(I started writing this posting almost 2 weeks ago.)
As I write this, it is quiet in the house and I love this time of the morning. It is the time that I check emails and the website and catch up with friends on Facebook. These days this is my only free time.
Since at the beginning of December, I started homeschooling Doodles. It is a long story as to what led up to us taking Doodles out of public school and I won’t go into the details; although, I will say that we are more than certain this will be a very positive experience for her. Public school was no longer reflecting our values and morals. Also too, the school system did not seem to have its primary focus on academics. As it seemed to us, the school’s main goals were to teach the children how to excel on the TCAP test without really learning the basics. Many hours of a child’s day at school were being spent in prepping for this test rather than really learning how to read and answer a question but how to interpret the answers from an image provided. This was only one of our concerns. Our other concerns were the moral values were being overlooked and it seemed to us that more passive behaviors were being taught, which to us seemed to take away a child’s sense of determination to excel. We may be wrong in our view of the way the public school system is educating the kids these days; however, there were just many things that we felt we would prefer to teach Doodles instead of passing that responsibility on to another that maybe didn’t share our views, morals and values.
With that being said, Doodles does miss her friends from school but is doing tremendously well with homeschool. We are enrolling her in a few enrichment classes and gymnastics. Hopefully she will find other homeschool kids to develop friendships with. We just joined the homeschool network for our community and are starting to reach out to get involved in field trips and opportunities with other homeschool families. It is a lot of work and the day is filled with assignments, learning games and lesson planning. I am having a wonderful time though. It just seems spending this time now with her learning and seeing all the “light bulb” moments, I am the one who is being blessed.
We are having fun exploring together and she is getting to learn through hands on experiences too. Here are a few photos of some of our home school moments.
I know the photos looks a lot like just playing with straws although, it was a learning opportunity for her. We found a book called Inventing Toys that inspired this project. She Google searched towers. She was so excited to learn how to do that and she has found many places where the some of the towers are located that she wants to visit on vacation. It was a great opening into getting her to explore and learn more about the states and it was a great spring board for us. 
Also started a unit study on things that grow. We decided to grow wheat grass. I had never grown wheat grass but all I can say is, WOW!!! It grows quickly and not a lot of seed is needed. There are wonderful health benefits from using wheat grass in smoothies or juicing so, it was a great decision to grow it for this project. She noted it's growth daily and watered it. As soon as it put off the second sprout of grass, we harvested it for smoothies.
Doodlebug loved getting to cut or mow the grass as she called it and make the smoothies. I figured the best way to get her into really trying the smoothies and maybe liking them were to let her be the one who picked the fruits and veggies to add. It worked. She loves veggie/fruit smoothies now. 
The wheat grass gave the fruit smoothie a bit of a melon flavor. It was quiet tasty. 
Doodlebug thinks one of the best things about homeschool is getting to do her work in her pj's. She also likes being able to help make the choices of the things she would like to learn more about. We have a basic curriculum book that we work from each day. We also use unit study books for more involved studies and they are so much fun. This is where her chance to explore really comes in. I am learning but there are so many wonderful resources on line. I have also learned that most homeschool families are some of the most generous and kind people and share books, equipment, resources, knowledge and are just so helpful. It has been a wonderful adventure for both Doodles and I. I will try and share more photos soon and some of our activities. I am in hopes that very soon Doodlebug will work a bit more independent and give me a bit of time to blog again. Until then, blessings to you all!
