What I Been Doing

        It is about time to write another post here. So far summer for us is not much different than any other day. I find time to be mom, wife, question answerer, cook, maid, and anything else my family needs me to be :) I am not complaining I don't mind this is what I signed up for.

I am happy and grateful for all the time I get to spend with my family all year round! We learn from every minute of it because life is learning.

We have not gotten to the library yet which is a bummer, but hopefully soon we will. Our library has a reading log for the kids, when completed they get a prize from the box. We also could use some new books to read.

If you read my last log you know that I wanted to get the John Holt book How Children Learn. I am still planning on doing that. Lately however I have been doing some study in the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist which is really interesting.

Highly recommended topic :) For a good list of the books I like to read you see the page titled recommended reading.  .

Reading is a big part of my life which is funny because I never really liked it as a child. I found out as an adult that many of the things I want to know are contained in books, it was on from there :)

I also recently got a crock pot thanks to my Mother in law and I have been using it a lot and it really helps to make meal preparation fun and rewarding for my family. I can't believe I haven't been using one this whole time! A friend of mine gave me a really great crock pot cook book called Fix-It and Forget-It Recipes for Entertaining: Slow Cooker Favorites for All the Year Round.

I know it will really help me in a big way to use my slow cooker. The first thing I plan on making is the tapioca pudding recipe. I made tapioca pudding before but never in a crock pot so it should be interesting, fun and yummy!

Anyway just enjoying the summer getting the kids in the pool, getting together with friends and family is always nice. I hope all is well with you and your families!

Other than that we are just taking it easy. The kids have there video games to play and they love spending much time learning about video game development, especially my oldest. Just taking it easy day by day, living and learning.

Feel free to comment and share a little about your summer so far, I would love to hear about it. As always please share with your friends and don't forget to subscribe with your email that way you get first notice of new stuff posted to the Homeschooling Works blog.

I hope you all have a blessed Fathers Day this coming Sunday!

Sincerely Joanne

Homeschool Advice

   You may be visiting this blog for the first time, or maybe you have read some of my stuff before. I know that I am not real consistent with blogging, but I hope that what I do get out there is interesting and enjoyable to you. I love to learn and just want to share my knowledge and experiences with others. As always comments posted below each post is appreciated and feel free to tell me what you think.

I know that especially for those just starting out homeschooling it is essential to see homeschooling from other points of view as well as find out what other homeschooling families do. Learning about how others succeed and struggle is an important part of how we learn from each other, blogging is a great way to share this information with others. Like all homeschoolers we have good days and not so good days. We have the same stress as anyone else and need to find solutions to normal everyday problems. 

I hope that by sharing with you my experiences you can learn form my struggles as well as my successes. We are constantly learning everyday that is what life is all about and I will never claim to know it all. We learn with our children and everyone else we are in contact with and our children do the same. We can only do our best, when that is not good enough we must learn and grow so that our best can become even better.  

Things have been pretty tough at times and not just with homeschooling but with normal and some not normal everyday stress and issues that need to be and are being dealt with. I am not going to lie, I feel like quiting all the time especially these days. It has been five years since we have been with our charter school program for our homeschooling and we are headed to our sixth year. At this point my kids have never been to school other than some of the classes and events that are available with the charter program. 

I started with the program for support since I didn't know anything about homeschooling nor did I know anyone who was doing it. I only knew that I wanted to do this for my kids! We started with kindergarten and it was pretty good at first we kept up with the work and my son caught on real fast to all the lessons. He learned to read very well in Kindergarten and we were a little more structured then, as much as we were not. Sure I was still dealing with all the family stress, kid stress, and behavior problems but we were coping and learning better ways to do some things.

These days I find it very hard to keep on a schedule and even harder to get my kids to participate in workbook lessons and it boars me too so who can blame them! I think that myself and my kids are just sick and tired of workbooks and desk work. I feel that we lack the hands on stuff my kids really need. For me this is the hardest part especially when tired and the other stresses in my life just really drain me to tears. I find that I have very little left for my children's needs.

This is not a good place to be in for a homeschooling mom but personally I am working through it. I want to learn new and better ways to learn with my kids. Ways that inspire more learning that is fun and enjoyable for the whole family. After five years of homeschooling with a charter pubic school and trying to "do school" with my kids it doesn't seem like it's working anymore. For the last year I have been learning more about the unschool philosophy it seems more natural and I like that.

My kids don't love learning and that is not OK with me. They love hands on stuff and the smiles on their faces is reward enough. Many times I feel like the only home school mom that has kids who don't like school! Something is wrong with this picture. I am sure that many people can relate and I know that I am not alone in this. I guess that is why I have this blog and am writing this now.  Feel free to share in the comment area below.

I am definitely going to do more reading about unschooling and I will pass more good info along in the next blog posts.

How Children Learn (Classics in Child Development)

Learning All The Time

Here are some articles about unschooling that I read lately.

PBS Unschooling 101

Rejoicing Unschool Philosophy

Beginner's Guide To Unschooling

Until next time thank you for reading my first entry of the Home School Log here at the Homeschooling Works blog. Your time and feedback is always appreciated.

Joanne Utke

Back to Homeschool 2012

     It is true summer is headed to a close and while some parents may be relieved to send the kids back to school we get the privilege of keeping them home. For us the only thing that really changes is that we do more work books during the school year, everything else stays pretty much the same. I must confess however that I am looking forward to a new start of our homeschool year, especially since this has been a tough summer for our family.

It gives us a opportunity to get on a better routine, not that we ever really have much of one lol! Yet there are some things we need to change in order to provide ourselves with a productive homschool year. For one the kids have to start going to bed earlier and wake up earlier to. This way we can get all the things done that we need to including house hold chores and outside activity. We also like to get workbooks done early in the day so we have the rest of the time for everything else.

Another way that we like to start fresh is buy getting the house in order and all of the homeschool stuff including homeschool area organized and ready for back to homeschool. We also like to get last years samples and the kids best art work out of the way and into our portfolio and make room for the new years curriculum that we will be picking up at the beginning of August.

There is a lot to do before we go back to homeschool but it is a new start and that is always good, not to meantion another great homeschool year with my boys ages 6 and 9. It is not always good and comfortable but we are learning and learning together. We don't miss any moments good or bad and that is a good thing : )
Many blessings to you and your family!

From Joanne