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The Byrd's Nest
Oct. 31, 2007
Time flies and nearly a year passes...
| Wow! I can't believe it has been a year since I updated my blog. What a difference a year makes.... Currently, I am only home schooling one of my children now. I recently started doing kindergarten work with my 4 1/2 year old, although we are proceeding very slowly and gently. She is working through Math U See Primer, along with the Singapore Math Earlybird series. For phonics I'm using a wonderful, free program called "Blend Phonics" that I found on the website DonPotter.net (a wonderful site full of free goodies and valuable information). I'm also using TATRAS (Teach America to Read and Spell) as I did with two of my other children with wonderful results. She isn't ready for writing yet so I'm postponing formal handwriting lessons for a few months. We read Bible stories and play lots of educational games. She is learning and progressing but most of all I want to instill in her a love of learning. My teenager (wait a minute..... I'm not old enough to be the mother of a teenager, right?) is attending a wonderful Christian school. It was such a tremendous blessing to spend last year with her. I don't regret for one second bringing her home. I do feel, however, that the decision to send her back to a traditional school setting was the correct one for her. I know many people who home school throughout the high school years but I felt that I'd reached the limits of my teaching abilities. Plus, it has been good for my teen in other ways. I love the school; they take their Christian mission to heart and it shows in the way the teachers conduct themselves and the curricula is presented. My better half wanted to allow our middle children to try public school. Lacking a money tree in our backyard, the tuition costs prohibited all of my kids from attending the Christian school. We had such a great year home schooling that I wanted to continue with my children until high school, placing each one in the Christian school as they entered 9th grade. However, my husband wanted my kids to have a taste of traditional school now. Developing friendships with children that live close to home was a primary factor in his thinking. My kids made friends at the co-op we participated in last year. Unfortunately, they all lived at least 15 miles from our town. As a result, we never saw our home schooling friends outside of co-op. I do see my husband's point and I wanted to respect his opinions and desires. After all, he showed great faith in me and permitted me to home school in some capacity for the past four years. Public school has been a mixed bag...... more on that later.... Right now, I'm grateful for the one on one time I'm getting with my youngest. With me home schooling her three siblings last year, she got less a lot less of me. It has been fun showering the attention on her and doing some of the things that I did with her sisters when they were young, things I rarely had time for last year. We've taken long walks. We've attended the local library's story time hour. We've gone on picnics. We've taken classes. It is my prayer that the Lord will bring my middle two children back to the nest and we will continue our educational adventures at home. For now, I will count my blessings and pray for my little Byrds. |
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