Tiany at Less of Me~More of Him is hosting a really great Homeschool Open House right now.  You have until August 15th to get your entry written on your blog and linked to her site so that you can get in on the fun!  You don't have to be a member of HSB either, you can have a website or blog anywhere to join in and I believe if you don't have a blog you can still email your entry to her too.  I can't wait to read everyone's entries!  Here's mine......

Our Family: 

            We've homeschooled for 11 adventurous years now!   My husband and I have be married 26 years and are blessed with 4 wonderful children.

     Blakie, our lovely 18 year old daughter graduated in May from our homeschool (You can read about her graduation party here ).  She's off to college the end of this month.

 

     Tucker, our 16 year old son who just returned from his 1st missions trip.  (Here are some pictures of that awesome trip!)

 

     Sami (...short for Samantha), our 14 year old daughter who is our "Craft Bug."  I'll be posting pictures of some of her creations here soon, including the duck tape purses and clothing that she makes!

 

     Kellen, our 14 year old son  who loves the outdoors and any kind of adventure.  (Look at this post for some adventure he encountered not too long ago!)

 

Our Curricula:

We are eclectic in our curricula choices, striving to facilitate the gifts and learning styles of each of our children.  I just wrote about our choices for this coming year in this recent post.

 

Where we Learn:

     Not too long ago, we enclosed our car/boat garage and created an additional room in our home.  We call this room, "The Zone."  It's there in the Zone that we have most of our school materials, a craft/study table, a pool table, a drum set, electric guitar, piano, other various musical instruments (maracas, tamporines, a xylophone, etc.), computer station, lots of books, a hamster, stacks of games and LOTS OF FUN!  Of course...learning happens wherever we happen to be.  We do a lot of reading outside and take lots of field trips too.

 

Our Day:

     I learned a long time ago that we couldn't be slaves to the clock.  What works best for us is to have our list of "To Do's" for the day and just cruise through it as the day progresses.  We're all pretty much early risers, so we start with our list by 8 a.m. on most days.  Even though the kids are all teens and doing high school work, we love to do several classes together.  The discussions we have during Bible, logic, history and even science classes are so much a part of our schooling experience and I wouldn't give them up for anything. We really do have a lot of fun together each morning.  Usually right before lunch or just afterwards, everyone begins to  branch off for independent studies.  Most days we're done by early afternoon with 'formal' schooling, leaving plenty of time in the day for their own projects and activities...which can become wild and fantastic in themselves!

 

I read a quote from a homeschool mom once that said,

"When we began homeschooling, it felt as if I had tucked a child under each arm and jumped off of a cliff.  Imagine my astonishment when I realized we could fly!" 

I couldn't have said it better.  Our homeschool journey so far has been a wonderful change in our lifestyle, a miraculous blessing in keeping our family close - to each other and to the Lord,  and a surprise in how much fun the adventure has been so far.   I have more about our homeschool written in the category labeled "Lakeside Christian Academy" here on the blog.  Please feel free to stay and read as much as you like.  I really like comments too, so drop me a line!! 

 

I can't wait to read all about other homeschools in this Homeschool Open House.  Thanks for hosting it Tiany!