The Joys of Home Schooling...

I home schooled off and on during my school career.  My dad was in the U.S.  Air Force and we moved around quite a bit.  By the time I was 16 I had lived over seas longer than I had lived in the States.  If we ever lived in a place that didn't have a Christian school, my parents saw to it that we were home schooled.  I really liked it...my little sister...not so much.

I wanted to home school when my oldest was born.  My husband was pastoring (pestering) a small church and we didn't have a school there, so the obvious thing to do was home school.  By the time Lexxi was old enough to go to school we had moved to KY and Jeremy was the principal of a really great Christian school there at our church.  And since we lived on church property all I had to do was wake her up and kick her out the door and down the side walk to school every morning.  Did ever a person have it as rough as I??  =P

Now, that we are in AZ without a Christian school in the area, we are homeschooling.  I do love it!  When fractions don't make since ~ break out the recipes!  Not only are there fractions on the cards themselves, but if you have 6 people in your family and 12 slices of cake you end up with 1/2 of a cake!  Have I mentioned that I love home schooling??  We learn story problems too.  If Mama weighed 150 pounds before we started learning fractions and she gained 35 pounds while we were learning fractions, how much does Mama weigh now?  See what I mean?  Home schooling is great!!

I've always loved the idea of cramming as much info into the little brains of my children as I could.  Music isn't my thing, so we paid a friend to teach them voice lessons while we had the chance.  Hope to do it again some day along with a few (around 10) years worth of piano lessons.  Swimming lessons are a must too.  And you can bet that when it's time to plant that garden they will all be out there helping me and learning as much as they can about science, dirt, bugs and plants as they can. I do hope that Wesley doesn't ask to plant his favorite food again this year tho. (I never really imagined that a 3 year old would have such troubles understanding that yogurt just doesn't grow on a bush!)  "Hands on" is such a better way to go and so much more fun!  My kids are the only kids I know that knew how to can green beans before they went to second grade!  That's not to say Christian schools aren't good.  They are wonderful and we'd use it if there were a good one in the area, but for now, we are home schooling, so I'm counting my home schooling blessings. 

   Meghan doing her reading.  And, no, I was NOT sleeping in this picture. 

        (These are the kinds of pictures you get when your daughter get's a camera for Christmas.  But it's a pretty good picture considering she's only 8.)