Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Homeschool


Homeschool is going full steam now. We are short a couple of subjects for now as the materials are on back order, but that's okay. The conventions and nominations are providing lots of material for current events.

Homeschooling is getting very popular! People talk to me and think it sounds like a great idea, but not for them. The results are pretty obvious - most people remark on how nice the kids are. But I've noticed people seem afraid that it's something only special people can do.

Really though, it's just something you do because you feel like it's what needs to be done. Like raising a special needs child. You just do it. And there's so many methods and kinds of people that do it now that no one really has to re-invent the wheel. Although I'm thinking of developing, later, when the kids are not taking up so much time, a curriculum for teaching Koine Greek for kids. But that's not the wheel, more like the Cuisinart.

Poor Ted went from a lot of work back to just one little training session a day. Maybe. But all the work I did when I had the time has really paid off. He's super useful now. He's really turned into the go-to dog here.

We had a chance to run a for-fun trial course this weekend, a couple of times. Although he was shaky on his outrun, he did the rest of the course with no problem. The sheep were not feeling in the mood to pen but both times we did it, we got them in. Eventually.

And we did it without lots of running in circles - mostly we stood at the mouth of the pen with Ted going, "Is this it?" and the sheep going, "So now what?" and me going, "I'm forgetting something." I was picking away at them forgetting that not all sheep are sensitive to body pressure and need glaring and stomping to get them to respond to people. Finally Robin yelled, "Stomp! Glare!" Oh yeah.

I'll post videos and say more about this next time.