I can't believe we've completed a whole year of homeschool! Wow, it went by a lot faster than I thought it would, and I enjoyed it even MORE than I expected to. Lily learned to read, write, and basic math. Oliver learned his ABC's, shapes, colors, and how to count to 10. I take a lot of pride in the progress they've made this year :).
A lot of people have asked me what we do each day and if I'm still happy with my decision to homeschool. So I'm writing this post to answer those questions.
First of all we've switched things up quite a bit over the months. It has kind of been a learning process for me. Trying to find the best way to teach them and make it fun. Recently we started up the work box idea, which basically is a box of their work for the day. I fill it with some work books, science projects, art projects, ect. I'll do a different post sharing some of my ideas. Anyway, the work boxes seem to be a hit, mostly because I add new fun things each day. A lot of work sometimes, but Pinterest has been a HUGE source for ideas.
We usually spend about 2 hours a day on homeschool, which is pretty awesome because the rest of the day we spend doing hands on learning. Like taking care of the baby...
Taking care of pets (like the ones they catch in the yard)...
Planting our garden...
Learning measurements by baking cookies...
Creating art out of leaves and flower petals...
Learning to cook...
And make messes...
We've also found a ton of great ipad apps that the kids love. I like Starfall and ABCMouse the most.
Some other perks of homeschooling...
You can stay in your PJ's all day if you want :).
Breakfast can be a longer more enjoyable experience instead of having to rush out the door to be to school on time. We start school when ever the heck we feel like it. I'm so not a morning person and I'm SO not a punctual person :). So this works out great for me.
We get to spend weeks at a time down at our St. George home.
Lily got to be there for the
birth of her baby sister and gets to spend all the time in the world with her.
She also gets to spend lots of time with her little bro. It's so cute to see her watching out for him and even teaching him new things.
People always ask me about the social aspect of homeschooling. Well, I pretty much plan a playdate for her each day and we have even spent our days socializing with other homeschooled students.
We've done lots of art projects...
Messy projects...
Book reports...
Science projects...
And tonz of field trips including, cooking classes, art classes, Discovery Gateway, the zoo, hiking, museums...
(Like how there's a "DO NOT TOUCH" sign right there :)
We visited a farm...
And did fun family outings like spending the day at the lake collecting treasures in the sand.
There are endless opportunities to learn and endless amounts of things to do and see. So to answer your question, YES! I'm still happy about my decision to homeschool and loving every minute of it.
It was a little hot for the kids, but thankfully the hike wasn't that long. Oliver made us hold him the whole way there and back. Needless to say we both got a great work out so that's always good. Look at Oliver's face, haha. This is his "hold me, I'm hot and tired face".
Lily is such a little climber. Any chance she got to veer off the trail and hike up some big rocks, she took it.
Brooklyn loved it.
There was plenty of shaded spots to stop and rest for a minute.
We saw lots of cool lizards which is the highlight for the kids. Ever since Sean discovered the Lizard Lasso they get so excited. This Lizard lasso is pretty cool. It was actually invented by a little boy. You've got to see his youtube video. Anyway, he sells this lasso that allows you to easily catch lizards, pretty much every time. Here's a picture of Lily with her catch.
Don't worry, it doesn't hurt them, and we just do catch and release.
Anyway, back to our hiking experience.
This was Olly's one short stretch of walking on his own... lasted about as long as it took me to take this picture.
Lily made a friend.
Then we made it to the water holes. Felt so nice to cool off a bit. Lily even jumped off the rocks into the water, unfortunately I didn't get a picture of that because I was feeding Brooklyn.
Then if you go up a little higher, there are more water holes with slippery rocks that people were using to slide down into the lower water holes.
So, if you ever make it down to Southern Utah then you have to check this place out. It was awesome!!!
