The girls are gone yet again this weekend (they left yesterday). I'm going to take the time to finish getting the school books and area organized, start writing down assignments for them, and generally getting ready. I plan to start school on Tuesday since they'll finally be home. It'll be a rather choppy week though since they have dentist appointments on Wednesday and Sweet Pea is working on Thursday at camp again. While I had planned to start last week, they need to be here and it looks like next week is as good as any to get going. We'll ease in with two 4-day weeks, then it'll be full weeks until about Thanksgiving. Sweet Pea will be working here and there at camp so she may be out some, but she'll need to figure out how to balance work and school, with school being the more important thing. Hopefully having me around to keep an eye on her and how she's keeping track of everything will help her figure out how to do this so she can do it better on her own next year when she's off at college.
I'm not sure how much we'll use the school area this year. They both have mostly migrated to their rooms to do their work. They both have an online class this year and I know Sweet Pea will use the computer in the school area since her laptop is old and slow. At least their classes are on different days.
I'm still waiting on the last few books to come in. I think I forgot to order a few but maybe I'll check the library first since I think they're ones that are going to be used for a short time. I still need to flesh out a bit more the history of dance class but otherwise I think we're good. I guess I'll find out in the next few weeks!
22 August 2014
16 August 2014
Books
Books are the lifeblood in this homeschool. We use books for history, science, and even math. Not boring textbooks, although a few of those have crossed the threshold here, but what are called "living" books, historical fiction, a few fiction, non-fiction, even the math books are written with a story line (Life of Fred books). I'm way behind this year in ordering books, behind in starting school (students need to be here in order for school to start and they're not, they're still busy with summer jobs), behind in everything really. I spent some time yesterday going over the girls classes and finalizing what books they're using this year so that this morning I could get online and order the books we need to get started. I know I'm not the only one still looking for books, I see posts on facebook and other places of people looking for school books so they can get their year started as well. Now I just need to get my girls home for longer than a day or two so we can get started.
09 August 2014
College
Sweet Pea has been gone most of the summer working at camp which has made it hard to research colleges and find ones that will be a good fit for her. She already had two on her list, Plymouth State University (which we've already visited) and University of Maine, Farmington. Both have a program that she's interested in, are the right size, and in her preferred location. I really thought she should have more than two colleges on her "apply to" list so I spent some time looking around for her.
One place to start is the College Board website. I didn't find it very helpful in our case. I searched by major and found very few colleges, even ones that I knew had the major, even when I used the exact wording of the major at the college. Instead I decided to go to Google and see what I could find there. Jackpot! I found quite a few colleges, did a bit of research on some of them to help her make a decision if they were worth keeping on the list or not.
This morning we went through the whole list to decide if each school was a definite apply, need more info/likely apply, need more info/maybe, or a no. One came off the list, one made it to the maybe list (the location wasn't what she was looking for), and the rest were split between apply for sure and need more info/likely apply. Most of the schools are in New England, although there's one in Colorado, one in Nevada, and one in British Columbia, Canada. I think the last one is going to likely fall off the list, it's too far away and a bit...different.
We had a good discussion today. We both have more work to do. I'm going to pull together what's needed to apply and a few more important bits of information for each college and put that into a spreadsheet for her. She's going to be going back to the college websites and looking more closely at the ones she needs more information about to make a decision.
The other thing she did today was to open an account on the Common Application website since several of the schools she's got on her list use the common app. A few of the schools you can optionally use the common app or their own and I think at least one or two only use their own application.
I tell you, dealing with college applications is not for the faint of heart! We're really just at the beginning and I have a feeling we have a long way to go until next fall when she leaves home to her college of choice. Then I'll have to do this all over again with Rosie Jane, which might be more complicated if she decides to play golf in college and we have to do the NCAA paperwork to get her certified to play.
One place to start is the College Board website. I didn't find it very helpful in our case. I searched by major and found very few colleges, even ones that I knew had the major, even when I used the exact wording of the major at the college. Instead I decided to go to Google and see what I could find there. Jackpot! I found quite a few colleges, did a bit of research on some of them to help her make a decision if they were worth keeping on the list or not.
This morning we went through the whole list to decide if each school was a definite apply, need more info/likely apply, need more info/maybe, or a no. One came off the list, one made it to the maybe list (the location wasn't what she was looking for), and the rest were split between apply for sure and need more info/likely apply. Most of the schools are in New England, although there's one in Colorado, one in Nevada, and one in British Columbia, Canada. I think the last one is going to likely fall off the list, it's too far away and a bit...different.
We had a good discussion today. We both have more work to do. I'm going to pull together what's needed to apply and a few more important bits of information for each college and put that into a spreadsheet for her. She's going to be going back to the college websites and looking more closely at the ones she needs more information about to make a decision.
The other thing she did today was to open an account on the Common Application website since several of the schools she's got on her list use the common app. A few of the schools you can optionally use the common app or their own and I think at least one or two only use their own application.
I tell you, dealing with college applications is not for the faint of heart! We're really just at the beginning and I have a feeling we have a long way to go until next fall when she leaves home to her college of choice. Then I'll have to do this all over again with Rosie Jane, which might be more complicated if she decides to play golf in college and we have to do the NCAA paperwork to get her certified to play.
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