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As September moved on through the month, my anxiety got worse and worse! My children hadn’t even started their first week of school, and some of our friends have been back for weeks already! How would we ever catch up? How would we be able to take any breaks? How could we fit it all in? The night before school started, I took a deep breath, and realized…. even if we had started in July, put in long days, and not taken any holidays, there is no way for any teacher to impart ALL the information that they would want to their students. It’s simply not feasible! So instead, I made a list of what I really really really want to focus on this year; maybe next year a different set of skills will seem most important!

This school year, my main goal is to maintain a loving atmosphere of peace and acceptance. A place where anyone can say anything, and the rest of the group will respect the opinions held, the words written, and the feelings expressed. This includes my own, as one of the guiding adults! It’s a whole new world this year in our classroom which was converted from our formal living area in our two story house; for the first ever, I am a contributing homeschool teacher, while PAXdaddy Aaron explores the realm of balancing a part time job with his homeschool teacher role as well. Dehesa Charter School hosts our homeschool education providing funding, support, and on Tuesdays, a slew of fun classes for the kids to attend. While we have been enrolled for 6 years now, Aaron hasn’t used his teaching credential and Masters in Education since 2004 when he last taught elementary school in Santa Barbara. When we encountered the opportunity for him to teach this year, we both agreed it would be a wonderful adventure and so, I juggled my full time work schedule to accommodate teaching a full 5 hours 5 days a week. No matter how hard we thought our juggle was previously, it was NOTHING compared to our new schedule!

I’m so proud to say that even my own mom, PAXmommy Catherine, has joined our teaching team. The last time she taught in a classroom setting was my own homeschooling education, and it’s a fun last from the past for her to work with her grandkids on the most important years of their childhoods! I recruited her when I realized how hard this year was going to be for both Aaron and I, and she will be teaching a variety of topics including a read aloud book, nature study, and helping the children expand their creative writing skills 2 hours 3 days a week! It’s going to be an epic year for all of us!!!!

Charlotte Mason has provided the basis for our teaching methodology, but we dabble in Montessori and Waldorf learning with a high interest in Classical Conversations. Now that I’ve name dropped my 4 favorite and widely varied learning styles, you can google to explore which each one can contribute to a homeschool classroom of seven children ranging from an 8th grader down to pesky preschooler! Wheeeeew… no wonder I’m exhausted!!! PAXdaddy Aaron and I are being asked what curriculum we use, but we are dabbling with a few different companies including BOB books, Catholic Heritage, Meet the Masters, Thinkwell, Saxon, Cherrydale Press, and more! Charlotte Mason has a compelling argument for learning directly from “living books,” and since we are a literary family, this suits us all quite well.

It’s a strange situation for a long time, experienced teacher like Aaron to be sharing the classroom with such a novice as myself, but I am hoping that my brand new enthusiasm will mesh well with his logical knowledge and provide our family an exciting, fun, inspired year. Here’s to hoping that your children’s school experiences are also filled with the light shed from the lightbulbs lit and connections made each and every day!

paxbaby
*happy learning*

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Our newest adventure in #readaloudrevival is Roald Dahl’s The BFG in which the Giants drink an amazing beverage called Frobscottle.  I challenged each of the kids to design their own magical elixir! The results were varied, but everyone stated that their concoction was “rare!” Some were tasty, some not, and three of them had the magical ability to fill you up for the whole day; wouldn’t that come in handy! My focus with the older kids this year is GRAMMAR, so they each wrote a paragraph about their imaginary beverage. This challenged a couple of them to think outside their usual “box,” and drew out the sillies from the others who love to get creative in their writing! I love watching their vocabulary improving daily as well as their use of interesting sentence structure!
#homeschool #homeschooling #learnathome #secondgenerationhomeschooler

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*happy babywearing*
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Well, it is that time of year again! With the start of September comes…BACK TO SCHOOL!!!!
This year, all three PAXmoms are homeschooling!
For those of you that are homeschool vets, we would LOVE to see how YOUR school runs! Where do your kids do their learning?
Which curriculum do you follow? Do you un-school? Co-op? How do you wrangle and entertain your babies and toddlers while your older ones are schooling?
Email us at help@PAXbaby.com, and share your pics and ideas with us!

Those of you who are just getting started, we thought that we would share more of our own PAXmom-homeschool stories, and photos with you this year! We will let you all know what WE are up to throughout the year, you know, besides bringing you all amazing babywearing rainbows and such. 😉

We hope you all have an awesome back-to-school!!!

paxbaby

*happy back to school babywearing*

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I’m a huge bookworm, but I don’t have much time for pleasure reading. What I do make sure to have time for is to read aloud to my littles.  A favorite activity in my house is to all snuggle in my bed – queen size! – and listen to mama read aloud. Picture books, chapter books, bring on the books, we read them all! Because of this family habit, it is my belief that my children will grow up to love books as much as I do, and that makes me very happy.As the new school year approaches, we’ve been discussing the addition of a few new To Do’s for the older kids to keeep life spinning smoothly during our school day. One of Lucy’s new chores will be the wonderful task of setting up our mantle in a delightful library style; I chose a few topics for September and compiled a book list for each one. The books we don’t have will be fetched from the library, or ordered from amazon thanks to school funding! I’ve also asked her to augment the arrangement with props and decorations!

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PAXmommy Celia has just begun homeschooling with her oldest child; the part they are excited about the most is FIELD TRIPS!!!

They have already studied HISTORY at Disneyland with the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and SCIENCE at the Beach & The Discovery Science Center. They need more suggestions, so…

Homeschoolers, what is the best field trip you have taken with your kids???
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Who will be even MORE dependent on babywearing as another school year gets off to a start??

Whether you are walking your bigger children to school, or schooling your little ones right in your home, babywearing allows us to get it ALL done… and in style might I add.

How fabulous does Miss. Lise look in her Girasol Exclusive – Vice Versa?

(Thank you SO much for the sweet action photo!)

So, do tell, which carrier did *you* wear for the first day of school??

Your trusty Tula?

Your beautiful wrap conversion ring sling, with tails to the ground?

Or, a BRIGHT and cheery RAINBOW from Girasol??

Metamorphosis in Diamond Weave, anyone???

http://shop.paxbaby.com/girasol-metamorphosis-diamond-weave-exclusive-woven-wrap/

With all of the nerves and excitement in the air, we are wishing everyone a

HAPPY SEPTEMBER!

Here’s to a fabulous start of the school/un-school/homeschool year!

paxbaby
*happy babywearing*

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