Home Schooling: It's WORK Baby!

I've accepted that fact that one major reason for my keeping this blog is for my own sake.  Homeschooling is a pretty thankless, behind-the-curtain, kind of work.  It's not like "public" teaching, where everyone knows that you have a degree to do what you do, and they can imagine and appreciate the kind of work you do and the effort you make each day.  Nope. Pretty much the only people who know anything about what you do are your own kids (not that they always care) and sometimes your hubby.  Certainly, other home school moms can appreciate what you do, but mostly....it's just you that  REALLY knows what it takes to run your home school.  In fact, most people think that I have endless hours to do what ever I like at any time of day BECAUSE I home school.  oh my.  That's a good laugh.

But you know what I mean.  It's real work and sacrifice.  It's putting together lesson plans when you'd rather soak in the tub or try out that new recipe.  It's testing out the science experiment at 11:45pm to make sure it works before you show the kids tomorrow.  It's skipping your favorite workout class at the gym so you can get math in today.   It's searching for new curriculum that will hopefully be a better fit, when everyone else has already been in bed for hours.  It's interrupting your read aloud to change a diaper, to grab a sippy cup, to referee a fight, to admire a drawing or to soothe a boo-boo.  It's coming up with a new way to organize your school area so that siblings don't fight (as much) and there will still be enough shelf space for all the books. It's planning field trips when your dirty toilets and grimy floors are screaming your name.  It's digging up every last shred of patience inside of you while you try to manage a squirming toddler on your lap while also trying to demonstrate a proper  cursive Z to your second grader, while simultaneously tracking your kindergartner's reader with your finger as he's reading aloud, and answering questions like "Mom...how many times does 9 fit into 148?" from across the room.  Ahhh.....

You know that I love it of course!  But let's be real about this. IT'S WORK BABY!  It doesn't just happen on its own.  And that is why my living room and the downstairs sometimes look like this:

AT least they put away the monopoly game this time so I'm not stepping on little green houses for days!  I won't show you what our school room looks like sometimes.  You'd be too discouraged!

So, yes.  I'm formally giving myself a little pat on the back via this journaling/blogging experience.  If some of it helps you, then fabulous!  But be aware that this is mostly about me just saying, "Good job ME!  I accomplished something worth while today!  Look what I did!" Just don't look too closely at the dusty end tables or the crumbs on the floor. 

The Growing Book Club

Here's another fun update on our Family-to-Family book club.

Our friends chose Charlotte's Web to read for our last book club and it was a huge hit with the kids. They also hosted the meeting and planned the most adorable activities for the kids.

We made spiders out of cupcakes and string licorice. The best part were the paper plate webs the kids made (center cut out with holes punched around edge and laced with yarn), complete with words cut from newspaper just like the ones Templeton would have chosen for Charlotte. Very cute. The kids had a blast.

So the word is spreading and we now have a third family joining the book club. They have chosen a really fun book for us to read this time:



And I'm pleased to say that in the last 2 days we had a fourth family join us! It's so terrific to see other families join us in our love of literature. What a fun way to bring families together while teaching children that reading is a life long pursuit for all of us. I couldn't be happier about the way things are turning out!