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I {used to} Oppose Homeschooling

Want to know something interesting about me? Not so many years ago I was completely opposed to homeschooling.

{Did that grab your attention??}

My mom homeschooled my two brothers and wanted to homeschool me, but I refused. Call me the stubborn oldest child. The obstinate senior who wasn’t about to be yanked from the school I’d known for years just to sit at home.

Besides. I’d seen homeschoolers. They were weird. VERY weird ~ and I wasn’t about to become one of them. Homeschooling was still pretty new at that point and the examples I had of homeschooling were a far cry from the vision of how I pictured myself socially and academically.

My irritation only grew as the years progressed. I mocked. I scoffed. In debate class in college I gave wonderful tirade vehemently against homeschooling, point by crushing point. My debate teacher later approached me and thanked me for the great information, because he and his wife were considering homeschooling.

{It’s here that I insert my formal apology to both my professor and his wife – please forgive me!}

When exactly did my opinion change? I don’t know if I can put my finger on a specific moment in time. I think I would say it was more of a gradual change. I worked in our local school system, knew the ins and outs of it and was prepared to continue teaching once our kids were old enough to go back to school.

Then I had one little girl…and another. A little boy…and another. Life started changing faster than I knew was even possible.

The year Laurianna was ready to go to school there were a number of different reasons that pushed us in the direction to homeschool, the main one being I just KNEW that was what I {we} was supposed to do. Even though I was scared to death, I figured I really couldn’t do much to mess up kindergarten, right?

Now, here I am four years later…grateful for the amazing opportunity that I have with my children, but sometimes wondering how exactly I got to this point. Especially in light of my firm opposition to homeschooling and the promise that I would never put my kids through ‘that’.

God has such a great sense of humor, doesn’t He?

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Preschool Corner: Months of the Year Song

Apparently I should start taking song requests. I’ll just pull up a chair, set up the camera and have a great year singing to my video camera…and feeling like a lunatic talking to nobody.

Not that talking to myself doesn’t happen on a daily basis ~ because my kids sure miss the majority of what I say every day.

But I digress.

You all taught me something new last week because I had never heard the Adams Family version of the Days of the Week song. Or if I did, it has been forever replaced with Tim Hawkins ‘Homeschool Family’ song {I’m leaning heavily toward that option}. Since the days of the week song was such a huge hit, this week my ‘at the mic’ feature will be the months of the year song. Before I forget, I popped on over to the Discovery Toys website to browse their catalog and they have the ‘Sounds Like Fun’ cd available for $15.

Months of the Year
{no idea what tune this is….
but it’s definitely not Ten Little Indians}

January, February, March and April,
May and June, July and August,
September, October, November, December…
These are the months of the year.

Twelve, twelve, twelve, twelve months,
Twelve months come in every year.
Twelve, twelve, twelve, twelve months,
Twelve months come in every year.

{Repeat until you know the song so well you are singing it in your head when you wake up in the middle of the night}.

And you all and your guesses about the tune before I posted the video are cracking me up!! :)

About the Preschool Corner:

The Preschool Corner is a place for us to share the ideas we are using during our “preschool time” with our kids. You can join in the fun and record what you are doing in your house. Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below (if you have questions feel free to ask). Be sure to link back to this blog post so that your readers can find some other great ideas too!

The guidelines can be found here if you need them.

Share what you’ve been doing in your house this week!

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Tot School ::32::

~ Kaleb is 33 months ~

While our overall week has an ‘idea’ or overall plan, I think that many of you would be surprised to actually be in our house and see how that week actually plays out.

There are times that I have great ideas and plans and things don’t work and go along with my plans. At all.

And you know what? That is fine!

This last week I have one picture of Kaleb playing and in all honesty there was little more done that I would qualify as focused time on him. One.

No pictures of the endless time pushing him on the swing.

Reading the same books over and over again.

Cuddling. Laughing. Giggling.

So while there may not be much to check off on my ‘list’ I’m really okay with that. Really.

Don’t forget to visit Carissa at 1+1+1=1 for some more Tot School posts.

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Preschool Corner: Days of the Week Song

For some strange reason, I’ve been thinking about vlogging for Preschool Corner.

Why? Well, other than the fact that I am low on sleep and flying on Dr. Pepper lately, there really isn’t any rational explanation as to WHY I would sit myself down in front of a camera and think that singing is a sane idea.

Especially because it depended on having at least 5 minutes of uninterrupted and quiet time in order to get it done ~ something that is nothing short of miraculous in this house.

So….here’s me. Live. Rambling {which I do extremely well} and singing one of the songs we sing frequently in our house to help the kids learn the days of the week.

Days of the Week Song
{to the tune of Oh My Darlin’ Clementine}

There are seven days, there are seven days,
There are seven days in a week.
There are seven days, there are seven days,
There are seven days in a week.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

About the Preschool Corner:

The Preschool Corner is a place for us to share the ideas we are using during our “preschool time” with our kids. You can join in the fun and record what you are doing in your house. Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below (if you have questions feel free to ask). Be sure to link back to this blog post so that your readers can find some other great ideas too!

The guidelines can be found here if you need them.

Share what you’ve been doing in your house this week!

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Inside My Head…

Over the last few weeks I have found myself a little overwhelmed with everything that is coming up in the next year. Even though I’ve done ‘school’ with all four of our kids in some way shape or form over the last few years, trying to sort out our schedule and adjust to having Zachary do more full-time school this year has been proving a bit trying.

Because really, Mommy can only go in so many directions.

We did have school time during the summer in a more modified way, and now that we are in the full swing of things I am tweaking our schedule a bit here and there – but still feeling that ‘overwhelmed’ feeling.

I’m sure that many of you can relate, can’t you? Because even though it’s time to learn, a toddler wants to potty train…or have his Mommy read HIM a book {not read a book to his sibling}…or someone doesn’t want to take a nap…or someone gets frustrated that they can’t get the math problems done just right…and laundry still needs to be done…dinner needs to be made…and those toilets – well, yuck.

This is just rambling on my part, but I just wanted to share what’s going on inside my head right now. Can you relate? :)

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Super Chameleon

This is so amazingly cool!! My kids watch this {over and over and over again!}.

Science lesson is done for the day!

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