Oh my gosh I am blogging!! Tim is farming late putting up second crop hay and I am avoiding heaping pile of laundry from our vacation last week.

I knew that I had been in a rut lately; my last blog post was on April 3rd! Then our milk truck driver made a comment on my lack of blogging. So here I am, blogging again!

I have some big news to blog about too. There are major changes happening on our farm and with our family. The biggest one is that we decided to homeschool. Yikes! Eeek!

Why we decided to homeschool

I have been getting all sorts of questions and concerns about our decision which we made semi-public a few months ago. Of course there are the “whys?” And there are the “hows?” And don’t forget to throw in a few socialization questions as well.

So first to the “whys.” Simply put, because we want to. At first I thought I needed to make an excuse like we didn’t like the school (no, we actually LOVED Holy Cross Catholic School). Or maybe our excuse could be that our kids were struggling in school (no, actually Erik scored in the 99% on his math section of the MAP test and 85% in the language arts). Then I realized I don’t need an excuse to want to homeschool my kids. We are homeschooling because Tim and I want to do this, plain and simple. We have many people in our lives who homeschool (fellow farmer friends, neighbors, church members, etc). I guess it just rubbed off on us.

Now to the “hows.” This one is simple. We will teach the basics from books and some circulumn, but the rest of the time we will be “teaching” through life. Living on a farm provides many opportunities to explore, discover and learn. Tim is excited to teach science and I am excited for him…. science is not my strongest subject. I will do the bulk of the teaching. I am leaving my job at AgChat Foundation and taking a more active role on the farm. It is perfect timing because one of our favorite part-time employees is moving on to college. I will be taking his place. It kind of all worked out perfectly.

Finally, I will address the socialization question. We will be locking out kids in the basement and they will not be socialized. You know, the typical homeschool protocall.

JUST KIDDING!!

Not only does a farm provide many socializtion opportunities like greeting customers and giving tours, but our kids will still do sports and of course 4H. We will also still continue to meet with our MOPs group and have play dates with current and new friends.

But here is what I am really excited about:

Improved Farm Lesson Plan Posts!

If you are a long time reader of ours, you know that I enjoy sharing farm lesson plans that bring the farm to the classroom.

What I am working on right now is adding videos from our farm for each of my lesson plans. You can check out a sample here, where I show you how we gather eggs.

The goal is to make the lessons more personal to our farm. Not only will students be learning about food and farming, they will get a glimpse into life on a real farm. Stay tuned! Don’t forget to subscribe so that you will get all the updates!

So that is all a lot of exciting news. I would love to hear in the comments what things you would like to learn about farming, food and our farm. I am finishing my content calendar now and have room for your suggestions. Please leave them in the comments.

Now of course if you are not interested in my farm lesson plan post, I am going to continue my recipes, Organic Myths series, and updates on farm life in general. I am keeping all the things that you have come to love on our blog.

I cannot wait to hear all your suggestions for my improved farm lesson plan series. Also, tell us if you are making major changes in your life. We would love to hear about them!

~Emily