Monday, July 21, 2008

Finally, My Second Bit of News!!

So sorry I didn't post right away. You'll probably understand why when I tell you the news I spoke of last post. First, NO, I am not pregnant. I need to lose a couple of dresses sizes before I visit that topic...:)

Before I tell you, I should back up and say that we made this decision a while ago, but I wanted to make sure all of our family was told before putting it on a blog. After lots of prayerful consideration, we pulled our 2 boys out of school. There were lots of reasons for doing this. Some were school related and I don't want to get into bad mouthing anyone, but we absolutely knew that our youngest could not and would not go through what his older brother did. We wanted to include other subjects into their studies that just aren't possible otherwise. So, here's the news: We are homeschooling our boys this Fall. For the last several months I have been blessed with a great friend to help mentor me in this process. She has homeschooled her children for several years and has done it well. She has been guiding us through all of the aspects of homeschooling, coursework, and scheduling issues. I feel REALLY confident that we can do this. I don't know if I have mentioned before, but I was a high school religion teacher for 4 years prior to having children and taught adult students at a local college for a few years in the recent past. Lesson planning, teaching, grading, juggling students isn't anything new to me.

So, this past week, instead of posting, I have been teaching. I didn't want the boys to get overwhelmed with work, so we have been doing a modified schedule to get them use to how the day will work and also they now have a head start on some of their subjects. We are doing Math, Phonics, Handwriting and we started Spelling last week. Today we are adding in English. Our first "true" day of homeschooling with all subjects will be August 4th. History, Geography and Science will begin then. Piano for the oldest will come in late September and German (their choice of foreign lang.) will start in the fall as well. They will continue to do Swimming year round as well as sports (Soccer should start within the coming weeks).

I'll write more about it in the coming weeks, but that's the reason for the delay in my post. Ok, onto weight loss...

I completed my first week of Body For Life and was really pleased with how I did. No cheating and no tweaking of the plan. I'll check my progress at the end of week 4. I am concentrating on just following each day as written and doing what's required. It's a great plan to follow for a homeschooler in that it's very straight forward, easy to follow, inexpensive, and I am not eating separate meals from the family at dinnertime. I am using the BFL cookbook and making meals from it. I wrote out a 3 week menu plan of BFL meals so that I can eat with the family and get everyone eating healthier as well!

As far as crocheting goes, I am making a test pattern for a sleeveless tunic for a fellow crocheter on crochetville. I plan to wear it in late August during a family wedding weekend. I can't wait to show you the color!!! I have a few ideas for fall patterns but still need entries into the contest!! Please keep looking for me!!

2 comments:

Debbi-a1 said...

I think homeschooling is fine for whatever reasons.
I've heard of BFL but never really looked into it too much. Glad it works for you, that's what you need.
Can't wait to see the tunic!

Debbi-a1 said...

Sorry, what I mean instead of
"Glad it works for you, that's what you need." is
"Glad it works for you, you need what work for you and you alone".
Well something like that.... :)