Yo Mama's School Of Home Day 1

Well, I did it.  I took the plunge and decided to keep my middle child, Alicia, home this year for fourth grade and possibly longer.  I have a long history of proving the old adage "Never say never" to be right.  Prior to this year I was on the side of "Oh that's ok for YOU to do but I could NEVER do that!"  I was a scoffer.

Long story short, Alicia was not excelling in public school last year.  She started the year strong, and in Kindergarten through 2nd grade she had always scored high in math and, well, all the other subjects also.  But at the end of 3rd grade she had declined in her scores and I was getting notes telling me that my daughter was sweet, kind, and had anxiety.  I have had her in counseling for this anxiety for several months now but it just wasn't translating over into her daily life effectively.

I thought about it long and hard, talked to other people who were homeschooling, thought about getting her some kind of summer help.  Then a couple of weeks ago when she looked at me with her big hazel eyes and said "Mommy I just want to be home with you and have you as a teacher" I realized that I really needed to pray and make a decision fast.  She is a very sensitive child, and yes of course I was tempted to just say "Suck it up like everyone else!" but it just wasn't in my heart to do that.

Thus we had our first day today of learning at home.  It started out at 8:45am with the microwave timer as our "bell".  I was trying desperately to finish up the editing for the photos I took at the Champlain Valley Fair on Sunday.  I finished just in time.  We sat down at the table and I started with a short prayer asking Jesus to give me brains enough to do this thing.  Next we did the first of 100 daily devotionals in a book called "Mommy and Me", taking turns reading the passages and quotes.  Autumn quickly lost interest and demanded to do her "homework" which is one of several preschool workbooks that I bought at the Dollar General.

Next we turned on the laptop that we got for Alicia to use and logged in to Time4Learning.  Alicia chose to do Language Arts first.  She was delighted to see that this lesson was done with cartoons and silly voices.  She flew through the entire week's lesson plan in 40 minutes.  She scored 65% on the first quiz about synonyms and 85% on the second quiz.  I know she just needs to get back into learning again.  Perhaps this Calendar 2.0 that people are debating isn't such a bad idea after all...

After the Language Arts lessons were over I had her get up and do 5 minutes of cardio exercises and stretches.  She loved this.

Then we moved upstairs to my son's room (he's at school so free room!) and she started with Science.  This took her a bit longer to do as it involved drawing what she thought a scientist should look like and then comparing it to another drawing of one to examine the differences.  I explained to her that it was scientific to observe, compare, and note the differences between two people's perceptions.  Then we sat down together and did a study of Meteorology and Atmosphere in the book Our Weather & Water which is an Answers in Genesis text.

I am trying to combine both secular studies and Christian studies in a way that gives her an enriching view of the world.  What was nice is that we talked about much more than science.  We talked about Life.  I feel closer to her already.

Autumn is LOVING having her favorite girl home

After Science we went on a walk to the park, then headed to the library to pick up books about 4 types of scientists.  Her assignment for the week is to learn about 4 kinds of scientists and write a page about them.  She chose Volcanologist, Marine Biologist, Ecologist, and Astronomer.  I can't wait to start doing experiments with her!

Turtle we observed in the pond between rec parks

Beautiful female Banded Argiope in front of the Eagle's Club

After lunch we sat down to do Math.  She learned about expanding standard numbers, which means taking the word "four hundred and fifty-six million, five hundred and forty thousand, six hundred and three" and turning it into 456,540,603 and vice versa.  After three worksheets and a lot of patience she had it mastered.  It took much longer than I thought it would, but she seemed to have forgotten a lot over the summer.

I asked her what would make her the most comfortable physically to do her math problems.  She looked at the bed.  Boy, if I could have done math in bed I probably would have had an A+! 

We decided to finish the day at 3:15.  I'm actually really looking forward to tomorrow.  I'm excited to see how it all unfolds and changes our lives.