Homeschooling!!!!!

We have officially become a HOMESCHOOLING FAMILY!

I have always been open to the idea and after 3 years of consideration and circumstances we are standing on the threshold of our first year of homeschooling in this incredible journey of parenthood.

I must admit I am overwhelmed and excited all at the same time!

We have 4 little ones and we will be homeschooling them all.  Today I will give everyone a brief description of our little ones and where they are at.

Our oldest is 7 and technically will be in 2nd grade, although we had her tested this year and was completely unsurprised to discover she is Gifted.  Unsurprised as she has always been ahead of the crowd in academics, usually 1-2 grades above other kids her age and in some subjects above 2 grades.  She excels in anything creative and artsy and we have signed her up for a fancy weekly Art Class this school year.  She also loves Girl Scouts.  If left to her own accord, she loves researching and writing reports (normally about animals and right now about dinosaurs!)  Her favorite pastimes are riding bikes with daddy, baking with mommy, crafts, and reading.

Our second is turning 6 in less than 2 weeks and will be in 1st grade.  He is Dyslexic with Speech delays but, with the exclusion of Reading and Language Arts, is above average in every subject, particularly Math.  He was building equations and teaching his peers math lessons in Kindergarten!  Our sensitive guy is very athletic, active, and hands-on.  He is a fantastic "outside the box" thinker!  He absolutely loves movies!  His favorite pastimes are playing with magnets, dressing up like superheroes, and playing pretend with his "guys".

We also have a very intelligent, almost 4 year old Preschooler.  He knows all of his letters and letter sounds and today he spelled "C-A-T" and came to show me.  I can't believe he is already building words!  He is a puzzle MASTER and loves to tinker with things until he gets it just right.  He can do simple addition and subtraction of numbers 1-10 and can count to 20.  He is just beginning to show interest in writing, particularly his name, which we are very excited about!  He loves playing outside!  He is very athletic and is a very concentrated thinker.  He is a born leader and sometimes I feel he would have preferred to be the oldest or only child.  He likes his quiet time and is an "animal whisperer".  His favorite pastimes (besides puzzles!) are "reading", cuddling, petting his kitties and puppies, and helping mommy.

Our youngest is 2 1/2 years old and we are working on potty training right now.  We are pleasantly surprised that he can count to 25 already!  He is currently working on shapes, colors, and letters and really enjoying the sensory bins we have created him.  He is extremely silly and loves to make people smile.  He loves to just jump into whatever anyone is doing and participate, unfortunately he regularly is the "bad guy" during superheroes since nobody else wants that "job", but he doesn't mind.  He loves his siblings and playing whatever games they like.  His favorite pastimes are looking at books, playing outside, being held by Mommy (ALL the time), and watching shows.  His favorite show is Magic School Bus right now.

With 4 completely different learners and personalities I am a little overwhelmed, but we feel this is the right place for our family and we know that this will greatly benefit them.

We are so excited to start!
We are using July as our "planning" month as we set up our school and get this year planned out.

I'll go more into our PLAN next time!  Just wanted to make an announcement today.