Homeschooling My Bunch

I came across a workbook by way of a good friend.  It is a workbook on teaching how to write essays and research reports.  My older two need help in this area so I was searching for a good way to teach them.
This book breaks the process down into small, therefore easier, steps so that the whole' writing an essay' is not so overwhelming.  Take a look at other books from this publisher and see if its what will work for you and yours!

Resurrection Resources Publishing

I am not the worlds best gardener but I try. Hopefully we will learn something new this year as the children and I plant again.

We had a tiny garden last year, simply because I didn't know what I was doing.  This year I have decide to give it another try.  We are adding more plants and an herb garden too.  Before I only grew tomatoes green bean and cucumbers, but we have a lot more planned for this spring.

Part of the kids school work is to research their assigned fruit or veggie and find out what they will need for it to thrive. We have to work on the soil a bit right now to get it ready for planting.  My son Alex is getting excited about using his new tools to build a trellis for his cucumbers and choosing a ground cover plant to act as a living fertilizer. The girls are going to plant a three sisters garden, they thought it was cute for the three sisters to plant a three sisters garden.  The three sisters are corn beans and squash grow together so each plant helps out the other.The corn provides a living trellis for out the beans and the squash cover and protect the soil.

They are working away in their journals writing down important information for their crop.  They will continue to journal throughout the season about how things are growing, bugs, diseases, and a few sketches of how the flowers look...just whatever they see.

With them working on their assigned plants it gives me the chance to concentrate on giant tomatoes.  I have been studying and researching and Elijah(my 3 year old) and I will have the biggest tastiest tomatoes ever!...at least we hope so. =)

Still the same school year for us.  Especially since we school year round.  We school all year and even on holidays.  What is the point of taking a break if you don't have anything else planned?  Bored kids can lead to bad kids if you're not careful.

But this is a semester change, of sorts, for us.  A time where I take a look at the scheduled goals and see how we are progressing.  This year we are doing good in some areas and terrible in others...isn't that how it always goes when dealing with anything that involves children.  I call it learning from your failures, that sounds much less depressing.

For the past two years I have been slowly weaning myself from my addiction to what I call 'total package' curriculum. They may work for some but so many of them out there are not really designed for homeschooling like they claim. Most of them were either too much or not enough! What is the point of slapping down a big hunk of cash for something that will only get half used?

I did do some searching and a little praying about it and thankfully found quite a few books and curricula that are truly homeschool friendly.  But then I came across a new problem...wanting to do them all!!  A little bit from this book an idea or two from that one and before I knew it we were getting a whole lot of nothing accomplished, the kids were confused and I felt drained and overwhelmed.  Not good.  We all fell into the "i don't feel like doing anything" ditch.

So I put it all on the shelf and did some much needed praying and seeking Gods help (hmm should have consulted Him first) on designing their education plan the way He would see fit.   Not based on me nor the next great homeschooling book or idea.  Just God.

So now I have scaled down all the by the book stuff even more and added fun yet practical ways of teaching the kids.  One of the things we hope to do is start making candles.  That should be an interesting adventure for them.  And for our garden this year I am 'assigning' each child one or two vegetables to be responsible for.  My girls are oing to help me in the card making ministry for our church. They love making cards and they are excited about the fact that they will go to church members, visitors and even missionaries. What about schooling you say?...That is part of schooling.....homeschooling. :)

Giving this homeschool blog another try. I had one before on blogger and canceled it.  I hope to keep up with it a little better this time.  Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek.  I'm still working on it, so come again.