Homeschooling

Okay, well, I have had some of my relatives and friends ask why I decided to homeschool and how its going.  Well, it is going great!! I absolutely love it! I love the fact that we can stay in our jammies all day ( which I try not too just b/c it makes me lazy haha!)  we can take breaks as needed and I am so happy with the progress Jude is making.  Here is kind of a breakdown of our day and what we do.  Also, we are using the K12 public school program, but we also incorporate other things.

8-8:30 am- Wake up, brush teeth, get dressed ( usually) 

9- Breakfast (this is usually our biggest meal, but I try to make most of our food ahead, so I don't really cook breakfast) Say any of our memorization from the previous day

9:30- Feed Thatcher and lay him down for a nap, Jude starts school

Bible- We were doing a psalm a day, but we have just recently started John and are only about 1/4 of the way through reading the first chapter.  I am going to start having them memorize the books of the Bible ( but i will talk about that later) As they get older, of course we will start more memorizing of Scriptures, but they do memory verses for Wednesday night Bible study at church, so i don't wanna overload them :) As they get older also, we will start studying the history of the church and Pentacost.

Math- He uses the K12 program Math and right now he is learning estimation and starting subtraction.  We do math problems on the chalkboard for practice and every morning i make Jude count to 100

Language Arts-This is also a K12 program.  He mainly does recalling of stories that I read to him with this program.  Of course we do A LOT of reading at home- my kids LOVE having books read to them and soon we are going to start Treasure Island ( maybe Friday night) .  I want to start reading the classic books to my kids and not just short children's books.

Phonics- Also K12.  I really have liked this phonics program- there is no picture reading ( which I think is silly, b/c the child is not really learning to read, just guessing at the word b/c of the picture shown.)  They really learn to read phonetically and to sound out words and how to break words down.  I am also using Alpha-Phonics A Primer for Beginning Readers by Samuel Blumenfeld.  It really gets down to the nitty gritty of phonetic learning and we love it!!  We do still do sight words and they really help when Jude is reading.

History- This K12 program is only on Wednesdays and Fridays, and this whole first semester, they have learned about maps, globes, all the continents, many of the countries on each continent, north, south,east, west, the equator. This is his favorite subject!! And, this next semester, they start American History- woohoo!! thats my favorite! :)  We have also been working on memorizing the presidents for this next semester.

Social Studies-  This is also a subject provided in the K12 curriculum which we are actually done with for the whole year.  It went over different cultures, families, jobs, laws, rules, and things of that nature.

Memorization-  This is one area that I find extremely important.  I have already mentioned most of the things we are working on memorizing, but here is a short list:

Books of the Bible ( starting this soon)

Presidents

Memory Verses ( their teacher has them doing an alphabet list of memory verses)  

Pledge of Allegiance

Addition problems

Also, I have been saying we, but i don't just mean Jude and myself- Elsie also does most everything with us, even though she isn't able to go to Kindergarten until the 2013 school year b/c of how her birthday falls.  Elsie has been working really hard on handwriting and writing her name :)

This is usually the order we do things during the day.  Thatcher usually wakes from his morning nap around 11-11:30so we usually try to get the main K12 subjects done within that time.  The memorization, chalkboard work, and reading we do whenever we want during the rest of the day :)

12:30- Lunch

And so on, the kids really love schooling at home and I am so grateful that I am able to be home and teach my children!!! 

That brings us to why I decided to homeschool.  Well, I decided to homeschool because:

I wanted to be able to teach my kids from a Biblical worldview and shelter them as much as i can from humanistic worldview

I wanted to save them the heartache of bullying that seems so rampant in our school systems now

I wanted to enjoy re-learning things that i didn't pay much attention to when I was in school :)

I wanted to reinforce the importance of family and our church community

But, when it comes down to it, all these lofty reasonings are great and wonderful, but my main reason I decided to homeschool was because I am a selfish mom....I want my children at home...with me. I want their laughs, their triumphs in learning, their heartaches, their groanings, I want all of it!

  I am so so thankful to the Lord, ( and my sweet hubby) for the opportunity to be home with my children!  

So, thats why I homeschool and will probably continue to do so.  We are obviously still working out kinks and figuring out what works best for us, but I'm having a good 'ol time :)