Trying to Get Stuff Done!

Life is busy! I took some pictures of me trying to accomplish things like blogging and reading over the weekend.

You may notice a theme.

Not that Shane was the only perpetrator. Just the only one that hummed.

WoT You Writing?

I went to the brewery to meet up with the WoT group again. Perk of knowing the head brewer: No one was there. We went on a day it was closed, but he has a key!

Scott was kind enough to bring the prequel novel and loaned it out to me. I'm going to read it while Mark catches up to where we are (though, no one is going to catch Scott. I stopped reading, but he went ahead and finished Book 6!).

Something that came up during our hangout was world-building. You can't talk about Robert Jordan without world building coming up at some point!

However, in this case we discussed doing it ourselves. It turned out I'm not the only one who's thought (or attempted) writing a book.

I have been doing some planning. It's hard with Shane. It's been hard enough to keep up with the blog! I finished watching the writing lectures, but it was easier to watch something than it is to produce something.

I wonder if my book group could become a writing group. At least something every now and then. I'm happy to talk and looking forward to going through the Wheel of Time, so I wouldn't be disappointed if writing never came up again.

But what if?

WoT's Going On?

My book club met Tuesday night. It was a month since our last meeting! We met on my back porch instead of at the brewery this time. We stayed outside the whole time to keep it socially distant enough.

Too bad it was 90 degrees out. This July is looking to be a scorcher!

Carrie was kind enough to grill burgers for dinner. Shane thought everyone was there to visit with him until Carrie took him inside and turned the TV on. I would have been happy to break out some of my board games, but we talked the whole time instead. The three of us went for a walk around the property and Scott and Mark started to make grass whistles at the end (Gotta respect the simple pleasures of life!).

The boys left a few things behind that we'll have to remember for our next meetup.

I finished Book 5, The Fires of Heaven, shortly after their visit. I'm going to take a break between books to let Mark catch up with Scott and I. We're off for the summer (teachers), but he was not!

COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: Homeschooling

Shane was happily playing outside when I picked him up from his last day of pre-coronavirus school.

Shane's a loud, active, and social kid. How in the world were we going to survive homeschooling him!?

I let the question simmer over the weekend. There wasn't a need to rush in without a plan (Proverbs 19:2 is spot on for this: "Desire without knowledge is not good - How much more will hasty feet miss the way?")

Three principles guided what I came up with:
1 - Routine
2 - Flexibility
3 - Activity

First, a routine was essential. It would be good for all of us. The trick would be to define it, set healthy expectations, and stick with it until it became normal. It didn't have to be perfect. There was no way I was going to get it right the first try! There would be some things set in stone like horse chores in the morning and evening, lunch at noon, but the rest would be a work in progress.

Which leads to point #2: Flexibility. One of the advantages of home-schooling is it crafted to the individual and situation. There aren't outside rules like school buses, set class times, large classes, and standardized curriculum. Whatever I come up with, I'm going to evolve from week to week (if not day to day). If things go really well, I'll pick up the pace. If things go slowly, I'll stop and think about ways to adjust. The goal is to get Shane in moments where he is actively engaged and learning.....and to keep him busy sometimes for my sanity's sake if I'm going to be honest.

I decided that I didn't need to have set times for school. Instead, I would have a set of mandatory activities that Shane could choose between so long as all were finished. Choice is a powerful tool and my hope was that by giving Shane some say in things he would be more engaged in any activity in the moment and take more personal accountability for how he did (after all, he chose it!).

It never entered my mind to keep Shane in home school for 7.5 hours a day.

As a teacher, I have to find the best way to reach the most kids with the time, materials, and energy I have. The truth is, I'll never reach every one every time. Some work faster and some work slower and how's fast and who's slow can change depending on the day, subject, mood, and even minute! I normally have students for an hour and a half and my goal is to keep everyone actively engaged for at least an hour. I know there's going to be dead time here and there. They're kids not robots. Managing the dead time, so that kids are still in the room and preferably something positive (but at least not detrimental) is the key. Kids will need time to talk, process, connect, rest, go to the bathroom, and move (Why do you think there's recess in elementary school?).

The last thing on my mind was moving. Shane is high energy. HIGH energy. He doesn't always like to run or do something athletic, but he's always making noise, twitching in place, stirring up the dog, or jumping on me. He can get lost in electronics, but if he's on them too long his little battery charges up until there's an overflow. The moment the power goes off he's ballitzoid crazy running around full speed, talking fast, loud, and clamoring for attention with the dog tearing after him.

It's enough to drive a parent crazy. I can't keep up with that!

So Shane needed ways to get his stink out every day. Some of it could be "Go outside," but he almost always wants someone to be interacting with him. He's super social! I can't goof off like a nine-year old, so there would have to be some activities that I could enjoy with him to work his stink out and keep all of us healthy.

So, what's our routine?

For the first week, I decided on 7 mandatory activities.
1 - House chores
2 - Animal care
3 - Reading
4 - Math
5 - Bible time and writing practice
6 - Lacrosse practice
7 - Clean up something
*Unspoken - Non-electronic time also known as "Learn to entertain yourself some!"

House chores - Shane already do some stuff. He helps with the horses and I expect him to put dirty clothes in a bin when asked, take out the trash, stomp on cans, etc. I decided to explicitly list it as valuable. I tell Shane all the time, "He's able to help" and I mean it.

Animal care - Shane's been feeding the cats and the dog every morning. He did it once and liked all the cats swarming him with attention. He liked it and it became his job. I expect Shane to take Loki outside from time to time and run with him and do other helpful things. I hope that it teaches him responsibility and helps him be connected to the animals. Plus, it's helpful.

Reading - Non negotiable. I'm going to need to start reading the same stuff as him so that I can converse with him about it. For this week, it's nice to just shoo Shane to his room or the couch so I can get a breather.

Math - I'm a math teacher. It's supposed to be my specialty and Shane's naturally good at it. I always say, "Math is patterns and patterns are everywhere!" Shane had some calculation worksheets he brought home I figured I'd have him do one of a day. We bought a membership to Prodigy, so that's a decent time killer that hopefully does some teaching, as well (for parental sanity).

Bible time & writing - It's exactly what it sounds like. We read a small section, Shane picks out a verse that resonated with him, and I have him write it down a couple of times. The next day, I ask him to repeat what he wrote down and we skip ahead to a new section. I decided to start in Genesis to cover some basics.

Lacrosse practice - Shane needs to move. It'd be awesome when (and if) Shane's lacrosse program meets again he's improved so much he looks like any other kid running around. I like doing something fun AND productive.

Clean up something - I feel like I'm doing the majority of the housework. Shane leaves wrappers on tables, doesn't rinse his toothpaste spit out of the sink, forgets to lift the toilet seat, and does other small annoying things kids do. May as well call him out on them in the hopes he learns!

Non-electronic time - There's going to be more electronics. There aren't any other kids or places to take Shane. I only have so much energy in the scheme of things and I didn't turn out too bad with how much electronics I had. The kid needs to learn how to entertain himself at times, though. My goal is to have less than 4 hours of electronics a day when quarantined. Preferably, 2 or less, but I'm not sure that's realistic.

Right now, the treadmill seems to be the closet thing we have to an indoor playground. Shane likes to fart around on it. He gets away with a lot more when I'm around than when Carrie is.

My biggest fear is the dog is going to bite it hard enough his teeth punctures something and it rips out a tooth.

Shane's happy to be loud and annoying in the house, but it's taken a little bit of pushing to get him to go outside. 

I'm happy I found a baseball glove! I don't have a lacrosse stick and the glove lets me jump for Shane's wild throws.

Hindsight: I think we went out 4 out of 5 'school' days the first quarantine week.

Loki watched the first time. He really wanted to join us. I don't think he even saw Bucket lurking behind the curtains.

We brought him out Tuesay. Loki loves catch.

Shane gets frustrated with how fast Loki snatches a ball he misses. I think it's hilarious. I'm trying to get Shane to recognize Loki increases the difficulty, yes, but if Shane can box out the dog? He'll be set to deal with real people, no problem!

Carrie attempted to play catch some on Tuesday! We have two balls, and we've learned to throw one for Loki to keep him out of the way. He got hit once by Shane and yelped (Lacrosse balls are really dense).

I showed Shane how to play "Wall ball" on Tuesday. I was hoping he'd be able to practice independently some!

Carrie wasn't as fond of the loud thuds on the siding. I dropped Loki in the ditch to slow him down, but he jumped out and chased after everything Shane threw!

I didn't want a dog (yet) originally, but I'm really glad we have Loki now. Shane enjoys playing with him.....even if that playing is trying to build a trap out of the treadmill.

Shows some creativity at least, right? Be smart, Loks!

My big goals of the first week were to establish a baseline and not go crazy. I plan to worry about progress later on, so we'll see how things go!

PS - Some of the jokes online have been hysterical. "Three hours into homeschooling and one kid is suspended for cutting class and the other is already expelled," made me laugh out loud. So did "Many parents are about to find out the teacher isn't the problem!"

Times Are Changing

Shane's gone from "I hate reading," to reading as he walks.

Granted, it's a semi-graphic novel, but that's still an improvement. Shane wasn't happy when reading became a daily thing for him, but he's (mostly) accepted it over time. He even enjoys it on occasion.

Also new: Pokemon nights are forgotten. I've offered to take Shane the last two weeks and he's said, "Nah." I suspect it's more that he wants to take the low effort fruit of staying home and watching the How to Train Your Dragon's Netflix series with Mom than anything else. We don't have any activities planned, so the down time is nice.

Reading Woes

"But Dad! I don't like reading! It's boring and I want action!" Shane said.

My kid acts like I'm torturing him by requiring him to read at least 20 minutes a day.

That kills me.

About the only thing Shane will read without complaint are comics like Garfield.

....and then what he wants to do is read them aloud so you hear and laugh at every joke he likes.

The kid is outrageously social.

So far he seems to like to read the Roald Dahl books and Captain Underpants some, but it's hard to get Shane to read willingly if there are no pictures or no one is sitting right next to him as he does it. He likes to listen to books and be read to, but reading on his own for fun? We're still getting there.

Sick Dayze

Shane likes to climb every tree he sees. Don't tell, Carrie. She'd worry even if he wasn't "sick."

We've spent most of our time inside. Shane has five tasks every day he has to accomplish before he can have electronics: Verse of the Day, Reading, Writing, Exercise, and Housework. Housework is usually scooping the cat pot. Exercise has been his TKD form or yoga with Mommy mostly.

If Shane didn't procrastinate so much, he'd get a lot more electronics time. It's in the 90s and humid, so we've spent most of our sick days inside.

I asked Shane what was one thing he wanted to do with me inside and one thing to do outside. First, he asked "Monopoly?" After I shot that down, he wanted me to watch him play Sonic upstairs.

Tuesday, I went upstairs to read. Shane came up to tell me how much he'd read. I told him that he could skip writing for the day if he read the whole Magic School Bus chapter book.

His reading became reading out loud, walking on the bed, and then hanging on the bed frame.

Which progressed into building a massive fort in my bedroom.

The kid took over.

I'd have been more annoyed about the skipping his tasks if he wasn't creative and funny.

Shane brought toys, pillows, paper, pens, and everything he needed to camp out. Carrie took a nap and he managed to play in there throughout a chunk of it without waking her!

Quiet and pretty uneventful days. I finished reading Jurassic Park. Carrie has been playing a Sword Art Online video game that Shane wants to watch. She'll wake up in the morning and Shane will say, "Good morning! Do you want to play Sword Art?"

Random Sunday Highlights

Still rainy.

After church, Shane wanted to balance on the bike racks (again). He gets it from me. I talked to him about having a 'T' base to be more stable.

Corran is walking around with her tail feathers up now that she and Shay have a new buddy (The feathers up are natural for the new hen). I suspect it's Corran's way of announcing she's the boss. She was put in 'time-out' in the other pen a while back for being aggressive with the silkies. Carrie threw Shay in to keep her company.

Post car rides, Shane is usually slow to get out of the car. He'll start to read something and I'll get out, take a picture of the chickens, walk around, and go inside. He'll still be sitting there when Carrie says, "Wait a minute....where's Shane!"

Carrie watches TV when she works. I normally turn it off when Shane and I show up. I've been exhausted from work and Sunday's a day of rest, though, so I left it on.

I did change it from Carrie's Log Horizon to the original Addams Family.

I had arranged a play date for Shane with Sam midday. It was pouring rain, but the boys were so 'lively' Paul let them run around in the mud outside. I laughed. These are Shane's dried shoes.

I would have loved to have hung out, helped and talked with Paul some, but Carrie had another task lined up. She had sold our mattress topper online and wanted me home to help with the pickup.

Shane wanted to show Carrie a game on ABCya when he got home. Unexpectedly, SHE got into it.

Then there was Pokemon.

And suddenly, it was bed time and the weekend was over.

Rest Wednesday

We've been going full steam since we got home, so Wednesday was our first quiet night.

Out of the 10 books I picked up for him at the library, the Garfield comic is the favorite. He hasn't touched or asked about the others.

Rah knocked, so we went outside. Soccer became "crawl through the neighbor's bushes to get the ball back." I sat on the porch with a book and watched.

Raheem wanted to go back to playing, but Shane would have happily remained exploring under the neighbor's porch. I called for him to come out.

Then the boys ended up digging and rolling rocks down the hill for the forty minutes. Shane's idea, but once there was some carnage Rah happily joined in.

Some of the hill is pretty eroded, so it's not an activity I'd want the boys to do every day. I didn't think one spring days worth of work would cause any catastrophes. The worst to come of it was Shane came back covered in dirt from the neck down. He complained about having to shower (and then stayed in forever), so I told him we weren't going to dig and need to shower everyday.

Post-script - What do I mean by "We've been going full steam?"

Our after-school schedule for the week was:
Saturday - Soccer game
Sunday - Church and baseball
Monday - TKD
Tuesday - Baseball game

And then coming up:
Thursday - Soccer
Friday - Rest and fun!
Saturday - Soccer and Baseball games
Sunday - Church and baseball practice (storms likely)
Monday - Baseball game
Tuesday or Wednesday - TKD (I need to cover wrestling post-season practice on Tuesday)
Thursday - Soccer

You get the picture.

The activities are all about an hour, so it's not as crazy as it sounds. I do want to work in swim lessons again for May, though. It's a necessary skill and family beach week is coming up!

The Princess Bride

We haven't been reading at night lately, so I wanted to start up again. This time, I'm sharing The Princess Bride with Shane. I love the book and it happened to be made into a terrific movie, as well (Which Carrie adores). 

This edition included pictures!

The exposition in the beginning didn't go well. For one, it was longer than I remembered. Carrie tried to read a little one night and had no success either. If you haven't read the tale, there's a lot of satire involved where the author is rereading The Princess Bride himself and tongue-in-cheek realizing his father cut out a lot of boring description, lineages, and even whole chapters.

I skipped to Buttercup and Westley saying, "Goodbye," and it went better from there. I read most everything, but if scenes start to drag or I sense Shane's attention waning I know how to paraphrase or ask guided questions to keep him into it.

Carrie was out driving, so the TV remained off tonight. I asked Shane to grab the book, so we could sit on the couch with it. We read about the kidnapping and the climb up the Cliffs of Insanity. Good times!

Bonus story: My own experience with The Princess Bride was in 9th grade with Mr. Greek. I was in an advanced English class and we were plowing through stories I loathed (like Antigone and A Tale of Two Cities). I was bored and picked up a copy of The Princess Bride from the class set for the regular English 9 class. I read it in a day and brought it back, "Why couldn't we read this!?!?!" Mr Greek may have been slightly annoyed because he knew I'd been slacking in class and then I read the book I wasn't assigned in a day.

Bonus-bonus story: We also read Ender's Game in that class. I didn't pick up the book until I started to wake up and listen in on the class discussion of battle school. I picked up the book and actually started to read it for the first time, and, again, I got so engrossed I finished it in a day. Mr. Greek was annoyed yet again.

Bonus-bonus-bonus story: I actually liked Mr Greek even if he sometimes chose terrible stories. Several of my friends and I used to hang out in his classroom before the day started and played cards and talked. I got at least two good ones out of his class. I read the next two books after Ender's Game (Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide) afterwards. I'm not sure if Mr. Greek was more annoyed or more amused that I usually had a different book in class every several days and they were rarely something he assigned. He retired after John and I's year, so maybe we drove him batty.

Get Caught Reading

I tell Shane "reading is great" all the time. I tell him I like reading better than TV. I show him books I like (including Calvin and Hobbes). I offer to read to him and I tell him that when he 'levels up' his reading he can read better books and better video games.

And I mean it.

However, how often does Shane catch me reading a book on my own?

Not often.

I don't like to start and stop novels. If I'm going to read, I normally want to do it at night when Shane's asleep, Carrie's asleep, and the TV isn't on.

During the day, I read all the time on my phone or the computer. I'll show Shane I'm reading, too (He's nosy), but I wonder if Shane sees the electronics more than the words on the screen.

This week, I've been trying to 'get caught' reading. Carrie's got a ton of Star Trek books lying around. I picked up Q Squared.

I got caught all right. It's hard to read when Shane starts to crawl on me. I got him to read a sentence or two.

All according to plan.

Bedtime Stories with Shane

Shane has opted to read to himself for bedtime story the past couple of nights. He said, "I can read and listen to you!"

I didn't buy it and that was okay. Shane read on his own and looked through books for a while each night. I read silently to myself.

Remembering the goal is always important: I want Shane to enjoy reading. Sharing stories with him is one way, but him actually wanting to read is another. We'll get back to Prydain eventually.

Summer Reading Challenge

We mixed it up. Shane and I visited Northside library instead of one of our usuals.

We had another summer reading sheet to turn in. We didn't have as many checkmarks this time, so we needed to cram in a few extra.

I love libraries.

Shane earned a book this time.

You know it's a good read when their legs give out.

I picked up a few new potential bed time stories to start after we finish Harry Potter #2. Shane's seen the movie, so I like to go back and read the final chapters we skipped to make sure he understands what all happened.

Bedtime Story Slack

We lost the bedtime story habit. It's time to get it back with Harry Potter.

Father's Day - In Between Trips

Everyone woke up chipper Sunday. Carrie watched an online service with me before she went down to horse country (Sonya had asked her to come Sunday instead to help introduce another possible buddy for Nibs).

She left and Shane re-familiarized himself with his toys.

I checked on all my usual chores. The chickens were molting (I don't normally see their eyes so well).

I forced Shane to play some catch with me for Father's Day before we went to church. After 10 minutes, he was protesting and I was sweating. We went inside.

It let him save his energy up for Sunday school. He didn't want to leave afterward until he realized there were donuts.

There has been one local activity I've wanted to check out. Normally, it happened on Tuesdays after work at a restaurant. However, this time it was on a Sunday afternoon at a smaller venue I know a friend frequents. I decided to take Shane on a little adventure.

Of course, it started to rain as we neared our destination.

Shane passed out.

I decided to turn off the car and let him sleep. The rain increased.

And then it really increased.

Shane slept through most of it. When he was fully awake, we braved the drizzle to learn Chickapig!

Chickapig is a locally designed boardgame. It has a following including Dave Matthews from the Dave Matthews Band (He know the creator). I've been curious, but I didn't want to take Shane to a crowded restaurant/beer hall after a busy workday and then not play.

Today, we played.

Shane liked it enough I bought a copy, too. It was more than I'd normally want to pay for a game, but the creator was local, the venues it's played at are local, the pieces are all made local, and the guy demoing it was local. I'm willing to pay a little extra for people to have opportunities local.

Apparently, we were at the second stop on what's supposed to be a countrywide tour. Jonah, the guy I talked to, converted his van, so he can live it in and drive around all summer. He's a teacher and needed to fill his summer break somehow, so he was happy to help his friend, Brian (the creator).

It's neat to see a dream in action. I'm happy to help support that.

We went to visit Dylan and co after. Krista had the boys help make cookies.

They're an excitable bunch.

This time, the older boys mainly played together and Eli stuck to his own at first. He showed off some puzzle solving skills for the adults.

At one point, the boys were all playing so well Krista didn't know what to do with herself. She turned on Mario and Shane came running (which led to the other boys down the line). Here, John was trying to show Shane where a secret 1-up was.

The night ended with dominoes. Dylan and Shane would have liked to keep playing, but I wanted to end on a high note (before either got tired and cranky).

Mom was waiting for us! She read the entire first chapter of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone to Shane for his bedtime story.

Tomorrow, Shane and I are going to hit the road again. The new HVAC is going to be installed and we need to drop off the air beds from the beach at Jama's. Lots of trips, lots of memories.