Loving this freestyle homeschooling

We are in full swing now with homeschooling and I am loving it. We did a couple of half days to get them started which is two hours and built up to four hours and they do not even know it. We are reading the Guardians of Ga'hoole books and one thing leads to the next. It started out with me reading to them for an hour then they had to draw a picture and write a brief summary on what was read. Then as a team they had to go research an owl fact having a different one each. The leader of the day has to help the other two get their owl fact on paper and they have to site their resource. No Wiki allowed!! Then the other day there was a word that none of us knew the definition to so they had to look that up as well. They also work on math apps set at their levels for half an hour each day on the kindle. They are playing games but keeping up with their math skills. I will have to figure out new ways to get harder math in there for Caleb and Riley though because they are at higher math levels than Q. Until then tho keeping their current math skills sharp is good. Yesterday was when the real fun began all they had to do was make a chart and keep track of who asked who,what,when,where and why questions. They spent all day long trying to trick the others into asking a whhh question and keeping score. Today they will make graphs off their charts and we will work on different math concepts based on that. Today they will get into trouble for asking those whh questions lol. Not real trouble but the sleeve of my sweatshirt will make contact with them as a reminder not to ask, just as the owls wings do to the owlets in the book. It wont be for long nor will I whack them hard lol I just want them to be aware of how hard it is not to ask those questions and how unfair it is to be punished for asking. Then we will touch on the constitution an human rights from that. I love how one thing can lead to the next from one book. We will also be doing life science through these books. So we have math, science, the constitution, reading, writing, communication and team work all from these books. So much more too for the boys like the drawings help with their motor skills and so on. These first few months are really a learning experience for us all but so far I am really enjoying it and when they do not know they are learning they are too lol.

If I could

I told my husband if I could I would be Caroline Ingalls with computer, tv, plumbing and makeup lol. Yeah I love my makeup. I do want a simpler life but do still want many modern convenience. I want the ranch outside of town but I need medical doctors and facilities close by. I want to make my own things that cut down on waste and filling up the landfills but I will still buy my clothes though most already come from thrift stores I am not that great with the sewing machine. I am fine with not talking to people in person outside of my home for day on end as long as I have my social media sites to keep me from never socializing at all.  I have finally accepted and adapted to not having in person friends. I would love big friends and family gatherings at my home all the time but realize this is just a dream. So I will make everyday a family gathering with my own little family. Nathan, the kids and I will make what we can from scratch learn useful everyday skills and what we cannot make or do ourselves we will still buy. We will use electricity and the things it powers for our entertainment but we will try and get ourselves to be able to do more and buy less. Nathan and I will educate the kids in ways they can learn. I am sure it will take adjusting over the years but I would love to get Q past a second grade level in reading and beyond a third grade level in math. I hope our dream of a pumpkin farm happens. Even if it is just us running it and it stays small if it brings in enough income to support us and pass onto the boys so that they have a way to support themselves in the future if that is what they decide to do. Riley already has other dreams and ideas of what she wants out of life. I support her fully and her education will be geared towards what she wants out of life for herself. Of course they will learn other things too so that they are educated in many areas so when their dreams change they are intelligent enough to easily change the direction of their education at a place of higher learning. I have no doubts or fears that the education we give them will ready them for college and beyond. Still I want to be that mom that is involved in her kids lives and helps them learn and grow. NO I do not want to be a helicopter parent! They will make mistakes and learn from them. They will fail at things they try to do but I will be there to pat them on the back for trying and see if together we can find a way for them to succeed at whatever they did fail at. I will continue to teach my children to be kind to others even when they do not deserve it. I will continue to let them be the fun loving awesome kids they are naturally and stop trying to conform every inch of them to be the typical kids at their former public school who forced them out with their bullying. I do not want my children to become those kids. Yes they will still have to learn to adapt to the world around them and how to function in society. They will learn to be apart of the world but know they are fine just being who they are even if they have to keep some of it in their heads until they get home :). I cannot wait until this break is over and I can guide them in their learning. They have already asked if they can learn about a good number of things that have surprised me a little. I told them we can learn about anything they want whenever but they are kids and I said they were taking a break until after christmas so they want to wait until after christmas. I dont blame them and still think its good that they decompress from how the public school did things compared to how we are going to do things. Still I am excited to get started. So my if I could is slowly turning into a I am. I wish it could happen sooner but we are readying ourselves towards these things that we want. For ourselves and for our children.

Changes

Changes are in the air. The seasons, the kids and myself. If you would have asked me a month ago if I wanted to home school all three of the kids again my response would have been "HELL NO" but here we are getting ready to head down this road. I have changed my views on what is important to me, them and their education. I am tired of battling the schools for Caleb. He is always left in the dust and I will not leave behind any of my children. If these schools and administrators will not do what he needs I can and if they will not do it for one they do not get to do it for any of them. While they have taken care of Quinten and his needs and Riley and her needs yet they punish Caleb for THEM not meeting his needs. So we are done. My husband and I will take control of the kids education. We want to teach them to live and love life. We want to take them out of the box that the schools have put them in and teach them through their own interests. To teach them in ways that work for them. I know I learn better with a hands on approach. I know the boys are visual learners and Riley well she can learn anyway you hand it to her. The kids are very excited about doing what they are calling "fun homeschooling" lol. That is what I want. I want them to have so much fun they will not even know they are learning. The want to learn and learning in general will just come naturally to them. They will be learning reading, writing, speaking, math, history, civics, literature, science, and the constitution of the United States. And SO much more that is not required by law while trying to save a tree or two not sitting at a desk doing dittos all day long. We will be doing to learn anything we can do or get our hands on to learn. We will watch things like Little House on the Prairie. Talk about what it was like to live back then. Make foods from the show from scratch, which means making a menu, a shopping list, figure out our budget, buy the ingredients, price out how much it is per person, compare what it would have cost back then for the same foods, then come home follow the recipe, measuring and cook times. Then we can look up dates in history from the times the show was set in. Just from one show we have covered reading (recipes), writing (menus and shopping lists), history (researching what happened in history from the times the show was set in), speaking (from talking about the show), and math (both in the store and while cooking). This is just the tip of the iceberg in what and how they will be learning. We will read books and make maps of adventures we go on. We will build things and make things with our hands all the while with a lesson or ten covering the subjects mentioned above. I am not sure of all that will be implemented in their education but I do know they will learn and if one thing does not work for them we will try another and another like I have always done for my kids. 

been a while

I dont know why I go for such a long time without writing. I guess things have been going pretty good until recently. Q is having a hard time with his seizures again. So here I am. Yesterday he was having drops just his top half and not to horribly bad or forceful. I just got done asking him how the drops were doing and he said fine I am not having any. I told him to go sit down anyhow so he did. At the table with the other two and bam then come "uhm MOM, Q just had a drop and broke his tooth" I jump up and he is already headed to the bathroom. :( His tooth is chipped pretty good. He didnt cry but was kinda upset his tooth was messed up. I dont blame him.

I am so sad that he can improve so much over a couple of months then its like his body gets use to the meds and they no longer work for him. He is probably having a good 50 or more seizures a day right now. Between the drops and absence seizures. So I guess I will be calling the doctor today and seeing if we can up the one medication we can still up. He is already on the max for the other one. Then maybe we can get a few more months of good out of it before having to up it again.

Ri is doing ok. Ups and downs since summer vacation has started. Lots of good numbers in there too tho. I just have to get the ups down a little more and she will be doing pretty good.

Caleb well he is all emotional all the time now. I hate puberty and autism!! He use to be so easy and now with all these hormones that are not easy to deal with as a typical child have him all over the place. He tried to call a old friend from Pueblo over the weekend and well he cant have a convo over the phone. He just doesnt get how. I felt so bad for him. The girl asked who he was and he looked at me and almost handed me the phone. I told him tell her who you are and he did but still :(. Its just sad he doesnt know how to talk to people. lol Let me rephrase that, he doesnt know how to have a convo. He can talk to you for a hour straight, maybe longer lol if he can just babble about what he wants to babble about.

Then onto me, I am bummed we were going to go to cali this summer and now well its just not going to happen. Nathan has not been working much at all the past two months. We were trying like all get out to save his vacation time but just couldnt do it anymore there are bills to pay. We have to live as much as I hate not being able to go life is such.........

Didnt really know

how important a credit score really was. I knew but figured it didnt really matter. It matters a lot. I hate that we make enough money to buy this house and pay our rent on time yet cant buy a house. We have to have a roof over our heads and we know we have to pay for it. We know we want to live her long term. Yet still we cant. We dont have any credit cards or CC debt. We have mostly medical bills. Dont get me wrong we are not perfect and have a few other things on there. It hasnt been easy trying to live and pay for certain things. Moving out here while it was the best thing we could have done messed us up. We lost the car cause we couldnt do both it and live. We will forever be making payments on that thing but so be it. We are at least trying to get it paid off. As with a few medical bills. We can only do so much at once tho. Sucks when you have 500000 people calling you for money because someone got sick. I cant work on paying them all off at once. It just cant happen. So we are working on a few at a time. Why dont they take that into account? Why dont they take into account that we dont want credit cards and live within our means? That should mean way more than having a CC. Why dont they look at rent history and bill payment history? These are the things that should matter because these are the things we pay to stay alive. I dont know just frustrated with how the system works but life is such.......

Do you ever

get to feeling sorry for yourself? I am having a pity party and your all invited. Ok not really but kinda. I have been thinking of my faults. A subject of school came up and I know why I dont go back. I am not a book smart person. I do not learn from books I learn from doing. I really hate it because I will never become more than I am even if I wanted to. I know this about myself I can try and work hard at school and I wont succeed in the end. I have tried before and I have tried with other things outside of school just to learn to better myself and for get it. I am not that type of person. So while in one hand I am fine with that in another it pisses me off. I know I am intelligent enough in other areas that I dont make a joke out of myself in general so that helps too. Still I cant help but feel subhuman because I dont learn the same way. I cant better myself educationally and career wise because I am not capable of learning/studying form a book. Even during class if the subject isnt 100% interesting to me my mind goes else where. I sound like the boys there but I know its just lake of interest for me. I cant write college papers and I cant take tests either. Talk to me about the testing materials and I can tell you all you need to know but put the pressure of it being a test on me and I fail. Oh well for me life is such..........

life is such and death is such

So two days ago I got some sad news. One of my cousins passed away. He was 26 years old. My heartbreaks for his immediate family. I always get nervous when my dad calls me, afraid its bad news. All to often it is. He tried to start off chipper this time but I was guarded. When he wants to chit chat its during the week early in the day. A Sunday evening call just isnt going to be good news. We have no idea as to why he passed away yet. He was found in his bed. Not that it matters why so much a life was lost no matter the reason but knowing will help bring healing. RIP Robert.

With this news brings thought to my own mortality and those closest to me. I fear for my kids lives almost daily. Riley because of her diabetes and Quinten because of his seizures. I know both could be taken from me at any moment because of their conditions. I hate having that knowledge. Yes anyone could die at any moment but this is different. They could be randomly taken because of their conditions if they didnt have these things it wouldnt be a issue. With type one diabetic (it could apply to other types but I am not sure) there is a thing called dead in bed syndrome. Its more or less like SID's but targets diabetics it doesnt matter the age. It doesnt matter how many times you wake in the middle of the night to check their blood sugars. From what I read they are not sure it is from low BG but from what I gather it most likely is. Its sudden and fast. If its going to happen its going to happen and there is nothing you can do to prevent it. There is a similar condition that could do the same to Quinten but I forgot what it was called now. There are other things with Quinten too tho even one seizure if big and bad enough could kill him. I hate knowing this but I do my best not to have this fear control me or them. For the most part it doesnt but the knowledge of it is always there. I want cures for the both of them so much but until then life is such....