Bits and Pieces

We're all sick here. The Boy is mostly on the mend and The Baby is just argumentative and crabby - so her regular self - and The Girl cheerfully skipped over the worst of it - but I have an ominous rattle in my chest and feel rather O Death Where Is Thy Sting-ish, so I'm being cautious with my delicate self. And we all got sick on Our Big Trip this weekend, of course, which meant an emergency detour to my in-laws camp which - are you ready for horror? - DOES NOT HAVE PLUMBING.

So there we were - sick kids, outhouse, rain - and we went to Great-Grandpa's Canada Day picnic and the kids fished and fished and FISHED in the Magical Fishing Pond (25 cents got you a giant squirt gun and a box of markers) until we dragged them away, lecturing them that there were other kids who wanted to fish, too.

"Where?" they asked, innocently. But them cottagers showed up with kids in tow and the great-grandchildren of other very old people came and once again great-grandpa's tiny village rang with the voices of children. They had ice cream cones and hot dogs and rode on floats in the parade and at the end of the day all of the children packed up the squirt guns and the bags of soldiers and the little dolls with combs and left the village to the very old and the rain.



There were these HUGE nests all over the place, made out of stark sticks and perched on top of really high hydro poles. The Boy and I shrieked Stop The Car! Stop The Car! and tried to take pictures of the craning birds, the rugged nests and the above picture was the best of an unimpressive lot. The giant birds flew over the water and over the trees, complaining, while people stopped their trucks and gawked up at this amazing thing just over their head.

Midsummer's Day

How did the fairy houses go over?
Here, let me tell you.

Midsummer's Eve

I woke up unfevered this morning. I got up, tentatively, thinking "And how do we feel this morning?" like my own brisk nurse and realized with a start that the answer was - finally - much better. I actually left the house today! It was disturbingly thrilling.

I used to think of myself as a poet, since that's what I wrote and all. I thought of myself as a writer before I had a blog and I think of myself as a writer, still. But. I used to like hugging the secret of writing to me and now there's nothing secret at all: I'm just one of many.

We change. We do not always like what we change into.

When I realized this morning that I was no longer sick, that the fever had gone, I carefully made my way to the mirror to see how I looked after several days of sickness. And the answer was, of course, "pretty gross." But a quick shower fixed that and now I look like my regular self again - a little tired, maybe, a little pale - but my own self, in my own skin.

We are going to spend tonight building a fairy house outside - if the thunderstorm that's coming doesn't - and tonight the fairies will descend upon their new houses, filling them up with glass animals and wooden beads and then we'll be in the feverish haze of summer for weeks and weeks, flowers and travels and berries clutched in little juice-stained hands and then things will change again.

A post all about bears

... actually, it's not that much about bears, really. But it IS a post.
Here it is!

Random Post

The boy wanted a DSi for ages and we did NOT want him to have one. Oh, we certainly let him play enough computer games and we have a well-used Wii, but getting a DSi seemed like another thing altogether.

He could get one, we said, if he saved up the money for it. And then we sat back, smug and certain that our house would never have a DSi it.

It came in the mail today, to his immense delight. “Write your post on it!” he told me and so I am typing out this post on the tiny little keyboard, to his elaborate amusement.

Final Homeschooling Report Card

We're done for the year! The Boy finished up all of his work! Except for a little bit of math, which he is working diligently on and The Baby finished all of HER work ages ago, so I thought I'd try and write some big Summary Of Our Homeschooling Year post. In no particular order:

1) I have a new appreciation for what schools bring to kids.
I really do.

For one thing, they provide a structured, safe environment where kids can GO all day long. And for some kids, like my oldest, this is the very best thing for them, the place where they can thrive. I am REALLY grateful for schools right now. My oldest kid is happy and thriving and I am relieved and pleased.

Schools also provide something else: they let kids know, swiftly and brutally, what other people will not tolerate. And this is, I think, a good thing for the most part - but it becomes a bad thing when the mores of the school are NOT the mores of the parents or of broader society as a whole and the child gets caught in the middle. See: small rural northern town; limited expectations for young boys.

2) There are lots of totally crappy homeschooling supplies out there.
I AM NOT KIDDING.

I'm also not going to link to any one product in particular, because most of these astonishingly crappy things are made by individuals. But I have more than a few completely useless books/programs/curriculum lining my shelves now and I worry about the quality of education that some kids are getting.

Also: if you want to be really, really disturbed, go read any big homeschooling forum for a while. OH MY GOSH. I read this one woman and her large brood of children had never had any exposure to art or music and I think the oldest was about 14. Did the rest of the forum think that was okay?

*weeps*

(This is from my mom, who taught for 30+ years: art and music are EASY to incorporate. Here's one way: Once a week, play a classical cd (borrowed from the library) for the kids. Tell them who wrote it and when. Give them a different kind of art supply - one week crayons, the next watercolours, the next playdough - and ask them to make art that matches the mood of what they're hearing. Voila. Recorders are cheap and easy to teach, most libraries have cheerful art history books for kids and dollar stores are full of art supplies. There's not a big excuse for skimping something that kids find so meaningful, even if you're not artistically inclined at all.)

AND what is WITH pre-packaged curriculums? I get lots of catalogs from various companies offering a whole year of school nicely boxed up for exorbitant prices. One popular company, for example, will send me a curriculum for The Boy and The Baby for around $1500 and that is WITHOUT math, science, art, music or languages. Good grief. AND this company - which is EXTREMELY popular - is also extremely American, so a Canadian child educated through them will learn history with an American slant AND without knowing ANYthing about their own history. My Canadian kids are going to know about voyageurs and Terry Fox and John A. MacDonald and Loyalists and Tommy Douglas and Confederation and Laura Secord and Habitants, thanks, and any Canadian kid being raised to think that some other country's history is more important than their own is being FREAKING SHORT-CHANGED. Canadian kids need to learn Canadian history and have spelling books with Her Majesty's U's left in them.

There are lots of cheerful homeschooling books out there, assurring people that "any mother can homeschool" but that is NOT true. You have to really be cheerfully willing to give up pretty much all of your time to homeschool (note my lack of blogging this past year. I HAVE NO TIME ANYMORE.) AND you have to be able to organize your time (digression: I thought I would have a HUGE issue with that, but it turned out not to be a problem. I AMAZED myself!) AND you have to be honest to yourself about your own biases and shortcomings AND you have to actually LOVE spending all day, every day with your kids. It's unfair to homeschool them otherwise.

3) People Have Been Quite Supportive.

Homeschooling is a fairly mainstream option in some places, but here, it's still relatively uncommon. We've yet to run into any negative opinions, though (well, sort of. A relative of my mother's - an educational superintendent of some sort - said to me "Homeschooling? Oh God, those kids never turn out well. At least you're reasonably smart. Maybe your kids will have a chance." So very positive! But my brother has some formerly homeschooled kids in his class, and he reports that they're all lovely, well-mannered, smart and popular. So my mom's relative MIGHT just be bitter.). Most people we know think it's a fine idea, though, which is nice.

My Brother The Teacher has really been amazingly supportive - he's an inventive, fun teacher and he's shared a lot of ideas with me that The Boy has really enjoyed. His writing ideas have been SO much better than any purchased curriculum I've found.... actually, he should write a book. PHONING HIM RIGHT NOW.

My mom has also been a lot of help - when I was overwhelmed, she would actually TAKE THEM AND THEIR WORKBOOKS AWAY FOR THE DAY - so obviously, I've been very, very lucky.

4) My Boy Is Happy Again

Last year at this time, he was a miserable first grader and we were VERY VERY worried about him. I still remember going to bed feeling just sick every night and then forcing him off to school in the morning and now he is HAPPY when he wakes up.

"I feel like I was in jail and you got me out," he told me.

*SOBS*

5) When Homeschooling Supplies Are Good, They Are Really Good

REALLY REALLY GOOD.

I have LOVED all of the curriculum we've ordered from Pandia Press - their science programs are solid, interesting, and experiment-based and their history program is WONDERFUL.

Both of the programs were VERY time-intensive, but I love history and The Boy loves science, so it was a great fit. We did lots of fun, quirky projects and experiments - we built a ziggurat! And we experimented with exothermic explosions! - and it was a really great basis for our year.

Did I like anything else that we used? Uhh... we used Singapore Math, which I know a lot of people are divided on, but it was a perfect fit for The Boy who is FIENDISHLY gifted at math and who only needed the briefest of introductions to ideas to get them. He's going right into Teaching Textbooks grade 4 level next year - I think - but we're going to stick with Singapore Math for The Baby, I think. Maybe.

6) You Should See How Well The Boy And The Baby Get Along Now!
They're like a brother and a sister in a freaking STORYBOOK! It's MAGIC! The Girl feels somewhat left out, so much of my non-homeschooling time is spend having Quality Time with her, but hey. She's a good kid.

So. In conclusion, this is what I've thought about homeschooling so far: It's eaten up all my time (and most of my money), I sometimes buy Acclaimed Homeschooling Supplies and then toss them in a rage across the room because THEY ARE KREP and my kids - all three of them, including the one who is NOT homeschooled - are happy. The end.

Hiya!

Today's post is right here. It's me trying to work out how I feel about the Baby's food issues and my hard hard life and the fact that crazy people sometimes send me trollish emails.



Other than that? Things are good but a bit hectic. The Boy is trying to finish up ALL of his remaining work before summer starts in THREE WEEKS, so that's been eating up vast chunks of my time. Maybe in three weeks I will become a BLOGGING MACHINE again. Maybe my Caps Lock key will fall right off my computer and I will NEVER BE ABLE TO WRITE AGAIN. Who knows?