Well, I'm new to this and decided to start a blog to document our decision to homeschool. My sister-in-law Aimee has been blogging and homeschooling for a long time and she has inspired me to start. You can find her blog at aimeesland.blogspot.com.
My husband and I decided to homeschool our five-year-old daughter, Bridget because she doesn't really fit the regular school model. She reads at a second grade level, math at first grade, and writing at kindergarten. She loves to learn and is always asking questions. Sitting still is not her strong suit and she seems to learn best by doing.
I never thought I would homeschool and our decision was not made lightly. When we started thinking about this new venture, I began doing a lot of research and talking with Aimee. Bridget and I even spent a week last year with Aimee and her kids to observe how they homeschooled. I was quite impressed and somewhat relieved at how doable it appeared to be. So we decided to take the plunge and I began working on curriculum and lesson plans.
By the time August 2011 arrived, my mother was not doing well. She had been diagnosed with Parkinson's two years prior, but had been managing okay. This was one of the reasons we had moved back to Texas, but that's another story. Needless to say, I began to feel overwhelmed dealing with my mother's decline and trying to figure out how I was going to homeschool when I needed to be on call for my Mom. I began looking for a Mother's Day Out program to give me a little break when I discovered our public school was offering Pre-K in the mornings. A bit disappointed, I enrolled Bridget. She loved it and it gave me a chance to have a few hours to get some things accomplished such as grocery shopping, checking on Mom, and trying to figure out how to balance everything so my brothers wouldn't have to carry the burden alone.
It's been almost eight months since Bridget started attending Pre-K and we both feel like homeschooling is going to be the best choice for us next year. We decided to start off in first grade. I have almost finished the curriculum and we are very excited for the school year to begin. I used the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Grade 1) as a guideline and found quite a few websites and blogs that provided some good resources to help develop lesson plans. I was surprised at how much free stuff there is out there. Our local educational store, The Learning Zone has a lot of great products. I did buy a phonics book and some math workbooks that we will include in the curriculum.
Beginning in April, we will start the Handwriting Without Tears lessons. I had noticed that she wasn't writing her letters correctly and she would become frustrated and not want to write at all. I'm hoping this curriculum will provide a fun way to learn handwriting. I'll post about it once we get started.
In the meantime, I will finish our 2012/13 curriculum, continue with her dance and swimming lessons, and find the time to clean the house. That's what I really want to know. How do you find time to keep the house clean and cook meals? Please leave me a comment if you have any tips.
Thanks for visiting.
Peggy
