Am I a Tiger Mom?

    It is a constant battle. Am I a tiger mom?  Am I pushing them enough? Do I really use every opportunity for education?

    Okay, the answer to the last question is, of course not.

     There was a time when the television was never on in this house. There was a time when my children had never played a video game.

    I have relaxed. A lot.  We now have a Wii, but all of the games we have require activity. Both children also have a DS, but the games are all education related. (Big Braid Academy, Flash Focus, Brain Age, My Personal Math Tutor,.. you get the idea.)

    For the most part, my children are naturally attracted to learning. This means that as often as they chose the latest animated film to watch on TV, they are watching Animal Planet or Discovery Channel. They are fascinated by the world around them.

     In the local schools, the summer break is so long and when they were younger, I scheduled educational activities throughout the summer. My children only went to museums, zoos and other outings, not laser tag, arcades or other things. We worked on reading, did extra science experiments, kept journals of insects and birds and other things during the summer.

     Now, they are older. I am working on giving them their "wings". I want them to be able to make their own choices and watch for signs that they will chose arcades and candy constantly.

    It is part of growing up. If I police every single thing they do until they leave for college, they will not have the practice or experience making good choices.

    The hardest part is watching them make not so great choices. Chocolate cake for breakfast? Okay, let's see how you feel in an hour. You want to use your birthday money at the arcade instead of going to the bookstore?  Okay....

     Watching the devastation of a child who realizes that $20 lasted for about 14 minutes at the local amusement park is hard. Yes, now she knows that going to the bookstore would have been a better choice. She had wanted the artists set and a new book. She could have easily purchased both at the book store where we shop. She is miserable now. She has nothing to show for that 14 minutes. One photo of her bouncing on a ride. She is sad.

    I do not like those moments or days. I know I could have steered her toward what seemed the less attractive choice. I could have listened to her whine about how it looks so fun. I could have then repeated the battle every time she asked. Instead, she is experiencing this misery herself. It is not her mom that caused this misery. Her mom that just wont allow her to do anything thing really fun. It is the choice itself. She gets it now.

     The very next time she had money, she asked to go to the book store. I didn't poke at her. I didn't ask with a smirk, "Are you sure you don't want to go back to the fun park?" No, I smiled on the inside. She is learning that life is filled with choices. She now knows why we rarely go to the fun parks. She knows that I can turn that same money into a lot of fun activities that will last longer. She knows that most of those activities leave her feeling a little better about things.

     This summer, we do not have very many things scheduled. My oldest child wants to be a veterinarian. Her desire has been the same for years. This summer, we talked about what she would like to do. She wants to learn different methods of tie dye and screen printing T-shirts. She wants to do hands on animal dissections. She wants to do three different summer reading programs. She also wants to continue with her guitar and piano lessons.

     That sounds great to me. I have already located the supplies for the dissections and created worksheets so that they can be performed properly and with the maximum educational benefit. I discussed with her that we would not be wasting these creatures. If she wants to do this, she must do it correctly. She must learn as much as she can from it as this creature died for her education.

    We must take responsibility for all of the costs of our children's education. Some may think it is just a worm, or a frog, or a starfish. Taking things for granted is not a positive trait. That attitude has caused enough harm to our planet. If she is to be a vet, I would like her to be the most responsible vet that she can be. I also would like her to know about as many choices, solutions and alternatives as she can. That will make her the vet that people rave about.

     Ahhh... the little one would like to continue with piano lessons, learn to make a few instruments, make T-shirts and go to the park to collect insect specimens for fall. She has several technical books about insects and is planning an insect guide of her own for our area. Good for her. She will get to use her artistic skills, she will look up information and put it into her own words. She will love every minute of this. She is a very advanced student so even though she is only ten, she will also do six dissections this year, with the same worksheets as her sister.

      I don't know where I fit in anymore. We have chosen not to super accelerate the younger child even though she could easily skip through a grade or two. It just doesn't seem to be the right choice for her. She does not need to graduate high school at the age of 13 or 14. She actually may need more time to mature before continuing to college. This also gives us the opportunity to do these extra projects and keep her involved in clubs and sports.

     We constantly are reevaluating our choices for our children. This may all change next year. We may have a completely different plan. Maybe next year, the youngest child will need to accelerate again. We don't know. We can only make the best decision for right now.

     This Friday, we are planning to watch a movie and have popcorn. I don't think I am a tiger mom.

Update Time

   Okay, so much for keeping this blog going regularly. I guess I will work on this more for the next school year.

    For now, we have two weeks left of school.  One child has already closed out two subjects and is close to closing a third. My older child is still working at a more even pace. She will get there at the end, probably all the same day. That's just her nature though. She is even tempered and works at an even pace.

     It's just another perk as far as I am concerned. They can do this the way that they want to do it. It is recommended that the path is more even and gradual, but there is flexibility.

      We have had a very rocky few months. One aunt had a heart attack just before New Years'. An uncle was diagnosed with colon cancer and passed away the second week of February. Another aunt had been battling brain cancer and lost her battle on St. Patrick's day and then, to top it all off, my husband had a heart attack the last week of April. The children have had to be VERY flexible with their lessons.

     We spent a lot of time with my aunt the five weeks before she died. I am so grateful that we were able to shuffle the lessons as needed so that I could concentrate on what was really needed at that time.

    Somehow, when their dad was in ICU, they didn't get very far behind. I would say they both lost a total of two days worth of work time.  They already knew what would need to be done to catch up again, so they started to work immediately once we were all home again.

    My one tiny piece of advice still rings true. It is much easier to become more flexible than it is to get more scheduled once the habits are in place. It really is best to start with the recommended plan and adjust it to your needs after a couple of weeks.

    I am very fortunate that both of my children enjoyed staying ahead in classes. That has really made it easier to recover from each of these scheduling nightmares as they have come up. They already had great habits.

    We are really looking forward to summer break this year. These last few months have been absolutely exhausting and stressful beyond words. I know that I am so grateful that we could just send a K-mail explaining after the fact. This last nightmare, I did not K-mail the teachers immediately. I really just didn't think of it until the second full day in ICU.

      My youngest child has one goal left to complete on her Individual Learning Plan. She wanted to complete her science fair project and write it up.  I think we can do that. Her teacher has been really good about adding little extras to her goals and I really appreciate it. It's nice that they recognize that my youngest needs to do more.

       I cannot wait for the fall semester to begin. I nice fresh start for us all.  This school year has been an amazing learning experience. My children have become so much more self confident and responsible about their own education. I am so proud of them and I think virtual school has been a great help to them.

    My goal for the fall will be to take more photos of them during the lessons and explain how things are going a little more clearly. I wish I had been able to follow a family for a while before we chose this. I was so anxious about so many things. Now that we have a little experience, I think if we can reduce the life drama, we can do even more with this program!

We Are Re Enrolling

  So?  Will we do this again?  The answer is a very loud YES!  This choice we were so uncertain about a year and a half ago; this choice that seemed so risky has turned out to be one of the best things I have ever done with my family.

   Honor roll with academic achievement!  Yes!!

   I was concerned at the beginning of the school year that at some point, they were going to ask me to show them the completed work.  I created a small file basket with folders for each child and each subject.  It is filled now. 

   No, nobody has ever asked me to send them copies, or produce any of them, but that file basket is a treasure trove.  Each of the art projects have had a purpose.  My child has learned so many techniques and so much about various artists.  It is wonderful to look through her papers and I will create a display with them for her room this summer. 

    Each of the writing assignments are there.  They are in order and I can see the growth and progress.  It is wonderful.

    The science papers with the explanations in their own words, drawings of what they have seen and learned...are all so wonderful.. I have proof of how much my children have learned this year.  They have done so much and learned about so many different things.  Their self confidence and personal responsibility has grown by leaps and bounds.  I am impressed.

    I can open the cabinet and see that we still have school supplies in good shape.  There will be a few things to replace, but not much.  We didn't spend as much this year on school supplies and it looks like even less next year.

    Now for a quick run down of what we actually used.

    My children quickly abandoned the three ring binders and the spiral notebooks and found that loose leaf paper in a folder worked best for them.  This might be due to the file system.  The work on things until they take the assessment, and then file them. No need for a cumberson binder.  Keeping a different colored spiral notebook for each subject proved equally cumbersome to them.  For another family, those might work better, but since my children take their lessons and laptop "to go" three times each week, it did not work for them.

    I will estimate the total paper use for printing at 2 reams for the year.  If we were doing this completely from home, I would imagine we would have used far less paper and ink, but again, for our purposes, this is how much we used. We also used the plain paper for art projects and science drawings.

    We used the colored pencils quite a lot.  The crayons were used a bit, but we will not need to repurchase those.  We did use the math kits that I purchased.  They had protractors, compasses, etc in them.  Find them on sale if you can.  We also used about half a package of graph paper.  The lessons requesting graph paper come with a file to print some, but it was easy to just grab some from the cabinet.

    Pencils.  Both children now prefer mechanical pencils.  I don't think that it really matters either way, but it is nice to have little lead refills in a drawer rather than sharpening often.

    Paints: The K12 kit came with more than enough paints and oil pastels for the lessons.  We still have quite a bit left.

    Glue and Glue sticks:  We have used almost as much of this as we did in previous years at B&M schools, but I honestly do allow for a LOT of lattitude in the creativity of completing lessons.  If my child is studying a unit on ecosystems and wants to create a representation with cut up National Geographics and a shoe box, I will let her every time.  So, for two children, one bottle of glue and four glue sticks have been used so far.

     There is one teeny, tiny thing I plan to look for this summer for both of my children.  I plan to find one of the journals that contains both blank and lined paper.  This is not really for curriculum purposes, but it seemed like it could blend in well.  At the beginning of each day or week, I would like them to do their writing assignments in the journal and they can draw or take pictures and glue them in.  They could cut out things from magazines that relate.  Basically, I think this will help them to be even more engaged in their writing assignments.

    Ahhhh.. the flexibility of being able to add to the curriculum.  I really do love it.  Last week, we added a project on Alexander Graham Bell. The girls built a telephone like system and were able to recreate a few of his other designs.  As long as my children are getting the main curriculum done first, I plan to continue these little extras.  It just happened that there were books and kits on sale at Half Price Books on clearance for $4.  What a bargain to add extra reinforcement to both their history and science lessons.  Next week we have a kit about Thomas Edison and making "movies" from still drawings... How much fun!

    Yes!  We have already re-enrolled and have been approved for the next school year.  I will have an 8th grade and 5th grade student next year so I will focus on preparing my 8th grade student for more challenging work.

    I am more than ready to do this again.  This has been an amazing opportunity for all of us.  I feel so grateful for being able to be so involved in my children's education while having all of the guidance and support I could possibly need.  We found our groove quickly.  We found what did and did not work for us quickly.  The curriculum is pretty intense at times, with cummulative tests and other more challenging elements, but this is what we were looking for.  My children need more challenging material.  They need to move quickly. 

    I still marvel at how history and science and art often teach the same time period, discoveries and about the same historical figures at the same time.  This greatly reinforces the material for all and gives my children a much better understanding.

   I love this!

   

Flexibility

       It's been a while since I have written anything, in fact, I believe an entire quarter has gone by.  Let me explain:

     My aunt had been fighting an illness for a while.  She would win the battle for a few years, and then have a few set backs and be back to champ status after a few months.  This all took a terrible turn recently. 

     If you remember, I have already gushed about how wonderful it is to have a flexible schedule.  I work three days per week and the kids are able to adjust their lessons, pack up and come with me.  They do a lot of assignments in my office, but we leave the art, science and anything that requires packing more stuff for the days we are at home.

     We began to help care for my aunt several days each week.  We were cooking extra meals to take to her. We were spending more time at her house.  Thankfully, we did not have to worry about missed homework, or making up tests.  We were able to be there when she needed us.  The week before spring break, I was at her house every day.  Things had changed dramatically and it was not okay for the kids to be there so every day, they spent time at another person's house.  The first two days, I gave them a "light load".  Basically, I picked out a few assignments for each girl and decided they just would not have full school days.  Tuesday night, I could no longer think through planning the next day.  I just clicked on "vacation" on each of their calendars for the rest of the week.  

    Virtual school is not so complicated. It really isn't.  It requires minimal preparation, in my opinion.  By generally, I would organize everything on the weekends and we would sail through.  As this situation had progressed over several weeks, by that week, I was prepping a day at a time. 

    The relief I felt was tremendous.  I did not have to write a letter to the school in hopes that they would "approve".  I knew that this was a temporary situation and had already talked to the girls about making up the hours and the choices they would have.  The were more comfortable with doing a couple of hours on Saturdays for a while and giving up two days of their spring break. 

    That Saturday, my aunt passed away.   I did not have to deal with multiple phone calls from the school.  My children did not have to try to focus on school work when their minds were overwhelmed by the situation we were in. 

   I was able to be with my aunt every day and focus completely on caring for her.   My children were able to be with multiple other family members without concern of wifi, lessons, assessments or anything else.  

   Yes, I know this is not a free for all.  We do have education as a priority at our home.  In normal circumstances, it is the most important thing we do each week, but these were not normal circumstances.  I am so grateful that we were able to make our own decision about vacation days.  I am grateful that we did not receive an harrassing phone calls about truancy.  We were able to do what we needed to do as a family.

   My children's grades did not suffer.  In fact, we have shout outs and certificates again.  It has been less than three weeks since my aunt died, and we are already back in the groove with lessons. 

    Not only is the curriculum wonderful and allows for acceleration for advanced students, but I think my children learn an even more valuable lesson about organization and personal responsibility each week.  They were fully aware of how those extra days would affect them.  They knew exactly how they would have to make up the time.  They also made excellent choices to make up the time.  They were able to do all of this with minimal panic or pressure. 

    I am so grateful that we are empowered to accelerate and take a day off when necessary.

   

Here We Are

    It seemed this would be a good time to review school supplies.  We are in the third quarter of school and are just opening the second ream of paper. 
    Admittedly, not all our this paper went to items that were necessary.   We used the workbooks whenever possible.  We only printed the assessments and pages not included in the workbooks.  However, for extra educational opportunities, we did print science experiment instructions, craft instructions and competition rules and submission pages for a variety of educational, art or writing contests that included a chance to win scholarship prizes.
     We could have probably been more careful and used only one ream of paper for the entire school year if I were not packing the children's work to take to my office three days per week. 
     If we were looking to be even more conservative, and working on classwork only at home where each child has a computer, they could have simply written their answers in their notebooks while looking at the PDF file on the screen.
     We have used about 1/3 of the paints that were sent.  We have used almost 1/2 of a small bottle of school glue.  We have used countless pencils.  We have both wooden pencils to sharpen and mechanical pencils.  My younger child prefers the fine line of mechanical pencils for certain things... like her art assignments. 
     My younger child has used the markers, colored pencils, crayons and the pastels for her art class.  The art pastels and paints were provided by the school.  I will not need to repurchase crayons next year as hers are in fantastic condition.  I will purchase more markers when these dry out... Amazingly, she is still using the same set.. I guess markers dry out faster in a school setting.
     We have opened three packages of loose leaf paper.  My older child is at the stage where she needs to take notes.  She uses both notebook paper as well as the online note taking tool so that she can study anytime or anywhere.
     I did purchase graph paper after school began.  Both children had math assignments that could have been completed without graph paper, but graph paper did make the unit easier to complete and understand.
     We have not used the sticky notes much.  I did find that the agendas were used a lot.  My oldest child especially was able to write down assignments she needed to complete each week.   She looks through those assignments and plans hers according to how many books she wants to carry to my office on "work" days.  That is her methodology. 
     My younger child is more particulular.  She has better success if writing assignments are completed in the mornings.  She is better able to complete her art assignments if she does those at home.  The art assignments can be very specific.  "Now use the pastels to create color contrasts and shadows."   Often, when she has completed the assignment according to the directions, she will show me, I check it off on her attendance and progress and then she will continue to "embellish" with glue, magazine cut outs, markers, or whatever she likes.
     My recommendation still comes back to the very basics.  Purchase the items recommended for the classes...and know your child.  Do not go overboard.  You will not need to purchase near the quantity that the regular schools request.  There is not as much damage or breakage in the home.  Or, I guess I should say, there has not been as much in our home.
     I am looking around this office and am very pleased.  For the next school year, I anticipate purchasing one ream of paper, mechanical pencil refils, and a few items for our extra activities.  I am thrilled.
    Now, if you will excuse me, I have to check on a paper mache brain in the other room.  I believe it is time to paint it. 

We Will Be Re Enrolling!

       I cannot believe we have already completed the first half of the school year!  This year has really just flown by!  
      As a parent of a 7th grade student, there have been a few things we have made note of. 

• There doesn't seem to be a National Junior Honor Society chapter.   My daughter has earned straight A's, which has given her Honor Roll and Academic Achievement status, but no NJHS.  We are currently researching other scholarship opportunities.  I will create a separate post for this later.
• There are certain normal school traditions that have given me lots of fond memories.  Powderpuff football, Senior skip day, Pep Rallies, ... I am still coming across things..  We are keeping this in mind as we get ready for the high school years.
• We are learning about AP classes and the credits given by universities and weighing this also.  Are we really ready to supervise AP classes? 
• We are currently paying for sports, music lessons, etc.  These are things that would be considerably cheaper in an actual school setting.

   These things are not necessarily "deal breakers".  I just bring them up because they were things we had not considered.  It is one thing to make a change for a year, but as this really does appear to be the best opportunity for education, it is important to not overlook other experiences. 
    Yes, I absolutely still love this school.  I love the curriculum.  I love our teachers.  I love what we are doing.  We just are going to look into changing a few things in the near future. 
    Our local school district does not allow for virtual students to participate in school activities.  In our personal situation, we have been looking at the possibility of moving.  Since this was already a long term goal, we may be making adjustments to this goal.  There is a possibility that we will now search for a community with both better schools and the ability to use the virtual schools.  Ideally, we would like there to be cooperation between the two.  It would be nice if we could continue to use the virtual school more progressive curriculum and also be able to cooperate with a local school for certain classes or even music and sports.   (Yes, these agreements exist.)
     We do know that for next year, we will be re-enrolling with our current school.  In our current location, this is absolutely the best option.  Our local high schools have just above an average rating, so it is likely that until we are in a different area, we will continue. 
     On a completely different note, it appears local laws may be changing soon.  It appears there is indeed an attempt to raise the expectations.  I will try to remain hopeful, even though I have seen how twisted the "No child left behind" laws became. 
     I do hope that by the time my children are parents, that the schools have made positive progress.  I have lived here for a long time and there were improvements made 15-20 years ago...and then it seems began the long disappointment.
    Our children deserve better from us, from teachers, principals, districts, as well as state and federal government.  Repeatedly lowering expectations has created a situation that has already put many of our children at risk.  Neither of my children is interested in tech fields right now, but if they were graduating right now there chances of being hired by US based tech companies would be microscopic.  Check the numbers.  The overseas recruits are beating us in education.
     That is completely appalling to me, so I will continue to push my children.  Reach higher.  Do not make excuses.  Find solutions.  Make progress.
    Now I must go purchase drinks so that my younger child will have 2 liter bottles for a science experiment.  We are lucky to have been invited to participate in a Science Fair.  Yay! 

Education is a constant choice.
     

Getting it ALL together.

     It's that time of year.  It is the time of year I dread every school year.  It is winter break.  Yes, there is the excitement of holidays and presents.  There is also a tremendous flip side.  The weather is usually cold and bleak.  Often it is raining, snowing, sleeting or just too cold to play outside. 
     We have indoor activities.  The Nintendo Wii has kept me from losing my mind many cold bleak days. I try to keep them active. 
     I am grateful that my children are playing on basketball teams.  That gives us about 2 hours of PE credit each week.  Combining that and the Wii Sports, we are able to get our PE hours logged each week. 
      I was asked about a common "myth" about virtual school.  Someone had told this person that there is only about three hours of schoolwork each day. 
     Unfortunately, some see this as a perk.  Children learn very quickly when they are younger.  They really are sponges absorbing all that is around them.  It would be an incredible waste to only educate for three hours per day.
     Having said that, if your child is only using three to four hours per day do complete lessons and is staying on track, it may be time for a parent-teacher conference.  Sometimes the solution will be to work ahead in lessons.  Sometimes you will be permitted to count other activities toward attendance.  Either way, it is important to not only log attendance accurately so that the program is not jeopardized for all, but to engage children appropriately. 
     I will be honest with you.  I do not allow a lot of completely idle time.  Even during school breaks, I plan activities to motivate my children to learn more about life, science, math, art and many other subjects.  Life is meant to be a learning experience and in my opinion, watching others experience life on TV is simply not good enough.
     Be careful when considering a virtual education for your own family.  Be especially careful about taking advice about shortcuts.  The lessons your child is learning today will be the building blocks of lessons of the future.  Math is a perfect example of this.  How easy will multiplying fractions be for the child who has a good grasp of their multiplication tables?  How hard will it be for the child who "skimmed" that unit?  The more they learn now, the easier high school and college will be for them.
      I like to keep this in mind for my children.   I can remember my 10th grade English teacher asking me to write a novel.   That same year, my Biology teacher expected me to write a research paper.  Yes, I struggled that year, but later, in college, I was able to complete writing assignments quickly and often helped other students who were struggling to create an essay.  I am reminded that if I make my children really work now, they will feel much more secure and confident later.
      Ahhh.. so I am done with my speech today.  This was not meant to be easy.  There are things we can do to make it more interesting.  There are things we can add to make it more fun, but it is very important to remember our goals.  Your goals may be very different than mine. 
      My goal is to do my best to not eliminate any future choices for my children.  It is an awesome responsibility, but it is worth it.