Home-school Helpers

The most common question we get asked about our home school is "are you worried about their socialization?"

They're always taken aback when I say "yes, we are...that's why we're homeschooling."

As we all know, things are not the way they used to be.  When I went to elementary school, one neighbor kid's mom was the recess aide, another was the lunch lady, and one of my best childhood friend's mom was the 5th grade teacher.  There was a lot of "moms" looking after you, and they had a bit more freedom in correcting any behavior that went astray. And they did.

There are many, many wonderful teachers and families out there who are utilizing the public school system.  I actually have many christian friends who teach at public schools, which I am grateful for.  They are needed there!  There are also many, many negative influences in the system now.  Teachers have less and less freedom to discipline and teach kids moral & ethical values.  Some kids have way too much freedom with social media, television, computers and music, and bring to school things that my children do not need to learn about.  We want our kids to have a christian education, so we home-school.

Our kids have an abundance of social interaction opportunities.  They interact with people of all different ages at home, from adults to babies.  With our supervision, they get to visit with people we do business with, the milkman, our team members, the fuel delivery driver....the list goes on and on.

They are not at home all the time. To round out our home school curriculum, we have lots of activities. For example, we participate in our local science center's home school science days.  Two weeks ago, the 3 oldest went to Bible School. The week following that the two oldest went to Sports Camp, a week-long day camp at the community college that teaches the kids how to play many different sports.  This week we had our annual cousin camp out (21 cousins present, with first aid and CPR training), took the 1st batch of meat birds to the butcher, and the hoof trimmer came.  Coming up this summer is two weeks of swimming lessons and the 4-H fair!  I would almost say we are on the edge of being one of those "hyper-scheduled" families.  Did I mention the music lessons???... whoops!

The key for us is to know what we (Rick and I) are good at including in the curriculum and what we are not.  Those things that we are not as good at can be done elsewhere, like at Sports Camp.  It might not be the same as year 'round physical education, but it meets our needs.

Although we don't have bookwork during the summer, here are some pictures from the learning opportunities the past couple of weeks: 

The boys at Sports Camp with camp director Nicki.  They played normal sports such as soccer, volleyball, basketball, and dodge ball, as well as variations with water balloons.  Now, one of our local community colleges will seem much more familiar when the time for higher education comes.

 

Day two of cousin camp-out.  The theme this year was "A Carnival of Cousins". We had inflatables, face painting, a juggler, cotton candy, a hot dog stand to serve food from, and adult games such as volleyball and Frisbee.  My parents and siblings and us all make an effort to create these themed camp-outs for the cousins.  Cousins are special people, and make great friends!

 The first group of meat birds off to the butcher!

 The hoof trimmer arrived much earlier then expected. Rick was not home, so I called for the boys. I told them to round up the already-sorted cows out of the paddock by the barn, and put them in the holding area between the brown gate and the red gate. They ran out and did that, told the hoof trimmer where to park (it was the nephew of our regular trimmer), got the gates set up, and had three of the five cows done before Rick got home. When I checked on them, Josh said "These boys know more about what's going on here than I do!' They did a great job!

We finally got a second bathroom!!! LOL! The port-a-jon arrived today for the barn project.  There's going to be a lot of people here this next month, so we thought this would help.  Now, when we're out doing chores, we won't have pay attention to who's "behind the barn" before we walk out there! :)   The driver said he had 90 more to deliver....I think I 'll keep my farm job!








Have a great weekend!

-Terri