Homeschooling in South Carolina

Homeschooling in South Carolina is okay.  It isn't great.  It isn't the free-for-all that is Alaska, but it's okay.  I have been able to grudgingly handle it for the last four and a half years.  Here are the rules that apply to everyone:

• The compulsory ages are from five to seventeen. (Okay, because I'm schooling them anyway.)
• The required subjects are math, reading, writing, social studies, science, with composition and literature being added in grades seven through twelve.  (Okay, I'm teaching that stuff anyway.)
• The school year must be 180 days long. (Okay, we homeschool year round anyway.)
• The homeschooling parent must have a high school diploma or GED. (Okay, I have that anyway.)

The law gives homeschoolers three options to choose from.  The cheapest and least restrictive option (which is of course, what we went with) is option three, which requires joining a homeschool association of at least fifty members and submitting proof of following all of the above requirements, plus semiannual progress reports (Not okay!  What business is it of theirs?).  I must also keep educational records, including a plan book (or other record) of subjects taught and activities and a portfolio of the child's work, though I am not required to show these to anyone.  Annual testing is not required, but is available through the homeschool association.

For those of you who don't know, military homeschooling families are required to follow the homeschool laws of the state in which they reside.  It doesn't matter that we are all legal residents of the free-for-all that is Alaska - we have to follow the silly legislation of whatever inferior state we are being forced to live in.  This means that I'll have to follow a whole new set of ridiculous laws when we move to Hawaii early next year, and I'm not happy about it.

So, can any of you tell that I really want The Man to tell The Man where to stick this stupid job?  He has this thing about making sure The Goobs eat every day, though.  It's beyond frustrating.

Congaree National Swamp Monument, SC

We spent Saturday afternoon hiking the 4.4 mile Weston Lake Loop trail out at Congaree Swamp National Monument.  Congaree is a brown-water swamp, and it floods about ten times a year.  When the flood waters recede, the flood plain is coated with a new layer of rich soil, which means there are some mighty big trees out there.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to stop and take pictures of any of them because we were too busy evading a large Boy Scout troop which obviously had not been briefed on trail etiquette. Man, they were loud.  We were pretty sure we wouldn't see any river otters or beavers because it was the middle of the afternoon, but thanks to those Boy Scouts we didn't even see any birds or squirrels.  Now that I think about it, I don't remember even hearing any birds! That's okay, because we saw lots of fungus.  We like fungus just fine.  And I've been reading up on lichen, so as we were walking along I was able to say things like, "You know, Goobers, lichen is actually a colorless fungus and a blue-green algae coexisting in a mutually beneficial partnership," and "By the way, Goobers, a rough way to determine whether a growth is a fungus or a lichen is to scrape away a bit of the bark. If there are filaments under the bark and growing up through it, odds are good that it is a fungus."  The Goobers were suitably impressed by my vast stores of knowledge, but of course they've forgotten all of that by now and I'm just dumb old Mom again.

Just so you know, the boardwalk part of the trail is nerve wracking for those of us who fall down a lot. Look at how far apart the boards are. Is that really necessary?

Here are my three favorite people laughing at me because I am lagging behind taking pictures of my feet.  The last laugh is on them - they thought I wouldn't catch them, but this lens has ZOOM, baby!  I can record those smirks from a mile away.

Once I got past the mile-wide gaps in the boardwalk, everything was fine.  There was a little bit of mud to slip and slide in, but hey, it's a swamp.  Whatcha gonna do?

Battle!

The Man and his fellow noncommissioned officers (aka sergeants) had to go on a professional development field trip to a reenactment of the Battle of Hobkirk's Hill out at the Revolutionary War Park in Camden, SC. Families were invited as well, and I revised my "absolutely no squadron activities" policy in order to take The Goobers on a history field trip.  Aren't I a great mom?

After we paid our $18 - eighteen dollars! - entry fee, we wandered around the camp for a while, killing time until the rest of The Man's peeps showed up. The whole reenactment thing is obviously more for the participants than the observers - the only time we could make eye contact was when someone was trying to sell us something.  I blame myself; I could have marched up to people and demanded they tell me stories, but that just isn't my way.  Or The Man's way.  Or The Goobers' way.  We're just not that way, people.  We're shy. 

That's all right; I confess that I've never really been all that interested in the details of making wooden buckets, and I can't say I've ever been tempted to take up woodcarving.  We decided to take a walk instead.  We were the only people on the nature trail, quite possibly because we were the only people not busy buying glass beads and colonial style bonnets.

We saw exactly one sparrow and one anole on our nature walk, which was disappointing but not surprising due to the noise from the artillery demonstration.  We did see some fancy looking fungus, though.  Fungi don't scare easily.

We also saw Pine Tree Creek, which got its name from a fallen pine tree used by Indians and settlers alike to cross the waterway.  I'm not sure because the sign didn't specify, but this might actually be Little Pine Tree Creek, which empties into Big Pine Tree Creek, which in turn empties into the Wateree River.

Upon leaving the woods we saw that The Man's peeps had already assembled, so while he was developing his professionalism I took The Goobers over to the blacksmith demonstration. The smithy gave a good lecture; he told us about the history of blacksmithing all over the world, and I regret not taking notes because now I don't remember a thing apart from how people work the bellows in Africa.  I'm afraid that in my mind blacksmithing rates just a half a step above bucket making and woodcarving.  Anyway, as he lectured he made a cute little heart shaped hook to hang on the wall.  I'm sure they were for sale somewhere.

After the blacksmith demonstration and a brief lunch break, it was time to watch the battle. I'm sorry to say that we were underwhelmed.  (Man. I'm a little embarrassed by my apathy here. My apologies to all you reenactment fanatics.)  JellyMan cracked me up, though.

"Mater, ubi est equitatus?"

Ha!  Ha ha!  Hahaha!

The absence of cavalry was regrettable, but hey, at least the field stayed clean.

I'm much too lazy to write an essay about the significance of the Battle of Hobkirk's Hill (I left that to The Goobers) but here is a narrative of the battle if you're interested. I do recommend reading about South Carolina's involvement in the Revolutionary War, even if it's just out of the World Book encyclopedia. It's good stuff. Here are a few more links to get you started:

The Revolutionary War in South Carolina

The Battle of Camden 

And, because I know you're curious:

African bellows

Edisto Island, SC: Part 2

There's only so much time one can spend searching for shark teeth on the beach before one's eyes begin to glaze over, so we went for a little walk to Spanish Mount, which is what they call the midden. A midden is code for "trash heap." Apparently ancient peoples were just as particular about their trash heaps than we moderns are; shells went here, everything else went somewhere else. This midden was a little less specialized than others I've read about; archaeologists found animal bones and pottery shards mixed in with all the shells. Here is a picture of the pottery from the case at the interpretive center:

The trail was very pretty, with palm trees, live oaks, and plenty of spanish moss for atmosphere. Unfortunately for me, there were also plenty of mosquitos. I kept everyone entertained by doing my groovy little mosquito dance and smacking myself, muttering darkly every time I squished a full mosquito. That's just so nasty. Whose blood is that? Not mine. Gag, hurl, spew, blurghghph.

Thirty crazy dance moves and five hundred squished mosquitos later, we arrived at the "Mound of Mystery." According to the sign, the "Mound of Mystery" is thought to be about 4,000 years old. In 1809 the "Mound of Mystery" was 20 feet high and covered a half an acre of land. Now it is less than a tenth of that size. The park service stablized the"Mound of Mystery" in 2005 and provided a nice viewing deck. Please don't take any oyster shells, people. There are millions of shells for your enjoyment over on the beach.

Gazing upon the "Mound of Mystery:"

Here are some ancient oyster shells:

And here are some more ancient oyster shells:

And oh, would you look at that - even more ancient oyster shells!

There is only so much time one can spend gazing upon ancient oyster shells before one's eyes start to glaze over, so we indulged ourselves in a little summer home shopping:

There's only so much time one (I) can spend gazing upon other people's summer homes before one's (my) eyes begin to glaze over, so we headed back to the beach to look for more shark teeth.  I was much more careful with the sunscreen this time, believe me.

Edisto Island, SC: Part 1 (part 2 if you count the hotdog bun post, which I don't, even though the pictures are nice)

The first time we visited Edisto Island was way, waaaay, waaaaaaaaaay back in 2007 - so long ago that The Goobers could barely remember the details of the trip. Even looking at these pictures wasn't enough to jog their memories, so we did what any concerned parents would do - we packed our things and went again, this time for several days so the experience would have a better chance of sinking in. Jeez, Goobs. Way to inconvenience us.

We had a fabulous time camping at Edisto Island State Park, even though we did not have the good sense to reserve a site on the beach A YEAR AGO, which is what you have to do if you want to camp on the beach. That's okay. We stayed at the Live Oak campground and took long walks around the marsh and saw raccoons and spiders and egrets, and the beach was just a three minute drive up the road. Yes, we could have walked, but then I would have had to leave all my stuff behind. I happen to need my stuff. My stuff consists of:

• Ice (because it's hot)
• Water(because we get thirsty)
• Camera (because that's what I do)
• Sunscreen (because I'm white and pasty and wish to remain so)
• Towels (because without them we'd stick to the vinyl car seats)
• Tupperware (for the shells and dead creatures)
• Trash bags (because WILL get wet)
• First Aid Kit (because Anemone will skin her entire body on the ocean floor)
• Extra eye glasses (because JellyManwill lose his in the surf)
• Yarn (because I have to knit something every few minutes or my fingers itch)
• Beach chairs (because my feet get tired and besides, it's really hard to knit while walking in sand)
• Picnic lunch (because the natives get restless)
• Trashy novels (because I'm on vacation, dammit. Stop judging me.)

And I used every last bit of it because of all those becauses. So it's a good thing we drove because The Man wasn't too happy about carrying all that stuff even from the parking lot. If I had asked him to carry it from the campsite he might have insisted we go to the beach as God intended - with a hand towel and a bottle of water. Or he might have just packed everything up and hupped us up to Charleston to spend the night in a hotel.

Crap. I wish I had thought of that earlier.

Anyway, my big lesson learned for this trip - aside from 1) make reservations a year beforeI thinkI might want to go camping and 2) remember to provoke The Man into taking me to a hotel -was to always reset your camera when you are done using it. Because, you see, the high ISO setting you used when taking pictures of your niece at her first birthday party (I just hate flashing light at babies) does not work so well at thebeach, even at sunset. All of your pictures will look like this:

or this:

or like this:

You were really looking forward totaking pictures of your family frolicking on the beach at sunset, so when you see what you've done youwill want to smack yourself really hard in the face with that dead fish your dog brought you. You'll wail and gnash your teeth and cry, "Why, why, why?" as you repeatedly knock your head against a palm tree. You'll moan and groan and whine and fuss until you realize this might not be such a bad thing. After all, you'll never make the samemistake again, that grainy look is actually sort of cool, and besides, Anemone is pretty no matter what setting your camera is on.

Cold War Memorial; Mount Pleasant, S.C.

Between purchasing our tickets for Fort Sumter and actually getting on the boat, we took a walk around this memorial near Patriots Point. It is a monument dedicated to those were lost aboard submarines during the Cold War. We were very impressed with the whole thing.

I have never studied the Cold War in depth, so I was very glad of the wealth of information presented on the signs. There were stone benches scattered around the park; each one was dedicated to a different submarine. And of course, the "sub" itself was very cool. I love the fountain grass planted all around - nice touch.

Best of all, we were the only ones there, so we were free to take as much time as we needed to wander around, read, and chat about what we had learned. And to have a little meltdown. I could make the same old excuses, "Oh, they're just tired," or "Oh, they had donuts for breakfast," or "Oh, they're off their routine," and it would all be true. But we're Lutherans, for crying out loud. We don't have meltdowns - at least not in public. Apparently The Goobers didn't get that memo, because here they are, in front of God and the whole world, having a meltdown.

(This is where you'll have to imagine a picture of The Goobers having said meltdown. They have asked me not to post it, so I won't. I really, really want to, because it's freaking hilarious,but I wouldn't want to provoke my children to anger - they might have another meltdown.)

I have no idea what they were fighting about, because they had self-corrected by the time I walked over there. I guess the force German is strong in them after all.

And this concludes my participation in Applie's "Take a Hike" week. Fortnight. Month. Whatever! We're still taking walks, but they're just around our boring neighborhood. I won't subject you to pictures of that. Really. I promise.

Fort Sumter, S.C.

Getting to Fort Sumter is a huge, expensive pain in the ass unless you have your own boat, which in itself is a huge, expensive pain in the ass. Either way, it's gonna hurt. Bummer! Get it? Bum-mer? (Sorry.) We do not have our own boat, so we had to shell out $50 for seats on a Fort Sumter Tours ferry. While The Man was waiting in a ridiculously long line (this will teach us never to go anywhere on a weekend) I took this picture of the USS Yorktown.

We didn't board the USS Yorktown. If you've seen one aircraft carrier, you've seen 'em all, and we've seen a lot more than one. (For those of you who haven't, this is just the tiniest little bit of the carrier. Those suckers are huge.)

Once you're on the boat, you have to wait for your fellow tourists to get settled. This takes a long, long time. While you're waiting, you can give your Goobers a crash course refresher on the beginnings of the Civil War. While you are talking, they will look at you like this:

This can mean several things, depending on your particular Goobers' temperaments. It could mean they are fascinated with your lecture and are dreaming of one day becoming historians themselves. It could mean they are desperately struggling to appear politely interested in the face of your historical/political diatribe. Or it could mean there is a wasp in your hair and they're trying to keep you calm right up until they smack you over the head with their Fort Sumter pamphlets. Whatever. You just keep talking, because it's very important that they not listen to the obnoxious,ignorant wretches tourists sitting next to you, who believe the Civil War could have been prevented if only there had been more dialogue between the two sides. Yeah, because slavery coupled with secession would sound FANTASTIC if you could just talk about it long enough. There's WTF moment #9,876 for you.

Once you get underway, you can quit talking and listen to the recorded tour guide. Your Goobers won't really listen, but that's okay because you can give them another crash course refresher afterwards while the Ranger is going through her "Don't touch this, this, this, that, this, or that over there," routine. You'll also have a lot of time to kill while you're waiting for your fellow passengers to get off the boat, and while you're standing there you can beat "April 12, 1861" into your Goobers' brains. If you do it right, they will remember for ten whole minutes, or at least until they see a pair of dolphins surface or a pelican diving for fish. It's okay. We have books so that we don't have to remember all the little details. If you ask your Goobers when the Civil War started, and they reply, "In the early 1860's," you've done your job well enough. After all, if you're at Fort Sumter, chances are you're on vacation. Don't sweat the small stuff.

And now for some pictures. First, proof we really did visit Fort Sumter:

And here are some more pictures, just to satisfy the armchair tourists among you. I know it isn't as good as being there, but hey. I did the best I could.

And that's about all she wrote! I apologize for this not being an in-depth tour, but the truth is, I've never been able to drum up much interest in battlefields. What can I say? War is hell, and I'm a girl. I'm not cut out for it. (But I visit battlefields anyway, because it's the least I can do. Well, besides enlist, but I've already done that.) I did enjoy watching The Goobers mull over the fact that Fort Sumter was designed so that the powder magazine was at the back of the Fort, on the side facing the mainland. Good planning when the enemy is a foreign power; not so much when the enemy turns out to be your brother. I think that made the whole thing a little more real for my Goobs.

There is one more batch of photos from our trip, and they're from a neat little...

Oh, no, Tressa, look out! Evil vampire cows!

Don't worry. Anemone's got your back.

The Battery; Charleston, S.C.

Can you believe that in all our visits to Charleston, we had never walked around the Battery? We couldn't, either, so we made sure to do it this time. It was nice to see where the notorious pirate Stede Bonnett was hanged, but I still like Waterfront Park better. Even so, you just can't beat a morning constitutional in Charleston. Yes, its a beautful city, but really it's the people that make it interesting. There are a lot of dog walkers in Charleston, and none of them walk dogs that look anything like our Norman. They walk fancy dogs, and it's fun to try to guess the ridiculously obscure breeds. There are also crazy-healthy joggers all over Charleston, and it's fun to watch them dodge the fancy dog poop. There are also lots of tourists in Charleston, and tourists are always fun to watch because you never know what they'll do. Unless they're boring tourists. They're not worth watching, because all they do is:

pose on the sea wall

or by a cannon

and translate the Latin on memorials. It makes them feel smart.

Well, they try to translate the Latin on memorials.

We also went to the Old Exchange andProvost Dungeon. That was fun, but I don't have any pictures. (Photography was allowed, but I didn't have my camera with me.) If you click on the link, you can take a virtual tour of the place. The only thing I didn't like about it was that you could only see the dungeon on a guided tour, and you had to sit through long speeches made by Disney-esque automatons. It didn't do anything for the atmosphere.

Then it was on to lunch. Everybody says, "Oh, you've got to go to Hyman's Seafood. You'll love it." The guide books say, "Oh, you've got to go to Hyman's. You'll love it." We try to stay away from the "everybody loves it" restaurants, because, well, people are stupid when it comes to food. But this time, we went ahead and tried it because we were walking by and it looked like rain, and now I can tell you NOT to go to Hyman's. All of our seafood was tough and overcooked, except for the scallops, which were an interesting combination of overcooked and raw. How hard is it to choose scallops that are all roughly the same size so they cook properly? I'll tell you how hard it is - it isn't!!! The crabcakes were okay. A little too much bread, but not nearly as much as you get in some restaurants. The cheesecake was decent, too, but even the okay crabcake, the decent cheesecake and the dubious honor of sitting at the AC/DC table was not enough to make up for those scallops. Or the shoeleather flounder. I do have one good thing to say about Hyman's, though. They put boiled peanuts on the table. I hate peanuts. I don't like peanut butter and I don't like peanuts in my chocolate, and I really can't imagine why anyone would want to eat peanut brittle. But boiled peanuts are awesome! Seriously. Seek thee out some boiled peanuts.

The Man got us into the restaurant in time to beat the rain, but none of us banked on the storm lasting as long as it did. We lingered over our drinks as long as we could, but eventually we had to make a mad dash for the car, which was parked about a half mile away. We didn't have umbrellas, and every time we crossed the street we had to wade through ankle deep rivers, and by the time we got to the car we looked like drowned rats. But the rain made a pretty picture and our vehicle is upholstered with Manly and Rugged vinyl. No harm done.

We also visited Fort Sumter, and I'll blog about that tomorrow. Unless I decide to blog about cows instead. That happens sometimes.

Old Sheldon Church; Beaufort, S.C.

I am a tourist with a long list of must-see tourist attractions (I really must see the corn palace before I die) so before we left the Beaufort area we stopped to see the ruins of Old Sheldon Church. The British burned it during the Revolutionary War and the feds burned it again during the Civil War, and it's been standing empty ever since. There was a little bit of graffiti, but not enough to be distracting, and there is a nifty old cemetery around back. It was also suprisingly crowded - I had to time this picture just right.

I've read that there are sunrise services here every Easter. I bet it's pretty neat.

Hunting Island, S.C. (part three)

As we walked along the beach, Anemone's feet kept getting more and more painful, and the clouds kept looking more and more menacing, so we decided to call it a day. On the way out of the park we pulled into a parking lot by the marsh to rebandage Anemone's feet. She immediately felt better, so we took a walk out on the boardwalk. (A useless bit of trivia: the war scenes in Forrest Gump were filmed near here.)

This is what they were looking at: crabs. Crabs as far as the eye could see. We had a good time pretending to throw each other off the board walk and imagining the crabs swarming over our bodies, a la the scarab beetles in The Mummy movies. Or the ants in Indiana Jones 4. Or the various carnviorous insects in the X-Files. (That swarming bug thing is way overdone, but it's good every time!)

The Man is looking at the clouds here, judging how long we have until the skies open up on us. The boardwalk goes up to those trees in the background, then turns into a dirt path. Then you hit more boardwalk and a viewing platform.

I've always enjoyed taking pictures blind - shooting from the hip, so to speak. Every once in a while I end up with a picture I kind of like. 

Here is my family:

There is more to Hunting Island than just the marsh, but we didn't see it because The Man hustled us back to the parking lot. Just as we reached the car there was a terrific crack of thunder, and as we buckled our seatbelts the rain started to fall. Yep, he is that good.