Why I love homeschooling:

Why I love homeschooling:

In one week- big sister (4) can write her name, unassisted.

Handwriting, big and little I's.

We took my father in law to Charleston this week for the day. We had a blast, and we would not have been able to go if big sister were in public/private school.

Our local school board is planning on putting 5th graders into middle school, starting next year.

That just added to my already long list of reasons "why".

This is our recess:

You can't play in the rain at school. Just sayin'.

First Day of School

First Day of School

We made it through our first day of school! And, it was...

We really did love it. All three of the girls did WONDERFULLY on the schedule! Getting up before the girls, being dressed & ready for the day, having eaten breakfast & done my bible study all before I'm faced with three sleepy eyed cranky kids makes a huge difference in my day, and Mr.'s day. The best part was watching big sister learn, and write her capital I's! I already can't wait for Day 2.

Our "school room" is our dining room! Which, so far, we really enjoy not being secluded into one room. Our living room is long, and we had this odd extra space behind our couch- so we are using it for school related things as well :

My parents gave us this long wooden storage bench- so inside is storage, and we put our school books and library books as well as clothes for the next day on top of it.

I have a cute "system" for hanging the girls artwork as well as crayon storage etc to hang around here as well- will post pics when I have it all done!

And- the classroom-

:)

Homeschool Mother's Journal- July 29

In my life this week…I spent most of it nursing my sweet baby girl back to good health. Sick kids are no fun :(

In our homeschool this week…I completed our morning board, completely. I did another week of lesson plans.

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…Groceries, church, we have to make a trip to the "big city" for a Michaels store :)

My favorite thing this week was… Having our DHEC inspection not only scheduled, but COMPLETED AND PASSED!

What’s working/not working for us…Hmmmm. I think everything is working fine for us right now.

Questions/thoughts I have…My printer is printing weird, so my printing of homeschooling stuff has come to a halt.

Things I’m working on…My shopping list, getting through the book "A sane mothers guide to raising a large family"

I’m praying for…favor with our case worker! That he will type up our stuff and send it out soon!

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

Field Trips for our homeschool year:

I am blessed to be apart of a homeschool support group that just started at our church this year, with many friends who homeschool their children & getting to know the families here that do, but whom I dont know. Blessed that there are so many options available for homeschooling families. Since this is a) our first year homeschooling, aka, the trial & error year... and b)it is "just" k4, I don't have to have everything together as seriously as I would if it was 1st grade. But, for my planning sake, I am trying to have it all together as best I can and make this year serious so that we can get a head start and have a better feel of whats going to work best for our family in our future homeschool years. Not to mention, my preschooler is pretty darn smart & could/should be in kindergarten, anyway!

One thing we are really excited to start doing is "Field Trip Fridays", where one or two Fridays of every month we take a field trip, with or without the homeschool support group. Our first trip is planned for next month, to the local Kazoo factory in our town. Here's my "trip idea" list for this school year:

-Kazoo Factory
-Dentist Office
-Fire Station
-Children's Museum
-Zoo
-Beach
-Pumpkin Patch
-Christmas Tree Farm
-Snow in the South ("fake" snow day in a town nearby, since we dont normally get snow)
-Plantation visit (we have many plantations around here, and one really close that offers a farmers market/vendors/and free face painting/horseback rides for kids)
-Nursing home (bring valentines to people in one of our nursing homes)

We will add/delete and edit this list as we get through the year. We have been to all of these places already, but I'm excited to be going again and making it an "official" learning experience.

Homeschool Mother's Journal- July 1

In my life this week…

We took a two-day vaca. to Wild Adventures with the girls. We had a great time, but it was tiring! We needed a vacation from vacation! Now, we are home, unpacked, and I'm doing my best preparing somewhat of a schedule for this coming school year.

Oh, P.S, we have a treadmill now, and I love it, I'm on day three! :)

My favorite thing this week was…

Traveling with my family.

I’m reading…

Forgotten God by Francis Chan

I’m cooking…

I made spaghetti & garlic bread tonight.

I’m grateful for…

Being able to take random trips with my family. Being able to stay at home with my kids, even though I have many days that I want to go apply for jobs...!

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

Chore Charts

I finally got around to making the girls chore charts today, now that I'm in "getting ready for our first year of homeschooling" mode. I printed them from Homeschoolcreations , laminated them, and used velcro tabs to stick the chores to the chart. Pretty neat, and big sister loves hers! She has done all of her chores today plus middle sisters, because middle sister is not into the chore thing. She wants to sit her time out seat over bringing me the dishes from the table. Seriously, this little strong willed girl is going to be the death of me! But, I do love her so, and we are trying to find a way for her to get into doing her chores and making it fun for her. And no, she doesn't care if there are prizes, candy, or money involved for doing them, either!

Summer Reading

Big sister started her summer reading list today! I printed a summer reading chart offline, and picked the books from Sonlights pre-k curriculum and changed/added some of my own. We enjoyed our time together today reading:

Here are the rest of the books on her list for the next week:

If any homeschool moms out there know of a good program/lesson in Spanish to use for pre-k/k-5, please share!

This & That.

Don't worry, I have not neglected my own dear family while being very caught up in all of this foster care business lately {wink}.

What is going on in the Potter household? Mr.'s hours are going back to normal starting today! We are very excited to have him around more! He has scheduled his CCNA test{the first part} for June 6th and is very busy studying for it. For those of you who don't know...the computer/networking world is kind of it's own world. There is a gazillion test's you can take to get different certifications, and in this world, certifications are like gold. Better than a bachelors. Literally. If you applied at a networking or computer development company of some sort with a bachelors but no certs...and someone else applied with no college but certs, he is getting it. Sorry for the wasted four years of your life. Of course, if you had both, that is the best. Anyway, I'm very excited for him to take it, praying of course that he passes and can move into the networking dept at his current company and continue to get more certs.

Big & Middle...still crazy little girls! We have been really struggling with what to do about big sisters education. We have prayed & prayed. We have looked into homeschooling, and we have also picked up a registration packet from the elementary school in our district. We continue to go back and forth, until today! I guess I was waiting for God to drop me a note in my mailbox to tell me what to do...but of course that didn't happen. So I had to go with the peace factor. After praying, what do we have peace about doing? Homeschooling. I know that this is what we need to do for her this coming pre-k year, this is what we want as well. Yes, we are talking about pre-k here! What has been stopping me from making that decision from the beginning? Selfishness. Yes, it would be great to drop her off every morning and get a break for a few hours! (especially for free!) I mean, I can get so much done with three full hours of just two kids! Shopping too! I also went through a "my kids are going to drive me insane to the point that I'm going to die from stress if I home school. Please school bus come get them!" moment. But, with prayer, preparation, prayer and guidance, I know I can do it. Thankfully big sister is compliant and I know that she will not give me a hard time about sitting down and working on something, she is actually very excited to begin. Plus, I keep reminding myself that this is just pre-k, what better year to "test drive" homeschooling to see if it is going to work for us!? If it's not working, we can re evaluate our decision next summer when it's time to get into kindergarten. Year by year, child by child.

Little sister is doing fabulous! She is standing by herself for a good amount of time! Holding onto things and stepping around. Clapping, waving, blowing kisses, crawling like crazy, playing very well with toys! She also says "dadda" "momma" "hi" and "ba-ba" (bottle). She is the best baby we could ask for ! So quiet and good, she rarely cries, never fuses, God has blessed us! It is sad to think that in two short months she will be one year old... :/

On the Mama home front, I scored eight boxes of pasta from Publix this week for .19 each. The start of our stock pile! Letter orders are continuing to come in! Oh, and everyone is moving.

Yep. My best friend is moving to Japan in July. Another one of my good friends just moved two hours away, the boys moved this week, and we have another friend who is moving in August! I feel like I'm being punished in the midst of their moving excitement and future plans. Who is going to go shopping with me? The one person that I let keep my girls is the one moving across the world. Who is going to come over and lay on my couch and chat? Or lay out in my driveway while the kids swim? Or come watch a movie with me at 10pm? Or call me everyday without fail? Or sit near me at church? Deliver our next baby? Go on walks/runs with me? I'm really praying that as God takes these beloved friends away from me, that he will bring new ones. Not casual new ones...but real new ones who call me everyday and come just hang out. I know that their moving & following God is not about me, but hello! I am being affected by it too! And while I am excited for my friends and everything that God has in store...it also SUCKS. :/ I'm not use to people I love moving or leaving. But, I better get use to it.

I think that's enough updating/venting/rambling/boring you out of your brains for tonight ;-)

Will post middle sisters birthday party pictures soon!

Thinking.

Tonight at Big sister's soccer game, the coach asked the parents to help the kids with an exercise. So I went to help big sister, and she took the ball & said "No mom, your not my team!". She didn't want me to help her :( She must be going through her independent stage. However, I know that she still needs me for lots of other things still...so I'm not too sad yet. Why do they have to grow up so fast?

Even though we still don't have an official decision on homeschooling or not- I've decided that I'm going to create a workbox station with letters, numbers, colors, animals, spanish and bible verses using the Awana "curriculum", and possibly some lapbooks- like saying lapbooks. Lapbooks. Lapbooks. Why? Because it's something to do- it looks fun- it will be learning for my girls- and we can get a better feel of how it would be if we do decide to homeschool.

Mr. goes on vacation next week, we can't actually leave and go on a real vacation because of soccer, his work Christmas party, and two nights of big sister being in the church Christmas play. However, we have lots of fun things planned for us to do- and I'm counting down the days! {5}

Why am I really still waiting on our Foster Care application? It has been almost a month now, and the man has supposedly sent it out to me twice {yea right}. I have to remember that everything is going to happen in God's timing & planning- including the day we receive our application...if we ever receive it. A friend of mine in another county said it took them 2-4 weeks to get their applications. So I guess it's normal.

*update* : I called the man for a third time letting him know that I have yet to get it, still. He said he didn't know what was going on with it and why I hadn't received it after he sent it out twice. But, he is actually going to personally bring one to us! I guess he isn't that bad afterall :)

I actually did end up going black Friday shopping! At 4am though- not midnight or anything to crazy, and we only went to Target. However, it was pretty worth it. $5 pajamas for the girls, $3 games for the girls {hi ho cherry oh, memory, jenga, operation, monopoly, break the ice, candy land...you name it}. Micro-suede throw pillows for $7, Play huts for $22 (originally $36), huge tub of mega blocks for $15 (originally $30) and lots and lots of other deals that we didn't buy.

We also have our tree up! :) Sunday we came home from church, had some eggnog, listened to Christmas music, and put up our tree and decorated it! The girls LOVED it! Now they wont leave it alone. It seems like the tree is getting smaller and smaller every year though. I think next year may be the year we cut one down ourselves ! I have to get our new individual ornaments for this year- but I posted some of my favorites that we already have. I can't believe Christmas is already here....

Don't forget to enter in my giveaway!