Homeschooling: Wrapping Up Our First Year

Science Experiments in the Backyard: Discussing Air

We've wrapped up our first official year of homeschooling. It was an interesting year, to be sure.  I found that the curriculum for my daughters target age group was much too easy for her, and I spent the whole year supplementing so that she wouldn't become bored.  While we did read the books for her age group (they were more fitting for her little sister), we also added extra read-alouds, Kindergarten Math pages I printed from the internet, and a Kindergarten Language Arts workbook that I purchased at the store.   I also invented crafts, projects, and activities that supported the books we were reading. It was very busy, but rewarding because she enjoyed it so much. 

 In fact, she enjoyed it so much that I was not planning on stopping for the summer. I ordered the Kindergarten Level program back in April with our Tax return money and waited impatiently for it to come in the mail.  Don't judge; box day is awesome.   Anyway, I also ordered up a Letter of the Week Preschool program that you print off at home for the little one.   Once the boxes finally came  (yay!!!!!) I got right to work unpacking all the beautiful books, pouring over the contents, and formulating a plan for the summer session.  I started working on the little one's Letter of the Week preschool stuff, too.  Wow, is that a lot of stuff!

This is the Sonlight Kindergarten IG for this year. That is one BIG book :)

We started both programs at the beginning of this month.  OH. MY. WORD.  You know what? Schooling two children is a completely different animal.  It really is. I realized, suddenly, that I need to rethink my whole plan of attack here.  For one thing, I am starting to see that, although my kiddos might run the risk of boredom during the summer, I am tired! I worked hard on schooling this year, and I need a little bit of a break. Secondly, while my eldest is way ahead in Math and Language Arts for her age, she is still very much 4 in her emotions and behavior. She is having a hard time sitting for all the reading in the curriculum.  She wants to dance and twirl and sing and is not getting all she could from all those beautiful books. So now I am going to have to come up with a very light summer school program that will lead the kids up to being ready for fall, will make sure the math and Language Arts skills already learned aren't forgotten, but that will still give me plenty of rest and time to prep for fall.

Working on her Kindergarten "A Reason For Handwriting" page

That's where we are in a nutshell. There's a lot of learning involved in the teaching, and it's important for me to make sure I do it right. I tell my girls all the time, "Anything worth doing is worth doing well."  Let's apply the same to their childhood, their schooling, and everything else.

Still alive...you can call off the search party

So...I kind of went AWOL for a while. Sorry about that.  Honestly, I could blame it on how busy the last few weeks have been, but it really wasn't just busyness that kept me away.   I have been really tired lately. I mean bone-deep, Lord-help-me, I've-fallen-and-I-can't get up tired.   I deal with chronic pain, and sometimes it flares up and causes me to sleep poorly. Then I am pretty much good for nothing.  I literally put one foot in front of the other in little shuffle steps to get through my day, and a lot goes undone. I make sure my kids are well cared for, but things like this go by the wayside. Sorry. :(

Anyway, the last time I wrote I let everyone know that DH was laid off his second job, and that our whole budget was going to change.  That was kind of an understatement.  Our budget was pretty much blown to smithereens.  Since our landlord, utility companies, and all the other companies who have their little eyes on our income would be kind of miffed if we didn't pay our bills, the change had to be made somewhere else. That pretty much meant our food budget.  It has been very difficult for me to reconcile this food-budget revision with my recently acquired knowledge of what is in our nations food supply.   I have actually faced personal guilt while serving my family cheaper, non-organic food.  I have even had to plate up some processed foods lately, and I honestly felt like a hypocrite.  Now, please don't feel offended if you do these things, too.  I know there is only so much money to go around and you can't starve your family. I get that; I'm there. But because I have been doing all this research on what is best to put in our bodies and what is the worst, and because I agree with the whole-food philosophy, I have been facing these bad feelings. 
I have also been facing bad feelings in my body. I am finding that my chronic pain and fatigue levels have a direct correlation with what I am eating. When I am eating well, I have energy and my pain levels go way down. For awhile there, I wasn't having any pain at all, and I felt so rested. It was amazing.

So what do I do with that?  I feel like I really need to find a way to make eating well happen. We live in a tourist area where everything is expensive.  Prices go down a tiny bit when the snowbirds go home, but not much.  I already scout out the lowest prices, and the cheapest stores. I meal plan and find coupons if I can.  I just need more money in my pocket. There are only a couple of places I can take that from. One is our internet service, and the other is our cell phones.  We're on the super mega economy plans for both of those items, but together (because of taxes and fees) we spend almost 150 dollars a month. That's nuts. Nobody calls me on the cell, and I never go anywhere without my Dh because we only have one car. I don't need a cell. That's got to go. The internet; in some ways I would be glad to see it go.  The internet has the ability to be a giant black hole for my time. It's a big temptation to check social media and forums and pinterest...oh pinterest, why must you be so interesting!?!  I like being connected at home, but I could go into the church with my laptop once a week and check email, post blog entries, and catch up on social media.  So, as hard as that decision is, I think the internet at home has to go, too.  With that extra money in our pocket, I can add an extra 35 dollars or so to our weekly food budget. That may not seem like much, but think of it this way; 35 bucks means an extra gallon of organic milk (5.99), an extra bunch of bananas (3.50), an extra flat of organic strawberries (4.50),  another dozen eggs (3.99), a loaf of ezekiel bread (3.99), organic blueberries (4.19), organic yams (3.89), and a container of organic salad (4.29). Suddenly that 35 dollars looks like a bigger deal to this family of four. Especially because as my kids grow and are more and more active, they eat a lot! :)

So, I'll be going back to eating the way I know we should, and I will still be making those meal plans, but I am not sure how blogging those meal plans is going to look. I am going to try to type them up and schedule them when I go to use the internet.  Who knows; maybe doing it this way will make it so my posting is more regular :D. If not, well, you're used to it right?