I am a stay at home-homeschooling mom. This is our 4th year to homeschool and our first year to have more than one kid officially schooling. Skipper is in the 3rd grade. Scar is in kindergarten. Scrappy is our pre-k and Skeeter is our tot school boy.
I have a degree in elementary education with an emphasis in early childhood. However..that means ZIP when it comes to homeschooling. I have friends with varying degrees or no degrees and they are AWESOME teachers!!
We are an interesting household. Skipper has Tourette's Syndrome Plus. Scar has Celiac Disease, Scrappy has Motor Apraxia- with resolved verbal apraxia. Skeeter was tongue tied, but that was fixed in June of '08. He does take speech still though.
We have a total of 10 hours of therapy a week. All the boys receive at least one type of therapy. I have a love-hate relationship with it! It is very necessary around here, but it really does cut into our days!!
I am a pretty laid back schooling mom. I try not to get too worked up when things cut into our day. We are lucky enough that our therapy location has a large waiting room and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, you will find the boys on the floor or the table working there. We have a school room at the house. You can find kids all over the house when it comes to school time.
We use an eclectic curriculum. I really pick and choose from what I like. We use Alpha-Omega LifePacs for Language Arts and History. The Alpha Omega Horizon series for Math. We use A Reason For Science and A Reason for Spelling, Shurley English, Handwriting Without Tears, Explode the Code Series and Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We also have started doing lapbooking and we love that. It has been a fun addition for us.
We have a giant schedule on our kitchen wall...but it is only a guide. We have flexibility within our day for sure. We school 4 days a week with Friday's off. We also go year round. We take breaks as we go. It keeps them busy...because if I have learned only one thing...it is that bored kids get into trouble!! :O)
My plan is to document what we do around here. Give some ideas for you to work with and to have a way to look back at what the boys have accomplished. I will also link you to some other site that have a lot of good ideas! Hopefully you will be able to find some fun things you can do with your own-even if you don't homeschool.
We are still on break and will start back next week! So come back soon and see what we got going on!!
