Answering Your Questions

Now that we've started our first school year I've been getting lots of questions about what we're doing and what our plans are. I have officially lost track of who I've told what, so hopefully I can answer everyone's questions in one place and hopefully it will all make sense.

So how's it going?
As of now we are two weeks into our first year. There haven't been any mental breakdowns or anyone running and screaming out of the house so I guess you could say... so far so good! :-) Seriously though, I have done pretty well and the kids are doing great. My biggest challenge so far is figuring out what works best for the kids in order for them to do their work the best. So far I've discovered J doesn't like silence so I've been playing light classical music in the background (thank you Charlotte Mason) and that seems to help a lot. We've also moved from the kitchen table, to the dining table, to the family room floor. Basically I let it be up to them where we're doing our work (as long as it's not painting of course) and adapt. I will say the second week I made changes and tweaked things from the first week, and this next week I'll continue to tweak things until we find our groove and figure out what works best. By the time I do figure it all out I'm sure something will change and I'll have to make more changes but that is the beauty of homeschooling. We roll with the punches and take things as they come.

So how are you homeschooling a first grader, a preschooler and taking care of a baby?
I've found that getting up and just getting started first thing in the morning does not work for us. For one thing F has speech therapy 3 times a week. Another challenge is that it is nearly impossible to do school while Sarah is awake. So for now what we're doing is getting up and while hubby is making breakfast we're doing bible all together. After breakfast is chores and getting dressed. After chores it's about time for F's speech. After speech I put S down for her nap and then school begins.

What's your method for school?
I'm doing a modified workbox method (see previous post for a pic of my system). On Sunday nights I plan out the entire weeks daily schedule with what subjects will be studied on what day. This sounds like a lot of work but it's pretty repetitive from the weeks prior so it's really not bad at all. I also make any copies I need and make sure I have all my supplies for projects lined up. Every night during the week I set up each drawer in my workbox with the subjects we'll be covering the next day. This is really not complicated, it's simply putting the correct workbook or worksheet in a drawer and putting the subject "coin" (once again you'll have to look at the pic to see what I'm talking about) on the outside of the drawer. For F, it's mostly purposeful play activities revolving around the letter of the week. She also has activities aimed at helping her Apraxia and fine motor skills as well. When the kids are done with a subject or activity they're responsible for putting that back in the drawer and moving the subject "coin" from the left side of the drawer to the right. This helps us all visually see that subject is finished.

What is this co-op and why are you in a co-op if you're homeschooling?
From the moment we pulled J out of public school I knew I wanted him in a community of people that we're doing what he was doing. I knew from day one I wanted to be apart of a certain co-op and I prayed hard to get in. This is because this co-op is rather large but I knew in my heart this is where we needed to be. We are 500 members strong (about 350 are students alone). There were 40 new families accepted in this year. Some families had to be turned away so we thank God for the opportunity to be in this group. J is taking two classes and F's class is a preschool setting. They take backpack's and everything :-) I think this is really good for them because it gives them a chance to learn from someone other than me with other teaching styles. They loved it and are so happy. J has been asking everyday when we get to go back. I'm so happy he's making homeschool friends.

Are you homeschooling all the way through?
I don't know. We never knew we were going to be a homeschool family until God told us we were, so I won't begin to presume when he will have us stop. So basically until further notice I guess the answer is yes. We will teach and act as though we are. This area is saturated with possibilities and opportunities so why not?? The community of homeschoolers are huge. We have sports leagues, music groups, band, prom, national honor society and anything else you can think of. As long as the kids are happy so are we.

Well hopefully that clears a few things up. Here are some pictures of our first 2 weeks and hanging out at our co-op's opening assembly...

Summer of homeschool projects

So apparently I haven't posted in a month. I'm really not sure how this summer has passed this quickly except that I have been knee deep in getting things ready for our first official school year. I'm a pretty laid back kind of person but this school year we are pushing into overdrive around here. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this yet, but here goes nothing anyway!

So first a few little updates... I found out yesterday that we got into the homeschool co-op I was really hoping for so we are very excited about that. I went to my first informative meeting tonight and I couldn't be happier right now with our decision to homeschool. I am really looking forward to meeting some more moms and I know J is excited about meeting some homeschool kids. J will continue on with soccer this fall and this will be his first season having a practice and game every week. He has also been really enjoying going to sunday school at church. He asks at least a couple times during the week if it is time to go back to sunday school yet. We don't really have to be concerned with holding ourselves accountable to go to church every Sunday, J will do that for us :-) F is still doing speech three times a week and we're signing her up for ballet class as well. She loves to dance and is excited about getting to go learn how. S is busy. For real, you can't keep your eyes off of her for a second. She is into everything and is all about exploring these days.

While getting all the kids schedules in order I have been busy getting things ready around here. I've actually been having the best time tapping into my creative side and doing some homeschool organizational projects. I mostly blame pinterest. I just can't help myself. A few of the things I've been working on is a custom homeschool planner (I'm so not paying $20 for something I can make for free at home), fabric covered magazine files (once again, I made these with materials laying around the house b/c I was challenging myself to do it all for free), a ruler growth chart, and finally the biggest project was turning a kitchen closet into our homeschool closet. Oh how I would love a homeschool room, but since that's not feasible I'll have to settle for the next best thing. I'm so lucky to be able to at least have that option so I'm grateful for that. It was a big undertaking and the kitchen was a disaster for a few days but it finally all came together.

I've also been buried in a sea of curriculum choices. Holy cow is there a lot out there. I'm so glad to be homeschooling in the time that I am. The resources... books, reviews, blogs, conferences, stores, pinterest, youtube, you name it... that help you figure this mess out is incredible. I seriously had no idea how big this world is but I've grateful to be living in it. My hat is off to all the moms before me who had to fly much more solo than I. Not to say it's easy now or anything, but definitely better for sure!

So here are just a few of the projects I've been working on. I hope your summer was as productive as mine! Then again maybe not... I need a vacation now :-)