What a day in our Home School world looks like

I would like to share with you, what a day in our Home Schooling world looks like.
We have been homeschooling, in a sense, since my oldest was born, but technically this year has been our first.
I like to base our learning off of the idea of the natural milestones we reach through life. A Thomas Jefferson Education, really helped me understand the different phases we go through, after we learn to smile, roll over, sit, crawl, walk and talk. We do have the potential and capacity to teach ourselves everything we need to know, with great mentors to guide us and help us.


My kids are ages 1, 3, 6 and 8. This picture is actually a little old, but we have yet to update it. :)

My oldest went to Kindergarten and 1st grade at the public school, but she is happy to do Home School now, and my 6 year old is starting Kindergarten stuff at home too.

When others ask me how we do it, they seem to have an idea that it would be complicated, time consuming, stressful. They also worry, that they wont be smart enough (trust me I worried about that too, but quickly found out, that I have plenty of time to learn, and I am not the only one mentoring them!) I am here to tell you it does not have to be complicated or stressful, at all! We have a lot of fun, and I am actually less stressed with all my kids home, where we can wake up ready to have a fun day, and we are not obligated to drag all 4 kids out of the house, just to drive a mile to the school and then back home, 2 to 3 times a day.
 Yes we need structure, and we still strive for it, and maybe if we lived somewhere where it was warm outside all the time, dragging 4 sleepy little tiny kids outside to a cold vehicle wouldn't have been so frustrating, but I will take the nice warm relaxed home, and happy faces in the morning, over tropical weather any day. :)




In the Core phase of learning
We actually do not do a lot of structured schooling. For now, that is. Right now, as TJED describes it, my kids are in a phase where the most important thing they learn, is the difference between right and wrong. This requires me, to be, their mentor, to be a good example, and to gently guide them through their day, when they make choices. We talk a lot about good manners, and virtues. We also read a lot of books, and we discuss the choices the characters had to make, and talk about what they should and should not have done.
My favorite book that we started reading, is called "The Book of Virtues" by William J. Bennett
. It has a section for each virtue, and in each section, is a poem or a story, that teaches the virtue. Its really great, and whatever curriculum or method you choose, this is a great book to read to your kids anyway.
I also love the "Little House on the Prairie" series, and my kids do too!

Another thing TJED suggests, is to structure your time, but not your content. This provides structure to the kids, and helps them learn responsibility, but it also provides the freedom, they need, to choose what they want to learn, and that leads to the Love of  Learning milestone.


So, here is an example of our "structured"/not structured schedule. :)

I try, to have every body learn to be out of bed by 8 am. I would love to get to a point where we are out of bed by 7, and me out of bed by 6, but do to some personal health issues, I need all the sleep I can get in a night to help with healing. We are getting there though, and when I can get myself into bed by 9 pm, I can get up earlier. My daily goal is to be up, myself by 7, but its a goal I am still working on.On Good days it does happen, otherwise its more like 8 am. :)

• 7 am- I wake up, read my scriptures, and give myself a few minutes to check email, and facebook.
• 8 am- I make my bed, get dressed, and clean up anything in my room that needs it, like taking my water cup to the kitchen, or picking up wrappers or kids toys. 
• next I move to the bathroom, do my hair, and hygiene things. I keep a package of baby wipes on our counter, and I wipe the counters and pick up anything in the bathroom that needs to be put away. 
• I move to the laundry room, which is in the hall by my bathroom. I sort the load from the dryer and start a new load in the washer. My kids and I each have a small basket in the hall that our clothes get sorted into. 
• Then I move into my 1 and 3 year olds room. I get them dressed, and "we" tidy up their room, and we all go down to the kitchen for breakfast. I unload the dishwasher at this time as well.
• 9 am- We all have breakfast and Devotional together. My 6 and 8 year old, have reached the milestone (finally) of getting themselves up and dressed before breakfast! (I thought it would never happen, but after starting a new awesome rewards system, they have both naturally come to be responsible about it on their own.)

Devotional- We do this during breakfast, (we are all gathered around the table, so why not?)  We start by saying a prayer over our meal, which is usually fruit and nuts, and a grain of some sort. Then, starting with my oldest, I ask if she has a spiritual thought to share with us for the day. My 8 year old usually ends up sharing something she learned at church the previous week. I Love It!
 One morning, she took some time coming up stairs. I wondered a little about it, but didn't bug her. Then during devotional, she announced "I have made a decision!" Next Sunday at church, I am going to get up an bear my testimony!" She explained, that she had been thinking about it, in bed, and that was why she didn't come up earlier. She still needs to wait a couple more Sundays for when we have our Fast and Testimony meeting, but she is still planning on doing it! These were the kind of words, that make a mother's heart jump for joy, and it took a lot for me to hold it in, and gently agree with her, that it was a great decision. :)
My 6 year old, kind of picks up on the spirit of it, from her sister, and shares her thought, and then my 3 year old, usually says something random like "I sleep to much", lol, and then my 1 year nods his head and mumbles something serious. It is the cutest thing, and really sets a good mood for our day. After our spiritual thoughts, we recite the scripture we are memorizing, and then the poem we are memorizing. If they pass off, the part we are working on, they earn a treat.

• 10 am- We start our morning chores. For the kids, its finishing up with hygiene, making beds, cleaning up their rooms, or anything on their chore lists, that they can earn a token for. (Tokens for chores, is our new rewards system, then they can turn in thier tokens for treats, or something fun. It works wonderfully!)

I do a 5 minute pickup in the kitchen, and living room, and sweep and vacuum, and then I work on my daily deep cleaning room.

I have a list, laminated and posted in each room, of weekly deep cleaning tasks, and monthly deep cleaning tasks. 
Monday-Kitchen
Tuesday-Laundry and Laundry area
Wednesday-Bathrooms
Thursday-Living room
Friday-Bedrooms
Saturday and Sundays are free days except for 5 minutes up keeping in each area, to prevent overwhelming feelings on other days. When I keep up on all of this, I don't have to clean a whole lot at all.

• 12 pm-I get my baby ready for his nap, we nurse for a bit, and then put him to bed. He will sleep for 4 hours usually, which is really nice. He recently switched from 2 naps a day, to 1 long one a day instead. When he did 2 naps, we did school during his naps, and had a recess in between. Now, we do school stuff all together, during his long nap.
• Between 12:30 pm and 4:30 pm- We have a lunch and bring out the books. During this time, the kids are encouraged, but not forced, to pick a book, or a few, and do personal reading time. Lately, we all gather on the beanbags in my living room, and they listen while I read from The Book of Virtues, or from The Little House on the Prairie. Listening, sometimes involves my 8 year old laying with her eyes closed, picturing what is going on in the story, my 6 year old quietly playing with a toy, and my 3 year old, reading her own book, sometimes to loudly. ;) Today, they ate a snack while I read, and my 8 year old read a page to us too.

After we read together, we discuss what we heard. I start with my 3 year old, and ask her what she thought about the story. I don't get a huge response from her, but at her age, its more the example and routine that is important, and I know when she gets older she will start to want to listen and discuss more. My 6 year old will usually just say a little bit about it, and my 8 year old, usually has the longest response, of discussing character and things done in the story. I love that she is at an age that will discuss more, but it also helps me to understand that my younger ones will get to that age soon enough too, and I can just be patient with them, and set a good example. My 8 year old's example is encouraging to them too.

•      After reading, my kids usually move on to "doing" something. They love to color, or do imaginative play. I am finding this is a perfect moment to have them gather around the table for a lesson or project too. Yesterday, we gathered around the table and made 55 valentines, for each kid to pass out at our Valentines Home School get together this Friday. We also get out our "Draw Now" books, and they learn to draw something from it, and then do copy work, for phonics and writing.They also love going outside and playing. I do yard work while they play, and sometimes they join me.
• We also have an account for my 8 and 6 year old, online at Time for learning. It is an online age based curriculum, for Kindergarten through High School students. They have specific subject lessons to learn throughout a years worth of time, and they have quiz's and tests, but you do not have to do them. They are also not tied down to an outside teacher, or schedule. Its so nice for my kids to get on, and learn fun age appropriate material, to learn math, or science or phonics, but not have them feel forced to learn any of it. They learn it better, when it is their choice to learn it. We pay $34 a month, for the two accounts combined. It is a very good curriculum too, and its fun! The kids usually take an hour each, and learn something fun from it. We don't do it everyday either, just when they want to. 

When one of my older kids, are on the computer, I break out our "100 Easy Lessons to Reading" book, and our "Math U See" books, with the other, and we go over a few lessons, until they are ready to stop.

This is also a time, for us all to explore our talents. We break out the violins, the harmonicas, the art, the dancing, the journals, and anything else that peaks our interest.

• 4:30 pm- I start to get dinner going, and my kids are free to do what they want. 
• 5:30 pm- my son wakes up from his nap by this time, and my husband comes home from work. He usually goes for a jog, or starts his other job, that he does in our living room on his laptop. 
• 6:00 pm-we eat dinner, and discuss our day with Daddy.
• 7:00 pm-we have a 15 minute pickup in our kitchen. The kids each have a chore they are in charge of, my 8 year old loads the dishwasher and Daddy and I finish up the rest. 
• 7:30 pm-The kids all get ready for bed, jammies, brushing teeth, baths, setting out clothes for the next day, and a 5 minute pickup in the living room and bedrooms. 
• 8:00 pm Devotional- We pick a book for Daddy to read to us, sometimes its from "The Book of Virtues". We say a family prayer, and then he and my 8 year old read from the scriptures to us.
• 8:30 pm- I tuck my 1 and 3 year old into bed, and then I go down to my 6 and 8 year old. I say personal prayers with my 3 and 1 year old, and tickle and snuggle and squish them. 
• With my 6 and 8 year old, I ask them about 1 sad thing they had happen during the day, and then 2 happy things, and then we tickle, giggle, snuggle and squish with them. :)
•  9:00 pm-I do a house sweep, and tidy up what I need to, and then hop in bed to read or catch up on my self taught violin lessons.

• 10:00 pm-We really try to have the lights out by this time. 

The one thing I keep in mind the most, is that, this phase will not last the whole Home Schooling Experience. My 8 year old is moving into the love of learning phase, and my younger kids are still in the learning right from wrong phase. Soon, in about 4 years my 8 year old will be 12 and moving into the Scholar phase, where learning particular subjects will be more important to her, and I will be mentoring her through deeper things, and my other kids will be moving into the Love of learning stage.
I find that I myself, am going through a Love of Learning/Scholar phase. Which is super important, for me to take advantage of at this time, and be a good example, by studying the things I want to learn about too.

While we have this routine into place, it took us a bit of refining to get here, to realize it didn't need to be anything stressful or majorly structured. We also have plenty of days, especially on Monday's when we do our grocery shopping too, that our learning is completely "in the moment". We discuss things while traveling, we discuss math, while budgeting, we learn that it is stealing, when we take one little Jelly Bean from the bulk bins, and that yes, we will pay at least a penny for it, if you eat it first. :) Some days if we are out and about, the learning does not come from any book, but just from their mentor passing on information about the moment.

So there you have it! A day in the world, of Home Schooling my Passionate Bookworms! :)

Choosing a curriculum, and why I like TJED method

One of the most daunting parts of doing Home School.........
Figuring out WHAT curriculum to go with!
It can be so overwhelming. There are a lot of curriculum programs out there. A lot of really great ones!

There are also the government k-12 online schools, which are great too.

I have been wanting to do Home School since my 7 year old went to Kindergarten, but didn't quite feel ready yet, until this last year. I looked into the online schools several times, and just never felt a connection with any of them.

My sister, who has been Home Schooling for about 15 years now, tried the online k-12 school, and has mixed feelings about it. I have talked to several other people, who have tried it also, and they say good and bad things about it. It is where I started looking, but I ended up looking past it all. (Even though the reimbursements are soooo tempting!)

Here are some benefits of an online school -
(please remember I am just starting out with this, so I leave it to you to study out for yourself too. This is just to give an idea of what I have looked into, and found for myself)

• You can do school from home
• Your student still has a "classroom Teacher"
• You can work out a schedule that works for you and your student 
• They often reimburse, and send you supplies (it is cheaper for them to do this, than to have your child go to public school. It costs $10,000 per child to go to public school) just a reference

• Your curriculum is planned out for you
• You can mentor them along if you need to 

Difficulties you might run into-

• You are tied down to logging on everyday for school time 
• You are required to do testing
• online teaching quality can vary
• not every child learns the same, so it might work great for one of your children, and not so great with another

Its definitely something to look into, to see if its right for your family though. I am more excited about teaching my children to love to learn though, through life experiences, so I have chosen to not go that route.

Here are some other curriculum programs that I have looked into or heard about, that would be worth looking into also:

Latter Day Learning (also known as the Family School)
My Fathers World
Ambleside Online (Charlotte Mason book list and schedule)

Confessions of a Home Schooler, has some great curriculum books too! (I love her website!)

My favorite Method, is of course the Thomas Jefferson Education (TJED).

After several years of trying different curriculums, including K-12, my sister finally found TJED, and has now been with it for about 6+ years.
My oldest daughter was just a baby when she first told me about it, and she invited me to look at their website. http://www.tjed.org/

I had years to go, until I needed to make a schooling choice for my kids, but I was very intrigued by what she had told me about it, so I looked. I ended up registering with their website, and have known since, that whether my kids ended up going to public school or not, that this was a method, I would be using in my home either way.

I love that it focuses on teaching a child to love to learn, rather than forcing a child to just learn how to get a job someday.(not that knowing how to get a job isn't important, because it definitely is, but if you know how to love to learn, you will be more likely to thrive in the job you do get someday.)

Now that I am doing Home School, I am very excited to put this method into full practice for not only my kids, but myself too!

With this method, you get to be the mentor, and the child is the educator. :) We learn from the classics. We learn Math, science, history, reading, language arts, all the important subjects, from our leaders, and from classic authors, like Shakespeare, by reading the books, and then discussing every bit of them. They choose the subject, and then you read the book with them, or before they read it, so you can mentor them along in their questions and studying.

In the first phase of this method, ages 0-8 about, children are learning the important life skill of "between right and wrong". This is a great time for you to start reading about what you want to learn about, for yourself (ex. I decided I wanted to learn about Sun Dials, recently, so I had fun looking up articles, and reading about where they started, who invented them, and things like that). It sets a great example, of you learning to love to learn, so they can transition into the next phase easily, which is "Learning to love to learn". :)

TJED's website has book lists for the classics, and so does the Ambleside Online website.


Why did I continue to choose this method, over all of the other great curriculum and methods?

My sisters oldest boys are 14 and 15, and they are doing things for fun, like memorizing the Declaration of Independence, and taking fun field trips to Mt. Rushmore as a reward, for choosing to do so.
My 14 year old nephew did this, and it is amazing to see the young man that he is becoming. I had a discussion with him, that started out casual, but was very quickly turned into, how he wants to study law, and religion, and deep, smart subjects, and the best part is he is passionate about it!  
My 15 year old nephew, (and all of his 4 brothers) have amazing self values, that they hold themselves to. They are the most kind, loving, helpful, hardworking boys I have ever met!

I am telling you all of that, because, watching them, has inspired me to want that for my family too. I want my girls and my son, to desire to learn. I want them to love good books, that have good, wholesome, inspiring literature in them. I want them to learn life skills, from the virtuous wome, like "Jane Eyer", and "Little women" and to have high standards, and good values, and great self esteem about themselves. I want them to read a book, and learn how to handle difficult life situations. I want them to love our country, the way our first leaders did, and for all of the values our first leaders had, to be important to my kids too. I want our constitution to have meaning to them, so they can uphold our country, and be great leaders themselves, in their own small or big ways. I really feel they will get all of this from the Thomas Jefferson Education method. :)

I know that this is something that most families want for their children, but again, this method might not be for everyone, and there are others that are just as just as great out there. I do definitely encourage you to look at this method though, and read the book  A Thomas Jefferson Education, to learn why this method works, and how to do it.

You can even do this method, and use other curriculum too if you want.

As this method teaches, we will be structuring our time, but not the content. The freedom to learn how we want to learn, encourages, loving to learn.:)

Anyway, I just wanted to share why we chose to go this route. )

I love hearing about other methods, and curriculum, so feel free to share what you have found, and what you love about it for other readers (and me) too, in the comments.

Happy Learning!

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog!
We are a new family to Home Schooling, and we are so excited to get started!
In a sense, we have been doing "Home School" for 7 years, since my oldest was born, but we are officially starting this year, with a 2nd grader and a Kindergartner, a pre-schooler, and an almost 1 year old.

We are doing the method of Thomas Jefferson Education, and learning from the classics. We are also very eclectic, and will be learning from all kinds of different sources.

I would like to share some of the fun things we do this year, on this blog. 

Home school can be very overwhelming, when you are getting started, but thanks to many new friends and my two sisters, who are also doing homeschool, I have been lucky to figure out early, that it does not need to be stressful, or strict curriculum.(yay!)

We mostly get to play and learn to love to learn! :)

My plan so far this year is-

Each day:
a page out of the writing workbook 
a page out of the math workbook 
For each grade

Once a week we will go to the library, and each student will choose books from one subject of their choice. 
I will read these books a long with them, and then have discussion time with them each day about what we read.

On Fridays-
We will do lap books for the subject they chose that week. You can watch a tutorial HERE (click on here for the link) on how to do a lapbook, they are really fun.

I am also excited to share a Co-op group once a week, with 3 other wonderful families. I will be teaching Math once a month, out of the Life of Fred books, starting with the first one-Apples. The other Mom's will be teaching Animal Science, Art, and P.E. (all my favorite subjects!) 

If you are getting started with Home School, getting involved with community groups, or park play groups for Home Schoolers, will be a support to you, that will be invaluable. We have been doing a park play group this summer, and it is the best feeling to make friends who are also doing Home School. I love it, and I am so grateful to be a part of it all!

We don't have an outlined curriculum or anything, and this may change as the years go by, but for now I am excited for the relaxed way we get to learn together!

Feel free to leave comments and questions!

Happy Learning!