Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Introduction

For the first entry, I thought it best to describe our home school.  We are anything but traditional… I work from home and occasional lecture in government, so school days follow the commonly ascribed to 'university model'.  As a result our schedule is flexible and we combine learning experiences along with standard educational models.  Adding complexity to this arrangement is the 4 ½ year difference between the oldest and the next… so I have Latin and multiplication tables coupled with learning the alphabet and counting to twenty.  Keeping the boys on-target takes a lot of communication and organization… but this arrangement adds value in so many ways for the boys.  They learn about soft routines, helping others (especially our brothers) and building relationships with multiple leaders – just to name a few. 

As a working-stay-at-home-mom I also depend on friends, relatives, and of course - my amazingly busy husband to enrich the boys’ educational experiences.  We focus on academics, social/athletic enrichment and spiritual growth.  I create the lesson plans each week on Saturday or Sunday – building flexibility and variety into each day.  The weekly model comes from my ‘master’ planner that contains single subject one-pagers of curriculum modules we intend to cover for the year – broken into weekly accomplishments.  We focus our approach to learning on Biblical principles in all that we do – especially our attitudes toward others – and take full advantage of resources in our community… like fine arts programs, a church home school group, MomsNext, boy scouts, and club soccer. 

That’s us in a nutshell… and now you get to follow our wonderful, crazy, home school adventure at the Learning Lab!