We are still going strong. We ALL have a major case of cabin fever and we are ALL irritable. I am trying to get the kids to the park as often as I can, even if we can only stand to be outside for 15-30 minutes at a time. The kids always seem to be in a better mood after we have been outdoors for awhile. I cannot wait for spring when we can do PE activities outside, spend our lunch breaks at the park, and take walks around the neighborhood.
The kids had an amazing week! I noticed while doing some math lessons that the boys were having trouble with odd/even. I decided we needed to backstep a little bit and revisit this concept. I don't know if they were absent from school when this was taught last year, or if they just didn't grasp the lesson at that time but they just didn't "get it". We did some fun Odd/Even activities, did a couple work sheets, and did a few lessons from our Time4Learning website. It was so amazing to see it click with them, and when they did their tests at the end of the unit, they BOTH answered 15 questions and got them ALL right! 100% My favorite part about homeschooling so far is watching the boys learn something that they have struggled with in the past. You can actually see the pride in their faces, and just for a few fleeting moments you can see them ENJOYING schooling!
As much as I LOOOOOVE homeschooling, with LOVE being said SO loudly, I am going to touch on the not-so-lovely moments as well. When I first started reading about homeschooling, I would read about kids who were brilliant. They could name off every state capital, they could do complicated math problems in their heads, and they belonged to music clubs, book clubs, arts and crafts clubs. These kids could speak 5 languages, and they were eager learners. This is SO not the way things are going for us! LOL My kids are just learning to read a map, we are having to reteach the boys math in a way that they can understand (instead of the common core way), and the last thing my kids want to do is join any kind of club! Most days we roll out of bed at 10 a.m and get started with school by 11:00. We do school until well after dinner time. We barely have time to cover our main subjects let alone tackle another language. My house gets cleaned after the boys get to bed which means I do not get to bed until well after 2:00 am. The laundry piles up and gets done in short bursts when my husband is home from the road to help. I'm not complaining........NOT AT ALL......I LOVE the way things are going.....I just wonder, are we the ONLY homeschooling family that works like this? I see all of these homeschool blogs and these women have their crap together! BIG beautiful school rooms, perfectly organized, well dressed kids, pictures of every activity they do, homemade meals. Here I am with my house that looks like half daycare/half school, my kids wear their pajamas all day, and the grandbaby I babysit during the day is crawling around in the background throwing toys all over my house, and I dare not take pictures of our activities unless I crop out the toys, arts and craft supplies, and dirty dishes in the background! HOW DO THESE WOMEN DO IT?
One of these days, when I actually have a minute to spare, I might actually go through Facebook and find a few Homeschool pages to follow, just to see if there are ANY families like ours out there!
To be continued................
Sick Day :(
What we do during breaks on cold days!
Tot Time. I, of course, spend all day playing with the baby while doing schoolwork with the boys. But for about 5-10 minutes a day we try to do Tot Time. This is one on one time with just Ricky and I when we do an activity that is geared toward learning. Today we read about animals and the sounds they make. :)
We do most of our work either at our computer station in the living room or at the kitchen table.
Art is very important in our house. Our kids are hands on learners and they really enjoy creating art projects while listening to Mom teach. We do a LOT of Art during our homeschool year!
We go to the park as much as we can. We don't have very many days that are warm enough to get outside, but we take every chance we get. Running laps around the park is a perfect way to get our P.E hours in!
Jacob is beginning to read for pleasure! Just last year getting him to read was like pulling teeth. Look at this smile as he gets ready to read a book to me, without being asked to! AFTER SCHOOL HOURS!
No School day would be complete without our youngest learner, my grandson Ricky.
We do not take snow days, in fact, those are the best days to stay at home in our pajamas learning! We save our skip days for nice days when we can go to the beach or public pool!
Needless to say, we are enjoying ourselves!
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