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.

Easter 2013

Saturday we were assigned to clean the church. It was also the day of the Easter egg hunt at a local park. By the time we finished mopping and dusting and cleaning glass it was almost time for the egg hunt to start. I really wanted to take the kids so we dropped Jared off at home so he could sleep and we headed off. I knew it was going to be crazy. I was completely prepared for crazy. What I wasn't prepared for was to go offroading to find a parking spot. My van probably could've handled it, but I wasn't willing to risk it. So instead I bribed the kids with cheese burgers and we went home and had our own egg hunt. Thanks to Great Grandpa and Grandma Carter and their surprise Easter package we had some super cute eggs to add to our hunt. I wish I had gotten pictures of them They were shaped like ladybugs and little frogs...so cute!

While Jared corralled the kids I hid 76 eggs all over the yard and then we set the crazies free to do their thing. I couldn't believe how stinkin cute Allie was! Once she realized there were eggs hidden in the yard she was a crazy person running around,  squealing and yelling and doing her growl thing she does. It was too funny! After they were done they immediately sat down to count how many they had and being a homeschooling mom I totally used it as an opportunity to get some real life math application out of it. I"m a nerd that's why this homeschool thing has appealed to me so much :) Anywho enjoy the Mellie/Katie/Allie cuteness!

 

 

 

 

 

Since we don't have church until 1 and I usually try to nap Allie at 11 before we go we had to wait until 4 to get pictures. I think this was a big reason why it wasn't the most successful venture. 

Attempt #1  Everyone is in the picture and facing the camera. Unfortunately Allie's cheese face isn't the greatest and Melody pretty much looks like she wants to kill something.

 

 Attempt #2 Everyone is still in the picture (thanks to some jelly beans) and one of them is even smiling. Getting closer.

 

 

Attempt #3  The jelly bean bribery stops working and Allie is starting to revolt

 

 Attempt #4 And Allie's gone! Katie and Mellie look pretty cute though :)

 Attempt #5 Now Katie's bailed too. Lets all admire sweet Melody who held out until the end!

Beautiful weather

My favorite thing about living in a house instead of an apartment is the yard. Today was an absolutely beautiful day. Not to hot not to cool. As soon as school was finished I kicked all three of them out of the house. I love being able to open all the doors and listen to them play and run around the yard while finishing up my chores. As soon as I was done I headed out to soak in some vitamin d. Melody asked Katie to trace her body with the sidewalk chalk. Allie promptly laid down next to her demanding to be traced as well. So we traced all three of them and they each helped decorate. I think they're a very good likeness of each of them.

Love learning

I love PBS. I mean REALLY LOVE PBS. There is not one cartoon on that channel that I can't take and make a lesson out of. When the kids start getting burned out on book work or are just getting restless we take a break and watch a PBS cartoon that goes along with the subject we were working on. Today it was math. We watched an episode of cyber chase that taught the kids how to sort things and introduced the concept of a Venn diagram. I followed that up by giving them a big pile of buttons and their own Venn diagram. I did almost no talking, they pretty much ran with it. I loved watching them figure it out together.

Momma's little helper

Allie is a fantastic helper when it comes to getting chores done. If she sees me or one of the girls working on something she'll come over and just assign herself a chore. Its pretty much a known fact that she clears the silverware in the dishwasher and has been known to put dirty stuff away in her efforts to be efficient! Normally she'll pull it out and hand it to someone else to put in the drawer, but I guess she decided she didn't need help any more. I walked in one day to find her handling it all on her own!