Back to School and a New Adventure

With this new school year comes a few changes in our little world. Austin is going into his first year of middle school and I will be homeschooling Cole for 4th grade. This is my first year to home school so we will be learning together. I am very excited about him learning at home. He learns differently, was falling behind and  picking up bad study habits. I have told him that we will catch up and if he wants to go to middle school that he can. I really don't think he will ever want to go back to public school. He is enjoying the freedom that schooling at home is giving him. I was afraid that he would give me a hard time about doing his work like he did for public school, but no he is doing great. He still doesn't want to read but we are working through that small detail.

I am so proud of Austin and the maturity he has shown in the last few weeks. Normally I would have to drag him out of bed to get to school. Not this year...so far. I did tell him if he could not get to school that he could home school with Cole. He has not been tardy yet. I get to meet his teachers tomorrow and I am very excited. Mom is going to come down and stay with everyone else so it will just be me and Austin. He was very relieved.

Alyssa loves having Cole at home and she is learning with him. She likes to call me "teacher-mama"...I love it. I would really like of home school her and Andrew as well but I have not completely sold my husband on the idea yet. I guess I am not 100% sure I have it in me either. I have two more years before Alyssa is ready for Kindergarten so I think I will concentrate on Cole right now and let everything else fall into place. I am not sure if Andrew has noticed any changes in our routine, altough he does miss the others when they are not aorund. He is growing everyday I can not believe that he will soon be a year old. He is trying to walk and learning to feed himself. Oh, the mess that comes with self feeding but it must be done. They grow up way too fast, before I know it he will be middle school.

We are working out the kinks of our day and beginning to get the hang of home schooling. I have found myself in need of advice and encouragement from time to time. I like to turn to a couple of my friends that are homeschooling and I also enjoy reading the blog thehappyhousewife , Toni has such good advice. I hope to be a good source of encouragement for other homeschool moms out there as I gain experience and knowledge. I will be posting our curricumlum soon. Looking at other curriculum helped me narrow down what I wanted to use. There is so much information out there I just did not know which direction to go. All is well now and we are well on our way to a great year.