So many days I just work all day and then take the kids home and spend our evening together. I don’t always know what they did during the day and I seldom ask what they learned. I also do not remember what we talked about and what books were read.

This idea of keeping records is a change and it will take a while to get the habit. It also won’t be long until I can stop explaining our philosophy and methodology and just write down what was done.

Cassie: Does not read but she does read. She says she can’t read, and is intimidated by books paragraphs and sentences, but she knows the basics. I have said before that when she does get it and starts to read, she will be reading at a college level within a couple of years. What does college level mean? I always wondered what it said about college, that I was reading at that level in 5th grade. I think it means you understand what you are reading rather than reading the words and having no clue what it all means, Not a real big endorsement for college I guess.

Anyway, Cassie’s job is to learn to read and we give her stuff to read all day. Meantime, she is sharp and pays attention to what is going on around her. She picks stuff up and in the evening she usually comes to me and says, “Dad, is it true that …..” and she might fill in the blank with what she learned:

…Infections are caused by bacteria? …That Soy Sauce (our kitten) is old enough to have babies?…that doctors didn’t use to wash their hands and people died because of it? …That you can grow different fruit on the same tree?..That plants make their own food from sunshine?…And on and on.

Cassie also does math. She figured out something riding in my truck looking at the clock. It was 9:20 and she figured out that she didn’t look at the clock for 3 minutes because it was 9:17 when she last looked. So she figured it out on her own. I asked her what is 20 minus 17. She says she does not know how to subtract big numbers!

Eric reads. We have a huge variety of books and he takes advantage of it. He picks up random books and reads them. I used to do that in my high school class—put books out and hope kids pick them up. About 1 in 4 kids were interested in my eclectic collection. 3 of 4 sat down and started talking the instant they got to class.

Eric wants a friend. We talk about friendship and I teach him etiquette for friendship. Like don’t insult your friend even for fun. Like let the other guy talk. Be willing to play a game you don’t want to play so you can have your turn later. He has some friends but they always move away. He has a good friend and this boy likes playing with Eric and Cassie, but when the neighborhood kids are there or school buddies, they have more to talk about, so my kids get left out. Devin likes it when my kids are alone with him. They are special friends to him but only for times when the loud loud school friends are not in attendance.

Eric hates math so we try to do it in little bits. He asked me to help him with a video game he is designing. “I need to take advantage of your math skills,” he told me. Uh..OK, such as they are. I think I know where he gets his math weakness. Yesterday Colleen gave him math workbooks to do ‘cause he was bored his little sister was ill and slept all day.

He likes his world atlas. He is learning about lifestyles and standards of living in other parts of the world. He also continues to learn about the justice system via Phoenix Wright. Yesterday there was a murder in the news. He asked me a LOT of questions about police and investigations and …oh, everything. Drove me crazy. Cassie listened and learned.

Stephanie continues to work on her novel. She typed furiously for hours and hours and then lamented that she is so far behind in her novel project. I mentioned she wrote all day and all night. She replied that she was writing something else! So she has these projects going on. If she is writing, she is learning. Just ask a writer. How do you get to be a good writer? Write. And that’s what she does.

She continues to read to her siblings and explains things to them. It’s so cute—she holds Eric, who is huge. He is roly-poly as we put it. But very cuddly. So Steph sits on a chair with Eric in her lap and Cassie leaning on both of them. And they watch videos and listen to music and she reads stories on the screen. She also takes her turn in the answer seat so I don’t have to answer every single question.

I don’t remember what we did yesterday. What books they read, what they talked about, what each kid learned. But I know they continue to learn because they have a natural interest in the world around them. This generation has more access to more information and knowledge than anyone in history and I am happy that my children know and appreciate this. So many kids take it for granted and don’t even recognize that fact.

We found a tick on the dog’s head and Eric and I looked up a method for taking it out without leaving bits of tick-head in the dog. There was an explanation and a video. I followed instructions and the tick came right out. The little kids learned several lessons from this.

1. Every question has an answer and it’s probably on the internet.

2. Look it up.

3. Read the comments if applicable, which it was and comments were glowing.

4. Follow instructions—follow the recipe if you want good results.

Valuable lessons. Plus they learned about ticks and of course the conversation went to other kinds of parasites and what is a parasite and what is a host and what is the difference between a parasite and a symbiotic relationship. Come to think of it, had I attempted to teach this stuff to my high school class, they would have resisted and would have refused to learn it. Eric and Cassie learned a LOT.

Now it’s today and the world awaits their eager eyes and ears. Let’s see what they can learn.

Well, today was an interesting day. We took one of our many cats, Soysauce, to the vets. She had boils on her belly that had burst – typical Guam cat sores. Eric and Cassie came into the exam room and we looked at pictures of skeletons of a cat, a dog and a bird and compared the three. We also examined a model of a heart with heart worms in it and examined the worm pictures on the wall. Eric left the room when the actual exam and drainage of the cat’s boils occurred, but Cassie was grossly fascinated by it all.

Later Cassie wasn’t feeling that great (night before she was acting ill) and ended up sleeping on the couch at the office for most of the afternoon. This of course resulted in Eric losing his primary playmate and he began declaring he was bored all afternoon. In his boredom he took two walks on the beach and examined various sea creatures he found; he spent about 20 minutes with me working through a 1/2 chapter of as Saxon Math book (54); drew several pictures and looked through a few wildlife magazines; He also watched the office for an hour while I napped. Which basically meant letting me know if someone came in.

I asked Les what the latest car lecture had been about so that I could blog about that, After careful consideration he said they had a laugh fest in the car the last few trips. So I assume they talked about silly things. Very typical.

So as mentioned before Stephanie is writing this story that is set during the Italian Renaissance. I knew we had a book about this somewhere in our library so finally tracked it down this weekend and brought it home for her. It is a Millken Press workbook on the Renaissance that I picked up a few years ago, along with ones on Reformation, Industrial Revolution, Civil War, etc.

Tonight Stephanie read about the Black Death – the Bubonic Plague- out loud  to the family and we all discussed this disease and how it was spread. We also had a good laugh about how some of the dead bodies were used. Catapulted into their enemies forts. Lovely way to spread the germs. Eric got a big kick out of that concept and said “I gotta make a flip note about this!”

The last few days have been pretty busy with activities and work. I let the little kids play at the office all day long and they help out at night at home. Monday and Tuesday Colleen teaches class at the driving school, so I get the 3 school-age kids for the evening.

Part of what the kids are learning is when we prepare our evening meal. Eric asked me if there are any "shocking secrets" about eating eggs or cheese. They are concerned with what I am teaching them about factory farming methods. They are starting to understand that big companies that provide food products for supermarkets are not interested in feeding humans; they are interested in increasing profits. And they will do anything to increase profits. Including abusing animals and selling stuff that they would never dream of putting in their own mouths. I am not going to belabor it right now, but this investigation into our food supply and figuring out what we can do as a family to protect ourselves is something that is ongoing and involves all members of our family.

Here is our working assumption: Big companies will do anything to make money and more money. We cannot trust food suppliers to do "what is right". They do not care what is right and what is wrong. CEO's have the goal of increasing shareholder's profits and that is where their loyalties start and end. The government is a joke as far as protecting us from harm. The pertinent oversight organizations are infected with industry insiders. The laws that govern the treatment of animals and the quality of the food they can sell in stores are ridiculous. Here is one example: If a practice becomes "industry standard", then it is lawful and the actions are actually protected by law. So if they agreed to break the legs of all living chickens 24 hours before slaughter, and let the chickens lay there with broken legs, that practice is actually protected by the law! Just because the profit-mongers want to do it.

Believe me; we are responsible to ourselves to protect ourselves from these entities who are vastly powerful and completely amoral. They will poison us with food if we allow it.

So a major part of our collective family education is finding ways to protect ourselves. This includes our plan to raise chickens for eggs, growing a garden with local veggies and fruits, and shopping very carefully.

Yesterday morning, Eric opened up a 10th grade Abeka Biology textbook. He started asking questions and I am still trying to answer them.

How do they photograph a fetus? Fiber optics (that led to 45 minutes of discussion about fiber optics, light bending, reflection and also the use of light in photography.)
How big is human heart? It looks bigger in the picture because it is not necessarily to scale; it is not proportionate. So for 10 minutes we talked about proportions and scale, referring back to the maps in his Atlas for the basic concept.
How big is a fetus? and embryo? What is the difference? Well, as soon as a sperm joins with an egg, it is the beginning of life. The size depends on how long it has been growing, just like a baby.
I asked if they remember what is the biggest single cell in the human body. And they remembered. At least one kid got it right. Do you know? It is the egg. The egg is the only cell in the human body that is visible to the naked eye! Now you know.

Oh, I cannot remember all we talked about. That book is terribly boring to read, but it really gets Eric's brain going. We talked for hours and of course Cassie just eats it all up and remembers an alarming amount of the information I share. I placed that book on the couch 4 days ago and it finally got picked up. Colleen calls that the "strewing" method of education. She can straighten me out if I am wrong about that.

So later in the day we went for a hike and it was too hot. We went to Gun Beach and took some pictures, revitalizing our discussion about photography and light.
They also asked some questions about WWII, but mostly they know not to ask too many questions or I will hold forth for hours. Besides, they know quite a bit about Guam and WWII. We talked and learned and observed for hours and also greatly enjoyed each other's company. I thought of those poor parents who don't get to spend the day with their kids and gave up a quick prayer of thanks. (We do know a lady who says she would rather pull out her fingernails than spend a day with her kids, but that's what happens when something so unnatural becomes the norm.)

Stephanie declared that she sleeps until 2 pm because she writes better at night. I have to insist that she gets up without a fuss when we need her to. So she has been really good about that, so I allow her to keep her own hours. She has been writing and drawing and researching world history. She also asks random questions during the day, and also can be caught reading to her siblings and telling them stories. Again, I am reassured that while they are on a completely different schedule (scope & sequence) than their schooled counterparts, they are certainly getting an education. I am reminded of a Holt quote something to the effect of "Don't let schooling interfere with your education." You can educate without schooling, and unfortunately, it is also entirely possible to school without educating.

Music is a big part of our homeschooling. Our oldest son, Adam, who has already graduated from our homeschool has taught himself to play guitar and piano and has written and composed over 100 songs. Our style of homeschooling has allowed him to pursue this love for music and develop this talent.

We encourage all our children to play instruments. Eric is interested in wind instruments and asked for an Ocarina for his birthday. We bought both Eric and Cassie a simple plastic ocarina for them to play with and I'm amazed at the sounds that they both can make from this instrument. Eric is extremely interested in someday getting a piccolo or clarinet.

Cassie, however, decided she wants to learn to play guitar, so I was looking into buying one of those child's sized guitars. However we do have three guitars - an electric, a steel string acoustic and a nylon string acoustic. I pulled out the nylon string acoustic guitar the other day to see if that would fit her and she has been having a great time "fooling" around with it.Right now she is just exploring the sounds the different strings make, and what happens when you press your fingers down on the strings. It will be a while before she has enough strength to make a clear sound, but for now she is enjoying "playing son's". Last night she told us "I played a son' for Effy, Pilly, Applesauce, Pineapple, Phoenix and Miles and they enjoyed it!" (these are a few of our cats).

My boss gave us a small acoustic guitar. Cassie has decided to learn to play. So another project we will be following is her efforts to learn guitar.

I am continually amazed at how musical our 4 youngest kids are. Kevin, who is now 25 years old, described music as boring and repetitive. He really did not listen to music very much. When he started hanging out with high school friends and work buddies, he went to a few concerts and happy hours, but I don't think he buys record albums.

Now Adam plays piano and guitar, self taught. And he also is taking professional guitar lessons now. Adam writes his own music and he plays it track by track and produces the songs on his computer. Some of the tracks are electronic, from his computer, and others are played by him into a microphone. He listens to a bizarre variety of music and styles, an interest he passes to his younger siblings.

Steph listens to music whenever she can. She likes songs with singing, especially female vocalists. The little kids are enthralled with all kinds of music. When we first listened to Supper"s Ready, (a 25-minute song by Genesis from their 70's era with Peter Gabriel) Eric said, "This band could wreck any song!". But now they listen to it again and again and enjoy its weirdness. Listening to music brings up such far-reaching discussions in the car.

Today Colleen will spend some time with Eric and Cassie, going over a science workbook with some doo-dads for experiments or demonstrations. Too tired to get into it last night. Last night's lesson was about mamma cat who is supposed to have kittens, but is holding on to them, refusing to give birth. The kids think they will wake to kittens, but the cat canceled the labor. This has been a handy way to teach about the obvious biological implications. Animals are a big part of our family life and our children really love and are fascinated with animals. So birthing is a big deal. Stepanie explained the process to them last night. She said she watched when Connie had her kittens, and she felt sick all day. She encouraged them to give her space and quiet. So they were content to let big sis describe the ordeal.

We agree with research that shows kids who have pets score higher in certain areas of responsibility, compassion, oh I can't remember all the research, but you get the point. Having pets is educational.

Research also shows that music makes the brain grow. Pets and music. These themes run rampant in our homeschool.

Academics: I was working so I do not know what books the children read yesterday or what worksheets or exercises they did. I spent 15 minutes helping Eric practice adding and subtracting in his head and using a trick to round the numbers to nearest ten so he can get a ballpark figure to ensure the answer makes some sense. It also helps get the answer.

Example: 23 - 11 = ?

What is 20 minus 10? Uh, ten. I didn't tell him add the ones because that makes too much sense and he learned that in books already. He is still terrible at math, so I will encourage him with success. So yeah, 20 - 10 = 10. And 23 -11 is 12.
A harder one. 33 minus 24.
30 - 20 = 10. It took a couple of tries, but Eric got that it is 9. Eventually it will click. Then he will be OK and he will be able to figure out what he needs to know. I give him little pop quizzes with easy math questions to build his confidence. At this point, a mental block is in the way and if you give him too much hard stuff, he will give up in despair. So I take it slow and look for opportunities to let him figure out easy things. He is smart, so when the block goes, his math will improve.

On Friday, Stephanie announced that she is beginning her 1-month novel project with her writing group. She has several parts, one of them being a character from the Italian renaissance. So she is now (voluntarily, and totally self directed and self motivated) studying and researching this era and associated historical and geographical issues.

She started with our home library, but we have limited books on the subject. She did read the chapter in my Western Civilization college textbook. Her next request was to go to library, but google is faster and cheaper and has more resources!

I will take her to RFK library at University of Guam and get her a friends of the library card, which last time I checked costs $60. This gives you access to the entire library, including computers and internet.

I am excited to see her studying diligently, knowing she will retain close to 100% of what she reads and learns.

She has been working on this for 4 days now. Last night she stayed in the (house) library and read and wrote until 5am. Then she got up with me at 7am to go to office and open up for our customers and to disburse paychecks for the wedding company. She works at an adult job/business in between her child/student activities.

Eric drew cartoons all day Sat and Sunday. Sunday evening he read a magazine for bird enthusiasts. He got bored pretty quickly, though, so he went back to creating and recording sound effects for his animated cartoons that he makes on his DSi.

Cassie made a few animated cartoons as well. Hers are incomprehensible as they are so artsy that they make no sense to me, but the artwork is astounding. Her drawing style is very anime, but not entirely borrowed. Much of it is hers alone. Her pics are very dramatic with emotion and action vividly portrayed. I guess we need to post some here. This blog can be our family portfolio as well as a record of their academic pursuits.

And on another note, we got some feedback on the questions I asked about the grass fire and the subsequent science lesson. One person said she would indeed go look, because that's the kind of thing that family would do, but they would not call it "school". I appreciate the response; it was not supposed to be a rhetorical question. So I don't want to sound defensive or aggressive, but the whole point is that we also do not call it school; it is what we do instead of school. In cases of schooled children, they could associate the adventure and observations with what they learned in class at school. Or they could learn it later in school and then realize it is just like what dad showed us. Either way, it is reinforced if you do an actual book study of the concepts we discussed. Or you could just do book only or just field trip only. Either way is legit as long as they learn something about the world.

In fact the word academic means having no practical value, so I am happy if most of their education is hands-on instead of academic.