Seasons Change

"To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven." Ecclesiates 3:1

Four years ago, we started a wonderful adventure that we hadn't anticipated: homeschooling. I knew at the time that it might not be the right thing for us for our kids' entire educational careers, but we knew it was the right thing for our family at the time. Over the past four years, I grew to love homeschooling and the lifestyle it allowed us. I loved the time together the most. Sure, we had plenty of spats, of teasing, of crying, of all the typical sibling conflicts and mommy meltdowns, but we also had lot of fun together, lots of spiritual experiences together, and lots of learning together. We learned to cooperate more and to deal with our differences in a way that we might not have done if we were all going our separate ways for most of the day.

This year, the direction we got from Heavenly Father was different. It made me feel sad, scared, nervous, excited (for them), guilty, hopeful, and a slew of other emotions. At first, we only had the guts to commit Henry and Ian to returning to school in a new charter school, but as the school year approached, we began to feel strongly that Kimball should participate as well. Much like our decision to homeschool four years ago, this decision was one that we spent lots of time praying and agonizing over, and in the end, proceeded with the confidence that it was the right choice for our family.

So, on the day after Labor Day (which is the perfect day to start school, by the way), our boys donned their new uniforms, grabbed their backpacks, lunch sacks, water bottles, and set off for school. I am sure that I was more nervous than they, and I am the only one who cried that morning. I managed to keep it to moist eyes until I kissed Ian good-bye in his first grade class and had to bolt out the door because Ugly Cry was coming on fast.

So far, we have been too busy to miss them much during the day. Bronwen did remind me the first day about 100 times to go get her brothers from school, but once her co-op preschool and ballet class started up, we found ourselves quite scheduled during the school day. I also jumped into the new charter school with both feet and took a big role on the fundraising committee as we did a huge kick-off fundraising dinner and auction event last weekend. People ask me what I am doing with the extra time I presumably have because I am not schooling my children all morning, but I haven't found any extra time!

The boys are all making new friends, rising to new heights, gaining confidence, and learning loads of interesting things every day. Kimball even moved up to 7th grade after three weeks in 6th! We are all adjusting to them having less free time and more homework and deadlines, but I remind myself that they are learning some discipline that wasn't necessary when I was their teacher. It is good for all of us.

I am so grateful for the homeschooling season of my life, and look forward to the ways that my family will be blessed by this new season. Will we ever return to homeschooling? Maybe. We're just taking it one year at a time. But for now, I know that my kids are just where they need to be, and that feels wonderful.

Firsts

It's been a week of firsts around here.

First Day of Kindergarten



First Smiles



First Week all year that I've gotten up by 6:00 EVERY DAY. It feels good in a sick, twisted, and sometimes exhausting way. (I'll hopefully switch that to 5:00 soon, but not until Meglet drops her 2:00 am feeding.) Since we have to leave to take Ian to kinder no later than 8:15, it really makes us stick to our morning routine--which is also helping us accomplish a lot at Tiger Academy.

What have you been up to this week?

Back To School

It's that time again. Although I will admit to anticipating the new year with some dread, once I finally buckled down and figured out my lesson plans and schedule for the school year, I was excited to begin. Even though I'm the teacher now, I still love the feeling of a fresh pack of crayons, a cup full of brand-new, sharp pencils; and all those blank pages in the composition books make my heart race! I did miss having an excuse for everyone to get a new outfit (although everyone did get new shoes last week--everyone but me, that is.) And I completely forgot to take a first-day-of-school picture. Shame on me.

I have learned a few things about my family's needs in regards to homeschool in the past two years--plus I spent some time petitioning the Lord to show me a better way. I truly felt led by Him as my plans came together, which gives me confidence in those plans. I know that my vision for our homeschool and reality haven't quite become one and the same yet, but I'm working towards that goal.

This year, Ian will be attending kindergarten half-days at the public school. We agonized about this last spring, but since we registered him I have felt increasingly better about it. We wanted to give him the opportunity to go to kinder if he chose. Both Kimball and Henry attended kindergarten at the same public school and had a good experience there. I feel that kinder is a unique year socially, when the kids have lots of opportunities to bond with other kids and experience the classroom environment. The biggest disadvantages to sending him? First of all, the public school's approach to writing which is very different from the philosophy I embrace--but I don't think they can do much damage in this year. The other con to sending him is that it takes some of the flexibility out of my schedule and routine. In the end we decided that it just felt right to give him this experience. He will participate with us in afternoon lessons (science, art, music, and read-alouds), and we anticipate that he will be back with us homeschooling full-time next year.

We've also made the leap to joining a public charter school because of the additional resources it provides. I steered clear of it previously because I really value my autonomy, but after closer investigation it appears that this group is reasonably flexible and will let me call the (important) shots regarding my kids' education. I do have to follow their schedule, which explains why we started our school year yesterday. I really prefer to start after Labor Day or at least when the kids in our neighborhood go back to school (next week), but we decided that we could go ahead and start this week. The charter school will allow my kids to do more of the extras, like art classes, horseback riding, and music lessons, without me having to shell out so much money every month. They also pay for my curriculum, but I had already purchased most of the curricula for this year before we made this decision. They have a center in my community that offers small group classes and a library where I can check out a variety of resources to use in our schooling. If all goes as planned, Kimball will be taking a ceramic sculpture class and a hands-on equations class on Friday mornings, while Henry takes a hands-on art and hands-on science class at the same time. We'll see how that goes.

Anyway, so far so good. We are starting each school day with Book of Mormon study on a deeper level than we have been doing in our family devotional. As we'll still be having devotional with Jared before breakfast, I am concentrating this lesson on my readers (Kimball and Henry). Besides a closer study of the scriptures, it will provide some additional language arts time in our day. The real benefits, I know, will be the spirit that it brings to our school day and the testimonies it will strengthen within our home.

Now I've got to hit the hay, as rising early is key to my success and I have to be up in the night with my little 8 week/ 8 lb baby who isn't big enough to sleep all night yet. She is getting closer to dropping that 2 am feeding, though, I can feel it!

Tell me about your first day of school. Ready, begin!







picture swiped from this blog.

Summer Comes To A Screeching Halt

I was raised in the land of Southern California. Now, I know that plenty of you out there despise Southern Cal, but it has many, many fine points. Moderate temperatures year round, an ocean breeze at 5:00 pm sharp, plenty of great shopping, entertainment, and restaurants, and beautiful beaches. One thing that it offered that I failed to fully appreciate as a child was that summer doesn't end there until Labor Day. We always went back to school somewhere between September 4th and the 9th--at least a few days after the holiday that is supposed to signal summer's end.
We clearly were not considering ideal school schedules (or ideal weather patterns and climates) when we decided to move further north. Here, school starts in the middle of August, when we should still be relishing in family vacations, swimming pools, homemade ice cream, etc. In fact, I always thought that those "dog days of summer" came in August. So why in the name of everything good would they send kids back to school? It was 98 degrees today (those of you in Phoenix are jealous, I know) and all the moms were completely sweaty (not just lightly perspiring) when we picked up the kidlets after school. Yikes! And there was no way that I was sending them in anything but summer clothes--all those adorable fall styles with "back to school" written all over them won't be pulled out for ages. No sirree, my boys started school today in cargo shorts and short sleeved shirts, with a cold water bottle in their backpacks. Aren't they cute?
Henry started kindergarten today, something that has caused me great anguish all summer, wondering if he's mature enough, if he knows his letters well enough, if he'll suck his thumb in class! He did marvelously well and thankfully didn't notice my eyes welling up when we said goodbye. I love his teacher, Mrs. R and I can tell that she will be great for him. And because Heavenly Father knew that he can be a bit on the shy side when he's not around people he knows, He made sure that Henry had four other kids in his kindergarten class that he already knew from church or preschool. Here he sat with three of them while we waited for the class to open: I already adore Kimball's teacher, Mrs. C; after meeting her yesterday for a preview of the classroom with Kimball, I can already tell that she is a dream teacher for a kid with special needs. She has already thought of lots of things to help him succeed including placement of his desk, hand fidgets, a book nook for breaks from the stimuli of the class, and room to move around. I fully expect Kimball to thrive in her class. Yeah! We have been so blessed with his teachers.
At 3:15 I picked up my boys, who were so excited to tell me all about their day. We came home for brownies and cold milk and to relax. Bummer that by tomorrow, they'll probably have homework--since it'll only be August 22nd, it feels like we should be headed to the lake or bumming around the pool, still being too lax about bed time and housework. Oh well. They don't realize that they've been cheated out of two and a half weeks of summer.

At least I'll have a few hours every day when they are at school and my other two are asleep. That'll leave more time for blogging!

Alli & I headed back to school (AFTER LABOR DAY) in 1980 (1st grade and 2nd grade, respectively.)