How's Homeschool Going?

This is a question that I have been asked many times these past few weeks so I thought I would give an update!

It's going great!  Halle is loving it.  I love having her home.  Arden and Jack love having her here, too!  She does school work about six hours a day.  Typically she works from about 10-4, but not always the case since we go to social outings, Arden's gymnastics, and MOPS during the week.  I give her a schedule of what she needs to get done for the week and it's up to her to pace herself and manage her time.  I think the is has been the most challenging part for her.  She is having to learn to not linger on a difficult question or topic, but to move on and come back to it at the end.

I am truly impressed with the opportunities that are available to her.  We obviously can't do everything, but choir, band, junior honor society (in 7th grade), debate team, student council, science fair,
sports, and more.  Oh, and group classes.  There are semester classes available for upper level courses like Biology or Algebra.  There are also classes available for middle school students at the local college.  And one homeschool group offers yearly standardized testing if you are interested in that sort of thing.

This first year we decided to join several homeschool groups in our area so that we could be in the loop with what's going on.  I'm also amazed at how many kids there are.  Our smallest groups has about 100 families and the largest group has about 400 families.  They are all in the Nortwest Spring, Cypress, Tomball, Copperfield area.  It's comforting to me because I have been able to talk with some moms of older kids and understand how their high school kids earn dual college credits, prepare student portfolios, and prepare for graduation (in case we continue on with homeschooling.)  When I first started looking into homeschooling I was CLUELESS.  I'm happy that so many have been encouraging and willing to help me.

We tweaked our curriculum from my last post about it.  We started using an online curriculum for her core subjects.  The site is called time4learning.com.  This has been a tremendous help to me because it keeps everything organized.  The curriculum is lined out for her grade and it has fun and interactive teaching videos.  The lessons build on one another.  It has writing and critical thinking prompts, quizzes, worksheets, and activities. I can then log in under my parent site and track her progress.  It lets me generate a schedule of lesson plans, reports, and gives me all of the answer keys.

a photosynthesis science experiment

We have a current group project coming up with the Greens.  We have entered a contest at the health museum and are creating a bone sculpture.  We have recruited the dads to help us too since it has to be about five feet tall!

We are also trying to learn Spanish together.  :)  And Halle does her own home-economics class.  :)  She's trying to learn how to cook and sew.

she refashioned a baggy T shirt into a tank top

And music!  I found my old saxophone from school in the garage.   I played for five years and still remember it!  Right now we are working on learning how to read notes and clapping out rhythms.  We are also working on her embouchure.  Halle also has an old trumpet that her great-grandfather gave her.  With the help of you tube I'm learning how to play it so I can teach her.  We also have a guitar (no idea how to play but Aunt Sarah does!) and keyboard.  So music class has been loud and fun!  To keep Arden out of our hair I bought her a recorder.  With the combination of Jack banging on the keyboard, Halle trying to make tones on the saxophone, and Arden blowing the recorder as loud as possible..... well let's just say I feel sorry for our neighbors.  Watch out, though.  We might just get really good and start our own band.  I think the "Hargrave 5" has a good ring to it.

Duck Dynasty's Duck Commander

calls have nothing on Halle!

She has been busy during the evenings with volleyball, climbing, and youth group at church.

So bottom line.  We are BUSY.  The biggest struggle is managing time wisely and trying to decipher what works for our family.  Halle's schoolwork is pretty intense, so she has to focus to get her work done.  It's not all fun and games, and some days it feels hectic.  But we are taking it day by day and just doing what we can.  Another struggle is that there are so many approaches to homeschooling, from "traditional" to "unschooling" so I'm trying to not get overwhelmed with all of the choices.  According to the other moms, it gets easier, and once we get into a groove, it will get better.  We are really enjoying it, though, and I'm very happy with the way things are going!