Skip to Content

New Endeavor! Homeschool! AH!

New Endeavor!  Homeschool! AH!

Thank you so much for sharing!

Hi there everyone! I mentioned in my last post that I would talk a little bit more about our decision to homeschool and share a little bit about what we will be doing and how we’ll organize our day!

So yes, we are homeschooling. For now anyway. I never ever thought I would be a homeschool Mom and in fact this decision was really difficult for me. I was looking forward to the day when I could send my child to school and let someone else teach him! Think of all the time I’ll have! Now that we live in CA, we began to look at all our options and decide what we were going to do for our son’s education. For those of you who don’t know, my husband was active duty Army for about 7 years. He is now getting his Master’s degree at USC in film and in the Army reserve. So we are in a very temporary life situation lol, once his school is done we will most likely move… Maybe down the street or across down, maybe to a new city – we really don’t know. And to know that my son would most likely need to change schools in a year or 2 made me very uncomfortable. With all the change we have dealt with over the years, I didn’t want that to be another thing. And even if we did private school where the district didn’t matter, the cost of that is just out of the question. So that left me a little lost… I thought – homeschool is the other option and it freaked me out! And then I heard about a program in our neighborhood that is a charter school. It’s run by the state and they give you money for curriculum and teacher who keeps track of what you are doing and helps you should you need it (She also happens to be a great family friend! Score!). So I started looking into that… plus I have a bunch of friends who are in the school too. And they have an option that your child can go to school 1 day a week if you want them to. So, long story short, we are doing this program which has calmed my fears about floundering around in this world of homeschool where the entire weight of my child’s education is on my shoulders and I don’t have a clue what I’m doing! ha! So we’ll see how this year goes! And for the record, I’m still very hesitant about the whole thing… but its too late – so now I have to suck it up haha. 😉

IMG_5246

Ok, so here is our curriculum. I consulted with our teacher and she gave me all the options that I had for curriculum that was approved by our school. Then I did a bunch of research online to decide what curriculum I thought would work best for us. I am no expert and we have not even begun, but here it is!

For Kindergarten, Math and Reading are the biggies. And my teacher is a math teacher (she tutored me in High School because math is not my thing!) So I went with her opinion on the Math curriculum.

Earlybird Math, Textbook A and B the Standards Edition (Singapore approach)
math manipulatives for counting practice, a scale, clock, 3d shapes etc.

All about Reading Level 1
-Reading game with Ziggy
-Activity Bundle
-Cobweb the Cat, The Runt Pig and Rug Bug Run books

Many of the BOB books as supplemental reading practice

Go for the code Book C
Explode the Code Teachers Manual and books 1, 1 1/2 and 2

Beginning Geography (this isn’t required but I added it because my son loves maps!)

The Basic, not Boring series Social Studies grades K-1

Science Fusion

All about Spelling Level 1 (we will start this in January)

We also got this cute magnet calendar made by Melissa and Doug.  You can find it HERE. Obviously you can see some little monkeys who were messing around with it.  They were walking around in sweatshirts this morning telling me that it was snowing ;).

IMG_5247

Are you homeschooling?  Leave me a comment with your favorite and not so favorite things about homeschooling!  I’d love to hear the scoop 😉

cateri

Sunday 14th of December 2014

you ladies have been teaching your children all THEIR lives; it's truly in your blood to teach them and you're doing well. their primary "socializing" comes from you and your interactions w/them and your husband and the interaction between the two of you; they're always on and soaking it up! if I had to say there's a problem it's one where you are "ADD" mom (easily distracted!;) ) your children are precious and their education has always been YOUR priority. any fretting or anxiety on the subject, tune all that out. i'm glad there's more of ya'll out there.

Catherine Stanforth

Friday 28th of November 2014

Melanie, coudos to you for taking on homeschooling, it takes a lot of courage and mental, emotional and sometimes physical strength. I am a fairly new homeschooling mama of 4 little ones. I have been working with my little ones from the time they were born with out realizing it. It took me a while to see, but keeping in mind that they are learning every day and second even when you feel like you haven't meet the quota, never throw in the towl you are their biggest advocate. And don't worry about their social experiences because they have the world as their sand box not a cracker box of the same age. Also setting up play dates with multiple friends or family's are awesome. Be open with the resources and don't feel limited, show interest in your children's interest they will learn faster and not get bored. I found that if there is a day that your little one is overwhelmed, tired or just needs a break with the routine it's okay to let that day go and pick up the following day it's not going to hurt them in fact sometimes the next day they are eager to get back to work. I hope I sent some encouragement your way. good luck.

jannett

Thursday 20th of November 2014

This is my first year homeschooling as well. Here's my story. My son was enrolled in school and attended regular public school for a month. It was in that month that i realized he was "behind" by public school standards. His teacher had asked me if he had attended pre - school, as if that explained why he wasn't educationally where she needed him to be. About a couple weeks into the school year I asked her what I could do to help him, which I might add, would help her as well. She told me we could discuss it at conference time, which was three weeks away. A week later she informed me that they were going to begin reading in October. That was when I knew my son would never be able to "catch up". I felt like I had let him down by not preparing better. He knew how to write his name, numbers to 20, letters & sounds, so I thought he knew enough to begin Kindergarten. I soon found out Kindergarten wasn't what it used to be. I have an older daughter who also did not attend pre-school & knew a bit less when she started school. My daughter did fine and is now an honor student in high school. I should note that I have been a stay-at-home mom since my daughter was born. I never felt the need to send my kids to pre-school because I viewed it as a daycare for working parents. That was another of my mistakes. I was under the assumption that he would learn everything in kindergarten. Kindergarten nowadays is more like first grade & T-K, transitional kindergarten, is more like the old Kindergarten. At about the same time we were thinking of removing our son out of public school, the school was under suspicion of asbestos removal during school hours. So we took it as a sign & now that school is closed. So now I homeschool and it's a bit overwhelming at times, but I know now that my son needs the one on one school setting to understand concepts. He needs to learn at a slower pace & homeschooling allows for that. I hear from other homeschoolers, that eventually I'lll find my groove & things will run smooth. Can't wait for that. In the meantime, I'm asking Santa for more patience this Christmas. :) I hope all goes well with your homeschooling journey and I hope to read more about it.

Steph

Monday 15th of September 2014

Hi Melanie, that for sure is a big decision and I can understand your hesitation. Here in Germany home schooling is not an option and being the head of a bilingual Primary School (yes, private, because the Germanstate system in Berlin is slowly collapsing), I just wonder how your son will be able to make up for he social experience, that school is. I am looking forward to read about your experience and keep my fingers crossed, taht everything will work out as you want it to.

Comments are closed.