It has been so long

School has been hectic as usual. No time to post. We still have 150 days of school, but who is counting. Some of what we originally started out with has been dropped, we have added new things and I think we finally have it right. More to follow.

This weekend, dh has been organising and arranging my school room- we have a lot of books and I am not the most organised 'gal' around. School can't start with the chaos it ended with, so this is our - or should I say 'his' weekend project. As for me, school was supposed to start this week on Monday but of course , that ain't happening. I completely changed my twins curriculum and the new one isn't even here yet. I am mostly ready for C, my 5th grader, except for science. You would think with a Maser's degree in Chemistry, science would be my favorite subject to teach and it is. The kids love it but I just hate planning for labs. We will be using Holt's Life science this year in 5th ( I think this is a Middle School Text) and my 8th grader is going to be doing Conceptual Integrated Science which I saw was for grades 11th-12th. Oh well! It will give him a good overview of Physics, Chemistry, Biology and earth science) which is what I want before he starts high school. There is a Conceptual Integrated Science Explorations which I saw was a 9th-10th grade text and probably would be more appropriate but I have these books already at home. I am not shelling money buying a book for $60 plus . J will start maths and do a Connect the thought course on Monday.

I just discovered Connect the Thoughts and the kids will use them to supplement their studies. They look like fun courses and the kids would have to think a lot with them. They are kind of expensive for me though so I am not sure if the younger ones would do these. J will start with Information: Right or Wrong on Monday.

Well, that is all for today. I am cooking Cassava Leaves, a typical Sierra Leonean dish which my husband and my 3 younger kids love. Poor J. He eats our food but it is not a favorite and struggles through them. But I try not to torture him more than 2 or 3 times a week. Not so the other 3. I took them to Sierra Leone for 9 months 5 years ago and all they can remember now was the beaches and eating cassava leaves every week. I cook it like once a month and I am always hearing,'Mom, when are you going to cook cassava leaves next'. I have no idea why they like it. In my opinion, that is one of the least 'pleasing' to the sight Sierra Leonean dishes.

SUMMER WEEK

So my dh has this week off and we planned all these day trips. But the kids are all sick. Monday, we took them to Seaside Heights and even though 3 out of 4 were sick, they had a great time swimming in the sea, walking on the board walk etc. But you could tell that they were really not feeling well. When we got home that night, we had throwing up galore from them all. Yesterday was supposed to be our Cape May zoo and dolphin watching trip. Dh and I left them at home and we went to NY Chinatown. We took the train to NY and got the subway to Chinatown. It was a great experience. I love NY for day trips but I can never live there. The noise, the crowd, the traffic and yes, in Chinatown the smells were all in a class of there own. We walked around for hours, then I had a massage, we walked someone and had dinner at a Singapore restaurant. The food was spectacular, and the great thing was : We DID NOT HAVE THE KIDS WITH US. We got back home around 9pm, kids were doing much better. Today, I am spending the day by myself and I will post me about it later.

Pictures from Seaside Heights.

I saw a musical Singin', Dancin', A Little Romancin' at the Hunterdon Hills playhouse in NJ. It was alright but the important thing for me was that I was out of more house and there were no kids ( or husband for that matter)

Parent-Cub Scout Weekend

Dh and the 3 younger kiddoes went for an overnight parent-cub scout weekend. Here are some of the pictures that they took.

SUMMER!

Well it's here and so far the kids seem to be enjoying it. If only for the fact that they get to play on their 'electronic systems' for an hour a day, not just weekends. My 14 and 10 yr olds had 4-H camp for a week- sleepover for my 14 yr old, 8 till 5pm for the 10 year old. I don't trust him to do a 1 week sleep away from home yet. He did a 1 night away on the Friday and we picked him up on Saturday with his brother. This weekend, the 3 younger ones are away on a cub scout parent weekend with their dad, then on Sunday my 14 year old goes away to a church camp for a week. After that, it is Vacation Bible School for 1 week, then I have 1 week to clean and organise my school room, and then it's 1 week away at Wildwood , and then BACHK TO SCHOOL. Not looking forward to that. After the summer, the kids never want to start, they are whiny, they have forgotton almost everything, and the first 3 weeks back are a nightmare. When they were younger, I never gave them more than 6 weeks off in the summer. But I just need a break. Complete time off from school. So they are getting 10 weeks off this summer. And it will be a nightmare starting again. I have some pictures to post about some of what we have been doing so far this summer. I'll try to do this over the weekend when I have a quiet house.

So, we are not required to do any testing in our state, but I do anyway for those just in case.

My twins took the California Achievement Test a few weeks ago and I just got back their results. I looked through the tests and went over it with them. They made a lot of careless mistakes but even with those, they were above average in everything. L was in the 91st percentile for reading vocab, 99th for reading comprehension, 97 for maths computation, 96 for maths concepts and problems, 99 for language mechanics, 80 for language usage and structure and 85 for spelling. This is exactly what I expected for him although I was a little disappointed with his maths scores. I expected 99 for both of these. This was where they made a lot of errors. The 8o percentile for the language usage and structure was not very suprising. We used CLE LA but I found that they were not retaining much with it and added Rod and Staff a few months before the end of the year. We will try to do a bit more grammar this coming year, and with Lively Latin , they should do a bit better next year. R also did exactly as I expected. He is a bit more advanced in Reading and Spelling than L, but retaining those math facts is a problem sometimes. He got 98 percentile in reading Vocab, 99 in reading comprehension, 85 in maths computation(yep!), but 98 in maths concepts and problems. 93 percentile in language mechanics, 80 in Language usage and structure, and 91 percentile in spelling. The percentile scores mean that he did better than that percentage of students in the norm group. The long and short of it all is that they are above average in everything and I haven't ruined them another year.

Let the Fun begin

It's that time of the year again where I start planning for the new school year. This year, I will have an 8th grader, a 5th grader, and 2 3rd graders. I will start with my 3rd graders. I have most of what they are going to be using anyway, so theirs is pretty easy. They will be doing memory (poetry, hymns etc from Living Memory and other sources) daily. For math, they will continue CLE math 4, plus I am continuing MEP and Practical arithmetic. We are going to do Easy Grammar3/4 this year instead of CLE but I am also adding Language Lessons for the Elementary Student from Queen's homeschool. I have some small workbooks from Singapore( Singapore Grammar, Singapore Vocabulary and Writing) that my twins love to do for 'fun' so they will continue with that. We are also using Simply Spelling, a Charlotte Mason type spelling program that uses copywork and dictation. We will continue with CLE Bible 3 and since I already have CLE SS 3 and Rod and Staff science 3, we will deviate from the 'classical' and use these instead. Elementary Spanish will be continued on United Streaming, but I am drawing a blank with Latin. The twins just finished School song Latin and I was thinking of using Lively Latin with them (which I already own) but I prefer Latin for children which has dvds. I want someone else to do the teaching. Oh, well!! Decisions! DECISIONS! We shall see. But we do plan to continue with history- the Story of the world will be done with C. I am also planning on reading the Nesbit's Shakespeare, Fifty Famous stories retold, Burgess Animal Book and the Island story. Art, music and logic(probably Primary logic and Building Thinking Skills with a little bit of Mind Benders will be done, I have these already). So I buy now and then I plan. By end of June , it will be C's turn to decide, buy and plan.

Almost Over

School is winding to a close, just a couple more weeks and we are done. I am tired.The kids can feel 'summer' in the air and are giving me a more harder time. We have practically done away with afternoon school. So we are just finishing up the 3 'Rs and we will take our standardized tests and we are done for 8 weeks. YEAH!! Actually, my twins are done with math. They are now 'playing around' with MEP math(a British math program) and Practical Aritmetic ( an 189o something book) for the rest of the month and this summer. They will start CLE math 4 in August. They will be in 3rd grade. J has a literature online class and a writing class this summer so he doesn't finish until 1st week in July then he has 4-H camp for 1 week and a church camp for another week. He also will help out with VBS in August. C is doing an online class this summer in writing also, he also has 1 week of VBS and 1 week of 4-H. He will aslo go camping with the cub scouts and dh in July. Dh and I went to a wedding a few weeks ag and I decided to put some of the pictures up.

Busy! Busy! Busy!

That characterizes my days. Between trying to finish this school year and trying to decide on 'stuff' for the next, doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, keeping track of all the kiddos activities, I need a break . I have told dh next year our Sundays are going to be 'rest' days. This Sunday for instance, we went to church. Usually J my oldest has piano after but this Sunday, their youth group at church had to participate in both services, so I cancelled piano. After piano, the other 3 have swimming lessons, but this Sunday, I cancelled that also because the twins had a swimming party to go to that afternoon. J, my oldest came home from 2nd service, gobbled up some food and then had to be driven back to church. All the youth were going laser tagging. After that, the had their twins swimming party. They usually have soccer practice after swimming on Sunday, but it was their coaches twins birthday, so no soccer practice. Then J had to be picked up from church after laser tag and rushed to a soccer game. His games are usually on Saturday but of course, he had a Sunday game today of all days. He had told his coach that he would miss the 1st half but they started late and he only missed 15 minutes. He usually has youth group on Sunday evenings but because of laser tag so they had none.

We had Boston Market for dinner.

Now, I have to take the 3 younger ones to piano, so my lamentations must end now.

Happy Easter

We had last week off since we had my cousin and her 12 year old son visiting from England. It was a bit hectic but we survived. Of course my kids were in heaven- no school for 1 week, play outside whenever they liked, 1 hour of video games and Tv for a whole week, HEAVEN!! But alas, it all ended today. We are back, school is back and the kids did great. Of course it was probably all due to the various threats I made yesterday- the ones about schooling in the summer and no video games this weekend if they didn't give me their 100% today, etc, etc. Well whatever it was, it worked. The core subjects were done this morning, I gave the 3 younger ones the afternoon off because our local school have spring break this week also, so my kids wanted to play outside. J, did his full schedule though.

My days and nights are now consumed with choosing curriculum for next year. I am giving myself 1 more week, and then I shold have made my decision. We will see!!
I 'll put it all up the next time I post.

The days have been going pretty fast over here. The weather is getting warmer, spring-cleaning is in the air. School is moving along. C turned 10 on the 28th, J took the National Latin Exams and we got his results back today. He got an Outstanding Achievement Certificate. I am really proud of him because Latin has been been a hit and miss (mostly miss by me) in our homeschool, but he plods along slowly on his own. That is why signing him up for an online class next year is such a good idea. The twins are still, well the twins. L said yesterday that he wished he could travel back in time and talk to the Sumerians and tell them that inventing schools was one of the worst things that they could have done. Alas, my boys do not like school. But as L says, 'whether we like it or not, we still have to do it, so there is little point in complaining. Right now, it is 67plus degrees outside, the 3 younger kids are running around outside, J my oldest is doing Latin, I am at the computer. The other 3 still have history, science and music, but it is so peaceful in the house, I am just going to leave them outside and call it P.E, Nature Studies and Exploration and Adventure. Ahhhh, I now have a clear conscience.

We finally completed our study of Egypt. We ended up making papyrus last week, and mummifying apples. The kids had a blast. We started the Ancient Greeks this week. Math is still the favorite around here with the three younger ones and they are moving quickly through it. Planning has started in earnest for next year. There are so many good things out there I want to use but alas, there is really no time.

Wow, it has been a while.

So what has been going on. Of course, all the kids have been sick, one after the other. But school has been going fine. I break out in a cold sweat when I think of planning high school , but I am thinking about it. We will be starting 8th grade in August, this will be our 7th year of homeschooling.

My twins started CLE maths 309 today. Math is still their favorite subject . We still have 14 weeke of school, a light unit takes around 3 weeks to complete, one more light unit to go. I definitely do not want them starting the grade 4 book in grade 2, so I have to look for something to occupy them . We do math in the summer, so by the time we officially start grade 3, they would be halfway through the grade 4 book. We are still doing CLE LA but we are orally supplementing with Rod and Satff 2 grammar. I am finding that grammar contents are not sticking as well as I would like, so we do 15 minutes orally 2 lessons of Rod and Staff grammar daily. CLE reading is going fine but we have stopped doing the spelling. Next year, I plan on using Climbing to Good English 3 with them and Michael Clay LA . Michael Clay is apparently a really tough program and for gifted kids so we shall see. My 7th grader started it (Magic Lens) a few weeks ago, and I can tell you, he is using the dictionary a lot more.

C is still, well C. You know, of all my 4, I would say he is 'gifted'. That said, schooling with him is always a challenhe. He doesn't like school, he doesn't like to work. He is in CLE math 504 and doing fine with it. I am planning on him doing CLE math 6 in grade 5, then Lial's Basic Math and Life of Fred in grade 6, let him work through LOF , Decimals and Beginning Algebra in 7th before starting algebra in grade 8. I know lots of kids do algebra in 7th grade and even earlier but there will definitely a maturity issue with this one ( unless something dramatic happens and he changes), so we will do algebra 1 in 8th. We are also doing A World of Adventure as our 'fun' unit. We started the Golden Goblet a few days ago.

History, science , arts ( which has been neglected for a few weeks now) and music are all being done with the twins. Ancient Egypt is being done in history, science we are talking about the animal kingdom and also doing a study of deserts. We made barley cakes a few days ago and also did a Nile River delta project.

J is still doing Lial's Basic Math . CLE reading is completed, so he is now doing Lightning Literature 7. He started M.Clay's Magic Lens and he is also working through English Prep 1. He is doing a writing class from Write at home. History is a hodge-podge of things from SOTW 3, PASS World and PASS America, United Streaming and Kingfisher History Encyclopedia which he outlines. He started Runkle Geography and is doing Singapore Interactive Science 1 3 days a week, and working through Prentice Hall Chemical Building Blocks 2 days a week. Meet the Masters is being done for arts and and we studied the Blues last week in our American music study. He is still plodding along in Latin and Spanish.
For 8th grade next year, I have signed in up to do writing and Latin 1 with Veritas Press.

It has been a while. Since the 'chicken pox' didn't look anything like chicken pox, and my twins showed no sign of getting it, I decided to get a second opinion from another doctor. It turned out that it wasn't chicken pox but she THOUGHT that it was something called "pityriasis rosea" which has no cure and is not contagious but can take up to seven weeks to clear up. Apparently, no one knows what causes it so 4 weeks into the'chicken pox', his skin is finally starting to clear. I just wish I knew more about it.

School. Well, this has been going pretty well I guess. The 3 Rs and more are being covered. I might post a weekly report tomorrow. I haven't done that in a while. I am also starting to plan for next year. I have actually signed up my oldest for 2 online classes next year from Veritas Scholars- Composition 1 and Latin 1. We will struggle with the rest of 8th grade at home.
So, next year I will have 2 3rd graders, a 5th grader, and an 8th grader. It will be our 7th year of homeschooling.

For 8th grade, I have a definite idea of what I am going to be doing, for the rest of the crew, I am still planning. 8th grade this year will definitely be 'rough' for J. He has a really full schedule, but I am hoping he will rise to the challenge. Some of what he will be using include Math Relief Algebra 1, Rod and Staff English 8, CLE Reading 8, Runkle Geography, Singapore Interactive Science 2 and a lot more.

Chicken Pox

C, my 9 yr old has it. So I expect the 8 yr old twins to be getting it also. The next couple of weeks are going to be just fun.

PINEWOOD DERBY PICTURES

L, my 8 yr old won 2nd place overall with Star destroyer car, C was 3rd overall with his Jeff Gordon Nascar, of course and R was 4th overall with his Jedi Star fighter.

This was a pretty busy weekend. We have the 3 younger kids in Cub Scouts and next weekend is the Pinewood Derby. Dh is doing THE CARS. The kids have all drawn the design they want. C wants the Nascar car of tomorrow, the twins want something from Star Wars. My poor dh was in the basement the whole of Saturday working.

Weekly Report

I haven't posted all week on my blog. How did we do in school this week amidst all the sniffles and snuffles and coughings? Here is a condensed version.

TWINS: Did great in math as usual. Had a test which they aced. They did narrations and dictations from Writing With Ease this week. We don't do it consistently but I am really going to have to. LA and reading were fine. Did Arts this week from Teach Art to children. They learnt about positive and negative shapes. For music, we learnt about Mozart. They concluded that Mozart was pretty boring compared to Vivaldi(the Four seasons is their favorite) and Handel. Piano concerto no 41 and symphony no 40 definitely didn't do it for them. This week we also learnt about the Phoenicians for history. We made a purple dye and dyed a white shirt, we also did Phoenician bread(pita bread) which everyone loved.

C: Worked hard this week also. His online writing class is also going well. He worked with on history, science and art this week. Latin went great, have given up on French for this year, spanish went well.

J: Continued Lial's Basic math. He started learning about the Constitution and the War of 1812 in History. Latin Alive is really going fast for him so instead of taking a week per lesson, we will start taking 2. He will also work through pretty quickly Latin Book 1 which will act as review.

This is my middle son C age 9. Behind him is my messy oldest son's book shelf. My oldest just left for a Youth Group Retreat, so he'll tidy it when he comes home on Sunday.

Weekly Report

I have never done this weekly thing and I have no pictures to show, so it is kind of boring. Next week, I promise to walk around constantly with a camera during school. That said, here goes:

TWINS: CLE math 306 is progressing smoothing. They mastered multiplying with carrying and decimals and place value. Today, they just watched a United Streaming video. LA, reading and Bible also went as planned. They are using CLE. We started memorizing from Living Memory, and continued Trumpet of the Swan as our read aloud. Chapter 12 of School Song Latin was done, as well as 1 lesson(instead of 2) of Elementary spanish. Neglected art as usual, but did the story of the orchestra and 1 lesson of Melody lane and listened to Themes to Remember for music. History was mostly review, went quickly over Ancient Mesopotamia, next week, we start The phoenicians(SOTW chpt 15). Oh, and they did 1 lesson of map skills in a geography workbook. Science- we reviewed the biomes we have studied so far, and learnt about the tundra and deserts.

C: Working on CLE math 502, no problem for him. He learnt to find the area of a square and a rectangle by formula, place value through trillions and reading and writing these numbers. He started Time4 writing, an 8 week online writing class that is costing me a pretty penny, but even though he has only done 1 lesson, he seems to love it. CLE LA 405 is progressing slowly, he doesn't like it very much but it is progressing. CLE reading is causing some problems because he doesn't like higher thinking questions, he just wants to write 'yes' or 'no'. We started Sequential Spelling Bk 1 and we are on day 5. So far, no complaining. French is progressing very slowly ( I wonder if I should drop it?) but Lively Latin was done. He also did 2 pages of Logic Countdown and 1 page of a Map skills workbook. History and music were done with the twins. He is reading Doctor Dolittle.


J, my 7th grader, started Lial Basic College Math. He is the least 'mathy' of my kids. He completed CLE 709 but I don't feel comfortable with him going into Algebra 1 at the moment, so he will work through this book, at least until September. He also started a Write at home online class but he is also working through IEW SWI B with me. CLE LA and reading are coming along slowly, but he is just like Callan when he comes to the higher-order thing questions. He worked through 2 lessons of Spanish Education from United Streaming, did a chapter of Latin Alive 1(mailed the National Latin Exam application in also), and did Fallacy Detective and Building Thinking Skills for logic. He is working throgh the Pass guides for geography, which he is finding a bit challenging, but those are really high school books and he is doing great with them. He d1d history- read through Chpt 25 of SOTW 3 ( The French Revolution), did the corresponding outline from Kingfisher, read and answered the questions about it also from the Pass Guides, watched a US video on the French Revolution and prepared a list in the form of a chart about the political, social and economic problems that led to the French Revolution. He started Meet the Masters(the introduction) in art, did about patriotic music from the Listen to Learn Book in music. Science was neglected this week. UPS delivered our box from Singapore math (Science Interactive 1) missing the textbook, so they are sending me the text.

Yikes, I will definitely make this shorter and post pictures next week.

This is my mom. She is staying with me indefinitely unless the cold drives her back to Freetown.

Mammogram

I got one of those scary letters on the 24th of December(yep! Christmas Eve. It really made my day) saying that further tests ( more mammogram screening and if warranted an ultrasound) were needed because they found a mass. That was it. I couldn't call back that day or the next because they were closed, so I had a really 'fun' Christmas worrying myself sick about what 'the mass ' was and had all these thought racing through my head. I called them on the 26th to sechedule an appointment (hopefully for the Monday before I drove myself and my dh crazy with worry) but of course I couldn't get one until today.
I knew then that I had a choice, drive myself sick with worry about what it could be, make dh and the kids miserable for the next 2 weeks or just hold on to my faith and leave it all in God's hands. So I did just that. I drank a lot more wine and Mike's than usual because nights were the worst and I couldn't fall asleep even with Calm Forte, chamomile, Natural Calm and everything else that I drank.
We started school on Monday. Of course I wasn't as prepared as I should have been and was distracted more than usual but today finally came and I went for the appointment. Did the mammogram, waited a while, then they came to tell that an ultrasound was warranted. Did the ultrasound, then the technician says that the doctor was going to come in to talk to me, and to just lay there and not to get dressed. She went out and by then I was trying not to panic. Fourteen minutes later just as I was deciding to get dressed and go get dh from the waiting room, the doctor comes in. Fluid-filled cysts, see you in a year's time.
I didn't know if I should burst into tears or just laugh and hug her. One thing I do know is that I would never again do a mammogram in December, it will be January from now on.

Today ( or is it yesterday already), the 5th anyway was the first day of school and also my twins birthday. They turned 8. Time really flies. I remember the crying for about 5 months of my pregnancy when I found out I was having twin boys ( 4 boys in all). But they have turned out to be the joy of my life. I cannot imagine what my life would be like without them in it.

We don't usually do parties, but the kids usually choose someplace to go. It is usually Chuck E Cheese but this time they want to go to this arcade place not too far from our house, so we will do that on Saturday. They got board games and puzzles, Legos sets and the Leap Frog globe.

School!! Now, what can I say? It went well considering not one of us wanted to start. We had a slow start but picked up the pace later on. We did most of the subjects except art and science ( for the twins and my 9 yr old) and science for my 7th grader( still waiting on Singapore Interactive Book 1 to arrive). I got a lot of " I don't like school" and " why can't we start next week" and my 7th grader declared this to be 'the worst day of the year so far'. Tomorrow, we will see how it goes.

I will post a weekly report for each of them on Friday.

Salone Mama

Why this name for my blog? I am actually from Sierra Leone although I have lived abroad for 22 years. I actually think I am the only Sierra Leonean who homeschools. It is just not done. Heck, I actually kept it a secret from my mom for 5 years, but she is now living with me, so it is no longer a secret. She actually took it quite well. She probably saw that the kids are doing great academically and are very well-adjusted socially, and they are my kids after all, not hers. I also have the support of my dh, so any complaints and comments are going to be addressed to him , not me.

2009

So, I really think I should start taking this blogging thing more seriously. This is my 2009 resolution. I am going to start with really good intentions.

Today, I've been trying to organise myself for school. We start on Monday. This year, I have signed my 4th grader and 7th grader for online writing classes. J will be doing Write at home 7th grade composition and C will be doing Time4 writing. Writing is a much neglected subject in our homeschool so outsourcing it makes sense.


So we will see how this year goes.