The Misfit homeschooler: Living in a secular world

We had a storm system coming up thru the area and started to prepare for possible blackouts. Then we got a flier from a friend. A local school district had donated over 2000 books to the local library and the friends of the library were having a "book giveaway" the same day the big storm was supposed to arrive. The kids of course wanted to go see all the books and since the storm wasn't supposed to arrive until early afternoon we figured we would have time to get there and get back home before the storm arrived.  We got there as soon as the posted time and they must have opened a little earlier but not by much. When we went in I mentioned to the girls that the flier had said each child gets 2 grocery bags full. Well, the people working there heard me and said not to worry about it and take as many as you want. I really should have warned the poor workers! So the girls went to work! By the time they were done, I was borrowing the libraries cart to take everything to the ...

After we got home from our camping trip, we had Oma and Opa come to visit for a couple of weeks. The kids always love seeing them and not a LOT of school got done..because..well, life happens. We started slowly with a few things here and there but didn't hit our full schedule until the end of September/First full week of October. Most of our new stuff arrived for the year. So it was fun looking thru everything! For our social studies/geography/culture studies the kids picked out a few different books. We are still working on some of our books from last year so this was just rounding out a few areas. Then of course they have the "country club" that meets every other week and we have each "student" and/or their family present a different country (they get to choose) and generally have a small talk about the country, do a project, get to taste some yummy food from each country and then the kids go out and play for 20 minutes or so afterwards. Some of the oth...

In between everything else we got in our last camping trip of the year at Nehalem Bay State Park with a couple of our homeschooling families. It was a ton of fun as usual. We camped next to each other and ended up just hanging at one campsite most of the day while the kids played at the playground or we went down to the beach for some adventures. Our first afternoon the kids hit the beach pretty fast after tents were all set up! While the girls got wet, the boys decided to do some digging in the sand. of course we were there towards the end of the day so before long it was back to the campsite for dinner! Thankfully this time, we made almost all the meals in advance and all we had to do was take them out of the cooler and put them on the fire so not a lot of food prep necessary which let us have more of  a relaxed evening. The next day was beautiful and the ids headed back to the beach where Dominic got his first kite flying lesson from dad! The girls got ...

As you have probably noticed I took a short (or long) break from blogging while I was crazy busy! We had visitors for a couple of weeks, needed to finish up projects around the property and get the school room almost finished! Had a couple of trips, started up school..yeah, life happens. so I'll start with the room..yes, the school room. once the new windows were in and the carpet put into place we had a mostly carpeted room just waiting to finish the other section so we didn't have concrete and carpet for the room.As a reminder here's the room before (although at this point it the walls had already been painted. Here's the room with the concrete and carpet look... Then my husband finally got to get working on the concrete part and got it put together (mostly in a day). Then it was time to head into the attic to get reinforcements done for the hanging chairs... So I'll reveal a little bit of the room (because I don't have all the pictures d...

We spent yesterday picking up the kids new stuff for the year (we have a couple of things on backorder and the reading program for my daughter with dyslexia will be here on Friday) and of course we are now ALL excited to get started with school! For Science this year lots of physics and Chemistry! We also picked up the Usborne books illustrated dictionary of Chemistry and Physics, plus of course the Encyclopedia of science and What's science all about that we have on hand. For Art we did several things. The girls were both really excited to have the pottery wheel and clay to play with. This is paired with Art classes at a local studio every other week and a few art books we already had on hand. We've taken a bit of a peek in the Artistic pursuits books and those are pretty neat. A little on the expensive side but seem totally worth it. We will know better once we get going in them of course! For History we picked: History pockets level 1 and 2 and while SOTW I...

Well, I'm happy to say that our schoolroom is almost finished. We got hit by a heatwave and having to climb into the attic to put supports for the hammock chairs took longer than we thought as it heats up an extra 10-20 degree's up there compared to the house! We now have 2 up, the support for the framed map is almost complete, our books and supplies for this year arrive tomorrow except for a reading program for my dyslexic kiddo that arrives on Friday. So that means..this weekend I'll be taking all the pictures for the new room and posting them so you can see what we had before and after our big project. While we will have a few little things here and there you will at least get to see the over all room :) and a little entertainment..just so you get a small peek inside our life... So the husband was putting up the 2nd hammock chair for us today. When he brought in the second ladder, he brought a "friend" with him..he walks in and his friend is running right...

Business insider did an article recently on homeschooling. Some of the things that didn't really surprise me are a) their statement that homeschooling has grown 61.8% in the last 10 years (there are now aprox. 2 million homeschoolers in the U.S. ) and the fact that they stated "Contrary to the belief that homeschooling produces anti-social outcasts, the truth is that some of the most high-achieving, well-adjusted students are poring over math problems at their kitchen table, not a desk in a classroom. According to leading pedagogical research, at-home instruction may just be the most relevant, responsible, and effective way to educate children in the 21st century" http://www.businessinsider.com/why-kids-should-get-homeschooled-2016-8 Its a very interesting article to read and gives those of us who are having the momentary doubts, questions and worries that we all seem to get this time of year as everyone starts sending their kids back to public school som...