Since I posted a while back about a customer that questioned my decision to homeschool I thought I'd post about a different customer that applauded the decision. William was reading his science book - we are studying matter, molecules and atoms and such - and I was activating this customer's phone. I'd given William some things to read because as he was discovering that atoms make molecules he wanted to know what made an atom? I had no clue, so I went to ask.com and typed in "What is an atom?" and found a great site that discussed this very thing. So I printed off some pages for him to read while I finished this customer's activation. He read a little while and she asked what grade he was in. I told her 4th grade. She asked if he was ahead of others. I told her that he was doing similar things as my neice for 4th grade work, I can't really say if he's *ahead* of her or not. She said that she believed he would be ahead before long. She was happy I was homeschooling and enjoyed that William was able to ask a question and find out the answer instead of being told *Don't worry about that, all you need to know is that atoms make molecules.*

BTW - atoms are made of quarks and something else...I forget. I need to find the papers :) Oh, and from our little jaunt from last time about calendars we found out what an equinox is. It's when there is equal hours of daylight and dark. Scott's birthday, September 22, was the fall equinox. We've also been enjoying watching the moon change phases all month and seeing how it corresponds to the calendar.

Since this is a homeschool blog I guess I need to post last week's school accomplishments :)

We were slowed down due to the weather. Public schools were closed for 2 days so we didn't do school either. I was still working, even with the rain and wind, so William was here with my neice so nothing was getting done.

Copywork - did 1 day

Math - Finished review of subtraction and began place value

Science - reading about the 3 states of matter. William created a volcano with his dad last week. You can see pictures on my family website.

History - This country of ours - read chapters 7 & 8, drew a picture for narration. It will be on the site this week.

Biography - read a chapter of Poor Richard.

Geography - 3 pages of Kon Tiki, one chapter of Minn of the Mississippi.

Literature - read chapter 3 of Robinson Crusoe and 4 chapters of Princess & the Goblin. We are enjoying Princess... and wondering what will happen in the upcoming chapters.

Karate - skipped last week, one day forgot and the other due to weather.

English / Grammar - continued letter writing in a friendly letter format.

Today is also asked about who began dividing the hours into 60 minute increments and such so we did a search on Ask Jeeves for calendar information. We found an interesting site that discussed all the changes the calendar has gone through and discussed what it would have been like in Roman times when the calendar was changed all the time. I didn't know that England and the American colonies didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until the 18th century. I thought all of that had been worked out long before.

It was an interesting discussion and reading. This is why I enjoy homeschooling. I learn a lot.

I live in a small town. I like my small town. I've lived here since I was 8 and my parents have lived here and their parents lived here and on and on. Recently we've gotten a lot of people that are new to the area. The hospital has changed hands again, we have the prosthetics company that has brought in new people, and some people from Atlanta that don't like living in the city has decided to purchase homes in this area. When ever we meet new people we are very happy they've chosen to live here. We love it here and let them know that. Yes, we are a small town. No, we don't have a movie theater. Most stores aren't open past 8, 6 on Sunday, and they close early on Wednesday and Saturday. We are surrounded by lovely mountains and trees, we have deer and flowers and nice weather. Yes, we just got DSL service in the past year. Sometimes you can't get cable here and sometimes not even satellite, depending on where you live. Sometimes the cellphone service doesn't work well. We are not in a large city. We are in the country and we are rural and laid back. That doesn't mean we don't care and don't want to help, but if someone is new here they expect everything to be exactly as it was in their big city. They want a restaurant or club to be open at 1am. Well, head to the Huddle House then. They want the cellphone to pick up at the bottom of a mountain or down at the river. Sorry, it's not going to happen, especially if you have the new tiny camera phones. They want to see a first run movie. Well, you can, if you drive 30 miles away. But this is what you do get - you get the ability to leave your door unlocked while you run to the store. You get the ability to listen to the crickets at night instead of traffic. You get to see the stars instead of tall buildings and lights. You get to meet your neighbors when they bring over tomatoes off the vine to share with you. So for anyone that doesn't like my small town they can head on back to the city. And if small town living is what you like, then come on down, sit on the deck with a glass of tea or lemonade or coffee, listen to the crickets and the frogs, find Saturn and Jupiter with the telescope, and enjoy the peace.

*Inspired by Mr. Cellphone Customer who works at the hospital at the foot of a mountain and can't be satisfied and says that in this town you can't get cr*p*

Congratulations to Carol and Family on the birth of their new little boy. You can see the pictures over at Carol's Storybook

Tulip Girl has a link to an article about how homeschooling robs children. Visit her site to read the article and add your comments.

Routon Family Homepage


I've updated my family website. You can find the link above. I hope you enjoy it. I got up my supplies list for this year, some narration examples and some more photos of field trips and a volcano project that Scott and William completed last night.

Luckily we did not have any damage at our house from Frances last week, just a few limbs down. However, here is a picture of the house I mentioned in a previous post. It's a rental house owned by someone on town. I don't believe anyone was living there at the time. The tree fell on the apartment my brother used to live in about 8 years ago.

I can't believe it's already been a month. I did my attendance sheet for the county the other day and counted up 22 days of school so far.

This is what we've done over the past few weeks:

Copywork: practiced name in cursive again, getting pretty good. Started practicing cursive letters.

Math: Finished addition review and working on subtraction review and word problems.

Science: Did one experiment, began reading section in textbook about matter

History: Read 3 chapters in This Country of Ours - up to chapter 6 about the French colony in Florida

Biography: Read one chapter of Poor Richard.

Geography: Read another section of Kon Tiki. I also found some information online including a map of the voyage. I also heard that Thor Heyerdahl's grandson may recreate the voyage next year.

Literature: Began lesson 1 of Plutarch's Crassus, finished Taming of the Shrew, read 2 chapters in Princess & the Goblin and the first chapter of Age of Fable.

PE: Karate classes 2x week.

English/Grammar: Finished unit on sentences and took a unit test. Began unit 2 about letter writing.

Poetry: Read 1 poem by Tennyson and copied 4 lines.

Art/Music: Looked at one painting by Mary Cassatt and discussed it.

That's it. We're still going pretty slowly but we're trying.

Other things - William saw a show about the loch ness monster on TV so we discussed that and even looked at the live webcam from Loch Ness in Scotland. We didn't see Nessie, though :) We shared our thoughts and even asked family members if they believed in the loch ness monster.

Well, technically it's Tropical Storm Frances now, but it's still a bad storm. It hit us in our quiet little section of Georgia last night. We were without power for a while but all is well now. I did hear that a tree fell on a house in town but I haven't been that way so I haven't seen it. No damage to our place so far, just a few limbs fallen off the trees. I'm so glad we didn't have another fallen branch break the window of one of the cars. The storm is supposed to pass by us by tomorrow evening. Now we just need to see what next weekend brings with Ivan.

We did hear from MIL in Florida and they are fine. We're glad the storm didn't hit their area to hard.

For anyone else in the storm's path, I hope you are all okay and you will have minimal damage.

I have my information for England together. Now I need to do just a few other things -

Next day off - drive to college to get application forms. Website not working for forms.

I need to have $55 to have my passport renewed. I need to check our safe for my old passport. I need to call Newnan Post Office to see if they renew there or if they can just do the pictures so I can have my passport renewed by mail.

I need to save $200 for the deposit to be included with the application form.

I need to contact one of my professors that hasn't emailed me back to see if she will be a faculty reference for scholarships for which I want to apply. Maybe I can meet with her when I pick up the application.

When I get the faculty reference I need and the $200 I need to turn in the application and drop off the scholarship applications I've filled out.

I need to save up more money for the balance of the trip + spending money.

I need to find a phone cord for my laptop and find out if the phone connection for internet in the room is the same as here at home. If not, I need to find an adapter or find out what will work. I also need a new battery for my laptop and a good carry case for the airplane.

I've chosen the classes I want to take. I want to take British Literature definitely, then I'll probably take "discovering the arts through humanities". It's the only class I'm interested in that is in the morning and British Literature is in the afternoon. At first I was going to take creative writing, but this class is all poetry and I would rather write fiction. I need to take 2 classes for financial aid purposes.

So that's what I need to do within the next 2 months.

Why do I feel that I need to explain myself or defend myself against people that question homeschooling?

I ask this because at work the other day I was showing William what pages to read in his history when a customer asked him (Note: why don't they ask me?) why he's not in school. I said "He's homeschooled". Then I found myself explaining that we were following the law, we only had to do certain things a day, etc. Then I thought "why am I doing this? Shut up!" So I stopped. Then she whispered "He needs to be around other children". I said simply, "We are members of a homeschool group. He is around other children." and I smiled at her. Then she left the store and didn't even buy anything.

Why do I do that? I guess she flustered me. She is the first customer that seemed off put by the fact that I homeschool. Most people are fascinated and ask a lot of questions like "Can you really do that? Is it okay? How do you know what to teach? Is it hard? Do you run out of patience?" And I answer them as honestly as I can. I feel sometimes that it's hard to say "Yes, I do lose patience at times" because I think then they'll say "Just put him in school". But I don't want school to be a babysitter for me and I know the saying "This too shall pass". We may lose patience today but tomorrow will be better.

I need to remember that 1) I don't have to explain my decision to anyone, much less a stranger I will probably never see again and 2) I AM doing what is right for my son, whether someone else agrees or not. And we are having a blast doing this!