Emergency Afternoon Dance Breaks And Other Homeschooling Joys.

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So far I have shared all kinds of challenges we have faced in starting out on this homeschool journey. I don’t want to give the impression that it is all a challenge. We have a lot of awesome happening here! So much happened  that I am just so grateful to have experienced with my little man today. If I were working outside the home (believe me working moms, what our at home sisters say about the work is real), I would have missed so many moments. So here are a few really cool things that happen when you decide to homeschool.

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1) I realized that I am not a terrible math teacher.

I totally rocked out some great math explanations and we showed Red Bird Mathematics who was boss this morning (after we got over ourselves about an initial mistake). We high-fived, we showed muscles. We may or may not have danced a little.

Since I was young I have believed that I was terrible at math. While we are only doing 2nd grade math right now, I was worried that I would not be good enough at explaining things to my buddy. I put that myth to bed today. I am an AWESOME 2nd grade math teacher, so far. If it sounds like I am bragging. I am. I am ridiculously proud of this.

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2) Reading is done cuddled up on the couch.

My buddy and I love reading. He is like me in that he reads quickly and recursively. We started reading Roald Dahl’s, Matilda. Though we started the novel together, he has since gone on to read the whole thing (probably twice), but he still humors me when we talk about each chapter. We can’t make predictions, because he doesn’t want to spoil it for me. I love cuddling with him and reading because he is getting older and may not want to cuddle for longer. The best part was that he said we were the opposite of Matilda’s parents because we loved him and love to read.

3) Carschooling. It’s a thing, and it is cool.

We are in the car several times everyday whether we are on the way to the beach or gymnastics. As a long-time fan of podcasts and audiobooks, I had been used to listening to my favorites when I was in the car by myself, but now that I have my co-pilot with me most of the time, I have started looking around for some kids podcasts. We use the Podbay app and have been listening to Brains On! lately. The episode “Bright Lights, Big Sneezy” was one of our favorites so far.

It’s not that we talk about the actual episodes that much, but they make him question and remember other things he has learned and wants to share with me. It has a pretty good theme song that we like too.

We will be adding some audiobooks soon, too. We’re still debating what title to choose.

4) The Dance Break

So, I love the movie, Guardians of the Galaxy and the soundtrack is awesome. We have pretty much been listening to it non-stop for about two weeks. Today, when I Want You Back came on, we danced around laughing and spinning. He was reading, and I had been packing for our upcoming move, but we both stopped to have fun together and it was perfect.

These are the moments that I was so longing for when we made this major life change. Though I have no doubt that we will continue to have moments that are challenging along the way, we are finding our path with joy and love. You can’t ask for better than that.

 

Getting It All Done and Other Fairy Tales

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I had such a utopian vision of what our days were going to look like. J-Man would wake up around 8:00 AM happy and excited to start the day. We would talk about our plan for the day in a morning meeting as we ate the home cooked breakfast that I made. We would get set up for the day and then do a little yoga, finally settling in to whatever J-Man and I planned to focus on for the day. When he was working independently, I would do laundry, dishes, and stop treating my house like a victim of neglect.

Ahh…dreams.

It took one day for me to see that this was not going to work. First, I grossly underestimated how long the activities we planned would take. The cool thing about working with J-Man is that I get to spend time with him and see what he enjoys. I get to learn more about his strengths and areas where he needs more help. We spent hours on a dream catcher that turned out beautifully, and in the process I found out he has had nightmares lately that he hadn’t told me about before, but these conversations took time. So, more than an hour past when I imagined we would be done.

So, then we started reading together and I was doing the whole, “Oh! No! What will happen to Sophie?” (because I haven’t read the whole thing yet). I was thinking we would have this great conversation about predictions and evidence in reading, and he said, “It’s OK Mom. I know she’s OK. I finished already.” He was reading to humor me, but also because he wanted to snuggle up and share something he enjoyed.

The take away is this: We won’t get to everything I would like us to do in a day. Some days, we might not to get to any of them because we may have an urgent need to get to the beach, but what we are getting is closer everyday.

My house is still a mess, I am four days behind on the blog, and I am behind on my work for my etsy shop, but I wouldn’t change a thing. Are you making it all happen? Share your tips for organizing your days! Please!