Houle School 2017-2018

We finished the first installment of Game School a little while ago and I am exhausted.  Implementing the first two days of THE PLAN is wonderful and exciting and takes every last brain cell in my possession.  Homeschooling truly IS every bit as wonderful and dreamy as Instagram makes it out to be, but there is also a giant sacrifice involved. And this sacrifice is required on the daily.  A lot of the time it feels worth it, but sometimes the lies and fears creep in and I wonder if it is. 

After kicking myself in the shins a bit earlier this afternoon and questioning why it seems to take me an entire day to accomplish what others seem to knock out in a couple of hours, I received a beautiful text from a veteran homeschool mom. 

"I hope your first two days

of school have gone well. 

You are using your time,

your resources, your strengths 

and your talents well in educating 

your children academically, emotionally 

and spiritually.  Well done."

Have you ever received a text like this? Have you ever sent one? 

So thankful that Jesus uses friendship like this.  It's beautiful and extraordinary to me. 

So then I cried and decided to look through pictures of the past two days.

Planning for this year was such a joy.  I felt a giant amount of freedom and planned for loads of margin and tucked all of our wonderful curriculum into our weeks.  It felt great to plan and it's been (for the most part) a ball to see it play out the past few days. 

Avery was the first one up the morning of our first day.  Here she is checking out the art cart. 

I always wrap up our school supplies to open on the first day! This year they opened movies and games, mostly because of Julie Bogart's influence on our home school and my heart.

Going into this year, I knew (for the most part) what curriculum we'd be using, but I wanted a way to easily insert that curriculum without planning too far in advance.  

rightstart with ashton. 

This year, every single day of our week is slightly different.  Monday and Thursday are more traditional.  Tuesdays will be for Poetry Teas or Game school and Fridays I am blocking off a chunk of time to rotate us through some of the lifestyle I would like to implement from Bravewriter. 

I feel like I've been living in the dark ages, but this is my first year to use a calendar app for school planning.  Let me tell you, I am loving it. 

Our morning time looks slightly different each day, so I love that I can click on the day's time-slot of morning time and receive my very own pre-selected list for our morning time that day. 

I firmly believe in decision fatigue, especially when dealing with so many parenting decisions and being bombarded with questions all day long.  As many things that you can have pre-decided for that day the better.  Which is why I am always armed with my breakfast and lunch menu starting a new school year.  Match a pre-selected breakfast and lunch menu with a click list order from King Soopers and you reserve brain power for homeschooling and parenting.  Planning for meals frees up space and time and energy in our actual home school days.  It's way too easy to forget that we have two meals in the middle of teaching and when people get hungry it can create stress and decision fatigue. 

The kids weekly planning sheets are also meant to free up decision space in my brain.  This is a weekly planning sheet that I hope to fill out each Sunday.  It has a spot for the kids to mark when they finish their morning routine, a spot for their daily chores, a place for me to fill out their independent work and a place to fill out their one on one time with me for the week. 

You'll notice that Avery's Tuesday and Friday "work with mom" columns are all crossed off, that's because I only have one on one time with her on Mondays and Thursdays.  Budding independence! She's doing SO much more of her math on her own these days.  

I made myself a similar planning sheet for more of a big picture view of our week.   On Friday, are we watching a movie, going on a nature hike, going to the art museum, having one on one time? Is this Tuesday a game school day or a poetry tea time day? I'm hoping that looking at this on Sundays will help me wrap my mind around what our week as a whole is going to look like. (forgive my handwriting, I'm considering doing a handwriting book alongside the kids....this confirms the need for this.)

Game school! Sum Swamp and Destination USA. 

We are going to the Grand Canyon with Dave's family in a couple weeks.  I'm hoping to use morning time and our history slot to do a deep dive into learning about the Grand Canyon before we go! Today we did an oil pastel abstract that was supposed to represent the canyon. ;)

Our first day took longer than we imagined, as always.  After dinner, Avery and I still hadn't finished our Arrow work for the day and we both wanted to finish the first chapter and so after Ian and Ashton were in bed we lit candles and got to work. :)

Ashton is going to continue using Phonics Road this year.  We love their literature study of Little House in the Big Woods. 

I am still trying to figure out the balance of letting inspiration and the Holy Spirit lead our days while also having a default plan and basic structure and routine to follow.  I am less flexible in our routine than I care to admit and almost need be flexible to be on the plan in order for me to actually be flexible.  ;) 

And even as I say that, I can feel and am trusting that the nutso, controlling pieces of my heart are being gently peeled away.  

Let it be true. 

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Curriculum list!

In the Hands of A Child : Grand Canyon lap book

Science In the Beginning

Beautiful Feet Books Early American History (we should FINALLY finish this year)

Right Start Mathmatics

Math Lessons for a Living Education

Winter Promise Horse Science

Life of Fred

These language arts programs are all through Bravewriter

Partnership Writing and The Arrow (Avery) Jot it Down and The Quiver of Arrows (Ian and Ashton)

Phonics Road to Reading and Writing

All about Spelling (just Ian)