Fun with Jane & Dick » homeschool

Homeschooling Field Trip: Part 2 – Wonderworks

Jane — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:37:33 +0000

We’ve just left Parrot Mountain and now here we are at Wonderworks. Wonderworks calls themselves an “Amusement Park for the Mind” that offers things such as an Inversion Tunnel (My kids freaked out and refused to go thru this.), a Bubble Lab, Optical Illusion Art, a Light and Sound Zone, Disaster Simulators, and tons more! The upside down building is enough to spark your interest alone! But, this week was FREE for homeschoolers & their family so who can pass up that deal when it’s normally $20/adult!?!?!?

Earthquake simulator.

Tornado simulator.

“It’s MY turn for the shooting game!!”

Here, the pulses of light trick your brain into thinking the raindrops are moving upwards…but, in actuality, they’re not!

An air-hockey game that is has no puck or those knob things that you smack them with (What are they called???). It’s controlled just by the wave of your hand and the shadows of the puck move around like a real air-hockey game. I want one of these for my house!

These two guys have electrodes strapped to their heads and are trying to move a metal ball (Can’t see it in this pic) that is in the middle of the table with their minds. It’s a battle of the brains, only, I think the ended up falling asleep while focusing so hard!!!

The girls got to rock climb.

Look! It’s like that life-size keyboard at FAO Schwartz in the Tom Hanks movie “Big“. Love that movie!!

Thelma was so proud of herself for being able to lay on a bed of nails. I was proud of her too because I tried it and it hurts…alittle…

We had a psychedelic time playing with the light screen.

Now for some psychedelic art.

You are getting sleepy. No, you are getting dizzy!

Field trips are the best!! I know I always looked forward to them when I was in school.

There was so much more to do here and my kids had an absolute blast!

Our family enjoyed a super-fun filled day together exploring, learning and having fun!

-Jane, Homeschool Educator

Homeschooling Field Trip: Part 1 – Parrot Mountain

Jane — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:46:49 +0000

I’m taking Thelma and Louise on a field trip with their homeschool co-op. Where are we going today? We’re headed to Parrot Mountain and Wonderworks. Because our co-op scheduled a group tour, we were able to get a discount at Parrot Mountain for only $5 per child, one parent is free. Also, Wonderworks was running a week special: Free for Homschoolers! I invite my lovely mom along too because I know she loves birds and gardens and would enjoy a day with her daughter and grandchildren.

For those that don’t know what a co-op is, it is a supplemental “school” day(s) where your kids go to a more traditional school environment with other homeschool students, have classes, eat lunch, and go on field trips together. You can select anywhere from 1-3 additional school days to supplement what you are already teaching at home. Our co-op meets only once a week and I LOVE our co-op because it’s an awesome group of ladies that get together to make learning for our kids fun.

We’re headed to Parrot Mountain first and the drive is about an hour and half. I let Fanny Mae drive because I want to take pics and write stuff down. My mom doesn’t realize this about herself but she can’t stand those uncomfortable silences. She feels the need to keep the conversation going and has a tendency to talk and talk and talk. Even still, I just smile and let her talk because with me being so busy these days, I want to just enjoy this rare one-on-one time with her.

However, my brain can’t help but talk to itself and as she’s talking, I’m thinking to myself:

1) Man, her lips are going like 100 mph.

2) I wonder if she notices she’s hardly let me say word.

3) Breath mom, breath!

4) Slow your roll Fanny Mae!

PARROT MOUNTAIN

As soon as we pull up to Parrot Mountain, I see these parrots. I thought they were the fake, decorative kind but no, they’re real and they don’t even fly away!

We stop to take some pictures of the gorgeous, flower-lined stairs and railing.

Just whimsical and beautiful!

I love this pic of my mom and the girls.

The gorgeous, sweeping stairs.

Oh yes, and Ducky and Monk tag along today as well.

We meet up with the rest of the crew for a tour.

And we met all the birds.

WE GOT UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL.

The kids had a fun time seeing the parrots do tricks and hear them speak and sing. I think the most fun they had was being a branch for the birds to perch on. After the show, we walked around because there were more birds to see. It’s like a zoo with only parrots in it.

I have to admit, it was hard to see these beautiful birds all caged up with hardly any room to fly. When you think of a bird you think of free flying. This seems to inhibit their natural tendencies and seems cruel for us to cage them up just so we can see them up close. I don’t know if they let these birds out every once in a while, I would hope so, but I’d say for the most part they are mostly in these cages. Sad.

The gardens and landscaping on the premises were really nice. It was a peaceful, scenic walk through nature filled with all kinds of flowers, plants, and trees.

“Please don’t crap on my head!!”

Here I was duped by this unassuming, diaboical little Mexican dude to come into this large cage full of birds with him holding a cup full of nectar juice. Next thing I know it’s like a scene out of that Afred Hitchcock Movie “The Birds” where they’re all swarming around me, landing all over me, fighting to get a sip of my sweet nectar. Meanwhile, all this little Mexican dude is doing to help me is to keep refilling my nectar cup so that even more birds come. At the same time he’s laughing hysterically at me, he takes out his camera phone and is snapping away taking pictures of me getting swarmed by birds. I’m sure his friends and family back in Me-hi-co are going to get a great laugh out of this! Muchas gracias amigo!

Love these benches. I wish I had one for my yard.

We had a really great time learning about parrots, meeting and holding the birds, and walking along the beautiful gardens. Next stop. Wonderworks…

-Jane, Homeschool Mom

Homeschooling at Starbucks. That’s right, Starbucks!

Jane — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:37:36 +0000

Sometimes the kids need a change of environment when we homeschool so I decide to move the classroom to STARBUCKS. Yes, Starbucks….because when you homeschool, you can do that! We take our butts, our books, and our bikes out to the land of Java so that Mommy can also get her much needed caffeine.

As we’re biking out there, they’re playing their usual game of “PRETEND”. The PRETEND banters alternate between the girls back and forth. Here’s some of their PRETEND QUOTES:

“Pretend our parents are dead and that’s why we only have bikes”.

(I guess if they have parents then they have sometime to drive them around in a car. LOL)

“Yeah, and pretend only our Nanny is alive and that’s who Mommy is.”

“Pretend we’re poor so we don’t have any batteries for the car and that’s why the car is dead”.

I don’t know why so many of their games involve having dead parents…are they trying to give me some kind of hint?? Here’s my theory: Have you guys noticed that all the big Disney Movies have only one parent? Snow White (mom’s dead), Cinderella (mom’s dead), Sleeping Beauty (dad-no mom), Anastasia (no parents), Arial (no mom), Jasmine (dad, no mom). What’s up with that???

ROD.

When we get out to Starbucks I see my new friend Rod. Rod is also a regular Java-addict and so I introduce him to my girls. (I think they’re alittle intimidated by his size but they see later that he’s just a big teddy bear.)

Today we do some spelling, writing, science, and reading.

Then, the most amazing thing happened. I discovered that I am NOT the only one to homeschool at Starbucks! We meet these really nice ladies that homeschool as well!

And, we’re not alone! On a different day, I met these super nice teenagers that were homeschooling at Starbucks. You can always tell when you meet a child that’s been home-schooled. They’re super down to earth, well spoken and extremely polite!

(Look who’s there again. It’s my friend Rod!)

All I have to say is, great minds think alike!

-Jane, Starbucks-Homeschooling Mom

Homeschooling: Not for everyone but DEFINITELY for us!!

Jane — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:29:27 +0000

I get asked all the time, “Homeschool?!?!? How do your kids get the “social” aspect of school?” My response is…”Besides letting the kids out of their cage for about an hour a day to stretch out their legs, we occasionally take them to the local grocery store to see how other humans interact.”

Granted, I didn’t believe I could home school in the first place but I never doubted the benefits of homeschooling. I was just lazy, selfish (wanted my ME-time), and knocked it before I even tried it. – Is that the correct saying???

Anyway, convinced that I wouldn’t have the patience to teach and wanting to preserve my precious me-time, I sent Thelma to kindergarten at the same public school I went to…a pretty good, typical suburban primary school. I’m not knocking public school since I went to public school K-12 and I turned out ok. Ummm…Wait…Well, let’s just move on.

Like a good, suburban mom, I joined the PTA. I got suckered into being the Head Class Mom because no one else wanted to (Note to Moms who want to “contribute” – this job sucks ass.), volunteered to help teach Cultural Arts for the class (Somehow I became the main cultural arts person as well.), and volunteered once a month to help out the teacher grading papers and what-not. Here’s a pic of me teaching “cultural arts”:

School started off wonderfully – Thelma loved her classmates and school. She was SO excited about school but after a while the school early start time, 7:45am for a 5-yr old, started to become a problem. It didn’t matter if Thelma went to bed by 8pm, it was still harder than hell to get her out of bed by 6:00am. My little bundle of energy soon became lethargic, unmotivated and didn’t like school anymore. This started to concern me. Since I can’t keep my opinion to myself, I wanted to know if there was anyone else out there who felt the same thing and voiced my dislike of the early-school start times. I called in to our local newspaper that lets residents call in any comments or thoughts about the town. Well, it generated quite a buzz. Some agreed but some were like “this woman is just lazy to take her kids to school”. I actually kept the newspaper clipping. I couldn’t find the responses though…damn!

Needless to say my comments did not motivate the public school system enough for them to change the school times. I learn later that student attendance is directly related to school funding so that explains a lot. It’s all about the money folks!! Really, when you look around, when is it NOT about money in our society. Craziness!

Our mornings would be frenzied and rushed where I’m frantically annoyed, screaming “We’re late! We’re late! Get up! Go go go! Put your cereal in a mug and eat your breakfast in the car!” So, for starters, I didn’t want to start off every morning being a bitch to my kids and be remembered as that crazy Vietnamese woman screaming and rushing the kids in the morning. It’s not really a great way to start off your day.

During the school year, we would miss a few days due to our travels to take care of business. There’s a predetermined amount of unexcused absences (I think 6-7 days) and when you exceed that you are referred to THE LAW. Then you have to explain yourself some stranger judge why you lock your kids up in a cage. Ok, j.k. Our absences came from business trips to take care of our businesses. Dick was on the road often and we felt it was more important to be together as a family. We were never referred to a judge but we were “warned” by Thelma’s teacher that we had missed too many days. I politely explained to her that my husband travels and we feel it’s important to be together as a family. Any missed schoolwork on the road, I mean, it’s Kindergarten for Pete’s sake! Well, it didn’t matter. There are RULES and they must be followed! For me, rules are great if they make sense but making my family stressed and unhappy didn’t make any sense to me.

Since Dick and I don’t have “normal” 9-5 jobs, sending our kids to public school really started to affect our family’s happiness. I believe that school, work, family life is all interconnected and public school was putting a heavy strain on our family life. Life was not good. The kids were miserable. Tired. Not liking school. Dick and I were arguing more because we tend to work late at night (sometimes until 3-4am) and I still have to get up at 6:00 to get the kids ready for school while Dick sleeps in until noon or later. So, Jane not happy! See Jane kick Dick’s ass! You know the saying, “When Momma’s not happy, ain’t NOBODY happy!”. True dat!

We absolutely love and believe in homeschooling and here’s why:

In addition, because it’s one on one, we get so much done in such a little amount of time. We can cover so much material in one hour. At the public school, there are 20 kids to one teacher. Do you think she has time to cover things the kids don’t understand individually and wait until they understand it? No, they don’t have time for that. They have to move on. Every child learns at different speeds but that’s not really taken into consideration when you’re in public school.

And in all my years of school, all I did was study to pass tests. It wasn’t interesting, except for Art. I crammed for tests, would get great marks, but then forget it the next day. I mean, really, why do I have to memorize EVERY DATE in history when I can Google it? Ok, so we didn’t have Google back then. Hell, we didn’t even have the internet. But, It’s not how much information you can memorize but knowing how to get that information the fastest to do what you need to do. I try to teach my girls to think for themselves, to solve their own problems analytically instead of insisting on things that don’t matter.We also take breaks when they’re tired so that they can focus better and absorb more.

Not everyone agrees with our way of educating our children, not even my own family. But, that’s ok. They don’t have to agree. We realize this may not work for everyone but it works for us and keeps our family together and happy! And that’s the MOST important thing for us. Our family’s happiness!

Peace, Love, and Happiness People!

-Jane, Homeschool Teacher