Motivation and Encouragement for moms! Social hour!

It is truly amazing and interesting how much my social life has turned around in the past year, or two.  I will share with you how I reached out and found friends who like me for me. 

I will share with you where and how I get my encouragement.

Finally I will share with you where I get my motivation from. 

Just having friends can make a huge difference in my frame of mind.  3 1/2 years ago I moved to a small town where I knew literally no one.   I joined a local homeschool group on yahoo. Which I quickly found out was very slow.  No one really got together.  Then I decided to jump out of my comfort zone and plan a Valentine’s Day Party. It was a huge hit.  Things were still slow on the Yahoo group and then someone created a group on Facebook and it just exploded. 

The year I held the Valentines party at my house we had 5 families.  The next year we had 60.  This past year we had 120.  As of now our local Facebook group as reached over 200 families.  They are screened that they have to live local and be homeschooling or looking into homeschooling. 

This group, I call a co-op is really a commonwealth of parents.  It works for us.  It has gotten so big now that classes fill up super fast and some moms have chosen to start smaller co-ops within the commonwealth.  This group is usually just used for homeschooling teaching and questions.

I also am a moderator of my local moms group on Facebook.  This group is a lot more strict.  We have a code of conduct, an application process, participation requirements and more.  We have activities weekly.  This group does things like park days, freezer meal swaps, craft days, moms night out and more.

I am also a part of some online groups.  The biggest and best one in my opinion is The Schoolhouse Review Crew.  Along with the review items we get, we are part of an amazing forum and it keeps me blogging.  I am part of some smaller homeschool and homemaking pages as well.  I read blogs because I feel like I can relate and it makes me feel social.  

I am a member of a local Teaching Self Government Circle.  This is a very small group of us (10).  We meet monthly for this. This is great and probably my favorite one.

I have actually been so busy with my kids and these social things that I have had to cut back on some social offerings in order to be a mom and homeschooler.

How do you meet friends as a homeschooling parent?

Check out some of my awesome bloggy friends, who are also blogging in the Back to Homeschool Hop!

 

Laura @ My (re)Viewpoint
Anne @ Upstate Ramblings
Julie @ Nurturing Learning

Breaking the school year into bite size chunks – Lesson Planning

Lesson Planning has been fully underway for me.  I do feel like some changes had to be made this year.  We had lesson plans and all last year, but there was too much flexibility in them and we took advantage of more opportunities than we should have.  Not that the opportunities weren’t great, some of them were even necessary.  It’s more along the lines of we did way to much. I realize that spontaneity is in my families nature, and we love to travel.  So I needed lesson plans that were realistic and flexible. Here is what I have come up with.

I began by choosing our curriculum. Then I am planning it out in chunks, or blocks. I have been using the Hey Mama Planner from The Old Schoolhouse. They are supposed to average about 6 weeks.  However after looking at our calendar and some travel plans I decided to work those in to our schooling.  We have some 5 week blocks and some 6 week blocks.  After every block we get anywhere from 3-5 days without plans.  The kids can use that time to catch up if needed.  They can also just take a break, or dive into a subject they want. They may need this time to finish up work missed due to a family event that we chose to do.

Our first block is planned out and looks like this:

I also did our plans weekly within our block.  That way the kids know what they have to accomplish in a weeks time.  Last year I gave them to much freedom and we got off track so that when the end of the year came we had to work hard, too hard really to get where I wanted us to be.  We never did make it as far as my original goal.  That is life. 

So instead of taking a full summer we will take a shorter summer with these breaks built in. This has made lesson planning less intense, it opens up opportunities for change as needed.  It gives us a little break when we need it for trips, like weddings, seeing out of town family, and traveling in the off season!

This is making so much sense in my head that I really believe it will work better for us. 

Check out some of my awesome bloggy friends, who are also blogging in the Back to Homeschool Hop!

 

Laura @ My (re)Viewpoint
Anne @ Upstate Ramblings
Julie @ Nurturing Learning

Wow! - is it really that time. Burnout from last year and changes we are going to make. Curriculum

 

Last year was rough on me. Along with life’s regular hiccups, I ended up working almost full time for a few months, and then cut back to part time.  My brother moved in with us.  My husband switched jobs.  We had to find a new normal, and every time I thought we had it, we didn’t. 

We are in a good groove now and I hope we can keep it up! I have faith!

This year I have made my curriculum choices based on what has worked for us in years past.  My older kids do really well when they have independent work that is different from each other.  I do better when they have curriculum that is the same.  I am attempting to fix it by meeting in the middle.  They will both be doing Lightning Literature, but I will have Tommy through about 1 month worth of it before I start Emily in it.  Science, they will still just work out of the same book to make labs more interactive and fun.

Their personal finance class will be done together through our co-op.  The Promises of the Constitution will be done together as a family.

We are changing up our schedule this year.  In years past we work independently in the morning.  Things we did as a family, read alouds, character lessons, discussions, etc, were all done after lunch.  This caused this to get pushed to the wayside often, as the kids wouldn’t be done with their independent work, or I would have an errand to run, or my husband would come home and interrupt our schedule. 
This year we will meet at 10-11 every morning, except Wed. (Co-op Days).  We will do family school first and then they can do their independent work around that schedule.  I will also be starting my youngest in 5K.  He will need me with him for about 1 hour a day.  I plan to devote about 1 hour to each child per day.  Some of the kids will get the hour in chunks throughout the day.  Not that I am limiting the time to an hour, just that I am devoting at least one hour.

To see an entire list of my curriculum for this year, check out this post!

The crew is blogging about this same subject!

I’m not the only one blogging about this!  Check out some of my awesome bloggy friends.

 

Laura @ My (re)Viewpoint
Anne @ Upstate Ramblings
Julie @ Nurturing Learning

Coming Soon! Back to Homeschool Blog Hop!

My week of blogging will look like this:

Monday- Wow! - is it really that time.  Burnout from last year and changes we are going to make. Curriculum

Tuesday- Breaking the school year into bite size chunks – lesson planning

Wednesday- Motivation and Encouragement for moms! Social hour!

Thursday- My sanity saver tips.  White board calendars- Menu planning- check lists- schedules- routines

Friday- Starting with a bang – First day traditions. 

Many of my crew friends are blogging about this topic too.

Check out some of my awesome bloggy friends and what they have to say.

 

Laura @ My (re)Viewpoint
Anne @ Upstate Ramblings
Julie @ Nurturing Learning

Update~ Where is my blog headed? Where is my life headed?

 

WOW!  I have done so much self discovery over the past little while and I am so excited for what is in store for us.

I am going to change the feeling of my blog.  I am going to post some real life in the action posts.  I will share with you the truths about our homeschool.  You will see up close and personal the challenges we face.  I am not going to keep the rose colored glasses on any longer. 

I am going to tell you about the bad days, the bad weeks, even the bad years! Don’t you worry, I am also going to tell you the good, the great, the fantastic.

Over the next week, (or possibly few) I am going to reintroduce my family to you. I am going to also start posting some weekly updates of our life.  Including the weeks where we barely get any schoolwork done. 

 

I am feeling fresh and revitalized.

I can’t wait!  I hope you are excited as well.

 

Curriculum Choices! 10th, 8th, 4th and 5K

 

The time is upon us that we will be starting our new school year.  I am NOT ready, not at all!

I just sat down on Wednesday and wrote out a list of what I think we will use.  Since I am not 100% decided on everything I will share with you the options I am looking at for each child.

10th grade

Lightning Literature 8th grade.  (I know he is in 10th grade, but this is the level he is comfortable working in.) See our review here.

Bridgeway Writing (He finished the grammar version of this last year. See our review here.

Apologia Exploring Creation with Biology

Video Text Math (He will be continuing this from last year) See our review here.

Pandia Press History Odyssey Middle Ages Level 2. 

Promises of the Constitution 

Dave Ramsey’s Foundations in Personal Finance (through our Co-op)

8th Grade

Lightning Literature 8th Grade. See our review here.

IEW Writing Group B.  (Weekly with “homework”) See our review here.

Moving Beyond the Page for History. I will just purchase a new unit as she finishes up a previous one. See our review here.

Teaching Textbooks Level 7 and Pre- Algebra.

Promises of the Constitution 

Dave Ramsey’s Foundations in Personal Finance (through our Co-op)

Handmaidens of Virtue (through our co-op). This is a women throughout history course of which Emily is a teacher’s helper to younger girls.

I am undecided on what she will do for science this year.

4th Grade

She will read books of her choice along with books I choose for her.

All About Spelling (we are almost done with level 1 and will begin level 2)

Math U See finish up Gamma and move on to Delta

Handmaidens of Virtue (through our Co-op) This is a women throughout history course.

Jump Rope for Heart (through our co-op)

I am undecided on what she will do for science and history.  I am currently leaning toward Story of the World Volume 2 Middle Ages for history and Real Science Odyssey for science.

 

Kindergarten

My baby is 5.  He just barely turned 5 so we are taking a very easy Kindergarten year. 

Calendar Board Daily.  I am making this with mostly printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

I will read often to him.

We will do science and history in topic format.  We choose something and read about it and do projects to go along with it.

We will do some math games.

If he seems ready and interested, I have Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, Hooked on Phonics and All About Reading and the Explode the Code workbooks.   I am unsure which one will appeal to him most and will use it when he seems ready.

He may take a Learning is fun course and/or a music course through our co-op. 

I am cutting out art curriculum entirely this year and we will just do projects out of our The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas.

 

Yellowstone Day 4 ~ Actually into Yellowstone

 

 

We decided since we were so close to Yellowstone to go ahead and take a trip in.  We went 3 times last summer and with the cabin being built now, I am sure we will have many more amazing trips, so instead of trying to do all the main attractions we stayed on the upper loop and did some things we’ve never done before.

I can’t remember the name of this but it was pretty cool!

We had huckleberry ice cream in Mammoth. 

Took a few selfies!

We did a neat hike and took a swim in the Boiling River.

 

We didn’t even know that place existed and apparently it is quite popular!  We have been to Yellowstone about 10 times in our 10 year marriage and had never even heard of it.

There weren’t as many elk in Mammoth as there usually is, but we did see two cow elk soaking up the shade.

We tried to get a cool picture, but the sunlight and shade, just wouldn’t work together.

We stopped at Tower Falls and went into the gift shop while Tommy and my brother went on a hike up to the falls.  A few minutes into shopping Tommy came running in and told us there was a sow and her cubs just off the trail.  We ran out and got some great pictures.  Don’t worry we stayed far away from them and did not disturb them.   It was pretty neat.  Of the tons of times I’ve been to Yellowstone, this is only my second time seeing a bear with cubs.  Tommy was one of the first people to spot it so we got to get our pictures before it got to crowded.

Afterword we went out to eat in West Yellowstone at a place called The Slippery Otter and it was amazing!  I highly recommend it.  Good food and good prices!

More days a comin’