Long Post Alert!

I'm homeschooling! There. I said it. Now we're going to play a little game. I'm going to do a Q & A for all of the curious minds out there. After all, this isn't your typical "Cher" thing to do. So let's get the scoop.

Q: What made you decide to homeschool?

A: Last March in the middle of all our craziness (sports, school music, life, etc.) I was feeling particularly overwhelmed. I had been praying specifically for Ella (having trouble at school) and the thought came out of the blue (the Spirit) that I wouldn't feel this way if I homeschooled. I turned around wondering who in the world said that so loud and got very frightened when I realized what it was!

Q: How long are you going to do it for (i.e. how long will THIS last)?

A: I'm going to give it 2 years. This year will be particularly hard because Noah is still a handful and I am just learning how to do all of it. Next year Noah will go to preschool so I can have more one on one time with Ella and Will.

Q: Won't the kids miss out on all of the fun school things like sitting with friends at lunch, first day jitters, etc.?

A: Yes. And that bums me out. There are a lot of great things about going to school but hopefully the kids will still feel like they have a great childhood with all of the things you can't do in school. Lots of tradeoffs, we'll see!

Q: Won't you feel more overwhelmed being solely in charge of your childrens' education?

A: You'd think but I have never felt more calm or reassured about anything. It's weird. I feel excited and intrigued about the whole process but not overwhelmed.

Q: Don't you care about your kids' social life? They won't know how to talk to people or know how to interact with others!

A: Ahhh, the big socialization question. Raise your hand if you know someone who is socially awkward that was homeschooled. Raise your hand if you know someone who was socially awkward from school. Nuff said. Maybe more people who have trouble making friends are homeschooled and that puts a slant on things but in general it has everything to do with the parents and how socially adept they are. Although I make social faux pas now and again, I hope that in general I can swing it in that area. The kids are also both doing soccer, Will is taking piano lessons and Ella is still doing the Seattle Childrens Chorus. After Christmas the kids will take classes at the Edmonds Homeschool Resource Center. They can pick from anything like sewing, pottery, math, Lego/Science lab, Spanish, etc. It's like college for elemtary aged kids! And they get to be in a class with kids of all ages- mimicking real life way more that being in a class of 30 kids their own age. I think that about covers the socialization question.

Q: When are you going to find time for you?

A: That's a good question. Right now I have a sitter that comes once a week for a whole day. That is going to change when she gets a full time nanny position at the end of the month. I plan on advertising at the EHRC (see above) to see if any homeschooling girl wants a sitting job (preferable one that drives!). I am going to gym in the mornings which is lovely "me" time and I am still working. I have a client right now and I just plan on working around things as much as possible to get things done. I also have a night a week set aside for "girlfriend" time while I help out a friend with a project of hers. We'll see how it goes. If you see a story about a crazy mom on the news then obviously things didn't work out.

Q: What curriculum are you using?

A: We are doing something called Unit Studies with a few extras thrown in. Unit Studies are when you pick a topic and then try to incorporate as many of the 11 subjects as possible. Our theme for the year is The Creation. Each day of the creation of the world is being broken down into a unit. So the first unit is Day 1, which will last for 3-4 weeks. We are doing fun science experiments, writing papers, doing spelling tests on words that we've read, etc. On top of that I am doing a program called Math-U-See for the math part. We will also do an artist of the week, a scripture lesson of the week, D.E.A.R. time (Drop Everything And Read) and a few other goodies.

Q: Why do you always have to be so different?

A: You know, I like to keep things interesting. We are finishing up on the house (few last winter projects like painting trim) so God had to keep me busy somehow to keep me out of trouble.

All right. Enough of that. On to the good stuff. In order for us to have a space to teach we decided to remodel an awfully done room in our basement. We're talking 50 year old built-in shelves and desk, stuccoed plaster walls (which caused gouges big enough to require stitches if you accidentally brushed up against it. Who thinks up these things?) and an awkwardly small closet. So we gutted it, framed up a nice long closet, had new carpet put in the whole basement, painted my favorite color green (it's called Grass Cloth if you must know and if I am spending so much time down there then I want to love it!) and did a few fun decorating tricks. All in all I am super excited about the space. This is the last room that needed immediate attention. The laundry room will get redone eventually but it is definitely usable. And we're tired. Really really really really tired of renovating. We're pooped, exhausted, hammered, beaten down. But we no longer have mushrooms growing in our bathrooms or black mold underneath bathroom tile so we're in a good place. We love our house (now) and we love our neighbors so like I always say, "you can change a house but your can't change your location". Now we have a house we love in a location we love. When I have the energy for it I will do a reno recap and run all the numbers for you. We might astound you with all that we've done while adjusting to a new place and taking care of 3 little ones. We even built a fence on Labor Day! Yeah, we're handy.

This is the view from the entrance to the school room. That's my awesome mid-century modern find on craigslist. The table came with 4 chairs (I gave the two that were in bad shape to D.I.) and was $50! I pulled off the fabric on the seats of the chairs and covered them in the Ikea fabric that I posted about before and then a layer of clear vinyl on top to protect the fabric. I sanded down the table and chairs and rubbed teak oil on them to spruce them up a bit. The table top is pretty worn but that means I just don't care what the kiddies do to it!


This corner is to the left when you walk into the room. I have my cool bird art from Space Oddity in Ballard there and then cork trivets from Ikea that I used adhesive strips to attach to the wall.



Art supplies.



My awesome old school globe I got off of craigslist for $20. It came with a mini lunar globe too!



This is the bookshelf with the school supplies. Ella and Will have their own shelves and Noah's books are on the bottom. You can see the top corner of my new motto "Keep Calm and Carry On". Posters with this saying were all over England during WWII and it's so British. They were in the middle of being blitzkrieged and their supposed to just keep calm and carry on. Well, I figured I am going to feel "blitzkrieged" often so this would be a good thing to have to remind me to have patience! I also sewed some of the Ikea fabric around my plain off white curtains to add some pizazz. The curtain covers the door to the new closet.



My big white board. I wanted space for Noah to draw so I made it super low to the ground. I used Magnetic Primer (but it doesn't really work once the dry erase paint is on it) and then Dry Erase Paint from Home Depot.



Sorry the pics are so grainy, I need a new camera!