Will's First Year of High School at Home

Well, this school year has come to a close, and the new one is just around the corner. Well, kind of :). This year will be the first in a long time that I am choosing not to follow along with the school calendar (public or private) for our homeschool. Kate graduated in May and will be starting college classes at the end of August, so I'm thinking Will and I will probably wait to start school when she does.

Dragonflies & Butterflies

This morning we incorporated another of Miss Mason's techniques into our school day. Not exactly a nature walk, but time spent outdoors, nonetheless.

We watched the birds flying in and out of our backyard... got out the binoculars to see them close-up in the trees. We especially like watching the hummingbirds come to our feeder!

This was an earlier shot (and not very clear).

First Week of School

I spent a great deal of time expounding on Kate's first week of school in my last post (and we are definitely seeing improvement btw). Now it's time to consider Will's first week. Of course, he's still at home with me. I mentioned in a previous post that we are using Heart of Dakota curriculum this year. When browsing through the well laid out lesson plans, my first thought was, "Geez, what alot to cover! We'll still be doing school when Kate gets home!" Plus I have some other books and materials that I want to incorporate into our day!

However, I  have been pleasantly surprised at how quickly we finish each day. HOD incorporates Charlotte Mason's methods of educating, so we cover lots of subjects but we don't spend lots of time on any one subject. This keeps the day flowing smoothly and it helps us tremendously as my Will has a short attention span. In the past he has been frustrated to tears because I have forced him to stay focused on one thing in particular for long periods of time. This year -- major improvement!

Another new approach for us this year is in the area of math. We are using Teaching Textbooks and so far, so good. Will seems to be doing well with it. He pops the cd-rom into the computer, clicks on the day's lesson and the lecture begins. He solves a few practice problems covering the new concept, then moves onto the problem set which covers the newly learned concept, as well as previously learned concepts.  The first few lessons were basically review, and most of it is mental math. He enjoys doing math on the computer, but I'm not sure how it works when he moves beyond the mental math and actually needs to work out a problem on paper. I suppose we'll see when we get there.

  

I am a little sad that I have only one child in our homeschool now. To me, it is such a joy to teach (and learn along with) my children. I count it a privilege that God has called me to homeschool them, and I am so grateful that He has allowed me to homeschool each of them. Am I a perfect teacher? No! I make mistakes, just like anybody else. But... God gave my children to me. I know them better than anyone else. God has given me the insight to know what motivates them to learn, how to encourage them, how to help them reach their full potential. Is this path easy? Of course not! Anything worth doing is not easy. But is it worth it? Oh yes! I wouldn't trade these years that He has allowed me to be at home, investing in their lives for all the "stuff" that we could have provided them had we been a two-income family.

Thank you Jesus for the privilege of being a wife and mommy, a stay-at-home mom, a home-schooling mom.