HOW TO START (WHAT TO DO FIRST!)

IF YOU WANT TO START HOMESCHOOLING (SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN) RIGHT NOW, HERE ARE THE FIRST 4 THINGS YOU NEED TO DO TO GET STARTED:

#1- Familiarize yourself with homeschool regulations for your state. The rules vary (by state) from very lenient/almost non-existent to very strict (in some states the only requirement is that a parent has to have graduation from high school. That's it - no testing, no rules. Other states require you to be a certified teacher or be supervised by a teacher, and to provide an elaborate portfolio of work samples ever year). Washington state is fairly lenient.

Put simply, here are the "rules" for WA state:

1. Any child over 8 has to be registered as a homeschooler with the school-district (if they are already enrolled in public school, they have to be formally withdrawn, no matter what age).
2. Each child must participating in standardized testing annually (see separate post on this topic)
3. You must report your intent to homeschool the student to the school district EVERY YEAR within 2 weeks of school starting (or 2 weeks of withdrawing the student from school). There is a specific form you have to use (see separate post for this)
4. You must keep records (including standardized test scores, immunization records, etc)
5. You must cover a minimum of 11 topics (not necessarily all at once):  reading, writing, spelling, language, math, science, social studies, history, health, occupational education, and art & music appreciation (these do not have to be taught separately...if you're studying frogs that  could include reading, writing, spelling, science, math, art and occupational education all in one lesson). 
6. At least one parent in the home must meet one of these criteria (and it doesn't have to be the main teaching parent):

• Have earned at least 45 quarter units of college level credit.
• Attend a "Parent Qualifying Course" (ie, something you can pay for, but its unnecessary)
• Work with a certified teacher who meets with your student on the average of an hour a week.
• Be deemed sufficiently qualified to provide home-based instruction by the superintendent of your local school district.

For complete information about homeschool law in WA, a good website is: http://www.washhomeschool.org/homeschooling/law.html

#2- File an intent to provide home instruction with the school district within 2 weeks of the start of each school year or immediately if student is currently enrolled. (see separate post on this topic)

#3- Get a folder/notebook/filebox to start your homeschool record-keeping. This is not the place to keep completed schoolwork or plans for lessons. This is the place where you will keep your important records related to homeschooling (see separate post on this topic)

#4- Go to the Washington State Dept of Education Website (or the comparable website for your state if you aren't in Washington). This website has a complete list of everything that Washington State students are expected to learn (listed by grade year). This is all broken down into subjects. I use this resource because #1- our state requires annual standardized testing, so I need to know what will be covered on the test. #2- if you ever need/want to put your student back into public school, you want to make sure they've covered the same material as the public school kids so they aren't behind. I consider the required topics/skills to be the base and then I add on what I want the student to learn/do.

How to find the info you need on the Dept of Education website: From the link above, look for the 'learning standards' section, then click on the different subjects. You may have to click on "learning standards" within each subject  section as well, look the applicable grade-level.

(See my other posts on how to plan/prepare your curriculum!)

PLANNING WHAT TO TEACH

It can be intimidating to try to figure out what (exactly) your student should be learning...but whats even more intimidating is trying to put that information into a teaching plan for the school year. 

Here are some tips that can help:

To make sure that I cover everything that my student would learn in their grade level at public school, I reference my state’s education requirements by grade (see #4 in a seperate post about this here). I use the state-provided "learning standards" as a curriculum-planning guideline. 

I copy every requirement that relates to my student over to a separate word document so I have everything together on a master list. Then I add on what I want her to learn on top of that when I'm planning the year. This is where your curriculum/subjects for the school year come from. It will look like a lot at first, but you may also be surprised at how little time you have to spend on each subject when you are able to spend one on one time with your student/child.

The state's requirement for Washington State History for Grade "X" might be something like "Learn about the contributions of Lewis and Clark to the development of the Pacific Northwest" and "Learn about the symbols of Washington State, including the state bird and the state flower" These are made up examples, of course, but it will be things like that. So your list of History requirements for your student in Grade "X" would be something like this:

History:

• Lewis & Clark contributions to Pacific Northwest
• Washington State symbols (state bird, state flower, etc)

(If you are only interested in the basics, you're done making your list!)

However, if you are interested in expanding the experience of learning these basics, you could come up with ideas for what are called, "Unit Studies" (basically, you enhance the learning experience by using multiple medias and subjects to add to their studies...so, instead of just reading a book about Lewis & Clark, you could have them do a painting of Lewis & Clark (art), write a report about them (English/Writing), visit a historical site (Field Trip), calculate the distance of their journeys (Practical Math), etc. It's kind of fun!  

If you are interested in advancing your student (perhaps to the next grade level), you can look ahead to the next year's requirements and add some of those to your list for this year as well. Or you may want to include some completely different things (such as sewing, community service, model trains, etc) that are not necessarily part of the standard curriculum. You can add whatever you want your student to learn. But I do recommend making sure that you cover what is being covered in public school (because, again, these things will be on the annual standardized test!)

I also check out books like "What your 5th grader needs to know" (they have those for all grades, kindergarten +up)...there are several other similar book series they're each slightly different, so I usually get them all (they have them at the library or you can buy them). Then I make big list of everything that needs to be covered. Information in these books will be general (like “learn multiplication tables from 1 to 10” and won’t include specific requirements for your state, so MAKE SURE you find out what your state requires by grade- because those things WILL BE on the test!

 

The next step is the toughest - I try to map out what we're going to cover for the whole year, month by month. Later on (as I go), I break it down further by week (more on that in a second). Its time-consuming because I have to try to keep things evenly distributed across the year. For example, learning to convert mixed numbers to improper fractions is going to take a lot longer than learning what a number line is.

The main reason I wait to plan each week/day until later is that it takes a long time. The other reason is that if we get off-schedule for a few days (because we get the flu or something) it messes up the whole plan. Its a big problem because some things (like certain math skills) build on previous lessons, so if I get off schedule when things are rigidly pre-planned, I have to push back everything for the whole year. If I've planned the whole year by month, but only planned the weeks in an individual month for the upcoming month, its not that huge catastrophe if I need to rearrange things for just one month.

BUY CURRICULUM? (OR MAKE YOUR OWN?)

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Unless you run on batteries and don't need any sleep, its going to be just about impossible to create a  full curriculum from scratch every year (I mean creating all your own worksheets and hand-making every visual aid...) Nobody has that kind of free time, so I don't even try! I just use as many resources as I can (especially the free ones) and modify them to work for us. Most of the resources I use are free. As my daughter has gotten older (especially this year, with high school!) I've had to transition to using some purchased materials (ie, French class & Algebra). Even then, its very easy to find used materials online (Ebay!).

A lot of homeschooling parents use a set of pre-packaged curriculum. There are many ready-made curriculum packages (or stand-alone textbooks and/or workbooks) that you can buy online, from catalogs, etc. I'm a big cheapskate though, so my first thought is "I can do it for cheaper!" It takes a little more work because I'm responsible for making sure I cover everything, instead of relying on a specific set of text/workbooks to automatically cover what the local schools are teaching. 

I do use some workbooks and also worksheets that I've printed off of the internet, but I've never needed to spend a lot of money on that sort of thing. Sometimes I find an unused (or barely used) workbooks at a garage sale or thrift store and I buy those if they look like they aren't too "dumbed down". The best ones are usually topic-specific, instead of all-in-one workbooks (which are usually mostly fluff). Its good to have worksheets for some subjects (like multiplication, handwriting, grammar) because the more practice, the better. I like to keep things like that on hand, too, in case I get stuck on the phone or something and Kendall needs something to do while she's waiting for me. I just don't want to rely on workbooks to do the teaching.

I have actually broken down and bought new workbooks a few times (online or at the Learning Palace), like last year, when Kendall was learning about the 50 states we bought a workbook with a page or two for each state that had trivia and little activities. It was a lot easier to buy that workbook than try to make up my own lesson for all 50 states! I guess I just "pick my battles".

As for textbooks, I've never purchased them (until recently when I had to because the subject matter was out of my 'wheelhouse'). I almost always find whatever I need online for free, or if I really need a book (or video) I find something appropriate at the library or online. 

Strangely, a LOT of info covered in grade school can be easily explained in only a few minutes. For example, when Kendall was in 4th grade, I explained to her what the difference is between rural, suburban, and urban areas. It isn't that complicated, but she was expected to know that concept for 4th grade (and it WAS on the CAT5 test that year!). Simply explaining the concept took me less than 5 minutes, including giving her examples, and asking her questions to make sure she understood. No textbook needed! :)

One of my "things" (quirks?) is that I have a prejudice against pre-packaged curriculum. I'm probably over-paranoid about it, but I don't like unnecessary busy- work and the curriculum sets I've seen are full of it! I remember being bored to death in school because the students who were behind got most of the instruction and the rest of us got a lot of pointless busy work. Silly, pointless things (like connect-the-dots coloring pages, which are great for younger kids, but not exactly appropriate schoolwork for 5th graders!). One of the reasons I wanted to homeschool was that I could cut out that sort of thing and stick to the topics that matter. That way I can supplement additional info if I want, or move ahead to new material as soon as the student is ready

DECLARATION OF INTENT TO PROVIDE HOME-BASED INSTRUCTION

I think I've heard too many horror stories about potential homeschooling parents being berated by public  school administrators, because I feel like I'm paranoid every single year when I have to spend HOURS searching every link in the School District website trying to find their 'declaration of intent to provide home-based instruction' form. I've felt for years that they are deliberately putting it in ridiculous places just to make it difficult to find, and I am starting to think they are purposefully moving it from year to year to throw me off :) because whenever I do manage to find it, its never in the same place on the website twice. Go ahead and try to find it! http://www.longview.k12.wa.us/ The parent section? No! Records? No! Adminstration? No! :) Oh, I should have known, its only available if you search for it by name in the website's ARCHIVE! Silly me, why didn't I think to look there?!?!!?!?!?

Paranoid rant aside, this is a form that you will have to fill out and send in every single year (within 2 weeks of school starting in the fall). You have to send this specific form in - no hand-written notes or generic forms that you found online -it has to be this one (their words) and it has to be the original, not a photocopy (I learned this the hard way!)

This form protects the school district from liability (for not teaching the child) and protects you from legal action for truancy. PS- your child is not truant (ie, skipping school), he is receiving home-based instruction. And you will have the documentation to prove it right in your school records file (right?)

If you are in Longview School District, this is the form you need. Different school districts will have a different form. If you can't find it on the website, you can call the office and have them send one to you, but be prepared for attitude (I wish I were joking).

This is the link to the official form (for now, anyway!)  http://wayback.archive-it.org/2713/20121024164001/http://www.longview.k12.wa.us/student%20learning/pdf/Home-Based%20Registration%20Form-%20Online%20Fill-in%20Form.pdf

After you fill it out, MAKE A COPY and keep the copy in your school records, just in case. This will prove that you submitted it, if there is ever a question.

REPRODUCING SCHOOL HOURS AT HOME?

A common issue for new homeschooling parents (especially those with students who have been taken out of public school) is burning themselves out the first few weeks because they are trying to re-create the whole classroom experience at home. Just because a child may spend 6+ hours in public school classroom, does not mean that they aren't "keeping up" if they don't spend that much time  doing formal "school" at home... Does your child need to sit at the table with his face in a book for 6 hours every weekday? NO! You will need to spend much less time than you think with actual teaching/study time.

A major difference between public school and homeschool is that your child doesn't have to wait for the teacher to address the concerns/issues of all of the other children in the class. If she has mastered her multiplication tables, she can move on to something else (or call it a day!). A lot of public school is busy-work and/or waiting for other kids to catch up (or waiting to get help when you're stuck). And then there are recess breaks, lunch, assemblies, etc. So how do you know how much time to spend on "school"?

When we lived in Portland about 5 years ago, I knew a woman who had gone back to school to be a teacher. At the time she was working as an elementary-level student-teacher as part of her schooling. She told me that she had been instructed by the school district that if they could get 1 hour of actual teaching accomplished in the classroom PER DAY, they could consider that a successful day. I am not joking, she was told this by the school district.

In another example, a friend's son was in public school (also in Portland) and had to be taken out for an extended period because of a planned surgery. She was told by the adminstrators that her son could do his schoolwork at home under her supervision, which would mean that he could return to school later in the year without being behind his classmates. When she asked how many hours per day she should work with him on his studies, she was told that their policy is that 1 hour of parent-teaching time is equal to 4 hours of classroom-teaching time. So basically, she could accomplish in one hour what it would take 4 hours in the classroom.

These aren't folktales, these are actual examples that have happened (recently) to people I know in our area of the country.

I don't share these examples to demean the public school system. Its just a reality - one on one is much more effective and faster. And who knows your child's learning style better than you?

How much time you spend on school each day will depend on your child's learning style, your teaching/organization style, your family schedule, etc. The student's age will be a factor also - play is a major part of education for a preschooler, elementary school kids need a lot of hands-on, and high school kids will largely be able to work on their own for most subjects/projects.

You may choose to start 'school' at 6am and end at 10am, then spend the rest of the day working in your garden together (which also counts as 'school', by the way!). Or you may want to break your school day up into smaller chunks (english from 8-9, math from 10-11, etc). You may choose to take a whole day off just to have fun. You can do that, you're homeschooling!

Reassess your child's progress from time to time to see if you need to spend more time in certain areas to stay on track for the year (or maybe you'll discover that you're way ahead, and you can spend less time in formal school activities for the rest of the year).

STANDARDIZED TESTING (WA STATE)

This standardized testing stuff seems really complicated and difficult at first, but it can be really easy. There is no required testing in OR, so when I first moved to WA I was really freaking out. Especially about hiring a proctor and having Kendall be tested in a strange house with someone we don't even know staring at her while she takes an important test. No thank you! Another homeschool family told me how they do their testing - through a company called FLO. We've been doing testing through FLO ever since, and it is really simple. I will walk you through it!

The first thing you need to know is, the standardized tests (no matter how/where you do it) are not turned in - to anyone! I am not kidding. You do not turn your scores in to the State or the School District. You do not turn them in to anyone. I am serious! Nobody keeps them, not even the proctor (if you use one). They do not need them and they will not ask for them. The scores are primarily kept for your personal records. You are required to keep these records in case you ever need to prove that you’ve been doing the tests (and therefore providing education), but unless something like that actually comes up (like, say you had a custody dispute and had to prove in court that you were providing education) nobody ever wants to know about these scores except you. I am not joking about this - it seem outrageous, but really, you do not turn them in to anyone!

WHEN DO YOU TEST? In Washington state you are required to do annual testing. There isn't a set date it needs to be completed. We usually do ours in June when public school is out, just because it represents the end of the school year (even though our family continues to homeschool through summer).

HOW DO YOU GET THE TEST (AND WHERE DO YOU TAKE IT?) WA state requires testing to be done through an approved test administrator who assigns a proctor. And only certain types of tests ‘count’. There are proctors that you can hire, but I never liked the idea of paying a stranger to watch my kid take a test. FLO is who we go through. They are a homeschool organization that is based in WA – this is their website: www.familylearning.org

The way FLO has it set up is that they act as the test administrator and assign the parent as the proctor. You sign a form saying you’re administrating the test to your own homeschooled child and that you’re not going to cheat, etc. and then you’re a proctor. Its that simple. And its legit. YOU DO NOT NEED TO HIRE A PROCTOR - IT IS LEGAL TO GO THROUGH FLO AND PROCTOR THE TEST YOURSELF. I PROMISE!!!!

If you order your test through FLO, you pick the date you want test and they mail it to you then (or as close as they can). They send you a test book and answer sheet. Then you have 2 weeks to complete and return the test in the mail (or there is an additional fee). Its kind of nice to have 2 weeks to work on the test because you don’t have to do it all in one day.  They don’t send you the answers to the test, just the questions and a sheet for the student to mark their answers. After you mail the test back, you get the results in the mail in about 2 weeks. They do not keep the results, it is your responsbility to keep the test results in your own records.

So basically they’ve gotten around the need to hire an outside proctor by assigning the parent as a proctor. It sounds like its kind of a loophole in the system, and maybe it is, but its totally approved by the State. They’ve been administering tests like this for 20 years. You can read more about it at the website. Everyone I know who homeschools in WA does their testing through FLO. I have done it 5 times now, I think. It is the easiest and cheapest way to go. And its the easiest on your student, too.

WHAT TEST DO THEY TAKE?  CAT-5 (California Achievement Test, 5th Edition – Complete Battery) is the test we always use – its one of the approved tests that WA State accepts and its one of the few that FLO administers. Every homeschool student I know of uses this test. They have the CAT-5 test available in editions for all grades, K-12.


As far as cost goes, the CAT-5 is $37. I don’t know how much of a profit FLO is making off administrating the test, but I’m pretty sure its still cheaper than ordering a test through a proctor and then paying the proctor to, well, proctor. If I remember right, I think proctors charge about $50 for proctoring and I don’t think that includes the cost of the test itself. I’d rather just skip the middle-man and do the proctoring myself!

Lesson plans / schedule

I've tried to be more organized this year, and since Kendall is doing more work independantly I've started using this scheduling method to list her assignments for the day/week:


Please excuse the wrinkled up page, this page has already survived a whole school day in a room with a 6th grader, her 18 month old sister, and a dog...

The subjects we're currently using are:
Seminary
Math
English/Writing
Reading Comprehension
Anatomy
Science
History
(There is also a Misc. section)

You can see that I don't have the whole week of assignments filled in for every subject, because I may need to adjust depending on how she does on quizzes, etc (may have to spend more time on certain chapters, that sort of thing). So, for subjects that might need to be adjusted I sometimes fill them in as I go...I find that easier than trying to erase and start over.

This is really nice because she can get started on something herself while I'm changing a diaper or something, and I have an easy reference (for what pages I'm supposed to be looking at!) when I go back to check her work.

Toddler school / Your baby can read

Have you seen those commercials for the "Your Baby Can Read" program? I was highly skeptical when I heard of it, and I still am, but I watched the whole info-mercial one day and it was pretty convincing. My main objection was that the kids are just memorizing the picture and/or word on the card, but then parents were shown introducing new words to the children, they could "read" the new words also, based on the phonics they had memorized from the previous words.

My husband also saw the commercial and suggested that we buy the program. I scoffed (like I always do when he wants to buy something from an info-mercial), and proceeded to tell him how - if I even wanted to do the program- I wouldn't buy it anyhow because it is fairly spendy and would be much cheaper just to make it myself. Its just cards, pictures, and a video (showing words and pictures of things). The program is based on the concept that kids learn best through a multi-media/multi-sensory approach.

Now, I don't think its necessary for a child to learn to "read" as a baby. But I do like the idea of multi-media/multi-sensory learning. It occurred to me that I could do something similar at home, without even buying anything new at all. I already had word cards (with removable pictures). I've already been teaching her sign-language with a Baby Signing Time dvd (not shown) and sign-language flash-cards. So, I figured I could be just as successful teaching her through a multi-media approach using my word cards (written word and picture), video (including her participation with the sign-language), and flash-cards (which show the word and the picture on one side and how to do the sign on the other side).

The thing is, 18 month old WakeLee loves playing "school" and I don't have any expectation of her learning to "read" at this stage, but extra learning doesn't hurt, and I really think the multi-media approach is really helping her learn the signs better. I can show her the picture and ask her to show me the sign. I can show her the sign and ask her to tell me what it means. I can show her the word (with picture) and ask her to tell me the name or sign (and I demonstrate sounding out the word).

Brag Alert

Its time for my annual bragging - if you don't like bragging, please avert your eyes!

We got Kendall's 5th grade standardized test scores today...she did really well. Something that is really nice is that they give a grade level equivalent in each category so you can tell what grade level they are actually working at at the time of the test:

Vocabulary- post-high school level
Reading Comprehension - halfway through 6th grade level
Spelling- halfway through 11th grade level
Language Mechanics- halfway through 12th grade level
Language Expression- post-high school level
Mathematics Computation- 9th grade level
Math Concepts- post-high school level
Study Skills- halfway through 6th grade level
Science- post-high school level
Social Studies- post-high school level

So, John and I were talking about how to improve her skill her "weaker" subjects and I realized that its a pretty bizarre to have when the scores for her "weak subjects" are still above grade level... I'm really lucky to have a student that picks things up easily - it really makes things easier for me!

15% off at JoAnn for teachers

I noticed a while back that JoAnn craft stores offer 15% discount cards for teachers (yes, they actually include homeschoolers, unlike many retailers!), but I didn't remember to sign up until today. Go to JoAnn.com and go all the way to the bottom of the site to find the link called "teacher rewards." Now, before you get frustrated by their statement that you must be a certified teacher and their request for an ID number, read a little further and you'll see that they also accept members of PEAH (which I'd never heard of, but apparently stands for "Parents Educating At Home"). I went to the site to see what joining entailed. Looks like they charge about $30 to print your own PEAH membership cards (uh, no thanks) - but never fear! There is a loophole!

Go to this page of the PEAH site- http://peah.com/joann.php* and if you state that you're a homeschooler and give a few pieces of info (name, home state, etc) they will give you a one-time code number to use for your PEAH number on the JoAnn registration page. They will also offer you a free newsletter and stuff like that, but thats optional of course. I filled out their form and then returned to JoAnn.com to submit my registration for a teacher discount card - no problems at all! (*you can also find a link to this same page on the JoAnn registration page for those who aren't PEAH members, so this is legit)

There is a note on the registration page of the JoAnn website that states that you may be asked to show proof of present current teacher identification to the store manager prior to first in-store purchase. I'm not sure what exactly that means for homeschoolers, since they aren't requiring PEAH membership for home educators to get the card. I guess I'll bring along a copy of my "declaration of intent to provide home-based instruction" form that the school district requires us to fill out every year and my homemade business cards in case there is any trouble.

Unit Studies

For a classic literature group that we're participating in (starting next week), we've been reading "The Song of Hiawatha"

Without intending to, reading and talking about the stories have led to other discussions. We've talked about our Chippewa heritage (related to some of legends) and how I visited Minnehaha Falls (discussed in several of the stories) during my mission to Minnesota.

That got me thinking about related enrichment activities that could be used to supplement her reading. Art projects (make a canoe like Hiawatha did, or draw a book cover)? Creative writing (a poem in the style of "Song of Hiawatha")?

"If you went to public school..."

Now there's a phrase you'll hear from time to time in our house, especially at back to school time, when jealously rears its ugly head.

"Yes, but if you went to public school, you....

• would have to get up earlier in the morning and go to sleep earlier at night
• would have to get dressed as soon as you woke up
• would have to do schoolwork even if you wanted to take a break
• would have to sit in a desk
• would have to be quiet and raise your hand if you wanted to talk
• would have to ask to go to the bathroom (thanks "Mean Girls" for pointing this one out)
• would be at school most of the day, then do homework & chores when you got home
• probably wouldn't get much one on one interaction with your teacher
• probably wouldn't be able to work ahead when you had mastered the material
• wouldn't get to watch TV at lunch time
• wouldn't get to do things during the day, like go grocery shopping or to the library

I could go on here, but you get the idea. I can rattle off a hundred reasons why she wouldn't like going to public school, but if I'm short on time I get right to the "deal-breaker" - the ultimate argument in favor of homeschool....

"You wouldn't be able to spend all day with your sister"

...and that puts an end to it!

When does school start?

We have school throughout the summer, though I have to admit that its a lot more casual than the rest of the year (and we're pretty casual to begin with). Having a baby that has just learned to crawl has made the usual annual planning more difficult that usual (I haven't exactly gotten around to it yet...). So, for the most part we've been doing book reports and reviewing math. If I have our real curriculum planned out by the time public school starts, then I'm "ok".

Since we started homeschooling, we've practiced dialogues that come up at this time of year. Well-meaning adults at grocery stores and in the neighborhood are always interested in talking to her about "back to school". At first, she didn't know how to answer their questions, which tended to make it kind of awkward. So, we practice. I ask things like, "Are you excited for school to start?" or "Do you like your new teacher?" so she has a chance practicing how to respond. These days, she has figured out that she can answer just about every question with "I'm homeschooled" (and then no further explaination, so I feel obligated to jump in with a cheerful "Ya, we have school all year round, but she's excited to start a new grade" or whatever is appropriate).

$9.00 worth of school supplies?

I've seen some Wal-Mart commercials that advertise school supplies and claim that you can get all of the school supplies you need for $9.00. Now wait a minute Wal-Mart - all the supplies for just $9.00? I've seen the school supply lists the school put out. $9.00? Is that for one day's worth of supplies? Well, I've seen those commercials dozens of times, but apparently didn't read between the lines well enough to understand that they mean "$9.00 each", as in each item. $9.00 back-packs, $9.00 t-shirts, $9.00 lunch-boxes, etc. I haven't been over to their school supply section yet, so I had to figure this out for myself on their website.


Some "factoids" I found on youthnoise.com when searching for info on the average back-t0-school costs for students:

Factoids: Back to School Costs
(It ain't cheap!)

• $483 • The average amount of money families with school aged children will spend on back to school items
• $219 on clothes
• $90 on shoes
• $73 on school supplies
• $101 on electronic/computer equipment

• $14,790,000,000 •The total amount parents/guardians will spend sending elementary and high school students back to school

I also found some "average" amounts that were even higher. Again, YIKES!

Back to school purchase o-rama

One of my favorite homeschooling perks: not being forced to purchase a ridiculous array of unnecessary and expensive school supplies. Kendall has had the idea for the past few years (thanks for nothing TV commercials and store displays!!!) that August means that its time for an entire new wardrobe, an enormous set of new school supplies, and a complete room makeover. Think again, batman! Sorry - you're homeschooled honey, we're not buying into that. Literally.

YAY test scores!

Kendall's CAT 5 scores finally arrived in the mail today and she did FANTASTIC! She was rated a stanine score of 9 (the highest possible score in the above-average range) and scored higher than 98% of children in her grade, nationally.

Kendall has always done well in school, but since we've always homeschooled her, its nice to get some outside "validation"

SEMINARY at home for primary-age children

A friend emailed, asking about how we do our version of "seminary" for grade-school students in our homeschool. She also asked a few other questions, which I'm happy to answer, but my reply started getting really long, so I decided to break it up into sections and post it on my blog instead of boring her to tears with a rambling novel-length email! Here's the first installment:

I started doing "seminary" a couple of years ago, 3rd grade I think, but only because I didn't think of it sooner! The way I do it could be adapted for any age, though. Kendall likes to think she's doing things like the teenagers, so I used that to my/her advantage - when she found out that the teens go to seminary she really wanted to do it. I went to the church's seminary website http://seminary.lds.org/ and looked up their curriculum (I decided to do the book of scriptures that we're studying for the year at church instead of the book of scripture they would be studying in seminary for that year. Like, this year I think seminary did New Testament, but we did Doctrine & Covenants at home instead. I thought it would help her to retain the info if we went along with the same scriptures/stories they would be using in Sunday School/Primary).

They have the materials for all 4 years on the website, so you can pick whichever one you want to do. The website has the whole student manual/workbook and other things (pictures, timeline, audio files for scripture mastery verses and related seminary songs). You can print out the pages from the manual as is, or copy the text to a word document and modify them if you want. This year, I was able to give Kendall the worksheets pretty much as-is because they aren't too complicated (I do leave out some of the bonus questions if the assignment was getting too long!). I have her do a section (or part of a section) of the manual every day, and I also give her a list of vocabulary for the week (included in the manual) and we do a quiz on Fridays.

When she was younger I modified the assignments to be more age appropriate (I'd type up a similar assignment with shorter, simpler wording). Also, when she was younger, I also focused more on the scripture mastery, too. I found some mp3's with the verses for the year set to fun music or hymns and she liked listening to those. There are also websites where you can print the flashcards, etc. I think I remember you saying that your daughter likes memorizing, so she'd probably love doing that for "seminary". We haven't done great at working on the scripture mastery this year, but I want to do better at that over the summer. When I was looking for more materials to use for our seminary, I just typed in something like "seminary Doctrine and Covenants helps" or "LDS seminary printables" in the search engine and found a lot of helpful websites.

Sorry, Dewey Decimal!

The CAT 5 (4th grade) standardized test that I ordered from FLO finally came on Friday, so we've been working on that since Monday. They don't send an answer key because parents are allowed to grade the test (the test administrator, FLO takes care of that), but I'm confident that she's doing great so far.

The test itself does seem pretty outdated. There are several questions about library card catalogs (how to use them, read the index cards, etc). When I saw that, I was very surprised because as far as I know most libraries don't even have card catalogs anymore. I called my brother (who worked as an assistant librarian until a few years ago) and he backed me up on this one.

I remember that in grade school we had to "learn" about how to use the library every year. I loved to read, but I was always annoyed by these annual (or sometimes semi-annual if we had moved during the school year) seminars. The uber-boring librarian would go on and on about dewey decimal and blah blah blah. I would just sit there thinking, didn't we go over this last year (and the year before, and the year before?). Nothing ever, ever changed...but I guess they thought we'd forgotten the difference between fiction and nonfiction since the previous year. I never imagined that in a few decades everything would be computerized and that I would never have to look at those silly index cards again.

Now my arch-nemesis, the card catalog has returned from beyond the grave, rearing its outdated head to bore the next generation.

Can we update the CAT please? Its got to be at least 10 years old. Everyone is so worried about standardized tests being culturally biased (have to include ethnic-sounding names in the story problems in order to be relatable to all students) but no one cares that students are being tested on material about card catalogs that can't have possibly been taught in school in the past 10 years!

School supply sales coming soon!

Next month the back to school sales start. Its almost unbelievable that its nearly time for that again already, since most public school kids in our area aren't even out of school yet!

Even the most frugal homeschoolers need school supplies, and the beginning of the back to school season seems to be the best time to purchase certain items. If you wait until closer to the actual start of the new school year, stores are either out of the loss-leader (ridiculously low priced) items, or they've jacked-up the prices again because everyone who has waited that long will be desperate for whatever they can get their hands on.

I've found the best deals, in general, are at Target and Walmart. I generally buy only a few basics- lined notebook paper, pencils/pens, glue sticks, and possibly some folders or notebooks (if we really need them). Happily, these basics are usually the loss-leaders (wire-bound paper notebooks are usually 10 for $1.00 at Walmart!). We don't really have a need for crayons right now in our family, since we have an infant and a 5th grader (who is too cool to use them anymore), but boxes of 12 crayons are normally 5 for $1.00 at Walmart, so I usually stock up on those anyhow. I've kept a stash of them for babysitting, entertaining rowdy children on a neighboring row at church, giving along with gifts as for younger children, donating to school supply drives, replenishing Primary supply closets, etc...

I also like to grab one of the school-supply lists that the stores provide, which show the required supplies that each student needs for the year at the public school in their area. I would never in a million years purchase most of the silly & expensive things on the list, but I do like to keep the list on hand as a reminder of yet another reason why I'm glad to be a homeschooler!

Library day!

We have a loosely scheduled library day on Tuesdays... I mean, it doesn't always happen, especially if I'm able to renew books online. The local library doesn't have educator cards and only allows 2 renewals (which is annoying to me because in Portland there were unlimited renewals and I was eligible for an educator card, which meant I could check things out for 8 weeks each time) so it seems like we have to make a trip in every week.

Our 4th grader enjoys doing reports, so she's doing a (brief) report on some of the major Activists/Reformers in US History (Susan B. Anthony, Helen Keller, Fredrick Douglas, etc). Its been fun for her to figure out how to find the books she needs in the junior biography section and she usually comes home with a few extra books "for fun". Today the bonus books were "You wouldn't want to be Cleopatra!" and "World War II for Kids".

She has her own library card, but thanks to a lost book, the wrong VHS tape being put in a video case, and a few "But MOM - I thought I returned that book 3 weeks ago!" incidents, she is responsible for her own fees from now on! I still remind and (now) double-check everything against the list of books checked-out online before we leave to return them, but if a book "disappears" again, she knows she will be responsible for replacing it now.