Monday, May 28, 2012

Home School

So, since I'm constantly thinking about it (aka "driving my husband nuts") I'm going to talk about the home school plan here.

Let me start by saying that I don't have any major issues with public or private schooling. Our little lass went to kindergarten at our local public school and had a great year! We packed her up on the first day of school and sent her on her way with lots of hugs, kisses, and of course, pictures.


Although it started off great, by the end of the year our girl was pretty burned out. Long days were pretty rough on her, and I was worried that we were going to end up with her not liking school. I mean, I got to where I didn't like school much either, but not in kindergarten.

That was something in the back of my mind, but it wasn't the catalyst for us deciding to bring her home for first grade. Mostly we decided to bring her home because my husband is going to be taking a sabbatical from work in the next year or so, and he can't take it during regular school breaks. We'd like to do something like a big road trip and see lots of sights. We can't very well take her out of school for a month and drive off into the sunset. That's where our little idea was born.

After talking it over with her school I came to a few conclusions.

1. They were supportive of our idea, and were excited for her opportunity to see and learn things they couldn't provide.

2. I had (have?) done enough research and am enthusiastic enough that her education potential here at home is pretty great.

3. Even I can't screw up first grade too badly.

So, naturally the first thing I did was take to the internet to find out how to go about doing this thing I wanted to do. Full disclosure? I was home schooled for one year in high school when we moved from one state to another, and it was awesome. My mom just bought the whole grade level for me from Abeka books, and we waded in together. I learned a lot that year, not just from the books, but about myself. It gave me a lot of confidence.

I set out intending to do the same thing with the little lass. I looked at the Abeka website, and was all ready to order and start digging through supplies. But, as is my nature, I dug further in an attempt to make things easier on myself by completely overloading on every bit of home schooling information I could find. I happened upon a post in the Homeschool section of Pioneer Woman's blog where guest blogger Heather Sanders was talking about the program she uses. (Here's a link to the original post) It's a literature based curriculum, which means all real books. No textbooks. I felt like my dog when he's confused. Rrrrrr? (head cocked to the side, total confusion). What is this trickery?

It's a company called Sonlight. As soon as I looked at the website I was hooked. Just look at all the books!! Ohhhh.... The thing that excited me the most though was the Instructor's Guide. It's basically a daily schedule and script that walks you through each day of the curriculum. As someone who is new to all of this, and a little nervous, that sounded fantastic.

It is more expensive than some other programs, largely because it comes with so many books. My husband and I talked about it for quite a while before we decided to go for it. They do offer a payment plan, which is very helpful!

I ordered Core B, which comes with all those books(!) and the accompanying instructor's guide, along with all the student pages. I also ordered the matching Science B, which comes with another instructor's guide (woo hoo!) and all the items we'll need to perform all of the experiments for the year.

I ordered Saxon math, which seems to be either a love or hate thing. I used Saxon when I home schooled, and I learned a tremendous amount from it. It uses a lot of manipulatives in the younger years, so I ordered those too.

I also added an additional spelling program called All About Spelling, and an art program called ARTistic Pursuits (again, I added the package with all of the art supplies you need for the lessons in the book).

When it all came in the mail, we were pretty excited. The little lass was pretty intrigued with all of those books, but I really think she was most excited about the math manipulatives. She couldn't wait to get into that box.

We unloaded everything and set it out to admire it all...


I added in a map with markers to go on the wall, and a few extra books that I thought she'd enjoy. They even included a free gift! (The tote... the baby we already had.)


Now we have it all organized into our little school corner. Doesn't it look tidy?


We'll see how long that lasts. I've still got several more things to order from a few other companies, and I'll update as those come in. I'll also update as we get our room pulled together, and of course on how things are going as we start to use our materials.

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