Yes, we hit a point in December when I think we just wanted to sleep through the winter. Yes, we reached a time in the Spring when I thought no one would ever settle down long enough to finish the last 8th of their books they had left. But now that it’s over? It was a blur! A good blur. Definitely a blur we plan to repeat next year, and honestly, every year, until we feel we’re being led in another direction . . .  but a blur nonetheless!

Congratulations classes of 2018, 2020, and 2022 . . . I could not be a prouder Mommy or teacher if I tried. Can’t wait to kick-off our second annual “not-back-to-school” week in August for the start of our 2012-13 school year.

Of course, we have a whole lotta summer before then!!!

With at least a half a dozen potential blogs swirling around in my head, I decided the only way to clear my thoughts is just to start typing. You see we’ve officially entered the “home stretch” as it’s known across all school circles. We have a mere 10 days of school left in our first year of homeschooling. How is that possible?

Last December, I saw a funny quote on Facebook  – 4 weeks before Christmas, someone posted: “I can’t believe it’s almost time to say, ‘I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas!’” – I laughed wryly and contemplated the few short weeks I had left to prepare for the holidays. I felt it did sneak up on me in an unprecedented way last year, no doubt because I was totally preoccupied with wrapping up our first semester of homeschooling.

Now I find myself in a similar boat.  A few weeks ago, I completed my planner for the school year and was astonished to find I only had 4 weeks to go. Shocked even. I mean, I knew where we were up to with our books (getting thinner, less shiny and more dog-eared daily), and I’d been faithfully counting our attendance online, but seriously?! 4 weeks???

The funniest thing to me, however, was how shocked the kids were when I told them! I was relieved it wasn’t just me – the time really did fly by since we began this endeavor with trepidation and obedience last August. Now, as I contemplate a “first-year wrap-up” blog, it’s actually kind of difficult because I’ve already mentally moved on into the 2012-13 school year. I thought I’d be crossing off days with a red sharpie (or carving tally marks into my nightstand?) by this point or booking myself in for a text-book detox on a desert island somewhere  . . . but instead I’m scouring the internet and homeschool blogs for the various curriculum ‘unicorns’ (by subject) I’ve daydreamed about since  February! Yes, the elusive, perfect way to teach, well . . . everything! You know, the ONLY way in the vast educational galaxy that will guarantee my children a spot at Harvard (or college of their choice), perfect SAT and ACT scores, ensure a lifetime of personal and professional happiness, and and and? What? It doesn’t exist?! Wash your mouth out! (I still have 3 months to figure that out on my own! Or attempt to avoid an internet coma trying . . .)

How did this happen? Well, it really began with the kids. After months of (them) asking, we recently confirmed that we would indeed be willing to take the plunge into another year of homeschooling in the coming year. This time, instead of tears, there were cheers and smiles. Expressing unanimous sentiments of jubilation, everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.  No one was ready to pull the plug on this adventure just yet. No one was ready to return to school rooms, early mornings, homework and textbooks they didn’t help select. I can’t blame them – I’m not ready either. I don’t know when I will be.

My husband saw me hunched over my excel curriculum spreadsheet the other night and commented,”You’re never going to be able to send them back, are you?” “No.” I mumbled, flatly without turning my head. The reality is that once you’ve crossed over into the land of taking control over EVERY minute detail of your children’s education, the idea of handing the reigns back to someone else is, well, pretty much unthinkable. It’s a bridge I can’t even contemplate crossing in reverse without some serious prayer and divine intervention – oh wait, that’s what we always said about homeschooling.

Point taken.

OK, so this bridge is not my Rubicon (for those not currently studying ancient history, this represents Caesar’s decision to cross the Rubicon River and head into potentially hostile Rome, knowing it was a decision he could never “undo”). I freely admit it will be a struggle for me if the Lord ever directs us to return the kids to a traditional school setting. However,  in the same way we have seen exponential blessing from our homeschooling journey,  I couldn’t shy away from a return trip; trusting that if He called us to it, the rewards would indeed be just as rich.

That said, I’m pretty excited I’m not making the return trip just yet. Instead, I’m wading in deeper. I’m turning my focus away from the previous 365 days of uncharted waters and setting a course for Gap prevention, skill-strengthening, life-lessons, play time, learning trips, pajama days, science experiments and read alouds. I’m planning to attend my first ever “Curriculum Expo” this summer,  the irony being,  I’ve been compiling my “wish list” since last fall; jotting down titles,  bookmarking publishing sites, researching new ways to teach things and making notes of what worked or what could be improved upon from this year.

Once again, the epic responsibility for their education weighs heavily on my shoulders, as I try to determine the “best” way to teach each child and nurture them to reach his/her full potential . . . But this year, instead of being overwhelmed by that, I’m grateful! I’m grateful because it means that *I* get to make those decisions! I get to choose the best way to teach my small boy his writing skills, or whether to introduce my 7th grader to formal logic, or how to incorporate our Medieval History studies into a cohesive composition program. It makes me positively giddy. Yes, heading into year 2 already feels different. I know my husband is grateful. The summer before ‘year 1′ was  . . . hmmm . . .  intense? (What a nice, euphemism!)

Now I need to step away from the internet, not from fear of failure, but from sheer overload of the “good ideas” flooding my inbox, my mailbox, and my blog roll . . . but not for long, because I’m sure I’ll need to update my spreadsheet again soon!

We all start out on our own journey with preconceived notions of what it will be like. Anyone who says otherwise is deluding themselves and attempting to make you feel guilty.  It’s true, and I did the same thing with homeschooling this year.

I had ideas of what I thought it would be like, and along the way I filtered in (or out) the plethora of comments I received from those around me. Things like,” Wow, you must be really patient! I could never do that!” Don’t feel bad if you said that, or thought it, I did too – and then I panicked, because I was going to have to face that one, along with,“Oh, when will you ever have any time to yourself? I need me time when the kids are in school!” Ummm, ok . . . panic again! Maybe I really didn’t hear from God and we’re not supposed to do this?

Then the other day I read THIS Q & A from one of my favorite sites, pondering whether people perceive Homeschooling to be an exclusive lifestyle, and I literally busted out laughing!  Are you kidding me?! Of all the things that came to mind ahead of time about this ride, exclusivity was NOT one of  them (although upon reading the many comments, I was enlightened!). Chasing the blog (rabbit) trail as I do, I found myself reading THIS gem, about homeschooling as a social movement – an idea that intrigued me.  I was intrigued because it actually resembled something of the decision process I feel like I fumbled through last summer as we kicked around this radical (to me), and exclusive (LOL) lifestyle.

Confession: We didn’t set out on this road from the beginning, which often (believe it or not) makes me feel as though I’m not a REAL homeschooling Mom. I know, labels, they’re the worst, right? Especially when we tie them to our self-esteem and then realize as we jump into the ocean of life that they’re actually the ankle-weights we never wanted. I believe I’ve done this to myself, but because I have several friends who homeschool (and knew that they wanted to ever since their babies were in pack n’ plays with mine) it’s amazing to me how little I actually knew about homeschooling! I understand now that it’s not because it’s a secret society but rather because I. Never. Asked. I was happy for them, but I didn’t dig any deeper because, well, why?

There, I said it. I was disinterested. I didn’t really want to know. It didn’t pertain to me at all. Even a little.

Until suddenly, it did.

(Back to panic mode!!!)

So last July,  we bounded headlong into this endeavor with google at the ready and several of my astonished friends for guidance. Thank GOD for them! I mean it – I have thanked Him for them every single day since we decided to do this. Our first year has been a miracle, not because I’m amazing (or supernaturally patient or have the perfect curriculum etc), but because I had friends who were willing to pour out their years of advice into my empty homeschooling vacuum and let me ask 1,001 questions about every minute detail of their lives . . . that I feel like I should already have known, but remember, I didn’t ask. *sigh* And because HE met me in my need – my many, MANY needs. Daily.

However, when I read things like the afore mentioned articles, I become acutely aware that I still feel a little like I’ve got “a foot in both camps” which I feel renders me anathema to both! No one wants the lukewarm homeschooling mom in their group, right? And the regular school peeps, well, I’m fringy and weird now, right? Yes, despite several encouraging, non-polarizing friends in both camps assuring me this is definitely not the case, I’ve determined that my reluctance to know anything about this road prior to setting foot on it (after a good 6 years traveling down the other one!), has left me wondering what my category really is? Am I a homeschooler? Am I the radical idealist from the social uprising article?

I’ll admit that I haven’t figured out where I truly belong, at least for now. I’m still in that itchy stage where it feels uncomfortable in both places. I feel like a deserter among my school friends, and I feel like a green newbie among my homeschooling buddies. I need to put this lifestyle through the wash a few times to see if I can make it more comfortable . . .  like my favorite set of sheets that I wash and dry the same day despite knowing that there are other comparable sets in my linen closet at the ready.

Thankfully, I don’t think it matters. It might bruise my ego to admit that nobody else really cares in which category I place myself, but it’s the truth! What matters is the passion with which we accomplish the various visions we have for our families.

With that in mind, perhaps my favorite quote from the article is this one:

Mother Teresa said it well: “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”

The ‘one’ lives in our homes, and through our choice to homeschool we act to nurture their dreams. Not because it’s easy, not because we have the patience to pull it off, but because our children are worth it.

So we rise to the challenge.

I think parents everywhere struggle with this, or more specifically, how best to accomplish this vision.

For some, it will result in them sending their kids to public school. For some, they will choose select parochial schools to reach this goal.

Others, like our family, will continue to fine-tune the path, to correct, readjust, reassess, determine anew each school year what the absolute BEST for our kids really looks like in the coming school days. Then, we rise to the challenge . . . and rest in the knowledge that He will cover all of our inadequacies, lack of patience and perfection with His unfailing grace!

Of course I don’t have any of the heart-shaped chocolate chip pancakes my husband served our kids this morning, because somehow he forgot about picture taking while trying to feed 3 kids a gourmet breakfast and make it out the door to work.  We’ll work on that for next year!

After breakfast came math (Boo!) but then . . . a gigantic co-op party at Pump-it-Up with 70 of our new closest friends from the homeschool group we joined last August.

There were homemade sandwiches (yummy)! OK, so I see I neglected to take a picture of the heart-shaped PBJs I made and the cucumber sandwiches too. But hey, you get to see my lovely lesson planner with the adorable sandwich picks I made (brainchild of my oldest who is equally disturbed by never quite knowing WHAT is in the sandwiches at group parties).

And lots and LOTS of sliding, jumping, running and falling!

Then there was a whole lotta loot . . .

It was a good day.

xoxoxo

When we first began homeschooling, and almost every day since, I have wished that I could canvass a broad cross-section of homeschooling families to see how they accomplish the epic goals I read about in their various blogs or discuss with them in person these lofty ideals I know we all share for our children. Everyone has different criteria for what constitutes a “successful” school year and varying methods on how to achieve this success. I don’t believe it’s a nod to my reality TV enjoyment as much as it is my desire to compile a REAL list of resources, tricks, tips, tools for our schooling experience. What better way than to incorporate the “tried and true” from all those BTDT (been there, done that) moms??

At some point over the past 6 months I have let go of my “butterfly paci” obsession and while I continue to wrest myself away from the mythical unicorn that IS the perfect curriculum, we have managed to settle into what I would now call “a routine;” a routine which is hopefully leading us to the conclusion of our first successful year of homeschooling 3 children. Now, because I’ve been so curious, and because it makes me think that maybe others are curious too, I’m blogging about how we spend our days – the regular ones, rather than the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-unscheduled-chaos ones!

Hopefully it will shed some light on the scheduling questions I’ve had several people ask me since we began this journey. Many are besic things like,”When do you ever find time to exercise or get your haircut?” Some are more comments of their own concerns like, “I don’t know how I could ever teach all of my kids that many subjects!”  The truth is – there is no perfect system except for the one that continues to grow and change along with you and your kids! I’m fortunate to have a supportive “principal” who is able to work from home on occasion so yes, I do get to go out for a cup of coffee with my Mom every now and again, or get my hair cut without taking the kids along too. However, we generally speaking run all our errands together, as a posse! Going into this year,  I thought it might be chaotic and lead to increased stress, but it has instead provided opportunities for my kids to grow in their approach to things that are less favorable than playing video games (the grocery store perhaps??), and also for them to see a little more of the ‘inner workings’ of running our household!

Keep in mind as you read this – a year ago we had nothing. None of this. It wasn’t even an idea in my head. As parents, we had never, ever considered that homeschooling was a good fit for our children unless there were some extenuating circumstances (and there weren’t)! Yes, I missed them when they spent their days in their previous school, but I always felt peaceful, like they were in the right place, at the right time.

Until suddenly I didn’t.

I felt like they needed to be home . . . and here we are.  Not even a year from that initial coffee conversation with my husband that turned our family lifestyle upside-down in all the best ways.

(*NOTE: I’m guessing this will be a marathon-style post. Feel free to walk away and come back with a large cup of coffee!)

9 am – Let’s get this party started!

I present this time to you not as the time I wake-up (I wish!!) or the time at which school begins, but as the time when, failing to see all my smiling students at our kitchen table with pencils in hand, I send out the search parties to the bathrooms and not-so-far reaches of our home universe.

Typically, the morning begins a little earlier – breakfast with Daddy around 7:30 while I get a quick shower, caffeinate myself for the day ahead, and read my Bible.

After breakfast, the kids complete their chores for the day – they each have  daily chore chart with their assignments for the week (we started this BH – Before Homeschooling – and it continues to serve us well in this season). Teeth brushed, hair brushed, beds made, PJs away (unless it’s Friday – which is our ‘PJ Day’), then gather up school books/binders/supplies and sit down to get started.

By 8:30 most of them are close to being at the table. My small boy is almost always ready first – unless he’s been goofing off in the bathroom or taking an inordinately long time to empty the trash.

[Those "credit cards" on the little white board above represent our current classroom reward system. Reworked from our previous school, this idea reinforces GOOD behavior with rewards rather than just punishing BAD behavior - because we have our OWN system for THAT! In their binder, each student has a list of things that will earn them "dots" for the day - the most important ones being to actually show up on time and WORK! Once they all complete a card, there is a collective "credit card" party reward outing. We've done things like a trip to Baskin-Robbins for ice-cream and a Redbox movie rental, or a matinee at the movie theater on $5 day, followed by Krispy Kreme doughnuts. All during "regular school hours" which, of course, makes it all the more appealing!

Individual "dot rewards" show up in their personal school pockets on the day that they complete a dot card. These are similar to "treasure box" toys (only  nicer LOL) - small Lego sets,  packets of sidewalk chalk, Polly Pocket sets, yo-yos etc. I've found that everyone works really hard for their "dot" each day and looks forward to celebrating when they all complete a full card!]

9 am – 10:30 am – Work like you want your free time!

This time is generally our prime work time. Starting with what we call “seat work” – a throw-back to our previous school, it’s basically a “catch-all” name for work the kids do independently. It includes writing out spelling words, reviewing/writing their weekly Bible verse, handwriting practice, Daily Grams (for the girls), Math facts and Phonics charts written out (for the boy). During the Christmas season we enjoyed putting on a quiet CD of carols during this initial work time. Sometimes I’ll put on a favorite praise/worship CD just depending on how intense the work seems to be that morning.

At some point during “seat work” I finish up my morning routine and we’ll officially start the day with prayer/pledges (when I remember – oops!)/Scripture memory. By having them get started at their own pace, we eliminated the “hurry up and wait” syndrome where one is ready to roll and another is dragging his/her heels. I find it all evens out in the wash by “recess.”

I spend this morning time floating between a quick email check, fixing my own breakfast (not possible B.C. – before coffee), grading the daily work, and giving feedback on things like cursive, spelling activities etc. The girls frequently move through their seat work in as little as 30 minutes and move on with their grammar lessons and then their math (which is the ‘meat’ of their morning). I don’t answer the phone during these work hours – unless it’s my husband. Although I might check messages if I have time and I can often reply to texts because they are quieter and don’t require immediate attention like a phone call.

I try to grade everything in the order I receive it on the kitchen bar – and give feedback/corrections immediately so that they may be completed before the student moves on to the next lesson. Our workbooks are relatively quick and easy to grade – at some point I know this routine will evolve, but for now, this is working well. Everyone currently likes to work at the kitchen table. I like it too (as long as they aren’t being too ridiculous for long stretches of time!) because it’s easier for me to keep an eye on the work and grade things quickly. Notable exceptions are tests (in their rooms, at a desk) or journaling (which also seems to be better completed alone).

Sometimes my little guy will finish everything before recess – by “everything” I mean all of his assigned ’seat work’, math lesson, phonics worksheet, and language arts worksheets.

If it’s a banner day, he will also complete some or all of his extra assignments for the week. In addition to the ‘basics’, all of them complete 1 x French lesson, 1 x typing/keyboarding lesson, 1 x tutorial/testing session on World Geography, a journal entry, and a Scholastic News report. He then selects a book from our shelf or from his current, extensive library stash, logs the title and other information in his ‘Reading Log’, and spends the rest of the morning doing “free reading” or other quiet “centers” which include independent games like Lincoln logs, Lego,  puzzles etc although currently he’s most often found engrossed in a variety of  books about extreme weather. Seriously. Nothing can compete for his attention these days like a good book filled with facts about tornadoes or hurricanes!

(*NOTE: I’ve included links to some of our curriculum choices here for my own posterity, but also because I am always curious about what people are using for learning tools, so I figure others are too! If I get around to it, I might do a separate blog about our curriculum selection for the 2011 – 12 school year at some point.)

10:30 am – 10:45 am – “Recess” (or some variation thereof?)

We try to take a mid-morning snack break sometime in here. It isn’t a perfect scenario every day – sometimes everyone magically reaches a good stopping point at 10:25, and other days my 2nd grader has burned through all his worksheets before his 6th grade sister has even cracked open her math book and it’s pushing 11 am!  Either way, whether it’s a snack + 15 minutes of running around the yard, or just few minutes spent nibbling on a granola bar while sorting through which textbook is next in the line-up, this mental-health break is good for everyone (including the teacher)! Some days they figure out how to stage, costume, direct, film, and edit an entire Pirate movie during recess (although admittedly, that’s typically reserved for after lunch).

11 am – 12:30 pm – the ‘Tween Hours

Our day continues with everyone working at their own pace until at least 2 out of the 3 are finished with the bulk of their daily assignments – typically, 6th grade math just flat-out takes longer, so our oldest might have to finish up her mixed practice math set once we’ve completed our “group work.” I call these the ‘Tween Hours because they fall between recess and lunch. Often we have finite deadlines that make this time fly by (like co-op classes or piano lessons). On those days, we really need to get moving with our group lessons in order to make it to lunch and our activities on time!

I realized very quickly (like, before we actually started this gig) that there was no way for me to effectively teach all 3 of our kids individual science and history lessons without experiencing some SERIOUS mental whip-lash (she blogs it so well, I don’t need to reinvent it!). What I discovered in my research, is that typically multi-age homeschool families combine lessons for kids within 3 -4 grade levels for these subjects. Ahh yes, more wisdom in God’s timing with our kids all less than 4 years apart! LOL

Depending on the day, we will typically read a few pages of our Science text (the kids “take notes” in their Science Notebooks). Sometimes there are experiments (minimal or involved) that go along with our chapter. Whenever possible we do these experiments but if they require ingredients or things we don’t have on hand, I skip them but discuss the concept. The text has an average of  1-2 small experiments to choose from each day. We might pick 2 or 3 for the entire chapter, and I plan ahead to be sure we have everything we need handy. Some of our favorites have been the most simple! Below is the braille alphabet we made using glue! GLUE! Whoever would’ve thought of that? It was messy, fun, and educational. Everyone enjoyed going over the letters the next day and seeing if they could guess which letter was which.

For History, we either read a new chapter (the kids color a corresponding color sheet while I read – it keeps hands busy and often generates great talking points after the chapter),  complete the map activities that accompany it, or do some group review in preparation for a chapter test. There are also art activities that sometimes go along with our history lessons and we try to work those in as often as possible but it’s more like once a week rather than daily.

My thought on the group work time is that we find ourselves on the very edge of THIS situation.  In a few short years, we won’t likely be able to combine our sciences – or at least, not with our oldest. So, my current plan is to milk this experience for all that it’s worth! Because I am acutely aware of the very real possibility that she might not *always* want to do color pages and listen to me reading aloud from our history text when she’s in high school.  Maybe.

Lunch

Lunch seems to encompass any time from the end of our science/history time until the dishes are stacked in the dishwasher and the table is cleared. In the event that we have to be somewhere, this is the time to gather up our things and scramble out the door. In the event that all the work for the day is not yet completed, well, the ones who need to do the completing must finish it before moving on to free play. Everyone breaks for lunch though. Daddy comes home most days – we try to steal a few moments to enjoy a quiet homemade latte and some mid-day conversation while the kids make lunches/clean-up/run around the yard. No, I’m not that mom making gourmet hot lunches for my kids even though we homeschool. Yes, they do get left-overs if we have them. Grilled cheese or Annie’s Ravioli are also popular treats on the menu from time to time, but our staples are fresh fruit, whatever sandwiches they choose to make and some kind of crunchy snack like pretzels or cheezits.

1:30 pm – until (and a word about Extra-curriculars!)

Other than Piano and our Co-op classes (the girls take drama and the boy takes Lego. Yes. Lego.) most of our activities are of the “after-school” variety, meaning they begin when kids in traditional schools finish their school day. We change up our sports routine each season, but the constant elements include the dance classes we commit to each Fall. We work around those selections, and this year have managed to pack in swim team, basketball, baseball/softball, and soccer – although not all at once, thank goodness! I learned very quickly that it is just as easy (if not easier) to over-schedule yourself when homeschooling. I bought into the misconception that just because we had “all this free time,” we should fill it! When my husband and our bank account disagreed, we pared it back and all of us are the happier for it!

I also go to the gym in the afternoons – as often as the activities allow but not less than 3 x a week (a good week, when all the planets align, it might be 4 x). It was an adjustment because I was used to going right after dropping the kids at school, but surprisingly not as difficult as I’d thought it would be. The kids have made friends at the gym and look forward to hanging out with them if it isn’t their day to be at dance, baseball or whatever. I get an hour to re-energize myself and focus on something other than education, children, or cleaning! It’s a good thing for all of us.

So what do we do until then? Play. We spend almost every afternoon either completing the “fun stuff” like art/history videos/science experiments etc OR playing. We go for walks, we make cups of tea and sit down to play a game. The girls have been teaching themselves to hand-sew barbie clothes from scraps of material salvaged from my sewing drawers. The boy taught himself how to set up the “advanced” level of his electronic Star Wars Battleship boardgame last week. He played against the ‘computer’ for over an hour. He was so excited to discover how to deploy multiple rounds of munition at once! The kids dress-up and run around the yard. They ride bikes. They rake up the leaves and then jump in them. Over and over. They hold Wii bowling marathons. We visit the library. We run errands to the grocery store. We bake. We prep dinner. We finish up any household chores and then relax. We read (alone or aloud). A LOT.

Quite simply, we live life.

This is the part of my day that makes up for any of the headaches I might have lamented during the ‘tween hours or our mid-morning work. It’s the part of the day I was envisioning when I was wishing for my children to have their ‘childhood back’ last spring.

Homeschooling has taken what was previously my most difficult part of the day and made it into the sweetest.

And if anyone could have predicted that a year ago, well, I probably wouldn’t have believed them anyway!

]]> http://www.scottnkelly.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=1478 0 http://www.scottnkelly.com/blog/?p=1451 http://www.scottnkelly.com/blog/?p=1451#comments Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:51:43 +0000 kelly http://www.scottnkelly.com/blog/?p=1451

My small boy sat at the kitchen bar today, with his sisters, after lunch. They were discussing what to do with this rainy, gray afternoon. We  settled on a new movie they had borrowed a while ago, but hadn’t yet watched at home.

Then suddenly, he piped up with,” Mom, I hope we homeschool forever.”

The girls chimed in with a quiet, “Me too!” And then they all gave me *that look* – the one that says, “you hope so too, right Mom??”

I smiled, realizing how different this day was from the disruptive, chaotic atmosphere we “enjoyed” yesterday, when everyone seemed to leave all of their ‘mojo’ AND most of their ‘A-game’ in bed! *sigh* Yes, some days are just like that. We make it through, everyone goes to bed, and we get up the next day, hopefully with a clean slate and a better attitude. For the latter, I’m referring to myself since my students are typically over it before their heads hit the pillow!

I reminded them that we homeschool because we feel like it’s what the Lord led us to do this year, but on a personal level, I hoped we could continue with it. They’ve been seeking a commitment from me about the following school-year, but not for the reasons I suspected they would at this point in our journey. They miss their close friends, and mention them pretty much daily or weekly. Yet each one has approached me with questions and ideas for next year’s curriculum; each one has asked me to continue studying at home.

The conversation then turned to what might happen if we ever felt like He was leading us back to regular schooling.  I reminded them of the joy we find in obedience, but often not until AFTER we’ve taken that epic step – a trip down memory lane, anyone?? (Number 5 was a biggie.) I cited some well-known Bible characters, like Abraham and Isaac – the same ones that my wise, talk-me-down-from-the-ledge husband used back in June.

I can scarcely believe what we would have missed in our lives if I’d said a big, fat, fearful, resounding, “NO!!” when we felt the gentle nudging to homeschool. It makes my throat close up just imagining.

When I reminded them of their tearful first reaction to our thoughts last summer; they all shook their heads remembering. Now with big smiles, they are wiser and infinitely less fearful of the “unknown,” simply because, well, now it isn’t.

And so the afternoon was spent with the 3 of them piled under blankets and pillows watching “A Dolphin Tale,” munching on popcorn and homemade lemon-sugar cookies. I curled up on my bed with my iPod and returned emails while keeping one eye on some Food Network tv shows I recorded earlier in the week, day-dreaming of the ‘free-time’ I would hopefully have at some point.

When I heard the rain starting to fall, I realized it was time for car-pool. I was instantly relieved. I realized that I very much enjoy not having to dash out in the rain, or cold, or heat-wave to collect my babies from the school parking lot. I love that instead, our afternoons are spent wallowing in meaningful conversations about obedience, blessing, and favorite movies.

PS.  I also don’t miss getting SOAKED to the bone on a regular basis – just in case anyone else has ever attempted to collect 3 school-kids during a rainstorm here in the South and can relate to me keeping it real!!

It’s funny the things you don’t consider  B.H. (Before Homeschooling). For us, one of the bigger revelations this past fall was the difference a lousy pencil sharpener could make to our school day. I never really thoughts about it before! Honestly, I sent in my kids’ 12 pencils and whatever colorful sharpener they happened to select on the back-2-school sales and never gave it another thought. Sure, we kept a few on-hand for homework and other projects, but I never bothered much if it wasn’t the world’s greatest pencil sharpening specimen or if we had to hunt down 3 different ones to find *the one* that would fit the new transformers pencil or latest Vera Bradley addition to the pencil fleet.

Ahh, but that was before.

BEFORE sharpening seemed to take up half our day. BEFORE hunting down the sharpener to fit each pencil meant derailing a math lesson or a group science reading. BEFORE I was suddenly noticing that there was no way our 12 x 3 packs of pencils were going to make it to Thanksgiving, let alone the end of the school year! In fact, just think of them in the context of a reverse ‘loaves and fishes’ scenario and you’ll have some understanding as to what happens to good quality pencils in a homeschool classroom.  I’ll give you a hint, it doesn’t matter how many you think you have to begin with.

Somewhere before the holidays we reached our breaking point with this issue – literally! I remember thinking about the “bouquet of newly sharpened pencils” that one of my seasoned homeschooling friends giggled about and reminded me not to get to attached to – yep, it was looking pretty neglected. Not because we didn’t want sharpened pencils or because we didn’t try – it was quite honestly because out of the half dozen sharpeners we had on hand, only ONE of them was actually any good at sharpening! Unfortunately, this little ‘$2.99 world-globe-shaped-sharpener-that-could’ had so many other issues, including a propensity for over-sharpening (which = snapping the lead off inside the blade area), as well as being impossible to empty without dousing yourself and the kitchen floor in lead-pencil shavings. *UGH* After snapping off approximately 8 red and lead pencils in quick succession I reached the conclusion that the days of this little sharpener were numbered.

So I did what I normally do in unfamiliarly frustrating situations – I threw my hands up in despair – and then I researched my way out of distress. I don’t always Google. Sometimes I do, but lately I’ve had success casting my net in more targeted areas of information and expanding outward until I find the information I need. I hit the jackpot very quickly when I stumbled upon a website touting THIS little gadget as the answer to all our pencil-sharpening woes. I hemmed and I hawed and I consulted the principal – who laughed and said we should buy several. I debated some more – really, could one sharpener really fix all the issues we had with pencil-sharpening in our classroom? Finally, I contacted the company who graciously agreed to share their sharpener with us in exchange for my honest feedback and blog opinions. For anyone who knows me, the thought of being ASKED to give ‘honest feedback’ typically elicits  a neurological response equivalent to consuming an entire bar of chocolate.  I jumped at the chance!

And here it is – this pencil sharpener has changed our lives. OK, maybe not in the same sense as the more meaningful decisions we’ve made, you know, like choosing salvation, getting married, or deciding to have children . . . but definitely a major change for the better in our homeschooling endeavors. In fact, if I have to site a downside to this sharpener, it would be that I occasionally need to confiscate it from my 2nd grader who seems to invent reasons to sharpen his pencil every 3 seconds now for the sheer fun of it (because it’s certainly sharp enough that it doesn’t REQUIRE additional sharpening)!

As to durability, we have put our sharpener through it’s paces thus far. For 3 weeks, since starting our second semester, we have sharpened a wide variety of pencils ranging from the fancy “embellished” kind, to the higher-quality Ticonderogas we typically reach for, to Crayola erasable colored pencils and my basic grading pencils too. At no point have we had it jam, lock up, not sharpen, break apart, spill shavings or eat our pencils. Oh, and bonus – it’s quiet! This wasn’t a big issue for us, as it’s been a few years since our multiple attempts at using electric sharpeners (both epic failures within a few months – at varying price points much higher than this mechanical one), so we’d forgotten how loud a sharpener *could* be. But for anyone using an electric one now, you’ll definitely appreciate the change of decibel.

Quite simply, this is the most amazing pencil sharpener I’ve ever used. I wish I’d had this on hand for the days B.H. I can only assume it would have made those long homework sessions and weekend assignments somewhat less irritating. Indeed, this discovery is one of the many ‘blessings in disguise’ we’ve experienced along our journey. I know that whether or not we homeschool far into the future, we certainly won’t be giving up our Quietest Pencil Sharpener.

If you find yourself curious about our new sharpener, feel free to ask away. I’ll answer whatever questions are out there (you all know where to find me) – although the website also has a video that I found very useful when getting set up with it out of the box. The steps to sharpening may seem cumbersome (I admit to being intimidated initially – yes, I know it’s just a sharpener), but  I promise it takes about 2 seconds per pencil now that we’re all pros. Click on the button on my sidebar to check it out – and be sure to tell them you read about it here. We’re definite fans!

For anyone else struggling to find order in the chaos, I suggest copying and posting this C.S. Lewis quote someplace highly visible – or at least someplace you’ll see it when the roof seems to be caving in on your plans . . .

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s “own” or “real” life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life — the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s “real life” is a phantom of one’s own imagination.”

— C.S. Lewis

P.S. Happy New Year!

If I compare this one-year journey to a marathon,  I suppose I am officially “half-way” through.  I’ve just finalized our 2nd quarter grades. I’ve printed them (A’s =  free doughnuts, YO!), filed them (for my OCD), logged them at our online reporting site (because I’m required to) and NOW I’m ready to move on with Christmas crafts, holiday baking, and enjoying this season with my kids!

But honestly? If I had to look at our days and number them according to the yearly planner I have on my desktop, I think I would lose it! Why? Because I’m just now realizing this journey isn’t half-way through. It isn’t even half-way begun! For real! At what point does a parent look at their child and say to themselves, “I’m officially half-way finished with raising you”? Is it 9? I mean, technically, 18 is adult enough to vote, go to college, consume alcohol in a variety of states . . . I’ve heard. Or how about 10 1/2 – my newly 10 year old would probably love that! Wow, she’s half-way to 20! Yet the idea of thinking or saying that to my 8 or 10 year old is preposterous and inconceivable!

So instead,  I sit and ponder what the meaning of “half-way” for us really is. Does it make me any closer to defining the length of this journey? I don’t  think it does – at least not in the concrete terms I assumed it would by this date. “People” (you know, the ubiquitous ones who comment on everything and nothing inside your head?) all told me I’d feel a certain way by Christmastime. Instead, I find myself wondering how I could ever begin to put a date on this experience? How do I possibly determine the end of something that I feel like I was called to be to my babies all along (and just didn’t realize the seasonal and practical out-working of it until this year)?

These thoughts don’t necessarily translate to never putting our children back into a traditional, Christian school environment. It just means that homeschooling has evolved into far more than the “schooling” experience  I was prepared for . . . and for which I subsequently prepared the children! I feel like I’ve just recently gotten a hold of the super-secret homeschooler’s dictionary,  and I’m finally able to define terms I never understood before! I’m grasping the concept of “lifestyle” and not “school at home”. I’m living vicariously through my more “relaxed” and seasoned homeschooling mama friends, and taking mental notes for “next year” without even realizing I’ve just run smack past the finish-line of this imaginary race!!

So, no. I’m really not half-way to anything. Well, we might be half-way to summer break . . . then again, we might not! We might even take a walk on the wild-side and jump off the “year-round schooling” ledge while we’re at it! Why not? I grew up schooling like that, half a world away in the pacific where it’s actually the norm and not nearly as renegade an idea as it seems to be here above the equator. I’m not saying we will school year-round, but the freedom that comes from removing my finish line I think is what we all needed to do at the end of this calendar year.

It’s kind of a big step for me. At the beginning of this process I was panic-stricken about even committing to a WHOLE YEAR!!  What if I irreparably damaged my kids before then and they didn’t want to live here let alone attend school here any more?!?!  But as you can see, I’m firmly off that ledge. For now. At least until I start looking at curriculum options for next year. (Then I begin to open and close my mouth in imitation of a goldfish gasping in air.)

But, if it’s any consolation – and it was for me – my 10 year old recently asked a high-schooler at the dance studio what curriculum she was using for science, I suppose because the book the student was holding looked interesting. Unfortunately, the high-schooler couldn’t tell her. Instead she looked confused and asked my sweet E, “What’s a curriculum??”

I tried not to laugh when she told me, and casually suggested she might want to try the word “text-book” next time.

PS Merry Christmas, Everyone!!

Just kidding . . . here you go for realz this time!

Still,  I remember wondering after the first few days if we’d made a horrible mistake! This book was NOTHING like our previous science books and we’d had plenty of them! The only science our kids took prior to this year was Abeka, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, we knew we needed to change things up a little this year for homeschooling, based on a request from our rising 6th grader.

After we settled on Anatomy and the book arrived,  I was very concerned that it would be WAY more than our 2nd grade student could handle and WAY more in-depth than our 6th grader would care for (given anatomy isn’t her fave to begin with!) – BUT it has turned out to be nothing short of a perfect fit for all of us!

Each chapter covers some aspect of the human body. So far we’ve studied cells, the skeletal system, the muscular system, the digestive system, nutrition & vitamins, the respiratory system and last week, BLOOD! This format changes things up enough to keep everyone interested, but it’s thorough enough that I don’t feel like we’re just skimming the surface of these very important subjects. To say I can’t wait to order and teach the rest of this series would be an understatement. We don’t know what the Lord has for us in the years ahead, but suffice to say, if He continues to lead us to homeschool our children, Apologia Science will be a staple! Did I mention that science has never really been my favorite subject? I don’t mind it, but I tend to glaze over when things get *too* scientific and I cap out at about 2 hours of wandering around the various Science Centers we’ve visited as a family. (Which just makes it all the more miraculous that I enjoy teaching this subject to our kids!)

Anyway, when we came to the chapter on BLOOD, we were especially excited for 2 reasons –

1. The kids have always wanted to know their blood types

and

2. Since my Dad is the manager of our community Blood Bank, we knew a field trip would be in order!

Here are some pictures from our recent adventures . . .

First we had to make a model of blood, because who doesn’t love a good edible model? We included the 4 components: Plasma (corn syrup), Red Blood Cells (red jelly bellies or cinnamon red hots), White Blood Cells (we used a white tootsie roll since you’re supposed to show that it’s larger than the red cells), and Platelets (candy sprinkles!).

Later in our study we took the kids on a tour of their local blood bank. Here they learned how the blood bank separates blood into the 4 necessary components, and how they store them for transportation to local hospitals. Everyone also had blood typing done – turns out all 3 have the same blood type! A special shout out goes to the retired science teacher turned lab technician who graciously included our kids in his work. They learned so much!

It was the perfect end to a very interesting science chapter and yet again reinforces why I’m so happy we chose this curriculum (and this lifestyle) for our family this school year! Thanks to all the participants who made this lesson possible. Not only do we know all our blood types now, but the kids have an increased awareness for the need to donate blood (when they’re old enough) and what happens to it when they do!

For anyone in Florida, Georgia or Alabama interested in donating blood or learning how to host a blood drive, click on the Life South logo below to locate your nearest Life South Community Blood Center!

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