The End of the 2013-14 School Year

We made it!!!

Our first year of homeschooling under our belt… and we are so excited to continue on next year!

Here are some (ok lots o') pictures:

Mummifying a hot dog while we studied Ancient Egypt

P.E.

Typical school uniform

There was a major flood in our area in September...

Josh made a homemade flashlight

lots of Legos in our homeschool

we studied laser beams

P.E.

we made geodes

the three musketeers wearing their teamGlenn hats…
one of our favorite neighbors Mr. Glenn passed away in November

the kids are all learning how to cook

homeschool field trip to a kids' theater performance
(those are 2 of our friends on stage)

all 3 kids are taking piano lessons now

P.E.

opening a pyramid to find the mummy

field trip to the air museum

Umm… what can I say…
it's a tough job :)

watercolor hangings like in Ancient China

we made stalagmites
or are they stalagtites?

David joined our homeschool full time in January
& what a dramatic change in him!

Fun with math manipulatives

D's first lap book

See??? Complete joy :)

P.E.

P.E.
Daddy being a great example while sledding standing up…
boys so need their daddies because I would never do this

Olympic torches

Cub Scouts

Josh is so "into" Minecraft that he had a Minecraft birthday party
and he took some online Minecraft classes offered to homeschoolers

#3 playing soccer
#1 also played basketball
and all 3 took swimming lessons

AND we started construction on the kitchen
in mid-April

tattoo sleeves made by Daddy

our world puzzle

testing what it might be like to walk on a tightrope

and more Legos of course

We had a super fantastic year! We are so blessed…

all the glory to God!

(((hugs))),
chris

P.S. I will post our last 3 days of school and our year-end party in a week or two… don't be jealous!

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22:37-39

ESL - ya, technically...

If you are a fellow adoptive parent of a child born in another country,

and
if you are not big on the schools doing whatever they like with your child,

and
in case you skip reading the rest of this post because it's so long…

      just read the first paragraph here  |  

                                                        V

                                                        V

The "Home Language Survey" we filled out for kindergarten is apparently sent directly to our school district, and if it indicates any other language in the home other than English the child is automatically tested. According to U.S. federal law, the parents do not need to be notified nor do they need to give consent for this initial assessment.  Our school district here in Colorado chooses to not notify nor get consent of parents.

I'm not sure about your school district, but you might want to check.
We put "Mandarin" on the form somewhere, so D was automatically tested.
I think if D had scored a little higher, we never would have even known he was tested...

Now that we know about it, we can choose to refuse any further ESL services.

The test they administered first is a shorter quick screening/assessment based on the WIDA-Access test. They tried to make it sound ok since all the kids who are flagged on the Home Language Survey are automatically subject to this assessment.

A random stranger-person from the district came at some point and pulled David out of the class and gave him this listening-speaking assessment, which included listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills assessment. (Was this one of the days he came home and had one of his old tantrums? We don't know…) I think the classroom teacher filled out some kind of form for the district with her observations as well.

Here's how we found out:

We received in D's backpack a letter stating that - good news! - he qualified for ESL services and they had already made the decision to monitor our son in the classroom, with the ESL teacher and the K teacher collaborating. This letter had no information on any additional testing that would be done. We were quite pissed off surprised, you could say. We requested a meeting with the ESL teacher. When we met with her, she also had invited the classroom teacher. The ESL teacher could not find the exact date when the assessment was given to David, and the kindergarten teacher had no idea that David was even pulled by a district person and assessed.

What, she has no recollection of your child leaving the classroom? you say. Yep that's right. Not the first time a child has been out of her class & she didn't know it either.

The full WIDA-Access test is given to the kids who score below a threshold number. It is given sometime between Jan 6 and Feb 7. We can refuse the test, but we need special permission from the elementary school principal. (??? Us refusing not good enough???) Jason wants David to have the test. We asked to be notified so we could talk to him about it ahead of time and ACTUALLY prepare him this time around. The ESL teacher said she will be administering this test to all kindergarteners at this school, so at least she will be a familiar face I suppose. She took a 1-day class on how to administer the test on December 10.

I made sure the ESL teacher and the K teacher heard me say that we have concerns that David may have an auditory processing disorder that affects his learning and could affect his testing on a speaking and listening test, as well as some difficulties recalling words and this changes day by day for him. The K teacher showed us a few of David's recent paper worksheet tests and told us how well he is doing academically.

But she didn't even notice that our kid was pulled from her class by a non-school employee so... does she notice if David is using his amazing compensatory strategies to function within the classroom when he doesn't understand? Huh, good question… We can get the score of the test when they have it. I think she said the scores should come back in May...?? and we can give those to our SLP in case that information would help.

I don't believe test scores tell you squat.

Especially when you have listening and speaking issues and these are the skills that the "test" is based on.

Kindergarten = "children's garden"  which evokes an image of carefree children running and playing and actively learning and growing.

Dude, what's up with all the worksheets?

Still praying we can bring D home for his education.
Praying, praying, praying...

(((hugs))),

chris

So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.
              Hebrews 10:35-36

Day Number 80 in Homeschool-Land

I'm feeling the need to document some homeschool info...

We currently homeschool our 3rd grader after having him in a district preschool one year, a private preschool for one year, and a public charter school for 3 years. The decision to pull him has been a mega-humongous gift to him and to our family.

Our 3rd grader's requests before we started homeschooling were 1) history, and 2) a white board.
No problemo.

We are using the following for our curriculum:
  Sonlight Core B+C (World History)
  Sonlight Language Arts with grade 4-5 readers
  Spelling Power
  Handwriting Skills Simplified- Cursive Writing Grade 3
  Teaching Textbooks Math 4
  Life of Fred math supplement
  A hodgepodge eclectic mix of science topics and experiments
  Critical Thinking Co logic & sentence fragments & word roots workbooks

We tried the following and stopped using them:
  Sonlight LA - grade 3 (Sonlight was AWESOME and did the exchange with no problems)
  Sonlight Science B (we may still use some of this in our eclectic-ness)
  Saxon Math 5/4

"Extracurricular activities" include Cub Scouts, and piano lessons starting next week. If I could have all the kids at home for school, we could do some volunteering... Meals-on-Wheels again maybe? Josh liked that when he was in preschool.

And we do have a white board.

We have been experimenting with a 5-week-on / 1-week-off schedule for our school. So far we both love it ~ the weeks off give both of us a break and give me time to plan for the next 5 weeks which has been taking me maybe 5 hours or so. It's hard to know since I end up getting sucked into the Pinterest vortex which ends up being quite delightful I must say :) . One hour or so per week of planning isn't bad at all! I also have time to get projects done, such as painting several rooms in our house and canning. I keep holding my breath because we will still have school when his buddies are done... We may regret this schedule during the first two weeks in June! The relaxed schedule has made it healthier for Josh (and for me) to get out of the school schedule routine and to relax and just enjoy learning.

• Side note: I can't wait to get #2 home to school him. He appears to be excelling at school, but I think he has amazing compensatory strategies and frankly he's fooling some people who aren't paying attention like they should be... I guess I'm just not sure what reading and math he is actually learning/retaining. I feel like at some point he will hit a wall if he doesn't learn the way that's best for him. At home his academics are inconsistent. With his auditory processing issues (APD), he really needs a multisensory approach to learn best, and I hear that most of the work his KINDERGARTEN class does is worksheets while sitting in their seats. NOTE TO THE SCHOOL: That's not how God designed little kids. I will be posting about our "ESL experience" soon. I found a great reading program for APD that I was keeping in mind until #2 came home for school. While talking with our most excellent speech pathologist the other day, she said the program I had in mind was the one the language specialist was thinking of for David! I also have a multi-sensory math curriculum in mind too for David. Someday... someday.

Now we are in December and we paused our formal homeschool curriculum and are doing a Christmas unit study. This is my first unit study and it has shifted and changed course each day during this first week. Good thing I am ok being flexible with our plans! I suspect next week will be much the same. We have covered geography, history, language arts, math, and science topics so I think we are doing a-OK!

After yet another break for Christmas (yep we take lots o' breaks) we will get back to our regular curriculum that I have listed up top.

I joke with friends about how we have an every-other-week-off schedule in our homeschool :) Nah, it's not that bad. I do notice that we have more time for learning even outside of "school hours" with our family school lifestyle. And that we are having more fun.

Now for the fun part:

Our new-to-us piano
Ya we're working on getting a bench :)

field trip!

Josh maneuvering our "laser beam" field

field trip! wall-to-wall trampolines!

homemade geodes

OK, not exactly homeschool.
We did have a parent-teacher conference in Hawaii. Complete with mai tais :)

Stalagmite

nature walk

Sam in his helmet and boots

cooking class

Chinese kid holding a Chinese watercolor painting

Field trip to a kids' play - these kids are friends in our homeschool group 

Nose art courtesy of a SPECTACULAR dismount from his scooter

(((hugs))),
chris

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
       Matthew 6:33

Intrusive Questions

Still.

Un-freaking-believable.

I get the intrusive questions.

You think I would have this all figured out.

Or at least be able to field the questions with tact. And love.
To be the adoption ambassador. Or something like that.

Nuh-uh. No sirree. Not me.

Today, at kindergarten-preschool pickup... a person who volunteers regularly in one of the classes called out to me as I was talking to and carrying Sam out of the preschool classroom upside-down, "Are Sammy and David biological brothers?"

I stopped. And paused.

Because... are you effing kidding me?

And it's not a secret, and most of the people we know at the school know they are not.

I have had conversations with this woman about the fact that they were from different parts of China. I guess I shouldn't expect anyone to remember the deets about our kids. She has talked with me about the fact that my son talks JUST like a girl adopted from China did last year ~ she has no cleft... was adopted as an infant I think... I don't really care but they are both Chinese and adopted. Several conversations that left me bristling a bit. Too personal.

So I didn't know how to answer politely. Because there were parents all around. And it just felt...

INTRUSIVE.

And inappropriate.

And why-the-hell-does-she-need-or-want-to-know????

And then I said to her, "No." and walked away to the car shaking my head. Still carrying Sammy upside down.

I got home and there was a missed call from the school.

My new response when I start to feel like someone is invading my sons' personal information is this, "Why do you ask?"

I just looked that up. I googled "how to handle intrusive adoption questions" and here were over 4 million results for that question. I am not good at this because when I am ticked off I can, well, sound ticked off.

So to the people at the grocery store who ask if they are twins (we get that ALL the time sometimes multiple times on a shopping trip), "Why do you ask?"

And to the people who ask where are they from, "Why do you ask?"

And to the people who ask how well they understand English, "Why do you ask?"

And to the people who ask how long have we had them, or when did we adopt them, or were they adopted together, or how much did they cost, or anything else, "Why do you ask?"

Because if you don't have a need to know, then you don't need to know.

And I guess this Mama still needs to be on guard for the sake of the munchkins. Protect their stories. That's my job as the Mama Bear. I gotta get better at this someday.

(((hugs))),
chris

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
        Colossians 3:17

Hawaii Pictures

Aaaah... we made it!
The ocean is actually not tilted ~ the photographer is :)

Chickens are everywhere on Kauai, even on the beach :)

On our anniversary we found the place we got married :)
The Kukui Heiau is registered as a Hawaiian historic site

10th anniversary date night

We hiked on the Napali coast... AWESOME!!!

Jason in a bamboo tree

The little man nearest the 300-foot waterfall is Jason...
He and the other little man talked smack trying to see who would go under the waterfall first.
Jason won!

Um... I don't know who this is. Too blurry...

We went to a luau. This was my favorite part ;-)

sunrise over the Pacific

The ziplines were soooo fun!
This move is called the "starfish".
I look like a starfish, don't ya think?

The last zipline dropped us into a pond.
This is Jason doing his "spin move"

We hiked in the Waimea Canyon.
Which is as breathtaking as the Grand Canyon.
Seriously.

Waimea Canyon ~ See what I mean?

This spot averages more than 452 inches of rain a year...

The cop hanging with Smoky Bear

our selfie at a waterfall we hiked to in the Waimea Canyon

Aaaah we couldn't get enough of the sunrises

Where we bought our marriage license 10 years ago ~
the Pono Fish Market.
Yep we bought our marriage license right over the sushi case.

Chickens everywhere

Chris in the coffee trees...

Chris in the sugar cane

Hanging loose with
um
the hang loose guy.

Totally buzzed out of my ever lovin' mind at the coffee tasting.
I highly recommend coffee tastings :)

Our last sunset on the beach before heading to the airport

The end!

(((hugs))),

chris

The Lord keeps you from all harm and watches over your life. The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever.

           Psalm 121:7-8