I looked back at my planning post from and saw that we are no where near done with anything I wanted to get done. I think we'll just school year round, but I can't tell William that because he won't want to do anything in the summer. I think what we're going to do is concentrate on math, paragraph writing and english and some geography. We'll probably keep reading Bulfinch's Mythology because he enjoys that. I just feel really behind. I talked with Scott about how I was feeling and we decided that maybe right now we need to concentrate on what is required - reading, english, math, social studies and science - and leave some of the other stuff until summer. I asked William about curriculum for next year. I really enjoy using Ambleside Online, and while it's a great curriculum and I would have LOVED a curriculum like this I don't know if it's right for William. He said he would prefer lessons on the computer. I researched some educational software but can't find anything I really like. Switched On Schoolhouse is always a possiblity, but their non-homeschool friendly EULA and the cost of the set makes it prohibitive. Anyone know any alternatives to SOS? I saw a few things on Amazon but the reviews don't make the software sound very good, especially as a full homeschool curriculum.

I think what we may have to do is find a computerized curriculum for some subjects and use the AO booklists for our reading material and to fill in other gaps. We may fill in with some unit studies as well to break up the monotony. I really want William to have a broad, liberal arts type education.

Here is what we posted and what is changing and what is continuing:

Term 1 - August - October
Abe Lincoln Biography - will probably drop, not even close to finishing
Lewis and Clark Biography - dropping this too
World Geography - Following course of study for 5th grade at the World Book site. I also have a geography book on its way in the mail.
Isaac Newton Biography Had to return this to the library, so we will be stopping this or finding another source
King Arthur and His Knights Continuing
Carry On Mr. Bowditch Will probably read this summer
Story of My Life by Helen Keller Will probably read this summer
This Country of Ours Will continue this
Age of Fable Continuing
Math (use Living Math links once a week) Continuing, but haven't used the living math site yet
English - use current book plus spelling from Spelling for Pennies 3x week. Continuing and will focus on writing paragraphs and book reports
Science - Will be using a book called 365 Simple Science Experiments. We'll basically start at the beginning and try to do an experiment at least once or a week.
Free reading Continuing

William has had a great Christmas break. He spent most of the time with his new friends at my brother's girlfriend's house. He spent the night over there at least 3 days and had a good time playing with her 2 boys. Unfortunately it seems he caught the cold the youngest boy has and he hasn't been feeling well the past few days. He was running a low grade fever yesterday and today he's been coughing a lot.

He finally started reading White Fang again, even though it was supposed to be read over the break and a report started on Monday when we start back with school. I guess I'm going to have to let him slide and finish reading it next week. After all, he spend most of his time making new friends and playing, and that's what I wanted him to do, right? So everything will get back to normal on Monday, depending on how he's feeling. Right now he's feeling well enough to play Playstation games with his dad and tomorrow we're going to see the King Kong movie and have lunch out. Our money situation got a lot lighter today with dh's paycheck with all the overtime he's had, plus holiday and vacation time he cashed in. It really helped.

I also joined United Streaming. I found out from my Georgia homeschooler e-mail list that homeschoolers in Georgia can get a free account, so I contacted them and signed up. I hope to be able to find a lot of great videos and other helps from this site.

I also joined Paperback Swap. It's a site that lets members swap books for free - just postage to mail a book to someone who has requested it. I found the geography book I'll be using the rest of the year there and a lot of other books I've been wanting to read. They have a homeschool section as well, but if you search for the topic you are looking for you can find lots more books that way. If you join under my link above then I get more credits for more books. I already have 9 of my old romance novels listed and plan to list many more in the weeks ahead.

January will be busy with getting back into a school routine, William's birthday coming up, my brother's birthday coming up, stuff like that. Hopefully I can get into more of a routine of reading and posting more often. I've let things slip over the holidays.

I really don't have any resolutions. I never keep them. I am planning - again - to lose weight. My left knee keeps bothering me and I know it's because of my weight. I want to focus more on William's schooling so that I don't feel so behind. I want to read more good books and less fluff. I want to get my house clean and organized and do at least 1 more room renovation. I want to get some money in the bank and I would love to get a hospital bill off my back. It's been around so long it's a family pet! So those are my resolutions.

I looked back at posts from January 2004 and December / January 2005 to see if I posted any resolutions, but I did not, although it was nice reading some of the things I wrote and remembering the situations. Next January I'll be able to call this one up and see if I actually did what I said I would do this year.

Henry and Janine Cate at Why Homeschool are hosting a Carnival of Homeschooling in January. You can find out how to submit a post here. I hope lots of you out there will submit something. I enjoy finding new blogs to read through these carnivals.

Last night I was late to my family Christmas party because I was waiting on Scott to get home from work. He got home around 6:30, walked the dog and changed clothes and we were on our way by 7. We had a good time with everyone, we ate and played with my neice's 20 questions game. Scott went outside with my brothers helped them set up my mom's surprise gifts. She got a free standing swing and a glider swing for her yard. Then they played pool while the rest of us sat in the living room and watched TV in front of the fire.

I asked my youngest brother if he would be able to pick me up today to go back to the house since Scott is working today and won't be home until after 6. He said he would and we left around 9:30 or 10 since Scott had to get up early and I had another headache.

We got home and SURPRISE! Scott's car was in the driveway. My other brother had asked what was wrong with it and offered to send a wrecker out to pick it up. It hasn't run in a few months. They picked it up on Friday and I wasn't expecting it back any time soon. They new we didn't have the money to pay for any repairs which was why it had been sitting. So we got home and there is an envelope on the dash with my car key and a Christmas card from my brother. He fixed the car and he and my dad covered the parts and labor. I tried to call him at my parents' house but for some reason I couldn't get through, so he ended up calling me back. I thanked him for fixing the car but it doesn't seem like enough. My entire family has been so good to us this year it's like they've been abducted by aliens and someone else is in their place. But I guess I'll keep 'em :)

So Scott is driving his car to work today and I have my car to drive back to my parents' house for lunch this afternoon. It's a good Christmas :)

Tulip Girl has posted links to news stories on her aunt and uncle from New Orleans. She also posted earlier this month this link to a real look into a Dungeons and Dragons game. Beware, it's very scary :)

Real ID Means Real Headaches

American Daily Opinion - Why Do We Need Public Schools?

Nevada Homeschool Family Surprised by Social Worker Visit

Alabama License Offices Updating Equipment - The problem is they don't know what the requirements for the Real ID act ARE yet because they haven't been announced, so what changes will have to be made in the future and at what cost?

Arkansas School District Asks for Homeschoolers Social Security Numbers

More Black Families Choosing to Homeschool

Fiction book "The Cattle" evaluates the line between personal freedoms and privacy and governmental security and control - This was written before the Real ID act was passed.

Citizens Against Government Waste send petition against computer chips in Real IDs.

Yep, a hermit.

The definition of hermit follows: A hermit (from the Greek erēmos, signifying "desert", "uninhabited", hence "desert-dweller") is a person who lives to some greater or lesser degree in seclusion from society.

Right now I will live in lesser degree in seclusion from society and as I get older and William grows up and moves away I will seclude myself away even further until I die of old age, alone, surrounded by my cats. I told Scott this and he said "So by this time I'm worm food?" and I said "Yep, I'll be totally alone. William will come check on me when he doesn't hear from me for a week, if I'm lucky, and I'll be sitting on the couch with my Tivo and my laptop, surrounded by cats, dead for a week."

I've given up on trying to make friends and be around people. Looking back, even back to elementary and high school, people have mistaken my shyness for rudeness. Knowing the answer to a question at school got me the label of "know-it-all" and "teacher's pet." I don't believe I could ever work at another job outside of my home because I hate all the stuff that goes on when you're around people, all the schoolyard stuff that I thought I was free of as an adult. I'm not really a joiner. Even when Scott was in the military we weren't the go-out-clubbing-all-night type people, so we weren't invited to a lot of places. We were happy to watch a movie, go to the bowling alley or out to dinner, even go out to our favorite English pub in Germany, but we were never party people. When you work in an office you're expected to go out after work, chip in for birthdays for people you don't know, chip in for a boss' Christmas gift with money you don't have. I never agreed with all of that so I was left out. Some of our best military friends were 10 years older than us! I told Scott that maybe the next time we try to meet people to be friends we need to find people in their mid-40s or 50s and then maybe we'll find people we have more in common with.

I told my husband the other night that I just want a friend I can call up and talk to about anything without being judged or misheard, someone who can agree to disagree with me on some things, someone to accept me when I'm in a bad mood and be happy with me when I'm happy, someone I can just be me with and not feel like I have to pretend to be something I'm not. It doesn't seem like that will ever happen, so I'm going to be a hermit. I'll go out when needed, I'll be polite when needed. I guess I'll just become what people think anyway when they meet me. I am so tired of putting myself out there and trying to start a friendship only to have it explode in my face, usually when I do something stupid or when something is taken the wrong way. I'm tired of doing these stupid things, so I'm not going to try anymore.

I have a headache again and I'm in another funk. I want winter to be over so I can be warm again.

Some of this is tied to this post and this post, so if you like to delve into people's psyches please do so and let me know why I'm such a crazy person.

Lots of nice things have happened over the past few days, along with some surprises.

I finally found William's gift on ebay. I had to settle for something other what I originally wanted because a pending charge on my paypal account took away some of the money. I'm watching that very closely because the last time a pending charge was on the account I never got the money back. When I get it back I may find him a 2nd gift to compliment the first one and get what I originally wanted to get him for his birthday.

When Scott got groceries over the weekend Dollar General gave him a $5 award card. He gave it to me and told me to buy myself something with it. We had decided not to do gifts for each other since money was so tight, but I took William to the store with me and we picked out a couple of DVDs that we think Scott will like. I have them hidden away now, I just need to get to my mom's to wrap them. He has to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so we'll be doing gifts with each other that evening. I know he's still planning to get me something, though, even if it's pretty small.

I posted before that we didn't have a working dryer. My mom decided to replace her washer and dryer and gave us her old one. She even paid to have it repaired and delivered to our house. It was working, it just made a squeaking sound due to a loose bearing. My dad also helped Scott install our hot water heater so now we have hot water and a working dryer. However, right after that happened we discovered we were out of propane and didn't have the money to get anymore right away. My parents found out and the next day the gas company brought us 100 gallons of propane, paid for by my parents.

We also only have 1 car running right now so my parents are letting me use one of their extras off and on. Yep, they have extra cars. My dad owns an automotive garage and wrecker service and always seems to have extra vehicles available to fix up and sell later on. This is a late model Mercedes that I like to drive and would like better if I could adjust the steering wheel, but I'm happy to have a car when Scott is working.

Hopefully the money situation should let up soon. Scott's work has a strict policy on overtime, however they have needed him the past few days to work an extra shift off site. He worked 2 days on his weekend off and he'll be working again tonight. That money will definitely come in handy since I won't be getting a paycheck from one of my work at home jobs until mid January and he hasn't gotten a Christmas bonus in years. Oh, but his raise finally came through! He was due 2 raises and both of them finally went into effect, so he's bringing home about $75 more each payday than before.

I'm also such a total geek that I used his final paycheck and my spreadsheet to figure out our taxes already and we're already talking about what to do with our refund. Definitely money into savings, definitely paying some bills, but we are trying to decide on 1 fun thing to do with the money as well.

William's birthday is coming up in about a month and he wants to have a mystery party. I am trying to plan that as well since invitations need to be sent out the first or 2nd week of January. I'm trying to actually plan ahead for once.

I really don't do a lot of stuff over Christmas like decorating or anything, so we're pretty much just hanging out and trying to find friends at home that he can play with while they are taking their school breaks. He wants to call a few more of his friends but I've told him we'll wait until after the holidays because this family does usually have a lot going on over the holidays and we don't want to interrupt their family time. Basically he's going to be playing a lot with his cousin and my brother's girlfriend's son.

We'll be having Christmas dinner at my mom's on Christmas Eve, something besides turkey and ham since we've had that almost weekly since Thanksgiving. It was good seeing my younger brother and his fiancee over the weekend as well and they'll be coming back for Christmas weekend too.

I think I'm out of my funk for right now and feeling better. It's a really pretty day here today. The sun is out and the sky is blue. It's a bit chilly, but not too chilly for a walk this afternoon when I'm finished working. I would like a white Christmas, though, as long as it's not too cold and the snow isn't too deep :)

No matter what seems to happen in my life I know I am so lucky to have a son like William. He's an only child so we are all together as a family most of the time. We're the 3 musketeers :)

Some things have happened recently that have really hurt me and since they partly pertained to William too I talked to him a little about what was going on. Then I just burst out crying. We were at my family's Christmas party and we'd gone into my brother's room to talk. He walked around the bed and hugged me. I told him I was sorry, I was ruining the party and the Christmas holiday. He said "No, Mom, you aren't. You are sad and I'm your family, so I'm helping you. Christmas is about family and love, that's what I'm here for. We have each other and that's all we need. You, me and Dad. You're a success!" He said this with such conviction I laughed at him because I really don't feel like a success. I guess since I have raised this incredibly compassionate 11 year old boy who will be a wonderfully compassionate man one day I guess that is partly a success, though, right? He was so great about the whole thing that I was able to stop crying and enjoy the rest of the party with my family.

And yes, we are going to continue to homeschool and it's not a marriage problem or anything like that. Just some things I'm going through that I hope will be worked out soon.

Well, our week didn't have anything new or remarkable happen. We basically continued working on math - multiplication and division again. William read more about Abraham Lincoln in the biography he has. He has read a bit more of White Fang but I don't think he's going to be ready to do a book report by next week, so the plans next week are to focus on sentence structure.

I downloaded a free typing program and I'm trying to teach him how to type. He was funny trying to hit the A key with his little finger and I remember how uncomfortable that was when I first learned how to type. I had been typing since 6th grade on an old Underwood manual typewriter, but I hadn't been doing it properly. In high school I took 2 years of typing and it was torture learning how to type all over again. I kept finding myself looking at the keys and falling back into my old patterns, but now typing comes naturally to me. I told William that in 15 years he'll be able to type just as fast as I can now :) But he started very well and wants to continue the lessons. Now I need to find an old typing book I have somewhere. I found old ones at Salvation Army and used them to practice with years ago.

We played Dungeons and Dragons a few days ago as well and William and I had a good time hunting in a dragon's den while dh ran the game. We laughed and made up accents for our characters and teased the lizard men we were fighting. Dh did the voices of the lizard men and when I kept missing my to hit roll he said "Oh, you hit like a girl! Wake me up when you're ready to kill us." So I told him that when I did kill the lizard man I was going to take some skin to make some boots - and I did :) When the battle was over we searched the area, found some gold and some other stuff and I said to dh "I want enough lizard skin for some boots". So, like a good DM who goes along with the player's quirks, he said okay :) During the game William got to practice his math skills as we added and subtracted hit points and gold pieces. His dad told him at the beginning of the game to double his hit points - he had 3 and I asked him "What does it mean to double your points?" and he said right off the bat - "I would have 6." I don't know if he added or multiplied in his head but he got the point! We worked on map reading and decision making as we tried to decide where we wanted to go on the map. We also had to work as a team to defeat the monsters and then divided up the experience points and the items found evenly. We had a great time and for 2 hours laughed really hard.

Thanks for the comments from earlier posts. I'm glad he used the Simpsons to write his paragraph about, too. I find it more meaningful for him to write about something that interests him instead of writing something make believe just because the book said so. I mean, if the book says "You are writing to your pen pal, John, who lives in Nebraska. Write John a letter and tell him about your school, your teacher, and your pet." Why do that? Why not write a real letter to a friend or family member and actually mail it to them - and ask at the PO if they will let you see the letter go through the machine and get sorted. Sometimes they will. I always hated busy work in school and I try not to have William get caught up in busy work.

We will probably do some school work through Wednesday of next week then take off until New Years. I'll still post though, and I have to read everyone's blogs too since I'm behind on that and I miss reading everyone's posts.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone :)

Based on a few other blogs I've read where people share their day, I thought I would share ours. Personally, I think many others do so much more than we do in a day and they are worried about not doing enough!

Well, this morning I got up ... I don't really want to say what time because so many others get up at 5 or 7 or 8... well, I got up and I'll leave it at that. William was still sleeping but dh was still up - he'd come in from work around 6:30 or 7am - so I asked him to get him up soon so he could take a bath while I was working. I logged into work for a few hours.

I finished working around 12 and by then William was up and had taken his bath. We started some lunch - leftovers from supper for me and a microwave dinner for him. We talked about what we wanted for supper tonight.

While we ate we watched the end of a Tivo'd Dukes of Hazzard, then started on another 30 minute segment of the Ken Burns documentary of the Civil War. We were at the part where the Confederate Army fired on Fort Sumpter, so I paused the recording and went over what the video showed before that. Somehow that got off topic into the new HONDA legislation regarding defining homeschoolers for the military. Anyway, we got back on topic for the Civil War and finished watching the 30 minutes of the video. Then we took a quick break while I fed the kitten and William used the restroom and got a drink.

After our break I went over his English work. We went over a book report and the format used in the textbook. I changed the format and asked him to include a conclusion. We went over each section required in the book report and paragraph format again. Then I went over the paragraph he'd written about The Simpsons last week. We had some issues with him playing with the dog and rocking back and forth in his video chair, so I had to get onto him a bit. I went over each section bit by bit and we discussed run-on sentences, comma usage, and basic writing strategies. We went over rough drafts and first drafts again. He doesn't like to write more than one draft, but I told him that sometimes it's necessary to do more than one. For his report he'll be going over it with his dad first. I showed him how to make notes on the draft by using his Simpsons report. I don't know if he got anything out of it, though, but sometimes when he seems to not be paying attention is when he seems to hear the most.

We ended that and started on math. I had about 20 minutes before logging back into work. We touched on division again. I went over how it's the opposite of multiplication and showed a few practice problems. Then I gave him some problems that were divisable by 2. I figured he could count by 2's and solve them, but he still didn't seem to get it and that took some time. Then I wrote more problems and let him use his multiplication chart to solve them. By then I had to log back into work, so I told him what pages to read for history then to choose a book for the book report and begin reading it while I was working.

After I worked for another hour I came back to the living room and found him reading White Fang by Jack London. He said he wanted to do his book report on that book. He started telling me about the beginning of the book. Then we did our read aloud from Age of Fable. I read about Ceyx and Halcyone. One part of the story was about Morpheus coming to Halcyone to tell her about her husband's death. They used the word "shade", and that led to a discussion on ghosts and zombies and the Sims2 game that we play. Then we got back into the story again and finished just before I headed back off to work for another hour. I looked up Halcyone birds during the hour that I worked so I could share what they looked like with William later. I left William watching cartoons and cuddling the kitten.

I worked for another hour, then did some other computer stuff, some tax records updates and things. William ate a frozen burrito and watched Dukes of Hazzard on the Tivo. I got dh up around 5pm, then walked our slowpoke dog while William fed the cats. Then William walked the other 2 dogs and dh fed the dogs outside in the pen. I grabbed the last of the leftovers from dinner last night to eat before starting my last 2 hour work shift. William chose what he wanted for dinner and I loaded the dishwasher and started it running. I goofed off a bit until my last work shift. While I worked dh and William watched TV and did whatever they wanted.

After my work shift was over I made a casserole for dinner. We picked up the living room and watched some TV after dinner. William and I also went through some pictures from our trip to Washington that he's planning to use in his geography report on Friday. We did some laundry and dh packed it up to take to the laundromat tomorrow as we don't have a working dryer. Around 10 we walked the dogs again and put William to bed. Dh stayed up a bit later, he's so used to working nights that it's hard for him to go bed on his days off. I stayed up reading until around 11 or so, and finished this, of course.

So that was our Wednesday, a pretty normal day for us. I wish I could say our day was filled with crafts and trigonometry lessons and piano and baking, but it's not. This is plain old ordinary us.

We've been a roll this week, I'm happy to say. Lessons are going well and there are little arguments.

For math, we've done some review work on addition and subtraction but we've mostly concentrated on multiplication. We went over again multiplying by 2 digit numbers. William seems to pick up the process quickly although he still doesn't have the multiplication tables memorized. I'm hoping that with continued practice he'll have most of it down by the end of the year. The plan is for him to have mastered multiplication by the end of this year and have a basic understanding of division. Then next year, which is also a testing year, we will go into division in more detail. We've also touched on fractions again, but he says they are confusing. It seems they are confusing in written form, with the numbers like 1/2 or 1/4 or 1/8. If he sees a picture or uses a manipulative he understands the fractions. Now it's just getting him to understand that the written fractions correspond with the manipulatives.

For history, he's read more about Lewis and Clark's journey west, although he doesn't find it as interesting as I thought he would. He also finished another chapter in This Country of Ours and another one in the Abraham Lincoln biography.

We read a bit more about King Arthur as one of our read alouds. I also had him choose a book that he'd never read before to read alone. We're trying to get him to read for about 15-30 minutes daily. He read an abridged version of The Prince and the Pauper.

I also had him look at the human body book we have and read through the next 2 pages about the human brain. He happily told us that after age 20 our brain slows down so that's why I forget things a lot. Apparently at age 34 I'm old :)

I left English for last because I am finally seeing some progress with writing! We went over again writing a paragraph and he chose the topic of his favorite TV show, the Simpsons.

His rough draft was this:

homr the stupid 1 and the man of the hous.

marg the wife of homr and a mother of Bart and lesa then magge simpson.

For his first draft, we went over again paragraph format and topic information. I explained - again - about letting people know what the paragraph was about, answering the questions who, what, when, where, why, letting people know right off what the topic of the paragraph was. So then he wrote his first draft:

Homer the man of the house. and he's the king of stupidum.

Marg the wif of Homer. and a mother of three kid's the nam's of them ar Bart Lesa and magge.

Bart the loving son of Homer and Marg. But well get to that later. Bart is a tr (troubled)
child he piks on is sister and he dis o bas (disobeys) i (his) parents.

lesa is a nard her drem's are gowening to her hed.

magge is the silent one but wut che doset say che mak's up in cootnes(cuteness).

This rough draft actually filled a page, so while it wasn't really correct it was more than he'd ever written!

So we went over again paragraph format, indention, topic sentences, answering the who, what, when, where, why, and went over conclusion sentences and this is his final draft:

My famle wachas the Simpsons evre day of the week. The Simpsons my favrit tv show of the week. The Simpson caraterts (characters).

Homer the man of the house and Hes the king of stupidum.

Marge the wife of Homer and shes the mother of three kids her are thar names Bart Lisa and Maggie.

Bart the son of Homer and Marge he disobeys his Parents.

Lisa ches a nerd but che stoops to Barts leval some tims.

Maggie the qwiet onw But wat che doesn't say che makes up in cuteness.

Now that you no the Simpsons wont you whach it.

--------------

I know that we still need to go over comma and apostrophe usage. We've been over run on sentences but it seems that still has to be practiced as well. I'm just happy that he wrote another page and he did try to put it into paragraph form. Blogger won't let me indent, but he did indent each seperate line. He did pay attention to the topic sentences and he came up with the conclusion sentence on his own. I'm fully expecting him to be able to write a paragraph correctly by the end of the school year! Next week we're going to continue with the paragraph writing but also add back in some grammar and sentence structure practice.

Dh and I had a discussion the other night about coming up with goals for him to reach by the end of his 8th grade year, since 8th grade is when he should have most of the basics in all subjects mastered in order to continue with high school. We've already started doing that and getting ready for 6th grade. Since 6th grade will also be a testing year for him, we plan on teaching to the test a bit for the last month of the year, but we know what was on his previous test that he took after 3rd grade. We plan to focus more on the topic he scored poorly on, which happens to be math, so that he should be able to do much better on the next test.