Home School

As I suppose you are all now aware, we decided to home school our kids this year. For those of you who didn't know, I apologize. I told Emily and Dad Abbott called me about it, so I just figured everyone knew. Let me explain a little about the program we are using. It's called K12. It's an online school, so it's more like a traditional school than what you are probably thinking when you think of home school. It's a charter school, so the state pays for it. They sent us a computer and all the books and supplies we need for the year. There are two teachers who check work samples from the kids once a month. They are also there to make sure we are on track and if we have any questions. The kids do get a grade from the school. There are also lots of chances to meet other kids from the school in outings and clubs.

I really like it because I don't have to come up with lesson plans for three kids. I get up in the morning, check our schedule for the day, and do any minimal prep work that I might need before they start school. It takes me around 15-20 minutes. Hannah does most of her work on her own. I am only there if she has a question. Maggie needs a little more prodding and closer supervision. I especially have to help her in science and history. Sophie can be set small tasks to complete on her own, but I spend most of my time working with her.

One of the fun things is that we can start school when we are ready, usually about 9am. We can also designate fun dress up days. We've had several pajama days and the other day we had hat day, because the kids wanted to.

Hannah, Maggie and Sophie on Hat Day wearing their super-cool new hats.

We use our project room as a school room. All of our computer work is done here. But the kids can take their offline work anywhere in the house they can concentrate. They like to work in the toy room and our spare bed room. Aaron's office gets used and we've even gone outside.

Here's Hannah at our main computer. I love the color scheme in this room. Miekka designed it. It is so fresh and upbeat. We have supplies in the boxes and our school folders on the shelves. To the right you can see the magazine rack we use for on-going projects. And on the left is a spot for posting work. The pink page is an essay Sophie wrote and illustrated about parakeets.

This is our other computer work station. The cupboards holds all of our art and science supplies. You can also see a red topped jar. It holds pom poms for motivation. When you finish a lesson or Mom says, you can put a pom pom in the jar. When it is filled we get to go on a outing.

One of the subjects that I enjoy most is science. Each science lesson has an experiment of some kind. So it's fun to see the science principle in action and do it yourself.

Sophie doing an experiment with parachutes and quarters. She is trying to find which of three parachutes will be safest. She is experimenting with friction.

Maggie had a fun experiment with static electricity. After this we went out to the trampoline and played shock Mom. Caleb was especially good at it. I actually saw the electric shock come to me. Freaky!

I don't have a picture of it, but Hannah finished school in an hour one day, and I asked my Dad to take her up to the canyon to see some recent landslides. She was talking about soil erosion and composition. She and Caleb had a lot of fun climbing around in the dirt. Later, my Dad emailed Hannah some pictures and an article about a big landslide that happened in 1983, in Thistle, UT. It was pretty cool.

The kids are also taking piano lessons from Aaron. We are so grateful for the way in which we got Great-Grandma Abbott's piano. It was a real blessing and is a very important part of our home school. Thanks too to Emily for giving us her kids old piano books. They have been just perfect for our kids and very helpful.

Has it been hard? You bet. There have been a few days when I have thought, what were we thinking? But the kids have really enjoyed it, for the most part. Utah curriculum requires that kids take Utah history in 4th grade, but K12 doesn't have a good Utah history course. I decided to supplement it and was looking around for resources, when my Mom suggested that I let Maggie go to the elementary school and take history. I thought she would jump at the chance to hang out with her friends for an hour or two a week, but she didn't want to.

Overall, I think it has been a good experience. I have been able to help the kids in ways that I wouldn't have been able too. And I think that the kids have grown closer together. We have a lot less fighting and meanness. The kids have also been more helpful. There's been less whining at requests for help.

Caleb is starting preschool this next week. It's also a free online school. I think he will really like it. He went in for some preliminary testing last week and was so excited about the test, he wanted to go back and do it again the next day. So, I can't think of anything else to tell you, but please email me or comment with questions, because I would love to answer them.