Spring Homeschooling

I love homeschooling. I especially love it in the spring. We start to wind down for the year(ending in May), so the bulk of the year is over. Phew! This means we get to do more hands on science stuff. With such a range of grades and ages (4, 8, 13, 16) science has to be something that covers all abilities and most of all interesting for them all.

We use something called TOPS science. It is fully hands on-right down to having to cut out things and create stuff by recycling. Currently, we are growing things. I suppose growing stuff is sort of a theme for our family, but we get to dissect plants and diagram things and weigh, cut, paste, tape, etc.. it’s a boy’s dream, really.

Someone asked me today how I found the energy to homeschool. I reminded them that I had never done anything other than homeschool, so it sort of morphed into our lifestyle. I don’t know if I could pull my kids from public school and start schooling them all of a sudden. THOSE are the women that I admire. My oldest son just turned in his entire semester’s worth of Rhetoric. He amazes me with how his brain works. That is one of the main reasons I started this homeschooling lifestyle: My kids are so darn interesting!

My third grader has finally mastered reading and is working on his second book (for fun). In public school, he would have had quite a time of it. Reading was just so difficult for him, and it has a lot to do with allergies. I am sure that would have gone over like a brick in PS, but there it is. Now I have 3 readers so far, they love it. The brand new 4 yr old is intrigued, but still loves to bring piles of books to anyone who will read them. Above all else, I hope to instill the JOY of reading to the kids. Not just the ability to read, but the desire to do so. It is working so far.

Going forward, I would like to share what sort of stuff a family of 7 does to teach the kids at home.