Home School and The Army Wife Battle with in!

One Of my best friends brought this question to me. 

How Do I handle the battle of being a home schooling mom and a good Army Wife?

How do you define your self?

By the job you do?

By the things you love?

By who you believe you are in your heart?

By the actions you take every day?

I am a house wife, a writer,blogger, mother, Army wife and home schooling mom.

Do these things define me?

Honestly yes they do, in my life this is who I am and what I do every day. I never thought that  I would be in the middle of a battle between being a home schooling mom and Army wife.

I have read enough Army wife books to know that I need to be out there helping other wives. Supporting them and helping them when they are in need. 

However how do I do that when I am being a mom 24 hours a day 7 days a week. There is no free time or down time in my week. 

There is no time to take classes and learn what I can do in order to help other wives.

 I know there are tons of volunteer opportunities with in the Army for the wives. 

However how do I find the time to volunteer when I can't even find the time to use the restroom with out kids beating down the bathroom door?

I knew that home schooling would take up a lot of my time when I first started thinking about it. However I thought the benefits for my children out weighted the negative. Now I am dealing with the never ending battle with in myself. To be a better Army wife and to home school my children. 

Can I really be the Army wife I feel like I should be while I am home schooling my kids?

Am I a bad mom if I were to do something differently to help free up some of my time?

How do I learn to balance the two with out sacrificing one of them?

Can I really do both?

In my opinion it all starts with getting organized. If you want to write your own homeschooling curriculum or if you want to go with a program that does that for you. Then you need to decide what kind of Army wife you want to be. As well as what a " good " Army wife is in your mind. There are always ways to do anything in your life that you want to do. It is all about what is important to you and how organized you are or want to be. 
I don't feel like there is a set plan you can follow no matter how your children are home schooled. Use your resources they have child care for most Volunteer positions I have seen. Make friends with other local moms and baby sit for each other. Search out your local baby sitter groups. Every post has a baby sitter page, though some are a little more strict on how you go about finding a baby sitter or becoming a baby sitter. There are always other moms willing to help another Army wife / Military wife out. 
If you can or can not do both be a homeschooling mom and a good Army wife. That is all up to you in the end and no one can say that you can or can not do both. 
There are support groups for just about everything out there. I am not going to say that they are all the best or give true " support."
However they are out there all you have to do is look. 
Decide what you want to do and don't let anyone make you feel like you can't. If working moms can work and raise a family then homeschooling moms can be the Army wives they want to be. 

Military Life .... Wife of the Guard

Long work hours

being called in on his day off

never ending training 

no contact while he is at work

praying nothing happens where he is harmed

These are things that every Military wife has to deal with every day of her life. Normal to some and very stressful to even think of to others. 

For a new wife the stress of this life can be a change she thinks shes ready for but trust me you can never really be ready. 

Ifs a life style as that no one can understand unless they have lived this life. Even then its hard to understand how times have changed. Even with the pro wives things are never they same. Every different MOS in the Military brings its own set of challenges.

For us right now that means that I had to learn as much as my husband had to learn about his new MOS.

My husband is Guard in a Military prison which whens he works long hours and we have no contact the moment he walks out the door. There is no being able to call him and see how he is. No calling him if something goes down  and I need him home. He can't come home and I am all on my own here. I thought that he worked a lot when he was stationed in Korea. I thought that was hard even though the kids and I were not there with him. Boy was I wrong he seems to work a lot more now then he ever did back then. 

12+ hours of no contact and we never know when he will be working so we just try to go with the flow. 

I looked up a lot of information about how things work for a 31E wife. There was little to no information out there to help us. To tell us what to expect or even lacked in groups of other wives out there.

There was little to no information to help me along my way. I spent my days searching the internet looking for any connection. Only to find that their were more groups of Prison wives then I thought their could be. However their was hardly any groups for Guard wives. 

It was honestly hurtful and I felt like I was all alone. I had no FRG, no friends who understood or anyone to lean on. 

I thought that maybe I would find some place to belong once we moved to our next duty station where the kids and I could be with my husband. 

Once again I found myself beyond wrong. Yes I live near a post where pretty much everyone is a Guard wife however these wives were like no other. 

They were like a tribe of ladies raising their children together. With their husbands always working what other option do they have? 

To become part of this group has been hard to put it nicely. I have been here for  around 6 months now and still I feel alone. 

I have yet to make friends, yet to really meet anyone and I feel lost. 

I find myself  remembering that I wanted to be part of the FRG yet there seems to not even be an FRG here. The spouse club has not be active really sense we came right as they  were ending their year. Hopefully they will be starting back up in the next 30 days. 

My husband is gone all the time and I just hate this. 

Being a guard wife sucks however I love my husband and I know that his career will change with time. He already talks about how he wants to make a change no to his MOS but to what he is doing right now. 

Things every wife should know about the 31E life

1. Your husband will work a LOT!

2. you will be stuck dealing with everything

3.This MOS has a very high divorce rate

( yes I said that and it is true! for those of us who are new to this life it is hard but just because they say we get divorced more doesn't mean you will get divorced. )

4.being independent is VERY important

5. you are NOT alone 

( we are working on getting a better network together for wives of 31E's , Military Guard wives connect with us! feel free to email me I am here for you! )

6. Just because they say that they can get their new duty station with in the first few weeks if not before he goes to Korea... 

don't believe that. 

A lot of the guys don't get their new duty station until the last 30 days they are there. 

If you have any questions feel free to email me at any time with any questions. this will not be my last post about 31E wives!

Catholichomeschoolingarmywife@gmail.com

Where Is Cursive Writings Place In The Common Core World?

That is my question for the who country or maybe the world.

I sit here trying to help my kids.  

Learn something that seems to just like a forgotten language.

In the public school systems today or at least in about 41 of the public school systems today. 

I never thought I would say that or that it was possible to feel like its been forgotten.

When cursive writing has been such a huge part of our history.

I loved learning cursive though I will admit my signature really needs work.

I loved feeling as if I was linked to those amazing people who were in our past.

George Washington

John Adams

Charles Carroll of  Carrollton

Thomas Jefferson

and so many others.

I believe that there are some things that we should pass down to the next generation and some that simply shouldn't be passed down. Though so many harmful things get passed from one generation to the next.

I have spoken before about the effects that the  No Child Left Behind program has caused out children. How it has pushed the things that those in charge do not care about to the side to make way for the future. To make sure that the change would be so slight that not many people would notice it. 

That those who are hurt by it have no way out not way to deal with the matter at hand. 

That program lead to what is now  Common Core State Standards. 

 A standard that has taken away cursive writing and everything good about school. 

The push us to turn our kids in robots and take away pieces of history that our children should be learning today. 

I personally teach my children cursive writing and about why its so important for them to learn it even if " they dont need it ." I understand that now days everyone write text and emails. No one ever  seems to write hand written letters anymore you dont even need to know how to sign your name ( again something that is done in CURSIVE WRITING! ) because soon there will be only electronic signatures done. 

The history of Cursive writing stems back to the time before our country was even founded. To a time that people seem to forget made each and every one who we are today. The good bad and ugly parts of us that we might not love or be proud of but your personal past made you who you are. Just like history made us all who we all are today. It changed the world and even those who once couldnt afford to go to school, and learn to read and write dreamed of there children. One day having the free to learn to read and write. To one day be able to sign their own name on to a paper or contract or what ever it might be. 

We are giving up so easily for the rights that those who came before us fought and died for. What is next? What rights that had been earned are going to be flushed down the drain because we feel its not useful to us anymore? Cause we feel like its not whats right for our children to learn or maybe just maybe because we dont pay enough. Attention to know what is really going on in the schools that some many of our children attend. 

It breaks my heart that so many people are okay with stepping aside and allowing other people to take away some of the best parts of education. Striping it down to the bone so that they can build it back up to be what they want it to be. 

Some people might be willing to stand aside and allow this to happen or ignore it as if that will make it go away. I and the large group of ladies I know around me am not willing to allow 

anyone to take away Cursive writing. To remove it as if it never shaped this country.

Are you willing to sit aside and let it fade into the back ground?

The Battle Rages On.... Update On Jay

                                  

I know that this is a subject that I have spoken about before but as it is one that We struggle with each and every day. Odds are this will not be the last post about it. 

            Jays struggle with 2nd grade reading, writing ,spelling and sounding out words .

We have been working on different 

Styles of learning tools.

There are so many different tools out there

These days. The internet provides

So much that I never knew was out there.

We checked out a few sites

Not anything that was great until

We found Education.com

Where you can get great print outs for free!

You can also sign up to get even more for

A very small monthly price.

I would recommended this site to everyone

Homeschooling or not.

This site can help build your child skills

And remind them why learning is fun!

               ( Example of some of the First Grade Sight Words)

     

      

      I know these struggles are not Jays and Jays alone  there are millions of children out there fighting the same fight he is. 

I am so proud of him in the way he works so hard to learn everything he needs to know. 

His reading has gotten better in the past few weeks and I hope that soon we can move on to 2nd grade reading sight words. 

          

    I know that with continued support and one on one teaching that he will be on the right grade level sooner then Sylvan Learning Center or any where else he had been tested with in the past. Could have hoped to have him on. 

        
                              ( I love how much he is enjoying learning )
                            Thanks to Education.com and there print out!

                                

                                      ( Jay with his flash card sight words)

                                                      

      I have added some helpful links for those who have been struggling with the same issues with their own children and please feel free to email me anytime for help or support. 

                                          Thank you to everyone who has been there for us in the past few months as we started our home school journey and those who have emailed educational links to us. To help ensure that we are using all of our resources to help him in his struggle. He is loving learning and I hope he keeps that love for learning for the rest of his life!  

                    Just Remember You Are Not Alone! 

Why we decided to year round homeschool

     

     Catching Our Kids Up! 

   Deciding to Year Round Homeschool is not for the faint of heart! .... There are MANY reasons we knew it was right for us.

What it means to our family might not be what it means to other. Homeschooling this is for us is about catching our kids up. They had a very rockie past with being "homeschooled" by a former step mother. Do to their experience with her they are very behind there with school. We have tested both kids with Sylvan Learning Center and the results well they were not good. Jay is on a 1.5 grade level when in a public school he would be going into 3rd grade. Hayley is on a 2nd grade almost the beginning of 3rd grade level. When she should be going into  4th grade. It breaks my heart to see how far behind they are due to someone elses failure. That is one of the largest reasons why we not only decided to year round homeschool. It is also the reason we have to year round homeschool. If we didn't then they would never catch up. They need alot of extra attention. One on one help to build the skills they should know by now. It's  alot of work day in and day out but it. Will be worth it to know my kids are on the grade levels that they should be.

   The kids Enjoy Picking Their Days Off

        It means long days and for us , it means that we can't take breaks the way alot of people do. We have to home school 6 days a week on most weeks. We have to do everything at each kids own speed. There are some days that we get done at 3pm and some days we go right up until 5pm. But at the end of each day we are all happy and the kids are proud of how far they have come. They are proud of the things they have learned. They get to pick days off. They get to have fun learning. It's hard work but there is nothing in this world that would change our minds about year round home schooling.

   We Prayed About It, let their faith grow

        We prayed about year round homeschooling for about 6 months before deciding to go ahead with it. We as a family believe that God should be the foundation for education. Our Catholic faith is a huge part of our life. We want our kids to learn every day the joys of our faith and to grow there love for God snd the Holy Mother. We sat down and talked as a family to our kids and asked what they want. How they want to homeschool and what subjects they want to learn. They get the freedom to pick fun classes, to pick what class work they do each day. ( luckly we have kids,who know the basic subjects must be done every day then they get to do the ones they want to do. )

   Give The kids Freedom To Pick What They Learn!

They get to help design activities and lessons every day so to them even on the subjects they struggle in are made fun.We believe in structure and that just because we are on school and we must do class work. That doesn't mean we can't have fun, do field trips, explore the world around us. Discover history as its meant to be learned. Learn the fun of science and grow there imaginations.


                 

Freedom To Let The Kids Learn Their Own Way!

         We wanted the freedom for our kids to be able to learn the way they want in the time frame that is best for them. Every child is different and learns at their own speed and own way. We believe our kids need to be able to learn the way they learn the best not the way the school teach. We are against common core and don't think it's right to attempt to make children learn one way of doing everything. There are many ways to learn. Just because one child gets the right answer one way doesn't mean a nother will get the right answer that way.

Our Believes About What Shouldn't Be!

     As a family we wanted to be able to spend time together. With traditional public school it seemed my kids were not being given the one on one attention. They need and they were moving to slow in some subjects and to fast in others. The kids bringing guns to school. The schools going on " lock down " every other week due to strangers attempts to enter the school. It was just all too much. Too much worry too much stress and too many fears. Not to count the teachers being caught for sexual relations and the fact that we don't feel our children need to learn " sex education." Until they are personally ready for it and I'm sorry but my children will not be ready for a long time. We wanted the freedom to not have to pull our children out of school due to a PCS. Our kids get to know other kids , build relationships and bonds. They get to play sports , they get to just be kids and not robots!

We don't believe in long school breaks for the kids. They get to pick a few days every month they want to have with no school. They get a say in their school year and they absolutely love it. Children deserve say in their schooling. We believe they want to learn when they get more say in their education.

Though our reasons might seem strange to some they mean alot to our family!