Homeschooling

I am officially a homeschooling Mom.  I started this adventure with the intent of homeschooling Kaitlin through the end of her 3rd grade year.  I didn't want her to have to change schools mid-year, and in addition, I was growing weary of her tears over homework and stories of her class "working through lunch" and using recess time to study for standardized tests.  So I jumped in-- learning as much as I could from my sister and other homeschooling moms, blogs & forums, and studying about & comparing all the different curriculums.  The more I read, the more excited I became about our new adventure.  I chose the Charlotte Mason philosophy because it made the most sense to me, and I really agreed with her ideas and loved her recommendation of "living books" over dry textbooks, doing nature studies, and her emphasis on fine arts. 

Now, two months into homeschooling, Kaitlin and I are both hooked!  We are enjoying our time together, and I've seen such positive changes in her. We've visited the museums in DC, taken a field trip to a local organic tulip farm, and done lots of hands-on activities.  We've also spent a lot more time outdoors enjoying the beautiful spring weather.  We've decided to continue with it for 4th grade, and beyond!

Here are some pictures of our Homeschooling Adventures thus far...

Kaleb is thriving in preschool. It's funny, being a preschool teacher, you'd think it would be a perfect scenario for me to homeschool him too... but his personality type is one that does very well in a school setting.  He loves the social aspect of it, and seems to listen to teachers better than me!  But one of the cool aspects of homeschooling Kaitlin is that he participates in much of what we do on his "days off" preschool.  Above is the kids' splatter painting which they did after a short lesson about Jackson Pollock.  I should've taken a picture of them at the end because they were pretty splattered with paint themselves! 

 

Volunteering with the Kids

This Saturday the kids and I partcipated in a meal packaging event called Stop Hunger Now. Their mission is to provide direct food relief in crisis areas and areas where chronic hunger and malnutrition exists. The meals packaged Saturday will be sent to Haiti.

I was thrilled to find a service project that the kids and I could do together. Kaleb got to scoop and pour rice into a funnel with three ladies who were rooting him on as he happily waited his turn to pour. Kaitlin was a runner, and brought bins full of the food bags over to the weighing & sealing area, and empty bins back to the food packaging stations. We did this for 2 hours and all really enjoyed it! I will definitely do this again. I would highly recommend this project to anyone who wants to get out and do something to help others. And it's wonderful that parents can bring their children so that everyone is involved.

It was also inspiring. In two hours, 15,000 meals were packaged! It shows what can be done when people come together and work to help others. It didn't even feel like work. Every time we reached 1,000 meals, a bell would ring, and everyone cheered. The atmosphere was uplifting and joyful.

At the beginning, there was a short educational presentation on hunger. After watching it, I think everyone felt excited and motivated to be there, doing something to help. We learned that that a large percentage of the food packages go to schools and orphanages where there are food shortages.

I would encourage everyone I know to get involved with this project, whether through donations or attending a meal packaging event. I definitely plan to do it again, and hopefully make this a tradition with the kids as well.