Homeschooling is a Journey

It occurred to me that although I many times ask, via FB and Twitter, what others do for homeschooling, I never really say what we are doing now. So, I am sharing today. Let me start off my saying that I am making the decision to homeschool year round, and to homeschool on most days of the week. Yes, there are some traditional school days that we don't homeschool, but we also don't take off the holidays, teacher planning days, etc that public schools take. I am staying Common Core aligned (a teacher friend sent me some great CC aligned assessments), so that if they return to public school I know that they will at least be on grade level.

Here's a typical day of homeschooling for us (our kids are preschool/pre-k, and K):

1. Educational TV such as Sesame Street, Magic School Bus, Wild Kratt's, etc-I know that some people are 100% TV watching, but we are not. Both of our kids learn very well through TV shows, and they enjoy them. The TV is usually on while I am making breakfast and during breakfast; sometimes even during handwriting/coloring practice. I especially enjoy how they ask questions during and after the tv shows, because it gives me ideas on more subjects for them to study.

2. Online work such as Teach Your Monster to Read, and ABCMouse-I love both of these websites and so do the kids. Monster is focused on reading, ABCMouse is a complete CC aligned curriculum for K, and it has curriculum from preschool-preK as well for our son (he has already completed Level 1 preschool). With both sites, the kids learn from games, worksheets, songs, etc. ABCMouse also has a separate "fun" area, as well as an area for parents to print off worksheets, and other learning areas for the kids to explore. Seriously, this site is awesome and worth the money.

I also use random websites for Science, such as Brain Pop, jr (the free stuff), National Geographic, and Science4Us (the free stuff).

3. Online apps-Bella, our 6 yr old uses Lexia/Rosetta Stone for homeschoolers to teach reading. As you can tell, I place great importance on learning to read. The websites are fun and great, but Lexia teaches some more difficult areas in reading and understanding. Bella has been diagnosed with expressive receptive speech delay in the past, so we have come to understand that she requires many different ways of learning, especially reading. The combo of Monster, ABC, and Lexia seems to be working.

We also use Read to Me, a Kindle app, to help both of them with reading/word recognition. This is a FREE app that delivers a new book to my Kindle everyday. The best part is that the app reads the book to you, while showing the words and highlighting them as they are read. The kids LOVE this and "read" their new book every night before I tuck them in bed.

4. Worksheets-Some of these I have gotten from friends, websites (teacherspayteachers), but some of the handwriting practice I just make up myself.

5. Flashcards and board games-Boggle, jr is AWESOME for teaching letters and short words. Chutes and Ladders is great for teaching numbers. And really any board game teaches patience, manners, taking turns, and counting. We are also getting Clue, Jr to work with reasoning, solving problems, and using clues.

6. Everyday life-You can really learn all day long, in every setting. They learn the importance of exercise through going to CrossFit with us. We talk about money and budgeting while shopping, especially when they want something and we talk about making choices between wants and needs. At the grocery store, we talk about healthy food choices and why it's important to eat healthy food.

So there you have it, that's our homeschooling in a nut shell. We don't do all of those every single day, but we do at least 4 of them a day. Oh, and of course the kids get outside play everyday (weather permitting); i read them a book at night (after Read to Me); and I am working to find some cheap, easy art projects for them to do.

Optimism

Today was a turning point for me, and I don't know why; but today I have felt more optimistic and hopeful about life, marriage, parenting, than I have in so very long. Nothing special happened; in fact, my husband is at work today (and no, his absence wasn't the reason). My only answer to this is prayer. 

I have been praying for so long, that my marriage would get better, and that life would get better. Not to say that I haven't taken some action, but I believe that regular praying and finding a church home has given me the confidence to make changes. I literally chose one night, during a prayer, to "let go and let God." I stopped praying for specifics and just basically said "you know my needs. please, i beg you to fix this, show me a way to fix it." I didn't feel better overnight, but over a few weeks time I have felt the change. 

Some of you are probably rolling your eyes now, and I get that...i really do. I would've rolled my eyes at me a few months ago. But whatever, it's the only reason that I have for my change. I am facing so much shit right now-bankruptcy, marriage stuff (husband's PTSD, TBI, and combat related health issues), parenting challenges, and my own personal shit-yet somehow, I am feeling so much better about everything. Our kids are loved and healthy. Our fur babies are loved and healthy. We are not in danger of losing our house, or our vehicles, or our lives. We've decided to once more try to get pregnant (that's a whole other challenge). I am facing so many challenges in 2015, but right now I am at peace. And that my friends, says a lot.