Response to "A Case Against Homeschooling"

A recent blog post written by Jesse Scaccia at Teacher Revised is getting a lot of attention from all over the internet. In his post, this self-proclaimed education expert gives ten reasons why he believes parents are wrong to home school their children. His reasons are intolerant (to use a favorite word of those with a liberal agenda), arrogant, and obvious uninformed. Since there is just too much to respond to, I decided to bring my response here rather than the comments section of Teacher Revised. The italicized text are his words, followed by my personal opinions and thoughts.

10. “You were totally home schooled” is an insult college kids use when mocking the geeky kid in the dorm (whether or not the offender was home schooled or not). And… say what you will… but it doesn’t feel nice to be considered an outsider, a natural outcropping of being homeschooled.

I do not understand the thought behind this argument. Should the education of children be based on how public schooled young adults bully other kids? Perhaps, rather than using this argument to try to convince parents to enroll their children into public school, we should teach those who are already in public school proper manners and tolerance.

9. Call me old-fashioned, but a students’ classroom shouldn’t also be where they eat Fruit Loops and meat loaf (not at the same time I hope). It also shouldn’t be where the family gathers to watch American Idol or to play Wii. Students–from little ones to teens–deserve a learning-focused place to study. In modern society, we call them schools.

If this is true, then why do schools send children home with copious amounts of homework to be completed where the students eat Fruit Loops and meal loaf? Shouldn't those same schools be focused on getting that teaching and learning done in that very same "learning-focused place of study?"

It comes down to whether or not children are able to learn adequately at home, and study after study has proven that they can. Not only can home schooled students learn adequately where they eat their Fruit Loops and meatloaf, but they are excelling and surpassing their counterparts who are spending 6 1/2 hours in a learning-focused place of study. Thus, your argument has no merit whatsoever.

8. Homeschooling is selfish. According to this article in USA Today, students who get homeschooled are increasingly from wealthy and well-educated families. To take these (I’m assuming) high achieving students out of our schools is a disservice to our less fortunate public school kids. Poorer students with less literate parents are more reliant on peer support and motivation, and they greatly benefit from the focus and commitment of their richer and higher achieving classmates.

Unfortunately, the author of the USA Today article which you link to has learned, too well, the lesson of how to lie with statistics. Voddie Baucham provides a brief argument against the USA Today article, complete with proper citations. Here are some of his arguments in brief:

What USA Today called "higher-income" actually matches the median income, and is well-below the mean income, according to the census bureau.

The story also fails to mention that the median income in 1999 was substantially lower than the median income now, which means everyone has a higher income now, not just home schoolers.

According to the Hoover Institute, 25% of higher income families choose government-run schools where only 22% of families in that same income bracket choose home schooling.

The USA Today article also states that home schoolers are increasingly white. Yes, the percentage of white families who home school have increased from 2% to 4%. However, the article ignores the fact that minority families who home school have increased by 20%.

When looking at statistics, one must look at all of the statistics. By looking at the rest of the story, it is easy to see that the author of that article was obvious using statistics to lie about home schooling trends and is, thus, not a good source of information.

7. God hates homeschooling. The study, done by the National Center for Education Statistics, notes that the most common reason parents gave as the most important was a desire to provide religious or moral instruction. To the homeschooling Believers out there, didn’t God say “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”? Didn’t he command, “Ye shall be witnesses unto me”? From my side, to take your faithful children out of schools is to miss an opportunity to spread the grace, power and beauty of the Lord to the common people. (Personally I’m agnostic, but I’m just saying…)

Since you admit to being agnostic, I suggest you consider actually reading the Bible before attempting to state what it says. The Bible has much to say on the raising of children. Many Scriptures tell us that children belong to God and are given to parents, not the public school system, to raise. Further, it tells us to bring up our children in nurture and admonishment of the Lord, something that public schools are not allowed to do because of separation of church and state. It tells us to teach [the Lord's commands] diligently to our children while we sit in our house, while we walk by the way, while we lie, and while we rise up. It certainly sounds like we are to spend our day, our entire day, teaching our children. We can't do that if they spend a majority of their waking time away from us.

To respond directly to your argument about being witnesses, I say that it does not apply to children because they are not yet equipped to be witnesses to the world. To send out a child before they are adequately prepared, means we'd be sending our children out to be influenced rather than to be an influence. That is why we must first teach them diligently while we sit, while we walk, while we lie, and while we rise. If we do a good job teaching them, they will grow to become the witnesses that God has called them to become.

6. Homeschooling parent/teachers are arrogant to the point of lunacy. For real! My qualifications to teach English include a double major in English and education, two master’s degrees (education and journalism), a student teaching semester and multiple internship terms, real world experience as a writer, and years in the classroom dealing with different learning styles. So, first of all, homeschooling parent, you think you can teach English as well as me? Well, maybe you can. I’ll give you that. But there’s no way that you can teach English as well as me, and biology as well as a trained professional, and history… and Spanish… and art… and counsel for college as well as a school’s guidance counselor… and… and…

Honestly, it sounds as if you are the one that suffers from arrogance with the way you spout off your supposed credentials. In my experience, qualifications don't make a person a good teacher. Plenty of people may be "experts" in their field, yet still be unable to teach adequately. The best teacher isn't one who has the most knowledge in a certain field, but rather the one who cares the most about the student. It is the latter who will alter her teaching style to fit the student's individual needs, seek out the best teachers/mentors/tutors to fill in the gaps she cannot teach, spend hours locating the curriculum and books that will best help her student, etc. To be my child's best teacher, I don't need to know English, biology, history, Spanish, or art. I need to be willing and able to find the best curriculum, books, classes, and mentors who will help me teach these subjects to my children.

Again, the evidence to this is already available. If public school is the best educational choice for all children, the proof would be in the results. The results, however, show the opposite it usually true. Home school students consistently out perform public school students...on annual assessment tests, on college admission tests, in competitions

5. As a teacher, homeschooling kind of pisses me off. (That’s good enough for #5.)

Well, that is pretty obvious from the tone of your article. I suspect that this reason alone means that you cannot be persuaded to take an objective look at home schooling.

4. Homeschooling could breed intolerance, and maybe even racism. Unless the student is being homeschooled at the MTV Real World house, there’s probably only one race/sexuality/background in the room. How can a young person learn to appreciate other cultures if he or she doesn’t live among them?

I will agree that homeschooling could breed intolerance and racism; however, those families that teach that are a very small minority of home schoolers. The majority of home schoolers, however, are better able to appreciate other cultures because we are out interacting with a diverse world in a respectful manner rather than being sequestered in classrooms limited to same-age peers, in schools that are often segregated by socioeconomic class. Public school students learn and live with bullying based on gender, race, intelligence, cliques, etc., as evidenced by your own admission in reason number ten.

3. And don’t give me this “they still participate in activities with public school kids” garbage. Socialization in our grand multi-cultural experiment we call America is a process that takes more than an hour a day, a few times a week. Homeschooling, undoubtedly, leaves the child unprepared socially.

Again, there is evidence to the contrary. Studies show that home school children often have better socialization skills and are more mature than their public school counterparts. Further, research shows that home school graduates fair better than public school graduates in many areas of social success. Home school graduates hold a wide variety of jobs, are more active and involved in their communities, are more civically active, and are more content with their lives than their public schooled counterparts.

2. Homeschooling parents are arrogant, Part 2. According to Henry Cate, who runs the Why Homeschool blog, many highly educated, high-income parents are “probably people who are a little bit more comfortable in taking risks” in choosing a college or line of work. “The attributes that facilitate that might also facilitate them being more comfortable with home-schooling.”

More comfortable taking risks with their child’s education? Gamble on, I don’t know, the Superbowl, not your child’s future.

I take this statement to mean that they are more willing to do what is best for their children rather than doing what the rest of society is doing. We are willing to look at our options and evaluate which is best for each of our children, rather than blindly throw them to the wolves. If all the arguments and evidence is for home schooling, it is not an unreasonable risk to take. Further, I can reevaluate my choice as we go, and if it is not working out to my child's best interest, I can take another route.

1. And finally… have you met someone homeschooled? Not to hate, but they do tend to be pretty geeky***.

*** Please see the comments for thoughts on the word ‘geeky.’ But, in general, to be geeky connotes a certain inability to integrate and communicate in diverse social situations. Which, I would argue, is a likely result of being educated in an environment without peers. It’s hard to get by in such a diverse world as ours! And the more people you can hang out with the more likely you are to succeed, both in work life and real life.

Most home schooled children, in my experience, do not meet your definition of "geeky". Further, there are plenty of "geeky" children in public school. Is it the school that caused them to become this way? Of course not! Children come in a wide variety of personalities, with a wide variety of interests. Unfortunately, some less educated folk would consider those who are interested in academics to be geeky while those who are most interested in sports or "fitting in" to be not geeky.

Your last statement is actually a pro homeschooling argument. Rather than hanging out with the same 20-30 children day in and day out for 180 days of the year, home school children are interacting with more people who come from more diverse backgrounds than that found in the typical grade x classroom. Contrary to your belief, home school children are not being educated in an environment devoid of peers...their peers are just more diverse than those found in public school. Further, research shows that home school graduates are more likely to succeed, both in work and in life.

There is one point that I will agree with you on, and that is that public school is the better choice for some children. However, I will not concede that public school is the best choice for all, or even most, children.

I challenge you, Mr. Scaccia, to do some research on the subject. Perhaps, you will find that your uneducated opinions on home schooling are wrong.

Gorilla, Goblin, Ogre

Josh has some interesting ways of saying certain words. Today, I was able to get him to repeat three of them while I recorded it.

Oregon Zoo

One of our stops when we were in Portland last weekend was the Oregon Zoo. The zoo was a perfect tie in with our science curriculum this year, which focused on land animals.


My father joined us at the zoo. He spent much of his time carrying Josh, who suddenly decided that he liked Papa. Usually, he's terribly afraid of him and won't go anywhere near him. He found out that Papa isn't scary, but rather quite fun. Papa found out that Josh is quite heavy to be carrying around all day.


This crocodile was too cool. He never moved; you couldn't even see him breathing. He looked just as fake in real life as he does in this photo, but no one wanted to get in the habitat with him to find out for sure.

The zoo has an insect exhibit, complete with this Madagascar hissing cockroach that Sam got to pet. He's not squeamish about bugs. Mika stayed clear of the cockroach, millipede, and tarantulas and enjoyed the ladybugs instead.

These two gorillas were hilarious. They were just lazing around, enjoying the sun. That is until...


...the alpha male came over and put them in their place...which apparently, wasn't sunning themselves on the pavement.


Here's Mika and Josh trying out this model of the polar bear maternity den. The polar bears were out and active today, which is always fun.

There was plenty to do and see at the Oregon Zoo. We really enjoy this zoo. My only complaint is that it is hard to get pictures of the animals because most of them are behind glass.

Comfy?

So, the family was watching Don't Forget the Lyrics tonight. Josh wasn't so impressed so he decided to play on the computer with his Sesame Street game. After awhile, I looked over and saw this scene....



Comfy? Apparently. On closer inspection, this is what we saw...


He was completely out.

eHow Featured Member

Well, this is kind of cool!

Back at the end of October, I joined eHow and over the next couple of week wrote a few articles for them. I got busy and ran out of writing ideas over the holidays and haven't written since. Despite that, I continue to earn a little bit of money on those articles I wrote. With only those first 22 articles, I'll have made a little over $65. It's not a lot, but then again, I'm doing pretty much nothing to make it.

Today, I got an email from them telling me that I'm the eHow Featured Member of the Day.

Lotus Isle Park

Yesterday morning, we had about an hour to an hour and a half to kill before Scott arrived so the kids and I went in search of a nearby park. We found a small one about 1/2 mile from the hotel, the only one on the island.

Sam wasted no time in finding a path down the sandy bank to the Columbia Slough. While I sat there gazing at the houseboats, wondering what it would be like to live on one, the kids played in the sand.


Joshua loved the sand and was very unhappy when it was time to climb back up the hill and head back to the hotel to meet Daddy.


Here's Mika and Sam doing their thing. Mika was taking photos of her Webkinz skunk, while Sam was trying to squeeze the sand. He's weird. I think it looks more like he's trying to reel in a giant pretend marlin.

In the park above the sandy bank, I was able to capture this great photo of Sam. I tried but couldn't get Mika to sit on the tree.


Josh was a little scared of the height of this slide. I had to reach up and hold his hand on the way down...then he loved it.

Mika loves monkey bars now that she can do them.

After our short trip to the park, we returned to the hotel to wait for Scott to arrive. We only had about 15 minutes left to wait. Then we packed up for the day and headed to the Oregon Zoo.

The Hotel

We made it to our hotel, no thanks to Google Maps. The directions said to get off at exit 308, take a sharp right on this street, a right at this street, and a right at this other street. There are no street signs, not a single one. So, if you follow the right, right, right you end up back on I5 towards home. Not good when you've been in the car for 2 1/2 hours and everyone has sore bottoms.

But we made it here on our second try after taking a left that is not mentioned in the directions.

The lobby of the hotel is one of the nicest, coziest lobbies I've seen in a hotel...not that I've been in a lot of hotels. Regardless, it was nice. The person checking us in was friendly, too.



Josh insisted on pulling his suitcase himself. It was so cute seeing this little guy rolling a suitcase almost as tall as he. He did it, though.


The hotel room is nice and in good repair overall. We have two queen beds with bolster pillows (the kids were amazed at the "round pillows"). There is also a sofa, coffee table, and regular height table with two chairs. The main entertainment center has a good-sized flat screen TV, DVD player, small microwave, and small fridge. The kids are enjoying the cable TV that we don't have at home.


Here's the love seat, complete with one of Mika's webkinz. Josh has already figured out that he can jump from the bed to the loveseat. He's also already picked up both phones three times each and attempted to turn on every lamp.

The sink area is right inside the door. It has a nice looking counter and pretty, large mirror. The coffee pot and hair dryer are also here. To the left of the sink, you can see the closet with mirror doors. The kids were surprised there was a closet. Inside is a full size ironing board and iron. Across from the sink is the bathroom which is clean.

So, we've made contact with my father and are resting our bottoms from the long drive while we wait for the evening reception...drinks appetizers.

Then we hit the nearby Safeway for diapers and snacks for tomorrow.

UPDATE: More about the complementary evening reception... The drinks were limited to two per person; they gave you coupons. The appetizers were potato chips, meatballs and gravy, salad (lettuce, red cabbage, tomato, cucumber), fresh veggies (celery, baby carrots, broccoli, cauliflower), cheese (cubes of cheddar and pepper jack), crackers (4 varieties), and ranch dip. Kind of a pleasant little addition to your usual hotel amenities.

Good Big Brother

It took a while, but Sam and Josh have finally clicked. At first, I think that Sam was just too intense for Josh; he has a tendency to be in your face and a bit too loud. He's getting better and Josh is getting older. The two things combined have helped open a path towards friendship. Josh now likes his brother and seeks him out at times.

Today, Josh needed a diaper change and insisted on "brother" doing it. Sam was actually ok with that and changed the diaper. He did a good job, too. It was his first diaper change.

I was so proud of Sam. He tried it. He did it. And he wasn't too grossed out by it.

What was really funny/cute was what happened later. I was telling Scott about how good of a job Sam did as we were walking into the bowling alley. Sam started shushing me and telling me, in a whisper, to stop talking about it. He was embarrassed and didn't want the other kids at the bowling alley to overhear about how he changes diapers.

This was the first time Sam has ever expressed any kind of embarrassment or concern over what other kids might hear or know about him.

Stop Motion Part 2

Mika loved how her first stop motion video came out.

Not wanting to be outdone, Sam wanted to make a stop motion video, too.

So, they collaborated and made another video today...

It's not that boring!

This is what happened when we did science together today. We were reading about reptiles and turtles.

Car Seat Safety

I just watched a couple of you tube videos that reminded me of why proper use of car seats are so important. Most cities will have places you can take your car, car seat, and child to and they'll ensure that the seat is properly installed, that your child fits the seat properly, and that you know how to properly tighten the straps. Use this service! It may save your child's life!

Even if you ensure that your child is always properly strapped into their car seat, there is one thing that you may not be aware of...car seats expire. Even if they are look brand new still, an expired car seat is potentially dangerous. Plastic gets brittle with time, especially when subjected to extreme heat and cold such as that which occurs in many cars. You can't always see this damage. Brittle plastic means the harness can break right through the shell of the seat with the force of an accident, letting your child fly out of it. Check out this youtube video showing what can happen.

You can find the expiration date on the back or bottom of the car seat. For most car seats, the expiration date is 6 years after the manufacture date, not the date you bought it. If there's any doubt, call the manufacturer.

And please, never ever ever, ride with a child in your arms. This video shows the devastating results in an accident.

How Does He Do That

Sam tested for his red belt Monday night and received it Tuesday night. He was very excited and happy about it. I know he doesn't look like it in the picture, but he really was.

It is at taekwondo that Sam shows off his amazing memory. During his testing, he is required to show mastery of the high blue belt hand technique, kicking technique, form, and one-step sparring. They also look at no contact sparring and knowledge of Korean terms used in the dojang. They also often require that you remember your hand and kicking techniques and forms from all former belts (white, yellow, orange, green, purple, blue, high blue). During the testing, the master verified Sam's age (age 7) and told him that he was only required to demonstrate knowledge of the five one-step sparring forms for his current belt only. He then asked if Sam remembered the others. Sam replied that he did and went on to demonstrate all 30 one-step sparring forms, in order, without hesitation. Now, that's an amazing memory!

Not only did he remember everything during testing, but since Tuesday evening he has learned his red belt hand technique, kicking technique, and five one-step sparring forms. He's learned all of that in just two evenings. And I'm not talking about learning it but still needing to practice it until he can remember it all; he learned and knows it all. The only thing left to learn is the form. Then he'll have to "sharpen it up" for the next 6 or 8 weeks before he will be eligible to test for high red. This is typical for Sam: to learn everything necessary for the belt within the first week.

I wish I had his memory!

Rosetta Stone Latin

I know that a lot of homeschoolers include Latin in their curriculum. It is believed that, by studying Latin, you gain knowledge that assists in learning English grammar and makes learning other Latin-based languages much easier.

Rosetta Stone, a popular foreign language program, just rolled out their new Latin program. Rosetta Stone not only teaches vocabulary and grammar but has the ability to ensure pronunciation is correct through the use of computer technology. You don't have to know the language to help your children learn it.

So, here's the exciting thing...Jeneric Jeneralities is giving away a copy of Rosetta's Stone's new Latin curriculum. Here's the information about the contest:

Rosetta Stone is the fastest way to learn a language and has been the #1 foreign language curriculum among homeschoolers for a while — and you can WIN the *all new* version 3 Rosetta Stone Homeschool LATIN program… FOR FREE! This is the first year you can get Latin in the brand new Version III update.

This is a $259 program (and believe me it’s worth every penny!)
This is a computer based curriculum and Rosetta Stone will also include a headset with microphone, and a supplementary “Audio Companion” CD so you can practice lessons in the car, on the go, or where-ever! Students participate in life-like conversations and actually produce language to advance through the program. Rosetta Stone incorporates listening, reading, grammar, vocabulary and writing along with speaking and pronunciation lessons. For parents, the new Parent Administrative Tools are integrated into the program to allow parents to easily enroll up to ten students in any of 12 predetermined lesson plans, monitor student progress, grade completed work (the program grades the work automatically as the students progress- I love that!), and you can view and print reports for transcripts. Homeschooling a lot of kids at your house? This program is designed to enroll and track up to ten students (five users on two computers) and will work for nearly all ages — from beginning readers up to college students.

To win this most excellent Latin program copy these paragraphs and post them in (or as) your next blog post, and/OR link to the contest from your facebook page and/OR email the information to your homeschool support group – Then go to the original page http://Jeneralities.com and leave a comment saying that you’ve posted about, or have linked to, the contest. Please make sure the link works to get back to the original contest page when you post. And good luck!

Face-to-Face

Finally, after almost an entire school year of emailing and a few phone calls, we get to meet our teacher-contact at Columbia Virtual Academy. The kids are interested in seeing what their teacher will look like, what she'll be like. Today, they get to find out.

With our school being a 5-6 hour drive away, it isn't easy to actually meet the teachers, principals, and staff that you email and call throughout the school year. So, Columbia Virtual Academy began having what they call Face-to-Face events throughout the state. They choose major areas where they have a large number of students within a reasonable distance, book a location to meet, and invite any families that want to attend. This gives us a way to meet those staff members that we have the most contact with. It's primarily a social event, but we can also get ask questions, discuss issues, and turn in curriculum that they bought for us that we no longer need without having to pay the shipping to mail it back to them.

We're looking forward to heading out later today to our local event, just 5 minutes from our house. She's been such a blessing this year. She's always prompt in returning emails and does her best to find the answers to any questions she cannot already answer on her own. She's always encouraging to the kids and loves to see their work. The kids are looking forward to meeting her.

Mika and Her Webkinz

While Sam spends his time learning math, Mika spends hers with her Webkinz pals. She plays with them. She takes billions of pictures of them. She makes stop motion movies with them. With only a tiny bit of help from me showing her how to add music and save it to the proper format for uploading, here's her first attempt...

Webkinz vs. Chores - Making the Bed

He Likes Math

My 7 year old loves math. Loves it! There's no stopping him. Heck, I can't even slow him down. I've tried.

In the past two school years, he has completed Saxon Math 1 and Math-U-See levels Alpha and Beta. He's currently working in both Gamma and Delta simultaneously so I can cover the few areas that he doesn't already know and give him some practice in what he learned on his own from paying attention to his sister's lessons. He'll finish both of these levels before the end of summer if not before. That's five years of math curriculum in just two years!

In case you think I might be pushing him, this is a kid who will get off of the computer (as in free time playing games) before his time is up and work math problems on the white board all by himself. What kind of problems does he work? The kind that I haven't officially taught him yet...multiple digit multiplication, finding area and volume, and long division.

The photo above is of him working a long division problem. In case you can't see it, the problem is 572,109 divided by 182. The the answer is 3,143 83/182. He got it correct.

Book Review: Face of Betrayal

When I received this book from Thomas Nelson Publishers to review, I was excited to get started reading. It's been a while since I've sat down to just read a book on my own, and not as a read aloud for my children's schooling. I spent the next couple of days engrossed in the book, having a difficult time putting it down in order to attend to my duties as a wife, homemaker, mom, and homeschool teacher.

The novel begins when Katie Converse, a 17-year old Senate page, disappears without a trace while home in Portland, OR for Christmas break. Nicole Hedges, Allison Pierce, and Cassidy Shaw are on the case, each bringing their own experience and resources to assist them. Nicole, an FBI agent who investigates internet crime against children, is assigned to the case because of her expertise in dealing with parents. Allison is a federal prosecutor. Cassidy Shaw works for a local television channel and is hoping the Converse case will bring her upward mobility in her career.

The novel weaves its way through the details of the case in an interesting way. Current events are told from perspective of the three main characters in the form of very short, dated, chapters. Each chapter focuses on one of the characters, what they learn about the case, and significant events in their lives unrelated to the case. Interspersed between those chapters are excepts from Katie's myspace blog that reveals details in events leading up to her disappearance. From all appearances, it looks like her sponsor to the page program, a U.S. Senator, is responsible...or is he?

The novel includes many clues to keep you guessing, subplots, and plot twists. There's always something new to keep you reading as you try to figure what happened to Katie and who did it. I found the book to be an interesting and easy read.




**Disclosure: I received a free copy of the book from Thomas Nelson in exchange for a review. I was under no obligation to provide a positive review. The above review includes my true impressions about the book. In most cases, I do not keep the book (lack of storage space), but rather give it away in the next Goodwill box.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all my mommy followers and visitors. I hope you have a great day!

SpellQuizzer: Fun Spelling Program

A little over a month ago, I received an invitation to try SpellQuizzer, a spelling program for helping children learn their spelling words. Now that we've been using it for several weeks, I can tell you what I truly think of the program.

At first, I was skeptical. I figured Sam would probably like it, but Mika would be indifferent. She usually is when it comes to computer learning programs. To my surprise, both kids not only liked it, but are now begging me regularly for more spelling words. Their enthusiasm for the program means that it now has a permanent place in our homeschool routine.

SpellQuizzer is a simple program that it easy to use. Creating spelling lists is as simple as clicking on "Create a spelling list", giving the list a name, and adding the chosen words. Adding words is simple; you type in the word and record yourself saying the word and a sentence using the word. If you want to, you can add a written reminder phrase to assist your student. You can also tell the program if the word is case-sensitive and if you want the list to be randomized when quizzing. It's that simple.

When the student is ready to practice, they simply open the program and choose a list to practice. After listening to your voice recording, they attempt to type in the correct spelling. If they are correct, they get the next word in the list. If they are incorrect, a pop-up box will give them their spelling in red and the correct spelling in green. Once they've finished the list, they are given the option to try to incorrect words again and again until they get them all correct.

One of our favorite features of the program is the sound effects that you can add. You can choose sounds to play when the child is correct, incorrect, and when they've gotten 100% on the first try. We have the program yelling "ya-hoo!" for every correct word, "oh-no!" for every incorrect word, and cheering when they get them all right at the end. I initially thought it would be too much, but the sound effects keep the kids motivated and smiling, and keeps my 2 year old laughing.

SpellQuizzer isn't just spelling software; it can also be used to help students practice their vocabulary. I have also been using it to help Mika practice her vocabulary each week. Rather than recording the pronunciation of the vocabulary word, I have been using the reminder phrase option to type in a short definition for each word. It works quite well and can be used for all manner of vocabulary words, whether they are from a vocabulary building program, history, science, literature, or any other source of vocabulary.

Spellquizzer can be used with any spelling and/or vocabulary curriculum. You can even download pre-made spelling lists for SpellQuizzer from their website.

Now, you've heard about all of the great things about SpellQuizzer, you might be wondering if there is anything I do not like about the program. And there is. The program, as designed, is for student practice only; there is no reporting feature for the teacher/parent. I feel that it would be helpful for the teacher to have some sort of reporting feature (with a print option) to let the teacher see where the student is struggling. Is the student consistently misspelling the same words or sounds? It would also be nice to be able to print a report of the words that have been passed for homeschool records.

The good news is that I've discussed these helpful features with the creator and he is considering a "pro" or upgrade version of the program including these features. For now, though, I'm happy using it the way it is and look forward to the upgrade when it arrives. As it stands, it is definitely worth its low price.

You can even download a free trial. Maybe your kids could be the next ones to start begging for more spelling lists.

Polymer Clay Mushrooms

A few weeks ago, my father showed up for a visit carrying in a box of polymer clay, a pasta machine, various molds, and a handful of sculpting tools. The kids were excited, but I didn't know how to go about using this type of clay.

Then the May issue of Family Fun magazine arrived at our house. The cover was graced with a beautiful young child with her fairy garden, complete with bright red magical mushrooms...made from polymer clay. The article came complete with instructions on how to make these simple little toadstools.

My kids were ecstatic when I told them today that we could spend our school day making mushrooms. They picked out some colors and we started softening the clay with the pasta machine. Within three hours, we had a dozen mushrooms in various colors and a cute little but very hungry caterpillar to go with them.

Mika and Sam are showing off a couple of their favorite mushrooms.


We started off with green and white mushrooms. (Sorry the photo is so blurry.)


Then we made some brightly colored mushrooms. The caterpillar came last; I had just a tiny bit of green left over, not enough to wrap up for another day. So, I started rolling it into little balls. Then I rolled a face and added the eys and antenna. It's very cute!


We also made a few dark-colored mushrooms. The lighter purple one (second from the right) is really neat because I mixed some purple and white, but left some swirls still showing.

It was fun, easy, and satisfying.

Looking up to Brother

For a while, Joshua and Sam didn't connect well. We've been seeing a gradual change in their relationship. Josh has been seeking out time with Sam more and more. Just the other day, we watched them walk hand-in-hand through the house. That's something I don't think we've seen before.

This evening we had another "Awwww..." moment. Sam was snuggled up with a blanket on the love seat reading a book. Josh grabbed a book and joined him. He had to be under the blanket just like his brother. He had to be looking at a book. Here's a picture I snapped before the scene changed.


Sam decided to pick up and read Where the Red Fern Grows. We read it as a bedtime read-aloud at the beginning of the year. He wants to read it again himself. Josh has The Fellowship of the Ring.

By the way, they are both shirtless because we had been playing outside earlier and Sam asked if he could take off his shirt. I gave permission. Immediately, Josh had to have his shirt off, too, just like big brother.

Isn't it sweet?