Homeschooling

Yeah, we are crazy!  My boys.... oh where to start about homeschooling!  Jobo is almost 6 and Bug is almost 4.  Both strong-willed like their momma!  I always wanted to homeschool my children ever since I was in high school.  I had a few friends that were homeschooled and fell in love with the idea.  Their family was so close and they seemed to be so happy.  I can remember them joining our school for different trips and such.

When Jobo was 4 I tried to start him in preschool.  It worked for a few months and then we kinda went off the chart.  I was becoming overwhelmed and Jobo wasn't loving it anymore.  I also had an almost 2 year old who wanted to be at my side constantly so it wasn't to difficult for me to be swayed! 

Now almost 2 years later we are doing much better!  Jobo is in kindergarten and Bug is in preschool.  I don't do as much with Bug since his attention span is much shorter than big brother but he does get his time in. 

We fell behind at the start of the year because we went with a smaller curriculum than I had planned.  Come to find out it wasn't a full plan so even though we were on schedule with it we were still behind on Abeka when we switched over.  We have worked extra hard to catch up and so far Jobo has done well with that. 

When Jobo is on track we can fly through several lessons in one day.  He doesn't mind going on extra time if he is on fire!  I use a robot reward buck system to keep him motivated and he LOVES it.  I also have a sticker pad that I use every single time he answers something right.  I mean EVERY time.  He got a piece of construction paper a few weeks ago and that's what I use to keep up with all the stickers.  When the sheet is covered he gets a new Skylander toy.  That has been a great incentive.  I give him the robot reward bucks maybe 1 or 2 a day for the big prize.  He has to get 20 bucks to get 1 actual dollar.  We made little wallets a few weeks back in class and that's what he uses to keep track of his bucks.  It's really fun for him and it helps keep me motivated to in a way.  I want to see him do good and want to keep learning so whatever it takes is my motto!

I bought a white board to put on the wall but it hasn't made its way there just yet.  The tiny 2x3 that I have been using is really getting old!  I decided to hang some twine from the corner to the window in our school room and it works really well for hanging anything like posters, cards, letters, just anything light basically.  I also bought a hanging clothes rack from Ikea several months ago and use it with my bigger posters using binder clip things.  That helps me save my wall space since it's limited in our schoolroom.  I should take some photos tomorrow of our room.