The Loving Learner- On Teaching and Being a Mom: Back to School!

It has been forever, but I am back to blogging! There have been many changes and lots of transitions in our family. First, we found out that we are expecting a new little one at the end of January! Not long after we found out that our youngest daughter's 6 month old brother was also entering the foster care system. Though our lives are already busy with little ones and there is one on the way, we felt that opening our home to this little guy was what we needed to do. It has been challenging and we have busier than I feel we have ever been. However, I strongly feel that the right choice is not always the easy one. He is a beautiful boy with a contagious smile! Now we are a family of six with 4 little ones ages four and under. People often ask us how we do it. Well, we don't do it alone! Kyle and I work as a team, we are strict about schedules, have awesome family and neighbor support. And, as I write, there is a wonderful couple from church who come every Tuesday for three hours to play with the kids so I can catch up on house work and breath!

We have started back to home schooling! This year Ava is in her second year of preschool. I cherish our home school days. It is time I feel I can leave behind the stress of the dozens of medical appointments we are constantly going to for our new baby boy, forget about the dishes piling up, or the loads of laundry that need to be done. Home school time is our time to be together!

This year, with the recommendation from a friend, I bought the Growing Up Wild curriculum. It guides our week and is much less stressful than creating all the ideas from scratch or having to scour the web for ideas. It is nature based and so far a hit! We are having school three days a week. Dominic and Lilly participate as their attention span allows. I'll start more of a formal school time with Dominic after he turns 3 in December. I will go more into detail about the different resources we are using this year next time. For now, here are a few pictures from the start of our school year!

I am trying to sit with Dominic for one one-on-one activity a day during our school time. Here he is sorting colored fruit.

Each day, Ava has about 20 minutes she must chose an independent center choices. I select a few choices ahead of tine and she is able to pick from there. This is the time I am able to sit with Dominic. Here she is putting the correct number of bugs into the right bug jar.

The curriculum we are using has some great science experiments. This week we are focusing on ants. Here Ava is observing which food the ants are most interested in. I predicted they would be all over the jelly. Ava thought the bread. The bread was with winner! Ava needed to record her findings in her science journal.

Prior to starting new topics we will do KWL charts and revisit them throughout the week. Here is the start of our ant chart!

Ava took a survey that asked people if they preferred either a fish, ladybug, or a cat. She had to call family members and even ask some neighbors. We graphed the results.