Give Me a Break

I was ordered to put my baby back in school or the family services would take her away from us. Today at school they spent the day making a fathers day card. Yup that is right, I get threatened for them to take her away from her family so that she can spend the afternoon making a card for her Dad! Is that not the most messed up thing you have ever heard?

School Day, Again

We did it. We took baby to the school today. They were very nice and put her in the other class. It is calmer, and the teacher is on top of things. She is also our neighbor and a frequent visitor to our massage clinic when we have students, so it is better.

What we have found out about home schooling in Costa Rica. Are you ready for this? The great ah ha moment here. They have to attend first grade! Yup the quote about all I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarten? Well here it is all I ever needed to learn I learned in first grade. And they mean it.

After the student finishes the first grade you can apply to home school them. At that point they feel the student has been properly "socialized" and it is safe to take them out and educate them at home. That is if you have a "certified teacher" to teach them.

Lots of hoops to go through, of course. The deal is I feel like I have been plunged back 25 years to when we first began home schooling in the U.S. Same old restrictions, same old requirements. Retarded!

We are now figuring out the way to get around all this silliness and in the meantime baby shows up for school every day. Late, with her street clothes and flip flops on, and one notebook in her backpack. But of course her money for the little store and her sizzors, glue and colored pencils, there are priorities after all!

No Excuses

It is the technological era. Every kid knows how to use a computer. Maybe all they can do is paint, and email and chat, but they know how to use a computer to find information. In this day and age is there any excuse not to take your child out of school?

There have been so many people, literally thousands upon thousands to keep their kids out of school. They have proven that these children can and do get along quite well with their peers as well as the rest of the planet, most of the times better!

"Ah", though they say, "your children will not be socialized". Now that is enough to scare the desire right on out of you. Your thoughts turn to Edward Sizzor Hands and other really scary home schooled kids. You begin to doubt yourself and think that maybe you really are not cut out to do this and maybe the teacher that spent four years in college partying their brains out,could do a better job. After all they have a (drumroll please) CERTIFICATE!

Holy cow how can you possibly compete with that?

Ah the answer is staring you right in the face, the almighty internet.
Want an activity to do on a rainy afternoon with the kids? look here
Want a great science experiment to do with the kids? look here
Want to connect with some other desperate homeschoolers? look here


Those are just the tip of the ice berg. There are so many resources available to us that we only need take the time to look. I find homeschooling my youngers so much more fun with all the world available to us at our fingertips.

Timing

Did you know that in the morning when a child is fresh and wide awake they can read? Did you know that in the evening when they are tired and worn out they forget how to read? I should have remembered this fact when I decided that baby would show off her reading skills to her Dad. She started out all right, well she got the first three words. Then she started looking around, trying to guess her words and just basically getting tired of reading.

We just changed it to reading one page instead of two and Mom helped her out lots. It is so important that they have successful experiences and feel good about the whole reading ordeal. Believe me I have done it both ways, and the positive way is much superior to the yelling, threatening and guilting them into reading.

That is a really bad admission, but hey it is true. I have even been known to a little bop when they were learning the "ow" and "ou" sounds :)

Science

O.K. so I finally figured out where to categorize laying on the massage table for half the day being "demo-dog". It would definetly be science. Considering the fact she has already been through the 12 week massage program and remembers some of the muscles she learned, I can call it a muscle review. The only problem would be that today she fell asleep.

Baby went to afternoon school today. They were scheduled to have their Mathmatica exams. The teachers are very strict about exam week and her teacher Nina Elizabeth is having a fit that she will miss the last two days of exams. The funny part is the exam she will be missing is English. I feel pretty sure that she has that subject down pretty good.

You never know though. Teenager went to a private school here in CR when we first moved here. She got a bad grade in English because the teacher was saying things wrong and she corrected her. NO, NO! My other daughter was working at a online business and she got five points off her evaluation because of her accent LOL! Once she explained that she was Gringa they apologized and fixed it.

I have decided once babies teacher takes off to have her baby we will be done. Baby has excellent Spanish now and can play with other kids fine. She has also developed other interests to keep her busy at home. We have cut her down to only one hour of t.v. a day, and it is amazing to see how her imagination has just blossomed. I am very pleased to see her expanding her art skills and spending hours making pictures for people and friends. She also spends hours playing with her puppy.

Yeah I think she will be fine at home with her old boring parents. We will be spending a few days at the beach this week and she loves that. Both girls really enjoy getting out of town, in a car even, and hanging out at the beach for a couple of days. We are all ready to get back to the mountains after a couple of days and cool off, but it is a nice break.