Go outside the Coven to Play Sports

I know that this is one of those cases in which it may be the same all over, but education politics are a CIRCUS in Indiana. We thankfully feel left outside of the fray *most* of the time, but seriously, Matt and I often joke about going to the school board meetings with a big bag of popcorn in hand, just to rubberneck the fighting.

So we've got this ridiculous school "grading" system in place, started by Tony Bennett, the former state superintendent (who, it later turned out, had tweaked this system as it was being written and revised until he arrived at one that specifically gave the school of one of his buddies a good grade), a dude who lost the recent election and instead went down to Florida to start some new education scandals there. Even though he lost the election to Glenda Ritz, the candidate that teachers and parents mostly voted for, he left behind all his buddies still in their powerful political positions, and all those buddies constantly do their best to thwart anything that Ritz attempts and to divest her of her powers. The governor invented this other group that he decided should make all of Ritz's decisions instead of her, and when she went to the meeting to protest it we all got to hear on the news this entire screaming fight that happened there. And then she wanted to file suit, but she couldn't, because she has to have a lawyer to represent her, but the only lawyer that she's apparently allowed to have is the attorney general, and he won't do it because he's in the governor's pocket.

So.

So these grades are pretty arbitrary, based pretty much just on one or two of the many standardized tests that all the kids in every grade have to take every year, although the grades are also suspiciously correlated to the number of lower income kids at each school. But if you get an F for a few years running, the state government can apparently come and take over your school and even more bad things will happen, so it makes the principals and local school boards get all sweaty and panicky, and then they do all this other crazy stuff. The Friday before a three-day weekend the other week, all the kids at one of our elementary schools came home with letters to their parents saying that starting Monday, their entire school was being restructured based on each child's score in one of those standardized tests. They were all going to move classes and change teachers, and if they hadn't done well on the test they were going to be in smaller classes and do reading and math drills all freaking day, and if they had done well on the test they were going to be in large classes and not get paid attention to, probably. A bunch of the parents went nuts, of course, but all the kids had to do this anyway, except that then the principal changed her mind and moved everyone back again after, like, a day. I'm sure there was a LOT of instruction time going on during those two days!

So this panicky and sweaty local school board, terrified of getting taken over, does NOT want to lose any state funding (although they're happy to waste that state funding on gimmicky toys for each child) OR good students, and so even though we already have a charter school and a huge community of homeschoolers in town, the board is getting very prickly about outside incursion into the educational domain. This Waldorf charter school was working on an application to get started here, but then somehow the school admins managed to whip up public frenzy about charter schools taking away all the public schools' money (which they don't, but whatever) until the charter school had to withdraw so it could revise and resubmit its application after it had figured out how to combat the crazy, and then this deaf kid who does online school spearheaded this idea that wouldn't it be nice if non-traditional schoolkids could still play sports at the local schools, and the school admins kinda went nuts again.

Now add to this background the fact that the opinion page of our local newspaper is UH-MAZING. One of the "issues of the day" the other day was about the non-traditional schoolkids, and here's my favorite section of the responses:

My favorite part about the opinion page is that at some point, you can't even tell anymore who's being sarcastic and who's not. I snapped a picture of this section, just because I LOOOVE the coven quote, but I wish I'd also thought to show you the quote from the person who thinks that this is all a conspiracy to further destroy the public schools by diluting their sports teams.

Seriously. Although I guess that's not *really* that far out of the realm of possibility coming from a state that once contained a superintendent who geared the entire state's school grading system around giving one single school a good grade, sigh.

Homeschool Math: Roll n' Multiply

My mother gave the kids Roll 'n Multiply for Christmas. I know that these super academic-sounding games can be pretty hit-or-miss--will the game be genuinely fun, or will it be just a fun-sounding trick to get kids to drill facts that they don't feel like drilling?

Roll 'n Multiply? It's genuinely fun!

The key to Roll 'n Multiply being genuinely fun is that 1) it's not torture if you haven't yet memorized the facts, and 2) there is plenty of interesting strategy involved in winning the game.

To play Roll 'n Multiply, you roll two ten-sided dice, multiply them, and place the disc that holds the product onto the game board:

If you can't figure out the product in your head, you can check the multiplication table first:

To win, you need to place four of your discs in a row, but the grid is five-by-five, so there's some tricky strategy involved in playing and blocking and building from the middle. And if you roll a multiplication equation whose product is already on the game board, it gets even more fun--if the piece is already yours, you can leave it or move it somewhere else; if the piece is your opponent's, you can TAKE it! A formerly sound offensive position suddenly becomes vulnerable. A formerly blocked row is now a potentially winning play.

Both kids, but Syd especially, LOVE this game. I had been requiring multiplication table memorization as part of the kids' memory work, but since we've received this game and I've seen how the kids enjoy it, I've been letting them play this game instead; it will definitely make mastering the tables take longer than with just rote memorization, but I think the facts will stick better, AND I don't have to deal with any multiplication table-related tantrums, so there's that.

Although this is a game that the kids will actually play together--

--and I encourage them to do that when I'm especially busy, I really like to play with each child individually:

I can draw the game out, sneakily ensuring that they get more practice with the facts. I can ask them to search their memories instead of reaching for the multiplication table. I can ask them to solve my multiplication problems as well as their own. I can agree when Syd suggests another game and then another game and then another game (My brain dying quietly inside my head each time, but that's the burden of having memorized my multiplication tables). And I can also agree that yes, we should definitely stop in the middle of our fourth game together and instead create a temporary art installation:

I want to say that I should look for a similarly enthralling game or activity for each of the kids' weekly memory work requirements, but for some things, it's just a case of quantity vs. quality. The one downside to the game is that when the kids play it, they spend a lot more time on multiplication memory work each day than they would when stuck with a table to memorize, and although that's a big advantage for what would otherwise be a very dry study, if I made all their memory work this fun, we'd spend half of each school day just doing that! So two minutes of Latin vocabulary flash cards will stay two minutes of Latin vocabulary flash cards, and two minutes of US state fact-sorting will stay two minutes of US state fact-sorting.

When the multiplication tables are memorized, however, then I can see us playing Ancient History Snap, or Periodic Table BINGO, or Hippology Jeopardy, or some other such genuinely fun, super academic game.

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Homemade Award Ribbons and My Clean House

a tutorial for the award ribbons that I made for the spelling bee that I ran last weekend

and a discussion of the disinfecting wipes that I made using the homemade disinfectant recipe from Homemade Cleaners

My house is NOT clean today, but there are two happily drawing children at the table with me, Tchaikovsky streaming from the computer speakers, a boiled chicken carcass in a pot on the stove (to be dealt with by Matt + children after he gets home from work tonight), and a mass Facebook messaging dialogue going on right now to decide where my friends and I will meet up to gossip this afternoon while our kids play, so life, clearly, is going just grandly regardless.

Homeschool Science: Comparison of the Human Skeleton to the Chicken Skeleton

Hallelujah, we finally have a complete chicken carcass! Although we eventually had to drive up to Indianapolis to find one, the trip was, of course, a fabulous adventure, since the frozen carcass turned out to be available at our favorite international grocery, Saraga. We therefore came home with many, MANY food items other than that chicken carcass, including (but not limited to) sheet-cake-sized wafer cookies, an energy drink that Matt could bear to take only one sip of, a barley drink that I could bear to take only one sip of, a couple of neon-colored Asian sodas that the girls gulped down happily, many varieties of steamed buns, many more varieties of Ramen, plantains, sweet limes, a very prickly fruit-like thing that draws blood when you touch it, and this fifteen-pound jackfruit:

The preparation of that chicken carcass is a gruesome tale for another day, however; until then, I bring you the story of another portion of this Science Fair project, already happily completed and its presentation rehearsed. I give you, my friends...

The Comparison of the Human Skeleton to the Chicken Skeleton!!!

Even in animals as seemingly different as humans and chickens, many aspects of their skeletal systems are similar. Both humans and chickens, for instance, have many bones that serve the same function, and that therefore have identical names. As part of their research, the kids created a visual aid that illustrates some of these identical bones.

Although a paper diagram would work just as well, for bigger impact the kids first created a plaster of Paris human skeleton from a kit that we own. Will glued the skeleton to some stash mat board, but the whole thing looked so rickety, and plaster of Paris is so brittle, that I sneaked in behind her and glued it better--shh, don't tell!

Using paper diagrams of a human skeleton and a chicken skeleton, then, the kids collaborated in finding the identically-named bones on each skeleton and coloring them the same color:

With my kids, fighting is inevitable, but I was impressed to see that they did eventually manage to come together, divide their labor equitably, and, yes, collaborate! Homeschool kids being socialized to group work: check!

Using the paper human skeleton diagram, the kids then selected matching paint colors from our set of artist's acrylics (I think these have better coverage, and are thus easier for the kids to work with, than craft acrylics) and painted their plaster of Paris human skeleton to match the diagram:

Will cut out the paper chicken skeleton diagram and glued it on, and we called that project done and done!

It turned out great, because it really does illustrate some interesting similarities between humans and chickens. Completely coincidentally, the chicken skeleton diagram is also in very nearly correct proportion to the human skeleton diagram:

The kids have some more research to do and a report to write with me, but my hope is that they and Matt will just make this chicken skeleton re-articulation magically appear by Science Fair day. I can't 100% promise you photos and a discussion of the process, because I only write on subjects that definitely won't make me vomit.

Work Plans for the Week of January 27, 2014: Plenty of Projects

MONDAY: For some reason, Monday was an excellent school day. The kids both know enough Latin vocabulary now that we can cobble together both fun phrases ("Do you remember when Gracie was an infans feles?") and insert Latin words into our regular speech ("I SAID stop kicking open that porta!"), which seems to have made them more invested in learning new words. This week we also learned several Christmas words (the Latin textbook that we're currently using is NOT secular, but considering Latin's long tradition in the church, and how that played a huge part in keeping Latin alive and relevant through the medieval period, I'll allow it), so I found some Christmas hymns sung in Latin for us to listen to as we worked, and the children enjoyed this greatly.

There was no protest, either, over math--Syd finds rounding easy, so she didn't throw a fit, and Will actually enjoyed creating line graphs, so she didn't throw a fit, either!--or music. Syd is still happily working through a set of free piano lessons online (I don't know, yet, what I'll do when she finishes those--find more? Enroll her in formal lessons?), and Will was much happier to learn her song when I sat her down and had her record every note of her song on a series of recorder fingering diagrams--it's like written music for a kid who can't yet read music!

The kids have been interested in survival skills since their first nature class earlier this year, and their homework for that class is to create a survival kit for the car, so we'll be working on that in the next couple of weeks. Yet another thing that I love about homeschooling is the ability to integrate the kids' homework for their extracurricular activities into their school days.

TUESDAY: Although we STILL do not have a chicken carcass to work with, both kids are working on their Science Fair project right this moment, while we listen to various versions of "Dry Bones" on Spotify. I will not worry about that chicken carcass right now. Other continuing projects for today include more work on the World Thinking Day badges (Syd finished her comparative analysis and her art project last week, but Will still needs to do her research project, and they both need to start their service project) and on the scrapbook for our California vacation.

Math is working a little differently this week--both kids wanted to attend two math classes this week, instead of one, so that plus Math Mammoth equals a whole week of math! I'm not ashamed to admit that it was a big time-saver to not have to plan out a hands-on math lesson this week, although in theory I do prefer that we have a hands-on math day at home, where I can offer enrichment on a relevant concept and evaluate their mastery of that concept. If they continue to choose to attend both classes, I may have to rethink our weekly math schedule. First Language Lessons, however, keeps tooling along just fine--it's still a little too easy for Will, but what we're doing now is at least good spelling practice for her. I have found that even though the kids are on the same chapter each week, I still need to work with them separately, so I can move faster through the material with Will and slower with Syd. So much for time-saving grammar studies!

WEDNESDAY: I'm not in love with having two extracurricular activities scheduled on the same day; next session, I'll try again, and perhaps one day I'll have a time that I actually like for horseback riding lessons.

Just recently, we've starting watching Global Wrap together every week, and if we keep enjoying it, I'll also add it to the Wednesday schedule, just so we don't forget about it.

THURSDAY: Syd and I will have some time to work on her T-shirt dress while Will explores more on Scratch; I don't think she's actually worked herself up to creating a program, although she keeps expressing interest in it, so I'll keep giving her a set time to play around with it. And I think we're all going to enjoy this week's Drawing With Children lesson, so this should be a fun day!

If we don't have a boiled down, bleached out chicken skeleton to start re-articulating by this day, I don't know what we're going to do. So much for my relaxed Science Fair prep schedule!

FRIDAY: More Science Fair prep, more California scrapbooking, more World Thinking Day badge activities, and another math class! In addition, we're *finally* starting the next chapter of The Story of the World, which means coloring pages, Jim Weiss' narration, and quiz questions.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: We've got a celebration for the Year of the Horse at the library and a radio building workshop at our local hands-on science museum, a Goodwill store-wide sale that Syd and I might be visiting to seek out green sequined formal wear, and hopefully just the very last touches to put on a Science Fair project.

Because what could be a better family bonding activity than re-articulating a chicken skeleton together?

How to Run a School-Level Scripps Spelling Bee for Your Homeschool Group

Spelling bees are practically a rite of passage for kids. The Scripps Spelling Bee is one of the largest academic competitions for children in the nation, so most schoolchildren share the experience of standing up alone in front of an audience, speaking into a microphone, and spelling a word for the judges--for many kids, this will be their first time doing at least a couple of those things. And for everyone other than one kid in the entire nation each year, this will also be the shared experience of, at some point, misspelling a word and losing the competition.

All these--the public speaking, the competition, the academic focus, the winning and losing--are great experiences for kids. I'm a big believer that academic competitions should be as ubiquitous as sports competitions (and that sports competitions should be LESS ubiquitous, but that's another essay entirely...). I'm a big believer in regular exposure to public speaking to desensitize us to it, and a big believer in large-scale academic projects that require lots of research and preparation. And yes, I'm a big believer in losing, because I think it gives us the best practice in good sportmanship, which I'm also a big believer in.

Now, if your kid is in school, you don't have to lift a finger for this spelling bee business; you may not even know it's happened until after the fact. But if you homeschool your kid, then yes, you have many fingers to lift. But the good news is that homeschool groups are just as welcome in the Scripps spelling bees as schools, and even though you'll have to organize the entire school-level bee yourself, it's a very rewarding volunteer job.

1. Get the buy-in. Registering for the bee is pricey, but since it's the same amount of money for a family to register as it is for a homeschool group to register, it's preferable if you can get your homeschool group or co-op to register, and then either take the registration fee from the group's account or split the fee between the participating families.

The con to this is that you may have a debate on your hands, and you may have to convince people who don't like spelling bees, or competitions, or academics, or you. A large and diverse homeschool group will have all those kinds of people, but the most aggressive debaters don't necessarily represent the majority, and at least so far I've found that if I can bring an issue to vote, good academics win out regardless of what side the big personalities are on.

2. Register at the proper time. Registration for the Scripps bee opens up in late August or early September-ish, so keep an eye out. The benefits to enrolling early are that you get a bonus prize for your school-level spelling bee if you enroll early (this year we received a second free Encyclopedia Britannica online subscription on top of the first one that's included with your registration, so both our first and second-place winners received one), and, since your entire homeschool group can make use of all the study materials on the Scripps Spelling Bee site for the duration of your registration, your entire group has access for that much longer at the same price with early registration.

3. Get some help with planning. I asked the few people who knew right away that they wanted to participate in the spelling bee to email me, and then we, as a group, emailed back and forth several times until we hashed out the basics of the bee, namely where and when it would be located and who would run it (more on that later). The people who were involved in this planning were also guaranteed to get the bee scheduled at a time convenient to them, which is a big bonus for busy families.

4. Book a location. I really wanted the spelling bee to be a little nicer, and therefore more special, than our usual fairs and parties and events, so I got Matt to use his connections at IU to get us a beautiful space there, with plenty of free parking, a microphone set-up, and room to hold a potluck reception after the competition. The building manager of the place gave us the room for free, which was awesome.

5. Score some volunteers. For my spelling bee, I wanted to have two pronouncers (so they could take turns), three judges (you want more than one, and you need an odd number in case of disagreements), and an "emcee," or kid wrangler (I was almost thinking that we wouldn't need this one, but we did. Oh, we did).

The pronouncers and judges for the bee should not also have children in the bee; this can make them tricky to staff, because what random adults want to spend a Saturday afternoon judging a children's spelling bee?

Random adults who enjoy community service projects, that's who! I'm an alumna of Alpha Phi Omega, a college-level service organization, and when I knew how many and what types of volunteers I wanted, I contacted the APO chapter here at IU and asked if they could provide student volunteers. They could, and those students could not have been more helpful. Seriously, they made the entire event. They were patient with the kids, they did their jobs perfectly, they handled more than one nerve-wracking kid/parent kerfuffle that I was glad that *I* wasn't having to handle, and if at any point they thought that the homeschoolers/their parents/me were crazy, they kept it to themselves and kept their game faces on.

If you get undergrad volunteers, too, don't forget to remind your volunteers (as I reminded mine) that they can now write "Ran school-level Scripps Spelling Bee" on their resumes.

6. Encourage attendance. Sometimes you've got to really encourage people to participate in things. Maybe they're not sure if their kid would like something, or something seems like too much work, or they're not sure that something is really important to them, etc. If you've got enough lead time, it helps to send a little message every couple of weeks to keep people thinking about the spelling bee, and to give them reasons to participate. You also need to have a database to record sign-ups, both to help people feel more locked-in when they sign up, and to phone someone in an emergency when the bee is supposed to be starting but their kid isn't there yet (this always happens).

Another thing that I thought would be nice to encourage attendance and cheer up any disappointed kids was to hold a potluck reception immediately after the bee. I asked every family to bring something to contribute, and I brought plates, napkins, and bottled water. I'd wanted to have a little food and drink on hand anyway, in case any kids were nervous and needed something on their tummies, but I thought the reception afterwards would be a nice way for everyone to relax, celebrate, and visit together after the bee--and it was!

7. Tell everyone all the rules ahead of time. I did not do this as well as I could have; I assumed that because all the rules are clearly stated on the Scripps spelling bee web site, everyone who planned to participate would have read them as I asked them to. Some people, though, didn't do any prep work specifically for the bee, which is fine, and some just missed reading or understanding some things--it happens. As a result, there were a couple of moments during which a parent or a kid was confused about something, but fortunately our amazing volunteers got every problem straightened out and every wrinkle smoothed without much fuss. Thank GOODNESS for them!

What I DID do was collect some Youtube videos showing other school-level Scripps spelling bees in action, and link them for the families to show their kids. I think it's good for kids to have a model to see, and know what something is going to look like ahead of time.

8. Pack carefully. You should bring with you to the spelling bee site enough copies of the pronunciation guide and rules for each judge and pronouncer; a copy of the dictionary specified in the rules; a step stool in case kids need it to reach the microphone; certificates for each competitor (the Scripps site has these for you to print); your computer so that you can register your champion and give out the prize coupon code(s) on-site; your contribution to the pot luck (and at least bottled water and crackers if you're not having a pot luck afterwards--you know kids and their nervous tummies!); enough popsicle sticks for each competitor (more on this later); your cell phone so that you can call no-shows; a card or certificate to be signed to thank whomever gave you the room you're using for free; and some duct tape, paper, and markers in case you need to make signs to give directions.

I arrived at the site an hour in advance, I asked my volunteers to arrive a half-hour in advance, and I told the families that the bee would start promptly at 1:00, so they should get there before then. In the end, thanks to Matt and the volunteers and their muscles in moving tables and chairs and their smarts in figuring out that stinkin' microphone, everyone was completely ready to go a couple of minutes before 1:00. Inevitably, however, we didn't get started until closer to 1:10, as I tried to call and kept waiting for one no-show. I finally decided that if the kid arrived before the end of the first round we could just toss her in, but she never showed up. This, too, happens, and should be counted on at every event.

9. Put the volunteers in charge. I prepped the volunteers, and told them that when the bee started, they would be in total charge, and I would be just another parent. If any confusion happened, they should just figure it out to the best of their abilities, and the judges' ruling was final.

Before the bee, I wrote numbers on the popsicle sticks, and the volunteers and I lined up chairs for the kids, next to the podium and facing the audience. The emcee had the kids draw these sticks to determine their place in the line-up, and then sit at their place. Because the bee goes in rounds, one of her jobs was to make sure that each kid stayed in the correct order in the line-up--the kids actually did get confused a couple of times, so I was glad once again that I had my kid wrangler!

I asked the volunteers to do a practice round first, so that they could help the kids figure out the microphone and coach them through speaking clearly and enunciating properly:



I asked the volunteers to just give the kids the easiest words in the world for this round, but next time, I may ask them to have each child recite the alphabet. One of the competitors had trouble enunciating a couple of letters, and it caused an issue that thank goodness the judges worked out. One of the good things about a homeschool group, I suppose, is that you probably know the kids competing and know if any of them will have speech issues that should be brought to the judges' attention.

Here's what it looks like when a speller encounters a homonym:


They were all so little behind that podium! You can see my step stool there to the side, shoved aside by all the children after the first couple of rounds.

Our spelling bee went pretty perfectly, lasting about an hour. Up until the bee started, I had been very disappointed that more children weren't participating, but when we got started, I realized that if THIS was what it took to get this number of competitors through the bee, then I was happy not to have the twenty kids that I'd been wishing for!

Our bee was drawn out a little longer, as well, because after one kid won, the judges had to bring back up the two kids who'd tied for second place and have them spell again to break the tie, because there has to be a second-place winner; we had a second-place prize! The two kids were so evenly matched, though, that this tie-breaker took a while, and next year I'll tell the judges that if that happens, they can feel free to flip a few pages to get to the harder words.

It was with much happiness and relief, then, that we finally crowned a second-place winner, handed out the certificates with much fanfare, and moved on to eating, drinking, chatting, and running around. I told the volunteers that they could eat some food, but they did not have to help clean up, and I thanked them abjectly and profusely. This is also when you should take the champion's parent aside and register the kid for the district bee, as well as make sure that the parent knows how to find all the contact information and study materials for that bee. It is inevitable that by the time you get over to the potluck, yourself, all that will be left is a couple of pineapple slices, when you know for a fact everyone was eating doughnuts earlier! This, too, happens.

10. Clean up. When families start making noises about getting ready to go, you start making noises about getting the room put back together. Then everyone will help, and many hands make light labor. This is also when you should make sure that everyone has signed the card for whomever donated the room--you want them to feel good and happy and give you another room another time!

11. Follow up. Within a few days of the bee, you should make sure that your winning kid's parent has heard from the district bee organizer, and if they haven't, that they have that contact info. After that, you're done until next year!

I won't lie--there were times, organizing this spelling bee, when I was NOT sure that it was going to be worth it. You know what, though? It totally was. I enjoyed having all the kids there, watching them compete, congratulating them, and giving them the spelling bee experience, but Will, in particular, made me really, REALLY proud. She wasn't always thrilled about studying, but she did study, hard enough that she absolutely saw her studying pay off during the competition. She visibly grew in confidence during the bee, she clearly did her best, and she was a great sport. I'll do the whole thing all over again next year to share that experience with her.

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Infused Vinegar and Rustic Weddings

a review of the book Rustic Chic Wedding

and a tutorial for making homemade infused vinegars for cleaning

These infused vinegars are something that I've been doing for quite a while, and it's really fun. Now whenever I've got something a little strange in the pantry--the rest of the package of whole cloves that I'm pretty sure has already sat on the shelf for a year, yet another batch of peppermint thinned from the garden after I've already filled an entire gallon jar with dried peppermint--I look it up to see if it has any disinfecting or other cleaning properties, and if it does, then I infuse it into a Mason jar of vinegar. The jars look pretty, and they can basically sit out at room temperature until I want them. It's a double win!

We're actually swimming in clementines right now, so one of my goals for the day--along with making a couple of etsy orders, writing lesson plans, and finishing an excellent book that I started last night and then didn't want to put down for bed--is to start a half-gallon jar to infuse clementine vinegar. 

Sitting on the windowsill, facing the outside that tomorrow will reach 9 degrees at the HIGHEST, the jar of orange-hued vinegar at least *looks* sunny.