Common Core

I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail about Common Core Standards except to say:

1. It's a sham
2. It trains children to be 9-5 worker-bee, button-pusher cogs in the machine
3. It's part of a grander scheme

Watch the following video. It's probably the most succinct criticism of Common Core in existence. 

Then, watch the next video. You will totally be like "WTF??" ;-)

Seriously, I was completely dumbfounded at this. I couldn't even wrap my mind around the absurdity...

You can go down the youtube rabbit-hole from here.

I do recommend reading Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto (and any other book by Gatto, for that matter!).

If this isn't enough reason to take your kids out of the failing, unconstitutional public school system, I don't know what is.

Now, the reason I posted all of this...

I use some books and software from The Critical Thinking Company. It's recommended in WTM. The more I look at their site and catalog, the less I like it. Common Core branding is plastered all over everything. They also seem to have a strong focus on "test scores". Like, training kids to score well on standardized tests. It seems education has become nothing more than standardized test scores. I get the feeling that children are not taught to actually learn something, they are taught to score well on tests so that schools can get MORE money (the amount of money paid through local school taxes alone is nauseating, but they seem to "need" even more from my Federal taxes too! UNREAL!).

I am getting to the point where, if I see "Common Core" on abook or piece of leaning material, I do not purchase it. This might be doing a disservice to our little homeschool, because I might be missing out on good stuff, but I just do NOT trust it.

Homeschool Day Book (Software) Review

I'm pretty excited to be posting a software review for you today. In a previous life, I was a software tester, so it's kinda cool to be able to do it again.

The software I am commenting on today is called Homeschool Day Book and the website is http://www.homeschooldaybook.com/.

Right up front, I want to state that this seems to be geared and marketed towards unschoolers. I also want to note that I live in Pennsylvania, and we have some of the strictest homeschool laws and requirements for what we have to keep track of.

I do not unschool (obviously), we follow a pretty structured schedule and curriculum. That being said, I still wanted to give this a try. Part of the reason is because I do not plan to hand any more information than I absolutely have to over to the school district. I do not believe my child's education is any business of overreaching government. Even though I will have tons of records and paperwork, I don't want to make it difficult for those who do not have quite so much by raising the expectations of the school district. Also, I don't want to get caught in a paperwork nightmare.

So, on to it then...

First of all, this is a very simply Visual Basic program. Clever actually, but it kind of makes me want to just go ahead and write my own to suit my needs. In fact, I downloaded VB myself and plan to do just that. Because of that, I don't really want to be super-specific with my criticisms ;-)

What I like:

It's simple, mostly intuitive and easy to use right out of the box. I really have nothing else to compare it to, but I have heard horror stories of homeschool software requiring 16 hours of technical manual reading before you can even open the damn program.

It does the basics and helps you keep track of subjects. I like that I can tie an entry to multiple subjects. For instance, we use Life of Fred for math and that is just as much (if not more) reading as it is math. It also helps you make some connections between subjects that you otherwise might have overlooked (our Spelling program covers 4 or 5 different "subjects").

It works for multiple kids so that you don't have to keep a separate sheet or book for each. Plus, if they work together on something, you're not adding duplicate entries.

 I'll be honest that I haven't gotten into the reporting too much, but it seems nice and basic, while still giving you what you'd need (particularly to turn into the nanny state). It's nice that it opens a printable version which can also be exported and saved.

What I don't like:

I have to type the same things over and over, day after day.

I have no way to tie it into resources or book lists.

I can't figure out how to delete entries. I think really all you can do is open the entry and remove all the text, then save it. Seems like a real pain.

There is no way to log days off except to not log anything; this might get confusing because you might just think you forgot to log that day. Or maybe make an entry that says "day off" and not tie to any subjects, but I'm not sure how that would look on the attendance report since it seems to just check if there was an entry for the day.

Overall, this is a great, simple program that will spit out reports for you if needed. I honestly wouldn't pay for it, but for someone who finds it useful to their needs (unschooling, most likely), I'd probably sell something like this for no more than $10. The sticker price of $39 is way to high for the functionality provided. Writing stuff in a planner might be a bit more of a pain, but at least you can customize the info and no need to print it out! You're probably better off just using an Excel spreadsheet.

My method thus far has been to log everything is this homeschool planner (for the current year) and then add it to this program at the end of the week. It will work out good for me since I can print reports as needed (and won't have to send my whole planner or make copies). I really like the hard copy planner, it even has report cards and shopping lists that you can tear out.

We'll see what I can come up with on my own in VB. I have some great ideas. Maybe I can even add in some report cards and/or transcripts (required for high schoolers going to college!!).

Getting Organized

Our house could be a library, I kid you not, and that was even before we even entertained the notion of homeschooling. My husband an I both had a lot of books before we lived together, since we've combined them and added to the collection considerably, we are running out of room. In the past few weeks, I have amassed quite the collection of not only text books, but reference books, story books and other books specific to starting homeschool. Not to mention my extensive stash of knitting goods, from books to yarn.

I remember reading in one of the various books about homeschooling (probably The Well-Trained Mind) that you have to be ready to accept your house basically being a giant classroom. It's getting there. We don't entertain much, so I don't mind. Even if or when we do entertain, it's more than likely going to be family or friends with children of their own. You really just have to get past that pre-children state of mind anyway - what's more important? Having a decorated, magazine-esque house, or giving your kids the best possible education? [Oddly, I had to have this same conversation with myself before breast-feeding ;-)...]

Our house is clean and usually pretty neat, but it's filled with books. Plus, you need places to put books and school supplies and eventually, you have to deal with the fact that not every piece of furniture you own can match and/or be made of solid wood. That being said, choose your furniture quality wisely. Somethings save money in the long run if you make the initial investment and buy something sturdy (more on that soon).

I prefer the short, 3-shelf book cases that you can get at Wal-mart or Target. We've found that furniture from Target has less odor (sometimes the stuff from Wal-mart smells like you opened a can of paint thinner). We also have quite a few of the cube style shelving units. They're nice because you can get the 8-cube ones and lay them on their side, then they are only 2-cubes high and fit nicely under windows (windows, UGH! Everyone seems to want lots of windows, but I find myself wishing for more walls to put things against!). You can also buy fabric bins for these, which is a nice option.

One furniture piece I highly recommend, and I recommend buying a quality item, is some sort fo cabinet or pantry. I initially purchased a 4 door pantry cabinet from Wal-mart (2 doors on top and two doors on bottom). The style suited my needs perfectly. I could put all of our science kits, art supplies and anything else I didn't want the baby to get in it and lock it with childproof cabinet locks. The problem was that it smelled like a chemical factory, and was horribly made (not to mention, would need to be anchored to the wall to prevent tipping... Have I mentioned that I am a little short on walls??). Back to Hell-mart it went. (On a tangent, I really should learn my lesson and just stop buying cheap, mass produced garbage from Wal-mart, no good ever comes of it)

I've also started researching software for tracking hours, subjects, etc. I really could put something like this together pretty easily for Thing 2, but if Thing 1 decides to stay home next year, I realized I am going to have to keep actual transcripts. From what I am reading, this really is essential in the High School years if you even have the tiniest inkling that your child might go to college. I am fairly certain that Thing 1 will (and I very much hope Thing 2 will also), so I need to get one my game with that.

I haven't found anything as of yet, but I did start a free trial of one called Homeschool Day Book. It's advertised as relaxed record keeping and seems to be marketed towards those who have more of an "unschool" approach, but it looks like it might work out well, at least for the elementary years. I am going to give it a test drive and post a review next week.

Time Management: Meal Planning

I've been out of the professional world for almost a year. Even before I lost my job, time management was non-existent in my career after I returned from maternity leave (so basically, the last 5 months of my time there) because our department director, my immediate boss, left and they decided to run the Team Leads ragged instead of finding a replacement. I digress.

I'm currently reading Totally Organized. It's a bit dated (long distance phone calls??? haha!), but it has some good, if a bit militant, info. One thing I realized is that I am very much a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of person. If we are going to be successful at homeschooling (especially 2 kids at once) I am going to need a militant method of scheduling and organization.

One thing I have done that has already made my life so much simpler is meal planning. Yeah, I know, how very Suzy Homemaker... I never thought that would be something I'd need to or even could do. It seemed like taking something as simple as the evening meal and turning it into the writing of the Articles of Confederation. That's the wrong way to think of it. Now that we do not have a freezer full of easy to make ground beef, I really have to think about what we are going to have in advance, because I will likely need to thaw something or throw something in the crockpot in the morning.

This becomes problematic when the only meat we have are roasts. There are only so many ways to cook a roast (that aren't time consuming). With meal planning, I am able to see what's on the menu for the week and make sure we have the meat required as well as any buns or cheese we might need. Pretty much anything else can be substituted with what we have in stock here (rice, couscous, quinoa, frozen veggies, salad). Meals like tacos require further planning, as we can't keep the soft shells in stock at home.

So here's how I do it:

1. First, I made a list of meals, separated into main courses/full meals, sides, and veggies. 
• This isn't as hard as it seems. You'll find you probably make the same 10-20 things over and over. Or maybe you make different variations of the same thing (chicken - baked, fried, rotisserie from the store, etc).
2. Then I got a calendar. The one I link to is dry erase and basically contact paper. I put it on the fridge (which is just curved enough to make it a real SOB to put on straight and without bubbles).
3. Now, use your main list (have the family give it a once over to make sure you didn't miss anything) and fill in the calendar.
• Give consideration to things that occur regularly on certain days of the week. For instance, my son has banjo on Wednesdays, which means I need to have a quick and easy to eat dinner on the table by 5:30 so they can eat and leave at 6:00.
• Also give consideration to what you'll need buy to prepare meals for the week. I like to not put meatloaf, sloppy joes and tacos on the same week, because that means I'll have to buy about 10 lbs of ground beef in one week.
4. Now, every week when you go shopping, consult the menu, see what you already have in stock, and write down whatever you'll need to buy on your grocery list. You can use this exclusively for dinners, or you can plan every meal.
5. Don't ever plan for fast food (in our case, pizza from the local Italian joint or the hot bar at Whole Foods). Save that as an option for a day when things don't go as planned, emergencies come up, whatever. That way, you don't have to feel bad about spending extra money or eating less-than-healthy if the baby was cranky all day, the cat barfed all over,  Thing 2 overflowed the toilet, you had to run to the store because you realized you were completely out of diapers and you didn't have time to cook, but you already had pizza once this week because you had put it on the menu (a day you would have, ironically, had time to cook a 5 course meal but used the extra time to do something for yourself like knit, or, you know, take a shower).

I really can't recommend this enough, especially if you are new to being a stay-at-home mother. Trust me, your life will revolve around these 3 little words "what's for dinner???"