Week One In Review

So with two whole days under our belt I can honestly say I am loving homeschooling Ty. It is so neat to watch him learn and see what he knows. I love that he wants to cuddle with me in most everything we do. I have a hard time getting pictures of him because he wants to be a cuddle-bug most of the time. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world because I know one day that won't be what he is in to anymore. We basically had a "preview" kind of week. We did do some math and english lessons. I was really curious to see what he knew. Thursday was hard because his brain didn't wake up with his body and he really just needed to go back to bed. Of course, Friday my brain wasn't into it after working all night Thursday night so we took things really slow. I really love the convenience of homeschooling. I learned that lesson week one. This week will contain many more "meaty" lessons and some hands-on stuff. We are super excited about that.

These are a few pictures of Ty with some things we introduced him to for his Adventures in My Father's World curriculum (one is his US notebook as we start to study each of the US States and the other is his Discoverer's Bible, which I am loving listening to him read with ease).

This is Ty doing an English practice page. I love his concentration and expression. That is so typical Ty. He is such a joy to be teaching and I only hope I do him justice with it. Now I am off to prep the book basket for the week and make sure I have all of the craft supplies ready to go.

First Day of School

School started for Hayley on Thursday. Her fifth grade year! Wow, how did that happen? I got up and gave her some options for breakfast. She decided she wanted toaster strudel and eggs. As I went about fixing her breakfast she got ready for school. I mean dressed, hair done, teeth brushed, bag packed....EVERYTHING. And I never had to remind her. She is such a joyful, wonderful girl that I can't imagine my days without her. She is so full of personality and wits that she makes me laugh so much. I just hate that she is maturing SO fast. I like having to "parent" her. It never consists of more than "Please don't do that". She is no trouble at all. She really showed her age and maturity when she took off getting ready for school with no prompts from me. She came home from school laughing. She had taken a "test" on following directions carefully and failed. It was one of those tricky ones that the first directions says "Read all directions carefully before doing anything" and then it tells you to do a bunch of stuff but then the last one says "Now only do #2." Lol, oops. She only has a couple of friends from last year in her class but she informed me she got to see all of the others plenty. I asked her if seeing her friends changed her feelings about being homeschooled next year and she said no, awww. I love her so much. This is her headed out the door Thursday morning.
So we started school on Thursday with Ty also. I figured an abbreviated week would give us an opportunity to get into the swing of things without it being too overwhelming for Ty or causing any meltdowns for me. The lessons were modified to extend into next week so that "if", after all of this planning and organizing, we were missing something I would have time to fix it. He woke up fairly easily after not going to bed until the wee hours of the morning (he refuses to give up his summer schedule). He quickly listened to all of the information I had to give him about rules and expectations, routines, subjects we will cover, things we will do, etc. I let him choose what we would start with and he chose English. I was shocked. I thought for sure it would be math or history. So we got started.....with English. He was very sleepy and you could tell his brain was not with it. We worked through it though. I mean it's the first day, you can't possibly get out early on day one. When we got to math he was falling asleep watching his Math U See demonstration. I felt bad for him but we hung with it and finished in about an hour and a half. He said "We are done? Completely done? I can have recess and play wii the rest of the day done?" I said "Yes." He said "How many hours until we go get Hayley?" I said "About 4." He said "I LOVE homeschool!" LOL He quickly told Hayley that again when we picked her up. She didn't mind hearing that and I hope she continues to feel that way. I worry she will feel left out or something because I chose not to homeschool her this year. She has NEVER given me any indication that she feels this way and is very good about telling you if something is bothering her. So this is Ty's picture of his first morning as a third grader. I don't enforce a dress code, I enforce comfort. You can't see it in the picture but he also had a fleece blanket he kept snuggling with while he listened and worked.

Tomorrow is the big day.....

I have been participating in a blog hop over at Heart of the Matter and last week we discussed our curriculum and the decisions that went along with that. This week it is all about homeschool rooms. I do intend to participate as I also LOVE to look at others rooms, curriculum, routine, etc. I figure it's only fair that I share mine also. We don't have a single designated room for schooling but I have transformed my craft area to include the school area also. But more about this later......

We are soooo excited to get things started tomorrow. I have spent many, many hours planning out things, now it's time to put those plans into action. I think we are going to have a great time. I am not dwelling on the amount of time it takes, only on the quality of time we have. I refuse to twaddle just to make school last longer. Ty seems pretty excited about the upcoming changes. We will see how he likes getting up in the morning. He hasn't really gotten off of his summer schedule so it will be an adjustment for him.

Hayley will head out to school tomorrow also. She is actually nervous which is new for her. She usually is very confident about the first day of school and excited to get back and see her friends. Maybe she will be more comfortable when she sees everyone in the morning. She packed her backpack full of all of her new school supplies already and picked out what she will wear. Tonight we are going out to dinner for a pre-back to school dinner.

The kids started their football and cheerleading practice last week. They have it 3 days a week with games on Saturday. This Saturday will be a scrimmage type thing called Meet the Patriots that the local high school puts on where the youth teams come play a quarter against each other and get to meet the high school teams at the same time. It will be a short, fun game. I think it is going to be a lot like last year though, in that it is going to be 100 degrees sitting in that sun cheering on our Broncos. Ty and Hayley love it though. They have a real passion for football and cheerleading. It is great exercise and team sportsmanship for them.

I ask that everyone pray for us as we prepare to take on this great adventure tomorrow. I want it to be a successful year for Ty, he deserves it so much. I know it won't be without bumps and learning curves for the both of us but I still pray for a positive experience.

What homeschool curriculum will we be using this year?

So I spent a great deal of time looking at all of the available curriculum. I knew I wanted to get something Christ-centered. That is one thing we miss in the public school that I knew I wanted to include for sure. I also knew I wanted something geared toward Ty's learning style. What is that you ask? Well, it's a hands-on study with supervision. Ty is in no way ready to attempt too much independently. We intend to work on that some this year but we are starting at square one and building up. So after I found a few that I thought were good contenders for what I was looking for I set out looking for blogs of other homeschooling moms who had tried the curriculums to see how it worked for their families. I was initially overwhelmed at the number of blogs out there but then found my niche and began doing a lot of reading, I mean A LOT!! So without further ado here is what we came up with and why I felt it would be a good fit. Only time will tell if my feelings were correct......

Ty is 8 yrs old and in the 3rd grade

For his Bible, History, Geography and Science curriculum we went with Adventures in My Father's World. I am really liking what I am seeing as I prepare for the year to get underway.

For his art curriculum we will try and use I Can Do All Things that came with his MFW curriculum. I am not sure if this is going to be at his level or not but since he doesn't really show any great interest in art we are going to feel it out.
For his math we will be Math U See. Again it goes back to the hands-on learning. I like the pace of the book, which is Ty's pace, whatever that may be. Math is one of Ty's stronger subjects so we are going to use this subject to expand his independence some. This curriculum has a DVD that you watch at the beginning of each new lesson. We will see if it will work.

For English we went with BJU English 3. Now I really didn't know where to go with this subject. I just knew this was going to be the hardest for me to teach. So when I was comparing curriculum I was encouraged by the teacher's edition being one of those "Say this now, do this now" kind of TEs. That is what I need in English for sure. I have REALLY enjoyed how this curriculum balances writing and grammar, provides various themes with each unit and overall stimulates all aspects of learning.

We are using the A Reason for..... books for Spelling and Handwriting. I LOVE LOVE LOVE them. I love the stories at the beginning of the spelling lessons. I love the biblical principals that they teach. I have read many lessons ahead already because I find them so interesting and yet VERY appropriate for my 8 yr old. I love that the two books are connected in scripture each week.

So that is our year in a nutshell. I have some logic exercises and critical thinking skills I will squeeze in also. He is always coming at me with field trip ideas, some very creative, some more for play than education. We are a week away from our first day so it is getting close!!!

What a weekend....

So after a very crazy weekend I finally have time to sit down and share about it.

Where do I begin....oh the beginning.

Thursday night late (more like Friday morning early, 2am.) my brother and sister-in-law came into town with my nephew, Kyler. Aren't they cute?

Friday morning started early.....I mean way early, like 6am early! We had a lot to get accomplished. My brother, Buddy has accepted a job here and he had an appt to get things squared away for him to get started. My sister-in-law, Moe had a job interview. I had babysitting duties that also turned into chauferring duties, with Hayley and Ty in tow, of course. So we set out to get those things accomplished. We were delayed twice by Kyler projectile vomitting milk all over me. It's a good thing he is cute because I don't like milk, vomitted milk is even worse. Then on the way into town he gave back some apple juice. You can just imagine how that melt in my vehicle. God love him! We met up with my Mom and my sister for lunch after everything was complete. We attempted to starve Kyler in an attempt to better his belly but he would have none of it. So he ate. Fortunately, this didn't backfire on us and all was kept down. Saturday morning Hayley had her 4-H chicken show so again, an early morning. I had to go into work Friday night so after 3 hours of sleep we were up and at 'em, again. When my sister in law went running by me to the bathroom I knew there was a problem. It turns out Kyler didn't drink bad milk, he had a stomach bug. And he shared. With his Mommy. So Hayley and I started out the morning by ourselves. Saturday was also Kyler's 1st birthday!! Here is the happy birthday boy!!So Hayley and I go to the show, everything went well. The judges didn't really look at Hayley's chickens but the buyers did. She sold them for $11 each, one of the highest prices there. Then she cried. Not moped. Not teared up. Not shed a tear. She CRIED!!! I cried (I am mushy like that plus sleep deprivation). She was good right up until they said "sold!" Then the waterworks started. She kept walking from me to her cage and back. She kept petting them like they were puppies or kittens or something.

As teh show comes to a wrap the rain starts. Not a drizzle, not a sprinkle, RAIN and lots of it. We have been dry so it was a welcome sight had we NOT had so many outdoor activities planned for the rest of the day. So after wrapping up the show we headed to get Ty fitted for his football uniform. Pads issued, helmet fits, and uniform in the bag we rush over to the lake to register Hayley for a fishing tournament. Initially it was supposed to be Hayley, Ty and Kyler fishing but due to the rain we decided to enter the boys for fear that they would be miserable and make everyone else miserable. They aren't quite the avid fishermen Hayley is, yet anyways.
So it was a 4 hour tournament with weigh-in at 7pm. Ty swam for a little while and then we went home to get some things done before heading back to the weigh-in. There was a 3 fish limit but when Hayley got back in they only had 1 fish. They had a great time on the boat so they figured they would weigh it out and see what happens.

As it turns out most of the teams only caught one fish. So we weighed in at a whoile great big 1.27lbs. Which also turned out to be not too shabby! She placed 73rd out of 400 teams. It paid $100!!! Where were these tournaments when I was a kid??

We all had a really great time, well except for Moe I guess. She was still puking. We went home and I fell into the bed, what everyone else did I am unsure. I was TIRED!!

Sunday I got up to find that everyone else had started the puking. Moe and Kyler were all smiles though. I felt fine fortunately. We had planned to go to church and then head down to the lake for a birthday party for Kyler. Well with everyone puking we medicated with emetrol and pepto bismol and called the remaining party guests to give the warning. Everyone decided to come anyways. So we went to the lake. Ty puked before he left home, Hayley puked on the way. This was looking to be a rocking party. One for the books for sure! We were having a good time, as good as could be expected anyways. There was plenty of food for those that were able to eat it and boy was it yummy. About an hour after we arrived my sister passed out, EMS was called, a trip to the ER to be rehydrated and drugged up for the vomitting. That crashed the party for sure. We packed up and headed back to the house. We decorated the dining room and decided Kyler was going to get his party and whoever was there and could eat the cake, fine that would work.

This has gotten really long and it is late so I am going to end here. I have some great pics of Kyler's party and some other things we did this weekend. The stomach bug has left, all of the sheets have been washed and lysol has been sprayed on everything, mobile or not. More to come on this crazy weekend later and school is fixing to get under way here so lots more on that too!

Homeschooling- how did we get here?

So I figured I would let you in on how we decided to homeschool. I wish I could say that it was something I always thought I would do, I wish it was something that we elected to do strictly out of choice, I wish it was something I felt confident about. Unfortunately none of those things are true. When I had Hayley people would ask if I planned on homeschooling. My response would be that I had attended public school and turned out great, my children will do the same. As Hayley got older and Ty came along I began to pay attention to the changes taking place in our society. We were beginning to accept things- such as premarital sex, babies at younger and younger ages outside of wedlock, the use of drugs as long as it wasn't the "hard" stuff- as normal or okay. I knew that wasn't okay for my family. God wasn't happy with that and I shouldn't be either. So I sought out a private Christian school to send the kids to. You see, homeschool still wasn't a possibility for me because I didn't feel I had the patience to teach the kids everyday all day, I didn't feel I had the strength to keep them on task and focused on their studies. Fortunately God blessed us with the most wonderful of schools in Florida. Hayley started in preschool and Ty followed suit. When we moved to Tennessee I again scoped out the education system. I found that public school here was more conservative than in Florida. We decided to try it. I was immediately met with confrontations when enrolling them after briefly talking to the teachers. Hayley's teacher at that. You see Hayley isn't perfect by any means but she is very studious and well-behaved. I was weary of sending them but did so praying that they would learn and grow and thrive. It seemed that they were doing just that. Then last school year came. This is where the "dum-dum-dum-dummmm" comes in. We were met with struggles with Ty's teacher from day one and while I spent a great deal of time there (seemingly beating my head against the brick wall) I wasn't making any progress in coming up with a formula to make Ty successful emotionally, educationally and socially. The teacher was very inattentive to him (her words, not mine) and he was just skimming by. I couldn't let that go- these are his fundamental years, he must get this stuff and retain it, not just skim by. So the summer hits. Brian and I begin really analyzing our priorities and what is best for our family. Ultimately we decide that I need ot be home more and "ideally" I would eventually homeschool. We didn't think this year would be a possibility. I mean school is supposed to start back in 2 months!?! Where do we begin? What does he need to be learning? When will we have time to school him? You see, we had decided I would start working less, we just hadn't implemented that schedule yet. As the days flew by- literally it felt like they were flying by- I just kept getting this knot in my stomach that kept growing and growing. I was dreading spending one more year beating my head against that brick wall again. Brian and I sat down and began investigating all of those questions that had made us delay starting this year. We found answers to all of our questions very easily. Then I came across a scripture, Joshua 1:9 which says: "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." DUH! Okay, Godd. I am listening. We can do this. So we began.....began gathering paperwork, information, curriculum advice, etc etc etc. And here we are about 2 weeks before school starts and we know God is with us in our decision. Doors have been opened that we didn't think possible and everything has fell into place. Now don't let me kid you, I am as nervous as can be, anxious about getting started and being successful, but mostly I am excited about the adventure Ty and I are about to embark on. I ask that everyone rally behind us in prayer that we will have a blessed year and it will be a positive experience for Ty. I will do the same for each of you.

Wow, Look At Me Now

Well, I am jumping into this blog world to document the many crazy days of our lives. We are a fun loving family of 4 living in East TN. We love lots of things....for Brian there is hunting, fishing, hiking..you know- all of that "guy" stuff. I love scrapbooking, my puppy dogs, doing things with my children, the water. Hayley, my 10 year old tomboy princess....she is all about cheerleading, softball, horses, crafts (she doesn't get that from me for sure), anything pink, pedicures, pampering, fishing, the list goes on and on. And then there is Ty, my wild and crazy 8 year old ball of energy. He is all about FOOTBALL, he loves football. Mostly college football, he is a HUGE Florida Gators fan, but also some pro football, mostly the Denver Broncos. When Tebow got drafted to the Broncos I thought I was going to have to sit on him, he was sooo excited.

We are starting on an adventure in just a couple of weeks,. We will be homeschooling Ty this year. I am sooo very excited about it. I am doing this out of necessity but don't view it that way at all. I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the planning and organizing up to this point. Ty seems very excited about the idea of homeschooling but I don't know what his "idea" is. We shall see. Again I am very anxiously excited about our newest adventure and can't wait to get started.

We have had a great summer thus far. We spent 2 weeks in Florida camping at Disney World, the kids stayed with family for an additional 2 weeks. My brother and sister-in-law have visited often. Now they are moving up in just a few weeks. That will be exciting to have them closer with my nephew who will be 1 this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend, it's going to be a busy one. Football starts next week so Ty has to get his uniform this weekend, Hayley has been raising chickens for 4-H- that show is also this weekend. Hayley and Ty also have a fishing tournament this Saturday night. As I mentioned earlier my nephew also turns one this Saturday. We are having his party at the lake on Sunday. Hayley is responsible for the planning but she hasn't been very helpful. It will be great I am sure. I think I will sleep well when it's all over and done with. I take lots of pictures, I hope to share a lot of them here because they mean so much to me.

Wow, I have said a lot for a first post. Maybe I will enjoy this more than I realized. I hope you leave comments, I don't want to feel like I am talking to myself.