Homeschooling from a Teacher's Viewpoint

It's nice to see a teacher fighting for homeschoolers' rights.

Article here.

Life Happens

The last three days have been a lesson to me in flexibility, patience, and honoring God's commandments.

A young couple in our church had a family member in California die. I could see she really wanted to be there, but with three young children on a 3rd class petty officer's salary, it was not likely to happen. I encouraged her to look into Space A MAC flights, and also offered to watch her kids if she wanted to go. Friday morning, her husband called mine and asked if we could take all three kids until Tuesday. He told us that we were the only ones they felt they could trust with their precious children - what a blessing to hear that!

Years ago *we* were blessed with wonderful people who would watch our young children on a moment's notice. This is certainly a blessing to a young military family far from home. These people have become our forever friends whom we will never forget.

All through Scripture God calls us to show our love for our neighbors in practical ways. Sometimes this isn't convenient or easy. I learned long ago that it is more important to be available for the new homeschool mom who needs to vent than to finish the lesson plan for the day. My kids have learned to be flexible, and to understand that people are more valuable than books. This is one of those life lessons they wouldn't have learned in school.

In this particular instance, it hasn't been at all easy to serve. I haven't watched a two-year-old for more than a few hours in a long, long time. In addition, he has a medical issue which requires me to watch everything he touches and puts in his mouth. Doable, but challenging.

To add to the challenge, we just got a new puppy whom we are working on housetraining. I haven't been able to keep as close an eye on him as I would like, so we've had lots of accidents. Plus, I've been so busy caring for two young ones, a puppy, and a house, that I didn't have time to put together lesson plans for homeschool today.

No worries, right? Well, I got up early after a sleepless night to get things going, only to find that my two youngest both have fevers. I've struggled all day to keep on top of things, but all my plans have gone awry.

Still, there have been moments of joy. There was genuine laughter from sharing old jokes with new kids. The two-year-old has entertained us hourly with his antics and impish smile. With two of my kids down, the oldest from both families stepped up to the plate with chores. The new puppy is too adorable for words. My dear husband has been home the whole time and is a great help. Still, I'll be glad when mommy and daddy come home tomorrow.

And if they asked me again tomorrow, I would would smile a sincerely genuine smile and say, from my heart, "Absolutely."

Cons of Homeschooling

Every once in awhile I'll come across an article or blog about the "cons of homeschooling." Unfortunately most of the time they aren't really cons but veiled digs at non homeschoolers.

That's why this article is so refreshing. These are thoughtful, real reasons why homeschooling is hard.

But, I still think it's worth it.

Egg Experiment for Biology

My oldest is studying Apologia's Exploring Creation With Biology this year. Many of the experiments so far have been microscopic, hence no photos. I didn't realize this experiment was on a macro level, so I only got a picture of the last step.

Anyway, the first step of this experiment consisted of soaking a raw egg in vinegar. This dissolves the shell while leaving the semipermeable membrane intact. Osmosis allowed water from the vinegar solution to pass through, swelling the egg.

In the next step, the egg is now soaked in corn syrup. Now, osmosis causes water from the egg to move out of the membrane, which causes the egg to shrink and dimple.

In the final step, the egg in soaked in distilled water. Once again, the water passes into the egg through the membrane, causing the egg to again swell.


At this stage, the egg looked and felt like a bouncy ball, and the yolk was barely visible. The membrane was tougher than at the beginning of the experiment, but was still breakable.

There was another experiment on diffusion, so we could see the difference between osmosis and diffusion. We didn't get any pictures of the other experiment.

Water Bears

My two youngest have been studying science using Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day for the past two years. Last week we studied a very unique microscopic creature - tardigrades, otherwise known as Water Bears. Today I came across a video of them:




Aren't they cute?

To Grade or Not to Grade?

That is the question over at Turned Loose.

Rebecca asks:

My fellow homeschooling moms, what do you do? Grade everything? Assess based on effort? Other?

That is an excellent question. Of course when you have a high schooler (my oldest is in 9th grade this year), you need to come up with a grading scheme for your transcript. This is pretty simple with some subjects - our math and Spanish programs grade automatically. But, with many other subjects, its not so easy. How much do you weight tests vs. worksheets? How do you grade oral discussions? What percentage do you give to writing assignments?

This is one of the reasons I really love Tapestry of Grace. They have come up with some very excellent grading rubrics that help you grade all those intangibles like participation in discussions. This is an excellent way to assess comprehension of the more complicated subjects.

For students in the lower grades, I actually do not grade. I don't believe that grading work is useful other than to puff up or pull down a young spirit. It doesn't teach anything.

Instead, I sit down with my children and review the work with them. When they've made a mistake, I work over the problem with them orally, trying to lead them to the correct answer. We then correct the work together (always with the homeschool mom's trusty red pen!) and end with both of us having a greater understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. Eventually they learn to review their work more critically, to double check their answers, and to ask questions more readily.

I believe this results in a much better outcome for both of us than simply handing them back a graded paper.

What do you do?

Unit 1 Art

We finished Unit 1 of Year 2 of our curriculum, Tapestry of Grace, a couple of weeks ago. We are too busy right now to have a Unit Celebration, so we weren't able to show off the kids' work. I need to clear out their projects to make room for their Unit 2 work, so as always I needed to take pictures and document their work for posterity before it gets circular filed. This unit covers the Middle Ages, from the end of the Roman Empire until the Renaissance.


My girls were very interested in crests. They both researched the meanings behind the colors and the designs, and chose the ones they felt best represented them.

My son, as usual, is not as interested in crafts - unless it involves building something. This is his Viking ship paper craft. His favorite part was making up designs for each of the shields along the sides.

My youngest had fun making this stained glass window. She picked out the colors and came up with the design all on her own.

My oldest is an artist and really enjoyed drawing this Viking ship with colored pencils.

My youngest again - she didn't finish the fourth element of this craft, which is supposed to represent the Four Alls of medieval life - the peasant, the knights, the king, and the church. Can you tell which three she finished?

Can't wait to see what creative ventures they delve into in Unit 2 - I heard my son and husband mention a trebuchet....