Happy Homeschool Anniversary! One Year At a Time...

One year later..

Tonight. I am sitting here, like most nights, completely exhausted. I should be celebrating. I've made it ONE YEAR!! Today was officially our one year anniversary of Homeschooling.

So what have I learned in my first year? That everything changes, all the time. And that's ok. Schedules changed, curriculum changed, attitudes have changed, life has changed. But we are still moving forward.

It's seriously been a year. There have been some definite wins. One of the things that was MOST important to me was that my children had a good understanding of the American Revolution. I am completely fascinated by it. But I didn't feel like I was getting through to them at all. One night while listening to a song about South Dakota my four year old saw the picture of Mount Rushmore, and was incredibly excited. He ran over screaming "MOM!! That was the guy!"

"What guy?" I asked

"You know, when the Red Guys were fighting the Blue Guys, and the Blue Guys won and they were led by ... " (with his little arms thrown in the air, head back and the biggest grin on his face he sang "GEORGE WASHINGTON!!!" 

Definite mom win. My four year old just described the revolutionary war (the best way a four year old can) and recalled the name of their "leader"... I am SO down with that!!!

We've had some losses too. Like all of my daughter's friends. :-/ For a girl that was a social butterfly this has been the hardest hit. Co-op groups haven't worked out and due to extremely tight finances we haven't been able to have her participate in much. It breaks my heart every day. But, I also got my daughter back. See, my social butterfly had turned into a depressed, self-conscious, sad little girl who cried every night after school and told me she KNEW she was dumb because she just couldn't learn. Now, my strong 11 year old has confidence again, doesn't struggle nearly as much, in fact has overcome SO much this last year. She has goals and dreams again; and a strong desire to attend college. She fights through lessons and doesn't give up even when she really struggles. She smiles more and I love it. I get to hear her sing throughout our home every day. She is now learning to play the guitar and picking it up really quickly. She's discovered the amazing world of Marine Biology. She is also turning into quite the artist. I am hoping this next year we can find some opportunities for her to grow her artistic talents.

With the ups and downs and various curriculum changes I've decided that I LOVE unschooling the best. I find it's a much more organic way for the kids to learn. Letting their interests take the lead is amazing. My boys are SO curious about the world. They stop and look at everything. They notice EVERYTHING. We started a silly thing every time we walk to the library. On our path we have to cross a small bridge over a little creek (it's about the size of your average irrigation ditch) but one day I stopped and asked the kids to tell me what they saw. I made them really look for some small thing, a tiny fish, or a bird, or a flower that caught their eye. Now the kids race to the bridge to see what there is to see this time. Because of that, my boys love to explore the world around them. They are always looking at bugs or plants or the weather. Their passion for learning and exploring amazes me. And makes me feel so proud that I am instilling that love and passion in them.

A couple months ago we thought we should change things up. So we are currently we are using K12 through a local charter school. It's not bad. I love that my lesson plans are laid out for me. However, I feel trapped and feel like we are constantly running behind in our lessons. Since starting K12, we never make it to our weekly library day anymore and don't have as much time for exploring as we did before. I do LOVE the amount of curriculum that is provided.  But I am always feeling like we can't keep up, and there's no wriggle room for the kids interests.

For my daughter, K12 has not been great. The benefit is that is allows her to take guitar lessons through the charter school, but she is having a hard time with the overwhelming pace of the curriculum. I think part of the issue is I believe she has (undiagnosed) dyslexia. When I pulled her out of school a year ago her reading level was several grades levels below where it should have been. No one from the school had ever contacted me, and to my knowledge nothing had been done to help her. I only know what her reading level was because a small slip of paper was tucked into her binder with her reading level written on it hidden with all of her stuff that was sent home on her last day of school. So with K12, everything for her is on the computer, which makes her life a bit more of a challenge because the amount of reading is a struggle for her.

I am beginning to miss our unschooling days where we focused and learned about what the kids were interested in, and read books all the time. We made it a point to get out of the house about once a week and go for a hike or hit the park at least. Now days, I feel like if we take the break we'll be even further behind. But the joy of homeschooling is you can always change things up. So that may be in our future.

I think the second most important thing I've learned this year is to remember myself. Last month I found myself seriously depressed, frustrated, overwhelmed and give out. I have a suspicion part of that has to do with hormones and changes my body is going through but a big part of the problem was I forgot to do something for me. I give everything I have to my family 24 hours a day. Ok, ok, that's an exaggeration. It's like 18 hours a day, then I collapse into an exhausted sleep for a few hours and get up to do it all over again, with only a sporadic day off here or there. I remember one day last spring my husband literally kicked me out of the house for the day, gave me the keys, the bank cards and told me to just go do whatever I wanted for a few hours. To be honest, it was terrifying and can be likened to torture. After I hit Starbucks, I literally just drove around for an hour with no idea what to do. I still can't remember what I ended up doing. But that should have been a warning sign... "I needed a life outside of my house." So this year  I am making it a goal to do something for me. Take time to take a bubble bath and read a book, or invite a friend (I think I still have one or two) to a movie, or something. But just be "Nici" for a couple hours and not "Mom" all the time.

We will see what else this world has in store for us this next year, whatever it is I'll take it ... one year at a time.

Happy Anniversary kids!!

Miss Thing reading to the boys

Art projects, older ones drawing, littles painting wooden airplanes

Older two learning to draw various animals

Out at the shooting range, he decided he needed a rifle too!

Me and Child #1 at the coast. 

Miss thing rocked an indoor garage sale. Almost nothing left on her table. 

Scouting out possible art projects Bo & Luke discovered giant eye balls. 

I just had Miss Thing and Bo one afternoon, and since there aren't anymore annual "School Picture days"   we did our own school pics... Never caught #1 and Luke to get pics done for them... maybe this spring. 

My little Bo Duke watering Grandma's plants, it's serious business because he promised Grandma he would take care of it for her. 

Me and Luke Duke at the 4th of July celebration. 

Luke gettin' some sun. Gotta love park days. 

Bo and Luke, #1 and Miss Thing (and Mama) sitting on my car watching the lighting storm. Don't worry we weren't close enough to be in any danger but this is one of our favorite pastimes. We hear the Thunder and run.. outside... because we are nuts. But we LOVE a good lighting storm. 

#1 and Miss Thing and me out hiking/geocaching. Geocaching is one of the awesome new discoveries we've made this year. 

Miss Thing, Bo and #1 with Harry Potter wands we made (for our Harry Potter Unit Study, that lasted a whole week and half)

First day of School for the rest of the world. We're sleeping in at Grandma's house. 

Because.. some mornings, mid week, I just can. :)

Bo & Luke Duke and one of our favorite pastimes.. Duck watching 

Miss Thing, Bo, Luke & #1 chillin' ... somewhere.. 

Luke Duke, later the same day, shopping with Mama. 

Getting to lick the beater might be the best thing ever. 

Bo dressing up. A FAVORITE of my wild boys

Bo and Luke receive a postcard in our postcard exchange. 

Bo LOVES Dinosaurs so anytime I can incorporate them into his schoolwork it's a win. 

Miss Thing baking cupcakes for the first time. 

And movie day. The kids had finished a unit on the solar system so they were camped out watching a documentary on the planets. Documentaries are always a hit with Me, #1 and Bo. Miss and Luke... not so much.