It’s Go Time!
14 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in Our Progress, Start Up Tags: first day, preperation
Tomorrow’s the day! Of course I’m very excited, but I’m suddenly feeling nervous, too. It only makes sense that I would, because this is something we’ve never done. I mean, we’ve been schooling at home for the last three years, but that was with a virtual school - where I had everything laid out for me, and a teacher to help me. Now, it’s all up to me. Yes, we are working with another family, which is going to be amazing! However, ultimately the responsibility of making sure my kids get a good education is on my shoulders. That’s a whole lot of pressure. I’m so grateful to be able to have this option, though! I feel truly blessed to have the energy (well, sometimes…), the knowledge and resources, and the desire to be able to homeschool my children! I’m grateful to have a husband who works hard so I can be at home with the kids, and be able to do this!
The kids seemed excited tonight, as I talked to them about starting school tomorrow. But, of course, that’s just the novelty of doing something new and different right now. Some of that will wear off once we get down to the nuts and bolts of doing actual school work. I am, however, going to milk it while I can. Might as well use their excitement to our advantage while I can!
So, it’s almost 11:30pm here, and I’ve still got quite a bit to do before we start tomorrow! I know this is going to be one crazy ride — but I predict it will also be one of the best ever! Woo-hoo! Buckle up! Here we go!!!
Planning, planning, and more planning…
31 Jul 2011 Leave a Comment
in Curriculum, Our Progress, Schooling, Start Up Tags: co-op, curriculum, Field trips, History, Living History, planning, real science 4 kids, Science
It has been a very busy two weeks!! I’ve been buzzing around like a little worker bee, trying to get my hive all ready for the school year. It is amazing how much time and energy it takes to get this all together. But, it is SO worth it!! I am incredibly excited to get started with everything!
Ok, so we’ve gotten all of our curriculum now. Hooray for that!! Now, it’s lesson planning time! I was super happy to pick up a great lesson planning book at Target. It was just what I was looking for, and there it was for only one dollar!! So, the plan is to have all my lesson plans done, at least until we take our December break, before we start our school year in two weeks. Ideally, I’d like to get the whole year planned out, but we’ll just take one step at a time.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before or not, but we are doing a little history and science co-op with another family. Kelly, the other mom, and I worked hard to select just the right program for science. After much research, deliberation, and prayer, we settled on Real Science 4 Kids. I was so excited when all the books came and I was not at all let down by the program! We will be starting with astronomy this year, which everyone is excited about. We’ve already got some great field trips planned. It really helps to have a planetarium close by! We also have an amazing resource with the Las Vegas Astronomical Society. My goal is to get the kids as much hands-on learning as possible. For history, Kelly found this amazing history program called Living History. I am blown away by the amount of good information contained in these books! Why did I not learn a lot of this information in school?? The answer, I’m afraid, is because history has been rewritten to fit the progressive agenda. I’m finding that as I am preparing to teach all this material, I am reading through these textbooks any time I can. I find it funny that I spent so much of my school time trying to avoid reading textbooks (mostly because they were totally dry and boring), and now I am looking forward, with great excitement, to reading these books! We are going to be doing US History this year, and next. We’ve got some super fun things planned already for the kids! I’m anxious to get started!
Now, I’ve just got to get our math and reading lessons planned out, and we’ll be all good to go!
It’s almost time for us to start our school year and I’m just giddy with excitement. I’m sure the kids don’t feel the same abundance of jubilation, but that’s alright. I know they are going to get a great education this year — and a ton of amazing experiences!! What an adventure we are about to embark on!!
On Our Way…
02 Jun 2011 1 Comment
in Our Progress, Start Up Tags: CCSD, NVVA, Plans, testing
Two days ago I mailed out our Notices of Intention to Homeschool. I was happy to do it. Am I weird that I felt a little “liberated” as I dropped them into the mailbox at the post office?? Seriously, it felt a bit freeing. I’m excited to be off on this adventure. While I truly loved our experience with NVVA, the one thing I hated was all the testing the kids had to do. CRT’s and DRA’s and Achievement Series Tests, oh my!! There were times when it was just super annoying. I will be so glad not to have to deal with those any more!
In the process of preparing the Notices of Intent to Homeschool, I had to prepare an educational plan for each child. The Clark County School District is quite vague about what they want when it comes to this. My understanding is I could have put down “We are going to do 1st grade math, science, history and language arts,” and that probably would have sufficed. However, I decided to use the opportunity to outline, in detail, what I really did want to do. Make no mistake, this was done for my benefit, not for CCSD. I have to be honest, I was pretty excited when I was done with them, and I was very pleased with how they turned out. I plan on using them as a basic guide to help keep me on track.
So, we finished one of the first steps and we are on our way. It feels good. Well….until I think about everything else we have to do! But for now, I will savor this small triumph.
Welcome back, Denise
25 May 2011 2 Comments
in Our Progress, Schooling, Start Up Tags: Changes, Homeschool, Nevada Virtual Academy, Online School
Yes, it’s been a great deal of time since I’ve posted. Life just gets crazy sometimes and this wasn’t much of a priority for me. However, that is to change, as I have new motivation.
We have decided to go “off the grid” and homeschool on our own, without the virtual school. We will be doing this with another family, who are dear friends of ours, and we would like to document what we do throughout the year and thought this would be a great way to do it!
Our family has made the decision to leave Nevada Virtual Academy, after being with them for three years. I have nothing but good to say about the school! We had an absolutely AMAZING teacher for all three years, who was an enormous blessing for us. I will forever be grateful to her for everything she did for our family! I will truly miss her!
The decision to leave NVVA was not made lightly or easily. The school offers so much good. However, I believe that now is the time for us to move on. NVVA was a great stepping-stone for us in going from traditional public school to bringing the kids home. In our time with them, I’ve learned so very much about my children, and myself. These are lessons that shall always be with me. There is a large part of me that is very sad to be leaving, and yet another part of me that is very excited to embark on this new journey. The bottom line is this: in bringing my children home from public school, I wanted to do everything I could to provide the very best education for my children. At this time, I think the best way for me to do that is to do it ourselves. I love my children more than I could ever possibly express and I have a duty to do everything I can to provide the best for them. I believe that is what I am doing.
Decompression and Schooling Types
01 Jun 2008 Leave a Comment
in Our Progress, Schooling, Start Up Tags: Books, Ideas, Information, Progress, Resources
I’ve been doing a lot of reading about homeschooling, and have been giving a lot of thought to the idea of decompression time for the kids. I read somewhere that for every year a child has been in public school, they need a month of time off to readjust. I think there is a lot of truth to this. I know, just watching Logan now, he’s getting really burned out. I think if I were to try to go right into homeschooling, it would really cause problems. But, by giving him time to adjust to the new schedule, and really it’s a new lifestyle, he’ll be so much more ready to go when it’s time.
Also, I read in The First Year Of Homeschooling Your Child by Linda Dobson, about the different types of homeschooling. I found this very interesting. I could see some that definitely do not fit me, like unschooling. But, two of the styles really hit right on what I want to do: school at home, and unit studies. I thought it was intersting how she nailed down these styles so well. Lots of good info in reading these. It also gave me comfort to know that there is a large chunk of people out there doing what I want to do, in a similar way to how I want to.
Educational Plans
27 May 2008 1 Comment
in Our Progress, Resources, Start Up Tags: Books, law, Plans, Resources
In order to comply with Nevada Law, when we submit our Notice of Intent to Homeschool, we also have to submit an educational plan. So, with a great deal of information taken from Rebecca Rupp’s Home Learning Year by Year, I’ve completed the plans for the boys. I know this is much more detail than the school district requires, but this also serves as a great guide for me. Anyway, I thought I’d post them, in case anyone was interested.
education-plan-kindergarten1 education-plan-2nd-grade
I also went to Barnes and Noble today and ordered Rebecca’s book. Should be in next week. I’m pretty excited. Thank you to Erin for finding it for me! What a blessing this book has turned out to be!
Yikes!
13 May 2008 5 Comments
in Our Progress, Start Up Tags: Information, Overwhelmed
I had a bit of an anxiety attack the other day, as I realized the ginormous task ahead of me. I’ve been researching and researching, and I still don’t know everything I need to teach the kids. So, I started to really freak out and felt entirely overwhelmed. I guess it just hit me, all of a sudden. Math won’t be a problem, we’ve already picked out a math program we are going to use. However, that’s the only thing that has been decided. What am I going to do about reading? My friend, Amy, who is also going to be homeschooling, is suppose to get Hooked on Phonics for us to use from her mom, but that hasn’t happened yet. I think that will be a good program to use, and is pretty well proved. But, what about spelling, language arts, science, art, music? I think my big problem is that I don’t know exactly what should be taught at what grade level. I’ve got some information from the school district as to their math and reading guidelines, but I need more. I think that what I need to to is contact some other homeschoolers, and see how they do it. I guess this is a good lesson for me to remember that I don’t have to have all the answers and information at once, and that I need to take a deep breath.
Here We Go!
02 May 2008 6 Comments
in Start Up Tags: Excitement, Family, Friend, Information, Mormon, New
Hello everyone!
I’ve started this blog to chronicle our family’s journey as we begin to homeschool. A little about my family and me. I’m the mom of four amazing children. I’ve got one that will be going into 2nd grade, one going into kindergarten, and two littler ones. Dad provides wonderfully for us and goes to work while I stay home. I am also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Naturally I want the very best for my kids, and that doesn’t stop with their education. I’ve been sorely disappointed in our school district here. It wasn’t good when I went through it, and it’s gotten exponentially worse in the last 20 years. While my oldest son, who is in 1st grade now, has been blessed with two magnificent teachers, he still isn’t getting the kind of education I would like for him. Don’t get me wrong; those teachers are doing the best they can with what they’ve got, and I don’t fault them for the insufficient education. The problem lies in the public education system as a whole. It’s fatally flawed, and overly left wing. I think some of the things being taught in public schools are absurd and definitely NOT what I want my children learning. So, we’ve made the decision to homeschool our children. I think it is going to work out so much better for them.
Coincidentally, I found out one of my very best friends is also planning to homeschool her 3 kids. So, we’ve been bouncing ideas off each other, and being great supports to each other also. We’ve decided to work together a little bit and we are pretty like minded on the type of education that we want for our kiddos. It’s been great, also to have someone else to sift through the endless amount of information. I’ve also been getting some invaluable information from a sweet homeschooling mom of 4 at Church.
Although I am a bit overwhelmed at the task ahead of me, I know that with the Lord and my family working together, we can do it! There are just so many possibilities and opportunities available, I have to say that I am really very excited! What could be better?! This truly will be the journey of a lifetime!
