The Abbott Family blog: 2012

Emily is 4 months old already, and she is starting to show more and more personality by the day. She is definitely among the happiest of all of my babies. She hardly ever cries, and she smiles at us nearly every time she makes eye contact. She reminds me most of Kylie in temperament at this age, but time will tell her true personality. Her current achievements include being one of the sweetest babies on earth, getting her head up close to 90 degrees on her tummy, ability to sit in a Bumbo, and sleeping 10 uninterrupted hours at night. (Yay!)

Here are a few recent pictures of the crew including a quick view of their Halloween costumes. Jacob was very adamant about being a firefighter, and Ryan was determined to be Thomas. We had to help choose costumes for the girls. Emily did not have a costume; however, she did attend Zoo Boo as an Aggie cheerleader - Kevin likes to refer to this as a mythical creature since Texas A&M doesn't actually have cheerleaders.

In case you are wondering, Zoo Boo is the celebration they have at the Houston Zoo for Halloween. The kids wore their costumes. They painted pumpkins and accepted the free candy, but otherwise, they weren't too interested in the special activities. They just wanted to see the animals!

In other news, Jacob used his scissors to cut his hair too short in front, hence the buzz cut seen below. Enjoy the pictures!

We've been homeschooling for about a month now, so I think it's time to chronicle my thoughts and plans so far. If uninterested in the details, feel free to jump to the pictures at the end.

Reasons for homeschooling:
Since some who read this may not have heard this already, let me give a few of my biggest reasons for homeschooling. Please understand that these are reasons why homeschooling seems like a good plan for us. We understand that it is not a good fit for everyone.

- It's a whole lot of fun! I love hanging out with my kids and am amazed to watch them learn.
- Waking up 2 toddlers and an infant from naps to accommodate a school day set by someone else simply does not appeal to me.
- I can tailor my kids' learning to their strengths, weaknesses, and interests. They are each so unique.
- I can choose curriculum that I love for my kids.
- I can decide when my children are too sick to attend school and when they are not - I don't want to have to defend that decision to anybody else.
- Family vacations and trips at off-peak times!
- Field trips whenever it makes sense to us.
- Not waking my 5 year-old (and the rest of my crew) up at 6:00 in the morning to get him to school on time every day.
- I can teach history on a timeline.
- I don't have to separate faith from education - If God created everything in this world, then it is impossible for us to understand it without trying to understand Him and His plans.

Our Current Homeschooling Path
We are using a classical education model - loosely following the ideas of Susan Wise Bauer in The Well-Trained Mind. I won't bore everyone with the specifics of that, but for now this means we are simply focusing in on math and language arts. We will really focus on building in those areas in these early years. Right now Jacob and Kylie both do handwriting, phonics, and math during a short morning table time.

We are also beginning memory work as a part of a homeschool group we have joined called Classical Conversations. We spend three hours in class there on Fridays. Jacob and Kylie are in a class for 4s and 5s, and each week they memorize pieces of their timeline, a history sentence, a geographical region or grouping, some Latin, some English grammar, math facts, and a science fact. I initially had very low expectations for the memory work, but the kids love it. So far, they have memorized everything that they have been taught. The kids also do a science project, a fine art activity, and give a short presentation each week. I love this because those are difficult to simulate at home. Also, their mission is "To know God and to make Him known" - isn't that awesome? There is no greater purpose to anything we do.

I also do a little bit of a curriculum called Five in a Row, but mostly I just enjoy reading them stories for this portion and occasionally do some suggested activities connected with it.

Finally, I have each of the kids read to me during the afternoon while the little ones are napping, and they are both progressing well in this area for their age.

The Reality of Homeschooling
I have truly enjoyed homeschooling so far. Because my kids are all so young, I can start small. I don't have to worry about a million subjects yet, so it's fairly easy. A little reading, a little phonics, a little math, a little writing, and we're really OK right now. Hopefully my homeschooling ideas will grow with my children. It's a beautiful thing to watch my kids learn and to watch my little ones try to imitate my bigger ones. It brings a whole new meaning to the one-room schoolhouse for me. I've really grown to love that concept.

And now the pictures...

Table Time: Ryan (2) has to have his own bin and activities because he thinks he's a big kid too.

I've already commented on this one on Facebook, but basically I came back from putting Ryan down for a nap one day to find this scene. It was Jenny's first attempt at getting on the table. (a feat she now repeats every chance she gets) She apparently also removed her pants along the way because they were a hindrance to her.

Our Classical Conversations memory work last week: it blows my mind that my kids can memorize that much information so quickly - and they actually keep it stored in their little brains. The letters in the bottom right are for Ryan and not part of our CC curriculum. We're going back through to make sure he knows all of his letter sounds.