Conversations I'm tired of having:

If you're online a lot, there's a lot of conversations that just go round and round, without resolution because we are all inherently stubborn. Here's an example: 

Christians who don't "do" Halloween. 

I'm not talking about "celebrating". I'm talking about the contingent of people, probably all Christians, who refuse to acknowledge Halloween. 

Now, you will never find a bigger party pooper than me. I don't like Costumed Events, as we can call them. I am not creative. I'm not confident of my appearance or decision when it comes to choosing costumes. I have dressed up like four times in my adult life. Halloween at school is my least favorite thing. In fact, I loved my one district that just refused to do it: Halloween was for at home, not at school. But that's a whole separate conversation. 

I'm talking about the parents who take their last stand believing that doing Halloween as a family is evil. They believe they are opening the doors to hell by attending a trunk or treat or letting their kids dress up as Spiderman and Elsa. Like just the very act of acknowledging Halloween is sinful and a testament to the depravity of our fallen world or whatever. 

And I get that. 

Many even choose to do Reformation Day instead and, honestly, if I knew anything about Reformation Day, I might do the same. 

But here's the thing: refusing to let your kids dress up in a costume or pass out candy to friends isn't going to move the needle in your parenting journey. It's going to likely just create a weird divide you have to explain to your small child.

I went through this too, thinking that I wasn't going to do Halloween with my kids. See, because I don't care about Halloween one way or the other, it would've been really easy to be like We're not doing Halloween. But when did I care about Halloween? When I was a kid. I dressed up in costumes and went to parties and trick-or-treated for years....and I am not a devil worshipper as an adult. If we're being generous, I'm totally indifferent on Halloween. So taking a walk on the side of reality would let us see that Halloween is simply a fun tradition for kids. I'm not looking at it deeper than that. 

If your neighborhood has all those weird scary decorations, eh. I don't like that. But carving pumpkins and corn mazes and costumes and trick-or-treating are core childhood memories. I remember Halloween parties my mom did when I was a kid. I remember parties and parades at school. I remember trick-or-treating. I remember all my costumes. It's really fun for kids. 

Over the last few years, my kids have done parties at school and we did trunk-or-treat at Scott's unit. This year, with no school and no unit, I took them to Boo at the Zoo with friends and we'll trick-or-treat in the neighborhood on Friday. 

Here's my plan: for years, we've had no trick-or-treaters because we've lived in the country. This year, I'm going to just leave a container of treat bags on the porch with a sign and the light on. They can take one, they can take them all, I don't care. I'm assuming we'll just walk the block. 

But what I've wanted to do for years was to hand out gospel tracts. I've just never had a chance. This year, I started thinking about the best way to facilitate that. I started looking online for something I could print out and put in a treat bag. Nothing. Nothing that was free was cute. Anything cute had to be ordered from Etsy or something. No thanks. I had an idea, based on something I heard on a podcast years ago. So I made my own. 

I put this file into my Teachers Pay Teachers for anyone to download for free, mostly because I was so annoyed that I couldn't find what I wanted online. I want it available to everyone if you want something to hand out as well! 

It's not fancy or long, but it's super basic and that's what the point is: the less the wording, the more likely it will be read. 

Of all the things to make your last stand on as a parent, I just don't think taking the Christian position of "Halloween is all bad and we refuse to acknowledge it" is the best use of your time. 

The hill I chose last night, for example, was to make Wells stay up late cleaning his room because his little friends came over and destroyed the place. And then he created this out of pipe cleaners:

We have bigger problems, as parents, than costumes on Halloween. 

Monday memes.

Anyway, I don't know what's worse: IG, FB, or X. 

This is Sutton. Constantly. 

And, I guffawed:

Stuff and Things, 10/23

+ I don't want to tell you to homeschool and I don't want to tell you public school is bad but I'm telling you that something is off. I saw a comment on this post on Facebook saying that teachers are an indicator species (telling other animals when something is not right) before a major change in the environment.  Again, I swear I'm not telling anyone what to do because we probably won't homeschool forever anyway. I'm just saying...revisit your schooling options if you can. 

Here's some posts I wrote that point to what's going on and why there's something not right in the schools:

Technology is the problem

Professional dress

The science of math

Will I miss teaching this year?

No more snow days

+ Speaking of, there's this incentive where you can fill out a form saying your child completed a quarter of homeschool successfully and take it to the military base and they give you a $20 gift card.  You're supposed to sign the paper as a parent and then you're supposed to have the "teacher" sign it and that's really weird and confusing you know? Apparently moms get together and sign each other's? Which makes no sense to me. So anyway, I was like who-do-I-get-to-sign-this? I'm both the parent and the teacher? 

+ I watched the LIB weddings last night...can we call them weddings? I mean, almost-weddings? Keep scrolling if you don't want spoilers..

I think Anton was a red flag with the drinking but I think that he's also Russian and it's cultural. 

I think that Ali 's friends weren't great because they were both getting divorced and that's a pattern there.

I do feel bad for Edmond. His teacher was so sweet though. KB is fine but Edmond wasn't for her and SHE KNEW THAT all along. 

No strong feelings either way. 

I think Megan (sorry, Sparkle Meg) is inherently too selfish to get married. This is why the boss babe culture is so dangerous. Why would she want to change her lifestyle? There's no incentive. I don't think she's a bad person, but I think she's lying to herself. It didn't work with men just like her, so she went on the show to find someone *different*. She's not going to get what she wants until she changes her pattern. She needs to adjust her life if she wants a husband and kids. (The LV bag in the background while she broke up with Jordan was exactly it: "maybe I'm too caught up in my own life"...she's so close.)

As for the others: I think Nick dodged a bullet with Annie and we're not seeing so many of their conversations. She's drinking so much that we feel like we're missing pieces but no, she's just randomly picking fights.  Kacie is causing problems (not shocking). Joe has a girlfriend now. Someone is going to announce that they have a baby (I think it'll be Sparkle Meg). Anyway, Reality Receipts has all the details. 

I was so annoyed by the thirsty contestants on season 9 that I actually went BACK and watched some of LIB season 1. I am floored at how much more real the men and women were. Also, they weren't covered in plastic surgery. The women had side parts! It was like a pleasant trip back to 2019 (probably the last good year, right?). 

+ I went on a massive sneaker hunt last week. I got a pair of plain black adidas and then I found these ^ for $50 at the PX. I tried on Hokas, On Cloud (on cloud?), Brooks, Asics, New Balance...every shoe I could find. The $50 Nikes were absolutely the most comfortable. I think we're being sold lies by these people who insist we need multiple pairs of $160 shoes. 

+Speaking of what we need: I posted the other day that when I feel really discouraged, I try to remember that the Corinthians got TWO letters from Paul. I can't even imagine how many letters our country would be getting. I feel like things are very rough right now. I could go on about it for days. 

Anyway:

How I Homeschool- 1st Quarter

I'm posting this today because I'm tired of thinking about it. It could definitely be a bit more polished as a post but I want to get this info out of my drafts before I really don't care anymore. We're into 2nd quarter and I'm changing up many things. Here's what I did for August through October for a 2nd grader. (Most of the pictures have to do with ELA because that takes the most thought, always.)

And because everyone always wants to know: we *could* do school in 2 1/2 - 3 hours, easily. "We" do tend to procrastinate so it usually takes about 6 hours with breaks, errands, and outside time mixed in there. 

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When it comes to what I do with the kid(s) for school specifically, I've learned a lot in the last several weeks. I created a google sheet for all four quarters of the year and I'm planning and goal-setting by quarter. I knew what I wanted to be done with by mid-October and what I would be ready to move onto at this point. 

1. So that's the first thing: don't plan the whole year out. Do one quarter at a time. Look at the calendar, get a spreadsheet or planner and fill in the non-negotiables or must-do items first. Second quarters are also jam-packed with three holidays so I never planned to accomplish as much as a teacher; the same applies here. 

2. For the 1st quarter, I gave us 10 weeks, August 11-October 17. There were a few days where things got really thrown off and most Fridays we had co-op so we didn't do bookwork. 

3. I initially thought homeschooling would give us time to Do All The Things outside of the house during week or, like, travel lol. That's not really the case. Yeah, we do occasional errands in the morning or a random appointment, but keeping us at home works so much better for getting things done. It's really hard to force him to finish something before dinner, especially if his friends are around. School is out around 3:15pm in our town, so being done by then works best. If I stuff errands into the morning, we get behind. 

4. I am much, much more unstructured than I ever assumed I would be. I realized it literally doesn't matter when we do it, as long as we get it done. Sometimes, I just refuse to fall behind and I make him do something on the weekends (he just did a math test on Friday night and it sat on the table until I checked it on Saturday night). Sometimes I make him work on holidays (Labor Day, definitely, Columbus day, of course) because kids lose a lot over 3-day weekends. Unless we have a reason not to-- like we're going somewhere--it's a regular school day. I have explained to him that he gets most Fridays off and he sleeps in every day so it all evens out. 

5. There are no regulations for homeschooling in Kansas. You just fill out one little form on a website. No records are necessary either. I'm keeping records because my plan is to eventually go back to regular school but honestly, worst case, I'm certified to teach. I'm not too concerned about records. I am keeping a data binder with proof of assessments. 

In true public school fashion, let's Remember Our Why: My why for homeschooling is not because I'm afraid of what he'll learn in school. I'm afraid of what he'll NOT learn in school. There is so much they just don't teach kids because teachers themselves have little to no content knowledge. I want my 2nd grader to know how to write in cursive. He needs to take spelling tests. He should be reading aloud and also reading to himself every day. He needs to do pages of math problems, not just watch the teacher do a few interactively and then draw some pictures. And don't get me started on history and geography....

Daily Schedule

Morning Work

The Good and The Beautiful Handwriting book. Two pages a day and he'll finish this book in a week or so, and then I have a cursive book ready. He wants to do cursive so I told him we'd try. Handwriting is something they will not teach past 1st grade in most public schools in 2025, just fyi. 

IXL 2nd grade math workbook. This book is my favorite thing ever. Such a perfect no-tech review of what he needs to be doing in 2nd grade. I am a fan of IXL in general, but I want him to master the paper/pencil way to do math to practice number formation, etc before letting him do the interactive version on a device. 

Zaner-Bloser 2nd Grade spelling book. A great option. I could've gone with a different brand, but I'd never used this and it looked good. You don't need to supplement spelling with TGATB because their Level K-1-2 Language Arts incorporates it, but it's not super structured. I wanted structure like they have for the intermediate grades. He does one page a day and a test every 7 days, at the end of each "unit". Many schools also do not teach spelling (or grammar) explicitly and it shows. I wanted the structure of daily spelling work. 

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All of this is included in TGATB Level 2 Language Arts. 

TGATB Booster Cards and Nature Reader. This is the phonics component for Levels K, 1, and 2. I bought the Level C Booster Card booklet and then the Nature Reader corresponds to the cards. So we practice the cards to mastery, sometimes going further with other activities if it's a harder skill, and then he reads 2-3 stories aloud per day to me. This is repetitive work, so he may read the same story 3-4 days in a row before we move on from it. Each story is about 8-10 pages long.

Language Arts Lesson

This is in a dual workbook/manual. I adore this book. Cannot recommend it enough. It spirals. Every day is different. There is so much geography and art and poetry involved. I cannot stress enough: a 2nd grader would not see any of that in a regular classroom. Each lesson takes about 20 minutes.

Reading (shared and independent)

Wesley and the Wolves and Molly and the Falcon are the two shared reads that go with the Level C Booster Card skills. We finished both books already. I have a lot of short chapter books to take their place, maybe a novel study or two. 

Then, I usually set a timer for 15 minutes and send Wells off with a short chapter book. He reads a chapter and then he comes and reads it to me. 

The first quarter, we wanted to do space (see below), so he read the Mark on Mars series and then Horrible Harry Goes to the Moon. 

Math

I started with using TGATB Level 2 math but it's pretty easy for him so we're blowing through a few lessons a day. I have a lot of strategy to how I'm doing math with Wells. Each TGATB lesson has a lesson and then spiraled independent practice. I give him the independent practice to do, check it for misconceptions, and then go over anything I think is pertinent in the lesson. It takes about 15 minutes a lesson so then we do 2-3 lessons a day, depending. I'm not looking at the lesson so much as thinking about what standards he needs to master in 2nd grade. TGATB has a huge focus on time, money, and calendars. Those are strands that are barely touched on in most primary curriculums. But then they do not have a focus on more advanced computation practice. 

So I did what any normal parent would do: I bought a second curriculum and we're doing both. The Envisons Math focuses mainly on computation and problem-solving. It also does this Thing I Hate where they do 8-10 lessons on a skill and show the student 5-7 ways to solve the problems instead of just teaching them an algorithm. The idea is that students are exposed to all the strategies and then they pick the one that clicks. Unfortunately, this is how kids get confused. I used to tell my students that once they found a way that works for them, to ignore the rest. So what I do is just use the problems in the book for practice and ignore a lot of the strategies. I will say they were having a major sale back in August when I bought it so I got it for like $83. 

But, as I work my way through the book, I can see what I still need to teach him in order to "complete" 2nd grade and be ready for 3rd. It's crazy to me that he is already where the teacher/class would be at Christmastime in a regular classroom. It also has been eye-opening because I can see now how much I likely held kids back over the years, completely unintentionally. 

Science and Social Studies

These aren't usually curriculum-based subjects in the primary grades and it's exactly why kids have no core knowledge. We're not doing anything regimented and mostly he gets this through his non-fiction books that he likes. For Quarter 2, I will do Thanksgiving (remember last year!) and then we'll do an advent study. 

We are out in nature every day, and Scott got him a terrarium (idk?) so he's getting a lot of science just living life. I've reinstated his Youtube privileges so he watches videos about snakes, insects, animals, etc most days.*

(*privileges have since been revoked :)

I see a lot of parents in Facebook groups ask about history. I like this from Core Knowledge but I don't know. Maybe I'll just start that in 3rd grade? TGATB history courses start in 3rd grade but they start with Biblical history and the ancient world and I want him to have a grasp on US history before moving onto world history. Again, in my experience, starting with the more abstract never works. 

I was initially doing Space for science from TGATB but he didn't care and I didn't either. Doing impromptu science and incorporating it into the ELA work is better for everyone when they're in the primary grades. I have a plan for science and social studies for the 3rd and 4th quarters. And then I will absolutely get something for next year. I just haven't decided what yet. Thoughts? 

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We also did a few field trips the first quarter. A few were organized through local homeschool groups and our co-op so I took advantage of that. 

We went to a living history museum in KC, Missouri.

We did a tour of the Chiefs stadium.

We're supposed to do a tour of an orchard this Friday but it's going to rain and the single best thing about homeschooling is that we don't have to go if we don't want to go. 

I do take them to the library a lot because they put on 1-2 programs a week with special activities and crafts and they love checking out as many books as they can carry (with no rhyme, reason, or theme and it drives me nuts. Sutton got a Valentine book last week). 

And we take the dogs for a walk in the woods every day. ...P.E., right?

On our own, we went to the zoo and then to the planetarium. I really like the KC zoo and we have a membership there. I generally really like planetariums but a 3D theater is better. This one wasn't *as* great as the show we saw in Denver years ago, but it was definitely worth $8 a ticket. The one in Denver was at the Museum of Nature and Science and I can't recommend that enough. 

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Anyway, that was the first quarter of the school year. I, personally, think he's made an insane amount of progress and it's funny because he has had four really great teachers over his school career. I cannot take full credit for his success! I'm just building on their efforts so thank you to Mrs. Carroll, Mrs. Ferrell, Mrs. Solomon, and Mrs. Sloan. They have made this a lot easier than I thought it would ever be. 

And in true homeschool fashion, expect to see major changes in the 2nd quarter because this is how I feel most days:

2 Opinions and Memes

1. You don't have to make sourdough. I let my starter go --it basically just lived in the fridge last spring and wasn't any good. My friend gave me an unconstituted starter over the summer to start anew. I finally attempted this last week. It didn't work. In fact, it grew mold! I had my other starter for over a year and it never did that. I decided I could try again but no. I can buy a loaf from Aldi for $3 each week. 

2. Speaking of Aldi: I don't like their food. Like, generally, I do not like shopping there. The Aldi in Missouri was a lot nicer than the Aldi here, too, so that probably has something to do with it. But I've always felt this way about Aldi. I can buy the staples: milk, butter, baking ingredients, whatever. I get the kids some snacks there. It's a lot cheaper for those things but I'm never excited about going there. I don't like their produce. It doesn't last. The bananas are always green and then they over-ripen overnight. So I bought a bunch of organic bananas last week because they were actually yellow and ...they over-ripened overnight. So they're in the fridge and maybe I'll make banana bread or maybe I'll toss them like the last bunch. Who can say...

I don't know what Walmart does to their produce but it's always the best bet. 

I think this is from the one in June. I mean, it worked: We don't have a king. Why are they protesting for something they already have?

I can't take women's rights advice from a self-proclaimed feminist who used her rights to go $100k in debt for an English degree (at best).

I've never been able to drink more than one sip of eggnog. 

I made sauce on the stove last week because I knew this would happen if I pulled out the crockpot. 

I saw a Facebook article that said "Deer are more active this time of year. Find out why.". Amateurs. 

I saw posts about how we should all be antifa. We're at the last stage here.

I don't know why this is funny. It's not funny-funny but it's comical in the sense that it looks like the apocalypse. Someone in the comments posted "This is what happens when it snows and gets cold at the same time. It's serious." And someone said "you mean winter?"

I did learn last week that the "best" games are for Thursday, Sunday, and Monday nights, followed by late Sunday afternoon. The "worst" games are sent overseas on purpose or have that 1pm eastern slot on Sundays. 

Exactly how it should be.