We're Back!

Homeschooling blast off in 5 4 3 2 1!  Eleventh grader will be doing public homeschooling and 7th grader will be on a homegrown curriculum that she and I created. Nearly 3 year-old will be doing learning play stuff.

I will be posting on this blog again, but not sure how just yet. The only thing I know is that we are homeschooling again, and I like to chronicle that by using this blog.

This is about what it will look like for the next few months. Check the facial expressions and body language, pictures don't lie :)

I Can Handle it!

Three things I remember when I took my daughters out of traditional school and decided to homeschool them. One teacher the year before had decided for me that my child's standardized test score was "not bad." Her math score was 59 percentile or something like that. I guess it was not too bad if you had no reference point. However, I did. My daughter had always tested above 90 percentile, so for it to drop so drastically was a huge red flag. The young teacher said to me with an attitude "I don't know what you want us to do for you?" I replied "nothing else, we'll take it from here."

The next year, she did one marking period in an All girls school and when we withdrew her, the honors teacher gave me some paperwork to get into gifted classes when she returned to school. I threw them out because I knew she would not be returning to that school system again. I could handle it, and I resolved to do just that.

The third thing I remember when I took my other baby out of her charter school was one of the teachers telling her how lucky she was to be homeschooled.

When my high schooler returned to school at the beginning of this year, I came to her guidance counselor ready for battle. I wanted to make sure she was on the right track to attend a great university. I actually had no problem at all. Based on the transcript I submitted and her new test scores, she went right into honors classes.

The first marking period she came out of the gate swinging with 5 A's and 2 B's. Every marking period since then has been above a 3.0, but not as great. She falls asleep and wakes up at the end of the marking period to slip in under the wire, so that she can attend the doughnut honor roll party.

Why am I saying all this? Because lately parents have been getting arrested for trying to send their kids to a great school. Arrested! For wanting what's best for their babies. The system is screwed up and it's set up to put certain kids in certain lanes their whole lives. If you know anyone who can homeschool, encourage them to do it. Even if it's just a year or two. The point is to grab the kids back, and to make them aware that whatever a school tries to do to them, they have the power over their education. We can handle it!

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Butterfly Season

Sensory Play with Navy Beans

I've been hearing a lot about sensory play lately. More so, than when I had toddlers 13 or 8 years ago. Although, my girls went to a really great Child Development center that exposed them to sensory play, so I didn't have many concerns about them in this area. Since I'm in charge of my son's education right now, I'm more in touch with him receiving a wide range of experiences. I'll have to admit that he's been doing way too much on the wii & on the ipad. He gets the normal book, abc, shapes & colors exposure, but lately I'm more committed to him getting sensory place. When we lived in a beach town, it was not a problem at all because the beach provides lots of sensory stimulation.

Anyway, Here's some video of today's sensory play. It was taken at the end of his play time, so he was transitioning into making everything into car play.

Homemade Play Dough

I'm trying out toddler activities to educate the baby boy. I have to go to the (he calls it graygound) playground very often. He loves to move his body all around and run and climb.

Pinterest is very helpful in finding new ideas for education. It's my new hang out. I get lost in ideas and images over there. Anyway, I found a cool recipe for homemade play dough and my baby boy loved it. Here's where found the recipe, and some pics are below. It smells fruity because I used wyler's flavored drink mix to color it. Overall, I'm happy with it. Oh except that no matter what color I added, I still ended up with red. I don't know why.

Still home, but not homeschooling...

unless you count homeschooling my two year old. I'm teaching him letters, numbers, colors, clean-up and I'm attempting potty training.

So this blog is about to take on a whole other form. It's more about being a stay at home mom to a two-year old while I try to write, maintain my website, design some jewelry, and study. I'm getting a Ph.D. in Holistic Life Counseling. It's a Religious Degree. I'm learning loads about training my thoughts, relying on God's power within, and meditating. Although, I've known about these things for years, studying it for a degree is much more intense.

Most days it feels like I'm not doing anything, although I acknowledge that I am doing a heck of a lot.

Stay tuned...the homeschool blast is going to be a different kind of fun.

Homeschool Testing

10 year old taking the CAT in Florida. Here you have to have an approved administrator administer it. In GA I did it myself.

We came in this morning I saw Jesus-Freaks, Super-geniuses, Flighty Creative-geniuses, wholistic loc families, Super shy curious geniuses, and I thought Homeschoolers are weird, and I love them.