Journey to Excellence

What a great week this has been focusing on the things in our homeschool that make us successful. I have enjoyed reading the blogs of some of my fellow Crew Members to hear what things make their days go more smoothly. I hope that you have enjoyed this Blog Hop. This last essential is one that I have realized was the motivation for why we started homeschooling in the first place. It is also what prompted the title of this blog. In February of 2010, we made the decision that we should begin our homeschooling journey. It all started with Dawson (our now 17 year old high school junior). Kyndal was able to navigate the waters of public school without any problems. Dawson, however, struggled with the strain and stress of perfection and being lost in the big crowd. As we were struggling, as well, we followed his lead (actually, his begging) and brought him home for school for two years so that he could pursue Excellence instead of perfection. I encourage you to travel back with...

We are already on Day 4 of the Schoolhouse Review Crew's Homeschooling Essentials Blog Hop . I hope that you have picked up some good tips for essentials that might make your homeschooling experience a little more pleasant. In reading some of the other participants' posts, I know I have! Our essential item today is a big one for us! Last year we would start at the top of our planner page and work our way down. But Eli doesn't like spelling or any kind of writing, so I noticed that he started to stress about about them when we were doing subjects that he did like. And then I noticed Brynne start saying, "Oh no! Math is coming up!" We couldn't even concentrate on the subject we were on for the anticipation of less-desired subjects that were next on our list. So we stared "D"rawing Sticks. I just took a simple mason jar and attached a little ribbon around it. I used large craft sticks and wrote each of our subjects on them. We start each mo...

In my ongoing contribution to the Schoolhouse Review Crew's Homeschooling Essentials Blog Hop , I am sharing with you today the third item that our homeschool could not do without. Well, maybe we would survive, but things would be more difficult! We conduct the majority of our school day at our dining room table. It has a rough tile surface so it is impossible to do worksheets and written assignments on it without tearing the paper and writing all scribbly. The kids also like to do some of their worksheets while sitting comfortably on the couch and in the comfy chair. A couple of years ago we started using clipboards to do all of our writing work. Each kid has their own and they grab it first thing in the morning for their first assignment. As we do worksheets throughout the day, I just add them to their clipboard. If they have to do schoolwork at grandma's or on the road, for some reason, I can just load up their clipboards with all of their assignments an...

Yesterday I told you about how we cannot operate in our homeschool without "A" Plan . Today I am going to share with you the number one essential tool we use all day, every day, and absolutely could not operate without it ….. It's our "B"oard … our white board to be exact. We are eclectic homeschoolers in the materials we teach our children. But, I teach in a very classic way. We sit together at our dining room table and discuss our subject matter. Then I hop up and write and draw illustrations on the white board. I can honestly say that we use it for every subject every day. We use it in various ways: I write examples, spell difficult words, diagram sentences, and draw illustrations. We use it for brainstorming our writing ideas. Sometimes instead of each of the kids writing answers on paper, individually, we do assignments together and write the answers on the board. The kids diagram sentences on the board and do math problems. And, sometimes, they j...

This entire week the Schoolhouse Review Crew members will be sharing posts on Homeschooling Essentials in our first Blog Hop of 2014. Our little homeschool has a few key elements that make our days a success . Without these things, we would never make it! This week I will be sharing five of our Must-Haves for homeschooling. It is the ABC's (and D and E) of our Homeschooling Success . I hope that you will join me each day this week to see what things we can't live without. The definition of essential is "Absolutely necessary; extremely important." And the first absolutely necessary and extremely important item we use in our homeschool is "A" Plan. We are not unschoolers … far from it. I am not someone who can willy, nilly go through my day. I have a plan for my Bible study, for when I work on teaching my college course, for exercising, and housework, our meals planned out on my calendar, as well as proposed unit studies we will do in the fut...