We've had a long enough summer break over here. How about you?
I've decided in the last week that I need to take a break from the parent partnership program that we have been a part of for 2 1/2 years. It is nice having money for curriculum support, but the laws are changing to require more and more busy work for us with less and less funding. The kids and I are spending way too much time jumping through bureaucratic hoops than we are actually learning. So that means the system no longer works. Especially at a time where I need to be able to focus on helping Grandad with his needs. Packing up a ton of busy work workbooks to take to the hospital is not my idea of good learnin'. But tossing a nice paperback classic and a few lined notebooks and reading out loud as a group in a waiting room is much better. Plus, we look cool.
We are going to use Sonlight, which is a curriculum not supported by the PPP programs because of its non-secular views. Which is a little exasperating because although the Instructor's Guides have a Christian viewpoint, the books they use are the very same books being used in the public school (classics, Newbery award winners, etc). I understand state money not being used for the guides, but to toss out the books as well? Weird. We aren't allowed to purchase "library type books" anymore.
I thought about enrolling part time, so science, math, PE, and language arts curriculum would be supported and use my own money for history. And one would think if you were enrolled 80% full time, you would get 80% of your funds. Which would be "enrolling" for four classes instead of five. But nope! You get less than half if you enroll at 80%. For four classes instead of five. Isn't that a dirty trick? They will give me $1250 (half for kindergarten) per child if I enroll at 100% and spend a huge amount of time writing up reviews for 15 classes per month, but if I want to only write up 12 reviews, I only get $450.
Anyway, back to summer and kids and learning. This morning, S asked me what the hardest math was. I told him he will do Calculus before he is done with high school and that is the hardest for basic education. They started boasting how they already know algebra and it was so easy. "Yeah, four plus something is five. That is so easy!" I said, "What if you get something plus something equals four? Then what do you do?"
