Homeschooling whys for Our Family

I love homeschooling my children.  Some nights like tonight I stay awake and worry though.  But I have a feeling no matter where they are I will worry about them and if I am doing the right thing.
I have so much on my plate right now.  I have 4 wonderful children I homeschool.  A house to clean and care for.  We have 8 pets and 2 fish tanks I care for daily.  And last but not least I have a husband who I have to love and provide some attention for, or our marriage would fall apart. I also have to teach a class to 9 students and take Nina to school weekly.

I have learned since I first fell in love, that love is something you have to work at to keep. It will be 10 years October 14th since I promised to love and cherish my husband and our love is still going. 
My children are the ones on my mind tonight though.  Their schooling takes up a good chunk of my time. 

Princess chose to be traditionally homeschooled this year and we went through a public charter.  The teacher assigned to us is awesome.  She found out we planned to read the Little House on the Prairie series for Lit and she brought in her own books for Princess to use.  We get to pick and choose what we want to do with very little over sight.  Princess and I are loving her new math program, though I think I should have picked a higher grade as most of the work seems like 2nd grade stuff.  She is studying ancient Egypt in History and when we are done with that we will be studying the human body in Science.

Fairy is still using k12 which is a public school at home program and I have very little say in what we do.  But she is enjoying it and I love watching her learn.

Buddy decided this year was the year he wanted to learn to read.  He is picking it up well though we are having to come up with some pretty active ways to learn reading.

Baby Girl wants to do school so bad.  So she will sit in on lessons with the other kids and I print worksheets daily so she can have work to do as well.  I do help her with them and she seems really interested in doing the worksheets correctly this year, though I do not expect it. 

All of that is just for normal learning and done by noon, but as soon as nap is over we are usually looking something up or answering questions, singing the alphabet, signing the alphabet or teaching the kids to cook. 

We are busy and happy, but it is a lot of work to keep on top of everything. I do not think there are enough hours in the day.  I feel almost always behind.  But watching my children learn and grow, which they were not doing in public school, is so much fun. 

This is why when people say I should put my children in public school I say no thank you.  My kids are active, everyday learners.  We learn everywhere we go.  The store, zoo, amusement park, regaular park, even the back yard is a place to pick up more knowledge.  While I could do that with them in public school it was not as fun for us.  Learning has become fun to our family again.

Homeschooling, keeping up with 4 kids, 8 pets and a husband, plus the house is hard work. It is not something everyone wants or should do.  But for those that do want this life all the hard work and love put into it is worth it. 

Busy Busy Week, First Co-op Day

This week has been crazy.  Monday started off well and all the children finished all their work.  Tuesday I realized I had not finished plans for our first Co-op day (I am teaching Early Reading and Math).  So I gave the older 2 girls their work for the day and started printing, cutting, gluing and planning the lesson. 

They did not do any of their work for Tuesday, Wednesday (I was still working in the school room but on Co-op stuff), or Thursday. 

Thursday we had co-op and it went off very well.  My class worked on lapbooks (never, ever doing that again for 9 children) and we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  Here are the two sites I used to print the lapbooks:

http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2010/03/chicka-chicka-boom-boom-lapbook.html

and http://lapbooksbycarisa.homestead.com/CHickaBoomTotBook.html.  Both have lots of fun stuff for younger kids.

I also helped out in water color poetry and drama, then we left to go to Jui Jitsu. 

Princess took Living History, Spanish and Drama.  Fairy took Living History, Lego Building and Apologia Astronomy.  Buddy took Early Math and Reading, and Art History.  Baby Girl attended Art History also.  The other classes the youngest 2 were in the Nursery.  The mom's who taught the classes were great and the kids had so much fun and were still telling me about stuff today.

Today we spent catching up on work and they will have to work some tomorrow to catch up completely.  Hopefully they will get it all done tomorrow.