Fiddling Around

We've been on a bit of a music kick here lately. 

First Leena and Zorg wanted singing lessons.

Then the Emperor started guitar lessons.

Then I picked up my violin again.

Actually, I just realized that I've never even mentioned playing the violin! Playing the violin is a big part of why I home school the way I do! I must tell you the story!

I started learning the violin in my mid thirties because I wanted my kids to see me fail at something.  Well, not fail necessarily, just not succeed easily, perhaps not succeed at all.


My kids were all still young, and I could see that they were watching me.  I could read effortlessly. I knew instantly that 7 x 8 was 56. I could tie my shoes quickly - and they stayed tied.

Everything I was teaching them was easy for me, and hard for them. They never saw me struggling to learn something, so they were developing the idea that something was wrong with them if they struggled to learn anything.

I should mention that I do not have a great sense of pitch.  Or rhythm. And I have a hard time picking up new physical skills. I determined that success, for me, would be defined by playing a song recognizably at the end of one year. I wasn't sure I'd hit the goal, but I thought I might make it.

I figured that the kids would pick it up faster than I would, so Mxyl (6), Klenda (5), and I (33) all started together.

It was lovely.  And hard! 
We had a very patient and optimistic teacher. We actually all learned at about the same pace, although I had to work to keep up. 

The kids saw me struggle, make (lots of) mistakes, gradually improve, and have fun, even when I wasn't perfect.

It was such a blessing!

What was more, to my surprise, I liked it!   At a time in my life when I felt snowed under with the physical work of caring for my four young children, playing the violin was playing, even though I had to work at it.

Now, even though Mxyl and Klenda have moved on from the violin (and I had a lapse of some years), I am still enjoying playing. 

They learned the lesson that everyone has to work to learn new skills (and that work can be fun).

I learned the lesson that regardless of personal talent, 15 minutes of daily practice will eventually yield competence: at the end of the first year, I could play 52 songs recognizably!

Return of the Fun Jar

 One unanticipated side effect of the oldest two Zoomlians being gone more, is extra time to do special things with the younger Zoomlians!

I made each pair a "Fun Jar" with ideas of special fun things we can do together. 


These ideas range from things that most people would recognize as educational to things that some people might not. I came up with the initial 11 ideas, hopefully the kids will add more ideas.

Choclo picked first: "clay sculpting."  He and Oob decided the best sculpting experience would be with edible clay, so we made some (cream cheese, powdered sugar, coloring and flavoring).

Oob made this tank and some grapes (left), and Choclo made this caterpillar and shark (right).

Actually, they made lots of things, but they had fun eating and giving away their creations- a consumable project! 


Zorg randomly picked "candles or wax dipping." He and Leena decided to dip things in wax. 

This was interesting because I  hadn't thought of this as being  particularly "educational." It just goes to show that things are interesting because you are learning something.  I often see the reverse proven: thing sare boring because you aren't learning from them, regardless of how "educational" they supposedly are.

At any rate, they came up with a fascinating assortment of things to dip in wax: leaves, apples, CDs, paper things, and a partially inflated balloon.

The balloon was fascinating!  Zorg had intentionally not tied off the balloon so that he could deflate it slowly after the wax froze.


 They peeled some off and wanted to look at it under the Cyclops (a microscope that connects to the TV).

Did you say microscope?! Sure!!

The wax was encrusted with tiny bubbles!









 Then they dipped their fingers into the partially cooled wax and looked at those impressions and then compared them to the actual skin.

And they spent the rest of the morning looking at skin, hair, scars, and an assortment of fibers.


Amazing!  I definitely count the Fun Jars as  a win, particularly because each project tended to  spill over into fun for all 4!

More Planning

Awesome History Plan

Not too much blogging lately because my planning brain has come back from vacation . 

I was worried about this when it hadn't turned up in the last week of August, but now that it has been rampaging around my head for 4 straight days, I'm almost ready to send it back to the beach.

Almost.

This semester I am doing the Awesome History co-op, teaching high school Biology, running Adventurers, and teaching Religious Ed (3rd grade). And, you know, home schooling the Zoomlians.

I am not naturally an organized person, but, in self defense, I have gotten more organized every year.


Which means this year is the most organized I have ever been in my life! 

Master Plan to Conquer the World or at Least the Fall Semester

Actually, that's true every year, but you have to realize the first time I made a plan of what to do with my kid (Baby Mxyl) I couldn't do it because I couldn't find the stuff to do it with, or the table to do it on!  

 I started pretty low on the organization continuum.

And now I have lists! And charts! And calendars! And labelled bins!  And color coding! (Color coding, seriously? How did I do that?) And I can (usually) find everything I need when I need it!

If you are a naturally organized person, feel free to roll your eyes. 

If you are not, or are a younger version of me, I'd like to offer you and my younger self this advice:

3rd Grade Religious Ed Plan

1 Start small. I started by finding the table (it was in the dining room).

2. Have a plan, but don't "marry" the plan.  You don't have to follow the plan when something better comes up or your kids need something different, but having one will help.

3. Don't plan too far ahead.  My detailed plans are only for this semester, and they get less detailed as they go on.  My Religious Ed plan is only for the first few classes because I need to see if my plan will work

4. Follow joy.  If you or the kids are consistently unhappy, you need a new plan.

5. Lastly, realize it's a process.  My cabinets and closets are still messy.  I still forget stuff.  I don't floss every day.  But I'm still more organized than I was!

The Museum (New and Improved)

 The museum just keeps growing!  I can tell we are on our way to having our very own Hall of Wonders!!





We now have three wings: the William J. Jensen Wing(models, rockets, and things we have made),








the Ocean Wing  (shells, fish, fossil shark teeth),

and the other wing that we haven't named yet (rocks, fossils, bird nests, bones, and anything the kids find and want to put there).

I love having a museum!

I love having a place to exhibit all the things we find and are interested in!

To me it's a place to honor my kid's interests, and reflect on all of the amazing things which have fascinated them

What I Love About Home Schooling

I was tidying up my office and I came across this page, done by Oob earlier this year when he was 7.

Did he fill in the blanks as the workbook intended?  Nope.

Still, the point of the worksheet was to get the kid to write, and he wrote more than if he had followed the scripted answers!

I would say he demonstrated flexible thinking.


Besides which, this kid cracks me up!!

You have to read the last one with a dramatic pause: Lando is killed by Darth Vader...or is he?!




I had forgotten that Oob went through a phase where, after most declarative sentences, he gave a melodramatic pause... or did he?!

Another Question

We've run into a difficulty with Mxyl's diploma.  We need to name the school (us) issuing the diploma.  Hmmmmm.


The Academic Institutional Academy for Higher Learning Institute?  Too formal.

Circus Clown Academy? Not formal enough.

Circus Maximus Clown Academy?  Not helping.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Training Facility M-78? Might be pushing it.

Gallifreyan Institute for Trans Dimensional Engineering? Definitely pushing it.

Institute Eclectica?  Try saying it aloud.

Pavlat Institute for Gifted Children? Might sound braggy to those who don't get the X Men reference.

Zoom School?  I think it's taken, plus it doesn't sound like a high school.

Veritas Academy?  Sounded good until I added "In Vino Veritas."


UPDATE: Thinking about it some more, we realized that the core principle in each child's education has always been: "Helping them become who God created them to be."  Each Zooomlian has had (or is having) a unique education.

We've decided to let each one name their school.  Mxyl chose a favorite saint: Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas.

The Balancing Act

We're back (kinda)!

The portfolio review went swimmingly.  I love having that chance to review how each kid is doing,and it's really revved me up to do more great stuff this semester. 

I kind of had a hard time pulling things together this time, partly because of outside forces, partly because I did not do a good job of blogging all the great stuff the Zoomlians are doing. 

About those "outside forces."  My much beloved mother in law went to the hospital for an asthma attack in early January and discovered the problem was really her heart.  She's out of the hospital now, awaiting surgery.  My dear father in law and amazing sister in law are doing the lion's share of care, but I am going over as often as I can to help out and have a little "mom time."

It's a balancing act.  She has been there for me throughout the last 25 years, and I want so much to be there for her.  The Zoomlians have risen to the occasion heroically, and they are all old enough to be left on their own.  But.

This is the tricky bit: they need me there too.  The smallest part of it is practical. Part of it is educational (although things do seem to just keep going), and part of it is emotional.  When I'm with them, I can see when conflicts and problems are starting, and I usually diffuse them (these kids just need more space), or point them out so the kids can diffuse them (when you say this, what is he hearing?), depending on the age and needs of the kid.  When I'm not there, things can build. 

This too is a learning experience for the kids, and I can see that God is using it.  I just need to discern how God wants me to balance my time. My weekly hour of Adoration has become essential: I need to talk about how things are going and get instructions for the next week.  My friend, Fr. Pinto, used to talk about that, but I am really feeling it now!

And the Lord is arranging things, too.  We didn't have enough teens to do the co-op this semester. We'll continue our Adventurers field trips, but those don't require the level of work of the co-op.

Photo: Ilya Zomb's The Art of Balance from his series The Metamorphoses of Stillness

Cleaning Up

Before

 Have you noticed that every time you undertake a big cleaning project, the rest of the house falls apart?

After The Great Library Sort of 2014, I felt like I was chasing chaos around the house into progressively smaller rooms.  I think I may have actually, for the first time ever, caught it! Unless you want to think about the back basement, which I do not.

The penultimate last bastion was the home school room.

We call it that, because it holds most of our home school resources (except that a lot of the books have migrated to my office). Some people expect desks and black boards...

Instead it has the museum, art and craft supplies, games, puzzles, plants, experiments, seismographs, random other scientific equipment, castles, electronics, private drawers (not underwear, just drawers set aside for specific Zoomlians), and a giant floating Angry Bird.  And lots of other stuff.

After

The idea is that you could walk in with nothing to do, and decide to make a wearable paper mache mask of Iron Man, or extract DNA from bananas, or  make soap, or mess around with magnets, or watercolor  painting. The list goes on and on!

The up side is that it really is a room full of wonderful things. It's a kid magnet, and usually a young visitor's favorite room.

The down side is that it's hard to keep orderly.  I feel like we're always one giant messy art project away from disaster in there... a frequent occurrence.

On the other hand, it's the most fun room for me to clean, as I always find new fun stuff whenever I excavate  tidy it up.

Zorg and Choclo's room

I think that organization is always going to be a challenge for me, partly because I am not naturally organized.

Also, it's a moving target: the older Zoomlian's expand their horizons, the younger Zoomlians leave the interests of younger kids. We enter and leave new phases and seasons, sometimes with a sigh and a tear in the eye, sometimes with grateful relief!

But it feels good to pass on things we've loved but can't use.  And it feels great to have a clean house!

I think this is bigger than cleaning house, though.  It's trying to readjust my life and my space to the kids I have now. It's trying not to be attached to stuff.  It's trying to find the balance between prudence (I might need this some day) and trust in God's Providence.  Sue has promised a post on what she is calling "minimizing,"  and I am very curious to see if she is talking about something similar.

Trust me, you don't want a "Before"

I will say one thing, since some of the older Zoomlians have asked for more philosophical posts.

As a young (and very disorganized) mom, I made a specific decision that, when a child wanted to do something, I would not say "no" just because it would make a big mess (although I might say we need to do it after the dinner party).

And really, I haven't.

We've made some pretty big messes, but we've had a  lot of fun!








Did you think I was kidding about the giant floating Angry Bird?

Ready?

My camera tells me I'm behind on my posting. 

Last Monday, the Emperor returned to school for his preparation week, and we began to prepare for our school year in earnest. I'm a planner: I love to plan, and I love to have a plan.

 And we had Shakespeare camp.  And I did a ton of fun stuff with the younger Zoomlians.  And I set up my Anatomy and Physiology class.  And life went merrily rolling along.

I think life needs a pause button. 

Really, I could have done it all if dishes, laundry, clutter, and the need for regular meals hadn't continued to pile up!  The Zoomlians usually do most of these things, but we've all slipped some over the summer.

We've also had a series of serious health problems in our extended family, and that, more than anything, made me feel overwhelmed - like I had way more than I could handle.  That spinning out of control feeling in the pit of my stomach... I hate it, and that comes out in me losing my temper and snapping at the kids.

Surprisingly, me losing my temper often results in the kids losing theirs. Who'da thunk it?

At least I know what to do:  apologize, go to confession, and get to Adoration.

"Way more than I can handle" means I'm not supposed to be handling it, I'm supposed to be handing it to God.  And... peace. 

Did everything magically get done?  Not everything I wanted, but everything that really needed to happen, and we were happy doing it.  I was able to talk to the kids about what needed to happen, and they stepped up to the plate and helped out. 

Of course they did!  Why do I get so stressed that I try to force what they invariably freely give when I tell them I need help?  Because I think I can do everything, which means, deep down, I still think everything relies on me.  It doesn't, it relies on God. That's a happier way to live.

My class starts tomorrow.  Today is the First Day of No School.  I'm ready!

Chart and Compass Part 4 (of 4!)

I feel like I need to say one more thing, lest my philosophical ramblings leave you with the impression that my chart and compass approach has been easy and direct, or the result of my own genius.

When I first envisioned home schooling, I was a solidly "classical education" type.  At the curriculum tea, I met someone who wanted to do the classical approach because she loved it, and she always wished she had had that kind of education.  That is a fantastic reason to go that direction, and I hope she goes for it!

For me, however, "classical education" was about my own excellence and proving that I could do a great job as a home schooler.  Well, you can guess how well that went! 

With my home school, God led me on the path of joy.  But to follow that path, I've had to trust that it really was God leading, and let go of a lot of fears, especially the fear that if I didn't "do school,"  my kids would be "uneducated."  What if I miss teaching them everything they will need to know? 

In our rapidly changing world, I am quite sure that neither I nor anyone else is teaching kids everything they will need to know.   What they will need to know hasn't been invented yet!

But:

If they know how to think clearly, logically, and compassionately,

If they know how to break "impossible" problems into manageable parts,

If they are curious and interested in the world and the people around them,

If they know how to find the truth and incorporate it into their lives,

If their compass of joy points toward God, and that love overflows to everyone they meet,

Then they'll be alright, by the grace of God.

Chart and Compass Part 3

I've talked elsewhere about my "chart" of where we are aiming for our kids to be as adults.  I've said that our "true north" is our call to help each kid become who God created them to be.  Now I'd like to talk about the compass of joy.

Simply put, if I (or the kids) don't have joy with the way we are home schooling, I know something is wrong.

Does this mean that every moment is delirious happiness?  No!  Every day (hour?) has it's ups and downs.  Joy is a deeper feeling of peace and wholeness that persists through difficulties.  

It does mean that if long division yields dividends of misery with a remainder of tears, or if a kid must be continually pushed to do a project, or if I dread the start of the school day,  something needs to change.

It does not mean that we just don't do difficult things, or things that don't immediately look fun. There's a lot of joy in challenge!

Chart and Compass, Part 2

Time for a shocking confession.  After home schooling for 10 years, I made a sudden discovery:  I don't care about academics.  Worse yet,  I never really did.

It's not that I care nothing about them, just that they are a far distant second to forming the Zoomlian's faith and character.

I came to the realization that, at any age, it's pretty easy to learn more stuff - I'm 42 and I do it all the time.

On the other hand, as an adult, it's really hard to learn to put other people first, to put God first, to love when it costs you something, to forgive when it hurts, if you didn't learn that as a child. 

There's an irony at work here. "Seek first the kingdom of  God, and all these things will be added unto you."

The academics were added unto us.

Honestly, it doesn't seem fair: not worrying about academics  gave me a 15 year old who does Pre-Calculus, and a 14 year old who is shopping for literary agents, a 12 year old who loves high school Chemistry, and a 10 year old who loves the Orestia.

It doesn't seem fair that they all seem to be at or above the level of their hard working contemporaries, when all we did was have fun.  It's all grace.

It turns out that all kids are curious.  They all like to learn.  Given half a chance, they learn no matter what you do.

Brains are hard wired to remember and use only what they consider important or interesting.

Everything your child needs to know is important and interesting (and tests don't count as important in this sense).  Sometimes, however it's a challenge for you to see what's interesting about it.  Trying to get some one to learn something you find neither important nor interesting is usually an exercise in frustration.

When a kid is interested in a subject, they absorb and retain information very rapidly, leaving time to expand and flower as an individual.

You don't get less academic achievement when it's not the primary focus, you get more. 

Chart and Compass Part 1

Two friends and I are hosting a curriculum tea this Saturday.  Partly it's to exchange ideas on curriculum and swap resources, partly it's a "come and see" for others who are interested in home schooling.  Honestly, it'll be a ton of fun even if no one else shows up; I really like the other two moms!

It's interesting though because the three of us range from straight school-at-home with a packaged curriculum to self designed classical curriculum to eclectic edging towards unschooling.  Guess which one I am!

It's made me think about what I do and why.  It's a curriculum tea, not an apologia for my home school, but, I would like to support those who feel the call to do something a little different, and especially, those who look at traditional home schooling and think, "I could never do that."

I'm an eclectic home schooler (you noticed that in the header, right?).  That means I use anything and everything to home school and I have a ton of fun doing it!  It's a "chart and compass" approach instead of a "turn by turn GPS" approach.  The chart is what my kids need to know to be fully functioning adults (which includes being able to pursue higher education).  The compass is joy.

If I could say one thing to someone thinking about home schooling, it would be, "Why determines how."  The mose essential thing to do, if you are considering home schooling, is to pray as a couple and ask God, "Why?"

For us the answer, the touchstone of our home schooling, our magnetic north, is, "To help our children become the people God created them to be."

There are many, many, MANY other great reasons, and we do have secondary reasons, but that is the one God put in our hearts at the very beginning.  Obviously that why gives you the "how" of an highly individualistic approach.  We adapt how we teach, and, to some extent, what we teach to each child.  And by teach, I mean both directly instructing and supporting their own learning adventures (I am not literally teaching Mxyl Japanese, just supporting him while he takes the class!).
For the rest of the series: part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here.

1000

 This is my 1,000th post!

 It's hard to believe I've been blogging for five years!

Back then, the Zoomlians looked like this:

Choclo was 2, and Oob was only 2 months!

Too much cuteness!!!

 Now they're a bit bigger... but, honestly, still kind of like that.

I went back and reread my earliest posts.

I had nearly forgotten how we started out as Zoom Times:

Why Zoom Times? The first reason is that the more kids I have, the faster the time goes and since I just had my 6th baby, we are really zooming along! The second reason is that this is a blog primarily about our homeschooling adventures which is , in turn, primarily about my crazy kids.

Usually kids ask parents the big question: where did I come from? My kids didn't ask me, they told me where they came from. They come from the planet Zoom. Never heard of it? It's in the galaxy of Oom along with a number of other inhabited planets with names like Boom, Doom, Foom...you get the idea. When they arrived on our planet, the oxygen in the atmosphere caused them to develop legs. Although they were each hundreds of years old when they arrived, the legs took some getting used to, so they were raised by swamp monsters, then mermaids, and then they came to us.

Yes, my kids did write their own origin story!

I was also interested to see that my homeschool philosophy has remained quite stable:

 I think a big part of how you home school has to do with why you home school. We home school in order to allow each child to become the person God created them to be. We are interest led with an emphasis on fun. We do have certain musts: math and learning to read and write, but we are very flexible in terms of how and when they get it. We also tend to be really immersed in what we are interested in. Our high tides tend to be a week a month or a day dedicated to a particular topic (often a requested topic). We subscribe to a tidal homeschooling philosophy, with times of high and low tides.

That's still us!  Thanks for visiting Zoom!

Trajectory

A conversation with my friend, Becky, has gotten me thinking a lot about trajectory in parenting.

To me this means having a clear idea of where you want your child to be on his or her 18th birthday.  Not a physical location, or even a "they should be in college" type thing.  I mean thinking about what it means to be a fully functional adult, and how to get there from "It's a boy!" in 18 years.

I want my kids to be deeply connected to God, to draw life and guidance from their relationship with Him.  I want that life to spill out into the lives of others.

I want them to be able to confidently navigate daily life (feed, clean and care for themselves).

I want them to able to handle their own finances.

I want them to know how to find out what they want to know, and to want to know lots of things.

I want them to be able to sort out truth from error.

I want them to have a knowledge base that allows them to do whatever God calls them to do.

I want them to able to drive and be able to literally navigate their way through life!

I want them to be comfortable in their own skin, to know who God created them to be and to be excited about being that person.

I want them to be able to think of others and  to look at a situation and think about how to make it better.

Where do you want your kids to be?  Do you have an intentional trajectory?

How's This for Real?

A friend dropped by to pick up some stuff and drop off a lovely gift, and stayed for tea.  At some point during a delightful conversation, she asked, "So, what are your kids learning?"

My mind went completely blank.  Up until that moment, I had forgotten that she's the Latin teacher at our local Classical Curriculum school.

All I could think of was, "Oh, you know....stuff."  Which I elegantly refrained from saying (barely)!

I came up with something like, "Uh, Biology.... and everyone is doing Math..."

Doh!  I'm totally blaming this on pregnancy brain.

Eventually, I also came up with the facts that Mxyl and Klenda had just written a book, Zorg that day had finished the last Pre-Algebra lesson, and we had recently finished the world's longest study of US History.

I should have brought up all the art, horseback lessons, ancient history, Spanish, fossil hunting, computer animation, and gardening that we've been doing lately!

Actually, I think it was just a polite question, and for all that I think of myself as "not particularly caring what people think," I processed it as "Are your children actually learning anything?".  The phrasing "what are they learning" threw me for a loop. I know a great deal about what I'm teaching.  What they are learning is inherently more mysterious, particularly since much of what they are learning has little to do with me!

 If I were able to do it over I would just say, "Why don't you ask them?"

The picture of the cute baby groundhogs are a complete ruse.  We found them under a barn while Marching Through Time - there were four, but I only got a picture of two.

Homeschool Dad of the Year

I don't care what school these kids go to during the day, this Dad homeschools his kids in the best sense of the word: teaching them what he loves!

Outside the Window

We have robins nesting in the roses!

We had a pair of robins that nested near the house for several years, and we have always enjoyed watching them rear their families, but this has been one of the easiest to observe.

One year we saw the parents teach their fledgelings to fly. That was interesting because there was one chick who had a hard time learning.

We watched as the dad tried progressively smaller and easier flights until the chick "got it!"

All I could think was, "That's what we do! When a kid has a hard time with something we break it into smaller and easier steps to provide more structure. And we keep at it until the kid gets it."

The Zoomlians take on it was that all robins are homeschooled!

Navel Gazing

It's a seasonal thing. This time of year I always end up mulling over our homeschool philosophy. What's working? What isn't?

Part of that has to do with the fact that the kids are always growing and changing and need different things. This year there have been a number of other external prods.

In the fog of low thyroid, I made a foolish decision to go forward with something that, while good of itself (let's learn research skills by preparing presentations on different countries!), was not good for us (let's ditch US History!).

We have come to the reluctant view that the co-op we've been in for the last nine years is not going to work for us next year. It's actually a great amount of time for a co-op to be useful, but it's also hard to let go. :(

I realized I was (probably in the thyroid fog) drifting more into the "schoolish" side of things (let's get these boxes checked off) and doing less fun"isn't-the-world-amazing" stuff.

Mostly, I'm realizing that the way I'm called to home school is a gift. The way others are called to home school (or parent, or live) is God's gift to them, this is God's gift to me and I need to be faithful to that gift.

Ironically, I think about peer pressure for my kids, but I didn't realize that hanging out with other home schooling moms would be peer pressure for me! The way I've been called is more on the unschooling end of things, but my friends have been called to a more "schoolish" approach. Not that I intend to stop being friends, of course! I more feel that God's put me on notice to keep my eyes on my own page.

That means following the kids interests. It means doing as much hands on stuff as I can. It means holding steady on a few core subjects (Math and English). It means looking at each child and seeing what thy need to to take the next step. It means the time to strike is when the opportunity presents itself (by which I mean, when a kid's curiosity is raised, he will absorb and retain the most information the most quickly and easily). It means looking to my older kids to organize more of the fun and amazing stuff. It means following a trajectory towards healthy, happy, holy adulthood.

I do believe that God lets us know when we are off track, if we're willing to listen. He also lets us know when we are on track. A few days after I started making these adjustments, Oob squirmed onto my lap and asked me to write his name. Then Choclo's name. We snuggled and I wrote and he sounded out the names. A dozen names later, I started writing words...and he kept on sounding them out! When he was done, he told me, "Thank you, Mommy. Those were fun puzzles!"

Thank you, God, for reminding me why I home school.

Preservation of Society

Recently, we've been trying to figure out an appropriate balance of TV/Computers/iPods/etc. I think this is something every family in our society has to make decisions about, and the answers will be different for each family.

I'm always interested in how others solve this, so I thought I'd post our "rulebook," a work in progress.

The Pavlat Preservation of Society Rulebook:

Flatscreen Use

Overall Rules:

• No flatscreens between 6 PM and 8 AM (Saturdays: 6 AM) without specific permission
• Maximum flatscreen time = 2 hours a day, plus level treats, parent-led educational videos, Saturday pre-breakfast TV, special occasions, sick days, and watching others play games
• No flatscreens with guests without specific permission
• Additional time for Wii, Plug and Play, Didj, iPod, websites, and other computer time may be “bought” with time spent doing approved useful stuff
• iBreviary may always be used and does not count as flatscreen time

TV (videos/movies)

· Educational use with permission

· Saturday mornings (unless specifically prohibited on Friday night)

Wii:

· Sundays (in 30 minute increments; timers must be used)

· Educational games during Fun Blocks or at other times with permission

Plug and Play:

· 30 minutes on Sundays (timers must be used)

· Other times with permission

Didj and iPod:

· Educational games with permission (standing permission for Mind Snacks)

· 30 minute time limit on useful apps or eBooks

· Other games may only be done with “bought” time or with Mind Snacks time

Computers:

• Total computer time may not exceed 60 minutes a day
• Laptops may only be used in the living room, dining room, or library
• Word processing does not count as computer time, but as flatscreen use

• Computer games:

o 30 minutes on Sundays (timers must be used)

o Educational games during Fun Blocks or at other times with permission (standing permission for Rosetta Stone)

· Websites or Robotics Programming:

o Request specific permission to use the Internet or robotics programming

o All requests must include reason for use (i.e., tell what you will do and why)

o Websites from bookmarks list only (websites approved upon request)

o 30 minute time limit (timers must be used)

· Other computer time (including customizing Windows):

o May only be done with “bought” time or with Rosetta Stone time

o 30 minute time limit (timers must be used)