Even better

Everyone keeps saying the first year of homeschooling is the hardest. Maybe it will be. But for now it's downright delightful. I haven't quite figured out how to keep The Bean busy (safely) in a way that doesn't involve binge watching Batman, but we've had a couple of surprising moments where he's sat contented at his Lego table while I work with The Bug.

Breakfast of champions. We've eaten a lot of doughnuts since I started blogging.

I went to Walmart to buy this.  That's LOVE.

The Bean gets to participate too.

The entire student body.

I'm also still nervous that our curriculum isn't rigorous enough, but then I have a bit of chocolate and remind myself that my kitchen table is a safe haven from meaningless common core buzzwords. Sure, our first week was a bit of review. The Bug got a pretty good head start in VPK last year, and even in public schools they don't jump into challenging new material right away. We are at least saved from having to teach classroom management guidelines: she already knows where the bathroom is, she works with a bottle of water right at her seat, and doesn't have to worry about finding the right bus to get home because she's already there. Besides a slower first week gives us the flexibility to set up our day and see which routines work for us without the pressure of having to get to all the very-very-important-things-right-now.

Our delight-driven curriculum is a lot of "create as you go."

So this week we've been using the LifeWay devotionals provided by our church to start our morning. We pray and update our calendar and then practice our memory verse (Psalms 119:11). We created a prayer lapbook and talked about when and where to pray and who and what we can pray for. We've got a Books of the Bible lapbook in progress to learn about the Old and New Testaments and how to use scripture references to actually find things in the Bible. We'll try to memorize the order of the books (using the "right song" from Matthew's childhood via YouTube) which is something I failed to do as a child.  I did however master the slow page flip which is good for searching without looking totally clueless.

We've done a Pop Bottle Science experiment everyday. A la Sid the Science Kid, she's drawn the experiment in a journal and then dictated the process step-by-step for me to write down. She's suddenly seeing molecules everywhere and I learned that a cup of rubbing alcohol added to a cup of water takes up less space than two cups of water. (I also need to buy more rubbing alcohol.) We took a field trip to the zoo which I failed to document because it was SO INCREDIBLY HOT OUTSIDE and all I could think about was getting donuts after we finished sweating off every last vestige of body fat.

See? It was educational!

I swear we learned stuff even if I just took pictures of them being cute.

We reviewed phonemic sounds and writing letters A-X in preparation for beginning reading lessons next week. We checked out 30+ books from the library, including two on The Bug's very own card, with no discernible theme except that the kids seem to like them. We've read the first two chapters of Little House in the Big Woods and pondered life before electricity ("but how did they watch TV?!?") and made ourselves a Lincoln Log cabin, a wonky little rag doll named Emma, fresh homemade bread, and "churned" sweet cream butter. 

Emma!

Our tasty little loaf of bread! 

We created a passport and started learning about our world: the names of continents and the cardinal directions. She's learned how to log on to Little Passports and play some of the games, though she still needs help reading the questions. We've read about four of our seven continents and made corresponding crafts and dinners based on the least offensive stereotypes I could find. The Bug can find them on a map and knows her cardinal directions. 

Learning about Asia

Learning about Europe.

Creating necklaces for Africa.

A Mexican sombrero for North America. 

We've made math as hands on as possible with collecting and sorting and classifying shapes, colors, objects, and sizes. We've worked on sequencing and ordinal numbers and competed two weeks of worksheets in our first five days and blazed through three "chapters" of Brain Quest worksheets during week two.  (Really, matching?  How does this count as math?)

But my very favorite had been starting her memory book, a way to document the wonderful person she is as we begin this school year.

For the most part I feel pretty good.  Exhausted and doubtful of whether I'm doing enough and doing it right, but we're having fun. My kiddo is asking to do school work and enjoying most of what we do together. It feels small, these little lessons, for just a few hours one day at a time, but I'm trusting someone much bigger to bring it all together. Today I'm enjoying the kids and this adventure which is even better than I had hoped for.

Something to Say

I've spent the last eight months teaching language arts and creative writing to 7th and 8th grade students. For the record, there's a lot to like about teaching. You have an excuse to buy art and office supplies in bulk, you can justify staying up late to read Hunger Games and Divergent, and when you find yourself saying hashtags out loud you can blame it on spending 8 hours a day with adolescents. #seriously #icantstopsayingthem #pleasehelpme

All in all, though returning to teaching after staying home with the kiddos for three years was HARD, it was GOOD. Not only did so much about being in the classroom change in such a short amount of time, but I quickly realized that all the on the job learning that goes with being a mom had vaporized my professional vocabulary. I could plan a weekly dinner menu on a budget, organize a pink princess birthday extravaganza, and keep up with the laundry, but I couldn't remember the jargon of teaching. I felt like a rookie again. But this rookie was extra lucky (#blessed) because I was returning to teach at my previous school, in a classroom two doors down from what will forever be "my room" and with the support of a staff that I can honestly call my friends. So while I'm deliriously happy that summer break is almost here, it's hard to believe the school year is over. I feel like I'm just starting to figure things out again.

Life at Tuskawilla

As I wrap up this last week of school, I'm already beginning to plan: summer adventures, homeschooling ideas, closets to clean... I know, I dream big. Somewhere among those earthshaking plans is this blog, my tribute to daily life with the Bug and the Bean. You should know up front that I'm a terribly undisciplined writer, highly critical of my own writing abilities, and will probably publish posts littered with typos. (GASP!) I'm not sure yet what I have to say, but I know I have a voice, and even if I just use it to encourage one other mom, then that's good enough for me.