September

What I liked:

1. Flexibility!  2 weeks into school when Noelle said "Mom, I don't want to do homeschool anymore.  I want to go be with my friends," I said FIELD TRIP! And we went to the aquarium and bought an annual membership.  Then I scheduled a play date with her friend and I haven't heard that complaint again.

2. Co-op. This has been a lot of work each week, but only because I've been having do to lesson plans as I go. Future preparation for several weeks at a time will take care of that.  We love co-op because Noelle gets to be with other kids, ranging in age from 0-13, she gets to do fun science and art experiments, and it gives us something different to do during the week.  I particularly love it because I have 8 new instant friends in the other moms.

3. Going at our own pace.  After working with Noelle for a month I can see areas where we can speed up and others where we need to slow down.  For example, the math program we are using started introducing some new concepts before she had the previous ones mastered.  So, instead of struggling to keep up with a schedule to fit public school curriculum, we are pausing to focus on doubles facts until I am completely confident that she has mastered them.  There's no point in learning "doubles plus one" facts before she's got the doubles learned.  Also, this is stuff she should have mastered last year in 2nd grade, but because they had to move on to other subjects (like time and money, which she also still doesn't know), she never really learned it.  So I love that we are slowing down and making sure she's ready before we move on.

4. Life learning.  We've done laundry, planned meals, compared prices in grocery ads, and gone shopping.  Skills like these, and many more that she will learn over the years, are just as important for life (if not more so, sometimes) as learning about Shakespeare or ancient Rome.

5. Spending time with Noelle.  Before we started homeschooling, Noelle used to ask me a question almost every day.  This question left me with feelings of guilt, frustration and inadequacy.  I haven't heard this question once since we started homeschooling.  "Mom, will you do something with me?"

What I learned:
1.  Preparation is VITAL.  I don't like staying up until midnight.  But it seems to be the only time of day that I can work, uninterrupted, on planning, organizing, deciding, copying, reading etc.  When Noelle and I wake up early to a clean school room with our agenda written on the board and all necessary materials neatly organized in front of us, we do SO much better.  When I let her sleep in, even just an extra hour, and when I haven't made all of the copies I need for the day and organized her independent work folder, the day feels much more chaotic and we don't get as much accomplished.

2. Everything takes longer than I think it will.  Maybe we will get better at this with time, and as Noelle learns how to learn for herself.  Or maybe I will have to adjust my expectations and not try to schedule as many topics as I want to each day.

3. There's no right way to do this.  As much as I love the Charlotte Mason method and want to follow exactly Ambleside Online's suggested year 3 schedule, it just doesn't work for us.  The material is too hard, Noelle isn't ready or doesn't like most of their reading selections, and there's just too much going on at once.  It's okay with me that we decide what we want to do each day, and I don't have to feel guilty that I'm not doing everything that someone else says I'm "supposed" to be doing.

What I'll do different in October:
1. Simplify.  I need fewer books going on at once.  Only one or two literature selections at a time, alternating each day until we are finished.  Fewer topics each day with more time allotted for each, instead of trying to do every subject every day in a short period of time.

2.  Prepare in advance.  Never go to bed without having a clean school room and a filled independent work folder.

3. More narration.  I know she will get better at this with practice, but Noelle seems to resist retelling me things she has learned.  I will focus on teaching Noelle how to learn for herself, and encourage more narration and discussion.

First Day Success (for real this time)

Our To Do's in the morning

Our To Do's completed!

Noelle saw a white board full of things to do when she woke up on her first full day of homeschooling.  It was nice to see how much there was left to do and have a sense of accomplishment as she checked off each item.  She liked everything except World Civilizations, and that's because I'm using a textbook.  I need to find other resources for that subject.  The day took a lot longer than we thought it would, but there are fun things and breaks during the day.  And of course a one year old clinging to my pants all day.

So far we both love it!

Having a BLAST

Noelle, Miriam and Emily

Last night was our co-op's back to school party.  We've named our co-op B.L.A.S.T. (Believers Learning and Sharing Together).  All the families got together to share snacks, play, talk and have a pinata for the kids.  Noelle has become instant friends with Emily and Miriam.  I'm so glad we all found each other and we are looking forward to a good year starting this Thursday!

All the co-op kids in line for pinata time!

Summer, and what I've learned so far

We were going to do math, literature, piano and nature study over the summer.

We did it for a couple of weeks, and then I let life take over.

I've signed us up for a co-op which begins in September, and I spent a lot of time preparing for that. My brother's family moved to Virginia and that took a lot out of us, both in terms of time and emotional energy. We've done swimming lessons, sent kids to camp and tried to keep up with baby needs, many a project and messy house.

Because I'm busy, Noelle's watched a bit too much TV. I decided that for the school year she'll have to earn her screen time. Maybe for every hour of good work on lessons she can earn an episode of her favorite show. I'm sure that's way more than what most people would allow, but it's improvement around here.

I learned that in order to be successful at homeschooling I'm going to have to not care that the house is messy. Because it will NEVER be clean enough to suit me. So I'll have to commit to the mornings being lessons only and not allow myself to be distracted. I need some goals, a plan, and an organized place to keep our things.

I also realized that there will always be a project and reasons to put off lessons. I'm going to have to put homeschooling at the top of the priority list, and realize that just like the house will never be clean, those special projects will also never be done. I've kind of had in the back of my mind that since it was summer it didn't really matter if we took a few weeks off. I don't think I'll feel that way during the school year.

Co-op back to school night is August 29, the same day my high schoolers start school. Then we'll take that week to get organized and make our plans, and maybe even decorate a bulletin board. Then we'll start the day after Labor Day. And just keep trying!

p.s. Noelle wants to learn Greek. I don't even know how we got on that topic, but I told her we could learn some vocabulary. Not sure how far I can take that on my own, but hey...we can try anything, right?

Home From The Library...

Me: Noelle, you can run downstairs to get that box of ice cream bars now.
Noelle: Uh, I don't really want to right now.
Me: Too interested in your new book?
Noelle: Uh huh!
Me: It's a good day when a child prefers a book over ice cream.

First Piano Lesson

Who needs lesson books when you can write your own song? Our lesson on how to find Middle C on the staff, how to jump down to A and jump up to E turned into this song. If you can't read it, the lyrics are: "I like pie. Chocolate pie!"

Mmmmm. yummy song.

Our First Day

What does homeschooling look like in our house? I'm sure it will be an ever-changing, developing and growing process. But for now, here's a look at our first day.

9:30-10:10 a.m.: swimming lesson. Yes, that counts! Imagine a personalized, non-team-sport p.e. program. Yea!

10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.: ran errands, cleaned the house, took care of the baby, made necessary preparations for first homeschool lessons, listened to Noelle read Ivy & Bean for an hour while we were driving (have to get in that one hour a day for our own language arts program as well as the library's summer reading program), constantly wondered when we were going to find the time to actually do lessons, had dinner.

5:30-7:30 p.m.: one hour of math (way more than I was going to do, but Noelle was totally into it and so we kept going), a little break while I tend to the baby, ten minutes each of copywork, narration from Ivy & Bean, Book of Mormon study and an introduction to finding Middle C on the staff, and several minutes of spontaneous conversation and other learning.

7:30 p.m.: "Mom, my stomach hurts." In other words, lessons are over for the day. Guess what? That's ok.

Why Homeschooling is Like Disneyland: Or In Other Words, an Adventure

Today was Noelle's first official day of homeschooling. I subscribe to the Charlotte Mason method. One of the components of her method is called copywork. Copywork provides handwriting practice and instruction in punctuation, spelling and grammar. When you are just starting, it may just be a sentence, but absolute perfection is expected. As the child gets older, the length of the passages will increase. Today I provided the following sentence for copywork:

Today I begin my homeschooling adventure.

Noelle: Why is it an adventure?
Me: What is the meaning of the word adventure?
Noelle: Disneyland is an adventure.
Me: What about Disneyland makes it an adventure?
Noelle: It's fun. It's awesome. And you could get lost.
Me: So it's a little bit dangerous. What else?
Noelle: You look around and say "Wow! I want to do that!"
Me: That sounds like homeschooling. What is awesome about homeschooling?
Noelle: We're Mormon, so we can read the scriptures and stuff.
Me: What is fun about homeschooling?
Noelle: We can go on field trips.
Me: How could we get lost homeschooling?
Noelle: You could lose your stuff.
Me: Yes, and we could lose our focus, our attention, and our purpose. But we won't let that happen. And we get to look around at all the cool stuff to do and learn and say "Wow! I want to do that!" as much as we want.
Noelle: That's cool.
Me: Yes it is.

Welcome to the awesome adventure of homeschooling.