A day in the life of a homeschool family

We are into our 11th year of educating at home! And I was one who said "I would NEVER homeschool...." Interesting the roads God brings us down! (It was mainly because I was worried my children would turn out like THIS:)

He enjoys doing this to annoy me but he's so cute :)

As we begin a new year of school thought we would share a bit about what we are learning. (well, I had hoped to get this up awhile ago we are starting week 9 in school ~ but here is the overview anyway!)

The middle 4 "Tutu, Ria, Bernie and Eugene" are enjoying traveling around the world! The curriculum we use for school is called Exploring Countries and Cultures and as we travel around the world we learn about the people, the places, the biomes and various other interesting things in each continent. oh almost forgot art and music too ~ call our home phone and you can hear HELLO in 10 different languages!

a world map made by Eugene

a nature notebooking day -- learning about deciduous and coniferous forests

We are also studying the book of Matthew, praying for people around the world with an amazing book Window on the World and reading missionary biographies which are very inspiring! Yes to all you teachers they all do the 3 R's too (Reading - love the library!, wRiting and aRithmetic for all you non-teachers:) )

The day they received their passports in the mail -
great timing as we were "traveling" to Mexico later that day!

The youngest learner in the bunch is learning to sign as well as say lots of words, "read" books (she LOVES looking at them!) play with toys and so much more!

Our oldest "Chuck" began high school at home this year (yeah its almost unbelievable!) he is using a program called Ancient History and Literature for Bible, History and English, Jacobs geometry and Exploring Creation with Chemistry, and German with Rosetta Stone. He is starting week 10 and he and his dad have a healthy competition staying ahead of one another in Taking the Old Testament Challenge daily bible reading! He is working on starting his own blog to share more thoughts with you -- we'll let you know when its live!

here he is doing some reading

Well that about sums up our school schedule -- add some extras like piano, violin, volleyball, soccer, lego robotics, chess club, and co-op and it makes for a busy schedule! (more posts on all those to come!!!)

Oh, the kids didn't want me to forget about home ec -- cleaning, laundry cooking and child care are all in our daily routine too!
So there is a glimpse into a day of our homeschool family ....
and if you haven't seen the homeschool family video by Tim Hawkins here it is ~ enjoy! (we have watched it tons of times and still laugh!)



Blessings
Amy Q

Mom, read a book to me...

Sometimes it takes me awhile to finish things.... this post was started almost a year ago! Well I am finally sharing the STORY behind the "picture" you will understand after you read...

I love reading books to our children... and I love taking pictures of them... so when my husband called and said "Can I take some pictures of you reading to the children?" I said "sure!" then he told me that a few people would be seeing the pictures....after discovering they (the homeschool company we work with: My Father's World) wanted a picture for some ads I decided I should wash my hair! (thankfully no one can SMELL pictures :) and we rummaged through the drawers for thing that didn't "clash".

Now for those of you who know me you will find this all very funny (that is my goal to give you a giggle today!)Ok, just so you have total perspective: my wonderful hubby called at 11am, we were having a very good school day with the 7 children (we were schooling Alex and Julia last year) plus a foster baby, our helper was over as well (thankfully she was there, although I worry she really thinks we are CRAZY now!) A family brought lunch over on Mondays, so she came with her 2 boys bringing the household total to 12!-- it was CRAZY!
As the kids finished eating, I got clothes lined up, shoved all the clutter to one side of the family room and tried to make the couch corner look as "uncluttered" as possible --sorta an oxymoron in a homeschool home!!!OK so as the photographer arrives, we try various arrangements of people/seating/books and so on. After almost 2 hours of pretending to read, the kids were DONE (As was I!)
We all prayed ONE of those shots would be usable.

When we got home we all let out a low mumble OHHH when we heard the lighting wasn't good in any of the pictures, and we had to try again!
We were dealing with a deadline (need it by TOMORROW) we got through dinner, dad had a meeting, but as soon as he got home we started up again, this time we knew a little more what we were looking for!
lighting SET,
book to read SET,
uncluttered area still SET!
here is the other side of the room!!! scary! (I didn't move a thing since our afternoon session so we climbed over the mountain of STUFF to get through the room!!!)
Muliple click- click- click multi burst shots were fired. There were many comments like "just look at the book" or "pretend its interesting" "just imagine the people on this page were picking their nose" "don't poke him", and on and on! Many giggles and lots of WIGGLES!
and yes some discipline was caught on camera too --here is the mom glare -- JUST DO IT SO WE CAN BE DONE!
I don't know how people WANT to do this for a job!!!

Well by 9:45 pm we had all had it and I said "if one of those doesn't work you will need some other models"! We had taken close to 1000 pictures in 4 hours!
For all of you who think the cover on a homeschool magazine is true homeschool life moment-- well there is usually more to the story than one picture!
We are very blessed to educate our children at home and I am so thankful for the precious "couch" moments we do have and grateful that the glares are able to be few and far between :)
So if you want to see the offical final shot order a catalog www.mfwbooks.com or get an issue of Focus on the Family parents magazine (spring 09 issue) or check out the back cover of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.
Here it is... (this is the unedited version -- notice the cats tail! see nothing is perfect!)
My little boys insisted they wear their "cover shirts" for many a convention this year -- very sweet! So for the kind people who thought we just happen to have this sweet picture sitting around ~ now you know the REST OF THE STORY!

Now go read a book to your kids or to yourself for real!