Tomorrow is the day.

Tomorrow, we begin homeschooling! YAY!  I am sooo excited, I can't wait.  We don't have all the curriculum yet, but its on its way.  In the meantime, I have some wonderful Kaplan CDs for the computer that more than fill in the gaps and reviewing is always good anyway, right?  Getting ECC going will be the main focus.  I have been working all weekend getting the schoolroom ready and its still not 100%.....or even 80%....but we will make due :)  I LOVE My Father's World and can't wait for my oldest son's Ancient History & Literature to arrive!  (The picture links to ECC by MFW if anyone who isn't familiar with it is interested in having a look)

Sorry I keep changing the look of my page on you guys, just trying to find my fav.  The previous background was nice, I got it from http://www.plumroselane.com/ I really like her stuff, it is very pretty.  But I got some complaints about the background I chose being too difficult to read on, that was my fault, since I chose that one.  I love her look and her stuff is soo beautiful, but while exploring her site, I came across a tutorial and have been making my own blog designs ever since.  Thanks for the tutorial Plumrose Lane! You can check out my other background at http://hooverirvinmartinfamily.blogspot.com/ this is my personal web-site.  On another note.......

We start school on MONDAY!! :)
I am looking forward to this school year so much.  I will post later about all of our curriculum choices and share all the links with you!

Answer to "why do I homeschool?"

I was on facebook but a moment ago and read a post by a fellow homeschooler asking "Why do YOU homeschool?"  I posted my comment and scrolled on past when I felt the Holy Spirit say to me 'its all good and fine that you should explain to fellow homeschoolers for the sake of conversation, but what about all of those who know you and won't read this person's post? What of them?'  So, in answer to that I want to first share with you my reply to her post:

because educating my children at home gives me the ability to customize their learning to the styles that best suit them. I can give them curriculum written by Christians and Biblically based. I can better socialize my children across the ages and diversities instead of in an environment where they are only exposed to children the exact same age as them. I can give them better more nurturing food for their Spirit and better train them for life outside of a classroom. I can better develop their character and train them up in the way they should go so that they can more successfully succeed in all their endeavors and be better prepared for where God leads them as adults. I HOMESCHOOL BECAUSE I LOVE AND CARE FOR MY CHILDREN.

Now I know to most people outside of the homeschooling realm, it may often seem strange that someone would take it upon themselves to school their children outside of the system that is already conveniently put in place for us to use.  But more and more I am finding it strange that someone wouldn't.  But then not everyone has been blessed with all the information that I has been available to us over the years and all the factors that were involved to lead us to be able to do this.  Homeschooling is not for everyone and I understand this and I am not telling everyone to go withdraw their children from public school, I am merely sharing my point of view to perhaps give insight to the very popular question 'Why do you homeschool?'  #1 reason we homeschool quite simply is because we felt God leading us to do so.  simple, right.  Not really :).  When God leads us to do things, we are supposed to just jump right in, right? Well, we are humans and riddled with self-doubt...Can we really do this?  Are we sure that is where God is leading us? ...Maybe we are misunderstanding his guidance....?  Am I right? I don't know about anyone else when they are stepping out on faith but I was scared to death.  This was all new territory to me and it was terrifying.  But I am glad we did.  I do not regret one minute of it.  There are more factors involved leading up to our homeschooling and more benefits from homeschooling so many that I don't have enough time to go into them all now, but maybe this will answer a few of those questions and if you have anymore, you can suggest them for future posts. :) Thanks for reading and God bless!

Hoover*Irvin*Martin Family: Excitement!

Hoover*Irvin*Martin Family: Excitement!: "I am excited about this coming year. There are lots of changes going on. Let me share them with you..... in list format, well, because th..."

Is this normal?

Okay, as you know from two posts ago, I had my curriculum all figured out.......wwweeelllll, I have decided that for language arts we are NOT going to stick with Writing Strands and First Language Lessons, even though they are very good; I just really like Queen homeschooling's Language Lessons and want to give it a shot.  I feel like I am all over the place sometimes because I change my mind on several different occasions, but why would I keep doing something when I see something else clearly displays more promise towards teaching my child in a way that will help them learn and want to learn?

Hurray! Hurray!

Our first shipment of curriculum arrived last week.  When the UPS guy delivers he just sits the package on the porch, knocks once then walks back to his truck and leaves. I was so excited when I heard that knock and looked up to see him turning away that I was out the door and on the porch thanking him before he was even 3 steps away.  I said: (about 20 notches to cheerful to be considered anything but crazy that early in the morning) "Thank you Mr. UPS-man. I hope you have a blessed day"  He must have been thinking me nuts, but smiled politely and said "Your welcome, you too."  As I bent down to pick up the package, I was surprised at how teeny tiny (exaggeration but not sarcasm) it was since it was supposed to be holding within it the entire core curriculum for my younger two children next year.  After I opened the box and started taking things out I realized that I would never again, in my lifetime, get all of those items back into that box (and shut it) again.  Excellent usage of space MFW, by the way!  Okay here let me say, "My Father's World; you are awesome, not only did I get my package within 4 days, but it was in perfect condition!"  Now, Exploring Countries & Cultures with MFW is blowing my mind with its absolute awesomeness.  (Yes, that's a word if I want it to be :P) The teacher's manual is crazy cool with everything planned out sooo well and easy to understand and the materials are all so rich and interesting and exciting, I wanna start tomorrow! Thank you ANGELA, my dear sister in Christ, sister in homeschooling and sister for realz, for showing me (on more than one occasion) the My Father's World website. I am not going to spend much more time bragging about my awesome curriculum because, well, that would just be taking up time I could be spending drooling over it! :)

Feeling The Pressure

Since my husband was out of work for the entire month of May, we have not yet been able to purchase our curriculum for the coming school year.  I am feeling a wee bit panicked but I know that I have plenty of time still and God will provide. There have been a few changes in the curriculum choices since last I posted.  We will still be using MFW Exploring Countries & Cultures for Tim and Tori.  They will still be using Apologia Astronomy next year since I didn't finish it this past year.  They will still be using Mango Languages and also LiveMocha for foreign language.  Instead of Math-U-See for math, we are switching to the Life of Fred curriculum, this is going to be very interesting. Now, my oldest son will be joining us this year.  He will begin with MFW Ancient History & Literature.  He will do Mango Languages and LiveMocha Russian, Introduction to Logic, Apologia Chemistry and Life of Fred Geometry.  I am very excited about our curriculum choices and believe it is going to be a very interesting and exciting year for us.  It will be our very first entirely P.S. -free year and I am VERY excited about all the opportunities this will open for us. Please, share your curriculum choices or things you are excited about for the coming year.