Today was our first official day of homeschooling for this school year, although we have been easing our way in to it for a few weeks. We worked for about 3 hours this morning, then had lunch and ran errands. I'm more informal than alot of highly scheduled and highly organized homeschool moms I've met. Of course I do plan and I do schedule (and yes, I have a certain degree of organization), but my personal style definitely involves a great deal of flexibility as well. However, I am conducting our school in a "bonafide manner" as required by state law! Rest assured, I double check myself all the time to be sure I'm not missing something critical.
Backing up a bit, all three kiddos are at home this year. That decision had not been finalized when I last blogged, although I know this isn't really a surprise to anyone who knows the changes that have happened this year. I really questioned my decision to take N. out of our church's preschool more than anything, but in an era of cost cutting that $300/month expense was such an obvious way to free up some cash. God has confirmed the decision for us, though! We were accepted at a co-op for homeschooling enrichment classes for this semester and at the time I put our names on the waiting list, we were told it would be a 2 to 3 semester wait. So, I had put it out of my mind for this year and was looking for other types of enrichment activities. Out of the blue I got a call offering me a cleaning position if I wanted it, and all three kids will have classes there without paying tuition (there will be some supply fees, but that's nominal compared to what most classes cost elsewhere). This means that every Friday, N. will have a preschool to go to and the big kids will each have 5 different classes for ten weeks. Woo hoo! Now, you may recall, when A. and I (me) visited he was the only one that I knew I would be homeschooling but I put the girls' names on the list just to cover all bases. Wow, God really does go before us! So amazing.
Today we got ice cream when we went to run errands. We were the only family out and about as most other kids would have been in school at the time. I'm still a little bit self-conscious about that and feel the need to explain that "we are homeschoolers" when I can tell people are wondering why my kids are not in school. I resisted the urge to explain myself today for the most part, I'm sure we'll all get used to that in time.
We've done some back to school shopping and preparing, but there wasn't any fan-fare today other than ice cream. I didn't even remember to take a picture of our "first day of school". The kids didn't seem to miss it much, but it felt a little odd to me. The way I see it, the first day of school has a wierd feel to it no matter where your kids go to school. Change is change, even if your kids attend the same school they did the year before because they are moving up to a different grade with different teachers and kids.
Our first day of enrichment classes is a still a few weeks away. I think that will be our fan-fare day, when the kids get to experience more of the first day of school stuff. Soccer season is starting up again, and we will have more activities with Weblos, Brownies, and church. That part is very familiar.
Yes, I'm back and we are all in a season of change.
1 comment:
Glad to have you back!
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