27 weeks today!

Monkey In-Waiting

   So today is Friday and I am 27 weeks pregnant with Monkey In-waiting. This is the last week of second trimester and I am getting a little nervous. Don't get me wrong, I have been through labor and delivery three times now and that's not very scary anymore, but I am dreading how little time I have to accomplish all the things I need to before this little boy arrives.

No question about gender anymore!

   I think that I would have been further along with my list of to do's if not for the shock of having a boy that took few weeks to get over. With the last three Monkeys I was very confident of what gender they were, so when we found out that we were pregnant again I searched deep inside my motherly intuition and produced my answer, this little baby is going to be a girl.

Chickens and Dance.

Funky Monkey in his class

   For the last 4 days Funky Monkey and Girly Monkey have been attending Dance Summer school. We signed them up at the end of last year because they were super sad that dance was all over in June. But when Sunday before Summer school came I wasn't very thrilled with my previous decision. It's not that I didn't think that it was a good idea to put them in Dace in the summer time, but rather I was sad over loosing the last free, careless week of summer vacations. School year is already busy for us, and starting all the craziness a week earlier didn't sit well with me. Funky Monkey started his dance classes at 9 am for 3 hours, and Girly Monkey was there for 2 hours starting 12:30 pm. And I was in charge of driving them back and forth, getting them ready, and most of all supporting them.

Girly Monkey with her friends

   Today was last day and parents were invited for the last half hour of each group's class to see what they worked on in dance class. As tired as I was from the last four days I loved every minute of watching both Monkeys. They even got a piece of ice cream cake at the end of summer school. Both Monkeys loved dancing but most of all they loved catching up with their dance friends.

My homeschool plan for this year.

   The beauty of homeschooling is that it's very flexible. In the years where a family is busy bringing a new baby, or caring for sick elder, or moving, they can plan for lighter curriculum, or time off. Since Monkey In-Waiting is due this November, I have planned for it. Normally what I would do is have 3-4 days off between semesters to give the Monkeys a little break. Since I am planning to take all of December off I planned for only one day off in between semester. So our first semester will go from September 3 until October 11, with October 14 off (it's Thanksgiving here in Canada) and next semester will start October 15. We normally take about 3 weeks off over the Christmas Holidays, but this year they will be extended due to our Monkey In-Waiting's arrival. Second semester will end on November 25th, so that will allow lots of time for baby to arrive.

   My plan for this school year is this:

So how do we do it? part 2

Charlotte Mason's method was exactly what I was looking for. I made a list of all the subjects that I would like my kids to learn. I wanted them to learn History, Geography, another Language, proper writing, Reading, Math skills, Science (especially nature), Art, Music, appreciation for Literature and Books, cooking, Poetry and most of all the love for Learning. So I divided those subjects into two columns, the ones that would be done everyday and ones that only needed to be done once a week. I also wanted to include physical activity in my schedule. Everyday subjects would include some that we would do as family, and some that they were responsible for on individual basis. So everyday family work would include physical activity, short story reading (like Aesop's fables, Greek myths, bible stories, Native American stories, etc), History reading from living books (more on living books here), Poetry, Spanish (the language I picked for them), and Literature reading. Then everyday individual work would include Math (at each child's level), Copywork, Individual reading (if the child was already reading independently), and Guitar practice. Then once a week we would study Geography by studying a different country every week (we would examine a map of the country, make one dish from that country and watch a video on it and read a tourism book), we would also spend one day on history in more detail (including watching a video and more in depth analysis of the time period we were studying).

So how do we do it? part 1

Girly Monkey and Funky
Monkey at the park

   There is one thing evident when you start researching Homeschooling, and that is that there are as many ways to do it as there are families homeschooling. The different ways range from very little formal instruction, as in unschooling, to households with a replica of classroom in their nook equipped with everything from a black board to a large clock that signals lunch and recess. In my experience I have found that majority of homeschoolers fall somewhere in the middle.We do things the middle way too.

Exercise time

   When I first stared Homeschooling we used the Complete Canadian Curriculum Gr.1. One of the reason I used it was that it was formulated to reflect and follow Canadian Curriculum, including things like Canadian money, History and Geography. I found that when I looked at other systems from countries like US, or Australia, or UK I had to do a lot of supplementing for Canadian content. The only drawback with that workbook was that we were still doing "school-work" at home. In other words, we didn't have full benefit and flexibility of picking the things we wanted our kids to learn. Over the course of that first year I learned that Funky Monkey was less interested in what made the weather, or who firemen were and more interested in Dinosaurs.

So what made us Homeschool?

When there were only 3 of us

   When Funky Monkey was just a little boy I vowed to find the best fitting education for him that I could. He was an only child untill he was 3.5 years old. As much as I loved spending time with him I also realized that he needed some "kid-time." So when I was pregnant with Girly Monkey we made the decision to sign him up for preschool. I spent many days researching the best options. After a while I was convinced that one of these expensive preschools that offered to make your child super smart was the best option. After all they had flashy ads in urban parent magazines and they offered things like Latin and science for your 3-year-old. Having always been a fan of good quality education I was sucked into thinking that they were the best. So a little after his 3rd birthday we went shopping for Funky Monkey's school uniform. That's right, this preschool required all the kids to have gray pants and white top. They didn't require us to purchase the actual school uniform until we were at the school for couple of weeks. I am now glad because the uniform was super expensive. So few weeks later off went Funky Monkey to his first week of school. Because I was a stay-at-home mom I only needed for him to attend school for 3 half days.

Funky Monkey painting eggs

   The first week I noticed that he was extremely tired when he came from school. He was overstimulated and cranky (must have been all that science and Latin lessons!) Then the lovely teacher that he had started with left and new teacher was assigned to his class. I was informed that the teacher didn't have all her credentials yet, but she was in the process of obtaining them. That's right, the school that we paid 275 dollars for 3 half days didn't require their teachers to be certified before they started teaching the class!

Since we're all in Back-To-School mode ...

Funky Monkey's random drawings

...let's talk about Home Schooling. So what is Home School? Homeschooling is alternative method of education. Let me clarify something, by alternative I don't mean weird or odd, I mean it's not the standard form of sending your kids to an educational institution to get education. I truly believe that Home-school is a misnomer in itself. A lot of "home-schooling" is neither "schooling" in traditional meaning of the word nor does it mostly happen at home. For many home-schoolers learning happens not just in their homes, but outside, in a park for example, in classes taken by their kids, at grandma's house, by the seashore, and many other places. I like using the word "learning" as opposed to "schooling" since "schooling" implies that there is an instructor or a teacher that feeds information to the student, making it more passive way of obtaining information where as "learning" implies an active role that the student plays in gathering and absorbing knowledge. Learning is what most home-schoolers do. If I was the one naming this form of education I would gladly call it "Out-of-school-learning." Unfortunately the term is already coined as "home-schooling" so for the purpose of keeping everyone sane I will keep the term (although I still think it's a misnomer).

Girly Monkey and Little Money
taking a class together

   Here, in British Columbia, there are 2 ways that one can choose to have their kids learn out of school; one way is to enroll them in Distance Learning, and another one is the register them in Homeschooling program.  So what is the difference?

Welcome to my blog.

Dear Visitor.

Thank you for visiting my new blog. I have tried this blogging thing before, and failed miserably. So why try again? Isn't life busy enough without the need to post written records of it online? Well, yes. But life also offers lessons that I learned along the way, lessons that might prove informational for others charting the same road.
   When I was first pregnant with my oldest (10 years ago) the era of online forums and chat rooms was just entering our everyday lives. Being 24 and the first one out of my family and most of my friends to have kids I felt a little off becoming a parent. Sure, there were numerous older women offering their help and support, but one thing they did not understand was how different raising kids in this new age was. Of course, changing diapers, or bathing little babies has not changed since they were new moms themselves, but the new era meant different pressures on parents, often being pulled and pushed in opposite directions. With the exclusion of few, most of the older women bottle fed their babies so they could not understand what were the needs of breastfeeding mom. They also had their closest female family members helping out while most men left child care to their wives and mothers. But we live in a world that although very connected through the Internet and phone still sees majority of family units separated from extended family members. The world has changed and old ways were no longer always the best ways to do things. I felt lost with this tiny baby that needed me all the time. Sure, my husband was there to help out when he got home from work, but for the most part I had to find things out by myself.
   But things did get better after I had my second child. Help came from the most unusual of all places, online community of moms that were stuck in the same spot as me. I owe so much gratitude to these women. I finally felt normal reading their posts, comments, and blogs. I cried with them, I laughed at being stuck in the same situations, I agreed with their wisdom. They made me feel normal. These wonderful moms kept me sane and allowed my confidence to blossom. For the first time I felt that I could do it. Their support was even more necessary as I became convinced that I wanted to home school my kids. Very few people in real life thought that it was a good idea. Some even thought that I would ruin my kids. I had an university degree, but apparently I was not equipped to teach ABC's to my kindergartner. But once again my online support system stepped in and convinced me that YES, I could do it. I have never looked back since.
   So here we are, I am a proud parent of 9 year old boy, 5 year old girl, 3 year old boy and pregnant with a little boy due in November. The two oldest are home schooled, and the third is starting preschool at home. I don't claim to know everything, but I have gained some knowledge. So to answer the question of why would I bother to blog, my answer is to give back. If I can just help one mom gain the confidence in her own abilities and stand up against the current that pulls our families and say "I know what is best for my family," then it's all worth it. Enjoy!