Wednesday, August 28, 2013

The Good, the Bad, and the Homeschooling Fail...and Its Only Week Two.

Ok so we are in our second week of homeschooling. Yay!  Already I love it.  Already I can feel the girls spirits shrivel as they realize that they are now firmly in my grasp!  Already I can feel us drawing closer together as a family, and I am experiencing the joy of being such an integral part of their education.  

That being said for just about everything that is awesome there is usually also an equally unawesome downside.  I'm sure you are probably wondering what the heck?  This is week two, how could you possible have found a downside.  Its possible my friends.  Especially if you are an over achiever like me.  Things have been going great.  The little girls haven't been as big of a distraction as I thought, and our lessons have gone smoothly. So I thought we can totally handle Family Room learning time...it was too soon my friends.  Far, far too soon.  It was a big fat epic FAIL.

Picture of the laziness,


and more laziness.


A little sister poking at a lazy sister,


and a little sister trying to figure out how best to join in the laziness.


It's hard to learn, and try and absorb anything when you are laying on a heap in the floor.  Also apparently the chickens get extra clucky when they are laying eggs.  We don't really hear it in the kitchen, but we totally could in the living room.  I had more than a few super concerned 'egg gatherers' on my hands.

The lesson I learned from this is this could be a fun way to do one subject maybe, as a treat, but certainly not a full load only two weeks into this whole process.  So back to the kitchen island it is.

Oh the productivity!


The littlest little is even happy so long as she's getting fed regularly.



We have an apple tv, and use the computer as a big part of the learning process.  With our apple tv I'm able to link my laptop screen wirelessly to the tv that we keep mounted in the kitchen.  We use it to look up facts, find songs, and we use it in place of a white board or chalk board.  We may or may not have had homeschooling heavily on the mind when we were thinking about this kitchen layout.

I have always loved being a stay-at-home mother, and have felt blessed to have a loving awesome husband who sustained me in that role.  I now feel an even greater appreciation for my wonderful husband as he has helped me on our homeschooling journey to here.  He has helped me research, and organize our materials so that everything has gone as smoothly as possible.  He has also offered me insight from his own personal experience of being homeschooled as a child.  

I am excited about this new path our family is heading down.  I can't wait to chronicle our successes, our laughter, our tears, and yes even our failures, but whatever we're doing I can guarantee it will be awesome!




Monday, August 5, 2013

Getting Ready for School

Usually getting ready for school means

  • Franticly looking for school supply lists for the appropriate school and grade.
  • Franticly shopping for clothes, and shoes in stores that are already crazy picked over.
  • Trying to calm down frantic kiddos that are suffering last minute nerves about a new school year.
  • Sadly saying goodbye to summer vacation.
  • Basically just a ton of frantic-ness, if that's a word.


This year is going to be a little bit different

  • We aren't mourning the passing of summer.
  • We have opted out of frantic school shopping. We'll get more clothes and shoes when we need them.
  • The kids aren't having anxiety over a the new school year.
  • This year we are making our own school supply list.


Why is this year different?  This is the year that we start homeschooling.

We have toyed with the idea for years, but this is the year we actually do it. The kiddos have already started doing their math, and they are super hyped about getting started in our curriculum this year.  We are planning on starting early this year since it might take us a bit to figure out the groove that works best for us.

Our math curriculum that we are going with is Aleks.com.  I had my math teacher friend, Awesome Kristie, look over it for me.  She gave it two thumbs up.  It is a fully online program.  I like it because I can hop on with my parents login every evening, and check up on their progress.  How they did that day with lessons, what they perhaps struggled with, and I can also set up quizzes for them. The kiddos LOVE it, but that might be because they get to do it on our iPads.

Our curriculum that we are going to be doing is through lifeschoolk12.org.  They are an LDS based accredited curriculum.  We just got it in over the weekend, and I'm beyond excited to get started with it.  I love that it incorporates scripture into all the lessons in ways that I never would have thought to apply to our everyday life.  

We are excited about the freedom that we are going to have this year.  The fun that we will be having with our homeschool buddies, and the many awesome field trips that we will be able to take.  This year is going to be great.