The World According to Leslie

 There are a million-and-one things that go into homeschooling. Over the past four years, I have been making notes about the things we have needed, wanted, gotten, or gotten rid of in our homeschool.  Enjoy the ABCs of Homeschooling according to Leslie. (Please note that some letters may have more than one thing!   Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash A--Attitude; Art supplies; Art classes B--Books; Binders; Boldness; Bowling Balls C--Curriculum; Conferences; Computer; Compassion; Curiosity; Calculator; Classes D--Desk; Dinner; Dining Room; Decisions; Dishes E--Expectations F--Faith; Fun; Family; Flashlights; Forgiveness; Fairness G--Goals; Grace; God; Google H--Humility; Help; Home; Hot Chocolate; Honesty I--Integrity; Intensity; Imagination J--Jammies; Jokes K--Kids; Kindness; Kidding L--Library Card; Love; Lesson Plans; Learning M--Mentor; Mind; Mental Health N--Notebooks; Neatness; Niceness; Noise; Notes O--Openness; Open-mindedness; Outings; Obedience  P--Pen...

As Chasity's high school and homeschool days are coming to an end, May 2021, I find myself reflecting on the things we have done and how they worked, or did not work for us.  One thing that we had to adjust quite often in the beginning was the schedule. It has changed a lot over the years.  When Chasity was in 9th grade, we had to play around with her schedule to get it just right for her and us. I was working part-time, and we were new to homeschooling. Oh yeah....and it was HIGH SCHOOL!!   Typically, I worked 3-5 hours a day at the daycare where my mom was the director. It was normally 10am-12:30pm (or 2:30pm), depending on the day. If I was going in as a substitute teacher in the school system, I would work longer days.  At the beginning of October 2017, I was called to cover a maternity leave from October 16th to December 1st. Then the teacher decided to stay out until Christmas break. Then, the week before Christmas, she decided she wanted a week AFTER brea...

  Do you ever feel like you have 1,000,000 things to do an no time to do them? I almost always feel like that, but when it came to homeschooling, we had to figure out the schedule that worked for us.  Not just for activities, but for daily lessons and how long they should take.  Time management is NOT my strongest characteristic.  It's not Chasity's either! This year, we tried several different things in order to make our daily schedule actually work! What did we try first?                 We approached it like homework from public school.  She had to get the lessons done... no matter how long it took.  So, in the beginning, she had some 10-2 hour days. There were lots of tears (mine and hers). We just hoped it would get easier. How did we fix it?                 Then we decided to allot time for each subject. Sh...