Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic There I go, forgetting the WHAM warning....

I homeschool my children, who are 7 and 8, and lately we've been studying the Elizabethan period in history. Accordingly, we're taking a couple of weeks to spend some time with Shakespeare, and today, I read the kids Edith Nesbit's retelling of Romeo and Juliet.

When I got to the end - lots of dead people in a tomb - I closed the book and looked up to find my poor son absolutely slack-jawed with horror. "Are they going to come back to life?" he asked.

"Well, um...no, honey. They died."

"How could you read us that?" he demanded. "You never read us stories like that!"

I tried to explain that that was what made it a tragedy, and that not every story has a happy ending just like not everything in life has a happy ending.

"Well, you should warn us next time," he said, betrayal shining in his eyes.

And he's right - I should. And I will. From now on, WHAM warnings are the order of the day around here.

Caroline, who probably wasn't going to win Mother of the Year anyway...

Haha. My brother and step-dad always got upset over such sad stories. My step-dad did not like sad romantic readings/movies either. It's weird, how I'm the total opposite. You'd think it would be the otherway around with all the gender sterotyping!

Yes, WHAM warning are in order here!

Caroline, don't say that! You're going to make me sad...

Hey, Caroline, I homeschool, too! I have 4. Yep, 4. Tenth grade, seventh grade, third grade, and pre-school. How's that for stretched out?! We haven't started school yet this year. We always wait until after Labor Day. We take a lot of field trips and do a lot of hands-on projects on the weekends though. But I think my kids have learned more this past summer than any other since we've been homeschooling. Sixteen year old daughter had to tend house(including the shopping)when I sprained my ankle(again!), then again when I went off to attend state baseball tournament games with our local little league team. (I'm a vetern coach for the league-- and all around team mom.) They learned the finer points of home maintenance and construction when we enclosed a porch to make a school room and they helped paint and refloor a bedroom. They were also made familiar with the finer points of local law enforcement when my middle son's bicycle was stolen. (We didn't sit around and wait for the cops to find it!)

This will be our sixth year, and I'm learning why some moms call homeschooling, home-training. I'd had serious second thoughts this past year, but my kids have displayed abilities they never would have learned had they been in school. And the doctor's visits are less frequent!

Email me sometime... we'll talk shop!

SQD

The whole home-schooling idea is cool. Thumbs up to those who dive into it!

Hee! Same deal here. My daughter didn't mind the story at all, and I can't remember her ever really being upset by a story. She recently re-read Charlotte's Web, and I asked her if it made her sad when Charlotte dies and told her that that part always makes me cry...every time. She looked at me like I was crazy. "Well, yeah, it's sad," she said. "But it wouldn't make me cry."

Cold-hearted little beast.

I'm in awe! Mine are close enough in age that I'm able to put them both in the same grade (3rd this year) and I often think that if that weren't the case, I would surely have to give this business up. I'm so impressed by moms who teach multiple grades. It sounds like your kids have had a great year with all your projects. I'm not always very patient when it comes to including mine in home projects, but I'm trying to do better.

And yes, the fewer doctor visits thing is huge! One of the reasons we started on this journey was that we had one with chronic ear infections who spent most of every preschool year nearly deaf. He has been a MUCH healthier kid since we've been homeschooling. Even though he does activities and co-op, he doesn't seem to catch stuff the way he would if he were in school all day.

Thanks for chiming in, SQD - I always love meeting other fanfic-loving homeschoolers

Best,

Caroline

Caroline,

I'm always thrilled to meet other homeschoolers. I like the wide variety of reasons others choose to take on this lifestyle.

That is definitely the tricky part! We all do history and science together, read-aloud together, and art projects. The younger ones kind of just gleen the basics from the lessons(the preschooler just looks at us like we're crazy), and I assign more in-depth reading/projects for the older ones. By the time they reach high-school, your aim is for them to be mostly independent (except for projects). Of course, it doesn't always work out that way!

That used to be a big problem with me. I freaked because I didn't want them to get the house messy or misplace all the supplies or do it wrong, but I finally decided that maybe their way was just as good. I started with chores(years ago!), and I only recently graduated to larger projects. I figured if they could cut the grass without losing a limb or gapping up the lawn, then hey, I'd give them a chance at something else! Yours are the age of my third grader, and his projects are definitely smaller scale. (He's my... wild child

SQD (who is glad to meet Caroline as well)

Hey, just another homeschooler chiming in...I'm expecting number 4 kid currently, so I've not been on the boards as much lately as I was before, but still thought I'd pipe up just to say how cool I think it is to see other homeschoolers on the mbs I have other things in common with. My oldest is in 4th grade this year, and second child is starting kindergarten. We have a 1 yr old who will be 2 this fall when our new baby comes. Needless to say, we are a busy bunch.

That is too funny about the Romeo and Juliet story. I read that same story to my kids last spring--I have the E. Nesbit book also. My daughter begged me to read Hamlet because part of the story was in the history curriculum we're doing, and she couldn't bear to not know how it ended. We are following the Story of the World and are starting Vol. 3 this year. I am enjoying it as much as my children are. History and Science are their favorite subjects. And they love hearing the Narnia stories as well. I try to read to my kids alot, as I like alot of Charlotte Mason's ideas about homeschooling, as well as the classical method.

OH well, that's all I had to add.
Marcy

I'm expecting my first child, and my husband and I are really excited about homeschooling. He was homeschooled himself through 7th grade, and then he went into a public high school because his mother (who was currently doing homeschooling duty) simply couldn't keep up with him anymore (especially in math and science). We're both big fans of the idea, though, and I can't wait to get started.

If your kids don't like sad and depressing endings, I hope they don't read too many "young adult" novels. I've never seen a genre made up almost entirely of overly-dramatic, completely depressing books. You'd think there was not a teenager in the country who has a normal life and a functional family if you read a bunch of those. I actually have a friend who's a young adult librarian and she's transferring to children's because she's already on anti-depressants and she can't take the books she's supposed to read for her job.