Midwest Homeschool Convention

On April 9th through the 11th, we attended the Midwest Homeschool Convention (Great Homeschool Conventions) in Cincinnati, OH. Here are all 3 kids in our hotel room. It was very bright out so the pic is not the best. We were on the 21st floor!

Friday was David's 12th Birthday! Here he is on his birthday taking a break from hanging out with the new friends he made during the convention.

Jessica loved the musical instruments. She really wants to play the Cello...

...then maybe the harpsichord!

David's Birthday finished with a Bob Smiley concert! David got to sit & talk with Bob before the concert!

Jamie got her picture with Bob also before the concert.

Jessica had to wait until afterwards to get her picture with Bob!

On Saturday, Jessica was able to get her picture with Mr. Steve Demme, her math teacher! She made his day by thanking him for teaching her & giving him a big hug & a big smile!

No homeschool convention is complete without visiting lots of vender booths & spending lots of money on curriculum for the next school year!

We bought 8" x 11" whiteboards & dry erase markers to do school work on.

We bought 2 movies from the Henline homeschool family along with study guide for 1 of the movies.

We also got a DVDS with a bunch of free educational videos & a Bob Smiley DVD!

David just had to have this book & study guide written by a retired Navy JAG officer! He also got to meet Mr. Brown & have him sign the book.

This is a new motivational tool we got. It's a game that the kids will earn points to play daily by doing chores or meeting character improvement goals. It also came with a cool book about Africa.

Jessica is fascinated by animal so she is going to be doing a Zoology course this year.

David's spelling for next year. We already have Jessica's.

We love our workbooks from The Critical Thinking Company!

Each of the kids got a beautiful journal from the Mardel Homeschool booth.

This book caught Jessica's eye early in the convention. She fell in love with it & with Ms. Turk who signed the book for her.

This is a writing curriculum from Jr. High & high school that we are planning to buy this summer. David will be writing a bunch of shorter articles & make his own magazine. Jamie will be writing her own Adventure Novel over the year! Both seem like a perfect fit!

David's new science course will be shipped in a few weeks. It is a bunch of hands on Physical Science projects. He is so excited to start this!

2 of our Critical Thinking Company books were sold out & will be shipped to us.

Jamie's Chemisty DVD course was also sold out & will arrive soon. If it's anything like the Biology course she's doing now, it is going to be fun!

We also ordered Jamie's complete math program for next year, Algebra 2.

And the student pack for David. We already have Jessica's next math book.

The last thing we bought is probably my favorite. It is a handheld USB microscope that we hook to the computer. It has a 10x to 200x magnification. It came with 2 computer programs & 2 teacher resource pack DVDs. It also has a carrying case, 2 stands, several specimen bottles & a bag of neat specimens! We can't wait to start experimenting & exploring things!

Overall we had a great convention. We got to see a few old friends, hear some good speakers, spend an evening laughing together as a family & get curriculum for next school year.

 

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Planning for school

Since we are back to school, I thought I would share with you how I plan for school. When I get a new curriculum, I log every lesson into a spreadsheet. Each book/subject gets it's own page. Then as I start to plan for the year, I make a new spreadsheet for the school year. Then I copy each subject I plan to use for the year into it.

This year, Hubby had me put all the info into one big sheet. You can see part of that sheet above.

He imported it into OpenOffice's dBase program. He set it all up into a table called Lessons.

I can go into the table and change the week number if we get behind & don't get a certain lesson done.

He then set up a couple reports for me. The supplies report is supposed to print out any supplies we need for the week, but it it's not working quite right yet.

When I click on the Lessons report, it asks me what week I want. We are on week 4 so I enter "4".

It then pulls up all entries for week 4 by student! It page breaks at the end of each students work. I now have 2-3 pages for each student once I print them out.

I then have 4 binders. In 1, I put a copy of all 3 kids printouts. Then I set up the other 3 for each kid.

Each Monday (or Sunday if I'm actually organized) I print out the assignments. In the front I put the week's assignments for that kid. Then I have a tab for each subject. All printouts for that subject go behind the tab.

Now I just sit back & let the kids take over. They decide what they tackle when. I'm there to help & guide, but I'm letting them be more "in charge" of their schooling. They just have to get their school work done by Friday night. So far, they've been done with almost everything by Thursday afternoon! But then we are only on week 4 of school.

So that's how I planned for this year. Thanks to Hubby, printing the weekly lesson plans is way easier than the way I used to do it (cut & paste cells then print!)!

How do you plan? I'd love to hear from you!

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Homeschool confessions

I've been reading blogs from many of my friends & other homeschoolers on how wonderful their school year has started & how it's going. So I need to share how ours is going for those of you who are having a rough start of it. Here are my confessions about this year:

1. School is off to a rough start. We started in July, but have only been doing Bible, math, reading & grammar. Little history & no science.
2. We've been doing at most 4 days of schoolwork a week, with less some weeks.
3. Recently I've had moments where I've felt like I'm failing my kids as 1 struggles with personal interaction skills, 1 struggles with math & 1 with reading.
4. I honestly am struggling with teaching certain things because I see no reason to except that they are traditionally taught to students. I mean, I don't write research papers, I don't remember any history facts I was taught, I don't handwrite much of anything & I don't use periodic tables or high level math.(If my grammar is atrocious, I apologize.)
5. I'm finding more value in teaching my kids God's Word, reading, basic math, household chores & how to explore things & places.

Why? Why am I struggling? Why is this year different? A big part of it is because I'm going through some health issues. When you have little energy, you focus on the important stuff only.

Deep down I know it will work out alright. We have to do what we have to do. But I feel like my kids are suffering. It has to be hard on them not knowing what is going on with my health & having to do more housework, make their own meals some days & having to help me. Also having Daddy gone during the week has got to be hard on them. Although by now, they have to be used to it.

I feel a little bad not being consistent with school but I know they are smart & will catch up quickly when I get better. I keep thinking about how just 120-150 years ago schooling was different. Basic reading & writing were taught along with God's Word. The rest of a child's time consisted of chores & playing/exploring. Maybe that wasn't so bad...

 

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The Insecurity Trap!

I've been thinking a lot lately about insecurity. Why? Because so many of us moms are insecure. Add homeschooling to the mix and our insecurity rises. This insecurity can manifest itself in a few different ways.

Insecurity can make us self-condemning. We feel like we can do nothing right & everything we do is a failure leading us to think our kids will be failures. Insecurity can make us compare ourselves to everyone else. If we aren't doing it exactly like the speakers at convention or the other families in our church then we must be doing wrong. Insecurity causes us to create some ideal, perfect homeschoolers which immediately sets us up for failure. Perhaps one of the worst things insecurity does to us is make us judgemental & defensive. We start judging others who do things differently than us and get defensive about the things we do. We then start attacking other moms instead of building each other up.

It always amazing to me the varied reactions I get from other moms when I say I homeschool. Many of these are rooted in insecurity. The reactions from those who don't homeschool are that they start tearing me down for homeschooling, they try to convince me homeschooling is the wrong choice for me or they start launching into a litany of excuses for why they don't or can't homeschool. Homeschool moms are not much better. Our responses include defending the method of homeschooling we use, attacking each others' methods or comparing methods to deflate themselves or the other mom.

How refreshing it is when I meet those rare women who are secure in who they are. I walk away encouraged & uplifted! I want to be one of those moms! I've made great strides in this area, but still slide back into the insecurity track when around others who are insecure.

So, how do we move past being insecure? Here are the steps I took. I do have to warn you that it's not easy. Many of us have been stuck in the insecurity trap for years. And for some of us, it's been passed down to us from our moms & grandmas!

1. Confess you are insecure! - Tell God you are tired of being insecure & ask Him to change you & your thinking. (Romans 12:2) It also helps to tell a close friend or accountability partner that you are struggling with insecurity.

2. Find out who you are in Christ! - When you study God's Word to find out what He thinks about you & how He feels about you, it changes how you feel about yourself. Go through the Bible and write down every verse you can find on this topic. Here are a few to get you started: Psalm 139, Deuteronomy 7:6, Revelation 4:11 and Ephesians 1:3-7. Put these verses somewhere that you will see. Better yet, start memorizing some of them.

3. Pray! - ask God to show you who you are in Him, what His plans are for you & your children and how you are to fulfill these plans. If we seek God, He will lay on our hearts what His will is for us. Then He will confirm it through His Word and through the advice of others.

4. Proceed with Confidence! - When we know who we are in Christ & the path He has laid before us, we can proceed with confidence, not in ourselves, but in Christ. We can put in place the education plan right for our family, for this time.

5. Realize that your plan is just that, your plan! - It is not your neighbors plan, it is not your friend's plan! God gives us each a plan (Jeremiah 29:11). Each of our plans are as unique as we are. It's ok to do things differently than others. And it's ok that other people do things differently than you! And remember, this plan is for this time in your life. Your plan will change with each season of your life.

6. Encourage others! - This last step is one of the most important. We need to encourage others to seek God's plan for their family. Help them to be secure in the plan God has for them, whether it be homeschool, private school, public school or unschool. Don't belittle their choices! Don't tear them down! Don't try to compete with them. Love them!! Encourage them. Remember that this is not a competition against each other. We are on the same team! We are in the same family!!

Insecurity is a trap! It's Satan's way of defeating us, tearing God's family apart & destroying friendships. We need to seek God & ask Him to lift us out of this trap. It's an ongoing process. It takes constant prayer & hard work on our parts not to slide back into old habits. I'm finding that the more I trust God & remind myself of how God sees me, the more secure I am in who God made me to be. Insecurity then loses its grip on me! It is so freeing! I am free to be me & to encourage those around me to be themselves.