This month I have been thinking a lot about being frugal and wise managers of the resources (time, money and skills) God has given us. A fellow homeschool mom mentioned a fact on facebook about how much money she had saved the taxpayers by home educating.
Here is what I determined when crunching our numbers. Where we lived for the first three years of school (2 chiildren) it was 10,000 per child. So that means Here in VA (also 3 years for 3 children) it is 14,000 per child so we have already saved taxpayers $186,000. The first year we spent around $800 on curriculum. The next 5 years we have never spent more than $500 (Counting yearly internet bill). So we spent approximately $3300 for15 years of school total for all children). AND my children were excited today because we have finally gotten to the 16th president in history so they could study Abraham Lincoln. LOL
What I mean is that our girls still enjoy learning even though we don’t spend a great deal of money on it. I am sure if we had more money I would spend more because I love books and educational field trips to historical and scientific sites. However, since my husband is the pastor of a small church, it generally means having a modest salary, though the other benefits often out-weigh a large salary! What ends up happening in the public school system is you pay for the system more than the education. You pay for busing, and food programs, and tutoring special needs, and many other expenses that the average student just doesn’t need. If their parent drives them to school, they pack their lunch and they don’t need special tutoring, then they could be educated for so much less. Paying for insurance in schools is another big expense as well as tenure to keep the best teachers. Again the homeschooler doesn’t have either of these expenses. This is why I wish that homeschoolers would at least get a small stipend from the state or federal government for saving this money! I could do so much more with just 3% of the 15,000 the county would have paid which equals $450.
It is really kind of funny to compare my homeschooling budget with our food budget. Food and household supplies $600 per month. Education $50 per month ( for 10 months) I must say that I am very thankful for AmblesideOnline.com which is a curricula that was developed by other homeschool moms to keep costs free or extremely affordable. The education is excellent! Thank the Lord for these moms who do not seek to be rich from the gems they have discovered!
Now off to prepare for tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s school! 
Blessings, Eva
Here is Mary happily riding her bike with training wheels. On the right is Sarah struggling to persevere as she learns to ride without them. This is actually her second time learning. How can that be? Well her first time was late last fall and sad to say, we hadn’t gone since. There is no where near our home to ride and so we must hook up the trailer to Mater (Daddy’s work truck) and I have to take the passengers in the van, so it is a two parent operation. We are going to be more diligent in getting Sarah the practice she needs to keep her skills this time.
It hurts me when my kids struggle to learn things, and in this area I feel particularly helpless. For those who may not know, I never learned to ride a two-wheeler myself. Similar situation – our home for most of my life was not conducive to beginning riders, especially if they were timid. If you enjoying learning to ride by the roll yourself down this grassy hill method, then you, like my twin brother, would have learned at my house. I didn’t. Anyhow, I leave these lessons to my darling husband and he is a very good teacher, thankfully.
Today was hard for Sarah though. She was struggling. She had moments of tears and frustration and wanting to quit. But Daddy and I team tagged, giving encouragement and helpful hints, and just waiting patiently while she fought to rule her fear and try again. In the end she did persevere. In these last shots you will see much smiling and happiness. Her perseverance paid off! Our perseverance as her guides and teachers paid off. It would have seemed easier to let her just wait until she was “ready” and not push her to try again, but I know that is only a temporary pause before the task must be faced again. It was a good lesson for everyone. Mary saw that once Sarah faced her fear she was able to accomplish her goal. Mary also saw that when it is her turn, Mommy and Daddy will do all we can to help her not give up!
Sarah trying again!
Looking more relaxed and starting to like it!
Daddy giving Mary a ride
Lydia’s turn now – hold on girl!
Sarah is picking up speed and has come over to join us because she is not so scared now.
Lydia was having a ball and giggling!
Loved watching all the girls having fun!
Daddy coming around again with Lydia!
Getting ready for the high five!
High Five! So glad I got the shot!
This girl gets an A today!
Keep smiling girl – your next!
Daddy coming down the hill with Lydia – she giggled and laughed the entire way!
Once you have learned how to ride, the Virginia hills can be fun!
Btw, I rode a three wheeler when I wasn’t taking pictures. Lydia rode in the basket in the back!
I have many favorite blog sites I visit, but I must admit that homeschooling mothers with four or more children interest me most. I am sure it is because I can relate to many of them. A few months ago, 2 of my favorite blog ladies joined with two others to give a multi-SAHM prespective on life in large homeschooling families. I love these Thursday posts. Today’s post was on how fathers lead/participate in homeschooling. Here’s a link to one post, and you can find the other three from there, if you desire. http://www.smockityfrocks.com/2010/10/4-moms-discuss-husbands-and-homeschooling.html
I am so thankful God gave Alpheus and I both the desire and vision for homeschooling our children. We have been united in this since we were preparing the nursery for Hannah’s birth! Since I was a middle school teacher before marrying, Alpheus had great confidence and trust in me. He has been so supportive in each phase.
Financially he has sacrificed to make sure I can stay home with the girls. It is one of the most important reasons we can homeschool. He carries on his shoulders the burden of finances so that we can be daily with our girls training them in God’s Word and the many other lessons of life that are important. This has sometimes been a great leap of faith for him as God leads us into less financial secure callings. I am thankful that Alpheus perseveres and God always sees us through with His wonderful provision as a reward for Alpheus’ commitment!
In the early years, Alpheus was always anxious to look at the day’s work and praise the efforts. He has also acted as father/principal to encourage our girls to have good attitudes and work ethic on difficult days; and even carrying out discipline if he was available. Being a united team as parents is so important to creating an atmosphere that is positive and definite. As the girls mature Alpheus has made more suggestions on curriculum, especially on Bible instruction. During family worship times in the evenings he will discuss with them what we are studying in Bible class. This is wonderful accountability and review for the most important lessons we are teaching in our home!
He is also supportive and encouraging for all subjects we are doing. The girls love to tell Daddy when they get a good math grade or show Daddy the picture from art class or narrate for him the main events from the history story. Currently they are all memorizing scripture for Bible class at church and a poem for the term. They are so excited about “performing” the poem for Alpheus during exam week! This term we are using a book Alpheus bought the girls for Christmas last year about dinosaurs. Whenever I say it is time for science the girls get so excited and can hardly wait to finish the term to make their lap books and dinosaur egg models. They know it will be something they can share with Daddy.
I am so thankful for all that Alpheus does to lead us on this homeschooling journey!
Daddy with the girls on the first day of PE for this year!
First field trip of the year. On the right is my oldest brother, Monte and his wife. Admission was free since it was People with Disabilities Day. The snow leopard was the big hit at this zoo!
The new school year has started out with lots of fun as well as school. One Monday my husband, me, our girls, my niece Ari, and my brother and sister-in-law visited Mill Mountain Zoo in Roanoke, VA. It was a bit chilly for September, especially up on Mill Mountain. My neice is standing next to my sister in law. Her dad took her mom up on Mill Mountain near this huge star to propose. All the girls declared, “How romantic!”
P.E. for the year!
It is a terrible picture but it is the only with all four girls in it! Here they are getting ready to jump in together! This year the new pool and gym only 5 minutes from our home opened and we paid for a year’s membership! I go three times a week in the mornings to swim laps and then I take the girls the other two days to play for a couple of hours. There is a neat slide and other water features too. Since it is indoor we are looking forward to enjoying this all year!
So we are in week 5 of the new school year. I am using a modified Ambleside Online curriculum. The two oldest are doing year 5 pretty much normally but Mary who is 7.5 is doing a year 2.5. I started her so early in AO that I don’t want her to feel overwhelmed so we are taking one year to really study the exploration period before we move into US history. Lydia is doing various preschool activities with some structured practice with her speech of certain beginning consonants and blends. It is going really well and I am very pleased with their efforts. I look forward to posting some of the fun things that we complete this year!
Hope all my HSblogger friends have had a great start to the year! I look forward to catching up with each of you again! Blessings, Eva
Things don’t always go as planned. It seems that every time we stop for a week it takes us another week to really get going again. This past break we had company come and really that shouldn’t have made us get off track. I suppose I have been slow to start this week because I felt like I had no break. I had a wonderful week with them and really enjoyed the visit. (Almost had them talked into an extension! 
That is all of us when they had to leave.) Yet for some reason I am having a hard time getting motivated to start again. I did manage to get some in today but not as much as I had planned. So I am not sure how this plan will go. I am going to try to catch us up on this week in the next two days and hopefully next week I will be more motivated.
What else? Things are going well at church. We have a few more people attending and a new Sunday school class has been started. We are planning a baptism in a few weeks. What a wonderful blessing! The girls really enjoyed when Memaw was their Sunday school teacher, too. Our band, Alleghany Strings, played for a Senior’s dinner last weekend. It was a small event but it was a very joyful time. I have a new autoharp too, thanks to God. A friend of dh’s mother learned that I was playing and gave me an old one they had. It is a very good quality autoharp; Oscar Schmidt 21 chord. These can run over 200 dollars on Ebay sold as is. I hope we can afford new strings for it soon. It has been stored for a while and needs some TLC, but still it does sound fine as is. I love that I have more chords so I can play on all the songs the band is learning.
Our baby girl is really getting big! She is finally learning to pronounce more words, especially the initial consonant sounds for which I am so grateful! Now I don’t have to wonder if "up" is cup or up or pup and so forth. 
She really blossomed the week our Florida Grandparents were here and I was so glad they were here to experience it. Maybe it helped having more adults who encouraged her to say things correctly. The girls are bad to just know what she means and leave it at that. It is kind of comical to hear them play twenty questions with her just to figure out what she is saying.
Now is my favorite time of the year and the girls and I have really enjoyed whenever we go driving. We each love to point out the next colorful tree. The mountains are splendid. It is the one time of year that the Blue Ridge mountains don’t live up to their name. We are traveling to West Virginia on Friday for a one night visit with my aunt Edie. We are all looking forward to the views, be we will be prepared for any unpleasant car sickness those roads sometimes create. 
Now I am off to prepare lessons and write my to do list on the school board. Maybe I will all be more motivated to get through it!
Blessings, Eva .
Eva