"So how is home school going?"

I get this question a lot.  It is like anything else - we have our really good days and our not as great days.  For the most part thus far the pros have far outweighed the cons.  We enjoy taking advantage of a flexible schedule (taking a morning off when we are up late with student friends), doing things that we can't normally do (sledding on Wed. morning with friends...err..PE on Wed. morning), and using everyday things at home to make learning fun and interesting (counting out change with REAL money, the boys get to keep a penny if they do a good job).  Here are some pics of what we have been up to and our first field trip with our local home school group to a Living History Fair.

Making Patterns is Fun!

What could get the full attention of so many boys?

The History of the colt revolver of course!

The pirate presentation was Thing 2s favorite!

Back in the Saddle Again - Post Sabbatical

We were super excited to have students back in our home.  This is our first Oaks (leadership team) mtg about a week ago.

Some of our awesome guy leaders!

Thing 3 liked coming out to say "goodnight"

Amazing women leaders!

What does a giant roaster of chili at the Grafs mean?  Sledfest...err, due to technical error we were forced to host...SLUSHFEST 2012!

Hangin Out at Slushfest 2012

"I want YOU to play Don't Break the Ice!"

He was rather convincing.

Thing 1 is old enough now to play Carcazan with the big boys!  Very exciting!

Woman vs. Child: A Parody of “Man vs. Wild”

(Based on the show with Bear Grylls in which he strands himself in remote locations to demonstrate localized survival techniques. To be read with a British accent.)
This article depicts real life experiences. The views and experiences are real, but should not be attempted to be duplicated. When necessary Sher receives support from her Heavenly Father for emergency supplies of patience and grace. Only if circumstances become life threatening will she receive intervention from her husband, as required by health and safety regulations. On some occasions, situations are presented to Sher so he can demonstrate survival techniques. Professional advice should always be sought before entering any dangerous environment.

It is 8 degrees below zero and Sher Grafylls has been dropped via Providence into a populated but wild part of the American plains. She has minimal supplies and must get through her day despite the freezing temps and wiley man-cubs that are in her care. At the moment Sher is attempting to bundle up all three man-cubs with what she has on hand, finish making her bread, warm up the van and get out the door within a ten minute window. But circumstances are working against her, as well as nature. Luckily her husband has opened the garage door that would normally be frozen shut under these bitter temps. He has also plugged in her van – what a man!

After ensuring her cubs to remain inside she exits the house to start the van. Upon returning she instructs her man-cubs to all cooperate in exiting the house and entering the van. This is a dicey situation as they are known to fight and fool around in general instead of getting their seat belts fastened. Still she bravely sends them out while kneading down her dough to put into the pans – food that the man-cubs will need later to survive. A few minutes pass and she hears screaming from outside, her middle charge re-enters the house wailing. He explains the tussle between him and his brother and the resulting injury to his knee. She is running out of time and patience, she must get her eldest cub to his art lesson with less than 5 minutes to spare. Clear thinking and quick action are needed to ensure success.
Upon careful examination of the injury and some basic first aid, she bravely wills away the nausea produced by removing gravel from his bloody knee. She uses what is commonly observed in caring for such wiley creatures – her angry mom voice – to recall the offending brother into the house for a cross-examination. Patiently she leads them through apologies, trying but not entirely successfully to hold back her "I told you" so's. Arrangements are made to appease each other. Rules for entering the van are reassessed together as a group. They are once again sent out.
Upon completion of her last minute chores she heads out into the bitter cold and successfully makes it to the van. There she learns that while waiting on the two oldest man-cubs the youngest has taken this opportunity to poop in his Batman underwear. This is an emergency like none other. She breathes out her frustration, laughs at the irony of their current memory verse (the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience….ya-da, ya-da), looks at the clock – art class is beginning now. Upon discussing the situation with her charges and assessing the disappointment in her oldest cub's eyes at missing class entirely, she makes a last minute attempt to rescue the mission. After a quick clean up and review with the youngest once again of where we do and do not poop, they are back in the van and off to art class.
When they arrive at their first destination she has to decide if she wants to drag them all out in the cold or leave the youngest two restrained…errr…safely seat belted in…the van. Using the resources around her are key to survival in this bitter environment. She employs the two key method to avoid further delays – locking the children in the van with it running and the distract-a-tron (video) playing. She is back within 60 seconds and then must decide if they will go to the local grocery store with their 25 mins to kill or to the library. One cub votes grocery, the other the library. What's a mom to do? Eventually she chooses neither remembering another errand they need to run. Luckily the newspaper doesn't charge for their remnant rolls (which she will use later as art paper) bc upon arriving their she realizes she has her purse but no wallet. This actually comes in handy when they visit the library after all and her toddler asks to get Elmo Fire Station for the zillionth time. Rescued from having to watch it again, alas she has no wallet and no library card.
Later in the day they all arrive safely home including her husband close behind. Everyone is in tack and will be fed…eventually. Ongoing survival is dependent upon regular refreshment for this mom. So after filing a brief report with hubby she gathers her things and happily heads off to her lunch appointment. Her weekly half-day-out couldn't have come at a better time. At the last minute she remembers an important step she missed – she quickly brushes her teeth before leaving the house! Her husband once again is her hero and is left at home to manage the man-cubs… and hopefully remember to take the bread out of the oven before it burns.

Why We Chose Home School – For real this time, I promise!

Home schooling was never really on my radar before last August. I started thinking about it as a possibility for our family honestly for no particular reason, probably a combination of them. The thought of Thing 1 being gone all day again did make me a little sad. And then he and Thing 2 would have their 20^th brother-brawl of the day and I would start counting down the days for school to start! Fast forward a bit and home schooling remained on my mind, in fact I couldn't seem to get away from it. It seemed to be popping up everywhere I looked. I decided to pay more attention to this random thought floating around and start praying about it.
I picked up a few books from the library and liked what I read. The flexible schedule seemed like a great fit for our random ministry hours. I also loved the idea of my boys having more time together and becoming better friends. And the opportunity to integrate our faith into everyday learning appealed to me. At this point I thought I'd better mention the idea to hubby who had already raised his eyebrows at my nighttime reading selection. He calmly told me he would pray about it and hid very well his true feelings that I was completely nuts. Fast forward a couple more months whilst I kept my mouth shut on the subject to him(hubby) and open to Him(God) about as much as I could stand. Meanwhile God changed hubby's heart on the idea as well – not a complete turnaround like mine – he wasn't super-de-dupery excited to start it – but the flexibility it would allow our family interested him enough to give it a try. And that is what we are doing – giving it a try.
As it turns out Thing 1's classroom wasn't the ideal situation – which I observed a few hours a week as I volunteered in it. His teacher is amazing and the principal supportive, there are just too many VERY troubled kids thrown into one class. Even with an Aide in the class the environment was often very difficult to teach in and sometimes unsafe. This did not really affect our decision to home school as much as it affirmed it.
Once we made the decision to give it a try everything fell into place pretty smoothly, just the way I like it. His teacher helped me get me textbooks and showed me tons of helpful websites. She has tirelessly answered my endless questions and even agreed to copy me weekly spelling lists. What a gem! The principal agreed to let him come back once a week for Art class, lunch and recess. The Christian home school group I joined offers Art and Science twice a month for both the boys as well as field trips. Our schedule is filling up quickly!
I definitely have had my moments of panic at the thought of being solely responsible for their education. Yet somehow "mysteriously" I happen upon an encouraging verse or devotional in my daily reading on the exact days that I need an extra Word of encouragement. God is so good and gracious to hold my hand in this transition. Trust me I need a lot of hand-holding to make big life changes and hubby needs to actually get his work done so he can't always be the one to do it!
So why are we home schooling – I don't know if I can tell you exactly why. Perhaps it is God's leading – I'm hesitant to say anything for sure and for certain is God's will. I do know that it isn't outside of His will for us right now though and that is reason enough for me to follow that little persistent nudge. I can tell you what I love and don't love about home schooling…but since it is getting close to dinner time I'd better save that for later!

A Dozen Reasons why I chose Home School - NOT

Okay – I've received quite a few requests regarding the "why" we chose to home school this semester. Since I'm feeling a little bit sassy today here are not the reasons
we opted to home school.  
    1. I know more than the teachers who actually have a degree in education.
    2. Public schools are evil.
    3. If you are really a Christian you will home school your child(ren).
    4. I like spending every second of every day with these amazing, wonderful, brilliant little bundles of joy that I call my children.
    5. My kids are so extra super smart that they need an extra challenge that public school just can't provide.
6. Unlike most mom's who have told me "they just couldn't home school" (and I admit I have said in the past to other h.s. moms) I know that I am far better equipped with super home school      teaching abilities – my secret is in my new multivitamin.
7. I don't ever really need a break from my kids because they are so well behaved and never wear me out.
8. I love it when people stare at me blankly with that "why would you ever want to do that?" look in their eyes after I tell them I home school.
9. I want my kids to never interact with other children so I'm keeping them under lock-and-key.
10. I'm not ready to detach from them.
11. I just can't keep up on the household chores so I decided to make them do them all day and call it "real life skills"….actually…hmm…that is a pretty good idea!
12. There is nothing else I can think of to do with my time.

Now that we have that cleared up - I'll post on the reasons we DID choose h.s. soon.

First Day of Home School

Well, technically today was our second day, but since all we did yesterday was Bible and library I'm not counting that as a full day.  All in all I'm not ready to re-enroll them in public school yet, so I'd say so-far-so-good.  I'm taking this experiment one day at a time though. 
I admit I lay in bed this morning not wanting to get up and face the day - maybe it was because hubby is out of town - maybe it was the fear of our first "full" day of home school.  Either way, I got up, got a cup of coffee, some encouragement from Upstairs and got over my lazy mood.  After that and a second cup of coffee things went pretty well  (have I mentioned yet how much I LOVE our new Keurig? Seriously, how did I ever parent before this wonderful machine entered my life?!).  And the beautiful weather (if you consider sunny skies, no snow and upper 30s beautiful) made recess a lot more fun!

Here are a few pics of our first day:

                                             

Camo Verse Packs makes scripture memory fun!                                    Thing 3 needs to learn to read first though, maybe we will save that for tomorrow!

Sorting out all the critters in our house into animal groups.                             This took longer than I expected, they have A LOT of stuffed animals!

                                          

My favorite part of home schooling - reading books on the couch with my Things  (Hubby took this pic a couple days ago so it wasn't tech. "school" but I'm finding real life and home school are pretty interchangeable!).