New School Year

We started our homeschool year today.

Zachary - Senior (the only picture I got of him today)

Zachary is enrolled in Liberty Online Academy. He will have a diploma and transcript through them when he's done. He'll be taking the SAT in October.

Jonathan - 7th Grade

Benjamin - 4th Grade

Jon and Ben both do Christian Light math, reading, and language. This year we are trying Monarch (an online curriculum) for history and science.

Jon and Zach both do homeschool band. Ben takes piano lessons. Jon and Ben will be playing soccer for the fall and spring.

Our first day went really well. It was a bit of a challenge keeping M entertained, but she did ok. Only 180 more days to go!

What's up?

Here's what's up with us...

Homeschooling is back in full swing. It's going well with Jon and Ben. As for Zach, I'll be glad when he graduates next year and his schooling is no longer our responsibility. He's getting good grades but, Greg is having to help him quite a bit with Algebra and Chemistry. We're looking at keeping his senior year next year as simple as possible (no calculus or physics).

I sang with the worship team at our church for the first time this weekend - 6 services! It was a long weekend, but I loved it! Here's video if your interested - Sagebrush Community Church. Just click on Worship under "Caution, Week 1". And yes I knit that scarf I'm wearing.

We are on the concurrent foster care list. We're just waiting for that phone call, then everything changes!

Stay tuned!

Krispy Kreme Field Trip

Not even a week into school and already a field trip! When my friend Ashlee called and asked if we wanted to join them and another homeschool family for a tour of Krispy Kreme, how could we say no?

The boys really enjoyed learning how donuts are made.


They got to play with some dough


and of course make their own chocolate sprinkle donuts.

These boys are all about the sprinkles!

They even let us moms make one too.


Now who wants a donut?

First Day of School

We started school again today. Nobody was thrilled, but we'll all get the hang of it soon, and I'm glad to be back into a regular routine.

Jon (6th grade) and Ben (3rd grade) have a new school room: the dining room. We rearranged a little and I think it's going to work out just fine. The only time we ever eat in in the dining room is holidays anyway.

For this first week we are just doing language, math, and reading. We'll add history and science next week. I'm also having them do a journal/creative writing notebook this year. Here they are writing about their summer.

So serious!

Zach is starting his junior year - seriously, how is that possible?! He's much too cool to have a first day of school picture taken and would not cooperate. This is all I got!

The headset is for his Rosetta stone Spanish course. Oh and the desk IS clean - according to Zach. I have got to learn to chill about the messy room!

He will have a challenging year with chemistry and Algebra 2. Plus he'll be learning to handle a busy schedule. He's working the lunch shift at Chick-fil-A all week. So he'll be doing school before and after work. He says he can handle it, so we'll see how it goes.

Updates

Adoption Update

I had a physical today for our adoption homestudy. My doctor declared me healthy enough to adopt! We'll have our next (possibly last) homestudy visit with our social worker this Saturday. She'll do the home inspection then. We finished our classes last Saturday. It looks like the only thing left is Greg's physical, which isn't until the middle of June. I'm still hoping we'll be approved by July.

Chick-fil-A Update
Zach is doing great at his job. We had lunch there the other day and he got to take our order. I had Jonathan take a picture with my phone. I know, it's terrible taking a picture of him at work. But I'm a blogger and a scrapbooker. I need pictures!

Homeschool Update

We are finished! Well, Jon and Ben are finished. We finished up all the bookwork last Friday. Then we had some fun field trip days this week - horseback riding Monday, zoo Tuesday, Chick-fil-A Wednesday. Zach will (one way or another!) finish by next Friday. We finished up band this week. The final concert is tomorrow night.

We take summers off. But I still require a little out of them. Everyone will still be taking music lessons through the summer, so there will be practicing. Everyone has to read every day. Jonathan will be doing a typing program. Benjamin will be doing math computer games - must get those multiplication tables down better!

Running Update

Running update? What? Greg and I started running/walking together in the evenings last week. He's moving his running to early mornings before work - he's crazy but he looks great! We have a 2 1/2 mile lap around our neighborhood. So we run a block, then walk a block. That I can handle. Then Benjamin decided he wanted to go with us. Then next day he talked Jonathan into going with us. Then the next day, Ben didn't want to go, but Jonathan talked him into it. Zach went with us once. I have to say exercising together as a family is fun. I hope we keep it up. (I need to look good in my bathing suit on our cruise!)

Ok, that's enough updates for now.

Back to school

We started up school again on Monday. I usually dread starting again after a break, but this wasn't too bad. Everyone has been cooperative and the process has been mostly painless!

We'll be adding two activities to our schedule. Jonathan will start private drum lessons week after next. His teacher is a drummer from our church. He has a very erratic work schedule and wasn't sure how he could be consistent with lessons, but we saw him last weekend and he said he almost never works Monday mornings. So Monday mornings it is! One more reason to homeschool! They will be working on drum set and snare drum technique.

And Benjamin will be starting pianos lessons next week with a "real" teacher. I've been teaching him myself for a year and a half and he's doing really well. But it was time for someone besides Mom and who actually knows what their doing to take over. I'm excited to see how he does with someone else.

Zachary has been taking private saxophone lessons since August. So now all three are in lessons. But that is something I don't mind spending time and money on.

As for knitting...I'm still waiting on that yarn order. So I'm knitting some socks with a ball of yarn I've had in my stash for a couple years.

How do I knit while homeschooling? Answer a question, knit a round. Answer another question, knit a round. Go let a dog out, knit a few stitches. Let that dog in and the other one out, knit a few stitches. Knit while listening to Ben read. Etc, etc,...

A day in the life...

We've completed our first week of homeschooling. Look at these happy boys!

Of course they aren't always so happy.

It's the 4th week of Not Back to School blog hop. I can't believe I've actually kept up with this, although I was beginning to think I would never find the time to put this post together.

Anyhoo, this week is "a day in the life..."

My day starts at about 6:45 am. I get showered and dressed and have my personal Bible and prayer time. That personal time makes all the difference. When I miss it, we all suffer!

Breakfast is at 8am and we start school at 8:30. Well it's usually more like 8:45. The boys are responsible for getting themselves up, dressed, and downstairs on time.

Zachary (high schooler) is on his own. He usually starts with PE - a walk, bike ride, Wii Fit; then does his on-line courses in the dining room downstairs (where he can keep an eye on our destructive puppy!) He calls me when he needs help.

Jonathan (5th grade), Benjamin (2nd grade) and I start with Bible time (we are reading The Case for Christ for Kids) and reading aloud, well, listening to me read aloud. We are reading an Adventures in Odyssey Passages book right now.

Then it's on to the books. They each have a basket of work that need to be completed. They can do it in any order they choose. I go back and forth between them as needed. We take a break from 10 - 10:30 and have lunch around noon. They are usually done with book work by lunchtime or shortly after. Then they have to read for 30 minutes (anything they want) and practice their music.

I've started something new this year. (I read it on someone else's blog, but don't remember who's.) School is not over until 3:30. This means no TV or video games until then. If all their schoolwork is done, they have to find something else to occupy them - Legos, playdough, games, trampoline, bike riding, etc. They didn't like the idea at first, but they are getting used to it and getting creative too. Right now it's 2:30 and Ben is playing with Legos and Jon is drawing pictures (from a newly re-discovered Learn-to-Draw book).

So that gives you an idea of what our homeschool day looks like.

Meet My Students

So, it's week three of the Not Back to School Blog-Hop. I'm supposed to introduce you to my students.

Here they are:
Zachary - high school sophomore, Star Trek/Star Wars fanatic, saxophone player, reader, big brother, newly permitted driver.


Jonathan - 5th grader, percussionist, soccer player, budding photographer/digital scrapbooker, big brother/little brother.


Benjamin - 2nd grader, Lego lover, improving pianist, soccer player, little brother.

These photos were taken on Greg's brother's back deck when we were in Virginia. I love them. I'm framing them.

We started our school year today. It went well!

Our Pink School Room

So, week 2 of the Back-to-School Blog Hop.

I'm supposed to show you our school room. Here it is.

Yeah, it's pink! It makes me happy!

This was never intended to be a school room. I was never going to homeschool again (after 1st grade with my oldest). This was originally Benjamin's nursery. He moved in with Jonathan when he was two and this was our guest room. I painted it pink because I love pink!

Then a lot of things happened and I needed a place to do school. This room was available. The boys have never complained. And I'm happy here.

This is only for Jon and Ben. Zach (10th grade) does his school on a laptop either in his room or downstairs in the dining room.

It's kind of a mess right now. I haven't done anything in here since we finished in May. I'll be busy this week getting it ready for next week's first day of school.

Back to School

We will start up our new school year in two weeks. I'm all organized and planned and ready - NOT!

But I do have curriculum ready to go. Here's what we are doing this year.

Zach (10th grade) - Liberty Online Academy
We did this last semester and it worked out great. All the work is done or submitted online. They keep grades and transcripts. All I have to do is make sure he gets the work done. He will finish high school with this program. He will also participate in a homeschool band.

Jon (5th grade) - Christian Light
We're trying something new this year. I have used Abeka with him for the last few years and I loved it up until last year. I wanted something where he could be a little more independent and that didn't require so much lesson planning on my part. His subjects include math, language arts (including spelling), science, North American history, and reading. I think I'm going to like it. Jon will also be in the homeschool band and play soccer.

Ben (2nd grade) - A Beka
I love this curriculum for the early grades. All of my boys learned to read with A Beka. Ben isn't old enough for band yet, but I'll be teaching him piano again and he'll also be playing soccer.

I'll also be using Lee Stobel's apologetics books for kids for our Bible time.

I am actually looking forward to getting started again. I love our lazy summers, but I'm ready to get back on a schedule.

Homeschooling

It's our last week of homeschooling! Until August anyway.

At the beginning of this school year, I had every intention of this being our last year of homeschooling. But apparently God had other plans for us.

Zachary started out the year in public school, but came back home after one semester. Even then I was still going to enroll the other two in our neighborhood public school.

But for the last few weeks, I just haven't felt good about it. I just can't give up this homeschooling thing.

I can't give up the freedom. Yeah, I said freedom.

Most moms think they will have freedom when their kids go to school. And maybe I would have some freedom - for a few hours a day. But there's more to our life than that.

Because we homeschool we have our afternoons and evenings free - no homework, no projects, no PTA meetings.

Because we homeschool we have the freedom to take vacations or days off whenever we want (like our trip to Colorado last month or our California vacation last year). We don't have to live our lives around a school calendar.

Because we homeschool my kids are free to be kids. They have time to play.

Because we homeschool my kids are free from bullying and other negative stuff that goes on in school.

Are my kids missing out on some things? Probably, but I can live with that.

No, homeschooling is not easy and my kids do not always love it or their teacher. I do not always love it. (And some days I hate it!) But I've decided to trade a few hours of personal freedom for my family to be free.

P.S. This is in no way intended to make anyone feel guilty about their schooling choices. This just where I am now. I might change my mind next year or tomorrow when my first grader is crying again because he doesn't "know that word" or my fourth grader is mad because "it's too hard"!