The Big Gobble: Thanksgiving with Friends and Family 2014

So very thankful for each other.  So very thankful for peace, health, and happiness.

Debate Tournatment Day 2

Today, Haley and her teammate won 2 out of 3 debates:  one as the affirmative; one as the negative.  This is AWESOME for a novice team.  The low cut-off age for competition is twelve.  Haley is 12, Gabriel is 13.  So, hats off to these two students, and their fathers who worked LONG hours sitting at Club meetings, arranging evening and weekend meetings to go over evidence, and for staying all day with the team to coach and make real-time modifications in their arguments and techniques!!  Kudos!!  

Debate Club Photos

The Debate Club

Team Policy teams and the coach.

STOA Team Policy Debate Tournament Day ONE

"Training the next generation to think, speak and engage the world around them."

Homeschooling = Happy, healthy, and balanced education

What do you want to be when you grow up? Happy and healthy.

How to be happy: Education. Nutrition. Time in nature. Contribution and service. Relationships. Recreation. Relaxation and stress management. Spirituality.

Traditional school does not teach children how to be happy and healthy. Isn't that the point of life? ‪#‎Homeschool‬

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/01/07/this-is-what-happens-when-a-kid-leaves-traditional-education/

Hana starts playing team basketball - first practice

Equestrianism

Throwback Thursday.  Learning/practicing riding horseback.

Time for CHESS

Re-introduction to chess with videos, books, and practice.  Haley was on the chess club in Public School.  Ian was exposed this summer at The Hockaday School as some of the children played chess to pass the time at Computer Camp this summer past.

Figure we'd start to incorporate more chess into our lives.

End Afterschool Guitar and PE

On Tuesdays and Thursdays the kids go to Hybrid school.  The plan was for Haley to take afterschool Spanish.  In anticipating the later pick-up, and considering the other 2 children had the space in their days, we signed Ian up for guitar.  When the decision was made to take Hana out of gymnastics, we maintained her physical activity with afterschool PE.  Doing afterschool PE also allowed her to try different sports in a group setting, which is something she craved that gymnastics didn't allow.

However, there was no afterschool Spanish offered for Haley.  So our initial plan to have all the children stay until 4:30p didn't pan out.  Haley is out at 3p, and the smaller kids end up staying there until 4:30, resulting in 2 pick-ups, and "wasted time."

Additionally, Ian has since started bass (and continues private guitar lessons with Ben).  Ian initially found the afterschool guitar exciting (since many boys play guitar and he was a bit better than most of them).  But he has since become frustrated with the teacher, and doesn't like the class.

Hana has been signed up for youth basketball, and her team coach has the first practice scheduled next week, Thursday.  However, this presents a conflict for us with Haley doing debate on Thursdays and Ian doing swimming.

So we have had to make adjustments - stop afterschool PE and guitar.
Try to move Ian's swim practice up an hour (which we CAN do now that he won't have afterschool guitar).  If Ian can do swim practice earlier, that will allieviate the "conflict" that Hana's basketball will present on Thursdays as Ian will swim, followed by Hana's basketball.  Haley can still do debate, and as the season progresses, she won't require a parent to sit with her during all the club meetings for 3 hours each week, in addition to the 2-3 hours she has doing 'team work' with her teammate.  This will free up even more time for the parents, especially since the plan is for Ian to start water polo and private enrichment swim instruction as the weather warms up in the Spring....

So we'll see how this 'new' plan goes....

Fencing Tournament

After ROCKING her Fall Festival competition Haley rushed to participate in her very first FENCING TOURNAMENT.  Some of her competitors were older, had more training, and all but 1 were male.  She WON GOLD.  #Champion

If you call for her, expect her and BE READY.  :) 

Music Teacher Association Fall Festival and Honors Recital 2014

Adjudication:  Haley, That was a "WOW" performance in every way!  You took a breathtaking tempo, and your tone and interpretation were great.  You play with confidence and flair, truly a winning combination.  Awesome performance and teacher!!  Superior +

Audiobook

VERY helpful tool to help the children digest more literature than they would be able to "suck in" on their own.  Loving Audible!!

ABC Mouse

Trying a trial of ABC Mouse.  Although its designed for kindergarten, I feel that the entirely of their 'curriculum' would offer learning opportunities in many areas that perhaps kindergarten didn't cover.  We shall see...

Junior Cotillion Dinner with Dad

Debate Team Preparation

Haley has been diligently preparing for her first team policy debate tournament next week.  Her and her teammate have been meeting 3+ hours/week WITH the club, and then an addtional 2+ hours outside of the club each week.   In between these 2 meetings they each engage in HOURS (6 hours/week) of 'reasearch' and 'evidence gathering' with their fathers' help.  

This has occupied quite a bit of time, but totally worth the discussion and dialogue that ensues with 'evidence gathering' and preparing an 'argument.'  Having a partner keeps everyone 'on task.'  However, looking forward to next year when Haley will do Lincoln-Douglas debate and the evidence gathering is less onerous.  

Friends, parties, petting zoo and pony rides...

Theme:  Frozen

Petting zoo:  All the animals gravitate to Ian.  He has always been very calm energy and animals take comfort in his presence.

Pony rides:  enough said

Jump house:  is great exercise

Cake and party food:  indulge

Fall Piano Recital

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16nsxFg0008

Training wheels off

Today Hana convinced Haley to remove her training wheels (with Mommy's help, of course).  Her history of gymnastics participation helped hone her balance, and once those wheels came off she was good to go.  Within a WEEK she was riding in circles without training wheels!!  Way to go Hana!! 

Playing an Instrument and Brain Activity

The advantage of incorporating a musical instrument into the lives of young scholars.

http://trendinghot.net/what-playing-a-musical-instrument-does-to-your-brain/

Update - adjustments to expectations

I am finding with the little kids....its pretty "easy" and straight forward. Basic math, reading, spelling words, handwriting, and reading science to them, etc. I did not learn how to diagram sentences, so that's new for me....but as I teach the 3rd grader, its very basic and the book actually provides a script for you to read to teach the student if you don't actually KNOW it yourself...which is working fine. (and with the time the spend in class, the entire "load" isn't on me/us to teach them *everything* all the time).

For my 8th grader, I'm finding myself *directly* working with her (reading to her, watching videos with her, explaining as we go....holding her accountable) for probably up to about 12 hours a week (approximately 3 hours on each of the home-school days) on ALGEBRA alone.

AND then she does 3 hours a week with a math teacher (not me).

And then she works *alone* (after our dual time) on her algebra problems for about an hour each home-school day. So she has 15 hours of direct (teacher or hovering mom) algebra instruction a week; she's spending SOME of that time PLUS an additional 3-6 hours/week on her own.

This is singularly the most time and labor intensive subject/child at this time with the homeschool curriculum.....

But her attitude about math is very positive. And she's doing well. She currently has an 88% in algebra as determined by the math teacher (not me). So....I'll take that....

And she's only TWELVE!!! And that's just algebra. She does debate (which is a combo of public speaking and arguing a point); she does fencing; she does music (harp and piano); orchestra; cotillion; and she DOES have other academic subjects (Language Arts, US History, Physical Science; and she's in 2 choirs....

....she's very busy. But her time is very well-spent.

Her TIME on homeschool days:

• Algebra - 2-4 hours/day (depends on difficulty, her focus, and time until the test).  
• Piano - performance plus theory time study (goal 2 hours/day; actual about 1.5 hours/day)
• Harp - performance/solo, technique, plus orchestra music (Sunday 2 hours.  Mon-Wed 1 hour/day. Friday 1.5 hours.  Saturday about 1 hour/day).  Goal is actually 1.5 hours/day but some days are too busy to work in more than 15 minutes.

How time is spent in general:

• Choir - 2.5 hours once a week of practice.  
• Cotillion - one meeting a month typically for 1.5 hours.
• recitals and performances
• Debate time - 3 hours one night a week with the group; 2 hours one night a week with her partner.  Then about 2 hours of work to do in her "own" time through-out the week to prepare for these "meetings."  
• Fencing - 2 hours, 3 times/week (sometimes less on one of the days). 
• Jack and Jill - community service, leadership.  She cannot attend the meetings since the time conflicts with orchestra practice, but she does participate in the once per month community service or other activity if possible. 

Action items:  

focus more on Language Arts (sentence diagramming and such along side Ian).
condence algebra study time to make it more efficient.
Still would like to start extra vocabulary, pick up Latin and Spanish again - but the math is more time/labor intensive than anticipated.  

Halloween Candy is donated

Since we don't eat much candy (especially 'artificial color #6, blue dye #229, and HFCS) we decided to throw the candy away.  However, it was brought to our attention that many local dentist actually collect the candy from the children and send them to the overseas troops.  So Ian took a trip to our local dentist and offered the donation.  He was "paid" $5 -but that was subsequently donated as well.

Regional Choir

Haley was asked to participate in the regional choir (in addition to the local choir she does with Ian).  Today was the first comprehensive group rehearsal of that choir.