Homeschool Mommy to 3

Review of K12- The first 2 weeks

2012-02-20T23:45:00.000-06:00

All has been quiet on the bloggy front here over the past few weeks. The main reason is because I have been super sick. I got that horrific stomach bug and it just wouldn't quit. Thankfully, so far no one else has gotten it. Things are going extremely well with K12. I have to say it has far exceeded my expectations and I am thrilled with them. It has been so nice to not have t plan curriculum and get to just learn with them and share the experience without all the extra worry of being prepared each day.
Our overall homeschool life may be more structured now but is way more relaxed now that I'm not so tense.

We are already talking abut re-enrollment and while I am going to register them for Connections Academy just as a back-up there is a really good chance that we will stay put with K12. The online traditional school is a perfect fit for our family right now.
As my husband nears the end of his deployment and the possibility of an Army contract extension looms over my head, I must admit I am a little nervous that we could end up being sent out of Texas and loose our awesome free online school privileges. But if we do at least I know how well the online learning environment is for our family so that I will know that it will be worth paying for in the event we move to a state that doesn't provide free online school. This is definitely something I would pay for an when you count all the money spent on curriculum and books and resources it wouldn't be too much more than what I was already spending.

I can't express enough how much, for us, this is the best of both worlds. The kids get to be home in a comfortable environment without all the extra homework and pressure and long days, yet they get to have teachers and classmates, clubs and all the transcript benefits of a Texas public school student.

The kids absolutely love the Class Connect sessions, which are live teacher-instructed virtual classroom lessons per subject. For example: Isabelle wears a headset and mic and logs into the virtual blackboard for her math class. Here she talks with other students before class starts, her teachers interact and present the lesson for the day using some really cool technology.

The teachers and the kids can all write on the "blackboard/whiteboard" to answer questions or show how they completed a process. The teachers answers questions, give Power Points and talk and laugh with the kids just like they would in a regular classroom. Isabelle can raise her hand using a "hand" icon that the teacher sees and she can show that she understands or is confused via a little happy or confused- faced icon. This has fast become their favorite time of day. Braden loves them too and his teachers know exactly how to keep their attention and make sure they are participating.

They love the extra challenge and I love that I get to homeschool them with the support of these awesome teachers who have my back and proved an easy to follow daily and weekly planned curriculum that is flexible. All the administrative work is done online so I just click a few buttons to indicate what they did and their online assignments completely self update so if they don't get to a lesson that day it just rolls over to the next day. I can set their schedule however we want, they can do it at what ever time of day they want. They can work Sat and Sun instead of week days or do less each day and work everyday a little bit. Or, like in Braden's case, they can work super fast and do twice as much. I can see their progress, grades and how much work of the total they have completed at all times.Honestly, I think if the regular schools took on this type of administration for grading, attendance, homework and classwork the kids and parents would all be doing so much better. It is super easy to know where your child stands and their are no surprises this way.

Their baseline test scores came back and we were thrilled with them. Isabelle tested advanced 5th grade in both Lang and Math and even though Braden has not even started 3rd grade yet he tested in the 98 percentile for 3rd graders in both subjects. They are allowing him to work ahead of grade level at this point and he is even doing 5th grade science. I am so grateful that this technology is available to allow them both to work comfortably within their own individual potential. They will take standardized testing with their peers here in a month or so and there are a lot of homeschoolers that have strong opinions about this. I personally don't love standardized testing, but I also don't have a theological problem with it as long as the learning environment throughout the year supports learning and not test regurgitation. I can tell already that is not the case for this curriculum.

The kids have already immersed themselves in their classes and are enjoying Study Island and book reports, Latin and art as some electives in addition to their regular classes. The 1-2 hours or so that they are in regular classroom lessons with their teachers gives me one on one time with Jaxon and we usually do some school together, read and play learning board games. I also love that we can hook up the laptop to the TV and they can work more comfortably from the couch or chair instead of slumped over a computer keyboard. They usually sit with their own small dry erase board to work through problems during the live lessons.

They have to average 6 hours worth of work per day but they do not have to do 6 hours of work- if that makes sense. Braden works through 6 hours worth of work in about 45 minutes and Isabelle, whose work is much more involved takes about 2 hours and then they spend about 1-2 hours per day(except Tuesday) in their live class sessions. They do not have to do these as they are optional but they love them and it is great for them to do as they prepare for their spring testing. So I will leave this long post with some pictures from the last 2 weeks of them engaging in this new school experience.

Despite having desks and tables and a breakfast bar, Isabelle has her very own unique way of setting up her work.

Jaxon gets some good giggles out of his new favorite "school" technology- the Nook read to me feature. Here he is loving, "The Monster at the End of This Book," presented by Grover himself.

This day he happen to be in a pyramid mood.

More pyramids. Pretty impressive for a five-year-old!

Braden's science lesson had him creating the life cycle of a snake with modeling clay. Jaxon decided to do it with him.

Art lesson- abstract bird

Screen shot of live 5th grade science lesson in progress

Normally they would be wearing a headset to talk but this day they were just observers as they got used to the program.

Screen shot of the whiteboard during a live lesson where the teacher had the students doing some of the problems.

Isabelle during her language arts Class Connect.

They open the classes 30 mintues early to allow for students to get to know one another. They put a timer up that counts down to when the class actually begins.

Braden talking into the mic during his first class.

Another of Braden's science projects. Mobile of the amphibian life cycle.


Only downside?? My kitchen table now consistently looks like this!

Here is a video of Isabelle and Braden observing their first science class. Here you can see first hand how the teacher talks with the class, gets the kids to participate and covers the material. Sorry for all the moving around in the early part of the video but I was trying to show the different emoticons the kids use to raise their hand, show that they understand or don't, as well as the smiley face the teacher asks them to click on to show that they understand. Also, on the video you can see the whiteboard technology that allows the teacher and students to write on the live screen. Pretty neat stuff.

Supplies

2012-02-07T06:57:00.000-06:00

The day the supplies arrived was a very exciting day. Braden's came first since he got in first but Isabelle's followed just a few days later and their computer came about that same time. Here are some photos I took of the various supplies that were sent as a part of the K-12 program. I was pleasantly surprised. It looks like a lot of seat-work, but actually it isn't. The busy work isn't necessary or required and these are all just additional resources that are available but not expected. Unfortunately, Isabelle's supply pictures are still on that runaway camera so as soon as I find it I will add them.

There were two more boxes not pictured.

Dove right into that "official" 3rd grade math book.

Art supply kit with paints, clay, brushes, art books and text

Science supplies including beakers, magnets, seeds, goggles, magnifying glass, scales, science readers, including my very favorite surprise the "Walk through the..." book series.

Math supplies- this included Braden's favorite, the base 10 blocks. He loves these!

Health and PE with the pedometer, jump rope and playground ball. Isabelle got the exact same thing here.

Time to get ready for cursive! He is over the moon. I was over the moon that they use the handwriting curriculum that we prefer.

Social Studies with that, 'oh so coveted' inflatable globe! Also, lots of great history readers too.

LA program including Spelling, Reading Comp, test taking strategies, and grammar

This was Jaxon's favorite part of the shipment!

The computer, monitor, headset and mic as well as the printer/scanner that arrived for them courtesy of K-12.This is great bc now they will each have their own PC system to work on at the same time as well as a laptop to work on while we travel.

We decided to use our existing work box system and filled it with each subject and all the notebooks. I will take a look at their work plan for the day and stick up the picture cards of the subjects that their teacher assigns for them. Their math manipulatives, science and art supplies are sitting on top of the shelves.

One subject per drawer

Caught Isabelle during a study moment. They have been going through and testing out of units they already know how to do during these first few days.

Braden enjoys doing story problems with his base 10 blocks. I was pretty fascinated and sat down and did some with him. We converted expanded form into standard form using the blocks just for fun. That's Braden for ya!

Update

2012-02-06T22:40:00.000-06:00

It has been about a week since I last posted and well that's just simply because "life" has taken over. I try to very diligent and intentional about my blogging habits, however with so many "new" things we are trying to regain our footing.
I have lots of pictures to share of the K12 experience for both kids so far but my camera seems to have grown legs and run away. Maybe it too was feeling a little neglected with the new schedule.

K12 is going very well and we really like it so far. I really enjoy their superb organization and find implementing their program very easy and pain free for me.
The kids like it too which is good. Braden is still moving at a very fast pace but he does at least always have more available for him to do now. He has taken an extreme interest in geography and begs me(not kidding) for his Social Studies book so he can just stare at the maps. Isabelle enjoys it too and is just a few days behind him in admissions. They don't have her officially in a homeroom class just yet but she has already begun her courses and especially likes Latin and Art.

Tomorrow will be her first try at a full day's work. She will go to the office with me tomorrow as a trial run so I can oversee her if necessary as she works through everything on her own. I am so grateful for this flexibility and support from the staff. I want to make sure she has adequate time to work through her work as it is more in depth and the afternoon hours alone many not be enough time for her as she is easily distractable. I love that even with the online public school that we are able to really work within the styles and environment that works best for each child.
More coming soon...

One Step Closer

2012-01-26T07:30:00.000-06:00

The kids spent a little bit of time today learning the ropes of the new online school program, though most of it is off line, but it is organized through an online portal so they are learning how to navigate it in an independent way. I thought I would share some screen shots with you as it is very well organized and easy to follow. We have enjoyed going through it together. I also have a few early observations you might be interested in.They also completed both their math and LA assessments to figure out exactly where their knowledge base is so they can be challenged to their own proficiency level.

Observation 1-I really like that they can quickly test out of a unit they have already mastered by taking a 5-10 question assessment. If they have completed it with 80% then they do not have to re-work a topic that we have already covered. This will help them move on more rapidly without allowing for gaps in their learning.

Observation 2- Being that this is a private curriculum that just happens to be state funded, their 5th grade Health class approach to growth and development is FAR more appropriate(in my opinion) than the state mandated curriculum. I was very grateful about this.

Observtion3- I like PowerGlide, their online foreign language program. I like how it is kid friendly and uses many different learning tools to help them work without frustration. Sometimes our Rosetta Stone program did cause frustration. They are allowed to choose from a variety of languages but on this one I insisted on Latin.

Observation 4- This online academy set-up is NOT for parents who want to be hands-off! I can not stress that enough. While it is very user friendly and I really like everything that I see so far, this is certainly not for the parent who wants their child to hop online and get their work done while they get other stuff done. There are elements of that and I am sure over time a strong reader could get to that point by maybe middle school, but early elementary grades will need a good bit of "walking through" and hand-holding within their lessons.

Braden is a strong reader but if I left him to read all the material on his own he would become very frustrated. Don't think that means there aren't interactive parts, videos, live teaching sessions because they do have all those things, but this is a full traditional, college-prep curriculum and within that some teaching from the adult must take place. Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised because I wanted help with the prep work, but I wanted to be the one still teaching. For the most part I have that option.

I think this will work extremely well with an HDMI cord hooked up to the TV so that we can go through lessons without crowding around the computer all hunched over. So far, I feel like the work is challenging but doable and I like it. I like the topics covered and I feel as though it closely mimics what I would personally choose for them.

I like the art and music electives, as well as the exposure to Groiler online encyclopedia and Study Island.
Braden's books and supplies should arrive tomorrow and then his computer, monitor and printer on Monday. Isabelle's things should come in next week. For the most part they have both already begun going through lessons to determine what they want to test out of. Who knows what the future will bring but I think this was a good choice for us right now and great timing. For the first time I am not in a constant state of panic of feeling such a tremendous weight of preparation on my shoulders. I get to enjoy the learning experience with them but without feeling fully responsible and on my own for all the prep work and scope and sequence. I also love that Scott can log in from where he is and be fully involved and see their progress.

Here is the main menu. Each child has a log in as well. This family log in allows me to look at everything in all the courses and all the units without it prompting a grade.

This is the drop down menu for the planning side of things. If I wanted to know what they will be using that day/week along with what work they will be doing I can look here.

Here is a look at the daily plan and right beside it is a look at the weekly plan if you are trying to plan around a busy day. For example- we will take attendance on Mondays so they aren't counted as absent but we will probably do half of Monday's work on the Sunday prior to lighten the load for our co-op day.

This is the PowerGlide main calender so that they can see exactly what Latin lessons they have for the day all the way through the month. They click and it takes them to the lesson and additional activities.

This is a supply list for Braden's math class. These are some of the things they send in the boxes for him to use.

This is the supply list for a portion of the SS supplies. I like how they break everything down so the kids can get really excited about what is coming. They do this for every subject including Art supplies.

This is how they let us know what has shipped as far as materials with the tracking numbers so we know exactly when to expect the supplies.

Adjustments

2012-01-25T10:06:00.000-06:00

I have been asked how we are handling the adjustments with the new job and the new school life.

Well, so far, there really hasn't been much adjustment on the school end of things because they are still in their orientation time, but I will write a post a week or so into the full schedule to share that side of things. The adjustment for work has been good.

I have been so lucky in their morning childcare and we are finding that we are really making our time together from lunch until the evening a really great, intentional quality time together. I think, for me, knowing that I have missed the first half of the day is a big motivator, which makes it easier for me to set the petty things and menial distractions aside.

I feel great about the work I've done in my job in the morning hours but I also find it a huge relief to come home and spend time with them. It really is, right now, the best of both worlds. It's a busy world but a great experience so far. I have definitely hit the ground running with the new job and so I am very busy at work and sometimes, like it does for everyone, there are tasks for work that have to be done form home.

I try to limit all those, non deadline related tasks till after bedtime. So far so good. We will see next week how much the new schedule for school will affect my opinions. I have a feeling we will be spending the weekend sorting through supplies and getting things ready. They will do some of their school work while I am at work and so juggling what they have to do from home vs what they can take with them will be interesting. I'm up for it though. This is a good shake up for us. Everyone needs a shake up every now and then.

Homeschool Co-op

2012-01-24T09:56:00.002-06:00

Yesterday was our first day back to co-op and it was amazing. Each child loves co-op for their own unique reasons. Isabelle likes learning new stuff but especially likes getting together with other homeschoolers. Braden is all about the "doing." He wants to just do stuff. Jaxon, in typical Kindergarten style, is all about show-n-tell, snack and the playground. I love that he gets a time once a week for these "traditional" kindergarten experiences without all the rest of the stuff we don't want.

Isabelle is taking
PE, Art and a Master Junior Gardner(she wants to be able to talk "garden talk" to her grandma and grandpa who are real Mater Gardeners)

Braden is taking
ABC's of Cooking, Tae Kwon Do and Geology Rocks

and Jaxon is in Kindergarten all 3 hours.

I am teaching a for-credit(for high school transcripts) Intro to Journalism class and I have a great group of kids that I am thrilled to be working with. They love to write and are smart and eager. This is a topic I love to talk about and am very excited to have an outlet to share something I am so passionate about.

We are so blessed to be a part of such a well-run and organized co-op. I also love that K-12 gives them daily school credit for their co-op hours and full PE credit for all their outside activities such as gym, dance or co-op PE so there is no doubling up on school hours for them on Mondays or extra work for PE.

They Both Got In!!

2012-01-23T21:55:00.001-06:00

We got the call last week, first for Braden, that he had gotten off the K-12 wait list! He was SO excited. He had me go through the supply list and tell him everything that was coming and all the classes he was going to get to take. He was most excited about Latin and the inflatable globe! Needless to say, he is THRILLED for the new challenge. He loves the work we do together and loves our curriculum but he is ready for even more and I am so happy we have found a do-able way to feed his love for knowledge. So far we have been very impressed with them and everything that they have done. The process was nearly seamless and they have been great about communicating to me what needed to happen next.

K 12 Online Academy

We waited patiently the rest of the week hoping to get a call for Isabelle, but alas, nothing. So, I spent all Sunday night preparing her next two months worth of curriculum and can you just guess who called me today??? That's right! K-12! They had a spot for her. I am absolutely certain that it was because I went to the trouble to pre-plan 2 months worth of curriculum, but that;s ok, because we can still use what I planned just on a smaller scale.

Today was our first day back at our homeschool co-op(and me teaching the for-credit journalism class-whew!) and it was a blast. While we were there K-12 called me to tell me she had a spot. I couldn't help but laugh because as I told Isabelle the news she asked me if she too would get an inflatable globe. Ahhh, childhood! She is most excited about science and art.

So Braden started K-12 today, but not really with a course load of work as the first week is just assessments and orientation. She will start next Monday and at least for now the only curriculum I have to plan is Jaxon's Kindergarten work. I love doing Kindergarten with him. I am so excited to be able to be a completely active part of their school life but to have some of the planning and administrative burden lifted. We will see how it all works out. Only time will tell if it's the right fit for our family. It's worth a try. I will try and give evaluations of how things are going at least once a week in between our regular homeschool moments. I will definitely be taking pictures and giving updates on how we are all adjusting to the new online school life.

Zoo Pictures

2012-01-18T21:25:00.000-06:00

Yes, that is a real lion right in front on me with only a 1/2 inch glass panel between us. His face was literally pressed up against the glass staring at us. It was a surreal and unnerving moment, but he was gorgeous.

This slide that went through the otter tank was hysterical. This kids loved it and you can see in the pic below the otters also loved it when the kids went through as they would climb onto of the slide.

First Office Day

2012-01-17T07:28:00.001-06:00

We found childcare for each morning that I will be working and today is my first 'official office day' as a working/homeschooling parent. I am very excited and the kids helped me move into my office this weekend and get everything settled and ready for today. It brings me such joy that they are excited about this too. I know that I am so blessed to be able to work this schedule that allows me to do both of these things and look forward to all God is going to teach me through these experiences.

Braden announced to my husband that, "mommy finally got a job!" How awesome is that!

The kids have a great set-up and the majority of the time that we are giving up together are the early morning hours that are usually just our "get going" kind of time. I am home before lunch each day and their independent work will be completed by then and we will be ready to do our hour per child and answer any questions from their earlier work. Then onto our special time together as a family either reading or taking walks or just playing together.

We have successfully placed them on the K-12 Online Virtual School wait-list and it is a long wait-list so I don't expect that they will get in for the spring. If they do we will just fill their work boxes up with their K-12 work and continue on just as we are. If not, we will apply to Connections Virtual Academy in April and cross our fingers for the fall.

I would certainly appreciate any prayers over this transition. Any change can be a fearful time, but especially when your spouse is so far away. This is a change that I am truly excited about. I am, however, nervous, but know that God is right there ready to walk me through what He has called me to. Thank you God for the opportunity to be able to do both in such a fulfilling way.

Life Learning- Put Me in the Zoo

2012-01-16T07:22:00.000-06:00

One of my favorite books is the, Dr. Seuss, "Put Me in the Zoo." There are days I feel like I am in the zoo or maybe am the zoo keeper and then there are those days that I'm pretty sure I'm the monkey or at least look like it.

To celebrate MLK day off today we decided to take a little trip to the actual zoo. We are headed up to the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco and this is our first zoo visit since arriving in Texas. We love zoos and aquariums and really can't get enough. We are picking up a reciprocal membership while we are there so that we can go back with Scott to any of the zoos on the list. This will be awesome for traveling, as well as for utilizing all the great zoos in our big 'ole state of Texas.

Can't wait to share our life learning trip in pictures.

Time 4 Learning

2012-01-11T07:16:00.000-06:00

I have got to be honest. I am really struggling to keep up with my sweet Braden. I honestly will be so relieved to have some additional support from which ever online program we turn to because this kids brain moves about 1,000 times faster than mine. I feel so blessed to be a part of this process of learning about the world around him, but I need help in accessing how much is too much too fast. He is in second grade and he is doing mid-year 4th grade math and this morning he asked me to explain to him, "in more detail" about fungi!

This is all with 9 hours of team gym per week, 2 hours of basketball, 3 hours of dance and when he's not doing that riding his bike and scooter for hours with the neighborhood kids...of, Lord Jesus, if I could just have a tiny little touch of that energy. I've been giving him the Pediasure drinks everyday, but I'm thinking we all might be better off if I took them instead! While I am sure he picked up some of my husband's genius math genes I really think he is so advanced because he is just so eager. It's like information is air to him. He talks all the time- God love him. Facts, facts, facts, facts, facts! This is an absolutely wonderful problem to have(unless your Isabelle and your baby brother is doing the same math you are) but it is also exhausting for me to try and find enough to fill his desire. I don't want my kids to live on the computer or stare at the TV all day, but sometimes I have to sit him in front of a National Geographic video just to fill his desperate need for facts because he has already finished all his regular school work and the other two still have a ways to go.

One day I am going to write down everything that kid says and make that a blog.

I spoke to another online academy today that uses a pretty accelerated independent curriculum to give their impressions about how to accommodate him. They suggested possibly doing our curriculum and theirs through the free Texas funded program(they don't get a penny so it wasn't a sales pitch). I explained that we had already planned on doing that but we were stuck for now because they only enroll once per year. She said this program was different and did enroll mid-semester. She said that because he was 8(whew- got that by a month) that they could enroll him in their third grade program(even though he was second grade age by state cut-off) if was able to get off the wait list by Feb 23rd.

It's a long shot but you never know. Plus it will give us a preview of what next year will be like when they enroll in the online school for the entire year. Remember online school just means accredited and teacher guided using technology and not that all the lessons are online. The wait list, however, is long and the chances of him getting in by the deadline are slim, but we decided to go ahead and put both he and Isabelle on the list. With this online program he would work through the grade level(accredited) classes at his pace and if he has already mastered it he can test out with a quick online quiz. He moves on to the next unit as soon as he is ready so there's no me being flustered with nothing to offer him because he moved through something faster than I planned. In June he would end the school year with an accredited 3rd grade transcript and Isabelle a 5th grade transcript if they were to get in. Since we don't know if they will get off the wait list at all we decided we need an 'in the meantime' solution so we have signed them both up for Time 4 Learning which is an online curriculum that can be used as a supplement or as a full curriculum.

When you register you get access to up to 3 grade levels so as he works through the science, math, LA and Social Studies 2nd and 3rd grade units he will also have 4th grade available to him. Isabelle will have 5th, 6th and 7th grade available to her. It is $19.95 per month for the first child and $14.95 per month for the 2nd child and their are no contracts. You cancel when you no longer wan to use it. I feel better now. While I know that a lot of families use this as a full curriculum we will be using this as a work box option and then for Braden specifically and additional daily work ahead supplement. It looks like a good thing and has good reviews. I will review it myself in a few weeks to let you know how it is fitting in in our homeschool life. I hate the idea that I am missing this precious opportunity to fill his little brain while he is so eager. I can't even imagine how nuts(my sweet little nut...I just love him) he would be driving a public school teacher right now. He is so adorable in his eagerness but there is no way they would have time for all his questions. Lord, give me patience and maybe an extra dose of smarts to try and keep up with this one.

Remeber that Possible Big Change...

2012-01-10T23:31:00.000-06:00

...that I was talking about a few posts ago? Well the time for the big change has come!

Today I was offered a position as Communications Coordinator for the church we attend here.

I am really excited as this is where my heart firmly is and what I believe God has called me to do, however it is no secret that I am a committed homeschooler and I feel just as convicted of that calling. Scott and I have prayed heavily over this decision for many months and he is just as excited about this as I am. It's wonderful when you get to see your spouse pursue something they feel so passionately about.
I have been working with the staff for a few months in the role of communications volunteer and right before Christmas they told me that the position had been approved and asked me if I wanted to interview with the other candidates.

During this volunteer stint things went well and I was able to "practice" within the position while juggling the homeschool schedule and child care set-ups as a volunteer while there was no pressure. It was a good opportunity to see what was possible. I interviewed just before Christmas and today they notified me that staff parish made their decision and they offered me the position!

And I accepted! I know- I'm more than a little crazy... but God has made it so clear to me that this is what I am supposed to do and those details had just all worked themselves out perfectly, that even despite the craziness of it I am completely at peace.

The position will be 25 hours per week with half of it being done from home in the evenings after kids are in bed. The church offers after school care at a staff discount, which will allow me to avoid the hassle of finding childcare and will keep them in a safe and trusted environment of people they already know. The only time I will need to find a sitter is for the Thursday morning director's meetings. It is a very exciting time here at our house. Finally having the opportunity to fulfill God's plan for my education and passion, but also provide our family with additional play funds is such a blessing. I love that I can still have the best of both worlds and be an active part of my children's schooling and childhood while still showing them, by example, what it means to passionately pursue the will God has for me as an individual. You may not always be able to have all of everything you want exactly the way you want it, but sometimes compromising slightly on the details of things allows you to get the best of both worlds in a way you never expected.

So this is one of the reasons we have been considering the accredited online virtual school. This will allow me to continue to homeschool using an excellent private school, college-prep program, with an additional set of eyes and help in all the administrative and planning areas. We will get an awesome curriculum and support system and I will get to experience school with them, still in our home together, instead of me spending so much time planning out curriculum. We will do school in the mornings and early afternoon and then I will work a few afternoons each week on something I feel so passionate about. This isn't the right choice for every homeschool family, but we are excited to give this a try as it seems like a good fit for our family at this point.

Our New Nook Library

2012-01-09T08:19:00.002-06:00

As much as we love books is it any surprise that I would have asked for a Nook Color for Christmas? I am over the moon excited that I got one and Isabelle has really taken to it. It is awesome. Not only can we access everything Scott has already put on his Nook(currently in Afghanistan) through the same account, which is the main reason I wanted a Nook over any other kind, but our Nook is the new tablet version and so we have Netflix, game apps, a huge library of educational apps like Chess, Sudoku, geography and more, but our very favorite feature is, by far, the magazines!!

I am a lover of educational magazines. I do love me some Home and Garden and Country Living but for the kids I absolutely love great quality kids magazines for when they only have a few minutes to read in the car, but don't want to commit to getting started in a new chapter of their current book.I still want what they read to be quality. I know I'm a little nuts about the whole twaddle stuff but I see books as brain food and just like everything you put in your body is going to do something(a little bit of something here or there is no big deal but it adds up) and I would rather be a little nuts about it and make sure they are feeding their minds with things that are going to be of benefit to them rather than just take up space.

Here are some of the Nook treasures we have found so far. All the magazines come with a 14 day free trial to see if your kids love it and they are very reasonable- around 99 cents per month and sometimes that is 2-4 copies per month.

For all the Charlotte Masoners or lovers of non-fiction-
National Geographic Kids and Little Kids(gorgeous color pictures with all kinds of amazing non-fiction information.)

This is really meant for Jaxon, but the older kids love it too. The pictures are just so beautiful.

Ranger Rick, Big Back Yard and Animal Baby are all done by the National Wildlife Federation and so a portion of your proceeds goes to support their cause.

There are also Sports Ill for Kids and Time mag for kids but we don't do either of these.

In our book section we have a host of free kids books and some of them have the 'read to me' feature which means Jaxon can do this without me. We have been able to download many of our classical homeschool older kids favorites completely free including complete poetry collections, The Time Machine, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Thousand Leagues, Don Quixote, Gulliver's Travels, Little Women, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Tale of Two Cities and many more.

These are books we already have copies of so I am thrilled we can incorporate them on the Nook without paying for it again. I don't know much about the tablet readers, but I know I am really enjoying the Nook. I have heard great things about the Kindle too and I am sure there are many similar resources available, I just don't know much about it. I have, however, downloaded the Android Kindle to my Thrive Tablet and am looking forwarding to playing around with it and seeing what is available. I have no brand loyalties...I love it all! Adding this e-reader to our homeschool has been a wonderful decision. The kids are now begging for it to be in a work box.

What we are Reading- January 2012

2012-01-06T08:55:00.002-06:00

We are currently in Session 4 of 6 in our year round schedule of 6 weeks on and 1 week off. This session goes until the second week of February and in this session these are some of the things we are reading. Isabelle, will probably read twice as much as what I put on here for her as she is just that kid that loves to sneak away quietly to her room and read the afternoon away. I may end up only reading half of what I have planned to the boys because, hey, well that's life. Good intentions, right!

Isabelle's Books-

Braden is studying a lot of early US history right now and the time period of the settlers, as well as animals and animal protections.

Braden's A Beka reader this month. These readers are some of the best quality stories of moral/ Christian quality, as well as classic pieces with an awesome reading comprehension element.

What I am reading to them,

Jaxon is learning about insects and animals and their habitats, as well as people in different parts of the world so a lot of our reading together during his Mom Box time will revolve around exploring those topics in living books. He will also start his own nature journal of drawings this session with his unit on plants. Here are some of our planned living books to go along with things we will pick up at the library. Braden will probably read many of these as well as his topics this month somewhat overlap Jaxon's. However, Braden will be using them as research for extra things like lapbooks.

For our plant study

I am starting the Beatrix Potter classics with Jaxon during his reading/phonic time with me. These are the first three we will read.

One of our favorite science resources...Zoobooks! I'm hoping they have these in the Barnes and Noble Nook magazine library.


We are starting with "Courage" in our devotional/character study time. We felt courage was a great one to start with since daddy is deployed and what courage really is in God's eyes.

So there you have it! Our Session 4 readers. I'm sure they will be slightly altered and added to as they typically are and none of the textbook readings were included here. Hope everyone is excited about all the great things your homeschool journey will bring you in this new year.

A Big Change in Our School Plans

2012-01-05T09:25:00.106-06:00

We are in the process of making some very big homeschool curriculum changes. We have been "courting" the idea of an online school environment for our older two children for sometime and we think we have found the school in which we would like to make this change to. With two, now elementary-age children and a third child as a rising first-grader, I love the idea of everything being planned for me and having another set of eyes and ears to help me with some administrative type work like grading and transcripts. My hesitations to this, however, was ending up in a situation where our flexibility was taken away and we were lost in a sea of someone else's busy work. I have done a ton of research and looking and there is a private and accredited(meaning provides transcripts the same as a traditional school), college-prep online school called
Connections Academy.

It is very, let me choke this out again, VERY expensive private school and has an excellent reputation for quality curriculum and excellent accelerated courses for gifted learners. Isabelle and Braden are both working 2-3 grade levels above their age designation and this school is able to accommodate them with classes that are appropriate for them, without advancing them in overall grade level, which I was adamantly against.

While I believe that there is a lot to be gained from learning from those in older and younger grades, this is where my understanding of reality meets with my desire for what my children are and are not exposed to. I don't want my 8-year-old in a class with 10-year-olds and I definitely don't want my 10-year-old in a classroom environment with 14-year-olds. I also don't want prospective teachers expecting my 8-year-old to be on the maturity level of a 5th grader just because he is ready for that level of course work. That can be hard to do if a younger child is immersed in a classroom full of much older kids.

They have regular and gifted classes for each grade, as well as additional classes that are extra if they really want more. They do all the core classes as well as extra-curriculars like languages, PE, Art and Music. They have a combination of book work done at home with mom or dad as the facilitator as well as online weekly classes via headset in a classroom setting. I was originally hesitant about this, but after further discussions with the school discovered that they offer these more than once per week and have the videos available for those who miss the class.

The remainder of the school time is done through online "modules" which are like interactive video teaching tools that work them through each lesson in a kid-friendly way. The kids have practiced the modules and have evaluated the curriculum and are really excited about this. They are both eager for more and I am so lucky that they are such motivated learners. The younger grades are on the computer no more than 30% of the time.

Want to know the best part...here in Texas, this online private school is considered one of their state funded public school options so it is all completely FREE! Not only do they offer the exact same curriculum and tools as the $6,000 per student per year private school for free to all Texas residents, they also offer all the necessary school supplies and a computer to each household. The registration begins in April and while no one can be turned away it is obviously a very popular program(esp for gifted students and elite athletes, but they accommodate all types of learners and learning levels) and they fill up quickly. So, there is no guarantee that they will get in but we are going to be up bright and early and at the fax machine on April 3rd.

The online state funded school doesn't begin until 3rd grade so Jaxon will have to wait a few years, but he isn't ready for this anyway and needs a softer introduction to school life. He is not as intrinsically motivated as the older two, but hopefully will follow their example and grow in his love for learning. I feel confident that this will come as his confidence in his reading gets stronger. I am very excited about this for them as it will not only provide them the best of both worlds in an accredited and accelerated college-prep environment, but allow me to continue to share in the learning experience with them at home. We will also still have plenty of time to pursue our other interests as nothing has to be completed at a certain time of day. It can be done at our own convenience as long as we stay in communication with our teacher. We can even work ahead to accommodate travel and our strange Army schedule.
This may or may not be the right choice for us as it may end up over-scheduling us or restricting us more than we are willing to be, but we are excited to give it a try come August and hope it will be a great fit. If not, then there is nothing lost in trying. If they don't get a spot then we have a back-up option as well called Texarkana Virtual Schoolthat is a little less technological, but has an amazing curriculum that is also accredited and free. We are so grateful for the many different homeschool options that we have in our state as well as in this age of technology and I am excited about how beautifully this should integrate with our new work box system. We will have time to practice the system for a few months and figure out what works for us and what doesn't and then we will use it in this new homeschool adventure.

Lapbooks

2012-01-04T08:42:00.001-06:00

This week we start our very first lapbook. This is something I have been wanting to do, especially with my second-grader, for some time, but have never found a way to wrap it in with our regular curriculum. Now with the work boxes I have been able to schedule it in as one of the work boxes to go along with a science or social studies theme. We are going to start with Braden as he is independent enough to understand, but young enough to still really enjoy it.

If Jaxon takes notice and wants to do one then we might start him doing the same ones and just print out 2 copies. Our first lapbooks go along with Braden's science curriculum and include Turtles, Butterflies, Hedgehogs and Honey Bees. All of these go along with the A Beka 2nd grade Science, "Animal Protection" unit and talks all about how animals use different God-given ways to protect themselves from predators.

The resource we are using for most of our lapbook choices are from Homeschool Share which is a wonderful, generous and completely free lapbook resource. I am really excited for Braden who is my little sponge and just always wants more and more to do. I think this will be a wonderful way to focus all his extra intellectual energy.

Turtle Lapbook

Music

2012-01-03T08:09:00.000-06:00

I love music and it is very important to me to expose my children, not only classical music, but also to music theory and different instruments. I find that our home is much happier and relaxed whenever we play classical music during the school hours. I use relaxing music to start to wind them down for a rest time and we use upbeat music to dance and play and laugh.

I played violin and piano in Jr. High and High School and sang in Honor Choir and Show Choir and I know, as homeschoolers, this is something I have to provide them as they are not going to get that in the school system like other children will.

I take this very serious because I know how much joy music can bring to the soul and it is also a wonderful way to worship. We were blessed with a wonderful 72-key, full-size keyboard(with headphones, yay, me!) for Christmas and Braden got his heart's desire- a child's size violin. Can I just say how sweet it is! I have someone lined up and ready to teach them both piano and violin lessons and I couldn't be more excited about it.

I hope that our home will be full of music and the joy that it brings and that maybe some of our notes might also be in tune.

Second Half of School Year Begins

2012-01-02T09:06:00.000-06:00

As we begin the second half of our school year and try to remember to write 2012 instead of 2011 we have some big changes in the way we do school here in our home. I have some posts planned this week to share with you all the things we have coming our way. We have some small scale changes we are making right now as well as some larger scale changes coming in the Fall.

Yes, we are still planning to homeschool, it's just going to look somewhat different than how we have done things up til now. We are excited about all that is coming and are truly over the moon that we are down to the last 3rd of my husband's deployment. I never wish for time to pass quickly because every moment of our lives is so precious, but it's hard to not wish it by quickly to have him in our life again.

Today is our first day back and our first day using the Work Box System. I have spent a great deal of time preparing for this day so I certainly hope it will go smoothly and be very enjoyable. I'll let you know how it goes.

Enjoy getting back into your routines in this new year.

Happy New Year!!

2012-01-01T09:15:00.000-06:00

Blessings to you and your family in this new year. May 2012 be a year filled with good health, joy-filled learning and the nurturing of the sweet little spirits we have been blessed to journey through this life with.

Happy New Year!!

Preperation Mode- Part 2

2011-12-30T12:04:00.065-06:00

I think one of the most important things to being a successful homeschooler is knowing your own personality type and what your strengths and weakness are. I am a great organizer, however, I often fall short in the implementation side of things and great plans never end up being realized. This is something I am well aware of and struggle daily to stop my busy mind and just be present with my children.

My mind is generally going in 100 different, very legitimate directions, but this can be devastating to a happy homeschool. Mom has to be able to set "life" and all those thoughts aside for the important time of learning together. I love being with my children, but there is a lot to get done in life and I know that in order to make the work box plan work for our family I will have to have some accountability for myself to stop whatever I am doing to make sure everyone gets started the way they should be doing. My children play extremely well together and it is easy for me to get off course and rationalize it as letting them play.

I'm very well meaning, but often get distracted and lost in a task. It takes intentional behavior and planning on my part to prevent this from happening. Sometimes you have to do other things and homeschool has to wait until it is done, however, falling in a trap where this is happening everyday can start to wear away at the seams of the overall plan of what we as mom and dad want to accomplish with our children.

I have found two things to be helpful in anticipating this challenge for myself. The kids got an android tablet for Christmas and while I have an IPhone and love it, the IPad was simply not an option for us. We are thrilled, however, with our Toshiba Thrive and are loving using it for all kinds of things. In the Android market there is a homeschool section where I found an app called, "School Schedule." I am sure there are many versions of this in both marketplaces but this was set up especially for homeschoolers and drum roll, please....it was FREE!! I have only played around with it a little so far as we have had company this week, but I think it could be a really neat tool. It allows you to import schedules, color code them, input grades and exams, other activities, holidays and tasks. It's like a homeschool planner app. I love that this is on the tablet so that I know it is going to make its rounds with us wherever we go. This way if we are doing school at the gym while we wait for Braden then I know I have the entire schedule in Excel on my tablet, as well as the schedule for each child if I happen to leave the hard copy at home.

Another very low tech idea that I came up with to help me quickly get on task are the alarms on my IPhone. By setting daily alarms on my phone for getting started on Calendar time, Work Box sessions start and end times, I know it will be less likely for me to get lost in thought or in a task that is not pressing. An alarm will go off at the time we are supposed to start something, not to be super rigid about a schedule, but to break me of whatever is stealing my focus at that moment. I really do need this and hope this will help me set down whatever I am doing and focus on the most important thing at that moment.
As promised here is our, sure to be constantly added to, master list for non-core work box options.

Preperation Mode- Part 1

2011-12-29T12:03:00.001-06:00

It is so hard not to get wrapped up in the whole, "New Year" craze. I never get caught up in the, "get healthy" or "New Year diet plan," so no worries there, but I do love me some organization and trying new things is just oh, so tempting sometimes.

I have succomed and am in full force Work Box preparation. Right now, I am trying to plan all 3 kids a full months worth of curriculum so I can take a breath for a few weeks and just enjoy the "doing" of school rather than the preparing. This, along with the getting the work box system up and running, is proving to be some late nights, but I am really happy with the results so far. I know it won't be this much work on a regular basis it's just the upstart of it all.

I love that the regular curriculum is predictable and easy to update each week, but the additional work boxes give me some lee-way to add fun extra stuff that we wouldn't do as readily. It is definitely forcing(in a good way) some much needed structure and accountability in my curriculum planning. I did a lot of looking around at how others are using the work boxes and finally decided on our approach. Basically, I have a work box template in Excel for each child that is dated weekly and then saved as a separate file, so that I always have a workable template but also a saved version of every week of curriculum for records. On this spreadsheet I only have dedicated curriculum work boxes filled in and have left the other boxes blank so that I can write them in each week.

I like this idea so that way if we find great library books I want to use or get a new toy or learning activity, I don't have to print out a new copy of the weekly spreadsheet. I also decided to lump "Mom Boxes" into one box so that it makes it easier for me to know what I need to do with that child. Mom Boxes will be an hour of work in the core subjects that we have a designated time for each child to ensure I am still getting the hour alone with every child.

I divided the daily Work Boxes into 2 sessions. Session 1 from 10-11am(but can be altered depending on our weekly schedule needs) and the reading time, playing outside and lunch and then session 2 from 12:30-1:30pm while Jaxon rests.I also separate out designated reading time, rather than put it in as a work box, as I still love the idea of everyone at once snuggling down with a good book during the day. I like what that does to the feel of our day.

Isabelle's Mom Box includes- Saxon, Writing with Ease and a quick review of completed Spelling, Science and Social Studies. Mom Boxes for Isabelle will be completed during Braden's team gymnastics and dance times every day. This kills two birds with one stone as she hates the boredom of waiting for him and it allows her more freedom during the morning to pursue her other work boxes without being rushed.

Braden's Mom Box includes- Saxon, Spelling, Writing w Ease and First Language Lessons with a handwriting review(I'm a handwriting stickler-my boys use Writing without Tears and Belle uses A Beka cursive). His Social Studies and Science needs very little oversight at grade 2. Braden's Mom Boxes will be completed right after lunch when Jaxon lies down to rest.

For Jaxon's Mom Box- All core, including, Science, SS, Reading, All About Spelling and Math. His other boxes will all be extra things he can do independently, but not curriculum related. He still needs 100% curriculum guidance or I will find him coloring himself in rather than the assignment! Jaxon's Mom Boxes will be done from 10-11 during the first Work Box session for the big kids.

I have each spreadsheet color coordinated for that child, but I am not using all the Velcro strips like many do. While I think this visual is very helpful for many, at this point in the year it is just an additional step between me and the work getting in the work boxes and I don't want to add steps right now. I will take the spreadsheet and put the work directly in the boxes without the use of the Velcro strips. I do plan on using all the cards, however, as a visual inside the boxes for the kids. So, if one of their boxes is 20 minutes of reading then I will put the 20 minute card and the reading card in their boxes to indicate that. This will be especially helpful for Jaxon who does not yet read fluently. We may end up using the Velcro strips and so I went ahead and printed them out, but I think it would be at the start of next year rather than now if we find that we need them.

I have just about completed the conversion of the un-used IKEA Trofast systems into the work box areas and the kids are really excited.

Here's a screen shot of Belle's weekly spreadsheet. Blank spaces are the unfilled additional, non-core work boxes.

One thing that is not on here is our group time each morning which includes our calendar time, weather, pledge(we are Americans after all) and our daily devotion, but that is on my master schedule. Also, our 'group Charlotte Mason reading' and our extra Classical work we do is not on there at all. The reason is that these are delight-directed options that after some experience I have decided not to include as curriculum any longer. We love them, don't get me wrong, but I have found that these are things we just kind of "do" throughout the day any way as we sit down and have time together. They are too hard to schedule because they require everyone to be done with their core work first and everyone works at a different pace. The scheduling of it was causing me a lot of stress so we just do things like, Story of the World, Mason Nature Journal and group reading throughout the day as it feels right.

You will also notice that there is nothing except for "Chore Boxes" on Monday. We have a 3 hour co-op class on Monday that we attend and so we use Monday morning before we go to get our weekly chores done. I love that I can incorporate this into our work boxes.

I am feeling really good about starting this system and am looking forward to the results it will bring. I do expect some kick back from my youngest who does not enjoy being scheduled and frankly doesn't like anything with the word "school" or "work" in it. I think it will take some time, but I do think it will help nurture in him a love for completing a task. Well, at least it will nurture a love for the prize that comes with it and I will know that it was completed. That may have to be good enough for him for a few years.

Tomorrow, in Part 2, I am going to talk about some accountability tools I have found, as well as a list of our non-core Work Box items that we have collected from the many wonderful homeschool blogging resources out there already using the system.

Time to Enjoy the Holidays

2011-12-20T09:30:00.001-06:00

The next few evenings during my regular blogging time I will be hiding in undisclosed locations of my house wrapping gifts, so I'm going to have to take the next week to relax a little and enjoy the peace of the holidays. Ok, more likely, I'm going to cook and clean and bake and wrap like a mad woman!

We are so excited about Christmas and family coming in, as well as our Skype Christmas with daddy in Afghanistan. Whatever your plans are, from our family to yours, we wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Using What Ya Got!

2011-12-19T10:21:00.001-06:00

I think I have mentioned before our magnetic door. It is a hysterical part of our house as I am never quite sure what I am going to find on the front door. However funny it may be I used that magnetic door to our advantage today. We have been waiting to do the wonderful 1+1+1=1 Story prop Printables and last night we finally had an evening at home where we could do these together. All 3 kids loved it and thought it was hysterical that we were putting them on the front door.

Hey, I say, "Use what ya got!" We don't have a huge homeschool space but we do have a magnetic front door!

Submitting to the Workboxes

2011-12-16T22:30:00.001-06:00

A few years ago when the Workbox System by Sue Patrick became really popular I was intrigued, but we weren't in a place where I could implement them fully. The moves and the housing, I felt, was limiting us from being able to really use the system. We have always used, M-F "work carts" and then moved away from that to more of a hanging folder system(which I like) but that system doesn't give us the same storage opportunities as a box system does and we found that we were running from place to place throughout the house collecting everything we needed for one assignment. This was making me crazy!

I have had two of the Ikea Trofast systems for several years, but they were our toy storage and I was not about to give that up and didn't feel like we really had room for more of them. You know the Army charges you for every pound you go over their weight allowance during moves. Only recently as I was finding myself flustered, yet again, with the, "mommy where's my math workbook" type comments and my response of, "did you check your school cubby, or your room, or the last place you used it...did you check the mini-van?" Arg! We could have done twice the work in the time it was taking us to hunt things down.

About this same moment it occurred to me that the drawers of the Trofast systems had not actually been opened in some time and those toys had gathered dust. Out of sight, out of mind. So my command decision...we are doing it! We are converting them and we are doing the work box system in it's entirety. The work will all be in one place-everyday! I'm committing. It may or may not work but we are going to give it our very best try.

It seems as though the people who have tried it have stuck to it, or at least a modified version of it that better fits their style, for a number of years and I find that encouraging. Being half-way through the school year, it is a good time to implement something new. It's not a change in curriculum, just in the organization of it. It's not making our schedule more rigid, in fact, it should make it more fun and less stressful and the kids much more independent. I explained it to the kids today and all three of them loved it and said it sounded like a lot of fun.

They especially likes the idea that I might hide "snack" cards in one of their work boxes indicating they could stop for a snack either before or after that box was completed.
I am spending the next 2 weeks getting everything together. I have printed out all the cards and laminated them. I have put Velcro on the drawers and have the underlying structure of it well on its way. I just now have to get all their activity cards velcroed and their daily cards made up so that I can plan a week at a time, instead of a day at a time.

We will start the new system in Jan but we may do a little practice with Jaxon the week after Christmas just to get him used to it.

Fingers crossed that we will be able to find the math workbook from now on.

Pondering...

2011-12-15T20:00:00.001-06:00

We are still looking ahead to our options for next year. We recently found out that Texas is now(as of August) one of the free Calvert participating online schools through Texarkana Virtual School. I really enjoy the freedom and flexibility of a school life not governed by the state, but this is VERY hard to pass up. I have spoken with the principal of the school and am awaiting a little more info to find out if this is the right fit for us. There are some changes potentially coming for our family and in anticipation of that I am trying to make sure that we can still homeschool in a quality way with possibly a little more administrative help for grading and curriculum planning.

http://texarkanaisdvirtualacademy.com/

However, if it is a rigid schedule that demands due dates daily or demands online classroom participation in real time, or would force us out of our Monday co-op because the schedule is so limiting then it just simply isn't the right choice for us. I don't mind work accountability and due dates that are reasonable, but I don't want to feel like one of the biggest benefits of being a homeschool family was taken away from us just for free curriculum, even though it is excellent curriculum. That all is still yet to be seen. If we did find that it would be a good fit for us then all the Calvert curriculum for both Isabelle(rising 5th grade) and Braden(rising 3rd grade) would be completely free.

Jaxon would follow a 1st grade curriculum of my choosing, probably A Beka, as we are very familiar with that. They don't begin here with free online public school until 3rd grade. Many states start at K so you might want to check on yours if you're interested. I'm hopeful, but wary. I would love for it to be an option for us, but I am very slow in my trust of anything publically instituted and want to do my due diligence to make sure I fully understand the fine print of our choices.

Alternatively, something we might try for a semester is the A Beka online streaming classes that complement the A Beka curriculum they have. These are not real time classes but recorded classroom sessions geared towards an visual learner and go along with the exact lesson plan they are already following. It's an opportunity to hear someone else say it in a different way than I would sometimes. Basically, right now we are doing two separate curricula. We have all the A Beka grade level subjects and really enjoy them, but also use classical curricula such as Story of the World, Apologia Science, First Language Lessons, Writing with Ease and classical readers as additional work we do together. We find that we get through the A Beka material very fast, usually in an hour. We love their material but that is one of my favorite things about homeschool- those days we are rockin the schedule we can keep going and do more thus the other curriculum options.

A Beka Online Streaming

We haven't completely decided if we are going to do either one of these things. They are both some of those possibilities I spoke about a few days ago as we look forward to what is coming for next year and how we can make the most of our homeschool opportunities.

Re-Deployment Readiness

2011-12-14T11:54:00.023-06:00

If you're not Army, two things are probably going to stand out to you here. Why do they call 'coming home' from a deployment a re-deployment? Who knows why, but they do. And why do you need to ready yourself for the highly anticipated return of your loved one you have missed so much? The answer to that isn't quite so easy.

When a solider deploys, the once family unit, now becomes a single solider on his own and a newly single parent on their own trying to adjust to all the feelings and emotions that go along with a war time deployment. While your commitment to one another is steadfast the practicality of this new arrangement is tremendously intricate. You're loved one may be gone for months or even a year and in order to function on a healthy level, especially for children, you have to find a new routine and new life of sorts...at least for a time. Hopefully this can include your solider depending on how much communication you have, but it still isn't the same. This can be very hard as all sorts of, "I don't want to do this without my husband," or "I feel terrible about creating a life without him involved," kinds of guilty feelings creep in. But the truth is in order to make it through you just have to. You don't like it but you do it. The time is going to pass and your either going to let it pass well or be miserable and with three children looking on, miserable just isn't an option.

The tricky part comes when you begin to start trying to change back your mindset of single parent and the children of a one parent running the show back to the complete family unit you were before. At first I thought I didn't need any of that re-deployment readiness kind of stuff because Scott and I will just fall right back into step with where we are. That is just us and I don't doubt it for a second. However, I began to wonder if that would be the case for my children who will have undergone nearly a year of change and development in the time he has been away. They miss him and want him home more than anything in this world, but they may not be quite so ready to understand how things are going to be different. Great things can also cause strain. So I decided to get them each a re-deployment notebook and during our time off of school this month they will have to opportunity to journal their feelings and draw pictures and start thinking about how life will look different once daddy is home.

These journals are specific to re-deployment and the stressors that can come up from an extended absence, as well as with combat type stress playing a role in the reintegration. I really loved the book and if you are military you can get them free. My copy came from the Great Wolf retreat and was provided by our Command Military and Family Life consultant. I believe you can also get them from Army One Source. Here is a look inside. Even though Scott's re-deployment is many months away I think now is the time for them to start collecting their thoughts about what they have done so far and what they are hoping for when he comes home. I want them to feel as much a part of this process as they can be.

There were many more pages in this journal but I felt these were a good highlight of how sensitive-natured it is in helping children access feelings that they may be unable to verbalize or even recognize.

Tuesday Craft Day- Ice Cream Cone Christmas Trees

2011-12-13T11:23:00.001-06:00

This week's craft was super easy and a lot of fun for every age. This is a picture from the Hungry Housewife and shows the decorated ice cream cone trees that our kiddos enjoyed making this week. All the children were able to do this completely independently, even our youngest little crafter at 3-years-old. Basically you get a box of sugar cones and either make or buy green icing. We mixed our store bought and some homemade white icing with a little green food coloring(can anyone say science) and let them go nuts with it. And boy did they! This was hysterical fun to watch them both make and attempt to eat. After frosting it they used red icing to make lights around their trees and then decorated them with sprinkles and candy to make ornaments. Then came the best part- watching them all try to eat them without touching them.

http://www.thehungryhousewife.com/2011/12/ice-cream-cone-christmas-trees-2.html

I agree with Jesse...Thumbs UP for this craft!

Is it too soon...

2011-12-12T22:07:00.000-06:00

The curriculum bug has officially bit. It has struck me like cupid with an arrow. I heart books so much it's a little crazy! I have already started mulling and drooling over what we will be doing next year. I know it's early, but I honestly think it is a great time to start thinking about it. Mid-year is a wonderful time to sit back and evaluate what's working and what isn't and what was a total waste of money. Was everyone panting at the end of the first half of the year, barely able to catch their breath or can you look back and say, "wow, I took on way too much" but didn't get much of it done. I personally took on way too much, but for the first time I'm really not bothered by it.

In our circumstances, this is a year to be spent learning and growing together, enjoying our curriculum but carefully watching after one another as we struggle through this deployment. Each of us have reacted in our own private way and sometimes we spend more time talking that teaching and for now, that's ok. This is one of the biggest reason's that Scott was adamant that we homeschool this year. He wanted us to have as few things pulling on us as possible. Don't get me wrong- we have learned a lot and I am very pleased with their progress, especially in math for the big kids and in reading for Jaxon, but the whole point of homeschooling is to have the time to put attention to other areas sometimes and we have definitely done that as well and I think we have made it half-way through this deployment better, healthier and happier for it.

Another reason I have been looking ahead to next year is that I really like the flow of this year and so I want to see if it is possible for us to recreate it a second year. I know the classical curricula that we use have next grade level options, but Jaxon is moving into first grade and this will play a role in what we do as well. This year it was easy for the big kids to work together on topics that he was not ready for, but next year he is going to want to be a part of things and the challenge is really on me to figure out a way to make sure he is understanding what we are doing.

He is very resistant! If their was a stronger word I could use there, I would. He has his own mind set about what he wants to do and very little of it has anything to do with traditional school learning. I have a feeling we will have to bend our Classical ways a little more in the Mason/Montessori methods next year to give him the opportunity to learn in a way that he loves.

As we narrow our curriculum choices for next year I will start to post some of our ideas, but for now I am just digging through it all to see what we have, what we like and what is working well.

Happy half-way through!

Christmas Learning

2011-12-09T09:35:00.001-06:00

After our breakfast with Santa this morning, we spent about 2 hours at the library today. This is truly one of our favorite spots. Mine are at an age where this is just so relaxing and fun for everyone. We picked out the books we will be using for next week's, 'Christmas learning.' I know we are off school, but this was just too good of a chance to miss out on and we will just bank these days in case we need some spares later on. I may look for a few printables to go along with these books but for the most part this is just a read and learn time for us to all share together as we learn about Christmas all over the world.
We found a wonderful set of books that talks, in detail, about Christmas in various countries and we will be reading those along with a few discussing the history and celebration of Hanukkah. These books also have Christmas recipes from that country and if we get very daring we may even try a few...yea, even on our week off.

Isabelle is nearly done with, Dickins "A Christmas Carol" and is loving it. We decided on the original Nutcracker story for her to read next since she read through the other one faster than I expected. This book is not your typical "Nutcracker" readers it is really long.

Braden will be reading this one in addition to, "The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey."

We will be doing the 1+1+1=1 Christmas story prop printables for this book.

http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2011/12/12-days-of-christmas-christmas-book.html

For Jaxon

Travel Work Boxes

2011-12-08T11:19:00.040-06:00

Sometimes the very most obvious ideas escape me and so this may be something you have seen already, but if not I bet you are going to love it. I saw someone with this item the other day and just like Gru on Despicable Me... "Light Bulb!"

We love the idea of the Sue Patrick's work box system that many people use in their homeschool lives. They are a wonderful idea for teaching children how to become more independent learners, as well as helping mom organize her thoughts for the work the child is doing each day.

I really love the concept, however, in our limited space and constant traveling we just didn't have the room for work boxes for 3 children. So, last year we adapted the work box idea with work folders but still using her underlying concepts. They each have a wall hanging organizer and in it is their daily work that would otherwise be in the work box. This works really well, except the fact that their is no way for me to put other things like their handwriting notebook or their dry erase board or notebooks for their different subjects.

The answer, for us, was presented to me yesterday by a non-homeschooler(gasp!).

Meet the Sterilite Notebook Folder

I'm giddy and I think I may be in love. :)

It's hard to see in this picture, but it has approximately 2 inches of depth inside this notebook size folder box. It's big enough to store daily work, while not being bulky. It will allow them to store their work and any other notebooks they need to complete that day's work. Textbooks would obviously not fit, but Jaxon's K readers will fit bc they are soft bound. This will also help us so much when we have to grab our school work and go. Grab the daily work box and the supply box and *wala* our school house is magically portable.

We will only use one per child just so that I can ensure that I am checking their work daily(I need that accountability). I'm really excited about how this one simple change will decrease my frustration. However, if you have the space for the traditional work boxes, I would suggest that you try the complete work box method as it really is quite amazing.

http://www.sterilite.com/SelectProduct.html?id=482&ProductCategory=198&section=1

Meet the Kids

2011-12-07T19:37:00.000-06:00

I have been asked some questions about the age ranges of the kids that participate in our weekly craft day so I though I would give you a little introduction. This way when you read the weekly craft blog and wonder if your child is the right age for that craft then you will know what ages participated and to what degree.

From youngest to oldest here you go-

Aidan- almost 4

Addison- 5

Jaxon-5

Jessie- almost 7

Braden- just turned 8

Haley-8

Taylor- 10

Isabelle-10

Jimmy-13

They are a truly an amazing group of kids who genuinely care for one another and we feel so blessed to have met them.

Craft Tuesday- Homemade Christmas Cookies

2011-12-06T20:48:00.001-06:00

Today was a beautiful mess. You know those wonderful and messy days that you really feel like you lived and your kids had such a good time because you didn't even flinch at the mess. Now add to it friends to share it all with and you have the perfect day. Today's craft was Christmas cookies from scratch.

That's right, my talented friend and neighbor, Jennifer, prepared in advance scratch made cookie dough for the kiddies to roll, cut out and decorate. She did save one batch for them to help mix so that they could see the entire process of how they go from ingredients into dough. Each child got to roll out their own dough and then cut out their cookie shape of choice.

We ate lunch(grilled cheese and warm potato soup with real bacon) while they cooked. While we ate one of the ladies mentioned that it always seemed as though we did the messy stuff when it was at my house. Messes don't bother me and the truth is some messes are a really good thing. The messes we make each week are the tangible evidence of where learning meets fun. No one likes to scrub toilets, but when I clean up sprinkles later I am going to remember all the fun that was had and the smiles of the kids.

After lunch we let them start decorating the cookies. There was frosting and sprinkles going in every direction. Baking with children is not an undertaking for the faint of heart, but it was such a beautiful mess and it is extremely rewarding. Green-colored lips smudged with frosting and sprinkles stuck to chins. I think at one point we even had a little one licking his plate of left over toppings once the cookie was gone. This just makes me smile. This is childhood. As adults we would probably be much softer, kinder and more relaxed if we would occasionally lick the plate of delicious left over toppings.

Jennifer and I noted how it seemed like every week we have a photo of where the kids have the other Jennifer completely cornered. Poor thing. Here they are intently listening as Isabelle reads off the instructions.

Helping Addison pour into the mixer while little Aidan waits his turn.

Isabelle found a safer platform from which to read off the directions.

Jaxon gets to pour into the mixer.

Notice- it is all the little boys who were completely fascinated by the electronic mixer.

Braden meets a rolling pin for the first time

This was before the sprinkle war began

Fresh icing also made from scratch(not by me).

Haley learned that she could "glue" her snowman's head back on using the icing.

Jaxon cut his cookie into a snowflake

Haley's headless snowman after his head was reattached.

This would be the winner of the sprinkle wars the older girls were in.

Mmmmmmmm!

Jessie decides to let Jennifer work on the cutting while she samples the yummy dough

Look how cute her little face is!

Braden was very proud of this, though, I still have no clue what it was.

Taylor very carefully decorates her cookie. Braden is beside her and I think, she too, is trying to figure out what on earth his cookie is.

Tuesday has become our favorite day of the week and I can't wait to see what the next beautiful mess will be.

Christmas Prop Stories from 1+1+1=1

2011-12-05T10:37:00.000-06:00

Today I thought I would linky back to a great site with a really cool twist on storytelling. I'm pretty sure it's no secret how much we love books and our kids love the felt stories that help tell a story. However, while felt themes are out there, felt book sets are hard to find with the exception of a few readers and when you do find them they can be expensive.
I thought this was an outstanding substitute to felt for interactive storytelling. I love Carisa's idea about laminating these props and adding magnets so that they can use them on any magnetic surface. She uses a cookie sheet(genius) but believe it or not I actually don't have a metal cookie sheet(really need to get one) but you can always use a magnet board, fridge, dishwasher or in our case, even our back door is magnetic...it's hysterical the stuff I find on it.

The books she has done Christmas prop stories are easy to find and great stories. I love that I can print these out and within 15 minutes have story props that we can use year after year with no cost at all. I really hope she will do more of these throughout the year. I love this idea! Thanks Carisa!

http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2011/12/12-days-of-christmas-christmas-book.html

Do You Know?

2011-12-01T10:11:00.001-06:00

I love it when people tell me about new homeschool resources that I didn't know about, especially when they are free. I would like to share one that I love. It's called Homeschool Freebie of the Day.

This is from a family that runs a web site committed to offering a unique free homeschool resource everyday. If you subscribe to them by email you get additional things that you don't get just as a Facebook user. In my many weeks of being enrolled in their emails, they have yet to spam me with anything outside of the weekly email detailing what this weeks resources will be. They're additonal offerings are included in that one email. We have already downloaded and made great use of many things from them.

http://www.homeschoolfreebie.wholesomechildhood.com/

Happy Homeschooling!

What we are Reading- Dec.

2011-11-30T07:19:00.002-06:00

Now that our school is officially on Christmas intercession we can focus so much more time on baking, creating, playing, exploring and reading. It's not less learning just intentional learning in a different way. We read all the time, but this looser schedule gives us even more time to sit down and enjoy great holiday classics and some seasonal "twaddle" as Charlotte Mason would call it.

Isabelle was thrilled to report to me that she had finished reading her Pilgrim diary and together we finished our historical Thanksgiving readers two days before Thanksgiving. We are ready to dive into our next set. Here's a sneak peak for December along with some of our very favorite magazine supplements.

This book is a compilation of the various Laura Ingalls Wilder Christmas excerpts from her other books. This is our family reading that I read aloud to everyone.

Isabelle is SO excited to read, Charles Dickins, "A Christmas Carol." This is the full text version and I worried it might be a little hard to understand, but she performed this play last year as the narrator and really wants to read it on her own. If it causes frustration I will pick up and read it aloud. Isabelle's 2nd set of readers are
-The Bells of Christmas
-On that Night, by Yates
The Perfect Christmas tree
-One Wintry Night, by Graham

Jaxon Twaddle

Jaxon's books-Mostly great books with just a little Twaddle.

Braden's first set of seasonal readers. His second set will include
-The Crippled Lamb
-Amish Christmas
-Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
-The Perfect Christmas Tree

Braden's Christmas Twaddle. While I know it's not a classic, I really like Beverly Lewis' "Cul-de-sac Kids" series. They are faith based books with all kinds of mysteries and dilemmas, but with a very faithful message.

If you have boys this is a fantastic and very entertaining Christian, "boy-themed" series. Each book comes with either a camo "God's Army" wrist band or really cool Christian key chain. There are many books in this series and make great stocking stuffers. We ordered ours from ChristianBooks.com

wristbands

Braden's "Highlights" always brings cheers.

"High 5" is one of Jaxon's favorite magazines

Another liberal arts based magazine

Nice magazine full of stories and poems

We order the weekly "Scholastic News" readers. The kids love these and they are a way we expose them to age appropriate current events. The traditional schools use these, but if you call Scholastic and let them know that you only need one copy for each grade child you have they will send them to your house. Try not to pass out when you hear how cheap it is. They are great resources if you are looking for a jumping off point for some interesting unit studies or lapbooks.

Craft Day- Loopy Turkey Wreath

2011-11-29T21:33:00.000-06:00

I know it's a few days too late for Thanksgiving crafts but we skipped our craft day last week since two daddies had just returned home from Iraq and my parents were visiting from NC. We had all the supplies from the Oriental Trading Loopy Thanksgiving Turkey Wreath so we decided better late than never.

http://www.orientaltrading.com/loopy-turkey-wreath-craft-kit-a2-48_6923-12-1.fltr?Ntt=turkey+wreath

This was a fun and creative craft that actually turned out quite well. However, this is a very detailed craft. It would need at least an hour to do and for a child who was 8+ this would be an excellent independent craft with little parental involvement. If you are working with younger children roll your sleeves up and be ready- they're gonna need your help.
I would strongly suggest preparing the paper loops ahead of time. They need to be stapled and each individual kit comes with 50 strips per child. If you have several children this could take some time to prepare. They are very easy to staple together it just takes some time to do. Older children could help with this though but ours were much more interested in riding bikes while we stapled :). Basically, you glue the loops onto the round circle base and assemble the turkey on top.

Caution with the feet.-you need to loop the feet on to the legs before you glue the loop together. We discovered that the hard way. It was a cute and fun craft for our older kids, but we did do a good bit of rescuing for those under 8. Have lots of glue on hand for this one. We are putting ours away with our Thanksgiving stuff and will be very excited to get them out next year to decorate with.

It was a wonderful crafting day filled with friendship and great company and we always look forward to it. Craft Tuesday has become a highly anticipated day of our week.

Isabelle and her turkey wreath.

Jimmy did a great job!

Jaxon really loved the gluing! He loves to glue.

The mommies were getting a little "loopy" from gluing on all the younger kids loops. These ladies bring so much joy to me.

Happy crafting!

Outstanding Explination

2011-11-28T11:39:00.001-06:00

Today I am simply going to refer you to one of the most well-written, "Why we Homeschool," articles I have read. I know this is a very personal question with different reasons and motivations for everyone, but this fellow homeschooling mom so hit the nail on the head for me regarding the complexity of reasons, rather than just one overwhelming reason as to why we homeschool. There isn't one reason for us and that is ok. There are many reasons why it's a great choice for us, as well as many wonderful things we have discovered in the process that weren't part of those original decision making days but we have found to be great benefits.

When I read this article I felt like she saw into my heart and beautifully expressed mine and my husband's reasons for homeschooling in such a delicate yet profound way. Sometimes the words of others resonate so miraculously with our own thoughts and feelings that you literally feel as though God is speaking to you with those much needed reminders that He is there in the midst of all of this. Even if faith isn't the number one reason you homeschool, God is still there in that journey. You will be blessed reading her article and it is also one one of my favorite sites...
"Hip Homeschool Moms"

The Freedom of Homeschooling

November 24, 2011 5 Comments

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Often as homeschoolers we get asked questions about our choices.

Why/how we decided to home school is one of the more frequent questions that we hear. I thought I would take this opportunity to share a little about my answer to this often asked question.

The answers to the question of, “Why home school?” are as varied as the families homeschooling. Many families choose to home educate as a means to live out their faith as fully as they are able. The scriptures certainly lead us to instruct our children.

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. ~Deuteronomy 6:6-9~

Is homeschooling the only way for parents to be obedient to commands like that of Deuteronomy 6:6-9? I don’t think so. Plenty of parents of children who attend schools everywhere take their God given responsibility for the spiritual instruction of their children very seriously, and they do a great job. Homeschooling helps parents by giving them the gift of time. There isn’t the hurrying out the door early each morning that you have when trying to catch a bus. Homeschooling makes it easier for us to fulfill these commands but it isn’t the only way. For our family religion wasn’t our top reason to home educate although it was in the mix as one of our reasons. My problem with public schools is the division they create between religion and the rest of life. I don’t want my children to have to check their faith at the door. To us God is everywhere, all present. We see him in the falling leaves, the bird that sings at the feeder, the sun and the clouds, and in the faces of those around us. He’s even in the public schools of our country…the kids just aren’t allowed to talk to him openly. That being said, there are many wonderful and talented christian teachers working in our public schools who are doing a great job in spite of the challenges posed by current laws. We simply want our children to have the freedom to pray or discuss religious issues anytime they want, even if it’s during math. Homeschooling gives us this freedom.

Another popular reason for homeschooling is the desire of parents to preserve their children’s childhoods. This was a big one for me. I want my children to spend hours in free play. I want them to have time to explore the world around them and use their imaginations to create. I want to secure time for them to grow and be. Time for them to sit under the shade of a tree and watch the clouds float past. Time for them to watch the ants and bees as they work. Time for them to build and discover. Time for them to try things and fail and try again. I have made sure that this blessed time was set aside in early childhood for my boys and want the same for my daughter. Homeschooling gives us this freedom. If my children are involved in a game of the imagination they are free to see it through to the end. There aren’t any bells ringing to announce lunch or the next subject they must focus on. They are free to play. They decide when the game is over.

Great books. Another reason for what I do. I want only the best thoughts and ideas for my children. These thoughts and ideas are usually found in Living Books. A living book is a book written by a single author who is an expert on their subject. An author that makes their subject come alive and writes with literary style. Text books do not qualify. Homeschooling gives us the freedom to read only the best living books. Books that spark the imagination and kindle it to flame with new ideas. Books that stay with us and become part of who we are and who we will become.

Serena is a lover of the outdoors, wool, and coffee. She is married to her Sweetie and Mom to two boys and one baby girl that she home educates using the methods of Charlotte Mason in a relaxed manner. She is a believer of big things and loves to talk about books, ideas, and knitting. She blogs about whatever strikes her fancy at CastingPearls.

http://www.hiphomeschoolmoms.com/2011/11/the-freedom-of-homeschooling/

Our desire and calling to homeschool came before our Army journey began so our decision to homeschool was originally based out of a different set of reasons. All of those reasons still exist, but I am just so thankful to God for knowing what was coming in our life and putting homeschooling so heavily on our hearts. He knew of the upcoming Army journey and the separation. He knew our needs even before we knew the Army life was a possibility. That still small voice that we listened to years ago that moved us to make this change in our life, I believe, was God's blessing of time together knowing what was to come. I am just so thankful for the time to watch my children grow and learn and experience this wonderful life that goes by way too fast. I simply can't think of any greater blessing.

Homeschool Gold

2011-11-25T17:19:00.000-06:00

Since we homeschool year round, we are technically on our winter intercession all of Dec. This also includes the vacation time of Thanksgiving as well, as it is our last weekly intercession. We do six weeks on and one week off throughout the year with all of Dec and July as breaks, as well as 2 weeks in June. I know we don't have to be that scheduled living here in Texas but it helps me to stay on task and I have found that a Kindergartner can actually forget all of their new words and sounds in less than 2 weeks. Learned that the hard way.

So as of this past week we are on our official Christmas break, except for the reading.

However, there was a field trip we just simply could not pass up. You have those moments as homeschoolers when inside you just glow as you know the experience is what I like to call, "homeschool gold." This was one of those moments. It's not the lesson or the topic, per say, it's the experience. They get the chance to experience something unique and interesting that is not something that they are readily exposed to and you just know that those little brilliant wheels are just turning and taking it all in. Those days where you just say to yourself that 'this is why I homeschool.'

There is a real 1800's working homestead about an hour from us and once a year they do a weekend festival where they show the public how everything works. They do everything themselves and there is a congregation of 1200 Christian (Amish-like) people that make-up this community. They work cooperatively in sustaining one another. They have their own livestock and garden; spin all their own yarn and make their own clothes. They make their own specialty cheeses. They herd sheep and goats, make their own candles and soap and furniture. There is even a real working blacksmith.

It is an extremely popular festival within the surrounding cities and there must have been several hundred people there on Black Friday and that wasn't even their busiest day. It is fascinating! During our visit our children had the opportunity to watch a real barn raising, dip their own candles, work on a loom, make their own baskets and soap, as well as fashion a piece of bronze into a spoon- by hand! And they were taught all these things by the children of the community. It was amazing. I watched a 10-year-old boy patiently teach my 5-year-old how to make a bronze spoon with just a hammer and a tree stump(I know, sounds totally MacGyver) and a 13-year-old girl taught me how to make a basket. The adults were there to supervise everything and were so gracious in answering questions we had. I even had a lady tell me how to make butter easily at home since we missed the demonstration.

We are going to do it and I will report back how it went. We watched their amazing sheep dogs herd goats through a maze of obstacles with only the calls from a whistle and all three of my children hand made toy boats. It was truly an amazing day filled with memories and a real understanding and appreciation for God's creation and for how things work and where they come from. I kinda wanted them to adopt me. These people are not only living a simplistic, organic and natural life, but are really encouraging the community to learn about the importance of responsible living and sustainability.

I love the scripture just below the name. "The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms"

Papa helping the kids with their boats

Isabelle and Jaxon made paddle boats.

Braden made a sailboat.

The Potters Hand store

Their pasture

Yummy, homemade apple cider donuts

Sheepdog herding the goats

Kids watching the goats with the barn raising in the background.

Jaxon dips a candle

Braden makes a pot holder on a real loom

Isabelle working on her loom.

Jaxon makes a pinch pot for his new candle

He helped me make this basket.

Old ink stamping machine

Brave little boy helping Jaxon make his spoon

Braden working on his spoon

Isabelle tries not to smash this nice man's fingers.

Even I got to hold the lamb.

It's a bunny

Alpaca

Their completed spoons. Yes, the can eat off of them and are dishwasher safe. I love how they let them engrave their initials in them.

Homeschool Gold!!!

Happy Thanksgiving- A New Playroom

2011-11-24T10:29:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with love and blessings...(and all the trimmings).

My sweet boys who have always shared a room, up until we moved into this house in Sept, decided they did not want to be apart any longer. The last few months they have really been missing each other sleeping in their own rooms and decided that while nana and papa were here that they wanted to get their beds re-bunked.

I can't do this by myself and with Scott deployed I told them it would have to wait until he got home, but papa was willing to help me take the beds apart and move the furniture into one room. I was so pleased with how it turned out and the boys loved it. They spent their first night back together last night and loved it!

You might be asking yourself, "what on Earth does this have to do with homeschooling?" Well, we now have a fourth bedroom that I got to convert into a playroom/schoolroom! We have done the "schoolroom" unsuccessfully in previous homes. It just doesn't work for us. We love having a dedicated space for all our things but we never just sit and work in a "schoolroom."

I know this works really well for some, especially if it is a very large or open space, but our schoolroom has always been a bedroom and has been way to confining for us to sit and work in for long periods of time. While they do have desks if they want a private space of their own to work, we usually do a lot of work at the kitchen table, breakfast bar and thanks to the nice fall Texas weather, even on the back porch picnic table.

While I know this space, for us, won't end up being a consistently used work space I love that it is available as a quiet room if someone wants to write or read in privacy, without noise or distraction, and more than anything serves as a great playroom/school storage area for all the toys. With that I present our very humble playroom/school storage room.

Our Ikea shelves and Lego table

Jaxon's train desk and letter learning center

Closet has bookshelves with overflow books and toys and out of season clothes that here in Texas we have to keep handy

A new home for our noisy, nocturnal hermit crabs

Life Learning- The Alamo

2011-11-23T13:53:00.001-06:00

After our trip south from New Mexico to San Antonio we settled in our hotel on the San Antonio Riverwalk, which is right next to the Alamo.
Unfortunately, Isabelle was up late throwing up, most likely from the same stomach virus Jaxon had the week before. She was well enough to walk around the next day but wasn't able to enjoy it quite to its fullest.

We started with a riverboat ride down the river that runs through the San Antonio city center and the boat guide gave us all sorts of wonderful history of the area. This was my favorite part of the day. It was warm and sunny with a cool breeze with just absolutely gorgeous views from every side. After that we headed over to the historic Alamo. This is where a battle took place between the San Antonio people who desired freedom from Mexico but were basically wiped out in this infamous battle, which took place at the abandoned building of Spanish/Catholic missionaries who had built it in the 1700's.

What I found truly fascinating was that the Alamo building had been standing for nearly 100 years for a very different reason before the battle that made it famous in the 1800's. Sam Houston(the Fort Sam Houston Army post in San Antonio was named for him) then took his rebel Army and defeated the Mexicans at the battle of Santa Anna winning the freedom of Texas from Mexico. As a consolation of defeat Mexico gave the Union the land we call Texas, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and CA. However, many people do not realize that for about 7 years Texas was it's own independent country separate from the Union and Mexico and Sam Houston was its President. Cool, huh!

The building was gorgeous and we also discovered that this is where the first live tree transplant took place when a 40-year-old Oak tree was transplanted as a gift from TN to commemorate the Alamo battle. I think it probably also has something to do with the fact that Davey Crockett gave his life at the Alamo and he was well loved by his home state of TN.

We had a yummy lunch at Rainforest Cafe on the Riverwalk and then off on a horse drawn buggy ride through the city. We headed back to Fort Hood and our journey came to an end. We are excited finishing our Thanksgiving books and preparing for a wonderful Thanksgiving feast of our own. It's hard not to get hungry reading all about the first Thanksgiving.

The outside Alamo wall where most of the battle was fought

The now 230-year-old Oak tree

Papa gets a birthday surprise at Rainforest Cafe.

Life Learning- New Mexico

2011-11-22T12:40:00.002-06:00

For my dad's birthday we made a long trek all the way across western Texas and up to New Mexico to give them an opportunity to see a part of the country they never have. It was a long drive but we saw one of the coolest things I have seen- a windmill farm. All across western Texas are thousands of windmills as they harness the wind to utilize as their energy source. It was not only fascinating, but beautiful and sparked a conversation as to why they did this and why it works out here. We also discussed if it would work well in other parts of the country.

Once we arrived in New Mexico we saw all sorts of things that we have never seen. The landscape is beautiful. I have never seen the Grand Canyon or anything even close so this was quite spectacular to me. We visited two natural preserves-Bitter Lake and The Bottomless Lakes. Bitter Lake is a wildlife area so there were all sorts of birds to look at. Thankfully, most of the wildlife we wouldn't want to see, such as scorpions and rattlesnakes, were already hibernating even though it was a 70 degree day when we were there.

Beautiful west Texas farming land

Getting into the rockier extreme west Texas landscape

The windmill farms

Bitter Lake National Park, NM

Jaxon learns to use binoculars to spot local wildlife

Off on a walking trail in the desert

snake hole

Bottomless Lake National Park, NM

This shallow looking like/pond is actually 95 feet deep!

Part of the Chihuahuan Desert burnt by wild fires

On our way back to Texas we passed through Carlsbad Caverns. It is the most amazing underground cavern system I have ever seen. We descended over 800 feet straight down. It took us over an hour to walk that far. The walked was twisty and cool through bat caves. The rock formations were completely formed by the reaction of water and sulfur and not the typical cavern water washing away at the rocks. Once we got to the bottom we walked through a mile long underground room filled with stalagmites and stalactites, underground pools and amazing rock formations.

Thankfully, there was an elevator at the bottom ready to take us back up the 800 feet so that we didn't have to walk back up. We were beat!

Checking out the cave maps

Looking down to the mouth of the cave

Looking up from just inside

Explanation of the cave formations

Popcorn formations

Fairyland

Braden's reaction to the bottomless pit

Jaxon almost made it through

The beautiful Guadeloupe Mountain Range, TX

We had lunch and headed out of New Mexico and through the gorgeous Guadeloupe Mountain range to complete the drive to San Antonio where we would then visit the Alamo and Riverwalk. More on that tomorrow. As we walked through the caverns, my parents kept joking with the kids saying, "We love your school!" Too funny. We are actually on our winter intercession, but I guess that's the great thing about homeschool...the learning really never stops.

Life Learning- A Trip with nana and Papa

2011-11-17T12:58:00.002-06:00

My dad turns 60 today and my parents are flying in from NC. We are surprising my dad, who has never seen the southwest and is a huge history buff on a 4 day adventure trek to celebrate this milestone. We are so excited with our plans. It's way out of our comfort zone, but isn't that what life learning is about...doing things you've never done?

Our trip begins when we pick them up in Austin, TX today and we will surprise him with his card that includes a riddle filled with clues about our plans. We will then hop in the car and head across Texas and into New Mexico to visit Roswell and Area 51. Now, I know this is pretty hokey...but, I think this is a generational thing. To my dad's generation the Area 51 controversy is a very real memory that is very persistent in their childhood development and in forming their perception of the world. We are not visiting because we are looking for evidence of aliens. We are visiting all in good fun and so that he can say he has been there.

This is a moment in our history that will continue to be debated for the rest of time and I love that my children will have the memories of visiting that small piece of history. The museums, however, are evidently very funny and meant to be taken with a grain of salt. Our visit around Roswell will also include a National Preserve showing off the landscape and a mile deep lake. We are really looking forward to taking in the sights of the southwest landscape.

We then head southeast to the Chihuahuan Desert to visit the Carlsbad Caverns. This is a huge National Park network of caves for exploring. They even have the junior park ranger program that the kids can participate in.
http://www.nps.gov/cave/naturescience/deserts.htm

I really wanted to throw a visit to White Sands, NM in there but we just didn't have time. I would really like for Scott to see that too so we will just have to plan another tip once he returns.

After our day of exploration in the caves we will head even further southeast to San Antonio where we will be visiting the Alamo and staying in a hotel that was once the Alamo Bank. It has been restored but not re-done. I am very excited about this. While in San Antonio we will also visit the Riverwalk and take a gondola ride down the city center and a carriage ride that discuses the area history. May sound boring to many, but my dad loves history so this will hopefully be a great birthday celebration for him and a great learning experience for us all. I can't wait to share all the amazing sights and things we learned with you when we return next week.

End of the First Co-op Semester

2011-11-16T10:57:00.001-06:00

I can't express how much we have enjoyed our very first semester participating in a homeschool co-op. Our children have not only had an opportunity to be social and learn in a cooperative way, but they have had the opportunity to explore subjects they are really interested in and grow in their love for learning. I have formed relationships with other parents who feel the same as I do about our children's education. It has been a life-changing experience and a real encouragement at the time we needed it most.

They have been my cheering squad while Scott is away. You know what I mean. If you have homeschooled more than a week then you know the doubt and fear that creeps in as you face the world with your choices and conviction and having those people to stand behind you and continue to encourage you is so important. Usually, this is what my husband does and he is doing that from afar, but for now they are also helping to fill that need in person. Next semester I will be teaching a High School, "for-credit" Journalism class in the co-op. I'm very excited about it.

Monday was the very last day of our first semester of co-op and Monday night we had a sort of show-n-tell for each class via a family night. Check it out.

I also just registered the kids for their classes for spring, which will start back in Jan. They are taking studies on plants, cooking, geology, PE, art and gardening. Jaxon will continue on with the second half of his Kindergarten class. We are glad for a short break, but are really excited about the upcoming semester. I hope you are able to find some sort of support group even if it's just a few other moms that also homeschool that you can get together with once a week and share a craft or a meal and a park day. Check Facebook for local homeschool groups. It has been an amazing way to find out local events and info.

So what happens at a homeschool co-op family night?

You meet up with friends from your classes

Eat yummy desserts!

Sing songs you've learned

Listen to an awesome praise band who have practiced for 10 weeks

Watch Tae Kwon Do demonstrations

Girl Power! These two homeschooled girls are now black belts!

Hear a speech class talk about the inner workings of public speaking

Be blessed by others for helping out

Take pictures with your teachers

See what you kids have been up to for the past 10 weeks

Tuesday Craft Day- Oreo Turkey

2011-11-15T10:20:00.001-06:00

For this Tuesday's craft day with the homeschool neighbors we did a really cute Oreo cookie turkey. This was another one of Jennifer's Pinterest finds. It was a lot of fun. This craft needed, some colored icing, 2 Oreo cookies, a mini peanut butter cup, a malt ball and candy corn. The frosting served as glue for securing the different parts to the turkey. This craft did require a fair amount of adult interaction during the assembly part and it did have to dry for a time before it could be set up straight, but once completed, was adorable. The kids loved eating the spare candy while they assembled.

Source: ourbestbites.com via Laurie on Pinterest

First you stick the candy corn in the Oreo for the tail feathers

Even our smallest one was able to do this part

What completed step looks like

Then you cut the peanut butter cup in half and "glue" it on the second Oreo with frosting, cut side down

Adults helping with cutting

Adults helping with frosting glue.

Add a malt ball head and frosting legs and gobble and- wala!

My three little one's turkeys.

What are we Reading and Watching?

2011-11-14T08:22:00.003-06:00

Growing up as a very slow and frustrated reader it was of paramount importance to me that my children not only become proficient readers, but have a true joy and love for it. This is a slippery path or slope depending on what part of the country you live, because while encouraging reading is imperative, forcing reading in a child who is resistant can be frustrating and do much more harm than good.

What's the solution?

Well, hopefully they are still young enough that they still cherish cuddling up with you while you read to them. This is the very best way for children to form strong bonds with reading because they then emotionally associate the memory as a fond and loving one. If you are homeschooling then you have the luxury of patience with resistant readers. Read a few minutes with them attempting to sound out the words and if that brings immediate frustration then try sound games through out the day. There are so many board games available for learning sounds and blends as well as sight words. You can also reward reading time with other things they love but don't get as often... 30 minutes of a video game or TV show for every 30 minutes spent with a book.This would be a good option for a resistant older reader.

For the younger ones I say read to them every day and use reading with mom or dad as the reward. What they really want is you anyway so reading time with you will be treasured. You can also try adding in some books on CD which can help them with pronunciation as they follow along. I would just be careful that this is only a small part of their reading time.

In our home right now I am reading, Magic Treehouse, "Thanksgiving on Thursday" and "Pilgrims Research Journal". I read one to two chapters in each book every night and we should be done by early next week. We will then start reading, "It's a Family Thanksgiving," by Debbie Fink. This is a special book all about Thanksgiving and the history behind it, but also filled with cools ideas and recipes that are perfect for small children up through middle grades. We are looking forward to sharing some of this with Nana and Papa who will be here for Thanksgiving. This book was provided to us for free by, "Operation Thanksgiving Eagle" of the U.S. Army. If you are military with a deployed spouse they will mail you books, sometimes seasonal ones such as this, for free. http://www.operationthanksgivingeagle.com/Home.html

Independently, Isabelle is reading on her own a journal of one of the pilgrim girls as she traveled across the ocean on the Mayflower, as well as "Little House on the Prairie." Braden is reading, "The Little's go Exploring." Jaxon and I sit together for 30 minutes and read all kinds of seasonal fall reads about leaves and turkeys and pilgrims.

Our children don't watch a ton of TV, but when they do their choices are very limited. They are allowed to watch most Playhouse Disney shows, but definitely not everyday. They love Cyberchase, Word World and believe it or not, they LOVE the Duggars-yep, the 19 kids and Counting show. They beg for it. They think they're amazing and seriously would wave good-bye and run from me if they agreed to adopt them. Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they adopted me too. The show is actually quite entertaining and very influential in providing Christian role models and values within the media. They are not nearly as odd as people would really like you to think. And, at least I know it is completely kid friendly...well, we do have to be careful on the commercials. One of my very favorite thing is my children's love for documentaries. They absolutely love natural and historical documentaries about caves, animals, oceans, space. You name, we have it in the Netflix que. Watch the ratings on them before you stick one in the que, but for the most part they are all excellent rainy day, had to much TV already, choices. They are also great to supplement units you may be doing in science or history.
This week they watched a documentary called, "Beavers" and here you can see they all were truly captivated and on the edge of their seats. I even heard some great belly laughs as they enjoyed the reality of God's creation in the humorous-natured yet, very task oriented beaver.

Happy Veteran's Day!

2011-11-11T11:11:00.006-06:00

I hope everyone enjoyed the day today. I spoke with my husband this morning and they are so hard at work no one there(Afghanistan) even realized it was Veteran's Day. I guess that is the truth about what it means to sacrifice. Today he worked hard with the other soldiers to ensure our freedom and we celebrated them and took the day off. Tonight he will sleep in a tent in the desert and we will sleep at home in our warm beds surrounded by freedom.We all thanked him this morning and spent our day enjoying some Veteran's Day themed activities from EnchantedLearning.com

A little theme mini-book telling about the branches of the military and why we have Veteran's Day. I read through this with the 5-year-old and the 2nd grader did this on his own. Isabelle, the 5th grader, did a much more complicated reader that included details about the wars themselves.

This was one of the easiest crafts yet. Really all we needed was craft sticks and paint and a little glue. This was great for all ages.

Finished project!

Some of the Greatest Finds

2011-11-10T10:08:00.001-06:00

Buying many types of curriculum to see what works for us can quite an expense. There is one resource we absolutely love that almost everyone has near them- a Goodwill!

Now, you're not likely to walk-in and find "Story of the World" or an entire A Beka 1st grade curriculum but what they are absolutely awesome for are books! We have 4 within our local area and it is a treasure hunter's dream when it comes to books. They have some of the best classics, children's books like Dr. Seuss and tons of great and inexpensive "Living Books" if you are into the Charlotte Mason way of learning.

Normally, I will not pay $10.00 at a book store for a living book because they are so narrowed in topic, but I have no problem paying 99 cents for a book all about chipmunks! One of the best finds yet was last week when my daughter started reading, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

We walked in to not only find 3 of the other books in the series, but the complete CD recordings for the, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." I was worried it might have scratches but with a list price of $39.00 and this was $2.00, I was willing to risk it. It had no skips and the entire family listened together. It gave me the opportunity at the end to draw some parallels as to why C.S. Lewis wrote this book and how it is comparable to the story of mankind and Jesus. It also kept Isabelle highly motivated to read it because I wouldn't go on in the audio recording until she had read the pages themselves.

She read through the book and we listened to the CD's in just 2 days. The little boys loved it and were on the edge of their seats every time we had to stop to let her read ahead. I was so excited about this find that I shared it with one of our homechooling neighbors and she is now having her girls listen and they are loving it too. When you pay $2.00 for something like this you really want to share it and aren't worried about whether or not it gets damaged.

Another great thing the Goodwill has are interesting topic books like for art, nature, cars, architecture, history... etc. You know, like the coffee table size version. Books filled with beautiful pictures that they can just flip through at their leisure and enjoy over the years. Some of the books that we have gotten there I have compared to the used books on Amazon. The books at the Goodwill are not only way cheaper but no shipping. I am a huge Amazon fan, but unless you need a specific book that your library doesn't have I can certainly find amazing books for a much cheaper cost and find a better use for that saved money.

When you get a free hour to yourself (LOL) head down to your local Goodwill alone and look through the books that are there. You will be amazed at what a little known secret treasure it is. I have even found some pieces of curriculum at times as well.

Getting a Little "un" in our "School"

2011-11-09T09:44:00.001-06:00

Dare I say the word??? Unschooler?

This style works for a lot of people and they find it not only a liberating and peaceful, but a great way to educate their children. It has some great aspects to it but it's not for us, at least not all of the time.

I thrive off of organization, structure, planning and having a schedule, and goodness gracious I just love me some curriculum. I could get lost for days in a great homschool curriculum store. My heart leaps when I walk into co-op and see that someone has free curriculum laying out.

I might actually be a bona fide curriculum junkie.

I do think sometimes, in my obsession with planning and scheduling, I get hopelessly distracted with putting things together and the whole point of what we are doing gets lost somewhere in the organization. Half the time I don't even do what all I planned because I'm so burnt out from the planning. "Gasp!" I know! Don't judge me even though I knows it's simply unimaginable.
I'm sure it never happens to anyone else but me.

Sometimes when my husband Skypes us from Afghanistan at 10am I run fast and put a shirt on over my pj's(Skype is mostly waist up) just so it doesn't look like we are slackers. Actually, just so it doesn't look like I'm a slacker.

I stay up way too late and worry way too much about things that God already has covered (like what's best for my kids and am I ruining them) and I know my heart means well with all that planning, but sometimes I know I've just got to chill a little bit and remember why we do this.

I love our style of homeschooling but if you have read any of my schedule blogs you can probably tell I really like me some order! I think if I could just relax a tad and let a little of the "un" into the school we would be so much more peaceful. I've seen it in action. On those days when we just buck the curriculum and read all day or investigate or research or watch great documentaries on Netflix my kids actually remember things to tell daddy later on the phone. If I could just embrace that and not feel so bad then I wouldn't need to be up at all hours of the night planning and then I wouldn't be so tired the next day that I was still in my pj's at 10am.

Lofty dreams!

Lord, help me to find the wisdom in the teaching.

Craft Tuesday- Lanterns and Rainmakers

2011-11-08T23:27:00.007-06:00

Every Tuesday we get together with out two homeschooling neighbors. Together we have 9 children and it is always controlled chaos, but in the very best of ways. The kids get to run off that morning energy as we meet at 11am and they play outside and ride bikes and play tag and chase while we make lunch and prepare for our weekly craft. They look forward to this all week.
We rotate each week to a different person's house to divvy up the lunch responsibility. We gather for a meal together and then a crafting we go!

None of us are art majors, so we are really never quite sure how it's going to turn out, but let's just go with, "creative!" No matter how it looks in the end we will call it creativity and that's the point, right?! No matter what we have a ton of fun and it is always a welcome break in the homeschool curriculum routine.It is also a great way to keep the kids motivated during the rest of the week. They know they need to stay on task so we can have our craft day with their friends.

Today, the two Jennifer's(both other moms are named Jennifer so it makes it really easy for me) had a delicious dessert planned and worked on that first thing so it would be ready when the kids were done with their craft. We sat down to our soup, salad and sandwiches. Taking time for fellowship is always so nice and I love teaching my children the importance of taking this time to really invest in one another at meal times and to share that with friends.

This week's craft was a firefly lantern from Oriental Trading. They also made a rain maker- also from OT. Both crafts required a little tweaking as often crafts do, but these were on some serious clearance so it was worth it even with the little bit of extra glue we had to apply to secure the sides. I think everyone had a blast and once the crafts were over we went outside to enjoy the delicious treat that Jennifer found on Pinterest.

Here's the link on Pinterest

Source: homemakeronadime.com via Tracey on Pinterest

Here's how ours turned out. Candy Corn Crunch- that's what we named it anyway.

Jen working ever so diligently to cut the candy corn crunch once refrigerated

Our Outback Rain Maker completed!

Our Firefly Lantern completed!

Here are both crafts made by my three kiddos.

Link to Firefly lantern on OT
http://www.orientaltrading.com/d-lantern-craft-kit-a2-48_6180.fltr

Link to Outback Rainstick Craft
http://www.orientaltrading.com/outback-rainstick-craft-kit-a2-48_6144.fltr

While these crafts were fun and very cheap, children under 10 would need adult help with both crafts just for some of the assembly portions of the projects. However, all the kids enjoyed doing them. A true test of the craft's success is that there were a total of 8 children under 10 with 5 of them under 7 and there were absolutely no tears during either craft!! Amen!

Life Learning in Pictures

2011-11-07T12:16:00.000-06:00

Here are some of our more recent homeschooling moments in pictures. Most of these are our laid-back, life-learning moments.

Headbandz is one of their favorite games and is hysterical to watch

My little budding engineer

The artist, Isabelle, uses sidewalk paint to create this palm tree and beach scene

A little plasma car PE

Monopoly

Helping a friend with his Flat Stanley project

Flat Stanley goes to the Army!

The kids are thrilled that we finally got the piano in the house.

Jaxon looking for words in one of the "Kindergarten with Krash" units at http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/

Braden likes to read lying flat on his back.

And Isabelle prefers a soft, cozy chair

We made homemade kool-aid playdough together

Isabelle is learning to bake and leads the boys in a carrot cake project

My other little engineer made this airplane for his Webkin out of Connects

The kiddos listen to daddy read "Night Catch" in Afghanistan. It's a DVD he made there through the USO United Through Reading Program.

He takes his moon dough very serious

September fire drill

He is loving a the Fall themed packs at http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/

Braden works on Latin online through Rosetta Stone

Jaxon works on Sight Words with http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/ "You Can Read" program

Isabelle discovers that the calculator can text!

They love to build

Braden shows off the "goo" he made in "Fun with Science" at co-op

Jaxon finds the perfect spot for that pencil he keeps loosing!

Military Moved you Again? Getting Started in Your New State.

2011-11-05T21:50:00.001-05:00

Being military we have to adjust our curriculum standards per the state laws for where we live every time those lovely orders grace your sweet soldiers hands. This can be terrible news if you are living in a wonderful homeschool friendly state, like we are presently, or it can be glorious news if the military decided to move you to one of those super homeschool friendly states. It can be quite frustrating if you are moved to a state where the regulations are tighter and harder to understand, or are more heavily governed than you are used to. But do not despair...the transition will pass and you will be quickly back to enjoying the whole reason you decided to homeschool in the first place.

So far, in our short Army journey, we have homeschooled in two states- NC and Texas. Both of which have given us very different legal expectations and experiences. Unless you count the 3 weeks we lived in VA before his graduation...in that case 3 states. :)

Each time you move to a different state it can be like starting from scratch from an administrative standpoint.

Thankfully, this will not really effect your style, curriculum or your children's experience, but do be aware that you are required to follow the laws of the state you live in-not your home of record.

Below you will find some helpful links for getting started not only in the states we have homeschooled in this far, but also country-wide. I also hope you will be encouraged by other military homeschooling families across the country in some of the articles I posted here.

A recent study states that 1 in 25 civilian, school-age children are homeschooled.The homeschool stastics for military children are double the general population. If you are military you already know why that is.

Homeschooling is quickly loosing it's long standing stigma and becoming a viable, main stream option for the education of our children.

I hope some of the links provided here will help you to find resources about the homeschool state laws of the state that you now live in.

Try HSLDA first for a state by state breakdown.

http://www.hslda.org/laws/

Helpful links and resources from Military Homeschoolers

http://www.militaryhomeschoolers.com/

The Homeschool Diner also has Military centered homeschool resources

http://www.homeschooldiner.com/specials/military/main.html

This link is from the GoArmy site detailing enlistment procedures and bonuses for homeschoolers if your child is looking that direction

http://www.goarmy.com/benefits/additional-incentives/home-school-graduate.html

A fantastic and encouraging article in the Army Times about an Army Lt. Col and a Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt homeschooling for over a decade while in the military

http://www.armytimes.com/community/family/offduty_homeschooling_102510w/

A Christian/Army/Homeschooling article by Crosswalk

http://www.crosswalk.com/family/homeschool/encouragement/the-hidden-blessings-of-military-homeschooling.html

What you will Find Here

2011-11-04T17:29:00.002-05:00

My education is in journalism, but aside from writing my love is research. I love to research all kinds of things and when I do I love to compile all that research and share it. That's really what this blog is about. As much as I enjoy sharing the moments of our homeschool life to hopefully encourage you with our good days, as well as the reality of our bad ones-- I wanted this to be an opportunity to share the information that we have learned both in our homeschool journey, as well as our Army journey and how those two aspects of our life are nearly inseparable right now.

I am not a naturally creative person and I don't create or write curriculum or do graphic design and honestly, I can't even cook. I am, however, very willing to be transparent and real about this life and all its blessings and challenges and hopefully plug you into the different areas and resources of all those creative bloggers out there who are going to make you life so much easier and enjoyable as a homeschooler.

Occasionally, God will drop an idea into my head that works and if that happens I will certainly, and with great excitement share it, but for the most part what you will find here is our day-to-day experiences with our curriculum and how it is working or not working for us, as well as the challenges that the Army life adds.

At the moment I am going about this homeschooling life as a single mom with no family close by as my husband is deployed to Afghanistan for a year. Many single parents, military or not, will be able to relate to this. I have heard so many stories in the last year as an Army wife from other solider spouses who wanted to homeschool, but felt pressure from family or friends that it simply wasn't possible or responsible to do so as a single parent. I hope to help offer coping techniques and show that not only is it possible, but there are a host of positives that can come from it whether your solider is stateside or oversees.

I also hope to provide a wealth of resources for other military/homeschooling and homeschooling families from all walks of life by sharing with you all the wonderful non-military homeschooling bloggers and resources I have been blessed to discover. As you have questions or come across other resources not listed here please do share.

Our Decision to Homeschool- A Look Back and Looking Ahead

2011-11-03T16:54:00.001-05:00

A few years ago we made the decision to homeschool. We received so much support from family and friends and the next year was fantastic as I learned the ropes as a new homeschooling mother of three, though only one at that time was school age. It wasn't easy with 3 children under 7 at the time but it was very rewarding. Shortly after that first year of homeschool my husband was laid-off and his Army journey began.

I went back to work in the interim as we waited for his training date, but longed to be back with them and to homeschool again. Our two oldest children, now 10 and 7 spent 2 years in traditional school and our youngest, who is 5, has never. I will be the first to say that our traditional school (Charter school) experience was phenomenal. I know this is not the case for many school systems especially in such a dysfunctional educational environment as we are in right now, but the lottery charter school that we were lucky enough to be a part of was the exception to this norm.

We loved the teachers, the administration and the school. They only thing we didn't like was the limitations on our freedom to explore other interests and the long days and evenings spent doing unnecessary homework. With that said, our decision to originally homeschool was not based out of dissatisfaction at a school but more about a desire to grow our family in a different direction and give our children the opportunity to see and do more.

However, given the disclaimer that we are not anti-public school as we had an excellent experience of our own, we do know that we were on the lucky end of the stick. In a city filled with hundreds of schools we were able to get into one of 4 charter schools with a low ratio, quality teachers and a foundational system that looked at the whole child instead of the funding dollars they could get from test scores. We know that in today's society this is rather the exception than the rule. We know the need for the existence of the public school system is great and it can be a great asset when set-up properly, but in our travels and our experience outside of our one wonderful school experience we know that the overall system is broken. This wouldn't be such hot topic for political debates if there wasn't a problem. It is not a problem that is going to go away without serious reform and in an economic recession it is only going to get worse.

In NC alone, there was a 200% increase in parents withdrawing their children and choosing homeschool just in the last year. In the area of Texas where we now live funding dollars have fallen so short that teachers have now been forced to do away with parent teacher conferences. There was a similar reaction locally with a large volume of traditional school withdrawals in less than a weeks time. These are just a few examples of a very large and complex problem. Many children overcome this because they have great educational support at home and great parental involvement. They overcome and do well even in a broken system, but when you add all those factors together with the challenges of an Army schedule and life, we knew that the choice to homeschool was the right one for us.

But what about Army schools? Aren't they supposed to be amazing?
Traditionally speaking, yes! They were at one time when the military ran the schools. Funding was great which made them essentially private schools for military kids. Unfortunately, the majority of Post schools have now been outsourced to the local school system the same way housing was privatized. The local school system does get some funding from the government for this, but not enough to combat the large volumes of children a combined civilian and military community has.

Even the schools on Post are run by the local school system. I have learned over the past 10 months that Army families have some of the highest homeschool rates, to include some of the highest ranking military personnel homeschooling their own children. No one wants their children to be guinea pigs in a broken system. It has nothing to do with the military itself, but there is only so much the military as an employer can be responsible for. How many employers do you know that have the burden of not only training you, providing you work, housing, food, protecting the country, managing millions of employees but also managing health care, dental, childcare, school, counseling and support for everyone in the family, and the many other things they do for their "employees." The schools and the housing were handed over to take administrative burdens off the military.

We are fortunate here at Ft. Hood to have a very strong and large homeschool community that is not only Army centered but adamant about the quality education of homeschoolers. There are many homeschool co-ops and support groups and the Army has even begun recognizing the success of homeschoolers in becoming both officers and well-respected enlisted personnel. Some Army sponsored studies done on homeschooler success within the military are shockingly positive in favor of a homeschooled education.

Since becoming full-time committed homeschoolers we have come to see the enormous benefits both in civilian life and in the Army life, but mostly in our children's lives. We are now whole-hearted believers in our decision. With great respect for, but without out apology to those who feel differently, we proudly stand behind the real statistics about the benefits of homeschooling. There are many ways to educate a child well. This is the one we choose. Amid all the chaos of an Army life with a deployed husband at war we are living a confident and peaceful, drama-free homeschool life. Our children are happy and well-adjusted despite all the odds. They talk to their daddy nearly everyday and the only time he can call would be during their school hours. If they weren't home for those calls I think their attitudes would look very different. They have friends and go to co-op classes. They are in gym and dance and horse back riding and art classes. They get to travel and see parts of the world I have never seen myself. I get the joy of sharing these few, fast precious years with them preparing them to be wonderful contributors to this world. What a joy and a blessing and when you wake up each day knowing that it will be a challenge but you just can't wait then you know you are in line with God's will.

For most homeschoolers it never really is about which is better. Most homeschooler don't often think much about the comparison because they are pretty busy educating their children. I know I have great respect for and think many wonderful blessings can come out of all sorts of scenarios both in home life and in the choice of how to educate your children. I have done it both ways and both were right for us at the time. God is good that way. He can make even the most undesirable situation a great life lesson.

Life isn't about picking one thing and doing in vain just to avoid stigma or ridicule. Life is just too short for that. Choose what your heart prayerfully tells you and then don't feel as though you have to tip toe around those who choose different. Don't be afraid of opinions- your own or that of others. Don't be afraid of people who choose to live different than you.
There is a way to be respectful without feeling as though your doing something wrong because you choose a different path. I'm learning that the only opinions I should be worried about are that of my God, my husband and my children. If you're hurt by friends or family then pray that God will allow them to see your life and the joy of your life the way He does.

The complainers will always complain, the insecure will always judge, but go confidently in the calling that is set before you whether that is homeschooling or pursuing a career and sending your children to traditional school. Often the plans you have change course over a lifetime and what works now may not work next year.

On this blog you will find lots of support and encouragement for homeschoolers and you will probably find lots of things that tells all about the great benefits of homeschooling, as I am super, pro-homeschooling, but I have learned in my own journey to be careful not to judge those who choose differently or have no choice at all because often times the plan God has for you changes too and you might find yourself in a surprising and unexpected situation.

When you start to worry if what you are doing is right just always remember what Romans 8:28 tells us-
"In all things, God works for the good of those who love him."
As long as our hearts are in the right place and we are earnestly trying to do what's right there is nothing to worry about...

God is the one who will make greatness out of them. He will use us in all sorts of ways as their parents in their lives. What a privilege it is to watch them turn into those great people.

Beginning Again- A Bloggy Resurrection

2011-11-02T20:56:00.001-05:00

For some time now I have been prayerfully feeling God leading me to resurrect this homeschool blog. To be honest I have ignored this; literally pushed the idea away every time it was plopped into my brain because I kept thinking I just couldn't keep up with two blogs and homeschool. More and more the family blog that I keep has been taken over by homeschool topics and posts, well, mainly becuase, it kind-of IS our life and I think some of my blog readers find the homeschool stuff a little distracting. Rather than continue to apologize for the fact that this is our life I just thought now would be a good time to separate the two. I'm sure there will still be plenty of crossover, and even still some homeschool stuff on the other one, but at least I will have a format to share all the fun homeschooling things we are doing without guilt that I'm making my family blog all about school. Plus, I really wanted a place to share all my new homeschool finds with people who really want to know about them. Nothing homeschoolers love more than a tear-free day and to hear what other homeschoolers are doing. :)

I started this blog in 2009 when I first began homeschooling and I enjoyed sharing the early months of that new step in our lives as a homeschool family right here on this blog, which you can still read about in the archives if you are just starting out. However, when life took over and my husband lost his job I had to go back to work and my homeschool dreams seemed to be a wash. I stopped blogging on this site but kept up with my regular family blog as I had nothing homeschool worthy to blog about. It was a time when I knew I was doing what I needed to but not really what I wanted to. I longed for the time with my children and missed terribly being a part of watching them learn and grow.

Then a twist of fate. My husband was hired by the Army and left for his training and once again the role of homeschooling mom became a reality. Better still- my husband was even more excited than he ever was and even really encouraging me to go back to it. I was overjoyed but made the decision to leave them in traditional school until Christmas break when my husband would be done with training and we would be given our first duty station. This would give me a few months time to seriously prepare as now all 3 of my children were school age and stepping into that unprepared seemed unwise. It also allowed them proper closure in the life they were leaving in NC. As planned we pulled them out at Christmas break and the Army moved us from NC to Ft. Hood, Texas and our homeschool journey began once more. Even though I didn't officially keep a homeschool blog during that time I did blog quite a bit about our journey from Jan of this year until now.

I am going to link those blog entries from my family blog to here so that anyone who is interested can follow along the last 10 months of our homeschool journey. The links to those blog entries can be found on this blog in the October archive of this year. So just back up slightly before this entry in the history. So much has happened and we have learned so much about ourselves and our style of learning; what works and what definitely doesn't work for us. I have found the last 4 months to be the most peaceful and rewarding now that we have finally settled into what works for us. I have also learned to let go of my desire to make our homeschool look like 'school at home.'

Why would I take a dysfunctional system and try and re-create that at home? I'm sure it works great for many but, for us, it was a huge factor in literally stealing the joy out of our lives. However, don't mistake that to mean we are unschoolers. We are not. I hope you will enjoy our homeschool blog and be inspired that if something isn't working to keep looking. It doesn't mean you aren't a good homeschooling parent or that you're failing at teaching your children. It just means that there is something better out there still yet to be discovered.

Blessings,
Laurie

Link to "Monday, our New Favorite Day"

2011-10-27T00:38:00.005-05:00

This is a look at our new homeschool co-op.

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/09/monday-our-new-favorite-day.html

Link to "Commitment to the Classics"

2011-10-26T00:10:00.005-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/11/commitment-to-classics.html

Link to "Books"

2011-10-25T00:10:00.002-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/11/books.html

Link to "Hermit Crab Habitat"

2011-10-24T00:09:00.002-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/11/hermit-crab-habitat.html

Link to "Tuesday Craft Day"

2011-10-23T00:08:00.006-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/11/tuesday-craft-day.html

Link to "Pumpkin Patch"

2011-10-23T00:07:00.002-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/10/pumpkin-patch.html

Link to "Expanding a Concept"

2011-10-22T00:06:00.002-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/10/expanding-concept.html

Link to "Review of Switched on Schoolhouse"

2011-10-21T00:05:00.003-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/10/review-of-switched-on-schoolhouse.html

Link to "A Nice Reminder"

2011-10-20T00:03:00.003-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/10/nice-reminder.html

Link to "Dolphin Tale"

2011-10-19T00:02:00.002-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/10/dolphin-tale.html

Linnk to "Our First Intercession"

2011-10-18T23:53:00.001-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/08/our-first-intercession.html

Link to "Earn your Wii"

2011-10-17T00:00:00.002-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/09/earn-your-wii.html

Link to "End of School Year and Looking Ahead"

2011-10-16T23:55:00.002-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/06/end-of-school-year-and-looking-ahead.html

Link to "That Day" The Day my husband deployed to Afghanistan

2011-10-15T23:51:00.002-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/07/that-day.html

Link to "A New School Schedule"

2011-10-14T23:50:00.002-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-school-schedule.html

Link to "The Pact"

2011-10-13T23:49:00.001-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/06/pact.html

Links to "Disney Days Blogs"

2011-10-12T23:44:00.015-05:00

I know sharing our Disney Days isn't technically homeschooling, but I wanted you to have a visual of just how important this trip was to our family and that under the circumstances and the timeline we were handed it just wouldn't be possible if we were not homeschoolers. It's also a great way for you to get to know our family a little bit.

Day 1
http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/06/disney-day-1.html

Day 2
http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/06/day-2-rest-ahem-i-mean-resort-day.html

Day 3
http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/06/islands-of-adventure-day-3.html
Day 4
http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/06/princess-breakfast-and-animal-kingdom.html

Day 5- Discovery Cove
http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/06/discovery-cove.html

Day 6-7
http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/06/disney-day-6-and-7.html

The Last 3 days
http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/06/last-3-days.html

Link to "Disney Dream Vacation"

2011-10-11T23:42:00.003-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/06/disney-dream-vacation.html

Link to "Disney, Here we Come"

2011-10-10T23:41:00.002-05:00

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/06/disney-here-we-come.html

Link to "Block Leave"

2011-10-09T23:38:00.008-05:00

One of the greatest reasons to homeschool in the Army is the flexibility it offers. The Army doesn't like to give much notice for things so I love that we can just pick up and go on a moment's notice without having to explain ourselves to anyone or run ragged for 2 weeks after getting home with catch up work. This was a a priceless trip for our family and the last vacation we would take before my husband deployed to war.

http://momentsfromthemadness.blogspot.com/2011/05/block-leave.html