Tuesday March 31, 2009

It's Tuesday and that is our Impact Homeschool Academy day. Even before leaving at 7:30am (for daily Mass and then school at Impact), Connor completed 6 math pages in unit 7. After Impact, we will again attend Chinese class, finally arriving home from school at 5:30pm. Today I mailed my quarterly report, and I ordered the PASS test to administer in May. This is a big downside to homeschooling. We have to pay for all the materials, including the state required standardized tests, yet we get no reduction on our school taxes. We pay over $8000.00 per year in school taxes, plus $10,000 a year for Austin's tuition to attend a private school, and now we have to pay for all of Connor's activities--including the state mandated tests!! I don't even believe that standardized tests are a true measure of knowledge, but pay for and administer them I must. If Connor was falling behind, the state would be required to drop mega dollars to try to get him up to state standards, but because he is a few grades ahead, he must fend for himself. If we want to teach our child at his academic grade level, we have to pay for all his classes and all the state mandated tests too! There's definitely something wrong with the system.

Monday March 30, 2009

Morning Mass was at 8am at St. Mary's, and it was rather uneventful today. After Mass, Connor completed unit 7 in the vocabulary book, and created vocabulary flash cards too. I bought him a plastic container to keep all the cards in, and Connor sorted his words alphabetically to store. After vocab., Connor completed six Math pages in Math Journal 2, studied Chinese, practiced guitar, read a chapter in his Chemistry book, made flashcards for his Chemistry vocabulary, and filled in some more blank maps. Although Connor can place all the countries in the world very quickly on Sheppard software, I'm finding that the skills do not always transfer to the blank map. On the geography software, the names of the countries are listed. When I present blank maps to complete, sometimes Connor struggles to remember the names. We are going to spend more time on blank maps this week.Connor finished Summer of My German Soldier and he started Jacob Have I Loved. He's been choosing to read mostly historical fiction lately.This afternoon Connor asked me if he could take the McQuaid placement exam this month. At first I said no, but then I paused to ask myself, why not? If he fails, then he learns that he still has more to learn. If he passes, he feels successful. If he passes with a high mark, then we can sit down with administration and decide how to proceed. So I called the office and asked if Connor, a ten year old, would be allowed to sit for the 7th grade exam. The administrative assistant was quite hesitant, and she said she'd check with the Dean and get back to me. I should have just signed him up for the test, and not asked if Connor's age prevented him from taking the exam. My mistake.

Sunday March 29, 2009

Yesterday, Connor and I attended the NYS boating safety class from 9a-5pm. It was a very long day. At the end of the class, as the Sheriff/instructor (who also happens to be Connor's former art teacher at Geneseo Central School) passed out the test, he asked me if I wanted to go out in the hall and help Connor with the test. Connor was the only child there, and the Sheriff said that the test is at a 10th grade reading level. I responded that Connor can read at a 10th grade level, and that is why he is not at school anymore. The teacher said he wondered what happened to Connor, but he didn't know. Then he again said that the wording of the questions and the directions are confusing (many double negatives) and that he didn't think Connor would be able to pass it without an adult's help. I said, "That's ok, if he doesn't pass it then he can take the course and test again next month." One of the other attendees turned around and congratulated me on my decision. He was "old school," he said, and that is how people learn. Sometimes they must fail. This goes back to my concern about schools making so many accommodations to help students succeed that they forget how to fail and learn from the experience. In the end, Connor scored an 86% without any help from anyone, and he could walk away proud of himself because he passed without extra help.

Sat. March 28. Quarterly Reports

It's Saturday, and I have a few minutes to blog before Connor and I head to the boating safety class. I've already blogged about how school is not 9-3 at our house, so it should be no surprise that we are attending an eight hour class on a Saturday. What I want to address is the issue of quarterly reports. Earlier this week,while I was waiting for two hours in Warsaw during Austin's Civil Air Patrol meeting,I met several other home-schooling mothers. Since several of the mothers have been home-schooling for 15+ years, I asked them questions about the quarterly report that I have to file at the beginning of April. I have been recording on this blog every day,keeping every test, museum ticket stub, and taking photos of Connor's various activities for almost ten weeks. I went through all my notes, and spent hours and hours filling in the form the school district sent me. One of the mothers told me that I am wasting my time because no one will even bother to read my report. Huh? I read on a few blogs about various school districts investigating home-schoolers to the point of harassment. Therefore, I have gone to great lengths to make certain that I am in compliance with NYS guidelines,and I spend hours every day documenting our studies, and no one is even going to read my report? Holly told me that she writes less than one page, and she uses the same report (with only slight changes) every year. Her friend writes "See IHIP" on her quarterly report and that's all. One part of me is happy that rural school districts leave home-schoolers alone, but the other part of me really wants someone to acknowledge that Connor is learning a whole lot more at home than he could ever learn in any public school. As I write this, he is upstairs working on his Math pages. We calculated that he has 9 more units to complete (journal 2, 5th grade Math) and only ten more weeks of school. He wants to get it finished early so that he can be done with school when Austin is done, which is June 11th. Xiao has school until June 29th, and that is how I paced our curriculum, but Connor wants the extra time off. Ha ha. Like he will really be completely off, ever. But that goal keeps him pushing forward, and that is a good thing. Off to boating safety now!

Friday March 27

Connor was feeling a little better today, so we headed out to Mass at 7:30am. It was further away today, in Leicester. We got home from Mass at 8:45am, and had just enough time to complete 5 Math pages, and then we headed off to Chess. I was asked to take charge of this session of the home-schooler's Chess Club, and I was gratified to see 18 (instead of the usual 10)participants. This means that the price goes down to $30 (from $55) per student. After Chess, we grabbed a quick lunch and headed to the Rochester Museum and Science Center. We hit more areas today than we did last week, and then we stayed for the Dinosaurs Alive show at the Planetarium. We didn't get home until after 6pm! What a long day of learning. After dinner (we ate pancakes with Connor's hickory bark syrup!) Connor responded to his new Pen Pal, a boy in China!! He is now upstairs reading his newest historical fiction, Summer of My German Soldier.

Thurs. March 26

Connor is still contagious, so we didn't go to Mass again today. He's NOT happy about missing church, but I insisted we stay home. We also have a whole lot of work to do today, after missing yesterday. First thing this morning Connor reviewed his vocabulary flashcards in preparation for the cumulative test, units 1-6. He took that test, and then took the cumulative Math test for units 1-6 also. He still feels quite sick, and I sort of felt bad having him take the cumulative tests. Guitar practice came next, and then he answered the comprehension questions on The Witch at Blackbird Pond. For a break, I suggested he make a batch of hickory bark syrup. We got the recipe when we went to tour our friend's syrup making operation a few weeks ago.Connor had collected Hickory bark last weekend and has been asking to make the syrup. After boiling down and straining the syrup, Connor wrote a five paragraph essay in response to a writing prompt I gave him on The Witch of Blackbird Pond. For fun, Connor identified famous painters for awhile on freerice.com, earning 750 grains of rice. At 3p he went to a horseback riding lesson. I almost canceled the lesson because he is still quite sick, but I would feel bad canceling last minute. Now it's 4:30 and he's downstairs working on his web page. Tonight he has to study Chinese. That is all I had left on his list for today.

Wed. March 25

Connor has strep throat and a fever. He didn't do much today except stay in bed and read. Poor guy was miserable all day because he missed his boat-building class. Hopefully, the antibiotic will kick in soon and he'll feel better by tomorrow.

Tuesday March 24,2009

Connor woke up with a fever and a cough today, but he wanted to try to go to Impact HomeSchool Academy anyway. So I gave him Ibruphrophen and we headed off to church. On the way to church he studied his script for drama class. He has one of the major parts in the play they are going to perform. When I picked him up from Impact Academy at 3p, he was just burning up. I don't know why he didn't tell one of the teachers to call me to come get him, but now that it was 3p I had to go pick up Austin at McQuaid. I gave Connor more Ibruphrophen and we headed over to Chinese class. He was half out of it during Chinese, and at 5p I put him to bed for the night. If he feels well enough tomorrow, I'll have him blog about what he did at Impact today. He may miss his boat-building tomorrow.

Monday, March 23

It is a Superintendent's Conference Day at Geneseo Central, so I let Connor stay overnight at Joe's house last night. Before he left Sunday night,I had him do the review questions in his vocabulary book and fill in a blank map of the United States, just to make sure we don't get behind at all. Then today I picked up both boys and took them out to lunch at a Japanese restaurant. After lunch, Connor worked on his mystery story for two hours. The final copy is due (at Impact HS Academy) tomorrow. Connor is still having trouble punctuating dialogue correctly. We will have to work on that some more later. After the mystery writing, Connor spent 90 minutes working on his web page. A few weeks ago I bought him a web page (HTML) book, and he has been working on his website off and on every since. He would monkey with it all day if I let him, but of course I have my own objectives. After dinner, Connor practiced guitar and created flashcards for vocabulary units 4-6. So while it was technically a day off, we still spent quite a bit of time on school work. No rest for the weary, I like to say.

Socialization 101

Frequently, when people hear that we are home-schooling Connor they ask, "What about socialization?" I thought I'd take a moment to address this question. First of all, it's important to note that homeschoolers do not simply stay at home alone all day. Even if we were NOT involved in two home-schooling co-ops (Impact and the YMCA), chess class, guitar lessons, Chinese class, horseback riding lessons, and crossfit, we would still not have a problem with socialization. The grocery store, church, restaurants, and just daily living give us ample opportunities to interact and socialize. In addition, I am extremely social, and we entertain almost weekly. Last night we had four families over for dinner. Connor had to negotiate with, and juggle being the host of, 12 children of various ages. Today we are going to cross-fit, and again Connor will have to interact with a roomful of people. If we wanted to, Connor could go to a homeschooling activity with other children virtually every day of the week. There is the home-schooling ice skating club, the home-schooling bowling club, the home-schooling swim club, the home-schooling board game club,boyscouts, Civil Air Patrol,community service club, the Museum classes etc. etc. etc. We get out and about so much that we have decided to discontinue the Impact co-op next year. We feel that we need to stay home more, and socialize less!! I hope this clears up any confusion about home-schooling children lacking socialization.

Friday March 20

Mass today was in Leicester, 15 minutes away. Connor figured out that he has atteneded 8 churches so far this Lent. Pretty neat. After Mass, Connor worked on his Math test,units 4-6, and then we left for Chess at 10am. On the way to Rochester, we listed to Grammar Rock and Fill Your Head vocabulary Cds. We stopped to pick up Connor's friend, Ezra, and arrived at Chess by 11a. At 12:30 we grabbed lunch and went to the Rochester Museum and Science Center. We spent 3 hours touring the exhibits, learning a ton of Science stuff (that I won't bother listing here). After the museum, we stayed to watch the Spring Skies show at the Planetarium. We didn't get home until almost 5:30pm. It's 6p, and Connor is upstairs practicing guitar now. What I liked best about our day was listening to Connor talk with Ezra in the car. Every other sentence began with, "The thing I like best about home-schooling is..." For instance, "The thing I like best about home-schooling is that we get to go to the museum when it's not crowded. When I went with my school on field trips, it was always chaotic." His words, not mine. To be fair, he did say something negative too. "One thing I don't like about home-schooling is that I never get a break. Even when we went to Florida my mom brought my Math book and stuff and made me do school work." Overall, it was just great that Connor found a home-schooling friend who understands him. Ezra seems like a good fit for Connor,and I hope they get to spend more time together in the future.

Thurs. March 19

I just realized that I have been home-schooling Connor for exactly two months. Wow! Time does fly. It is almost time to write my quarterly report to the Superintendent. Yes, home-schoolers have to submit reports four times a year. I know that it is to make certain that parents are really teaching their children, but it does seem rather "big-brother" like to me. Luckily, I enjoy blogging each day about our objectives and lessons, and I can use these ramblings as a basis for my report. Mass this morning was at 8am in Mt. Morris. We have been rotating churches almost daily, and it has added to our Lenten experience. We learned recently from Father Ed that in Rome it was the custom during Lent to attend a different church each day of Lent. We didn't realize we were on to something. The Mass today was about the Feast of St. Joseph. The reading was the story of when Jesus (at age 12) got lost during a Pilgrimage and how his parents searched for him for three days. When they found him, Jesus was sitting in the temple asking questions and participating in the adults' dialogue. It reminded me of Connor. He is fascinated with religion and takes every opportunity to question the traditions and practices of all faiths, including ours. I know church is not part of our school curriculum, but it has expanded our learning exponentially. After church Connor finished his Math Journal number one. He will begin the second Math journal next week. Writing a summary of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle came next. Connor already wrote an essay for me about the story, but now he has to write a summary of a novel for his writing teacher at Impact. At first I thought it was redundant, but it gave me an opportunity to teach him the difference between writing a thesis driven essay compared to writing a summary. Summaries simply retell the story, whereas the essay he wrote for me makes an argument. Guitar practice and Chinese were next, and then unit 6 in the vocabulary book. At 3p, we were off to horseback riding lessons. At 4:30p Connor went outside to play. He was begging to go out all day, and I kept him inside to finish his work. As the weather gets nicer, I may have to do more school work in the evening and give Connor a recess outside during the day. It's good exercise and he does learn a lot through play too. I am just so focused on my own agenda sometimes that I forget to let him guide the learning too. I need to work on that. I don't want him to hate being home-schooled, but I want him to value his education no matter where it takes place.

Wed. March 18, 2009

Our morning routine was a little less hectic this morning because we had to attend my Aunt's funeral. Before leaving at 9am (90 minutes later than usual) Connor completed 5 more Math pages, wrote an email letter to our Chinese teacher (in Chinese), and to his penpal in California. Then we left for the funeral. It was a long drive, and in the car we listened to Chinese and Connor read the last few chapters of the historical fiction, The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I dropped him off at his boat-building class at noon, after the very long funeral Mass. I will have him blog about the boat-building class below.After the YMCA boat-building class, Connor went to his guitar lesson (at 4p) and then played Chemistry and Math games on Freerice.com. Now, it's 5:30pm and after he blogs about his day (below) we will officially end our school day. He will, of course, read for at least an hour before bed too. We never really end our school day, as Connor often reminds me.

This is Connor:
Hello everyone! Today,we got to the boat class late so I ate lunch first. After that, we had to twist tie(with special clips) the boat to keep it together. That took about an hour. Then some people found a boat in the forest so we got to repair it. There were two cracks. To repair the damage, we cut the cracks to make them bigger. If you don't cut them to make them bigger, the cracks will continue to ruin the boat. After that, we put fiberglass on the boat, and then put resin to reinforce the fiberglass. After that, we played for about 15-25 minutes. Then the class was over.

Tues. March 17

By 7:30am,Connor ran a mile on the treadmill, finished writing his Mystery story, and read a chapter in the book The Witch of Blackbird Pond. During 8am Mass we learned about ST. Patrick (of course) and celebrated Father Schifferli's 64th anniversary of being ordained. It was a lovely Mass. Then I drove Connor to Impact HS Academy. During Drama they assigned roles for the play. Connor is playing "Hopeful." He has a ton of lines, he says. In Chemistry they experimented with invisible ink and took a test on Chemistry vocabulary. He scored 100%. In writing, they did peer editing of their mystery stories. I had already edited his story, so Connor was ahead of the group. We then went to Chinese class. We are now on lesson 17. I've asked the teacher to focus more on conversational Chinese, and less on just compiling a list of nouns to learn. We want to actually be able to speak to others when we travel to China next year. That's about all we did on Tuesday.

Monday March 16, 2009

This blog is boring lately, and I must apologize.By the time I sit down to write it, I am ready for bed and too lazy to write too much. Today Connor read to page 99 in The Witch of Blackbird Pond. He wrote a fabulous 5 paragraph essay (in response to a writing prompt) on the book The Red Badge of Courage. After that, he completed another unit in his vocabulary book, did 5 Math pages, played a geography game online, played Immune Attack (biology), read chapter eight(and created corresponding flash cards for the vocab.)in his Chemistry book, studied Chinese flashcards, and practiced guitar. Yes, he worked on school stuff from 7am until 4p, with only 20 minutes for lunch. We go heavy on the school work on Mondays, so that he can afford the time to go to his boat-building class on Wednesdays, horse-back riding on Thursdays, and Chess on Fridays.

Friday March 13

I forgot to blog on Friday, so I'll try to remember what we did and sum it up quickly. We went to church, of course, but we found out that Mass was canceled because there was going to be a funeral at 11a. Drats. At least we went three extra times before lent, so we decided that would make up for it. Then I took Connor to his private chess lesson, and then his group class. Afterwards, we went to Connor's friend's house. There Connor found deer skulls and bones in the woods. When he got home, he did his math pages,the geography game online, a chapter in the vocabulary book and he read The Witch of Blackbird Pond. This is the third historical fiction book he has read about US history. I remember hearing him practice guitar too, and we listened to Chinese in the car. I'm sure we did more, but I don't remember now. This is why I try to blog every day; when I miss it, I forget all the little things we do.

Thursday March 12, 2009

Connor was an altar server today at 8am Mass, which he enjoyed immensely. We also had "our babies" here today, which is always a challenge. I must say though, we are getting better at getting school work done in spite of all the distractions. In fact, Connor accomplished everything I had on his list and more. He read an entire book in one day (The Red Badge of Courage), played a geography game online, worked on his vocabulary words online, completed 5 math pages in his workbook, wrote an essay on the novel The Secret Garden, wrote more of his mystery story,and practiced Chinese. All this with a houseful of kids here. We also had Skylar and Chasen's siblings here, for a total of 4 visitors under the age of 8. Chaos seems to bring out the best in Connor. I'm exhausted though.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Today Connor slept until 7am, so he didn't get much work done before leaving for Mass. He did run a mile on the treadmill when he woke up (7 minutes) to help prepare for a triathlon he has entered. It's not until May 9th. After Mass, I drove Connor to his boat-building class. In the car, he finished the book True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. Here is what Connor did at the YMCA class today:

This is Connor. When I got to the YMCA we went to the building called Oneida. I then volunteered for a job. I had to tape the seams of the canoes together to help them dry. Then, I went for a 30 min hike in the woods. I found a really good hiking stick, and I brought it home. Then I spent the rest of the day drilling the rowboat in the right places to help it stay together. We will nail it in the drill holes. On the way home, I listened to my Chinese Cd. Then I wrote this blog and completed 5 Math pages.I'm almost done with the 5th grade Math workbook.

Tuesday March 10

On Tuesday Connor goes to Impact Home schooling Academy. Before we left for Mass, Connor read his book, did 5 Math pages, practiced guitar, and then we left for "school." Here is what Connor did at Impact:
Hi everyone! At Impact, I had drama first. We decided that instead of doing four different plays with four groups, we are going to do one play. That one play is called The Pilgrims Progress. Impact did it last year too, but now instead of three hours long, we will make it shorter. We then practiced our play. And that is all for drama!
At about 10:30am, I left for chemistry. Today in Chemistry we made invisible ink. I was in a group with Ezra and Zach. They are probably my best friends at Impact. Well, we found some of the best invisible ink formulas. I mixed 10ML of lemon juice,orange juice, milk,vinegar, and baking soda (it sort of foams up) and 20ML of water. When I dip a Q-tip in the formula and write with it on some paper, it is invisible when it dries and it can only be seen with the right light. That is all in Chemistry!
Writing is next. I handed in my homework and did some silent writing. Then we talked about what our homework is for next time. We then talked about writing mysteries.
In Social Studies, a veteran from World War II, named Bill Gaffney, spoke to our class about the war. The teacher gave us some pictures to color. Mr. Gaffney talked about the Battle of the Bulge, and how the Germans were really afraid of the Turkish because the Turkish would sneak in at night and slit the Germans' throats. It was really interesting. After Impact we went to Chinese class. I read my book for awhile and went to bed.

Monday March 9, 2009

I didn't have time to post yesterday, so this will be a catch-up post. We went to Mass (learned about St. Frances) at 8am. Connor then worked on his mystery story for Impact, completed his Math pages, did Shepard Software, practiced guitar, read The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, practiced Chinese and at 12p we left to go to the Dr. appointment. The appointment at Encompass Learning Center took from 1p until 4p. Since Connor was exhausted after the testing, we called it a day. The Dr. began the consult with me, after evaluating the results of the tests, by saying, "When I come across kids who test like Connor, I generally begin by asking if there is any way the parents would consider home-schooling the child." Well, that was a shocker, to say the least. Bottom line is that Connor is highly gifted, but also ADHD (no great surprise there). The problem is that sometimes he tests just average on a subject, and then later on similar types of material he scores in the 99.9% . His results were all over the place. He scored 99.9% on reading comprehension at a 10th grade level,only 50% on word comprehension at a 5th grade level, and then 99.99% on spelling. He scored only 60% on mathematical reasoning on one test, and then completed 9th grade algebraic equations and scored 99.9%. The Dr. said his results were just all over the place, depending on his attention at the minute. He fidgeted constantly and often tried to get the test done as quickly as possible (rather than trying to be accurate). Again, no surprise really. Because I would rather not have to homeschool for another two years (I liked my job!) we spoke at great length about what school might be an appropriate fit for Connor. The only school the Dr. thought might work would be Allendale-Columbia (which is $18,000 a year!!!)or maybe Cobblestone (again too expensive). The Dr. said really Connor should be in a self-contained classroom with other highly gifted kids---but NY does not have that as an option of course. So, all in all, it was interesting and the consult confirmed what I suspected. Now, I just have to plod along and do my best.

Weekend

Before I launch myself into our Monday routine, I thought I'd take a moment to blog about our weekend. For years I have been doing what home-schoolers call "afer-schooling." This means that I go out of my way to provide enrichment and lessons after school and on the weekends. Because we do not have TV. (literally not a single station, although we do watch carefully selected DVDs), and our weekends are full of educational opportunities. For instance, this weekend we skied, read books, went to a friend's house to tap Maple Trees and learn about syrup making, played Scrabble,played Chess, went Beagling, went horseback riding, and created comic books on the computer. Connor also corresponded with his pen-pal, practiced guitar, and brainstormed for his mystery story. We learn and grow almost every minute of the weekend, and our school day is not just Monday to Friday 9-3p. I just thought I should mention this aspect of homeschooling too.

Friday March 6, 2009

First thing Friday morning, 7am, Connor began working on his math pages. He missed a few days of math (because of the boat building and then the educational assessment) and he now has to "catch up." Actually, Connor only has 20 pages left in his first math workbook. In an entire year at public school he has never finished the entire workbook, and he is almost done after 6 weeks of homeschooling. And no, I don't spend too much time on math. We spend less than an hour a day. The boat building class applies the math lessons,and that is probably where most of the real learning takes place. After math, we went to Mass at St. Matthew. From there, we went to Rochester for Chess. On the way, we listened to our Chinese Cd. We are both getting a whole lot better, I'm happy to say. Connor had a private chess lesson with Ken McBride. What an amazing teacher. Then he played games for an hour with a homeschooling group comprised of 10 boys. After chess, Connor began reading his new book, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, a historical fiction set in the 1800's. When we got home, Connor responded to a writing prompt on the book My Brother Sam is Dead, practiced guitar, practiced Latin, wrote a reader response on a short story, The Chicken Coop Monster, filled out a character chart, brainstormed about conflicts for his mystery story, Shepard software (for geography) and completed another unit in his vocabulary book. A whole lot of work today!

Thurs. March 5th

This morning I went upstairs to wake up Connor because it was 6:30am and he wasn't downstairs yet. In his room I found him finishing up the last page of the book I bought him just YESTERDAY, A Kid's Guide to Creating Web Pages for Home and School, by Benjamin and Peter Selfridge. Connor must have been "sneak" reading during the night again. We left for Mass at 7:30am, and then we stopped to pick up the two toddlers I babysit on Thursdays. From there we went to Rochester for a Dr. appointment with Dr. Schworm of Encompass Learning Center. Dr. Schworm is an educational consultant who specializes in assessing the special needs of children. I took the two toddlers to Jump Club in Winton Place and left Connor with the Dr. for testing. When I picked him up, the Dr. requested we return on Monday for another hour or so. He needs to find some "more difficult" things to use for the academic portions of the test. He didn't find Connor's frustration level yet. At 2p, we finally arrived home. Immediately, Connor began his new web page on the computer. He wrote out all his ideas in the car on the way to Rochester. At 3p Connor had a horseback riding lesson. When we got home Connor played outside for awhile, made paper origami animals from a book we have, worked on his website, and wrote his scientific observations for his sugar crystal experiment. Another busy day!

Wednesday March 4, 2008

Before Mass this morning, Connor read The Secret Garden. He finished the book this morning. Then we went to Mass, and I dropped Connor off at his Boat Building class at the YMCA again. We listened to Chinese in the car for the 45 minute car ride. After boat building (which Connor will write about below) Connor took a guitar lesson. When he arrived home, at 5p, he read his new computer programming book, and took two tests that I devised earlier in the day on his books. One test was on the historical novel My Brother Sam is Dead, and another one was about The Secret Garden. Here's Connor's post about the YMCA class today.

Hi people! It is Connor! Today was really cool at Camp Arrowhead boat building class. We started to build the actual boat. It was easier than I thought. All we really needed was some good blueprints (of course, we needed to have the plywood and saws too). We had to take the blueprint measurements and print them on the plywood. After that we just cut the wood on the pencil marks. My class is going to make one rowboat and two canoes. We cut the first canoe today, but it still needs a bottom. The rowboat is coming along. A 13 year old boy, named Kevin, helped me convert the bottom of the rowboat to a 4by8 piece of plywood. We finished and cut it with a circular saw. Then we put the plywood pieces away and played outside for about 45 minutes. I learned cutting and measuring, and how to convert a small blueprint from a piece of paper to a huge piece of plywood. It was fun!

Tuesday March 3, 2009

This morning Connor bounded downstairs at 6:30am with his latest book, The Secret Garden in hand. Before we headed out to morning mass (at 8:30a), Connor read a chapter in his book, wrote another letter to his penpal, and completed 5 pages in his math workbook. At Mass, an elderly parishioner asked me if I home-school Connor. She said that she can always tell because she was a teacher for 35 years in Livonia and the home-schooled children are always so much more polite than public school kids. No lie. Of course, I didn't take the time to tell her we have only been homeschooling a short time; I just took it as a compliment and let it go. After Mass, I immediately drove Connor to Impact HS Academy. I will let Connor write about his day there (below). After Impact, we had our Chinese lesson, and we finally arrived home from our school day at 5:30pm. Tuesdays are our longest day; we school from 7am until 5:30pm, plus we generally read for an hour before bed. Connor's post below:
Hi everyone! My mom wants me to write.Well, my first class in Impact Home Academy is drama. Drama is probably my favorite subject. In the beginning, we played a game called hitch hiker. Hitch hiker is a game when there are four seats placed two next to each other and two behind. The first three people go into the chairs (an imaginary car) and decide an emotion. The people start to act the emotion in until the next person comes. The next person puts there thumb up and gets in the car. The hitch hiker has a whole different emotion. The hitch hiker starts acting his/her emotion. The other people have to catch on. Whenever you decide to move,the driver gets in line and they all move up a seat. That is all for drama, now on to the next subject!
The next subject is Chemistry. In chemistry we first practiced some chromatography. Chromatography is when we put four different inks in a beaker with rubbing alcohol. Then we cut up some coffee filters into some strips. We then tied the strips to some string and dipped them in the ink. We waited in till the colors crept up the filters. And that is chromatography! While we waited, my classmates and I took a test. I aced the test no problem.
Writing: in writing today we are studying mysteries. We handed in the homework and then played a game. There was three teams. One was the A team, B team, and the C team. I was in the A team. We were given six cards. We put clues on the cards to find the next card. Then we hid all the cards. The last card gives you a clue to where the candy is that you hide. Then we go and search for the other teams candy. I got some chocolate. I traded two for a candy necklace.
Social studies: In social studies we had a guy come in and talk to us about the civil rights movement. It was very interesting. He told us about the dates when different colored people became free. It ended in 1965, I believe. He also talked about people should have civil rights no matter what.Then I went to Chinese class. Well that is all folks!

Monday March 2nd

If I were in a better mood, I'd wax poetic about Connor's wonderful interview with John yesterday. He spent over an hour examining John's handmade boat and asking him questions. He took notes etc. and it was all very educational. But I'm grumpy today, so I'll be brief. The downstairs computer is not working yet again, causing me an entire day's worth of headaches. We went to morning Mass,read for an hour, did a science experiment that will result in the eventual formation of rock crystals, spent an hour on Math, mastered the geographical locations of the countries in Central America and South America, practiced Latin, practice guitar, practiced Chinese, wrote a letter to a pen pal, and made flash cards for vocabulary. I am tired and miserable so I sent Connor up to bed to read at 7p. He will probably finish The Secret Garden tonight, although he just started it on Sunday. We probably did more, but I'm too frustrated to write it down right now.