Rigid...

This is our first week of rigid schedule. We dropped little K off at preschool (yes, I cried) then M, baby K and I went to the nearby library for math, research, and playtime. I have learned so much about my kids, especially my son, M, these past couple weeks. I thought I knew everything about him. I took so much pride in being so in tune with my kids. Psh! That was a nice daydream! Okay, not totally, but seriously, I thought I had it all figured out. I can plainly see why Mr M was struggling in school. I have to keep things so fast paced and REALLY limit distractions. He has gone through 2 chapters in math in just a few days. He's read countless books and read his research out of the encyclopedia's himself. He reads so dang fast! But watching him write a sentence is unbearable. He has the hardest time focusing long enough to finish without having the sentence repeated to him. We have wondered about and done countless hours of ADHD research over the last 4 years. I have little doubt that M struggles with it. We have always been able to keep it pretty well maintained with diet, routine and physical activity. But now I see a different side to it. A side that breaks my heart as a mom. No wonder he was "spacing out" and not following directions at school. And instead of doing something to really help him, I let him get yellows and reds for not focusing. Dangit. He wants to complete his work and really tries. I watch him get so frustrated because he can't keep his mind on his work. I always knew it was hard at home but I thought that was because he's been at school all day and was tired and wanting to be a kid. Dangit. Being a mom is hard!!!

I can do this.

I started doubting myself today after watching Mason write out his research. I started thinking maybe I wasn't up for this task. Then I remembered that he will still have this struggle at school, but a teacher can't help him. Oh yeah. I am doing the right thing. Whew. Does anyone else ever get that? Man. This raising kids is tricky business. On the bright side, I have watched both M and K develop social skills that were not being developed at school. M doesn't do well in large groups, especially on the playground. HSing has made it possible for him to have playtime on a smaller scale and he now he is beginning to thrive! I still have to push him to stick with the other kids because he will stay on the same game alllllllllllll day while the others his age change more frequently. He gets it though. This way he feels like he has a choice, play my game even when I'm alone, or follow my friends and play something new together. At school he just felt left out.

All in all, I am loving our new life. It's been fun and adventurous, just how we like it! We are all happier. I am so grateful for all of the resources us HS families have these days! We have been at some activity every day this week! There is so much support. And knowledge! Us parents can just feed off each other and it's great.

Why I chose to homeschool this year

Why? I get the crazy looks and the stupid questions. I didn't tell anyone we were homeschooling for a long time because I SO did not want to hear the judgements. What does it matter anyway? I am a mom, doing my best, trying to help my children succeed just like every other (mostly) mom out there. So why does anyone care? And who are they to tell me what is best for the kids that I have been with 24/7 from day one?

To be honest, I used to think homeschoolers were weird and crazy too.

So I have decided that I don't care anymore. I have come to realize that people will judge either way. Now that I homeschool I get well meaning folks on this end judging me because I am taking my daughter to PK and because I am still supportive of public, private, and charter schooling. Like I have said before, I just want every child to succeed. It just doesn't happen the same way for everyone. M likes personal tutoring, K loves the classroom. Baby A likes to chew on the mouse pad. They are all just so different.

I just want to make sure to point out that I am SOOOO not against public, private, or charter school systems! I am sad about some things that go on but I firmly believe that all systems have to succeed for our society to succeed. We should all be doing what we can to ensure that our children our learning successfully AND supporting others doing the same thing for their children. We're all just families trying to do our best. Stop criticizing and start supporting (oops, soap box...) :)

I decided to homeschool for a lot of different reasons, number one being that I just never felt good about taking M to school. There wasn't one day in kindergarten or first grade that I felt good dropping him off. I always felt like I was doing the wrong thing. However, M excelled in kindergarten. He learns so dang quickly. Reading came naturally as well as math. So I told myself that despite my gut, this was right. Then came first grade. M and I both really liked his teacher. She was so sweet and good with the kids but my gut just kept gnawing away at me until I was getting anxious when leaving M at school. I felt like some crazy lady though. I felt like I must just be paranoid. I felt like even though I had been wanting to homeschool from the start, everyone would think I was weird and stupid. Who wants an overly energetic boy at home all day, right? Well, me. That's who. Anyway, the March of first grade came in with a bang. Like a lion, for real. M started getting into all kinds of trouble at school. He was spacing out, getting bored, talking to his classmates, coming home on yellow or red every day, even though he had been on green every day since September. He was becoming a "yellow" kid to the teacher and to himself. He was coming home angry and depressed everyday, walking to the car with slumped shoulders, dragging his backpack behind him. He lost interest in reading and math, both things he had loved previously. I started volunteering even more in class and saw a few things, kids were being mean, Teacher wasn't realizing it, and Teacher had 22 other students to cater to, making it impossible to cater to my speedy learner, or any other child who was "different". Mr M picks things up super fast. He HATES repetitive work. So when M felt he understood what was going on he would start to tune the rest out. His teacher sat at her desk at the back of the classroom and taught from her Ipad, projecting lessons onto the board at the front of the room. M needs to connect with people so unless he was sitting right next to Teacher, he had a hard time connecting, focusing, and learning. He'd get bored and start talking to or bugging the kids around him, getting him into trouble. The kids started excluding him and being mean when M acted like he was saddened by their actions. I tried to boost his confidence and help him understand that he couldn't let them see him upset, but Mr M is the most tender hearted little boy. He can't even sit through a Disney movie without burrowing his head in a blanket and covering his ears. He's so sweet and never wants to hurt anyone. He's the one on playgroud looking for those who don't have friends.

I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't drive home hiding tears behind my sunglasses after watching him shuffle his feet and slumped shoulders to the car. I couldn't hear another story about how "so and so" told him he wasn't good at a game and that he couldn't play. I couldn't volunteer in a classroom where I was helping children memorize the DIBELS  practice tests so that their scores wouldn't hold the class back (thank you No Child Left Behind). I just couldn't ignore my gut any longer. I kept M home for a week. Life was amazing. We finished all of this classwork, homework, and our own little projects in just 4 hours everyday. M was happy and loving, even with his pesky little sister :) Life was so good again. Things were right.

M finished first grade and that was it! We started a soft routine of school at home starting in June. It went well and my confidence in myself and our ability grew. Then a magical thing happened. My husband hopped on board our little crazy-train! I was free!

We have been homeschooling (real homeschooling) for 2 weeks now and it's been the best time. I have never, ever, felt so good about a decision I've made regarding my children. Seriously! It's been so fun. M goes to a charter school to participate in elective classes. This year he will have Animal Encounters, Lego Robotics, and Engineering. He LOVES his classes and teachers. I felt so good at the school! For the first time EVVVVER he leaves school so excited that he can't stop talking about it! That has honestly never happened. I could never get him to tell me what he learned/did at school. We hold classes outside, we go on outings, we learn what my kids are really interested in, and best of all, we spend time together! I love it! We also are part of a co-op I started and a Lego club. We get to explore, adventure, run and play anytime we want! Together! And yes, M and K are getting plenty of social interaction. The opportunities in the homeschool community are so many that it can be overwhelming!

So this is a long version of my homeschooling story! I hope it may help other families who may find themselves in similar circumstances. Please feel free to ask questions and/or leave me comments!

Dinos!

We jumped a little ahead with our curriculum today. We have had school outside lately and this morning I thought, "why not the Dinosaur Museum"? So we loaded up and headed to Thanksgiving Point for a visit. One the way there we listened to the audio version of Magic Tree House, Dinos Before Dark. We have already read this one so I thought that this was a great way to get it fresh in our minds. M will be starting his research in Sept based on this book so the Museum was a great way to kick start that! We had a lot of fun! We took a break at lunch time and ate outside. Afterward we did a quick little writing (about dinos) and math session before going back inside. M & K have great imaginations and were pretending to be explorers at one point. Oh man, I love those kiddos! It was the perfect way to have a school day!

I love homeschooling!!

Week 1...success!

This is has been an awesome week. We were looking at using Harmony or DaVinci as a tool and so I let Mr M try both. They were equally amazing! I have honestly never felt so good about my child's education. Every single day I dropped him off for K and 1st gr I would feel so anxious about it. It never felt right. There were days that I felt so bad and anxious about it that I would run home and get books and movies for the other kiddos and sit at the school. All day. Crazy, I know, but I just never felt right about what was going on at school, and I am a paranoid freak who was always scared that some crazy was going to walk in and shoot the place up. I am SO not against the public, charter, or private systems. In fact, I still do what I can to help our local public school succeed, even though we have never attended there. I believe that if our public school system doesn't succeed, our society can't succeed. We are educating the minds of future America!

Anyway, long little soap box there....for specific reasons, I just didn't feel good about M at school. My daughter is a different story. She thrives in classroom settings. I will always be looking for ways to have them at the same location while giving them the type of education and setting that works best for them as individuals. And I think I have chosen the right program for us! I can't wait to see how this year goes! Even as I sit here with a baby on my lap, Baby Einstein playing on my 2nd screen, surrounded by paperwork for our home and my little (but big) job, I am so, so excited! And that is such an amazing feeling!!!

I have also planned most of our at home lessons. Woohoo for being organized and excited about teaching my kids! So it goes like this....

Miss K will be going to PK and using upstart, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and Family Math at home.
Mr M will be taking 3 awesome classes outside of our home. At home his curriculum is:
*Math>Math-U-See
*LA/Sept>Comparing different versions of fairy tales. Reading the Magic Tree House series and doing research projects on their main topics (ie dinos, mummies, etc). Doing the research will help him learn to use a table of contents and glossary, as well as helping him learn to use the web. He will be doing an art project and writing a very short report that will either be opinion or informative styles.
*Science>We will look at cells under a microscope, learn basic bones and muscle groups, and talk about nutrition (a topic my kids have grown up with :) ). We will be doing some surveys and making different types of graphs to show data.
*Social Studies>We'll be studying the US map and learning directions and states. We will also make personal time lines and comparing our lives to the lives of others, something I do with my kids on a regular basis, especially around birthdays and Christmas. I like to remind my kiddos our blessed we are and how much we really have. It works great because they are always grateful for what they get. We can focus on experiences for than presents. They never expect a lot of presents and love to give to others. It's great! :)
We will work art projects in with this like photography, painting, and poetry.
*Character Building>We will be reading different Berenstein Bear books and focusing on the values taught in the books. Seriously, if adults read these books the world would be a better place! :) We will be doing a craft with each book and little things to remind them throughout the week. Later in the year (probably Nov) we will start the 7 Habits for Highly Effective Families. If you haven't read this book YOU MUST! It has such great skills for communicating within a family. Seriously, every problem I have had with my kids has had an answer in this book. It's not even a parenting book but it has given us tools to succeed as a family. I ca not say enough good about it!
*We won't be doing much for PE since we are already pretty active. My kids love to go for walks, jogs, bike rides, hikes, and mtn bike rides.

My kids will be doing everything but Math together. It's going to be such a fun year!

The Very Beginning!

Wow! I am doing it! I am starting a new chapter.....I'm HOMESCHOOLING! WHAT?!?! I feel crazy and so excited at the same time. I am more excited about this than I have been about anything in a long time. I can. not. wait. I feel a huge need to get more organized so I have been doing it one room at a time. Cleaning, clearing, and making everything more functional. I feel like so many every day tasks take too long, and having a baby that NEVER (and by never I really mean never) sleeps doesn't help. So today I started timing my tasks. For example, it took me just SIX minutes to change out a load of laundry and fold, hang up, and put away the dry load. I was amazed. My nightly wipe down of the bathrooms took me just 1.5 minutes, for BOTH bathrooms! I timed everything and realized that if I don't check my photo FB and IG pages every quiet minute (okay, I don't really do that...but whatever I do that takes me away from housework...), I really can accomplish more. I was running all day yesterday and today both BUT I had at least an hour of playtime with my kids both days and I accomplished everything on my list! That hasn't happened since Baby A was 2 weeks old! I feel like I can take on this new life challenge! And I am so excited!

So the great news for us is that, while school is beginning, summer isn't ending...yet. We still have so many adventures and so much time to do them! Since fall is coming we will be hiking a lot more. Spring and fall are our big hiking seasons. But we have had a fun summer. So far we have:

Ridden an elephant (woo-hoo! However, it was not in India or Thailand).
Had snakes, including a Boa, wrapped all around us.
Been to a demolition derby.
Mtn biked to a remote site and camped in the middle of bear county (I packed bear spray and stayed awake with it in hand until 5 am).
Hiked. A lot.
Mtn biked, not as much as I would have liked.
Spontaneously drove to Bear Lake for 3 hrs of fun....

Hmmm...I know I'm missing stuff. Anyway, it's been a great summer :)

I am going to be recording our lives on HERE for a while. I want to not only have a record of what life is like during this change, but be able to share it with other families who may be wanting to take up this new lifestyle as well! So for those who don't know me...HI! I'm Brooke. I am a mom to 3 absolutely beautiful, amazing, life changing kiddos. We LOVE adventure and have a great passion for life. Feel free to follow us on this new adventurous journey! :)