Homeschool Hop #2 and 3 and an award

edited to add It’s Cool to Homeschool button, and to put my reasons at the top.  Head on over to Mama of 3 Blessings to see more reasons people homeschool.  Now prepare yourself for a wall of text that follows.

HOMESCHOOL HOP #3

Why homeschool?

IMAGINE YOU SEE A CUTE PICTURE OF MY DAUGHTER READING HERE……

So, I don’t have to set my alarm at 6:00 am!  Oh, you wanted a serious answer. 

 Okay, it’s not because the schools in the area are bad.  They’re actually pretty good.  It’s more because I think they could do more.

If my kids were to go to public school they wouldn’t already be learning how to read.  They wouldn’t already be learning about other countries, and be going to learn about Ancient History in a few months.  The shame of public schools, and private schools, and charter schools is they have to go at the rate of the mob.  So, if one student understands and has mastered the concept after two days, you still have to continue on until the majority understands.  It’s also not set up real well for late bloomers.  I didn’t really start to read until almost second grade.  Then I went from a non-reader to being told I had to check out chapter books in a very short period of time.  Public schools are not set up well to accommodate this.

Oh, and because of the various different tests and different things they have to teach they really don’t teach science or history very well.  It’s rather disappointing to talk to college graduates who don’t really know anything about our history.  I know this is an area I’m passionate about, but really, to graduate from college I’d expect people to have a decent understanding of the reasons behind the Civil War or World War 2 beyond slavery or Pearl Harbor.  But, most people don’t know these things.  How can we expect people to know about the future if we don’t know our past.  Read Brave New World people!  Or 1984!  Okay, I’m off my soap box now.  End sarcastic comments of the last two sentences…..  Maybe

Because I have too much to write about, and I think I’m actually going to write about them in the opposite order that I put them in the title.  Kind of.

Julie over at My Book Retreat and Just Playin’ Around gave me this award!
The rules for this award say I have to share 10 honest things about myself.  Here goes, and hopefully without repeating myself:

1.  I’m horribly scared of scorpions.  I have been known to call Jeff at work and tell him to come home and get rid of the horrible thing.  This of course means the boys are horribly amused by finding the horrid things and showing them to me.
2.  I used to horseback ride Hunter-Jumper English.  I loved doing it, but I look back on some of the things I used to do and think I was slightly crazy.  But that’s what you do in high school.
3.  Every summer during college and the last few years of high school I’d go on mission trips to Mexico for a week during the summer.  Once upon a time I could speak Spanish fairly decently, but with a horrible accent.  That is not so true now.
4.  I went to a deaf church in college.  I took about 3 years of sign language as my foreign language.  I want to work on this with my kids, but haven’t really worked enough.
5.  I get very disappointed when I see the new versions of cartoons I grew up with.  I’m holding judgement on the new Rainbow Brite until I see it.  I’m worried about the way they’re drawn, and miss my cute overly large head soft dolls, but these could be fun.  Princess certainly liked them when she saw them on the computer screen.
6.  I’ve lived in 3 different countries.  I don’t remember two of them because I was under three, but still three countries…..
7.  I’ve visited nine different countries, and had a brief layover in a tenth, but all I saw was the airport.  Actually, it might be more I’m trying to remember if Jamaica or Cayman Islands are countries or colonies.
8.  I’ve driven through large portions of the United States.  I think I mostly haven’t see the Northwest area, and portions of the middle United States.  At some point I’m going to sit down and actually figure out where I’ve been.
9.  I reread books that I like a lot.  So, I’ve probably read Peter Pan about 50 times, at least.  The same goes for Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass.  The longer I’ve liked it the more I’ve read it.  So, I’ve been reading Peter Pan since I was 10….  By contrast I’ve only read the Harry Potter books since college and I guess I’ve read the earlier ones about 20 times.
10.  I don’t like Charles Dickens books, with the exception of A Christmas Carol.  I blame my dislike of him on being forced to read “Great Expectations” in ninth grade.  I’ve figured out I’m in general not a big fan of books from that era.  I’m just not into large amounts of description.  That might be why I like young adult books so much, they don’t feel the need to babble on for 20 pages about how pretty the landscape is.  I also tend to skip over poetry in books.  This is also why when I read through the Bible I get to Psalms and get stuck.

HOMESCHOOL HOP # 2
My family…..  I’m going to do this a bit differently, because I’m going to include people who aren’t strictly blood relatives, but they’re family just the same.

This is Jeff.  He’s the guy on the right.  He’s my husband.  This is a picture from the swing dance we met at.  Okay, technically we didn’t meet there, but it’s where we first had real conversations.  Jeff is a computer programmer, a few years ago he was working on the kernel of the computer, which is the part that talks to other people.  I told this to someone a few years ago and so she went away telling people Jeff works on popcorn.  Right now he’s working with some other people to get a program up and running, but I’m rather fuzzy on exact details.  Jeff has a lot of the same interests as I do.  He loves to read, and when we got married we had to cut down our book collections to fit onto five bookshelves.  It took a lot of work.  He loves to play computer games, and got me hooked on World of Warcraft.  He loves to play strategy board games, and has slowly drawn me into those.

This is Superman and Batman.  It’s their birthday on the fourth, so I’ll be writing a whole post about them then.  Needless, to say they’re twins, and big fans of heroes, Star Wars, and all things boy.

And this picture probably pretty perfectly captures my little Princess.  She’s not really very girly, though her favorite color is pink, and if she had her way all she wore would be pink and covered in stains.  She’s a bit of a clutz, and is kind of silly.  She’s a quixotic combination of loving princess stuff but insisting you call her Batman.  I kid you not.  Her Aurora doll can go from being used as a battering ram to being carefully cradled in her arms……

This is my best friend Tara, who my kids call Aunt Tara.  As you can see the kids adore her, and think she is their favorite toy when she’s over.  Her husband was my friend who died from cancer a few weeks ago.  It was one of my happiest days when those two got married because they were both my best friends.  She has pretty much the same interests as me, but is a bit more logical and more likely to say “Really Ticia, you want to do that?”  She’s a lot like Jeff in that aspect.  We used to joke that we married the male version of our best friend, because Jeff is a lot like Tara and I’m a lot like Sam.  Seriously, it’s kind of funny.

My Mom lives about fifteen minutes from us and is kind enough to babysit the kids often.  She’s getting married in a few months to Patrick, and that’s going to be exciting!  She works as a secretary at the church that planted the church we currently attend.  Random facts about her, she likes to dance and loves country music.

Sean is my brother.  He’s working at the Hutto branch of our church as the youth pastor/whatever they feel like making him do that week.  He’s in the perfect job for him, and he’s rather wild and crazy.  This is all good.  His wife Jenn is a good calming influence, and she’s a super cool woman, who I wish wasn’t so busy so I could see her more often.  But, sadly I’ve discovered that’s the life of pastors they’re always busy.
Well, that’s the people in my family who live in the Austin area and you’re likely to see on here from time to time on this blog.
And thus ends my post of forever and a day long.  Sorry, didn’t mean to make this so long.