MOPS

This morning Luke played at Nicco and Colter's house (homeschooled kids around Luke's age) while the two girls and I went to MOPS or "Mops School" as Isabel calls it.  Every other Tuesday morning moms can get together, have brunch, a speaker, do a service project, socialize, etc. while our children are just down the hall, having storytime, playtime, etc.  I already have a great network of women and moms in my neighborhood and from my church, but with homeschooling, this is a great chance to have a few hours to be able to carry on a conversation without my children interrupting or eating my food.  As always, I loved it today and it was a good break for me. Afterward a woman approched me that had heard that I homeschool and wanted to know if I have a homeschooling group that I belong to.  I explained that I have a few women in my neighborhood that I do a few thing with, but no not really.  She said that the Hope Baptist Church (the MOPS meetings are held at a Hope Baptist Church here so a lot of women from MOPS attend there) has a group for homeschoolers that do feild trips etc.  I told her that would be great if she could email me and invite me along sometime.  Now here's the fun part:  We exchanged info on our children's ages and she made it very clear to me that even though her oldest is five, she is in first grade because she started Kindergarten with her last year and is way ahead.  Then she asked me what curriculum I use, I said none (which is kind of a lie because I use Math-U-See for our math.)  She acted a little shocked and confused (by what a bad parent I am I assume) and then said, "Oh, so you have your teaching degree?"  HAHAHAHA.  I guess somehow she would think it was okay that I don't use a curriculum as long as I have a teaching degree.  I said no and explained (which now I am so irritated that I felt like I had to explain myself to her) that my kids are so young and i haven't felt the need to use a curriculum.

Hey, maybe I misread her.  I am not offended and would be glad to join them on their homeschool group field trip or whatever (if she'll even email me now.)  BUT, I personally don't ask people what curriculum they use (unless I was looking into one and wanted some opinions) because I don't care.  I've run across a few homeschoolers that are very judgmental and will only be your friend if you use the same curriculum that they do.  Sounds silly, but I swear it's true!  People are weird.

After MOPS we went to the library (first time in a long time) and Luke was so excited to see what books we brought home for him.  I overheard Isabel reading a book to Sylvia.  Isabel reads great so long as she's not reading to me.  I think she feels a lot of pressure and then starts to doubt herself.  It makes me feel so bad and I swear I don't slap her wrist if she gets a word wrong or anything.  I told her that I love to hear her read but she doesn't ever have to read to me if she doesn't want to, so long as she enjoys reading in bed at night...which she does!

Child Psychologist?

Today was the last day of MOPS for the Spring. The next MOPS meeting will be in September. I had a great time as usual talking with friends, eating brunch and listening to a great motivating speaker. My kids love it there because they always do fun crafts, lessons and activities. As I've said before, MOPS is a group for Christian moms with preschoolers. Our meetings are held at a Baptist church and I am pretty sure that a lot of the moms are Baptist. I am the only mom there that is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints (Mormon). All of the women have always been very friendly and never judgmental, but being only one in my faith and with all of the weird things that people think about "Mormons", I can't help but wonder what they think of me.

So point is, I was part mortified and part amused today when I picked up my kids from their classes and on one side of Luke's paper he drew a book titled "The Book of Mormon" and then on the other side he drew a guy with a gun and spikes all over. Later I asked Isabel what they were supposed to draw on their papers and she said, feelings. Maybe I better take that picture to a child psychologist. Hehehe.

Tuesdays are Off

Tuesday has become our day off! Tuesdays we do absolutely NO sit down school work, worksheets, planned lessons, or any of that. It has worked out great because every other Tuesday morning we have our "MOPS school" and so having Tuesdays "off" I don't feel pressure to get in school in the afternoon (which as all of us home schoolers have experienced, school in the afternoon, at least with younger children, is usually a disaster.) Or if we don't have MOPS that Tuesday then we can go to the park or run some fun errands (Target, Dollar Store, etc.) This morning we went to MOPS. We then rode the carousel at the Las Vegas Outlets and played in the toy store...just for fun.