2018 school year

It's hard to believe another school year is approaching fast! Asher will be in 7th grade (or M2 in Bermuda) and Asa will be in 1st grade (P2 in Bermuda). Here's what we'll be studying this year:


Asher:

In addition, Asher will be taking his writing class online and Spanish 1 online, both through The Potter's School. For Bible, he will continue going to his weekly Bible Study Fellowship class and participate in our church's youth group. For music, he'll continue in piano lessons and begin steel pan drum lessons this year. For P.E. he will continue swim club. Also, Matt will be teaching him Economics on Thursdays.


Asa:

For music, Asa will complete his final year of Kindermusik. For P.E. he will continue with his year-round swim lessons and Running Club. Asa will also continue to attend our church's Olympians program.

Because of the large age gap between the boys, it's tricky combining many subjects. However, this year the boys will both enjoy studying art and Bermuda history together:

Also not pictured are the countless books that will be read independently or read aloud throughout the year.

Why we homeschool

During my last seven years of homeschooling I have been fortunate enough not to encounter any major discouragement from non-homeschoolers. Most people are interested when they find out, and many ask questions out of genuine curiosity. I always enjoy talking about homeschooling, and it doesn't at all offend me when people want to know why or how we do it.

Ninjaschool homeschool

Our first week of school in photographs

We had an amazing first week of 4th grade and preschool. Here's a little bit of what we did!

Preparing for another school year

We're all geared up to begin our 7th year of homeschool next week! I know it's early by most public school standards, but we like to start early in order to have more flexibility to take time off throughout the school year without falling behind in our schedule. It's important to me that we completely finish our grade level by the time we take a summer break.

So I've finished my planning and organizing in preparation for school on Monday. We will again employ a 6 week on/ 1 week off schedule this year after having great success with it last year. So, the first thing I did before I even started my subject planning was print out a 2015-2016 school calendar and figure out, roughly, when we would take our breaks over the course of the next 10 months.

Savoring the season

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.

-Ecclesiastes 3:1

Lately I've realized that I'm in a pretty great season. 

There are many seasons in a person's life, and I'm currently in a season of motherhood that's really, well, nice. I'm a homeschooling, stay-at-home mom, which is not easy but is also completely wonderful. I have my boys with me all day, every day. And at this point in their lives, they still really, really like me.

The good, the bad, and the blessings that follow

We're in our seventh week of school. We've already taken a two-week break for our Disney trip, and we'll be taking another week-long break when friends from Bermuda come to visit us in November, and then another holiday week over Thanksgiving. Yet we're still plugging along and exactly where I had wanted us to be by this time.

But it wasn't without a few difficult days.

Parking lot counting activity

Okay, so this was not my own idea, but it's so brilliant and simple that I wish I had thought of it. A friend posted it on facebook, and it looked really easy to make, especially considering we have two little boys (we have lots of toy cars) and we do a lot of online shopping (we have lots of delivery boxes).

Disney World 2014

We're off to Disney World once again! It's been a very long year and 8 months since our last trip, and we've been counting down since we booked this vacation in early spring! Asa had only just turned a year old the last time we were here, so now that he's 2-and-three-quarters, he has a much greater appreciation of everything.

This week in toddler art...

Asa and I enjoyed our art projects this week. In fact, they were so fun that the big 3rd-grader wanted to take part as well :)

First, Asa colored on sand paper. He enjoyed the rough texture and the way coloring on it wore down the crayons (I bought a pack of Target-brand crayons for 39 cents specifically for this activity.)

First week in review

Our first week of school is over!

All in all, things went really well. There were no tears (mine or Asher's), and I enjoyed each day. Let's hope this feeling stays with us through spring. :)

First day of school in photos

His favorite food is "all types of meat"?? Was sure he'd say it was pizza.

Two-year olds are awesome (I don't care what anybody else says)

Two-year olds get a bad rap.

Potty-training success!

It has been exactly a week since I changed my last diaper. You bet I'm excited!

Asher was potty trained around two and a half years old, and it was torture. I spent five days almost exclusively in the bathroom. He did end up potty trained in less than a week, but it was a miserable experience for both of us that involved gallons of juice and water and trips to the potty every 15 minutes. I wanted to give up multiple times, and I had convinced myself I didn't care if I had to change his diaper when he was in college. After spending a week in Potty Training Hell, changing diapers for the next 18 years really didn't seem so bad.

Time flies when you're having fun

I feel like the days and weeks and months are flying by. Is it because I'm older now? Time was slower when I was a kid, with endless hours of school work, due dates for papers and exams in college, and long work days that never seemed to move toward the weekend.

But now I feel like I'm at church on Sunday and then I blink and it's Sunday again, another week gone. I see the time passing in the seasons, I see it passing in our school progress, and most of all I see it in my children.

Happy 2nd birthday, dear little Asa

By the time Asa came into this world almost two months before his due date, we had already been through the preemie thing.

I had already survived Pre-eclampsia once before, I knew what to expect when the nurses started the magnesium-sulfate through an IV in my arm, and I was well familiar with the routine of seeing my newborn baby for only a moment before he was whisked away to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit.

I held him for a few seconds before giving him back to the doctors.

More manger

I was alone in the car with Asa yesterday. He sat, strapped into his car seat behind me, looking at giant board books and then tossing them onto the floor - his car-riding ritual. I had the radio set to a local station that plays Christmas music 24 hours a day through Christmas Day.

A few new toys...

Asa is into everything now. The world is so interesting, and his curiosity levels are in overdrive. No coffee cup, dog food bowl or cell phone is safe. In his little toddler mind, everything is his for the exploring - at least until we tell him "no". And I'm happy to report so far he's a pretty good listener.

But watching his intense curiosity and desire to learn how things work, I knew he needed a few new, baby-safe, inexpensive toys to play with, especially during blanket time. So I searched through some of my toddler books for some ideas.

I came up with three new toys:

To sew is much more than just so-so.

A few projects I've been working on in my sewing room were finally completed in the last month.

Walking (for real this time), lamps and superhero stories

I've spent most of the weekend in our school room. We're on track to finishing up Asher's 1st grade year this week, which means it's time to get serious about organizing things for 2nd grade. I've already ordered most of the text books we'll be using, with only a couple things that haven't arrived yet.

It's amazing to me that I am already excited for 2nd grade when, let's be honest, I can't wait to finish 1st grade. We've been at it since September, including an international move, and I'm done.

Mother's Day #6

Sunday marked the 6th Mother's Day I've celebrated as a mother myself.

In a way, it seems hard to believe it's only my sixth Mother's Day. Six years doesn't sound like a very long time, and still I feel like I've been a mother forever. I can hardly remember myself before mommyhood. And I don't mean that as a bad thing - I just mean once you reach parenthood, you never go back to your pre-parenthood frame of mind again.

And I wouldn't want to anyway.