Welcome

I would love to invite you into my home to have a cup of tea with me. We could sit in my sunny kitchen and talk about all the things that are going on in our lives. I could share with you the news I hear from my grown daughters. How my grandkids are growing. We could laugh together over the funny things that they have said. It would be fun to share the ins and outs of our family life, and talk about our latest creative projects. We could share what God has been teaching us, in our personal lives, and encourage each other on this walk of faith. We could pray together, laugh together, and even cry together. Since most of us will never be able to sit down together face to face, I would like to invite you to join me here. So come on in and have a cup of tea with me.

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Joy

Joy

About Me

Crossville, Tennessee, United States
I am a 61 year old, wife, married to my best friend for 40 years. We have been blessed with 6 children, & 13 grandchildren. I love mentoring women in their spritual walk & in the everyday. I have a diverse background, having spent over 30 years living and ministering in a small South American country. Now my family resides in a small town in the lovely state of Tennessee. We have experienced the blessing of adoption, but also the hard of dealing with a child with RAD and other mental health issues. You can live life with the cup half full or half empty the choice is yours. I choose half full.

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Monday, January 30, 2012

Home School Adventures

I started my home school adventure with Teddy, 6 years ago!  I had so much fun teaching him.  I started with pre-school and I used Sing, Spell, Read and Write.  It was amazing how fast he learned all the letter sounds.   For Kindergarten we started using Sonlight Curriculum.  I had taught school for many years and probably could have handled kindergarten on my own, but wanted to have a curriculum that was planned out, so that I would be sure not to miss any of the important things.   The first few years I was definitely what one would call a "box checker".  I had to do EVERYTHING and check it all off.  

Last year we added 2 precious children to our family.  They both have their own needs, and finally after about a semester, I was able to figure out where they were and start working with them on their level.  We figured out that basically they are 2 years behind "normal", but then that is the great side of home schooling.  You can meet your children exactly where they are and go from there.   Still learning to juggle 3 children at 3 different levels was a huge change from just teaching 1.   Carla worked through Sing, Spell, Read and Write Kindergarten level and also started Rosetta Stone US English.  We use Singapore Math, and she worked through the Early Bird K level books.   Matthew, wasn't ready for the Kindergarten level work, so I pulled out files from my years of teaching K-4, and we also used a beginner English Program by Britanica.  Teddy worked in Sonlight's 3rd grade program which was the first of a 2 year study in US History.   He also added Rosetta Stone's Spanish program and continued with Piano.   

I will admit that for most of last year, I felt like I was just barely swimming with my head above water. ;-)  Toward the end of the year I started hearing more about the "workbox" method.  I started searching blogs and eventually bought the ebook that explained it thoroughly.   We actually tried it for a few weeks at the end of school, because I wanted to know if it was something that I thought would work for us.   

This year we started out using the system, as it was described in the book.  I couldn't find "boxes" so I bought baskets...and did a combination of baskets and folders.  After a 6 week term of trying to make this work for everyone, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't really working for us.  I didn't want to scrap the whole idea, as I thought it had some really good points.  I decided, that I would put in the kids folders, all of their "independent work".   While 2 of them work on their folders, I'm working with the other one, and then we just switch off. It has worked out really well, and we have just finished our 3 term, so are now half way through our school year. :-)   

I will look forward to "chatting" with you about our home school experiences.  Would love to hear any ideas or thoughts you might have.

Blessings,
Joy



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Joy Anzalone
Manta, Ecuador
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