A New Hope

 Here we go! 

Okay, so I'm with Westwind again, so I need to do this blog again, and I kind of like that. Obviously I need the accountability. 

First off, It's so good to be back in the middle of the town of Cardston. This is our town. This is our homeschool group.

The first week of school there was a Waterton Field trip with Westwind. It was just a garbage pick up and a lunch, but it's so good to not feel alone. To feel like there's so many people out there doing things differently because they want to, and getting the support they need.

There was also a parents day where we listened to inspirational or helpful talks and ate a yummy lunch. They even made us "Homeschool survival kits," which were super cute. It's good to be back.

One mom (Laura) even offered to take back to school photos! Isn't that cool?! I'm tellin' ya. Cardston is the best.

I've also started spending money I know I'll get back, including Simply Piano. The boys have really loved playing the piano...except Abraham, who hasn't felt like the piano is for him yet, but along with Simply Piano, you get Simply Drawing, and Abraham has been doing that so much he has almost done everything they offer on their app for drawing!

I have also tried to get organized and actually teach one-on-one school, and so lets go through each child.

Hyrum is doing BYUI and doing math with Khan academy. He's taking Programming with Data Structures, Computer Systems, and General Psychology. I convinced him to take general psychology because he needed a social science credit and I've taken that class, so hopefully that turns out okay. 

It was a NIGHTMARE getting his online textbook to work for his psychology class, but now it's working, so I hope all goes well with it. I can't worry about the other two classes because I have no idea how to help him with those.

Daniel is going to do english with Coursera, math is Khan Academy, and I signed him up with a Spanish teacher that is actually living in Guatemala that has worked via zoom with Cayleen's kids, so I trust her. And maybe I'll have him do typing with TTRS because his spelling is pretty bad.

William is going to do All About Spelling. Maybe typing with Keyboarding Without Tears, Video Text math, and his writing workbook.

Abraham is starting Rightstart Geometry, All About Reading level 4, and his writing workbook.

Abraham is now reading for fun, which is a huge hurdle to overcome for a dyslexic, but William is still not quite there, but I see him more and more with a book in his hands. The books have pictures, but this hasn't really happened before, so I think this actually is the turning point.

We are doing our one-on-one in my NEW SCHOOL ROOM! I love it so much. Dustin made me the bookshelves. Isn't this a glorious space?

*********add photos when I get back to Cardston**********

And one of the best things about it, is that I got a glass table that I spray painted white on the underside so that it would turn into a white board table! Aren't I clever? Abraham has been drawing non stop. He insists on drawing axolotl after doing each section of school

As far as CO-ops go, we were going to join this Tuesday Co-op, but we are going to be gone for so much of the first quarter of the year, that we went to part of the first day, but that's it. They played kickball and loved it.

But now we are off. 

We had been planning a church history tour for MONTHS but it never was working out. Finally I just asked Jandy if we could ship Hyrum and Daniel out to her, and if she could give them a church history tour herself. She said yes! How sweet is that? I have the best friends.

It was way cheaper to fly them from Salt Lake City, so it was a good excuse to go to Utah to see my parents. Dustin and I are realizing that we don't have very much time with either of our parents. In fact, things are not looking good for Dustin's father, so we are going to spend October with them in Victoria. 

On the way down to Utah, we stopped at BYUI. Before this, none of my kids were excited about going to college. After an hour of touring the campus with Ayana (and finding out you can go to fencing classes,) both Hyrum and Daniel are excited to go to BYUI! 

It was so serendipity to be at BYUI that day. I was trying to figure out Hyrum's virtual textbook, and the help call line said I should go into the BYUI bookstore. Do you know how many times I've been in the BYUI bookstore in the past 15 years?! ZERO times. And yet, we were there! Not that it helped, but it was cool that we were there.

I was a little nervouse about Hyrum and Daniel flying alone, but they did fine, and now they've already gone to Nauvoo!

And in the mean time, the rest of us have been spending time with my mom and dad.

And although it's just Utah, we have been able to go to a Mexican Fiesta. Not very big, but still a cultural experience.

There you go! First post of the school year done! I'm on top of this. Just you wait and see!