The Young Family Farm »

Just wanted to report and document our FIRST day of homeschool! I didn’t sleep a WINK Sunday night…tossing and turning…wondering if THIS was the best thing for our kids this year. EVERY year, we always reevaluate–and beyond a shadow of a doubt Rico Suave and I felt the Lord leading us to homeschool our children. As he traveled to meet different clients during our time of praying about this last winter and spring, it was quite amusing how almost every dinner and meeting he had with clients–the subject was brought up by HIS clients and how their families were homeschooling and how AMAZING it was. So, Rico Suave was on board long before Mama Young. But I’m there now–and this week marked the first day of what we have been researching and preparing for months on end!

I have two babies of course that I know will be the most challenging aspect to our learning…BUT they will also be our entertainment and provide us lots of laughter. Because the babies like to sleep in–we decided to rise early…and I woke up the kids around 7:30am when my alarm went off. (LOVE that my kids get to get more sleep…I’m quite the nerd when it comes to education and back in my teaching days I went to a weekend on learning and the brain. Most kids need WAY more sleep than they actually get. SO, I love that they can get more sleep when they need to now! But boy were they ready to get going once they got up!

We’ve been at an AMAZING private Christian school the last two years–but they get to go at their own pace now…and also be challenged at their own pace too. Lou whizzed through K math on day 1–so we’ll probably keep reviewing for a few weeks and move her on up to P’s 1st grade math. As a former teacher, I just love being able to move on to the next thing and really challenge the kids so they don’t get bored. My favorite line of Laney’s on Monday was, “Homeschool is way harder than school mom. My brain hurts.” And then Parker said like any boy would, “But Lane, we get to go get a snack and drink when ever we want!” So funny:)

Here is Loo working hard on math…

I wish I had video of how we start our day! We start with a devotional (Read through the Bible with Betty Lukens felt) and it was SO COOL to start with creation and let them all put the pieces on the board as I tell the story so they are a part of it. Then we will learn a hymn that goes along with our unit. So right now we are learning about creation in science and history–so we are learning St Francis Assisi’s hymn “All Creatures of the God and King”. (I told them a funny story about St Francis Assisi’s love of birds which they thought was pretty funny too!) AND THEN…the babies invaded.

I got the babies engaged in the train table so we could work on history. We introduced history talking about OUR history. We called all the grandparents and great-grandparents the night before to interview them. THEN we made books about our history to document what we learned about their past…essentially OUR HISTORY! (Can I just say I LOOOOVE The Story of our World curriculum already! It ROCKS!) Working on our books…

For those who have already gone to be with Jesus in our history, momma shared about their lives and we talked about what we did know–which led to discuss how we are able to know things about their past (stories passed down from us, letters, pictures, etc) and this is how we know history!!

I *thought* they could complete the entire workbook on everyone in a day–but I forgot it takes little kindergarden hands much longer to write. SO, we’ll complete this throughout the week! MEANWHILE…the babies had crawled upstairs and got VERY quiet. I debated whether to take advantage of the quiet and continue teaching or run upstairs to see WHY the quiet. I ran upstairs…and discovered they had tag-teamed to get the pantry doors opened and gotten out Trader Jo’s JoJo cookies. NICE. (You know they are SO good…they just couldn’t resist…the little stinkers!)

It was definitely time to engage the babies…so it was time for SCIENCE! We introduced our text from Apologia which will cover Astronomy. We talked about what astronomers do–and how astronauts and scientists discover things…so we “became” astronauts for a bit! We turned off all the lights and I opened up the “window” of our spaceship (aka “Solar Walk” app on laptop). The kids WERE amazed!!! They could not BELIEVE the wonders that God created!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE GOD CREATED THIS!? Oh if I could have had this lesson taped for my heart to hear over and over…the talk of what heaven must look like…how BIG God is…how amazing and creative He is.

Our spaceship began to approach Earth, and we identified all the places we knew…and they thought it was really cool how you could even see how it was day in the Americas but night time in China and Africa:)…

THEN…they went to each and every planet, explored space rocks and Oo-ed and Ah-ed over the craters on the moon, the rings rings and the radiance of the sun.

I loved watching their faces…and even Frankie baby participated:)

Love Laney and Parker’s expressions in these…(excuse our darkness…space can be dark!)

LOVED seeing their excitement and JOY of learning!!! We are traveling every day this week in the space rocket I’m sure–they love it! This is a great app for you to have at home if your kiddo is also learning about astronomy!

We did writing, phonics, reading…and we called it a day. AND THAT’S what our days pretty much look like–with Tuesdays being our day for fine arts where we go to classes outside our home. We are going to visit Gigi for lunch tomorrow…and Thursday we have an appointment at an assisted living to meet some of our soon to be VBFFs for the year. We figured we’d share our art and some of our crazy stories with the elderly…and probably learn quite a bit from them while we are at it too!

Sorry I won’t be able to document our daily lessons folks. This momma is doing way to much in our learning day to document it all!!! BUT I’ll definitely share them here and there because I know this year…like the others…I will want to remember forever.

Y’all have a blessed week!

Andrea

Oh my…momma’s heart is beating a little faster and I feel a bit excited and nervous just like I used to back in my teacher days. Monday is our first day of homeschool here, and I truly have no idea what to expect. Everyone tells me your first year is the hardest, but after that you start to see so many of the rewards of teaching your children at home and teaching to their learning styles and at their own pace. I worked with my soon-to-be kindergarden princess some this summer…and looks like she’ll start kindergarden in 1st grade;). (Not really–but she’s pretty stinkin’ close in most areas! I see I’m gonna have to watch out with a few of my cookies–I mean, we don’t want them graduating too early…but then again–if they did we could totally go have a “gap year” in Zambia or Ethiopia or wherever together before too cool college began;) We’re going to do a bit of kindergarden as review for both of my kids–but I think they are pretty much on the same page 1st grade, and we’ll be ready to roll come Monday morning! (Go ahead and pray for my two room helps Isaac and Frank…MWF are going to be nuts. They go to preschool on Tu/Th…so that will help our focus some!)

I have my FIRST day planned all out. I’ve gone back and forth how to schedule our day

…do we do all subjects each day like “normal school”

…or do we take the university approach and do 2 days math/science/mandarin and 2 days english/reading/history (with touches of latin through history too)

…all of our arts on Tuesday (they are privately done through art and music teachers on Tuesdays)

…Bible each day (to start our day)

I’m leaning toward that right now because after planning our English, reading and history lessons–I think we pretty much get in a full day. For those of you who homeschool and have found what works well for your younger kids–please spill the beans and I’d love to hear what you have found works beautifully for your team.

Might I add that I’m stoked–super excited–can’t sleep at night can’t wait and I’m coming up with creative deliveries instead of counting sheep–for the curriculum we chose this year!!! I probably have way TOO MUCH curriculum this year, but being a former teacher I just had way too much fun researching and considering my kiddos’ learning styles and which they’d be most intrigued and challenged by.

I sat for HOURS and HOURS today pouring over books deciding what our first day would look like…and I’m really excited for Monday to get here. We do have a “pre-learning” activity set for tomorrow which involves 8 interviews to conduct of family members. Monday will cover “What is History” (totally digging Story of the World curriculum already!) and we’re making our personal history books before diving into cave man status.

I think I’m going to love knowing exactly what the kids are learning and how we can just talk about it here and there throughout the day. I’m excited about seeing more of their hearts and even more of their flesh…and working through things beautiful and ugly in our hearts together. I can’t wait to spend Tuesdays watching them grow in their music and drama classes…walking the nursing home and assisted living halls of our chosen places to invest our Friday afternoon in together…watching them be uncomfortable and hopefully throughout the year it becoming second nature to run up to people we would normally not have the privilege to know and be friends with. We are doing life different here folks–and to some we might look really weird…but this is where and how we feel called to live right now. Not for the culture or to fit in…but to just do what we feel in our hearts is right day by day. It may lead to crazy field trips, over our head service projects or many days just in our pjs re-doing a chapter we just are struggling to grasp. My main goal this year…is the hearts of my children. And I’m so honored to have the privilege to nurture them a little bit more this year through homeschool.

So stay tuned…to our first day on Monday.

And our first day will be followed by a Wiphan board meeting at our house…so stay tuned for more Wiphan updates too. So excited about the year ahead in SO MANY WAYS!!! I feel like we are really living…and while I will be plum tired at the end of each day I’m sure–I have a feeling I’ll be rocking on the front porch (that we don’t have) when I’m old and grey affirming with Rico Suave that it was all worth it.

Signing off…to go count more lesson plan ideas rather than sheep:)

XOXO,

andrea

P.S. I thought you’d like to know…my laptop broke several months ago, and I finally got a replacement today. High five to Apple–they gave me the teacher/student discount for being a homeschool teacher:). PRETTY SWEET DEAL!!! So thankful!!!