Category Archives: Homeschooling

First Day of School

September 15, 2008 KME 9 Comments

Well, we started school today! Our homeschooling co-op began last week, but today was the first official day of our family school.

Look at the kind of students I’m getting.

Princess Sarah

Valiant Dan

2nd grader

Cheerful David

I’m exhausted already. Is it Friday yet?

We’ve got charts and schedules, new instructor’s guides, fresh books, old textbooks we’re trying to finish up, and much more.

We started the day out with a big breakfast – hot cocoa, chocolate chip pancakes, and Aggkaka. We’re back on track with our Life Skills so I’ve decided to expand the responsibilities to include meal prep. Daniel is my breakfast worker this week so he helped select our menu and prepare things.

breakfast's ready

If I look a little blurry it’s just because it was early and there was a serious lack of coffee.

The breakfast was a big hit. In fact, at least two children asked me, in dreamy voices, if we were going to have good breakfasts like that every day from now on.

Right. That’s NOT going to happen.

“I liked it when we were in Texas and Mamie made us breakfast every morning,” one of the spoiled children said when we returned home from our trip south last week.

“Oh, oh,” Joshua chimed in, “what about the way she planned and started dinner in the morning. Wasn’t that wonderful.” I swear the child was nearly drooling at the memory.

high schooler!!

My 9th grader!! Gasp!

Since we don’t have a live-in maid, cook, or grandmother, we have to do the work ourselves. Daniel was an excellent assistant this morning and Rachel stepped up to make tuna sandwiches for the family at lunch time. She even convinced me using paper plates would be a good idea. “It would get us right back on track with school, Mom, we won’t have to lose any time washing dishes.”

These kids are smooth, I tell you, very smooth.

middle schooler

How did I end up with a junior high aged daughter?

We worked very hard today to stay on track with our new schedule. Tim’s great contribution to our new school year: A school bell.

Yes, we now have a bell that rings (from the pink laptop) every half an hour. This is an attempt to keep us (and primarily ME) on task and help with the multiple subjects (and students) I’m trying to teach.

Annoying or brilliant?

School Bell

Too soon to determine.

Kathy

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Charlie Brown

Tuesday Tip for Parenting -- Passport 2 Purity

No More Bloggy Hiatus

Daily Life, Homeschooling

No More Bloggy Hiatus

September 12, 2008 KME 7 Comments

It’s time to resume writing. Surely the blog-drought has gone on long enough. This morning one of my children snuggled into my comfy computer chair, pulled up the blog website and looked at me sadly,

“Still no blog, Mom?” There was a mixture of pity and worry written on his face.

“I know, I know,” I retorted just a wee bit sharply, “I didn’t do the dishes last night either, you wanna talk about that as well?”

This was the extent of our internet while out of town, stealing wireless connection from the neighbors.

There’s nothing quite like a frantic mother of five trying to get to homeschool co-op on time, early in the morning. A co-op in which she’s teaching three classes AND giving the opening announcements. Today was a typical example of the harried, over-committed homeschooling family. I rushed around barking out helpful comments:

Does everyone have a lunch made?
What about art supplies, pencils, notebooks?
Backpacks? Mom’s lunch? Can somebody fix me a quick salad?
I NEED coffee, make-up and a hair dryer!!

Coffee first!

The kids stumbled over one another trying to make sandwiches, find lunch bags, sharpen pencils, and load everything into the car. Joshua (who rose at the crack of dawn and was smugly finished with all of his preparations) now loomed menacingly, threatening anyone who causes us to be late.

That would usually be me.

“Joshua, can I please just dry my hair really quick before we go?” I found myself pleading. “Listen, I’ll finish my make-up in the van (at stop lights only, of course) if you’ll pour my coffee and give me two minutes to do my hair.”

There’s nothing like bargaining with a teenager for a few precious minutes of personal grooming to keep you humble. Today I tried to even the scales a little by requiring him to heat and froth my milk before he adds it to the coffee.

Just to be sure he knows who’s boss.

Finally, everything was loaded into the van, children were clothed (always a good thing), lunches assembled and packed, my assortment of media equipment was carefully organized, and at least TWO mugs of coffee filled the drink holders: we were ready to set off.

“Um, kids,” I began in a wheedling voice as we pulled out of the driveway, wincing just a little at what was coming. “I need to make one quick stop on the way. Before you say anything,” I rushed on, “I think I can get everything at the drug store (on the way) rather than making a side trip to Target.”

By now his face was grimly set and Joshua was resigned to his fate.

“Hey, you can come in with me and help me pick out the candy,” I offered, trying to soften the blow.

“Okay,” he agreed, “but only because it means I can ~~shove you along~~ keep you from lingering.”

It’s so hard to get any respect around here as a slow moving, non morning person.

Side Note: Even with all that preparation (the children weren’t the only early risers today, I got up at 6:15 am myself), Tim still had to come by the co-op and bring me some things I forgot. How nice that he works from home on Fridays.

Maybe they should offer bowling at co-op.

Kathy

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Too Much Coffee

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WFMW - Vocabulary Help

Daily Life, Homeschooling

School Starts Soon

September 5, 2008 Tim 9 Comments

I’ve got fresh binders, notebooks and pens lining my shelves. I still need to buy a big box of pencils. I’m afraid we’re pencil snobs here and only use Ticonderoga no 2′s in our homeschool. They really are the best pencils – write beautifully (well, that part is questionable if you’ve seen the handwriting of a few of my students) and, better still, erase nicely.

I’ve got all our curriculum lined up and ready to go. I’ve cataloged all our books and organized them on the shelves. Two of the kids are finishing up last year’s math books so we’re all set for math. I have several more pieces of our curriculum on the way but everything is ordered and checked off my list. I’m trying something different for our language arts this year. I hope to post an actual homeschooling “this is what we use in our school” blog at some point.

Now to do the actual work of teaching these five children.

Gasp, hyperventilating just a bit.

Our homeschool co-op begins next week. I have everything pretty much ready for those classes although I got an email from one of the teachers with a supply list for Rachel and Daniel’s drawing class. I guess we’ll have a few more trips to Target to make before school officially starts.

The summer has been wonderful, glorious and full of fun, friends and relaxation. I feel incredibly blessed to enjoy the summer months with my family and even more blessed to be able to embark on another year of homeschooling.

Kathy

Sorry – still no pictures. We have minimal internet right now and there is no way I could upload photos.

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Homeschool Blogging Nominations

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WFMW - Vocabulary Help

Daily Life, Homeschooling

Seattle Mom’s Day Out

August 25, 2008 KME 7 Comments

It’s not that I don’t want to blog. I love blogging. I’m just not sure how to fit blogging in to the mess that is my life. I mean the mess that is my kitchen and dining room. The older kids are off at a youth group retreat so I can’t blame them for the untidy piles of who knows what littering my house. The younger two are spending the night at a friend’s house. Again, no blame to lay there.

Rats. I guess it’s pretty much my mess. And here I thought I was really an amazing housekeeper underneath all the responsibilities of being a mom and homeschooling teacher.

Time for Breakfast

A bunch of homeschooling moms hit Seattle for breakfast.

I’ve been spending this week frantically trying to gather all my homeschool materials. How is it possible that I placed a huge Sonlight order and somehow forgot to buy the instructor’s guide for Daniel and Rachel? Argh! This year is going to be incredibly intense as Joshua begins high school and Rachel middle school. I suppose the rest of the kids need to be educated as well.

I’m not panicking. No, I’m not. Ignore the slight twitch in my left eye.

Did I mention we’re also spending time with my family from Michigan next week? Yikes. Oh, and three days after the family visit our homeschool co-op starts. Three days. So I’m just a wee bit stressed as I run from laundry to homeschool books to the computer (what else did I forget to order?) to co-op meetings, and somewhere in the mix get ready to see my parents.

Now I’ve got a twitch going in both eyes.

Thankfully I’m an extreme optimist. I work great under pressure, ignore the need for sleep, and thrive on coffee and looming deadlines. You can see why I couldn’t cancel my Mom’s Day Out, planned months ago, even though it fell on probably one of the busiest weeks in the entire summer.

How could I resist the opportunity to spend an entire day in Seattle with five other homeschooling moms? Great food, shopping and encouraging conversation. And, of course, there isn’t anything like a sunny day at Pike’s Place with the mountain off in the distance and bargains to be found.

time for dinner

Our Moroccan dinner – the belly dancer just left the scene.

Maybe if I close my eyes all of this work will just go away. Are the rest of you homeschoolers ready? When do you start school? Are you excited for the fall and new beginnings or fighting the end of summer with everything in you?

Kathy – off to tackle one more pile of books before bed.

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P365 - Day 80 (Poke War)

Homeschool Blogging Nominations

WFMW - Life Skills

Events, Homeschooling, Project 366

A Day with Some Chickens

May 13, 2008 KME 5 Comments

We spent a portion of our morning with poultry today.

Yep, chickens and turkeys. You didn’t think I was talking about cowards, did you?

Oh, there were some other animals as well. Rabbits, goats and sheep. The pigs were especially entertaining.

Or maybe not.

I think this guy was eye-balling me.

The nearby fair offers educational tours for free. Yes, I said FREE! You know we were there. Of course, by the time you pay for gas and a McDonald’s lunch afterward (that’s what happens when you sleep in and don’t get up early enough to pack lunch) it’s not exactly a free outing.

Still, it was educational and enjoyable. We had our own private tour guide and three exhibits to explore (including the petting area). This year’s theme was poultry and farming.