Trevor, he finally got a haircut!!

And a bit of an update. As you have been able to tell from the pictures previously, Trevor had a bit of a shaggy do goin' on. The boy just didn't want his hair cut. He preferred it "out of his eyes, please. But that's it!" So we did that for a little while. But after a while, I was getting kind of sick of his shagginess. Now, I don't mind him growing his hair long if he wanted, but I kind of would like him to have a style or something- short or long, whatever.. just DO something with it. So Ray and I showed him all these hairstyles and he liked a couple of them. Today Ray took him to get his hair cut!!! Yay! My little man came home a new man!

Before:

This is at the Robots exhibit at Port Discovery in Baltimore. That would be another post. I'm way behind.

AFTER!!!!

Forgive the washed out pic, I took it with our old camera because our new one and the Rebel were out of commission at the moment. But doesn't he look handsome?!


I really like his cut. It makes him look older.

And speaking of older, Trevor really has been growing up lately. OK, everything is still butts and farts (and, I think it is for other ADULTS I know, too. heh) but other things he has been doing are just different than he used to. He's walking to his friend's houses to knock on the doors (he does have to play by our house, though). Then today at the library he wanted to browse in a different section than the girls and I were in. Off he went to his section to browse. I'm just not used to him being independent like that. This is the child who cried practically his entire Kindergarten year every time I dropped him off for school.. not just crying, but absolute wails of protest that made me feel just awful. This is the kid who wouldn't go into any kind of child care or babysitting situation without being completely apprehensive about the whole thing. It's amazing what a little aging can do!

He's also been growing up in other ways. School wise, we are about done his Developmental Math book 4- adding and subtracting whole two digit numbers (like 10+50) with no carrying. Then I think we will take a break and let some of it rest for a while. He and I have been struggling with math lately and I think he is just sick of doing it. It's not the concept that is difficult, it's the word problems that end up being tricky for him. Since almost the entire book is word problems, he struggle daily. So we'll find other ways of doing math for now before picking up Book 5. He's whipping through the books, anyhow. I feel like we just started book 4. We're moving along with phonics but it's a tough call there. He is reading well, so much of the phonics curriculum is stuff he knows. And many words he knows, but he has learned it through a whole language approach, I think, rather than phonics. We've mainly been taking assessments in phonics with a lesson here and there. Caterpillars and various other things have been science, but we have been doing nothing in the way of formal lessons. We've done history here and there, too, through SOTW.

The reason Trevor went to another section of the library today was to pick up his first chapter book! Trevor has been DYING to read these Star Wars series of books. I figured it would give him a good incentive to read, so I refused to (suffer myself to) read them aloud to him and assured him that if he practiced reading, he would be able to check them out soon. He figured he was a good enough reader to get one today! Now.. wow.. all those crazy Star Wars names.. he is not whipping through the book by any means. But he is sticking with this and READING A CHAPTER BOOK! Go my little man!

Also, on another unrelated "Go little man" note.. he had been saving his money for MONTHS to buy a lego set. Specifically, he wanted an Indiana Jones one that was 30 dollars. He got his allowance saved and we went to get it from Target- he gets 3 dollars a week so it has taken him a few months to get enough money. I will say Trevor rocks at saving money when he is saving up for something he wants. But they were sold out. He opted to buy a Mars Mission set (this one) and then spent the next 4 hours putting it together. He stopped long enough to eat dinner and then went back to work on it. He has some amazing perseverance when he is interested. I wish I could get that from him on his math! He was so proud of himself when he was done and I was proud of him, too. He only needed help a couple times on a couple pieces, otherwise, he did the whole thing on his own.

Just an update on Trevor stuff!

The myths!

The myths are out! Our caddies have slowly been coming out of their cocoons! Well, not exactly SLOWLY.. It started Thursday evening, I saw Shadow, our black cat, looking into the caterpillar keeper with great interest. I watched him for a moment, wondering what he could be looking at, since the keeper had nothing but sticks, dried leaves and many cocoons. I went and took a peek and, lo and behold, we had moths! OK. One moth. He was all dry and ready to fly and just chilling on the roof of his home. I left him for the night so the kids could see him in the morning. We let him go the next morning. That day, two more came out of their cocoons. But we kept missing the show! I'd find them all dry and ready to go. Determined to catch one in the act of coming out of his cocoon, I started checking their keeper every 10 minutes. I was like a crazed moth woman or something. But we were rewarded today! One we watched one as he came out of his cocoon and one right after he emerged, as he climbed his way up to dry.

I took some pictures:


Rachael displaying the moths that we found who had recently come out.


After neurotically watching the keeper for a couple hours, I was finally rewarded with a moth emerging! We found out it takes about 15 minutes for them to come out of the cocoon. They wiggle a bit, then rest, then repeat. As soon as this guy was free, he scrambled up the stick to dry.


Daniel (Trevor's friend) took this picture. I told the kids a moth was emerging, an everyone came in to check it out. It took the moth about 30 minutes to dry off. They vibrate their wings intermittently as they dry, and then again before they are ready to fly away.


Trevor took this picture of one as it was drying. When his wings are completely dry, they fold down and not up like that.

So our caterpillars are all grown up! And, regardless of the fact that they are pests that devour trees, they are darn cute and caddies and moths!

New Bern Vacation!

For the past few years we have been meeting my parents at their timeshare in New Bern, NC. New Bern is this wonderful, relaxing, fun place to visit. The timeshare is in Fairfield Harbor and right on a lake with a view of the river and accompanying marina. There's a pool, game room, mini golf, playground, fishing, neighborhoods to bike through.. all right there. Not to mention the beach is less than an hour away, and the quaint, historical downtown New Bern is just minutes away. This vacation, as with any vacation with kids, completely exhausted us- in a fun way, of course! I think the kids just never stop going.. the go go go until they collapse and sleep, then they wake up again and go go go some more. So here's the pictures!


Last year in New Bern we caught TONS of fish. Just little fish that we released. This year we caught nothing. I almost caught something big- maybe a catfish? But it got off the line before I could get it all the way in. We still had fun, though.


We went to the beach Sunday. We wanted to get there early as there was rain in the forecast. However, the sunny warmth in New Bern turned overcast and very windy in Atlantic Beach! We still found lots to do. Miss Rachael ran right for the water and spent most of the time jumping in the waves. Then we looked for various shells and polished stones and Rachael was buried in the sand. We also built a small sandcastle.


Trevor, Ray and grandpa tried flying a kite, but even with the wind whipping, it wouldn't fly higher than shoulder height. They did throw around that cool flying disk, though. The wind finally turned way too strong. I swear my legs were exfoliated by the time we left by all the sand blowing. We ended up eating at this hole in the wall diner where I got a really good shrimp burger. Yum.


What else did we do? We rented a boat! We rented a pontoon boat for a couple hours and this will definitely become a yearly tradition. It was a gorgeous day for being out on the water; not too hot, not too cold, brilliantly sunshiny. The kids tried their luck at fishing but we were still unsuccessful. Instead, we enjoyed the many osprey nests (one dove at us when we got too close!) and the gorgeous, huge lake front houses.


Hello!!








The last day just couldn't be complete without a cookout and SMORES!


"Like, dude! It's totally a smore!" Totally something Trevor might say.


Ariel loved catching her smores on fire and Trevor would blow them out for her. I just held my breath and hoped no one caught on fire.

The rest of our weekend...

I suppose this is not directly homeschooling.. but since "The world is our classroom", this definitely applies. Saturday we went to Burke Lake Park but I don't have pictures of that. We spent the day riding the 4.5 mile loop around the lake (Trevor rode the whole way!), fishing a little, picnicking, and just generally hanging out.

Ray was on call all weekend and Sunday he discovered he would have to go into DC to work briefly. So on a whim, we all decided to go. We spent some time at Ray's office, hanging out in the break room and drinking coffee/hot chocolate (they have a coffee machine that makes starbucks for free!). When Ray was finished we left the car in the lot and took the metro to the mall. It was a gorgeous day out, 75 degrees, sunny, not overcrowded. The kids ran for a while, then we went to the Natural History museum and discovered, to our delight, the butterfly exhibit!!! My Smithsonian membership came in handy (THANKS MOM!) and got us discounted tickets to get in. It was an amazing experience and we all loved it. We did take pictures- it's a lot easier to take pictures when both parents are there. :)


Enjoying some hot chocolate in the break room at daddy's work.


Running on the mall in DC.


Rachael holding a hissing cockroach in the insect zoo in the Natural history museum. Rachael is thrilled to realize there are people out there whose job it is to study and play with bugs! Rachael adores bugs (except spiders, thanks to me. argh). She spends much time seeking out pill bugs, worms, beetles, ant hills, and caterpillars.


Ariel holding the cockroach. She likes bugs, too, but not like her sister does. See how big it is! He was pretty cool.


The entrance to the butterfly exhibit.


A lovely butterfly. I can't remember what it was called. They gave us identification cards for finding out what we were looking at, but I can't remember all of them.


I think this one is called an Owl Butterfly. There were tons of these guys around.


A pretty green butterfly. There were not many of these and the people working there got all excited to see one.


Then a Morning Cloak (i think!) butterfly landed right on Rachael's head! The lady was right there and had to brush it off, but told Ray to get over quick so he could take a picture (he was at the other end looking at another butterfly)!


After she brushed it off Rachael, it flew right to Trevor's head! It was a very friendly butterfly.

All in all, a busy and fun weekend was had by all. Today we spent 3+ hours at Lake Fairfax where we also see fun things. No snakes today, but we did see a glimpse of a river otter- which was really exciting! We also saw a bright neon green caterpillar, TONS of tadpoles (the day I brought nothing to collect them in!) and a turtle. There were so many tadpoles the girls could pick them up in their hands. It's just amazing that a park so close to our house, literally 5 minutes away, always has new discoveries to be made.

Oh, what a busy life...

It has been a busy busy weekend. I will probably chunk this into two posts. Friday, we went into the zoo for this homeschool class on squirrel behavior. It was interesting. The lady talked about squirrels and the different things they do and then she gave the kids worksheets-- the idea was to find a squirrel and track its behaviors on the chart. However, all the squirrels disappeared the minute we started looking for them! I mean, we had seen tons of them while she was talking.. we even saw a black one. But once we have to see one to study it, they all run away. Bad little squirrels. The class was fun and the kids enjoyed it, though. I did not take pictures of the class, but, since we had metro'd into DC, run the 1/2 mile to the zoo (we were late, as usual!), we were definitely spending the day there! We got to the zoo right at 10am and got home at 4pm. That's a long day in the sun for us, especially since Trevor and Rachael walked everywhere. Here's the pictures:



Since food is ever present in my childrens' minds, we ate lunch first. Trevor was thrilled to see they had Boca burgers on the menu.



A pygmy hippo. Most of the time we drive to the zoo and come in at the back parking lot instead of the front of the zoo. Coming in through the back lot gets us through the petting zoo, the big cats and the invertebrate house before everyone is tired. Coming in through the front, we saw Cheetahs, Red Ruffed lemurs/small mammal house (but no ring tails! *sigh*), the zebras, pandas, pygmy hippos, food cafe and gelato stop.



Trevor and Rachael getting their hair wet at the water fountain. It was 80 degrees that day. The DC zoo is mostly hills. It's quite a trek to make it through the whole thing. We stopped a lot.



A red ruffed LEMUR! I adore lemurs as much as I adore cats.

The zoo completely exhausted me. I love the metro, but with a stroller and three children, wow, it's an adventure. I will definitely be metroing in again, rather than driving. The kids LOVE riding the metro. In fact, Ariel cried all the way from the metro to the car (until she zonked out in the car) because she was not done riding yet!

Caterpillar update...

Our caddies (as we have nicknamed them) are doing pretty well right now. In fact, we have our first cocoon!!! We are learning quite a bit.. namely, our caterpillars are feeding mostly at night. They are relatively quiet during the day, they chill on their branches and rarely eat. Around 8pm, they start getting active and before I go to bed around 11pm, they will all be chomping their leaves. We can tell how well they are doing by how "firm" they feel. Ones that tend to later die or act lethargic are mushy but ones that have little firm bodies are the active ones that thrive in their home. Here's the latest caddie pics:


Our first cocoon! I have it in a seperate jar now so we quit picking it up everytime we clean the habitat. I have seen a couple others start making their cocoons, but none completed ones. I don't know if this is a good sign or a bad sign.


Our fat caddies. We put them in here briefly every day so we can clean their home and give them new leaf branches.


Our caterpillars in their clean home. They used to eat all night and I would find the branch completely stripped of leaves in the morning. Last night, however, I found two caterpillars with threads under them (but no cocoons in the morning) and the leaves weren't touches very much. Maybe they stop eating right before they make cocoons? I'm not sure. I guess we will see! Let's hope they all survive.

Homeschooling and Socialization

I got an A on this paper for Psychology 202 so I figured, since it is an important topic to homeschoolers, I would post it here as well. I touched on the stereotype that homeschoolers tend to be lacking in socialization. I liked my paper, I tried to keep it balanced. The topic is not personally up for debate by myself. It's just something I think about. Here you go: (it's 5 pages long).

Homeschooled Children and the Stereotype of Socialization

Homeschooling stereotypes often bring to mind children holed up in houses with their mothers for hours on end. The child is speculated never to see peers, get outside, or experience life beyond the confines of his parent’s values. These are among the most common stereotypes of homeschoolers but it is by no means an exhaustive list. There are perhaps as many stereotypes surrounding homeschooling as there are homeschoolers themselves. Parents may be accused to be overprotective, religious conservatives while their children are sheltered, social misfits unable to handle the competition of the real world. In fact, the most asked question concerning homeschooled children may be one of socialization, especially if judging by the 287,000 articles on the topic retrieved from a simple Google search on the subject.

This homeschooling misunderstanding raised by critics often comes from good intentions but an incorrect definition. Many wonder when children socialize with peers, which is a different topic altogether than socialization, the learning of cultural norms (Medlin, 2000). Others, however, do bring up the issue of socialization in a legitimate context and definition (Medlin, 2000). Both socializing and socialization are important topics, not to be disregarded as insignificant issues in the lives of the home educated. The issue at hand is whether the social lives of homeschoolers are any less rich and fulfilling than their traditionally schooled counterparts and does socialization as a whole outside the traditional school setting prepare children to be successful in adequately navigating their culture.

Homeschoolers do socialize, they do have friends, and they do take part in extracurricular activities. Chathem-Carpenter looked at the peer interactions of 12-18 year olds over a one month period. On average, the homeschoolers spoke with 49 individuals and the public schooled children with 56, a difference that is not statistically significant (as cited in Medlin, 2000). Both rated their interactions as meaningful but the public schooled children spoke with peers more often and had more personal conversations (Medlin, 2000). Though the public schooled children saw and interacted with more peers, they generally only had three to five close friends (Medlin, 2000). Furthermore, the homeschoolers did not feel their social lives were lacking and few listed “having few friends” as a disadvantage to homeschooling (Medlin, 2000).

As a homeschooling mother to three young children, I find our extracurricular and social outlets to be numerous in this area. As homeschooling becomes more accepted and mainstream there are more groups to join, activities to attend and friends to meet. It does take parental effort, perhaps more so than for the parents of public schooled children, who tend to use school resources for social outlets (Medlin, 2000). Yet, many surveys since the 1980s have found that almost all homeschoolers take part in extracurricular activities outside the home, with one study finding that homeschoolers participate in more activities than schooled children (Medlin, 2000). I find this could very well be true for my family. With the Internet as a valuable resource, access to activities becomes readily available. I am in my local secular homeschool group, one of many groups in my area, which offers a range of weekly activities to participate in. There are many homeschool specific extracurricular classes available outside a group setting, as well. Socializing with neighborhood kids who drop by after school or play dates I have arranged with friends who are driving distance happens multiple times a week. I feel there is much more organization and effort on my part to allow my children both structured and unstructured time to socialize versus when they were in school last year, but the effort is well worth it. Both my oldest children have personal friends they enjoy seeing and hobbies they have time for, but even with our active life, homeschooling allows us downtime as a family.

Given those studies between homeschooled children and public schooled children suggest that homeschoolers receive quality social time on par with traditionally schooled children, it brings up the question of socialization itself. It seems homeschooling families are successfully immersing their children in the values and expectation of the culture without the help of the public school system.

The American Heritage Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (n.d.) defines socialization as:
“Learning the customs, attitudes, and values of a social group, community or culture. Socialization is essential for the development of individuals who can participate and function within their societies, as well as for ensuring that a society’s cultural features will be carried on through new generations. Socialization is most strongly enforced by family, school, and peer groups, and continues throughout and individual’s lifetime.”

As the above definition implies, socialization is important in development and continues outside of a traditional school setting well after childhood. Even so, superintendents in schools have many misconceptions regarding homeschooling families and socialization (Medlin, 2000). Among them is the myth that parents wish to ensure their children’s’ ignorance and a belief that communities at large are evil (Medlin, 2000). Homeschooling parents, however, refute these claims, asserting that socialization best happens in a multiage setting under the guidance of parents and family (Medlin, 2000). In these young, formative, impressionable years, I feel it is important for children to be guided and influenced by parents and other strong adult role models, and this is easy to achieve in my decision to homeschool. In fact, studies have concluded that families’ imparting their own values onto children is not inferior to public school values (Medlin, 2000). To go one step further, albeit risk bias, would be to infer children are better socialized by parents rather than peers (Shaw, n.d.). Studies suggest that when children are with same age peers all day long (as when in a school setting) they compete with them, trying to act and dress like them (Shaw, n.d.). In other words, they become immersed in a lateral peer oriented culture separate from the adult oriented world. But in a parent oriented environment they may be freer to be themselves (Shaw, n.d.). Since they are loved unconditionally and needed in a family, the result may be an independent thinker who is less influenced by what peers think (Shaw, n.d.).

In fact, in one survey of homeschoolers, 2/3 grew up to be self-employed, suggesting that homeschooling fosters self reliance (Moitozo, 2003). In another study looking at sixty homeschoolers, sixty public schooled children and sixty private schooled children who all attended the same college, the homeschoolers came out on top in all leadership areas (Medlin, 2000). It seems homeschoolers are, if anything, receiving better socialization but reasons for this trend are mixed. One theory speculates that, because they are not peer grouped, homeschoolers learn to get along with everyone; another indicates that the individualized learning environment might foster a greater range of knowledge (Medlin, 2000). Finally, it could be that the secure, parent oriented relationships found in many homeschooling families fosters future resiliency (Medlin, 2000). Truth be told, most homeschooling studies suffer from a slew of problems including small sample size, subjective interpretations and no guiding theory (Medlin, 2000).

However, there is one study outlining the socialization of homeschoolers and public schooled children that is frequently cited as being one of the most complete and striking studies to date (as cited in Medlin, 2000). Shyers’ study compared seventy homeschoolers and seventy public schooled children, all eight to ten years old. They were put into groups based on schooling and observers were blind to which group they were watching. Observers on three trials found the public school children loud, competitive and aggressive, while the homeschoolers were polite and cooperative (as cited in Medlin, 2000). Observers also noticed that homeschoolers introduced themselves to each other and sought common interests (as cited in Medlin, 2000). They were gracious game losers and were more likely to exchange numbers for future contact (as cited in Medlin, 2000). The differences between the two groups were so pronounced that Shyers proposed that homeschooling better socializes children than traditional schooling (as cited in Medlin, 2000).

I find it virtually impossible not to provide my children with constant socialization. They accompany me in my daily activities, be it running an errand or meeting a friend. Because of this, I expect a certain level of maturity and behavior from them I would not anticipate had they been accompanied constantly by same age peers in lieu of myself. Because of my constant interaction with them as we go about our daily life, it becomes impossible not to impart cultural values to them, whether we are at the grocery store, a playgroup or chatting with a neighbor. Hence, the results of Shyers’ study seem unsurprising. I would not imply that these values cannot be achieved in a school setting, but they can certainly be achieved in a stable homeschooling family.

A far cry from the stereotype, homeschooled children are engaged in society. More and larger studies on topic of homeschooling and socialization need to be done, especially those touching on the growing number of minority homeschoolers. However, with homeschool students increasing in number every year and the choice becoming more mainstream, it is heartening to see many smaller studies show homeschooled children as both socializing with their peers and integrating into society as successful adults.

(references not included so no one feels a need to use as their own paper! :) )