Beginning..........again

I am Janet. I'm currently living in Texas but I'm originally from Virginia......hence the nickname Virginia Slim from one of my neighbors. (VA, yes......slim, not so much.) I'm a wife, a mom to 3 two-legged creatures & 3 four-legged creatures, a girl scout leader, asst. den leader, treasurer, cookie chieftan.......and educator of children. Mine.

Several times I have sat down to compose a blog about our homeschool adventures and several times I have ended up with nothing. Getting over that initial hump has proven a difficult task. I am not an "English" person. Give me math any day. I will hopefully be able to carve out a few minutes here & there to journal about our fun (and sometimes not so fun) times! It will also serve as documentation for what we have done since my computer is much easier to locate than the gazillion notebooks I have been using to keep track.

This week is spring break in the public schools and since I have one child remaining in the system, it just seemed like a good idea to follow along with that calendar........for now. The last few months have served as a learning opportunity for me as to what works best for us but we're stil fine tuning and finding our way.

So, what got us to this point? I was severely disappointed with how my middle child's second grade year had progressed and Les & I had agreed we certainly could not do any worse. So, at the end of August we began a rigorous and well developed educational plan. We had it all worked out and......

It was a flop.

The hardest part of this voyage has been letting go of what has been ingrained into my rule following brain as to what "education" is. I am still learning the art of following my instincts as to what my kids really need. A difficult process for us rule followers.

Last week there was a beautiful day. A perfect, spring day-not too hot, not too cold. My kids spent the day in our willow tree. Sierra made a bird nest to attract wildlife and they both created & installed a pulley system to get their supplies from the ground to the upper branches. LJ discovered that you could only go but so high because the branches began to thin the higher you go. (Thus, not as much support.) Fortunately he didn't find out the hard way ;) I don't think the September me would have allowed my kids to "blow off" class for a day in the tree like the March me did.

You've come along way, baby!