1/3 Of the Way

Yesterday officially marked the end of 1/3 of our school year.

Whew!

We celebrated by going to Waterton Canyon after school yesterday.

 It's so nice that Ben has every other Friday off! We love to take advantage and go on field trips.

 We saw a herd of big horn sheep coming down the mountain. That was pretty awesome!

Now that we are in the thick of homeschooling, I have certainly learned a lot.

Some weeks have been rougher than others, I admit. I certainly feel inadequate often, even with my educational background. I wonder if I am totally screwing up  my kids and if I am letting my pride interfere with what is best for my kids (ie., am I letting the local politicians anger me in such a way that I refuse their services, even if what they provide is better than what I can provide).

We are still experimenting with different curriculum- we mostly use Sonlight and Ray's Arithmetic, but we have added in Life of Fred math in addition to Ray's, and I am going to start supplementing with Susan Wise Bauer's grammar as well. I imagine that figuring out curriculum will be a lifelong pursuit as our kids' needs change.

Ben and I have contemplated moving into a house where we can have a "homeschooling room" and we have figured out a way to reconfigure the basement to add one so we don't have to move (part of the idea of moving stems from teenage neighbor boys who insist on shooting their BB guns in their backyard while my girls are playing outside. I HATE being so close to all the neighbors and want more space).

This has begged the question: If we move to a school district with more of the educational values that Ben and I agree with, would we go back to school or continue homeschooling?

That has been an interesting question for me to ponder.

Even though it's hard and I'm not sure if I am truly up to the task, there are a million positive benefits that would be hard to give up.

Here are just a few that we are realizing in our home:

-Family time. We can easily put family first and we can easily fit family activities, Family Home Evening, family dinner, etc. into our schedule. Even if the kids are in extracurricular activities, it doesn't feel like it takes away from our family time because we have so much of it.

-Flexibility. If the kids are sick or I have a funeral to go to, we can easily adjust our schedule without having to play catch up with the other 24 kids in class.

-Time, time, time. This goes with the others. When Audra was in school, I always felt rushed. She would come home from school about 4, we would try to do homework, I would get dinner ready, we would eat dinner, go to bed, and then get up for the morning rush. I rarely feel rushed now- we can take the time to get the chores and the scripture study and the homemade dinner done- with plenty of time to still just enjoy each other.

-Besides our school board, there are so many other reasons we're doing this that continue to make sense. My girls don't have to sit through 6 weeks of testing. We can do subjects that the kids enjoy, not just what the district says they should learn. Each and every subject is as hard or as easy as it needs to be for the kids to "get it."

-Audra and Claire are so much closer! They tell me all the time that they are "best buddies" and they are always coming up with games to play together. It is really sweet to see. (yes, there is also fighting)

-Even though Audra can get obstinate and refuse to do work, overall she is back to enjoying school. No more tears over homework or feeling stupid or of having to be gone all day long! (Let me tell you, when your 6-year-old tells you she is "stupid" and "not as smart as the other kids in class"- like Audra did last year- that's a wake up call that something isn't working and something needs to change)

-Both girls are thriving. They really are. Claire is picking up reading unbelievably well, and both girls are doing great with writing and math as well. I'm pretty sure they are learning quite a bit. The other day Audra said, "Mom, can we go to the Valley of the Kings and search for the tomb of King Tutankhamen's grave?" How many 7-year-olds ask that?

-We can get out in nature more. That's big for us, and it has been nice. The girls aren't stuck in a desk for hours on end- they can be outside.

For right now, I feel like this is working out for us, so we'll continue to do it. When it stops working, we'll come up with something different. I can honestly say that I have no idea what the future holds.

Only 2/3 of the  school year left to go!