Sometimes I get so caught up in providing my daughter with a better education than she would get in the public school alternative to our homeschool, that I forget that she needs down time, too.

I get caught up in the idea of what science curriculum we will use when she finishes her current one. Our core curriculum only has new science work through sixth grade. Though she just started 6^th grade officially this school year, she will be through science by the end of the calendar year.

While she is surging ahead in science, her writing skills are not quite to grade level. She is a reluctant writer. We butt heads about this constantly because, well, I just want her to write more and better. So now I’m looking into a homeschool writing course so that she can have the experience of writing for someone besides me.

And I push, push, push. As she gets higher in middle school, I realize I am pushing her harder, (because the work is harder and there is more of it). She complains that we don’t do enough fun school, and only do “work” school.

So this week, when most students have the entire week off, I am backing off just a little bit. She is doing science, because she loves it. And she is doing a Thanksgiving Spelling list, because I need her to do some school this week. My nod to making it more fun is letting her cut up some magazines, and do some art work that corresponds to those words. Oh, and we are studying a bit of math…you know, the kind that results in a piping hot batch of chocolate chip cookies, and some fresh baked yeast rolls!

Have a great week and remember to give thanks for those things that mean the most to you.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We are done!

Ok, that sounds so final. Let me qualify that. We are officially done with 5^th grade. My daughter has been doing 6^th grade science for a while now, because, of course, it is her very favorite subject, and she wouldn’t do anything else if I didn’t insist on a little math, and a little language arts, reading, logic, foreign language, art, music…you know, everything else!

And, naturally, my daughter is very legalistic, so even though she has been doing 6^th grade level work in some subjects, like science, she could not stand for me to tell people she was in 6^th grade.

“But Mamaaaa…”, she would stage whisper, “I’m still doing 5^th grade language arts!!!”

It gets very confusing for people who ask her what grade she is in, because she feels the need to tell them exactly what grade she is doing in each subject.

So, now, legally, literally, figuratively, and in any other way you can think of, as of Thursday of this week, she can honestly tell people, without any misguidance or smoke screens, that she is in 6^th grade. Yippee!!

What does that mean for us really? Well, because she put off her home school language arts until the bitter end, we have had to focus on it really hard for the last couple of weeks, in an effort for her to complete the course. So now, she is tired of language arts and doesn’t want to see it again for weeks, if ever!! Because we were focusing so hard on language arts, I had to curtail the amount of science and social studies she did. So, she feels deprived of her two favorite courses of study, and only wants to do them. And amid all of this, math has become the forgotten subject. I plan to ease her back into math every day using a couple of math games, just to jog her memory and remind her that it can be fun.

Seems like a lot of imbalance going on in her schooling right now, and my goal between now and Thanksgiving is to try to bring a little balance back into how much work she does in each subject. Every year we seem to get into this state of imbalance between where she is in science and where she is in language arts. I would love to use science as a reward for math and language arts getting done, but she loves science so much it seems unfair to put off science in favor of her least favorite subjects.

Has any one else run into this problem? How do you keep things in balance? I’d love to hear comments on this.

In the mean time, my daughter is OFFICIALLY a 6^th grader!!!!!!! Woohoo!!!!

It is a commonly held belief that learning phonics helps children become better readers, spellers, and writers. Phonics are usually taught early on, in kindergarten and first grade, as the student is beginning to learn to translate spoken English to written English. Since my child is an accomplished reader, I thought we were past worrying about phonics. But I am beginning to rethink this, because she is still not a very good speller. Did I mention that she is entering  sixth grade?  This may be something she struggles with for her entire life. And I think I know where the problem began.

I pulled my daughter out of public school midway through first grade and began home schooling. Because I did not want to buy a full year’s curriculum for first grade since she had already done half of it in public school, I began her in second grade work. She had no trouble with that work, at all, and so I thought that we were home free. As she continues to have problems with spelling, I am beginning to wonder if she missed something fundamental during that half year of work she didn’t get exposed to.

Looking at some of the stuff that would have been covered in that half year, I discovered that continued work with phonics, and breaking words into syllables, or segmenting, occurred during that time. Around fourth grade I tried to have her go back and work on the phonics but honestly it is like that ship has sailed. She knows that work is for younger students and feels like I am treating her like a baby.

She does not sound words out, but she has a phenomenal memory. She can tell me if a word is spelled incorrectly, but she cannot tell me the correct spelling, though she will recognize it if given the correct spelling.

Since I cannot go back and solidify her knowledge of phonics at this stage, we are practicing other methods of improving her spelling. We have been doing word ladders for some time, and they do a good job of exploring word families. And of course, I have her play spelling games, using word lists from her other subjects. I’ve even found a primary science syllables game that lets her practice breaking science words into syllables. I have hope that this type of practice with science and other words will reinforce her ability to break words into syllables, and thereby learn to spell better.

I guess the basic lesson here for parents is…don’t skip the fundamentals, even if your child seems bored. The extra practice, solidifying the knowledge up front, might save you from having to play catch up at a later time.

I know, I shouldn’t be frustrated because my child doesn’t know something. That is the entire point of her going to school, is it not? If she knew everything, then there would be no point to her doing lessons. I’m going to take a deep breath and try to keep this in mind.

What is the latest problem? (Not really a problem…) My daughter wrote a paragraph, and in that paragraph, she made two spelling errors. I thought we were past those spelling errors. The words were actually very simple, and I know we have had these words. The words were “knot” and “their”. Here is the deal, she didn’t actually spell the words wrong, she just used the incorrect spelling for the meaning. Sound-alike words or homophones tend to be words that are not caught on spell checkers, generally, but the spelling of the words and the meanings associated with the spellings can be a place where students get confused. My daughter meant to use knot instead of not. And she meant to use their, but she spelled it there. I went out and checked, and for fifth and sixth graders there are many words that are on the list of homophones.

Here is another situation we ran into in a different paper. Capitonyms. Capito-whats you ask? I know, I had never heard of them either. Capitonyms are words that are spelled the same, but differ in meaning, depending on whether or not the word is capitalized. The classic example of this is Turkey and turkey, one is the country and the other is the creature we normally eat for Thanksgiving. Again, capitonyms are not found by spell checkers.

Here I thought we were making progress on spelling, and in the same month, I find two areas where we are going to have to step back and practice. And it reminds me that spell checker is not flawless. This situation reminds me that I need to hand grade her writing.  So, consider brushing up on the rules and examples of homophones, homonyms, and similar language arts issues, so that when your child runs into them you will be able to help her navigate that road.

My local school will begin the 2011-12 school year next week. While this doesn’t really effect my home school, it does increase my level of stress a little bit. We took an unforeseen break in June and July as far as school was concerned. Family issues required much of my time, and school was the thing that suffered for six weeks. We aren’t behind. Because we home school all year long, we have a cushion built in to our schedule. What I did lose by taking the unforeseen break was the extra time I had built in to help improve my daughter’s ability to take standardized tests. She is an excellent reader, scoring well above grade level, so that is not a problem. Her vocabulary is above level. So why am I concerned? Because is the year my daughter will need to take several standardized tests. We hope to move to a different state by this time next year, and I will have to have scores to present to the new state, even though we plan to continue home schooling.

There are three aspects of standardized tests that concern me with regards to my daughter’s ability to score well. She does not do well with analogies for some reason. She is a very literal thinker. Because of her literal thinking, analogies and metaphors just seem to be hard for her to understand and utilize in her language. Unfortunately, analogies are a staple for standardized tests. The way we are going to approach learning analogies is to simply do lots and lots of practice. That translates to lots of time practicing.

Another aspect of standardized tests that we are going to have to work on is my daughter’s writing ability. Even though I have a degree in English, and I write for a living, I find that I do not teach writing as well as I would like. Part of it is my impatience with my daughter’s unwillingness to actually write. I find it frustrating for her to be able to dictate a great paragraph, but not be able to actually write it herself. As far as standardized tests are concerned, this simply will not work. I actually think my impatience is detrimental to her improving in this area. I’m considering enrolling her in an outside writing course. Perhaps a different teacher will be more successful in teaching my daughter to write.

The last thing we are going to have to face is not really a language arts issue, but an overall issue. She can’t stand to be timed on anything, and any pressure put on her to get her to work within a limited time frame simply paralyzes her. She will not be able to do well on standardized tests, no matter how much knowledge she has in her head, if the test giver starts a set of instructions with, “You will have 30 minutes to complete this section.” I’ve got to figure out a way to help my daughter with this issue. I’m going to be doing some research on this area in the next month or so. Should I come up with a solution or suggestions on this issue, I will certainly pass the information on to those reading here.

I just wanted to add that it would be great if anyone had suggestions to help with these issues, or experience similar problems in their own home schools that they were willing to share through comments. All in all, I have to remember to stay flexible, and work harder when it is necessary, and work smarter when we can.