We had a terrible homeschool day on the Monday before last. Bowden refused to do his math- and sat at his desk or another chair for about 6 hours. It was awful...but I expected it at some point. If you knew Bowden, you wouldn't be surprised.
I was afraid that because he threw the monster fit of the year, he would miss out on our super-fun homeschool field trip to Riley's Farms in nearby Oak Glen. We have been rereading Little House in the Big Woods, and my friend Julie lent me her new copy of Johnny Appleseed, so we were ready for some quality pioneer-times...if Bowden could finish all of the work he neglected.

This is the good thing, and the frustrating thing, about Bowden. He KNOWS this stuff. He can do it, so, once he knew that he had work to make up, and a trip to look forward to, he just did it.
Soooo.....we went! Josh took the day off, so we were all able to go together.
It started with a jamboree. See that talented man in the overalls with the bones? He's my friend Julie's husband Chris. I think that the Fourrouxs may have been misplaced in time, but I'm glad they were.
That's Mr. Riley in the center. The lady in blue has actually come up to our camp with her church and another lady from the Farm, too. They only opened their Farm up for homeschool groups, and our Idyllwild homeschoolers put in a good showing.
Little Becky Fourroux.
Bowden went up and played the washboard.
Jack played the dancing man. (He was super adorable with it.)
(see?)
After the music portion- which I was a sucker for because of the BANJO- we went to the log cabin and did chores. I was in charge of the laundry, which made me thankful for my machine, and also made me wonder how long clothes could have lasted for all that scraping.
Bowden tried his hand at it. That's Anna Fourroux giving the evil eye in the first picture of Bowden. She's actually a very sunny girl.
There were five or six girls that came back over and over again to do laundry. I heard about five or six mothers comment on how they needed to get a washtub and board for their home.
It was hot...Josh rested under an apple tree with the little boys.
Chris and his two overalled boys watched a barbershop demonstration by Anna.
Barbers can be real purty.
Bowden and Jack watered the garden together.


All of us Idyllwild people eating lunch.

After lunch, it was time to make some cider. Miles and Jack were way more interested in their Cheetos and the stream immediately behind us, so they didn't participate much.


After washing the apples in a tub of water, the kids dropped their apples in the grinder. Some body's mom had to turn the crank.

Jack and Miles, wandering the road and throwing grass in the stream.

After we pressed the cider, we went down a ways to the creek to pan for gold. That's right. Gold. It's still there. About the size of grains of sand. When and if you found any, one of the pioneer ladies would tape it to a piece of paper. Lucy showed me the one she found- "See, Momma, it's the big one right there."

Then- hay ride! I injured myself the day before, so you can enjoy my cut.

We toured the apple groves behind one of the most enthusiastic guys ever.

There he is! Riley's Farms are high elevation like us, and you can see more of the mountains rising up in front of the tractor. They have bears over there, and we don't.

Lastly was the corn-husking, cornmeal pounding time. I sat in the shade and observed from a distance. Husking corn hasn't changed much in the last couple of hundred years. We were wiped out, and we had to get our house ready for our Small Group Meeting, so we did not pick apples.

The kids were momentarily disappointed, but we all pretty much felt like Chris.

Today was our first day of homeschooling. When I told someone at church that we were starting today, and that I was nervous about it, she said as she left, "You'll be on your honeymoon!"


Whoever said this- you were right.

It was awesome. We did everything we had planned to do, and were done by eleven. I brewed tea for us, like my friend Julie Fourroux suggested, and we got down to business. I had planned on starting with math because it is Bowden least favorite subject, but I ended up reading about the fabled beginning of Britain instead, and from there, it worked itself out.


Lucy had more rough moments than my boy Bowden, who hesitated for less than a second a few times before gamely plunging into whatever I had planned. We did our reading, writing and arithmetic with some Blake poetry thrown in, a French lesson from Daddy, too, and a later nature walk and cooking class.

I'm a little scared that it went too well, and that the rest of this week is going to be less than what I'm hoping it will be.

Really, though, what can you do, but give it the best shot you can while you can, and on the days when you lag, to let it lag only so much as you have to so as to not fall apart?

I loved today. Bowden loved today. He told me that he loved all of the things we studied. Lucy, I think, will love it, when she gets used to it. Miles was some trouble, but he'll stop interrupting when I'm reading eventually, right?

I took very few pictures, because, well, we were doing school. At the end of our school time, we did our grammar work on dry erase boards, and then drew pictures.

Bowden tried out the Chinese markers my mom gave us. To sharpen them, you just peel the wood away. It's so fun, it makes you want to just peel the wood away from the whole thing.

Miles almost didn't mark his face. This picture was taken before the blue and orange made tragic missteps off of the sanctioned paper and onto the forbidden face. I think it was an accident. This time, at least.

***

Why did we make this change?

Last year was awful. Last year sucked...excuse the not-quite-profanity (Mom).

Every day we would have our crazy, energetic, smart boy come home unhappy. Every day we would have to make him go to school. Every week he would come home to a consequence for having done something wrong at school. Homework took hours. His attitude became a problem. His teacher was unhappy with him, and we weren't very happy either.

But the worst thing was when he pointed to himself in his class picture out of all the other kids, and instead of saying, "I'm at the front of the reading class!" or "I love science, " he said, "I get in trouble the most. I'm the worst kid in the class."

How long will it be before a child who hears from the people that teach and instruct him that he's bad will begin to believe that he's bad? How long will it take for him to just give up?

Bowden is not a perfect child. He's impulsive and dishonest and disobedient. He lacks self-control, and he needs to learn respect. He is a handful.

He's also super-smart. He's a crazy fast reader, and curious about everything. He has energy that overflows into the people around him, and he's sweet, and loving, and really, one of the best four things that has ever happened to me and Josh outside of our marriage and relationship with God.

The school was not on Bowden's side. His teacher could not see his attributes for his deficits, and he couldn't see them either. We prayed about what to do...like we did when we put him in school, and the home school option crossed over from the unwanted and overly difficult to the option that was best for our boy, our family, and the only possible way to do right by Bowden.

After all, the areas in which Bowden needs help are not academic. They're not social, either. They are Spirit issues- they are a matter of producing the right fruit. His teachers and school, as well-meaning as they may be, cannot give the soil of my children's lives the tending it needs- they have the wrong tools, the wrong fertilizer, and they don't even know the right seasons to plant and to reap.

Homeschooling is the best option for my chicken's growth right now. What healthy parent doesn't want what's best for their children?

Lucy, tonight, complained about the corn chowder I'd made for dinner, and was reprimanded. She slowly finished her bowl, long past everyone else was done, and as I was cleaning up she said to me, "Next time you make this dinner can we not have dessert?"

As many- or some- of you may know, I am homeschooling my two largest chickens. I have a ton and a half of reasons why we're moving from public school to home, but I'll save that for another post. I'm not starting until the twelfth of September....because I don't have to.
(This is my favorite thing about homeschooling so far. I say, "I don't have to," to about five million and a half things that annoyed me before. I don't like starting school in August? I don't have to. I don't like going to Back-to-School night? I don't have to.)

Jack-er-whack, however, began preschool on the 22nd, at the public school. We signed him up for the first five program back in April before I had decided to take Bowden and Lucy out of school, and once that decision was made, it seemed like it might be best to continue with that plan as the rest of us settle into our new arrangement.


I took him in without the chaos of seeing three children off to their new rooms, and we meandered around checking out the coolness that is pre-school, like...
....Jack's very own cubby!

....kitchen toys!

.....cars and a toy parking garage!

....a log house with people and furniture!

I know the drill, since Lucy went to this preschool two years ago. We read a few books until it was time for me to leave, and so I went, with a very happy Jack on the carpet. Most of the kids in the class are from our church, so he knew 75 percent from Sunday school already.

The strangest thing about it all is that I spend three hours with only three of my babies, and I feel lost without the third-child. I think that it will be better once I'm busy with school-stuff, but to be honest, if Jack didn't LOVE pre-school as COMPLETELY as he does- if he didn't brighten up at the idea of going to school in the morning- I would pull him out and keep him with me.

For this transition period, I think that it will be easier to have him away for those three hours, but, still....I miss the Cranksta. (He ain't a Gangsta...he's a Cransta...JACK!!!!)