Starting a blog- a new adventure!

Well, blogging. Hm. A whole new adventure in my life. In all honesty I had tried blogging before... but was quickly overwhelmed. I am trying again. This is a good thing. I hope.

Anyway, my name is Rhonda. Formerly an art teacher and married to a former engineer turned physics teacher... and we homeschool our own two children. That is also an adventure. That one has been a wonderful one. I hope blogging is too.

As I continue to post, I hope you will get to see pictures of our life... of my family and how we homeschool, how we live, and how we celebrate the life God has given us. Just this weekend we will be taking a trip to visit family in the Pacific Northwest. I will be taking tons of pictures. I will share some on our return... if.. and this is a big if... IF I can figure out this blog thing.

So that will be then.. what about now? Well today has been a wonderful homeschooling day. One of those days that I dreamed of before starting all those years ago. So I will share some of it with you.

We are studying the Crimean War. Let me start by saying I don't ever remember studying the Crimean War before. I know I have. I took World History in high school and college... but sheesh I certainly don't remember it. I do remember Florence Nightengale. Did you know she served as a nurse during the Crimean War? I didn't... but the blessing of homeschooling is I still get to learn.

Anyway, our day. (Get used to the bunny trails... I am famous for them in real life and expect blogging to be no different.) Today we talked about the causes and main events of the Crimean War. And we read Tennyson's poem The Charge of the Light Brigade. (That was set in the war too... amazing what I learn!) Anyway, after this more formal lesson, I allowed the kids to choose topics of interest. Well, yesterday we had watched a short DVD on Florence Nightengale by NEST Ent. It was wonderfully done... so not surprisingly my 13 year old daughter wanted to read a biography of Florence Nightengale. Having successfully guessed that I had checked out a biography on her from the library. My 10 year old son wanted to study the military of the time. (Nailed that one too... had a book on 19th military and weaponry from the library.) Both kids dug in and began enthusiastically reading. I did not require them to read the whole books or set a time limit... but both kept right on going until they finished their respective books. This was actually quite a feat as both kept stopping to tell each other and me about THEIR interesting facts.

Later, my son was doing math. Long division. Now last year when we first covered long division my son did very well on getting answers correct... but it was accompanied by great moaning and groaning. Even tears once. This year, I was bracing myself for the worst when he turned to today's assignment to find an entire page of long division problems. But he dug right in. And after the first two announced quite happily, "This is SOOOOO easy!"

After picking myself off the floor I cheered him on and went to check his work. (I almost expected him to be doing it completely wrong.) He was doing it perfectly. And fast. And when he finished the page said to me, "Can I do some more?" Of course I agreed.

Did I mention this is a great day?

For literature they are both reading Trouble Don't Last. This fabulous piece has them both hooked. No complaints at all. It is about a boy and an old man escaping slavery up to Canaday (as they call it) through the Underground Railroad. Just around the corner of our studies we will get to Lincoln and the Civil War. This is an exciting time in history. And I feel so blessed to be sharing this all with them.

I suppose I will end here... and go chase down my son to do his least favorite subject, grammar. Not everything in life is perfect you know. If it were then I would KNOW I was dreaming.