- Homeschool Beginnings -

The beginning of our homeschooling journey didn't go exactly as planned...

The Mrs. spent countless hours preparing an eclectic mix of curriculum that ended up being a tad too dry (raw-academic) and frustrating for Big Miss.  They didn't appeal to her very visual, artsy learning style.  One week into homeschooling and we decided to abandon what we had and purchase a complete curriculum that we had been researching over the summer.  We ordered My Father's World Kindergarten and LOVE it!  Skills are laid out in a nice progressive manner, prep. work is minimal, the daily time commitment is appropriate and the learning materials and activities are fun, colorful and engaging.  Most importantly, this curriculum is Bible based, so the girls are learning basic skills while also learning about God's Creation.

The first two weeks of school doing My Father's World we studied Genesis and learned about the things that God did on days 1-7.

Happy mail day...

On day one, we learned that God created light and divided it from the darkness.  We had fun reading  a Bible story with flashlights!

 We enjoyed a snack that was both light and dark...

 

  Naturally, Little Miss took it upon herself to sneak some extra cookies...

On day two we learned that God made the sky and divided the water above and below the sky.

Each day we colored the corresponding number we were learning about and created a story page to go along.

We enjoyed counting clouds (marshmallows and popcorn) for snack!

The girls had been requesting to be cats for a few days, so...

On day three we learned that God made seas, dry land and plants.

We enjoyed broccoli pretzel trees, skittle flowers, and cookie dry land and blueberry fruits of the plant for snack.

On day four we learned that God made the sun, moon, and stars.

The girls looked forward, each day, to seeing how snack would match what they were learning!

 

On day five we learned that God made living creatures in the sea and birds.

On day six we learned that God made animals and other living creatures on the land.  He made man and woman.

We thanked God for our sweet Mocha bean and for how well she tolerates Little Miss' snuggles. 

Mocha had fallen asleep next to Little Miss and Little Miss woke up one happy girl!

 

 

We enjoyed bunnies and people (well, sort of!) for snack.

On day seven we learned that God rested.

At the end of this unit we compiled all of our numbers and story pages into a book in each of the girls portfolios.  I had written the word creation story for them to look at when writing their title, but other than that everything you see below was done independently...

 

On this day we walked around our yard and took pictures of God's creation. 

I spy two precious people that God created...

On this day instead of partaking in usual housework tasks, The Mrs. rested in the sun and enjoyed a particularly relaxing quiet time while the girls napped.

 We identified and discussed things that God made and things that man made.

- source of printable: mamasmonkeysblogspot.com -

A typical day for us consists of breakfast, free play, school, snack/read aloud, outside play, lunch, nap/rest, dinner prep...daddy home! 

We participate in one to two field trips per month with other homeschooling families in our community; next week we are going to a farm!

The girls are also both Cubbies in AWANA.  AWANA is such a fun program for our children.  Each week the girls memorize one or two Bible verses to tell their teacher and as they memorize verses they earn patches to put on their vests.  They participate in small group learning activities, large group play, worship (music/dance) time, gym/cooperative learning time, and story time that teaches biblical character traits such as honesty, obeying parents, etc.  Little Miss is so glad to be able to join Big Miss as a Cubbie this year and Big Miss has less anxiety with little sis there.  The Mrs. is a Cubbie leader and the Mr. is a Cubbie substitute.  The Mr. teaches at least once a month, but neither of us are the girls' leader.  We want to model to the girls the importance of serving others, and also want the girls to experience a teacher other than mommy or daddy for AWANA.

The Mr. is going over this week's Cubbie lesson and is reviewing the memorization verse, "God loves us and sent His son." 1 John 4:10

The girls also attend Bible school at our church each Thursday morning while The Mrs. joins in fellowship with other women and talk about how to grow, mature and support each other as they walk with the Lord as mothers, wives and children of God.  In this program the girls are with about 30-40 other children playing, creating and learning from some very lovely and patient women!

This past week was International Homeschool Spirit Week; Friday was a Day of Giving.  We were blessed to be able to prepare and provide a meal to a friend's neighbor's family.  The sweet mom of 3 little boys had an accident and crushed her elbow and fractured her humerus. She is unable to lift any of her children and after just having been able to go part time at work she had to put her one year old back into full time child care because she is unable to care for him as needed.  She is six weeks in, with about 12 more weeks of recovery and if she is unable to return to work in six weeks she may lose her job.  Please pray for her!  For recovery, strength and endurance.

During outdoor play the girls have been spending time enhancing their fairy garden and preparing it for the cooler weather by creating trees for shelter from rain and wind and leaves as  ground cover blankets.  The girls know that fairies are pretend, but they like to pretend they are real!

- It's starting to rain, can we please stay out? Yes! -

As a homeschooling family our school day doesn't ever officially start or end.  We take advantage of as many teachable moments as we can and pretty much consider everything school.  Head to the grocery store: (social studies and math), library (language arts), make dinner (math, science and social studies).  Life on earth is short.  Time goes so quickly.  We've intentionally chosen to invest  majority of our time into our children during this season of our lives...teaching them, learning with them, guiding them, supporting them, encouraging them, disciplining them, loving them.  We are so grateful to be able to watch them discover new things for the first time, to be able to answer questions when they don't understand or want to know more, to be able to follow our children's interests and cater to their particular learning styles and pace.

This week, in conjunction with school, we are learning about veterinarians and caring for pets.  We are learning about services offered, facilities, finances, compassion and healing.  We are grateful for the doctors who carefully explained Mocha's surgery in a way the girls could understand.  They taught us how to care for her after surgery and what to look for should we need to bring her back in. The girls were able to ask questions and have been a doing a wonderful job in assisting with our Mocha bean!

We are trying to involve the girls in as many chores and homemaking tasks as are appropriate.  We want them to contribute to this household in which they live and play!  Sometimes; however, we don't involve the girls because, quite frankly, sometimes we are in a hurry and it is much easier and quicker for us to just do it properly ourselves.  Sometimes, we do it ourselves to allow them time to play if our day has been full.  We believe play is just as integral to the learning process as structured learning is at this age. 

Little Miss helping to scrub off the soil from our garden grown carrots to prep for dinner and for freezing...

Today Little Miss declares she wants to be a doctor.  Yesterday she wanted to be the garbage truck driver so she can see all the pretty pictures kids draw for her.  We may have led them to believe we throw some of their art in the garbage specifically for the garbage workers and landfill workers to look at!  

Little Miss catches on quickly and has a very passionate/persistent personality.  Whatever she does, we are certain she will go for it full force ;)  Our little Miss Spicy Pie!

 

It's still hard to believe that we are a homeschooling family.  We were admittedly equal parts excited and apprehensive to embark upon this new journey.  However, we feel incredibly at peace with our decision and have no doubt this is right where we are supposed to be right now. 

- Really, homeschool? Really! -

Our family’s decision to homeschool has been a bit of a shocker; even to us.  We never would have imagined ourselves walking this path before having children. 

 

And then we became parents and we did a lot of things we said we would never do.  “We're never going to let our child have a nukky past age two!”  "We will not talk in made up baby words." “We will not resort to bribery.”  “Our children will be intrinsically motivated!” Ummm, well, you know then life happened and reality set in and parenting was much harder than we anticipated.  We’ve eaten our words many times as parents; as humans who feel passionately and sometimes strongly about various topics.  

Something else happened too, parenting was also much more fulfilling and amazing than we expected it to be.  As a couple we have had many in-depth conversations about how we want to raise our children and what we want life to be like for our family both inside and outside of our home.  We’ve discovered that parenting is less about the children and more about the parents.  Motherhood is less about the children and more about the mother.  Fatherhood is less about the children and more about the father.  Nothing in our lives have made us examine and discover who we are and who we want to be more than becoming parents and then suddenly needing to lead by example…to not only tell your children how to act and serve, but to show them by living it out daily in the both the mundane moments and the exceptional moments. 

There are both pros and cons to every single situation we will ever choose for our children.

We feel nervous, excited, grateful and certain about our decision to homeschool.  In all honesty, there is a very slight fear that we might one day regret our choice.  However, we feel that is very unlikely and find comfort in knowing that this choice isn’t permanent.  Though we have hopes to homeschool long term, we will continue to pray, discuss, reflect and will revisit our decision each year.  This is one of the biggest parenting decisions we have ever made.  A decision that we came to partially by leap of faith and conviction and partially by a desire to lead a certain lifestyle...that just so happens to be a little different from the norm.  

Over the past year and a half, we have spent countless hours praying, researching, and talking to parents and educators in our area's private Christian schools, an international school,  a Montessori school,  and even a virtual charter school.  We have talked to homeschooling parents and their middle and high school aged children about both the successes and challenges.  We talked to passionate homeschoolers and to homeschoolers who tried and then decided it wasn’t the right choice for their family anymore.  We interviewed and toured our local public school.  We gained a lot of valuable insight and see the value that each setting has to offer.  We have not come to this decision lightly. 

Sometimes, you have to say no to a perfectly good option, so you can say yes to what really is best for your family. We are confident that homeschooling is the best choice for our family at this time.  

Deep breath…we have chosen to homeschool.

Once upon a time, we scoffed at the idea of homeschooling.  We were opinionated on a subject matter we knew very little about. We clung to old fashioned stereotypes.  We didn’t take the time to understand and learn about it. 

Since then we have learned to never say never.  Ever.  

For a while, we’ve felt that God was tugging at us.  Leading us down a different path.  Telling us to slow down and be intentional with our time, our resources; with each other.  We tried to ignore the tugging.  Tried to slow down by setting boundaries and saying "no thank you" to invitations for get togethers so we didn't feel as if we were constantly trying to "keep up with the Joneses"; constantly trying to play catch up on housework and quality time with our little family unit. We tried to slow down without making any drastic career changes or non-mainstream schooling choices.  We worried a little too relentlessly about how we would be perceived by others.  Worried about our ability to pursue this lifestyle, about our ability to perform up to the expectations of ourselves and others; throwing out excuses without ever seriously considering it.   

After a while we gave in and considered the idea of becoming a homeschooling family.  Prior to that decision, we had already discussed becoming a one income family.  What would that look like, what sacrifices would we need to make, what are the pros and cons, how long before we would be able to safely and comfortably make that leap?  In case you were wondering, the “what would that look like” became very appealing, the pros won out by a long shot and financial sacrifices that do need to be made seem a small price to pay.  Now, after very careful discernment, planning, prayer, and budgeting discipline (tracking everything and aggressively working toward our goals) over the past years we are finally at a point where we are comfortable with our decision to become a one income homeschooling family.

Insert brief moments of doubt balanced with  moments of excitement and anticipation for what our future holds. 

Educational preferences are different for everyone. Situations are different for everyone. School can be an amazing place too.  We are not discrediting it for others at all, or for us, or forever.  There are so many educators we know, respect and cherish as people.  We can’t thank them enough for all that they do, continue to do, and have done for children. It’s a sacrifice and a calling for them. We admire how they pour their time and energy into caring for and teaching children.  We are grateful to live in a place where we have the freedom to choose the educational path that best fits individual families.

If you are curious about something in regards to our decision to homeschool, please ask.  We welcome sincere and respectful questions!  (It sure beats that awkward smile that people keep giving us because they just don’t know how to react or what to say or because we are kind of freaking them out a little…but don't worry; we get it, really!  We’ve been there, done that too.)

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"Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole (family).  My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.  Making a living is not the same thing as making a life.”    ~Maya Angelou

-  The world is our classroom! Shedd Aquarium, Chicago, IL  -