A New Year

This summer was kind of a blur.  Some fun things, like lots of time in the pool and a few visits from family members from afar. 

(My mom and my younger sister)

Some not so fun things, one friend moving away, another friend in a horrible car accident (be praying for Debbie), and also a mini mental health flip out/break down by me.  (I may or may not tell you details, but I am thinking my feelings/reasons are probably fairly common among middle aged mothers)

Then, on July 31st, L-girl started her junior year in the local public high school.

This same week, D-man left to spend a week in Washington D.C. for a conference and then on  August 8th, moved back to his apartment on campus.

On August 10th, L-girl and A-man left for a 3 day leadership retreat.

On August 11th, we moved A-girl onto her campus - not the same one as D-man.

 It was very strange not to have the whole gang there to move her in and say goodbye...and somehow with less people there, I still managed to forget to get a picture of she and I.  (Oops.)  The drive home was even weirder with only 2 kids.  We were like a "normal" family driving down the road in our mini van!

We are down to a 4 kid household and let me tell you it feels very strange.  It is very quiet.  Even though the two oldest are not exactly our wildest/loudest children.  Somehow their absence makes it very, very quiet around here. 

We started our homeschool year yesterday.  We still have three doing school at home.  (I will be honest, I would like to continue homeschooling through high school.  I suspect I am going to be outvoted though.)

Rainman and I are doing things a bit differently this year and I think it is going to work out well.  We have actually divided the subjects, so he will officially teach/be in charge of some and I will officially teach/be in charge of some.  We didn't do a good job of co-teaching/communicating last year and things got lost in the shuffle.  His work schedule has changed in that he is off most Mondays and Tuesdays and most of his other shifts are from noon to 8 p.m. so he will have plenty of time to teach.  He does work a few 7 to 7 shifts, but, I don't think that will mess things up too much.

I am actually excited for the school year.  I think it is fairly rare in the homeschooling realm to have a husband/dad that actually wants to teach and be involved in the day to day things connected with our school.  Rainman has gotten more and more interested and involved every year.  But, what I think has happened in the last few years is that I have felt a little pushed aside by his interest and his own excitement to teach.  He is the kind of person that jumps in with both feet and doesn't test the waters.  So, he ended up jumping past me and took off swimming with the kids at his side, while I was still carefully hanging onto the railings and climbing into the water.  They unintentionally left me behind.

I mean, I was still involved, but it was more often than not having work delegated and assigned to me by Rainman.  Like, "Make sure they read this chapter."  "Here is the science quiz."  "Study the capitals with them before they take the test."   If you know me at all, you know I really don't like people telling me what to do....even if I am married to that person.  Or maybe I should say, especially if I am married to that person!  Ha!

Gone were the days of me  designing our days and taking off for a fun field trip to get donuts or popsicles, just because I felt like it or something meshed with my lesson plans.  Instead, I spent quite a bit of time just waiting for someone to need me and then when they did, having to catch up and figure out what they had been working on with Rainman because I wasn't as involved in the nitty gritty details of what they were learning.  Kind of hard to explain.

But, anyway this year, we are splitting the course work.  We are each creating our own lesson plans for the kids.  I will still have to see how I can work on the spontaneous field trips that won't interfere with Rainman's  school day plans.  But, I am more excited for this year of school than I have been for quite a while.  I am hoping that our two approaches and teaching styles will help our kids become even more well rounded in their education.  We shall see, I guess.

Lest L-Girl Be Forgotten

L-girl also had an April birthday, amidst all my doctor's appointments last month.

We have the no cell phones until you are 16 (and can pay for it yourself rule) and we also have the no devices like iPods until you are 14 rule.  Here is A-girl showing L-girl all the ins and outs of her new to her iPod in the wee, small hours of the morning.

L-girl was also stuck me me for her birthday lunch this year.

I have to put this one in here because it makes me laugh.  We took pictures across from each other at the restaurant where L-girl likes to order fried green tomatoes (Yup...we live in the south now)  Anyway, she took this picture and said to me, "Umm.....maybe you should put your arms down and behind you, or something."

Don't my arms and hands look huge?  I am sure it is partly a perspective thing....and partly real life.  Reminds me of "man hands" from Seinfeld.

Anyway, I complied and put my arms down and it looked much better.

These pretty flowers were along the street by the restaurant.

We stopped and surprised a friend from church who is L-girl's birthday twin.

We opened gifts.

J-girl works at a local monogram store, so my girls have been in heaven with their gifts!

Rainman and I got her a new tennis skirt and a beauty box, since she loves to experiment with make-up and watches countless make-up tutorials.

L-girl has been my biggest challenge in finding a traditional birthday "cake" that she gets excited about and loves.  We have tried and rejected many cakes (she just doesn't have much of a sweet tooth).  She have tried a few fruit type pies.  They were okay.

This year, I think I may have hit on a winner though.  She loves Jell-o.  Her favorites are orange and raspberry, so I tried to do a fancy layered Jell-o pie.  My layers didn't really stay separate the way they should have, but it was a hit anyway.  I think I know what I did wrong, so next year, hopefully my layers will be separate and pretty.

Happy Birthday, my beautiful 14 year old.

Standard Deviants - Review

Wow....was this a fantastic program to review!  It is called Standard Deviants Accelerate.



We got to try out an annual subscription to  Standard Deviants Accelerate homeschool courses.

Here is the simple list of the courses that they have available:

Arithmetic - Grades 3+
Fundamental Math - Grades 4+
Earth Science - Grades 6+
Nutrition - Grades 6+
Algebra - Grades 7+
Biology - Grades 7+
Chemistry - Grades 9+
English Comp. - Grades 9+
U.S. History - Grades 9+
AP Biology - Grades 11+
AP Chemistry - Grades 11+
AP U.S. Government & Politics - Grades 11+
AP U.S. History - Grades 11+
AP Eng. Composition - Grades 11+

But, the simpleness is deceiving.  Did you notice that they have coursework for grades 3 through 12?  And, really, a grown up could use these courses too.

This is a totally on-line course.  Yes, I will usually say I am not totally in love with my kids doing too much of their school while staring at a screen.  But, I have to say, this one felt different.  It didn't bother me that it was video based. 


The actual teaching "style" is also quirky and different.  They joke around.  They use more than one "teacher".  They use visual aids/graphics.  Take a look at this short clip to get an idea for the "quirky" style that I sort of love......

One slightly different aspect to this video aspect is that next to the video clip is the total transcript of the script of what they are saying in the video.  So, if you child learns better by reading, or any combination of listening, seeing, and hearing, Standard  Deviants Accelerate has got your back. The information is in digestible chunks that won't overwhelm you.



Primarily, L-girl was my guinea pig for this one.  She started out with the Algebra course....which in our homeschool, she hasn't quite officially started yet.  Quite honestly, Rainman and I had a disagreement about whether we felt she was ready to dip her toes into upper level (hard) math.  Rainman didn't want to push her and scare her off, or give her the idea that she wasn't smart enough.  I, on the other hand, thought she would enjoy the challenge and the ego boost she would get by doing hard math a little bit earlier than D-man and A-girl did.


We were both a little bit right on this one.  When she first started out, it was a little rough.  She just kind of shrugged when I asked her about the lessons and mumbled something  like, "Yeah, I sort of get it."  She was scoring in the low 70s on her quizzes....which, for her, is very low.

But, I asked her to commit to sticking with Standard Deviants Accelerate, at least for the review period.....and to not worry about it....this was just an experiment. 

She ended up doing a lesson everyday, rather than just the suggested 3 days a week. (that was the part I was right - she was challenged and didn't want to admit defeat!)  I saw a big difference by the time she was done.  I sat through a lesson or two to really watch and see what they were like and how she responded.

I saw her wheels turning, connections being made and just generally getting a better handle on how Algebra works.

The times I sat by her side and listened to a lesson too, I felt my own brain grinding back to life.  After a lesson on x,y intercepts and slope value, I turned to L-girl and said, "You know what?  I understood that!  There were lots of steps to figure it out, but.....I got it!"


(In the bottom right graphic, it shows the progress report that I can see on all my students to see how they are doing.  The example is more for a normal school setting, but what I see is similar....just a lot less kids!)

Each lesson has 5 components:

Video clip (these last 5-10 minutes, have the scrolling script alongside the video, you can pause and play whenever you want, and take notes to save in your "locker".....actually, you can just copy and paste right from the transcript too, if you are feeling a little lazy)

Vocab - just what is says covers the vocabulary used in the lesson

Diagram - which is an activity section tied in with the lesson

Quiz - which is graded in real time

Written answer - This is the only part of this that I have to grade the work myself.  They do help out by giving me a rubric to follow, so I am not just flying blind.

Before we started, I attended an on-line Webinar that explained how to set up classes for one or more of my kids, how the student would access stuff, how they took notes and saved them in their locker, and just in general how their whole program works.    I liked it because even though I had already clicked around on their website, I still wasn't quite sure how everything worked.  They explained things really clearly and I was able to ask specific questions related to K-girl and get answers.

The webinar I attended was for a group of us moms/teacher.  But, here is a tutorial for how their student accounts work.  They explained things so well to me, that I was able to turn around and explain it to L-girl, but this would have come in handy if I hadn't had time for the webinar.

Standard Deviants really had super customer support.  They were open to questions during the webinar, we were encouraged to contact them if we had any issues or questions.  It seemed genuine too.  They seemed legitimately excited that we were going to try out Standard Deviants Accelerate with our kids.  Like, they were excited and knew that we were going to love it.  That kind of excited.

They were right.  We did love it.  It was a really nice addition to our normal math.  But, we could have just used it as our actual curriculum.

In addition to L-girl working through Standard Deviants Algebra for 7th grade, I also had D-man take a look at their AP US History course.  He is taking that at his school this year and a friend of his who had graduated a few years ago, recommended that he supplement the course a bit to make sure he did great when he took the AP exam at the end of the year.  I have an AP US History book that he could have used too, but he opted to try out the Standard Deviants Accelerate video course.

He has only just taken a quick look at a few lessons, but liked them.  He thought they were funny and said that they covered slightly  different things than his textbook at school was covering, and went into more detail in others.  So, he is going to keep checking in on this course through the year and I suspect do a bit of cramming when the end of the year AP exam comes around.  (Can't really blame him...I did a bit of cramming in my day too....but my only option back then was textbooks.)

Overall, this is a really awesome course.

L-girl will continue with her Algebra.  D-man will brush up on his AP US History.  The other possible combinations of kids and courses are almost infinite

Not sure if this is something that will work at your house?  You can sign up for a free 6 month trial before you make up your mind.

When you are ready to give Standard Deviants Accelerate in all their quirky goodness a try, the classes are each $99 for the year or $24.95 per month for each student. The AP classes are $14.95 per month per student.

All the TOS reviewers got to choose whatever class/classes they wanted to, so take a look and see what they tried, and what they thought about Standard Deviants Accelerate.  

Goings On.....Summer 2014....Part 2

When we got back from our road trip up north, it was time to start school.  Literally, like, the next day.

This year, D-man and A-girl are both attending the local college prep high school that was started by homeschoolers.  The beauty of this school to me, is two-fold:  They only attend class 2-3 times a week (so I still get to see them a lot!), and it is a college prep school (hard classes with high expectations!).

D-man....11th grade......ignoring the woman who got up early and made him a hot breakfast for the first day of school, saying hello (and, I am sure, other mushy things) to J-girl on her first day back to school too.  (They don't attend the same school.....poor things.)

A-girl with her slightly nervous grin.....9th grade.

See?  She can look at the woman who got up early to make her a hot breakfast on the first day of school!

Off they went.....with their huge backpacks!

I had originally planned on starting our home school students on the same day....but we got home late Saturday night/early Sunday morning....Sunday was my birthday.....and I am just not that organized....so the other 4 got another week of summer break.  Really though, considering A-girl and D-man started school on August 4th, the other kids still started earlier than a lot of people!

Rainman was off on Monday, so we could co-teach on the first day of school.

L-girl, as usual, was very self-sufficient and hit the books hard while I was still sipping my coffee!

L-girl.....7th grade.

Look at her little coffee cup all full of freshly sharpened pencils!  Love this girl!

A-man....4th grade.

 

Captain America t-shirt made by L-girl for him.  Nice fake smile for me, dude!

 

 S-girl....2nd grade.

Must be the day for crazy smiles or something.....

And, you may have seen a preview of this in some of my other pictures....

V-girl.....

Yes, she started Kindergarten this year....how can that possibly be?  I also realize it is time to change her (and the other kids') picture on my sidebar...she is not really my baby anymore, is she?!?

 

I just love their diligent little faces as they do their school work.  

We have some days that don't go as well as others, but on the days that do go well....man, there is nothing like it.  

I still love, love, love that we can homeschool.  I love that I get to spend lots and lots of time with all 6 of my kids.  I really do.  I can't explain it to people.  

I love that I get to hug and snuggle with them during school hours, just because.....or, because they are struggling with reading or writing or arithmetic.  We snuggle.  We wipe away tears.  We try again, until we get it!

I love it.  I really do.

What Northerners Don't Understand About Porch Swings

When I lived in Minnesota, I didn't know anyone who had a porch swing.

I did know a few lucky people who had screened in porches.

But, nobody with a porch swing.

I suppose it could be because being outdoors in Minnesota is not always the most pleasant undertaking. One time of the year it is because of the snow and ice and the rest of the year it is because of......mosquitoes.

I did know a few lucky people who had screened in porches, and a few people that had wooden free standing swings out in their yards. My parents actually got one of those when I was in high school.

But, the northern version of these outdoor, grown up, swings were big chunky, log type structures.  Very at home in the woods and lakes of Minnesota.  In theory, they are a fantastic idea.



But, here, in the south, they have porch swings.

Smaller, delicate grown up swings, that hang from chains.....not logs.

Honestly, I remember seeing porch swings in movies and t.v. shows, like The Andy Griffith show, and having romantic visions of sitting out there with a sweetheart, holding hands, exchanging a few smooches.  Maybe even receiving a wedding proposal while swinging....he would drop down to one knee in front of me........

My mind was equally divided between thinking having a porch swing would be magical.....and, how unrealistic it was for people to actually sit on their porches in the spring and summer time....drinking mint juleps, or whatever unrealistic southern people drink.  (For the record, I have now learned that they would be drinking sweet tea or Coke....not mint juleps.)

Unrealistic.

Ridiculous, even.

Again, I plead mosquitoes.  If you have never lived in Minnesota, you don't understand.  The thought of sitting on my porch swing with that special buzz in my ears and slapping my shiny skin, that smells like Off, didn't sound appealing.

The idea, however, of  having a porch swing was magical.

But, I thought it was a kind of T.V. magic......unrealistic.  You know the kind of T.V. magic, where people don't lock their doors and nobody wakes up with morning breath, smudged mascara, creases in their face, or crazy unibomber hair.

Yes, unrealistic T.V. magic.

A pipe dream.

When we first moved to Georgia, we had a pool.  We even had a screened in porch. But, no porch swing.

At our new house, we have NO pool, but we do have a porch swing.

When we made the offer for the house, I actually asked for it to be included in the sale of the house.   They agreed.

Let me tell you, what I have discovered at our new house.

I was right.

Porch swings are magical.

T.V. magic is sometimes.....real.

Porch swings are wonderful and peaceful.

I love it.

I sneak out there when I need a moment away from the chaos inside our home.

I sit out there, balance my coffee on the porch railing, and read a book.

I watch the deer across the street.

I feel the breeze blow.

I watch the squirrels chase each other.

Sometimes, I just......swing.  I don't do anything.  I don't think deep thoughts.  I just....swing.

I have to admit that most of the time, I prefer to sit alone on the swing because then I can control the speed and frequency of the actual swinging (goodbye romantic notions of my teen years).

I will be sitting on the swing and eventually, a kid or two will find me and plop down in the chairs we have out there, and just chat with me.....if more than 2 kids show up, I scootch over and share the swing.

I love it....even if my initial reason for being on the porch was to sneak away from chaos.

When my mother-in-law was staying with us recently (recovering from falling and breaking her pelvis)....our porch was just one small step down, so she could come sit and get some fresh air everyday.

Life just slowed down.

We just sat.

Sometimes we talked.

Sometimes we would just sit and wait/hope for the leaves to move so we could feel the breeze.

D-man sits out there with J-girl.  They face each other and chat, one leg under them and one leg dangling over the edge, slowly pushing the swing.

L-girl now uses it to get away for some quiet reading time.

When this little guy was visiting us.....

I took him out the porch swing and sat with him.....just sat......he took turns looking at the leaves and looking into my face to make sure I was an okay person for him to trust....while I just slowly swung back and forth assuring him that I loved him and he was safe.....until he believed me and snuggled in and fell asleep.

Magical, I tell you.

We are getting to the point, weather-wise, that it is hard to sit outside....even in the shade......during the daytime hours.

But, I have discovered I like to sit out there as the sun is setting and watch the lightning bugs flashing in the yard.....sometimes that is peaceful and other times it is chaotic, because my littles are scurrying around trying to catch the lightning bugs to use as nightlights in their bedrooms.  Either way.....I am happy.

I have learned that the south might have bigger, scarier looking bugs than Minnesota.  But, the mosquitoes here are NOTHING compared to Minnesota.  I have never had the feeling  that I was being eaten alive like I did in Minnesota.

So, we sit out there at dusk.

We sit out there at night.

We sit out there in the morning.

In the fall and winter, I will once again, sit out there during normal business hours. 

Last winter, I  just took a little lap blanket and a cup of tea - sort of like a little old lady - I know.  But, it was cozy and relaxing.

It just slows down my life.

I fit on it sideways, so I can lounge with my feet up and watch the trees.  I need a pillow to do that for long periods of time though....the chain sort of digs into my back.

I have made one small change to make me love my porch swing even more....

I just need some cute and comfy pillows and it will be just about perfect.

The magic is real.

Northerners can't possibly understand how magical having a good, old fashioned, porch swing can be.

Honestly, they can't.

There are just too many mosquitoes up there.

The End of Birthday Palooza - L-Girl's Birthday!

Yes, I realize it is almost June and I am just posting the last of my April birthdays.

Homeschoolers get busy at this time of year too!

L-girl turned 12 this year.

She too, picked me for her special birthday meal.  She has inherited her mother's love of Chinese cuisine, so we tried out a new place together.....and I forgot to have someone snap a picture of us on our way out!

Too bad, because we looked really good.   Chaos around here sometimes, I tell you.

Her food was better than mine, which is only fair, since it was her birthday!  We both got fortunes that made us smile.  We are both still a bit peeved that we didn't get our promised egg roll.  But, overall,  it was a good day.

We came home and she got to open presents.

V-girl went out on a limb this time and shopped in her own closet (rather than off the floor) this time and gave L-girl the step stool she uses to get her clothes down.  That girl just cracks me up!

Tried and true gift from A-man (the same thing he got for A-girl)....One Direction trading cards.

A-girl helped add to her One Direction trading cards and got her a drinking cup (that I steal as often as I can)!

Somehow D-man and S-girl escaped pictures this time around.  In case you can't guess, birthday present opening time can get a little chaotic!  Usually, I am a fanatic about  making sure I get pictures of each of them, so I am not sure what happened this time around.

So, I will just include recent pictures of them with L-girl to document the approximate time of her birthday.

Here she is at D-man's graduation from a youth leadership program in our county.

Here she is with S-girl, at the Cinderella viewing party, in the room we have ready for Grandma.

If you remember, at A-girl's birthday this year, she and L-girl got a one joint gift to open on A-girl's birthday, and the other would be opened on L-girl's birthday.

This second gift came in a big box that had been tormenting them for weeks.

What is it????

A dress form!

It has a stand and everything.  They were so excited....and, honestly, I was super excited to give it to them. It cost more than I would usually spend on their gifts, but after seeing what they could do with swimwear and all the other cute skirts and dresses they have made, I knew it would be used.

(Coming soon:  A Micro Business sewing custom clothing!  They are just trying to work out the details.  I am so excited for them.)

Now, L-girl's birthday being so close to Easter this year, we ended up waiting awhile(honestly, it was like 2 weeks) to have her cake....poor thing.  But, she did get it....and it had fruit....so she was happy!

Happy birthday, my sweet, sweet, L-girl!

Something I Never Imagined I Would Say

My Kindle thumb is nicely recovered, thank you.  I took the weekend off of reading and finished painting my living room.

Pictures to come....if I can get my newly found camera to cooperate!

Anyway, L-girl, when she was showing me how to use my friend's Kindle, rediscovered our hand me down Kindle that we have used for a school reading assignments, but, my friend had left it stocked with books that they had read, noticed that The Hunger Games was on there.  She asked if she could read it.

Since I have read the whole series and found them fascinating, entertaining, and disturbing, I had to think about it a bit.  We talked about it.  I told her there was some really disturbing parts and kids, her age, were killed and it was treated as sport and like it was no big deal.  But, I ultimately decided she could read it.  (I look forward to our discussions after she has read it.  D-man and I had some great ones!)

So, she started reading during our travel time to Minnesota too.  Then, when we got back, she had schoolwork to catch up on, then left for a church  retreat.  She got back Sunday evening.  The kids and I snuggled up and watched a Hallmark movie. Then she decided to go read a bit.  I stayed up and watched a What Not To Wear episode (more on my reasons for that in another post). 

So, after I learned how NOT to dress, I went in to see her asleep with the Kindle and its little reading light dealie on and open right next to her.  Her hair was all flopped over her face.  She was all slumped over and curled up.

Here is where I said something I just never imagined coming out of my mouth.

I said, "Turn that book off and go to bed."

Off.

I told her to turn the book off.

I find it funny....but also a little sad that it wasn't just a "shut the book and go to bed", you know?

Homeschool Spanish Academy

This is a review.

This apparently is the year for me and my kids to try live, on-line classes.  First, MacPhail music lessons and now, Spanish lessons.



We got to try out a half semester of classes - which is seven, 25 minute live lessons through Homeschool Spanish Academy.  Their How It Works section on their website is super helpful, but I am going to walk you through how it worked for us. 

L-girl was the lucky one selected to try this curriculum. Obviously, they have different age ranges (Early Language, Middle School, High School and Adult) We are using the Early Language Program for ages 9-12.  These lessons are 25 minutes long....the upper level classes are 50 minutes long.



To make sure this would work with our system, we did the background work of using www.speedtest.net and then a representative from Homeschool Spanish Academy contacted us and walked us through a few things on our computer to make sure our system would work.  He also contacted us via Skype to ensure there weren't any reception problems there either.

Once we got approval for our system requirements, our next step was registering in their system and picking a teacher.

First, we went to Homeschool Spanish Academy's website and registered for classes with our basic information, age, any Spanish experience we had, what program we wanted to use, etc.

Now came one of the fun parts, picking a teacher.  They had a list of potential teachers, their available times for clases, as well as their pictures and a little bit of biographical information on each of them.  We read through them all and decided that Luisa sounded like she would be a good teacher. 

So, we picked Luisa, then went to the schedule your classes page and found a time that worked for us.  We decided on once a week lessons because I was afraid that more than that would overload L-girl.  Homeschool Spanish Academy actually recommends twice a week classes for the best results, but I didn't want to scare L-girl.

We decided to go ahead and schedule all of our classes at the same time each week, with Luisa.  But, the beauty of this curriculum is that you could have lessons at different times each week, different days...even with different teachers.  Actually, that is another thing that they recommend....trying different teachers is actually highly encouraged (up to 3 instructors). It would give students the ability to experience different teaching styles, but more importantly to hear different accents. I was told by the ever helpful, Ron, that the teachers keep very detailed notes for every session (and we have seen Luisa writing stuff down). So, if you try out a different teacher, they would have all the notes from your last class, what you may have struggled with in front of them and could plan their class accordingly. 

Again, we ignored that advice and just went with Luisa!  We are such rebels.

You can tell Homeschool Spanish Academy knows homeschool moms, because they actually have the program set up to send you a reminder 24 hours before your scheduled lesson.  We homeschool moms tend to get a bit distracted, so that gives us a heads up to double check our schedule/lives and make sure that the scheduled time still works.

So, now we are ready for our actual first lesson with Luisa.  I will tell you L-girl was super nervous.  Super nervous. She was even throwing around the random...."Why do I have to do this?"  "Why didn't you pick someone else to take Spanish?"  "I don't even want to learn Spanish....why are you making me do this?"  You know....the usual.

When our lesson time came around, Luisa typed a message via Skype that just asked if L-girl was ready for her lesson.  As soon as L-girl typed back that she was ready, Luisa officially called us via Skype and the lesson began.

The first few lessons were a bit rough.

Luisa and L-girl had a little trouble hearing each other.  There was a slight delay in words and a bit of breaking up, like when you are losing a cell phone call.  They were always able to eventually figure out what the other had said....but it was frustrating.  Sometimes, Luisa would just resort to typing her questions or words in the little text box a the bottom of the page.  The other problem we were having is we could hear other Spanish lessons happening near Luisa.  We could hear other teachers and other students practicing their Spanish. 

After the second and third lesson, Luisa said she would report our sound problems and someone would be in touch to see if it could get fixed.  Nobody called after the second lesson, but after the third lesson, Ron, from Homeschool Spanish Academy called and ran a few system tests and made some suggestions for improving the sound.  He said that Luisa is naturally soft spoken, so she has the volume turned up on her microphone, but suspected that she hadn't turned on the noise cancelling feature that would block us from hearing the other classes going on in her vicinity.

L-girl and I also decided that she would try using a set of headphones/ear buds for the next lesson to see if that helped.  Lesson number four was much better....still not perfect.....but way better.  L-girl and Luisa could hear each other and there wasn't as much "Can you hear me now?" stuff going on.

L-girl is really making progress.  At this point, they are just working on Spanish words, names, and phrases.  But, she is really soaking it up like a sponge.  Her big brother, D-man, is taking Spanish in high school and she has actually been able to help him with some of his homework and practice.

L-girl is also having fun now.  The nerves have worn off.  She likes Luisa because she is sort of grandmotherly in her approach.  Very patient.  Very loving.  Very kind hearted.  The cadence and intonation of her speech is very encouraging.....even when she has to repeat the correct pronunciation of a word many, many, many times! 

Luisa sends an e-mail after each lesson that has L-girls assigned homework. 

I have seen and heard L-girl working on it.  But, when I went to put together this review, I found something out. 

This might be too small for you to see.....but, this is L-girls assignment summary.....can you see the green words?  Those say....Missing.

Yes, L-girl has 4 missing assignments....well, 3 actually, since the top one isn't due until next week.  I asked L-girl about this and she said she had done them, but wasn't sure how to hand them in.  So, instead of asking me or watching the You Tube video...

....see the bottom one?  How to Turn in Homework????  L-girl just decided to skip it!  Grrrr.....

Rest assured, Luisa, her homework is on its way!!!

Now that we have the technical snafus worked out, we are loving this program.  L-girl is really learning quite quickly conversational Spanish.  I don't even think I heard her say anything in English during her last lesson!

You can create an account and try out one free Spanish lesson.  What do you have to lose?

Oh, one of the other cool things you can do with Homeschool Spanish Academy is have "paired" classes.   So, if you had students that aren't more than 3 grade levels apart, they could take lessons together....at the same time....at the same computer.  Kind of a cool idea, I think. 

For the half semester, Early Language lessons, with just one student, the cost would be $59.99.

Here is the standard pricing chart for the Early Language Program through Homeschool Spanish Academy.  There is a different pricing chart for the upper level courses as their classes are longer.



And here is the pricing chart for the Early Language Program, if you are interested in a paired class for your family.  Again, there is a different pricing chart for the upper level courses, because their classes run longer.



Technology is really sort of amazing, isn't it?  This is a great program.  It is a great idea for homeschoolers.  We have tried other language programs in our school, but I really think there isn't anything better than learning the language from a native speaker.  L-girl has moved along much more quickly in her lessons than I thought she would and she seems to be retaining a lot (thus her ability to assist her big brother with some of his Spanish!) She hasn't conjugated verbs or anything yet, but she is learning a lot of words and phrases that will be useful. 

I highly recommend Homeschool Spanish Academy for the quality of the teaching we had with Luisa, but also the customer support and troubleshooting Ron did with us when we were having problems hearing (sort of important for the student and teacher to be able to hear each other, huh?)

Go see what the other TOS Reviewers had to say about Homeschool Spanish Academy.