Nope, I’m not dead. I’ve been a little bit busy, though, which is why I haven’t blogged…

Thursday marked the first official day of classes for Sonshine Christian Learning Center, our legally-registered private school… also known as our homeschool.

The beginning wasn’t without it’s stress and tears, which are bound to come with someone starting homeschooling in the middle of his school career. Many times during his first day, he would ask “What time is it?” only to respond, “Oh. Right now my friends are ____.” It was hard to break those ties with his old school routine and realize new year, new school, new system.

Amidst all of that, however, a lot of great learning took place. Our first unit is covering the great, divine source of so much that is happy in the world… CHOCOLATE! This means math, science, reading, well, it’s all about chocolate this time around.

Thursday, we were mostly getting our feet wet. We did some story problems involving chocolate, read part of our book, Chocolate Fever, and worked on vocabulary. Of course, we also did logic problems, and worked on a lot of our other “daily work,” that isn’t related to chocolate (Math U See, Creative Writing, and more).

For our creative project, Jeffrey had to design a miniature golf course. He was given a piece of paper, and was told to be creative. We left the room, and he was up to himself to do it. I am more of a writer personality. I do my best work when I’m able to write something out, so if I were given that project, you better believe I would have come up with an amazingly detailed written description of the park. My mother is a lot more visual than I am, and she had in her head visions of drawing this miniature golf course. However, when my brother returned to us with his completed project, we were in awe… he had created a three dimensional model of a mini golf course, constructed entirely from paper and tape. It was incredible. Loops, swirls, parts of the course that bent up for added challenge… it was a masterpiece. We realized at that moment that each person in our family has a different style of learning, which really keyed into the main reason that homeschooling is so important in our home. Think about this. A teacher can teach 25 students, but there is limited ability to give children the freedom to do a project in their own way. Written assignments are written. Drawn assignments are drawn. Kids may not be able to express their full creativity simply because the time and energy isn’t there for it. It’s hard to allow 25 kids to each go their own way, especially because that could come up with some wildly different variations. But, in a class of one, it’s a lot easier to allow those freedoms in differing learning styles.

Now, our school is set up on a four and a half day week. Mondays through Thursdays, we cover all of the subjects, and spend the day working through those. On Fridays, we focus on science, reviewing what we learned over the week, and catching up on any assignments that weren’t completed on our Monday through Thursday work week.

For this Friday, since it was our first week, there was really no review to be had, and he completed all of his work before Friday, so it wasn’t necessary for him to make anything up, either. Friday, we decided to have a little fun with math.

One of our focuses this term is on fractions, including multiplying and dividing them. For a little practice in dividing fractions, Jeffrey had to make pancakes, from scratch. However, we had written out the full recipe, and he needed to make a half recipe. He did the math in his head, without a calculator, obviously, and the real test of whether or not he got it right? Well, that was all in the taste! I have to tell you, these were DELICIOUS pancakes. And, a little math work doesn’t hurt, either. Who knew math could be so delicious?

Check out a few photos from our Friday lesson.

Here’s a photo of mom going over the assignment with him, and discussing the fraction division.

Measuring out the flour…

…and the baking powder.

In go the liquid ingredients!

Stir, stir, stir!

Playing the waiting game until it’s flip time…

And he’s a flipping pro!

Final verdict? “Math is DELICIOUS!”

I’m so excited to begin next week’s adventure into homeschooling! Homeschooling may mean a few less blog posts around here, but I truly hope you’ll stay tuned into what’s going on.

In terms of my growth project, I’ve been really considering it’s meaning in my own life. I feel like I really am growing, but at the same time, in order to grow, I have to do a little pruning. I’ve been working on that, because I think pruning a little will help me get where I need to go. I’ve pruned down my closet (I purged anything that isn’t working with my new style aesthetic. I donated anything that was still good- just because it’s no longer my style, doesn’t mean it won’t work for someone else!). I also pruned my hair- yesterday, I got a new cut and color, so I’ll have to post pics of that as soon as I have them.

I hope in the next few weeks, I’ll be able to share more about my one little word, and my journey with that. Blogging may be sparse this week because I have a lot going on in the next week, and I’m anxious to share it all with you when things get a little less busy.

Have a great week, everyone!