One thing that I like about working from home is that my very able husband is able to step in and help out when things get crazy for me. This past week I’ve been sick with a very stubborn cold. Speaking was very difficult because of my sore throat, so Super Partner jumped in and made my research phone calls for me while I worked on getting better.
My girls (junior business partners) kept their little brother occupied so that I could rest while their daddy made the phone calls. And keeping Michael busy can be quite a challenge. But they met it solidly and quite creatively. I bet you didn’t know that pillows can make wonderful stair sleds. I know I didn’t until I saw it for myself.
Of all the place that I’ve worked before, I’ve never had such a supportive group of “co-workers” as I find in my own family. I just wanted to share my good fortune with the rest of you. Just another perk about working from home.
Hey, just wanted to give everybody a heads up on a great deal over at TOS for May 25th & 26th. They are running a subscription promotion that is too good to pass up. If you subscribe to the TOS Magazine for one year you’ll also get to pick up 5 WeE-books for free! And to top off this great deal, they are also reducing their subscription price to $15 (regularly $25/yr.).
Now in case you’re wondering about the WeE-books deal, let me tell you my experience. The coolest aspect of these publications is that they are short, to the point and stuffed with useful information. I’ve done a few reviews on the ones that interested me and my family. You can check out my reviews of Fundraising, On the Wings of a Butterfly, and Work at Home in earlier blogs.
Anyway, don’t waste time reading this — you need to hit this sale before it ends on Tuesday, May 26th at midnight.
Teaching my first daughter how to read was a breeze. I just read to her on a regular basis, used the Scholastic Reading Program, Leap Frog videos and a bit of whimsy and she got it. My second daughter is having a more difficult time with reading. I think part of it is because she thinks that once she can read on her own she won’t be read to anymore. Another reason probably has to do with her little brother. Although she’s never been actively jealous of him, she may not be ready to fully transition to being a big girl.
The cyberschool program that she’s been in this past year has helped, but she’s still not fluent yet. So, I’ve just been weighing options. Alaya is an “independent” learner. Independent in her case means she wants to tell me what she’s learned, not have me ask her questions or apply any type of pressure. (I shudder to imagine her as a teenager – lol!) Where Jade would sit there and try to figure out the words as I read, Alaya is happier contemplating the pictures or looking into the air (I guess she’s imagining the story in her head).
So far I’ve come up with the idea of having her working on the computer using programs like Starfall, IKnowThat and Click N Kids. Starfall has a really great section for blending the sounds together, which is all that’s holding Ms. Alaya back from reading. She’s known her phonics forever, but she’s not inclined to actually use them to sound out the words. And this is a website that she actually enjoys playing on.
Now, IKnowThat is an all around great place for kids. They have online games that start at the preschool level and go up to the sixth grade. It’s a great resource for math games, history, language arts, etc. Since her big sister, Jade, is a frequent user she’s familiar with the format and likes the games. And she will also be learning things that I haven’t taught her, so that should keep her happy too. They also have an optional subscription ($49.95/yr.) that removes all the advertising and gives you access to another kid’s club, but my kids are happy with the free offerings, so who am I to argue?
ClickNKids is a paid learn to read service, but it has some excellent features that take the sting out of the price. The cost is $59.85 and can be paid in 3 installments of $19.95. This is the option I chose. But, this is a lifetime subscription for my family. So once Alaya finishes with the program I can just plug Michael in without any extra fees. And once Michael is finished I can transfer it to a friend or family member who is teaching their children. And there’s no transfer fee. So, in light of all the other money I’ve spent over the years for curriculum for the kids, this is a great deal! You can visit ClickN READ Phonics learning to read website for more information on their guarantees and other perks.
I’m hoping that these three programs will give her the independent playing level that she is comfortable with in her learning process. In addition to this I’m making a point of reading to her every night and taking a more relaxed approach. I’m also scrounging around for the missing CDs/books that came with my Scholastic Reading Program package. And she’s starting to respond positively to the attention, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
You know, sometimes quoting that great philosopher, Bugs Bunny
“A Rabbit’s gotta do what a Rabbit’s gotta do!”
And that’s even more true if you’re a busy mom, wife, homeschooler, virtual assistant, friend, sister and daughter. Although my primary personality is blue I do have a lot of yellow mixed in there. And that’s when the trouble starts! I don’t like to see people suffer. I try to help people as much as I can to reach their dreams and work out their problems. I try to spend time with them and make sure that everyone is okay. And it’s killing me.
You see, all the of the things I’ve described above are wonderful things to do. My problem is that I get so wrapped up in doing those things for others that I don’t get to do the things that I need to do in order to be productive and happy. My children don’t get to spend the amount of time that they want to spend with me because I’m on the telephone counseling others. My business doesn’t get the advertising and marketing that it needs to get because I’m helping someone else work on their business for free. I use all the productive daytime hours fooling around with everybody else’s stuff and then I’m too exhausted for my own.
And then I (stupidly!) added on the burden of cyberschooling this past year thinking maybe I was wrong to want to bail out before. So there are a whole bunch of artificial deadlines and paperwork that is hindering my families enjoyment of learning, so that’s got to go too! I really love their instructional supervisor, but I just can’t do it anymore. I love traditional homeschooling and so that’s what I’m going to do. No more experiments!
So, now I’m having my own quiet civil war. I am going to free myself from the shackles of “Try and the Save the World” syndrome and work on building my family life and business to a level that I find acceptable and fulfilling. I’m not going to abandon my friends and relatives, but I’m also not going to be their free therapist any longer. For conversations that require more than 30 minutes of my time, especially ones that are repetitious (e.g., “oh how could he/she/it do this to me?”) and circular I’m thinking of getting a phone list of some good therapists in the area.
I’ve allowed these folks to waste my time because I was too busy trying to be nice and help. But I’ve been noticing that for all the favors they ask of me, they don’t reciprocate much. I even had one young lady call me on Mother’s Day to complain “how could my husband leave me?”– mind you this is the same conversation we’ve been having for 6 weeks already — he left her in March! AAAAAH!
Whether in your business or family life we teach people how to treat us. And I’ve taught these folks to waste my time and sap my energy on their problems. So, now I’m going to teach them about independence and the need to value my time more. I’m sure that some will find this process painful, but they’ll be the better for it. And so will I!
Well I’ve gone and finally done it. After two years of fighting with myself over the cyberschool issue, I’m now free! Free from artificial deadlines, stress and other things that have just made homeschooling no fun.
So now I’m enjoying the process of finding materials to use with my girls for next year. So far I’ve invested in Math Mammoth, some board games (Kismet/Spill & Spell, Predicting Outcomes, Geography games, etc.) I’m going to use Susan Wise’s history series “The Story of the World”. The only thing I’m lacking (so far) is science, but I guess I’ll figure that out along the way. I’m actually thinking of teaching cooking as a science course. I have this book that I picked up called “The Art, Techniques, and Science of Good Cooking — The New Making of a Cook” by Madeline Kamman.
Since my family enjoys following the Bible in One Year program, so we’ll continue doing that. The kids like drawing pictures about the points that stand out for them in the reading. And drawing keeps Michael quiet for about 10 minutes … on a good day, anyway (lol!). And that counts towards art. We’ll be doing creative writing, pen pals, blogging and other things to strengthen their writing skills. I like the Art of Eloquence programs (especially FIMM!) so that coupled with the many homeschool freebies available should have us well-rounded.
If anyone has any suggestions on curriculum, please let me know. And I’ll be sharing my opinion and experiences about cyberschooling with you all (once I have a free moment to write it!) Until then Happy Homeschooling!
You know, we moms are a resourceful bunch. As I’m doing research for my website, I keep running into more and more women who are changing the face of mompreneurs everywhere. With the advent of Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media we are breaking new ground and inspiring other moms to use their natural assets to help bring money into the house while taking care of our families. Yeah!
One of these “mom-driven” resources is a search engine called Mamapedia. It’s made for moms created by moms. It was created two years ago as a compilation of parenting questions that they gleaned from local and online Mamasources. These intrepid women indexed their questions and made the answers available in the form of a search engine. And best of all, a free Mamapedia membership allows you to not only post your most puzzling parenting questions, but to respond to other moms’ questions as well!
I think this is a great feature because the question database will only get more comprehensive as each mom adds their two cents to things such as picky eaters, potty training, juggling work and home life, are love notes given in 2nd grade a cause for concern? and a bunch more. So, if you’ve ever had a parenting question or learned a great lesson that other moms could benefit from, you really need to visit Mamapedia today!
Today is bittersweet for me. Today is the release of the final book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. I can’t wait to find out how Percy’s prophecy will affect his quest to save the world. I mean, our lives hang in the balance so it’s kind of important.
But as excited and happy I am to listen to the story, I am saddened because we it seems that this will be the last time we’ll catch a glimpse of the realities that half-bloods face everyday. I mean, that big hairy guy you’re sitting next to on the train just might be a cyclops or other monster from Greek mythology. It’s just a good thing that we mortals are pretty much uninteresting to these beasts — the subways of New York are savage enough without adding man-eating monsters.
Speaking of New York City, Mr. Riordan, Chief Scribe of Camp Half-blood, explains that Olympus follows the pinnacle of Western Civilization, and right now is located on the top of the Empire State Building in NYC. Zeus wears a pinstripe suit, Ares is garbed as a Hell’s Angel motorcyclist, and Hera is dressed like Donna Reed or the mom in “Leave It to Beaver”. Artemis is a feminist, Hades is an overworked bureaucrat and the list goes on. Being a Greek mythology aficionado, it’s very entertaining seeing these ancient Gods hanging out in the Big Apple having parties on the top of the Empire State Building. I mean, Hermes jogging around in his running suit with his caduceus (disguised as a cell phone) drinking Coca-Cola isn’t exactly the traditional way of thinking about the ancient ones.
There are six books in the series:
“The Lightning Thief”
“The Sea of Monsters”
“The Titan’s Curse”
“Battle of the Labyrinth”
Percy Jackson: The Demigod Files”
And the final book, which was released today:
“The Last Olympian”
There is also a companion book called:
“Demigods and Monsters: Your Favorite Authors on Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series”
I haven’t “read” that one yet since it’s not an audiobook so I’ll have to read it the traditional way.
The basic premise of the story is that Percy Jackson is an undiscovered demigod that has been accused of stealing Zeus’ master bolt. Hades has sent his minions after Percy, Zeus wants him dead and there’s a third, unknown party that is also in the mix.
Percy doesn’t know about any of this. He’s just struggling through his class work, trying not to get expelled and trying to figure out why he doesn’t fit in anywhere. Then one terrifying night everything changes and Percy must quickly get up to speed on the “real” world of Olympian intrigue, betrayal, friendship and powers he never knew he possessed, before the Olympian gods kill him.
Obviously Percy survives and each book builds upon the events in “The Lightning Thief.” We learn more about the demigod world and the treacherous plans of the unknown instigator behind most of Percy’s troubles.
*********
Before going any further, I want to give a rousing applause to his alter audio ego, Jesse Bernstein. Jesse Bernstein is the perfect narrator for this series. He captures the youth, the wonder and essence of Percy Jackson, an unlikely key to the survival of the Olympians. Each of his characterizations is well planned and executed.
If you’ve listened to many audiobooks, you’ll understand that some narrators are very dry, can’t keep their characters voices consistent and make the book uninteresting. Sometimes, I’ve even had to stop listening to the audiobook and just go to the library and finish the novel myself because the reader was just that bad!
But Jesse is a delightful reader and I wish him well in the rest of his audiobook career.
**********
Enough about the alter ego, let’s start singing the praise of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson. The thing that I liked right away about Percy is his complete candor and lack of artifice. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, and when you meet some of the other demigods you’ll see why this is so refreshing. His mom is really cool – I want to be just like her when my kids are teenagers. She is willing to accept Percy for who he is – she disciplined him, advised him and set a good example—but ultimately she trusts him to do the right thing. Sometimes trusting that our kids have what it takes is the hardest job of all.
My husband, up until the past few weeks, thought that we (the girls and I) were a little nutty because of our enthusiasm for the series. But has actually become a bigger fan than we are! He’s currently up to “The Battle of the Labyrinth” and has decided that aside from Percy, his favorite character is Chiron, the Centaur Teacher of Heroes. He’s credited Chiron for teaching him how to be a mentor to his eldest daughter, who was making him just a tad bit crazy with her decisions of late. So now when he’s ready to blow he asks himself, “What would Chiron do?” So far it’s been working, so I’ll leave it at that.
My girls love Percy because he’s funny. One of the things that makes him such an entertaining character is that he comes across as a real person; a really funny person. One example of this is when he’s fighting the Chimera and has to jump out of a window from a great height. He doesn’t try to fix it up that he’s a brave guy – he reports that as he fell the only thing that he was thinking was “AAAAAAAH!” They also enjoy the internal disputes amongst the demigod camp (which is located on Long Island, don’t you know?) and the Olympian Gods. The personalities are very vivid and it’s easy to get caught up in their world.
**********
The series is very enjoyable and has enough real life in it to make it an
excellent jumping point for discussions on loyalty, love and friendship. Rick Riordan has also created a curriculum guide for those who want to do a unit study on his book, “The Lightning Thief” or Greek mythology. Rick was a teacher before he became a novelist, so he also includes his favorite mythological sources. It’s a free download. You can also find a teachers’ guide to “The Titan’s Curse”, some videos and other cool learning activities submitted by teachers and students who also love Percy.
You can read all about Rick Riordan, Percy’s world and his other book series (children and adult) in the works. I was especially touched to read how his two son’s interests and struggles helped shape Percy Jackson’s world. I guess, as parents, we need to let ourselves be inspired by our children just as much as we strive to inspire them to be the best that they can be. Thanks guys for getting your dad to write this series!
All hail Percy Jackson and the Olympians!
P.S. I’ve found one consolation. I can now get fully absorbed in his new 10 book collaborative series called The 39 Clues. And if you like your kids playing educational video games, they definitely should visit the 39 Clues game website that ties in with the books.
I'm a homeschooling mom with seven children: 3 human, 2 feline and 2 canine. I'm also the wife of one very patient husband who seems to like the role of ringmaster to our circus. I am a virtual assistant who enjoys writing, crafts, music and laughter. I hope you'll visit often. Please be aware that this blog is supported by affiliate links, although every link isn't necessarily an affiliate program.
