P.S. Homeschooling

To answer a couple more questions about how we homeschool.....

1. What do Hope and Ava do while we are homeschooling?
They stay right there with us. We do most of our schooling in the living room. I put all of Ava's therapy things down on the floor (wedges, pillows, little stools, toys), and I usually try to play with Ava a little bit while the kids are doing their independent work. The dogs like to hang out with us too and make a great obstacle course for Ava to climb over. :) While Hope is only 4 and not doing any formal schooling, she is extremely intent on learning her letters and their sounds. It must be a girl thing because neither of my boys did that. She does coloring pages, cuts and pastes, writes out "notes" with her letters, and draws pictures for dad to hang up at his office. Our rule is that if someone is distracting you while you are trying to do your work, you have to take your work into another room rather than me trying to make everyone else be quiet or stop wiggling. I guess it works out pretty well for us. I've always said I'd like to be a fly on the wall and watch how other families do this. Since I've never seen the Duggar family reality show (nor John and Kate plus Eight, for that matter), I guess I'll just stick to what is working for us!

2. Our timelines:
Are simply notebooks with date ranges written across the top of the pages. We purchased them used, one is the Sonlight timeline notebook. The other one I'm not sure. We have never done a wall timeline because it seemed complicated to me, and I could never figure out where to put it.

3. The math website which I mentioned, I forgot to put a link to, is livingmath.net

4. The 3 child planner which I use, I was sure came from donnayoung.org, but now that I went back I can't find it. I printed it off over two years ago, and I have just been making photocopies ever since, so if you need me to scan and email to you, I'd be happy to do that.

5. For a couple of people who mentioned they are interested in homeschooling but don't know where to start, I would suggest signing up for a homeschool conference. They are so informative, and you can take a look at so many types of curricula without having to purchase first. There is so much out there, that if you research online it can be absolutely overwhelming to narrow it down. I also love to have company, so if you are local (Ashley and Christina) and want to come over and chat, I would love that!

6. Lastly, I want to remind everyone that homeschooling is certainly not for everyone, and even for us I'm not sure we will always do it. I think there are times and seasons when it is best to take a break or make some changes. I am all about keeping a balance. I believe you can send your kids to public school and still be a good mom! I did it and probably will someday again.

Oh, yeah, and one more thing. I laughed when a couple people said I was organized. I am not sure I have ever heard myself described as "organized". My husband gets stressed out looking in the pantry, but I do have a method to my chaos. I like to think of myself as loosely structured. I like to have a little bit of a plan, but then I like just as much to change my plans midstream. I must take after my dad that way.

Thanks for asking questions. I love to know that people are interested enough to ask questions.