Homeschooling my ADHD Daughter

 My oldest daughter is 2E. She has ADHD and is gifted. She was amazing brilliant as a little kid and soaked in everything around her. Her baby sitter spoke Spanish and English to the kids (she was with us from 6 weeks to 3 years and became very close to us, we miss her terribly even now). My oldest picked up Spanish colors, numbers, and much more. She taught the older kids shapes and colors and my little one picked it up right along with them.  She was like a little sponge. 

But behavior wise it was a never ending story. We worked our tales off to keep her busy because her behavior when bored always caused trouble. She was a handful to say the least. She thought she should be the boss, always knew the right answer and was constantly going, and talking. She did not sleep through night and it was exhausting. 

Public school was a struggle for preschool so when we moved from MCAS Miramar to Camp Pendleton I chose to homeschool her for the rest of preschool. Then I made the mistake of sending her to public school where they bullied me into not getting her tested to see what was going on and her teacher lied on the ADHD form from her doctor. Then they physically restrained my daughter and did not call me, and I was done. 

Homeschooling was easy from k-5th grade. She loved to learn and was self motivated and would finish before noon and play the rest of the day. 

Middle school she stopped working and we dealt with depression. It was hard, she could not work, she knew the material but could not complete the assignments. It was so hard.

We are now in high school and her ADHD distracted brain is very hard to deal with. I am hoping that she will do better in public school if we find  place with a school she can attend once we move. If she does well I will be super excited for her. 

 She will be entering the 11th grade in public school with an IEP. This IEP is not quite accurate or functional I feel for my daughter in a typical classroom, so it will need to be adjusted when she starts school.

It was a hard won fight to get her an IEP at all. Since we homeschooled through a public charter and behavior was not an issue, plus she tested as gifted (through an outside psychologist and with their own tests) the school did not see a need for an IEP. 

The only reason we got one was because of her Ehlors Danlos that effects her movement, sitting and typing.

While she does indeed need accommodations for that, the thing that effects her school day the most is her inability to focus for more than a few moments at a time. Completing 5 math problems can take hours. Not because she does not understand the concepts but because every few seconds she gets distracted and is constantly having to refocus. 

Meds have not worked for her so far so we have to use accommodations to meet her needs. 

I will reach out to her teachers and ask them how we can support her to be successful in their classroom, without being disruptive.

Homeschooling With Level 1 Autism

 Homeschool has been something I have done since my oldest was in preschool, she was really smart and bored and it became obvious that homeschool was the best option for her.

So when my 2nd child was right behind her in school, followed by 2 more a couple of years behind the first two it was natural to just teach them together.

I did not know any of my kids would be neuro diverse, let alone all of them. 

Homeschooling a child who does not fit the mold, takes lots of trial and error.  

My child with autism has caused much of a learning curve. She is academically on grade level or above for the most part. She taught herself to read, history and science have always been an interest (especially Egyptian history).  Her only deficits are in math and writing. 

Math I think was caused by a teacher in 3rd grade, she attended a 2 day a week school homeschooling the rest of the week, apparently the teacher and students made fun of her when she got things wrong. I don’t know what happened in that class room, but I know my child lost her confidence in her ability to do school.  It took years of not grading and not telling her when she was wrong to boost her confidence. Then slowly teach her to accept criticism. It was frustrating, and I worried we would never get out of that slump, but with time, patience and lots of work we did. 

Writing is hard because as much as she loves it she will not slow down so physically it is messy, she can not spell to save her life and refuses to write in anything other than first person. This means teaching her to write academic papers has been a chore and not something she is successful at. She took writing classes with our homeschool charter and still could not get it, so it is not just poor teaching on my part. She is very stubborn and does not see the point. We will be working on that this year.

Next year we will be studying algebra 1 and personal finance, yes she will be in 10th grade but she is doing well and will still be able to graduate on time as long as I keep her confidence up and we get her through the math and understanding it. She will focus heavily on writing papers of different kinds next year and we will be doing a mix of on her own and step by step with me. Since it is something her younger siblings really need to work on we will include them at the same time and hopefully they will become good at papers. She will also work on recognizing spelling mistakes and using tech to help with her writing.

Homeschooling an autistic child is not always as easy as what I have. Many times it is harder. My autistic child is not the child I struggle most with when it comes to homeschooling. She wants to homeschool. She loves being home and can not wait for our farm, though she doesn’t want to move.

We will talk about one of those difficult children another time.

Speech and OT and Autism

 Speech and Occupational Therapy for a verbal, child who is functionally is age appropriate, what are the benefits?  

Speech focused not on just how to speak, but understanding others and how people react and respond to things said to the child and things the child says.  They worked on understanding interpersonal relationships.

OT worked on handwriting, which is hardly legible and confidence, they also helped with the social emotional piece.  

It has been an important and useful tool for my child with autism to be able to function with friends and I have seen lots of growth.

These tools have worked right alongside ABA. They all work on similar, but different goals and allowed my daughter to grow. Once we move she wants to take a break from services and see if she can make friends on her own and fit in without having so many appointments. I think this will be good for her. It will show her how she has grown in the last two years. If we start to see struggles again we will work to find her services in the new state.

ABA and Autism

 Ok I am going to start with the harder topic of which I wanted to talk about in regards to my daughter’s Autism.  Accommodations will take me a while. So todays post will be about ABA.

First why it is controversial, many adult Autistic’s had horrible, horrible and traumatic experiences. I will never take from their experience and down play it. ABA when done like it was when it started, and still is done in some places is very traumatic. If someone is making your child meltdown and is not paying attention to their needs then it is wrong. 

ABA for my child has not been traumatic, other than therapists leaving, which has happened many times. I am not in love with the way the companies can not keep therapists and how there was no notice with our previous company.

ABA for my child has been working beside them, encouraging and giving choices. No force and no punishment.  The therapist works with the child not forcing the child to work for them.  

They teach me how to work with my child when they are not there and give me tools in my parenting tool box to help all my children.  I find this useful though many of the things they started with I had already put in place because I needed peace in my home and it worked with the way I was currently parenting.

Our experience is not what everyone has had, but it has been positive. I went in this telling them that I did not want to change my child, I did not want to ever change their stims or ways of dealing with stress unless they are self harming.

Our goal was to help be able to help with social interactions and understanding friends and dealing with stress. She wanted to fit in more so I told them to tell her how, because Mom’s know nothing when it comes to teen girls.

ABA is not for everyone and it is not always done right. Always listen to what your gut is telling you if you are a parent of any child. If something feels wrong it is.

Autism Diagnosis

 When we started I did not know my children were neuro diverse. I did not know Autism was something I would have to work around, or that would impact our lives tremendously.

When we started homeschooling my child who is Autistic was able to mask and any quirks, I just brushed off as oh that is their personality. She talked. She was (and still is) smart. She would watch people when she was a baby. She was really quiet. She was always taking things apart and taking things and hiding them. She also was a perfectionist from a early age. At 2 when I was trying to teach her to clean her room (put toys in the toy box and blankets on the bed) she would cry because she could not make her bed perfectly. I just wanted the blankets on the bed. So I hand over hand taught her to pick up the blankets and throw them on the bed then walked her out of the room. 

She did well until about the age of 5 making friends then I noticed she was the one struggling at the playground and being left out and not being included.

At around the age of 9, my child could not mask at home anymore. There were tantrums, full blown meltdowns and so much self esteem issues that spiraled into more meltdowns. The meltdowns were physical and verbal assaults on whoever was near. We could not have sitters, she could only stay with me. Not even her dad was able to handle what was happening.

We would go to co-op and she would be fine until we got home. We would go to fun events and she would be fine until we got home. One time we did not make it home I had to pull over and pull her siblings out of the car to keep them safe and deal with her meltdown while keeping her in the car so she could not escape.

We looked for help, with councilor’s, doctors, specialists, autism specialist. 

I was told it was my fault, we did not give her enough attention (I homeschool, with my children 24/7, I make time monthly to spend alone with them and they can and always have come to me when they needed attention for hugs, kisses, cuddles and chats).

I was told that the child was looking for attention and could control it.

None of these experts listened, none of them saw the complete loss of control we did.

I had to figure things out on my own because my child does well on school work, can speak and tends to appear to look people in the eye. My husband had taught the child to look at peoples noses when he saw them struggling with looking in other peoples eyes.

It took the child years to get an autism diagnosis. We did not get a diagnosis of Level 1 Autism until she was 13.

But now this child is full of confidence in who they are. They are willing to find accommodations that allow them to fully participate in our family and with friends. They no longer have meltdowns (at least not violent and aggressive ones that cause self esteem issues and more meltdowns).

And we have learned together how to meet needs when it comes to math, or getting something wrong, and adjusting expectations, so that corrections can be made without anxiety and tears and craziness.

Flexibility is key and something I learned from friends with Autism and other disabilities before I learned of my children’s neuro diversities.  

This is not the journey I thought Fairy Princess and I would ever take together, but I would not change her for any reason. She is an amazing kid with the biggest heart and has been since she was a baby. We just needed to figure out how best to help her. 

I will be adding some accommodations I make for my Autistic child in other posts this month and how I plan to get them through high school requirements and since we are moving out of California how I can adjust expectations to meet what is required in our new state.  

I will also talk about how ABA, speech and OT have helped in our journey. Though I do know ABA is considered controversial so I will probably share about that in that post as well

Beginning of our homeschool Journey

 Our homeschool journey started when we moved to Oceanside in 2005. 

Our littlePrincess was 4 almost 5 and preschool was not going well before we moved. She tended to get in trouble at preschool because she would get bored. She knew her alphabet in English and Spanish, all her shapes, colors, and could count to 100 and recognize all her numbers.  

So I did not want to put her in Headstart with Fairy Princess. 

We found a homeschool charter that did early enrollment kindergarten and she got to start in January after she turned 5. 

I was very thankful that the teacher that was assigned to us. She taught me how to homeschool my daughter. 

We finished all kindergarten curriculum in 6 months. 

In the end she knew everything she needed to start first grade.

So when she wanted to go to kindergarten with all the other kids in the neighborhood, I was super nervous to let her.  I figured that they were the experts though and would be able to meet her needs. 

I could not have been more wrong. In the 7 months she attended public school, she punched a student in front of myself and the teacher with the teacher doing nothing about it. She was bored and misbehaving daily, so I had many meetings with the teacher to try to help. I even made a binder I never received back that would give her more work to try to keep her brain engaged and behaving.  I met with the principal and many admin type people who were super concerned that I did not need my daughter tested to see if she was gifted (I knew she was, did not need the test and had no clue I should have been pushing for it). They put her in social skills class after school. And the last straw (I lived 5 minutes walking distance from the school) I went to pick up my child and was early, to find my child outside with a teacher I did not know. She informed me she was a special Ed teacher and had been called from the class next door to restrain my daughter because she would not sit down and be still. I never received a call from the school, or an email from the teacher. This teacher constantly was telling me my child behaved so well in class, while the other moms who helped in class (I had 2 baby’s and a preschool child at home) told he how disrespectful and misbehaved she was in class.

When we left Camp Pendleton, we started homeschooling again. But I was scared I would miss something so I went with K12.  While they have many good points, it is not a homeschool program, more of a school at home type deal. But I learned things, tweaked things and became confident enough that two years later we were back to regular homeschooling.

Back Again, let’s try Blogging Again

 So much has happened since 2018, COVID and homeschooling, I bought a house and am now preparing to move out of California as we sell our home. I now have 2 high schoolers and 2 middle school kids. 

Princess did not end up skipping 7th grade, she is currently in 11th and has really bad ADHD that we can not use meds for so she is having to learn how to handle it naturally. She plans to be a marine biologist now and is working hard toward that goal.

Fairy was diagnosed with Autism and Anxiety and is now in 10th grade. Mainly her struggles are social, emotional and sensory. She is currently talking veterinary medicine or owning her own horse ranch or both.

Buddy is in 8th grade. He did have ADHD big surprise. But I do still believe he has dyslexia though no one will diagnose it because he reads at grade level.

Baby Girl has dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia and anxiety. She is now in 7th grade. She has come a long way from not knowing all her letters in 2nd grade to reading at a 4th grade level fluently. 

I have started started selling books that I love to use in my homeschool journey. And May share from time to time here. Usborne has such great materials for homeschooling and joining while it was $5 just made sense. 

Our animal situation has changed a bit since we are out of the trailer and I will be moving across country with the 4 mentioned kids above, 1 lab, 3 lab mixes, possibly a shepherd husky mix, 2 bearded dragons and 6 hermit crabs. 

If you got this far you are probably wondering what you can expect in the future?

 Am I going to blog more consistently? Yes. I will start posting every Tuesday and Thursday.

Am I going to try to sell you books? Yes and no. You will hear about what I use homeschooling, some of that will inevitably be Usborne books, if I post about a book, I will post a link to my site where you can buy it. But I am mainly just sharing what I use, or have used that works for my kids. I will not feel bad if no one buys from me as long as the information shared is helpful to someone.

I will be sharing my homeschool experience. What I use and small pieces of our crazy life. Hopefully it will be useful for other moms out there or at the very least entertaining.

Mrs. Wordsworth Review

We received the opportunity to try out a cute and fun vocabulary curriculum for the past few months.  All I was asked was to give an honest review of the product. 

The product was for my 8 and 9 year olds to use, However I did use it with my 11 and 12 year old as well.  My 11 and 12 year olds loved the curriculum and asked for the new word of the day as often if not more than my 9 year old.  They loved the cute pictures and figuring out what the word ment as well as trying to make the best sentence using the word pairs.

The only one who had a tough time with the curriculum, though she loved the cute pictures was my 8 year old.  I believe this is because of her many learning issues and it takes her a bit longer to process the new information.  We will be using the curriculum a bit differently with her in the future.  We will be doing a word a week with her while the others will get a word a day.  This will give her more practice and less pressure allowing her to process the word in her own time.


We used Mrs. Wordsworth as suggested each day I would pull out the new word and place it on our stand. 

 

We looked at the picture and discussed what the children thought the word might mean based on that then I uncovered the definition and we discussed how close they were and why the picture would look that way to describe the word.  Then we would flip the worksheet over and discuss synonyms and word pairs finding the word pairs and synonyms for each word.  Since I am using the curriculum for more than one child I chose to discuss instead of writing on the worksheets.  Then each child was given the chance to use their favorite word pair in a sentence.

Throughout the day we would go back over the word and play with the word cards given to us.  We would use the cards to try to figure out new words and to review the words we already learned.

Mrs. Wordsmith has such cute and engaging pictures and is really simple to use.  It has made our day more fun and learning new words really interesting and easy for my kids and low prep and easy to teach for myself.

It has been awhile

We tried to start back to blogging and allowing the girls to blog on their own page but for some reason the app on my phone did not work. 

We moved into a travel trailer 3 years ago and man was learning to homeschool there an adventure.  It still is if I am honest with 2 kids in middle school next year.

Plus we are doing some educational testing on Bubby to see why he is having so much trouble.  We suspect ADHD and possibly dysgraphia.  Baby Girl has had a really hard time with Reading, writing and Math.  We have found that she has dyslexia and possibly dysgraphia and dyscalculia.  It has been a tough journey for them the last few years but we are learning and adding in all kinds of supports to help out.

Princess is working on skipping 7th grade.  She is testing well and I believe we will do that but have not finished looking at that option.  She wants to graduate high school at 16.

Fairy is working at grade level and moving right along. 

We are with a new charter school that is helping us with the Baby Girl to an extent. But she will get all the support she needs to become the doctor she wants to be. 

Next year we will be changing up our curriculum some as well to adjust for issues I have found in a few kids learning.  I will talk more about that at another time.

Curriculum for Next Year

Well it is time again to start researching and deciding on what to teach the kids next year.  Here is what I have come up with so far.

Baby Girl

Phonics- Sing Spell Read and Write has a Letter Program and I am going to start her on that next year.  I am hoping she learns to recognize the letter and possibly the letter sounds.

Buddy

Math- Saxon K (we are starting this year and if we finish I will either go with Saxon 1 or Math U See, still researching that).

Phonics and Writing- Sing Spell Read and Write  I love the curriculum and it should be fun. We also have Ring Around the Phonics which I think will be a great tool.

Lit (Baby Girl and Buddy)- We will be reading, acting out and discussing classic fairy tales.

Fairy

Math- Teaching Textbooks 3

Princess

Math- Teaching Textbooks 4 or 5.  I want to test her close to the end of the year to see which would be the best fit.

Writing, Spelling and Lit will be the same for both Fairy and Princess.

Writing- IEW Intensive A

Spelling- All about Spelling Level 3

Lit- We will be reading The Chronicles of Narnia together and discussing it along with a few projects.

History and Science will be covered for all 4 children together.

I do not have my curriculum picked out yet for these yet.  I know in History we want to study American History and in Science I think we are going to do life science.  Still lots of research for these two things.

But I have a plan and some time.

Oh I forgot we are starting Bible lessons to add on to our other curriculum.  We are starting at
cullen's abc's Bible Study

I know it will be to easy for the older girls but hope it will help them learn more about our Lord.

Our New Year and a fun New Game

Well life got crazy busy before Christmas and is just now slowing down.  My husband has fewer doctors appointments and so no we will hopefully be home more often to school here instead of on the road. 

I was blessed with a Saxon Math for Buddy as well as a Sing, Spell, Read and Write for him and Baby Girl.  We just have to get the workbooks.  I think they are going to enjoy the games and will learn even more. 

We were also blessed with an awesome Phonics game that we are using till the books come in.  It is called Ring Around the Phonics.  I was picked by the maker, Ms. Roma Cox, as one of 3 homeschool moms to get one for free.  She asked that we give honest feedback on her page and because we have had so much fun I decided on my own to post here about it as well.

We got the game in time for Buddy to open it for Christmas and we played a bit Christmas day.  It was fun.

In the pictures above Buddy and Baby Girl were playing Ring Around the Phonics with their cousin Bumble Bee.  I have not asked her mom is I could post pictures of her here so I cut her out of the pictures.  There are green cards for actions they do, they are doing jumping jacks here, and blue cards where they answer questions about their phone number, address, what they want to be and many others.  As they go around the board they have to get the letter sounds right.  There are also books that come with the game and I have the children who are reading read a page before they can do the blue or green cards.  It is a four player game, but I played it with my co-op class with 5 students and they had a blast and wanted to play again.

You can find Ring Around the Phonics at http://www.ringaroundthephonics.com/.

A Little Nervous

Monday I am calling to pull Fairy from CAVA (k12).  She will be homeschooled without a charter school as Princess' teacher can not take on anymore students and I do not want to add other teachers and expectations on to my already crazy schedule.  That is the main reason we are pulling Fairy early.

I have a full week of lesson plans for all the kids completely outlined.  I am as ready as I can be.  I know I have to call the school, then on Tuesday I file the paperwork with the state.  So I am prepared.  But still really nervous as now it is completely on me and there is no real back up.  But I know after homeschooling for almost 3 years that I can do it and once I get over the nervousness we will do great. 

Fairy will be using Teaching Textbooks grade 3 for math.  I had her try it yesterday and she loves it and she is doing well so far. We will also be doing a general math class as a family.  I want to ensure we hit all the basics and that all the children are where they should be.

For language arts and reading she will be using Complete Curriculum Workbook 1st grade and Little House on the Prairie.  She will be doing the same spelling as Princess so she will be working out of Spelling Workout B.

For science we are continuing as a family to study the human body. This week we will be studying the circulatory system and the digestive system.  And in history we are going to be working from Vacation under the Volcano.  We will be studying ancient Roman, especially Pompeii. But first we will be making a video of an interview with the caveman and drawing cave paintings.

For languages Fairy, Buddy and Baby Girl are studying ASL with Signing Time.  I am currently looking for more ways to teach Fairy more as she is learning the signs very quickly.  I am trying to learn them as well but am not doing that well.

Princess is continuing Spanish.  Her teacher is ordering Little Pim for her.  I know it is a young level but with that, the workbook and the computer programs we have I think she should be covered.

This is going to be an exciting week for our family but I hope it all goes smoothly.

School at Home and More Changes

We finished studying ancient Egypt at the start of the month. As our final project we made Egyptian bracelets and amulets from salt dough.  The kids had so much fun.  I took pictures of them making the bracelets and amulets, but not of them painting them.

 

 

We also finished the skeleton unit we were studying in Science.  We watched Stanley the Skeleton and the kids learned so many of the bones.  I took some pictures of them watching, measuring their bones and filling in their lapbooks.

 

 


I paired Princess and Buddy together.  Fairy and Baby Girl worked together.  I explained to the older girls I wanted them to ask the younger children the answer first to give them a chance.  They worked well together and found all the answers with no fighting.
 

They used the computer to look up how many bones in the body.  The bigger girls looked it up then the younger kids remembered it so that the older girls could write it down.
 

 

We are pulling Fairy from the K12 school we have been using.  The girls will be working together to complete all the things they know for school.

School on the Go!

We have been so busy and Daddy had a motorcycle accident so I have not posted lately but we have taken lots of pictures so I am going to post them and add descriptions on a few posts.  I do not want to over do it.

 Princess doing math at the Veterans hospital.  Daddy had appointments all morning so I took a crate with our school supplies and we fed the ducks and then sat down to do school.  All the kids did great and focused really well.  We have had to do this a few times lately.

  The kids loved feeding the ducks.


We have also went to a field trip to the local pet store (went to get crickets).  The workers were taking care of the snakes and were nice enough to allow the kids to hold one and to talk about their care, though they new we were not getting any.

 

Princes loved the snake.  She kept asking if we could get one.  I am not getting a snake! Fairy did not want to hold the snake though she did pet him.  Buddy enjoyed the snake too and was extremely careful with him.  Baby Girl was fine until the snake moved, then she dropped him and refused to hold him or go near him anymore. 

 

Yesterday is the last away from home group of pictures I am going to post.  Daddy had more all day appointments and I did not do school at the hospital because the kids were all out of sorts.  They finally calmed down when we took Daddy to school last night so we did school at Daddy's school!

 


The two smaller kids played with Lego's as I read from their history book.  The older girls worked on math and literature.  They finished it up pretty good and listened for the most part though at one point I had to put Fairy and Princess on separate tables because they were distracting each other.


Oh I almost forgot!  Her is a picture of our school in a crate!

 

 



Trying Something Old Again

When Fairy was a preschooler and Princess had just started homeschooling we found a great website.  The kids loved sitting down around the computer and listening to Ms. Cullen, more than they did just me.  We had a plan and stuck with it.  Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays were preschool.  I used it to set things up and give me some great ideas.  We eventually went out and made some of our own lesson plans to add in the other two days.

Now that Baby Girl is showing such an interest in doing school, and Buddy will enjoy it also I have pulled the website back up.  They have changed it up a bit and added so much more.  It is a great site!  We will be using it with the younger to kids this week.  We will be working on the Space theme.  I think they will love it. 

Buddy will also be working some off Lesson Pathways, another great lesson plan site.  Here are both their websites if you would like to visit.

http://cullensabcs.com/ninasmommy/DIY_Online_Preschool

and

lessonpathways.com

Been awhile

So I have not been blogging every week like I would like.  I am having a hard time because we are so busy. 

Princess received her math books and we have to go next week to pick up the last of her books from the charter school.  I am thinking I got the wrong level in math.  It is pretty easy for her and she is flying through it.  We are studying history this month and learning about Ancient Egypt.  I think this is going to be a 2 month journey though.  She is learning it and loving it.  We made the Nile river valley in play do the other day.  She wrote a paper on the Planets, though it has taken her a month, she just needs to correct it and it will be good.  She had a great thought process but her spelling is horrible. This is a picture of her corn husk doll from Co-Op.  They are studying pioneer days.

Fairy was advanced to the spelling part of her Phonics. She is ahead in reading and math.  We are behind in History and Science but I am taking my time in those so that we can explore those more deeply.  We are also behind in art but I do not like K12's art program, so I do not care about that at all.

Buddy is spelling 3 letter words and loving it.  I inserted a picture.  We need to focus more on his handwriting as it is sloppy and some of it is backwards.  I think he is doing fairly well for only being 4 1/2 though. He is enjoying being in class for co-op and having so much fun with addition and subtraction. He is sitting in on History with his sisters and suprising me with answers about ancient Egypt. He is also trying to teach his baby sister how to write a lower case A.





Baby girl learned to write the Letter A.  She goes up the mountain, down the mountain and across the bridge.  She likes to do school and loves that she gets to go to an art class at co-op.  Though she hates going back to the nursery after class is over.  She is such a funny little girl. The picture below is of her writing the letter A.

The other thing we have been doing is setting up the class room.  I am trying to get rid of clutter and give the children more floor space.  I am almost done so I added a few pictures.  We still have to take a bookshelf upstairs and get a little more organized. 

 

 

For circle time we hung up our huge calendar from Lakeshore Learning.  It is amazing and it is so much fun to use.  We stuck our flag behind it and underneath is a small calendar on poster board for us to work with patterns, plus I take that to co-op.  We also have color and shape posters below it.



 



 On one wall I have Buddy and Baby Girl's learning tables.  They have nursery rhymes, numbers and the alphabet on their walls.  They are also going to get chalkboard paint on part of the walls so they can write on the walls there.  Above each child's desk, or table I put a few fun things as well.  They have things they made, birthday cards and their graduation certificates from last year.

 

 



Here is a picture of Fairy and her desk.  I am still organizing so it is not the neatest.  On the other side of her desk is Princess's.

 
 







Here is a picture of our other wall, we have our frog tank on the children's bookshelf that will stay down stairs.  The cursive writing chart, so Princess can see it.  A few boxes of junk we need to put in the shed.  And the bookshelf I am taking upstairs.  We still have a long way to go but we are getting there and the kids are still learning and loving it.

 

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.

Crazy Fun Week

Monday we started school like normal.  Everyone but Princess worked hard. 

Tuesday we had a class at CAVA.  Fairy had lots of fun and got to throw water balloons at her teacher because she finished her ScanTron test on time.  She thought that was the coolest thing ever. Since we all went I had Buddy, Baby Girl and Princess sit at some tables and do their work.  Buddy and Baby Girl finished all their assigned work.  Princess dawdled. She did none of her work at all.

After CAVA we attended our homeschool group Not Back to School Party and hung out till bed time.  There was ice cream, cookies, watermelon and water guns.  The kids had a blast.  They all loved hitting the school supply filled piñata also.  They thought it was the coolest thing ever.  I am so glad we got to go.

Today Fairy, Baby Girl, and Buddy got the day off so I could focus on Princess.  So she has been working since we got up with breaks for breakfast and lunch.  She is currently working on spelling words.  My hope is that we get her caught up for what I want done for the week, then she can start fresh tomorrow and have a good day. Oh and we need to go to the library, but that will probably have to happen tomorrow.

Tomorrow we may be heading to Princess' charter school for a back to school party after school, but I am unsure since it is the same day and time as Jui-Jitsu.  If we do it will be fun. 

Friday is going to be a regular school day.  Then we have Jui-Jitsu on Saturday and church on Sunday. 

Last week in Our Homeschool World.

My sister ended up in the hospital, so I took two of the children to her house with me, so Bumble Bee could attend her kindergarten class.  She was there for 3 days and 2 of those days were school days.  It is times like these when I am so thankful I homeschool. 

If we did not do our school at home someone would have missed school or been missing something.  I love my husband but he is not always the best at getting things together and done.

I took Fairy and Buddy with me.  The first day they did all their work and needed more.  So I was pretty happy with the outcome.  My husband was working with Princess and Baby Girl and they did no school work that first day.

On the second day we had orientation with CAVA for Fairy and I took Fairy and Baby Girl with me.  They had a great day.  Again my husband did not do school with Princess or Buddy.  SO the rest of the week they played catch up and did very well. 

Fairy is ahead in her progress and is working really hard.  I am very proud of her.

Princess is not doing to bad either.

And my husband did do one day of school with the girls because I got sick this week, and it was a successful day.

On another note.  Buddy and I are trying out a 34 day trial of Reading Eggs.  He is loving it.  I am so glad he enjoys it.  I am not sure yet if we are going to pay the program after the trial, we will have to see if I see a lot of progress and if we can afford it.  But he is having fun for now.  I know my girls loved the program, but not all kids are the same.