The Hidden Blessings of the Common Core

It's been a long year and half. Has it really only been that long? I first learned of the Common Core State Standards Initiative in January 2013. After a few months of deep research, becoming even more of an education advocate than I already was, and deep prayer, we pulled our oldest child in April 2013 to homeschool him. His little brother followed soon after.

It's been a very bumpy ride. Hang on, that's an understatement. It's been a roller coaster. It's been an education in the legislative process and all it's crooked tentacles. It's been testing of my patience both as a tax paying citizen and as a new homeschooling parent. It's been a test financially as I decided to put my successful business on hold to focus on homeschooling. It's been a major test of my patience, and many scared days calling into question my ability, and the same question every new homeschooler asks.."Can I really do this?"

So as much as I'd love to see Common Core, high stakes testing, school ratings, charter schools and all the other garbage I've learned in the last 18 months gone....it has not been without it's blessings and good points.

Like I tell my boys, repeatedly, you can choose to have a good day or a bad day.

I choose, in the face of all the nastiness that has come with this journey (and I do mean nastiness, I'm looking at you LABI and Stand for Children, Senator Appel and many more) to find the joy. Here is what I've found on this journey:

*People are amazing. Both bad amazing and good amazing. But overall, in spite of what you read in the media, most of these parents who are fighting so hard for the simple RIGHTS they are afforded, are good people. They are not raving lunatics from fringe sect groups. They are you and me. Every day Americans. Some are Tea Party, some are liberal, and every group in between. There are parents of every color, race, creed, religion, financial situation, coming to the table now. People who previously had NO clue how the education system worked are reading, learning, going to school board and state meetings. Children are going to their state capitol's to see how this all works! People are standing up, and taking BACK what is rightfully theirs...control over their child's education.

*I've made awesome friends. Some in real life, some online. I've encountered thousands upon thousands of amazing, awesome, strong, brave people who just said, enough is enough.

*I've had some great opportunities. I've had the chance to be on several national news programs because of this, which would've never happened to a plain old mom like me! I wish I hadn't had to be on them, but I don't mind being a voice for those who feel they can't speak up.

*I've had teachers AND parents tell me they need help to speak out. Teachers are scared, y'all. This isn't trivial. Yes, we can say they need to stand up and speak out, but it's really hard when someone feels their job is on the line. These are crazy times we live in, and it's a lot to ask someone to risk food on the table to speak up. I really feel for our teachers, I do. I was one, I feel you.

*I have learned my children are pretty darn awesome. Even when they drive me nuts, I learned I can indeed be with them pretty much 24/7 and the world will not spin off it's axis. I have a wonderful husband who helps out a lot, and in the end I see my children are learning so much and we are becoming stronger. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of days I cry and ask myself, why!? But all that really does is strengthen my resolve to help get our public schools to a better place so that maybe one day they can return. Will they? At this current rate, no. Never. But I still want to help save the future of public education for my grandchildren and beyond!

*I have learned so much myself!! I have learned many things I was NEVER taught in school, particularly history. Things I don't think they taught even when I was in school, and I KNOW they do not teach now. Since my children do not have to stress over tests or "Passing", we can take the time to truly learn a subject, dig in deep and study the basics and cornerstones of a good education.

*I've learned patience. This is a big one for me. My husband says I'm horribly impatient, and I am. Since he is also agonizingly PATIENT, we are fun sometimes! One of our friends says of my husband, "Your patience makes me impatient!" That was my only concern my husband had was my patience level. Well, it's certainly been tested but friends have remarked I'm far more patient than I used to be. I have had to be patient with my children, legislators, new people who discover the Common Core, new homeschooling families, strangers who question our education choices, and myself most of all.

I could probably go on and on, but you get the picture. Life is all about perspective. So while this may be a big, ugly, monster on top of our education system...in the end, I promise it will pass. It will be another set of standards with another set of initials, followed by another set of assessments. Until we truly regain the true meaning of education which is to impart knowledge and light the fire of learning in students....and until we move away from this culture of workforce training and test taking....we won't be rid of this beast. It just won't happen. Maybe your kids are fine in the Common Core. That's great...but not all are, and I refuse to ruin the love of learning for 29 students because 1 in a class gets it.

Sorry, the teacher in me just won't let that fly.

So I will keep going, albeit at a lesser pace this year. Since my children are not in the classrooms anymore, I now focus on the homeschooling aspect of it. Because mark my words homeschoolers....

We are on their list.

~~Amy

Summer 2014 Review

I've been a bad blogger! Summer time and homeschooling keeps one very busy! We've had a fun but busy summer swimming, hanging with friends, NOT doing official school! I had plans to do more school over the summer but we were enjoying being lazy! :) And they seem to always be learning, so it works out.

I hope you've had a wonderful summer. I cannot believe it's almost August! Here's a little bit of what we've done this summer so far.

 Throwing water balloons at minecraft drawings.

 Gummy bears in sprite popsicles. (They didn't like it, they said the gummy bears were too hard.)

 Pitiful attempt as a garden. This year I tried an heirloom, organic garden and NOTHING grew except green beans. Sigh. I'm ready to throw in the green thumb towel. We got a few conventional strawberries.

 We watched clouds and let the sunshine warm our faces!

 We picked blueberries finally again. We LOVE doing this. Okay, so maybe more so me than them because it means more Blueberry Vodka Lemonade. (Recipe here.) But they do have fun too and it's a gorgeous place to take photos.

 Fishing at Uncle Marc's. This kid loves fishing. He's dying to go out on the lake and fish. Thank God for Uncle Marc because neither my husband nor I like fishing.

 We fulfilled a long time goal and yarn bombed Aunt Denise's mailbox. Crochet for the win.

 July Fourth again at Aunt Denise and Uncle Marc's. Fun! Hope to make it a yearly tradition! Yummy food, fireworks, playing with the dog, good times!

We also had a Frozen party for some friends, no one's birthday, just because! I didn't take any pics during the party because we were having too much fun!!

So we are wrapping up July and heading into August. That means 2 days a week of school and 3 days to finish enjoying summer. Public school kids start school here around August 7th, so we head out to the parks, pools, museums, etc and enjoy the space! Of course we spend the month praying for no hurricanes also, which is another reason I don't start major school until after Labor Day. It's ridiculous that August is our hottest month, most active hurricane month and we start school here in the beginning of it! Why? So they can have more days to prep for spring tests. Yes, indeed that is an honest answer I received from someone in the know. Sad. But that's another blog post....

So we will ease into school in August, get our feet wet again, brushing up on old skills before we dive head on in September. I sit here in total astonishment that the year is over half over. Seriously. Time dragged as a child...why does it fly by now!?

So here's to an awesome summer and what will be an excellent school year!
~Amy

End of an Etsy Era....

So, if you follow me on Facebook, you know already that my Etsy shops have been shut down. I have been an Etsy seller in one form or another since 2008. I went from being in the hole for 2 years to making what I considered a decent income for a mom who just likes to make things! I was a totally legal seller with my LLC, Tax ID's, a CPA, the whole she-bang. I founded and run the Etsy team Handmade Louisiana. I've made a tremendous amount of friends from being on Etsy and that I will never regret.

But my time on Etsy is over. Over the years, I have had a couple of 'trademark infringements' filed against me by a couple of companies like Hello Kitty and Eric Carle. I was new and unaware I could fight back with the first sale doctrine concerning licensed fabrics. So they sat as hits on my Etsy account and I thought nothing of it as my business grew to be one of the top badge reel shops on Etsy with the most badge reels available at one point of 900 listings.

A couple of years back the battle over the local phrase "Who Dat" raged here as the man who claims to own the trademark fought local stores over use of the word. Long story short, for you non-locals, Who Dat is a battle cry for our beloved New Orleans Saints but also a general greeting, salute, joyful shout and more, used a lot in life in southern Louisiana. Who Dat dates back to the 1700s and possibly earlier. But this man trademarked the phrase in the 80s when he was involved in a song (a horrible song) about the Saints. Decades passed and he never gave a care about his trademark until the Saints won the Superbowl in 2009. Suddenly, he cared about his trademark.

I thought the matter had been laid to rest when the parties he sued settled in 2012 and a judge said, "Who Dat belongs to the people." It never even dawned on me this was still an issue. So I was surprised (and ticked) when I found he had filed a complaint against several of my items. Honestly, I'd forgotten about several of them, (did I mention the 900 listings?) So I sent "the man" a not so pleasant email, but I fixed the listings and thought the matter was over.

Nope. He apparently found more listings on my shop, this time, he claimed you could not even use the words "who dat" in a TAG on Etsy. (Tags are descriptive words you use to help people find your items.) He's even gone so far as to say you cannot use just "dat" or "who" in a Saints related item!?? So if your item was a black and gold fleur de lis, I couldn't use any form of "who dat" in a tag, even if it didn't appear on the listing or item. I should have checked all my items for Who Dat, and I thought I got them all, but apparently I missed a couple out of the 900 listings.

So what does Etsy do? Not contact me about it, not say, "Hey, you have one more shot and we close you down" or "Check your items please", etc. Nope. I go to ship my orders and I find a closed shop. I got an email of legal-ease and a closed shop. Not just one closed shop, but TWO closed shops. I also had SeauxComfy on Etsy, a crochet shop that NEVER had any infringements against it, SHUT DOWN.

Needless to say, I was very upset. At the jerk trying to steal Who Dat from the people, at Etsy for their lack of support. At myself for fighting back, because I'm thinking if I'd not fought back to Sal, he'd have maybe left me be. I scoffed at his offer of licensing with him and made it clear I NEVER want to do business with him. (He didn't offer me a nifty form to fill out to turn into Etsy to show I won't use Who Dat as a tag, yet he offered it to other sellers. Hmmm I wonder why? Oh right, I stood up to him.)

I quickly let go of my anger at Sal because it became clear he is a desperate man clinging to the last little business he has left. Apparently in the 30 years he's owned this trademark he's made 350k on it, and spent a lot of that on court. That is NOT a great record of business, for those not familiar with sales. It's incredibly sad.

But I was more mad at Etsy. For having spent 5 years putting up with their total lack of seller support, their continuing to allow foreign resellers while shutting down true handmade shops (like mine.), and for putting up with their muting of people who dare speak out in forums. Etsy is a shell of what it started out as. Greed took over the true love and purpose of handmade for them, I fear. Just in my badge reels shops alone since 2010 I have paid Etsy almost 3k in fees. Now, I made my sales, but paid them roughly 20% of my sales for years. I'm not even counting the other Etsy shops I had over the years until I found my niche with the badge reels. So apparently $3,000 isn't enough to warrant a real discussion to see if I truly was at fault.

Apparently Etsy has no spine and cannot even remotely defend their sellers and will cave to threats, no questions asked. So I am done. I am done spending any more money with them. I will pay up my fees and then be gone. Unfortunately this also means I will no longer be buying on Etsy. So if you are an Etsy seller, I will find another way to purchase from you, but I will not purchase on Etsy.

I'm sad to see this part of my life end, as it's been such a HUGE part for the past five years. But creativity need not be confined to a little piece of the interwebs....I am still going to create. I am not getting rid of my badge reel making supplies. In good time I will reorganize and start over on another site.

I had been toying with the idea of taking a break for a little while now. I am now homeschooling my children, much earlier than I had ever planned to. It really had become difficult to homeschool, run a home, run a business, spend time on bible study, with friends, and sleep! Life had gotten too hectic. I had been in angst trying to make a decision about my business, so I suppose God decided to help me make the decision!!

I'm sad it's over, I recognize how awesome my customers have been over the years and how fun it has been to share my work with others, hopefully bringing a little smile to their face during their work day. But my babies will only be little for awhile, and when they're bigger and more self sufficient in their schooling, I can reexamine my game plan and perhaps start a new.

In the meantime, you can contact me via the Facebook page or badgereels@gmail.com if you need a badge reel or two. It'll take time to get my photos back in order, but I will do that in time. If you need crochet items, you can also contact me there. I am taking custom crochet orders via email or facebook for now. This situation will not crush my dreams of running my own business, but it does delay them some. In the end however, it's for the benefit of my children AND my sanity! If that's not worth it....I don't know what is!!

I thank you all, my friends, customers, colleagues, and most importantly my family and God for sticking with me all this time, being there through the ups and downs, and for supporting handmade! You are NOT forgotten!

Much love,
Amy

Nikon Quality Time

Life has been busy with homeschooling, being out of town and life as usual. But my trusty Nikon is usually not too far away and I have been able to snag a few good shots!

 The sunsets in Gulf Shores, Alabama are AMAZING!

 

 Snapped this one while the hubs drove 45 mph over the bridge...not to shabby!

 

My deep thinker...

 8 years old!

 Our last sunset in Orange Beach!

Then we came home and enjoyed a quiet afternoon at Camp Salmen Nature Center. Beautiful!

 Tree bark.

 Finally snapped some bees working hard!

 Some pretty purple berries. No clue what they were.

 Beautiful yellow flowers perfect for fall!

Like my pics, follow me on Flickr.
Hope you enjoyed some of my little photos!! Happy Fall!
~~amy

Roaches, Butterflies and Jelllyfish, Oh My!

We took our first homeschool field trip of the year last week! We are members of the Audubon Institute so we decided to do a field trip to the Insectarium since we are studying Insects this month in our Apologia Science lessons. We'd been there before but I was very happy to see H take his time and look at the exhibits. He genuinely wanted to learn about the bugs.

We were able to go with another family and it was great to see them again. Both the Insectarium and Aquarium were undergoing some modifications so I'm looking forward to seeing what new exhibits they are cooking up in there!

Both museums are doable in one day, and we enjoyed it immensely. We had lunch on the river in Woldenberg Park and the boys had a blast. As we walked back to the car, E said, "This was the most AWESOME field trip!"

If you're in the New Orleans area, take the time to check out everything the Audubon Institute has to offer, it's amazing!

Roach TV!! It's so creepy it's awesome! Check out this one and many more at www.apl.tv.

 It's hard to get these two to take a normal photo!

 The butterfly garden is awesome!

 The Crescent City really is an amazing city. I complain, but all it takes is one trip to the French Quarter and I'm in love again.

 Even Jedi's need to go on field trips.

 Trapped!!

The jellyfish are one of my favorite exhibits at the Aquarium.

I hope we can go on at least one field trip a month! We'll save the zoo for when the weather is a little cooler. If you go in the summer months the animals are just sad and hot!

~~~Amy

Throwing Rocks

Recently we took a little nature scavenger hunt and spent some time throwing rocks into the water near Fort Pike in between Slidell and New Orleans, Louisiana. We found most of the things on our scavenger list, watched thunder clouds roll in and ran from dragonflies.

 We found a crab hiding in the rocks!

This little trip was proof you can disconnect kids from their gadgets, stick them out in nature, and they can have fun with ROCKS.

We are now on break from homeschooling until after Labor Day but we've had a pretty good time over our summer session! I put a lot of fun pics on Instagram if you are there, find me, :) I'm "mamaslittlemonkeys"

~~Amy

A Day in the Life of Homeschooling

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One of my favorite books about homeschooling is Homeschooling: A Patchwork of Days: Share a Day With 30 Homeschooling Families that shows how so very different every homeschooling family is. I enjoyed the book and in talking with other homeschooling families I realize it really is true. So, I thought I'd share our journey with you, periodically!

6:30am: The alarm clock for my husband goes off, I poke him to make sure he's up and heading out the door by 6:45. The dog steals his spot in the bed and we sleep until my alarm goes off at
7:30 am: The beauty of homeschooling is I'm not rushing around, even though it's currently summer, and we wouldn't have a bus to catch, there is simply no rush. I lounge around, roll out of bed, make myself semi-human and emerge from my room around
7:45-8:00: The time is fuzzy on this because I'm pre-coffee. Often I'm awoken by fight and screams but today I find them curled up on the sofa watching Peter Rabbit on Nick. I decide to snuggle with them a few minutes and that seems to make a world of difference. I get a lot of "I Love Yous" and snuggles before making myself get up to start breakfast and most importantly, coffee.

8:45: By now some form of breakfast has been started and possibly eaten. They continue to watch TV while I eat breakfast and watch my Golden Girls (shut up, I love that show.) Once coffee is in, I fully intend to get up and get going on cleaning, but I get sidetracked by my iPad. I check emails for my business, fart around on facebook, and check our Homeschool Helper app.

9:00ish: The best friend calls and we talk off and on for a couple of hours, which is not a very common occurrence but somehow my boys were occupied with Legos and leave us to our conversation for quite awhile.

A rainstorm is threatening to take place so I get the lead out and by

11:30: Get our lunch made and eaten so we can get on our way to the library. We need to pick up a book for our  (FIAR) curriculum and they're holding it for us.

12:30: We've gotten our book from the library along with a few more, one Egyptian one since that's what we're studying in history (Story of the World, Volume 1) and one about a Ghost Eye Tree, which works out since our Five in a Row (Five in a Row): Volume 1 FIAR book is Storm in the Night and we are in the midst of thunderstorm season, so this works out perfect! In fact we just beat a storm and get home before it starts pouring.

1:00-3:30: We work on actual school. Both boys do Lesson 11 of Saxon Math (Year 1 and 3) with minimal fussing. I find Saxon to be super easy to follow, instructional enough to ease my math fears but flexible enough for me to skip stuff, or gloss over things they already know.
When I work with one child on math, I send the other to play quietly or in "centers" (shelves set up in the living room with toys, games, educational activities. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't, and today it works.

After Math, we work on FIAR and read our storm inspired books, which is great since we are reading them, snuggled on a sofa in front of a stormy window! The boys go off on a tangent about storms, and cats, and hurricanes. Harrison and I have a quick lesson about Italics and Quotation Marks.

I redirect them so we can do History The Story of the World which is a discussion about Egyptians and hieroglyphics. We read the additional library book we picked up and Harrison is intrigued by the stone and clay buildings they lived in. The book suggests making a clay Egyptian home so we do. Eli's quickly turns into a house for Luke Skywalker on Tatoonie, but he's 5 and we let that stuff go. He still absorbed things! Harrison does a little mapwork and a coloring page to go along with the chapter. Eli even asks to do a map page, and apparently paid attention to my directions because he colors the two areas of the map correctly!

Once we get cleaned up from History and our clay houses, we start Science which is Apologia Exploring Creation with Zoology 1 It's slow going because it is a lot of reading, but I feel it's a very well rounded curriculum with a Christian perspective which is what I want. Harrison has to write down a short review of what he's learned in the chapter, and that's a little tough, as he hates writing. I wonder if letting him read it himself and then discussing it would help him absorb better, I'm still figuring out his learning styles. Since the book focuses on flying creatures, and we started learning about birds, I get out the Audubon coloring pages I have and told him to pick his favorite. He chooses the wild turkey and he colors it while I look up the sounds a wild turkey makes on the iPad. (Ducky Dynasty episodes play in my head at the same time.) I remind them we'll go on a nature scavenger hunt later and I get a mixed review of yeahs and nahs. Oh well, kiddos, it's in the plan and I know you'll have fun once we go!

3:45: We get things cleaned up, grab a snack, turn out the lights and get ready for our Scavenger Hunt! The first nature area I want to go to, I forget is closed on Mondays, so we head off to a nearby town. I again get stuck when they are doing road work and I take the long way around back to our town and the other side of it to an area called the Rigolets near Fort Pike. (Not a great day for limiting my gas consumption, but ya know...). All on the way we look for birds and other things on our list. As we near the Rigolets we find plenty of birds as the storm in the Gulf sends them inland.

We throw rocks in the water, we find birds, a crab and a few bugs. We mark off our findings and only have on misadventure of them being scared of dragonflies (it was a LOT of dragonflies, but come on boys!) But instead of totally falling out that the entire day is ruined, I'm able to redirect my "sky in falling" Harrison to admit he had a blast throwing rocks and finding the crab even if the dragonflies scared him. We bring our findings (rocks, a cicada shell and the feather we found a few days ago) to roost on our window sill in their "collection spot".

5:30: The boys request "alone time" which is pretty much code for tearing up their room, but since I'm peopled out I oblige. They've gotten along quite well for the day with only a few timeouts for potty mouths (REALLY trying to curb mean talk, potty talk or anything of the kind.) and only a few scraps. They play in their room while I am able to start dinner and have an adult beverage. (My blueberry vodka lemonade, find it in my recipes tab.)

6:30: Daddy is home!! Dinner is ready and waiting on the table (NOT a common occurrence!) We eat a fairly whine free dinner. After dinner I start the dinner dishes while they do chores from their Choreganizers, which I LOVE. They get things a bit spiffier and spend time with Daddy. After dishes are done and leftovers put away, I sneak off to work on an order from my Etsy shop and sit down to write this piece out!(which takes awhile!) While I write this piece, Daddy gives them baths and they play/watch TV in the front. Bedtime snack, brush teeth, book, prayers and bedtime!

This is just ONE day. For our summer session we really only do school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays because Tuesdays/Thursdays/Sundays, I go work out with the BFF and if the weather cooperates we go swimming. (What a tortured life they lead!) There are also days of errands, visiting grandparents, playdates, parks, and more. The home in homeschooling is a bit of a myth I'm afraid.

Our work load isn't terribly much now either because I'm not doing it "all". Come Labor Day when we pick up fall session, we will add Phonics for Eli; Geography for both; Grammar for Harrison; more handwriting for Eli with emphasis on fine motor activities; Spelling for both; and a general 'theme' every two weeks for added things like music, art and crafts. Will we get it all done? I'm quite sure not. Will we have fun trying? I hope so!

Once upon a time, I enjoyed teaching! I feel like homeschooling is bringing back that part of me that I used to be fairly good at!

There are various reasons why I'm homeschooling but I am definitely accepting it more and enjoying it more. I'm not as frustrated, tired and DONE at the end of the day as I thought I'd be!

And trust me, I do not just sit down and DO these things! I sit down, once a week and plan everything out, making sure I have the right books, papers copied, the math lessons prepped, etc. I double check the night before that I've gotten it all ready. I'm intrigued by the unschoolers of the world because my brain just doesn't compute that!

So this was just one day in our world, hope you enjoyed the ride!
~~Amy

October Photo Dump

Here is October's Photo Dump, we had a good month!! Lots of fun stuff!