Why I Decided to Homeschool My Son

I feel like everyone has their own reasons for homeschooling. Some do it for religious reasons. Some do it because the structure of school just isn't right for some kids. Some do it because they want more control over what their child is learning. And plenty do it for countless other reasons. Some people start their homeschooling journey at the preschool age while others don't start theirs until they've experienced public school.

For us, it was a long time coming. My sweet, impulsive, talkative, emotional, and incredibly smart son struggled during Kindergarten and 1st grade, but it was really 2nd grade that sent him into a tailspin. I was constantly getting notes home or calls from his teacher or administrators. He was just always in trouble. He would come home in tears and ask why no one liked him. He would tell me that he didn't do the things he was getting trouble for. But I didn't know what to believe. Sometimes kids lie. Why would the adults in his school not be telling me the truth? It wasn't until the very end of the year that I saw the horrible truth about what was happening to my son. Another parent had been volunteering for an event in a different grade and told me that my son's desk was in the common area for 2nd and 3rd grade. She told me that he had been there all day. My son wasn't even aloud in the classroom? How was he learning? I immediately went into the school (only about 20 minutes early) and took my son home. I talked to him and found out that this wasn't an isolated incident. He spent a lot of time in the commons. I was furious. I was sad. I was disappointed. I decided to talk to another teacher in that commons to verify my son's story. It turns out, he wasn't lying. Some things made sense. Like why his teacher thought he was behind in reading even though he was reading books above his grade level with me. Some things just created more questions. Like how could the administration see this and not do anything? How could he be doing all these things he was getting in trouble for when he wasn't even in the classroom? But I didn't know what to do about it.

There had been a discussion of homeschooling when he was in 1st grade and struggling a little. But the discussion became far more real when I saw what was happening to my son. Unfortunately, it was the very end of the school year and this teacher was retiring so there wasn't really anything I could do. I had it on good authority that he was going to have an amazing teacher the next year so I gave public school one more chance.

For the record, my son's 3rd grade teacher was the absolute best teacher in the entire world. She was perfect for him! Plus, she and I had a great relationship. The things that happened to my son in 2nd grade, though, truly affected him. I didn't learn how much until I saw it for myself while he was in 3rd grade. In 2nd grade, he chewed on his pencils a lot. I bought him some extra ones for 3rd grade, thinking he would go through them faster than most children. He didn't chew on a single pencil! It turns out, he was so stressed in 2nd grade that he was destroying his pencils. That broke my heart. His 3rd grade teacher told me that she absolutely adored my son and that it made it truly sad that she constantly needed to remind him that he was wanted in her class. She told me he would apologize that she got stuck with him in her class. She was amazing though and would let him know that she specifically asked for him. And the cherry on top of the crap sundae his 2nd grade teacher left for us was when I watched a student walk into the classroom, push Owen, and then tattle that my son was pushing and shoving him. His teacher told me there was a lot of that at the beginning of the year, but she squashed it and said it wasn't going to happen in her class. So I thought my child was lying to me when he would say he didn't do something. I felt like the worst parent in the world. I didn't trust my own son! My one small relief from feeling like absolute garbage was how smart my child was. Not only was he NOT behind in reading, he was ahead. So far ahead, he was off the scale for 3rd grade. He was reading at a 6th grade level. And it wasn't just reading. He was good at everything. His teacher told me once that my son was the smartest kid she has ever taught.

It sounds like things got a lot better. Right? Well, kind of. All of those problems that happened in 2nd grade were still happening in some of his area classes (like music, p.e., and lunch). I was asked to have a meeting with some teachers and the administration. I was hopeful that this meeting might make some things clear to me as to why my child was having so many issues outside of his main classroom. Well, it was a crap storm. The "administration" that showed up was the assistant principal who thought that every child should be treated the exact same regardless of their emotional state. I understand where she's coming from to a point. But if you expect teachers to adjust their teaching styles to each individual child based on their learning abilities, why can you not have a plan in place for a child that isn't always emotionally able to handle a classroom? She was very negative the entire meeting and she was disrespectful for anyone who tried to stand up for my child. I left that meeting feeling defeated. At this point, my husband and I decided that we just couldn't do it anymore. We couldn't allow the public school system to fail my child any longer. We were going to start homeschooling in 4th grade.

I wish that was the end of my story. But clearly, it's not. A combination of my son saying he was being bullied (my words, not his) in the lunchroom and the assistant principal not letting him move away from that child and me actually witnessing her yelling at him to the point where he was almost in tears. Plus, a principal who just couldn't be bothered to be involved led me to pull my son before the year was over.

When I told the principal that my son would not be returning to that school for the remainder of the year or any year in the future, she was very judgmental. She told me I was making a mistake. She told me it only gets harder from here and that if I took him out, I was setting him up for failure. She told me that if he was having trouble socializing now, he would only suffer more if I took him out. She told me that I can't protect him forever. That really set me off. I told her that no matter what we decide for the future, I need to do what's best for my son. And what's best for him is to not think that every single person, including the adults, in his life hate him. What's best for him is to have people that will respectfully speak to him and not scream in his face. What's best for him is to learn in an environment where he can really flourish instead of having his smarts suppressed because it's more important to make sure that he stands in line quietly than to learn how to channel his creativity and energy into something great. So what I am completely sure of, is that what's best for my son, is to not be here in this school. It may work for most people, but clearly my son is not most people. And that's why we decided to homeschool.

Truthfully, I am so glad that most people will never have to have the same experience that I have had with public school. I truly believe that it works for most people. There are some amazing teachers out there and I hope that if your child is in public school, that they are blessed with as many great teachers as they can get! But just know that it's not for everyone. And people that homeschool their children are truly doing what they think is best for their kid.

Recipe: Homemade Lemonade

I took a couple weeks off, but now we're back at it! My summer has started off great! With lots of things going on. I don't know about you guys, but having my son at home all day, I feel like I need to plan at least 1 fun activity every day to make sure we're not just sitting around. Don't get me wrong, I have a list of things we do each day including reading for 1 hour, working out for 30 minutes, and cleaning for 30 minutes each day. As a reward for these things, I put a limit on phone use to no more than 2 hours.

Here are some of the things we do to fill our time:
1. The Library
Ours has some great public activities and even when there's nothing going on, they always have pages to color, books to read, computers to play on, toys to play with, and fun displays to check out.
2. Berry Picking
There is a fun little berry patch within half an hour of our house that we like to visit from time to time. 3. The Zoo
We have a small local zoo, but beyond that, there are 3 other zoos within an hour. Plus, 2 large named zoos within 3 hours. 4. Paint Your Own Pottery
These places are becoming more and more popular. We have a fun little place in town. We try to only visit once every couple of weeks because while fun, it can get expensive.

We also do lots of crafts and projects. My son has been getting into cooking lately, so I thought as a quick little project, I would teach him how to make homemade lemonade.

You Will Need:
1 cup of water
1 cup of sugar
Enough lemons to make 1 cup of juice (we used 5 large lemons)
7-8 more cups of water

First, combine 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar in a small saucepan and heat on medium until the sugar is completely dissolved (your water will appear clear again). You have now made your simple syrup. It only takes about 5 minutes. Take your pan off the heat and set it to the side to cool.

While your syrup is cooling, you can juice your lemons. If you don't have a juicer, you can squeeze the lemon while twisting a fork to get every last drop out. Make sure you strain the juice to get rid of seeds and most of the pulp.

It's time to mix together your lemon juice, simple syrup, and 7-8 cups of water. I put a rough estimate on the amount because it's all about your personal preference on taste and how strong you want your lemonade. After everything is mixed together, place it in the fridge to cool. Cold, fresh lemonade is the best. Something about making it from scratch truly makes it taste better!

If you have any other suggestions on fun, small projects I can try with my little 8yo, please, let me know in the comments below. We're always looking for new things to try out.

Summer Bucket List

Every summer, my son and I like to make a list of things that we want to do before school starts back up. We got together and pooled all of our ideas and came up with this list of 50 things we want to do this summer. Here is our summer bucket list for 2018!

Click here to view a PDF and download.

Ninja Party: What I bought from Oriental Trading

Last night, we had a little family get-together for my son's 8th birthday. It was nothing fancy. It was basically just dinner, dessert, and presents. But I wanted to buy a couple things to make it a little more fun for my son and nephews that would be there. Here are the awesome things I found:

Ninja Warriors Plastic Tablecloth for $3.49

Ninja Warrior Paper Dinner Plates for $3.49/8 plates

Ninja Warrior Beverage Napkins for $1.99/16 napkins

Ninja Plastic Chopsticks for $5.99/dozen

Ninja Cups with Straws for $15.99/dozen

Ninja Gummy Candy for $6.99/38 pieces

Ninja Character Lollipops for $5.99/dozen

Ninja Stickers for $2.99/100 stickers

Ninja Stress Toys for $14.99/dozen

I really think these awesome things added a lot to our little party. Plus, Oriental Trading has pretty decent prices with coupons for free shipping if you spend over a certain amount and in the end, I spent only $60.

Home Depot Kids Workshops

I LOVE Home Depot Kids Workshops. I mean, like really love them! They occur every single month on the first Saturday of the month from 9am to noon. And there's no reason to try and get there right at 9am because they always have plenty of kits! (Or at least they do where I live.) We always have tons of fun. We always see most people put their kits together and then let their kids just go wild with the paint. And I'm so happy for them that their kids are having a great time. But my weirdo family is full of perfectionists so we usually paint the different pieces first, do a coloring page or something while they dry, and then put our kit together. But to each their own, right? I really feel like these little kits are a great teaching tool in following directions and a beginning lesson in using tools. Plus, they're a cute little project that your kid can use and be proud of. And sometimes, they make great gifts for parents and grandparents!

Here are some that we've done in the past.

And now, we're gearing up and planning the rest of our 2018 so I loved that they had a list (with pictures) out at the February workshop. You will (most likely) never see this list again! So I took a picture for you. Here's what we have to look forward to:

I highly recommend you take your kids aged 3-12 to these workshops. They'll receive safety goggles and an apron at their first workshop and after every project they complete, kids also receive a pin to put on their apron.

Yoga with your Kids

I'm not a huge fan of working out. I just don't love it. I feel like there are so many people out there that are just obsessed with working out and I just can't seem to get into it. But that doesn't mean that I can't try to get my kid into it, right? And I'm trying to do it with him so that even though I might not like it, I'm getting a little something out of it too. And lately, we've been doing some yoga. The first introduction my son had to yoga was actually at Great Wolf Lodge when we went to the Wisconsin Dells with my sister and her family. Afterwards, they sent us home with a poster showing some yoga poses. Well, we decided to break out our poster and work on some of these poses. Now, we try to do yoga at least once a week as part of our workout. Here are just some of the poses that we do: tree, butterfly, flower, downward facing dog, and upward facing dog.

Honestly, I've seen the same poses with many different names. And we're always looking for new poses to try. Some of them are little too difficult for us, so we just modify them to the point where we can do them. We also like to do each pose for a 10-count and cycle through about 3-4 times.

Nerf Target Game

For Christmas, my 7-year-old got a couple smaller Nerf guns. Now, we already some, but they were all bigger guns (or Chewbacca's crossbow or Captain America's shield) so we played in a different way than target practice. But since these were smaller and I was tired of getting hit with little Nerf darts, I put together this simple target game. I grabbed a couple of the cardboard tubes we had lying around from paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls. These make great bases. The hardest part was looking for balls that were the right size and density. If they were too small, they would fall right through the tube. If they were too big, they wouldn't sit on the tube. If they were too heavy, they wouldn't fall off when they were hit with the dart. Well, I was really looking for those balls that we used to have for a ball pit when my son was like 2, but I never did find those. Instead, we used some fake snowballs I had lying around. I think I bought them at dollar tree or someplace similar over a year ago. It turns out, they were perfect! So, I found book to set our tubes on. You could easily use a table. You just need the tubes to be set on a flat surface so that they don't just fall on their own. We put up the tubes and set the snowballs on top of them. Then, we started shooting! It easy enough to set up time and time again so after the first couple of times, my son was able to play by himself and was entertained for about half an hour just shooting the targets. It's easy enough, but you can make it more challenging by backing up and shooting from further away. It's a fun little game that's easy to set up and play inside when it's too cold to go outside! (The temperature the day we played this was around -2.)

Painted Rocks

A couple months ago, we did one of the Michael's Saturday morning kids crafts workshop. We do these from time to time when I'm looking for something to do and I remember to look up the craft ahead of time (think, busy mom that forgets a lot). The reason I always want to look ahead of time is to make sure it's something my son will actually enjoy. Our Michael's is on the opposite side of town and frankly, we just don't go over there if we don't have to. Plus, Michael's crafts aren't free. So, I saw that they were doing painted rocks and thought my son would really enjoy this! And it's SO easy to do at home. If you haven't seen these, you've been living under a rock! See what I did there...
Yeah...so...painted rocks are cool now. So we got there, walked in, they gave us our supplies (flat rocks, paintbrushes, paint, plate to put paint on, and paper towels so we didn't make a mess), and I brainstormed with my son about what we should make. That's right. We. Some parents just let their kids go at it and make whatever and that's awesome! Let your child stretch their creative wings! More power to you! But that is just not who I am. I like to make sure that he's not just making crap. He can do that at school. So we planned out what the rocks were going to look like in the end. And we talked about what he wanted to do and what he wanted me to do.

And we chose the rocks with our ideas in mind! We chose a somewhat square one for our Creeper head from Minecraft, an oval one for our owl, and then we knew we had to make a heart when we found a rock that was heart-shaped.

We did the background color for each of the rocks first. That way, when we were done, the first one was dry enough to add detail. Since our rocks were black, we had to do multiple coats for lighter colors.Make sure the paint is completely dry before adding a new layer on top to avoid your colors bleeding together.

After we finished, we let our rocks sit while we did some shopping and then came back to pick them up when they were dry. I think they turned out great and we'll definitely be making some more this summer!

Even though we had a great time painting our rocks, I am by no means endorsing Michael's Kids Club. My favorite is Home Depot's Kids Workshops, but those are only held once a month. Michael's is just a back-up if we're already planning to be out and they have something interesting on the docket. Some of their crafts are sponsored by Sprout which my kid hasn't watched in like 4 years so we're not interested at all. And while most of the crafts aren't OVERLY girly, some of them are! I mean, my son is cool with making bracelets, but he's not okay if I take him to make a fairy house. Our biggest complaint has been the people in charge of these crafts. The woman that used to be in charge of these used to complain about kids. I don't know why she felt comfortable talking about this with me, but it was really annoying and unprofessional. And the girl in charge now is just so quiet. We have to ask like 100 questions just to get the details about the craft we're making. So go into these with your eyes wide open people!

Science: Float or Sink

I decided to do a fun little science experiment with my 7-year-old son a couple weeks ago. This takes hardly any time to set up and you have all of your supplies lying around your house. How great is that? I love an easy project that doesn't cost anything that my son finds fun! Plus, he's learning something along the way.

First, I had Owen walk around the house and find 15 things that wouldn't be ruined by water. I told him we were going to see if which ones sink and which ones float so make sure you pick out a variety of things so that not all of them sink or that not all of them float.

Then, we found a large bowl or small bucket (just make sure all the things you picked out with fit). We filled our bowl half full with water. We folded a towel in half to put next to our bowl so that we would have someplace to put our items after we took them out of the water.

I then prepped a piece of paper to fill out so that we could record our results that included 3 columns for items, prediction, and result. I wrote in each item and then we made our predictions.

Then it was finally time to put everything together and see which ones sink and which ones float. We did one item at a time. Owen ended up guessing 14 out of our 15 items correctly! I think that's pretty good. Then, we talked about why each individual item floated or sank. 7-year-olds now-a-days are pretty smart!

One of the great things about this little experiment is that you could adapt it to any age group. I easily could have done this with my 3-year-old preschool class when I was teaching. But you could even do it with 5th graders! I think the biggest difference is deciding how much freedom the kids have in picking out items and then the conversation afterwards about why each item floats or sinks and how in-depth you get with it. Either way, it's a fun little experiment to do with kids!

Travel Gifts

This is a fun family tradition that was passed down from my mom to me and I hope that my son does this for his kids when he has them. First of all, I love to travel. I make it a point to try to go on a vaction at least once a year. Sometimes I end up taking far more than one. For example, in 2017, I went to Scotland, a roadtrip through the Southeast United States, Wisconsin Dells, and Las Vegas! It was a crazy year and we spent way too much money! Now, for every vacation with my son, I get/make small gifts to be opened while we're travelling. These don't have to be anything huge or great. They're usually either something he can use while on the trip or small toys he can play with to entertain himself while we travel.

Here is a list of some of the things I have gotten for my son:

Games:
1. "What Am I?" Guessing Game
2. Kids travel game book

Toys:
3. Stress Ball

4. Magnetic Me

5. Lego Box

6. Catch Ball (you know, the one that you attach to your wrist and throw and then it bounces back to you so that you can play catch with yourself!)

7. Play Packs- there are so many different ones to choose from. They have everything from Star Wars to Hello Kitty to Minions to Inside Out.
8. Candy- Clearly, we don't want our son to be on a sugar-high while stuck in the car, but a fun candy necklace is entertaining and delicious!
Useful Items:
9. Sunglasses
10. Dry Erase Markers (to draw on the windows of our car during our roadtrip)

11. Personal Fan

12. Conversation Cards- this sounds silly, I know. But it helped time go by. We got him this set that was pretty much a version of kids 'would you rather' questions and we used them to talk and entertain ourselves for over an hour!

Now, travel gifts don't have to just be for kids. They can also be for adults! I know my husband enjoys these just as much as my son. That being said, I usually only get him 1 or 2 presents. Here are some things I have gotten him in the past:
1. Magazine- My husband doesn't subscribe to any magazines so it's nice for him to be able to thumb through Wired when we travel.
2. Portable charger- He uses his phone more than anyone I know so of course, it's always dying when we're out doing stuff all day. These are GREAT for vacations.
3. Travel Press- This is one of the coolest things I've bought him to date! My husband loves his french press at home so when I got him a travel version? Oh, he was in love!
4. Puzzle book- My husband just loves crossword puzzles. And he thinks it's so fun to get me involved in them with him. So we try to solve all the puzzles together. It's nice while in the car because I can drive, he's giving the hints, and it keeps both of us entertained!
5. Headphones- because sometimes, I'm fine with everyone else in the car listening/watching something else while I drive and jam out to the music I want to listen to! lol

Remember how I said this list wasn't just for kids? Well, it's not just for husbands either! Sometimes, I even buy myself some travel gifts! Sad? Maybe. But fun? Of course! Here's what I get:
1. Nail polish- not for use while in the car, clearly.
2. A new waterbottle- preferably one that will keep my drink cold for 24 hours!
3. Journal- so I can write down everything about our vacation to report back to you guys!
4. Adult coloring book (and some colored pencils)

We love putting together little presents to make the actual traveling part of our vacations (which isn't always fun) a little more tolerable. What are some things you get your kids as travel gifts?

Las Vegas: Kid Friendly Activities

There are lots of kid-friendly things to do around the strip in Las Vegas. These are just a few of our favorites!

Agents of Shield – I didn't personally do this, but my husband and son did and they had an absolute blast! We got discounted tickets so it was a pretty good deal. It's like a museum of everything Marvel, but then at the end, you are sent on a mission! There weren't a lot of people there when they went so one of the employees helped them with their mission to help them get through it a little faster. I believe they spent about 1.5-2 hours there.

Coca Cola – We got the float tasting tray and the internation soda tasting tray. There was more than enough for all four of us to share and get a good taste of everything. There were some that were very interesting and delicious and others that practically made us gag. But what a fun little game! It's almost like the soda version of Bean Boozled!

MnMs World – I truly had no idea how you could get 4 stories our of MnMs! I mean, how many different varieties could there be? Well, they don't just sell those little chocolate candies. We didn't buy a lot, but it was fun to walk around and see everything. Plus, there's a 4D movie (about 15 minutes) that they show. And there are plenty of cute little photo-ops. Plus, there's a racecar on the top floor!

Hershey World – How can you go wrong with chocolate, right? We took so many fun pictures and just loved looking at everything. They had a cool little station with tablets where you could design your own Hershey's bar wrapper.

Mandalay Bay's Aquarium – My son and I decided to go to this one by ourselves. He just loves fish! And we always have tons of fun at aquariums. We've been to quite a few and we really enjoyed this one. I love the way that it's set up so that you start in one place and then follow a walkway through the aquarium so that you don't miss anything. It can be a little on the pricey side though.

Bellagio Fountains – This is a fun little free activity. We decided to watch this after dark on our way back to our hotel. We got there just as one of the shows was ending so we picked out a prime spot when everyone was leaving and then sat on the sidewalk while we waited for the next show to start. We had been walking all day and were completely exhausted so it was nice to rest for a moment. And the show was absolutely beautiful! We just loved the way the music and the water and lights worked together to make a wonderous show for everyone to see. We caught the beginning of the next show when we were walking inside the Bellagio and it was a completely different show so just because you've seen it once doesn't mean you've seen everything it has to offer.

Las Vegas Welcome Sign – This sign is quite the hike at the south end of the strip. I would even say it's past the south end of the strip. But to me, it's just so iconic that you have to go. We ended up visiting literally days after the mass shooting so there were tons of flowers and other things from people paying their respects. There was a man there to take your picture accepting tips. That was nice because I didn't know if we would be able to rely on the kindness of strangers to take one for us. And everyone did a pretty great job of standing in an organized line to get their picture taken.

High Roller – If you ask, my son will tell you that this was the coolest thing we did while we were in Vegas. It is definitely an amazing sight to see! We went after dark (which is a little more expensive than going during the day). And I'm so glad we chose to pay the extra cost. It was absolutely gorgeous! The trip lasts about a half hour. There's music playing and a TV that shows you where you are on your journey and has random trivia facts. There's clearly enough room for like 20-30 people in there, but ours only had 8, which was kind of nice. You can probably only fit about 10 people sitting.

Gondola Ride – Even though it was pretty expensive, we decided to take a gondola ride. It was so much fun though! I love that your gondolier sings to you the whole time. It can be romantic, but we brought our son with us. And he just had a blast.

These were some of our favorite things on this trip that we did with our son (who is 7) so we consider them to be kid-friendly! I hope that if you take a trip to Las Vegas anytime soon, you'll consider doing some of these things.

Our New Year's Eve Schedule!

Last year, on New Year's Eve, we did something really cool. We spent the day at the in-laws' homestead. Now, they only have TVs in the bedroom and they don't really ever plan anything to do so if you come unprepared, you could end up pretty bored. However, knowing this in advance, I prepared. We started at 8am and ended at 8pm so that our 6-year-old could still go to bed at his normal time. He didn't seem to mind. We started with a schedule:

8am: Ring Pop 'Get ready for 12 Hours of Ringing in the New Year!'
9am: Make a '2017' sign
10am: Glitter some champagne glasses
11am: Decorate star cookies
12pm: Gift
1pm: Play a game
2pm: Make a new years ball
3pm: Make headbands/hats
4pm: Write new year's resolutions
5pm: Make noise makers
6pm: Photo booth
7pm: Fun with sparklers
8pm: Ring in the New Year with sparkling cider

Then we executed:
8am: Ring Pop

9am: Make a '2017' sign

10am: Glitter some champagne glasses

11am: Decorate star cookies (I made the cookies the night before)

12pm: Gift (I just picked up a couple things from Party City totalling about $5. It was a nice break between activities)

1pm: Play a game

2pm: Make a New Years ball (We just made this with a piece of paper that we added glitter to and a couple brads)

3pm: Make headbands/hats (Again, we just made these out of paper and glitter)

4pm: Write New Years Resolutions

5pm: Make funny noise makers (This was so much fun. We took a paper plate and drew a mouth/beak/mustache. Then, we colored it and cut it out. We cut an X where we wanted the noise maker to go and then just inserted the mouth piece into the X.)

6pm: Photo booth (we used the noise makers and hats along with the props I brought)

7pm: Fun with sparklers

8pm: Ring in the New Year with sparkling cider

Now, just to be clear, we didn't follow our schedule completely. We ended up eating breakfast and opening Christmas presents (we weren't able to see them for Christmas so we just celebrated a week late) in the morning so we got a couple hours behind. Also, since glitter is very messy, we ended up prepping all the glitter things at one time (during the glitter champagne glasses time) and then assembling our ball and hats during the time slot to make them. This worked out well since they needed time to dry anyway. By the end of the night, my son was watching the clock so that he could tell me the exact minute it turned to the next hour so that we could open up our next activity! It was great. And no one got bored!