Striving for Success...

Well, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a compliment from my in-laws today. My MIL called and told me that my FIL was impressed with leaps and bounds that my sweet Buddy has made since we "pulled" him from public school. (Big Smile for me!) I really needed to hear those sweet words today.

Monopoly counts as Math, right?

The kids played monopoly the "correct" way for at least a few hours today. So, I am going to count this as math class because they were actively working with money during those hours. Other than reading aloud and cooking tonight, I am going to have to call it a day. We have an additional kid with us today, so I am not being lazy. I just can't seem to get everyone to move in the same way today! Monday is another day!

P.S. Tracking the weather counts as Science, right? We have been tracking yet another winter storm across our state today too.

Reading is Essential!

Angel and Buddy have been attending "Reading Class" with their Grammy. Grammy has taught quite a few students to read with fluency within a summer so, Angel and Buddy will benefit greatly from her skills. Princess can reading at a 10th grade level so, we challenged her to read a 150 books by the end of the year. We have no doubt that she will complete this challenge before the holidays are even in the horizon. The ultimate goal of reading class is fluency for the Angel and Buddy so, that reading isn't an everyday battle.

We have been looking at several classical curriculums while compiling a list of must reads for our family. We are quickly becoming thrilled with the adventure of reading from these many lists of essential classical books.

Along with the reading classes (3 times a week for 2 hours each day), we are currently working on English worksheets, Mammoth Math, Discover the Scriptures, reading our scriptures as a family, and working on cooking lessons. We have planned to complete all of the Discover the Scriptures units - they are fantastic!

Change in Progress: I plan on going to the Midwest Homeschool Convention in April of this year. I am in search for new suggestions for science and math. All of the kids love math and science but get bored so quickly. I really want to attend the LDS Homeschool Eastern US Conference in Virginia that happens in May - but like everyone in this economy I don't know if the finances will allow it. (still hoping, though)

Hooray! There's a place for Latter-Day Saint Homeschooling Families...

If you didn't know it yet, there's a new website for latter-day saint families who choose to homeschool their children. Just click on the button at the side and you will be magically sent to this wonderful asset to all. Hope to see you there soon!

Blogging again

I am having to start over on our homeschooling blog due to issues with the server. Since the last blog post, we have left k12 due to the constant red-tape balance game. In our state we were required to attend online sessions daily which wasn't an issue to me. What I struggled with for a long time was the amount of time required of the parents to be in "meetings" on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. There were many times when I spent 3-5 hours on the computer in "teleconferences" and phone calls before I even got the chance to teach my three children their daily lessons. Every frustrating.... so we took the leap into independent homeschooling.

We were public schoolers until January of 2009, when we became just disgusted with the local school system. As previously discussed, we joined the k12 program at first within our state. At first it was wonderful and FREE, but the frustrations grew quickly.

Now, we are a bit more relaxed about how we do school. The kids do all their work but I don't stress about where and what we need to do as much. Currently, we are a mixture of Classical (we love to read), Thomas Jefferson, and student influenced. We have three every different children who have different needs in their education. The Princess loves to read - and can devour books in a day. The Angel prefers hands on activities -- she's also an aspiring artist! Then there's Buddy - he loves to learn but needs many breaks and a lot of patience to excel.

I am going to stop for now as I need to start the day with the children, but I promise I will be back really soon.