It’s that time!?? I am starting to dive into my homeschooling studies now.?? I am so excited about this.??As I have many friends that are homeschooling or are considering homeschooling, I am going to add some reference pages to this site for future use.?? The first thing I need to figure out is curriculum.?? I intend to start Tanner with First Grade curriculum realizing that I may have some catch up to do since I did not enroll him in traditional K-Garten.?? I am still figuring that as long as he is reading by September, which we are on target for, we should be good with a 1st Grade start.
I am having trouble figuring out correct scope and sequence for the first grade though.?? It seems to be a moving target depending on where I look.?? (Scope and sequence are the basic requirements of education that should be met by the child by year end).
I think I will need to teach Bible, Reading, Handwriting, Vocabulary, Spelling, Math, History, Science and incorporate Physical Education as well.?? That should be daddy’s job:).?? Am I missing anything?
But what curriculum??? I think I want to be very ecclectic with this.?? I also am not sure I want to use much curriculum at this grade.?? If I have a clear understanding of the goals, I think I can develop most of my own curriculum that will meet Tanner’s needs.?? First though, I need to check out the available curriculum to determine (a) if I want to use any and who I want to use and (b) what is being taught.??
So now I need your help.?? If you are a homeschool parent and would be willing to answer a little survey on your curriculum for me, please comment on this post and I will email you my survey.?? My intent is to post many of the comments on curriculum so that others can have this resource as well.?? Thank you!
11 responses to “Homeschooling – The Adventure Begins”
I don’t homeschool since Nate isn’t old enough yet, but we have a store here about as big as a regular WalMart called Mardel…. it is a Christian store that sells everything, sunday school and bible school materials, cd’s, dvd,s art works, gifts, and they have a section for homeschooling, all the different curriculum packs… I don’t know how many locations they have but I know I see them here in Texas and in OKlahoma…
I googled them, here is the site
http://www.mardel.com/
E-mail away! (Not home-schooling right now, but I have my el ed degree and me and DH were both homeschooled. Plan on homeschooling Iain, so I try to stay in the loop. I can also forward it to multiple current homeschool mamas that I know)
Shay is in the first grade now but we do not homeschool. He goes to a wonderful public school but because of his AHDH we do a lot of homeschool stuff at home. Hope I made sense. Because of his behaivor at school I don’t want him to fall behind academically. So we work on things at home which I have been told has just been great because he has not fallen behind. He is even ahead in some areas. That is only because we work with him at home. I still would mind being kept in the loop. Ty will get so much from it as well. My younger one is pretty smart for a 2.5 year old due to the fact that we include him on all the things we do with Shay.
Also I am not sure if you have heard of it, the Math mat. It helped Shay a lot with Math. It does addition and subtraction making it lots of fun. It also can work for gym time 🙂
so long as you share all the info with me please. 😉
You may want to incorporate some art and music as well.
I agree Megan. Actually Jim has agreed to teach art since he is the artist in the family. Jim and I both agreed that he needs to be involved in this home schooling endeavor as well so we tried to think of a few things that he could teach over the course of the first grade year a few evenings. Our initial plan is that daddy will teach how to tell time, how to recognize and count money, how to tie shoelaces and ropes (in an age of velcro will still haven’t taught Tanner to tie 🙂 ) and at some point art though we aren’t sure if we will start daddy instructed art in first grade. We may just reserve that for craft time this year. As for music…I took piano for 4 years and still can’t play. I might wait a couple of years and see where his interests lie. I don’t want to add too much the first year though because I want him to acclimate well and not be overwhelmed. These decisions are not easy!
I LOVE THAT JIM WILL BE INVOLVED IN HIS EDUCATION IN THIS WAY! WHAT AN AWESOME IDEA!!!! Hmm.. Wonder what Jas could teach Seth? He could teach him about cars and weapons.. maybe we could incorporate learning about guns and ammo as part of history or something like that. Surely we could work out the outdoorsy thing into science too (collecting leaves and rocks and such..) GREAT IDEAS!
Are you reading a specific Homeschooling book to give you ideas on where to start or what products to look into?
Yes. I have been reading The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling. It’s good but the information I am getting from books right now isn’t really the info I need. I need more grade specific information and I need to be able to LOOK at curriculum. The catalogs don’t give enough info and the Home School fair isn’t until July. I wish all the companies would send out free sample infor by grade. My goals right now are writing my scope and sequence for next year and determining which aids/resources/textbooks I want for each subject. Books are too general. This means lots of web research and listening to other mom’s at this point.
When I’ve looked at various curriculums online, there are often pdf file samples for viewing. Another thought… see if there is a Homeschool coop in your area. Bet other moms would let you look at their curriculums first hand. 🙂
http://oldfashionededucation.com/
I just wanted to give you Miss Maggie’s free homeschool curriculum. Some of it is stuff I would use, and some isn’t, but she is a great resource!
Cari