It is mid August and slowly but very surely we are getting ready for the new homeschool year. Portfolios have been completed, certificates filed away, and my oldest will be re-registered at NARS for his entry into ninth grade. He is very excited to begin his high school career and already has several high school credits completed. My younger boys are both entering the fifth grade and with the exception of extra help in reading and phonics for my nine year old, they are both doing very well.

My goals for the week are to order the last of my materials which is Math U See, run to staples for those fun new school supplies and start making plans for our 4H club. Most importantly I need to review my goals for my family at this time and remind myself the reasons why I am homeschooling. Academic achievements are important, especially for my two boys who aspire to attend the Naval and Coast Guard Academies. Along with their continuing academic successs I remind myself that a love of learning, a love of our Lord who we give all of the glory to for equipping us to homeschool and creating a family bond with memories and family values instilled are the true basis for our homeschool.

Field trips are fun and homeschool activities are enjoyable but as I sit with my coffee before church begins today I am looking forward to settling in as a family and let the learning happen.

Good Morning everyone!

I am relaxing with a cup of coffee and listening to the quiet. The only sounds are the birds and a distant lawn mower and September seems blissfully far away. My boys will be awake shortly and we are expecting thunderstorms today and will finally experience a lazy day at home. Are your summers busy and fun filled too? It seems like the summer has been just as active as our school year. We will be catching up on our library summer reading today, breaking out the Legos and sipping some lemondade.

I have begun a new venture and became and Independent Avon Representative, remember the Avon Lady? Ding dong, Avon calling. It's been a fun and additional way to work from home and meet some great new people.

www.marysavon.net

My boys are now dreaming up home based businesses inspired by my hubby returning to his plumbing business. There is always something happening.

It doesn't make for lazy days, but at least it's been a quiet morning. I hope and pray that you all are well.

Take care and God Bless

Mary

It is so close to summer, close enough for me, my younger two boys have finished up their school work, my oldest has about 10 days left and then we will be sendng his work to NARS. He is completing 8th grade this year but had taken primarily ninth grade course work and is very glad to have earned high school credits. He will be enrolled in NARS for 9th grade in September.

Even though the summer hasn't officially begun we are in a time off from school state of mind which makes finishing up really hard. It's going to be a busy summer and much of it is already spoken for. My oldest son will be going off the recruit trainings with his Sea Cadet group, we have the county fair with our 4H club, vacation bible school is coming up quickly at the end of June. I am hoping ot complete some of my course work towards my degree, lesson plan as much of my new 4H club year as possible, write a few more articles for associated content and I am building a homeschool art online website, slowly.

We will be doing a fun summer reading program, each child will have a subject to work in over the long hot weeks just to keep their skills up and before you know it we will be right back to September again.

Time goes by so quickly these days, I hope you all have a safe and happy summer, I'll check in now and then to keep up with friends here.

Take care,

Mary

 

Working at home for me has been a big part of our homeschooling. Aside from contributing to our family finances it has been an opportunity to teach my boys first hand how to manage their time, how to be self motivated and opereate a small business, manage inventory and keep books.

I have written in previous blogs about my efforts to work from home in order to continue homeschooling my family, and help out with the costs of activities and curriculum. I had struggled with the decision of what to do with my ebay business since during the past few months there had been some changes there and have decided to move my store out of ebay and into OLA

 

I don't know how many ebayers there are out there who may be stopping by my blog. I had been an ebayer for nine years and have become so discouraged with their changes in policy, fees and feedback. I am posting this note in my blog to all of my valued ebay customers who have shopped from my ebay store or subscribed to my site and to inform others who may be sharing a similar frustration that there is an alternative. I have closed my ebay store down and re-opened a new online auction house at onlineauction.com

My domain will now point to the new site

www.homeschoolinghaven.net

which is now an estore as part of

www.ola.com

Mary – homeschoolinghaven

If you would like to visit onlineauction.com and decide to become a founding member, please refer to the following promotional code

Promotional Code is: 39054AAA

Thank you, take care and God Bless

Oh my it's been awhile since I've been online to blog and socialize. I have been ebaying, wrapping up our school work and looking forward to gardening. We are finishing up with Farmer Boy which has taken longer than expected. Sometimes we end up in the complete opposite direction of where our plans for the day had begun. Reading a chapter in Farmer Boy about a nearly frozen corn crop in July led to all kinds of interesting other topic discussions about gardening, growing and weather. Especially unusual weather patterns.

Farmer Boy will continue but we have begun to read Prince Caspian also. My oldest son has read through all of the Narnia books several years ago. I have read the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe before we viewed the movie with my younger boys. We are now embarking on Prince Caspian, and while we haven't gotten very far in the book because my eyes are tired tonight, it is going to be very adventurous.

That's what's new here and I have been working very hard getting my ebay store in order. I cannot plant a vineyard like that wonderful Proverbs 31 woman, but I do believe that she would be an ebayer if she had had the opportunity. An industrious gal she was. I suppose my ebay store is my vineyard, at least I like to think of it that way.  :)

I hope you all are well and having a pleasant evening, for it is now nearly 10 pm and time to go to bed. Take care and God Bless.

Mary

www.homeschoolinghaven.net

We are not quite finished up for the year....but soon. We school from August through May and really are counting down the days until summertime. The new school year catalogs have just arrived and although I had thought I was decided on my educational approach and well laid out plan, I am always so tempted by the nice new textbooks and workbooks with all of the lovely fill in the blanks.

It happens every year, colorful, shiny and tempting I order the workbooks, begin what I expect will be a banner year and before lunch on the first day of homeschool at least one of my children are in tears, or was that me?

I had just decided this morning that I was going to continue notebooking with my younger two boys who will be in 5th grade. We began notebooking with Apologia science making persoanalized astronomy notebooks. I plan to carry this idea through all of the subject in my unschoolerish way. It has greatly enhanced our homeschool to notebook and we will be making history and geography notebooks along with our copy work compositions and apologia study of botany.

But oh now the temptation of all the nice new textbooks, resist! I must resist and not be drawn in.

Some people are tempted by money, fame and glory......I just love a brand new textbook with sharpened number two pencils to go with it.

 

 

Hi everyone, I am so looking forward to Easter Sunday at my church. I am going to be having fun with the Sunday School kids. We will be reading a story "The Thornbush", and having a Resurrection Egg hunt. The children's choir is also singing at the church service, the song "Where you there?" Easter is by far my favorite holiday, although so early this year I am wondering if it will snow.

We have been so blessed as a family to have a wonderful church and have carried the Sunday School lessons over into our homeschool. This has been a great way to teach Bible my boys and they are learning that their Bible lessons are relevant to their lives everyday and not just for Sunday morning. Sunday School Choir and Youth Bell Choir have been our music education and the youth group activities have filled in for that all important socialization.

I hope everyone here is doing well and has a very Happy Easter.

 

 

There are signs that spring is in the air here in NJ and although we just received a weather report that stormy days are coming, the past few have been absolutely beautiful. Too nice a day to stay in so we headed out for digging, swinging on the swingset and my farorite; planning our garden. Our daffodils, crocus and tulips are already coming up and I just hope that they survive until Easter without a frost coming in.

Al winter long I scour the seed catalogs and now I am ready to visit our local garden center. I have a small potters area in our shed and we will be taking inventory of terra cotta pots, work gloves, hand tools, and potting soil. If we start our plants indoors now they will also be ready to take to our county fair with our 4H club. I am planning an herb garden again this year along with our favorite sunflowers, cucumbers, tomatoes. We are looking forward to planting green beans, zucchini and eggplant too.  I have always wanted to grow indian corn next our front door for a nice display in the fall, this year I am going to give it a try.

Each one of my boys has a garden plot and each has their favorites, marigolds, morning glories and zinnias are sure to make it to our garden again this year.

We have kept garden journals and I think we will do that again, I am anxious to start the apologia elementary science for botany with the boys, we are currently working through astronomy.

I wish I could say that spring fever leads me to start cleaning the house, decluttering I can do and those things are now on ebay but cleaning,...I'll get around to it when it rains or after everyone is asleep. On beautiful days I'd rather be in the garden.

 

 

As homeschoolers we have enjoyed many fun birthday parties with our fellow homeschooling friends. Some of them have been out in party venues such as martial arts school, chuck e chees and bowling alleys. Our favorite have been held right here at home in our own backyard.

Party places are fun but I often find that the simple things in life are truly the best and I hope to encourage this in my boys. When we look back at our scrapbooks and photographs we just love remembering the fun of having guests in our home and celebrating special times together.

I have written an article on assocaited content with the details of our favorite party games and appreciate so much anyone who is able to click through and read my article there, for I am not permitted to reprint it elsewhere.

Thanks so much everyone for the kind comments, click throughs and support I have received here at the homeschool blogger.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/632995/favorite_birthday_party_games.html

 

 

We have finally finished our adventures with Dorothy and the great and terrible Oz! My family agrees that the book was much better than the movie. We had also begun reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder and had a wonderful time celebrating Almonzo Wilders actual birthday on February 13 with a johnny cake breakfast that Almonzo himself would have loved.

I have always loved the Little House books and it is so fun to read Farmer Boy, I had read it when my oldest was 8 years old and am reading it again with my younger boys. My oldest sits in and remembers the book, Almonzo is like an old friend.

They are amazed at the different lifestyle they lead and how much work was to be done in those days. We had read Little House in the Big Woods previously and my boys love the mischief and the details of the family life. I am hoping it will inspire them to write down the details about their own days as well.

My youngest is eight years old and would rather not ever pick up a pencil to write anything. I had struck gold at Christmas when a pack of greeting cards arrived in the mail and he was inspired to sit down and send cards to his friends. He filled them out on his own and had a wonderful time.

Since then it has been a challenge to get him to do any writing without an enourmous amount of fussing and complaining. There is generally much crying and wailing and gnashing of teeth. It is quite tiresome. He is such a smart little guy, but really not interesting in putting too much down on paper.

He has the goal of becoming a chef and is always making something in the kitchen and looking at my cookbooks. The idea came to him to write down his recipes that he tries so as to have a nice collection for himself.

Immediately I went out and bought a composition book for him and low and behold, he is writing and copying his favorite recipes, makes changes to them to make them into originals and has started his cookbook.

I am very excited about this. For all of my efforts I cannot take credit for this project.....but I am learning from it.

 

I have begun to write articles for associated content. I love a new venture and I'm just getting started. I have published two articles with homeschooling content. One about how to create a simple homeschool yearbook and another about the biblical reasons why we homeschool. I hope that you will stop by.

Associated Content

Hope you are having a great day.

Mary

A friend who is also a homeschooler said to me recently that she was told she shouldn't keep her children homeschooled and in a "bubble."

I have been mulling this over in my mind. Although I have been homeschooling for nine years I am always surprised when people do not fully understand the size and scope of  homeschooling opportunities. I truly believe in my heart that the unfortunates who are kept in a bubble are those confined to the classroom. Their bubble consists of the time frames that they are permitted to learn and in the limited very limited social opportunities. It seems to me that being told what you will learn, with only people of your own specific age and having activities that the school deems within their ability to provide is more of a bubble than the freedom our children have as homeschoolers.

If we are indeed in a "bubble" than it is an ever expanding one. My family learns all that is in the typical curriculum and so much more for they are afforded the time to pursue those personal interests also. Our homeschool group is active in the community and the children and teens have the ability to socialize with people of all ages. They can relate to younger children and treat them with respect as persons. They have plenty of social time with friends of their own age group and are equally comfortable speaking with adults.

Our bubble includes student government opportunities in 4H, community service and responsibilities, being well known and well liked at our local library, work opportunities,YMCA, bowling alley and fitness clubs. Our bubble takes all the time it likes to fully study a subject, to travel, to express ourselves in art and music and put it all on hold to visit with friends for awhile.

Some, not all, justify their decision to put their children in school by criticizing those who home educate. They do not see the small bubble they have imposed on their family nor are they willing to try to understand the ways of the homeschooler. Perhaps because they may have to admit that their way isn't necessarily the best way, not the only way, and that maybe they have missed out.

The traditional schooling experience is a bubble that is pre-made, one size fits all and that you must conform to. Homeschooling is a bubble of your own making, it is self designed, you choose the size, you choose the content. A homeschooling bubble is as big as the world. As a homeschooler you choose how and when to expand your bubble. An ever changing, growing, healthy, full of the love of learning bubble is for me. My bubble is big enough to include Bible study, devotions and prayer during the "school" day.

Homeschooling is a beautiful bubble, perhaps I shall thank the next person for the compliment.

 

It had been a beautiful day here on the Jersey Shore, even though it is winter, the sky was glorious and the temperature mild. My boys behavior however was not so mild and it was just one of those days. It happens. Those days when you wonder if you are getting through and what is it all for and why are we doing this thing called homeschooling again?

Getting into the minivan we headed off to our martial arts school which is across town and down a road with very pretty farmland. A field of horses were galloping and the conversation became pleasant, our moods greatly improved, perhaps by the fresh air and change of scenery. One horse in particular was leaping about, and one of my boys commented that it is such a wonderful day that even the horses knew that this is the day that the Lord has made.

Oh, yes, that's why we are homeschooling. Now I remember.

 

Over the Christmas break our family watched the Wizard of Oz for the boys had never seen it. They enjoyed it very much and we're interested to learn that the movie was adapted from a book.

Our new unschoolerish selves have decided to read the book together we would compare the differences from the changes in the movie. Already in chapter two we have found that those beautiful ruby slippers were actually silver in the book.  The boys are wondering why it was changed and did it have something to do with the silver color not showing up as vibrantly on the actual film the movie was shot on. Although the tin man is a silver tone, he is not nearly as magnificent in color as the ruby shoes.

We are going to watch the movie again to read the credits and the type of color used, wasn't it called techni-color back then? This is going to turn into a science project also studying now the colorization of the film and "cyclones".

 

Hi everyone, I have been very happy with our unschoolerish experiment that we have been living and loving for our homeschool for the past 4 weeks and although I haven't committed myself one hundred percent to the idea, I am almost there.

I've been keeping a log per week and will be reviewing our progress and posting my unschooling journal permanently on my homepage located at www.homeschoolinghaven.info

My biggest challenge to the whole idea of unschooling has been the battle between mom and the television. I have truly been praying for this situation and believe that I have received an answer to my dilemma. Today I am going to take our old cable box and rather than drop kick it I am exchanging it for one that records with a DVR. I have already been to the Cable in the Classroom website and have printed out the programming schedules for January.

It's time I made my old enemy the television work for me rather than against me.

I think I am finally starting to figure this out :)

I'm looking forward to unschooling into the New Year and hope that you all are well.

In the beginning of our homeschooling, when my 13 year old was 4 and just starting Pre-K I had spent wonderful days with him following his interests, making projects, reading books, taking trips. As far as homeschooling methods go we have been there and back again. Relaxed, Structured, Traditional Textbook, and my most favorite is Charlotte Mason. I have always missed those days following the Lord's leading and just living and learning. I was chatting with a friend on the phone yesterday about this and I think the conclusion that I have come to is....fear. Fear that my children will not learn. Fear that they will not get into the college of their choice, fear that family, friends and neighbors will not approve. And of course fear that if for some unforseen reason my boys must be enrolled in school, they will not be able to fit the mold.  I am also absolutely in love with organization, and being orderly and filling in the blanks and all of the squares in the lesson plan book. I love it and I also love learning and teaching/facilitating all of the time. My oldest boys 13 and 10 are very compliant, love to learn and will work those texts and workbooks and we seem to spend their free time in a very unschoolerish manner. They seem to be willing to jump through the hoops to get to those activities that they really want to do, which are just as educational. My youngest who is 8 is a different character altogether and wants to do what he wants, pretty much when he wants to do it. As my dear relative has put it, "he wouldn't be able to do that if he were in school". That's true, but he isn't, he's home and isn't that the point of it all? I have tried something new and for November rather than wake my boys up and have them set their alarms I have tried the radical idea of letting them sleep. And they have gotten up much more pleasant and gotten themselves together. Now for December - since it is a holiday month - perfect timing. I am going to give the idea of unschooling, interest led learning a try. I am, I'm going to do it. I will be writing all of this down though and at the end of the month, on New Year's Eve, I am going to sit down and review our progress. The boys of course are thrilled with this idea. My oldest will still be continuing in his texts because that's what he does well but at his pace. I am curious to see if they will develop their own schedule, if after the month trial they will want to continue or get back to routine, or some compromise of the two. I guess we shall see and I plan on putting this information as a permanent page on my website after all is said and done, which is www.homeschoolinghaven.info

I am hoping to let go of the control issue, give up the fear factor and truly learn the biblical meaning of "Let not your heart be troubled"

 

Hi and I hope that everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving Day. My family is lazing around recovering from our day, too much cooking and too much eating, but well worth it all with plenty left over. Having colds for this week has made us slow down and just enjoy the day and being all together at home. We had a nice time together watching the Macy's parade in our pajamas and then my boys saw for the first time "Miracle on 34th Street". It is my old favorite and I was so happy that they loved it too. We are going to spend a nice day together today and possibly take a family hike and finish reading the book Pilgrim Stories by Margaret Pumphrey. Have a great weekend.

It has been so rainy and windy today. We had a wonderful homeschooling day and went on a field trip to our local Whole Foods market this morning to take part of a nutrition workshop. Sitting in the cafe of the store in front of the big beautiful windows it was quite a sight to see the rain come down and the wind pick up. Leaves were swirling around us. We came home and even though the weather was a wet and windy mess it was nice to curl up on the couch, put on a pot of chicken soup and enjoy the rest of the day being housebound. Remembering the Winnie The Pooh books, the boys and I began to read our old favorite again, just for fun. While my oldest son worked in his Algebra Lifepac he listened in also and commented that he remembered this book.  "This is nice mom" and now we feel like we are six again.