Plan 2013

Homeschool Plan 2013

 

This year, we have two children who are six-years-old and will be seven on February 16^th. This will be their first grade year. My Name Was Here (their mother) will be their primary instructor. They will be educated mainly in the home.

Information

Name: C – 6 years old

Birthday: February 2007

 

Name: S – 6 years old

Birthday: February 2007

Address of Residence – Colorado

Days of Attendance – August 5 – May 16 Monday – Friday (with the exception of the week of Thanksgiving, the week of Christmas. Extra days included in case of unforeseen problems) We intend to include educational field trips and large projects on weekend days, throughout the year. We may trade those days for a week day off, or an early summer if, near the end of the year, we have already met our 180-day personal minimum.

Hours of Attendance – Irregular. At least four hours per day, when possible, with the expectation that we will average well over four hours per day at the end of the year.

What They Know

Coming into this year, they have met or surpassed what my research suggests they should know by now. They are both able to read, write, spell by sounding out, count to at least fifty, add, subtract, with vary degrees of skill and confidence.

They have become much more self-motivated over the last year, and better at following directions when given a list of commands, and even when directions were given some time before they can be followed.

We have already set the stage for learning about money, and they understand the days of the week, and how the calendar works, but there are definite gaps in their knowledge, here. They also have a very basic understanding of the clock (analog and digital). With regards to money, we have already taught them the values of coins.

There is already an established understanding of past, present, and future. We have talked, sometimes in great detail, about periods of history that they were interested in, such as prehistoric earth, and westward movement that resulted in the settlement of Colorado.

Last year, we began work with descriptions, asking them to describe to each other, or to us, what they were looking for. Verbs and nouns have already been presented by name and explained, but briefly. Capitalization and punctuation have been introduced as well.

They already have an understanding of the water cycle, what clouds are made of and how they are formed, and that rain is important for plants and animals. We have also discussed animal classification as well as the planets and our solar system.

One of our special focuses is on technology. Our six-year-olds have controlled access to their own computer. They have an art program and Scratch, which is a visual programming language. ,

What They Will Learn

Time and Money - We plan to reinforce their understanding of the days of the week and how the calendar works and help them understand the months of the year as well. Also, we will be strengthening their understanding of how to read hours and minutes, how many minutes are in an hour, and how many hours in a day. To improve their understanding of money, we will revisit that as well. Then, we will move on to math with coins and possibly work on how to make change.

Social Studies - Since we have built an understanding of our state, and our country over the past year, we plan to teach the about the original populations of North America, the European discovery of the continent, and the settlement of the East coast. We don’t plan to talk much more about the westward movement until later, because we feel that the cultural implications might require more maturity.

Math – We will review what they already know in counting, addition and subtraction. The basic concepts of multiplication and division (such as number groups – three groups of four is 3x4) will also at least be introduced and practiced.

Writing, Reading and English – We focus heavily on communication. They will be encouraged, and sometimes required, to practice description and definition skills with each other, and with adults. More parts of speech will be taught, with practice identifying them in sentences and alone. We will build on their basic understanding of capitalization and punctuation with short writing assignments and lessons about how and when to use proper noun capitalization, question marks, exclamation points, periods, commas, and quotation marks. This summer, we spoke briefly about how to determine fact and opinion. We will examine that further and they will be confident in that skill by the end of the year. They are already reading first grade level books with little trouble. We will continue reading every day, fortifying their phonics skills, and adding sight words to their reading vocabulary.

Science – We believe that a lot of science topics, at this age, should be determined by the interests of the children. So far, this has served them well because they’re always interested in what we’re teaching. However, there are a few topics we will definitely cover this year.

We will teach them about weather: some weather terminology, cloud types, storm types, fronts, types of precipitation, climate zones, and seasons.

Another important topic will be space travel. We plan to follow the activities of the space station and the progress of SpaceX, this year, as well as reaching into the past to discuss the moon landing, and many other successes and failures in space flight. Then, into the future and the prospect of reusable rockets, and maybe colonizing Mars (and why that would be beneficial to humans).

We will teach the different states of matter and how they appear, behave, and are structured differently.

Forces (push, pull, gravity, magnetism) will be explained and experimented with. We will test and observe how different forces effect different materials.

We will also review their understanding of animal classification, as we’re not sure they remember it clearly.

Technology – This year, the children will practice typing, mouse usage, navigating websites, and understanding some programming terms. We expect them to be able to write and send simple emails, type original ideas, or copy prewritten words, into a text program, and print.

Other – It is important to remember that these are homeschooled six-year-olds with a natural, and encouraged sense of curiosity. There are certain things we expect them to learn in order to keep up with state standards, but many things they learn will be unplanned. We believe in catering to their education rather than dictating it, whenever possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Someone else's gloves

A couple of months ago, when Papa's mom (Grandma J) was visiting, I was talking about gardening. For some reason, I mentioned that my gardening gloves, while they are basically adequate, really inhibit my ability to feel what I'm doing. They've got nice, reinforced palms and finger pads that protect me from the perilous spines on the stalks of thick weeds. But they are not good for digging or planting.

Grandma J had an idea. She suggested that she could mail me some of the blue nitrile gloves she uses when she works in her pottery studio. Not that she was absolutely certain they were the solution to my problem, but she thought it might be worth a try.

I got the package and, to be honest, I didn't try them right away. I was worried that the thorn-like bits on the weeds would just destroy them. Besides, I had already planted my garden and didn't really require gloves for maintenance.

One day when we were all doing yard maintenance, I found my usual gardening gloves, woefully neglected, laying near a spiderweb.

I'm not irrationally afraid of spiders. I feel like it is totally justified to be reticent to put my hand in a glove found so close to a spiderweb. I decided I was going to turn them inside out to check for arachnids.

Again, I'm not irrationally afraid of spiders. I believe it is totally natural to startle and drop your glove to the ground when something comes racing out of it at impressive speed. I can have a spider in my house, on my ceiling, above my bed... I can even have one in my hand without much worry. But when anything comes bolting out of the dark unknown, I panic.

It was decided: I was not going to wear my gardening gloves again until they had been washed. So I retrieved the Nitrile gloves and pulled them on (dramatically, like a TV surgeon). Then, I made creepy finger gestures. I'm not sure why, but I can nearly guarantee you that I have made creepy finger gestures every time I've put any kind of rubber gloves on. When I wear gloves to dye my hair, I make creepy hands. Dish washing gloves, too? Yes. When I was in Anatomy class and working in the cadaver lab, despite bad taste, I wiggled my fingers like a maniacal made scientist before getting back to serious business.

Predictably, the fingers were a bit too short for me, resulting in finger webbing that made me feel a bit like an otter. You can see what I mean in the picture on the left (click to enlarge). Grandma J, this is not to say your fingers are short, I just seem to have consistent trouble finding gloves of any kind with a good finger-length to palm-size ratio for me.

I pulled a lot of weeds. Many of them had sharp bits, but none of them "destroyed" the gloves, like I had thought they would. In fact, I could feel everything quite well, and the gloves survived the whole process. It was actually a nice experience.

Still sick kids

We went on vacation, and the Cub got sick. I wrote about that in my previous blog post. Since then, I've been telling everyone, "he's getting better" or, "he seems completely fine, now." So, before I get into the meat of this blog, let me assure all of you who have heard those reassurances: It was honestly true when I said it.

He had a fever… then he didn't. It came back, and it was gone. Throughout, he had a runny nose and a cough, but we figured he just got whatever cough his 6-month-old cousin had when we were all on vacation together. Her doctor had said not to worry about it, so we didn't worry about the cough. The Cub's doctor recommended that, if the fever persisted, we bring him in on Wednesday.

The Cub's fever was so sporadic that Wednesday came and went with no sign of it. Early Thursday morning, though, it was back. Once the clinic opened, Papa made him an appointment and checked his temperature again while getting him dressed… it was normal.

I had to take C to a check-up, scheduled for 10 minutes after the Cub's appointment. So, Papa took the Cub and S to his clinic, and I took C and M.

I'm not sure I'm comfortable sharing C's problems right now (for her own privacy), but her doctor referred her to the Children's Hospital for an abdominal ultrasound. Now, I wait for a call from them. After the ultrasound appointment, if I feel that her story is relevant or might be acceptable to share, I will.

The Cub, on the other hand, had a chest x-ray during his appointment. The doctor told Papa he really hoped it was pneumonia, because it definitely wasn't an ear infection, and all of the other possibilities were worse. A viral infection that he'd just have to soldier through… a blood infection… I'm glad I wasn't there. I would have been sick to my stomach. 

I'll save you the suspense: The Cub has pneumonia and is now on antibiotics. Everyone else around here sounds a little congested, so we'll see how that goes. 

I guess this is how it goes. We had a wonderful, fun, family-filled vacation… now back to the grind. :)

Family vacation

Summer vacation time! We just got back from Winter Park, CO, where we met up with a bunch of Papa's family. All of his brothers and sisters-in-law were there (except the pair who live in China), as well as his mom and step-dad. And, a lovely addition: one of his cousins, her husband, and their three-year-old daughter drove down from Minnesota.

I had never met the cousin and her family. Papa hadn't seen them in over two years. He has told me stories about things like locking her in a dog kennel when they were small, emphasizing that he only had older brothers, and she was like a sister to them.

We also hadn't seen one of the brothers (and his wife) since this time last year. His sister-in-law and I were both pregnant a year ago, and we delivered the cub and his baby cousin a mere four days apart, 1,200 miles distant. Anyway, this was the first chance we've had to meet their first daughter. Also, they finally got to meet the cub and all of the girls.

There were a lot of things we wanted to do while we were all together. On our list were things like boating, horseback riding, hiking, a s'mores event at a resort, the longest alpine slide, a blues festival, and maybe hot air ballooning.

We did manage to enjoy the s'mores, a ski gondola ride, trail riding, and blues festival, but hiking proved too much for both three-year-olds. Most of the other adults went kayaking, but we didn't join them, opting to do more kid-friendly things.

Each night, dinner was prepared by a different brother and/or his wife, with one night also assigned to the cousins. We had a build-your-own pasta bar, pulled pork, homemade pizza, halibut (which one of the brothers recently caught in Alaska), barbecue on the Fourth, and leftovers on the last day. We made the homemade pizza with fresh dough and sauce from my recipes. It was all delicious, but the girls have become frustratingly picky eaters, so we had grilled cheese with tomato soup instead of leftovers.

The Cub woke up sick on Friday. He was congested, feverish, and sleepier than usual, but still eating and we weren't worried about him... That is, until he threw up. He ejected a few ounces of formula in a big puddle right in the middle of his beloved space blanket. That went straight into the washing machine and Papa went straight to the phone. He called the nurse's line at the Cub's clinic, and they reassured us that we were doing the right things, and gave us specific signs to look for before taking him to the hospital.

He's almost entirely better, now. He still has a slight fever, and wants to sleep more often. When he's awake, though, he's his usual self.

A lot of games were played: checkers, shut the box, trivial pursuit, cranium, tsuro, cards against humanity, zombie dice, Monaco, bananagrams, spelunky, and kirbal space program.

A lot of fun was had. We're excited to see everyone again.

I can't figure out Tricare

C, my six-year-old daughter, hasn't been seen by a primary care provider in more than two years. None of my daughters have. We've moved around enough that switching providers has been a huge hassle... let me tell you why.

Since we moved into this house, on the opposite side of town, we wanted to set up a primary care provider (PCP) for them near our house. 

To be seen, I have to switch her PCP before the appointment. That's fine, except that the list of providers Tricare has seems to be severely outdated. Every time I switch providers, then call to make an appointment, it turns out that the doctor Tricare helped me choose either no longer works at the clinic, or isn't a PCP anymore (most recently, the doctor Tricare selected turned out to actually be a neonatal doctor). 

The Children's Hospital said they'd go ahead and make an appointment with one of the doctors that currently take patients at their clinic, but I would have to call Tricare right away and have C's PCP changed to that doctor so her insurance would cover the appointment. That would have worked. I was excited to finally have found the secret door. 

They forwarded me to a nurse to determine how to have C seen, based on my description of the situation. She was very nice and asked useful questions, of course. She said it sounded liked C definitely needed to be evaluated, based on my description  and would need to have a "new patient" appointment, at which the doctor would decide weather or not to referrer her to a specialist. She also said we should be able to get her scheduled for her first appointment in the next week and go from there. 

That would have been satisfying.

But then, when she forwarded me back to the appointment line, the woman who answered informed me that since C hasn't been seen there before, she would need a physical to establish care there. She can't be seen there at all until she has a physical, and the physical has to be at their clinic. Here's the best part: The next time the clinic is doing physicals is September.

Are physicals just incredibly complicated or difficult? Can anyone tell me why I can't get C a physical... just whenever I want? And am I just supposed to wait to have my child seen at all until September, now?

I want to take them off of Tricare and put them on civilian insurance, where they actually know what's going on with their physicians and patients. I've never seen anyone else have this much trouble with their insurance. Sure, I would have run into the same "she needs a physical, but you have to wait until September" problem at the Children's Hospital with any insurance company. At least I could have avoided the run around about which doctors are actually practicing pediatricians.  Unfortunately, the only way I can afford civilian insurance for my kids is to marry Papa... which is in the cards for the future, but "for insurance" is not what I want to think when asked why we decided to finally get married.

So, too frustrated to continue to deal with the problem, I had Papa call around to other clinics and hospitals in the area. He found one that has three practicing pediatricians that accept Tricare and would  be able to make an appointment as soon as next week (when we'll be out of town... but at least it's not September) and wrote down their information. The trouble, now, is that I'm not in control of the girls' insurance, so I have to wait to hear back from their dad. 

I called him at 10:37 this morning, and haven't heard back from him yet (3 hours later). But, I won't hold it against him since it is a work day. I just hope he calls back soon. We're going to be spending a week out of town with Papa's family, starting Saturday. There's no way we can get C's medical stuff taken care of before then, but I'd like to at least get my foot in the door as soon as I can.

Getting Together

For the last week, ending yesterday, my mom, sister, and baby niece were visiting. It had been nearly a year since our last visit, when we dropped the girls off with them (in Texas) before we came back to Colorado for a wedding and then flew to North Carolina for a week to visit with Papa's family. So, I hadn't met my niece and my mom and sister hadn't met the Cub.

This time, they came here and stayed at my house. We spent a lot of time just enjoying each other's company around the house and in the back yard. A trip to the zoo, Good Times Frozen Custard, and a dinner (and drinks... and delicious chocolate cake) out without any kids were also thoroughly enjoyed, though.

We had one of Papa's friends over and played Cards Against Humanity (after the girls were in bed). The next day, Papa and I wound up taking C to the hospital because she was running a 104.1 fever, even with tylenol and ibuprofen, and threw up as soon as she tried to swallow her next dose.

They tested her for meningitis, strep, and UTI before sending us home with no indication that it was anything but a generic virus. She was given Zofran for her vomiting, a nurse waited to make sure she was keeping fluids down, and her cultures were sent out for further testing, so I do believe the children's hospital has done their due diligence. And, as I'm writing this, she hasn't vomited in more than a day, her fever is under control, and she's actually starting to eat a bit of normal food again.

I do hate that she was sick while we had family visiting. On the other hand, I'm glad we had their support when it came to taking C to the hospital. The rest of the kids got to stay home with GG, Aunt T, and their baby niece, NahNah. (I like to refrain from using real names in my blog.) Thanks to them, everyone else got to enjoy the weather and have dinner on time while Papa and I spent a few hours away with C.

I will admit that I totally neglected the house while they were here. I didn't do almost any laundry, vacuuming, or other basic clean up. Preferring to spend time with them, I did as little as was required to get by. Sure, I have a lot of catching up to do, but I only just met my niece (she was born in November), and I hadn't seen my mom or sister since last summer. It is far beyond worth it.

Other news this week: the Cub is transitioning to formula. He's nearly 6 months old and his demand has definitely outgrown my supply. I still breast feed him once or twice a day, and pump milk for his baby cereal.

When I had to stop breast feeding M, I cried. I felt like a failure and I hated her pediatrician for telling me I should start feeding her something else because she wasn't gaining weight as fast as the average baby. This time, though, I made the decision myself because I could tell the Cub wasn't satisfied. This time, I'm confident in my decision and feel that I am doing what is best for him.

Baby Robins

For the last few weeks, we've had an unintended science project going on just outside our back door. Actually, "unintended" might not be quite as accurate as "unwanted".

A mother robin built her nest on top of a large frame Papa had constructed with the intent to build a loft for the kids' playroom. Construction on the loft started with the first bout of warm weather. If you didn't already know, it snowed here a number of times after that, though. It was (and is) only a large rectangle with a cross-beam, leaning against the back wall of our house, but we really wanted to continue working on it when the weather stabilized. 

So, when the nest started appearing up there, we knocked it down. It rematerialized, and we knocked it down again. Of course, we checked for eggs both times. The third time's a charm, I guess, because mother bird managed to lay three eggs in it before we noticed it. 

"Too late, now."

"I guess the loft is going to have to wait."

I did some research on robin nesting behaviors. For anyone who is interested, this page is an excellent resource and will probably provide you with any information you might need. It turns out that robins typically lay four eggs, one per day, over the course of four days. Then, once the brood is complete, mom will start incubating her eggs so they will all hatch at about the same time. 

By the time we found the nest, we were only one egg short.

As you could probably have guessed, there was a fourth egg the next day, and mom robin started spending a lot of time on her nest. She left a lot more often than any of us expected, but only for very short periods. I assume she was leaving only to eat.

Eleven days after we first found the three eggs in the nest, the friday before Memorial Day, we found that three eggs had hatched. We had one, little, blue hold-out. More than a day later, I just assumed that last little guy wasn't going to make it. But then, he hatched over night. 

The wee ones started out looking like silly putty that had collected some lint under the couch. As I'm writing this, only a week later, they're starting to look like lizards with beaks. They change a lot over a very short period of time. They only spend a week or two in the nest, so they have to grow up fast. I just never knew that the early stages of growing feathers would look more like scales. I guess it's an interesting reminder of the evolutionary process that gave us modern birds.

Once her babies were hatched, she became very protective. In the beginning, she would take an adorable aggressive stance whenever I would go out the back door. She seems to have gotten used to us. 

She feeds them whole worms, grubs, and caterpillars, which she sometimes finds in our yard. And, recently, we've witnessed more than one robin protecting and feeding the babies. I assume the second robin is dad. Who wouldn't need some help with four, growing mouths to feed?

I take pictures of them regularly, and I'm putting together a comic book of our experience with the baby robins, for the kids to have. I wonder if this will happen again next year, but if it doesn't, I never want to forget this.