Not Another Homeschool Blog

I feel like I've spent the entire month of October on the road.  I am heading back out in the morning for 4 days for the High school Festival (or something like that) at an extremely conservative university.  My kids' homeschool program competes there every year (Chorus, classical vocals and instruments, and theater pieces) and this is the last year any of my kids is going, and first chance I have had to go along.  Usually election day lines up with the festival, but I think they may have moved it because the last Presidential election was such a bummer for such a conservative population, and it killed the morale of all that attended.... with the crying and all. Anyway, it really is a good experience... really.  Anytime you get to get on the stage and compete with kids who are as seasoned as you are, makes you work harder.  I have found that this is an excellent way to start of every school year. I almost forgot to add that we went to my son's college yester...

I just saw on the news that there was a school bus crash where a car tried to make a left turn in front of a school bus got hit.  The driver and a middle school child where life-flighted to a hospital, and 13 high school bus passengers where brought to the hospital by bus, and the school bus driver was also brought to the hospital. This seems to happen a lot. I spoke to a parent the other day who had a child on a school bus last week that had an accident and the parents were not informed.  They found out through the grape vine.  That parent began homeschooling this past Monday.  That was the last straw in a long list of complaints. Last May 50 or more people were injured on a multiple school bus crash to Six Flags. I know putting your child on the school bus is easier for parents than driving, but it has always made me nervous.  I am glad that we only have to be out and about the same time as the hectic morning commute (another factor) one day a week. ...

   The other day, I wrote a post called Homeschooling with humor.    It was an attempt for me to say that sometimes my kids are a pain in the neck, and I deal with it by giving them back some of their own medicine... I.e.  gently mocking them.  Because if they can be impossible, they surely they need to see how it feels to have that 'tude projected back at them. Last night I came across a post from March 2010 entitled Teen Slacker Mentality and Phony Homeschool Moms .  The post demonstrates how homeschool moms deal with the same period of

October 11 was International Day of the Girl .  I am sorry it got past me.   I had never heard of it before.        In Oct 11, CNN profiled the International girl day movement and featured what girls think about education and their future. The article made me think of the Muslim girl , who the Taliban put a hit on, and how much more important education seems to be to people who can't get it compared to those of use who seem to take it for granted.  Then I started thinking about the education of girls... more specifically, homeschool girls. A blogger friend recently commented on a blog about me not seeming like "one of those

So I took my daughter, a 16 year old, homeschooled senior, to Wesleyan College, a school she'd been looking at for a few years, this past weekend.... Actually, it was Sunday and Monday. Three of the four schools she has applied to have been women's colleges (and I think I'll discuss that later), and each college has a different draw for her.  The ideal school would be a smash-up of the three.  The thing she likes the most about this school is it's personality.  I.e. the way the people just... are.  The kind of people it attracts.  The women of Wesleyan College from an outsiders perspective seem to be, fierce and independent, with a wicked sense of humor, and tons of love and guidance.  My daughter fits into this demographic well.  If we would take this college, and sit it in the geographical location one of the others, and the theater reputation of the third, they would have her deposit and this conversation would be over.  Based on the draw of ...

Let's face it.  Our kids are going to get on our last nerve.  We are also going to get under their skin. I love it when traditional school parents say things like, "I could never homeschool my kid, I don't have the patience, temperament, etc".  All I could think is, "I don't have those things either"... yet I homeschool. How do I do it? With humor. Here are some examples: Child is in the middle of a melt down on the floor (this could be at home, or in a store).  You stop, bend down, pat them on the head two or three times, and nonchalantly say "you're gonna be ok".  Make sure your sarcasm is dripping.  Then walk away.  They won't have any choice but to stop. When your kid is telling you what he will or won't do, tell him it is completely up to him.  He can

Not that it matters to any homeschoolers I know, but I am sitting in a hotel room flipping channels and came across the Kardashian's show. The two younger girls are apparently doing some modeling and such and said they were behind in school. They asked their mom ( again) if thy could be homeschooled and she forbade it and said that she wanted them to have the typical highschool experience. But here's the deal. Typical high school students aren't also models. If they are going to be models and travel as much as they do then they need to be homeschooled. If school is going to come first and they can't be homeschooled then they shod quit modeling or at least save it for summer vacations. Period. I think Kris is being ridiculous..... errrr. I take that back. Edit... Update... Spoke too soon. They hired a homeschool teacher service. Should have known if they brought it up they would resolve it one way or another.

I am off to a college visit with my daughter. Thought this was a good time to leave you with a pretty informative guest post I've been holding onto. Enjoy. Notes From a Homeschooled Mom has before written about what it takes to prepare homeschooled students for college , and for getting the jobs they ultimately want. Estelle Shumann builds upon this conversation with the following blog post , which talks about how the technological advances in education (especially online education) help homeschooled students with college preparedness in a way never before thought possible. Estelle writes at http://www.onlineschools.org , a website dedicated to online education. From Homeschool to Online School to College: Technological Advances Prepare Students for the University As technology has encroached into seemingly every facet of modern life in recent years, the nature of homeschooling has changed as well. In the past five years, online education programs have gone from a...

I recently wrote about 5 homeschool battles I have stopped fighting . One of these battles was trying to teach teenagers.  I mentioned that it was important to teach them a love of learning before they turned 13, because if you did, they would take over their own instruction. Since I received a request for more information on this point, I thought I would oblige. Developing a love for learning is a wonderful thing.  It means that your kids can't wait to open their books when they get up in the morning, and are avid researchers who like to report their findings back to you.  I think the key is not so much to develop this love for learning but to not squash it. Children are naturally curious and enthusiastic learners.  We as adults then to have them put aside what they want to learn in order to steer them toward what we think they should learn.  This makes them begin to resent learning and they will rebel against it. Of course, not all of us want to be unsch...

I spent two hours today trying to find an inexpensive but quality hotel for Sunday night so I could take my daughter on her preview weekend and theater audition for one of her college choices.  It was exhausting.  The college is in a bit of a rural area and it was difficult to find a local hotel.  Then the ones I found had sketchy reviews, and that made me nervous.  I finally found one recommended by the college and payed a little more than I wanted in hopes that I could avoid spiders and bedbugs. Do you remember when travel was secure?  You'd call a travel agent, or go through the phonebook and call a few hotels for quotes, then  you would book your trip on nothing more than a verbal handshake. I don't remember every having a bad experience, I think it was because the travel agent knew you were coming back to visit them if anything bad happened on your trip. Do you remember when travel was affordable? Even 15 years ago, in the early days of internet tr...

I mentored a homeschooled boy a couple of years ago who had a lot of work to do in the language arts area.  In a very short time, we (his mother and I) managed to turn him into a very good writer.  He was soooo good in fact that his college essays were primarily the factor that got him into college.  How did we do it?  We encouraged blogging.  So when I came across this site today , I had to recommend it to you.   Stop homeschooling preschoolers !  Let them play and they will learn.     At most, get them some games that are educational in nature.  The first step to winning a  debate is to always respect your opponent .  I don't think we can call what was on TV last night a debate.  ...And then there's rule #4.  Don't confuse passion with hatred.  I think maybe we should bring debating back into childhood education.  Another case of schools over-reacting: " A few weeks into the school year a...

I love the way this week's carnival is organized into a handy-dandy guide.  If you are thinking about homeschooling, or already homeschooling, you will certainly want to read this edition . FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE ahermitt.com

I went to the elections office today for early voting. I have to vote early because of my position as a poll manager means that I cannot vote on election day.  I was not alone.  Dozens and dozens of other people  had one reason or another why they should vote early instead of waiting for election day. I stood in line for well over an hour.  In that time, people around me struck up conversations.  It's only natural. We're in GA... that's how folks roll, regardless of who you are voting for.  So this one particular lady takes a liking to me.  That would have been fine except for... 1.  She was a close talker 2. She kept touching, stroking my arm 3. She was kinda slovenly and had a hole in the hiney of her dirty pants... and I could see her bare tooshie. So she kept talking, and touching me, and asking questions, and touching me, and then she'd talk to someone else, and then come back to me with more talking and touching.  At this point,...

Ok, so we all no that there's no such thing as a perfect math curriculum for all children, but this one is as close to heaven as you get.  I am really upset that it took to now for me to find and implement this math program in our homeschooling program.  Oh the program... its called ALEKS . ALEKS is available for every grade, K-12 and then some.  I discovered it because many homeschoolers who were taking CLEP exams were using it to learn college level math and science. When we realized that the Personal Finance program my daughter was using did not give enough guidance, I decided to try ALEKS Business Math instead (as it included all of the personal finance

If we know that "knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave" ( Frederick Douglas ),then we understand why  a little girl with a book is a threat to the Taliban. The way I see it, those terrorists know that if girls became more educated that they could not control

Things my homeschoolers learned without my help. So now that homeschoolers have disputed all of the stereotypical questions that homeschoolers are hit with... What about socialization ? What about the prom ? How will they get into college ? What about the graduation ceremony ? There is still one question that makes some of us stop in our tracks and scratch out heads.  That question is how will they learn things you don't understand yourself? To date, my stock answer has been "If I can't teach it, I'll hire a tutor".  But I honestly can't hire a tutor for every single item they want to know that I don't understand and can't teach.  There just isn't enough money to go around.  Because of this, my kids missed out on horseback riding, soccer, and animation classes... things that didn't fit into my budget when there was an expressed interest. For all of the things I couldn't pay for, I managed to hire a tutor for something

As of today, my daughter has 2 college acceptance letters, both with merit scholarship offers attached.  This is very good. Also, where my son got about a dozen different colleges soliciting him last year, my daughter gets about a dozen a week. It's insane.  All of this activity gives both me and her a little wind under our wings and makes us want to see where else should she apply to.  How far should she go? We had planned to visit NY this winter to go to a couple of plays.  Perhaps we should head there early to check out AADA and AMDA, two theater conservatories in New York.  Perhaps we should get flights to Florida , and check out the College

My son is home for a long weekend.  The school is calling it fall break.  Now that we can finally see each other face to face, I got to pull some information out of him regarding how he is doing in college. His answer...  It's Ok, but hard. The amount of reading is astronomical, but he's keeping up with it. (He hasn't discovered that most kids don't do the reading.) He had a couple of really bad exams, but he's caught on to what the teachers want, so his tests scores are much better. He is getting A's in English, and doing well in Kinesiology (phys ed/health) I reminded him that he is on scholarship and has to meet a minimum GPA.  He gave me panicked look

Crazy Working Mom: Diary of a mother on the brink of snapping!: Lunch Time This woman's kids are apparently more observant and caring than mine. It only took a week for them to get the message.  A few years ago I stopped cleaning for an entire winter. It happened because i had been sick for a few days and when I pried my aching body from the bed and went downstairs, I got sick all over again.  So, I gave the kids chores and held my tongue as they made half hearted attempts at cleaning up behind themselves. When my strike was over the only person cured was me. I had gotten over my need for a pristine home and hubby was pitching in more because he realized that I just did not give a snot anymore. FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE ahermitt.com

Lydia from Rants from Mommy Land wrote an article on 5 stupid battles she stopped fighting .  It is spot on.  Read it. I loved it so much I am going to copy her a bit... This is sincere flattery.  So, here are the homeschooling battles that I have stopped fighting.     1.  Curriculum comparison:  Unless I see that you have a curriculum that I have been thinking about, I probably won't talk to you about it.  Unless, you ask about my curriculum, I also won't talk to you about it.  ... And even then, I will keep the conversations to a bare minimum.  I have seen too many curriculum discussions come close to fisticuffs or at the least, leaving an insecure or newbie homeschooling mother in tears.  It's not that important.  Just pick something and use it. 2.  Defending homeschooling: I don't care what my neighbors think, what my friends think, what my parents think, what my siblings think, what my in-laws think, and most i...

This is a summary of what we have accomplished so much this year and how my daughter's senior year is going. Topics covered: Accreditation Changes in our plan College applications College plans ps.  I could use some questions to give me more ideas for videos. FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE ahermitt.com

I came across a Huffington Post blog where the writer/parent listed the reasons she would never homeschool her children . I found it mildly disturbing that each and every one of her reasons started with I.  I-I-I-I-I.  I need time away from them.  I am afraid of math.  I don't like refereeing my kids when they fight. I like dropping them off at school.  But here's the deal.  It's how she feels.  It is her truth. She is being honest.  I sense an inability to see things from her kids side, but considering her reasons for not homeschooling, her kids

   In my cranky rant , I failed to mention that I am heading the costume committee for  A Christmas Carol (scrooge)....  Add that bah-humbug to all the other stuff I am doing. My daughter is in this show with her homeschool group... she has a minor role... the mean person as usual.  If she's not getting a complex, I am. Actually, doing the costumes is pretty cool and I have plenty of helpers, all with tons of excitement and ideas... I just need to make sure it is all covered. ... But this month is going to be sooo busy.  I think I need a care package, because I am going to be too occupied to take care of myself properly. FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE ahermitt.com

I'm really in a mood.  There's just a lot going on right now and I am morphing into "her". "Her" is my cranky alter-ego who "goes there", and people really don't like to deal with her.  So until further notice, the beast is out, and "sweat Andrea" is on hiatus... unless seriously needed. Here's the things that are contributing to my crankiness. 1.  The Election: As a voter and human being in these United States of America, it just burns by britches, that I am surrounded by what I perceive as idiots. Sheep. Cattle.  I hear people talking about politics all the time but not one single person is saying anything that I didn't already hear on TV.  Original thought.... anyone? 2. The Election:  As an area manager for elections in my county, I am gearing up and getting workers ready for the election.  I am working my behind off, for what seems like a good wage for one day of work, except that I am putting in hours and hours an...

The Homeschool & Etc blog asks "Should Homeschoolers Keep a Low Profile" .  That got me thinking.   Just recently at a small gathering, the topic of conversation once again turned to homeschooling.  It was very uncomfortable because many of the women there were public school teachers.  My only saving grace was that they were slightly disgruntled teachers. I tried to tell myself "girl, shut-up", but I felt like I had diarriea if the mouth, just droning on and on until someone changed the subject... thank goodness.  I then asked myself, why does this always happen? I realized of course, that it is NOT MY FAULT!  If I have my kid with me, someone will inevitably ask, "what school do you go to?"  She answers, I am homeschooled, or I homeschool and go to a