Getting ready to start school

Well . . . it's about that time. Time to start school up again here at the Bauernhof. 

We have attempted to year-round school but mostly, it never works here on the farm. The busy schedule of farm life means we mostly lay low from school during the warm months. 

Now, it's time to get started again. That made me reflective for the early years of homeschooling. Here's some of the pictures I can piece together for where we were about this time in the last few years:

2014-2015: (Boys Kindergarten)

This was our first year back in the USA after living in Turkey and the Azores. We spent one year in Middle Tennessee (outside of Nashville) while we looked around the state to buy our farm.  I didn't take a formal "first day of school picture" but I did find this one from right about the time we started Kindergarten with them while living in Spring Hill:

2015-2016: (Boys 1st grade; Abigail pre-K, Hannah preschool)

We moved to the farm in May and be the fall, we were so excited to be a part of Heritage Home Scholars -- it was such a wonderful fit for all of us except ... Abigail ... who spent the year looking something like this:

2016-2017: (Boys 2nd grade; Abigail pre-K, Hannah preschool)

What a difference a year makes! Check out my little Abigail by the time her pre-K year had rolled around at Heritage! (And her little sister gets in on it too this year!)

 

2017-2018 School Year: (Boys 3rd grade; Abigail Kindergarten, Hannah pre-K)

We are now old-hats at Heritage and homeschooling. This is the first year I would officially "homeschool three kids."

2018-2019 School Year (Boys 4th grade; Abigail 1st grade, Hannah pre-K)

This was an exciting year for us. The Kotysnki family had moved into our neck of the woods, and we were homeschooling together. Here was one of the first pics I took of all nine of the kids as we started schooling together:

2019-2020 School Year: (Boys 5th grade grade; Abigail 2nd grade, Hannah kindergarten)

I snapped this picture as we prepared to head to co-op with four veterans. We homeschooled with the Kotynski family again this year.

2020-2021 School Year: (Boys 6th grade; Abigail 3rd grade, Hannah 1st grade)

We are getting ready to start our 2020-2021 homeschool year. Things will look quite different this year. We will, as we have for the two previous years, be homeschooling with the Kotysnki family. 

We will be adding another young lady to our group: Katy. Because of Covid, our connections with her will be virtual in nature, but she is an amazing ballerina and has the opportunity to do ballet during the day with a very famous ballet studio. So homeschooling will be of great help to her. 

With Katy, we will have the following: 

9th graders: Gabe, Katy

8th grader: Ana

6th graders: Isaac, Sidge, Kari

3rd grader: Abigail

2nd grader: Eoin

1st graders: Hannah & Genevieve

We will be doing piano and ballet and karate via zoom for now. Tennis we are doing private lessons. Our co-op, which we have been a part of since we first moved to the farm, has decided that, at least for the fall, they will not be meeting. This is super, duper, UBER sad to us, but like the rest of the country and the world, we are just buckling down and making the most of it. 

Stay tuned for much more of our adventures in homeschooling!

2019-2020 Yearbook Photos

First Day of School

Tomorrow we will return for Week 2 of our wonderful homeschool: Heritage Home Scholars.

I meant to post these pictures last week with my four kiddos preparing for their first big day:

• Isaac (5th grade) is taking: Adventure Time (PE type class), American History, Inventions, and a Grammar class. 
• Sidge (5th grade) is taking: PE (with me!), American History, Spanish, and Chemistry/Physics
• Abigail (2nd grade) is taking: PE (with me!), Music (she's holding her ukelele), Marine Life, and Girls Club
• Hannah (Kindergarten) is taking: PE (with me and Abigail!), Magic School Bus, Lego Math, and Girls Club. 

We love our co-op. As the kids get older, their classes require work throughout the week in preparation for meeting on Mondays. (We meet from 9-2 on Mondays for 20 weeks of the year.) It's a chance to listen to other parents/teachers, spend time with other kids, and learn new things I'd never be able to teach them at home. I am so blessed by this group.

School pictures (Year 2)

Hannah (Preschool)

Abigail (Pre-K)

Elijah "Sidge" (2nd grade)

Isaac (2nd grade)

Here is a link back to Year 1.  Can I scream it from the mountain tops loud enough how much I love our homeschool co-op? Thank you HERITAGE HOME SCHOLARS for making our education so complete.

Homeschooling: First Day of Co-op (Year 2)

We are in our second year with the Heritage Home Scholars Co-op group. The boys are now in 2nd grade, Abigail is in Kindergarten (although I am not technically starting her in Kindergarten at home yet), and Hannah is in the pre-school class. Ms. Kristin took some pictures of the girls on their first day (which was Monday):

Abigail was a tad clingy when class first started but within five minutes, she was in her groove. Such a big change from year one! She LOVED her classes. She takes a basic kindergarten class for hour one, in hour two she takes music, and in hour three they do art/PE.

Hannah is in the pre-school class. I loved how her teachers all came up to me and said, "Wow. She and Abigail are NOTHING alike." Yeah. Tell me about it.

Hannah working on her letter H! Thanks Ms. Nicolle for sharing these photos with me.

Typical goofball.

Lovin' this little lady. She told me when I dropped her off, "I'm just a little bit scared." But she did great!

I didn't get any pics of the boys, but they had an AWESOME time. Isaac is taking: (1) Art (2) Geography and then (3) Shapshots. The second two classes are actually for kids 1-2 years older than he is, but we thought he could handle them with how much he loves geography and how much an "old soul" Isaac is.

Sidge is taking (1) Art (2) P.E. and (3) Lego Math. I am actually the teacher for P.E. and Lego Math. I would have preferred not to teach my own kiddos, but I couldn't work it out any different. 

This is also the first time that Sidge and Isaac are doing anything apart. They were both a bit nervous to not have their brother with them, but Isaac immediately found some familiar faces in his classes, and Sidge's buddy Joshua is in all THREE of his classes with him.

We absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE this homeschool group. I can't even tell you how awesome it is, and how HONORED I am to be a part of it. 

HHS rocks!!!

School Pictures (Hannah added!)

I LOVE our homeschool co-op. I love that even though we are schooling at home, we get the opportunity to do the things that "normal" kids going to "normal" school do -- like pictures!!! (Hannah's was done on retake day and I don't have it yet!)