Doesn't Like to Write 
What if They Never Learn to Read?
Do You Need A Homeschooling Strategy?

Growing Pains

Homeschool socialization

This is a TMI post.

My son is really struggling these days. He is a uniquely deep and mature kid who is also silly, fun, and amazing. 
He is 14, the age of terrible social unrest for kids. 

Tonight we have been talking for hours about his philosophical side, his feelings, his reflections, his struggles, things that he wants, changes, realities, longings, options, his disdain for kids on social media who stereotype and generalize without seeing the humanness of the people that they refer to in posts and memes, the serious issues he ponders, his profound longing for meaning in life, and some other weighty and complex stuff on his mind, changes in friendships and alliances, new realizations...  
.......life can be so hard for a kid.

He is remarkably in touch with his emotions and has such an articulate way of expressing himself...he is such a thinker and he's having a hard time finding friends who are, well, deep too. 
Intellectual. Thoughtful. Maybe a bit existential...

It's kind of hard to write about, actually.

Sometimes he feels so lonely because of this part of him. He is not lonely in the not seeing friends kind of way; he is lonely in the desire for depth of connection kind of way. He craves deep, meaningful connection and conversation.  His angst is genuine and profound this evening. Quite a load for such a young person.

I am so grateful that our relationship is so close and that we can talk about all of this. Otherwise he would feel so overwhelmed and even more lost. His heart and mind are so good; he reminds me of the wonderful human being that I married...he also reminds me of myself a bit...  I know that one day this young person will grow up into such an AMAZING adult person. 

I'm writing this now just to help me so sort through so much of the melancholy that he felt all evening. I think he went to bed feeling better though...

For now, he's hopeful that he can keep himself busy with his hobbies, studies, activities, and his true friends...and he's already looking forward to going to college where he might meet like-minded friends who he can...TALK TO.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Other Posts Like This One:
I Embrace My Feminine Side
I Find it Hard, the Letting Go
I Took John to Church
John Read My Blog 
My Parenting Manifesto 
That Hideous Dance Between Faith and Critical Thinking

My Son Doesn't Like to Write

homeschooling, fine motor skills, reluctant writers

Do you have a reluctant writer?

Oh, I do, I DO!
And by reluctant writer I mean anything that involves picking up a writing implement.

Here are a few sneaky ideas that I have used to get my son to pick up a pen/pencil/other tool and improve his fine motor skills. Keeping in mind that the kids can type like a professional, I still want him to be able to write his name without being embarrassed by it.

• Keep score when we are playing games.
• Creating characters for upcoming games.
• Writing the shopping list or chore list
• Using tweezers.
• Mazes
• Crosswords and Word Finds
• Sketching on graph paper
• Draw over grey-lines pictures  (see below for example)
• Sending postcards to family members and distant friends.
• Writing a menu for dinner
• Writing personal poetry or favorite poems out of books
• Extremely silly writing prompts
• Coloring mandalas
• MadLibs@
• Writing on Post-it@ notes or index cards
• Writing creative and new answers to old jokes
• Write short lists (5 movies I want to see, 5 of my favorite dinners)
• Sentence expansion.

          I write a sentence like John is a boy.
          He adds to it:  John is a blond boy.
          I add to it:  John is an active, blond boy.
          He adds to it:  John is an active, blond boy who is hungry.
          I add to it:  and so on.

• We do writing prompts together.

          ex. Describe the best afternoon possible.
          We both sit and write for 3-5 minutes, 
          then read answers aloud.
          I have books full of writing prompts.

The point is that this child does not like to pick up a pencil because he feels incredibly inadequate with handwriting. I make it a point to not correct (much) or editorialize (much) on what he has done. He actually enjoys the pages where I include a grey outline image and he draws over it, working on making long, comfortable lines.

Maybe it's shocking sounding that his handwriting is as bad as it is, but he can write a nice paragraph or two on the computer, so I'm OK with it at this point.

Do you any any other ideas, sneaky ones!, for getting a kid to pick up a pencil and actually use it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some Other Posts You Might Enjoy:
What if they Never Learn to Read?
Part Two:  What to do with Spelling Words
Mother of the Highly-Distractable-Child blog

Here's an example of the coloring sheet 

that I print out and have him write over the lines...

Don't judge me!

What if They Never Learn to Read?

homeschooling

What if my child never learns to read?
This might be the single biggest fear of young homeschooling moms, especially when the kids don't naturally take to reading like their mommas! Or when the kids don't behave as you imagined that they would.

I'm a huge reader; my daughter is a reader; 
John...not so much. 

Let me tell you, I have worried.

Conversely my daughter is practically math-phobic and I can't help her with that. I'm the same way. She is also homeschool-phobic, lesson-phobic, being-told-what-to-do-phobic, won't-participate-in-your-idea-of-a-lesson-phobic, and not-having-a-choice-phobic.

She started her dual enrollment this past summer, half lessons at the local community college and half here. This fall she had a full class load. My biggest fear was that she would tank. The classes, the note taking, the organization, the syllabus, the deadlines, the testing, the strict attendance expectation, etc.

She has thrived!  She has a 4.0 GPA.
She gets up on time, gets herself to class, has her work done, her reading done, her math lessons done, her papers written, her monologues ready for her theater class. Furthermore she is pushing herself and adding another class next semester, her choice.


So, of course, John can read.
He skipped the Magic Tree House level and went straight to reading his high school level textbooks...and ALGEBRA! It wasn't that he couldn't. It was that he wasn't interested, wasn't ready, and didn't freaking want to.

Don't worry, they're learning!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You Might Also Like:
He Just Doesn't Get It
Part One:  How to Create Great Vocabulary and Spelling Lists
Part Two:  What to do With the Spelling Words
Tape on the Wall

Parents Need to "Deschool" Too: Part One

new to homeschooling, deschooling, frustrated homeschooling parent failure

Recently I was talking to a young mother of young daughter. They had been homeschooling for less than a year and this mother, I'll call her Jenny, was feeling like a loser and like the worst homeschooling mother ever. She was discouraged, to say the least. 

My daughter is like my husband. She is ahead of the game in most every subject...reading at 3rd grade level or higher, and is doing at least 1st grade math. We have skipped over most of the stuff that she would be doing in a typical kindergarten class and are working out of workbooks, worksheets I have found and printed out, along with making up some of our own lessons. I just do not know what to do... Now it is a struggle to get her to finish getting ready in the mornings so we can start our school work. She does great when she finally decides to sit down and do the work. Usually almost all her work is perfect.

Every single homeschooling parent can appreciate Jenny's concerns because we have all been there, the struggle, the self doubt, the fear of failure, the fear that we're not good enough. When the kids are dragging their feet into lessons and when we sense the resistance just under the surface we, the homeschooling parent, begin to experience the fears that this may have been a terrible idea. After awhile we all feel that frustration of feeling that we have to fight our children to get them to the table.

We didn't want this kind of environment of dynamic in our home, yet here it is.

The surprise answer to this is that WE, 
the parents, might be the problem. 
And it's solvable.

Deschooling is a term often used in the homeschooling world that means to taking time off from formal lessons or academia at the beginning of the homeschooling change in order to restore a child to a healthier, happier, receptive person after having had negative experiences in traditional school. I'm sure that there are other/better/different definitions of the term somewhere. For the purpose of this post, though, I am referring to the need of we parents to deschool, to let go of what we see as learning, as acceptable lessons, as what we view as normal or necessary or schooling as we homeschool our children. 

For this post I'm going to use the term deschooling to mean the process of letting go of the rules of schooling and of accepting a wider, more generous, more accepting modes of what is learning. It is the process of liberating one's self to an environment in the home and family that is unique and inspiring and enlarging, regardless of the method, mode, or style.

The kids with my sister, Brenda

With some exceptions, most of us were traditionally-schooled kids. We know that when your work is done in the classroom you find quiet activities to keep you busy until the class time is over. We know that learning activities occur at the desk in silence. We know that only one person can talk at a time. We know that the teacher knows it all. We know that learning begins at 9am and ends at 3pm. We know that this structure is worshiped. We know that routine and organization are necessary in a classroom. We know that our papers need to be neat and tidy and on time. 

We know that there is a right way and a wrong way. We know that a body of people who know better than us ...somewhere... has decided what we should learn and how we should learn it. We know that others tell us when and how and what to learn. We know that our questions and daydreams and comments aren't welcome in the learning milieu. We know that someone else gives us the materials to learn. We know that all knowledge comes from someone else and is given to us in spoons full. We know that our lessons come out of our textbook and curriculum. We know that we need to read appropriate and pre-approved materials. We know that some reading is crap and other reading is edifying and wholesome. We know that tradition is key. We know that the point of view of our culture is the best...  

You get it, we, the parents, are living in our heads with the knowledge of what learning is supposed to look like...and homeschooling seldom looks like that. We worry about how others see us, if they judge us, what they think we should be doing... The worry catches up and pretty soon we are feeling like huge failures.

The good news is that there is a place to start to get yourself back on the road to wherever it is you were hoping to be when you decided to take that step into homeschooling your children.

It is a basic two step intervention:

1. Say to yourself, I didn't meant to be schooling at home! That's not what we were planning on! And...
2. Ask your child what they would rather be doing and do that!

So, relax, Jenny, and deschool awhile, and stay tuned because I have more to come!
Welcome to the wonderful world of homeschool.



Have you deschooled?
What was your experience like?

...............
Other posts you might enjoy:
Are You One of the Good Homeschoolers?
Strategies and Stuff for Successful Homeschooling
Another Reason That I'm Glad I'm Not a Camel

Part Two: What to do with Spelling Words

Ok, we have our spelling list, now what????

I remember in elementary school working with that word list through the week and then having a test on Friday. As a homeschooling parent, I see what we were doing. We were exposing ourselves to each word:  seeing it, writing it, saying it. We were putting it into our brain with as many senses as possible so that we could recognize the word just by looking at it and then we could spell it.

I started really thinking about ways to expose my son to each word in ways that would appeal to him. (BTW, I did do a bit of spelling with my daughter, but she has a natural affinity with words, just as I do, and she didn't need lessons in spelling.)  In thinking about my guy, I know that he needed to move and he needed to use his hands. Together, we came up with these ideas for working with words in a way that makes sense for him:

• Basketball:  Spell the word out loud as he takes shots at the basket
• Jumping Rope:  spell while jumping rope
• Trampoline:  Spell the words out loud as he bounced, a letter a bounce - you choose your sport or game of choice and make up the rules!
• Shuffle off to Buffalo, tap, jazz, ballet spelling the words - whatever works!
• Mother May I?  He must spell the word I give him (and here we review alot!) and ask "Mother, may I?" I have to warn you, this one can get pretty silly! We have been known to switch roles and I have to do the spelling...my spelling is usually quite bad at those time!  LOL
• Dictionary and Thesaurus:  (IRL and online) Two ideas here. Look up each word, write it in syllables and write the words before it and after it alphabetically
• Brainstorm:  Come up with as many words as possible that are spelled with similar spelling rules  (Village:  pillage, millage)   List them on a white board, chalk board
• Prefixes and Suffixes:  Write each word with as many variations as possible by adding prefixes and suffices  (weapon:  weaponry, weapons or likely:  unlikely)
• Crosswords, word finds, fill in the missing letters, word scrambles, etc. Worksheets that are games
• Sentences and stories:  Writing either sentences or stories containing the words, act out the story with action figures, stop to write or spell the word out loud, the more outlandish the story the better!
• Using index cards, put words into alphabetical order
• Using index cards with each spelling word in it, shuffle the card, draw one card at a time, telling an ongoing adventure story using that word
• Paint the words, type them, write them in dust, with water, in the air, use letter stamps, cut letters out of magazines, use calligraphy, bubble letters, or any fun lettering. This is only as limited as your imagination!
• Write each word with markers, using a different color for each letter. For some reason, everyone loves this one!
• Stack the word - see my example on the right
• Pyramid the word - check out my example
• Sing a freakishly silly song with spelling
• Figure out what part of speech it is - on the right is an example of one way to do this...but there are many others
• Look for synonyms, homonyms, antonyms - anytime you are using the word, your child is getting a visual awareness of that word
• Look for root words, silent letters, syllables - becoming familiar with the appearance of that word helps in rereading and editing work. In fact, one of my "worksheets" is often a story that he has to edit. Naturally, all of the spelling words are misspelled.
• Learn the spelling rule that explains the spelling - in general it's not just random!
• Do extra work with the words that give a bit of trouble
• At some point I made a board game that we repurposed to use as a spelling word game...Shoots and Ladders style.
• Review past word lists and include them in your games.

Usually I will ask John to choose an activity he wants to do with his spelling list. But, occasionally, I do give him seat work to do at the table.

So, these are my ideas.  Do you have any?!  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you enjoyed this blog post you may also enjoy:
Part One:  How to Create a Great Spelling List

Great Reads for Tweens and Teens:  For the Love of a Good Book

Note to my Former Self
Post Apocalypse

Part One: How to Create Great Spelling and Vocabulary Lists

We have been less than busy lately, unless you count running here and there.  The kids each have classes and activities that have kept us fairly active in the rainy weather.  For the most part it has been too rainy to really get out much (OR to do the laundry and hang it on the line...my only means of drying clothing...).  On rainy days we have mostly been reading and working here at home...unless the kids are out walking in the rain!  When I say rain, I mean the sweetest most gentle rain ever!

Man, I love Brisbane rain!

Bonobo is working on spelling, among other things.  For other mothers of sons who dislike all language work, this part of the post is for you.  Bonobo's spelling is quite atrocious.  He really hasn't cared much about spelling.  (I tried the browbeat method of spelling training and the giving him "bad grades" and letting him feel like a stupid kid method and that didn't work...)  A few weeks ago, he told me that he wanted to learn how to spell.

EUREKA!!!  (The moment I had waited for and never thought would arrive...)

The trick here was, of course, figuring out where to start.  So, as he loves Minecraft and about a dozen other games, I decided to begin with words that applied directly to what he was working on, but with a twist.  I read some of his stuff and cherry-picked out words that are useful to him.  Our first list contained words like "sword", "armour", and "defense".  He immediately wanted to spell those words correctly.  For each word, we talked about spelling words and exceptions that make that word make more sense.

He literally attacked this list!  LOL

This week I have selected words that are useful and likely to be used by him, as well as a word or two of similar spelling.  For example, with "battle" I can also use words like "little", "dabble", or "riddle".  So the target words can open us up to larger groups of words easily.

To improve spelling, I also plan on having him choose a set of words that he would like to work on, on selecting words directly from his reading, and using words we hear and see in the world as we move through it.  In these ways, I am using words that are relevant and emergent for him.  So he cares.

For Cassandra, erm, I mean The Doctor, we are doing lots of vocabulary.  She asked for it and she loves it.  We started out with a couple of those books with lists of words like 100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know and other titles like that.  Not because they are authoritative lists, but just to give us someplace to begin.  Then, as she is working on monologues for drama, we started adding words that came directly out of those monologues or words that would apply to them.

This did two things simultaneously.  She, of course, understood the content of the monologue better, but she also better understood the overall context of the monologue, thereby improving her performance!  Win win.

Man, I love these kids!!!!

Bonobo and The Doctor

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you enjoyed this post you may also like:

It's Science Time and We're Doing the Litmus Test

Family Values

You Live and You Learn

He Just Doesn't Get It

Tonight our family had a very long family meeting.  We agreed to keep it all private and off of Facebook. Funny that families have to make that clear these days, isn't it? But I have to pass along this little gem:

The Doctor:  Carlo, Mom and I have had this conversation before where we talk about what my goals in life are. What I want to be and how to get there. Let's figure out what your goals are and we can help you get there. So, Carlo, what do you want to be?

Carlo, slightly teary-eyed:  A Leprechaun.

My Son's Face

Every parent know that moment.  It happens totally without warning.  Life is moving by faster than you ever thought possible.
You are talking with your child when, suddenly, you see it.  A newness.  A changed plane.  A slightly-less-round cheek.  An expression.  An ennobling higher eye brow.  An infernal lengthening.  A stronger jawline. You might not be able to put your finger on it, but it's there.   A change in the face.
Did I see it today?
Can it be happening again?  So soon?

We were sitting here in the living room laughing and having a good time when I caught it, ever so slightly, a change.  Was it a new curve of his smile?  Did I see another brief gesture borrowed from an ancestor?  Is his face more "grown up" and less "little"?
The laughter continued, but now, with a catch in my throat.

It's there, time.

 It's working on him from the inside out ever so relentlessly.  Time is slowly transforming this lovely, smiling child before me into...something else.

How long will he have these meadow green eyes, gentle and smiling?  The tidy, dyed hair style that suits him so.  How long will those glorious round cheeks press against mine in a quick kiss?  Or that chin will rest on my shoulder in a hug?  How long do I have the smooth jawline, squared?  And how long before his sweet vocal chords descend an octave.
Will his laughter always bubble up in a glorious staccato?
How much longer do I have for those moments when he stared deeply into my eyes for extended moments and just smiles?
Or come in close for a kiss?
How long will his first thought be "I have to show Mom!" when he sees something cool? 
How long will he, guiltily, sweetly, tell me all of the secrets he hears?
How long do I have to tuck him in and listen to his plans for inventions or struggles with the day?
When will he forget to show me his ninja or gymnastics moves?
How long before something in this life crushes him under it's heel?

How long do I have?

Mother of the Highly-Distractable Child Blog

I'm thinking about renaming my blog.  I mean, why not?  I think that THIS title is WAY more apt to who I REALLY am.  If you have ever heard of or read anything by Carol Barnier ( http://tinyurl.com/5v6pqhk ), you probably know just what I am dealing with here.

This child is darling.  Adorable, even.
His heart is a big as the sky and his curiosity is too.
He is a highly-motivated learner and, need a say it, a kinesthetic learner.

He NEVER stops moving.  Not even while he is peeing.  He is singing, dancing, moving a million miles a second.  When he is in the bathroom, any moment you will hear a crash, LOUD singing, or the child simply talking to himself through whatever toys he carried in with him.  He is often completely unaware of the noise he is making, the ruckus he has begun, or the looks of irritation coming to him from his sister.

I am always charmed by how his imagination works...and works...and works.  For some reason, he is able to stick with his own stories in his head for hours.  HEY!  Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

There is no doubt about it, this child has energy in unlimited supply.  This is probably why he crashes so hard at the end of the day.

While we find ourselves testing driving ideas for helping him to focus and stay on task, and this is an ongoing struggle, we also find ourselves overwhelmed with love for the unlimited goodness in his heart.  He may spill the butter while doing it, but he will sweep the floor because I mentioned how crummy it is.  He may step over a pile of shoes and coats, but he will pick up the trash and take it out.  He may have to squiggle out from under a pile of cushions and move the minions and weaponry, but he will set the table when asked.  He may run in a mad dash to open the door for me, but he does it by running through the cars of the parking lot.  He Still doesn't get it!  It's a total fright.  He is ten  years old and I still hold on to his hand in the parking lots and always will until he is holding the hand of a child of his own!

This is another child of mine who is SUCH A GIFT!

When it comes to lessons, I have tried everything that Carol Barnier has suggested.  I have even made little paper targets to put in front of his eyes to redirect him back to his work.  And sometimes these efforts work.  Sometimes, they don't.  But what he gets from these efforts of ours is that his energy is OK.  His distractability is not a "learning deficiency" or in need of "special ed".  He knows that, the more we work on keeping the busy side of him in motion, the better the thinking side can engage.  And, through this process, he is learning HOW to learn.

And THAT is what it is all about.