An explanation of my "First day of homeschool" post

Sometimes I have these really, weird, lapses of memory/reality and I forget that I am the mother of unruly boys. I don't know how this happens, I have three constant reminders running circles around me all day.

This happened to me on a Monday, our first day of home school. I was making pancakes and I told Kenson to go wake Karter up and tell him I was making pancakes for breakfast. In my delirium, I envisioned Kenson skipping down the hall, butterflies flitting about, birdies, singing sweetly on the window sill. He gently leans over his sleeping brother whispering softly, "Little brother.... Mommy dear is making us pancakes. Won't you please join us?" My darling offspring would then walk back into the kitchen arm in arm with broad smiles on their faces.

What was I thinking?

I KNOW that this would never, ever happen in my house..... with my boys. Yet, for some reason, I did it anyway.

Was I drunk on French Vanilla Coffemate or what?

What did happen is this: Somehow when the words left my mouth and entered into the ears of Kenson they turned into "Please, please go torture your brother and see just how mad you can make him." So Kenson, happy to oblige, sped down to Karter's room, leaped onto his bed and began jumping, up and down.

Karter, even under the best circumstances, is not a morning person. These were not the best circumstances and he began to scream like a banshee. I have never heard a banshee scream, but I imagine they sound similar to Karter in the height of his fury.

I intervened.

Karter stopped his screaming.

Kenson left Karter's room only to return a few minutes later to continue afflicting his brother. This time he decided to poke him randomly at intervals as he was trying to fall back asleep.

There really are no words to describe what happened next.

Let's just say it was ugly, real ugly.

I got angry, real angry.

This was our first day of homeschool.

It did not go well.

In hindsight, I probably should have just postponed the first day until Tuesday, but I didn't. (please see first paragraph)

What's really important?

I finally received all of the boys' curriculum so the first day of school will be this Monday, Sept. 13th. Yesterday, I was making sure I had everything prepared. Sharpening pencils, trying to organize all of their books and muddling through the teachers' manual took up most of my day. Knowing that today was Sunday and I consider Sunday to be my day "off" (no laundry; no housework), I went ahead and wrote some assignments on our dry erase board. Later in the evening the boys asks if they could add something to the list. My parents had come over for dinner and we were saying our goodbye's and I never noticed what the boys had added to their assignments. This morning I took a picture to show you their addition.

Apparently "Bake cookies" is a very important task that I had neglected to include in their academics.

Funny

What do you call it when a home school mom is caught talking to herself?

Homeschooling? For Real?

I mentioned in a previous post that we had made the decision to home school the boys this year. Just in case you're wondering why in the cornbread world we would decide to do that, here are our reasons. Not necessarily in order of importance, just the way they popped into and out of my head.

1. I don't feel like the whole school schedule (7:55 to 3:30) is conducive to a Pentecostal lifestyle. As most of you know, there always seems to be something going on (revivals, Easter plays, conferences, Bible quizzing). My kids were rarely getting to bed on time and I felt like I was sending sleep deprived zombies to school for 7 hrs a day. I really, really, think it's important for kids to get adequate sleep. There's tons of info about it online to back me up.

2. My kids' teachers were getting the best of them everyday. I get to wake up the sleep deprived zombies and rush them out the door every morning. By the time we get to school, they are finally awake, no longer whining and ready to go. When I pick them up, there are tired, sweaty, hungry and mentally wiped out. I've missed them throughout the day and would like to talk about their school day, find out what they learned and spend some time with them. They just want to veg out.

3. My boys really, really don't like school. I know that kids don't usually like school, but seriously, my boys hate it. The traditional classroom is not designed for wormy, squirmy boys - at all. I highly recommend the book Bringing Up Boys by Dr. James Dobson. He discusses how schools are geared more toward girls than boys.

4. Bible Quizzing was going out the window this year if I did not home school. It is extremely difficult to squeeze Bible Quizzing, a school schedule and church activities into our life. See reason #2. The boys do not want to spend anymore time studying on school days.

5. I can choose a curriculum and schedule that suits my boys' learning styles and interests.

6. The boys will have time for music lessons. Karter wants to play the trumpet and Kenson would like to learn to play the drums.

7. I enjoy being with my kids.

8. Private school tuition was a strain on our finances. Our church school is very reasonably priced, but it still was not easy for us with only one income.

9. They can learn more in less time each day. It takes less time to teach one child than a group. We can actually get our core lessons completed each day in about 3 hours. I will be adding in some electives as our school year progresses.

10. Shawn and I have spent a lot of time in prayer and we feel like God has led us in this direction.

These are just some of the reasons, I could go on, but I'll stop here. This is not something that we have just decided on a whim. I've been tossing the idea around for over a year now. Shawn and I have spent a lot of time discussing and praying about the right decision. We hope we are doing what's best for our kids. Our church's private school is good, but would home schooling be better?

We're going find out.