Homeschooling

So I have recently heard that I am not homeschooling my children since they are enrolled in a public school virtual academy. I have to say, I beg a difference with those statements.

I have chosen to teach my children at home for their benefit not for my own. I also believe there is A LOT of great teachers and great schools throughout the public school system and I believe that we have moved to one of those districts. My 7th grader is easily distracted and needs a bit more one-on-one attention. My 5th grader, on the other hand, needs to feel successful and get a little "push" now and then. For these reasons we have decided to give home-based schooling a chance.

We are using WAVA-Washington Virtual Academy, which provides the k12 curriculum. I feel fortunate I did not have to find and purchase the variety of subjects which were sent to us. For every subject there is a teaching or learning coach guide and a students guide, not much different from a brick and mortar school. We will be having lessons in math, language arts, literature, spelling for the 5th grader, history, science, art as well as PE (lessons are my job here), not to mention the study island site they will be working in once a week, as well as a success skills once a week. That is a lot of subjects as well as the ton of materials we received.

I have spent the last 2 weeks finding all the bookshelves we will be needing as well as purchasing the basics of school supplies to set up our class space. We now have tables, chairs, computers, and everything we need to get started. I get to plan our field trips to many places of interest as well as a few fun places. We can take our schooling with us to the doctors office. I can even use a trip to the grocery store as educational.

I will probably miss the days of taking the kids to school and being free to run errands alone as well as the first day of school breakfast out that hubby and I would enjoy, but I am only limited by my own thoughts and ideas as long as we are making appropriate progress we are good to go. We have the benefit of a certified teacher for additional questions as well as to touch base with weekly, a homeroom teacher.

School starts on Tuesday and we have chores to get done before then.

 These are the shelves of books and materials we received.

Here is my darling daughter admiring the globe she found at a garage sale.

She is sitting in her chair at one of the school tables we found at the state surplus sale.