Andy had two really bad tournaments locally that undid his progress from the norm tournament in Charlotte. One reason was that both Emily and Andy got into the video game addiction from their schools. We caught them getting up in the middle of the night playing video games on their school computers. We did our best to control the technology usage at home. But we had no control over what they did at school. Emily confessed to me that she started when she got bored at school and her classmates showed her the video games. We were tired of fighting and struggling with our kids over technology usage, the books they read, negative influence from the teachers and classmates, and the leftie education that violates the truth. Finally we decided to pull them out of the public schools. I found the homeschool curriculum was way better than what I expected. I spent the whole summer to sift through all the options and was overwhelmed by the choices. Luckily Marla invited me to her house and showed me what she was doing with her boys. I was impressed by her boys. I also was encouraged by many people I met during the summer who also homeschooled. The kids resisted in the beginning. Emily mourned when her friends dropped by on their way to school the first week. She also was sad that she lost her "National Junior Honor Society" status as well as other privileges at school. I was praying that we made the right choice for them and for our family. One month into our homeschool, we got an offer from Imagine International Academy (one of the top college-prep charter schools in TX) that is just across street from us. Both kids denied the offers. I started to feel that we made the right choices. The kids learned a lot at home. I was able to patch up the holes they had in the public schools. They really enjoyed the co-ops on Fridays. Emily had Geography and World cultures, Writing, Life science, Story telling, and PE at co-op. Andy had Geography and World cultures, Writing, and Basketball. By now, they both could draw by memory all the countries, capitals, and physical features in Africa, Middle-east, and Europe. They each did presentations on some countries reports and other things they learned. I could feel their attitudes were improving too. I just wished we had done homeschooling sooner!
Andy has way more homework at homeschool co-op than public school. But it's worth it. He learned so much more! At the same time, he struggled with his addictions to the video games that he learned from his classmates at the public school. As a result, his chess training suffered. It showed up in his tournaments. We stopped participating in the local tournaments because of that. But it costs so much to travel. We plan to play one big tournament a month. Andy gradually worked through his video game problems. The first big tournament was SPICE cup in October. We drove over nine hours to St. Louis, the chess capital in America. Andy really wanted to stop by the chess club to see the US Championships before we checked into the hotel. Unfortunately we found out it was a rest day for the players. We checked in the hotel after 9pm. Soon we heard the loud noise from above. I went down to the lobby to request to change the room. The front desk told me the hotel was full. The noise was from the wedding party above. She gave me two pairs of ear plugs. The ear plugs didn't help at all. The noise lasted past midnight. Then I was waken up by the noise next door. People came in talking and watching TV, taking showers. I could hear everything since the rooms were connected. I looked at the clock- it was 2:14am. I asked to change the room again the next morning. They again told me the hotel was full even when I saw some people from the first floor just checked out. Luckily they blocked out our connected room after my protest. I learned a lesson to always ask for the first floor and check the room first before moving in. Andy didn't do very well but he learned valuable lessons from playing against strong opponents. SPICE cup is one of the best organized tournaments we've had. I wished I brought my books so I could have planned for the lessons. I drove Bryan Xie's mom to buy grocery a couple of times. Andy got to walk in the sun for half an hour during the week. He also visited with Ryo, Bryan, and Jonathan for a while before we headed back home. We listened to the "Stories of the World" history CDs in the car and drove by the historical route 66. My phone was out of the battery as soon as we left St. Louis. But we had a smooth drive all the way home.
The 2021 All America Team on the US Chess Kids Magazine cover
Andy loves Math competition. He participated in the North American Mathcon in April/May this year and got mention of honor for MathCon math contest. Less than 1% of thousands of contestants in North America moved on to the final stage. The final contest was supposed to be in Chicago. But because of COVID, it was held online this year. Andy saw a couple of his chess friends in other grades and other states in this math competition. He won the first prize for the chess tournament after the math contest. He got invited to attend the award ceremony (3 students in McKinney ISD got mention of honor award) by McKinney ISD. But we couldn't attend it because we were on our way to Las Vegas for his chess tournament.
We celebrated David's birthday with his parents and sister's family for one weekend. The kids went to a youth retreat at church another weekend in September. So Andy lost quite some time on chess trainings.
We got together with Gayla's family and friends after attending Matthew's graduation. We also got to meet some homeschool families
Andy and Emily had to do their homework for five hours until 11pm the nights before the chess tournaments. As a result, they both memorized all the fifty four countries and capitals and physical features of Africa. They could draw the countries by hand from memories. They also learned the cultures of different countries and people groups. I learned a lot just listening to the class. Andy did a presentation on Isreal. Emily is going to do a presentation on Ireland. They also did presentations in the writing class and projects in the science class. They made several friends at co-op too!
Fall is in the air. The kids had fun at our church's fall festival.
