Check out our curriculum page for a new thanksgiving unit study, a christmas unit study (both made for young children) as well as three new downloadable PDFs.

Tonight I am getting started putting together a “game plan” for the next month of schooling. Tomorrow is Bug’s last day of public school, and we are going to dive right in on monday! We don’t have our moving beyond the page stuff yet, so we are focusing on reading and math skills for the next couple weeks.

He’s doing great with phonics and has been sounding out and reading three letter words. He gets frustrated quickly though, so we are tying to figure out how to keep practicing without making him miserable. It goes pretty well as long as I stick with the progressive phonics alphabetti books, because he only has to read the words in red, and it doesn’t “look” like too much to him.

I want to figure out how to make reading fun. He hates to be bad at anything, and would rather quit then be wrong…. I really need to help him learn that its okay to try and struggle with something. I am worried about pushing him too hard and turning him off of reading!

Math is a whole different story. He picks it up quickly and it really boosts his confidence. I was planning on waiting to start math with him until after christmas, but after seeing how good he is at it, and how much he enjoys it, we went ahead and purchased math blaster and the math mammoth level one tonight.

So- Now I have the stuff…. I just have to figure out what to do with it.

(check out the curriculum page for links to the progressive phonics books- they’re free!)

I’ve considered homeschooling as an option for our family since I had my first son. I love to learn, and would be happy to have a career as a life long student. The idea of spending time with my kids, helping them learn to love learning (and learn about the things they love!) really appeals to me.

When this school year started, I hesitated to homeschool for a couple of reasons. I was afraid the stereotypes, like “homeschoolers are weirdos because they don’t have any social skills”, and of ”ruining” my kids somehow. So, I put him in the local public school. I’ve been really happy with his progress, and I have no problems with public schools.  Our upcoming move to Germany, however, gave us a great opportunity to make the jump to homeschooling.

Think about it, if my kids are homeschooled, we have the freedom to go where we want, when we want to. We can learn art by going to the Louvre, we can learn history by visiting castles, we have all of Europe to explore. When Daddy has to go off on military adventures, we can pack up and visit home. When family comes to visit, we can show them around. All without worrying about school calendars. We can learn ANYWHERE.

And, I know I can teach them. I know it will be fun. I know it will be hard.

I also know it will be worth it.