The Empty Lemonade Stand

Rachael loves to write.  Her teacher is always raving to me about her writing and sharing with me the latest thing Rachael has written.  She expects Rachael to pass with a Pass-Advanced on the writing portion of her SOLs and told me the other day that she would love to see Rachael become published someday.  Rachael agrees.  She writes all the time at home, too, and I have many stories from her.  Her best is this macabre zombie apocalypse story she wrote that maybe I will share another time. This time I will share a short story she wrote for school about a lemonade stand the kids had in our driveway last year.

Standing with the jellyfish she painted on the school mural before the wall was torn down for the remodel.

The Empty Lemonade Stand

     I paced back and forth along the edge of the table, Trevor set and reset paper cups, and Ariel whined about how much she wanted an icy pop.

     "No!" Trevor snapped at her.

     Stress and tension was a thick cloud in the hot, humid air.  We had had no customers at our lemonade stand!  Not one person had walked by to buy an icy cold cup of fresh lemonade!  Then our first customer rode up on his bike.  Trevor stopped stacking cups, Ariel stopping whining and I sat down.  We smiled and asked him what he would like.

     "Hmm," he thought as he looked at our short menu, "I'll take a glass of lemonade."

     I grabbed a cup and raced to the jug of lemonade.  I watched as it drained into the cup.  Ice cold in my hand, I raced back to the front of the table with it.  I was careful not to spill a single drop as I put the cup on the table.

     "50 cents please," I told him.

     He pulled out his backpack and dug around for some money.  Finally, he pulled his hand out and in it was what we thought was 50 cents.  Then he rode away with his lemonade in hand.  When he was out of sight we counted our money.  To our disappointment he had only given us 15 cents!  After a long day of hard work we  went inside with our earnings, 15 cents for a cup of 50 cent lemonade.

Time in the Woods

Homeschooling means midday hikes on the trail and the end of our road.  Cleo is fierce and likes to pretend she is a wild dog.

Leaping streams in a single bound

It's pretty quiet back in the woods so we can let Cleo off leash.  She is 11 months old and has TONS of energy.

A huge uprooted tree we found.

It was a great day for a walk.  Warmish and springy.  I can't wait for more warm weather to get here. Today is in the low 30s and very windy.  

This is a happier kid

Why did we pull Trevor from seventh grade mid year?  This is a question I've been asked a few times. Here's the gist of it, we had one burned out, grumpy kid on our hands.  Everyday was a battle to make sure he stayed organized, he was studying and he was turning in his homework.  Everyday he was chronically grumpy, holing himself up in his room and snapping at everyone.  Yes, some of this is teenager hormones.  But we had no relationship with him at all.  I could barely drag him out of his room for dinner and every conversation was a discussion about homework and what was due and when.

This was no life to have with our son- to battle with him until he went off to college.

So we pulled him.  And it was the best decision we have made.  We have more time to talk and Trevor is less stressed.  We are in an eclectic mix of deschooling with some mild structure.  So what does that mean?  It means that Trevor is deeply suspicious of anything that might constitute a requirement... or learning of a subject.  When he first thought about homeschooling he assumed I would be structuring his day and giving him things to do.  Instead, I surprised him by saying "What do YOU want to do?" Well, personally, I am not comfortable with him watching Youtube videos and playing Halo all day (even in deschooling.. afterall, I do believe I have to turn in something to the state at the end of the school year).  So instead I asked him what he would like to learn.  He didn't know.  He was so stressed from school he didn't know what his interests were anymore.  So I took the initiative and signed him up for a class on WWII and battle strategies.  The kids apparently build a diorama and learn from there.  It looked right up his alley since I know he likes history.  He was thrilled.

On his own he decided to learn more about the Holocaust.  He has been watching a series we found on Netflix, reading the Diary of Anne Frank (I sometimes read aloud to him, too), and generally researching as the mood strikes him.

On his own he decided to research the history of DJing, write a power point and give us an oral presentation.  He gave the speech to me yesterday, I gave him some feedback and he is working more on it.

I suggested that he might like a free HTML class.  He agreed and has had lots of fun casually taking the classes and practicing that.

My only requirement is that he plan his day and that I would like him to work downstairs with me sometimes so I can answer questions he may have.  I also must study and write papers and discussion board posts.  Frequently we chat back and forth about what we're doing.  I read him my discussion board post about Freud's defense mechanisms (he even gave me an example when I couldn't think of one!) and I helped him find a picture of Anne Frank's house so he can replicate it in Minecraft (his current project).

In fact.. this was our morning... Trevor has been having problems with his laptop so he worked on fixing it this morning.  While he did I read to him from Anne Frank- which we chatted about for a bit. He got his laptop fixed and went upstairs to practice beat matching while I studied.  He then asked me to listen to his mix he practiced.  Then he came downstairs and he says tentatively "Mom, I know this is going to seem pointless and like I am not doing anything, but can we look up Anne Frank's house online?  I really want to try building it in Minecraft.  Would that be okay?"  OMG.. THAT is, to me, what homeschooling is all about.  It is NOT pointless to study Anne Frank's house and build it. Learning doesn't have to be all memorization and reading.  So he is currently listening to his electronic music loudly and building in Minecraft.

Smiling cheesily for the camera.  I'm working on taking pictures with more than my iphone.  

I have more things we've been doing and maybe I'll make those another post later.  But right now I have things I must get to!

Ariel and the Bee

Recently Ariel was in a spelling bee.  She is a bit of a smarty pants and adores words.  We practiced lots and she practiced on her own.  In fact, an often heard phrase became "Mommy, ask me to spell something!"

Many of the practices were canceled due to snow days and school delays due to snow and cold. Undaunted, Ariel pressed on, improving her spelling and determined to do well!

Here is the Teeny, all numbered up and ready to spell!  

Ariel is spelling "barge".  I had an appointment to go to so I missed the end of the spelling bee but she outlasted many kids, including some of the 5th graders!

And here's the proud Teeny Tiny with her certificate and her dog! She finished in the top half of the kids and I am so proud of her!

Oh, hello there

This is a blog.

That's all there is to see here.

You probably won't be interested in this space unless you know me.  Or are interested in homeschooling.  Or like animals (because we have a few and I like to talk about them).

Here's the run down: My name is Devon and I am married to Ray.  We have three kids: Trevor, Rachael and Ariel.  We just pulled Trevor from middle school in order to continue his education at home.  Rachael and Ariel are still in school.  They have the choice to come home next year.  I think Ariel wants to.  Rachael is on the fence.  We share our house with three cats- Chaos, Shadow and Meteor, two dogs- Reznor and Cleo, and two rats- Candy and Corn (can you tell the girls named them?).

I have homeschooled for a year when Trevor was in first grade.  It was a great experience.  I don't know why I didn't stick with it.  I am about to complete my degree in Psychology.  I planned on completing it by the end of August, but I recently dropped a class due to busy-ness and so I won't be complete until the end of November.  No worries, I will finish.  I still hope to get my Master's in Social Work when I get into the homeschooling swing of things.  :)

I will probably only post once a week.  Maybe less depending on if I have anything to talk about and what we do.  I used to blog a lot, carrying a plush bacon around and taking him on adventures.  I'd like to think that blog shared some popularity.   I have also blogged homeschooling adventures here but, like a lame-o, I can't figure out how to access that blog anymore!  Oh well.  Anyway... that's it for a first post!

I'll figure out how to add pictures later!