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A friend on Facebook posted a link to this blog. It's really, really neat. Great for Home schooling families and tradtional schooling families alike.
In other news I've been extremely busy and it's shown in my lack of posts here on the blog. I hope to get back into the swing of posting regularly soon.
In th emeanwhile, be blessed friends!
My mom is a member of the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden and so she took our family yesterday for a field trip. Even Dustin took off from work early to join us. Because of her membership we all got in FREE. Isn't that great!?
The kids had so much fun and thoroughly enjoyed the time spent there. The garden has made major improvements recently. I was impressed with how beautiful it now is. The kids received little booklets and were asked to be Desert Detectives while they spied out the different types of plants. They were able to learn a lot through observation.
One popular attraction of the PDBG is the Butterfly exhibit. It was my first time seeing this exhibit. The butterflies are stunning creatures and seeing so many together was such a treat.
I forgot my camera but thankfully my mom didn't. She sent me just a couple of pictures.
Mariposa Monarca
The girls held their arms up and stood still in the hopes a butterfly would land on them. I had to giggle a little bit. Of course they have gone and ruined life for themselves proving to me that they can, in fact, be extremely quiet and still when they are motivated. No more excuses for them.
The girls with their Desert Detective papers. Don't you just love hubby's choice to store his water bottle in such a picture perfect spot?
Grandma Mimi and the grand kids. They adore her so much!
After our first week of home school I can emphatically say that I love it! We had fun, we made progress, we haven't wanted to kill each other yet. It's all positive so far.
I have enjoyed our kids like never before. I think God has really changed my heart in the last few months which is the very reason why I can feel this way today. Not that home schooling is for everyone, but for our family it was just what was needed. Time moves so quickly and I feel that home schooling gives us back a bit more time. A little more time to grow my children's faith and character in the loving environment of our home. I feel privileged to be able to do this.
Suzanne asked about the curriculim we chose for this year. We are using the Alpha and Omega LIFEPAC curriculum and I am supplementing with some Konos activities and learning styles. For my first year I wanted something very structured and more formal (mainly because I lacked confidence and wanted something to more rigid and formal to fall back on) but I can see that as we grow more comfortable I will be able to do what many HS families do and mix and match our curriculum to suit our interests and learning styles. A custom education. What's more fun than that!?
We did it! We made it through. We completed our first day of Home School. In fact we finished way too quickly! The kids sailed through most of the activities and worksheets so I will be thinking of more creative reinforcement activities for tomorrow. Most of everything was review for Rienne so once we complete the review portion in the coming weeks I have hopes that she'll slow down a bit. Aurora did exceptionally well and proved that she indeed has a wonderful
attention span. She was highly motivated today and was excited to be an official Kindergartner!
All in all I feel pretty good. We are doing a year round format with 6 weeks on and 2 weeks off. This first 2 week break should provide a nice opportunity to reevaluate our classroom dynamics and tweak things. I am happy with the schedule I came up with. The one thing which will require work on my part is making sure we actually get out of this house more than once a week. I want to plan many more outdoor activities and field trips. This will take some careful planning (to keep it educational and related to our curriculum) and some coupon clipping.
Our daily schedule is a follows for anyone interested:
7am- Wake up, personal grooming, eat breakfast, morning chores
8am- Morning prayers, pledge, praise music, Bible class
8:30am- Language Arts
9:30- Math
10:30 Science or History for 1st grade Art/Crafts or activity for Kindergarten
11am- LUNCH
11:30- 12:30 Music, Art, Spanish, Story/Reading hour or Field trip depending on the day of week
Since I have only one day under my belt I am not confident yet that I will be able to maintain this schedule but it worked well today and in theory it should hold up the rest of the week. We shall see.........
Wow, so we made the decision months ago but I haven't written about it once. We will be home-schooling next year. This means I will be teaching 1st grade and Kindergarten to my two oldest kids while wrangling my 3 year old. Am I scared? OH YEA!! Do I feel absolutely convinced that this is what the Lord is calling our family to do at this season? Yes. Is it going to be hard? I would bet the farm on it!
I considered Home-schooling briefly when Rienne was an infant (hahaha I laugh to think of myself) before Rory came along 16 months later and rocked our world. As soon as I had spent a solid two years in confinement with my adorable droolers I thought better of the idea of locking myself up with them for the remainder of the next 16 years. By the time Ally came 23 months later I was sure I had my mind made up.
This year Rienne began Private Kindergarten at a school which has been wonderful. I have enjoyed the experience so much! Her teacher is a great lady who, God bless her, manages those 13 kids wonderfully. Rienne learned to read quite quickly and is a little bundle of awakening brain mass and a burgeoning genius. Dustin and I both agreed that it was only too easy to write a check every month (a big check, but more on that later) and have our precious girl come home reading like a champ!
I can hear you asking, "Why then jump ship and cross over to the home-school side?"
It's all God's fault! He is good though. He warmed me up to the idea of HS-ing first by introducing me to some awesome HS mom's and their kids, who impressed me a ton before I ever had a hint that the Lord was heading me in that direction. They weren't anti social freaks who dressed really badly and had horrible haircuts. Not kids who used Olde English words like forsooth every other sentence and certainly not kids who were without friends. I had previously pictured Napoleon Dynamite as the poster boy for HS kids which is so wrong I know (and yes I know, you ND fans, he went to public school, but it just fit in my mind)! Even a dear friend of mine and an avid opponent to ever HS-ing her kids went over to the HS camp! If she could do it, I could.
Next, almost too sad to admit, was MONEY. Money began what I call the "negotiation talks" with the Lord. It all started with the building campaign at church. We kept thinking that we'd have lots of money to contribute if we didn't have to pay tuition. Yes, those checks were big ones, as I said, and with Rory enrolling for Kindergarten for the '07-'08 school year tuition would have cost us nearly $11,000.00. Two years later with Ally joining the ranks we'd near $17,000.00 annually.
I heard you gasp!! I know, isn't that insane! I mean to tell you!!!! We have three kids and we'd like to have more, God willing. We have college to think about here! Estimates are that it will cost approximately $1,000,000.00 per student by the time they enter college. We sure wouldn't make any headway saving for college if we continued to dole out that kind of cash!
The "negotiation talks" began with me telling the Lord I would look into the whole HS thing for Him and get back with Him on it. I read everything I could find. I mean BIG, FAT books on the subject. I did online research which gave me data to lay to rest the argument that HS kids are socially defunct and ill-equipped to handle the real world when the enter the work force.
"Ok Lord, I will consider..... that is consider, HS-ing the girls BUT you have to be with me and bless me because I feel a nervous breakdown coming on!"
Then He pulled out the big guns! The reminder of how at around the beginning of the New Year He spoke to me about learning to serve my children in a greater way. About how I have failed, at times, to value my mission field as a mommy, always looking outside of my home for a way to make a lasting impact, instead of grasping that I hold the keys to impacting the future in my developing girls' brains.
"Oh, really? Are you sure that this is the way we gotta do it Lord?"
He assured my that "Oh yes! it is."
There are some serious character deficiencies in myself which I am beginning to feel the Lord zeroing in on. As He takes aim I feel almost at a panic. Like the apple I wrote about yesterday I sense this is gonna be a messy operation. Being a perfectionist I tremble at the thought of not getting everything absolutely perfect when we begin school. I know this is going to test my commitment to excellence as I will have to WORK HARD. No throwing in the towel if the first lesson goes terribly wrong.
This is Jen being a (gulp) Home-school mom. This is Jen trying to: Be BOLD Jen
