The first six months...

It's been roughly six months since we started homeschooling and I am astounded by the amount of progress the four of us have made. I have three ring binders for them where we file all of their work and the other day Melody and I went through hers because it's gotten a bit full. Together we looked at her math pages from the beginning of the year where she was doing simple single digit addition. Then we looked back over her math page from that day. Now she's doing double digit addition and subtraction with regrouping. Her reading has just taken off and she's able to do story problems on her own. Then we looked over her journal pages. At the first of the year they looked like this...

Now they look like this...

Her handwriting, her spelling, and her understanding of basic sentence structure has come so far!

Then Katie wanted to go through her folder next so we started with her handwriting. At the first of the year her handwriting pages looked like this...

she knew how to write most of her capitals, but almost none of her lower case letters. She struggled to make the letters fit inside the lines, and make them all the same size.

Now her handwriting pages look like this...

She went from not being able to count past ten to being able to do simple addition and subtraction. She really fought the idea of sitting down and doing assignments at the first of the year so I didn't push it. I had her do ten minutes here and ten minutes there, then take a break to play. Now she loves to do school and usually asks to do more.

There was some frustration for us all in the beginning trying to get our schedule figured out. Melody started the year wanting 'our' school to be the same as her school was in kindergarten. Since I'm not what you would call a schedule oriented person this didn't happen. I like to have the freedom to go where I feel the day is taking us. Unfortunately the day didn't usually take us to any type of chores so the house was usually a mess. It also left the girls frustrated and feeling powerless because they didn't know what to expect from one day to the next. I've tried so many things over the last few months and I fianlly feel like I've found a groove that is comfortable for everyone.

I've stopped trying to schedule every minute of school and have instead blocked out our day. The girls know what's expected of them as soon as they get up. I used to call them their 'morning chores' but Melody hates the idea of chores so she requested that we call it 'morning things' instead. Whatever gets the chores done! After they've finished that I usually have breakfast ready and then we do our daily chores (dishes, straightening, vacuuming, ect). The girls know that school starts at nine and if we get all this done quickly they can watch cartoons until school starts. They actually got everything done so fast the other day they got two whole hours of cartoons that morning!

We start our school day with our morning folders and journals and then I lay out what they have to do that day and they pretty much control what order they do it in. I love it because if Melody is feeling antsy she can take her book outside and do her reading while moving around the yard. Or if Katie is particularly focused one day she sometimes decides to get her handwriting out of the way first. Doing it this way allows them to control their day. School is usually done by lunch and after the afternoon chores (bathrooms, mopping, laundry, ect) are done they get technology time until 2. Again, they know if they get done quickly they get more technology time so it's a huge motivator to get the big chores done.


I only share all these boring details because this progress is huge for me! Now that I've found this schedule that works for everyone behavior and motivation has done a complete 180° turnaround. Where the girls used to fight a lot they now spend half their day playing! I used to deal with a lot of fighting on assignments and not wanting to do anything school related, now they turn the tv off at nine and get started on their morning folders without any reminders. I'm pretty much living on cloud nine right now! Clean house. Happy kids. Free time every single day. This is amazing! I'm sure it won't last forever, but I'm going to enjoy it while I can!

Reasons to love homeschooling

1. Sharing my talents and hobbies in lessons.

2. Relaxed mornings together and no rushing to catch a bus at a crazy hour

3.Picnic lunches in the park

4. I get to teach with a really sweet little teachers helper!

But I have to say the very best part is that we're together all day. Some days it's rough, but most days I love getting to know my girls better and letting them get to know each other.