Conagher's been playing "smath" by himself since last night. He's supposed to be playing against me but he began the game for me last night as I was cooking dinner.
This morning, as I was getting out of the shower, he asked if he could make my next move for him. "Of course you can," I told him and he's been at it ever since, joyfully telling me "Guess what!? You've got 97 points!" or randomly asking me to check his addition.
Smath is like scrabble but you make equations instead of words... right up his alley!
Thinking, thinking...
More contemplation...
The scorecard... he does all the addition mentally as you can see.
Emily's been perfecting her back bends this morning. She's getting so limber. She says she wants to be a contortionist and she's well on her way.
Hanging out in her room listening to the book on CD "Bunnicula and Edgar Allen Crow"
And of course, in addition to playing dress up herself (which is her normal attire at home,) she's also dressed little Lolly in a dress this morning. Lolly doesn't seem to mind actually!
So, there's a little slice of a slow-moving homeschool morning. We'll get to the TOKTT Lessons soon (that's task-oriented, kitchen-table teaching )but first I had to squeeze the saturated sponge of my creative mind by taking these pics and writing this blog post.
On another note, the kids won't be homeschooled forever. Though I love the many benefits of homeschooling, I don't underestimate the importance of away-from-home school as well! If we can get them into the theme school which is spoken of very highly, they may even go to school next year. I think Emily is ready for school as she'll be in 5th grade next year. I think it would be good to homeschool Conagher a little longer as he's only in 2nd this year, but if they both get in, I believe it will be an acceptable arrangement.
We're going to try to get them into the them school for the next school year which means they have to first have room or win a lottery placement, and then pass testing with certain scores. That means I've really got to stay on top of meeting core curriculum in teaching them. They're at or above grade level right now, but there are so often holes between what homeschoolers and public schoolers are taught so I'll have to stay on top of that.
The theme school is a publicly funded option available through the county. It's a "parent-involvement" school which means you have to volunteer 20 hours a year (not a problem,) maintain above-average grade and behavior standards and provide transportation for the kids. The great thing is that the theme school is closer to the house than our zoned option AND the highschool that's right down the road (Eastside, Riley's school) will be turned into the theme-school highschool. Riley, class of 2016, will actually be the last graduating class from that school. And if the kids don't go to highschool there, they'll probably end up WAY down the road at a HUGE highschool they're currently building in the middle of the county that I guess is going to house students from several schools. The only other option would be if they built ANOTHER high school to replace Eastside which I have not heard about yet.
Our public school system is so frustrating right now. Because our town has experienced such growth over the past 10 years, our school zones have been completely jumbled. We were forcibly transferred out of our sweet, little-local elem. school to a great big one much further away... which is a big reason for having pulled them out to homeschool. And now, all we know is that the high school we're zoned for won't be there when Em and Con are ready for high school... but we don't know what school they'll be zoned for at that time! It's frustrating to not know. The kids' education AND school-life (social safety, that is) is very important. I so wish we could just afford a private school and have some security in their education. The other option is to give them security in their education through homeschool, which we will continue year by year if they don't get into the theme school for next year.
Oh my, parenting is HARD WORK! Most of the time, I'm exhausted, but a good kind of exhausted; the type of exhausted that builds endurance. And the light at the end of the tunnel is in knowing that I did all that I am capable of doing for them, though it's the capable part of it that gives me pause, because sometimes I am certain that I will lose my mind being in the home every day teaching elementary school!
Smile.
But I'm trying to make good decisions out of uncontrollable circumstances in my kids' education. Beyond that, I soldier on, knowing that to live is to toil, and to toil rightly is live a good life to the end.
UPDATE!!!!
Conagher just finished the smath game. The score is: Conagher- 404, Mommy- 335. He says he did all he could with my tiles and 'I' would've gotten a better score if 'I' had not had to dump my tiles that one time. LOL. Yea. Good times.
