Homeschooling Adventures!

There's a whole bunch of  new people doing virtual school at home now.  I just want to encourage you all that you can do this!  We homeschooled all three of our kids for many many years.  Two of them all they way through and one all but about 2 years.  

We used every type of curriculum over the years.  From structured, to workbooks, to computer classes, to unit studies, to unschooling.

First of all, every kid is different.  That is the first thing that I learned homeschooling!  Everyone does not learn like me!  Some of my kids liked structure, some liked more freedom.  Some needed a desk, some needed to be outside. Some liked to do the pages in order, some liked to randomly open the book and do that page! 

Our homeschooling definitely evolved over the years. At first, all I knew to do was what I knew as "school" at home.  I tried to recreate it.  That didn't go over so well.  Then I realized we had the freedom to do so much more at home!  We could learn here or there!  We could learn everywhere!

We utilized the library, and games, and outside, and loads of free play.  Some of the best learning was random questions as we were flying kites at the park.

Now I know, you all doing the "virtual learning" at home won't have quite as much freedom.  But take this time to get to know your kids.  How do they learn?  Visual, auditory, tactile?  By rote, by memorizing? By singing?   Take this time to get to know yourself!  How's your patience?  How's your attitude? Take this time to listen to what they are learning.  Listen to what's going on in the classroom.

And really, it might be easier just to homeschool yourself! Ha!  I know it's not for everyone, but you'd be surprised what you are capable of!

My biggest thing is you don't have to make sure they know "everything"!  You don't have to stuff every fact into their head before they are 18.  But give them a love of learning.  Teach them how to learn.  How to find the answers.  Find what their passion is and hone in on that! 

Take this time to get to know yourself and build that relationship with your kids.  

It truly is a blessing!

45 things you might not know about me

So my birthday is coming up!!! AGHHH!!!  I will be 45 years old!  I'm not sure how this happened..but here I am.  

So in celebration of this new year!  Here's 45 things you might not know about me!

1. I'm an introvert.
2. I love love love to travel!
3. I don't mind doing things by myself, in fact I rather enjoy it.
4. I'm working on memorizing Philippians.  I've got the first 2 chapters down!
5. I've never had an issue with weight until the last 5 years or so, but I'm working on losing it now!
6. I have opinions about stuff and it comes across sometimes as bossy, stubborn, mean.  I don't intend to be those things though.
7.  I love trivia and love to learn new things.
8.  I don't know much about pop culture though.
9. I love to listen to Christian music, hymns and new stuff, but I also like classical and 40s.
10.  I would love for 40s fashion to come back!  Hats! and Men in hats!
11. I only just recently started in the work force. (about the last 5 years) I was a stay at home mom for years and years (which I loved).
12.  Our biggest regret was not having more kids.
13. I've only worn skirts now for about 10 years.
14. I've been to a lot of places in Europe and would love to live there someday!
15. My favorite flower is the daisy.
16. My favorite day: sitting on the porch, watching a thunderstorm, reading a book and drinking coffee.
17. Or tea! I have a HUGE collection of tea!
18. I really hate wearing my heart on my sleeve.
19.  I can tend to be an Eeyore.
20. We've moved about 14 times in our 27 years of marriage and lived in 4 states!
21. I love to read!  and when I'm in the reading mood -read about a book a week.
22. Have been doing a High Fat/Low Carb diet for about 8 months now and I love it! No going back!
23.  We've been taking a cruise every year with a group of friends of ours going on about 3 years now!
24. It's hard for me to apologize because I think I'm usually right.  Working on that.
25. I'm married to my best friend and when he's gone I'm lonely.
26. I love our electric bicycles that we got!
27. Am so excited that we've downsized so much!  living in a 750 square foot apartment is one of the best things we've done.
28. I haven't been to the dentist or doctor in I can't remember how long ago.
29. I prefer to always wear flats..but occasionally I'll wear a wedge.
30. I absolutely love my relationship with my grown kids!  They are a joy!
31. I've worn glasses since I was about 18. I recently bought contacts but haven't worn them much because my glasses are my security blanket and I feel naked without them!
32. Never thought I'd switch to an e-reader for books but now it's all I read.
33. My medicine cabinet at home is mostly essential oils.
34. I've never been to Las Vegas.
35. If there's a tree that looks good to climb -you'll probably see me up in it!
36. I've read through the Bible every year for so many years now I can't remember how many!
37. Favorite color-pink! (It was my wedding color!)
38. Can read music and used to play the violin and can play some piano.
39. Clean everything in sight when I'm angry or upset.
40. Love to have the blinds closed and lights down low at home.
41. Hate cooking and grocery shopping.
42. Back before the internet, I used to cut articles out of magazines and I had a whole file cabinet with different files for different topics.
43. Never thought I'd homeschool, but ended up homeschooling for 15 years!
44. Have a hard time making friends.
45. Put my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ when I was 13 years old at my grandma's church during a revival.

Well, there you have it!  Just a few things about me! :)

Spring has Sprung!

Just when the winter is about to crawl under my skin and get really annoying..there's a glimmer of spring!  The next season is just around the corner!

I can feel it in the air and see it in the trees!
The pear trees are blooming!
The flowers are starting to sprout!
The birds are chirping!
I love spring time.
It's a time of renewal and refreshing.

There's so many changes going on right now.  Spring feels like it's opening the door to a new chapter in my life.  I love the seasons changing! It gets my creative juices flowing!

One of the things I used to love doing with the kids was writing poems.  One of my favorite memories of homeschooling was when it was a beautiful day outside and we all packed up a picnic lunch and went to the park.  We flew kites and wrote haikus.  Haikus are so fun to write! If you don't know anything about them check them out !  Maybe you will be inspired to write a few poems too!

Here's a few I've written this morning:

The sun is awake

Coming up into the sky

Staying up later

Birds singing today

Up in the trees so pretty

I just saw a butterfly!

Flowers colorful

Trees blooming making me sneeze

Spring is happening!

Winter goes to sleep

Closing its eyes grudgingly

Back under the Earth

It's time for hooping

Once again barefoot with friends

It's my circle time!

So as we pack away the winter coats and scarves and enjoy the sunshine once again, be inspired to be creative and learn something new!  Do something adventurous!  Enjoy Life!

What really matters

I know this is going to be a bit controversial. But there's something that just bugs me to no end.

Homeschoolers.

Not necessarily the kids.  But the parents.  I want you to know where I'm coming from.  We homeschooled our 2 oldest the whole time, and our youngest one most of the way.

Why do the parents who have taken their kids out of school, or never had them in there to begin with, want to do everything at home the exact way they do it at school?

Don't they realize the freedom there is in homeschooling?  We don't have to do anything like they do in the public school!  We can tailor everything to each individual.  If one of our kids excels at math then BOOM -- math of all kinds.  We don't have to stay in the box of 1st grade math, 9th grade math etc.  Let the child lead. If the kid doesn't like workbooks, then ditch 'em!  Find out what the child's learning style is and use that!  Do they learn by hearing, doing, writing, touching stuff? Use that!  My daughter walked circles around the table while we were doing math stuff...drove me crazy!  I asked her to sit down and she said "Mom, if I sit down, I can't think!"  Who knew?  So I let her walk around and get up and down all the time.  It helped her concentrate more.  My way of "doing school" was to do page 1, then page 2, then ...stand back...page 3!  Her way of doing school was open the book and look through it and see what pages looked exciting and then do those!  What??  But to her it worked well.  It kept her interest.  And if I'd known more back then, I would ditch the books entirely! We'd use real life situations and go to the library and play games to learn stuff.

That brings me to the part that drives me crazy.

Most people do this when their kids are little because they enjoy playing and learning.  But when their homeschooled kids get to be in "high school"  they automatically shift to "do everything like the public school" mode.  High school credits, papers, graduation at 18 years old etc.   Why not continue the train of thought that the learning can be tailored to the individual?  Are they ready to be "done" when they are 15? Then be done! Just because I'm "done" with school doesn't mean I quit learning.  Do they really need to have credits? Do they really need to learn chemistry or calculus?  Maybe..it depends on what they will be going into.

There is freedom, folks!  That's why we bring our kids home!  Don't worry about them keeping up with their "grade level" (what is that anyway--do all 30 year olds know the same information?)

Teach them to love learning!  Teach them to learn how to learn!  Teach them to be FREE!

Homeschooling Journey

It's hard to believe we aren't homeschooling any kids any more. We homeschooled for over 15 years! I still get people asking me questions about it and I'm always happy to share our experience! God has taught me so much about myself through the journey of homeschooling! So if you are just starting out homeschooling or have homeschooled a while and need a fresh perspective..here's what I would say to you.

First of all let me say that there are as many ways to homeschool as there are people that are homeschooling! Everyone does it differently. There is not "one" way to do it. Every child is different and every learning style is different.

I would also advise not to spend a lot of money at first. Try several things. See which things work and which things don't. If it isn't working then don't use it. There is no use in banging your head against the wall every day just to finish some books! Use the library as much as possible! You also don't have to do "school" at home.

You can do it however you want to during the day. Some days it's playing at the park and going to the zoo. Other days it's writing stories together and baking cookies. Some days it's playing monopoly and learning to make change. Some days it's teaching them to drive and letting them figure out how to read a map. Some days it's building a computer out of other broken computers. Those are the good days. The bad days are not so fun to report.. It's yelling and screaming to "finish your work". It's crying that the house looks like trash and nobody cares. It's disciplining the whole day because we need to work on character and listening. The bad days are yucky but it's part of learning and growing for both the kids and myself.

It's also not about cramming their heads full of knowledge. I liked to teach my kids to love learning. I still love to learn myself to this day! Just because you finish school doesn't mean you stop learning. I liked to teach my kids to learn how to learn. How to find out the things they were interested in.

The other great part about homeschooling is you can teach them Eternal things. Things that really matter-- Bible verses, Bible stories, stories of great heroes in the Faith, stories of great missionaries!

The thing I learned most the 15+ years of homeschooling my kids was this... 
I learned who I was. I learned how I taught, what I expected, how much patience I had or didn't have, I learned that I could change and grow and learn too.

So all that being said... here's some links of several different "schools" of thought.

First of all a good network of people is a must!

Sacc Home School Co-op  This is the homeschool co-op that we belonged to for many years. Lots of great knowledge in this group. Call early..there is usually a waiting list to get in!

The Texas law on homeschooling

http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/Texas.pdf

It's pretty easy to homeschool in Texas!

Curriculums:

Several friends I have use http://www.sonlight.com/ especially first starting out

Abeka is a big one..it can be expensive http://www.abeka.com/?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

Lots of people I know use this for math http://www.mathusee.com/

We used the Switched on Schoolhouse for a while (computer based) They have other books too http://www.aophomeschooling.com/

With the internet there may not even be a need to buy a curriculum! There's lots of sites available for printing worksheets, lessons etc. Just google free homeschool stuff. Here's a great site we used for a while.. http://www.everythinghomeschooling.com/

Different thoughts on homeschooling:

http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/methods/Methods.htm

Unschooling:

http://www.unschooling.com/

What is Unschooling?

There's tons of info here:

http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/

Arlington Homeschool book fair in the spring

But don't let all this overwhelm you!  

You don't have to know everything at once!  Just pray and ask God for guidance and peace, then get in the boat and enjoy this wonderful ride!

Hopefully this will get you started on your journey! 

 There's lots to take in! 

Pray about everything and God will direct you!

Proverbs 3:5-6 

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;

 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. "