Is this too good to be true? I sure hope not...

I am very happy to report that homeschooling is going remarkably well. We have had some ups and downs, but overall, things are going well.

So far, we have almost completed the second week according to the Sonlight curriculum. I was delighted to discover that many of the Sonlight books I needed I could get from Amazon or my local library. The books I couldn't get from Amazon or the library I purchased directly from Sonlight.

Unfortunately, after reviewing the Sonlight materials, I found that two of the books I had omitted because of the overt religious content I was going to need after all. But, at about the same time, I also decided that I would start my three-year-old on Sonlight's P3/4 curriculum. He loves to be read to and I figured he would be able to sit still long enough to reap some benefit from starting him now. So, I placed another order with Sonlight for the other books I needed plus the ones for the three-year-old. They should arrive in the next couple of days. I can't wait.

I am just blown away by Sonlight's curriculum and Singapore Math. I really wish I would have known about both when I homeschooled last summer.

We have deviated from Sonlight's plan a little though. Since both kids had had Charlotte's Web read to them, we decided to read E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan instead. It was a book I had purchased last year that none of us had ever read so we went with that instead. We also decided to delve into Greek mythology. My eight-year-old had been introduced to Greek mythology via a computer game that she had been playing online and she really loved the idea of learning more about it. So, I purchased D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths and started reading from that each night. The book has wonderful illustrations and is written in such a way as to hold both the eight and seven year olds' interest for an extended period of time. Most nights I find they are begging me to read "just a little bit more."

The history and geography woven into the Sonlight curriculum are ingenious. In fact, one of the books I had originally omitted, From Akebu to Zapotec, I decided I would add back in because the geography seemed invaluable. We are skipping A Beginner's Bible though. I don't mind introducing the kids to different religions, but I don't want to preach one as the absolute truth.

Singapore Math has been amazing, too. Both kids are catching on quickly and we are flying through the material. I had expected us to cover most information rather rapidly because much of it is review, but we have slowed down and taken our time when we have needed to. I am amazed at how well my eight-year-old is doing with computing numbers in her head. The Mental Math that Singapore teaches is incredible.

This time around I have also noticed that I have taken a much more laid back approach. If we don't get through everything we are supposed to on a given day, we don't sweat it. And, if the kids are excited about doing a particular subject first, we do it their way.

After the first day last week, I told my husband if things continue to go this well, we will probably continue in the fall. Of course, we have our days when the kids are whiny and grumpy about having to do school during the summer, but most of the time, they have been agreeable. My eight-year-old has also flatly refused to do any more French at this point. I haven't undertaken that battle just yet because she is doing so well in so many other areas.

I find myself looking ahead at the lessons coming up and thinking I don't think I will want to stop this in fall. I don't want them to miss out on the history, geography, math, and literature they would cover with Sonlight and Singapore Math. I hope things continue just like this! Certainly, if they do, it will make my decision in the fall that much easier.

I'm doing it again

I just took the plunge last night. I purchased the materials I'm going to need to homeschool both of my two older children again this summer. Like last summer, we're going to see how it goes and if it goes well, we may just keep on going right through fall.

It seems like every Fall I want to give the public school system the benefit of the doubt and try it out again. Then, each Spring (after I have come to my senses!), I realize that I was mistaken and that things are exactly as bad as I had thought they were the year before and I turn to homeschool as a viable option. Our homeschool experience was a good one overall last year.

Last summer, we used Saxon Math 1 and 3 to catch both kids up to the point at which I thought they should be. Saxon was just an "okay" fit for us. It probably worked better with my son than my daughter. It was simply too repetitive for her. If I were one of those people who could deviate from the lesson plan, there probably wouldn't have been a problen. But, if you put a lesson plan in front of me, I just have to follow it...to the letter. I can't seem to skip over things because I've afraid that the things I will skip over will wind up being the most crucial part. But, we did achieve our goal. They did get caught up and I felt really good about things after last summer.

But, now I'm feeling exactly as I did last spring. The only difference is now it is my daughter who has mostly fallen behind.

This year, after A LOT of research, I chose to use Singapore Math for both kids. Children who learn math using Singapore seem to consistently score well on achievement and aptitude tests. In fact, many children who switch to Singapore have to complete the course before the typical grade in which they should be enrolled because the program moves more quickly. For example, a child who just completed fourth grade would usually have to start with the 3B version of Singapore. But, they highly recommend that you test a child to see where s/he should start. I did this with both children. My son, who just finished first grade, tested in the 1B course which was exactly what I would have expected.

On the other hand, my daughter, who just completed third grade, tested into the 2B course. She is now a full year behind where Singapore would place her as a fourth grader. That was extremely disheartening to me particularly since she has always exceled in math. In fact, this past year at her public school, her teacher placed her in a group of students that received supplementary work in math because they were all doing so well in her class. Unfortunately, these students were "taught" by parent volunteers and didn't really receive any additional instruction from the teacher. But, I have to wonder how a child who does well in the classroom falls behind according to Singapore's standards. Could it be that the regular classroom work was brought down to such a "manageable" level that the students at the top just spun their wheels for a whole year? I have to think this might be the case. I believe a good, concrete reason for homeschool just dropped right into my lap.

We are also going to use the Sonlight Core 1 curriculum for reading, history, geography, and language arts. I have fallen in love with Sonlight. It is a literature-based curriculum without an "over-the-top" Christian spin. My plan is to have my son use the Sonlight 2 Regular Readers and my daughter the Sonlight 2 Advanced Readers. We're also going to work on phonics using Explode the Code and Plaid Phonics. I have purchased some of the readers from Amazon, but I plan to borrow most of them from our local library.

I've also signed them up for Time4learning to supplement what we are going to be officially doing. My daughter is also enrolled in Elementary French 1, Semester 2 through powerspeak12.

Of course, at this point, the children would rather clean the house every day than homeschool. They think I'm the meanest parent in the ENTIRE world to expect them to actually learn! I'm sure we will have some battles like we did last summer, but I find that once they accept the fact that we are going to do this, they settle down a little. Also, my three-year-old will be in daycare three days per week so we will have uninterrupted time to focus on school.

Right now, we are just waiting for the materials to arrive.

Homeschool, Day 2

Today was the second day we officially homeschooled. Yesterday was the last full day of 'regular' school for the kids. Both children have been begging me for the past week or so to 'do homeschool,' but I have put them off because I thought going to school all day and then trying to homeschool in the evenings was too much.

So, they came home from school again yesterday begging to get started and I relented. My daughter ran an errand with my husband, the youngest was napping, and my son and I decided to do the first lesson in his Saxon Math 1 book. It went extremely well. Of course, the first few lessons are pretty simple, but he was able to pay attention the entire time and he completed all the work with very little prompting from me. We had a lovely time with each other.

When my daughter and husband returned later that evening, she and I sat down and did her first lesson in the Saxon Math 3 course. It was a piece of cake for her, too. At that point, my son wanted to do another lesson and cried real tears because it was too late for us to start another one.

This morning I decided to plung right in and start following the schedule I had setup. Even though we had an appointment in the late morning, we just did as much as we could.

Of course, it wasn't without a minor glitch or two. My daughter wasn't able to sign on to her online Powerspeak12 French course and my son balked at the idea of using the online reading site that I had planned for him to use, but we improvised and it worked out fine. We did complete each of their second lessons in math. When we returned from their appointment this morning, they each sat down and completed the second part of their math worksheets with only one reminder from me. Shortly thereafter, my daughter did her French lesson (by that time we had the problem straightened out) and my son used some of the Scholastic computer math software to 'play' math. The TV remained off until after 3 PM. It was amazing!

The other significant thing I noticed today is that they were more well behaved than usual. My children are usually well behaved, but they know how to push each others' buttons and they can get each other wound up quicker than quick. I didn't notice so much of that going on today. I wonder if it is because they each had my undivided attention for a portion of the day. Whatever the reason it was a great day. I hope they are all like this! I'm amazed by how easy it all turned out to be and can't believe that I didn't decide to do this a long time ago.

Why I finally decided to try homeschooling

Today was homeschool, day 2. I decided to blog about my experience because I figured things would not always go this well and I would need to refresh my memory at some point to remember why I had decided to do this in the first place.

My beautiful daughter is 7 1/2 and just finished the second grade. She is the youngest child in her class and probably one of the brightest. Her birthday fell six days after the state's cutoff for Kindergarten so her father and I had to pay to have her tested by a school psychologist before the local district would allow her to be admitted early. The psychologist spent about an hour with her and declared her ready to go. I have never regretted my decision to send her 'early.' During Kindergarten, she was homeschooled in the afternoons by her grandma and went to 'regular' school in the mornings. Her father and I decided to allow her to attend school full days for first and second grade. I was working at the time and unable to devote the time I felt was required to homeschool her.

My beautiful son is 6 and seventeen months younger than my daughter. He just finished Kindergarten. He is a bright child, too, but isn't as advanced as his sister was at this age. Before attending Kindergarten, he wasn't one of those children that would sit down and 'play' school. He knew his colors and ABC's, of course, but he had absolutely no interest in learning to draw shapes or write. I decided early on not to push him in this regard. He spent full days in Kindergarten and hasn't been formally homeschooled at all up to this point.

My beautiful youngest son is 2 1/2 and constantly on the go. He will prove to be the biggest challenge to homeschooling on most days because he is very demanding of all our time. I notice in him some of the same characteristics I noticed in his older sister at this age. He is able to say his ABC's and identify all of the letters with about 90% accuracy even though I haven't formally done any work with him to help him learn these things. He seems to just pick it up. He prefers to watch his DVD's in Spanish and has been able to count to 10 for months now.

So, why did I finally make the leap to homeschool? I actually was ready to homeschool my daughter at the beginning of this past school year. I had spoken with the elementary school principal and received her okay to send my daughter to school part-time for P.E., art, and music. However, the week before school started I found out that my daughter had been assigned to a good teacher and I decided at the very last minute to go ahead and send her to school. I made a deal with myself that if it wasn't working out I would pull her out of school and go ahead with my original plan to homeschool. Besides, I was still working part-time and I still didn't think I would be able to devote my full attention to homeschooling.

I never had any intention of homeschooling my son this past year. I felt that he needed to learn the structure of a classroom routine if nothing else. Since I couldn't persuade him to sit down and 'play' school, I didn't think there would be any way I could motivate him to 'play' homeschool.

I'm no longer sure if I made the right decision in either case. I don't fault the teachers or question their abilities. I think the entire system needs an overhaul and I don't think I want my children to have to wait for all the wheels to grind into motion. I'm afraid they will fall through the cracks. I think they already may have. In the last couple of weeks, I discovered that my daughter couldn't reliably tell time and had almost no idea what a fraction was. Both concepts had been introduced to her when she was homeschooled during Kindergarten. I then discovered that my older son couldn't accurately count to 100 and wasn't able to read. I felt that by the time a child leaves Kindergarten he should be able to do both. The bottom line was that my children weren't living up to my expectations and neither was the school system.

At that point, I began to seriously research math curricula and found one that was highly recommended by a dear friend who had been homeschooling two of her children for the past couple of years. Since before my daughter was in Kindergarten, I have dabbled in homeschool materials and bought a few things here and there. I also have belonged to a few local online homeschool groups. In that regard, I guess I am what would be labeled a 'lurker.' I read what is going on, but I rarely put in my two cents. I didn't feel my opinion was qualified since I wasn't a full-fledged homeschooling parent.

So my journey has begun. I decided to dip my toe in the water this summer and see how things go. I'm no longer working so I can devote all my attention to homeschooling. I have my schedule all set up, the materials are here, the pencils are sharpened, and the children are eager to get started. If things go well, we will keep right on going in August. Stay tuned. Time will tell.