Homeschooling -- Week 1

Oh you guys.  It's been quite the week.  To sum it up, Lily went to bed the night before the first day of homeschooling in her favorite outfit because she "had to look perfect for the big day."  Skyler seemed unfazed by everything.  As we did our work each day it wasn't much of a surprise that Lily was enthused about everything and that Skyler whined and cried so much that his workload typically lasted all day.  I constantly reminded both of them that with homeschooling you get to do your work as fast or as slow as you want.  But if you get it done right quickly the first time, you have the rest of the day to play.  Lily picked up on it right away.  Skyler -- not so much.

I can say that today was the complete opposite of last week.  Both kids were virtually done by 11 AM.  It was great!

For now I'm planning on doing a college type of schedule.

M/W/F:  Handwriting, Language Arts, Math, Reading, Spelling

Tuesday: Classical Conversations (our homeschooling co-op)

Thursday: Science, Social Studies, Art/Music

We'll see how the schedule goes and if I decide to stick with it.

 One of the reasons why I loved homeschooling as a kid and why I'm excited about homeschooling my own, is that you can cater to your own interests.  Both Lily and Skyler are very fascinated with weather and so for the first couple of months we're going to heavily focus on meteorology.  Last week we solely focused on tornadoes which got the kids really excited.  It may or may not have ended up with us watching Twister.  I think that's when Skyler decided that this homeschooling thing was slightly awesome.

I wasn't really sure how to approach teaching art and music so I decided that each week we would rotate between learning about an artist or a musician.  Last week we learned about Jackson Pollock.  Needless to say they had a great time getting messy.  This week we'll learn about Beethoven.

I had many conversations with Lily's speech therapist before she tested out of therapy.  One of Lily's biggest struggles is making a complete coherent sentence.  Her other big struggle is reading recall.  To help her work on both issues, she has a daily assignment to summarize her assigned chapter in a notebook.  She has to write at least one complete sentence and draw a picture to go with it.  We have started reading The Magic Treehouse series, and the book she is reading right now is about dinosaurs.  In this particular chapter, one of the main characters sees a T-Rex and "feels like he's going to throw up." Obviously, that's how Lily summarized the chapter.  "So he could almost throw up because of all the dinosaurs."  Note the boy throwing up rainbow vomit.  These are truly the kid creations I cherish the most.  They make me laugh.

To help convince the kids that homeschooling is fun, we went on our first field trip on Friday. 

A sleeping skunk.  I want to keep it! 

Cutest astronauts ever.

The metal circular disc continually spins to teach about gravitational pull.  The four of us adults became so obsessed with it that we probably spent 10 minutes trying to outdo each other.  It became a little competitive and at one point I saw a mother herding her two boys away from us saying, "I don't think you're going to get a chance to try that one."  Whoops.  :)

Thaddeo looooooooves Papa.

Because Ben's that kind of dad.

One of the kids favorite things to learn was that pigs love to eat pumpkins.

We finally had a chance to visit the butterfly house this time.  So beautiful!

We visited the dino exhibit again and we were serenaded with lots of "Roars!" from Thad.

The best experience of the day was when Ben, Thad, and I were trying to catch up with the others at the wolf and bear exhibits.  On the way a butterfly kept swirling around us.  We stopped, wondering if it would land on us.  Sure enough, it kept taking turns between the 3 of us.  Thad was scared at first but Ben helped him see how kind they are.  We seriously spent 10 minutes letting this butterfly walk all over us.  I almost cried.  It was so beautiful to watch Thad's excitement.

After a while we really felt the need to catch up with the rest of the family and so we passed the butterfly on to some kids who were walking our way.  Then they took turns letting it fly between them.  So precious.

Tonight we met the kids' Classical Conversations teachers and we are really excited to get started with that next week.  It will be so nice for the kids to have one day of school where they can learn, play, and have lunch with other kids their ages.  And I'm excited that I get one day off a week from teaching!

The Last Week of Vacation

 We didn't do anything spectacular during the kids' summer break because all of our extra money is going toward our Hong Kong trip.  Instead, we did what we did last year.  The kids helped me make a bucket list and we almost completed it.  We went exploring at new parks, tried new foods, bought new books, played outside a ton, went to the dollar movies a few times, played in the stream, and ate an unhealthy amount of ice cream.  All of these things made a pretty great and simple summer (which is always something I appreciate when I have a bajillion birthdays to plan within 1 month...)

Last Sunday we got to talking to one of our neighbors right when it was the kids' bedtime.  Then we ended up talking to another neighbor.  And then another until we realized it was 9 and the kids had still not been put in bed.  They asked if they could have a sibling sleepover.  I thought that was a fantastic idea since we're never going to do sleepovers with friends.  We let them go on a short walk with us outside so they could stargaze a little bit.  When we got home they all excitedly brought down their bedding and I thought we'd hear them running around the downstairs all night long, but I didn't hear a peep once Ben and I went up to bed.  A half hour later I came down to check on them and discovered them all passed out.

Then 1:30 hit and Thad started crying because he was so confused about where he was and what was happening.  I put him in his crib and he slept in until 8 or 8:30 -- a miracle in the Macbeth home!

On Friday we surprised the kids with 2 other things from their bucket list: Making dinner in the firepit and then camping in the back yard.  They were so excited.  I love how they love the simplest things.  I mean, how many times can you possibly ask, "Can I help Daddy set up the tent?  When is he setting up the tent?  Can I help?  Is it time to make dinner yet?  Can I change into my jammies yet?  Can I help Daddy set up the tent?"

"It's 4 PM Lily."

Thad and I both slept inside because 1- I didn't want a repeat of his experience during the sleepover, and 2- we both had bad colds.  When I saw the kids the next morning I asked them how the night went and they were all so excited to tell me that it was so awesome, that Ella kept them up for forever because she's a natural party animal, and that there were mosquitoes in the tent all night!  So exciting!!!

Tomorrow we have our first day of homeschooling.  I have been waiting for this day for a long, long time.  It is a bittersweet thing.  Overall, I know that this is one of the biggest blessings I can give my children, but naturally it is hard to make some of the sacrifices.  Knowing that I will never have the house to myself until I'm an empty nester somewhat haunts me.  But Ben and I both know that this is right and I just pray that we will all adjust well.

Tonight we did back to school Father's Blessings.  Not only did Lily and Skyler get them, but also Ella and Thad insisted on them too.  They were all sweet and perfect for each one of them.  I also asked for one since I'm now adding teacher to my list of roles.

Cross your fingers for us!  We're going to need it!

Two Wheels

Lily had her training wheels taken off last summer but whenever I practiced with her it seemed to go nowhere.  She just wasn't ready.  Then Ben had his appendectomy, then his terrible recovery, and then school started and the last thing we had on our minds was Lily's biking skills.

A couple of weeks ago I encouraged her to try it out again.  She had her bike fall on her and she ended up with a big gash down her leg from it which scared her.  But yesterday afternoon I asked her if she wanted to try again.  She surprised me by saying yes!  After just a few minutes of failure [and me thinking for the millionth time, at least with potty training you don't have to run endlessly in the heat...] she finally had a few spurts of biking on her own which built up her confidence quickly.  Within minutes she didn't need any of my help.  

When I got worn out Ben switched with me.  In his bare feet.

The last time Skyler was interested in riding his bike was probably a year ago.  Nothing like a healthy dose of sibling rivalry to make your child want to try something.

Photos of the Every Day

Lily's a little dramatic when she knows she's being watched.

A split second before she slapped Skyler in the face with her arm...

"Lily!"

*trying not to smile*  "Sorry Skyler."

We now have a second plasma car and the fun (and noise) is never ending.  It's one of the few perks I actually like about having all hardwood floors.