Oh Yeah... THIS is why I homeschool!

We had a rough week homeschooling last week.

My oldest child despises math. She's good at math, but she hates it. And it has been an ongoing battle full of much whining and melodrama. It drives me crazy [I hate melodrama...and I have way too much of it in my life!]. So, by last Friday I was ready to enroll her in the closest public school [which isn't a good one ;) ] and be done with it!

This week went much better. We laid down some strict guidelines about math and bad attitudes and it worked with Monkey1. She did MUCH better this week.

And, Monkey2 has been really fun to homeschool [he has a very positive attitude about school which makes him so fun to teach period]. But this week he is really *really* getting reading. It is so neat - watching him finally actually reading sentences!!! And he's so excited about it and I am so excited about it.. it was just really neat.

Then I have a feeling Monkey3 may end up being my prodigy child because she's already really "getting" letter sounds and trying to read herself. She's just 4 and she lives in a house full of late readers... I'm not sure what to do with her! I think I'll start "Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons" with her soon and see how it goes.

Even Monkey4, the 2yo, sits at the table and "does her work" [coloring books, puzzles, art work, etc]. And she gets really offended if I don't set up work for her to do too!

So, all in all it was a rewarding week of homeschooling and it made me glad again to be homeschooling.

Then today, we went for a "park day" with some other homeschoolers from our church and it ended up being about 8 families at this GREAT new park they just built near us. It was so fun.

And as I was watching the kids play [and with 8 Catholic homeschool families, it was a bunch of kids], I was really amazed at just how NICE the kids are. Everybody played together nicely. Nobody was mean to anyone else. Nobody fought over anything. Nobody was disrespectful of the adults or other children. The big kids watched out for the little ones and helped them when they needed help.

It was just really cool to watch. And really impressive when you think about it. I have always said that homeschooled kids are just *NICE* kids - and they really are.

It is a whole different dynamic than what you get with a bunch of school kids. The school kids we are friends with are great kids, I love them, but when you put a bunch of school kids together there are inevitably some bad kids in the bunch and you end up at some point with the whole "Lord of the Flies" thing going on. I *never* see that with homeschooled kids.

And THAT is the real reason I'm homeschooling. It was good to have such a reminder - whether my daughter EVER does math without complaining, she IS growing up to be a really extraordinary, kind person. All of my kids are - they are growing up to be outstanding adults who WILL make a positive difference in the world. And that's what it is all about in the end for me.


Here is Monkey1 at the playground, looking beautiful as always!


Monkey4 and Monkey2 had fun playing on the slides together. Monkey4 is absolutely *fearless* and without any hesitation will do *anything* an older sibling does... whether she's far too young to be doing it or not. This is kind of scary some times! See what I mean below:




Here is Monkey2 - he had fun climbing this thing [they all did] until he ran off to play "war" with the other boys who were there!


Here are Monkey2,3, and 4 climbing together.


I need to teach these girls to swing themselves - they LOVE the swings, but I get so tired of pushing them [with the baby in the backpack the whole time of course!]


And here is my strong little Monkey3 showing off her usual strength and dexterity!



Incidentally, last weekend I made up a "pros and cons" list of my three schooling options - Homeschool, Catholic school, and Public school. It was very revealing to read my list of pros and cons for Homeschooling. The list of pros was tremendous - a whole page actually.

And with that I realized that I really DO value homeschooling and I do think it has been by far the best choice for my children. But on the cons side, I had 3 things:

1. I hate how hard it is to keep the house even basically sanitary when you have 5 children living here 24/7. I mean, it really does drive me up a wall and make me kind of depressed because I feel like I am constantly digging in sand and I can never get out of my hole!

2. I feel a bit burned out and over whelmed. [No kidding after the year we had last year huh?!] But I realized that this is because I have completely failed to care for *myself*. I put 110% into my husband and kids and I never take care of me. I never take breaks, get downtime, or just have time to really decompress. So, I decided I need to change that and start giving myself breaks and downtime a couple of times each month.

3. I hate that I can't go to a doctor's appointment without dragging 5 kids along behind me or hiring a sitter. It would be *so* convenient to have them in school when I need to do stuff like that. But, hopefully, my husband's new position is going to include a lot of telecommuting, so maybe we can work it so I can actually go to the doctor by myself.

So, that's my assessment of the "cons" of homeschooling. The "pros" far outweigh them!

I thank God for this opportunity I have to homeschool!