Things I learned my first year of homeschooling

Now that school is finally over for our family, I can relax. Our first year is done. The kids actually were not that excited about summer break. They enjoyed the structure of a school day and now summer presents for them hours of boredom especially since I won't allow them to fill the schooling hours with Xbox. This break is actually going to be more for mom than them. I need a little time where my 'to do list' doesn't involve several hours doing school. I also need the time to work on some areas of training and establishing habits that need to occur with a couple of children before adding school hours back in.

The following are four things that I learned during my first year of homeschooling.

My Ninjas

Recently, my boys received their edition of the Lego Club magazine. In it, was a tutorial on how to take a t-shirt and turn it into a Ninjago mask. All the next day they were ninjas. When I posted this picture to Facebook, I found out that other Moms everywhere were experiencing the same "ninja phenomenon".

Bekah wasn't in the original picture because she needed and "attitude adjustment".

What were we thinking....

At least I have a spot that I can contain them in...for hours at a time.

Field trip

While we were in Liberal, Kansas for the Lego competition, we decided to stop by the air museum and mark it down as a field trip day for school. We also had the joy of having grandma and grandpa from Colorado there with us. We greatly enjoyed taking them on our field trip.

Jr. FLL Lego club

Micah and Josiah were able to participate in a LEGO Club through our local homeschool co-op. It took them several months to research their topic, brainstorm, and then build their creation from legos. They learned the concept of teamwork and how to build simple machines. When they were finished the team went out of town with their project and were able to compete against other kids from all across the state of Kansas and even Oklahoma.

Their team won "most cooperative".

Anah doing school

Anah has been trying to do more school with us. I haven't been working with her hardly any this year. I've kinda just tolerated her and tried to keep her busy. Summer will be here soon and when the big kid's school year ends, I will start little kid schooling. For Anah this will pretty much mean that she will be learning number awareness and letter sounds. I found this printable of Q-tip painting numbers at 1+1+1=1.

Normally, I don't do paint. I don't have the patience to monitor it or clean it up. The nice thing about this was it wasn't messy! It takes very little paint to cover a q-tip and the space they actually paint on is a very small, non-messy space. Win-Win for mom :-)

Snow day

Moriah

This little video is just for fun. Chris was using the video recorder on his phone and Moriah was watching herself while it was recording.

10th Anniversary

I love my life. I wouldn't want to be doing anything else. 10 years ago today, Chris Jones and I began this crazy journey that is our life. He has given me five of the most beautiful  children ever created and one precious baby we will meet in heaven. We have moved 4 times in 10 years and no matter where I live, I am right where I want to be and that is beside the man I adore and couldn't live without. He is a wonderful father, loving husband, and the anchor in our family. He's not perfect but neither am I. Not a day goes by that I shouldn't thank God for this man. Some days I forget to; the days when life gets in the way and kids are loud and messy but when I watch him lead our family and train our children, my heart explodes with love and gratitude for him. God has blessed us in ways that money and materials can't even compare to. People only see the outside: what size house we have, what cars we drive, how much we make a year, and how expensive our large family is. They don't see the love and tenderness in our family. The happiness and joy God has given us despite sometimes having nothing. But I would rather live in a box with him than be seperated. As we look towards our next 10 years and then the 10 years after that, and eventually the rest of our lives, I know that no matter what God has in store for us, the richer or poorer, sickness or health, it would be an honor to spend it by his side, enouraging him and loving him.