Saying Goodbye!

During what was supposed to be the last week of school, the School District set up times for each of the students to come by, drop off items that belonged to the school and also pick up the rest of their stuff that they didn't take with them on Friday, March 13th. 

Zeke was the first kiddo that got to go. It was so nice to see Ms. Castle. We just love her! I'm excited for her to teach 4th grade this next year. 

The Middle School kids weren't going to get to see there teachers so Zeke had a special bag for Jackson from Mrs. Miller. It was her little thank you for Jack being a part of the Patrol Team this year.

The next day it was Ella's turn...she had such a tough classroom! I was actually happy that she didn't have to finish out the year dealing with all that was going on. Her teacher Ms. Inoue was amazing though. I'm excited for her to be at a school closer to home! I also found out the other teachers that made a huge impact on Ella were also moving on to different schools. It really was perfect timing for us to homeschool!

The older boys got to drop there stuff off on Friday and I guess I read the schedule wrong so we showed up late. Thankfully the office ladies were still there so they were able to take in their whole box of books that belonged to the Middle School English Teacher.

That was it....no more public school! I'm so excited to begin our homeschool adventure! 

Homeschool & Last Day Of School!!!

The first full week in March I was sick with a tummy bug. I spent that whole week on the couch...it was not fun! This was when all the Covid talk was really amping up. I had a friend that had a friend that works at the CDC and she had said, "it's not if the schools close...it's when"...so I was prepared that it was going to happen. I watched the press conference on March 12th saying school was closing and I'll admit I cried a little. I'm not sure why because I was actually excited to have my kids home with me. I love having my babies close. It was just a little tiny emotional moment and then it was over. 

During that week while I was sick I had been reading up on a bunch of stuff and I was already really upset by the new Sex Education that was being brought up in the State Legislature. I told Michael if they passed it we were removing our children from Public School. 

Side Note: I do not think it is the Public Schools job to teach my children about sex...it is my job as a parent to teach my children about those things. I understand that some parents are scared, embarrassed or don't know how and I feel sorry for their kids. Parents should not be scared or embarrassed to talk to their kids about anything. Yes...I think that school should teach about anatomy and how the reproductive system work, but that's it. The thing is you don't need to teach a child how to sin...it's is part of their inmost being...we are sinful creatures. I do not need the Public School System teaching my children about leud sex acts that go against our Biblical beliefs. 

Here are books we used to talk to our kids about sex from a Biblical standpoint. 

The Talk: 7 Lessons to Introduce Your Child to Biblical Sexuality

Changes: 7 Biblical Lessons to Make Sense of Puberty

Relationships: 11 Lessons to Give Kids a Greater Understanding of Biblical Sexuality

Steps off soap box! 

Homeschooling has been on my heart for about a year! I homeschooled Owen for Kindergarten and then when he was about to go into 1st grade we realized that he needed more than I could give. I had my 3 little ones at home and I was nanny Logan 3 - 4 days a week. It was too much. At the time we felt like it was the right move. I also got involved with Mom's in Prayer and we have seen so many answers to prayers over the years. I truly felt like being at Public School was my mission field. I loved volunteering and helping out my kids teachers. Although as they got older the amount of help the teachers needed drastically went down. During this last year I barely helped out at all. I felt like I wasn't able to have a presence in the classroom, get to know the other kids in my kids' classes or make a difference of any kind.

This last year there has also been some situations that have come up that were frankly unacceptable in my mind. My child did not have any rights to getting a good education because another child that was having issues had all the rights in the world. It was ridiculous really! I get that the schools hands are tied, but it was really disappointing. 

Owen had been asking to be homeschooled for the last year. He is so gentle and his heart literally hurts when he has to sit in a classroom of kids that swear all the time. It was breaking my heart! I wanted to homeschool, but their was always something holding me back. I think it was mainly the not knowing if it would work and what would happen if I took them out, tried it and it failed...would I have ruined my kids! 

Enter Covid-19 and school being canceled...in a way it was an answer to prayer for our family. Not that people would get sick and die...heavens no, but we got to practice homeschooling. We got to try it on for size! Now I know that crisis homeschooling is not like real homschooling, but the fact that none of us killed each other during these last couple months is quite promising. 

Once we found out that school was going to be canceled for the rest of the school year I made the decision right then that we were only going to do school until the original last day of school on June 12th. Then once we went on further I decided that we were finishing up on May 29th. We were done! My kids had done great, but the tension had been building and there had been tears over zoom meetings and computers not working and I was over it. Neither me or my kids need to be unnecessarily stressed right now and I honestly felt like this was unnecessary. I conveyed this to my kids teachers and they were SO supportive of me!!! They were also excited for us in regards to leaving the school and moving forward with homeschooling. It was such a nice relief to have that off my chest and feel supported in the process! 

I told the kids that even though school wasn't ending the normal way we were still going to take last day of school pictures.

Last day of 2nd grade! 

Going on to 3rd! 

Last day of 6th grade! 

Going onto 7th!!! 

Last day of 7th grade!!! 

Being a goober...just like in his first day of school picture that he's holding! 

Going onto 8th grade! 

Last day of 3rd grade! 

Going onto 4th grade! 

My beautiful babes! 

Buddies! 

Goobers! 

As for homeschooling....we are doing a hybrid of sorts. I found this school online Lighthouse Christian Academy they offer a distance learning homeschool program. They use ACE (Accelerated Christian Education) curriculum. It's the same curriculum that Michael and I used at the private school we went too. The nice thing is since we are enrolled in a school per se I don't have to file paperwork with the state like I would if I homeschooled the traditional way. I don't have to take the class that shows I'm able to teach my child. I will have support from the school and we will be assigned an advisor. They will keep all the kids records and handle all the state testing. It's really the best of both worlds. 

It will cost us a good amount, but it's less to homeschool my 4 kids using the same curriculum that I used than it cost my parents to have me in private school. We are excited and thankfully so are the kids. Owen and Zeke were totally on board and fine...no complaints whatsoever. Jack and Ella were shocked and Ella does keep saying that she's sad she's not going to go to school and she doesn't want to homeschool, but I mainly thing it's because of the unknown. She's still going to see her friends it will just be outside of school and we'll have opportunities to make new friends.  Once Jackson realized that all his friends he actually hangs out with don't go to school he was fine.  

The best part about the program at LCA is they will assess the kids and see where they need to be placed. They aren't going to just assume that Owen is going into 8th grade. They will test him to be sure and if he is lagging behind in a certain area they will assign him the PACE's (workbooks) that he needs to catch up in those areas. I honestly think that Zeke should be further along than he is right now. Poor kid is bored out of his mind with Math. I would not be surprised if he is at the same level as Ella in a few subjects. 

The flexibility is really going to be nice as well. We will be able to take vacations and go places outside of the normal peak times. We will also be able to take our PACE's and go set up school at the park. The options are endless really! 

I'm still a little sad about taking my kids out...it's all they've ever known, but I'm also so excited for what's ahead. The things they are going to get to do and see and experience while homeschooling are going to make up for anything they are going to miss at a school building. Plus I'm so excited to be able to pour into their lives even more Biblical principles and looking at things from a godly perspective. It's my job as a parent to make sure they have a solid foundation in the Lord and I take that job very seriously! 

If you are interested in checking out Lighthouse Christian Academy.

Tutoring!

A few weeks ago Michael and I dropped the kids off at AWANAS and went out on a date to Trappers Sushi. It was so yummy! After enjoying our dinner we drove up to the church to wait for AWANAS to let out. While we were waiting we started chatting about what every parent always ends up talking about...our kids. Our conversation focused more on Ella at this particular time. 

If you remember our sweet Ella Grace was diagnosed with Hydrocephalus at 18 months old after falling from a slide and fracturing her skull. She ultimately had brain surgery the following month at 19 months to put in a VP Shunt. She still has her original Shunt to this day Praise The LORD!!! 

Due to her Hydrocephalus Ella has had some speech delays. She's been in speech therapy for years now. First at Children's Therapy Center when she was 4 years old and now at school where she has an IEP for Math, Reading, Writing and Speech. 

Ella has made huge strides academically in the last few years, but her reading is where she struggles the most. It's almost painful to watch and listen to her struggle through a book. Even simple sight words can be hard for her. I know that her short term memory has improved over the years, but I do see that there are certain areas in her life that it is still a factor. 

I will say honestly that Michael and I have probably not helped her as much as we could have in regards to working with her at home. That's hard for me to say, but at the same time I have 4 kids. Life is crazy busy and to take the time to sit down with each one of them is just a logistical nightmare especially when you factor everything else in that is required to run a home/family. Also we are safe for Ella and her home is her safe space. What I mean by this is she will work so hard for her teachers and never complain, but she's safe with us and she knows she can pull at our heartstrings so she uses that. She gets emotional and frustrated and then so do we which is not a health environment that encourages learning. Also school is a place where she has to act tough and keep it together, but home is where she can let her guard down and wear her emotions on her sleeve. I remember when she was a toddler and we were going to MOPS we would get home usually after noon when she would normally be napping by this point if we had been home. She would be fine in the van and then the moment...I do mean the moment she crossed the threshold from the garage into the house she would melt into a pile of emotional mess. She would LOSE it! She would be inconsolable! There was no way I could even get her to eat lunch...she would just go straight to bed and that was the only way for her to deal with her exhaustion. With this knowledge of how she is emotionally it made it very hard for Michael and I to push her to work harder. 

I will say Ella's reading has improved, but she is drastically behind where other 3rd graders are. This school year she has actually showed interest in having me read books to her. I love to read books to the kids, but that has never really been something that Ella has enjoyed. Reading to her is great, but she also needs to be doing the reading as well and that's where we've struggled the most. She did a Fancy Nancy book at the beginning of the school year and it took her an hour to do it. We were SO proud of her and she was proud of herself, but it was so mentally exhausting for her. 

So back to Michael and I sitting in the van...Michael mentioned that we needed to get her a tutor. He said money doesn't matter right now we need to help her learn to read because it's the foundation for everything. God has blessed Michael with a great job and this is too important for her and her future. So right then and there I used my phone and typed in 'tutoring in my area' and up popped Varsity Tutors. They had an online form you could fill out and the very next day I spoke on the phone with a very nice lady and we got Ella set up with a plan for her to have 50 tutoring sessions....in our home!!!! I can't even tell you how amazing that is. With 4 kids life can be crazy and we don't even do sports! I don't even understand how families with each of their kids in a sport even do it...no thank you! The thought of having to take Ella to a tutoring center was not fun one, but I would have if it was necessary. This though was such a blessing!!!! 

The person I first spoke to on the phone asked me all sorts of questions about Ella. It was actually really fun to talk about my girl and her progress and then areas she needs help on. I did learn from her that 3rd grade is the last grade they teach reading. After that they assume you know the basics and will pick up more words by learning vocabulary words, but they won't actually be teaching reading in the classroom anymore. Now I know with Ella's IEP she would still be getting that resource, but this did confirm to me that she really truly needed this assistance. With all the information I gave her about Ella she said we would be matched with a tutor that would be perfect for her. I was concerned because I know there can be times when teachers and students don't necessarily work well together and she said if that ever happened we could request a new tutor right from the app and they would reevaluate, pick a new tutor and even credit us a tutoring session. A couple days later I got a notice that Ella was placed with April. She is a retired teacher...she taught for 27 years and she has loads of experience. I called her and after talking about Ella for a bit we set up Ella's first tutoring session for Monday October 7th at 4pm. The timing is really perfect since the kids get home at 3:30...Ella gets a chance to have a snack, but doesn't really get to change over to full on playing mode. She knows Ms. April is coming so she still has her learning hat on per se. 

Ms. April is WONDERFUL! She is older as I expected since she is retired. She has arthritis in her knees so she walks with two cane and is slow going, but she is amazing with Ella. I warned her that Ella can be a charmer with her teachers and she is definitely charmed by Ella. She is so patient with Ella and she laughs at her stories. She has all sorts of tricks up her sleeve too and made sure to let Ella know that if she needs a break or doesn't like something that's okay. She really wants this learning time to be positive for Ella. I have been so impressed...honestly I feel like she is part of our family. Her and Ella sit at the dining room table working and usually I'm in the kitchen prepping dinner and it just feels normal. So far Ella has had 3 sessions. Ms. April comes every Monday and then she will also come 1 or 2 Saturdays a month. The 50 / 1hr sessions that we paid for will most likely take Ella all the way through the school year if not a little bit into the summer due to skipping certain weeks for holidays and such. 

As for the price...it wasn't cheap! They had a special going on when we signed up so I believe the price per hour was $46. Sylvan Learning Center's price starts at $47 per hour and it goes up depending on what kind of tutoring you need. Plus you have to go to one of the actual Sylvan Learning Center locations. Being able to have Ella home in her comfort zone I think has made her tutoring that much more successful. She is used to her surroundings, she's used to her brothers making noise and she knows that people that love her are right here if she needs us. She doesn't have to get used to being at strange facility and everything that goes along with that.  

If you have a kiddo that has a tutoring need I would highly recommend Varsity Tutors. You do not have to buy a package that has 50 sessions that's just what we chose for Ella because of how much she needs to learn. They did give me a referral link that gets you 3 tutoring sessions for free. I have honestly been so impressed and I'm so happy that we are getting the help our little girl needs! 

First Day Of School 2019!

The Wednesday before school started we went to an ice cream social at school to meet the teachers. I don't know what I was thinking, but I didn't get one picture with any of the kids and their teachers! Who am I???

Anyways I knew it was going to be too crazy to take pictures with their teachers on the first day of school so hopefully I'll remember to take pictures at the first student led conference. 

With our new storm door on the front door it made it a bit harder to make sure I wasn't reflected in the pictures! 

6th Grade here he comes!

Jackson is moving onto the middle school at our K8. I love that my big boys are still going to be at the same school as their younger siblings. Jackson is with the same teacher that Owen had last year...Ms. Sevier. She's awesome!!! 

I love how Jack is so particular about his style. He's my skinny jean, red shoes, slicked over hair kid. 

Don't let this fool you he's stoked for school! 

Ella Grace had been ready for school to start from about the second day of summer break. She loves school so much! 

3rd grade here she comes. 

This is the first year Ella will be at a different recess time from Zeke. I am happy that her 3rd grade class is still on the same side of the school as Zeke so I'm hoping they'll still see each other in passing on the way to music. PE, or library. Ella's teacher this year is Ms. Inoue (pronounced In-OO A). She is so sweet and I know Ella's going to love her. The older boys were actually jealous that Ella got Ms. Inoue because they've had her as a substitute teacher before and loved her.  

She wanted to use the older looking sign this year instead of the colorful kid one. 

Ready to rock 3rd grade. 

Showing off the stars on the side of her shorts. 

Crazy girl! 

How can I have a 7th grader!!! 

Owen is so blessed this year because his class only has 16 kids in it. Owen's teacher is Ms. Howard. He's already been in her class since she's the Science teacher for the middle school, but now she's his homeroom teacher. I love Ms. Howard!!! 

16 kids or not this is how Owen feels about school starting. 

Thankfully he can cheer up a bit though! 

He's still my total goofball at heart! 

Look at this sweet boy!!! 

How can he be a 2nd grader?!?! 

I was so excited when I found out that Zeke's teacher was Ms. Castle!!! She was so great for Ella, I know she's going to be awesome for Zeke. 

2nd grade cool dude!!! 

My silly boy! 

Buddies!!! 

I love these kids! 

They sure know how to show off their inner freak! 

Even though we had a crazy summer with the house, I really did have a great time with the kids. They are at such fun age where I don't have to help them with everything and they are good at entertaining themselves. We did have a nice structure that really helped the kids be able to stay on track with having something to do, but also helped them fit in a bit of school work to keep their minds active. 

This was our Summer Fun List! The kids had to do each of these things in order to get an hour of electronics. They did great with this system.

Bros!!! 

Cuties!!!

Like every year we parked in the neighborhood next to the school and walked. I knew that the kids would be embarrassed to have their picture with me at school so we took one on the way there. 

I'm sure Ella and Zeke would have been fine getting their picture taken with me at school, but I knew it would be crazy so it was better to get it out of the way. 

Owen and Jack's classrooms are right up front so once I said goodbye to them, I dropped Ella off at her room on the front side and then walked around to the back to wait with Zeke. I wanted to get a picture of Zeke before he walked in and then the bell rang and he just ran right in. 

I walked around to the front in time to catch Ella before she walked in.

Right after this I went straight to a 2hr appointment with an Allergist. My itching that I had hoped was just because of the foam mattress on our bed did not end up clearing up after all. At this appointment I found out I'm allergic to dust mites, grass and cats. The dust mites were the things I was most allergic too so the first thing I did was go buy an allergen cover for our bed and pillows. I also spent the next two week cleaning our house from top to bottom. We had definitely neglected it because we were working so much on the outside. Why clean the inside when you are just going to track more construction type dirt through the house. 

Now our whole house is looking good and I'm working towards getting this allergy under control. I will say it's much better, but there is still one spot on my left side that doesn't want to clear up. Hopefully it will soon though!