Homeschool Update| First Semester Update

A photo posted by sᴀʀᴀH (@radsarah) on Jan 4, 2016 at 8:38am PST

I just realized I had not made a Homeschooling update past the first few weeks of school!

Neely absolutely adores being home schooled. She is a real homebody (although she loves to go places and she loves attention) so it is a perfect fit.

At the beginning and until Christmas break, we were dressed and ready for school by 8:00am. This allowed us to be done with our school day by 10:00 or 10:30 at the latest. This was a great plan because it was still early enough to hang out with friends or run errands before lunch time.

For some reason I cannot get my life together since Christmas break. We now start anywhere from 9:00 to 10:00 and school can last for hours or it is broken up into sections of the day.

Although most homeschooling mamas seem to thrive on no schedule or loose schedules, I cannot live like this! I need rules!

My husband's work life has been chaotic and I have not been able to plan and breathe like I would like to.

She takes a couple VAPA classes outside of the home and I am just hoping she will make a friend (please PLEASE God). It's really hard to socialize a kid who is shy(ish) and only used to talking to adults. If any homeschooling ladies have any tips I am all ears!

Neely is getting all of her work done and she is very happy and successful academically, but inside I am suffering! I just need one weekend to relax and plan and get back into the groove so that I can actually enjoy this wonderful process!

But all in all homeschooling is amazing and I wish everyone homeschooled their child.

homeschooling

While Neely was in public school, I daily felt frustrated at the situation and sad for Neely. She cried every single day. She had behavior problems at home. She no longer looked forward to Sunday School because it meant being away from me.

Beyond the obvious emotional stress it was causing her, I also knew it wasn't the right choice academically. I had been fairly active in her classroom and witnessed the overcrowded classroom and the fact that Neely had already learned everything the teacher was teaching.

One night I sent a text to my mom and asked her to pray that God would make the choice clear. And in my mind, the choice was either pull her out at Christmas time or after kindergarten. My mom responded that she would pray that God would show us that very week.

A few days before that text to my mom, a couple of friends were discussing Neely and her inability to adjust to public school (or being away from Mama).

They both know Neely and know how bright she is. One of the friends just so happened to be a kindergarten teacher herself and emailed me to suggest a few other options.

One of the options was a public school charter. This charter is a home school program with a Friday school option. In this program, all of the curriculum is provided and tailored to your child, an education facilitator is assigned to you to give you tasks to complete, concepts to master and to report to the state the child's progress. As if this wasn't good enough, they also provide you with credits to enroll your child in a number of art, music, dance, etc. classes! 

As soon as I looked up this school online I knew. When I told Brett, he knew. THIS was our path.

We only had two days to apply, be accepted and un-enroll her from her current school and enroll her in this charter.

I knew that if we made the cutoff it would only be because of God.

We made it! 

Neely is now on her second week of homeschool and has learned more than she would have learned her entire kindergarten year. 

I am able to supplement her public school curriculum with my own Bible teachings, studies on famous artists and nature adventures.

Tomorrow she starts her first art class at an art studio!

I couldn't be happier.

She couldn't be happier.

Homeschool is the best option for us right now and I am so grateful for the opportunity that we have been given!

One of these days I will post more in depth about why homeschool was on my mind at all because I certainly never thought I would be a homeschooling mom!

ON NOT LETTING GO

Kindergarten started this week. 

I was dreading this day since she turned five. (I didn't tell her that, obviously.)

We have never been apart from each other and I knew it was going to be rough.

I didn't know how rough it would be.

As the school year loomed closer I realized how much I believe in home school. 

Not just because I want to be with her all of the time (even though I do), but also because I am afraid the California education system will crush her creative, nature-loving self. 

Kindergarten here is SIX HOURS and in those SX HOURS they do absolutely NO exploring, NO nature walks, NO studies on animals, NO artistic endeavors (except starting next week she will paint a letter on a piece of paper.), NOTHING that makes Neely Neely.

She has sobbed every day and night since kindergarten started. 

I hope it gets better, I hope so for her sake, but I also am not letting go of HER and of my idea of homeschool.

Hope next week is better.

UPDATE

I haven't been able to work up the desire to post in my blog for a long time before today!

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, I promise, I'm just using technology less and less for social purposes (except Instagram of course.). I quit Facebook in January and have had so much more time for mothering and creativity.

Mabel turned one and Neely is now 4 1/2!

I turned 34 and had the best day ever. I got to go to an art museum and see an actual Frida Kahlo painting. Pictures were forbidden but luckily my paparazzi husband came through!

CALLIGRAPHY

For the past couple months I have been practicing calligraphy thanks to Skillshare!

If you haven't heard of Skillshare, it's an AMAZING site that allows you to take online classes on just about anything creative you can think of. I have taken several calligraphy classes, an Illustrator class and classes on how to digitize calligraphed words! It's so rad!
If you want to check it out, use my link and get a month free. And, when you decide you love it and want to continue, it's only $10/month! It's worth it. Trust me.

Since August I have been practicing almost daily. I went from this:

to this:

 

and now this!

It's obviously not perfect but I am improving and I couldn't be happier about it!

If you decide to sign up and want to know good classes to take, let me know and I'll send you the links!

Yay for modern calligraphy!