Are you homeschooling or what?

You may be curious about why I said Marky was in a K5 class when I've said other times that I was homeschooling. The truth is we are kind of in between this year (and this year only) for a multitude of reasons. Marky goes to school from 9-1 M-F. Then I pick him up and bring him home and put the other two down for naps and then we do homeschool. We have always done homeschool during nap time. Last year (when he was 4) we did a primarily kindergarten curriculum with a few subjects ahead. This year we are doing mainly 1st grade work although I still call it "kindergarten" because that's his age. I signed him up for school in January when I came home from the hospital with Tucker and said "THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE IN THIS HOUSE" (it was dead of winter you know). :) But now things are calmed down and I see that I can handle three kids (who'd have thought?). Why keep him in then? Well, I tried it out at the beginning of the year to see how it went and here's the benefits I found:

1.) Juliabug has always been kind of left out of the academics around here and I really wanted a year to catch her up and work with her and give her one-on-one attention (which she has needed since Tucker got here). So far, that is GREAT. She can now do puzzles that I thought she couldn't do. She has learned all her upper and lower case "wetters" and their sounds. And I get to sit and read to just her for as long as I feel like. She is thriving during our mornings and she is not focused on whatever it is Marky has in his hand that she wants right that second. (That's how things are when he is home). :)

2.) Marky has no "off" button. He is on and ready to go and do and learn and go and go and go ALL the time. He is NEVER tired or ready to just "chill". It's wonderful because he's so easy to teach, but it's hard for me to keep him occupied during the day. K5 is letting him play with other kids a little (and he's VERY social and loves to play), run around outside with boys (and our neighboorhood has no boys), get computer, Spanish, creative movement, catechesis, and chapel (which I don't really do here (besides catechesis)). Therefore he comes home having gotten some energy out and he's ready to learn. And this particular class goes on a LOT of field trips, which I'm excited about.

3). This particular class was tiny- just 10 students with TWO certified teachers. (They are working on their masters). They get a LOT of one-on-one instruction and they even promised to get Marky his own set of reading books so he could stay at his pace. And they don't have an attendance policy, so I am still able to take him out whenever I want and also go to the homeschool co-op field trips.

4.) I really wanted to do a mommy-and-me class with Tucker b/c I did one with the other two as babies and there is one that Julia, T and I can all do and I'm so tickled about that.

All that said, I'm LOVING our new schedule. P.S. This does not take HOURS. Don't think I'm sitting and teaching day in day out. Julia may be just 20 to 30 minutes of floor time with mommy and Marky is usually right around an hour or so and we cover a lot of different subjects. I'm still not sure if I'll keep M in school after Christmas- we're taking it one semester at a time. Just wanted to explain what we were doing in case it was confusing folks.

IN OTHER NEWS....

"Me? Use a potty? How dare you sir, you are gross."*

Julia got kicked out of moms-day-out for failing to potty train. I told you this would happen! haha I don't care- I love having her with me and she seems to need extra cuddling since she lost her spot as the baby. I have hired AWESOME "Miss Kelly" aka the UAB student across the street to come for four hours on Monday so I can get my appointments and errands done. She puts T down for his nap and does art with Julia that I don't like doing (i.e. magic noodles, finger paint). I then get Marky and he goes with me on my once-a-week grocery run, which he thinks is a special treat for big kids.

*That's a Michel Scott quote from The Office.