Why I Love Homeschooling

There are many reasons why I love homeschooling, of course -- the fact that I'm around these wonderful kids all day, or the fact that I *KNOW* what they are learning, and have the privilege to struggle with them until they finally reach that "aha!" moment...

...but there are other reasons, equally as valid, such as what happened today:

1. Some comment made by Reilly actually resulted in the words "Pump up the Jam" to be uttered in my kitchen (how the heck did THAT happen??), which then led to my finding said song on YouTube, which led to a "who-can-jump-around-for-this-entire-song-without-stopping" contest. I'm proud to say that I made it the entire 3+ minutes, thank you very much... AND we had a great laugh over the clothing as well.




2. Today being the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, I had the wonderful opportunity to engage in a little storytelling. I have to first say that my Dad is a GREAT storyteller, and although I didn't realize it until I started homeschooling, I like telling stories, too. When Sean was in Kindergarten, I used to spend every lunch time telling the four oldest kids "disaster" stories -- Pompeii, the Titanic, you name it (my husband suggested that "Natural Disasters" should be part of our curriculum). I would stretch out the story of Pompeii to over 40 minutes, complete with voices and sound effects. It was soooooooooo much fun!

I realized today, however, that my younger kids haven't had the same opportunity, so today I told them the story of St. Paul. Just the look on Thomas' face was worth the effort. His eyes were wide-open with delight, and he interrupted only once, to say, "Mommy, this is my favorite Bible story EVER!" Their favorite part was when St. Paul is overjoyed at his new-found faith, and is so eager to tell everyone:

St. P: Hey everyone! I've got great news! Jesus is really God!
The others: Shhhh... not so loud... they'll hear you and we'll get arrested...

St. P: But I'm so excited!
The others: We know... but you've got to keep your voice down...

St. P: Can I just tell that guy over there?
The others: OK, but do it quietly..

St. P: HEY! YOU OVER THERE! HAVE I GOT GREAT NEWS FOR YOU!
The others: SHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

St. P: Can't I at least sing a little song about Him?

They were rolling as I told them about him having to escape in a basket, shushing him as he keeps singing songs of praise under the blankets.

I don't think they're going to forget that story for awhile.

3. Sean is busy at work writing his first novel. I am thrilled to see how well he is doing, and can't wait to see how it turns out! He has decorated his walls with illustrations of characters from his story, and can often be seen daydreaming about how to make the story more exciting. I'm awfully proud of him!

4. And finally (for now), homeschooling provides me the opportunity to see Christopher create books like this (on the Ten Commandments):

[Note: I know these are not in order. I've been fighting with my computer for quite some time now just to get the pictures uploaded. ]

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Thou shall not kill. 

(I can't stop laughing over this one. The guy on the left has an "alright, now I'm really peeved" look on his face, while the guy on the right looks like he's just saying "oops!".)

Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife.

He did this one this morning. I told him, "Dude, I'm kinda scared to see you draw this one!" and he admitted that he wasn't sure what direction he was going to take to illustrate this one. I thought he did a hysterically beautiful job!

Thou shall not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.

Again, I love the look of shame he put on the main character's face. If you knew Christopher, you would know that these pictures just ooze his personality. He is so wonderfully funny!

Whew. Battling Blogger over getting these pictures up has sucked all the wind out of my sails, so I'll end it here (and get a glass of wine and the digital camera's manual to try to figure out what the heck is going wrong...)