2020 Homeschool Grade 4 and COVID Life Notes from Facebook

As part of my purge from Facebook, here's our Homeschool/COVID Notes from 2020:

January 22: Not too many other parents can say that they just dropped off their kid for the first day of Magical Artifacts class, but that's our life. (Other classes today include Passport to Adventure, Math Olympics, Color Theory, and Music and Movement.)

February 26: When we decided to start homeschooling, "global pandemic" wasn't on the list of reasons why we considered it.

Today, I'm off to do replenishment shopping for our "shelter in place" supplies. (Same sort of stuff for hurricane prep, but we're almost finished eating through last year's hurricane supplies.) Both my husband and I can work from home exclusively if we needed to, so thankfully we don't have to worry about that. We're not yet cancelling any upcoming vacations, but we do have travel insurance in place if we do need to cancel. What an interesting year it has turned out to be!
* Saxon Math, lessons 88 and 89 (Remainders in Stories about Equal Groups / Mixed Number and Improper Fractions)
* Biomes, chapters 11 and 12 with learning checks about the regions of the ocean
* A Kids' Guide to Money, chapter 3 (Ways to Save and Make Money)
* Spelling precheck
* Duolingo Spanish practice
* Journal Exercise for writing and typing practice
* A Smart Girl's Guide to the Digital World (Digital Drama and Taking on Trolls)
* Starting re-checks/assessment on grammar through Khan Academy
With the exception of teaching her the math lesson (which takes about 15 minutes tops to teach) and doing her spelling precheck with her (another 5 minutes), all of the rest of that is self-directed -- she does it 100% on her own, and just comes by if she runs into questions that she needs clarification on or if something doesn't make sense. So if you are nervous that there's no way you could teach your child at home because you can't have that kind of rapport with them, you can do it!
We've got one more order of food to be delivered (needed butter and was able to find ground chicken on Amazon Fresh), but we're well stocked for the next month. We still get boxes of fresh produce every other week from Misfits, and we can up that to weekly if needed. We ended up with two heads of cabbage last week, so last night was Chinese chicken salad on cabbage with sesame dressing. We have some pulled pork in the freezer, so that will go well with slaw tonight. The rest will be used in a stir fry with more chicken for tomorrow.
With the exception of me needing to drive to the vet clinic later this week to pick up syringes and insulin (which they can bring out to the car so we have no contact with people), nothing else planned for us as far as going out. Just life as usual here!
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March 17: After reading the Girl's Guide to the Digital World, kiddo had some concerns, especially about what would happen if she ran into content online that used bad words, and not sure how to identify bad words. So... we went to the expert in bad words to help explain it to her. Thank you George Carlin for giving the best and easiest lesson on bad language and why you don't have to be afraid of it, why some words are "bad" some of the time and others are "bad" all of the time, and what words shouldn't be used. She now feels confident that those words, while not appropriate to say, can't hurt her because they're just words. Naturally, the list has evolved over the years, but at least she now feels comfortable coming to us to discuss language she might hear in the real world to get an idea of appropriateness.
Unconventional parenting win?
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March 18: Today in homeschooling here --
* Saxon Math Lesson 90 (multiplying two two-digit numbers)
* * Saxon Test 17
Money Book Chapters 4-5 (this is the one we're using: https://www.amazon.com/Kids-Money-Book.../dp/1454919779)
* Video on Biomes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fb8143ndo8)
* Typing for Journal Exercise 28
* Reading Comprehension Lesson 25
* Catching on Khan Academy to fill in any missed grammar lessons (https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar)
* Writing spelling words 3x each
* Duolingo for Spanish practice
I picked up an extra small project for one of my primary clients, so I'll be putting in a few hours on that. Then I hope to get started on the 31 Days of Spring Cleaning exercises: https://www.stain-removal-101.com/spring-cleaning.html
And of course it's just a normal work day for Erwin.
Last night's dinner was pulled pork, Mac 'n' cheese and slaw. May have some of that for lunch today, too.
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March 19: Today in homeschooling, going to have to go back to my notes because Lily got up super early this morning and had cleared off half the items her whiteboard before I got moving. We're getting close to the end of the year, so she's wrapping up whole categories of work -- today was her last journal writing exercise.
She'll be finishing reading comprehension by the end of next week, along with grammar.
She finished up the unit on money and economics for social studies (and had already finished up Florida state history), and just has introduction to politics left.
She finished the unit on Biomes; earlier this year she had done a lot of her work in a book called Lonely Planet which is all about earth science and then did some space science books. Her final unit for the year is on weather, but we'll wait until next week or the week after to start that.
For reading, the books this year were The Wizard of Oz, No Talking, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, The One and Only Ivan, The Phantom Tollbooth, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, along with reading science and social studies magazines. For the rest of the year, we're doing poetry with Shel Silverstein and Robert Louis Stevenson, a book called The Girl Who Drew Butterflies, and the young adult version of Hidden Figures.
For PE, in the fall we did swim lessons, and then we worked on bike riding, which she can now do!
So, mostly we're just down to math, with less than 30 lessons to go. I'm figuring she should be done with everything by mid-April, and then she'll start summer break.
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March 23: Just counted out what Lily has left for homeschool -- unless something changes, her summer break will start April 11.
Not counting what's on the board already for tomorrow, she's got:
Approx. 25 math lessons (and has been doing more than one/day)
5 Reading Comprehension sheets
3 Grammar level ups for Khan Academy
A book and worksheets on Weather
A book to read about hurricane hunters
A book to read about politics
Reading Hidden Figures
Reading The Girl Who Drew Butterflies
Reading and doing some fun exercises on poetry
That's it for 4th Grade!!
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January Shared with Your friNot too many other parents can say that they just dropped off their kid for the first day of Magical Artifacts class, but that’s our life. (Other classes today include Passport to Adventure, Math Olympics, Color Theory, and Music and Movement.)

Facebook Archive 2020 -- Shared Info

 As a part of the process of deleting as much as possible off of Facebook, here's the things in 2020 that were noteworthy enough to mention that I'm keeping on hand. 

Spot the Troll exercise--to help you differentiate real between fake personal profiles:

https://spotthetroll.org

The statement about Social Security running out of funds if things don't get squared away:

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/solvency/VanHollenSandersWydenSchumer_20200824.pdf?fbclid=IwAR12Q4fN3Q-DHEcItEuD6FNBODo-KrQX4zz97hAZuHDvAeabgxn-57zkkPA

NBC News article about QAnon

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1236695

When COVID Came to Our Local Area (June 26, 2020)

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coronavirus/jobs-economy/os-cfb-coronavirus-publix-three-more-positives-20200626-6eop73q3t5bqlkgxdwlwnxccdy-story.html

Advice back in February 2020 on how to prepare for COVID

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/preparing-for-coronavirus-to-strike-the-u-s/

A Week in the Life of Homeschool (Part 1: What is it Like?)

I've had a lot of parents recently ask about how we manage to do homeschooling. For some, it's a case of "How do you manage to do that and still work?" For others, it's "How do you do that without killing each other!?!" Still others want to know "How do you do it, because this year in school is getting crazy?"

When it comes to homeschool, I'm probably different than most. I'm not an "unschooler" who lets my child do whatever she wants whenever she wants. I also don't do an hour of religion and memorizing of bible verses every day. In many ways, the homeschool experience is not too different from the "traditional school" experience, with a few key differences.

* A class size of one means that everything is taught one-on-one. This allows me to have a good grasp on what's working and what's not, where we can skip ahead and where enrichment is needed.

* There's no grades--at my daughter's request, she doesn't get graded per se. That said, she still does paper and pencil tests in math (and I look them over to identify areas where a concept was missed or something that needs extra work). She also takes online "unit tests" for ELA, which does provide immediate feedback.

* She can work at her own pace -- if she wants to end her school day early and save work for the next day, she can do that. More often, she tries to work ahead so she can take a day off at the end of the week. She has a set amount of work she needs to complete in a week. If she doesn't, then she knows she'll be working on it over the weekend. (Thus far, she's had no desire to make things last into the weekend.)

* If something becomes stressful, she has the option to walk away for a while, compose herself, and return to it later.

* There's no homework -- or as she points out, all work is home-work.

* Extra-curricular activities are a must. Some she does at her old public school (LEGOs and VR Coding), some she does independently (swim lessons, Girl Scouts, Art Class), and some she does via a co-op.

I work full-time, and so we have separate work stations. Most of her work is self-directed, and anything else that she needs can be done during a coffee break of mine. Big projects, like science experiments, are done on the weekends if they require parental involvement.

Time permitting, this week I hope to write up what the experience is like to answer some questions about the whole homeschool experience. Stay tuned!

Back into Blogging

I was never Catholic, but starting up a blog again after a long absence feels like a step into a confessional. 

Bless me readers. It's been several years since I've tended to this blog. 

In that time, I've switched jobs, kiddo has switched schools, and much more decluttering has happened around the house. 

Regarding decluttering, we're now basically at the point where it's tough to figure out any other things to declutter. Don't get me wrong, we still have enough items to justify the size of our living space, but the items we have work well for us. It's very easy to keep the house clean without going crazy. 

On the family front, our daughter had her high-stakes test year last year, and it was tough. Oh, the test was easy. She could have passed a year or two ago. But the amount of prep leading up to it gave her crazy amounts of stress-related issues, coupled with frustration that no new material was being taught. She brought up the idea of homeschool, and after talking it over with the teacher, we all agreed it was worth a shot. So...we're starting homeschool.

Speaking of stress, my day job has provided enough stress that I was starting to show health issues. Needless to say, I'm working to figure out stress management and then see if it is worth it to continue with the job in my current role. In the meantime, my nights/weekends blogging job has been growing exceptionally well. Much lower stress, but there's always the "fun" of being a freelancer in that you don't have a set income to feel secure with. 

Since 1999 or so, I've always worked more than one job at a time. I maxed out at one point where I was working one 40-hour/week job, one 28-hour/week job, and two part-time (~10 hours/week or less) jobs all at the same time. It started out that I worked multiple jobs because that was the only way to make ends meet. Then it became a case of how I could have financial security to the point of if I wanted something, I knew I'd have the money to make it happen. Then it morphed to "Well, if I wasn't working, what would I do with my time?" (with no actual answer). 

Now, call it a mid-life crisis or whatever, but I'm feeling greedy about time. I've got good organization in place to build a wonderful life, and so I have to ask whether or not working insane hours is doing anything beneficial. 

In other words, we got physical belongings decluttered, and now it's time to simply life! 

I may blog about it. I may not. We'll see if this blog is useful or clutter. Time will tell. 

Getting in my Drawers (40 Days/40 Bags)

I don't think most people would willingly go out and buy a bag of junk to bring it home to decorate their house. But I guarantee almost everyone has a junk drawer in their house.

Maybe it looks something like this?



Here's the steps that I did to tame the junk drawer.


This junk drawer is that mishmash of coupons, take-out menus, stamps, and scraps of "important" papers. (If they were truly that important, would they be crammed into an overstuffed drawer?)

Start by taking everything out of the drawer and wiping it down.

Sort items into several piles. Start with the first item (for instance, a menu) and place it into its own pile. Then take the next item. If it is the same type of item as the first one, put it in the same pile. If it isn't, then start a new pile (for instance, coupons). Continue until every item is in its own pile. It may take a while to sort through a pile like this, but it goes quicker as you go along.






Don't go into this process with a pre-conceived idea of what the piles should be. Let the items themselves decide what types of piles you create.

Many of the papers were not actually important, but just papers that got shoved in the drawer "just because". Those ended up heading right to the trash.

Once everything is sorted into piles, figure out how to best organize the items, even if it means purchasing items to aid in the organization process.

The two items I used were a three-ring binder with plastic sheets and a coupon holder.

Going one pile at a time, I got rid of any expired coupons or menus for restaurants that are either out of business or that we don't visit.

In the coupon holder, I put coupons, rewards cards, and gift cards, plus checkbooks, deposit slips, stamps, and address labels. On the front of the coupon holder, I stuck a post-it note with a list of the contents so I could see at a glance what's in that organizer.

For the three-ring binder, I put menus (grouped by cuisine) in the plastic sheets, and included any current coupons with the menu.

The KonMari method suggests gathering all items of a kind from around the house, so I gathered up all scissors, tape, and pens/pencils/highlighters to add to the piles that I had created. For the scissors, I put them all into the drawer. Even though we have a LOT of scissors, I am keeping them all because scissors tend to disappear.

For pens and pencils, I tested every single one. If it wasn't working, it went into the trash. If the cap was missing, it went into the trash. If I didn't like it, it went in the trash. (See a pattern?)

I decided on five pens, two markers, two highlighters, and two pencils to go in the drawer. The rest, I divided up by type and placed in zip-top bags to store with office supplies.



The other items that found a place in the drawer are box-tops for education (already taped on paper and ready to submit when a contest comes up), silica packets (which I keep on hand in case I have things that need to be dried out), and mini super glue tubes.

Instead of going with one very long drawer, I went with two smaller ones.

That left a variety of miscellaneous stuff. For right now, I put them in a small plastic box. As I go through the rest of the house, I'll be going back to that box to see what needs to be kept and put away, and what truly is junk to be trashed.



Here's the end result of the two drawers.







In all, one small bag of trash came out of those drawers. That's bag #3 for the 40 days/40 bags challenge!

40 Days Challenge: Minimizing DVDs

For many years now, I've participated in the 40 Days/40 Bags challenge, where you make a commitment to try and declutter by about 40 bags of stuff during the 40 days of Lent. This year, the event starts on February 10.

Although I won't be writing a post about every single thing I do to meet this goal, I have been asked from people how to "do" decluttering. I figure as I go through things, I'll write up the steps I'm following, in the hope it helps someone else. I did an early start so that maybe some of these hints can help others.

Today, I tackled DVDs, CDs, and Blu-ray movies.

Overall, we don't have a lot of movies and CDs compared with some people, but there is a bit of "movie creep" that happens over time. A movie sounds great, so you buy it or it gets gifted to you, but once you watch it, you don't need to see it again. Then there's the kid DVDs that your child outgrows. Or, it is a movie you've had on DVD for years, but there's now a Blu-ray version that has more features with better quality that takes up less space. (Or, the worst offender...you have the DVD with certain special features, and then you get a Blu-ray, but can't tell if it has the same features, so instead of checking, you just keep both.) Whatever the reason, eventually the bookcase/shelf/rack that you have for the DVDs is now at the "staple a banana peel" stage.*

Whatever the reason, you're at the point where you need to buy more shelving space (a decluttering no-no) or you have something that looks like this.

Time for decluttering. Here's the steps I use.

* Remove everything from the shelves, sorting them as you go into two categories: DVD and Blu-Ray. Open each case as you sort it to make sure the correct movie is in the case.


* As you clear off a shelf, dust it. Once all shelves are cleared off, move the shelves (if you can) and vacuum underneath.

When all else fails, bring in a kitty to help with the decluttering.

* Beginning with the Blu-ray movies (which are usually newer) and then moving to DVDs:

1. Put any movies back on the shelf that you have watched in the past year and feel you would like to watch again.

2. Put up any collectible, "in the vault", or other movies that you know you can't easily replace (unless you are certain you don't want them anymore).

3. Once you have gone through that, go through all of the remaining Blu-ray movies one by one and be honest about whether you want to keep it or not.

4. Moving to DVDs, look for any duplicates that match a Blu-ray. Unless there is a specific reason to keep both, get rid of the DVD duplicate.

5. Repeat steps 1-3 for the DVDs, but as you go along, think about whether it is worth it to "upgrade" a movie to a Blu-ray. The Blu-ray movies will look better and the cases often take up less space. In some cases, you can even get a small box set of movies that is much smaller than six individual DVDs.

If you have a DVD or Blu-ray that you don't watch and could easily replace in the future (especially a DVD that you could upgrade), put it in the "get rid of" bag. (The exception is a DVD that you have for a child that you know you probably will only be keeping for another year or two. There's no reason to upgrade something with a short shelf life, so don't try and replace that whole set of Barney the Dinosaur videos!)

Also, make sure to read the reviews for Blu-ray movies online on a site like Amazon. In some cases, movie studios have made pretty disastrous "upgrades" when going to Blu-ray, either with a terrible transfer or reduced features.

For older movies, you might not need to upgrade to Blu-ray, unless it has been remastered or has new features on the disk, because the movie quality of a movie from decades ago likely won't be improved just by a new pressing.

If you have a movie still in its original wrapping (after a year or more), unless you bought it to be a collectible for later, it's probably a good sign to watch it or get rid of it.

Look to see if there's any in your "get rid of pile" that make good regifting options. If so, stick a post-it note with the person's name you are planning to give it to, and put it in another pile. If you can't think of a specific person, don't keep it to regift.

Today's success: 2 bags

If you have kid movies, offer a buyback program to your kids -- if they're willing to get rid of a movie, pay a yard sale price (25 cents to $1) if the child is willing to let it go.

Check with Amazon or in-person secondhand stores to see if any of them can be sold for a small credit. If you have a lot of a certain kind, you can try selling them on eBay or Craigslist (for example, a huge lot of 50 toddler-friendly DVDs).

The rest can be donated. Schools and libraries are good places for educational movies, and thrift stores are always an option for the rest.

In addition to the work I did here, my husband also went through his video games and was able to reduce by several. Looking online, we ended up being able to trade half of them back to Amazon for a gift card (about $58) and the rest will be donated this weekend.

How did today go? Here's the after picture. That's 2 bags down, 38 left to go!

*For those who haven't seen that particular episode of The Simpsons, it gets to the point where no one will take out the trash because they can always find a way to cram things on. This includes stapling a banana peel to the bag because it won't stay balanced on the pile of trash in the can.

Catching up with life

As you can tell by the date of the post before this one and this one, I've been a little lax on updating.

In short:

Moved into the new house
Hubs got the job of his dreams
Kiddo started kindergarten
I've been madly keeping everything in order.

Lots of other things to mention along the way, but no real need.  On my to-do list is to create a photo story of all that happened between then and now.

Spring is nipping at our heels, and that means the 40 bags in 40 days challenge. Basically for the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter, you aim to remove one bag of clutter from your house every day. The definition of "bag" is very loose -- the goal is to reduce what holds you down in your life and assess what truly matters to keep.

Long and short, we've been doing the 40 bags/40 days challenge for four or five years now. It is a great way to go through belongings and really assess what is important in life.

After the second year, I wondered if it would be possible to get 40 bags out of the house in general. Compared with a lot of people we know, we have very few belongings. Yet, as we get ready to start this year, I think 40 bags is very do-able.

What I'm going to do a little different this year is document *how* we go through things, in the hopes that if someone else is trying to figure out where to begin, they can see if the method we use works for them.

I'm also reading the book Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up by Marie Kondo while I go through the 40 bags/40 days process.

Hopefully I'll be able to get a dozen posts up to show the process of cleaning around here, but if not, I do plan to post more frequently than annually! ;)