My Homeschool Classroom

Isn't mommys desk pretty? It looks that way from Saturday to Monday......then



It looks like this :-) I have no idea why everything ends up on my desk. It's the smallest in the room!

Extra resources live here...usually. We also have bookcases outside in the hallway. Junk on the bottom shelf :-)

Our schedule and class white board. I left the vocabulary lesson on there.....don't judge the handwriting. LOL Under the board is a box of National Geographic and Rick the Ranger that I got from freecycle. Good to use in between lessons! The plastic draws hold different supplies. You know what the blue thing is :~)

This is the older boys desk. Yes that is 2 rolls of toilet paper on his desk and I have no idea why but I didn't find any spit balls so It's good. I straightened his desk for the picture. His desk is usually the messiest.

Taz's desk and the calendar that he uses every morning to announce the day, date etc. He uses the roll of contact paper on his desk to point. Very cute!

Our workbox system and worship center :-) Yes there are construction paper covered cereal boxes. It takes less room than some of the systems I have seen out there and our classroom is the smallest room in the house except for one of the bathrooms. I found this on a blog but hers were very very pretty. My boys wouldn't care if they were just the cereal boxes and no paper covers. You can find her post here... http://www.amothersjournal.com/2009/03/08/workbox-system/

I love looking at blogs and seeing what other people are doing. They always look so pretty and organized. I used to do pretty :-) Now if it works I'm ok with it. Sad really......maybe one day I will find the time to make all the things I love pretty.

I have already started planning for next year and how much money I need so my sweet husband will be able to budget it in. We are still kinda feeling our way through but it's been a fun, stress filled adventure.

Be blessed!

Time Management

Homeschooling seems to be causing me to look at my current time management issues. I have always been someone who likes order rather than chaos, and this is seemingly chaos. I read blogs to help me with ideas, books, curriculum, and ORGANIZATION. I have spent hours a day trying to reorganize my entire house because it has gotten out of control as of late (or maybe I'm just spazzin out because of the homeschool chaos?!) I'm thinking that I may be overwhelmed. I have no "personal" friends who are homeschooling at this time. Many have opted to put their children back into the school system so I am just figuring it out all on my own. May not be the best idea I have ever had.

There are so many excellent resources out there for homeschool but, alas, my funding is limited so I have to be selective about my purchases. I scour the Internet for free and cheap resources to supplement what we are doing. I find blogs and often wonder how they have time to blog...I can barely think of blogging but admittedly, I have several time wasters that I could do without. :)

My 2 boys that are still at home are both diagnosed with ADHD. Sizzlers, as Carol Barnier calls them. One I have been able to completely get off meds. Ok, we pulled him from public school after his teacher once again requested him to have a dosage increase and we saw that he was all but a zombie and couldn't possibly be making as much trouble in the class as she stated. Her biggest complaint, "he plays with his pencil". Once he was out of school we stopped the meds. I can handle the playing with pencils and if it takes him all day and 100 prompts from me to stop wasting time, it's only temporary, he will learn to focus himself eventually. My 21 year old did and I have faith that he will.

My 5 year old is worse than those 2 put together as far as ADHD. The jury is still out on him. :~) He is a very out of the box thinker. Yesterday, I woke up with his little skinny arm across my nose. As I opened my eyes, he realized that I was awake and said in his very excited voice, "Mom, smell my armpit!!! I washed it last night!!" Yes, Honey, I'm soooo glad you washed it. Good morning, Taz. Yes the child had his armpit over my nose. Just another day in this home. :~)

Have a blessed day!

Random Homeschool tidbits

As I go through this homeschool adventure, I'm learning that we spend time teaching stuff that they are going to learn on their own without a "formal" lesson. So why is it on the list of must teach topics?

For Example: Firemen as community service workers. Even my youngest (5 years old now) knows about them. We have watched movies, been to the station, played on the trucks and spoken to the firemen. One time we got to go into a "portable house" to learn what to do when there is a fire. We have done some of the same things with police, doctors etc. So why is this stuff formatted into a lesson? Sorry, I'll be skipping that one. I'd rather substitute say. . . nature study or Bible study. The joy of a 5 year old boy with a magnifying glass looking at God's world is much more productive I think. He thinks so far out of the box that I am suprized sometimes at what he learns from such simple activities.

Living Math:
Sounds great in theory. I'm just struggling to wrap my brain around it. Plus having the money to buy all those books boggles my mind. I'm working on planning a library trip and making it a weekly thing. I guess I just need to find or make a list of books I'd like them to read, math and otherwise.

Scheduling:
yeah, well
I schedule it alright. I just may change it at the last minute. I forget to print something, can't find what I want to use to teach etc. And seriously, I don't teach that much!! They learn and I teach maybe 45 mintues a day. I teach to all of them at the same time. I don't expect the 5 year old to understand it all but that doesn't mean he can't be exposed to it. I still feel like I need to work on this.

ADHD
Both boys are diagnosed with ADHD. Charlotte Mason methods seem to work best for them. I love Charlotte Mason too so it works out well. I found some great "distractions" for when they do have to focus. I have been kind of teaching the littlest (Taz is 5) but I don't push him. I just don't feel like its required yet but he wants to join in. We do lapbooks and file folder games and some writing. He has to be "in the mood" to color so we do a little of that. If you get special markers etc he is more interested but it's temporary. lol He recognizes almost all his letters and numbers, understands upper and lower case, counts etc. He would be starting Kindergarten in the fall if he went to public school so I think he is doing well for not having a lot of formal lessons.

Workboxes
I have been seeing this around lately on blogs etc. I love the idea of it and I think it would work great for the 10 year old boy. It would help him get through his day faster and I think, encourage him to stay on task-looking forward to the next box. I need to get the book to really get the idea of it. I'm working on it for both boys. It's going to require me to get my act together a little better. I like just pulling out whatever for the little guy rather than having a set schedule because of his inability to focus. As he gets older I want to impliment more "official" school, gradually.

The teenagers
Well, they are easier so far. We do Bible study as a family in the mornings and the girls have their assignments for the week on Monday and by Friday I get them back. One teaches something each Friday. Right now, it is science. One is doing earth science and the other Biology so each week we all get a science lesson. No, there is no test for us when they teach but it plants seeds for the boys for later. They 10 year old boy comes up with questions to annoy them, it's a fun time! They are exposed to the older kids lessons that I teach as well. They often get something out of it which I think is awesome.

So I guess, other than my own issues, homeschool is still going well. I often wonder if I'm doing enough, if they are learning enough, what am I missing that they need.

Day 3 of Homeschool

We brought day 3 to an end and I can honestly say that today was an accomplishment. No one died, there was no blood shed and all the children have all their body parts. ugh! I did find myself wondering if I imagined that we prayed before we started! lol

Be the end of the first hour, I was done listening to complaining about assignments and had to take one teenager to task. ugh! I had argued with another about when to use do, does etc. How did she get to 10th grade not knowing this???? ugh! Then I had to prove that a contraction and a conjunction were not the same thing-to the same child. The littlest couldn't possibly sit still for 5 minutes. Thank God for educational computer games today! Not my preference but today I was happy to have pbskids.org on my favorites list.

Once the day was finally done, I had errands to run. I came back with a significant bottle of aleve. I couldn't find any earlier in the day.

On the upside, we got more of our books in today and I was so happy about that until one of the teenagers (who can't use do and does properly) informed me she wasn't going to read her science book. She is going to the principal when he gets home from work!

My thoughts were more of a Charlotte Mason, living books approach. It matches what I believe and fits 3 of the 4 kids personalities and learning styles. I think the older children need a more "standard" education because of college etc but I intend to do it my way. I will not mimic the public schools way of teaching.

There are a few books that I want to order for myself. Laying Down the Rails seems to be at the top of the list for now. :) I'm working on changing habits that they have learned from public school and attitudes that seems to be carrying over. I'm trying to keep on my toes and on top of the little things that lead to big things.

So, now I need a nap and I'm ready to go back at it tomorrow! I need more prepwork before I can impliment some of the new books we got today. :)

Be blessed!

Our First Day of Homeschool

Well, we officially started homeschool yesterday. I had given up on my husband ever agreeing with me about homeschool so I was totally unprepared when he suddenly choked on his dinner when the high school girls were telling him what had happened that day in school and he decided that it was time to pull them out and homeschool them. :) I had been telling him for years so I knew what was going on but somehow, hearing it from them made a huge impact. Yes, our public school system in this area is that bad.

I thought I would commemorate this historic event with "incidents" from our day.

AM: KK you may want to leave lines in between the vocabulary words she is telling us so you can write the definition.
KK: Definitions???? We have to write the definitions to the vocabulary words???
Me: KK what did you think you would do with the Vocabulary words???


Taz(4 years old): Mommy I don't have to take a nap. I can dream with my eyes open.
Me: You can!
Taz: Yeah, I'm dreaming about science right now.
Me: You are? What kind of science?
Taz: I'm dreaming about Dinosaur science! Raarrrr
(yes, he still took a nap)


and the first incident of the day. . . . .

Me: JD can you read Romans 14:12 for us?
JD: asdf ;aldjf asidu asdjfoia alskjdfoiae lasdjfo;iasde
Me: Hold that thought. I need more coffee before we can start this because I didn't understand a word you just said.
Everyone: laughing hysterically

With an abundance of coffee and more resources on the way, I think we have made a great start!