Layla after school day 5, homeschool art & online time...

We had a really nice time at our homeschool playgroup today. We had to leave early to get home for Layla to get off the bus. We all thought it was strange not having Layla with us, she really would have enjoyed today. I was thankful that when she arrived home she didn't look as tired as yesterday evening.

She has a lot of homework. She has spelling and sight words to memorize by Thursday on top of some class work she didn't get done because in her words, "My teacher was too busy to help me so she said for you to help me at home." I kept my growling on the inside. So we had to do two phonics pages and had a small paper school book to read. With Charlotte this was a huge sore spot. In my opinion public schools don't have a good enough teacher to student ratio.  If you ask me kids should do school at school and not at home. In addition, I believe children should have homework very infrequently (besides reading) and I'm pretty much against spelling tests until 3rd grade or later (or when they want to sit for them). Wait! I'm pretty anti test in general (for many kids until older grades, every kid is different though of course). For these reasons and more we homeschool. But seriously, duh, if we liked the system: the homework, the hours, the tests, the sitting, our kids would all be in it. We don't, so they aren't. I asked her if she likes school, she still does. She has P.E. all week, she doesn't know why. I'm sure glad. Kids need to move around.

The first four days I was so glad she said she liked school. I'm already starting to get antsy for her to come home. I'd be much more relaxed if public schools didn't grade everything by tests and a standard. My kids are not standard. My kids are individuals. Boo standard. :(

Other things:

Art

When I signed Layla up for school last week the office ladies were super nice and even really nice about homeschooling. They inquired about what we did for music, art and P.E. I went into a several things we've done for music and P.E. over the years (homeschool band, recorder, piano, soccer, homeschool P.E., gymnastics, dance) but the conversation trailed into a different direction from there. I later realized I didn't touch on art. Art is very important in our house, VERY important! The kids do art everyday. We are also a super crafty family as well. Yesterday Charlotte, Sage and Ethan drew for three or more hours. I know at least the boys were working on the same picture the entire three hours! Ethan has been drawing for a very long time and using tons of tutorials online for years. He has read and done so many of them that he can recite some like an art teacher; I hadn't realized to what extent until yesterday. They boys sat next to each other and Ethan helped Sage step by step to draw a magnificent dragon. They first started with lines and circles, then connected them, then added detail, definition and then finally color. Sage used water color pencils to colorband paint his piece. I was stunned! Listening to Ethan explain everything was amazing! He really knew what he was talking about. Sage made a few alterations here and there to his picture (wanted his wings different) and Ethan supported him with kind remarks and encouragement. When Sage thought he had messed up on part of his picture I helped show him how to hide his mistake; he was so grateful and impressed. :) I cut out about half the stuff they were going to do for the day because they were just enjoying what they were doing so much. They were quiet, learning, engrossed, and happy.

Sebastian

Sebastian (3) just climbed over to Everett (1) rubbed his head and said, "Hi little cutey guy."

I just love that.

Online

I've gone 8 days without logging into facebook! I'm still feeling like facebook would be a distraction to me so I don't really have a lot of desire to log back on yet. I feel less *distracted. It's unfortunate because I do miss some things about it. :( I love the sense of community, keeping up with family, news updates, reading about things that both matter to me and don't matter to me, reading about friends, getting updates about sales, I miss wasting time, Etc. I just don't have the time. I don't know what I would have done having never watched the honey badger video on youtube, Antoine Dodson (I heart him), the only good Mighty Putty parody out there, Chuck Testa's commercial, or read the latest update from lamebook.com. (I just listed the most hilarious stupid guilty pleasures of my life.) And I can still see funny things, read emails, visit all the same websites...I'm just not ready to let the FB stream in my head again.

All I know is that each day ends with me not having time to sew, iron, paint, wash my hair or make pie. (All things I've wanted to do lately.) Everyday since Sunday I've told the kids, "We'll do science tomorrow." Everyday something has come up. I can't fit something into my life that I don't have time for. Not right now.  In eight days time I've been on the computer an average 1 hour per day. That's it. (Mostly blog related!)

Blogging is easy. Hardly anyone reads it and it feels good because I do it for me. Most importantly it's a keepsake I can save.

*What do I mean with my by "less distracted?" I mean more present with my family and my life. I feel like I'm not being pulled away to do or see other things anymore. I feel more focused. Facebook was like leaving the TV on all day and letting it filter in whatever it wanted to, accept worse. It served so many functions: humor, procrastination, socialization, news, education, shopping/sales updates. If I wanted to learn about my friends and family that was fun, but I'd get chatty and comment to everything. If I saw something funny I'd watch it. If I saw a good sale or product I liked I'd then spend time window shopping. I like the fast change. I change activities at home quickly, I'm an avid multitasker and I bore easily. If you watch me sometime, I don't sit still for long. I come from a long line of family members that are busy and piddle around the house constantly. It's what we do. The internet in general provides my brain with a constant stream of newness, facebook just put it all in one place.

Also, I wanted to be sympathetic to every persons stomach flu, ruined dinner plans, stressful day and sick dog. I commented or "liked" on every cute baby, good day, and fun outing. I liked the SOCIAL part. That's kinda the point of SOCIAL networking. It slowly just became too time consuming and distracting for me. So until I'm sure I can get on and off once a day without getting distracted I'm going to keep up with my break, it's so good for me!

Goodnight blogger land...