First Day of School

Yesterday was the first day of school.
It also marks the first Fall since 1997 that I haven't home schooled! When I really first felt a call on my life to home school my children I was 16 years old. I wasn't even dating Steve at the time but I knew God had called me to home school my children, and I knew I would home school them through the 8th grade.
So that's what I did. I home schooled.
When we began we lived in Oklahoma, then we moved to New Hampshire and finally Florida; when we began we knew 1 other home school family, then 2, then three,now it seems every other person I know either is or has home schooled.
These past 13 years have stretched me beyond where I wanted to stretch and grown me in ways I probably don't even realize. The coolest thing about home schooling has been the time I have had with my children.

High school.

Public school.

Day one went well, both boys seemed happy with their teachers, their classes and they made it home safe and sound, not that I fear for their safety, God has those boys and I trust Him with them and have since the days of their birth. As far as I know they were safe from mean kids and neither one sparked up in the bathroom.

As another year starts I already know it will end in the blink of an eye, 2 shakes of a lambs tail and it'll all be over.

I will sit on my porch with Steve one day and we'll wonder where it all went; until then I am enjoying my days off with no children to clean up after, no lunches and snacks to make, no books to teach from, no papers to correct. I am reluctantly, excitingly, nervously welcoming this new chapter in my life.

Now what to do for the next 7 hours?

A Bit on Home Schooling Middle School

I thought I'd post a little snapshot of how I have handled home schooling middle school.
One of my main objectives in middle school has been to help my boys be self-motivated and self-sufficient in school.

Here's what we've come up with that works for us.

I list the date and their daily assignments ona white board, when they complete an assignment it gets erased. This helps me to be able to see at a glance where we/they are in their school day and is nice for them to wake and see what their day will consist of. I can teach the lesson and then it is up to them to have the assignment complete by the end of the day. If they want to go somewhere or have someone over it is easy to see if school is done, if it's not- they know the answer. This helps because I don't have to ride them about getting on their schoolwork or be the bad person who says no.
Wanna go to KNOWN on Wednesday nights?? is school done?
Wanna have a buddy over?? Is school done?
Wanna go to the skate park?? Is school done?
Trust me Middles Schoolers are not all that motivated to do anything but visit with their friends.
When it comes to all their books I have taken a square laundry basket and turned it into a file draw. It sits below the table that houses the white board, pencils, pens and daily used books. I took manila folders and cut them to have tabs and I labeled the tabs with the appropriate subject. The stuff that gets used daily usually sits on top of the table but our current reference books and manipulatives sit in their proper section of our file "drawer".

So that is how I have survived middle school home school. This being my last year of full-time home school I am not sure what I'll do with this area of my dining room?

If you home school I hope this gives an idea you may use, if you don't home school and struggle with getting your child to do homework, a whiteboard may work. Just write the word homework on the board, when they finish their work it gets crossed off, if they wanna do something it makes it easy to answer, just look at the board.

Happy learning!

Progress

I had a chance this morning to fill the planter and put some plants and seeds in the ground. You can read more about the process here and here.
At the far back right I planted my oregano and next to it the thyme. At the front left is the mint and I managed to get 1 and a half rows of carrots in and a row of lettuce.

Another shot of the garden and where it lies in terms of my house, that door... that's my front door. I know they say a nicely presented front door and front of house is a must, well for us it's a work in progress as well as a staging ground for all things explosive. I have big courtyard plans in my head. If you look close enough you'll see the multi-colored house we call home. I think we are ready to paint, one day.

I also thought it would be fun to show pics of our home school in action, my one student however thought differently. So I'll post this one anyway even though there is no student in the pic.

The dining room gets taken over during the weekdays with school. I usually sit in the chair on the right and Justin on the left, he keeps a nice stash of water nearby!

This year I didn't want to hang a dry erase or use the portable one I've used in the past so...

This is a hutch that holds our china and other fancy dishes. I taped two large pieces of paper together and taped them to the inside of the plexi-glass door. Now I can write with a dry erase and when I want my dining room back, voila! take the paper down!

We also like to keep some formulas hanging around.

These all have to do with circles, circumference, radius and diameter.
So that's that on the physical home front.

As for the internal one: I am finding it challenging transitioning back into home life after working, not to mention finding my "fit" again at meetings I use to "work" at. Student Ministries is developing great for this fall, I am super excited but I'd be lying to say it's not challenging. My old job, now someone elses,
and me around to watch it.

Bottom line: I am having some internal struggles with the change of jobs.

Don't get me wrong, I have never been so thrilled to be home and schooling and doing all things home, it's just I got alittle bit of worldly satisfaction with an "outside" job.

Plus I'm like a gerbil,
I don't care much for change.

Well I really need to run, I have to do a limo airport pick-up for my father-in-laws limo business; this will be the 4th job I've done for him, usually I am excited, today?
not so much.
Oh well, I'm sure the QT in the car will do me good.

Lord may I focus my mind on You.

-Michelle

8th Grade

*updated from pre-school post.
We survived! We had a blast!
We took some pre-tests for reading comprehension, started into Algebra 1, began our new writing curriculum, dove right into some Greek and Latin root words and started on Science and our first unity study of botany.
We wrapped up our first day of home schooling not too long ago, it was at that time I realized I had no pictures!!!
We ran outside and....
Here is Justin in his first day of school photo!

Since I always get shots of Vaughan walking into school on his first day we thought we'd do the same with Justin. Here he is after he rode his bike 10 feet from the van to the house!!
Here he is posing with his 8th grade teacher -- me!!

Here is what I wrote this morning before we began....

Today is the first day of our home school.
8th grade for Justin.
Last year of middle school.
My last year of full-time home school. please hear the mild panic in my voice

Wish I could say it started off early but it didn't. We had a late night and then I was up when Steve got up at 3:30am and was awake until close to wake time at 6:00am and then,
yep, you know it,
slept through my alarm.

So, Steve got Vaughan off to school and now I am gearing up for school with Justin.

Good thing about teenagers, morning time lasts all day so a 9am wake time, not too shabby!

Happy day!
-Michelle

School Pics 2008-2009 - Grade 7

Today in Science...

Somehow a bird got into the house today.
I first noticed him in the kitchen and he flew to the living room and got himself stuck between the not-finished curtains and the window. We managed to open the window and remove the screens and he flew out!
Never a dull moment.



For the record, my first reaction was: how can we keep him as a pet?
I have a problem.
-Michelle

Hme Scool Greek Fest

*I had to leave the title because my keyboard is freakin out and I never thought to spellcheck the title, I noticed the mistake when I previewed the posting, how funny that home and school were the 2 misspelled words!

We were invited to attend a Greek Fest a friends house today. What a blast!
The food was great, we had. We had a humus, a Greek dip, Moussaka, Spanokapita and Baklava. All home made and all delicious!

We made the spanakopita! Yiayia's recipe from Greece- Justin made it this year and did an awesome job!

When we arrived the kids wrote their names in Greek.

We were encouraged to come in Ancient Greek dress, here's Amanda and Santori. I did try to get Amanda to walk and work to help spur on labor- we want to see this baby girl!

Oh, I think I heard "don't take a picture of my shoes." I try to be a good friend and listen.

Sitting around at our symposium, discussing what makes people happy and their favorite mythological characters.

Then it was outside for a pentathlon. Great climbing trees at this house!

Justin watching Shane throw the javelin. They also threw the discus, did the long jump, ran a short foot race and arm wrestled.

Eating all that yummy food.

The whole group of them. It was nice to be included in his event. As you can see,Justin is quite a it bit taller, and older, than most of the kids. He had a great time and does so well with younger ones, plus Faith, the only girl, is a good friend of his. I had a great time as well, we stayed well after it was over ad visited. I am so blessed to have such a great group of friends.

I'm thankful for Lisa fr putting this on and inviting us, I look forward to participating in some other events they host.

Happy schooling days!

-Michelle

Treehouse Schoolhouse No Longer Meets in the Trees

Home schooling doesn't get easier, is always changing and challenging.
I'm thoroughly convinced of that.
Just when we get into a routine, when we've made great progress in our studies something happens.

Life usually.

Whatever it is is throws a wrench into it all.
We get behind, we miss days, lessons take weeks instead of days to get through.
Other times we get thrown by attitude changes, hormones (from student and teacher) and then there's the fun stuff.
With Vaughan we stayed pretty well on track. That's his personality more than mine. He would sit down and determine to get school done asap, which usually meant by 10am, then I had a pre-adolescent boy to entertain for the rest of the day.
With Justin it's a little different.

We like to chase butterflies.

We tend to read a chapter and then if it's real good read the whole darn book. The we look at the day or week and wonder where the other subjects went? We start talking about something at breakfast and next thing you know we have the encyclopedias out and are reading more and more on the subject; before we know it, it's lunch and we haven't even pulled out the lesson plan.

When math gets hard we're more likely to take a break and end up having fun doing something as far away from Algebra as possible.

When they were little it was other things, their ADHD aided in starting school hours later than planned; focusing and sitting still and upright I was convinced were myths.

I now have a 7th grader and it is becoming his responsibility to school himself more. I just asked Vaughan today when it was that he decided to "get to it" in the school department. We/he determined it was in the 7th grade and for sure in he 8th.
So hope is coming for Justin and I, although that means changes are coming too.

So home schooling never gets easy and is ever evolving. For the good, for the bad, for the fun and challenge of it.

A challenge I enjoy,
a challenge I'm afraid I'll miss in 2 years.

But we do what we feel called to do, we do it our best and we pray in the end they'll simply learn what really matters in life; to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul and mind.
Until then we'll continue to enjoy our time together.
We'll continue to embrace the challenge and accept the change.
I'll enjoy my private guitar concerts and he'll enjoy my naps- the time when he can do whatever his little 7th grade heart pleases.
-Michelle

My Kid Rocks!

I know we all think that but I actually know it to be true!

When I started homeschooling I took quite a bit of slack. I even had things said to me that were mean and quite frankly had nothing to do with home schooling.

Then when I put my oldest in public high school full-time I took some slack there too. Again some pretty rude things were said to me, again many that were not school related at all.

Fortunately I keep those people far away from me , but if they were around I'd have to restrain my tongue from saying something very rude as I threw this in their faces!

That's straight-A's 1st quarter and 2nd quarter!

Those are 1's in conduct- everyone loves this kid, well expect the 1 kid who wants to beat him up; but he's always had that, since he was little 99.9% of the people who meet him love him and the other 1% not only don't like him but are always asking to fight him. The "02" are absent days from him leaving early on mid-term days.

So as you can see- my kid rocks!!

For those of you that don't now about my home schooling practices I don't give out grades- you do the work, you understand the concept and we move on. If I had to give out grades it'd be A's around the horn here too! I take that back his handwriting would get less than an A because he can just be sloppy in that area- part of being artsy I guess, the alphabet "reigns in his creativity"- what? Just write your letter correctly so we can read what you are saying!

-Michelle

Corn Maze Adventure

I have wanted to go through a corn maze for a long time. When I first saw a picture of a crop circle as a child I have had a yearning to walk through a field with crops or grass or corn forming the walls that surround me.
Well yesterday I got to cross this off my life's to do list.
Along with our homeschool group we visited Long and Scott's Farm. Hot, yes; fun, yes; visit again, yes. Enjoy the pics...

The scarecrow was a bite freaky and yet somewhat cool.

The theme this year for the corn maze was John Deer.

Here is a picture of the 2 mazes. The one on the top is a 6-acre maze with 5 "stations" you have to visit, the maze below is a 1-acre maze, again with 5 stations.

And we're off!

A view from the bridge in the large maze, you can kind of see the paths?

We split into smaller groups and each group was given a flag. If we ever decided we were lost all we needed to do was wave the flag and the "Maze Master" would come and save us. We never had to use it.



There was much more than just the mazes. A rock labyrinth, a midst maze, a 60-foot slide, picnic tables, fishing pond and child's play area rounded off the days activities.

Another surprise in my list of Florida activities to do.
Michelle

Molly-
now that's 2 places to visit when you make it to the lower 48

Ditching Home School

One of my favorite things about homeschooling is the freedom to drop everything and go.
I'm great at that, ditching what I should be doing for something else. I've gotten much better at sticking to my responsibilities over the years but I am a sucker for a resort pool and Downtown Disney.

So when our first week of home schooling came to an end and I got an invite to a friends condo- I jumped on it! Justin and I took Friday off of our first week of school and headed to Orlando for hang with my good friend for a few hours.

We hung out in the pool, played some killer water volleyball and ate a homemade, yummy spaghetti lunch!

While waiting for lunch I hung out on the balcony with my friends 2 year old. He rocks. Really. I have so much fun with this kid. This time around he tried to throw everything he got his hands on to the ground 3 stories below.
He's quick and got 2 things fired off before I realized what the heck was going on. First was some piece of paper and second was his father's insoles- oops. I finally caught on and when he grabbed my can of coke to throw I blocked him! A wet win for me!
Anyway it was a well needed break from my daily duties.
Here are the pics of what ditching home school looks like for us.

I think I had just told him he couldn't throw anything.


Is he not the cutest?

After the pool we headed to Downtown Disney. Here I am with Eduardo the bowling pin- don't ask.

Eduardo at the Lego Store. The displays around the store are so cool.


This picture is from a whole different day- a day when we did ditch the normal way home for an alternate route- look what we saw, it's a Florida dog deer.
Beautiful.


So how about you- when you ditch your usual plan what do you like to do?
-Michelle

Creative Child and Excel

Here's Justin's daily assignments in excel. All he needs to do is check his assignments, color them in when complete and then I go back and check it with the strikethrough.

He must love school or the face would be sad.

Creativity rocks!

Michelle

Hole in Our Day, A Plan that May Work and God's Truth

Yesterday was weird.
Good, but weird.

I'll start with the weird and I'll keep it brief. Weird because I've spent the last 14 yrs 9 mo with Vaughan and now he is gone for 10 hours a day. Justin missed him too, he's been his whole life with the kid.
Vaughan didn't think of us once.
All above facts are true, each party admits to it!

FLASHBACK 8 Years!



On to the good: Justin and I had a great day of home school; besides him getting a little giggly in the afternoon he did great. I've seen so much growth in him these last few years it's amazing to think he's the same kid! It's true when they say boys mature slower than girls and for some boys it's even slower than the "norm". That's been J and that's why I've loved home schooling: he's been able to take his time growing up. Meanwhile I'm happy we do school at a table and sitting up straight!

So our first day went well. I've put his schedule in an Excel worksheet. I'm thinking it'll work great and he can't lose it! When he finishes an assignment he can check it off by highlighting the cell any color he wants; when I am done checking over each assignment I put a slash through it! Lord willing this will solve both our problems and allow for easy schedule changes!

Of course it's the TreeHouse SchoolHouse way to not be fully prepared so we still don't have all our curriculum yet- I'm borrowing SOS 7th grade Lang Arts and Science from my neighbor!

It was Sunday night that I decided I should throw something together for the Monday start, so here's what I came up with:

7h Grade age 12 y 6mo
1. Bible: personal devotion
2. 8am- Guitar: 30 minutes practice OUT OF BOOK!~notice only subject with a time and let's face it we're flexible with the time
3. Math Saxon Algebra 1/2 (Pre-Alg.) with D.I.V.E.
4. Reading Comprehension- 8th grade series we'll work through
5. History- US History, we'll work through book adding events to our timeline, although J wants to learn about the Vietnam War so we'll take a break next month and cover that.
6. PE: karate

That covers my main Bible-reading-writing-arithmetic goal for each day. Now today's the first day of us on my fall work schedule, add in Steve's MIA for the evenings this week and that leaves me running and picking up kids on top of a meeting for our high school workers tonight!

In my prayer book this morning I prayed for patience, from me and for me from God. Cool how God gives us what we need before we need it. 2 Peter 3:9

Now to actually go about my day I have to stop blogging...
LovePeace
~Michelle