Hi

My name is Brenda and I am a homeschooling mommy in Eagle River, Alaska to three sweeties all under five years old. I am starting this blog mainly as a way to track my progress as well as my children's. I am hoping to be able to go back through it at the end of the year and see what we have learned and how we have grown.  I am also hoping that it will serve as encouragement to my other friends who do not homeschool but are thinking about it. 

A little bit about me,I have been married to my husband for five years and we have three children. Deanna will be five next month, Ashton is 2 and Addison is 3 months. We live in Alaska, where my husband is serving full time in the Alaska Army National Guard. We just recently moved to Eagle River, about 10 minutes north of Anchorage. 

Although we have been teaching our kiddos since birth, this will be our first "official" year of school, with Deanna being eligible for Kindergarten in the Fall. However, because living in Alaska is a bit different from the rest of the United States, or "lower 48", I have decided to start our school years in the spring after all of the snow has melted, instead of in the fall. We have very long winters here, and for me it makes sense to plan during the long winter months and execute during the spring and summer.  For this year, I am focusing primarily on teaching Deanna to read and write, with a little math thrown in. I am using Reading Made Easy by Valerie Bendt and the Italic Handwriting Series, published by Portland State University. For math I am using the Critical Thinking Company's Mathematical Reasoning Series, hoping that by the time we are finished, Teaching Textbooks will have come out with some more younger grade curriculum. For Ashton, I am going through our current collection of toys and getting rid of the ones that are no longer played with or that are "overly plastic". We don't buy our kids any licensing merchandise or commercialized toys such as Barbie or anything, but I am finding that they play more with the toys that are made of wood, and that do not have such bright colors and are not overly stimulating, ie sound and lights. So I have been frequenting the couple of educational toy stores we have for birthday and Christmas ideas, which is really the only time our kids get toys. Ashton is my hands on learner, so letting him sit quietly and play while I work with Deanna will be easy. We recently got rid of our television, and it has been quite the experience. Our decision came, when in 2006 my husband and I agreed that if I was getting a brand new minivan, that he was going to get a brand new television. Of course with hubbys and electronics, the bigger the better, so our monthly trip to Costco yielded not only a month's worth of food but a Sony 50 inch LCD television with a Dish Network subscription to boot. This thing was huge and it was the focal point of the living room. After the "honeymoon period', I started noticing it's flaws. It was always the center of attention, even if it wasn't on. I nicknamed it the black hole when it was off. My husband is addicted to the news, so CNN was always on. If you have seen CNN you know that it is extrememly derogotory, and VERY repetitive. The kids would fight over what to watch. I would only allow them to watch a handfull of PBS shows, so most of the time it was DVD's, but even then it was over which DVD. Talking over the TV was something that I always felt I was doing, like I was competing with it for my family's attention. Then there were the times my hubby would watch the kids so I could do some errands sans kids, and I would come to Cartoon Network, which is totally inappropriate for young kids. His response when I would question his sanity? "I watched cartoons when I was a kid and I turned out okay. " And even if the show or program is excellent the commercials were not. Sometimes I would have to have the kids close their eyes, and muting the commercials became an automatic thing for me. I felt like I was forced to live with an unwelcome houseguest, so I called dish network and after my initial contract expired, I cancelled my service. I am soooo proud of my husband for going along with this. I really think that the eighteen months we had satellite God changed our hearts about what we allow into our homes and allow our children to see. He also showed us how much of our time was wasted or idle. He showed us that even though we were conservative in what we watched in relation to mainstream America, It still was not conservative enough for Him. As our Children get older, there will probably be room for a small television and DVD player to watch educational programs related to what we are studying, but as far as replacing our TV, not likely. My husband and I are having too much fun building relationships with our children and with each other.  My chldren have not even missed it. They do not ask about where it went or where their DVD's are. Making this decision has also led us to question other areas of our life or how we do things and make some changes.... But more on that later