One of My Favorite Things about Homeschooling

One of my favorite things about homeschooling is that my children get to spend time doing things they love.  For our daughter, that means she gets to spend time on her artwork.

For my sons, they get to spend time online with cousins and friends in other states (and even another country).  I love hearing them interact with one another as they play games and talk with each other.

Another thing I love is that it gives us a chance to spend time as a family.  Sometimes this means we might go some place, like the trips we used to take each year to Busch Gardens.  Other times, it may mean we go shopping or perhaps just watch a movie at home together. All in all, homeschooling has been a blessing for our family.

So what does your family like to do?

Bloggin A to Z – “K” is for …..

Today I am continuing my blogging a to z journey.  The letter for this post is “K”, which is for kindness and kingdoms.

One of our main goals in homeschooling our children is to raise them to be kind to others.   By homeschooling, we are able to volunteer in a variety of situations.  So my children have the opportunity to get along with all types of people in all different age groups.  We want them to recognize how important it is to be courtesy and friendly to everyone.

Another thing “k” stands for is the kingdom of God.  We want our children to serve God and advance His Kingdom.  We spend time in His Word daily.  We are able to control what they read, see and do.  We love seeing our children seek after His Will for their lives.

So what does “K” stand for in your mind?  I would love to hear from you.

#BloggingAtoZChallenge “C” is for….

 

Well, it has taken several days for me to get back to my Blogging A to Z Challenge, but here is my post for “C”.  “C” is for children, choices, curriculum, conventions and chaos.  Obviously, since we are a homeschooling family, our children play a major role in our lives.  We do not have to send them to school, so they are pretty much around 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 365 days out of the year.  I must say I like it this way.  I do not just love my children because I am their mother, but I genuinely like them.  As they are now 14-years-old and up, conversations provide entertainment as well as information.  One never knows what might come up in the course of our conversations.

“C” is also for choices.  I love having the freedom and flexibility to pick curriculum that interests them and works for their learning style, while taking into account my teaching style.  I try to allow my children to make choices for their subjects and sometimes the curriculum we use.  However, there are times when I find it necessary to take over and make the decisions for them.  This remains true especially when Dad find something he feels our children need to do or learn.

I love the variety of curriculum and instructions types available to our family.  But more importantly, I love attending Homeschool Conventions so we can physically see the curriculum in person.  Since we turn these conventions into mini-vacations, it makes it fun for the entire family to go.  When our children were younger, they attended the Children’s Conventions.  As our oldest grew up and matured out of the Children’s Conventions, we allowed him to volunteer at the conventions.  Now that they are all teenagers with one twenty-some thrown in the mix, we allow them to chose what they do.  Cell phones allow us to monitor where they are and what they are doing.  Texting allows us to inform them when they need to meet us somewhere.  So it is a win-win for everyone.  Of course, our daughter is required to stay with one of her older brothers or one of us for my peace of mind.

Chaos invariably reigns as we try to pack up and leave the conventions.  With luggage for seven, pillows, blankets, typically some sleeping bags, a cooler plus all the things we purchased at the conventions loading the van can become interesting.  Fortunately, my husband and oldest son are able to handle this beautifully.

So what comes to mind for you when you hear the letter “C”?  I would love to hear from you.

Things are Picking Up

So for the last several weeks, we have slowly been getting back into the school routine.  As part of a review we are working on, our four children along with my husband and myself have been working on learning the Greek alphabet so we can begin using First Form Greek.  I look forward to sharing our experiences with you all.

Also, we are reading a book, working on a computer website design program, a CLEP test preparation website and a writing program.  I look forward to sharing these reviews in the coming weeks and months.

Of course, the normal subjects of math, science, history, Bible, and Language Arts are being completed as well.

So what is going on in your world?  I would love to hear from you.

 

10 Things I Love about Homeschooling

Since our oldest son was in the fifth grade, we have been homeschooling.  Up until that point we had our children in public school.  Then we ran into the exact set of circumstances that caused us to decide to homeschool our oldest son.  The following year we brought the other three children home and I have enjoyed almost every single moment.

So here are my favorite 10 things about homeschooling:

10) Freedom for my children to choose what interests them

9)  Flexibility to school around my husband’s work schedule

8) Going to homeschool conventions that enable us to examine curriculum up close

7)  My children enjoy each others’ company

6) Ability to take vacations and go places when public school students are in school

5) Getting to spend time with my children

4). Not having to fight the battle over homework

3) Ability to change things that aren’t working

2) Our children can converese with people of all changes

1) Our children’s learning revolves around God and our religious beliefs.

So if you homeschool, what would be some of your top 10 picks of why you love it?  I would love to hear from you.

Getting Back into the Swing of Things

Under typical conditions, by now we would already have been well into the swing of school and life.  But this year has been rather unusual.  First, the day after New Year’s Day, my husband was caught up with turning in a quarterly report at work.  Then he had drills at his unit.  Finally, he went to New Jersey to Fort Dix for a week for an Annual Training Conference.  On top of it all, I knew some things needed to change when we resumed schoolwork, but I just was not complete sure what I want to replace those subjects with immediately.

So I have been investigating, researching and doing more research.  Yet I really did not feel like I was getting anywhere.  I was privileged to become part of the Homeschool Review Crew so some of the upcoming review opportunities will help with some of these issues.

Every one of our children has different talents, interests, and desires. So this means every child needs to have curriculum choices that reflect those differences.  This means I constantly have to consider what works and does not work for each one.

So over the next several weeks, I will be sharing what is working and what is not working in our homeschool and how I plan on changing things to make things work better.

Off to a Slow Start

So my ambitious plans had our family starting our new school year last week.  We actually began last week with just math and language arts.  This year we have a 9th grader, a 10th/11th grader and a senior.Language Arts seems to be going fairly well for our three.  We are using Daily Grams again this year.  I like the way the books are laid out and the way they can complete the work including grading it by themselves.

But math once again is going to be where I desire to bang my head against a wall.  I can not find a math program I like for high school. I find programs I think we are going to like, but then things take a downward spiral.  One of these days I will find a perfect program hopefully.  But in the meantime, I am turning the math teaching over to my husband.

The plan is to start History, Writing, Literature and Latin next week along with spelling.  So that means one day this week, I will be administering spelling tests to the children.

I still need to order materials for Science and some electives to round out our year.  In the coming days I will share what each child is doing for the year.

How are things going where you are?  I would love to hear from you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adjusting to Texas

So it has been a while since I posted here.  In March, we moved from Pennsylvania to Texas because of my husband’s job.  We have spent the rest of the time attempting to settle into our new home.  Moving is quite an adventure and when you are not the one to pack everything, it makes it more of a challenge, especially when different people were on the crew each day.  But we are working towards getting everything unpacked and finding what we need.  Since we are settling in, homeschooling has been put on hold.  However, my children are about to get back to the daily routine of homeschooling, chores, church and other activities.

Normally this time of the year, we are gearing up to attend homeschooling conventions.  I love the experience of examining books and curriculum.  However, our move made that a challenge with the dates of conventions in our new location.  But I have found two in Texas that we can attend in June and July – so stay tuned for me to share what wonderful things we discover.

So what is going on where you are?  I would love to hear from you.

 

 

Preparing for a Move

We are in the process of preparing for a cross-country move, so school has been suspended.  We are using this time to purge, clean and otherwise prepare for our move.  It is always fun getting ready for a move, okay maybe I am exaggerating slightly or even a bunch.  I think it can become tedious at times.  It is no fun going through all the last minute preparations and purging that is necessary to move.  In our case, we are blessed to have packers and movers come in to deal with some of the tedious stuff.  But then we are left with the task of cleaning and making sure the house we are leaving meets the landlord’s standards.

Some landlords spell out very specifically their requirements in the lease.  One of our landlords required us to have the carpets professionally cleaned.  Other landlords have been much more vague, which makes it a lot harder to satisfy them.  It is no fun having to guess at what expectations the landlords might have.  Nor is it fun to be out part of a deposit because we did not know what requirements the landlords had.  So we try to be proactive and work towards meeting expectations.

Since the military is moving us, we are limited on the amount of weight we can move.  As a result when we go to try to find a new home to rent, we are planning on loading a lot of boxes into our twelve passenger van and leave them in Texas.  Of course, these boxes will primarily contain books since books weigh the most.  Then when the packers come we will not have those books to worry about.  In the meantime, I am trying to get rid of as many books as I can that I know we will not use again.

So what is going on in your world?  I would love to hear from you.

 

Books, Books and Books – Oh Which Ones to Depart With

Our family is now in our tenth year of homeschooling.  Plus, I freely admit I am a bookaholic.  I love books of all shapes and sizes.  But when you are a military family and the military is moving you, weight becomes an incredible part of deciding to keep or get rid of things.  This includes our books.  Since we know we are slotted for new orders to Texas, this means we have to start the purging process.  It will be tedious and time consuming and most of it will rest solely on my shoulders.  I will ultimately be the one to decide what we want to keep and what we want to get release.  I know we will probably be able to send most of to good homes.  Others I am sure will go off to a local homeschool group’s library.  This gives me some small sense of satisfaction.

So for the next few months scaling down our books and other household items will be the priority.  Then once we have actually moved, the fun will be finding a church, friends and homeschool activities as well as a dance studio.

So what is going on in your world.