Tag: homeschool

Keeping Busy

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

We have been keeping busy here at our house. Summer is here, but it’s been more rainy and stormy than anything. Which means the garden has taken off, both weeds and plants. I was out weeding yesterday and almost put my hand right where a giant Wolf Spider was hanging out. I HATE spiders. The worst part is that I walked away for a minute, and when I came back, the spider had disappeared. So, now I have a ton more weeding to get done and I know there is a giant spider out there somewhere, but no idea where.

So, needless to say, I really don’t want to go out and get the weeding done. I also desperately need to trim my tomato plants. They have gone completely wild, and I can’t see where anything is. I did get four of them trimmed up the other day, but it took an hour and a half. So, tons more work to do in the garden.

Livestock

This year, our goal was to put a little bit more home-raised meat in the freezer. We hatched out our own chicks for the first time, so we could process a few of the extras and the roosters. I call them our teenage chickens, and unfortunately, we have lost a few. The teenagers are small enough to get out of the chicken pen (I am working on fixing this), and they hang out in the goat pen with the boys instead. Which I didn’t think was a big deal. They are still behind fencing, they sleep in an extra dog igloo, and I thought everything was fine. Until one day, I counted up the teenage chickens, and we were down a few. A week later, we are down a few more. We have been here for a little over a year and have never had a predator problem. However, there is apparently a fox in the area, down further away from us, but I wonder if it hasn’t made its way up to our property. I still don’t see how, again, they are in fencing and with male goats, I wouldn’t think that would be something they were interested in messing with, but goats aren’t known for their protection abilities. There have been absolutely no signs of anything, no struggle, no feathers, just missing chickens. We do have large birds in the area, so it could maybe be that, but I don’t know. So, the chickens will be locked in the chicken pen as soon as I find where they get out, and hopefully, we don’t lose any more. We have a few extra roosters, so we will at least be able to put a few birds in the freezer.

Last year, we raised two broad-breasted turkeys, one for Thanksgiving, and one we made into ground turkey meat. This year, we wanted to have a bit more turkey meat and brought home five white broad-breasted turkeys. They were the absolute cutest things ever as chicks, but now I am ready for processing day. The adult turkeys STINK. Like all meat turkeys, they eat a ton of food, act like they are always starving, but I don’t remember last year’s smelling this bad. It makes sense, I guess, they eat to grow, so they poop a lot, like a giant chicken, and it’s just gross. Wherever the roost is completely covered and I am ready for them to go bye-bye. Next year, if we raise turkeys again, they will need to be off in their own spot, completely away from everything else. Our plan for the meat, if anyone is curious, is to keep one for Thanksgiving, halve two of them so we can roast a half a turkey instead of a whole chicken, and then grind the other ones into ground meat. I also have a wild turkey in the freezer that we will add in there somewhere.

Our goats have been a bit of a disaster this year. We had our first kidding season and ended up with three beautiful little does. However, we did lose one mama to complications. This made my milk plans sort of go out the door. Our one Nigerian Dwarf that survived only had one kid, and therefore didn’t produce as much milk. It was her first time, and when I put her on the milking stand, she hated it. No matter what I tried, she never really got any better, so I just let her raise her baby and didn’t bother milking her anymore. That left us with our Alpine as the only milker. She is the best goat. She gives us tons of milk, she is easy on the stand, and we love her dearly. However, her milk, no matter what I do, is always goaty. It’s ok if you drink it fresh that day, but if it sits at all it gets a goat flavor to it. So, as much as we love her, having her in milk isn’t all that helpful. I am currently in the process of drying her off and hoping our next round of kidding goes better for milk production.

We did end up putting a little goat meat in the freezer for the first time. We had a wether that ended up being a bit of a nuisance. I have written about him before, he wasn’t fully castrated and still had one testicle. This complicated all of our breeding because I couldn’t put the does in with the buck without having to move them all around to avoid possible breeding by the wrong boy. He was also very loud. Just outside bleating all day for no reason. We are a small property, only three acres, with neighbors on similar three acres, and so we try and be courteous to them with the noise. We processed and put him in the freezer. We have only tried goat meat once, we roasted a leg, and I have to admit it was pretty tasty.

Whats Next?

For the rest of the summer, I will be tackling weeds. They are terrible out here. We are a very windy area, and the weed seeds blow around and take root on any exposed ground. It’s quite frustrating. However, the garden is producing, and soon I will have garden produce to process and put away. I love the feeling of stocking the house with things I grew and preserved.

In about a month, the turkeys will be processed, possibly a duck or two along with them, and we will have home-grown meat in the freezer again. My husband is going on an elk hunt this fall, if he is successful, we will have a ton of meat to put away from that. I also drew a doe tag this year and will hopefully be able to use that to bring even more meat home. I am toying around with the idea of bringing a few sheep onto the farm. I will need to downsize the goat herd first, just for more manageability, but we have a large pasture area that the goats aren’t using well, and I think sheep might be a better option for us as far as being able to raise them on grass and process. We will keep a few goats for milk, but I don’t need as many as I have. Lastly, we are getting ready to start our next homeschool year. My son will be starting his first year of high school, which has me a little stressed out. I struggled a little bit planning the year, because you kind of have to plan it all at the same time to make sure everything is covered. I think I have got it all mostly figured out, but now we have to follow through and track it all. I am excited about it, but also just really careful to make sure everything is covered and done correctly.

I can’t believe summer is sort of ending. Once the school year starts, summer goes by so quickly. Getting things up and running on the farm this year was a challenge, but I think I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. When the garden is harvested and put to bed, the meat is in the freezer, I truly think this year will be called a success. It just takes a while for everything to come together. Not too shabby for the second summer on the farm.

2024-2025 Homeschool Curriculum Picks

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

Here we go again! We are back in the homeschool swing and of course, we changed up a few things again. I wrote a post recently about how we were going to continue to use Acellus Academy for homeschooling, but about 4 days before our school year started I changed my mind. I changed my mind for a few different reasons, the main one being I didn’t like the idea of my kids going to their rooms and sitting on their computers for a few hours and that was the school day. We homeschool so we can do this together, not sit in front of a screen and barely interact. Acellus Academy was what I needed last year. The year was hard and there were a few extended family issues early in the year that were overwhelming, and then we moved. So, for that, I am so thankful I had that option, but I decided not to continue down that road. There were a few other considerations with the curriculum itself mainly because I was not sure how good overall the program was. Most of the programs seemed to work just fine, but we did not care for the writing portion. I had also started looking for Math options that would work better for my daughter, who struggles in math, and that led to me going a whole different route this year. Lastly, I knew that some of the curricula we had chosen and used in the past were great and I wanted to get back to those. I have state-tested my kids twice and they were pretty far ahead in most subjects. Their language skills were always top percentile, so if nothing else I know for a fact what we do for Language Arts is working. All of that together helped me choose this year’s curriculum.

(2024-2025 will be our ninth year of homeschooling and I will have an 8th grader and a 6th grader)

Homeschool Planner

I have not always been great at using my yearly planner. I have homeschooled in three different states and none of them have required that I keep records on hand. I usually keep a homeschool planner for myself, but since it’s not mandated I tend to get a little loose with that planner halfway through the year. I don’t really need it, since we typically have a curriculum where you simply do the next lesson, but I do like to have one. I have tried numerous versions of pen and paper planners over the years, but my favorite has surprisingly been an online planner. So, this year I went ahead and signed back up for the Well Planned Gal’s online homeschool planner. The Well Planned Gal has a great paper and pen planner if that is what you enjoy, but for me, it was too much stuff. I like a plain planner. The online version has a free 30-day trial of the full planner, and if you don’t want that it has a limited free version. I know I like it so I went ahead and signed up for the year subscription. My favorite thing is that I can enter all the lessons/Assignments for the week or month and then print out weekly plans for my kids. I can also print out weekly sheets that tell us everything we did and then put those in a records binder. This is what I did two years ago to make my own records. I will warn you that there is a bit of a learning curve to learn how to assign things well, but it’s worth it. You can also track grades in the program, meal plans, chore charts, and attendance. In fact, it tracks attendance for you as long as you are going in and checking off the daily assignments. For me, this has been the best and most used planner I have tried.

Online Planner- https://shop.wellplannedgal.com/index.php/shop/well-planned-day-online.html

Language Arts

Language Arts was a pretty easy call. As I mentioned my kids have scored high on their language skills so I trust the programs that we have used for years. First and foremost we will be going back to IEW. We used both their Structure and Style and their Fix-it-Grammer programs. Structure and Style is the one thing my kids were not excited about bringing back as the weekly assignments can take a bit of time, but the program is fantastic and we are keeping it. Fix-it-Grammar is also something I have been impressed with for years. They are better at grammar than most adults I know and it doesn’t take very long each day. It’s a simple but very effective program. To round out the Language Arts curriculum we will continue using Wordly Wise for vocabulary, and Spelling Power for spelling. I will be putting an emphasis on read-alouds this year as that was something we let go of for a time last school year, and they, of course, have their own daily individual reading.

IEW- https://iew.com

Wordly Wise- https://www.rainbowresource.com/wordly-wise-3000-all-editions

Spelling Power- https://www.rainbowresource.com/002784.html

Math

Math has been a bit of a tough spot for us for a few years. For most of our homeschool time, we have used Math-U-See. It works great, I have nothing bad to say, but my daughter in particular struggles with math. Some of it is that she hates Math and therefore doesn’t try hard, but some of it is that she needs it explained in different ways. Because it’s difficult for her I have also tried a few online programs. We used Teaching Textbooks, CTC Math, and then Acellus Math. They all work about the same. My son doesn’t struggle with math as much, but he also hasn’t been thrilled with a math program yet. I happened to watch a YouTube video about a week ago talking about Dension Algebra and it sounded wonderful so I ordered it. The thing that really caught my attention is that there is a solutions binder as well as a video for each and every problem he will have. One of his biggest complaints last year was that he would be taught a concept and then have problems that didn’t necessarily line up exactly with that concept. Math is not my strong suit and there were a few times that even I couldn’t help him after watching the instruction video. So, if he gets stuck at all this year there will be a step-by-step how-to for that problem. I also prefer paper and pencil math. He would try to do the online problems in his head instead of using scratch paper and sometimes that would cause him to get a problem wrong that he shouldn’t have. Dension Algebra has instruction videos for each lesson and then solution videos for each problem. This I think is the best compromise for math. It’s still being taught by a math teacher, someone who really understands the concepts, but he has to work the problems out on paper, and if he gets stuck there are numerous help options available to us both. Denison Algebra however only starts at Pre-Algrebra or around eighth grade. Therefore, we cannot do Denison Algebra with my daughter. For her, I decided that we should try something a little different. I have always had them in the same math program but at different levels and I realized that homeschooling is about finding what works for each child. She obviously needs something different. After looking around we decided to try Math Mammoth and if needed/wanted we will add Beast Academy. I have often put a lot of pressure on myself as a homeschool mom, that my kids have to be above average in every single subject. Now, I am starting to look at this like not every child excels in every subject and we do our best to get those children where they need to be. I graduated from public school and barely passed math. I can’t get frustrated with my very artistic child when she doesn’t naturally take to math. My goal for her now is to take it slow, make sure she understands the concepts before moving on, and get her through math.

Denison Algebra- https://www.denisonalgebra.com

Math Mammoth- https://www.mathmammoth.com

Beast Academy- https://beastacademy.com/

Science/History

I am still struggling with both these subjects. I know what I want to do, but I have not found the curriculum. For science, I want to split my kids this year. We have always had them in the same science as a group subject, but they have such different interests and I want my son to be able to get his work done without waiting on his sister. If you haven’t guessed by now I have one child who buckles down and gets his work done, and one who can’t sit still. My son is very science-brained while my daughter is very much an artistic brain. It makes doing everything together a bit of a challenge especially as they get older.

For my son, I am looking for a space-related science program. Even some sort of astronomy unit study. The problem I am facing is that there isn’t really anything geared toward his age/understanding. There are tons of space units for younger children or ones that have basic space facts. He knows more about space than I could ever hope to. We have taken him and let him talk to scientists and they are always amazed at his understanding of space and what he talks about. So, I need something more challenging but also I don’t know that he is ready for something like a high school level course. He also wants to know things about black holes, or other topics that there simply isn’t as much information on as the planets for example. I did order him a few textbook-type books from BookOutlet and I may have him read those and report back to me. I think this is very much going to be a piece-and-go year for us and science. I will have him watch any documentary I can find, use NASA’s, and anything else that comes our way. I am still hopeful that I will find a good program for him soon, but he will learn either way.

For my daughter, she is very into animals, so I am looking for a Biology unit for her. She doesn’t want to do human biology, only animal biology. Again, the problem we face is that we have studied biology and she knows quite a bit. I would love to find something that dives a little deeper into things. For her, I am leaning more toward unit studies so she can study a topic in-depth and then move on to a new one. I will find something this week and print it off for next week. I am not too worried about timing since we take the first couple of weeks pretty slowly anyway.

For History, I am planning on studying American History as a group subject. I am splitting them for science but I think History is still something we can do together. I had a plan to use these great American History books we’ve had for years, but I can’t find them. We moved and I thought they moved with us, but I have no idea where they ended up. It was actually stuff we got from BookShark years ago that we haven’t used yet. If I can’t find them soon I will have to find another avenue to go down. I have looked into programs like the Tuttle Twins, Notgrass History, and what we have used in the past Story of the World but I am not sure what direction we will take yet. Again this is a subject that I wasn’t planning on adding until week two or three so I have a bit of time. We also have been homeschooling for quite a while, so we have all kinds of books and encyclopedias to get us started while we wait.

Reading

I always have a giant list of books I want everyone to read in my head. Don’t all homeschool moms? Last year I more or less let them pick the books they wanted to read and then asked them to read 20-30 mins a day. This ended up not being enough. My daughter also started a ton of books but didn’t finish very many. With everything that happened last year personally, It wasn’t something I really fought. This year however we are going to fix that. I plan on assigning them one book a month and then letting them pick one. For our first set of books I simply took the number of pages, decided if I wanted them to take one or two weeks to read it, divided the pages by the days I wanted it done in, and then assigned them the reading. I haven’t made the list for our entire year but I have quite a few picked out……….

Read Aloud– Howl’s Moving Castle, Wild Robot Series, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, The War that Saved My Life, The Trumpet of the Swan, and a few more yet to be decided.

Son– Glitch, Artemis Fowl, Green Ember, FableHaven, Northwind, Stowaway, Last Day on Mars, and others

Daughter– Stuart Little, Sweet Home Alaska, Caddie Woodlawn, The Penderwicks, Princess Academy, Aggie Morton, and others

I like to leave room to change my mind as I find new books all the time, but also have a plan for quite a few required readings for the year. There are always so many amazing books out there that it’s hard to choose a few for the school year.

Final Thoughts

As always I am very hopeful that the choices we made for the year are good ones. Other than that I know that our attitudes will be the make-or-break aspect of our entire year. I am trying to let go of the pressure to be perfect and instead enjoy this time that I have been given.

Homeschool Planning: It’s that time of year again

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

As the summer heat increases and the garden starts to grow, it’s time to move on to the next challenge of the year, planning the homeschool year. I feel like our summer break has flown by and we didn’t do any sort of school this summer at all. We didn’t even manage to get any reading done. The farm has kept us busy enough each day. However, at the beginning of the month all that will change. Due to the schedule we would like to keep we will be starting school in about two weeks. That doesn’t give me a whole lot of time to prepare, but after seven years of doing this, I don’t need a ton of time to plan. We also made some changes last year that are going to make this school pretty easy for me to get laid out.

Curriculum Options

Last year, mid-school year, we made a big change to what we were doing. My daughter was fighting me every day on Math and we could not get past it and get all of our other school work done. It really was beginning to throw our entire school year off. Not only for her, but also for my son since we do group subjects, and I was stuck trying to get her to finish her math. I was exhausted, mostly mentally, and I knew we couldn’t keep doing things the same way anymore. So, we made a big change. We switched fully to an online school option. In December of last year, we switched to Acellus Academy and its online homeschool program.

For our family and where we were last year Acellus worked very well for us with one major issue. You can start Acellus at any time during the year, but it will start you back at the beginning of the school year regardless of how far along you are. I didn’t love this, but I also knew it wouldn’t hurt my daughter to go back and get refreshed on some of her math skills. With Acellus my kids were able to do most of their school by themselves and finish within a couple of hours each day. It was significantly less frustrating than what we were doing previously. However, since they had to start over again we did not fully finish the school year, but came close. I haven’t checked because our account is currently paused, but I am assuming Acellus will have us finish up that school year before we move on to the next. This is fine with me and we should be able to get caught up without too much extra time during the school day.

As of right now, I do plan to continue with Acellus for the time being. I have looked into other programs such as Shoreman Math and other online math/science options, but for now, Acellus is what we will use. We were a little disappointed in the writing curriculum last year, so we will be adding IEW back in as a supplement and for a handwriting option, but that’s about it. As always the plan could change at any moment but this is our current plan.

They will also be required to read each day on top of the Acellus reading, and I would love to be able to fit read-aloud back in. That was also something that sort of got dropped last year. With Acellus the kids would get up, eat breakfast, and start school. It ended up taking away from our read-aloud time, but I am going to concentrate on getting that brought back into our day somewhere. Maybe during lunch break, or in the evening but it is something that I believe in and will be getting it going again. I am currently working on my list of books I would like to assign to each kid and add to our read-aloud list. The hardest part is there are so many great books and I can’t choose them all.

Final Thoughts

Sometimes what you picture and how things actually work out are not the same. I have always pictured a relaxed homeschool day where the kids and I hang out and learn together. We have managed to do that pretty well for the most part, but last year did not go that way. When this happens we have to adjust. Acellus has some pros, but it also has cons. Just like anything we do, no one thing is perfect, but more what you make it. Did I feel like a failure? Yes! I still sometimes catch myself comparing our homeschool to what we see online. I wasn’t that homeschool mom who was baking with their kids every day, doing endless science projects, and taking them on a million field trips. I was struggling to make it through the day. So, we let go of what we thought the year was going to look like and moved forward with what needed to happen right then. Guess what? My kids still learned. In fact, they probably learned more since Acellus allowed them to get to all their subjects every day. My daughter still hates math and struggles with it, but she loved her teacher and likes the ability to see exactly what she needs to get done. It worked when I needed something to work. Don’t be afraid to let go of your perfect ideal plans and move forward with what you need. I have high hopes this upcoming school year will be better, as each year I learn more about what they need and what I can give them. Homeschooling is hard, but it’s even harder when your curriculum isn’t working for you. Make the change and choose the pace. It’s worth it.

It’s a hit!

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

We’ve only had the Yoto player for 3 days now, but it’s a hit! My daughter absolutely loves her Yoto player and has barely put it down over the last few days. She has already finished four books and uses the player to fall asleep every night. In fact, the first day she had it, she climbed into bed with me during the afternoon, while I was reading, and fell right asleep listening to a book. She never takes a nap but she was warm and quiet and passed right out.

In addition to playing audiobooks, the Yoto player does have other things it can do. Her favorite is the Yoto daily podcasts. If you do buy a Yoto player they have an app that is pretty cool all by itself. The app is full of extras like podcast options, kids’ music channels, and ways you can customize the player for your child. You can set them alarms, change the light colors on their player, and even play books or sleep sounds from your phone. I still find myself scrolling through the app and finding new things each day. In fact, there are so many options that I would be typing all day to explain them all, so I would highly suggest going to their website and taking a look. I would also suggest the Yoto Club membership. It’s $10 a month and you get two credits to spend on books, but it also gets you free shipping and a 10% discount. I would sign up for the club membership first and then order my Yoto player to get the discount and free shipping.

If you want to order a player but not the membership everyone with a player has a code for 10% off your first purchase over $69.99. Mine is https://prz.io/1dGAgBas0. I do get points to use on their website if you use that code. I do not believe you can stack the 10% code and the Yoto Club membership 10% off. It seems to be one or the other.

As of right now, my daughter says the Yoto player was her favorite Christmas present and she’s thrilled with it. I can’t recommend it enough if you have a child who likes to listen to their own books, music, etc. It’s screen-free so there is no concern with them stumbling upon something they shouldn’t. I love that I don’t have to worry about anything and I feel completely safe letting her have full control over the player and what she listens to on it. It is 100% a hit in our house.

Audio Books and Christmas Presents

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My last post was on our switch to Kindle e-readers and now I want to talk about audiobook options. My daughter is going through a big audiobook phase and wants to have one available at all times. I don’t love having her take my phone constantly, that’s where audible is, so I started looking for other options. One option is the Kindle. You can get audible on a Kindle but I haven’t really loved this as an actual solution. My biggest complaint is the Kindle will only work with Bluetooth headphones. It has a charger port just like my phone, that my phone will take headphones in, but the Kindle won’t. I don’t want everything we listen to to be on Bluetooth, so this ruins the Kindle for me as an audiobook option for her.

A second very simple option and one we use often is a Bluetooth speaker and my phone or computer. This works great and she can take it to her room and listen but again I am not a fan of her having my phone all the time or using it for sleep sounds and my phone dying. I have a friend who got her kids old iPods and using the library to put rented audiobooks on them, but the library is changing formats and that isn’t working for them anymore either.

So, this leads me to her Christmas present and what I hope ends up being the perfect solution for us. I ordered her a Yoto player. https://us.yotoplay.com/. It’s an audio player that has no screen and no access to the internet. You buy the books on yoto cards and they insert into the player and play the book. She wanted the larger one which also works as an alarm clock, plays kid-friendly podcasts, and sleep sounds. I also went ahead and grabbed one for my four-year-old nephew as it’s perfect for little kids as well. It even has an alarm clock mode where the light will stay red until it’s an acceptable time for them to get out of bed. That is something I wanted when my kids were smaller. The Yoto cards do get a little pricey, but they have a Yoto Club membership that will help with the expense. It’s pretty similar to what you would pay for an audible subscription. If you are going to order one go ahead and sign up for the Yoto Club because you get 10% off of your orders and free shipping.

Since this is her Christmas present we haven’t opened it yet and got to play around with it. I can’t say for sure this is going to be what we want it to be, but I am very hopeful this is going to be a good solution. I definitely think it’s worth looking into if you are looking for an internet-free and screen-free option for audiobooks for your kids. I will update here as soon as we have used it a bit.

Kindle E-Reader

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I know, I know! As homeschool moms and book readers, we prefer physical books that we can have on shelves all over the house. Books everywhere! I was the same way. My home library was quite large, and I was proud of all the amazing books I had available for my kids to read. However, we’ve recently made a change that we love and I think it might be worth considering in your own home.

We have switched over to mostly Kindle reading or e-books. I have had a Kindle for years and have switched back and forth between it and physical books many times. Currently, it has become my go-to for one very specific reason. I can adjust the text size on my Kindle. I have had glasses since 9th grade and as I’ve gotten older I have been told I need readers. My eyes are pretty sensitive and I have found myself straining, even with readers, to read the tiny words that some books have. My Kindle has helped this problem so much. It’s super simple to adjust the text size all you do is pinch and move your fingers like you’re zooming in on your phone. My kids tease me about how large my font is, but my eyes are sure thanking me. I also really just enjoy reading on the Kindle. Somehow it makes it feel like the books go faster and I have read so many more books in the past two months than I did the whole previous year because I finally picked my Kindle back up. The Kindle also has a backlight on it and I’ve been getting a good chunk of my reading done at night comfy in bed. I love it and I have now switched my children to a Kindle as well.

Kindle Kids

Back in October when Amazon had its most recent Prime Day I picked up a Kindle kids for my kids to share. When on sale, the Kindle kids is a great option. The Kindle comes with a case and a full year of Kindle kids, which is basically Kindle Unlimited but for children’s books. Both series that we were reading were available on that subscription for free. It has been wonderful. They can take the Kindle in the car, to sports practice, in the bath, to bed, basically anywhere, and read. I have seen them read so much more than when they had to carry a physical book around. Not to mention the ease with which we can get a book. For example, my oldest is currently reading through the Harry Potter series. We own two different copies of this series. One of them is older and the cover was starting to fall apart as he read it, the other is the large illustrated version, which isn’t very easy to carry around and read. We tried borrowing a copy from the library and that also was old and falling apart. So, the Kindle came in, and we downloaded his book, and he was able to read it without worrying about his book falling apart. As soon as he has finished a book the next is readily available to download and read. My younger child was also able to get the Warriors series which our closest library didn’t have in stock and has started reading that. As of now, I have no complaints, except that the kids have only one Kindle to share. So, for Christmas, I bought another and now they will each have one. On top of the kid’s Kindle I also grabbed myself a new one for Christmas. It doesn’t come with a cover or a subscription like the kids ones, but my old Kindle was going on about 8 years old and had a few cracks in the screen. I forced myself to put it under the tree but I can’t wait to open it up and use it.

Decluttering

Another benefit of the Kindle, and the reason I started thinking about them in the first place, is my ability to clear out the house a little. As I mentioned earlier we had quite a large amount of books in our home. I love books and I loved having them on the shelves, but in reality, they were taking up a lot of space. We had books that I bought years ago because I found a good deal and I was really hoping to get to, but they were still sitting on the shelf unread. So, I cleared out a ton of our books. In fact, I did this while I went through a rather large decluttering of the whole house. I kept the books we have read and loved and a few others that I felt were worthy of keeping, but I got rid of probably 80 percent of our physical books. If it gets to a point where I want to read some of the ones we decluttered we have the library or our Kindle subscriptions. Im really happy with the switch we made and the kids seem to love it as well.

Where to get books

If you switch to a Kindle you do not have to buy e-books or a Kindle subscription. If you have a library card you can borrow e-books from the library for free. My library links directly to Amazon and sends them straight to my Kindle. There is also the Libby app, which I don’t have so I can’t say a lot about it, but I’ve heard from tons of people that it’s great. I have recently bought myself a Kindle Unlimited subscription because it went on sale and has quite a few of the books I like to read, but be aware Kindle Unlimited doesn’t always have the most popular books. There is also a website called BookBub that you can tell your preferences to and you get daily emails with deals on e-books from your favorite categories. Most of those are around $2-$3. It’s not quite as fun as getting a box of books in the mail but you can get the book you are waiting on much faster and often times cheaper. I’m sure there are many other options but those are the ones I use.

Lastly, you can get audiobooks on your Kindle. You can listen via Bluetooth from your Kindle, no wired headphones, which I don’t love, but it is an option. The Kindle kids subscription has a few available with it, not really popular ones, but still an option. I will probably keep up with our audible since that’s where the books we want are, but it is another benefit of the Kindle.

Homeschool Classrooms

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Do you need a separate homeschool space to be a successful homeschooler? I have often been guilty of scrolling Instagram or YouTube and getting caught up in the beautiful homeschool spaces. When things get difficult and I’m struggling I tell myself that if only I could have a homeschool classroom it would make everything so much easier. It would to an extent. It would help corral all the school supplies in one room for example. I also think being able to shut the door would keep distractions like the dogs away. However, having a separate space is not even close to being essential to homeschooling well.

Currently, we are homeschooling from our third home since we started, and I have had a different set-up in each house. Most of the time we have used our dining room and table as our homeschool space. Once, I did have an actual homeschool room (still open to the living area) with a desk for the kids and a chalkboard. However, none of these different set-ups have made a bit of difference in our actual ability to do school. In fact, regardless of our set-up we almost always end up schooling from the couch and the kitchen table.

So, what do you actually need to homeschool well? The answer is pretty simple, it’s a parent who is willing to put in the effort. That’s it. There is no need for fancy classrooms, expensive curriculum, or any of the other things you see when you scroll Instagram. All the things that look good in pictures are completely unnecessary for actual schooling. You as the parent will make or break homeschooling all by yourself. Having a separate and beautiful space might be something that brings you joy, but it does not make you a better homeschooler. The attitude of the homeschooling parent is the key to a happy and well-run homeschool. Our entire house and what happens inside of it is all a result of our attitudes and commitments. Are you committed to educating your children? That is the biggest piece of the puzzle. You will make more of an impact than having the perfect home, classroom, curriculum, or anything else we think we need to be successful in educating our children.

Don’t let social media put unnecessary pressure on you or make you think you are less than because you don’t fit a certain aesthetic. The only thing your kids need in their homeschool is you and your willing attitude. A committed homeschool parent with a library card can do a better job than a parent with the best curriculum that isn’t fully engaged. Trust in yourself, you can do it!

Socialization

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The hot-button topic! This is one of the biggest debated aspects of homeschooling. I encourage you today to not worry about it so much. The fact is that homeschooled kids can be, and mostly are just as socialized as their public school peers. In fact, I just dropped my kids off to go hang out with their friends for the afternoon. My two homeschooled children are currently at their friend’s house having a blast.

There are numerous options when it comes to homeschooling and getting your kids introduced to other children. We have homeschooled in three very different states now, and at every one there have been co-ops, homeschool groups, and all kinds of meet-ups for our children to attend. Especially in the younger years finding a group of moms to hang out with is really very easy. If you are looking for local groups facebook is always a great place to start. Here where we are, there are at least three different groups, tons of co-ops, and other speciality groups. Each one of them has a facebook page that will help you get connected.

As my kids have gotten older finding people that we all click with has gotten to be a bit more complicated. This is usually due to lots of younger homeschoolers and not as many older ones. Sometimes, one kid connects but the other one doesn’t. This doesn’t stop anything though because we have found other options that work for us. My kids and I train jiu-jitsu. One of my best friends from the gym is also a homeschool mom. I have found over the last little while that there are multiple homeschool families in our gym and have connected with a few of them. We have park meet-ups, library days, and our kids train together multiple times a week. Finding families with the same interests as you is always a good place to start. On top of that, my daughter is on a swim team. She makes friends wherever she goes. Her best friends however live right down the street. They go to a private school here in town, so we don’t school the same, but as soon as time allows they are here or she is there. My son has a friend who lives one street behind us and another on our road.

Of course, there were times when my kids struggled with friends. Especially after this last move. It takes a while to settle into a new place and get to know people. The kids in the neighborhood weren’t outside much because we moved right before winter. But, life usually works out and once the weather was nice again they made friends in the neighborhood. Over time they got to know their training partners and become friends there. Now, my kids definitely do not suffer from a lack of friends to hang out with. In fact, often times we struggle with having too many options. Between all the local groups there is an option to do something almost every day. We have to pick and choose because at some point we actually do need to get school done.

If worry over socialization is holding you back from homeschooling your kids, I hope this encourages you to do it anyway. It is 100% possible to make mom friends while homeschooling, and to make friends for your kids. Sometimes it takes a little bit of extra effort, but it is worth it and it is possible. Your homeschooled kids can have best friends, sleepovers, and every other normal thing that kids experience. Also, homeschooling is gaining popularity every year. This means more and more options and opportunities for your kids. They will not be missing out because they are homeschooled.

Not How It Was Supposed To Go

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Our first broken bone

Every year I have high hopes for how the school year will start. This year was no different, but of course, things didn’t exactly go to plan. On the Wednesday before school started, we met our homeschool friends at the park for a hang-out day. Everything was going great, the kids were playing, I was talking to my mom friends, and then my son came running up to me holding his arm. He had been on one of those climbing nets and tried to jump down. Unfortunately, his foot caught when he jumped and he fell face-first to the ground and caught himself with his hands. He was in a lot of pain and couldn’t rotate his arm, so we loaded up in the car and headed to the closest Urgent Care. His x-ray confirmed what I already knew, his arm was broken. He had a buckle fracture to be more specific. This was the first broken bone for either of our kids. Luckily he only has to wear a wrist brace and his pain was handled very well with Tylenol and Advil for the first couple of days. Overall he did really well. As soon as he had that hard wrist brace on and his arm was supported the pain was easier to handle. He was able to sleep the first night, which was a concern, and with a little caution, he was able to go back to doing almost everything he normally does. I think he was pretty bummed that it didn’t get him out of school but by the time Monday rolled around he was pretty much back to normal.

Mom’s sick

Our first week of school went pretty well, even though we did end up having a few commitments in the middle of the day. I was pretty pleased with how the kids handled the start of school even though everyone else is still on summer break. It didn’t really change much about their schedule other than going to bed earlier. Our school days, especially the first couple of weeks, are not very long. All things considered the first week was a success. The second week of school is where we went off track again. I woke up Wednesday with a sore throat and went downhill from there. Luckily we take Fridays off now, so Wednesday and Thursday were the only days affected. However, on those two days, they did very little because it hurt to talk. I had a goal this year to make sure we did our read aloud every day, but my throat hurt too bad to get it done this week. Our other subjects like history and science, where I read to the kids, also got put on hold this week. I may have been the only one upset about that! It’s Saturday now and I still feel terrible but I am hopeful it will be better by Monday. This upcoming week will be week #3 and ideally will be more of what our full school day actually looks like. I would really like to be 100% for that. School days are much smoother when mom is healthy.

Life Happens

Sometimes I get really frustrated with the interruptions to our school day and year, but life happens in the middle of homeschooling. As a homeschool mom, I don’t have a substitute I can pull in when I’m sick, or a building to send my kids to so I have the day to get things done. Homeschooling happens right alongside life. Sometimes that’s hard, but mostly it’s wonderful. I never want to forget that what I get to do is a privilege. Not everyone wants to homeschool, but there are some who want to and can’t. We work hard to make this a reality, but I still want to remember I am very lucky to be able to do this. That doesn’t mean homeschooling is always easy. Things sometimes don’t go smoothly or the way we wanted them to and that’s ok. Life doesn’t always go the way we want it to so why would anything else. Despite all this, I am so very happy to have another year to watch my kids grow and learn. Homeschooling allows me to do life right beside them and I wouldn’t change anything about that.

Decisions Have Been Made!

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It’s decision time in our home. I have been putting off a few decisions lately because I was not ready to get back to school. However, the motivation has finally kicked in and I have figured a few things out. First, we will be trying out a four-day school week this year. This is what I wanted to try, but I also asked my kids which option they wanted, and they both agreed the four-day week sounded good. Instead of having weeks off during the school year, we will have every Friday off. We will still take about a week and a half off during Christmas time but that’s about it. Because we have decided on this schedule we will have to start school sooner rather than later. My plan is to school for 45 weeks instead of 36 so that we get all our days in. That means we will be starting school on July 17th and schooling until late May. I do plan to keep track of our days so that if we do something like a field trip on a Friday we can possibly knock off a few days towards the end of the year. Once May hits I want to be done with school. Something about the sun finally coming out after a long winter makes all of us lose our minds and all we want to do is be outside. I am really hoping this schedule works for us this year. I like the idea of it, because this will give me Fridays to grocery shop, put the house back together, and do whatever other tasks get overlooked during the school week. I am sure there are moms out there who can keep it all together during the school week, but I am not one of them. Having Fridays off will give me the chance to get everything back under control.

Final Curriculum Choices

Since the start of the school year is so close now, final decisions also had to be made for curriculum. I knew from the beginning that we had a couple of things from last year that needed to change. For example our Math curriculum. We have used Math-U-See every year except one. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this program, and I love the idea behind it, but it wasn’t working for us anymore. The biggest problem is that my 10-year-old and I can’t do math together. At least not fully. She either wasn’t understanding how I was teaching it or she was being plain stubborn and refusing to even try. Math is the one subject that could derail our entire day. I did not want our homeschool year to be made hard again because of one subject. To help this I started looking for online math programs. My hope is that if someone else is explaining the concepts to her she will listen and understand a little better. I looked at a ton of options before we made a decision. I have never used this program before but I am hopeful that it will be what we need. We are going to be trying CTC Math for this school year. https://www.ctcmath.com/how-it-works/home-school. My husband and I both liked the sample video that was posted and the way the concept was explained. I am also hopeful that this will be good for my 12-year-old as he starts getting into higher math that I can’t help with as much. I was not great at Math in school and we have always known at some point there would need to be a switch to a tutor or some kind of online math program. Outside of math our days go pretty well, so I am hoping this will help our days run as smoothly as possible

The other big change is our Science curriculum. I have talked about this a few times and the fact that we haven’t found a good curriculum yet. We have tried a few different options but I have never been pleased with any of them. I had every intention of going with Noeo Science or Elemental Science this year but changed my mind last minute. I read a bunch of reviews and neither program sounded all that great. I ended up deciding to try out Berean Builders this year. We will be using Science in the Age of Reason https://bereanbuilders.com/ecomm/product-category/elementary/science-in-the-age-of-reason/. While looking for a science curriculum I stumbled upon this awesome resource and we went ahead and ordered the books and experiment supplies from Home Science Tools https://www.homesciencetools.com/. This is a website where you can order experiment kits that go with a few different curriculums, but you can also order difficult-to-find experiment supplies and even dissection kits. It’s a pretty cool resource if you have experiment-loving kids.

As for the rest of our curriculum, most of that is staying the same as it always has. For Language Arts, we will continue to use mostly IEW https://iew.com/. We use their writing program, Fix-it-Grammar, and handwriting. Spelling and Vocabulary are covered by Spelling Power https://www.rainbowresource.com/product/002784/Spelling-Power-5th-Edition-Adams-Gordons.html?, and Wordly Wise https://www.rainbowresource.com/hSearch.jhtm?keyword=Wordly+Wise#keyword=Wordly%20Wise&mpp=24. Then I add in reading and read-alouds to round out Language Arts. For History, we will continue to use Story of the World. https://welltrainedmind.com/c/series/the-story-of-the-world/. This year we will be using the fourth book in the series and adding in other resources as needed. I have a ton of encyclopedias laying around as well as Who Was Books that are always a good add-in. That pretty much covers everything. The only thing I am still deciding on is an Art Curriculum. My daughter loves art so I am still looking for something for her to do. I think I will probably end up using Artistic Pursuits https://artisticpursuits.com/home.

Homeschool Planner

I have also decided to change our homeschool planner. I know I said I wasn’t going to do this because I loved the online one from Well Planned Gal, but I think it might be a little overkill. I am still struggling with this decision but I think I will skip it this year. I can always go back in and re-subscribe if needed. My thought process behind that is that the online planner is great to print out for records, but I don’t really have to keep those. My state does not require it and sometimes I think I am making more work for myself. I like having the records, but no one is ever going to look at them, so do I really need to put in the effort? I did go ahead and custom-create a printed one, also from Well Planned Gal, and then I am working on creating my own. I don’t typically like planners with a ton of extras, so making my own basic one might be a better option. https://wellplannedgal.com/. I do have a bunch of printables available in my teachers pay teachers shop if you have any interest in looking at those https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Phk-Learning, including some planner pages. This year I am trying to make things as easy as possible. There is no need to overcomplicate and make my year harder for no reason.

Final Thoughts

I have never really had a motto for the year before but this year I found one that I am hoping my daughter can use.

Attitude over Aptitude will determine your Altitude

We had quite a few struggles last year with our attitude. I really want to work with her this time to understand that a good attitude will get you further than almost anything. It will also make the school day go by faster. I am hopeful that the changes we have made will make this year run smoother and that our Friday breaks will give us something to work towards. Ready or not, school starts in about a week and a half.