the scoop

i'm getting emails wondering how it is that all the kids are now being homeschooled again, so i'll tell the story.

mike, reading on a 3rd grade level, and doing math on a 2nd grade level was not going to be challenged or even taught from his level until 3rd grade (after speaking with his principal, we were not offered much hope for this to change for the next several years, according to how they do things at his school). so we had decided to homeschool him at the end of the year last year.

upon hearing this, jack and olivia asked if they could be homeschooled too.
here's a picture of their first day of school. they were choosing an artist to study (they chose rodin. i'm thinking because they saw night at the museum 2:smithsonian and rodin's the thinker was a big star, at least in the trailer).

then our niece jill (robin's sister's daughter) had a baby in july and asked if we would babysit her until a day care they had looked at had an opening the third week in september.

haley and nick started school on the 24th. haley had a culinary track. she would take 2 classes in the morning at the high school, then take a bus to the career technology center for lunch and an afternoon of culinary learning. it quickly (less than a week) became apparent, that not only would these classes be a total waste of time, but it was a dangerous environment for her to be in. she reluctantly agreed to be homeschooled, and quickly turned to be enthusiastically homeschooled. we were able to get her into a painting class at the big high school homeschool co-op that meets at our church, and we've known the director for 20 years.

(haley with her bff from florida earlier this year when they came to pa to visit)

after going to school alone for 4 days, nick was asking to be homeschooled too. robin was really not in favor of it, not even considering it, until we compared several classes we had taught karis through homeschooling, to how they were taught in public school. for example, high school biology. the public school in florida and in pennsylvania gave a full credit for biology and never required a dissection or look through a microscope. we used apologia's high school biology and had the sonlight microscope. we dissected a worm, frog, crayfish and trout. that's just one example. and then one of our very good friends in co-op broke his leg and dropped an economics class (almost identical to the marketing class nick was taking in public school this semester) and offered the spot to us (the classes in this co-op fill fast). so we took the opening for nick. now robin says he's more convinced than ever that homeschooling is the best option for us, and Lord willing, we'll continue this way the rest of the way through (yay!)