Our 10th Year Homeschooling!!!

     As the 2017-2018 school year starts (August 1).  I think back over the last nine school years, how I was nervous to start teaching our children at home.   That first school year I taught third grade, Kindergarten, and preschool.  We also had a newborn.  We did not know what our family was heading towards in some ways.  All we knew is that we were going to take homeschooling one year at a time. 

     The first year is a blur for the most part.  Some of the year I spent trying to replicate a public school classroom. But having a very set schedule.  Because as someone that attended public school that is what I thought that was what was expected of us.  I then sought out council from other homeschooling moms and found out that my homeschool did not have to "match" a public school classroom. Wow, I thought how much stress I was feeling about that was not even necessary.  If the kids and I got done with our lessons that it was ok for them to just play, read or be read too.  It was ok for them to paint, draw, or play outside.  I did not have to keep them cooped up in the house on nice days.  We could have impromptu "field trips", even of it was to the store down the street.   I remember one day we took our school work to the park by our house and took lunch with us.  I did not have to fear having someone call in on me because my kids "were not in school".  The first year we built a cover wagon out of sheets and my boys bunk beds.  We talked about how westward expansion happened, the Oregon trail and so much more with that unit.

     Over the years we have changed up some of our curriculum and we have done unit studies.  We have gone on countless field trips to places like our state capital building, museums, the zoo, and so many more.  This year is biter sweet for me. We have a senior in high school, a freshman, 7th and 4th graders. How have things changed for our school?  Well not much we still go on field trips, but the conversations about the field trips are much more in-depth with my kids.  Instead of just mommy look a lion, we talk about classification of lions or what ever animal we are in front of.  We might look for one particular style or artist in the art museum and talk about other works from that time or artist. Instead of can we find all the paintings that have the colors blue, read and yellow in them. If we are at the history museum we take a closer look at a particular time or culture.  Instead of when they were little hearing things like mommy look they have a train can I go see inside it. Ok, I will admit I still hear when we go to the Durham Western Heritage Museum, " Mom can we go on the train?"  When we go to the library the stacks of book don't get shorter in fact they seem taller, but the count of books has gone down for most of my kids.  It is just that the books they are reading are now four or more times the page count they used to be. 

     I will say that it has not all been easy, but it has all been worth it.  We have had times were everyone has cried about not understanding something new.  We have had times of celebrations, because someone learned something new.  So as we start our tenth year homeschooling I know that we will have many more ups and downs, many more field trips, and many more conversations.  I would say that the most important thing I have learned on our Homeschool Journey so far is that time goes by way to fast and I am glad that I can spend the time I do with my kids and help them learn the things they need for life and so much more.

Homeschool and Gardening

     With spring comes our yearly planning of our garden.  I use our garden as an opportunity to teach my kids science, home economics, and so much more.  Gardens help with keeping our food budget in check as we harvest.  This year we have moved our herb garden inside.  We are lucky enough to have a greenhouse window in our kitchen.  It is a great spot for all the herbs I love cooking with.  We had our herb garden outside last year and the chives and thyme came back. So we transplanted some of the plants into their new homes. we also planted rosemary, lavender and basil.  We worked on the herb garden today as part of school.
    
     Also this year we are planting tomatoes one cherry tomato and one or two roma tomato. We are planting corn, carrots, bell peppers, cucumbers, and a few other things. I also am getting dill for our herb garden.

     I love canning so I like using the roma tomatoes in my homemade sauce.  I also use many of the fresh herbs and bell peppers in my sauce.  I will share my recipe and a blog about canning spaghetti sauce at harvest time.

This is our herb garden!!!

Until Next Time

Crafting Doll Rugs

My daughter and I started doing some doll crafts today. We made 2 doll rugs and started a third. I thought I would share them with you all. We used craft felt, pompom craft balls and hot glue.  We also started some other crafts that we will share when they are done. 

The top one is a diamond and the bottom is an oval. 

Making Memories and Learing Lessons!!

     It is Friday night and I am so happy that it is.  This weekend is very busy for my guys.  My husband and our boys are going to a competition for our area Boy Scout Council.  It is The Klondike Derby Camp.  This happens every year in January, troop from our area work together to complete tasks given to them.  The troops work for about a month or so before the camp to build a sleds, that is used to carry equipment and sometimes even a person.  They are challenged on basic scouting skills.  I know my boys always have wild stories for me when they return home every year.

     So what does mom and little sis do when the guys are away?  Well this weekend we will be doing some crafts, playing with her dolls, and most likely painting our nails.  We will also work on some reading and may even go to the library.  We also go grocery shopping on most weekends.  Mostly we have a fun girls day. 

     I was encouraged today with the moms time meeting at our church.  We are reading through a book called "Mom Enough: The Fearless Mothers Heart and Hope" by Tony and Karalee Reinke.  It is a collection of Blogs that a group of moms wrote.  We read chapters 21 and 22 for this months meeting.  Chapter 21 talked about not worrying about anything.  One of the verses they used was Philippians 4:6- "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God".  It helped remind me that I need to be praying more in time when I am feeling overwhelmed.  Chapter 22 was about how we view our children.  Our children are a gift from God!!!  It talked about how are children are not a to-do-list, but they are to be treasured.  The time with our children is such a small about of time in their lives were we have a huge impact on their lives.  Sitting and talking with the other moms in our church and hearing that they have the same struggles of keeping these thing in mind was refreshing. 

     My quiet times this week, that is when I read my Bible and spend time praying, have had a every clear message.  That message you may ask..... I don't need to stressed and worry all the time.  I think that as moms this can come naturally, but it is not good for anyone to stress or worry.  So how can I stress less, worry less? I am going to look up Bible verses about the subjects and write them down and place them in areas that I can see them during the day.  My hope is that reading them and then praying about what is stressing me will help me to let go of that worry. 

     Well I should go finish up a few things before bed time.  Let me know if you would like for me to share the verses that I find with you.  I might make a printable for you all if that is something you would like.  Let me know in the comments! 

We are a homeschool family!!!!!!

     It was a cold Monday morning.  We are back to the normal homeschool schedule today, even with it being Martin Luther King Jr. day.  We chose a long time ago that we would still do homeschool on holidays like MLK day and Presidents Day.  When I was in school we never got these day off. , we were in school in these holidays to learn about why we honor these men.  So that is just what we do, we learn about these men that had and continue to have an impact on our country.

     Life as a homeschool family is not all that different than families that send their children off to public or privet school. Yet, at the same time it is completely different.  Let me explain what I mean. 

     How is homeschooling the same?  Like other families we care about our children's education.  Like other families we do what we feel is best for our kids education.  Our children learn math, science, history, language arts, and many other subjects. We have expectations for our children with school work, as well as other things. Our children do extra curricular actives.  Homeschool kids make friends and are very well rounded.

     So now you ask ok so how are homeschooling different?  Well we do school really anywhere we choose. What I mean by that is some homeschool families have a dedicated room in their home, others meet around the dinning room table, and still others choose a wide variety of places to hold lessons.  In our home we have a dedicated room, it was our living room. We have a table for the kids to do their work, bookshelves and some over sized chairs to have the kids hand out a read.  There are days like today that we also all sit around our dinning room table.  Our dinning room is right off of the classroom area so it has easy access to every thing we need.  Still there are other days that the local zoo, museum, park, store, or restaurant is our classroom.  We are free to take more "field trips".  Part of the freedom to homeschool is that it looks differently for every family. It will be hard to find an exact match.  Even if families are using the same curriculum it will look different.

     This school year I am teaching 4 kids, all in different grades.  I have a high school student that is a junior.  He does his work on the computer with a program called Switched on Schoolhouse.  His studies are basically independent. I have an 8th grader that does most of his school work on his own.  He still needs reminding about getting things completed. This  a new thing for him with school, up until this fall he did not need much reminding.  I also have a 6th grader, he is very good at math.  We work with struggles in English. Last but not least my 3rd grader.  She loves doing her math, but is not so keen on reading.  We are working very hard on her reading skills.  So as you can see yes homeschool kids also have struggles with school work.

     The point is that our family has chosen homeschool as the right option for our family.  It may not be for everyone, and that is ok.  I am just hoping that you can get a felling for what one homeschool family does in life.