Things I Love About Homeschooling

In no particular order...

Flexibility.  We have lots of appointments and life changes week to week for us - and that's ok! I love that school doesn't have to be at a certain time or on a certain day of the week for us.  We aim for four days of school and call it good!  I'm also thankful that we can still do school even on "sick days" when Matthew is coughing and would probably have had to stay home from school, but he feels well enough to do work.  He would probably miss a lot of school due to sickness so for us this is a great option!

Time.  We have time to just do what we want to do.  When the kids get into cutting and gluing they can do that for as long as they want and then we can move on to something else.  I like not feeling rushed.

Finding our groove.  Hannah has started really enjoying coloring, drawing, cutting, pasting and general mess making :)  It's awesome!  I love that I can work with the boys and be less interrupted, and know that she is having fun and developing skills.

Spending the day with these three.  Mostly awesome.

Seeing them learn and succeed.  Matthew has come so far with his handwriting - from hating it last year to doing it without complaining and taking pride in his work this year.  It's amazing to see!

Finding things they love to do and fun ways to learn.  I found this truck activity book for Nathan for a dollar at Goodwill and he just loves it!  He is learning numbers, shapes, practicing writing....but he doesn't feel like he's working ;)

(Took this picture the wrong way on my phone...oops!)

Planning.  I'm such a nerd.  This is one of my favorite things about homeschooling.  Oh, the planning!  I made my own blank lesson plan sheets, I easily fill them in one week at a time, and I check it off as we go!  I love knowing what we need to accomplish and seeing what we have done already.

Reading with the kids.  I am trying to be so much more intentional about reading more with the kids this year.  I made a box with our read-aloud books and also books I'm assigning for Matthew to read to me.  We have a set time for reading aloud chapter books (when Hannah is napping) and so far have finished Charlotte's Web and part of a book of train stories.  

Seeing the kids develop independence.  It is so great that now I can give Matthew and assignment to work on and he gets to it with very little help (only for certain subjects of course).  He can read the directions and knows to ask if he gets stuck.  I am then free to play with Hannah for a few minutes, to work with Nathan, to put laundry in...it's really great.

Putting some Pinterest ideas into action!  I saw this idea for putting up contact paper so that shapes could be stuck on and moved around.  Hannah loves it and it's great for practicing patterns with the boys as well!  I love when things actually work (since most don't! Ha!).

We had a bit of a rough start this year (Mommy had a pretty bad attitude and things were not going smoothly!) but now we are finding our groove and it is getting easier.  I'm so thankful we have the option to homeschool!