I love homeschooling for so many reasons.  I love going the pace the kids need.  I love focusing on things the kids are interested in.  I love being able to let the kids sleep in as they need to.  I love going places where the kids learn things they wouldn't normally be exposed to.  What I don't love?  The way so many people think they know better than I do about what is right for my children.  I don't love how hard it is to stay on task and get things done.  I don't love having my house look like a tornado went through because the kids were building cardboard box space ships.  But I love spending every day with my kids and that they have the freedom to build cardboard box space ships.  And I especially love how our school happens anywhere.  Since my last post we went to the CT Historical Society Museum taking a class there, we went to the Imagine Nation children's museum, the Beardsley Zoo, and the CT Science Center.  In the car we brought whiteboards and brainquest workbooks, and did math, history, study of Greek mythology, practiced writing our phone number and address, and did listening centers and comprehension practice, all while traveling to great educational experiences.  I love the freedom we have to do this.  We have spent time outside in the garden, planting, and observing seasonal changes.  We have practiced math problem solving, and watched Cosmos.  We studied medieval food.  We did imaginary play about space, and we acted out stories we love.  We made crafts, built legos, studied world history, studied maps, played chess, did playdough, art lessons, computer and kindle, measuring activities, and are in the process of building a barnyard diorama with Daddy.  We are working on snap circuits to study electricity, and we have done cooking and baking together.  We practiced sight words and worked on lacing and tracing.  We watched a 3D movie on the universe reinforcing our continued study of space, and we spend a lot of time playing games and discussing questions together.  We learn so much from each other every day, as we journey further together.

Update

First I want to update on my New Years Resolutions:

1) Practice yoga weekly    I have been fairly good about this, except when really sick, and will continue to try to work on this.
2) Spend time outside with the kiddos every day it is not dangerous to do so.  Trying really hard on this one, but the weather has not really been cooperating till recently.
3) Spend more active time with the kids  Rich and I have been much better about this, we have been taking walks, playing at the park, and spending quality time together.
4) Pay closer attention to my own health  I have lost 65 pounds, continue to modify my diet as I realize what works for me and doesn't, and had Lasik surgery.  I also have been making healthy food choices and physical activity a priority.  I have made lots of improvement here.
5) Be more intentional with lesson planning and lesson implementation   I have made tons of progress here.  I make weekly basic plans, and have made several lessons and units ahead of the time I need it.  I like having some things prepped for whenever I decide to do it.
6) Continue to organize and simplify our home  This is hard, but is a continuous activity in our home.  We have rid ourselves of a lot of stuff, and will be having a yard sale soon.
7) Blog weekly here and in Peace, Love, Laundry and Food!  I was doing great until a few weeks ago when life and sickness got in the way, I am working my way back to this :)

 It has been awhile since I updated because we have been crazy sick followed by being crazy busy.  In the past 5 weeks or so since I last posted we have been ridiculously sick, where the kids both spent days throwing up, and I passed out, literally.  In addition I had Lasik surgery a week ago, so I was focused on getting stuff done beforehand, so I could heal and not worry about housework.  So I just didn't worry about blogging.  In fact I keep forgetting to take pictures of things too.  Though I did remember to take pictures of my little girl's sixth birthday!  We spent the day at Old Sturbridge Village, her choice.  We had dinner with my parents and grandparents at my parents' house afterward, and it was wonderful.  I just can't believe how fast these little babies are turning into big people.

We forgot to charge our phones enough to take pictures the day we took the train into Boston to visit the Boston Museum of Science.  It was such a fantastic educational experience.  The kids just loved it, and so did we.  We will be going again.

 We have been working on draw, write, now, and learning about fractions.  We have finished science kits on stretchy elastic, bouncy balloons, floaty bubbles, and continue to learn about space.  We are continuing work on Roman numerals, and the kids are extremely proficient in three digit addition and subtraction with regrouping.  We do chess lessons weekly, and finished a huge unit on map skills.

 We finished our kindergarten art lesson dvd.  This was the final project.  They are so cute, and was a great multi step, multi media project that really used so many of their new art skills.

 Our good friends Jen and Ron were so kind to bring the kids an amazing keyboard.  CJ is teaching himself to read music so that he can learn to play.  In the meantime they are thoroughly enjoying exploring the musical possibilities with it.  They are so musical, and I can't wait to continue this.

We have visited the Florence Griswold art museum, the Lyman Allyn art museum, lots of outside playtime and exploration, playdates, a visit to Stay and Play in Old Saybrook, reviewed time, place value and money.  We used our new microscope to look at blood cells, did cooking lessons, and geography games.  We have written acrostic poems, haikus, and couplets.  We have built with legos, goldie blox, tinker toys, and lincoln logs, as well as with skill sticks.  We have worked on math number stories, and other types of problem solving.  We finished our grade 1 brainquest workbooks.  We visited the CT trash museum and the CT Science Center, and spent lots of family time together running errands and taking walks.  We started building a solar car with a kit.  We are continuing with our Human body kit.  We have worked on grammar, watched Cosmos, watched shows on meteors and Ancient Egypt.  We have learned about different types of classical music, and made up songs.  We  have done puzzles, centers, and measuring.  We have done crafts and made glow in the dark gel from a science kit.  We baked together and cooked together a lot.  We have been working on retelling and reading comprehension.  We have done starfall on the computer and skills programs on the kindle.  We did a homeschool meet up at a local library.  We have done a lot of listening to audiobooks.  We have started learning about Greek and Roman mythology.  We have done seed planting, handwriting practice, and sight words.  All of a sudden Eliza knows all her sight words and is becoming a super great reader.  We have worked a bit on American history.  We have looked at similes and metaphors, learned rounding and multiples, and loved playing games together.  We visited the USCG training ship the Barque Eagle.  We did review of the water cycle with experiments.  It has been a busy few weeks, and I am looking forward to the coming spring.