Now, now, now, now, now

Now, I am all for homeschooling. I've been doing it for umpteen years and have taught a few kids how to read and write plus count past their toes. But I must confess, that big yellow school bus gets very tempting at times. Like this week ... as we are braving the class room to dig through curriculum books to prepare for a new scholastic year. Everyone was all excited last week when we were just talking about the pencil sales and structured schedules and filling the snack tote for busy days. But when the work begins and they have to actually start using those new pencils the tune seems to change.

I had three nearly in tears already yesterday. You know it's going to be a doozey of a year when one certain child is surprised that you take away their calculator for a third grade math placement test. I keep trying to encourage them that the death of their brother is a good excuse for having missed out on a few math concepts, and who really needs to know what "x" is anyway? Just how important is algebra? Their God knowledge is astounding, right up there with faith and trust in the Almighty. I am trying to keep it all in perspective.

I have decided to try a new writing program this year for everybody. It's called Writing Strands. It is a multi-age curriculum, with eight varying levels that give a home schooling mother hope that her offspring just may master story telling before they graduate. There happen to be a couple kiddos in our home who don't embrace the written word like their mother does, but after reading through the first lesson plan for the third to seventh grade level I think this program just might work for us. Lesson 1 is very simple: write a two word sentence:

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{After giving the example of a two word sentence "Bill ran" the instructions tell the student:}

You're going to write a two word sentence. Write it on other paper.

Did you write a two-word sentence? If your two-word sentence starts with Bill and ends with ran, write one on a different paper using different words. If you didn't start with Bill and end with ran, don't write another sentence.

Wait! Read that paragraph again. You must do exactly what it says. If you're in any doubt about what it means, tap yourself lightly on the nose - and read it again.

{Room to write another sentence.}

If you wrote "Bill ran," read the paragraph again. If you wrote a two-word sentence that starts with a person or a place or a thing and ends with an action word, you might have written a good sentence.

Tell your parent that you're at the end of day one. Did you do it? DO IT!
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I think Mr. Dave Marks has taught a child or two how to write before. Starting with a two word sentence begins a year long journey into character development, point of view, and paragraph control with a few laughs and hopefully less stress and nagging than we've had in previous attempts.

Ready or not, homeschool year 2012-2013 is about ready to begin.