School at Home

People ask me all the time what we do for school. That's a really hard question to answer. Since my oldest is officially starting high school this month I thought I would write a little bit about what our homeschool looks like in this current season.

Hudsyn playing learning games online.

 



Kait has been thinking for a while about what she would like to do when she graduates. Her hearts desire is to eventually get married, and be a hair dresser/cosmetologist (or whatever the proper term would be), have two children, adopt two from Haiti and homeschool. She would like to do hair from home, have the ability to sew, be able to whip up beautiful birthday cakes for her kids and do a little photography on the side. She is well aware that God may have something else in store for her. She has started making some decisions that keep her on that course but also allow her to pursue things that she has long been interested in.

Kait teaching Bell how to make a body scrub.

For this year, in addition to her regular course work she will be:
listening/watching some iTunes U classes on cosmetology
taking sewing lessons
taking cake decorating classes
taking a consumer math course
taking a light business math course
cooking one dinner and one lunch a week from scratch for eight people - for $15 or less,
learning Haitian-creole here www.transparent.com (for an upcoming mission trip she is chomping at the bit to go on)
taking some online photography classes here www.kelbytraining.com (compliments of her Gramps), continuing with piano lessons
making more homemade beauty products and natural remedies, I have never seen one person go through as much organic coconut oil and olive oil as she can but I sure love all the products she makes!
I think her favorite things might be going to youth group and working in the kindergarten class every week though.  She loves God and kids! ;)

To me it seems like an overly full schedule but to her it is a joy, they are the things she is passionate about.

Tristin, Bella and Hudsyn doing math

Bella doing math, the math curriculum we use has a DVD teaching for each lesson. Hudsyn playing a math game on the iPad, or pretending she passed out...I can't tell which. ;)

 



Hudsyn sounding out words on www.starfall.com



School for Tristin, Bella and Hudsyn is much less involved at this point. We do math, phonics, spelling and our gratitude journals every day then Tristin and Bella each read to me for about 10-20 minutes each. I would say on average they spend an hour to an hour and a half on book work (math, phonics, spelling and gratitude journals) and then they are free to play. Usually they choose to build with legos or help me cook, I have two that spend a lot of time outside even in winter. We do lots of science experiments and crafts throughout the week, often they are Kait's pintrest finds, something Tristin saw on Myth Busters. At night I read to the kids, usually an hour and a half or so with Tristin, Bell and Hudsyn (Kait too if she finds her way down to my room) we read living history almost always in the form of a chapter book, living science and geography and then a few chapters in a fiction book. After our last chapter book Bella and Hudsyn lay down and I read for another hour...sometimes two to Tristin.

Our chapter book read alouds are:
The Bible - we have several kid versions that we love and we rotate Bible's each night.
Charlottes Web
Along Came A Dog
The Magic School Bus - The Great Shark Escape
Missionary Stories with the Millers
*While they listen to chapter books they can build with legos, lincoln logs, bristle blocks or color. It helps them stay still, quiet and focus.


Our Non-chapter books that we are working our way through:
Leading Little Ones to God
Usborne book of World History
Usborne book of Living Long Ago
Usborne book of Peoples of the World
Usborne First Encyclopedia of the Human Body
Tut's Mummy - Lost and Found
Dolphins
National Geographic Little kids First Big Book of Animals
James Herriot's Treasury for Children
Shel Silverstein - we rotate our favorite books of his
Calvin and Hobbes Treasury

With the babies during the day I read from our favorite children's books (most of the other kids find themselves listening too).  We count everything we can find that can be counted, point out each and every letter we see, they say them then they tell me the sound each letter makes, we sing songs and draw and build and snuggle. Homeschooling isn't right for every family but it's perfect for ours!