Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Update from the School of Revolution



Homeschooling began again in earnest today, and I thought ya'll would like an update on it and perhaps a snapshot, of sorts, of a morning. Over the last couple of weeks, Oliver has begun going out in the morning for a run and is working toward doing a 5K. He claims to run for a bit, stop and do jumping jacks and then for a bit and then more jumping jacks, etc.  I guess we can call this P.E., and while he does that I scurry around and do whatever it is I need to do in the morning. When he gets back, he makes himself a smoothie (peanut butter, milk, frozen banana and chocolate chips) and starts in on a computer reading program that was suggested to me as being good for dyslexia. He works on that for about 45 minutes to an hour by himself with me checking in every so often. After that, we worked together on a few things. The first was writing and grammar, all laid out in an interesting way in a workbook that was recommended to me by another homeschooler. Today, we learned about declarative, exclamatory and interrogative sentences. We wrote captions to comics and finished with a mock invitation to an event. This is called an "Imagination Stretcher," and Oliver chose to create a Burning of Your Spelling Tests invitation that you can see in this post.

Awesome, right?

So awesome -- I think -- that the rest of our morning that included a chapter on property rights in a very cool economics book, with a corollary discussion of Plato, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, followed by some review of the early North American settlers, was sort of overshadowed.

I learned today (or had forgotten) that the Pilgrims were actually two groups of people -- the Saints and the Strangers. The Saints were the original Separatists who had fled to Holland when King James began to tax them for using church space (they had separated from The Church of England because they had given up on the church every properly "purifying" itself from the excesses of the Catholic Church). When the children of the original Separatists began to assimilate into the Dutch culture, the elders were alarmed and decided to move their people to North America, but before they could do so, they returned to England to get the money and were forced to take on many more people. These extra people were called the Strangers. I just love that.

And all of this.

This afternoon, Oliver will go to Mathnasium for an hour because I refuse to teach it. I love that, too.




Resources:

The Story of the World (History for the Classical Child)
Volume 3: Early Modern Times

The Economics Book: Big Ideas, Simply Explained
DK

Wordsmith Apprentice
by Janie B. Cheaney

Reading Horizons At Home

22 comments:

  1. I might be able to dig out one of MY old spelling tests to throw on the bonfire! lol - he cracks me up!

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  2. If we can bring other vile things in addition to spelling tests with sub-par grades, I'm in. He's a genius. xo

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  3. Everything about this thrills me to NO END. I don't know that I ever knew about the Strangers but that's what we are in Sonoma. I love Oliver so much. Check out kid friendly smoothies on simplegreensmoothies.com. I've got Cooper drinking them like crazy (and me too). We did mathnasium for a few years with A and it was the perfect thing. I'm so glad for you guys. XOXOX

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  4. You and he are off to a great start! If only all schooling was this interesting. Imagine that.

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  5. All I can say about this is- I think you are the most wonderful mother and I think that Oliver is just the most wonderful kid.

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  6. Love love love love love. He's going to rule the world one day. Mark my words.

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  7. What a wonderful morning of school!

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  8. What more is there to say about how remarkable you and your family are? Oliver will change this world and you will have played no small part in it.

    On a totally different subject, I want to share with you that something extraordinary happened to me last night as a result of your sharing your truth here. For some unknown reason I happened upon one of your blog posts from 2010 about your anger and frustration in dealing with Anthem in trying to get a new drug covered for Sophie and how after years and years and thousands and thousands of dollars you still had to fight to get something she so desperately needed covered. I continue to battle Anthem, which I joined again based on misinformation they admit to have given me based on actual notes they have on file, but are simply "sorry" about. I have shed tears and experienced anxiety over all this to the point of feeling physically ill -- over the possibility that I chose the wrong policy or that it is the best I can do for myself and regardless, though I paid my premium for January I in December, I still cannot reach anyone (despite hours of waiting on hold) to obtain my ID number so I can get my medications re-filled or keep my doctor's appointments without paying the full price out of pocket which is very hard for me. And then I read your post and I felt something akin to shame. Your post and your 18+ years of watching Sophie suffer and fighting for her rights put all this in perspective for me. It made me even more aware of what you give and what you must deal with and I wanted to tell you that I can't put myself in your shoes but the more i read what you tell us about your life with Sophie, the more compassionate I am towards you and others that are such strong, brave protectors of their children and examples for others. I wish it didn't take that for me but it hit me like a lead ball last night that what I have been feeling is a a pin prick compared to what you and others deal with on a daily basis. I have admired you through this stranger world here for many, many reasons but I thank you for giving me the gift of realization of how self-centered and narrow I can become without even knowing you gave that to me last night. Sweet Jo

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    1. Oh, Sweet Jo. NEVER belittle your own frustrations or sorrows or anything, really! While I thank you for your kind words, don't think for one second that I don't have the exact same misgivings when I feel despair or worry. There ARE always people "worse off" than we are and those who are "better off," too. It's how the world works, up and down, and there's no point in comparing oneself or beating oneself up about real and honest feelings. That being said, I think it's always help to shift one's perspective, and I know that my own is constantly shifting and, I hope, broadening.

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  9. I love that you went with Wordsmith-it seemed perfect for him. I know this won't become a homeschool blog, but I love these posts. Here's to the revolution!

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    1. Thank YOU for your amazing suggestions and guidance!

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  10. The Strangers- LOVE this information.

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  11. Wonderful. Completely fabulous. But, um....wouldn't it be fun to really burn those spelling tests?

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    1. They're long since thrown out, I think, Denise, but perhaps it's symbolic, too -- the burning of anything, really, that has to do with the past and the troublesome.

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  12. I'm so enjoying following this new area of life for you.

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  13. I enjoy these School of Revolution updates.

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  14. It's interesting to see how these subjects are taught in homeschooling -- and I'd forgotten that about the pilgrims, too. (I suspect I've forgotten A LOT from school!) I do not envy Oliver "mathnasium."

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  15. I wish I could be in Oliver's homeschool class.

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  16. I love Oliver's invitation! I thought it was real, and I thought how great it was that you all were purging the entire neighborhood of children of that awful energy. I am beginning to consider doing something like this when my girls are in middle school---only if they want to, of course--to spare them all the horrors of those grades. We've got quite a commune going here, don't we? Airstreams, bourbon, and deschooling. We could do much worse.

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  17. This new school of yours sounds so great that I think you'll soon have people lined up to join you. Just sayin'.

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  18. That is just so awesome. I love how one thing flows into another - and you're learning new things too - I think this it what teaching us all about ....

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