We've come to the end of our journey.

John and Madi are officially enrolled in our new elementary school. When we had started our journey we had expected to homeschool the children through our transitional year and then reevaluate when we arrived in Michigan. When we realized we would be doing our transitional year in Houston our plans changed. It's interesting how the Spirit works, really. We had gone out to a celebratory lunch with Corey's family right after the match and as we were excitedly talking about where we would be heading I knew, I just knew that the kids needed to go back to school. I remember being very surprised as the words were coming out of my mouth to my mother-in-law, but Corey and I just knew it was what needed to happen. We then began to plan accordingly and were able to move into a fantastic fine arts and Vanguard magnet school zone that all four of us are simply giddy about.

Some observations on homeschooling from someone who has spent a year in the trenches...

1. Homeschooling is not for the faint of heart.

Homeschooling is tough. While many of the social stigmas of the past have lessened, a family who homeschools must be prepared to always be the odd one out. For me it wasn't such a big deal, I've spent my whole life being the odd one out. It was harder for me to see that my children were treated differently simply because they were homeschooled. However, they didn't seem too bothered by it.

2. Homeschooling is an around the clock job.

Planning and preparing never really stops. I always had something that I was working on, a topic I was studying, a problem I was trying to solve, activities I was trying to pull together etc. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it - but there was always something that needed to be done.

3. Never, ever, ever try to homeschool when you are trying to sell a house.

Selling our home was tremendously stressful, I think in large part because of the fact that I was trying to educate in the home I was trying to sell. I don't think we had a normal school day once the house went on the market. We showed the house almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day and often I was only given very short notice before people showed up. As I am one of those crazy people who had to have all the vacuum lines perfect, everything sparkly, a candle burning and soft music playing every time the house showed - our ability to spread out our papers, start an art project etc. was severely limited. I also lost our designated school room when we put our house up and had to move our little academy to the kitchen table. Not having a specific school zone was a challenge.

In fact, we have been doing school all summer to make up for the days we lost in the house selling process. When the kids get a little grumpy I remind them that they had their summer vacation in April and May.

4. Homeschooling is tremendously isolating.

Now, let me just preface that it doesn't have to be isolating. It just happened to be for us. We were the only family that we knew well who made it the entire year homeschooling. Many homeschooling co-ops/groups exist - and we even joined one for a time. Our local homeschooling group welcomed us until they found out we were LDS. As I very quickly realized the rather large problem that this was, even for people who had come to know my children well, I very rapidly excused ourselves from the group. It was rather sad really, but an important learning experience for me.

I was lonely much of the time. I felt like I was trying out so many new things without anyone besides my cute husband to bounce ideas off of, without anyone to tell me to 'take a deep breath, you're not ruining your children' etc.

In the end, I think the kids were lonely too. While they had plenty of socializing experiences throughout the week, they missed the peer interaction they received at school. Both of them have mentioned that this is what they are most excited about as the head back to school in a few weeks - they can't wait to make new friends.

5. Homeschooling is emotionally and physically exhausting.

I was totally and completely spent at the end of the day. I was always the most tired on Fridays - which meant that often our date nights were simply enjoying the treat of going to bed early. I think a lot of my exhaustion stemmed from the fact that I worried that I wasn't giving my kids the education I felt they deserved. Even on our very best days there was always the little nagging voice in my mind - 'Are you teaching them everything they need to know?' 'Are you ruining them?' 'How are you going to teach _____?' 'Are they thriving and excited about learning?' It was absolutely exhausting - and to be honest, it wore me completely and thoroughly out.

Enough of the negatives! On to the positives!

1. Homeschooling taught me a great deal about my kids.

I learned so very much about my children this past year. I came to have a much clearer understanding of how they learned and what made their brains tick. I learned how to move beyond what I thought would work to seeing the world from their eyes to better understand what really would work.

2. Homeschooling brought us closer as a family.

We made a lot of memories this year. When you are with your family 24/7 funny things are bound to happen which have left lasting impressions on our minds. John and Madi also became much, much closer this year. They interacted and played together much more then they did before. Now along with this closeness also came more fighting - but you can't have your cake and eat it too, right?

3. Homeschooling taught ME a lot.

Delving into world history, chemistry, Latin etc. was not only a learning adventure for the kids, it was a learning adventure for me. I learned so very much this year! Homeschooling reignited my desire to expand my horizons and study more of the world around me.

4. Homeschooling is wonderfully flexible.

We were able to do so many fun things this year without any real restrictions on our time - such as going to Disney World when no one was there. It was great to be able to vacation when we wanted, go on field trips when we wanted, sleep in when we wanted, visit with family when we wanted etc. I will seriously miss our flexibility this fall.

5. Homeschooling = no busy work

In our home we didn't have homework. Enough said.

With all the positives and negatives, would we homeschool again?

If the occasion arose I wouldn't hesitate to homeschool again. The first year is always the hardest with just about everything, I imagine that homeschooling is no exception. We have made the commitment as a couple to do whatever is in the best interest of our children academically and if homeschooling is what needs to happen, that's what it will be.

I really did love homeschooling. The Spirit directed us on this journey and taught us so much along the way. I will miss it as the kids start their new school in the fall. But life is an adventure and we're ready for our new twist in the road.

Blocks are such a timeless toy. My children have been playing with this particular set for many years. Yesterday morning, before school, the kids wanted to build a block city. John has been especially interested in attempting asymmetrical buildings, experimenting with balance and proportion. When the city was completed it was determined that half of the city would be under siege by a variety of Star Wars figures while the other half of the city would be a great place for a Lego police chase. John begged to leave the block city up until his Dad could see it that night. I agreed, as long as we didn't have to show the house.

Ten minutes later the phone rang.
We had to show the house.

Because of this...

our schoolroom has moved from here...

to here.

It's been an adjustment to now have our school days in the kitchen. The kids seem to be doing fine, I'm the one with adjustment issues. I'm not a big fan of clutter - especially in my kitchen. So to have my kitchen overflowing with books, papers, etc. has taken some getting used to. Oh well, we'll do what it takes to get the house sold.

workboxes part 2

Hello!

How do we use workboxes in our school? (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, see my post over on There's No Place Like Home)

Before we get into the how - let's get into the why. A few weeks ago John made the comment that school wasn't that fun anymore. As I thought about it, I realized the child was right. We hadn't really been having all that much fun. It had been taking all my time and effort to get through the necessaries and unfortunately some of the spunky fun was getting left behind. I thought, researched, and thought some more. And I was led to the workbox system. It was just what we needed to put some of what the kids think is just plain fun (and sneaky Mom knows that it's really educational fun) back into our school day.

Now, on to the how. The kids work through their workboxes while I am tutoring their sibling. So while I am tutoring Madi in math, John is busy with his workboxes. By the time the end of our school day rolls around, the kids each have a folder or two left which enables me to get things recorded and wrapped up in the classroom. I have even found time to, you are not going to believe this, do some of my own studying. Can you believe it? I'm having a hard time believing it myself, but it is true.

What do we fill our folders with? I'll list for you what we have filled our folders with the last three days.

John Day #1

#1- Usborne art project
#2 - Journal
#3- Spelling
#4- Puzzle of 50 states
#5- Latin
#6 - Vocab
#7- Piano Theory Game (15 min on computer)
#8 - Handwriting
#9 - Read chp. of Farmer Boy
#10 - Recitation
#11 - Free Read (20 min)
#12 - Build something from history with blocks (He built a fine looking Trojan Horse)

Madi Day #1

#1- Sort the Seasons activity
#2 - Journal
#3 - Spelling
#4 - Write spelling words with magnets
#5 - Handwriting
#6 - Recitation
#7 - Read two books to dolls (she actually squealed with delight when she opened this one)
#8 - Dot to Dot
#9 - Piano Theory Game
#10 - Pattern Block Design
#11 - File Folder Game
#12 - Build with Lincoln Logs

John Day #2

#1 - Review Latin Vocab 3 times
#2 - One page from Look and Find
#3 - Vocab
#4 - Usborne Art Project
#5 - Read chp. of Farmer Boy
#6 - Handwriting
#7 - Journal
#8 - Crossword Puzzle
#9 - Recitation
#10 - Free Read (20 minutes)
#11 - Spooky Mansion computer game (15 min)
#12 - Graphing counters

Madi Day #2
#1 - Handwriting
#2 - Usborne Art Project
#3 - Puzzle
#4 - Recitation
#5 - Spooky Mansion (15 min)
#6 - Read to dolls
#7 - Worksheet on antonyms
#8 - Journal
#9 - Look and Find
#10 - Tell glove puppet story to dolls
#11 - Educational DVD
#12 - Work on stitching sampler

John Day #3

#1- Read designated book and make list of main characters
#2 - Spelling
#3 - Read designated book and look up corresponding website
#4 - Read chp. of Farmer Boy
#5 - Listen to story on CD
#6 - Recitation
#7 - Vocab
#8 - Art Project
#9 - Journal
#10 - Work on Cub Scout requirement
#11 - Free Read (20 minutes)
#12 - Free Time!

Madi Day #3

#1 - Listen to story on CD
#2 - Spelling
#3 - Read to dolls
#4 - Paint from history
#5 - Recitation
#6 - Read designated book and identify setting
#7 - Graph teddy bear counters
#8 - Journal
#9 - 15 min on designated website
#10 - Sampler
#11 - Dot to Dot
#12 - Free Time!

The kids really like knowing that there will be a few fun things mixed in during the day. They also enjoy the suspense of not knowing exactly when these fun things will happen.

This probably sounds like a lot of work. It really isn't. It just takes a few minutes at the end of the day to assemble the following day's workboxes. I am surprised that in the same amount of time it was taking us to complete all of our school work, we are now accomplishing so much more.

But do you know what the best part is? The smiles on the faces of my children reflecting their excitement at starting a new day of school.

Drills

One of our favorite parts of the day are our drills. We do drills every morning to wind up our morning meeting. I will call out a drill and then the kids will see how fast they can complete the drill. For example - today we drilled the 50 states (with the Fifty Nifty United States song - always a hit), definition of a pronoun, list of pronouns, the books of the Old Testament, books of the New Testament, books of the Book of Mormon, Latter-day Prophets, and the current Apostles. Most of these are just the songs from the Primary Songbook, but the kids love to sing them as fast as they can.

Why drill? As Susan Wise Bauer states -

Classical education depends on a three-part process of training the mind. The early years of school are spent in absorbing facts, systematically laying the foundations for advanced study. In the middle grades, students learn to think through arguments. In the high school years, they learn to express themselves. This classical pattern is called the trivium.

The first years of schooling are called the “grammar stage” — not because you spend four years doing English, but because these are the years in which the building blocks for all other learning are laid, just as grammar is the foundation for language. In the elementary school years — what we commonly think of as grades one through four — the mind is ready to absorb information. Children at this age actually find memorization fun. So during this period, education involves not self-expression and self-discovery, but rather the learning of facts. Rules of phonics and spelling, rules of grammar, poems, the vocabulary of foreign languages, the stories of history and literature, descriptions of plants and animals and the human body, the facts of mathematics — the list goes on. This information makes up the “grammar,” or the basic building blocks, for the second stage of education (The Well Trained Mind).

At the school I taught at before I had John, we drilled every day. Throughout the year I saw, first hand, the benefits that drilling had for the students. As both of my children are firmly in the grammar stage, ready to absorb as much information as possible, drilling seemed a fun way to reinforce the facts that we are learning. The kids love it, I can't seem to keep up with their demand for new and exciting drills. So if you happen to be on my doorstep around 9:30 AM on a school day, don't be surprised if you hear us drilling loud and clear!

Time Lines

My oh my, do we love a time line around our little neck of the woods.

History is decidedly our favorite subject. On Mondays and Tuesdays we study world history (today we studied the Peloponnesian War), on Wednesdays and Thursdays we study American History (our emphasis being Colonial America at the moment).

Our time line is beneficial in so many ways. It helps us to not only view the sequential order of history, but it also allows us to see events that were happening at the same time around the world. It has been especially interesting to see the different historical events that were occurring throughout the world in relation to the different events in the scriptures. The increased historical knowledge has helped our appreciation and understanding of the scriptures tremendously. Our timeline also serves as a constant reminder/review of all that we have learned this year. It gives the children a sense of their place in the grand scheme of things and how important it is to learn from those that have gone before.

I am in love with our timeline figures from Homeschool in the Woods. This company offers fantastic timeline figures with a brief summary to help keep Amenhotep and Cyrus the Great straight. After we finish studying a particular event or person we simply cut out the figure and sticky tack it on our time line.

Who could have known a time line could be so much fun?

snapshots of our day

Veni, Vedi, Vici

Next week John will begin studying Latin.

Latin is a key component to a classical education. Why Latin? I appreciate the explanation Susan Wise Bauer gives.

"Why bother with Latin? It is, after all, a dead language (a pejorative phrase) - no literature is being produced in it, no one's speaking it or doing business in it.

We bother with it for a number of reasons.

Latin trains the mind to think in an orderly fashion. Latin (being dead) is the most systematic language around. The discipline of assembling endings and arranging syntax (grammar patterns) according to set rules is the mental equivalent of a two-mile jog. And because Latin demands precision, the Latin-trained mind becomes accustomed to paying attention to detail, a habit that will pay off especially when studying math and science.

Latin improves English skills. The grammatical structure of English is based on Latin, as is about 50 percent of English vocabulary. The student who understands how Latin works is rarely tripped up by complicated English syntax or obscure English words...

Latin prepares the child for the study of other foreign languages... The child who has been drilled in Latin syntax understands the concepts of agreement, inflected nouns, conjugated verbs, and grammatical gender not matter what language these concepts appear in (Bauer, The Well-Trained Mind , 189)."

It is recommended that a child begins to study Latin in third grade, and now that we've got a school semester under our belt, we're ready to start.

**Thank you, Julianne, for passing on your Latin curriculum. We are excited to begin.**

I really love this book.

We are using the Usborne Art Treasury as part of our art curriculum this winter. I adore this book because it presents an artist, one of their works, and a corresponding art project for the children. Each section begins with a brief history of both the artist and the piece. Some of the artists in the book include Van Gogh, Monet, O'Keeffe, Degas, Havercamp, as well as many others. A simple art project is then given, allowing the child to work with techniques and mediums similar to the artist and piece. This week we worked on winter scenes based on Havercamp's paintings. The kids were quite intrigued that Havercamp was both deaf and mute - one of his only forms of expression was through painting.

It's been a great place for us to start our journey into art history. Madi is especially looking forward to our Van Gogh project, the 'swirly one' as she likes to call it.

School has begun once more. Though I'm sad the holidays are past, I am happy to be getting back into a rhythm again.

With the new year, I thought I would offer a few of my thoughts on homeschooling, a reality check if you will.

1. I need to be a much better protector when it comes to my little homeschool. Though I relish the flexibility homeschooling brings (starting school an hour late after a long night, taking vacations/field trips while others are in school, dropping everything and playing in the snow that only comes every few years, etc), I need to make sure that we aren't pushed in our flexibility. We must have our dedicated school time, which just like public school, cannot be interrupted. Too many times this fall I let other things crowd in and take over the time that should have been our school time. Too many times we were rushing to get the work done so that we could get to x,y, or z instead of taking the time to enjoy the process. This year one of my goals (I have 20 New Years goals, just looking at them makes me exhausted. I know, I'm crazy) is to be the diligent protector of my school. I will have to make some tough choices, but I feel strongly that this is something I need to do.

2. My academic views have evolved considerably over the last few months. I have found myself well rooted in the classical education methodology. Our school is going to be considerably more academically rigorous this semester, and we are excited. The kids enjoy being challenged and it's time that I challenge both of them a great deal more.

3. I am so glad I have a semester under my belt now. It was so hard to know what would work and what wouldn't work before the year started. Some things that I thought would be fantastic fell flat on their face, while other things I wasn't convinced about have been amazing. Experience is a marvelous thing.

4. Homeschooling is work. Trying to provide the best education I can to two different children at two different levels with two different learning styles can be tricky at times. Sometimes I get really, really tired. But when exhaustion is about to overtake me, I try and remember this quote by Sister Julie B. Beck (she's pretty much my hero) -

"Families mean work, but they are our great work—and we are not afraid of work."

5. I worry. I worry that my kids will suffer socially from being homeschooled. I worry that I am not teaching them enough. I worry that I am going to miss something really important in my teaching - like how to multiply or something like that. I worry that they are bored. I worry that I won't be able to meet their various and assorted needs. I worry that others are judging my family just because we homeschool without really knowing us. I worry that some days I am a lot less patient than I should be. I worry that my kids won't have any friends (though at the moment they are both playing at their friends house), I worry that my kids are going to be 'weird' when they grow up (Corey assures me that homeschooling doesn't make kids weird. Kids who are weird have weird parents. Weird kids are going to be weird whether they are homeschooled or not. Then the question becomes - Are we weird parents? Corey assures me we aren't... if you think we are, please don't tell me). Basically I worry that I am ruining and depriving my children (Again, Corey reassures me that he will not let me ruin our children).

6. When the kids don't know something, I have no one to blame but myself. More than once I have found myself shaking my head and saying, 'I have failed.'

7. I wish I had more people I could bounce ideas off of, I get lonely sometimes.

8. Homeschooling is worth every second. I wouldn't trade it for the world. I am closer to my children now than I was a year ago and that has been worth every moment of heartache, worry, exhaustion and work. We are in this together and it has been one of the most fulfilling, treasured things I have ever done.