Saturday, June 12, 2010

Let's start at the very beginning...

Aloha! Thanks for checking this blog out. Seriously folks, I NEED your help! Who am I? My name is Molly and I'm currently pregnant with my 6th child. This year, I'll be starting the adventure of homeschooling my 9 year old, 7 year old, 6 year old and 4 year old. I'm excited and a wee bit terrified. What if I miss something? What if I choose the wrong curriculum? What if ...uh...my kids get a bit weird??? The last one's a joke, I'm sure there are just as many weird public school kids as there are homeschool kids. Besides, weird makes things fun, right?

At the moment we are in the middle of moving our family from Hawaii to Florida. My husband is already there and we'll be joining him in the beginning of July. I had high hopes of starting my homeschool mid-July, since we'll be headed out to Utah for a reunion in August and I'd love to have things a little figured out by the time #6 comes mid-September. I've spent countless hours reading blogs, checking curriculum, trying to figure out the legal aspect of it all. There is SO much information out there! It is awesome and overwhelming all at the same time. This is where YOU come in! Can you help me navigate through this crazy homeschool world? What works for you? What did you try and it flopped? How do you make it work? What keeps you sane? For the next few weeks, I'll be posting questions about the things I find and hopefully SOMEONE out there will find my meager little blog and have some answers for me.

Oh yeah, the cast of characters.

Molly=me, of course! I like to bake, sew, SLEEP, read...all that good stuff. I'm a bit of a goof ball and most of the times I still feel like a kid even though I'll be turning 30 next year.

Hotness=my husband. Those of you who personally know him may laugh at his nickname, but you've got to admit, he's a bundle of hotness. He's our breadwinner who makes it possible for me to be home with my lovelies. He is SO supportive of my wacky homeschooling idea. He is such a family man who can't get enough of his kids.

Jedi=our 9 year old son. He loves legos, star wars, video games, surfing, golf and soccer. He's a spectacular big brother and he's my right hand man around the house.

Little Momma=our 7 year old daughter. She is very artistic. She LOVES to read. She is so into nature right now, it's amazing! She will often hop on the computer just to google what a certain creature eats or about their habitat.

Rascal=our soon to be 6 yr old. He's a ball of energy. He's rambunctious and sneaky, but he is the most generous of all our children. As soon as he's given something, he starts talking about who he can share it with.

Momma's Boy=our 4 year old. His name says it all. He's a snuggler and hand holder. I think he always has a song in his head because it's not unusual to find him dancing in silence. He is such a joy.

Chicky=our 17 month old (Jan 19, 2009) daughter. She has finally found her walking legs. She is just starting to talk and is currently the center of attention at our house.

#6=baby girl due in Sept. No names yet...but as everything else, I'm open to suggestions. We're looking for something that ends in an "en, on, an, in" sound and is after a place...yeah, it's silly, but it fits our pattern of girl names (which I didn't realize until after naming Chicky that both girls are locations!). Have I mentioned I'm a little quirky? no?? well, I am...and this just goes to show it.

So, that's us in a nutshell.

What about you?

Are you up to the challenge? CAN you help me? WILL you help me???

...pretty please???

12 comments:

Naihe Family said...

After this year, next year I will find something that has a more set curriculum. (like check box) I have a great grammar book for 1st and 2nd grade, First Language Lessons for a well trained mind. Amazon has it cheap. Tells you what to say, gives activites, Poems to memorize, and dictation excersies for second grade. LOVE THIS book lifesaver. You will be great!!! Good LUCK!

Michelle said...

You will do great!

You will miss something, but if your kids really need it they will figure it out.

You will pick the wrong curriculum, but you will keep trying until you find what works. What works for one child might not work for another.

Your kids will be weird, but weird is good.

I am here for you, Molly. I still worry sometimes that I am totally screwing up my kids, but most days I absolutely love it and I think you will, too. It is hard work, but probably just as hard as getting your kids to school every morning and helping them do homework everyday and all of the other craziness that comes with public school.

I could go on, but my biggest piece of advice is to find the local homeschool group and start going to park days. You will make like-minded friends and meet lots of people who can help you navigate this crazy homeschool thing :)

Rae said...

Molly! I'm not a homeschooler, but I talk to Abby about it all the time and think I might choose to do it in the future. I love reading about it--other people's experiences specifically!

As far as names go, I absolutely LOVE naming. Phill teases me that I would have ten kids just to name them. (It's a little bit true.) Here are some ideas for you, some within the criteria you set and some not so much.

Savannah (Pretty sure you know our little girl is Savanna--no 'h')

London

Aspen

Austin (I have heard this for girls...so I'm listing it.)

Cheyenne

Florence (I'm sorry....I realize I may be one of very few people who thinks this name is cute, but I LOVE it! So I had to list it.)

Ireland

I may or may not have used a baby names website to generate some ideas. :)

Oh, and an interesting name fact: In middle school I knew a girl who was named after two of her parents' favorite places. Her name was Romecca.

Abby said...

How weird! I thought I commented this morning, but it's not here. Well, I needed to come back anyway for the homeschooling side of it.

On names -- I thought of one immediately; Madison, Wisconsin. The rest I looked up because names are so fun to think about. This morning I knew what states they were each in, or countries - but I've some now. How about:

Morgan
Vivian
Cheyenne (Wyoming)
Aspen (Colorado)

Those are the ones that must've stuck out to me the most because I can't remember the rest now!

Homeschooling...where to begin! Since your little bundle of joy is due to arrive September, I wouldn't even necessarily stress about starting in July. Just start in August like usual but try to keep outside activities to a minimum (or even nonexistent! aside from unplanned things you just decide to do, like park trips...) for that first semester.

Another thing that might help at that time would be to focus on Reading, Writing, and Math. Leave the rest alone for the first semester and just get into a good rhythm with the basics. Or plan to do just once a week with the other subjects initially. I would give that advice to any new homeschooler, not just a new homeschooler about to have a baby. :)

I'll send you an email about curriculum. I doubt this comment would allow all I have to say! Or a link to my homeschool blog where I think it's about time I posted a general homeschooling post...I have emails with new homeschoolers that would make for a good post or two.

I'm so excited that you'll be homeschooling. I'd love to hear what got you to this point. It's wonderful. It's an adjustment and a lot of work. But the trade-off is SO worth it. As I'm sure you expect/plan for it to be, otherwise you wouldn't be starting it!

Abby said...

Oops, that was supposed to say "I've forgotten some now"....

Abby said...

Phew. I blogged! That was fun, and about time! Hope you like it!

http://hansonsathome.blogspot.com/

Stephanie said...

I have no advice but shall be cheering you on from the sidelines! :)

Michelle said...

Looks like you will have plenty of advice. I checked out Abby's blog and we seem to have very similar plans and ideas.

I agree that you should just focus on the 3r's at first. Of course, the other stuff is more fun, but I learned from experience that kids will learn lots just from the world around them.

When you are ready to add in history and science,etc. I would recommend doing those with all of your kids together. Story of the World is a great read aloud. I used to just get books from the library for science, but the elementary Apologia books look really good. And you can gather the kids around and read to them while nursing a baby.

Oh, and one more thing, here is a great article about babies and homeschooling.

http://www.lovetolearn.net/policies/baby.lasso

Abby said...

Molly, I'll second that lovetolearn article. It is awesome. Really awesome.

Your friend "Me" sounds very cool! Glad to see someone else similarly minded on homeschooling things. And oh! Feel free to email me anytime you have questions!!! Or I can give you my number!

Angela said...

You should check this blog out she talk about homeschooling.

http://chocolateonmycranium.blogspot.com/

Summer Spillane Jordan said...

we've got our kiddos back in public school...i miss them! it's so much work either way...but the homeschool route is so much more rewarding! you get to see them learn and see them grow as individuals, unmarked by the outside world! it's really a precious thing and i'm so excited for you! our one thing that my mom did and i carried on was our "routine"...every day when we'd start (whatever hour that would be :) ) we'd have an opening prayer, say the pledge of allegience, read scriptures together, and then do some type of memorization...either articles of faith, proclamation, famous quotes, or the preamble to the constitution :) it gets their minds focused and everyone's together...then they'd start their individual work. the other things is just to have books at their reach...every kind...hit every single book sale/thrift store you can and just spend your extra pocket change on books about anything educational...you'd be surprised what you see them snuggled up reading! have fun and as everyone above has stated...it's a constantly changing thing...you learn, you change, the kids change, you change ;) you know them better than anyone and you know what they need!

Rach said...

Hello Molly, Goodness I just got on the blog & found you started this Blog, love it! I can't wait to see what you do too. If you are interested in a K12 curriculum, I bet you could find one out there. My sister just started doing a K12 one in California & they only go in quarterly for checkups & stuff. I found using a full curriculum when I started, (so I didn't have to think about planning & such) was a good transition for me from public to homeschool. But if anyone can just start FRESH & go straight into doing their own curriculum its YOU!

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