Think Back Thursday ~ Back To School

Today's Theme

 Back to School 

(photos from this year, some other year, a bunch of years put together; of you, your kids, back to school supplies; whatever you want)

Today I will be walking through our years of homeschooling.
We started homeschool the fall of 1991.
So we have been homeschooling for 21 years now.
My, I thought these ending days were eons away and yet now, looking back, the time has flown by.
I hope you enjoy this look back.

Most years I have chosen just ONE photo. This was extremely hard.
Some years I could not choose just one, but I think I did pretty well.

1991- Rachel was 5 and Jessica was 2.

This is Linvilla Orchard in the autumn.

1992 - The end of our first year of homeschooling.
I tried to hard to make homeschooling like "regular" school.
I have a teaching degree and this was a detriment for us in the beginning.
I was too much a teacher and not enough a mom.
We did every page every assignment. I even set up part of our living room like a classroom.
It was hard. Rachel hated me and school a LOT that year.
But, it was a learning experience and we survived.

Adorable!

Rachel in blue Jessica in pink

1993 - Philadelphia Zoo field trip
Jessica on left, Rachel on right

1994 - Mammoth Cave field trip while visiting my brother in Kentucky.

Left to right - Jessica [first year homeschooling], Rachel, my nephew Matt in back, my mom, me (holding Nathan 4mos. old)

1995 - Pizza Hut field trip with our co-op - Jessica

1996 - Part of homeschooling is keeping the little ones that are not homeschooling busy.

Nathan loved this easel, just his size. He could be in the same room as us and busy doing something.

Art and holding crayons are also good skills for pre-schoolers to learn.

Nathan carried that spoon around all the time. He often used it as a bat.

1997 - Homeschool Geography Fair
as you can see we did Greece
Jessica on left, Rachel on right

1998 - Homeschool group Civil War Reenactment

1999 - Making Applesauce as a family,
everyone took a turn smooshing the apples except Christopher.
Nathan wore his backpack all.the.time.
Nathan's first year homeschooling - Kindergarten 1999-2000
We went to an orchard and picked apples the day before.

2000 - Love this picture.

Big brother reading to little brother, 

one of the pleasures of homeschooling after teaching a child to read.

2001 - field trip to Wiliamsburg, VA.

2002 field trip with friends to a state park

Christopher's in K now.

2003 - field trip to Antietam (we also did Harper's Ferry and Gettysburg on this trip)

Rachel's Graduation Spring 2004
What a celebration. Homeschooled all the way through, 13 years of hard work for her and I. It can be done homeschool mom's. Persevere. Enjoy the days. The end will come all too soon.

First day of school 2004
Left to right, back - Me, Jessica, Rachel;
front - Nathan, Christopher

Had to include this funny one... my kids idea! LOL

2005 - Shakespeare in the backyard
We met with homeschool friends in a friends backyard and took parts and read one of Shakespeare's plays. We did this 3 times I think. It was a fun way to study and read Shakespeare.

2006 - Philadelphia Zoo

2007 - Singing as a family at the Tri-State Homeschool Talent Night

left to right - Court (hubby), Christopher, Rachel, Jessica, Nathan, Me

Had to include one photo of us at Winterthur, one of our fav. places to visit.
This was also 2007.
Me, Court, Rachel, Nathan, Christopher (Jessica is taking the photo)

Jessica's Graduation Summer 2007

2008 - Game day for school, this is Pilgrim's Progress
We did game day for school many times over the years of homeschooling.

2009 - "Knex for Science - Physics class

2010 - Science class and a TOS review item, 

4 kinds of Yuck at Buckets of Fun: 

Snowy Yuck, Saucy Yuck, Sticky Yuck, and Chunky Yuck

2010 - Home and Life Management - Christopher painting

2011 - Longwood Gardens, had to include this also. We sooo enjoyed our year's membership.

NGA 2011
A chance for the kids to give back to the community. 

This is something we look forward to every year.

We are very disappointed we probably won't go this year because of our $$ problems.

This is an organization my mom worked with.

If you want more information on what we did for NGA check out one or both of these links.

Debbies Digest: Blast From The Past ~ NGA 2010
Debbies Digest: Blast From the Past - Volunteering at NGA

2012 - Nathan's Sr. Photos
(taken by Jessica and scrapbooked by me with My Memories software)

Nathan's graduation - we gave him his diploma in a family ceremony, just us at home, and then had an open house for friends and family.

2012 - My one and only student, Christopher

I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, I did.
I can't wait to see what you have share.

Future Themes:

Sept. 27 - Relaxing/Peaceful

(whatever that means to you: a place, people, time of day, vacations, whatever...)

Time to work on next month's themes. I did not get time to do this yet. I will definitely have them posted next Wed. when I do the reminders. 

Any theme ideas for me??  

A theme you saw in your pictures when you were browsing looking for other things that you think would be good for us all to do? Leave me a comment.

Here are the Rules for participating:
The purpose of Think Back Thursday is to link up a photo post about something from the past. You can reach back all the way to your childhood and bravely post pictures of you in your wild clothes and hair styles or post something from last year and tell us about it. I'm not picky. Hey, even yesterday was the past... LOL My posts will mostly be about events that happened prior to blogging, as a way to share those things with the world.

• It can be about you, about your kids, about your parents, whomever. You can include video, I will not exclude video alone posts, but I prefer them along with photos, as this is a photo meme. I am doing a weekly theme now. That should help narrow it down from the myriad of photos we all have. For ideas check out the other posts in my label Think Back Thursday. 
• Link up below. Please use a permalink that sends readers directly to the correct post. If you are not sure what that is click the word permalink for an explanation. 
• Mention my blog and offer a link back. This is a requirement to take part and a kind gesture to me your hostess as well as your readers--they will know where to join in the fun, too. You can put the Think Back Thursday button on your site and in your post. You will find it on my right sidebar. Please use it to link to my site, to spread the word about my meme. Using the button will help others know how to find me and how to join. Tell others to click on the button in your post to find us here.
• Leave me a comment. First so that you can let me know what you think of my pictures and secondly so that I will know a new post has been linked up and I can come visit your blog and comment on your photos. 

Join me!


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