A Day in the Life: Homeschooling

I had a phone conversation last night with yet another friend who is looking into homeschooling this next school year. I'm always more than happy to share what we do since we have found a groove that seems to work for all of us. I try to always caveat, though, that each family has to figure out what will and won't work for them. Flexibility is key. Your plan that works for the first part of your school year may need to be tweaked for the later part. Staying inside everyday to do schoolwork in the cold season may seem like torture once the weather turns nice outside.
With that in mind, I thought I would share a completely honest look at how school works for us day to day for this particular time. I literally just picked up my camera and snapped some pictures of things so there will be messes and things on the floor and our shelves aren't the most organized they've ever been. You'll have to just forgive our mess and realize along with us that education on a whole is more important than a constantly immaculate house. So here is how most school days go:

The boys are both usually awake sometime between 6:30 and 7:15. I don't wake them unless I have to. I figure if they're still sleeping they probably need the sleep. We follow our usual morning routine of breakfast, getting dressed, teeth and hair brushed and all that. As you will see, Jeremiah asked very nicely to be able to stay in his pajamas today and I let him.

Then we head to the table and get going! This is usually about 8ish. We start out with whatever is first for that day. This morning we started with history. We happened to be at the end of a group of chapters and were doing some review cards. They worked on them for a long while but were tired and bored so we set them aside (which explains the colored pencils all over) and started math for today. We can come back to them later. Joshua is using his Saxon book with a notebook to write his answers in so we can reuse that textbook for the other kids. Jeremiah's 1st grade Saxon materials is a couple of books worth of worksheets so we photocopy them on the printer. He's working on one of those.

These are our school shelves. We keep our text books here. That bottom left compartment has the "school toys" Jeremiah sometimes plays with. Each of the boys has a side on top to keep their folders with their loose schoolwork in them. They each have one for history and other miscellaneous projects.

This is Jeremiah's math folder. Completed work goes on the right. His upcoming worksheets will be on the left. He loves that this folder is Cars Movie and it makes him look forward to doing math just so he can get out this folder. I don't generally grade their work, but Jeremiah likes showing me that he's gotten them all right, so I put a grade on top to make him feel good about it.

This is command central. I sit in this spot so I can do things like blog, I suppose. :) I generall don't do that, of course, but I have the computer here to be able to look things up when the boys have questions or pull up videos to watch. I find coloring sheets or look up ideas for things that are coming up. There's the phone in case the hubby calls or texts and over to the left is our scheduling apparatus.

This is how I keep track of what is going on when. The individual page is our weekly general schedule. We often shift things around but this helps me keep track of what I'd like to get done each week. You'll notice it ends at noon. That's when we do lunch. I do work in a break about halfway through the morning so they can run around the house or have a snack. Whatever they may be needing that given day. Today they're playing with the helicopter you see on the table.
The calendar is where I put the individual assignments. Helps me keep track of what chapter we're starting or what activity from our textbooks I'd like to accomplish that day. It also gives me a place to leave notes for upcoming field trips or other reminders about dental appointments or museums that are free that month. So far I have our year planned out until the beginning of May so we can be finished with our main textbooks before the baby comes.
We usually finish up our formal school day by reading a chapter or two... or three out of whatever chapter book we're working our way through. This year so far we've gotten through the 2nd year of Harry Potter, Sleeping Beauty, A Christmas Carol, The Jungle Book, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and we're working on Percy Jackson the Lightning Thief among others. Some have been more interesting to them than others. They also really enjoy the Magic Treehouse series so we're working our way through those as well.
Then they journal at the end of almost every day. The hope is that a quick review of some of what we learned that day will help cement it into their memory a little more. Jeremiah usually draws rather than writing.

So that's it! We have lunch, they read a bit on their own and play. We may run errands, go grocery shopping or go to a park or have a sports practice in the evening. That's what we're doing right now. That will certainly change as we figure out what does and doesn't work best for us at any given time.
I hope you find that a little helpful, at least, and now I need to get back to focusing on what I really should be doing this morning!

Homemade Sidewalk Paint

Recently I started using a website called pinterest.com. The more I use it, the more I love it!

That is where I found the idea to make homemade sidewalk paint.

It was super hot this morning already so the boys didn't last very long before we had to come inside for water and shade.

I used our cupcake tin and put in 1 tablespoon of cornstarch and a smidge of gel food coloring then filled it with water. Mix and voila! Sidewalk paint!

Showing Off Artwork

I found this idea that I loved about a year ago. I'm pretty certain I found it on the FamilyFun.com website but haven't been able to locate it since. I thought I'd share our version of it here. I only spent 2 dollars out of pocket to make it happen and every time we use it I love it even more. This is how we display the boys favorite pieces of artwork.

We change them out every week or so. You'll find coloring pages or art projects or school work that we are particularly proud of in these frames.
All I did was repurpose some old frames that never made it to the wall in this house. I took out all the glass and backing, bought a $1 can of black spray paint to make them match and hung them on nails on the wall. Inside of these frames I hung another nail to hook on an alligator clip that I bought at the office supply store for another dollar. Voila! Perfect place to hang the things the boys are most proud of.

How to Begin Homeschooling

I have had a lot of friends ask about how I went about figuring out how to start homeschooling so I figured I'd share here so I can just send a link instead of rewriting it over and over again. Deciding how to start was definitely one of the more stressful things I've ever done.
The #1 thing everyone is most concerned about is curriculum. What books are you going to use? There are so many out there it is hard to know where to start. We have a pretty unique set of circumstances with Joshua's math abilities so box sets were never an option for us. I'm also too cheap for that. They can be thousands of dollars a year! I knew I could work ebay and do better than that. They're just books, after all.

First, to give myself some sort of feeling of preparedness, I looked up the Virginia State Standards of Learning (SOL's). I looked up anything that didn't sound familiar so I had a general idea of what Josh would have been learning if he remained in public school.
Then I went to my library catalog and looked up "homeschool." I was pleasantly surprised that there were several books there so I put all that looked interesting on hold. Some were definitely better than others once I got them home. I didn't have enough hours in the day to read them all. The one that was my favorite turns out to be one of most homeschoolers favorite resources. Cathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks. It definitely helps you get a feel for what style of homeschooling might fit you and your family. You learn about learning styles as well and she gives recommendations based on those things as well as many others, like how much time you will have to prep and give attention for lessons. I picked books for each subject based on that, recommendations of other homeschooling Moms that I knew and a little guesswork on where we would be academically. I searched ebay and alibris.com for all I could find used and bought the rest as cheap as I could find them for new. We walked away with an entire "curriculum" for a year under $100. Not too shabby for a first year, if I do say so myself. The best part is a couple of our subjects will cover more than one year and most can be used with Jeremiah as well. I'm all about bang for your buck.
Here is what we've been working with this year:
Math
We started using the Math U See curriculum (the 2nd grade equivalent book for Joshua and the Primer for Jeremiah). Joshua loved his book and learned a few things. My problem was he finished his book in less than half a school year and it's not a book you can copy so he wrote directly in the book. We can't re-use it. We re-evaluated when he finished it and bought him a more challenging Saxon book. He is not as crazy about this book but it's definitely more on-par with where his brain is at academically. We've tweaked my expectations of him with this book and he is enjoying it more that I don't make him do ALL the review problems.
Truth be told, though, his favorite math activities we've done so far this year have very little to do with his textbooks. He is naturally very curious about math methods so the things I've shown him to answer his questions are much more interesting to him than any old text book.
We did find one book that Josh loves and wants to spend his free time in. It was an impulse buy at Barnes and Noble and I'm so glad I bought it! Math for the Gifted Student. Joshua geeks out for math stuff and each page has something new for him to learn and be challenged by. That's exciting stuff in his book so I go along and pretend it's kinda normal.
Science

We bought the A Beka 1st grade science book and were really disappointed with it. It was more for Jeremiah's preschool level than Joshua's. So we breezed through it and moved on. We have been doing unit studies in science paired with random experiments to add some fun. We have used books that I found on clearance at Barnes and Noble and Scholastic Book Fairs and put them together to make units. One week we read all about fish and ended with a trip to the aquarium. Another week we read a few books about dinosaurs. Recently we found a couple books at the library about honeybees. Their favorite are the experiments, though. They like getting in the kitchen and making things happen. We use this book to get ideas. We will never run out of things to do with this book.
History

History is one of my favorite subject and the boys seem to not mind it too much because of that. We went with The Story of the World curriculum. The best part of this is the activity book. I learned this the hard way. The book is fine by itself, but what really made it stick was the coloring pages and activity suggestions. The boys have loved some of these activities and they lead to more discussion about what we learned. I'm really happy with this one and we'll continue it next year.
Language
We have used "First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind." This is more of a classical education book but the boys like it. You learn parts of language (verbs, nouns, etc) and memorize poems through repetition. This helped Jeremiah with his days of the week and months as well. This book is good for 3 years so we'll continue it next year.
Spelling
Spelling has been a tricky one for Joshua. Jeremiah is not old enough since he just started reading during this school year. I knew Joshua was an advanced reader (being partnered with his teacher for reading exercises in Kindergarten) but I hadn't realized how advanced he was in spelling. Wow! I bought him a 1st grade book that was reviewed as being challenging. Not so much for Joshua, apparently. We breezed through the grade 1 book and will be over halfway through the grade 2 book when we bring this year to a close. We still skip weeks every now and then when he already knows how to spell all the words on the list, but I think we're pretty close to being at his level.
Etcetera
We do a LOT of etcetera type learning around here. We take field trips whenever we can find them. We read book about whatever the boys are interested in at the time. Right now we're reading a book on video game designers. We read Magic Treehouse books and work in the garden in our backyard and bake in the kitchen. There are things to learn all around us even when we're not directly trying to learn.
What I'm Into Now
I've been reading up a lot about Thomas Jefferson Education. There's a strong emphasis on raising your children to be leaders instead of just to hold jobs and get by. You read classic books and let your children power their own education for the most part. Been reading a lot and am still intimidated by this, but we're getting there. I'm really inspired by the idea of it.

So there you go. That's all I have to say on the subject... for right now, at least. We're still learning as we go and are figuring things out one day at a time. Some days are better than others but we're stronger and and more understanding now as a family than we were before we started this journey. The boys get along better and overall our stress levels are lower. We've seen a lot of benefits from homeschooling already and we haven't even finished our first year yet!

Homeschooling Update

It's been a while since the last update.
Thing have been chugging along here in spite of that, of course.
I'll put some pictures throughout so you can see how the boys have grown.

First, Phil's work situation is getting a bit touchy. The military is reducing their numbers which means that people must be kicked out for that to happen. Because Phil would be reenlisting soon he has to get permission now. We have been waiting for months for his request to be approved. There is a chance it won't. There's a chance that by the end of this year we will no longer be a military family. It's been a stressful time because of that but we've come to terms with the possible change and are doing our best to trust that God is in control and that what happens will be for the best in the long run.

Joshua just recently turned 7. It's really really hard for me to believe that! It's like it sneaks up on you. One day you're holding your little baby while you're trying to buy groceries and the next he's adding up a subtotal and seeing if he's right at the register. I am no where near ready for him to be 7 but he has told me that doesn't matter. He is 7 anyway.

Homeschooling has been going great! Each day is a different day. Sometimes we do great. We get everything off the calendar done (how I've been sorting what we should be accomplishing each day). Some days we have other things that have to be done during the morning and we have to run errands instead of doing school. The nice thing is that learning happens even when we're not at home and generally speaking we haven't had too hard of a time catching up.
Math is still Joshua's favorite subject but he really loves doing science experiments. Jeremiah may not share the exact same enthusiasm for math but he is already much farther ahead than I expected him to be by now.
I feel like we're finally into our homeschooling groove. The subject matter changes. We read different books, but we all know that most mornings we'll be getting up and having breakfast then getting ready to learn around the table.

This week we took a field trip day to see the new area they are opening at our zoo. Since we were nearby the art museum we stopped by to take a look around there as well. They have a section of art from Egypt including a couple sarcophagi. A museum employee was talking to the boys about it and Jeremiah asked her where the sarcophagus was. It's a pretty impressive word coming from a 4 1/2 year old! We have been learning a little about Egypt this year in our history book. I love moments when I am not the only one blown away by the brilliance of my boys. I am definitely a lucky Mom!
Oh... and then there's the car.

THEE car! The car Phillipp has wanted for.... well, probably all of eternity until this point. That's not being very precise. It's been probably 5 or 6 years. It's a Subaru STi and it's really pretty awesome. That's my blue wagon in the background. Poor thing didn't see it coming being upstaged like that. Our cars make their own happy little Subaru family now and Phil is one happy guy. Some day soon I'll be able to get Phil to talk about something other than cars but after this, it's not looking good for anytime in the near future.

Getting the Holiday Started

Christmas has always been a month-long celebration in my mind. To pass that along to my own kiddos, we've been finding little things to do along the way to the big day.

(The boys looking at gold, frankincense and myrrh)

This weekend we visited a local church that was set up like a modern day Bethlehem. You visited people along the way all talking about the star and the coming Messiah as well as taxes and the census.

I found it all pretty interesting. Towards the end, you actually see Mary and Joseph with baby in a stable of sorts. Then there were candy canes, cookies and cocoa.

We've been incorporating Christmas into our regular little projects at home as well. I'm not a big fan of gingerbread, so we made graham cracker houses. We just used M&M's to decorate for a couple of reasons. First, I'm cheap and didn't want to spend a fortune on candy that was just going to go stale while we looked at it.

Second, M&M's are my favorite. It seemed like a good reason to eat the leftovers.

Today we borrowed an idea from another homeschooler's blog and decided to decorate a tree on our easel. It turned into a lesson on sharing and negotiation, which was unexpected, but I imagine by the end of the day the tree will be beautifully colored and decorated by both of our boys together. A girl can hope, right?
And yes, sometimes we do school in pajamas... and sometimes the boys aren't really great at finding matching pajamas. I'm not terribly concerned.
I hope you're enjoying all the season has to offer already as well. For now, I'm off to turn up some Christmas music!

A Thankful Tree

With Thanksgiving coming up, we've done a few special projects to help the boys think about all they have to be grateful for. We have so much to be thankful for this year!

This is a project we've been working on for a while. It's a Thankful tree. I got the idea from another blog I often read called Teach Mama.
We went for a hike last week and picked out a few branches along the way. I spent a couple days searching from some silk leaves to no avail so today we printed and colored our own!
Each leaf has one thing to be thankful for on it. There are still a few more to be added on but I found their collaborative list pretty interesting!
hugs 
butter
Daddy coming home
books 
peanut butter 
writing
Thanksgiving turkey
Earth
North Carolina
video games
Dad 
air
driving to Oklahoma
eating
toys 
wrestling
the sky 
Ironman
home

Air and Space

Yes, I have been slacking about blogging lately.
But we finally did something I considered blog-worthy today!

Today we had a field trip day. It was Homeschool Appreciation day at the Virginia Air and Space Center so the boys and I went.

I became very aware of the fact that there are people who understand this world on a completely different level than I do.

Molecules condensing, moon rocks with traces of volcanic ash and it's implications, gas turning to liquid and returning to gas when reduced drastically in temperature.

I'm a smarter person for our journeys today and definitely a more humble one.

The boys had such a good time. I'm realizing I still have so much to learn as I try to teach them.

Look at this activity, though! A craft to learn about the different kinds of clouds? How ingenious!

So here's to pushing the limits of my own understanding to be a better teacher to the boys!
Hopefully they won't ask about molecules anytime soon!

Our Homeschooling Group

We've been a part of a nearby homeschooling group since before the end of the school year last year. I thought it would be valuable to have others in the same boat to talk to and bounce ideas off of. Last night we finally got around to going to our first event with them. It was a "Not going back to school picnic."

It was at a beautiful park. Joshua was even able to get in a short game of kickball with the older boys.

I sat and visited with other parents who feel my new found "pain".

 It was a good night. I can't wait to meet up with them again!

First Day of School

Today marks the end of our first week of our new homeschooling adventure.

 Here are our pictures from the first day.

It's going really well so far! I have been learning a lot along the way and we're tweaking it slightly each day. The boys are definitely being flexible with me. I'm learning more about both of them, what they already know and what they understand.

 Hopefully at some point I'll find the groove that's right for us. They both keep blowing me away! We haven't had to back track on anything yet. We've only pushed forward in a couple subjects to find material that is  more at their level.
Can I just take a minute to brag on my husband? He's the one who makes the whole homeschool thing possible. Not only does he do a wonderful job serving our country but he also brings home the bacon for us so I have the freedom to be there and do this for the boys. I couldn't be more proud of the man he has become over the years or more grateful!

A Park Playdate

Believe it or not we actually know one or two people who are already homeschoolers. Yesterday we met up with one of the families that live closeby for a playdate.

 I love talking with Cheryl. She just started homeschooling last year and already has so much wisdom under her belt.

She's still figuring it out as they go, but it's exciting to have someone to throw around ideas with. The kids had a blast playing and getting slurpees.

It was so warm yesterday we all came back to our house and ran through the sprinkler for a few minutes. It was perfect!

Then last night the clouds rolled in and it's looks like we might be in for several days of clouds and rain. Glad we got out and had fun while the sun was still around!

Getting a Head Start

We decided a long while ago not to worry about putting the boys in preschool. We do our best to get them in social situations with other kids and I teach them the rest of what they will need to know from home.

This year we took that decision a bit further and have decided to keep Joshua home from school next year and begin homeschooling. We're not doing this because we're religious nuts or because what his school is doing is so bad. Joshua is just way ahead for his grade and isn't being challenged in a way we would like at school. He can't be tested for the gifted program offered by our district until after 1st grade which is another entire school year away. So, we're going to join the ranks of the weird ones and be homeschoolers.
We've picked up some textbooks and supplies. We're just about ready.