Going Crazy with no Homeschool Support?

This photo is what I must have looked like my first couple of months of homeschooling. No kidding! I was fortunate enough to find some local and online homeschool support for those days when I needed it most! Without the help from many people in those early days of homeschooling I would probably not be sane (or at least my level of sanity,hehe) today. It is the most important advice I can give to anyone thinking of beginning your homeschooling adventure is find a place where you can ask questions (silly or serious), a place where you feel comfortable to be yourself. Really life is toooo short not to enjoy it or the people you are surrounded by. Personally I need people who are funny,  have a strong sense of who they are (not afraid to be themselves), love their kids, and basically LOVE life to surround me. I find that I can soak up their great attitudes, experiences and ways that they homeschool. Even though, I consider myself a secular homeschooler, I value the opinions of many of my Christian,etc. friends on how and what they do for their kids. 

Then my online support groups are a bit more on the crazy side, ya know that feeling that you can really let loose! Sometimes dangerous for me, since most of my friends think I already have no  mouth filter, imagine the POWER I can feel to type it out and hit send! Another plus for online support is even if you live in the middle of no where (I was there once and it was no fun!) you can still communicate with like minded people about your homeschooling experiences.

The morale of this post.... is to find some support so you don't look like this guy ready to blow something up;)

Finished, 完成,færdig,finis,finito,terminado, terminat WITH THE KITCHEN CABINETS

I am so excited I AM DONE! OK so I will have to go back in another week or so and see if I missed any of the details. BUT for the most part I am done with the redo of the cabinets. And not a moment too soon, I was beginning to lose it with everything out of the drawers and cabinets for weeks at a time. So what I started in January of this year is finally completed;) Of course, now I see that the walls are in desperate need of being painted and the grout needs to be replaced between the tiles. In all due time they will be on the the completed list for the kitchen.  This project I have learned a lot about the fastest ways to get everything sanded~ getting help from dear hubby;) Yes he helped out the last four weekends because he saw I was getting that crazed look in my eye. He is good about catching that look before it goes into complete meltdown. So without further ado here are the before and afters of it all. Remember if you have any questions on how I did something please ask me, I am happy to share my successes and mistakes so that you don't have to make them! And please excuse my poor picture taking skills, its not one of my talents!
                                             BEFORE

                                                         AFTER

Books about Homeschoolers

Well if you know me at all then you know that I am very passionate about HomeschoolLiterature.com. If you don't know me well.....get to know me, I am COOL! When I was first approached about the idea of helping set up this unique site, I was a little worried that there were not really any good books out there about homeschoolers. Fast forward almost a year later and I have read a lot of the books from the site and I really loved almost all of them.  A big bonus is that there are new stories coming out all the time. My four favorites so far are~ Surviving the Applewhites, Skellig, Schooled and Gunrunner Moon, because they all pulled me into the story (and the boys too, since I read them aloud to them). They also gave a fun and unique spin on different types of homeschoolers.  Some of the books on the site, have lesson plan ideas to use with them or spelling/vocabulary lists unique to each story. These were fun for me to create and do with the boys to give them a better grasp of the stories. While looking for books about homeschoolers, we also came across several books written by people who were homeschooled, just in case all of you were wondering if kids who are homeschooled can be successful. It is truly fascinating to me to see homeschoolers being creative and doing something on their own.

While in our family's homeschooling education has a lot to do with reading great literature books and doing lesson plans based on them. It is always a pleasure to have a book that the boys can related to because they have something in common with the characters from the story. So while yes we read the classics or listen to them on audio CD, we have also found some new homeschooling classics that we will enjoy reading for years to come. If you happen to stop by HomeschoolLiterature.com and see a book that I haven't found yet, please let me know so that all of us can read it;)

A good base for successful homeschooling

This seems to be the time of year when on the forums, Facebook and email loops that there are tons of questions from what I once was~  a newbie to homeschooling;) OR a seasoned homeschoolers that is just needing a change for their families. The questions always are the same, What do you use to get started? How many hours a day do you homeschool? What do you do for socialization? What sites do you use online? My personal favorite that I get~ How can you stand to be around your kids all the time? This questions always throws me for a loop-the others I am more than happy to answer BUT this one I always want to say something that is probably not too nice! I totally understand that every child isn't the most pleasant ALL the time, but to be truthful NEITHER AM I! SO I usually respond by simply saying that my boys and I are closer than most families I LOVE IT!

 Now for some of the other questions;) now mind you I am not an expert but this is info that I was given when I started, from research or just basic common sense. To get started you need to figure out where your child stands in a couple different areas. First one is where are they at in their learning process (especially helpful when you have pulled your child out of school) because if they are still learning to read for example you need to find a reading program that works for your family. The other thing that I think is helpful to get assessed in the beginning is how does your child learn? What is their learning style? Another area is doing research on curriculum BUT my suggestion that will save you money and headaches down the road is to join an online or local homeschooling support groups. This will enable you to ASK about curricula that you have heard about BEFORE you buy them. I am going to share my first 6 months with you so that you can see where I am coming from on this subject;) I pulled my boys out after their 5th and Kindergarten years, I decided from volunteering at all their schools that taking 3 months off from school wasn't an option. I didn't want to have to back track and review things that they had learned until Christmas only then to be able to start on the new stuff that late in the school year. SO I started my research in March of their last year in school, made up a "school room" in the living room, went to garage sale to get any books, textbooks I could get my hands on, joined several local homeschooling groups, DID so much research I thought my head would explode and without asking about success stories from other homeschooling families bought a year's worth of curricula. I didn't de-school the boys we took a week off after they got out in May and then started right in with all my shiny new lessons. BIG MISTAKE but it took me 6 months into it to realize it! We were doing school from 8 to 5 almost everyday and still not getting through what I thought that we needed to. After many LONG discussions with some of my new homeschooling mamas they told me with a straight face" YOU ARE TRYING TO DO TOO MUCH!" With that I did a month of de-schooling with the boys, we had so much fun with it! We did field trips, museums classes, nature hikes, art classes with dad you name it I signed up for it. It really gave me a look at what learning should look like;)

Now how many of hours do you homeschool a day? Well this is the question I almost always never got a clear answer on! It's tricky, that question for so many homeschoolers, because what I consider homeschooling they didn't. OR the other way around! Here is what our typical day looks like and it took about 3-5 hours to complete start to finish. 

Up at 8am- breakfast,feed and take care of  the dogs, get ready (showers, getting dressed etc.)

9am -10am ~ boys practice their instruments for an hour

10am-11am ~ boys do their time4learning lessons (I help when needed)

11am-noon~ lunch break with dad then down time (they play, go outside, etc)

noon-1pm ~ do individual lessons in spelling,grammar, writing

1pm-2pm~ math and silent reading

2pm-3pm ~ science or history

3pm until they are finished~ work for outside classes, any work they didn't get to, special interest research, etc.

They also are required to do some household chores or LIFE SKILLS class, then a big difference between us and regular school is there is almost never any homework! This is something that is a blessing in our house with our oldest! He used to have 3 hours of homework a night to keep up in school! When I would talk to his teachers they would always say it shouldn't take more than an hour.

Socialization is a big question for anyone who hears that you are homeschooling your child. BUT I have never had a problem with it. We have neighbors so when they get home the boys can play with them after supper. We also do a weekly game day at the community center with other homeschoolers and then there is park day on Fridays. My boys are also involved in music classes, swimming and various other activities where they can be around other peers. That first year we were gone more than we were HOME! I have settled down and not signed up for everything that comes along so that we have time to work on other things;)

NOW what do I use that is online? This list is ever growing but here it goes....

Time4learning.com ~ is the only thing that we have kept using since the beginning as far as curriculum goes.

SpellingCity.com ~ OMG if you don't know about this site CHECK IT OUT!

BBC typing and Learninggamesforkids.com  typing after all it is necessary for them to know how to type!

Supercharged Science- new find but my boys LOVE it , science experiments you won't believe!

Timez Attack ~ for any video game loving child;)

SecularHomeschool.com ~ online support forum! I love the members on this site could be because they are like me a little Crazy!

PHEW I am tired now, so that's it for now! Feel free to add to this list in the comments below or ask any questions you might have about what I have said. 

Happy Homeschooling!

Kitchen~ Section 4 COMPLETE

 After 3 long weekends of working on section 4 , they went from looking like this~

To looking like THIS! WOW I know it is hard to see the difference in my pics BUT there is one let me tell you what!

For this section, I had to remove the trim, make a new side panel to cover up the old paper side panel. Sand, stain and seal the doors, added bonus for me DH helped me;)OH the sanding was taking forever so being the nice man he is, he decided to help, tehe.  After all that was done he started disassembling the island trim so you know what is next right? The island and the small desk, wanting to get them done together but after 3 hours of sanding I just got finished with the island! And with that my nice Dewalt sander decided to go into working half the time, poor little yellow guy( thanks to MIL sending that out to hubby several years back for xmas!). So yes I broke down and had to go to Sears again and bought a replacement. Check out what my new sander is.....(the Amazon pic linking isn't showing it so I took a quick pic of it for you to see;) not out of the box yet!)

 

Coming in for the Home Stretch!

Well, yes like most kids in school, we too are getting ready for the end of the school year coming soon! Together we are pushing through the tough subjects/lessons that we have been putting off or just didn't have the time to do. Still working on building our vocabulary skills and of course, the bane of my existence spelling and writing;) But we are getting better at it for sure! Even bought some new workbooks ( I know YUCK!) for grammar that at least the youngest seems to like doing with me on a daily basis! Also doing spelling everyday, I have to shout out a special "THANKS" to SpellingCity for making it bearable for us all on those days we just don't want to do one more spelling activity! I know a lot of families who use this free resource and we even up graded to the premium membership so we could get all the games available.  Also found some educational videos on phonics for when they just can't get that sound right. (Meant for Pre-K to Kindergarten) but it worked to help my boys figure out how they were saying a word wrong.

Besides finishing up this year's activities, I am also looking forward to this summer and next school year's activities. Sign up at many local libraries, parks and recs, or other community led educational classes have begun. I just signed up the youngest to a free week long science program through the libraries of Wake County. (something a friend turned me onto last year!) I must admit that we do school year round taking vacations and breaks when needed or when dad takes off work. So we really don't do a large break after we finish each grade we just pick up the next workbook or go to the next level in our online lessons until our next break. So at any given time the boys could be doing one or two above where they are "supposed' to be at and yes sometimes a grade behind! I just love homeschooling my boys, wishing I had done this from the beginning but BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!

Seriously A Week Has Passed Me By?

I can't believe that a whole week has went by since my last post! In my defense I have been really busy, well I have! Since last Thursday, I have been working on the next section of cabinets for the kitchen, running the boys all over the place, trying to find out how to move a nest of bunnies without them dying, working out at 5:30-6am Mon-Fri, making food for my crazy bunch of boys, and oh yea homeschooling! Not that much huh? I am sure that I missed something but it must have gotten done or it would still be on the list of things to do, right?

For anyone who is interested the cabinets are coming along, just taking forever to finish this last section. Partly because I got impatient and did a bigger section. Secondly there was a lot of build up on them that caused me to go thru a package of sanding discs! But at least I am done with the frames inside the house and cleaned up the mess that sanding inside always creates.

Yes you heard me right a nest of bunnies decided to take up a house in my container. I was cleaning out the containers this past week, trying to see what made it and what didn't. Then I come across the ones with my Black Eyed Susans and Hollyhocks in them and there is all this what I thought was dog hair in them. I was like why did the boys think it was ok to put dog hair in my container? (of course it was them who else would it be, LOL) When I went to remove it (with my gardening gloves on) I saw that something was in there. JUMPING BACK for a second before I realized it was bunnies and not mice/rats or possums (YUCK). AWE was my next thought then it went to OH SHIT! THEY ARE IN MY FLOWER CONTAINER! Now we all know that they are cute as a button when they are small but what are the three things that bunnies do?? GET BIG, EAT,AND MAKE MORE BUNNIES!  Do you know that there are places that come and rescue bunnies? I sure didn't! Of course, I haven't contacted them yet, can't decide what to do with the bunnies;)

What I thought was dog hair.

nope see Bugs in there with about 6 or 7 of his brothers and sisters?

 

Well that is most of what I have been up to, what about you?