SHS – Stunz Home School.

I promise I’m not going to post daily about our school stuff but I guess I’m just kind of shocked that this is going so well.

Our day started out a little rocky but it didn’t last long. I think we need to be more firm about her bedtime. Mine too. But we gathered ourselves and regrouped and moved past it. We started at 9am and finished at 2pm today.

I’m amazed at how little time I’m having to spend actually instructing her. I’m available to her at all times but I spend an hour with her on PACE, about 20 minutes or so with Poetry and then a little check in here and there but she’s pretty much got the rest on her own. That will change when we dig in to more of her History and Science curriculum but this is just like an unexpected breath of fresh air right now.

When we homeschooled year before last, Anna’s 4th grade and Jakeb’s 10th, it was insane! I’m not using that word loosely. I hadn’t homeschooled in years, had no idea how to teach Anna with her vastly different learning style than my own or the other two kids and Jakeb was learning Chemistry, Algebra 2 and Geometry, none of which I ever understood. Goodness, I never even took Chemistry! I relied heavily on Tori ‘s and Tommy’s brains during Jakeb’s school year. Anyway, all of that and then throw in remodeling a house, getting it ready to sell, putting it on the market, keeping it clean, selling the house, planning a move overseas, getting a daughter ready to start college, moving overseas… insane. See? I told you! And we all survived to tell about it.

Today started out shakey but we got to go to the pool for P.E. and she hummed all the way through her Math lesson. Two lessons as a matter of fact. I think she enjoyed learning about Abraham’s descendants and is itching to read more of Helen Keller and write more on her blog. I think our successes have much to do with her being a little older but I also think God pointed us to some pretty awesome curriculum. I’m sure there will be hard days and days when we might want to strangle each other but this day was good.

Two in a row… I’ll take ‘em!

And here are some pics for ya’:

Jakeb’s “not so first” day of school picture. He started school here in Singapore on August 10th while we were still in Texas and he wasn’t about to take a picture of himself for me on the real first day of school. He and his friend designed and took care of the purchasing of these volleyball jersey’s for their team. Nice job! He has a game today. The athletic system is not too organized right now so we couldn’t go to the game. When he called after school, he said not even the bus driver knew where they were going. Bummer. Since we’re usually the only parents at their games anyway. Still haven’t figured that one out.

And this is how Anna started out her day today. We are using Tori’s room/guest room as our school room. It’s quiet and has good light with a lovely view of Holland Road and surrounding trees and homes. Not too distracting but enough to not be boring. The girl LOVES puzzles and is absolutely in love with zebra’s right now. Notice she’s in her swim suit. We both started our days with our swim suits on since we’d be doing P.E. at the pool. Homeschool perk, I’d say…

This is the sign she made for our school room when she couldn’t sleep the night before the first day. She’s into stickers right now too. Can you tell?