homeschool

Our Homeschool Home {Homeschooling}

August 27, 2013 by Dana

It’s Back to School time, or as us Homeschoolers like to call it, NOT Back to School time and the school room is a huge topic every where I look. On blogs, homeschool groups and boards, Twitter and Facebook, the classroom and it’s organization are being discussed. It’s interesting to see how everyone has their personal space organized.

Personally, we use our entire home for homeschooling. We do not have one set room for this but mostly use our main living spaces. Every day, I add in other areas since storage is limited in our home.

We have a normal home with a Kitchen, Dining Room, Living Room, Laundry Room, three Bedrooms and three Bathrooms. A few years ago, I decided to move our dining table out of our Dining Room and into the back of our rather large Living Room. This allowed me to open a full room for storage.

I quickly turned our Dining Room into a personal pantry and library for our home. We bought tall bookshelves from Walmart and lined both side walls with them. These bookshelves house a lot of our food, our homeschooling library, crafts, projects and games for homeschooling.

This room is also home to our large chest freezer which I plan to cover with chalkboard contact paper for extra writing space. Since it’s large it also makes a great magnet board for my children to use their Leap Frog word learning systems. The area in front of the freezer has to stay cleared so that I can get to our stored food, so this allows the kids easy access for it.

We have a small children’s table in our Dining Room right now so that the kids can color, play games and store projects out of the way. The walls that aren’t covered with bookcases hold colorful posters, mostly for the younger kids. Our file cabinet is also in this room which gives me a ton of extra storage and additionally works as another magnet area.

We use our Living Room/New Dining room for the majority of our schoolwork. Our kitchen table is in this room. We lay around on the couches and watch movies on our large screen tv, discussing topics we are working on. Our DVD/Video collection is stored on an old gas station snack rack near the TV so everything is together. The baby toys are also in the corner of this room so that he can play while we work on school things during the day.

One thing I love is that I can attach my laptop to our TV and use it as a projector for lessons. It attaches through an HDMI cable and works as a second screen for lessons that we cannot view on DVD, Netflix, YouTube or some other resource. We use it to view websites like the History Channel online, Discovery Streaming and many, many other sites for learning. The kids really enjoy that too and they can see it well from our dining table when we need to sit at it for certain lessons.

Our dining table, as you’ve probably guessed, doubles as a place to eat and a place to work. It’s currently a round table which allows everyone to see one another and allows me to work with the kids from any angle. I’d really like to replace this table but for now it works!

The walls around the table are surrounded by homeschooling posters and reminders for every day learning. Our computer desk is on one wall. It’s a sturdy piece I purchased for $15 at a local thrift store. It holds our two old desktop computers for online lessons and fun school extras. This desk also allows a little storage for desk items. Underneath, I placed a cube shelf with bins for extra storage. I’m still determining what to put in them but I’m thinking class things we don’t need daily.

Beside the desk sits a cabinet with our very large LaserJet Printer. I love my printer. The thing has paid for itself. Ink costs a lot less than our old standard printer. It’s probably the best investment I’ve made for our homeschool, next to bookshelves and curriculum. The little cabinet underneath holds one of the desktop towers and the drawers hold extra cords and such for our electronics.

On the back wall of our classroom is our dry erase board. I put this up using 3M Velcro strips so I can move it around as need. I have a set of these strips in the Library room (old Dining Room) so that I can move it in there if we are doing schoolwork. I could also stick some on the front of the large freezer and stick it on there if I wanted but haven’t done that at this time. I love our Dry Erase board. Got it at Sam’s Club, a while back. It’s dry erase on one side and bulletin board on the other but I rarely use that side.

We have a little table on the same wall as the dry erase board that holds our Crab’s home. We have a small aquarium they live in and the kids really enjoy having them as pets. It’s been interesting for us all.

The last corner of our Living Room is a space underneath and next to our bar. I have the baby’s toy box tucked under it storing some of his and Laycie’s toys. Behind it sits a tall table and stool for Emmalee’s art area. Since this is a little higher, it keeps the smaller kids out of things. Underneath it, I have shelves that allow for storage of Emma’s stuff. She is organizationally challenged, like her Momma, so we work hard to keep this area straight.

We have other areas we use in our home for school too. The kids rooms are one. They have their own TV’s with Netflix so they can view personal videos for their lessons as needed. I often use my room as a time out for my high energy 5 year old, where I allow her to watch videos interesting to her or read books on my bed while I’m working with her older brother and sister on lessons. The classroom also works well for this.

Other things they do in their rooms are read, build with Legos, interactive play, and dress up. I use their rooms for imaginative play. They also have to get along while in their room which helps build socialization skills.

I use the doors of my bedroom to store flash cards, extra craft things, etc storing them in over the door shoe holders. I plan to add some of these to the kids rooms so they can store stuffed animals or various other small things. They help a lot for storage in our small home.

My personal desk is in our kitchen. I have a cube storage organizer underneath a small table in there. I like to keep my laptop, pens, and my personal items at this table. I also keep my review items here so they don’t get lost in the main parts of the house.

We also like to do school outside and last year we added a rather large back porch on the house. This is going to be a great area to let the little kids play when it’s too hot or too wet outside. We’ve already put hopscotch mats and other fun things out there for play. This area is going to be great for watching nature, doing lessons and reading in the future. I’m working on finding just the right furniture for it so that we can use it best for us!

That’s our Homeschool. School doesn’t have to be done in one room. It’s meant to be done everywhere and your home can easily organize around it without having a classroom. Homeschooling is more of a life style, then anything. Make the space you have work for you!

I am adding this post to the 5th annual NOT Back To School Blog Hop from the iHomeschool Network!

Homeschooling with God’s Blessing {Epilepsy Awareness}

August 7, 2013 by Dana

Nine years ago around this time, it was time to enroll my sweet baby boy, my oldest into public school. I totally wasn’t feeling it. It just seemed wrong to me to send my sweet and curious boy away to someone else all day. So this lead me to research.

I immediately got online and began researching our schooling options. I had come across Homeschooling somewhere on a parenting board. It intrigued me and I wanted to know more.

We {my now ex-husband and I} had just went through a long ordeal of beginning our journey into Epilepsy with Emmalee. She was still just a baby, around a year old and had been doing great on her medicine though she would have the occasional breakthrough as the dose grew weak during her growth spurts. School would be coming up for her before long too, as time has a way of flying. I knew I did not want her to go through the same things I had as a child in public school with Epilepsy. I researched homeschooling even more.

I prayed. I remember I actually got down on hands and knees for this one. I continuously prayed. I’d look at my children and say a prayer, “God just show me what to do”. I’d be in a store and think, “what should I do about school for them?”

It didn’t take long for the answer to come. One day, I was shopping in a thrift store and came across some How to Homeschool books. I grabbed them up. A few days later I was dropping off some unwanted items into the local swap building and discovered a stack of homeschooling curriculum someone had dropped off. Since it was free swap, I grabbed it up too.

I came across our homeschooling association. I put off calling. After finding the items mentioned above, I decided to give them a call. They were absolutely wonderful! So caring and so helpful.

I went to the local library the association had suggested. I spoke in person to the lady in charge of curriculum materials for homeschoolers. She was a blessing to me! God was providing just the people I needed. She showed me so much that day and taught me lessons I still give to others today.

I attended the New to Homeschooling class from our local association. It was an “Ahhh” moment. I left there still nervous and scared but so much more prepared for this journey than I ever realized I could be. God had more than answered my prayer over that few months. Homeschooling was exactly what we were going to do.

We started homeschooling Winston immediately. Emmalee would join in later. I was prepared for only one kid. I had invested in a Bob Jones curriculum from the local Homeschool Used Book Store. I was determined this was going to be done right and that meant Public School at home. No one would say I’m not teaching my kid!

Boy, how little I knew then! It immediately failed. We struggled. Win hated school. And those lessons have stuck with him for life.

Win is my hardest student. He excels at Math. He loves going outside to learn science and is hands-on about history. He hates and is not good at reading. We have used almost every program imaginable and still he struggles.

Emma excels at reading and trust me, I often question how. We have used so many varied programs that she really should be struggling with it herself. With all the time I have spent focused on her brother’s reading, she has really taught herself what she wants to know about the subject. Sure the curriculum was there and it helped but the learning was all her.

{I am honestly proud, not only of her but she has shown me that I’m not a failure as a teacher after all.}

Over the years, we’ve kept plugging along with homeschooling. There was a brief period in the midst that I enrolled the oldest two in Public School at the insistence of others. I immediately regretted that decision when Emma began having migraines and seizure activity after being seizure free for a year.

And it was in that period of time that Win’s esteem suffered because the school made him realize what he never had: he couldn’t read at age 8. Many boys don’t read at that age but they never explained that to him. I’ve spent many a day trying to rebuild that destroyed esteem and let him know it’s ok that he struggles with something and it’s not the end of the world. He will get it and he is getting closer to where he should be each and every day.

I pulled the kids back out of public school. Emma’s health recovered almost immediately when we returned to our normal routine and she was able to rest and not stress. Win and I are still working on the issues he gained while at public school but we are getting there.

Now here we are, 9 years later. Over time, I have questioned our reasons for homeschooling. I wonder if it was the right decision but then there is always something that confirms it was God’s will to me.

Just today, I thought about it. I realized there is no way I could even begin to raise and care for four kids with three that have Epilepsy if I wasn’t homeschooling. The schools in our area are not equipped for them. Then there would be the issue of keeping up with their public school lessons, missing days, taking time off for rest and doctors, etc. The truancy officer would surely be knocking on my door every week!

God knew just what His plans were for me as a Momma of children with Epilepsy. He planned ahead, allowing me to Homeschool. He blessed me with great children who love and listen and help each other along with Momma when she needs it. He prepared us with a way to bond unlike any other and a way to learn that brings us even closer together.

As you consider your own journey into homeschooling, with or without medical reason, remember to pray. Remember to ask God for direction. Sometimes He will point you to Public School because He needs disciples to light candles in the darkness there too. Sometimes He will lead you into Homeschooling because He knows it is what’s best for you, as has been our case. Either way, the results will always be to Glorify God in the lessons and in Life.

Picaboo Yearbooks {Crew Review}

July 24, 2013 by Dana

Are you looking for something great to commemorate the end of your school year? Would you like to be able to highlight each student, field trips, great memories from your year all in one place? Then Picaboo Yearbooks may be just what you are looking for.

Picaboo Yearbooks asked the Schoolhouse Review crew to create our own personal yearbooks for our homeschools using their wonderful softcover 20 page yearbook. These 8.5 x 11 yearbooks can be designed in any way you chose. You can add in photos throughout and captions or text to go along with it.

Picaboo Yearbooks can be created for an entire school, a co-op, a sports or other team, or just an individual homeschool family. The options are endless. Color schemes and pre-designed photo pages make the creation process even easier but creating your own idea is just as simple.

For this review, I chose not to create a “yearbook” but instead chose to create a family-book for our family’s life together, since we are a blended family. I thought the uniqueness of our family called for a unique album to share about each member of our special family. With seven children, it did not take long to fill up the pages.

Each page of our family-book yearbook is unique to our family, from the cover to the last page. I chose a photo of the Angel Oak as our cover because it is a place we have recently visited together. The branches of the tree wrap beautifully around our cover making it memorable and drawing attention to our book even while on the shelf.

Our book begins with an introduction to our home. We call the property we live on The Hill and it has been in our family for decades, passed through generations of ancestors. Featured in this section are our large pond and important elements of the logging history of our family. These elements are extremely special to us.

Featured on the next two pages is an introduction to our family. Here I discussed how we are blended and introduced some of our favorite things. These pages are filled with photos of our family together.

The next eleven pages feature each member of our family from Mom and Dad to the kids, Grandma and even our pets. Every family member got their own page, uniquely created with elements of things that interest and are unique to them. For instance, my step-daughter, Debi’s page has a background of turtles swimming since turtles are her favorite animal. Her page also features a sand turtle that she created on a trip to the park a little over a year ago.

To finish out the book, there are six more pages sharing images and important events from within our family. I designed each page from scratch except for using pre-designed photo inserts provided by the Picaboo company in the design process. Every single page is unique and different within the book.

Through the Picaboo Yearbook designer I was able to add in colored backgrounds to represent my children’s favorite colors or choose a background in prints like cow print for my youngest daughter. I was also easily able to add in my own personal images for each child on each of their pages. I simply uploaded the photos and put them into place.

It was also very easy to move around the photo inserts and reposition or size photo boxes to fit my needs. Some pre-designed elements needed to be tweaked to better fit my images. By selecting the corners and dragging or pulling, I was able to make them work best for me.

Text was very easy to insert into each page too. The pre-designed pages came pre-equipped with areas to include any writing that I may have needed. I found myself deleted many pre-included text boxes and adding in others where I felt the text fit my pages best. There were tons of fonts to choose from. I was able to change font colors too but I chose to keep my lettering all the same color to bring together the books design.

I did edit all of my text boxes to have a see-through background in a complementary color for the page it was included on. This was done simply by choosing a color using a digital dropper to select a color I liked from the page. I then adjusted the opacity of the box background to make it blend into the page while making the writing stand out.

It took me two days to fully create my family-book yearbook. One day was spent choosing my pages topics, adding backgrounds and selecting pre-designed photo pages. The second day I spent adding in loads of photos, tweaking pages to fit each family member and adding in text.

It literally took me around 20 hours over a two day period from beginning to end to create this original yearbook for our family. It was well worth the work as contained within the twenty pages of this book are memories that will stick with our family for life, unique and special only to us.

The cover of our family-book is soft. It’s made of a sturdy cardboard and I chose glossy print for the image. The inside pages are made to be sturdy too. The texture is hard to rip but the images are clear.

Many hands have touched our family-book yearbook since it arrived leaving goo and prints on it already. These have easily been wiped clean using a mildly damp cloth without causing damage in the process. Needless to say our family book is well-loved.

You can order a Picaboo Yearbook to fit your family or even your co-op through picabooyearbooks.com! The softcover 20 page 8.5 x 11 yearbook that I received costs $8.95 plus shipping. You can add extra pages for a small fee. It is possible to include as many images as you’d like too. My book contains close to 100 personal images of our family.

To learn more or order your own Picaboo Yearbook, visit picabooyearbooks.com!

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Our Journey With Homeschooling: Beginning to Now {Homeschooling}

March 7, 2013 by Dana

When I was growing up, I wanted to be two things: a Mom and a Teacher. I would role play as both for hours every day I was able. I’d get lost in my world of teaching and childcare and I remember having so much fun.

As a teenager, I met my ex-husband, then my boyfriend and threw away my dreams of teaching, but not my dreams of having children. Before long, I was married and had two beautiful babies to love and raise. As they grew, I began to realize that one day they’d have to go off to public school. I wasn’t ready but then are we ever really?

One day my then-hubbie came home talking about homeschooling. His boss homeschooled his kids. So I immediately began researching. I asked others about this newfound idea of homeschooling which I thought was totally impossible and crazily outrageous at the time. I discovered that even my sister had considered it though she was enrolling her daughter into public school because she didn’t think she could commit to teaching her daily.

As days passed, I prayed about homeschooling and I researched everything I could to learn more. I found Vine and Branches Home Educators, a local association and contacted them for more information. They offered a class which I gladly took, helping prepare those interested and new to homeschooling for the journey ahead.

Every where I went I found homeschooling materials from the dump to normal stores I shopped at. For me, that was it. God was telling me to homeschool my children.

Over time, I’ve been told that I must be Super Mom to have my kids around all the time. I’ve heard others say that they could never do that or that they weren’t smart enough to teach their children. Yes, my background interest in Public School Education helped my homeschooling decision but even without that interest I could still manage.

I have had a truancy officer knocking on my door and DSS. Showing proof of my state’s laws and being prepared for them helped to end those situations quickly. Sometimes other’s perceptions of how things are supposed to be do more good than bad, especially when it comes to homeschooling.

I have even done the brief sending my children to public school and my children and I both agree it was the worst experience of this whole journey with homeschooling. They didn’t like it. I didn’t like it. Needless to say, it ended quickly, though with a lot of emotional scaring that’s had to be dealt with since.

I like to say I’ve been homeschooling for 12 years – the age of my oldest child – but I didn’t actually start homeschooling until he was 3-4 when the public school decision was breathing down my neck. So we’ve actually been doing this for 9 years now. It’s not been an adjustment because it was simply a continuation of having my children home from birth – simply continuing to do what we already were.

Once I took the got-to-get-the-kids-ready-to-go-to-school ideal out of my head, things went pretty smoothly. It has taken me a while to get the school-must-be-just-like-public-school ideal broken and I still find myself comparing my children or panicking when it doesn’t seem enough compared to their public school friends. I’m working on that though.

This has been a crazy ride, but a well-loved one and it’s a decision I wouldn’t change for anything. I would make it again in a heartbeat without a second thought. Will my children ever go to public school? Not if I have my way. Their home education is so much better, so much more fulfilling then anything they could get in that classroom. And the moments we have together are just icing upon the cake.

This has been my experience with homeschooling. Not every experience turns out this way. Not everyone can homeschool. It takes a lot of patience. It takes a lot of love. But overall, if you can do it, it will be an experience you’ll never forget.

Parent as Teacher… What An Idea?! {Homeschooling}

February 5, 2013 by Dana

As a homeschool Mom and a review blogger, I tend to receive a lot of questions about curriculum and educational choices when it comes to homeschooling. I am by no means an expert on either of these things but I do have strong beliefs of what homeschooling is intended to be. That said, this is my personal two cents of what’s what and does not reflect any opinion of the companies that I work for, or the friends that I have in this “business”.

Homeschooling is meant to be school at home but in no way is it meant to be public school at home. If you are looking to do public school at home, my best advice to you would be to join a Virtual School or Home Bound program or simply to leave your child enrolled in your local public school system.

If you really, truly want to home school then you must completely change your way of thinking.

Consider this: When you give birth to your sweet baby, you as the parent immediately become the main teacher of that child. You don’t have an instructor to really go by. There is no one to educate you on what to do with your child. Sure, you get helpful advice from those who have been there and done that but YOU are the one who decides whose advice to follow and generally parents follow the beliefs that are instilled inside them as being right.

When that child begins to grow and learn, it is you who helps them along. It’s you who shows that child how to roll over, providing the assistance needed to learn those skills. It’s you, the parent, who assists them in learning to sit, to eat, to sleep, to potty, to play, to love reading and so much more. And they do learn from your efforts to teach them these necessary skills for life.

Then comes the age where the parent must send their child off to school.

Hold up… Why is that? You, as the parent, have taught your child so many skills already, often without help from others. You, as the parent, have managed for 4-5 years without a teacher guiding you on how to do these things. Why is it, suddenly when your child reaches this age, you the parent are no longer skilled enough to continue to educate your child?

Let me tell you… you ARE skilled enough. You ARE able to educate your child, in your home, on your time. And in my opinion, there is NOTHING better.

Now, I know someone out there is saying, I cannot afford to stay home with my child. I understand that. Some parents must work to provide for their child. Some situations do not allow a parent to be able to find care for that child other than sending the child to school. And some people just do not have the patience to educate their children. I’m saying now, THIS BLOG POST IS NOT DIRECTED TO THOSE WHO CANNOT HOMESCHOOL.

It is however, directed to those who are considering homeschooling and second guessing themselves on this ideal. You can homeschool. It’s worth the sacrifices. It pays itself off in the end, emotionally and financially. And guess what? You’ve been homeschooling your child since the day they were born!

Think about that… really let it sink in: You’ve been homeschooling your child since the day they were born!

You, the parent, are your child’s first teacher and you were meant to be their only teacher. God (or whoever you believe in) equipped you to do the job of educator, to teach your child the things they need to know to live and survive in life. You only have to try, to give yourself the chance to manage to educate your child and to enjoy the experience along with your child along the way.

If I can do this, and I have been for 12 years now, then anyone can. You just have to make up your mind and take that first step to attempt to home school. I promise you can do it!

Vocabulary SpellingCity.com {Crew Review}

August 20, 2012 by Dana

Here lately I have been doing a lot of reviews for companies and websites we have been using in our homeschooling since we began. Things we absolutely love using in our schooling. Vocabulary SpellingCity.com is one of those websites.

We personally have used the free version of this site for years now and it’s been a blessing for myself and my children educationally. The website is extremely easy to use and full of lots of learning. For this particular review, I was given access to the premium membership portion of the website for a year for up to 5 children. As a parent this is a blessing, as a teacher this is an exceptional blessing for us.

Through Vocabulary SpellingCity.com, I am able to upload our weekly or monthly (or however I wish to create them) vocabulary and spelling lists to use with my children/students. I can also use pre-made lists created by others and by local public schools to help educate my children which are readily available on Vocabulary SpellingCity.com. Vocabulary SpellingCity.com then takes my lists and creates spelling and vocabulary games, programs, quizzes, etc for my children to practice with for the week or period we are working on the words.

I can create lists for any subject too! So lists of Math words, Science vocabulary, Social Studies, etc can be used right along with the other things we are learning about with Vocabulary SpellingCity.com. And of course, there are TONS of extras to use and work through when the weekly work is finished, just for fun!

This website is a bonus for any parent or teacher to have to help educate their children. There is a free version for you to use and try out the program, as well as additional memberships which provide even more! A premium family membership is available for $29.99 a year for up to five students. A classroom membership for up to 25 students is available for $49.99. School memberships are also available through the website.

For more reviews of Vocabulary SpellingCity.com, please visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog!!

*Disclaimer – A year subscription to Vocabulary SpellingCity.com was provided to me free in exchange for my honest opinion shared in a blog post review by Vocabulary SpellingCity.com and TOS’ Schoolhouse Review Crew team.