Our 2nd Grade Homeschool Schedule and Curriculum

Our 2nd Grade Homeschool Schedule and Curriculum

~ shelli ~ 3 Comments

 

Here I am teaching 2nd grade for the second time to my eight-year-old.

I consider second grade part of those “early elementary” years where children should have more time to play and explore than do sit-down academic work. But my youngest son has a little more structure and academic lessons than his brother did at this age because he has an older brother who is doing more structured, academic work. And I feel there are some lessons, such as history and Spanish, that he can join us for. But he still has a lot of time to play, so it works out well.

As for his schedule, he practices cello for about twenty minutes and, as I mentioned above, sometimes joins his brother and me for lessons in the morning, but otherwise, he gets to play by himself in the mornings. Then I do his main lessons (reading, math etc.) after lunch for about an hour while his older brother practices piano. He sometimes practices cello again after dinner, but this is negotiable. He and his brother have a lot of time to play together in the late afternoons.

CURRICULUM

Reading — We picked up Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons again, and we’ll be finishing it this year. I still have him work on Starfall.com quite a bit, and after we finish 100 Easy Lessons, I’ll start the Star Wars Reading workbook. He likes these workbooks.

Literature — This is something he joins me and his brother for in the mornings. Right now we’re reading Blood on the River: James Town, 1607, which is a young adult novel about the first permanent English settlement in North America. It’s a great history lesson, and although it is a book for “middle school,” he’s enjoying it as much as his brother. During his one-on-one lesson time with me after lunch, we’ve been reading Stuart Little. In the evenings, I’m reading the Magic Treehouse Books to him, and he won’t let me read anything else! He LOVES them.

Note: See my page Book Reviews to learn about some of the books we’re reading.

Math — I ditched Singapore Math. I still think Singapore is a good curriculum, but I got so tired of having to read ahead and plan the activities and gather the materials when it’s SO EASY to just open up Life of Fred and read the next chapter! And I knew he’d love Life of Fred like his older brother does, so what was I doing not using it? We will be sailing through the first few books because they are quite easy for him, but I think it’s important for him to get the whole story. We are also using the Star Wars Math workbook right now because he wants to do it!

History — This is another subject that he’ll join his brother for in the mornings, but I’ll tell you a secret: I don’t always expect him to listen. Some of our history lessons are a little hard for him to understand, but I can tell he’s getting something out of it because he asks questions. He’s learning about the different cultures of our world, our timeline, and he enjoys the history documentaries we watch. Whatever he absorbs at this point, I’m happy with because we’ll be going over this stuff again in the future. I’ve written about the history books we purchased in Diving into Human History, and I’m recording the progress in our history lessons on this blog. Click here for that or see the main menu.

Science — We watch a lot of science documentaries, and he takes nature and science classes at the nature center and botanical garden. I am also reading several elementary science books to him that we have in our home library, mostly Let’s Read and Find Out Science books and a few Magic School Bus books too. He’ll also join his brother and me when we read The Usbourne Science Encyclopedia, which is a cool book because it has over 180 QR links that I can scan with my phone and then we can watch videos related to the material we’re reading. (In general, we do a lot of science studies in this house. See my science page for links.)

Spanish — This is something that he joins his brother for too, and mostly, he likes it. Although it does require a lot of prep time on my part, the boys are enjoying the games and activities I have found using the Risas y Sonrisas curriculum (one of the reasons why I wanted to stop using Singapore math). I’ll be writing a review on this curriculum soon for home/school/life.

Art — I am not doing formal lessons this year like I did in the past, but we do have fun making art sometimes, and my husband and I take the boys to an art museum once or twice a year. The eight-year-old still enjoys drawing sometimes too. 🙂

Music — The eight-year-old decided he wanted to try the cello! So he’s taking lessons and doing quite well with it. We give him a lot of freedom as to whether or not he wants to practice each day while also making sure he practices enough. Does that make sense? I hope so.

By coincidence, my post “Homeschooling 2nd Grade for the Second Time” is on the home/school/life blog today. In it I talk about how homeschooling for the second time around is both different and similar. I hope you’ll check it out too.

Homeschool: 2nd Grade Mid-year Report

~ shelli ~ 6 Comments

ft. yargo-1Unlike last year, which kept steady, this year’s daily life has endured many interruptions. Because of that, I’ve deviated from our original homeschooling plan, which I wrote about at the beginning of this year in the post 2nd Grade Homeschool Schedule and Curriculum (with Pre-K too!).

Last fall was a bit crazy. We had back-to-back visitors for several weeks, which was a great experience for my boys, but I don’t do formal homeschooling when we have family in town. I also had some unexpected freelance photography work, which I loved, but it made me busier than I wanted to be, considering I was also working for home / school / life magazine, hosting visitors, homeschooling, going to appointments, and keeping house. Don’t get me wrong — I actually enjoyed everything. It was just a little too much all at once.

I was looking forward to having a more leisurely 2015, but if you read my previous post about everything that has happened to us since the beginning of the year, you’ll see that hasn’t happened. Because of all these things, it’s made sense to simplify our homeschool lessons. At least, it feels simplified to me, although the boys are actually doing more work!

After the busy fall schedule cooled down a bit, I felt like my kids were behind in for-lack-of-a-better-word “formal” learning. They had a much richer experience with all the field trips and visiting they did with family, but I still want to keep up with that formal stuff. So, I abandoned our more leisurely pace, and almost every weekday morning that we are at home (and some Saturdays), I have had both boys work through their workbooks, concentrating mostly on reading and math:

  • They are still using the Star Wars workbooks by Brainquest.
    • My five-year-old loves doing his lessons and usually does more than I require. Of course, the preschool and kindergarten workbooks that he uses are fairly easy. Still, I’m impressed that he enjoys doing the worksheets and takes them seriously.
    • I especially like the 2nd grade reading workbook for my eight-year-old. They give him good reading practice, introducing new words and basic grammar concepts. It gives him a lot of writing practice, which he needs. I still go slow, when necessary, and sometimes I only require him to do half a page, but I make him erase any letter he writes wrong and do it again. Together with the extra reading we do, it’s good practice. The math workbook is just extra math practice — it doesn’t actually teach a strategy on how to do the math. He is much more willing to do the work without fuss now (and maybe I’ve learned just the right ebb and flow), which is a difference between now and the beginning of this year, so that’s another reason I’m going ahead and making a push for him to do a little more.
    • Mini review of the Star Wars books: If you have children who love Star Wars and need extra practice with their reading/math skills, then I recommend them. I don’t recommend them as a curriculum by themselves, although the reading and writing workbooks cover all the basics. However, I am sure we’ll be using more resources to hone these skills as time goes by. Since my boys both love Star Wars, they seem to enjoy seeing some of their favorite characters and learning some Star Wars vocabulary. Unfortunately, these workbooks only go through 2nd grade.

What I’ve added

I’ve been thinking, thinking, thinking over the last month and having conversations with my husband. What was I thinking about? That test we will be required to give him (according to Georgia law) next year, in the third grade. I didn’t want my son to take a test without prior experience on test taking. So, I did some inquiries about the tests, and I found the one we might use. I considered ordering it and giving him the second grade version this year. However, it is more complicated than I thought it would be. It costs about $40, we have to order the test, administer it within a few days and then return the package for grading. That felt a little intimidating for just a practice test. So, I went on Amazon, and I searched for practice tests.

  • I ordered Spectrum’s 2nd grade Test Practice, which is supposed to correlate to most state standards. I like it. We only do about two pages per day of the “lessons.” When I come to the end of a section, there are “sample tests” that are a little longer. On these days, that’s all I require my son to do. At the end of the book, I’m going to give him a longer, more comprehensive test over several days, which is provided. The book even comes with answer sheets, which shows him how to fill in those little bubbles.  I also like it because there are test taking clues included in the lessons.

So far, it’s been quite easy for my son to work through this test prep workbook, which gives me confidence that we are progressing quite well! I’m really impressed with how well he is reading! I’m not quite sure what happened. I think at age eight, it has just “clicked.” I still would not call him an eager reader — he doesn’t do it voluntarily. (But that’s because he’s so busy making things. He has different interests, and I’m not worried about that.) When he has trouble, it’s usually because he comes to a word he has never seen before, and I don’t think that’s a big deal. He’s learning more words as we continue with this reading practice.

He doesn’t love the workbook, but he thinks it is easy, and since I’m being lighthearted about it, it hasn’t given him any stress. He knows the purpose is practice taking a test, and we’re learning about what he knows/needs to learn. There is no pressure to get it all right.

What I stopped doing (for now)

  • I stopped using Life of Fred: Dogs for eight-year-old’s math in favor of getting some more practice in that Star Wars workbook. I have also ordered Singapore Math based on recommendations from a friend and some extensive reading I’ve done online. Although I plan to continue to use Life of Fred because my son loves it, and I think it does a good job teaching a lot of math concepts and how math is used in everyday life, I didn’t think it did a good job of helping my son find a strategy of how to add and subtract in his head. So I’m hoping Singapore Math will be a good fit for us. Between the two, he should have a good foundation in math. As I see him increasingly become interested in science/engineering types of activities, I feel it is extra important to make sure he has a solid math foundation.
  • We stopped watching Salsa for Spanish lessons. I will probably continue this at some point, or either find a different kind of Spanish curriculum when I think we are ready for it, but we just got so busy, it was one of the things we dropped.
  • We stopped working through the science experiment book. Again, got too busy, but we’ll probably visit it again at some point. I’m not worried because our family’s daily life and deep interests includes so much science!

What they finished

  • In my first post, I mentioned how my eight-year-old was taking his younger brother through the basic phonic lessons on Starfall.com. They finished that. I do think it was very helpful, and when my five-year-old gets a little older, he might benefit from going through it again. It was a very good review for older brother. 😉
  • My eight-year-old completed his second pottery class this fall (third, if you count the summer camp he took). It was a great experience for him. He has opted to take a break from pottery this spring, but he wants to take one of the summer camps again offered by the pottery studio. Many mornings while he was in class, I took my five-year-old to the botanical garden, and we enjoyed a morning using our sketchbooks. I’ll write about that sometime.

What we continue

  • Like I said, we continue to use Brainquest’s Star Wars workbooks for our basic reading and math lessons, and I added a test prep workbook for my eight-year-old, which has helped me see that we are progressing just fine. The boys also read/listen to books of their own choice as well.
  • I continue to read to them from a book of my choice before our lessons. Although I wanted to use this time to explore literature, it’s hard to pick stories that both ages will engage in. So, currently, I’m reading one of my library book sale finds: World Book’s Childcraft See the World. (2000) It’s a good introduction to the different continents and cultures of this world. There will also be some chapters about map making. Mostly, I’m reading this because it makes a nice compliment to our ongoing study of the world through the many documentaries that we continue to watch everyday.
  • The documentaries deserve a post all of their own, but I did want to mention that lately we’ve been making our way through a series of BBC documentaries on Netflix. Each one focuses on a specific area of the world and has about five 50-minute programs. So far we have watched Wildest IndoChina, Wildest India and Wildest Arctic. What I especially appreciate about these programs are how they touch on the crossroads between the wilderness and humans, sometimes delving into human rituals, religion and the history of the area. It’s been a great learning experience for us all. (There are sensitive issues and history brought up, so preview first, if you think your child would be too sensitive for it.) For those who are interested, I keep a Pinterest board on the documentaries we watch. It’s the only thing I use Pinterest for these days.
  • I still use Fridays as art days! I don’t always do a formal art lesson, but click the link to see what we have been doing.
  • Since my son is taking a break from pottery, I have enrolled both my boys in Sandy Creek Nature Center’s homeschool science classes again. (They had conflicted with pottery in the fall, so we took a break from that.)

What has flourished

All last fall, I felt like we were in a “project lull,” and I was missing how frequently my eight-year-old used to come up with ideas to make and build things. I was worried that because I was so busy, I was missing opportunities to support my son’s interests. But now I feel like it was just a lull, and perhaps that is natural once in a while. (It’s not that my son wasn’t being creative at all. He was sculpting cool stuff in his pottery class and still putting together Lego kits. And we did some art projects and other things. He also spent a lot of time studying the Star Wars online encyclopedia — Star Wars seemed like his biggest interest last fall — and I let him do that because I felt like it might lead to something, which it did.)

Around the holidays, my son’s “building instinct” kicked in again, and he’s been working on a few projects. He also received a robotics set for Christmas, and I can’t believe how educational and beneficial this set has been. He’s been teaching himself programming! I’ll be sure to write about that too.

My five-year-old also has been continuing his love of learning about dinosaurs, drawing, painting and now, coloring. We are filling up spaces with his work, and I love it when I find him digging into the paper and markers (his preferred medium). In my constant wonder on how to support his love of drawing, I have inadvertently turned my eight-year-old onto drawing a little more. My five-year-old didn’t care about the how to draw books I had on the shelf for him to find, but my eight-year-old found them, and he’s been using them! More on that to come!

Keeping Priorities

Written out like this, it might seem like our formal learning is very complex and time-consuming, but actually, it doesn’t take too much space in our day. At most, we might spend two hours a day on the workbooks. We might work up until lunchtime, but after that, my boys are free to do their projects and play, which is what I’ve always wanted for them. (No need for rushing to get ready to catch the bus, stand in lines, do homework after an already long day at school, or get to bed early!)

Those two hours don’t include all our home “school,” however. My husband and I read them books, tell them stories, and we watch very educational television together as a family.  We have conversations about people, the world, history and what different people do for a living. We go to outside classes, take field trips, get out into nature (weather permitting) and spend time with friends. Everyday the boys work on their own projects, and I make myself very available to support them, especially in the mornings and right after lunch. So, I still follow my children’s interests, but I keep a small window of time devoted to the fundamentals they would be learning in a traditional school. I don’t want them to get behind in case we ever have to put them in school, although I hope that never happens.

I have been watching my boys blossom as they explore topics and find the things that they are truly interested in. It is not uncommon for my eight-year-old to ask me to write down the spelling of some animal he learned about in Wild Kratts or The Octonauts so that he can go look it up on the Internet and view better photographs of it. They are independent learners, ask questions freely, and they are always telling me their ideas for making this or that. I have seen them create a deep bond together as they play, especially as they strategize about their collaborative building projects on Minecraft! (Stay tuned for a column about that.)

I treasure the time that homeschooling provides for them to do these things.

Our 2nd Grade Homeschool Schedule and Curriculum (with Pre-K too!)

~ shelli ~ 15 Comments

 

I love new school years! It’s an accomplishment to close out the previous year and plan a new one, and in the beginning of the year, everything feels so tidy and structured. I like structure, but I try to remain flexible about our schedule as the year goes on. It’s inevitable that new priorities will pop up, and some of what we do will fall to the wayside. But I think that is what is awesome about homeschooling – you get to be flexible. You get to follow your instincts about what is best for your kids on any given day. Just do that, and you’ll do great.

The five-year-old joins us.

My boys just turned eight and five! I am considering them in 2nd grade and Pre-K. This is the first time I’ve attempted to do any formal work with my five-year-old, and that’s because I can tell he’s ready for it. Earlier last year he would play while my older son did his lessons, but later in the year I noticed he would hang out at the table and watch/listen as his brother would practice reading. So earlier this summer I offered him a little ABC workbook, and he gleefully cheered “yes! yes!” After that he demanded what he termed his “reading lesson” everyday, even when I wasn’t planning to do it. Now he’s happy to take a day off, but he still likes doing his reading lessons alongside his brother.

What has changed since last year.

I have a popular post from last year about our first grade schedule and curriculum, and I always worry when a post becomes popular because we remain in flux, and while I try to write the truth of any given moment, the next month we might change what we’re doing! But I’m relieved that as I look back over last year’s schedule, not too much changed. But a little did:

  • I nixed the stretching fairly quickly. My boys just hated it. It felt useless to keep trying even though I still think they could use it.
  • When I wrote that post, we had a Friday morning bi-weekly class, and I thought we might have the occasional play date then too. Well, the class didn’t go, and neither did the play date, but later we enrolled my son in his pottery class, which was on Friday mornings for eight weeks, so the schedule didn’t really change after all.
  • Other than this, we kept that schedule fairly well, although we definitely had days when we didn’t do our lessons because other things took priority. I used it as a compass to get back into a routine when I felt we needed it. (Mostly I need it to stay sane. The boys would be fine with just playing everyday.)

So below is our weekly plan this year. It’s not too different from last year.

2nd grade MOL Weekly HS Schedule copy

What this doesn’t reflect: It doesn’t reflect all the little things that pop up like play dates that I don’t have a regular date for on my calendar and all the outings we do as a family, which could be considered field trips. We like to go hiking and to museums and other places of interest whenever we get the chance. Some days we may just go shopping. It also does not reflect my son’s project time.

Project Time

Last year our lessons were shorter, so we had an hour or more for projects in the mornings before lunch. This year, our lessons are taking us right up until lunch, so here is what I’m going to experiment with this year:

Since I want my son’s projects to have priority, every Monday morning I get our project notebook and go over what he’s told me he wants to do. He gets a lot of ideas that he doesn’t follow through with, and that’s okay. He’s in charge of his education. He knows that if he wants to build something or learn about something, we will make time for it. I’ve told him I’m willing to skip our lessons completely, if needed. So far this year, however, he hasn’t been doing anything that he needs me for, or either he seems to make small inquires at other times of the day. He does have one thing he wants to make that we don’t have the materials for yet, so when we get everything, we’ll do that. I’m also wondering how I can spur him on to dig deeper into his latest interest – Star Wars. I’ll write about how all this goes in the future.

Curriculum

Our curriculum is very eclectic. I choose our curriculum based on 1) what I think my kids will actually like and 2) what we have on hand or can find conveniently and/or cheap. I get a lot of resources from teacher-friends, though I don’t use a lot of that stuff. I have bought little workbooks and things on sale over the years and saved them. I have bought some things full price because I thought they were perfect for my boys. Buying a full curriculum that would cover everything has never seemed prudent when each subject requires its own strategy for my boys’ particular needs.

The weekly plan.

I have told my eight-year-old that he has to learn reading, writing, math, etc. The law requires them, and he understands that. But I also tell him we’ll go slow, at his pace, and we’ll try to use books and resources that he likes. This is not always easy, and I’m always wondering when I should nudge or pull back. This is just an ongoing part of homeschooling, I think, and I try to use my good instincts, though they fail me at times.

I am still not completely comfortable with unschooling my eight-year-old or using project-based homeschooling as our sole means of education, though a big part of me wants to do just that. I have opted instead to require him to do just one page in a workbook (to help build his handwriting and reading skills) and read just one or two pages in a book. If it gets hard for him, I usually make him finish at least part of what we’re working on, and then I take a break from it the next day or use a different resource. As I said before, I am willing to take long breaks from our lessons and work on his projects too. But I feel a slow progression in the fundamentals is important, and he is progressing, and I’m happy with that.

This is my order of things that happens between breakfast and lunch unless we have an appointment outside the house or a project to work on. Sometimes we don’t finish before lunch, but we usually do.

Read aloud – This is new. I have sorely missed book time, which is what I did when my son was little. Now we don’t have time in the a.m. for everyone to pick one or more books of their choice, so I’ve decided this is the time I get to pick one book of my choice. I can cover a lot of different subjects this way. (In the evenings before bed, my husband and I read to the boys, and they get to pick the books they want.)

1 Page Workbook – I have purchased simple workbooks (the kind you can get at Walmart or Target or teacher’s stores), and this year I’m having them each do one page each in a workbook. My eight-year-old hates the physical act of writing, so this is kind of an experiment, but also a slow way to build up his muscles and just get him used to writing a little bit. Below are listed the workbooks my boys have completed or are working on. (We started this during the summer, btw!)

The eight-year-old

–I started him out in an easy kindergarten workbook in which he only had to trace and write letters. This is because, as I said, he hates the physical act of writing, and I just wanted him to get used to having to write a little.

–I was not in the market to buy more workbooks, but we were in Barnes and Noble one day, and I happened to find Brainquest’s Star Wars workbooks. I picked them up because both my sons love Star Wars. I’m not so dumb as to think my eight-year-old will also love the workbooks, but if I can make doing what he dislikes a little more fun, I’ll try it. And the reading workbook happened to cover just the things I want him to work on. So we’re just now starting Star Wars 2nd Grade Reading. This is already proving to be difficult, and he’s in tears over it. It’s not that he’s not smart enough to complete the work, he just hates doing it. I may have him do only 1/2 a page at a time or pick and choose the pages. Part of me would like to nix it. Not sure what to do yet.

The five-year-old is my easy kid! He likes doing these workbooks! (I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that he loves drawing too.)

–Stick Kids Workbooks: Amazing Mazes

–A+ Alphabet Workbook

–A+ Numbers 1-12 (He’s almost finished with this.)

After this, I’m going to have him start:

—Brainquest’s Star Wars Workbooks: Kindergarten Writing & ABCS

—Brainquest’s Star Wars Workbooks: Preschool Number Fun

Reading Lesson – This is for the eight-year-old, but the five-year-old usually listens. I have him read 1-2 pages in a book. We have worked through most of the follow-up books recommended at the end of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We have two more to go on that list, and I’m hoping he’ll be willing to finish those books, but I’m not going to push him. I’ve had great success at letting him read books about the things he loves most, which are Legos’ characters and Superheros. We just finished Scholastic’s Super Heroes Save the Day! It makes a huge difference when he can read something like this versus any other book. I will probably alternate this will the workbook because doing both in one day proves to be too difficult.

Starfall – This is for both boys, although I didn’t tell my eight-year-old that. I asked him if he would sit with his younger brother and go over all the phonic reading lessons, games, books, and videos on Starfall.com.  They do about two rows every time they sit down to do this. I knew my five-year-old could benefit from it, but I wanted my eight-year-old to get the review as well as gain confidence in his reading ability. It’s working well, and my eight-year-old is shining as “teacher.” They don’t do this everyday, but they are almost finished with all fifteen rows on the website. I’m not sure if we’ll continue this, or go to other sections on that site.

Math – This is for the eight-year-old, but the five-year-old usually listens. We started right in on the next Life of Fred book this year! We are working on Life of Fred: Dogs, which is the fourth book in the series. I have considered changing our math curriculum in the past, but now I feel confident that the quirky story format of Life of Fred is perfect for my eight-year-old. (We are story lovers around here, after all.) I think Life of Fred does a great job teaching him what he needs to know, and when I feel it’s getting a little above his level, we just stop and practice math in other ways until I feel he’s ready to move on. Doing math twice a week still feels just right. If this book starts to get too hard, we’ll pause it awhile and practice math with other resources for awhile.

Science – This is new, although science has always been a huge part of our homeschool. I’ve never made time for it during our lesson time because my son’s projects, the homeschool science classes, the books he picks to read, and all the documentaries we watch daily have skyrocketed him well beyond 2nd grade science! Despite all this, I have a goal to study science in a more systematic way, especially when he gets older. And, this year, his pottery class conflicts with homeschool science, so we’ll have to miss out on those for the first time. (I’m really sad about that, although a little relieved to have a lighter class schedule.) Each year, I seem to be able to weave one more thing into our homeschool. Last year, it was art. This year, it’s science. (I hope by next year, I’ll find a way to take our Spanish lessons to a higher level.) We’re starting with something simple. I happened to have DK’s 101 Great Science Experiments, so we are working through this book and doing 1~2 science experiments a week. By the way, the first time I asked my son if he had a project he wanted to work on, he said, “Can’t we just do the experiments?” So, in a way, this is still his project.

Spanish – I wanted to find a better program to work on, but in some ways, I think watching Salsa is still the best bet for my boys so that they don’t lose interest in Spanish. I still write down the vocabulary, and I watch every episode with them – because I want to learn Spanish too!

Art – Last year at this time, I felt like we didn’t have enough art in our homeschool (despite all the craft and building projects that my son initiated on his own). I wanted to be able to teach a little bit about different artists and techniques. It’s also a part of project-based homeschooling to introduce children to new tools and techniques so that they’ll have a variety of mediums they can choose from when working on their own projects. I’m proud of myself for working in several art lessons last year and establishing a sketchbook habit with my younger son, who loves to draw. This year, we’re going to make Fridays our art days, and I’m using Amy Hood’s fun Art Together e-zines as my guide. Right now we’re learning about printmaking techniques and the artist Hokusai. When my son begins his pottery class, I’m planning to use that time for sketch booking with my five-year-old.

This is probably the longest post I’ve ever written, and it may seem like a lot on the page, but it only encompasses about 1~2 hours of our day. If you have been following my blog, you know that we do a lot of other things, and we have certain priorities for our boys that haven’t change. In brief:

  • We want them to have time to move, play and explore the things they love. In the afternoons and early evenings, they have lots of time to do the things they love the best, including playing with Legos and a variety of other toys, playing games on their tablets, and watching T.V. Sometimes we go to play dates, sometimes we cook together, and sometimes we play games together. But this is also the time I have to work and get my chores done. I feel grateful for homeschooling because I feel it is creating a strong bond between my boys, and they are learning to be independent doers!
  • We want them to love nature, and they do. But we make a point of getting out into nature a lot by visiting parks and going hiking. My son will slowly be working toward earning the third junior ranger badge this year too.
  • We also keep a garden, and in the evenings after dinner, you might find the boys and me outside watering it and picking ripe tomatoes. I find that by late August and September, the boys are less interested in this though. But I don’t mind having a few minutes alone outside!