About

The Basics

We are a loving, well-educated, family who made several life affirming decisions with our family. First is to live a healthy, sustainable, and long life together. Second, to nurture our family in love, curiosity, and respect. Third, to have a traditional family where one parent stays home to raise our children full time. Fourth, to homeschool our children and ourselves in order to provide a higher quality, more connected, and proven education for the betterment of our family.

Introductions

Maggie - Maggie is our matriarch. A stay-at-home mom, domestic engineer, or however you phrase it. Maggie has a Bachelor Degree in Sports Management and an Master Degree in Student Personnel Administration focusing on student counseling and achievement.

Mike - Dad. Mike works in higher education assisting faculty members with instructional design, innovative pedagogy, and educational technology. Mike has a Bachelor Degree in Organizational Psychology, a Master Degree in eEducation, and is completing his Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction focusing on addressing the problems of quality in distance education.

Olivia - Our daughter, aged 4. Olivia is a bright spot in our lives and the real reason we made decisions to keep one parent home, homeschool, and live a good life filled with love. She is a curious child and quite bright. She leads, in some respects, what we learn together and makes sure to fill anything with lots of princesses, fairies, love, and laughs.

Nathan - Our son, aged -5 -4 months. Maggie is expecting and Nathan will arrive in late September into a family built just for him.

The Blog

We enter our blog about twenty months into homeschooling Olivia. We bagan at age 3 because Olivia wanted to go to school and was learning so much in every facet of her life. Her natural curiosity led us to piece together a letter of the week curriculum from a few pre-k sources. Each week we took a letter, added reading, recognition, science, art, math, and other lessons all associated with the letter. We had a terrific time and even used letter week themes for a few vacations. During 'B' & 'C' weeks we took a trip to Maine and  learned about beaches and clams. Later, during 'S' week we headed to Sanibel Island, FL to learn about sand, seashells, and surf.

For almost a year Olivia has gone to a highly recommended Pre-K curriculum in our school district. The teacher came recommended by a neighbor and we've been pleased with how nurturing and attentive the teacher is to our Olivia. In the first month Olivia was nearly complete with the Pre-K curriculum goals, and since then has gotten many tasks above and beyond. We continue to homeschool Olivia in conjunction with Pre-K.

Now, we are about to begin keeping Olivia home for schooling and infusing her Kindergarten year with many new and exciting things, including the welcoming and care of Nathan.

In some part, this blog is to help our family stay in touch with what we are doing. But that is the jumping off point. We want to chronicle our experiences, give Olivia a creative avenue to compose and discuss her experiences, and be part of the homeschooling blogosphere. We welcome your helpful thoughts, links, resources, great ideas, and loving support. We are not so welcoming of trolls, please don't be a troll.