10 Things you should know....

There are probably some things you should know before I dive into telling you what we're doing and how we work.
1.  Our house is currently on the market.  This means I don't get to put up my fun word wall with letters of the alphabet that Rachel and I carefully made together.  This means I don't get to put the kids' art work up and let them admire all that they've done.  This means that there is a lot of frustration around keeping the house ready to show at a moment's notice.  Unfortunately, we've only shown the house one time, but we've spent many many hours trying to keep it ready to be shown because we are so ready to sell this house and move on to.....

2.  a house in the country.  We've dreamed for a long time about building a house out in the country with lots of outside space for our children to explore.  We want to use that space to build a garden, maybe some day start a small farm of some sort, and have fairy houses and forts and any other magical spaces our kids want to use for imaginative play.  We have a house plan, a piece of land ready to be bought once we sell this house, and the best future-neighbors in the world.  So, now we wait and wait and wait and hope that soon (and I mean REAL soon) we sell this house and start our house-building adventure.

3.  My husband, Allen, and I spend a lot of time talking about how we parent our children.  We talk to each other, we talk to our friends, we talk to our mentors (which is really just a fancy word for our friends that are older than us!).  We want to find a balance between being too much on the helicopter side of parenting and too far on the hands-off side of parenting.  Some people would say we are attachment parenting.  Some people would say we don't let our kids do enough without us.  The most important thing, though, is that we learned long ago to stop worrying about what other people say and do what feels right with our children.  You get one shot at being someone's parent and we want to savor and enjoy the small time we have as the parents of these children.  Only too soon will they grow up and move on to adulthood.  We see our job as preparing them to be independent adults, but allowing them to enjoy their childhood at the same time.  So, yes, we're going to shelter them from some things and yes, we're going to stay home with our kids instead of going out with our friends.  We've made a conscious effort to surround ourselves with other people who put their children first.

4.  We attend church and are spiritual people, but we are not homeschooling strictly for religious reasons.  I know that many homeschools are created because of religious beliefs and I have no problem with those who choose to do so, but I just wanted to let you know that's not our reasoning for homeschooling.

5.  My husband is a public school teacher and I currently have no income, so we are completely homeschooling on a budget (I think most people are!).  I will probably spend lots of time talking about how to do things frugally, but I also like doing things simply, so I'm not always just looking to save money.

6.  Our oldest child would be attending kindergarten in the fall if she were to enter public school, so we technically have 3 preschoolers right now.  I do feel pressure to be more academic with Rachel in the fall so that she is not behind in the education she would receive at a public school.  However, with homeschooling, I know we can go through things more quickly together and I love the fact that we can go at her pace (not the Standard Course of Study or Common Core or whatever they decide to use next).  She is already using the Kindergarten Handwriting book and we are starting the Kindergarten level of math book this week.  So, we'll see how that goes....

7.  I feel that it is important every day to let my kids be kids.  I want them to just play.  I want them to just explore.  They learn so much this way.  They also get better and better at sorting out their own disagreements this way.  Believe me, there's plenty of socialization going on in this house!

8.  I attended a Homeschooling Conference last year that was very beneficial and researched two specific programs to use in the beginning.  I had heard about Handwriting Without Tears (hwtears.com) and was very impressed when I saw the materials in person.  My kids LOVE this program.  I had also heard about Math-U-See (mathusee.com) and spoke with them in person at the conference.  So far, this program has gone well with Rachel.  We worked our way through the Primer together and will start the Alpha book tomorrow.  She is excited about math, but not very hands-on, so the manipulatives are kind of lost on her (I see Ford using them a lot more often, in fact he already loves playing with them while she does her math work).  This program starts with Alpha then goes to Beta, etc. all the way up to Calculus.  I'm hoping it's a program we can stick with all the way through.  I like how even though I call it her kindergarten math book, it's not based on a grade level of any sort.  You just keep going until the student masters it and then move on to the next level.

9.  I have no idea what I'm doing!!!  We're just taking it day by day and hoping that we get reading, writing, arithmetic, love, manners, exercise, fun, and I guess a little science and social studies, too!

10.  On the days that are hard, I sometimes just have to walk out of the room, take a deep breath, and start over!  Believe me, a stubborn two year-old can wreck a math lesson in a heart beat, but we figure it out and we've got all the time in the world!!