end of the year

I just received my evaluation for Joey's first grade school year:

At bedtime tonight Joey told me, "I used to think reading was boring, but now I think it's amazingly fun."

I'm happy.

home boy

We are halfway through Joey's first grade year. Academically, Joey is wonderfully average. He would rather play all day than sit down and do school work, but when we do sit down, we are blazing no spectacular homeschool trails; just learning the basics for now, and that is perfectly fine with me.



Everyday I am more and more convinced that academics are just a part of homeschool, and the greater part is that he is home. We are together. He spends his playtime with Katie, investing in a lifelong friendship. Everyday I see little victories in the fighting-quarreling struggles the two have faced. Joey is learning the joys of teamwork, as well as understanding the challenge it is to love by seeking not his own. Lizzie is his joy and delight, and because he is home, he takes her out of the crib some mornings and entertains her all on his own.




His being home means I am his teacher. He read his first "real" book with me. I get to put the "Awesome!" sticker on his math tests and see his enormous smile. It isn't all sunshine and lollipops, and believe me when I say I have considerable shortcomings, and have sometimes been a complete failure. But when I ask for forgiveness, he is always ready to love and forgive. We spend lots of time together, and so far, he isn't tired of me. :)



We are both figuring this out together. I am blessed to have such a sweet boy to learn right along side with. I am blessed and grateful that homeschool is possible in our family.

I love having him home with me.

the placecards

WE made these placecards for Thanksgiving. Simple and fun, they were the perfect project for a 6 and 3-year-old to work on together.




(I love this photo of Katie's hands, complete with Buzz Lightyear Band-Aid)


But when we finished there was still paint left, which led to abstract paintings in fall colors.


Can you tell that Joey was enjoying himself?




And then the abstract paintings led to this


and this

and this.


History (studying how corn was important to the Pilgrims), art (painting, cutting, and gluing), handwriting and spelling (writing the names on the cards) all wrapped up in one fun afternoon.

Homeschooling is awesome!

weird start

Yesterday Joey's first grade school year started with a field trip to an organic produce farm. We toured the rows of veggies, held turkey chicks, saw wonderful sixty-year-old tractors, smelled some sweet lemon balm leaves, marveled at what Farmer Russ grows without the use of any pesticides or herbicides, and then went to Sonic for some burgers and a shake.

where the (somewhat) wild things are

Today was the consonant m in our phonics lesson, so after searching the Internet for 27 seconds to find an m activity and discovering that I did have two paper bags under the sink much preparation we made monster masks in honor of the lovely /m/ sound.

Katie was particularly frightening with her hairy eyes and strange advertisement placement.



Joey had originally drawn a monster mouth full of scary green and black teeth,

but then chose to cut the mouth out because his monster really wanted to eat cucumbers and dip.

Even monsters need their veggies.