First Day of School

One of my dreams has come true!  Josh and I have decided to homeschool our kids!  WOOHOO!

I am SO excited to be able to keep my kids at home and teach them!  Children are a blessing from God!  Even on the tough days (those days when I start counting down the hours until bedtime, starting at nine in the morning), there is no denying that my children are more of a blessing to me than any blessing I can think of receiving in the last 30 years, beyond that of my salvation.  (Josh, Honey, you are a very close second!)  Its a great gift to me to be able to raise my kids at home full time instead of having to send them away to school for several hours a day and then raise them when they get home.  God has given me these two precious lives to tend to, nurture, teach and love in the admonition of the Lord and Biblical truths. 

We are also excited to be able to raise our kids full time on our family farm.  Farming is what we do, so its great that we can do it together.  Our kids are rather young now, but its never to early to start teaching them a good strong work ethic and pride in their jobs.  Some of my favorite days are the days that we spend outdoors, working together as a family.  Josh and I both have a heart and a desire for farming and to be able to instill it in our kids at such a young age is priceless!  If they choose not to farm as adults, that's their choice and one we will certainly support, but what a gift it is to be able to instill in them our love for the land with the hope that one day they will carry on the tradition.

Also, Caleb is quite a bit ahead of his peers on an academic level, by at least a year if not more.  (Not bragging, just stating a fact.)  I am grateful to the school and Caleb's teachers for putting in the extra efforts they did last year to challenge him some above that of a preschool level, but its not really fair to continually ask them to do that year after year.  There's a lot of behind-the-scenes work that teachers do that, unless you have a teaching background, usually is unknown by others.  Its a lot of work for teachers to plan special extra work/lessons for children beyond that of their normal classroom plans.  And its not fair to Caleb to ask him to go to school everyday with anticipation of being bored (I've been there and done that!) and only looking forward to activities and recess.  So, we're schooling him on his academic level at home rather than his age level at school. 

Well, that was much more than I planned to write!  I was just going to put up a couple of pictures with explanations!  And speaking of those things...

June 26th was our first day of school.  A great thing about homeschooling is being able to work on our schedule.  We started school in the hot, hot weather to take advantage of the nice, cool air conditioned house.  And we'll take the equivalent of our summer vacation in the milder fall weather during harvest. 

 I am not of the "whatever happens for the day is okay" train of thought.  Life's randomness is not made into convenient lessons; though we have the privilege to stop and enjoy life as it comes, its not substituted for the day's lesson.  (Please understand that I'm not judging those families who do this.  Its something that different methods suit different families.  If it works for a certain family, that's great!  This method just isn't for us.) 

So then, what is our day like?  We start off each school day with prayer, calendar and weather, daily chores, our phone number, number of school day and the pledge.  Then we add any extra routine exercises I think we need to cover. We have an actual curriculum from which we complete a lesson in each subject: Bible, Language Arts, Reading, Math, Social Studies and Science.  We do an actual lesson for each subject each day and I have a real planner that I keep track in.  Depending on how early we get started is how early we get done.  Since its summer and the kids' bedtimes are later to coordinate with the late sunsets, they get up later in the mornings, thus making our school starting time a bit later.  But we work all morning and sometimes a hour or more after lunch until we're done.  We take play breaks and snack time, too. 

Sarah insists on doing absolutely everything Caleb does.  Its great that she is so motivated!  She'll sit and listen to the lesson and follow along with her finger as we read!  When there are answers to be written, she'll try to answer and then trace the answers I copy for her.  Its really quite something to watch her work so studiously at such an early age!  She has really caught on to our math lessons.  We might have a future math whiz!

I want to take a minute to clarify one thing:  its a common misconception that homeschooled kids are anti-social, hermit-like people who never get a chance to interact with other kids.  Please be assured that this is not the case!  We have a great circle of friends from church, plenty of cousins and even community events that allow us to have lots of chances to interact socially.  Eddyville also has a terrific homeschool program that allows homeschool families to obtain resources, to get together to fellowship and go on field trips.  So, once again, I assure you that my kids won't grow up hating or afraid of society! 

(Just had to get that out there!)