So we decided to home school...

Taking the blog back a few months, I would like to catch up on some of the happenings in the Phelps household, especially since I haven't gotten around to any Christmas Pictures/Cards or Letter yet this year (and it's a month past already!)

Back in October, 2009, we thought and prayed a lot about what to do about our situation with the kiddos. School was going along fine, but I was feeling like a square peg in a round hole. Hannah was super excited to start Kindergarten, Nathan was plugging along fine. We struggled to get homework done on a daily basis. He spend 7 hours there at school, and then we spent at least 4 hours fighting to get homework accomplished. Needless to say, I didn't feel like I had a whole lot of time with him for quality time spent & the negativity levels were pretty high. Little Spencer had to be whisked from his bed, without a diaper change most days, and with just a cup of milk to satisfy his belly as we rushed out the door to make it to school 5 minutes late. Returning 3 hours later would repeat that cycle of whisking him out of his bed from a nap & Preston just went along for the ride every day. Again we'd repeat this process a 3rd time to get Nathan later in the afternoon. I felt like I lived out of our car & my little ones suffered from being in the car so much and my older ones suffered from lack of quality time with me at all in the day.

After much prayer & discussion, we decided to home school and bring our schedule back under our control. I was nervous to tell Nathan & Hannah of our decision, because they were enjoying school. In the manner that God works, which is far beyond what I could comprehend or ask for, He solved this problem by having Nathan & Hannah ask if we could do school at home and not return to school. It was quite an amazing morning that turned into a whole discussion about schooling at home that I hadn't planned on having just yet. The kids were so excited and not that sad about leaving school. Their last day was just before Halloween.

We decided to charter with South Sutter Charter School for many reasons. For one, they offer me great accountability, support, and also the funding necessary for anything we need school-related, within the confines of their massive lists. That includes books, curriculum, project materials, art supplies, paper, ink, music lessons, P.E. classes, pretty much anything we could have wanted to do with the kids both with school and extra-curricular-ly (yes I believe I made up that word) that we wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise!

Above is a picture of the desks we brought home from a killer sale in Lodi and how excited the kids were. They flocked to these desks right at first and were very eager to get started with school. They still use the desks quite a lot, for school and otherwise, and it is nearly 3 months later.

It took sometime to get my curriculum in and we will probably be in a learning process for the rest of this school year, but we are excited to be on this homeschooling journey. There you have it, in case you were wondering! : )