Eight years later

This blog just showed up on a Facebook Flashback, and I decided to update it quickly. Connor returned to homeschooling, graduated from High School and Geneseee Community College (with his AS in Web design AND his AAS in Computer Science at age 16, with a 3.8 GPA. Connor had 98 college credits by age 16.   He just turned 18 years old last month, works full-time as an IT Coordinator at Bryant and Stratton, and is a Senior  at Brockport University. Homeschooling Rocks! And now I'm homeschooling our three youngest kids, and have been for four years!

20 months later

It's been 20 months since I've written on this site, and some of you might be wondering whatever happened to Connor. Well, in June 2010 we visited the local public school to see if Connor wanted to return. He was there less than 30 min. when he begged me to get him out of "this place." He HATED it. He felt it was full of a bunch of "morons" and refused to even sit for the exams to determine an appropriate grade level for him. Instead, after a vigilant search, we chose to send John, Connor and Ben to Lima Christian School. What a fabulous place! The school bumped Connor up a grade and then put him in the accelerated classes too. At the same time, they were able to completely customize a curriculum for John and Ben. With only 4 other students in Ben's class (and an average of 16 students per graduating class) all the boys receive a customized, almost as good as home, education. Praise God.

April 2010

Wow! I can't believe I haven't blogged in over a month!!! I was blogging on our adoption site, and, of course, we were in China for almost 3 weeks. That is its own story, and you can read about that on Petersadoption.blogspot. com. Our home-schooling has taken a strange twist. I say strange, only because it was completely unexpected. Connor is seriously considering returning to public school. Every year at this time, we begin to look at next year's curriculum. John and Ben, our newly adopted sons, have been going to Geneseo Central everyday now, and I think Connor feels "out of the loop." In the interest of saving money, I've cut back on several of the extra-curricular lessons, and now Connor has (maybe) too much time at home alone. Or maybe he just wants to be more like his brothers. Whatever the reason, Connor says he wants to go back to "regular" school next year. One part of me is relieved (I could go back to work full-time, and we need the money), but another part of me is disappointed and sad. I asked Connor to name the advantages and disadvantages of public school, and he admitted that home-schooling has a ton more advantages than public school. However, when he compiled his written list on his blog, he made certain that the pro and con lists are equal in length. I think he's just forgotten the inconveniences of public schooling. For instance, last week he told me that he was "into" his writing piece and was going to just write most of the day. I reminded him that if he was in public school he would not have that flexibility. As a matter of fact, if he were in public school he would have been assigned a specific writing topic, and he would have a specific outline to follow. I can't imagine how Connor would fare in such a constrained situation. Like most creative people, Connor is a fabulous writer, when simply left alone to write for hours. Then later in the week one of his friends (also home-schooled) called and wanted to come over to play. It was around noon, and normally I would have said yes. We could finish his work in the evening if necessary. Instead, I decided to tell Connor that he can't even call his friend back until after school. I told him that at public school you can't just decide to call a friend, and you certainly cannot have a playdate in the middle of the day!!

Upcoming Trip!

It's Saturday, but Connor is doing school-work all day because of our upcoming trip to China. He has to finish his vocabulary up to lesson 10, and he is spending extra time on Chinese lessons too. Of course while we are in China he will be learning a TON of stuff, just not the things I have listed on my IHIP plan.

On the cheap

Now that we are adopting two children, I've been trying harder to home-school on the cheap. There are many families that do not spend a ton of money on tutors and lessons, and they do not lack for educational resources. I know it can be done, I just didn't spend enough time trying to save money, and I never took the time to add up exactly how much I spend to home-school. When I add up all his lessons, books, tutors, curriculum materials, field trips etc., I spend as much on Connor as we do to send Austin to a private school. Yikes! We do need to economize now that our family is expanding. Recently, I discovered how much money I can save by taking Connor to the library in Rochester, instead of to the bookstore. Our public library in Geneseo is quite small, so up until last month I would let Connor order books online, or I'd take him to the bookstore every week or so. Well, as I mentioned before, Connor reads constantly, and I'm spending a fortune on books. On Tuesday, I returned 18 books to the library, and I let Connor check-out 9 more. That will get us through the next two weeks. I also took him to the bookstore to buy books for our China trip. I read online that Borders gives its educator's discount (25%) to home-schoolers, with proper ID. I saved $26.00 on one trip to the bookstore with my new educator's discount card!! I'm also starting to cut coupons and shop for groceries at Tops, instead of Wegmans. Last week I entered my name in a drawing, and we attended a performing arts show in Rochester because I won the tickets. That show would have cost us $150.00 or more. Yep, I'm going to cut-back on nonessentials while still giving Connor the best education possible.

The one who has the most words...

Walking out of the library today, with our arms literally overflowing with books, a woman stopped to say to Connor, "Wow! That is a whole lot of books for one little boy." I replied, "Don't worry. He'll read them all before they are due back at the library. " She walked around the van specifically, just to tell Connor her philosophy on life. She said, "You know who wins the game of Life? The one who has the most words. " Yes, it was a little strange, but interesting too. I often tell Connor that it is important to write well because people have changed the world with their writings, and I think that is sort of what this woman meant today.

Books

The other day Connor blogged (entitled My Wish Upon a Star) that he wished that he had more time to just read books. I find that rather humorous, considering that we checked 18 books out of the library when we last went to Rochester, and he finished all but one of them within the three week loan period. Yes, he definitely gets enough time to just read. He reads while he's eating, he reads while we are in the car, and he reads for at least an hour every morning, before our school day officially starts at 9am. I'm grateful that he enjoys books, and considers reading a reward, rather than a punishment. When we get home from Tae Kwon Do today, I'm going to let Connor go online and order a bunch of books to take with us to China. I don't want to risk losing Library books, and we should bring soft-cover books to lighten up the luggage. All I have to do now is figure out how many books we can jam into a carry-on bag!