Homeschooling Stuff

Good Wednesday morning everyone!

The other day I was thinking about by blog and wondering if I had ever posted anything at all about homeschooling. You know this is a blog about the real life of a home school mom. And I realized that there isn't much on here about actually homeschooling!
So I thought I would share a little about that today.

Jacob is in the 3rd grade and we use ACE-School of Tomorrow. We LOVE this curriculum! I need something that is laid out for me and I have no guess work with it. I know that if Jacob is learning the material and passing his tests that he is learning what he needs to. That is better for me so that I am not continually second guessing myself. And it is christian based so I like the behaviour stuff he is learning also. It touches on how to treat others and he has to learn scripture.

Amber will be turning 4 next week so we will not be doing any "real" school for her until the 2009-2010 school year. And when I say "real" I mean curriculum. Because we are teaching our children everyday. We could be teaching them to count to 10 or to love each other or we could be teaching them to talk bad about other people! We are watched each and every day by our children. When we are responding right to things or when we are not responding right to things. (that is a hard one for me!) So take advantage of those teachable moments. We don't have to have a pencil and paper in hand to be teaching our children. It could be on a nature walk to teach Science. Or a fishing trip or a trip to the zoo. We are required to do 180 days of "school" in Tennessee, when in reality we school all year round. Our children should learn something new each and every day!

I like the fact that I have an older child now because I think it will be easier to teach Amber and Nathan. It was a real struggle teaching Jacob in the beginning. I was new to it and he didn't have an older sibling to help teach him things. But with the 2 younger ones it is different. Jacob reads to Amber and teaches her stuff all the time just in playing! I guess with him being closer to her level he has more of an understanding of how to explain things to where she will get it. And I will be more laid back when "real" school time comes around for Amber and Nate so I am sure it will flow easier.

There is a run down of our home school life. Hope you enjoyed!

So my words of wisdom for today are:
If there is a moment that you know you have done something wrong and your children have seen or heard it, tell them that you were wrong. Apologize to them and let it be a moment that you teach them that it is OK to admit you were wrong. There will be moments in their lives that they will have to admit that and if we teach them this now it won't be so hard to do when they are adults.