Chew on this!

Ahhh, it's Friday... the end of the school week- the FIRST school week of the FIRST home-school year. I bet you're anxious to see how it went. I guess I might as well fess up. It turns out, I don't exactly know what I'm doing. Shocking, huh? (As if my last couple of related posts didn't give it away.)

Here's a play by play: 

Tuesday morning, I was ready to go! The kids had breakfast and things were on track for starting by 9 a.m. (That's not too late, is it?) Johnny didn't have to go to bed until lunchtime, so he was up working on an application (job related). He needed a little help, so we worked on it together and school started late. No biggie- it's the first day and I don't want to burn out, so I don't stress about it. By late afternoon (3ish I think), the kids' lessons were winding down and I was mentally exhausted. But I did manage to make meatloaf for supper and everyone liked it! (Score!)

Wednesday: School started around 9:30. It was hard to pace the kids lessons- they did too many Language Arts lessons on Tuesday and were now behind on other subjects, so we tried to catch up with those. I told myself, "It's okay, we're just getting started and we have to find our rhythm." Really, I was losing my confidence and motivation, but chocked it up to fatigue. (Are you having trouble going to bed early?)

Thursday: School started late again. (Can't help it- Johnny gets home from work in the mornings, so that's our time to catch up on things.) I sat the kids down and explained how school needed to change and we made a board outlining the lessons for each day:

While Olivia, Travis & Katherine worked on the computers, I folded laundry in the den. (A week's worth at least. *sigh*) I watched them do their lessons and after I finished, I checked to see how they did. Poor Olivia didn't understand and did the best she could, but had to do her lessons all over again- with my help. She was frustrated, I was frustrated and I couldn't help but wonder if it was going to ever come together? I began to mourn the time I would be spending with Bryn and Samuel and worried I was robbing from them somehow. Second guessing everything all over again and finding no answers, I took a nap. A much needed nap. I decided it was too early to quit and too late to change my mind.

After a few hours, I was ready to hit it again. I jumped online and began to reorganize and prepared to print lots more pages of lesson plans- to work as a check-off system. I still felt like we were just checking boxes though and wondered if the kids were "mastering" anything. Anyway, I thought I might find some support through Time4Learning's forum- to see if there were other's in my area using that curriculum. There weren't, but I did find something better! Someone had posted a link to a free online curriculum (there were actually several, but this one far surpasses them all!). I followed the link and was amazed!

The site is called FreeWorldU.org. It's an accredited pre-K through 12 online curriculum. It is free, unless you want to track your child's/student's progress with reports and get a high school diploma, then it's $90/mo. You can change to the pay option at any time and they have support for everyone. They have researched every aspect of education! Did you know that there are approximately 2 million homeschoolers in the K-12 range and that this number is growing at the rate of 30% annually? (direct quote) That's amazing to me! The biggest problem I have with public school is that they are only teaching kids how to pass a test- there's no retention of knowledge. FreeWorldU addresses this, they call it "teach to the test". There are so many aspects that really caught my attention- "Superlearning", the kids can work at their own pace- and different grade levels (like 6th grade Social Studies and 3rd grade math, if needed). There are classes like "Character Development", "Manners", "Study Skills" and "Social Issues" in elementary school! :) Sounds like a winner, huh?

Needless to say, I promptly cancelled my membership with Time4Learning (no offense to them or anyone who uses them) and signed up ALL of my kids (except Samuel of course) with Free World U. It felt right- I don't feel so worried about how I'm going to make sure they're mastering everything and having time for fun. Since we can go at our own pace, I feel like we might do year-round school and take breaks as needed. (A friend at church does that and says it's great for them- there's no "first day of school/last day of school"- they just go with the flow and her kids learn at a good pace.)

This probably makes me sound wishy-washy, but I can't help it. I wasn't "sold" on Time4Learning, but I didn't know where else to start. Hopefully I won't come back and tell you that I changed my mind again. Haha! ;) Keep checking in... you never know! 

BUT- that's still not as impressive as Ella losing her first tooth! She announced this morning that it was loose. When I checked, it was VERY loose- I don't know how we missed it all this time (even through the brushing and flossing)? All day she asked questions like, "Mom, can I eat this Ravioli? I don't want it to hurt my loose tooth." & "I can't drink out of a cup, I need a sipper cup or a straw because I have a loose tooth." I explained to her that she had a loose tooth, not a broken arm, and she would be able to do everything like normal. Silly girl!

Katherine offered to pull it for her tonight. 

Ella excitedly accepted and said it didn't even hurt! 

 Katherine is a great photographer. 

 See the little pearly white in the bag?

She's all ready for the Tooth Fairy! (I hope she doesn't forget.)