homeschooling

All posts tagged homeschooling

How To Have a Relaxing Sunday!

Published October 12, 2014 by Angela

1) Do your homework on Saturday.

2) Get your homeschooler’s work caught up on Saturday.

3) Make sure you have the basic necessities in the house before Sunday; you know, like milk, bread, toilet paper.

4) Make sure no one is going to call you asking for something (i.e. turn your phone off).

5) Don’t plan a road trip for Sunday.

6) Do not put of until tomorrow (Sunday) what you can do today (any of the 6 days prior to Sunday).

I have done an epic fail at this on this weekend. I have homework, my 13 year old has homework, I need to get groceries, I am hauling my 3 girls to meet my 4th daughter at her college campus so I can get (finally) some updated pictures of the 4 of them together.

At this point I see no need to turn off my phone, because I am not going to be relaxing today. I was on the road yesterday with a car full of kids, and get to do it again today. I need to get a weekend figured out where I truly have nothing to do, and nowhere to be. Hopefully before the snow flies.

Have a beautiful, Blessed Sunday!

When You Do Not Know What To Say…

Published October 11, 2014 by Angela

…when your 10 year old daughter tells you there is a Father-Daughter dance coming up. And she asks if you can call her Father and see if he could go.

And you do not even have a phone number to contact him. Or an address to send him a letter. And he hasn’t seen or talked to her in nearly a year. How do I even respond to this?

I know how I would like to respond, and I certainly know what I would like to say. But I don’t. I don’t because it is not her fault. And it is not my fault. I haven’t moved anywhere. I haven’t changed my phone number. And I would never abandon my children. No Matter What.

I am actually a bit beyond ticked that this school would even have this dance. Or any school. Yes, it is great for the children who still have both parents in their lives, but that is hardly the case with the majority of the children in this school. Or in many school for that matter.

I do not appreciate that my daughter is feeling hurt (and I know she is not the only one) because the school did not think this over very well. And before you get all snotty with me about it, she has went to this school for the past 5 years, and they have never done this before. So it certainly is NOT a tradition for this school. Why not have a child-parent dance, so everyone can be included?

I wish her dad could take her. I wish he would take her. I wish he would call her. I wish he would pick her and her sisters up. But he doesn’t. And he won’t. The two older girls realize it, and do not even ask anymore. I guess as sad as it is, I can at least look forward to the fact that she is very close to not asking anymore either.

When There Is Nowhere To Turn…

Published October 10, 2014 by Angela

…there is always one place I can, and do, still turn. That is to my faith, my God, and my Savior. Sometimes that is the only place I can turn, and I am okay with that. That is where I get my strength, courage, and peace of mind. Some days that is the only place I can turn, and even on the days when I do not feel a pressing need to turn to my faith, I still do; to say Thank You. Thank you for my children, my health, my job, a warm home, and the means to support my girls and myself on my own.

So after great accomplishments and gains, I again saw this on my 13 year olds arm today:

Why this again? :-(

Why this again? 😦

She says it has been a year, and I believe her, but why now? She said it was because she couldn’t yell at anyone?

What?
Wait. WHAT?
Does she not think I would rather her yell at someone, myself included, then intentionally hurt herself? We go through this, and get her help, and she takes her medication, but still turns back to this to make herself feel better.

It hurts me that she will hurt herself, and I am so helpless to help her. I have tried everything, times 3, and well beyond.

This is what turns me to my faith. I wish she would start turning to her faith as well.

Keeping Your Children Safe On The Internet…

Published October 7, 2014 by Angela

…is a lot harder then I would ever have expected. I have locked down my children’s laptop to the furthest extent I am capable of. I bought a security program that was useless, so I resorted to using Microsoft Family Safety. This security program makes me far more frustrated than it has ever helped protect my kids. Now, I will accept the “explanation” that when they “try” to access a site, say Facebook, that it is going to show up on their activity report, even though they could not get into it.

How exactly is this helping me? Now I have a very extensive list of websites that my daughter may, or may not have, accessed. Yes, there is no replacement for the diligent monitoring a parent can do to help keep their kids safe on the internet. The laptop is used at the kitchen table, with the screen in view of me. This somehow did not prevent my daughter opening a page with the link titled “Beautiful Ladies with big ….”. I cannot even type it here, I am so disgusted.

What did Microsoft Family Safety have to say about this page on her activity log? It could be “suspicious”. What? WHAT? The last word in that edited sentence was of a male body part, but MFS only thinks it may be questionable? Well Microsoft Family Safety, I think you suck worse than your faulty program.

The laptop is locked in my bedroom when I am not at home. But there are also ways around the safety net. Such as logging in and opening the internet and clicking on the site you want from the toolbar before the MFS can even start functioning. I have blocked Tumblr numerous times daily for weeks, I am about 85% positive she is still accessing it.

I am not putting the responsibility of minding my children on an entertainment corporation, but good gracious, at some point I need to use the bathroom, or get the laundry out of the basement, or any other number of tasks that my single mom life requires of me on a daily basis.

I wish there was truly a site that would just block what you want, and not ridiculous things. My daughter homeschools, so it is difficult to block access to news sites when she needs to use information from them, yet she can click on links through there and get to these inappropriate sites.

So, I will continue to look over their shoulders as much as I can, block every website that is inappropriate as they access it (you would not believe the number of social networking sites kids are using; most I have never heard of). At some point I have to rely on them to make the right choices, and I know I raised them in a manner that they know right from wrong. Now I just need to worry about the curiosity and temptation factor that sometimes overwhelms teenagers.

I Am At A Loss For Words…

Published October 6, 2014 by Angela

…as to how my 8th grade homeschooler could manage to get herself on the brink of being removed from her virtual online school.

What has she done to raise the ire of the homeschooling staff?

She refuses to answer the phone when her homeroom teacher calls; once every other week.

Every.

Other.

Week.

Twice a month. That’s it. She needs to talk to her homeroom teacher twice a month so they know if she has any questions, issues, concerns, etc.

I do not find this to be unreasonable in the least, and have been explaining to her that she has got to take these phone calls. Or I will be driving her to the local public middle school and signing her up for classes there.

I am really, truly, at my wits end with her lack of cooperation.

She is doing the school work. She is smart. She is not confused by the classes or assignments.

She is quickly running out of options, and she is not going to like the only other alternative I have if she refuses public school like I have been dealing with for the past 5 years.

Any ideas? Thoughts? Words of encouragement? Hexes or spells to make her do what she should? Anything?

Uggh. That is exactly how I feel right now.

UGH

I Don’t Know Why I Was Even Surprised…

Published October 2, 2014 by Angela

…when I looked in the refrigerator this morning, seeing if someone got into the cookie dough, and it was gone. I had meant to put the package of Nestle Toll House pumpkin spice and white chip cookie dough in my mini refrigerator in my bedroom once I baked the Halloween chocolate chip package and Erin realized there was cookie dough in the refrigerator. I forgot when I left for work yesterday morning. This morning; the whole package had disappeared.

This is why I have a mini refrigerator in my bedroom, as well as the bottom of my entertainment center in my bedroom full of cereal, chips, snacks, etc. When the mood strikes Erin, and she fancies something to eat, she will eat it. She will eat it all. Even though she knows she shouldn’t, and that it upsets me, and it is unhealthy for her; she does it anyway. Such as 24 cookie dough squares. Or 6 cans of slim-fast in one night. Or 8 yogurts in a day. She has randomly cooked full loaves of garlic bread in the middle of the night, so when I go to cook the pasta meal I had planned for dinner; no garlic bread. If she finds chocolate anywhere, she will eat it all. I have had whole bags of chocolate chips disappear, entire cans of Pringles, and a dozen eggs at one time.

If I had a bigger bedroom, I would have a bigger refrigerator. Honestly, if I could get away with putting a lock on my refrigerator and pantry, I would. I am sure someone would consider that child endangerment or cruelty or something else along those lines. Even though she is causing herself issues by binge eating like she does.

Have you had a child, sibling, spouse, partner, friend, or roommate do this? How did you deal with it?

Online Schooling…

Published October 2, 2014 by Angela

…is definitely a big improvement for me than last year when I was setting all of the lesson plans, schedules, checking all of the homework, and then helping her with all of it. Now I just have to help her with all of it. And remind her to stay on task. And answer questions she should probably know the answers to. And remind her to stay on task. And explain to her why it is important to at least move her books from the exact location they were in that morning, so it at least looks like she opened them. And remind her to stay on task. And sit with her through her entire Algebra lessons to help her understand. And remind her to stay on task.

Okay, I think you got my point. I am liking this online environment for Erin (I am working on my 3rd college degree online, so it is definitely familiar territory). The one thing I do not like is the assessments are 4 or 5 questions. If she even gets one wrong, her grade drops by a large amount.

We are still working through the bugs, but she is improving from where she was the first week. Hopefully she is finding her rhythm, and we can keep her caught up. She has one huge writing project that gets shared with the social studies assignments as well, and it does get a bit confusing as to what is due when, and which class they want it submitted to.

I am still hoping she will be ready for public high school next year; she is working towards that goal as much as I am. If she is not, I will definitely go this route next year as well.

We made it past Hump Day, on to the weekend!

Enough Of That Fiasco!

Published September 30, 2014 by Angela

I (hopefully) moved all of my blog information back to wordpress.com, and am hoping for a fairly quick reply from Bluehost to refund me my money from my 3 year hosting plan that I paid, minus of course the 5 days of stress when I attempted, unsuccessfully, to use it.
For those of you that have managed to migrate your blog to a self-hosted website, I am beyond impressed. This experience was so stressful to me that I do not know that I would ever attempt it again. And that is really too bad because my control over my blog is again limited.
If you have self-hosted and found an amazing hosting site that did not find it necessary to charge $19.99 just to talk you through the process of moving your domain name, let me know. And no, I did not pay them anything to help me; it did not appear very user friendly right from the get-go.
So, after today, hopefully I can get back on track with my daily blogs, and I apologize for all the errors and non-existent webpages you were likely directed do.
Have a Happy Tuesday!

Does Anyone Ever Like Algebra? Do You Ever Use It?

Published September 18, 2014 by Angela

These are two of the many questions Erin is asking me as we are going through her algebra every day. I have to laugh, because I used to absolutely hate math. But I have had to take so many progressively difficult math classes in college that I actually now enjoy the challenge of working out a math problem.

But no, I did not tell her that she may never use algebra outside of school 🙂

It will all make sense at some point, I am just not sure yet what that point is for her.