homeschool year 22-23

It’s been awhile sine I dared how the whole homeschooling journey has gone. I cannot believe it’s been nine years since I began… NINE years. This year, I’m homeschooling my 11th grader, first grader and kindergartener. I started a small business and I’m now teaching a weekly enrichment program at my house. Hopefully, over the next year this program will move into its own free standing structure on our property. For my “soft start” I have three students. But two of them are my own so, I guess it’s just one?

In the program, we focus on a literature book, (loosely based off Five In A Row) and enhancements like art study, classical music study, poetry and manners. If there is a particular geographic region we embrace that as well, with a cultural study.

Our first session was based off the book “Madeline”

I’m pretty sure y’all know it,  if not… well, now you do.

We studied cool colors and pointillism and the art of Georges Seurat. In case you’re unfamiliar: Pointalism is made up of tiny dots of primary colors, and when viewed from a distance our brain puts the colors, shading and image together.

Each student received a suitcase, and we traveled to Paris (aka our living room) to watch a short film on France. I made the plane tickets on Canva, and they were definitely a hit.

Since this is a group of 5 &6 year olds, I kept the anatomy pretty simple.

 

Basically, the appendix is a finger shaped organ coming off of your intestines, people aren’t really sure what it’s for, but the most recent consensus is that it may have something to do with pro and pre biotic storage reserves.

We made croissants, I cheated and used frozen puff pastry dough, because seriously- who has time for homemade from scratch croissants???

Speaking of who has time. Something I’ve noticed:

When you do have time, what do you do? Some people like to binge watch, Others clean, some nap… some people just work all the time even when they have the time to not (work) , some people garden, some people read, play golf or other sports, some people wash the car, or  wash the dog…. what do you do with the off time? Catch up with stuff? What’s the stuff?

A while back, I realized when I had the time, I changed my time usage… I was always playing catch up to some chore or task, and never really did anything for me. Not for me in a selfish way, but just something that I wanted to do, not what I had to do.

One of my favorite things is creating things. Whether it’s a batch of scones or a painting, the days when I create something- they somehow feel like better days. So: I make it a point to create something daily. Does it happen everyday? Nope. Do I take shortcuts with pre made dough? Yes. Do I count watching my littles roll up the dough? Yes. Because I created a memory for them, and myself.

Win-win.

Making memories can be some of the greatest forms of creation.

 

Now: MOM TIP TIME!!!!

Use coffee filters in place of paper plates and napkins, especially with the little kids. And, if they aren’t too messy after said snack time is over, they make great things to wipe off glass (lint free!)  Your paper towel roll with thank you.

 

 

We also made little Eiffel towers, but I’ll admit I did the cutting.

And, of course there was the sugar-wafer tower:

After snack, we visited the girls and collected eggs, (I’m going to call this homesteading 101 in the program) Eventually, we will be planting a small garden and the weekly student will measure weekly growth on plants and learn about beneficial insects like ladybugs. (there is a ladybug release party in the spring)

I’m super excited to actually be a legit business and what the future holds for Enchanted Arts and Enrichment – this has been a dream of mine since I started homeschooling. Definitely more to come.

Love MK