Sunday's Cool

I am trying out a new feature today. It's called Sunday's Cool: A Link up and a Look Ahead. Our family has several other blogs here in the blog-o-sphere. The majority of them go untended for and ultimately unread. I have decided that each Sunday I will link up one of those blogs here. This should give me the encouragement I need to have those update more often. That will be the link-up portion of the title. The look-a-head will just be a sneak peek at what may be appearing on this blog in the coming 7 days. As my loyal readers may have noticed, I used to end each post with a sneak peek of what my next post would be about. Sometimes the hardest part of writing a post was simply writing the next time tag. So, I gave up on it. This will give me a chance to give you a warning if I'm starting a six post series on lawn furniture feng-shui.

So with that build up here is the innaugural episode . . .

Sunday's Cool

A Link Up and a Look Ahead

A link up: A few weeks ago our family went to Springfield to indicate our disapproval with proposed Senate Bill SB136. It was tabled so we must have done some good. At our home school web site : Izola Becker Home School, I put up a few pictures from our time there. We chose this picture because past Puppy and the Liberty Bell replica you can see the lines of people waiting to enter the Capitol building and attend the discussion on the bill. Click on the picture to see the entire post.



A Look Ahead: Speaking of SB 136. I plan to post this week parts of an epilogue to SB 136 I saw at the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). I will give it a HSD twist and plan to call it "Of Carrots and Sticks." On Monday, I will be announcing the winner of the home school conference mp3 give-a-way. This is your last chance to enter. Click here to do so. Hopefully the week won't get away from me and there will be loads of interesting tidbits here. Enjoy your Sunday and have a great week!.

Six Word Saturday In Praise Of . . .

Here are my 6:

Why I Like Home Spun Juggling:

I have been a big fan of the Blog, Home Spun Juggling since I started blogging 2+ years ago. It may be because Christina (the blogs author) can do two things extremely well that I wish I could do at all. These are Juggling and Cartooning. I love cartoons but could not draw myself out of a paper sack. I spent most of 1997 in a paper sack as a result. (It's not something I am yet ready to talk about.) In the late 80's I produced a newsletter for some friends. One of the features was called "If I could draw, this would be a cartoon." I would describe a picture and then say what the dialogue or punch line would be.

Here is one I just thought of so I can give you an example . . .

Scene: A Tax Office. On one side is the tax consultant. He is looking rather put out. On the other side is his client who doesn't seem to like what He is being told.
The tax consultant says "No, Mr. Smith, "liking" your church on Facebook is not deductible."

But who needs to set up a scene when you can just draw one up like this . . .

If you click on the strip you will get to one of my favorite blogs: Home Spun Juggling. The cartoon and heartfelt post is an example of why Christina's artwork and writing is one of the gems of the homeschooling blog world.

Her beautiful explanation of the economic choices all families make to do what is important to them ends with a flourish:

"Can we afford it? I would think many of these families would say they can't
afford not to. We make it work, because we want it to. I'm thankful I made
the choice to homeschool. It's a tough job, and I know it's not for everyone, but
it was something I had to do."

I thought much about why we home school this week especially in light of driving to Springfield to protect our rights to do so. It is sometimes a sacrifice, an encumbrance, even an inconvenience. But in the end I I came to the same conclusion Christina did. Even if I do have to avoid paper sacks like the plague.

For more Six Word Saturday click here.

It's done! It's done! The home schoolers won!

To see my original post about SB 136 click here.

A few years ago Bunny Girl started a pretty good post victory tradition while listening to White Sox games on the radio or following them on the computer (We are very 21st century) with me. She would get all animated and say "It's done! It's done! The White Sox won!"

For the past few weeks I have been following the SB 136 Homeschooling Registration Bill as if it were a late season White Sox playoff push. I even went on a "road trip" this past Tuesday in Springfield to show my opposition to the bill.


Here is some footage from outside and inside the hearing.






I have received information today that the bill has been tabled. Just like in baseball, government has it's own special terms. According to the glossary at the Illinois Gleneral Assembly website,Tabling means:
Laying on the table or killing. Tabling removes a bill, resolution, or amendment from consideration.



The ILGA site shows that the Bills sponsor Ed Maloney tabled the bill today. This is a great victory for home schooling in Illinois. Illinois continues to be one of the least restricted states for Homeschooling in the nation and I hope the coverage this issue has received shows that this is a good thing. A right worth defending.





Before finding out about the tabling I was all geared up to use today's post to get on my high box (combination of high horse and soap box) and clear up some misconceptions that the bill has brought up. Even though the bill has been killed, I would still like to clear up these misconceptions:



1) In a Daily Southtown Star Editorial against the bill, Maloney was quoted as saying: “There are virtually no regulations on homeschools. No curriculum, no periodic checks on their progress,” he said. “We want more accountability.”

Illinois home schools under the law are considered private schools. (This is I believe why SB136 originally wanted to register both
private schools and home schools. When Maloney started receiving push back about the registration, He then stated he wanted to rewrite the bill to include only home schoolers. Leading many to think that He was after homeschoolers all the time.) The law states that all private schools have to teach the same amount of hours of instruction and the same type of courses as the public schools. That is regulation. Homeschoolers as the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) attorney, Scott Woodruff stated at the hearing (it's in the video clip) that homeschoolers have to provide proof that they are homeschooling if asked. That is regululation. It is ridiculous for Maloney to say that home schoolers do not have a curriculum. I am a home schooler and I have curriculum.e I've driveen to Rockford at 9 a.m. on a Saturday for Curiculum fairs, for crying out loud. I just don't have a government assigned curriculum. No private schools do.

2) There seems to be a fundamenental difference in opinion as to what the state's role in home schooling should be.
In meeting last week with Homeschooling proponents Maloney told them that: since the State was responsible for the education of our children, the State should know who was being homeschooled.

The state is not responible for my children's education. God entrusted them to me, not the state. The state gets their power from the people, not the other way around. Perhaps Maloney will realize where his power base is after the next senatorial election.

Well that is all I have to say at this time. I am very glad that SB 136 has failed and I thank everyone who had a part of defeating it.

Of Expos and Carnivals

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine is a well known resource in the home schooll community. Moreover they have a strong presence in the on-line community as well. Among other things they host an al on line home school convention presented from a Christian persspective each year called The Old School House Expo. The Expo will be held this May from the 16th to the twentieth. May is a long time away, and as my loyal readers know I am a professional procrastinator (A proprocrastinator), so why I am talking about it so early? Because I am a frugal procrastinator. And in my case the frugal comes before the procrastination.

All that to say is that there is an early bird special that ends very soon. How soon? less than 48 hours from now. Tickets are now available at $19.50. But only until Wed Feb 9th at 11:59 p.m. (ET). At Midnight the price increases to $29.00 through the 26th of this month. On Sunday February 27th the full rate of $39.99 goes into effect.

The speakers for this years event seem to me to be an extraordinary group. They are Susan Wise Bauer , Janice Campbell, Dr. Brian Ray, Diane Craft (whose idea we talk about in this post and video), Kim Kautzer, Diana Waring, Malia Russell, Carol Barnier, Maggie Hogan and Tyler Hogan, Dari Mullins, Carol Topp, Jim Weiss, Norm Wakefield, Mary Jo Tate, Terri Johnson, Molly Green, and Deborah Wuehler. There will also be a myriad of vendor workshops for a c list of all workshops click here.

Speaking of vendors, what home schoool convention would be complete w/o a Vendor Hall? The Old School House Expo has a vast virtual vendor (vliteration can be very vexing) hall. Click here to check it out.

Did you ever take one of those job aptitue tests in school? I am pretty sure that my 1st sourt election was Court Jester, which was just a bit ahead of Infomercial announcer. With that in mind, I must get back to the Expo pitch and say:

"But, Wait! There's more."

If you buy a ticket in the next 2 days will receive virtual goodie bags valued at > $200.00. Plus each ticket includes an MP3 download of the entire convention. They call this neat little doohickey: The Expo to Go.

Hey do you hear that? I think I hear my alter ego Crazy Dave of Crazy Dave's giveaways coming over here. Yep I would recognize his ruggedly handsome silhouette anywhere. He tells me that the fine people at TOS are making available a copy of The Expo to Go from the October 2010 conference available to one of our readers.

Here is how you can enter to win it. leave a comment on this post. You can earn another entry by going to the event's facebook page and clicking that you like it. You will have to return to this post and leave a comment saying you had done so. You can win an additional entry by liking my facebook page and telling me so. If you already are a liker of either page just leave that in your comment.

You can enter through the end of the month and I will announce the winner sometime in the first week of March.

Click here to find out more information on the conference and to get in on the early bird rate.



The Carnival of Homeschooling is being held this week @ Bugs, Knights and Turkeys in the Yard. Check out the "keeping it simple" edition which includes my post on SB 136.

If we ain't broke don't fix it.

I am a sign reader. I especially like reading signboards over local schools. The ones that say things like Book Fair Tuesday through Thursday, or Congratulations to our students who were just in the state robotics tournament. Recently these signs have been more about money than merriment. Signs like Illinois owes our district 10.6 million dollars.


Yes, wherever I am in this great state of mine, I see signs outside schools telling passersby that they can't do the job educating their students because the state ain't showing them the money. I often joke with friends and family that I should put a sign outside our home/school that the state of Illinois doesn't owe our school any money.


So the fact that our state is broke and can't afford to educate the students they now have in the public system should be a problem that our lawmakers in Springfield to sink their teeth into. Instead one state senator , Ed Maloney (D-Chicago) is taking a different approach. He is trying to cost the state more money.

Maloney introduced SB 136 on 1/27/2011. The gist of the bill is to have all non public schoolers register annually with the Illinois Board of Education. Illinois law currently doesn't mandate any
registration annual or otherwise.

Home Educators in Illinois are considered private schools and pending this legislation, Illinois is one of the least restricted states in the country to home school. Last year my local state representative came by for a visit and wanted to know how he could help me. I told him that Illinois was one of the least restricted states for home schooling. I told him that if he wanted to keep me happy he should keep Illinois that way (Guess who's getting a phone call tomorrow?).

In Illinois my taxes go to public education. I am fine with that. On top of that I pay for all the materials and other learning (co-operatives, lessons etc.) for my students out of my own pocket. Home school families aren't the only ones, parents who send their children to private schools have to pay tuition on top of the taxes they pay for public education. I imagine that most private schoolers don't mind paying double as long as they have the freedom to educate their children the way they see fit.

I said earlier that State Senator's Maloney is trying to cost the state more money. What I meant by that is that overseeing the annual registration of all the privately educated children in Illinois is going to cost the state money. Money, they currently don't have. Money that could be going to pay all the school districts what they owe them. Money that could be used to hire more teachers, fund more programs and decrease class sizes.



But instead of using tax dollars for the job of educating the public, it seems that Sen. Maloney would like some of our tax money to regulating the private and that frankly is not a sign I'd like to see.



Note: I am certainly not the only one blogging about this issue. Click here, here or here for more views.

To return to the carnival of homeschooling click here.

More evidence that sarcasm doesn't work on 5 year olds.

Friday Fragment time, which is an opportunity for me to throw together a few disconnected tidbits, thoughts and recollections of the week that was.











A few days ago Princess Puppy was on the other side of the door as me and I could not be interrupted, so I told her to wait a minute and not to come in. She just kept on trying to come in and tell me whatever problem she was having at that moment. I told her again to wait a minute and not to come in. She just kept jiggling the door handle and trying to come in and get my help. I finished what I was doing and impatience got the better of me as I said to her: "What part of wait a minute and do not come in don't you understand?". She thought about it a second and said "both."





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Today we were studying the digestive system in our anatomy class. Did you know that if you unwrapped your small intestine it would be 20 feet long? We decided to measure 20 feet out just to get a better understanding.

I like activities that help reinforce the words read from the page. Last week we were learning about the Israelites being deported to Assyria in 721 B.C. We learned that 27,290 Israelites in all were sent to Assyria. The text suggested that we take some small items like matchsticks, toothpicks, or buttons (we used coins) and group 100 of them together.


We even made our coins spell out 100. It really hits home how many Israelites that was when it would take almost 273 groups like we made to equal 27,290.



Much thanks to Linda Hobar and her fine Curriculum, The Mystery of History which has so many good activities like this to add to the lessons.

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This Friday and Saturday is the state robotics tournament. I have wanted for some time to describe my thoughts about Spider Droid's team advancing from sectionals. The sectional they were participating in was a double sectional. Meaning that 2 distinct sectionals were being held at the same time and location. with 15 teams in each sectional. At the beginning of the meet the organizer announced that instead of 3 teams advancing to state from each sectional as was customary, They had just found out that 4 teams each would advance.

The teams are evaluated in 4 categories. 1) Performance. 2) Research Project. 3)Teamwork and 4) Technical Excellence

In performance the team has their robots compete against other teams in 4 different heats. The teams are given a score for each heat and it is the best score of the 4 heats (not an average of all 4) that determines who wins. This is the only 1 of the categories where you know how you are doing as they post all the scores on a screen in the gym. Droids team got off to a great start and had the best score of both regionals in the first heat. They were not able to replicate that score in the subsequent heats and ended coming in third in their regional for performance.t

The other 3 categories are all based on judging. Before they announced the results the event organizer made it clear that coming in first in any of the categories does not assure a trip to state nor does not finishing first mean no trip.

This is all well and good. But as they made the announcements for the first place winners, I couldn't help thinking after their team wasn't announced as any of the category winners that this just wasn't their year. I remember thinking about taking droid to go see the state tournament and how much he would enjoy it. After a few "Honorable mention" type awards, which I was disappointed they didn't get, they announced the 4 state qualifiers in each region.

The first team they announced was his team, The Fanatix! I was in shock. I really haven't been that surprised since Amy threw me a surprise 40th birthday party some six years ago. Before I go on, I just want to say that I would have been fine (and Spider Droid more so) if they hadn't won. 30 teams met that day a week before Christmas and I would venture to say that each one had the time of their lives.

That being said, I still am so proud of my son and his team. I am pretty certain that this weekends competition will be the end of the line for the Fanatix, but Oh, what a ride it's been.

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That's all the fragments I have. For more, head back to half past kissin' time by clicking here.

One Last Christmas

Friday Fragment time is as easys as 1-2-3, Episode 123, that is. I have decided to save the title fragment for last because if you are anything like me you will be bawling so much you won't be able to defragment any of the other sundry items.

The 2006 2007 t.v season was the last season that we were able to watch television the old fashioned way (via airwaves). Since then t.v. shows have only been seen on the television via d.v.d's on the computer via sites such as hulu.The 2006 2007 season was the first of four seasons for the show heroes. For whatever reason, I didn't see any part of the show in it's 4 year run. In the past 3 weeks I watched every episode of season 1 on dvd's borrowed from our local library.

I just borrowed season 2 today, so I must have liked Season 1. I did. But it was certainly much different than imagined. I was thinking kind of a super heroes among us light hearted romp.

Light hearted? Not so much. As I watched each episode I was reminded of one of my favorite lines from City Slickers : "Let's think back on what we've buried so far."

Lots of death, lots of blood, lots of gore. I always had to watch it away from my children. It is strangely compelling and does use excellent storytelling. But come on guys, tone it down on the crazy watchmaker dude!
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There are some things I can't tell you, but there be some exciting in our home school lives in the coming future. Some of the stuff will probably not pan out, but I will tell you all about it when I am more free to talk about it. One thing I can say now, that I will be posting far less this month as Amy and I are going to be working on some book ideas.
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This week I discovered the most amazing teaching tool of all time, The Dry Erase Board.

It's amazing! It's revolutionary. If it only sliced and diced vegetables, I'd hawk it on late night television.

Seriously, it rocks. I use the 1 pictured above on the wall. I use a smaller one at the table. All the kids love using them. I am going to buy 2 or 3 more tomorrow. I was telling the kids the night before I bought them, about the concept of the parking lot. You know, where you put ideas and questions that you are going to get too later. When I brought the boards home the first thing Spider Droid wanted to do was start a parking lot.
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I was on facebook today when I saw a link for the video below. I usually don't watch videos on facebook as I am usually too busy playing Farkle and Tetris. I made an exception for this one and was moved to tears.

The video and the song are a tribute to the Locke family from Washington, Il. whose son Dax died from Leukemia Dec 30, 2010.



To find out more about this family click here. The Family is trying to raise 1.6 million dollars to donate to the hospital that treated for their son. The money would run the hospital for 1 day. To donate go to Matthew Wests site.

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That's all I have for today, fragmentally speaking for more Friday Fragments head over to Half Past Kissing Time.

Next Time: Six Word Saturday, The Video

You don't have to be Einstein.

To be 1 step ahead of the Holidays Half Past Kissing Time has started Friday Fragments early here are mine . . .

Our home school co-op ended this week. One of the teachers was teaching a physics class for 1st-3rd Graders. Earlier in the semester she asked me to speak the last week of the class as Albert Einstein.

So I donned a wig (cotton balls taped to a stocking cap) and my best German scientist accent and had a lot of fun with it.

It turns out you don't have to be Einstein to play Einstein. I was able to perform an experiment that illustrated what Einstein discovered about light having gravity.

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My parents came to the closing festivities for the co-op for the first time this year. I think it was the first time they ever got to see my kids in action in a true home school setting. I shared the emceeing duties with two of the speech classes. The presenters went up in pairs and they were very polished, so it had a real awards show feel to it. At the end of the evening I handed the microphone to puppy and she told this joke . . .

Who was the most important knight at the round table?Sir Cumference

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As I posted Sunday, Christmas shopping has seemed to begun in earnest all around us. If you make it out to the malls and big box stores take the sales advice with a grain of salt. I have noticed that some sales people through ignorance, poor listening skills, or just to sell more product don't always give correct product information.

For example, I wanted to buy Amy something she could listen to radio programs with when she is out and about. On several occasions we looked at ipods and we asked several associates if those ipods would play pod casts. Each time we were told no. Sometimes we were told that only a Zune would play pod casts, sometimes we were told that only an ipod touch would play them. Both those pieces of equipment cost more than what I had to spend on her birthday present. We then decided to just buy an old fashioned Walkman type radio and were told by an associate that the store no longer sold radios like that.

I walked back to where they "used to be" located anyway. They were still there and we bought out. We found out later that day through the miracle that is Facebook. That ipods do indeed play pod casts. (I mean they are called "pod" casts for a reason.)

I marched (figuratively) back to the store returned the Walkman radio, and proceeded to buy Amy an ipod; at a different store.

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Those are all the fragments I have. I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving. For More Friday Fragments click here.

Helpful Homeschool Hints on a sick day

Last night I had essentially a sleepless night caused by food poisoning or some other malady. It could have been just a suppressed memory of an episode I watched of the Partridge Family when I was a kid. I mean that show stunk! If I were an Atheist, I would use the fact that the Partridge Family ran so long (4 seasons in prime time and several more in syndication) as proof of the nonexistence of God. So whether food induced, bad 70's t.v. memories caused or some other reason. I spent the evening in a feverish, retching state. When Amy went off to work this morning, I was feeling a little better, but still exhausted from the ordeal. All this serves as an introduction to a new meme debuting today called Helpful Homeschool Hints hosted at Many Little Blessings. Even though the weather is currently 11 feet tall and at 6'1 I am still firmly under it, I want to take some time this afternoon to give a hint based on my current predicament and experience.

My Helpful Homeschool Hint:

On a day when you are unwell , take care of yourself.

I think whether working outside or inside the home, everyone has had several nights like the one described above. Perhaps, a sick baby or a phone call regarding the sickness or death of a loved one was to blame rather than just being sick yourself. But, no matter what caused it, there is sometimes a feeling that that no matter what you had planned for the day must continue regardless of your incapacity to proceed. You force yourself into the shower, and then will yourself to whatever needs be accomplished that day.

I know from my own experience that such resolve doesn't usually have the results intended. When I worked outside the home, I had several times when I dragged myself to work sick as a dog, often in bad weather. Just to have to take a sick day anyway 2 hours or less after I came in (usually feeling sicker and driving home in worse weather.)

This also has happened in my role as the home educator. I just try to accomplish whatever was planned and usually the day goes well for no one.

Today, while I harbored some misconceptions of getting some school done. I knew that I needed to lay down for at least an hour or so. I put on a couple of episodes of the Old Electric Company and told the kids to check on me when those two episodes were done.

That hour or so turned out to be 5 hours. I woke up a few times but never had to get out of bed. In between sleeping, they did some educating of themselves. Besides Electric Company (grammar and phonics) I overheard them playing Monopoly and Risk (Math and Logic) emptying the dishwasher and making their own lunch (Home Ec.) While they were eating lunch they were performing "The Book Report" from A GOOD MAN CHARLIE BROWN. (Drama and music appreciation). It was like my sickness turned them into a pseudo unschooled classroom for the morning.

A couple of disclaimers need to be mentioned at this time.

1) If you home educate very young children, sick children, or special needs kids, such a morning would not be possible without the assistance of an older sibling or a friend or relative to intervene.

Even a year ago, Puppy (Almost 5) would not have allowed me 5 uninterrupted hours no matter my condition. She is just beginning to stop operating on the "I'm up, so you need to be up" model.

2) It hasn't all been bonbons and Mallomars this morning. (Aside from the fact, that I haven't been able to contemplate actually putting food into my system yet.) Even as I was writing this, I had to intervene in a breach of contract issue between my little game players.

With that being said, my helpful hint remains . . . When you are sick or otherwise encumbered, allow some flexibility in your plans and allow your students the ability to demonstrate some of the life lessons you are teaching them.

For More Helpful Homeschool Hints click here.

Keith Time: A Mother's Memory Part II

The Great Pizza Battle

The basic idea is to share a number of different tidbits that you'd generally not waste a whole post with. It's kind of like my old 3 Things Thursday meme, except it's on Friday, and people read it.

I thought I'd begin these fragments with some local flavor. The Chicago area is renowned for it's great pizza. When we moved to this town 9 years ago, we found a great local pizza place. Local, it's actually only a block from our house. It's a really cool place with a hunting lodge decor. The pizza is great, but they also have great hot dogs and polish sausage. They have complimentary peanuts and insist you throw the shells on the floor.

I don't know all of the exact details that led to the situation I am about to describe. I have heard many conflicting reports, so I am going to be vague to insure I don't pass on misinformation. The pizza place was located in a small complex that includes a hair salon and 7-11. Last year the owners of the pizza place bought the two houses across the street, and had them razed. I thought at the time that this was merely an expansion. In truth the restaurant had let its lease run out and was rebuilding across the street.

A few months later a new pizza place opened in the old one's former location. It was started by a former employee, who wanted to have a place of his own. I tried it a couple of times. The secret to a good pizza, is the sauce. This sauce was not close to the quality of the former tenants.

This summer the building of the new establishment started in earnest. Yesterday they opened. Now we have two pizza places a block's walk from our house. The only time I have ever seen two pizza places so close to each other is in downtown Chicago, and those are generally filled up with tourists. Our small suburb doesn't get a lot of tourists. It's just going to be a short time until there is only 1 pizza place on the block again. I'll keep you posted.


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This week we are finishing up our ed 5 week study called Passport to India. It was a Sonlight class and everyone really liked it. Each session we watched a video like this one. We collected $25.00 for Bible Clubs in India. This would generally allow 25 Indian children to attend bible clubs. Sonlight matched our gift, which will allow another 25 children to attend.


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We play a lot of games in our family. One game we really like is Mastermind. For a game that reinforces logical thinking, the box is packaged most inefficiently. In the olden days (when I was a kid), the mastermind game which has a rectangular shape, had a box to match. These days they have put the rectangular game in a square box. The packaging was obviously not designed by a master mind!

Speaking of which, the blog Thrifty Jinxy is giving away a Mastermind game and a new game called Animal Mastermind (I'm not sure how that one is packaged.) Click here to enter the contest.





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Those are all the fragments, I have for you today. Make sure to hop on over to all the other particpating blogs.



Keith Time: The International Impact of Keith Part I

The Dirt on Homeschooling.

My wife had a cool idea for a meme. She called it bloggers' remorse. The basic idea instead of talking the pretty stuff, the cool stuff, the things that WORK for their families. You talk about what doesn't work. For example,what really stinks about home schooling? What are the horror stories too awful to mention for the world to see?

This can be a challenge. It's so easy to post about the good stuff, the funny stuff, the cute stuff, the really cool stuff. Today, I want to talk about the not so pretty side of homeschooling.

Like having a 4 year old, outread your 9 year old. (More on that later.) Or, something our family is struggling with lately is a clean vs. dirty house. I'm not talking about piles of books, piles of clothes, piles of papers, etc. I'm talking about DIRT! When my wife was homeschooling, she was in the process of training the children to follow routines for cleaning, schoolwork, cooking, etc. (Read my lips B O R I NG!!) When I started homeschooling, I tried to do what she did. But one problem. I'm not her. I wanted to have fun, teach the children cool stuff, enjoy being with them 24-7. And I do enjoy all those things. But there's still a lot of dirt. Now, left to my own devices, I wouldn't mind a little dirt here and there. Neither would the kids. However, funny thing happens every day between 3:30 and 4:00 pm. My wife comes home from work. When she walks in the door, the first thing she sees is...you guessed it...DIRT. So I've tried to cut down on the school work and attack the dirt before she gets here, which frustrates me because, I didn't get as much "school" done as I wanted to. So either way, I am frustrated when she walks in the door, and sometimes I bark at her. And she barks back, and starts ordering the kids around. Clear off the table! Sweep the floor! Scrub the bathroom! Clean up after the bunny. So, at times in our dogless home, there is barking going on. We need to work on this. My first thought is, anyone selling a dog? If that doesn't work, we will need a magical homeschool genie to swoop down and show us the three easy steps to obtaining a clean home while homeschooling three active, creative, children. Until that happens, we're going to work on speaking to each other with kindness and love. And maybe, sweeping a little of that dirt, under the rug.

Keith Time: Amy Remembers Keith Part I

First 4 weeks of new school year

At the beginning of the 2010 2011 school year I decided to write weekly journal entries about what was going on at school. I decided to post those at one of my other blogs, Izola Becker Home School. Last week I became aware that a blog I follow, Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers has a weekly feature where you can link up weekly summaries such as mine called Weekly Wrap-up

I have decided to make my weekly summaries available on this blog as well. Every 4 weeks or so I'll put the most recent ones in a post.
















Here are the first 4.

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4



Next Time: Six Word Saturday

What is eighteen pounds of intervention worth?

They say an ounce of intervention is worth a pound of cure. Well today I received 288 ounces of intervention in the mail. That is to say I received an 18 pound package containing Saxon Phonics Intervention. This is the program that Spider Droid and I are going to work through this school year. Now if an ounce of intervention is worth a pound of cure, then 288 ounces should be worth 4608 pounds of intervention. That's more than 2.3 tons of intervention. I'll let you know if it's enough.

Next Time: Time Travel or Ipods whichever comes first.

A strange request for a day off.

We took yesterday off school as is our custom on a child's birthday. We spent the morning at my folks house where I am helping my him with some grunt work on their new deck (I grunt expertly). As we were packing what we wanted to bring over to my folks house the kids came to me with a strange request. Bunny Girl served as spokesperson.


"I know we don't do school tomorrow, but is it okay if we bring Handwriting Without Tears?"



We didn't end up getting to it, but it still shows a drastic shift in handwriting instruction at our home school. My children hate to write. They would rather (insert gross disgusting boring or painful activity here. Ex: Have their hair set on fire) than practice their handwriting.


So last year at the home school convention my wife bought Handwriting Without Tears books for all 3 of them. I was skeptical. Skeptical? No, I was dubious. Dubious? I was more apprehensive. Apprehensive doesn't quite do it either. I was thinking, my kids will be the kids who make Handwriting without tears change their name. I thought that when we are done with it, it would have to be called "Handwriting Without Tears except for students at the Izola Becker Home School, they cry quite frequently".




The truth is the kids love it, as their desire to do it on a non school day attests. It is very easy. My 4 year old, 8 year old and eleven year old all work independently and often ask to do another page. Today they enjoyed it so much they broke into whistling. I immediately got the camera out and took some footage.

I can see that the kids are getting better with their handwriting and this is just the second week.

Here are some examples of their progress. . .

The simplicity of the instrtuction and the compelling illustrations make this one of the best programs I have ever used. I would recommend it highly to anyone who might be looking for a handwriting curriculum. Handwriting without Tears works for me. Unless of course you like tears, then you may have to try something else.

For more Works for Me Wednesday head over to We Are That Family. For more of this week's Carnival of Homeschooling click here.

Next Time: The Time Traveler's Wife.

Blog Class

Three Weeks left until school starts!






I am starting to get ready for our home school co-op for this fall. I will be teaching a class on blogging and yes I have been consulting the above referenced book for a few pointers. One thing I will be emphasizing in the class is Internet safety. I will be instructing my students not to use their own names on their blogs. To that end, I will be no longer using the names of my children and replacing them with nicknames. My oldest will be called by the not surprising moniker, bunny girl. My son will be known as Spider Droid to combine his love for Star Wars and his previous passion for Spiderman. My daughter with the penchant for Lucyisms will be referred to as Princess puppy. (Lucyisms will be referred to as puppyisms)



I blog using blogger and will be teaching my students this platform. One of the things I like about blogging is the ease of removing or editing previous posts from blogosphere. In the weeks to come, I will be editing past posts and replacing the kids names with their nicknames.

I am excited about the class. I have created a new blog just for the class, but will still be linking things here as well.



Next Time: Blah Blah Blogging

Charlie goes to school

Five weeks left until school starts!

Charlie started a 4 week summer school class at our local public school today. It is 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. He is not yet reading at grade level. Last summer we had him tutored by a special ed teacher and that really seemed to help. We are hoping for some good results from this class as well.

Charlie has never been part of a daily classroom learning environment before. The local school understands that this is just for the summer and has been very accomodating.

When we walked in the school this morning there was a piece of artwork in the entryway. It is a picture of a tiger cub frolicing. Besides the tiger are the words: children are not things to mold, they are people to unfold.

Emma used to have Girl Scouts at that school, so I have seen that poster before. But today, the first day I was entrusting my child to its care I got to thinking as to what that saying means.

My first thought is that pithy sayings like that are more for molding than unfolding. My second thought was the unequal word association with molding and unfolding. If you choose to mold some one's character than that person is a thing; but if you are going to let them unfold then they are a person. My third thought was that this phrase would seem like the credo of an unschooling advocate and thought of what strange bedfellows unschooling advocates and public school administrators make.

I think parenting and any other type of educating is part molding and part unfolding. My kids are all different with different strengths, interests and abilities. Some of those abilities need to be unfolded or in my words, unwrapped. Other character traits need to be molded or in my words, modeled to my students.

I will post more about Charlie's progress as his class unfolds. Sorry I couldn't resist.

Next Time: Book Reviews and plenty of 'em.

Skills Round Up

Six weeks left until school starts!

Howdy Homeschool Pardners! How are your doggies getting along now that summer's breaking at your home school on the range?

Well lissen up cowpokes. I want to tell ya something we use during the summer to make sure we don't have any strays when we start driving facts and figures in the fall.

It's called Skills Round Up and it works for us. But lissen up City Slickers, how ya say it. It is not pronounced skills round-up. It's skeeeeeeeeeels round up. Plus when ya say it, you have to motion with your hands like your throwin' a lasso. That is, if you don't have your own lasso to throw.

Okay, Buckaroos here's whatcha do! Perty much once a week during the summer, gather up at the table and review some of the stuff you've learned in the past. Amy likes to put 'em through their paces in state capitols, continents and Bible verses. You can do it with just 'bout anything from historic dates to the periodic table. I think they call it the periodic table cause you have to review it periodically.

The nice thing about skills round up is you can do it any time, anywhere. In the back 40, in the van, in the store, anywhere! All the prep work is on the parents end (Amy can never remember that French fella that's the capitol of South Dakota.)

So, the next time things are slowing down on the home school ranch, mosey up to your tool kit and pull out your lasso and skeeeeeeeeels round up!

Howdy WFMW folks. Skeels rounds up works for me. It can work for you whether you home school or not. To find out what else is working. head over to We Are That Family.

If you are stopping by from the Carnival of Homeschooling click here to mosey back.

Next Time: Tennis Anyone?

Surprise, Surprise. I'm pro home-schooling.

It's Men's Monday Meme time again at families again.

Here are his questions:


What do you all think? Have some (perhaps most) public schools become to corrupt ~ socially and educationally ~ for Christian children to go to? Should we go back to the way of our founding fathers and teach our children at home? What about Christina schools?

With a blog by the name of Home School Dad, I think you can get an idea of what kind of response you might get from me. It should come as no big surprise that home schooling is what we think works best for our family. Many people mistakenly think that we began home education because we thought something was wrong with public education. We started home education because we saw it in practice and thought we would enjoy doing it and thought our children would benefit from it. It turns out we were right.

Over our journey we have had experiences that have both given us respect for public educators and also a deep desire not to have our children in the public education system.

My wife works at a public school as a school psychologist. Over her career she has observed hundreds of teachers in public class rooms. (Technically she's there observing students but the teachers are doing their thing as well. ) Amy says experiences like this have been few and far between. She says that the vast majority of teachers have been interesting and engaging.



Also we have both noticed the great dedication these public school teachers have for their subjects and their students. Recently I was allowed to attend a multi-day training being given at Amy's school for a SRA program called Reading Mastery. Amy was already attending and thought it would give me good ideas for teaching the children reading. The experience was a very positive one, as I did learn many helpful strategies for teaching reading. I was also exposed to teachers, psychologists and paraprofessionals (previously referred to as teacher's aides) throughout the district. Some of the attendees were not getting paid for the training. Their dedication to their students was easily observed.



Conversely, Amy has noted that evolution as fact, is weaved throughout the fabric of the curriculum and instruction at the (K-8) public school where she works. She has also observed a teacher (who happens to be Buddhist) really pushing Buddhism during a world religions segment in a Social Studies class. She says such proselytizing is infrequent but more frequent than the uncaring teacher experience cited above.



As for Christina schools I am not sure what Tim from Families Again meant by that. Did he mean schools that were taught solely by teachers name Christina? Or is it schools that are taught only to students name Christina? Or is the subject matter about Christinas? In junior high could you take an elective about Kristy McNichol or is it just Christinas? Again I am not sure, so I can not comment on that kind of school.



One type of school that was not asked about was Christian schools. That does seem to be a common question when Christians talk about home schooling is what about Christian schools. I wonder why Tim didn't ask about that?

For our family, Christian School is not an adequate replacement for home education. Remember, that the main reason why we were drawn to the movement was the participatory nature. Sure, we'd be dropping off our kids to Christians (not necessarily Christinas) but we'd still be dropping them off.

I like where were at: 4 days of educating the kids at home and 1 day of bringing several home school families together in a co-op experience where the students can benefit from the expertise of other parents.

So that's the Men's Monday Meme for the week. Feel free to stop by at Families Again to join in.

Next Time: The Bundergorund Railroad

Conventional Wisdom

I have decided to blend this edition of things fortnightly with a long promised synopsis of the Home School Convention I was at earlier this month. So, here are a few things I learned at the 2010 I.C.H.E (Illinois Christian Home Educators) Conference.

Thing 1: Be Careful out there.

A friend of mine was a seminar speaker at the conference.

He spoke about identity theft and on-line safety. Did I mention he was a police officer? I am planning to have him be a guest speaker at a blogging class I am offering at my co-op this year. Hopefully we can work all the arrangements out. I plan to interview him later this Summer and feature that interview here.

Here is a bit of what he had to say at the conference. . .



I have learned quite a bit from him already on Internet safety and as a result will be implementing some changes in this blog in the near future.

Thing 2: Pass the catch up.

One of the best things about the conference is seeing old friends. Between people from our co-op, our church, we were running into friends from other places we lived, college and even saw a co-worker of Amy's that we did not know home schooled. These "chance" meetings are real energizers and encourager's. Maybe next year I'll run into my Aunt Eileen!

Thing 3: Tongue Tied

I had the opportunity to work off some of the cost of the conference by working behind the scenes at the conference. One of these jobs was by working as a "host" to seminar speakers. Basically what I do is introduce myself to the speaker 20 or so minutes before they speak and make sure they have everything they need. During the talk I make sure that the place is quiet as all of the talks are being recorded. I was very happy that I was assigned to host a seminar that Dr. Voddie Baucham, a keynote speaker at the conference was speaking at. I spoke with Him briefly on 2 occasions before his address. I had been planning to tell Him how much I enjoyed his work. This was the third conference I had heard him speak at. I also wanted to tell Him how much I enjoyed the book of His that I read. I had even thought about telling Him that I was going to be blogging a review of it soon and give him my business card. But alas I clammed up, which is extremely uncommon for me. I'm not even sure that I told Him my name. Maybe next time.

Thing 4. Guess which one did not speak at the conference.

A conference is a good place to hear quotes. Either quotes speakers attribute to others, or direct quotes from the speaker themselves.

Here are 3 quotes I heard at the conference. Try to guess which speaker was not there in person?

• Museums are the secular temples of our day- Bill Jack

• God says don't walk sit or stand (with sinners) and we say how about marriage? Voddie Baucham

• A pious spouse is a s necessary as a sound arm or leg. - Martin Luther.

Before you answer please be aware that George Washington Carver was announced as one of the speakers.

You were correct if you said Martin Luther. As for GWC, there was a man there who impersonated Carver. I was unable to go to the seminar which was a little disappointing since my daughter had just finished reading a biography about Him.

Thing 5: I'll take History for 300 . (It actually was not that much.)

As I've mentioned previously. One of our big expenditures each year is buying curriculum at the Home School Conference. Some of the stuff we just pick up at the conference and others is delivered to our house a week or two after the conference is over. We are trying out some new curricula this fall and continuing with others. One new thing that looks really promising is called the Mystery of History. Parts of it were offered at our co-op this year and though none of my children participated, it seemed pretty cool. We are doing the ancient history unit this coming year. The more I review the materials the more psyched I am for the class to begin.

Well those are some things I wanted to share from the convention. If you have things you want to talk about it. (How Fred Rogers of me) please join in below.

Next Time: A Good Book.

How to handle stress

Tim of Families Again checked in again with this week with some good questions for the Men's Monday Meme:

How do you deal with stress? Is there really a good way to do it? Is there a Biblical way? Is there a medical way?

Generally I don't deal with stress well. There are basically 2 ways to deal with stress outside of the biblical way externalize it or internalize it. Basically to me that means give yourself high blood pressure or give it to someone else. I tend to do both. This past month my daughter has been learning the biblical antidote to stress found in the 23rd Psalm:

1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.3 He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows.6 Surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Such a simple stress reliever! I remember a comic strip I read the year I graduated High School. It was the comic strip Kudzu by the late Doug Marlette. The real star of the strip was the Reverend Will B. Dunn. In this particular strip Dunn is reading the 23rd Psalm in a modernized version. He reads: The Lord is my therapist. I shall not freak out.

Funny at the time, but actually a pretty good dynamic equivalent translation. I tend to freak out a lot while trying to educate my children. God's "therapy" is to restore my soul.

One way to increase stress in your life is to put undue and arbitrary pressures on yourself and family. Sometimes we can even take the things in our life that relieve stress and twist them in a way that increases stress. For example, I noticed that Tim of Families again is a daily blogger and part of NABLOPOMO (National Blog Posting Month). In my second month of blogging, February 2009, I tried my hand at NABLOPOMO and it was horrible for me. I felt under so much pressure to blog each and every day. No one forced me to blog each day, but I took that stress on.

These days my blog is what I intended it to be a creative and emotional outlet. It's been almost a week in between posts. I have plenty of topics I want to get to, but I am not putting that extra stress on myself or my family. To See this Weeks Men's Monday Meme click here.

Next Time: Schemers