School Closing

Dear students, school is closed today to prepare for the Hurricane!

Our first day/or everything started out wrong!

Yeah, well sometimes things go wrong in homeschooling. :) I just kept thinking to myself-thank goodness I only have two students and not fifteen!

So I got up early, made breakfast, the animals were fed, teeth were brushed...pretty good right? 9:00 am rolls around and it is time to get ready for school which starts at 9:30. I went to turn on the computer...and nothing. Oh. My. Gosh! The computer was dead! Said computer has all the assignments, spelling words, is the cd player for our Latin lesson, typing practice and my life line for resources and information.

I could not believe it, all the preparations I'd done to get school started and it was going down the drain already. Rob came home and thankfully got here on time, I know he wanted to run away when I started whining and tearing up about how the first day of school was ruined. He was calm and called Best Buy and found out our warranty was still good! Yeah hubby!

I tried to remember the schedule as best I could and went ahead and started. Nicko was in for quite a surprise since 1st grade lasts quite a bit longer than kindergarten. He mostly unschooled so the book work and length of projects he was not prepared for, poor guy. He made it through though and I am very proud of how well he did on his reading lessons.

Matteo was anxious to get started this morning and dove right in. His work is more challenging as a 6th grader and we added Latin this year but he told me he really enjoyed his day.

Rob got home around 12:oo with the fixed pc, just in time for the boys to trade off on music and typing practice. Nicko took to the piano lessons very well, and on Matteo's turn he learned a song within the first 20 min.

The toddlers all did well today and played with paper and crayons, play dough and watched tv some.

So after a really bad start on my part the day ended up being productive after all. I am really pleased at our start to the new school year!

Oh, no pictures. I can't find the camera usb cord. :) lol

Gulp...we start tomorrow.

I THINK I am ready. We had a great summer off and now it is time to hit the books. I am a little nervous because this year we do not have a school room. We needed the room for the girls so no chalk board, no bulletin boards which I am a little bummed about.

My oldest really likes a school setting, he loved his desk so I am hoping he will be okay with having school at the kitchen table for a while. I made a great fin on a local garage sale site and found these great cabinets from ikea that have three top cabinets a large drawer and a large bottom cabinet. It is where we are storing our books and supplies this year.

A great planning tool for me this year is Homeschool Tracker. I use the FREE basic edition. It keeps track of grades, assignments, field trips, has a journal and much more!

I will blog tomorrow night to update how our first day went, with pictures of course. :)

New purchase

I get so excited when I get to buy new material. Today I purchased Latina Christiana. I love that it comes with a cd for pronunciation aid, and that it is designed for teachers who do not have a background in Latin.

I am going to use this for my 11 year old and have my 6 year old listen in. The site link above also has some links to flashcards, worksheets and online games to learn Latin.

I am getting really anxious for school to start but I promised the kids we would have a long break for the summer. lol

In the beginning

I thought I would begin this blog with the story of how our adventure in homeschooling began.

I first looked into homeschooling out of fear.

When my oldest son was three I began doing pre-school at home with him. He was very advanced and loved to learn. He learned to read as soon as he turned four so education came up very quickly in our household. Private school was the only alternative that came to mind though.

While researching options for our area September 11th happened. I was pregnant with our second child and boy were my mother's instincts on hyper-drive. I watched as frantic parents tried to reach their children in NYC and thought about the horror of trying to reach my children in case of a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. I mentioned my fear on a parenting message board and a huge response was that I should homeschool.

To a paranoid mom this sounded like the perfect solution. I began researching and found that the laws here in Texas were some of the best at protecting homeschooler's rights. My husband however was not on board. Socialization was his biggest problem with homeschooling. At the time I was not aware there were support groups and play groups for homeschoolers so I gave in and we sent our oldest off to private school Kindergarten.

Matt did well in school but always complained he was bored. He knew the material and often finished well ahead of time. He would often sit with his head down while waiting for the other's to finish. Almost four months into school my husband had an accident at work, losing a portion of one of his fingers. He had to have surgery and was out of work for a couple of weeks. His paycheck became very low and we could not afford private school.

My husband agreed that homeschooling was an option since compulsory age was six years old or 1st grade. Matt flourished with homeschooling and did not miss the interactions with the other children at school. He was happy to add science into his schooling and loved that he was home where he wanted to be.

During the summer before 1st grade though, I began to have doubts. Even though I still had some of those earlier fears of not reaching my child in a disaster-my fears were more towards his education. I kept thinking I might be doing the wrong thing by homeschooling. How could I homeschool when I did not have a teaching degree? What if he fell behind? What if he could not get into college? What if he was socially behind by not being around other children in a school setting? These fears outweighed everything and we again looked into private schools.

We found a school we liked and Matt was off to 1st grade. He very much liked his teacher, loved his classmates, but again was bored in school. Everyday Matt would ask to homeschool. He was not bullied, he made good grades, he loved the social aspect of his school-but still wanted to come home. I felt so guilty that I had done something to influence him to not want to go to school. I would try to have positive talks with him every morning and expel on the virtues of his school.

Nothing worked. He wanted to come home.

My husband and I made him stick it out and promised him we would consider homeschooling during the summer. Truthfully though I had already made up my mind. My child wanted to homeschool, and I wanted to homeschool him. It made sense. My husband was not thrilled with my decision but compromised with letting us try for the 2nd grade.

2nd grade was pure bliss! I was happy, Matt was happy and Matt's little brother Nicko was happy to have his brother home. My husband worked nights at this time and quickly saw how much our quality of life as a family had improved. No more stress getting off to school in the morning. We ate breakfast as a family and my husband was able to spend real quality time with Matt who he'd missed dearly because of school and work schedules.

Homeschooling was now our official choice for education. Our only problem was that Matt was now extremely social and wanted to play group games with other children. We had three boys by now but they were all four years a part. Matt wanted to play with children his own age.

Thus began our adventure in forming a homeschool group. We did have a large Christian group in our area, but being a Christian Universalist we did not fit in. So I formed an inclusive group. It took a year and a half to build the group up but once it did we saw how much a support group was important to our well being.

How I wish I had, had a homeschool support group from the beginning. The guidance and reassurance from other parents on this journey can be vital. Without the encouragement of a group I know there would be times I would have pulled my hair out in frustration.

Although our homeschooling began out of fear there our now so many other reasons why we continue to homeschool. I use a variety of methods and curriculum. I love that we can change what we want, when we want.

We usually school through the summer but we have added two baby girls to our family who we have custody of. We are taking a break and I am so excited to begin planning our school year for this coming September. Matt will be entering 6th grade and this year is the first year I will grade him on his work. He is excited about this and looking forward to new books and lessons. Nicko is entering 1st grade and is also excited about beginning school again. I have three toddlers this year so cross your fingers that I can do this! lol

Traci