Friday Funny

As my hands were peanut butter covered emptying out a jar, "Mama, can I lick your hands?"

[Ew!] "No, no you can't."

Friday Funny

"Can we play Barbies and ninjas?"

Only in a house with a little brother!

Visitors!

Sometimes being home with the littles can be pretty isolating.  We moved here with three littles, so I didn't get out much right off.  Nate was a little baby, but very adventurous, making the park a real challenge.  In the past I always found a MOPS group to get involved in, but here I had Kate starting home school, so that was out too.  We're slowly finding relationships with people around us, but this summer has been a real treat for us.

 

We've had friends from west Tenneessee visit for an overnight with their three girls.

We had friends from Justin's home town visit for dinner while they were vacationing with her family in town.

 We had friends from Kansas (who had also left, but headed off to Indiana) stay with us for a few days with their boys.

Then a friend that was visiting her parents here in town stopped by for a playdate with her girls, when she was here from Maryland--I didn't get a picture of that group.

The kids have loved having extra people around, and I always enjoy it too.  I have teased my introverted husband that we should open a bed and breakfast when the kids are grown.  He's not quite on board yet with talking to strangers over breakfast each morning!  But we are thankful for all the visits and to get to see so many people without loading up our entire crew.

Home Schooling in Tennessee

Somehow we have home schooled 4 years already!

For the first three years, we chose the Independent Home School option.  We registered with the local school district (we've lived in two different counties, so we have registered with two different boards of education at different times), provided a list of what we would be learning, the kids immunization records, and my college transcripts (since it is required you must have at least a high school diploma to teach your children in TN).  At the end of the year we submitted our attendance record (a calendar with the days we completed four hours of instruction marked off).

We never had any bumps in that system, but we made a change for last year.  We switched to the other option for home schoolers in TN.  We were expecting Elliana and wanted to have more flexibility in when our school year began and ended (the calendars for the local district ran from July 1st to June 30th.  We could begin earlier with a Church-related Umbrella School.  We chose HomeLife Academy for our umbrella school.

In addition to the benefit of a bit of extra wiggle room in the calendar this option also means our children will not be a part of the testing that is required for students at certain grade levels (5th, 7th, and 9th).  We aren't opposed to all testing, actually we paid to test Kate before and will test all the kids again, since some day they will probably need to take standardized tests, I don't know what is on those tests to prepare them at all.

On the down side of the umbrella option, we do have to pay enrollment fees, since hey have expenses on their end.  I also submit an education plan and grades for each student with this option.  There are subjects that are hard to give grades, and without anyone to compare the girls to, I am sure I sometimes grade them a little harder.  Thankfully they do have a pass/fail option for grades too, so I do use that for classes like art.  They maintain records for us, provide digital report cards, and will generate a diploma when the time comes.  These are things I can do, but it is nice to have off site copies too.  I have not used the resource, but our umbrella school also offers counseling services and they will handle paperwork for driver's licenses and ID cards.

Both have their benefits and drawbacks, but over all we've been pleased with both options when we've used them.

Here is a link to the TN Department of Education's regulations on home school.

I'm linking up to the Homeschooling State by State:

Swing Set

When I was a little girl, my Daddy built a swing set for my sister and me to play on.  We spent a lot of hours on it--two swings, a tire swing, trapeze bar, and a set of monkey bars.  It also had a balance beam next to it.  We made a little obstical course out of it.  Across the beam, up on to the tire swing (without touching the ground), across the step for the monkey bars, and onto the trapeze bar, where we would flip over.  I remember growing too tall to set the trapeze bar so that I could sit on it and flip without hitting my head one way or the other.

When it became clear that Kate was out growing our metal A frame swing set, I had my old swing in mind.

 

Justin and I opted for a web swing in place of the old tire swing, and we'll still have a baby swing up for Ellie, but for the most part, it is my old swing set.  We added an extra post to stabilize the bar for the web swing too, since it is made to hold up to three children.

Holly, want to come swing?

Or we could just play in the mud...

 

Thanks for all your (hot) hard work, Justin.