Practicing the ABC song

Here is a sample of some of the work we did this morning. :)

Oh Lord, I'm reading again!

It has been so incredibly busy around here lately. We just put our house on the market and keeping it "show" clean is a full-time job in and of itself. With the 3 dogs and James..and a husband, I have been busy. We have had one Open House and an actual showing in the 3 weeks we've had it on the market. The showing went well and I have been praying for not necessarily for the house to sell but for the right timing of everything and a smooth...everything. Our sweet neighbor even gave us a St. Joseph to plant in the yard. I had never heard of this practice before.

 

And in addition to dealing with trying to sell our house, I have been doing some reading about Classical Conversations. I had considered using this method of educating James because it is a rigorous course of study and the children get together weekly for academic course studies as a group. There is a renewed interest in public education in the country for this kind of education. I have gone to the workshop about it at the NCHE conference last year and found it a little intimidating but I can see the value in this style of education. Then, while at work the other night, I was looking at the Hillsdale College website because I have heard radio advertisements about them. It is a small liberal arts college in Michigan that is an independent institution. They don't take a dime of federal money or state-funded subsidies. I was daydreaming about a second career in constitutional law or politics. Anyway.....I saw that Hillsdale College has "Hillsdale Academy" and a charter school. Cool, right? I checked out their recommended reading list and one of the books was about Classical Education: Classical Education: The Movement Sweeping America by Gene Edward Veith, Jr. and Andrew Kern. It piqued my interest so I went over to Amazon to find out more. So now I have a book on Classical Conversations being shipped to me. I chose this one: 

The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at home by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Bauer 

This Susan Wise Bauer has written a plethora of books on the subject. She a a professionally trained teacher. I was able to read the first few pages of the book and I was hooked. She writes about her personal experience in teaching her young children to read and to LOVE reading when they were 4 years old. Once they started kindergarten, things went downhill. I can't wait to get it and start reading. I also ordered the 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum

Hopefully, I will be at a good place in my reading so that by the time I attend the NCHE conference in May I will be well-prepared to make some curriculum purchases. The book fair is amazing....and completely overwhelming for newbies. Soooooo many choices! And I will be attending workshops on Charlotte Mason and Classical Conversations. :)

Feeling So Encouraged

I think this post is more of a big THANK YOU to all the homeschooling families that have come before me. All those parents who felt so strongly convicted that they took this path less traveled and in their journeys have paved the way for so many others. They made my journey so EASY compared to what the pioneers had to do and face. It parallels how I came to be a sign language interpreter in a way. So many children of deaf adults paved the way for me to have the career I have so enjoyed. In the early days, small children, sometimes, were forced to interpret for their parents in all sorts of scenarios that are unimaginable to me now. They would interpret for their parents when they were doing their bank business, buying a car, parent-teacher meetings at school. You name it. Places where children are not meant to be. Then they grew up and started teaching others and so it began that interpreters were on their way to the infancy stages of a profession. And it's like that for me now with making the choice to homeschool my son. So many others have been brave and learned hard lessons along the way and they now teach new homeschoolers and create resources for us that they wish they had had when they were doing it....alone.

I sometimes get frustrated when others seem to think I am choosing this path because I think I am the perfect teacher or that I think my son is perfect too. On the contrary! I am scared that I will make my son stupid some days! I worry about how I will teach advanced math courses and chemistry and, and, and. But if I let all my fears prevent me from doing what I KNOW to be right for my family then I really will have failed. I think it's a harder road than sending James to public school but that's not why I chose this path either. I just keep remembering that "the right thing is never the easy thing" which applies to so many things in life. And for me, homeschooling is that right thing. So sometimes I WILL feel like quitting. But I won't. Some days I won't have the patience I need to do my very best. I will try again tomorrow. Some days I will feel like I don't have the time. I will have to make time. And I will have to make time for adult friends and me time. I will hear friends snicker at my choice and think I am trying to hide my son from world and to BE the only thing in his world. I will remember all the reasons I am taking this path and put those negative things out of my mind. I will be relentless in my pursuit. Even though, there will be days when I think I am just not cut out to be a homeschool mom and I am ruining my kid.  Here's a great article that made me laugh and nod in agreement. I think this woman has been spying on me! Why I am not cut out to be a homeschool mom

And when all the self talk fails, I only need to open my eyes because.....Here is the biggest reason!

I love this kid!

Gearing up for....Kindergarten!

Well, it feels like Spring outside so I am already looking forward to the NC Home Educators (NCHE) conference in May. I am really excited about attending this year because I feel like I have a direction for what we will be doing next year. In preparation, I just ordered two things from the Simply Charlotte Mason  website.

 


 We will start a Picture Study lesson when this arrives in a couple of weeks.



And I also ordered "Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education" printed book and DVD. In the DVD, Sonya Shafer is presenting. I have seen her and her husband at the NCHE conference. They do the curcuit of home school conferences. It's nice to meet these people and hear what they have to say. Sonya is very encouraging and her voice and presentation style have a calming effect on me. The terror subsides and I feel like I can do this and it will be fun and wonderful. If nothing else, the conference is worth that.



We are going to have a great year! I can't believe that I am making preparations for teaching kindergarten. Where did the time go? James looks forward to his lessons most of the time. He tells people he is already IN school and that Mommy is his teacher like there wouldn't be an alternative. :)