Homeschooling.....

We started homeschooling because Mr Wonderful was working on a job about 2 hours from home and we wanted to stay with him in our RV during the weekdays and not have to worry about keeping the kids out of school for any length of time. It was a big job that lasted almost 2 years, it was a very financially rewarding job as well. So it was important to us to give homeschooling a try. Once we got started we knew it would be hard to ever go back, we enjoy the freedom and flexibility it gives us.

Right now we only do formal schooling with the two older ones, Sunshine (9rs 4th grade) and Spud Man (7yrs Kinder.). Tobers (4yrs) really likes busy work (but doesn't want to listen to how to do it, he just wants to do his own thing all the way thru his workbooks). We have been homeschooling for about 3 years. In the beginning, I really was not a fan of homeschool for various reasons. There are sometimes I have those days where I am tempted to send them back to public school and have 7 glorious hours to twirl my hair and drink tea, talk on the phone, and surf online all day. Then there are the times I can't imagine having them gone that long, I would truely miss them so much. I really do enjoy being a part of their education and I love how I am relearning everything with them (it is amazing how much 4th grade stuff you learn for the 1st time while teaching...how is it possible to forget that much stuff?) anyway Sunshine is a self starter and naturally likes to teach herself (can you say dream student 90% of the time?). She is the easy one.

Spud Man on the other hand, is all boy, 7 years old, and would rather be out in the dirt. Alas my patience (oh that's right I don't have any, and if I do find some I always use it up with him). He is about 75% better than he was when we first started, he used to flop around and whine and moan and groan and make my life miserable to the point that the last thing I wanted to do was start school with him (which now I know that he just was not ready then). There were times I was so inconsistant because I could not face another day of schooling this child! We weren't talking about anything taxing here 5.5 yrs old and learning the ABC's and basic phonics, or counting. He was exceptional with writing though, his handwriting was amazing! When he was first learning his hand eye coordination was great. Now he has started to get a little sloppy just because he can write faster now and it went downhill a little. Anyway right now after 2 years of struggle suddenly he is doing really well in math (he is in about 1st grade math) and he likes it!!!!





Reading we are finally making some great headway on, (he has come a long ways but it took a long time!), I keep expecting one day for him to just wake up and read for as much as we've been working on it. I think I am more committed to keeping him home simply because I know he would need meds for school since he tends to lean towards the ADD side of the scope. At home I can manage that by monitering his eating and I find ways to incorperate learning with movement, he also learns well from videos and computer programs...some hands on stuff is always better with him. This past 2 weeks he has made huge strides in progress, he is now reading and creating sentences on his own and he is gaining a lot more confidence in his own abilities as well. He is especially enjoying his cookie sheet with salt in it for a tactile way of learning. He likes to make his sentences and words in this and it helps break up the work into something interesting at times.

I found a curriculum I really like using for language arts and math (I like their other subjects too but like to mix things up a little bit). Anyway it is called Christian Light Education it is very simple, easy to teach,I beleive it is also slightly advanced. I really like the simplicty of the illustrations and the practicality of their math too. It reminds me of something vintage or classic. Anyway we've been using that for 2 years now. It is similar to Life Pacs in that it has 10 workbooks for each grade level which makes it nice for both the kids and myself to see some benchmarks and workbooks being finished. We also really enjoy the CLE reading, their readers are great to have for the family library as well, filled with wholesome stories with character and morals.



As much as we like the above curriculum we have also taken an interest in more of a Charlotte Mason style for our homeschool as well. This is something new we want to add/replace some previously used things with next year. I have been reading all kinds of info about it and trying to formulate a plan. I need to build a little more confidence in my abilities but I think it is a definate goal. We will continue with CLE Math but try to put together some more Charlotte Mason style techniques for the rest. I want to try this out over the summer to see how well we all respond to it. We do have a weakness in the literature area of our school right now so I think this would be a great fix to that weakness.

This year we used Sonlight science, Complete Book of US History, and several other basic workbooks to fill in the edges. We like to play board games like Snapshots Across America, or Sum Swamp, and of course card games too. Tobers especially likes this visual perception game.

I have no idea how I will ever manage 4 children needing to be schooled at once but I will cross that bridge when I get there. I am hoping the older ones will help teach the younger ones some things but time will tell.;)

Some of the activities we do with Tobers.

We do testing each spring locally. Even when it is not a required benchmark year for them to be tested I go ahead and do it. I also get an analysis of what areas need work or are doing well in. It really helps me to see where the weaknesses are and what they are doing well with. I feel like it is moreso my report card on how well I am teaching them than the kids' report cards.

I find that the kids are learning so much about real life in this homeschooling adventure. Mr Wonderful teaches them real life skills, he gets to spend real quality time with them doing useful tasks (he also tries to stress the important of learning and how he needs basic knowledge like they are learning in their schooling to be able to do it properly. I also teach them skills in cooking, sewing, woodworking, cleaning, art, animal care, dog training etc. As a family we process hundreds of pounds of produce and fruit by freezing and canning for our winter's supply since Mr Wonderful's income is smaller in the winter due to weather and lack of hours working. We try to do everything we can as a family. I really believe they will end up with a well rounded education.

At first I was concerned with socialization (like everyone else who starts this journey, and everyone whom you tell you are starting this journey) but we are a part of a homeschool group, church family, and we are out in the world occasionally. ;) I really love how most homeschooled children I know can talk to all ages, very young, younger, older, the elderly and can carry on meaningful conversations. You don't see a lot of that in public school....I was one of those that had a hard time relating to elderly or different ages.

Sometimes I feel like homeschooling is a huge job and very tiring in many ways for me. I think it is mostly emotional/mental, especially on the days that I struggle with Spud man, it sucks all the confidence out of me. The responsibility on my shoulders is heavy sometimes but then I think about what sort of issues I would be dealing with coming home from school as far as attitudes and behaviors and I know I actually have an easier job than the alternative of trying to parent kids effectively when they are away from you for so long each week. I am not against public school, I am just really glad that for now we have decided to choose this route.

Anyway I just wanted to share a little about our "school" and the whys and what materials we use with you. Having said all the above things I find it VERY important to have outside support, other families you can share with and get together with. That has made a huge difference for me personally to keep up with the demands placed on me. Also I find it important to take time for myself without the kids, at least once per week. It is about balance and each person has to find their own delicate balance of what works for them. It took me 3 years to figure out this much so I imagine after a few more I will have figured out a few more tips to make it more enjoyable. So there is a dive into our homeschool mission......thanks for tagging along and listening to me meander thru my thoughts.