How/Why I homeschool

Hi!  I am a contributor that doesn't contribute, so now I'm hoping to change that.  =)
Anyway, probably nobody knows me, except Courtnie, so let me give you a bit about us:

I am a mom of 3 girls and I homeschool my oldest, Kenadi, for kindergarten.  I also do a bit of preschool with our 3 year old, Emma.  Mya, the baby, likes to "be involved" too.  We decided to homeschool Kenadi after putting her in public school for 2 weeks.  I had already been debating it because our school gave us no option for 1/2 day kindergarten.  It was only all-day kindergarten, and I already felt like that was way too long to send my 5-year-old to school for.  However, I grew up going to public school, and I loved it.  There were so many fun things that we did in school. So many friends to make!  I didn't want to "deprive" Kenadi of that, so we sent her for those 2 weeks.  In those 2 weeks, Kenadi cried at school almost every day for the first week.  The second week, she did't cry, but didn't want to go, and when she came home she was so tired, and a little reclusive.  She didn't have energy to play with Emma, and so they never played anymore.  I saw Kenadi adapting to school, and handling it better every day, and I'm sure she would have adapted and not been so tired after going a while, but I don't think that my 5-year old should be adapting to being away from her family for 7 hours a day.  I just think that's too young, and so she is home schooled.  I think we made the best decision.  I do enjoy us being together as a family.  I think we will decide year by year, child by child, what is best for them- public, or home.  Or, private if we ever have enough money to consider that.

When I pulled her out, I enrolled her into a charter school.  We also got into a homeschool co-op that meets on Mondays, which Kenadi and Emma love, and Courtnie and I switch off teaching a subject on Fridays.  Kendai loves this too.  The charter school takes Kenadi's tax dollars that would have went to her public school, and we have it to use for her curriculum.  I chose to use Calvert Curriculum, and I got this for free, with a teacher from the charter school to check in on us once a month or as needed to see if we need any help from them.  I decided to do the charter school and the Calvert Curriculum because I am new to this, and thought that I needed something to tell me what Kenadi should be learning, and maybe someone to check in on us and keep me accountable- just in case.  ;)  The curriculum is very easy.  The first 4 months were mostly review for Kenadi, and this was so annoying and boring for her.  We added in her own reading assignments and some of our own topics once in a while so that she would stay challenged and grow.  However, I didn't feel like I had tons of time to do more things that I would want to do at Kenadi's level because we had to do the Calvert curriculum to do the tests that showed that we did school for the day.  It has been good in a way, because it came with tons of books, and lots of ideas of things to talk about and explore, but I think I've been more disappointed with it than not.  Here's the problem with getting a curriculum:  It is just like public school in the way that it is not tailored to your kid.  It is a basic curriculum, so if it is too easy for your kid, too bad.  If it is too hard for your kid, too bad.  Work harder, I guess.  Now that I've been doing it for a while, I kind of wish we would have got the assessment tests from the public school so that we could have used that as a check-point, and explored things that we are interested in and that I think she needs to learn.

Whew!  This is a long one, thanks for making it through my rant!  =)

Bees

Kenny's bee tongue (their tongue is like a straw).

Our "beehive"
We played bees. The cards are the honeycomb cells, the wooden blocks are nectar-->honey, the yellow blocks are pollen, and all the blue green and red blocks are eggs-->larva.
The turned over/empty cards are sealed over cells where larva are undergoing metamorphosis. We all took turns and played the Queen, a Worker, a Guard and a Nurse. We also had yellow and wooden blocks spread out in a different section of the living room as a flower garden where we foraged for them. The kids really enjoyed this part.

Lexi showing her bee tongue

Hey . . .uh. . . (I want to say "all", but I know this blog doesn't get many views.) heh :) So I suppose I should say:

Hey few!

We have been learning about Bees (honeybees, to be exact) this week, and I really enjoyed it. Maybe ever more than the kids! Bees are fascinating creatures. I never knew that the wax they made their honeycomb of came from glands in their abdomen. And I find it rather amazing! We did the bee dance, which I sadly did not get a picture of. It was really cute when the kids did their turns and waggled their bottoms in the direction of where the honey was. (We all took turns hiding a jar of honey and then had to tell everyone where it was via the bee dance!) We read several good books on bees and learned about Killer (Africanized) Bees vs. Normal (European) Bees. I still need to get more organized, but we are starting to come into our rhythm. Or homeschooling groove. Whatever you want to call it. We are almost there!

Up next? Five in a Row curriculum with the Mirette on the High Wire lesson plan.

Solar System and Chemical Reactions

Lexi's Solar System diagram

Exploding baggies

"Look at that! It popped!!"

Planet cupcakes

We have been learning lots of fascinating things. For the past two weeks we have been doing a little solar system study. We also did a science class with a little friend on chemical reactions. Today we are going to finish up the solar system study with the moon. We will make a poster of the phases of the moon! It should be fun!!!

I am really loving homeschooling so far, but I wasn't prepared for how mentally exhausting it would be. It really takes a lot out of me. I find I just don't have the energy to do a lot of activities I used to do more often before. But, we are still in the adjustment phase. Also, since undertaking the homeschooling job, I have a greater appreciation for what public school teachers do. They have a hard job, and I am grateful to them for all their work!