Our homeschooling plan...

...as of right now. ;) 

So. I homeschool. Over the years, I've had countless conversations with folks about this and numerous questions. By way of answering some of those, I'm going to talk you through our little homeschool approach here in the coming days. 

(Tangent: Also, I love documenting things and this seems like as good a place as any. Actually, I'm thinking I want to make a mini album that I can add to over the years with stuff we've used in our homeschooling journey. I'm working on a plan/system for yearly homeschool albums for each boy, but a separate album just about the curriculums would be nice, too. The hope is to get my ducks all in a row by summer's end. We'll see...;) Any other homeschooling scrapbookers have input on this?) 

To start, though, let me set the stage. We've always homeschooled. None of our three boys has ever been enrolled in a public school. We don't have anything in particular against public schools and actually both had fairly happy public school experiences ourselves. Many of our friends and family are teachers. This is just what works best for us, for various reasons that would require many additional posts. ;) 

Yes, we plan to continue homeschooling for the foreseeable future. The boys have always known that they have the option of going to public school. They prefer homeschooling, and we'll accommodate that so long as it continues to work. 

Right now, Noah is 9 and just "officially" finished third grade. Much of his math and science is higher than that. Asher is 7, will be 8 this summer. He's just "officially" finished first grade. (These grade things are rather confusing for me sometimes, lol. My "official" grades correlate to what grade they'd be in if we'd sent them to public school. It doesn't always reflect what they're working on.) Micah will be 5 this summer and will "officially" start kindergarten this fall. (Yes, that means that if we were sending him to public school I think we'd send him this fall even though he has a late July birthday. The kid is just too anxious to grow up, lol.) 

That said, let me walk you through our "routine" as it stands now...

I've recently decided to switch to a roughly three weeks on, one week off type of schedule. I find that taking large chunks of time "off" doesn't work well for us...difficult for both the boys and myself to get back on track and we lose time in trying. My hope is that planning just three weeks at a time will be more successful (and less overwhelming than trying to plan an entire year) and that the one week off will be just the pick me up we need to maintain our enthusiasm for learning while also having some fun and being able to tackle "other" stuff like household projects and holiday obligations. (I anticipate that things like the week before Halloween and the week of Thanksgiving will be "off" weeks...which should help things run more smoothly.)

On a day to day basis...we use a four day week schedule.

During the school year, the boys attend Options on Mondays. Options is an enrichment program where they go to a "school" with only other homeschool kids (grades K-12) for the day. They switch classes every hour and take classes like Hands On Science, AmeriTowne, Music/Drama, PE, Art, and the like. The classes give them a bit of experience with classrooms and other teachers and being part of a class but they aren't truly designed or intended to be their academic program...they're enrichment classes with the realization that the true academics are going on at home. (In other words, they get to do fun stuff like build volcanoes and play with bubbles while I cover acids/bases and chemical reactions at home, lol.) Since this is our normal Monday routine most of the year, I'm sticking with it during the summer and using Mondays for things like errands and just free play. 

The remaining four days of the week, we do our "basics" in the morning. These are the things where the boys all have their own workbooks/levels going on...mostly math and reading. I have it broken down so that Asher and Micah do 1/3 of their weekly work in math and in reading each morning. The other morning, we simply read together one-on-one. Noah prefers not to take quite the same "a little bit at a time" approach and likes to finish all of his math in two days instead. He also has an additional math program that he does with me and a number of critical thinking workbooks that he works on independently. I think I'm going to start working with him on cursive, too. In general, this all takes about an hour to an hour and a half each morning. Then they can play until lunch. :)

After lunch, we tackle our subject(s) of the day. These are the things that I do with all three boys together for right now. (I anticipate that this will change at some point, but right now it still works...I know I'll have to go back and cover things for Micah again and will likely also go into more detail for the others at that point.) So, afternoons are for things like science, grammar, geography, history, Latin (okay, I haven't started this yet, but plan to soon), and art. Some days are quick and some take longer, but the goal is to still be done with everything by the end of the "normal" school day so that later afternoons are free for extra-curricular activities like soccer practices and swim lessons and karate classes. 

And that, in an admittedly large nutshell, is what we do right now. ;) 

Stay tuned for subject-by-subject lists of stuff we use and love...

Our weekend...

...went like this:

FRIDAY: We did our usual morning exercise (me) and schoolwork (boys), ran a bunch of errands and headed out for Noah's soccer tournament. Their Friday game was at 5:00 and it was, um, hot. Really hot. Oh, I'm sure it could have been hotter and am quite appreciative of the occasional cloud cover. But it was muggy. Bleh. In any case, Asher and Micah had fun with our new spectator dealio:

Very happy with this find. So much better than just bringing umbrellas and trying to keep them from blowing away or from being twirled around by boys. It's lightweight and sturdy and easy to assemble by just one person. Perfect for us. (Incidentally, on day 2 of the tournament, we saw a number more of these appear, as we'd been asked where we found it. (Sam's Club...only $40)) Asher and Micah treated it as their own little fort and played math games and read library books during the game.

Anyhow. The first game was competitive but our guys just weren't at their best. Oh well. Two weeks off and the start of baseball season along with the heat and the fact that a number of them spent the first part of the day quite busy = not their best game. Still. It was close. :) 

After that, we treated the boys (just ours, not all of them, lol) to some frozen yogurt, some window shopping at Toys R Us, and Five Guys burgers before heading home. 

SATURDAY: Though we'd have loved to sleep in, we all woke up bright and early to take Asher and Micah to their first karate lesson. We signed them up at Karate West upon the recommendation of a friend, and couldn't be happier. First, the boys are so stinkin' adorable in their little uniforms. Second, Asher's gonna be a natural at this, you can already tell. Third, Micah (with his less flexible little body and the fact that he's three years younger than Ash) is darn cute...hilarious even. (Nathan had to remind me to stop laughing at him more than once. I wasn't really laughing *at* him, but, dang, he's just funny.) Fourth, both boys are already in love and I'm looking forward to seeing them continue in this. They're so happy. :)

After that, we headed home for an early lunch before driving back up to the soccer complex for Noah's 1:00 game. That one ended in a tie and was really so close. Three of the boys on the other team had played on Noah's team last season and two of the boys on Noah's team used to play on the other team...so, lots of knowing what the other team was going to do, which made it a hard fought game. ;) (And, yes, it was similarly hot and muggy as Friday night. Probably hotter, as the cloud cover was much less. Lovely.)

Drove the 20 minutes or so back home to enjoy some air conditioning briefly, pick up the trophies and such for the team party, and adjust our sun protection (yeah, I got a bit too much sun during that first game...had put on sunscreen and all, but pulling my hair up exposed my not-normally-exposed back so I grabbed a long sleeve linen top for the second game, even though that just made me hotter, lol). Drove back up to the soccer complex for the 4:00 game.

Here's Noah in his last game:

He's not going to sign up for next season. He's at the age where most of his friends signed up for Intermediate instead of Recreation...we'd told all the boys up front that we couldn't do competitive soccer, as it's expensive and requires travel and wouldn't be fair to the other two at the same time. Anyhow, he still has the option to do rec soccer but doesn't want to, as it will be a different coach (in all his six seasons, he's only had two coaches...the same one for the past four seasons) and his friends wouldn't be there. It's sad, because he loves the sport so much and has really grown in his skill level and emotionally through his seasons of soccer. We're still thinking on this... 

Regardless, the team played a hard last game but ultimately lost by one (Noah will tell you that the referee's calls made an impact here and that they should have won the game...which may be true). Still. They had fun and played well. And, because there probably isn't a more beloved coach:

It was Noah's idea. Honest. :) And bringing the water cooler to all the games did come in handy with the heat and boys whose water bottles emptied early. Fortunately, the coach was a good sport about it all (and we'd made sure he'd have an extra shirt). Afterward, we all went to a local pizza place for the team party and handed out trophies and pictures and all. We also presented the coach with a little scrapbook documenting his coaching experience and with thank you notes from each boy. 

And then we went home and crashed. ;) Tired.

SUNDAY: We haven't really done anything today. Woohoo!

So, how was your weekend?

FYI

Just so you know, the "not sweltering" thoughts didn't work tonight. Noah's game was at 5 pm and, dude, it was hot and muggy. Lovely. Two more tomorrow afternoon...

Four on Friday...

1. My layout is up on the Good Grief Blog today. This is one of my favorites thus far...not so much because of the design or anything...just enjoyed how nicely the journaling came to me.

2. Noah's soccer tournament starts this afternoon so don't expect to see me online much tonight or tomorrow. ;) (Happy thoughts for *not* sweltering or windy weather would be appreciated, lol.)

3. I'm thinking I'm going to start a little series of homeschool resource blog posts next week. Have had a number of people lately asking me what I've found works and would also like to just document it somewhere for my own records.

4. If anyone has any good "thanks for being an awesome coach" type quotes, I'd love to hear them! (Sooner rather than later would be dandy for this procrastinator, LOL!)

Okay, off to finish up math and spelling, the laundry, picking up the milk for the week, and getting ready for the tournament... ;)

Guess how we spent our Memorial Day weekend...

Decided to take a little road trip...here's the run-down:

SATURDAY: We managed to get on the road just before 8:00 am and headed for South Dakota! Along the way, we taught the boys how to play the alphabet game…not an easy feat on the backroads of Wyoming. Regardless, we managed miraculously to finish the alphabet twice before hitting South Dakota. (We worked as a team, except for Micah who was marching to his own beat and using a magazine he’d found in the van.)

Made it to Hot Springs, SD around lunch time and grabbed some food before checking in to our hotel. Having rested briefly, we then drove up to Mt. Rushmore where the boys had a fabulous time seeing the amazing mountain, walking the Presidential Trail, and completing the booklets to earn their Junior Ranger badges. (Honestly, the boys *loved* Mt. Rushmore, which surprised me a little, as there's not much to "do" there, kwim? So glad they enjoyed themselves, though!)

We took the scenic route back to the hotel (around Custer State park along a rather windy road, complete with one lane tunnels and bridges). Asher and Micah found that delightful, though Noah and I were a bit queasy. ;)

SUNDAY: Full, full day. After breakfast, we drove to Jewel Cave, stopping to photograph the buffalo along the way. (Yes, they were really that close to our van...no zoom was used at all and that's our passenger side mirror.)

Once at Jewel Cave, we took the scenic tour…a 1 hour 20 minute tour through ½ mile of the second longest cave in the world, complete with 723 steps and fascinating scenery. (Hooray for Micah finally being old enough to do things like this!! Such a trooper!) The boys particularly liked the huge “bacon” feature:

as well as the “popcorn” and “Jabba the Hut (flow stone).” Upon resurfacing, we ate a picnic lunch and then completed the boys’ Junior Ranger booklets for yet another badge. (Have I mentioned how much they like the Junior Ranger programs? We've done them at Rocky Mountain National Park also.)

Heading back to Hot Springs, we hit Evans Plunge, a natural warm water indoor swimming pool heated with mineral water from thermal springs. Nathan and the boys took turns trying out the various water slides, with Asher getting in the most runs. (Sorry, I didn't bother taking the camera in, lol.)

After the swimming break, we scooted over to the Mammoth Site (also in Hot Springs) and took a quick tour there. The Mammoth Site is a non-profit research facility where you can see first-hand an active paleontological dig site where 58 mammoths have been found. The scale and detail were amazing! During the summers, apparently, kids and adults can even participate in some of the digging!

Here's some of the actual dig site...right along the tour path!

And here's us next to a silhouette of a Columbian mammoth to show the scale:

Whew. After all that, we decided to get a bit of driving out of the way before stopping for dinner…a choice that was almost the wrong one. It took us three towns or so before finding one that had any open restaurants. (Remember, too, that the towns are few and far between in South Dakota and Wyoming, lol.) We finally sat down at a quarter to nine, just before they closed. The meal, though, was delicious and worth the wait! And it was a nice way to break up the driving. We did the last 2.5-3 hours of driving after that, arriving home at about 12:30 at night and falling into bed. 

MONDAY: After sleeping in, eating lunch and then finishing the unpacking, the boys talked Nathan into a front yard water fight.

Nathan couldn’t convince any of the boys to be on his team but soon discovered that the bucket that we normally use for refilling worked well for dousing boys. ;) Between that, the hose, and the sprinkler, the boys had a blast. A fabulous way to end the three day weekend!

Hope your weekend was as memorable as ours!