Sunday, January 28, 2018

Almost a month in!

one chapter read
one lesson down
another subject added
one full day put together
a whole week completed

Now we are almost a month down, and I can say that it is not all sunshine and roses, but I can also say that this is a fun chapter in our lives!

This last week JJ was on nights.  This is not usually my favorite, however since the kids were home, they still got to see Daddy.  When they went to school, he would be awake when they were away and sleeping when they got home.  But then N started not feeling well and that was a downside of homeschooling.  N needed me. C needed me. M needed me. And of course L was still there with his own needs. That constant "triaging" wore me out! 

I am a little concerned that the kids' behavior, especially C and L, might be going downhill a bit. They are pretty comfortable and um, maybe a little spoiled. I feel like we might offer them too many choices and end up catering to their wants, which little consequences. It is not in my nature, but I think I need to crack down on respect and responsibility. I want my kids to look fondly on their childhoods -- and I love to have fun with them -- but I also do NOT want them spoiled or unready for subsequent responsibilities. To be honest, I don't know that I can only blame homeschooling for this, but a little social peer pressure to obey is not always the worst thing! Along the lines of comfort, I think C's handwriting was neater at school, but I think his reading is taking off (which probably would've happened at school - he is just developmentally "there" right now! And WOW is that fun to be a part of!). 

So thankful tomorrow is a new day and a chance to teach my kids academics as well as life lessons :)

Next up:

I am super pumped to start adding bits of Olympic fun to our homeschool day!

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Week 3 thoughts

I have discovered some more "hidden" or I guess unplanned benefits of homeschooling.

1. We do not have to go anywhere if we do not want to. This is an amazing advantage living where the "air hurts my face". Especially with young kids!

2. My van does not have to be amazing anymore. I really really wanted a van with sliding doors. I always felt I was holding up the car line pulling up, jumping out, opening the door pushing L's legs up to allow M & C to squeeeeze past, pushing all the stuff that shifted forward back into the van, closing door, running around and hopping back into the driver's side! No more car line = sliding doors not so necessary.

3. M is such a good big sis. It has been such a joy to see relationships with her little brothers flourishing. Maybe not the biggest brother... but the other two for sure!  ;) 

4. I guess this one is less of a surprise but it REALLY is such a joy to partner with my kids in learning. I am learning fun new things and we can relate back to things all. day. long. Really fun!!  Plus. I mean like reiterating animal camouflage with a game of hide and go seek?!  SO FUN.  

5. Ummm, I kind of missed lesson planning.  There I said it. 

6. We have had more time for "real world" stuff that just went by the wayside. For example, I am so glad my kids have been learning about laundry, preparing food (meal planning to grocery shopping to making food to cleaning up!), knitting :D, shoveling, and just taking care of the house in general. :)

7. Actually using the stuff we have at home!! I feel like since we are here more I actually see what we have and we use them! M's preschool teacher told me once that she would've rocked living in the past -- she is resourceful and can make a plaything or invention or project out of anything - and this is so evident and fun to see! I am talking about school/office supplies but also just toys in general! Love to watch the kids playing together in new and different ways. Yesterday they set up a smoothie store.

8. Better use of time during the day. I always used to get annoyed with little breaks throughout the day - around 30 or even up to an hour here or there where it wasn't enough time to go home, and generally it seemed these were right after drop off to school so many times stores weren't open to run a quick errand. I'll be honest, we ended up at Target. A lot. And I drank a Starbucks drink. A lot. Being home and being intentional with my time (and wallet) has been a great bonus!

Friday, January 5, 2018

Children's Books on CD

We love audio books. And I should say - we got started from our daily commute to and from school - now that we are less in the car, the kids still enjoy a good audio book as they color or do puzzles or play legos. Not all audio books are created equal. Sometimes the book is amazing but the reading is not quite as entertaining, or vice versa.

Here are a few of our favorite children's audiobooks, ones that we have checked out multiple times because they are just that good!

Lane Smith has two books that definitely top our list. The kids have LOVED John, Paul, George and Ben -- complete with a fun T/F quiz at the end and even a Beatles-esque song about the founding fathers. Also I just love when there is an interview with the author!  The other favorite is Madam President. The kids love this take on being a president from a kid point of view. There are some fun pages, including one where she vetoes a whole bunch of stuff and each time in a different tone of voice or expression.

Oh how we love Laurie Keller!  She has some stellar audio books and some super fun interviews as well! Some of our favorites are the Scrambled States of America and part two - the Talent Show, plus you really must check out the card game, too!

Exclamation Mark -- Amy Krouse Rosenthal has a number of great books, including Little Pea and Duck! Rabbit!, but Exclamation Mark as the audio version is just so cute- a good little grammar lesson wrapped in a fun story.

Skippyjon Jones books, by Judy Schachner are so fun to listen to, as well. The author reads them and the Spanish/English rolls off her tongue and the little songs come together as they were intended!

I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but that is a start!
Do you use audiobooks? Which ones are your favs?

Day 3. More thoughts on homeschool.

So now that I am an expert (insert crying from laughing face here), here are some more thoughts:

1. I feel like we have to have a lot more food on hand.  I know my kids ate snack and lunch even when they weren't here, but it just seems like the fridge has emptied quicker this week!  M said a benefit of homeschool is that if she can decide AT LUNCHTIME what she wants for lunch. She was all, "If I decide I want some yogurt, I can have yogurt! If I didn't pack yogurt before I could NOT have yogurt for lunch." It was a big moment for her.  :)

2. It seems like people feel the need to justify their school choices when I have shared that we are homeschooling. BELIEVE me, I am not judging your choices in any way. I was a public school teacher (and attended public school, including college, for several years.) If it is working for you and your family -- AWESOME! We have loved every second of our time at a private school.  If that is what is right for your family -- perfect!!  Keep doing it!  If you think you should try homeschooling for any or all the reasons, well, maybe you should look into it. I don't know! I can only speak for our family, and at this point, I just really am loving this decision. At this point. For us.

3. When playing concentration with word lists, be sure the set is in fact a matching set - as in there are two of every word to be able to pair up. Yeahhhhhh. Let's just say we played a few rounds before I realized there were NO matches. bahaha!

4. Nap time is homeschool gold for us. I thought we would get up, do school, then do life. It turns out that we get to do life and school at the SAME TIME. And the traditional schedule is not necessarily what has worked best for us.  Basically, I have found that we get up, have breakfast (maybe sneak in the Bible lesson in there), play, the bigs do a little independent work while the littles play, THEN during nap time we shift into homeschool high gear. This has been a little rough for L who has coincidentally dropped naps at the same time. Yeah that was unfortunate. Let's have a moment of silence to mourn the naptime -- ha! THEN after lunch we finish up any loose ends and have more time for things like reading, lego building, marble towers, piano, playdough, painting, board games, playing outside, ETC.

5. Speaking of a new schedule. Oh my have my kids embraced staying up a bit later and sleeping in --- for the most part! hip hip hooray! When friends said they have a goal of starting school around 9 I kind of internally laughed. That would just not work with us - we are up and at 'em early. WOW, I think today at around 9 we were finishing breakfast (!). I tried a new recipe (in total we got FOUR new recipe books for Christmas -- YAY!!!) - and what a blessing to be able to take my time trying something new in the morning. On a school day!

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Homeschooling. Day 1.

We decided to try a few pieces of our homeschool curriculum while we were at my parents' house over the Christmas break.  It felt good to get our feet wet without diving in, especially having an extra set of hands or two for the littles while we got started. I brought along a few read alouds, some readers and handwriting.  M was ALL IN with the handwriting - especially since she received a calligraphy set for Christmas. Her handwriting is pretty cool. It is learning cursive (goes through each letter) and then practices with Bible verses - so each day they do a few words from the verse, day 4 they do the whole verse and day 5 they "publish" it - make it fancy on nice paper that could be hung up or sent to someone. It was also awesome that they kids loved the first read aloud.  They wanted me to keep reading - more, more, more! The first book is called "Red Sails to Capri" and I wasn't sure if they would like it, but they love it.  Yay!  C cranked out his reader and M thought hers was boring. I will say I decided to start with levels 1 and 3 even though they are halfway through the year. Since it is a new curriculum, I didn't want to start directly in the middle to be sure the new terminology and "way of doing things" isn't lost on them. So, my plan is to cruise through the beginning to familiarize them with it, begin when it is not super challenging to give them some confidence and still (hopefully) finish by August.  When we got home, I set to work filling in our gaps from what we did at my parents -- that meant figuring out science, Bible, history/geography, math and phonics/spelling.  The kids started getting a little unsure about doing all this "work" over break when others didn't have to do ANY, so I tried to only do one subject per day.

Fast forward to January 3.  Today.  Our first full day of homeschooling.  Here is a peek into our day.
1. N up at 6:30. Too excited to sleep??
2. Everyone up around 7:30.
3. Breakfast at about 8/8:15.
4. Kids shocked when I reminded them they would BE AT school at that time.  Looking around the table as we casually ate our breakfast in our jammies, my heart felt happy.  C helped with breakfast as part of his "job".
5. M excited to start, so we cleaned up breakfast quickly and headed downstairs.
6. I unveiled our new organization system. A clipboard per kid with a daily breakdown of things they needed to do -- each subject included as well as two chores, one meal help, piano, independent reading, creative expression (writing most often I suspect) and a project/art focus for the day.
7. Littles played nicely for a bit while we did science.
8. Littles done playing nicely.
9. Get M going on her creative writing and C going on his independent reading.
10. Play with littles.
11. L needs to use restroom. N has poopy diaper. Bigs done.
12. Get to potty, change, and get next assignment rolled out.
13. Then get L set up with water color painting while I begin history/geography. L gets soaking wet. Get through hist/geo and give up. Bring everyone upstairs. Put L and N in the bath. M reads Bible verses and we discuss while littles splash happily.
14. TOO COLD OUT.  Boo. Try to set up a brain break. Our TV is not wanting to go to internet and I forgot the code to download youtube (I thought it was already set up) so we could get a brain break in. So, back up, Bo on the Go. I put N to bed for his nap.
15. While Bo is finishing up, I take a shower, and brush my teeth!  Oops-- I will try to get that in earlier tomorrow!
16. Downstairs for precious time while N naps. Set up L with color changing cars in sinks downstairs.
17. Get through everything else except math. L soaking wet. Again. Then decides looking through books will work for him the rest of school time.
18. N up!  Lunch. M makes her own sandwich while I prep mac and cheese. Kids surprised that they can have many choices. Blueberries, yogurt and granola as a side? Sure!  M says that was a bonus of the day. haha!
19. Do math. M begs to do more. She loves this system now that I figured it out better -- took me a bit with this one that includes lots of manipulatives, a CD, workbook, textbook and test book!
20. Kids earn some screen time. M plays abcya while C does a game on his kindle.
21. M & I make pumpkin bread to have as a snack.
22. I let the kids watch one TV show at the time I would be going to pick them up from school so I could type this! :)

And cut.

Big, BIG news!

We have some big news to share about which I am both completely excited and completely nervous.  We have made the decision to homeschool.  Just even typing that makes me nervous and excited all over again.  We have shared this with many people (it is hardest to share with our PCS family) and I know many are wondering why.  We have many, many reasons so I am going to share a bit about how we came to this decision and also a top ten list that are NOT the reasons we are homeschooling!

This fall I started to just have this nudge in my heart.  Homeschooling.  Homeschooling.  Homeschooling.  It was enough that I was like, "Um... is this from God?!  Is this a nudge from the Holy Spirit??!!  Should I, like, actually put some thought into this??"  So I started researching homeschooling.  I checked out books from the library and sought out info from friends who are currently homeschooling and also those who used to homeschool but don't any more.  I read the laws and regulations.  I checked out curriculum and resources.  The more I researched, prayed, listened and learned, the more I fell in love with this idea and felt like it might be the right decision for us.  Then one day M came home from school and said, "I think I want to homeschool."  UM, WHAT??!  I hadn't said anything to my kids AT ALL.  I was nervous something bad had happened at school to make her want to switch.  She said, "Oh!  I LOVE school!  I love PCS!  I just think it would be fun!"  So that made me renew my excitement.  Then we started ACTUALLY talking about it.  JJ feels like he has thought it would be a good idea all along, so he was 110% on board.  I shared it with other friends and even family members-- and everyone had positive feedback for me, which feels supernatural as well.  My Dad said something like, "I think this could be your best decision yet." I truly did not think everyone would be on board and that made me feel more and more confident in our decision.  I really am not going into this with crazy expectations.  While I believe this is the right decision for us at this time, that might change!  And we would be VERY HAPPY to head back to PCS when/if homeschooling becomes not right for us.

Now, without further ado, the NOT Top Ten Reasons we are Homeschooling:
10. I've been SO bored and need something new to do. (ha.  hahaha.)

9. Isolation Island. We just are not people, people, so we want to isolate ourselves. (wrong again!  We are very much hoping to stay connected with friends and even make new ones on this journey! We also plan to utilize many great community resources and hope to do some service projects we just haven't been able to do before.)

8. Control.  I just need to control every single second of my children's day.  (Well, I do value knowing what our children are exposed to!  However, I do hope that we learn together what schedule will work best for us -- and most likely I will learn a lot about patience and flexibility along the way too!)

7. I want to use my degrees (Elem Ed/Spanish/Special Ed), but am too lazy to put together my resume. (I am excited that I may be able to use some of the gifts and talents God has prepared in me through my background in education.  At the same time, I am excited to continue to be home with my little guys too!)

6. I just can NOT bear to have any of our children out of my sight for more than five minutes!  (LOL.  Um.  No.  Just no.  I love my kids, but this was definitely not a determining factor for homeschooling!)

5. I'm just so trendy.  (I've read some data in my research that states homeschooling is on the rise. I AM excited to connect with some great homeschooling groups such as REACH, and attend a homeschool convention or two.  HOWEVER, I have not begun this journey (which I definitely began reluctantly) because others are doing it!)

4. I'm tired of being Mater and Robin all by myself. (My time WILL look different - and I think I will miss having lots of 1:1 time with L - but I think a major benefit will be the kids strengthening their bonds with each other and I'm really looking forward to that! I can see M & L becoming big buddies and L & C love playing with each other - they just don't always have a chance to right now.)

3. I got tired of emptying the dishwasher. (Haha -- with all of us home, there will be MORE dishes on a daily basis.  But, I'm super excited to do some more practical learning like sewing, cooking, and yes, even working together to accomplish some housework along the way.)

2. I bought too many Lularoe leggings and just want to stay home all day and lounge around in them.  (Hope you found this one as funny as I did!  No??  Might just be me.  haha.  But seriously, I do not envision us sitting around all day.  I am excited for the "play with a purpose" and intentional but fun activities we can do to learn, grow and develop as life long learners!)

1. We don't like PCS, (This one just about breaks my heart.  I truly hope no one thinks this for one second.  We have LOVED PCS and LOVE the community that definitely feels more like a family.  We feel like each of our children's teachers has been hand picked for our kids.  It is so evident that the staff loves God, loves their job and knows each kid so well.  It is a wonderful feeling to know that your child is cared for, truly.  And I guess it is a good thing this tears at my heartstrings, because that means we were in a place we love!  In the end, I just remain certain we are called to do this at this time.)