keeping it real

people ask a lot of questions about homeschooling...why do we do it; what do we do; how long are we going to homeschool; how do i like it...the questions go on and on.  soon i am going to write a post about why we are homeschooling, but today i just thought i'd share some pictures of what our days look like.  i also thought i'd just go ahead and get frank with all of you out there and tell it like it is:  it ain't easy to homeschool.  i'm sure everyone has different struggles where homeschooling is concerned, but my struggles are almost all time-related.  for one thing, my kids have a window in which we have to get our schooling done.  what do i mean by that?  i hear so many people say that one of the benefits of homeschooling is that you can get your schooling done around whatever schedule you so please.  not true at my house, people.  by the afternoon, it is very difficult to get my kids to concentrate.  so it is imperative for us to get started early.

another struggle is the time that i have to put in.  i spend a good bit of time preparing lesson plans and laying out their work for the next week.  basically i spend about 4-5 hours at some point in the week preparing for the week ahead.  i know it doesn't sound like a whole lot, but i don't really have a whole lot of time to spare {as you can tell by what i'm doing right now ;)}.  when i talked to people initially about homeschooling my kids, somehow no one ever even mentioned the time i would have to spend in preparation.

kylie's lesson plans are the most difficult, because they are much more detailed with much more paperwork...these are the lesson plans for one whole week

kenzie's lesson plans are much easier but still take a little bit of time to prepare

one of the biggest challenges that i'm facing right now with lesson planning has to do with my curriculum...i use abeka curriculum, which i really do love; however, they are not very creative in their approach.  because of that, weekly i'm having to come up with some creative ideas for both girls.  i have gotten a ton of ideas from this blog, but it is still time consuming to have to print, look up ideas, etc.  i guess a good way to look at it is that it has forced me to be creative in my approach to teaching...

kylie loves play-doh, so for spelling class, this day i gave kylie play-doh and let her spell her words...she liked that!  for a non-creative person, i was proud of myself for coming up with something she enjoyed :)

i also try to be sure that kenzie has things to do {some fun, some more challenging} while i have "teach time" with kylie...

three worksheets i made up for kenzie...the first is a copy from the website i mentioned above {i put the sheets in a page protector and use dry erase markers so that i can reuse them}...the second page is a letter hunt i just made up in microsoft word {we use bingo chips & she "covers" the letter that we are learning for the day}...the third i created in microsoft word...different stories highlighting whatever letter we are learning.  again, i put them in page protectors and she highlights the letters with dry erase markers so that i can reuse the story pages.}

i bought this dry erase booklet at wal-mart...i also bought little tabs to put on all the pages that i want kenzie to work on while i'm teaching kylie

 

another challenge at this point is the lack of a good space to do our schooling in.  we have these nifty desks {which the girls love} that you see in the picture above, but we just have to move them in and out of the den...that's where we do our seatwork.  i teach at our kitchen table, then we move to the den to do our writing work {that way the person doing their seatwork is not being disrupted by my teaching at the table}.  we're just having to make do with what we have right now.

when all is said and done, i love homeschooling.  i know it's what i'm called to do for our kids, and i love the time i get to spend with my kids.  i love that i don't have to be without my kids for eight hours a day.  but it ain't without its challenges.  just trying to keep it real...