One Very Real life Homeschool Day (for us anayway)

I wanted to invite you in to our homeschool day and what our routines looks like for multiple ages at the elementary level. Now, as the day was progressing it was quite apparent that this was probably not our best day and the crankiness was soaring as we came back from a long weekend break. But, hey, it's real and that's our real life-- good days and cranky days and everything in between. Also, in order to protect my children's privacy no meltdowns were photographed-- also because I was dealing with the meltdowns and that took precedence over documenting our day for this post. I hope that makes sense but I do want to convey to people who think people can only homeschool because they have perfect children and are a perfect mom. Trust me, we are a fallen family in need of Jesus' saving grace and mercy and some big doses of love and forgiveness are a must as well!

Now, on to our actual day of school. We begin each day reading from Ergemeir's Bible and our current family read aloud (currently we are visiting Mary Lennox and Dickon in Their Secret Garden). Then we clean up breakfast and move onto our first block of the day. I have our school work divided into two days and we rotate between the two days schedules. Then I broke down each day into what we call blocks. This way we stay on track and all stay together throughout the day. I set the timer for each block (except block 2 as these require more reading and work) and if someone doesn't finish in the allotted time frame they must complete it in their own time; furthermore, if they do finish their work, I generally encourage them to keep going or they can take a small break to use the bathroom, play, or sit with our 1 year old and play with him. Instead of doing her assigned handwriting on this day, my daughter had a special writing assignment on being kind to her brothers.

The boys began their first block's work-- my oldest was doing his Lessons in Responsibility and my youngest began his math. The purpose of the blocks is so that I can divide my time and theirs with independent and dependent learning. When someone is doing math I try and have the other two working on something they can complete on their own so I can devote my (almost) full attention to them.

After block 1 we move on to Block 2 which is our big group learning each day-- either science or history. I used to do them all on the same day but I feel like splitting them up has been a huge blessing with a busy 4 (almost 5) year old and a climbing one year old. We are able to slow down and spend more time on the subject of the day and do more with it rather then splitting our time each day. It has so far been working very well this year for us. We love Mystery of History and should be wrapping up book 2 probably around our 90th day of school since we have about 30 lessons left and a few projects to complete. After that we have some music history and state history that we will visit before beginning book 3.

Throughout the school time I try and give my one year old some special things to play with and often times the older three will join him. I do think he enjoys some solitude play as normally he ends up getting elbowed out a bit.

We switched up our spelling for my oldest and I am not sure yet how I feel about it-- I think I like it but want to make sure before I pass it along to you all. My daughter is taking a break from spelling and working on a few different phonics books as I felt her spelling would benefit more from this as well as her reading skills. That's one of the reasons I love homeschooling-- tailoring it to each individual child.

Both of my older two kids use Draw Write Now for art and I love this curriculum so much! They can both do it independently and it frees me up to help someone else at the table. My youngest was gifted an entire ABeka kindergarten curriculum so even though it has been something I have shied away from, he is enjoying it and free is always good. I also have my daughter doing their first grade math to boost her confidence with some math skills and give her a "I can do this" feeling before completing 2nd grade math which we began at the end of this year. She is doing about 2-3 lessons a day and gaining confidence which is an answer to prayer.

At different times through out the morning our middle two (ages 4 and 7) have what we call busy boxes to work on. My 4 year old boys is mostly sensory items and play while my daughter who is 7 has one filled with sewing items, one with hair items for her to style her dolls hair, and one with some fairies and gems for dramatic play. They like them a lot and they've been a nice addition to our day. Some days they might opt out and ask me to do a particular activity that I set out for someone else's school or their 1 year old brother and I'm happy to allow some variety.

This particular day as I said before we had the duplo legos out of storage and the kids were loving them.

Also, he loves to climb the steps and on this particular day he actually managed to get his pants hooked on an imaginex toy and had to climb back down. We quickly rescued him-- but I couldn't resist a quick pic of him meeting his match! Silly goose!

The kids also get a quick snack most mornings and will work on puzzles or phonics games in their free times.

My oldest is on book 4B of Singapore math and he is doing really well with it. While he has math, my four year old worked on a cutting project right next to me.

Our older two are working on some Map books that I got from CBD to expand their geography skills and sincemy daughter had learned about grid maps, I suggested they play battleship.

Sadly, the game lasted about ten minutes most of which was not harmonious and no one won. A lesson that will need revisiting on many levels. What I thought was going to be a lesson on grids ended up being a lesson in patience and concentration.

So here is what the table normally will look like (minus mom) with everyone doing their work.

And more then we'd like to admit, this guy is on the table at any given moment whenever the opportunity arises. So, that's a general quick overview of what happens and here are our block schedules for each day:

Homeschool Year in Review 2013-2014

It's hard to believe we finished up our fourth official year of homeschooling! Wow! I still feel like we're newbies on one hand and on the other moving into the more seasoned club. This year was a learning cure-- it was my first year with three at the table and one baby. One very demanding baby. Don't get me wrong we adore him and couldn't imagine a day or second with out him. However, he did have a bit of colic when he was little and even as the months went by there where very many days that I taught and stood rocking a fussy baby. He also took a long time to learn how to nap-- it just didn't come naturally to him and in all fairness, the house is a much louder environment for baby #4 compared to baby #1 (who also didn't care for naps as much as our middle two). That being said I think this left me with a feeling that we didn't do all that we could have done, we skipped a lot of the hands on activities, and some days, we were truly surviving and not thriving. However, we will not always have a newborn as a part of our school year and it was a season. And a lot of times it was a very good season. I would nurse the baby while my daughter did her reading lessons. This forced me to sit, relax, and listen to her. It also allowed my oldest son to become a more independent learner which is something it turns out he excels at.

This year was my 4 year olds first official year doing school with the older kids. He did amazing! Seriously, I am really looking forward to teaching him to read as he is so eager and like a little sponge. He had his own Bible apologia coloring book to do along with the big kids during Bible time which he really enjoyed. He had explode the code books that we did which he also really enjoyed. To kind of round out his time with us, I picked up additional little workbooks with him while we were at various stores. He generally listened into our history lesson as well and if he could, did some of the hands on crafts that the older kids did. One area we are going to have to work on this coming year will be his speech and listening while mommy does read a louds. He likes to hum or under-talk while I'm reading and it gets distracting. I do plan on speaking with our family doctor about his speech as he physically cannot make certain sounds. He gets a little frustrated as he knows what should come out and struggles with the right sound. Next year he will officially be doing kindergarten/1st grade work. He will advance with his reading lessons and math and I have a feeling he will be like my oldest son who just hungers and thirsts for knowledge.

Our 7 year old daughter who started the year as a 6 and a half year old and ends as a seven and a half year old really seemed to get a lot of help from doing her explode the code books and spelling books. She still struggles with the "aha" moment with reading and so we will continue working on that next year. She did do really well with BOB books and I think I'll order a few more sets to continue to build her confidence as we work towards that moment where she takes off. She has also come along way with math and did well with the Singapore books. She also loved her Draw Write Now books and I hope to get her more for next year. She struggles with wanting to quit before she's ahead and not putting her all into her lessons. When she wants it and puts her heart into her work, she blows me away. Getting her to that point is the challenge. She did like our Apologia botany series I think more than my 8 year old and has requested next year we do one of the animal books. She loves animals and I hope we can put together some special field trips as we study birds of the air and fish of the sea (which means we can explore mommy's favorite animals== sharks!!!== in greater detail== yay!!).

Our eight year old continues to amaze me. He does all of his spelling, logic, explode the code, and art on his own. Some days he was even able to do his math without help. We tackled division, multiplication, fractions, geometry, and more together and my little fellow math lover and I bonded over numbers. That's not to say we don't have some areas to work on-- attitude. If he gets told to try again or do it over, well, its not pleasant. This is a character issue and even more then I'd like him to memorize math facts or spelling words, I want to work on his heart issues in this matter. He also has horrible handwriting. Phew, I feel like I needed to get that of my chest, BUT next year, he will probably have a few books to help us really get it under control and more legible. We will also be adding in a foreign language and hopefully getting back to music lesson(sadly, this was one thing that we let go as we learned to manage a household of 6 and just adjust).

For me personally, this was a tough year. The baby still doesn't sleep through the night which means I don't sleep through the night. We also had a rough flu in march, kitchen makeover in November, and a long snowed in winter. It left me feeling a little more emotionally raw if that makes sense and I'm thankful that this was the first year I did a Bible study at our church. It wasn't always easy to get too, but I sure did need that. It was our first year without a TV in the home and I loved it! I feel like the kids haven't missed it, my husband and I have grown closer together, and now I wonder when we had the time before. I also had to let myself off the hook== I couldn't do it all and didn't plan as well for the year as I coulda shoulda would have. This next year I prayed about it and instead of beginning in July, we won't start back up again until August. After a lot of prayer and talking it over with my husband, once we made the decision I felt so much peace about our next year. I am going to use the extra time to prepare-- I mean really prepare. Have copies of history tests all made in advance, daily activity boxes for probably all four kids but at least the younger two, a workable schedule, art projects prepared in advance, and hopefully, an entire first floor of our house mini makeover. Since I work from home and have my desk in our main room, our school area, and our first floor play area as well as dining room all together-- we need to just get a system that works a little better. Our plan is to get a newer computer table that could possibly fit two computers in the future, replace our coffee table with an ikea expedia shelving unit, and repaint the room. We have grown as a family and spend so much time in this room and we'd like to make it work better for us all. Getting rid of the coffee table will open up play space and changing our desk situation along that wall will allow us to store more things neatly and effectively.

What we loved about this year: BOB books, explode the code, Draw Write Now, Spellwell, Singapore math, and mystery of history.

We were kind of meh about botany-- it was really detailed and not that that's a bad thing but I think sometimes they kind of couldn't really grasp one or two concrete things since so many facts and terms were coming at them. I also liked our notebooks from the year before for astronomy a bit better. Also, apologias Bible was awesome, but next year I'm on the lookout for something that will cater to a 5-9 year old a bit more.

Next year we will be adding (Lord willing): Studying French, Musical composers, handwriting, a new Bible curriculum, character training books (we did these maybe two years ago and they were neat and I just found more books in the series so I'm excited), and possibly typing or a computer program for my older two. Mommy will be a bit more on top of things and it's my goal to put together activity boxes per child per day. Something they can do independently while I work with others or even with a buddy. I'll also be getting my 5 year old a new copy of teach your child to read in one hundred easy lessons as this did help my oldest son and a very begrudging little girl reader. I'm also hoping to plan out some awesome read alouds-- we did those the second half of this year and loved them! Every morning we began our day with scripture reading and a chapter or two of a book and it was so sweet. I love sharing literature together. Pray for us as we prepare to change some things and for a smoother less bumpy year.

What about You? How was your homeschool year and what are you looking forward to next year?

From Lawn to Garden (Part One)

I'm pretty sure one day my husband is going to insist that I change the title of this blog to "Wife who has husband and kids on the crazy train" because weeeeeeeeeeeeeelllll.... sometimes I get these ideas. I share them with my husband and he asks some really good questions and is surprised when I have some really good answers and then my crazy idea actually begins to make sense. Or maybe he is going crazy too. I don't know, but my new crazy idea is what if instead of having a little vegetable garden if we turn our entire lawn (read every single inch of our outside property) into a massive garden to try and feed our family veggies for the year. And again, my husband said yes to my crazy idea! I want you now to glance back at the title picture. We have a long thin anorexic yard. We don't have acres but a small fraction of an acre. We also have four kids. Two parents. And we are so going to try and make this happen!! And really, if we can do it, anyone can. I mean before this year we dabbled in tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers and last year we had two small pitiful tomato plants that gave us maybe 10 pieces of fruit (which is because I spent the spring on bedrest, then had a baby, then was in a wedding.... yada yada-- we totally did nothing last year). So this year we wanted to roll our sleeves up and do it better. Then we decided to do it crazy bigger and better (I hope or instead of learning alongside of us you'll be learning from our mistakes).

Our kids are all on board. Till we explained it would be the entire lawn. Like no more grass. Or play house (which no one even touches anymore unless they are jumping from the roof which drives me bonkers... but hey, maybe when your mom goes crazy enough stuff like this happens! ha!). And they innocently asked, "What will we play?" To which I said, "Farmers." Which apparently I underestimated how cool this was because they squealed with delight and asked when we could begin. Except this guy.

I think he just figured out Momma will not be holding him every second of every day. So I quickly explained we will get food out of it and I think he's on board too now. Our family has delved into videos on youtube on how tos and gardening and canning and blanching... and pretty much all from this Canadian man at 50 Ducks in A Hot Tub We are feeling pumped up! So, you want in, here is what we have done so far:

The first thing we did was order our seeds. I am mentioning this because if you want heirloom organic seeds certain veggies run out quickly. We even had to go with our fourth choice for corn. We went with Incredible Seed Company but there are others out there. Next we went to some local woods and found a bunch of sticks all different sizes which we will form into teepees to grow beans, peas, etc. and also for tomato stakes. We also got a big bucket from the store 9cost us less than 3 dollars) and will be placing all our egg shells in there from now until, well a long time. Egg shells add calcium to your garden and when you crush them they break down faster-- also placing them in a ring around plants makes it harder for slugs and other nasty critters to eat your prized plants. So very simple steps to begin making this winter in preparation for your garden to begin this spring.

This back yard area behind our shed was originally what we had planned to turn into our garden and this is where we will begin our work. You can see we have our potting soil (organic) ready to go. We also have secured some pallets which we will be turning into vertical gardens so we can grow our herbs without taking up any much needed land. You can see how to make a pallet garden here. We have a large black tub that was originally going to be our little pond but we didn't use it so that too will soon be put to work and grow something on the patio or porch. We also have a lot of patio stones leftover from when we put our patio in and they will become stepping stones. I am showing you all this to have you take a look around your yard and see what you can use that you already have. (and I apologize things are messy-- it got a little crazy when the kitchen was remodeled).

Again here is our little bit of lawn before it goes to veggie seed. We need to get the playhouse out and get the ground ready but will wait till its warmer and the ground is softer. I didn't get it in the picture, but two years ago we planted our first grape vine and last year we did get to add the second. Hoping soon we get grapes as not only do we go through a lot of veggies but fruit too! we are hoping to start strawberries this year too.

One final thing to begin doing now: save your containers to begin seeds indoors! we have berry containers, milk, and clear bottles which we will turn into planters as well. We are super excited and will try and update as time allows. Our kids have helped pick out what we will grow and this week we plan on making our teepees and mapping out where everything will be planted! So, what's the best thing you have ever got to grow in your garden or your secret gardening tip?