When we were dating, Phillip and I had a Great Day of Questions where we came up with a list of questions to ask each other. It ended up being a great idea for finding out core values and likes and dislikes; I highly recommend it to you who are of dating age.
One of the questions I asked him was, "What are your thoughts about homeschooling?" I've wanted to homeschool since forever. He didn't know too much about it, but he stipulated that if we homeschooled, he wouldn't want us to wear blue jean jumpers and be "one of those" homeschooling families.
And when we began having kids we also said that we would take it one year at a time. We didn't go into it thinking we would homeschool all the way through high school.
But here we are with our first one graduating high school having homeschooled all the way through. What a perfect one to practice on. :-) And what a joyful journey it's been with Elizabeth.
She has always loved books.
Not only reading them (when she was older), but destroying them when she was younger. I love decorating with books, so I had them in different stacks and shelves around her room. She gave up naps very young and took to pulling all the books off their neatly placed shelves and tearing them to bits. You cannot imagine the state of her room after several of these "nap times." I had enjoyed the little bit of afternoon quiet time but decided it was not worth the clean-up/discipline effort and just stopped putting her down for naps.
A little taste of the above description.
She continually surprised me with what she could think up to take down and spread around. Art supply drawers, clothing, food stuffs, toys..... Whew!
When she was older, she was still very busy, but not as destructive, and she usually was including her little brother and sister so that it kept them all busy.
Letter blocks and ABC magnets. Classic toys for tots.
I was an over-eager homeschooler.
While browsing a bookstore, I found this book of activities to do with 2 year olds. This put me in the mind that I could actually begin doing some school activities with Elizabeth. I fell into a themed unit study approach at this time and also was discovering the abilities of the internet to provide endless ideas.
This unit study preschool did give us a little structure to our day and pushed me to find library books I wouldn't have discovered and field trips in our area that had to do with some of the themes. A number of activities were beyond her ability and so Mom did most of the work. So funny to think about now. What was the purpose of an activity that the adult had to do? It was a bit of a scatter-shot approach to learning. I wish now that I'd spent more of that time on education philosophies or pedagogy. If I had known about Charlotte Mason or Classical Education, I would have been soaking in that information and how-to. Or even just learning myself. I'd been better off learning about the nature around me so that I could be talking to the kids about it and knowing the names of birds and stuff.
But when she turned five, I knew we'd have to start school For Real.
That's when I decided I had to require good work from her. I'd been letting her write her letters any old way she wanted because I thought I'd make her do it right when it was time to begin Kindergarten. But.... she'd gotten into sloppy habits by that time and it was a bear to try to correct it. I got some A Beka curriculum, because that's what I knew about, and also got the book What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know and tried to mash it all together.
Then I found out that there were other ways to teach and went down a Charlotte Mason rabbit hole (of which I'm still going down). I loved the thought of literary learning instead of using textbooks and tests. There's a lot more to CM education, but the books were what grabbed me.
Ah, the desk Phillip made!
This is when we'd put the Youngers behind the baby gate so we could get some school work done.
We began Nature Study around this time.
There have been a lot of growing areas in this homeschool journey. Nature study is one of those that will go on forever being a growing area. I did not love it when we first began, but I did it because the method told me to do it. Now I love it more because I know so much more about the outdoors. It's a much friendlier and familiar place to me. I hope it is a little bit of that to the kids too.
St. Augustine!
So many visits there. So much history. We love exploring the areas around wherever we live. I don't like to travel too far on my own, but usually there are many historical sites, museums, hiking trails not too far away that we can visit and re-visit. We went to St. Augustine a lot when we lived in Florida. Liz liked to dress up like an old-fashioned girl when we visited the forts and such.
This is me planning a handicraft that was way above ability! But the lady at the pottery place helped Liz out with it and she had fun.
The Cotter Tens Fractal has been there for all the kids.
I actually think this one is Jonathan's. I couldn't find Elizabeth's. I've stuck with RightStart Math all the way to the end of what they offer (it goes through about 7th grade). It was one of the good decisions I made early that I've been happy with all the way through. It wasn't perfect for everyone, but I love using it and a big part of homeschooling is the teacher being inspired to keep teaching. RightStart inspires me.
Our poor pets.
We haven't really had pets. This is a tadpole we got for nature study. He did not last long. I don't know why. We try. We called him Taddy. I am happy to say that our Beta fish that we gave Harrison for his birthday (a year ago now) is still alive and well. So we've apparently improved our pet care-taking.
Getting books in the mail for the next year of school makes me so happy!
We get probably 3 or 4 times the number above now, and I gave up taking pictures.
Books are still a big part of our curriculum. We try to use living books even for science and history. We've dabbled with textbooks at times. Some are more literary and better absorbed. I understand there are times textbooks might be needed, but the dryness and fragmented approach does not make for a living education.
Horse back riding lessons.
We were willing to keep going with the lessons, but she'd had enough.
She has always enjoyed being in the kitchen.
A sign she put out that says
Bible Girls Club: S6:30 F7:00.
What to bring: Bible Snaks Devotion Books.
Saturday. Ages 5-10
I don't recall if anyone showed up. There were quite a few boys in that neighborhood. Maybe she should have invited everyone.
I believe this was a "first day of school" pic.
We were very go-with-the-flow with school when the kids were young. We sort of schooled all year round and just took breaks when needed. This was nice for moving or traveling or grandparents visiting. We could just school around whatever was happening. As they've gotten older, they want a traditional summer, and we also want them to get traditional high school credits which doesn't fit easily with loosey-goosey.
Yay! More books!
The paper creations!
So many. We've kept art supply companies in business, ya'll. But the kids have been super creative with paper, and I was always so impressed with what they came up with.
That time we got Liz a camera and it ended up being horrible picture quality.
We really do go through reams of paper.
This was one of my favorite things.
Occasionally Liz would round the kids up and say they were going to play train. And they'd sit in those chairs for hours!!!
She wanted to volunteer.
We were visiting Mimi and Papa and there was a preschool connected to their church. Papa asked those in charge if Liz could help out one day, and they let her. She has over 700 volunteer hours from Jr. High and High School. All the seeds were there at a young age.
These were characters they made up called Blue Bars. They made all kinds of Blue Bars pages.
And her paper cakes.
She couldn't quite decorate real cakes yet, but she made many, many paper cakes that she would give away as gifts.
She's finally at an age where I give her appropriate handicrafts.
Shadows? The moon and sun and how they work? Something like that.
Another train time. Yes! I can get lots of cleaning done.
The raft.
Many years with a new raft every year.
A "before braces" pic.
A hat she knitted.
Maybe her first hat. I'm not even sure how much I taught her in the knitting department. I must have shown her the first steps. But she really took off and flew past me in ability.
The butterfly phase.
The dabbling in lap books when we moved to Texas.
I had been hearing about lap books, so I gave it a try when we moved here. It was a way to do a little bit of school but not full-throttle school while we settled into a new place. We also read a couple of books about the Alamo and the Republic of Texas and visited the Alamo and bought mementos.
Liz and books.
And whatever they're doing sitting on the countertop there.
Another creation of the kids. Boxy Pets!
Liz likes to remind us every so often, "I was awesome as a kid!"
She has always had a lot of good ideas.
The time they built a fort in the backyard using rocks and mud, and then Dad had a horrid time trying to mow.
The cosplay phase.
This is Black Widow from Avengers. Pretty sure that's a gun she made herself.
See how her knitting has surpassed mine? This is also her photography.
Decorating real cakes now.
Fondant roses.
Her fresh baked bread.
Suitcase cake.
Decorated sugar cookies ~ one of my favorite things that she bakes.
Drawing some abandoned building in her notebook of an evening.
Wow, she's grown and improved in all her areas of interests and is just as busy as ever she was when she was dragging books off her shelf at nap time.
She loves beauty, has an eye for it.
She wants to help people.
She made it through all those years of me experimenting with homeschooling.
And not one blue jean jumper in sight.
