Homeschooling: A Day in the Life

     I know, I've been bad.  I haven't told a story in forever and a day.  It's not that I haven't thought about you, thinking of all the stories I could share, I just haven't wanted to buckle down and put fingers to keyboard.  You see, I am homeschooling our kids.  It can be a very loooong day.  Oh sure, you know already that I've been homeschooling Eldest through Ohio Virtual Academy for this being his second year now, but you didn't know I started homeschooling Young'un and Eldest, too.  Yup, we're about to finish our fifth week together. I'm not sure if I want to head for the hills or find deep satisfaction in knowing I am playing a larger role in their education.  Having been an educator, I'd like to think it's the latter.
     I've found that Young'un needs more help in math than was thought.  Oh sure, we knew he needed help, but not HELP!  (Yes, I meant to use those red shouty italicized capitals.)  This week we've been working on writing different types of essays, like expository and persuasive.  Today we started on a descriptive essay.  No big deal, right?  Right.  The lesson book says he is to write an essay on where we live.  He is to include paragraphs on sights, sounds, and smells.  You would think living on a small farm this wouldn't be a problem.  Let me tell you, it is.  Let me also mention, by the way, that Young'un's spelling and writing capabilities definitely came from Hon...okay, maybe my dad, too.  More so my dad.  It's like pulling teeth trying to get him to spell a word right, let alone get his point across.  I bow to the person that invented spell checker.  Without it, Young'un would be forever looking words up.  Did you know "our" is spelled "are?"  Well, today it was.
     Anyhow, back to the descriptive essay...  He described our farm by using the word "nice."  Remember, this is to be descriptive.  I practically had to stand on top of the table, grab the fan like a madwoman, and swing off it like a monkey to get him to give me any other description.  Finally there were results without me having to go through that, but it may have been fun.  Then it came to the sounds.  Let me remind you, I spend most of my day with three boys.  What type of sounds do you think I hear a lot of?  Yup, that's right.  Farting.  It's gotten to where I've threatened knitting lessons if they don't stop that nonsense (or at least take it to the bathroom).  My olfactory system can't take much more.  So, when we got to the part about listing sounds, and Young'un got this devilish gleam in his eyes, I just knew what he was going to do.  I had to put my foot down, and tell him, "No, absolutely not!  You are not going to include anything in your descriptive essay about farting!"  Then he went through the whole whiny whiny thing wanting a good reason why.  Then Roxie did one of those big dog stretches and let one go, which didn't help the situation.  I hung my head and sighed.  Even so, I shot down the thought of farting as a descriptive sound.  Burping, too, just to be clear.  I knew I would one day pay for giving Kid the book, "Walter the Farting Dog."  
      When we made it through the sounds we had to head into the smells.  Boy, this is rough!  Remember, it's a small farm...but it's a farm.  There's lots of smells that go with those sounds.  Of course, first thing Young'un thought of was the smell his brothers farts and burps, but I shot those down right away.  In the end his rough draft had made mention of general animal sounds and smells, a better description of our "nice" farm, and what he called, "The smell of weird water," because our water can smell like sulfur, especially when I need to add stuff to the water filter down in the cellar, oh, about like now.  Blah!  Some time tomorrow he'll take that rough draft over to the school computer and type it in.  Then I'll read it to him just as he wrote it.  After that we'll banter back and forth about punctuation and other grammar necessities.  Hopefully by bedtime tomorrow he'll have that descriptive essay finished so we can move into the joys of a persuasive essay on Monday.  He has to decide if he's for a bridge or a ladder for a treehouse, and then write an essay to persuade other kids why that's the best choice.  I know he's going to choose the bridge.  He's my kid.  I know he'd want that more than a ladder.  There are other ways to get into a tree and I've seen them being used.
     So, there you have it folks.  I've got all the boys home for school now.  We're plugging along and it's not going too bad, save the descriptive essay where we had to battle over including whether farting and burping should be included.  You may think I should have allowed it, and in a way I think maybe I should...but then again, I don't want to deal with angry embarrassed brothers.  If they're going to be angry and embarrassed over anyone writing about them, it's going to be by my writing.  It's a simple joy, but one I truly relish, especially after a day like today when I deserve chocolate.  Smiling & Waving, Sharon 

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