Our Homeschooling Adventure

We have been embarking on a new adventure as a family this school year. We are homeschooling! Last year we quickly realized that Eli being at school 5 days a week and our photography business work schedule for Brian were not working well together. Brian needs to work weekends and often weeknights, so it was difficult for him to get enough quality time with Eli, as opposed to when Eli was in kindergarten only 3 days a week. Eli was missing his dad a lot and we knew that we needed to do something different the following year. We prayed and fasted in January and 

God showed us that homeschooling would be the way to go for our family. I loved working part-time at Avail High School, the christian school that Eli was attending, yet it was hard to make that schedule work with the current needs of our photography business. Someday in the future when our kids are older there may be another opportunity for me to go back to professional counseling, right now I want to be sure to give my best to my own family. 

We have been loving the flexible schedule and the quality family time homeschooling has to offer! I really enjoy teaching my kids and we are surrounded with an amazing homeschooling community. One of my best friends and next door neighbor homeschools her kids and it has been an enormous help to partner with her in our homeschool journey. We are apart of two homeschool co-ops that meet on Thursdays. They offer gym classes, science classes, art and music classes, and Bible/literature  classes. Even Greta gets to be apart of a preschool class which she loves. We have enjoyed many fall learning field trips with friends and family.

We are proud of our 2nd grader and kindergartner!

All three kids ready for their first day of co-op!

The kids art work from the first day of school!

Family fun at the Minnesota Zoo!

The awesome ocean life aquarium!

The kids and I enjoyed an afternoon at the Pinehaven farm with our friends Anna, Greyson, and Bella. We ran through a corn maze, enjoyed the petting zoo, and saw a pumpkin get shot out of a canyon!

We visited an apple orchard as a family and made yummy apple sauce.

The kids loved the corn box.

I took the kids to Lendt's Pumpkin Patch and they thought picking out pumpkins from the field was the best! They also played in the giant corn box for hours!

On a warm day in September we went to the Gale Farm to make apple cider and learn about farm animals. We had a great time with friend Angela and her kids!

After we picked apples, we gave the beat up apple to the cows and the rest we made into apple cider! 

The kids loved the friendly sheep!

Greta playing with Play-Doh while the boys work hard on school work.

Greta gets to join the boys for our Around the World Geography curriculum!

The second Friday of each month we go to a homeschool Nature study for homeschooled students at the Tamarack Nature Center. So far this year we have learned all about bees and bats.

Greta and best friends Nels working on a project in preschool!

Sarah and I get to be the teachers for the preschool kids at co-op. Here is Sarah showing them the nature art project they get to create.

Asa showing me the turtle he found.

We went with the Wellmans and the Vests to the Historical Wapiti Rendezvous to learn about what life was like in the 1800s. The kids loved trying on all of the furs and Eli even got to throw a tomahawk!

Our happy place is outdoors in our backyard.