Homeschooling....

Although I don't talk a lot on my blog about homeschooling it is indeed a very BIG part of my life. In fact next to my weight loss/exercise activities it is the most important thing I do on a day to day basis, so when I heard about this "blog hop" for 'not back to school' I wanted to jump on board. If you are new to my blog Welcome! I will give you a quick background then I will hit you up with my curriculum choices for this year.

I have a recently turned 21 year old son that I homeschooled all the way through high school. He attended a private, Christian University (yes, you can homeschool and then get into a good college!) for 1 1/2 years. He decided that college wasn't for him so he took this past spring off and worked. He has signed up to join the Marines and will be leaving for boot camp sometime in the next 6 weeks or so. Although I am proud of him, it is hard to let my 'baby' grow up and leave for such a huge life changing thing. I know that it will be the best thing for him....but....

I am now homeschooling my 7 year old son. He will be doing a combination of 1st grade and 2nd grade this fall. He has a winter birthday and I pretty much stick to a loose year round school schedule, with the "grade change" happening at the beginning of the calendar year. Seems to work well for now, so I'm sticking with it.

Now...on to the curriculum choices for this year.

I am a very eclectic homeschooler and I live in Texas!! Whoohhooo! Texas has great homeschooling laws and allows me to basically teach what I want, when I want as long as I am teaching math, reading, spelling, grammar, and civics from the time they are 6 till graduation (or 17). The hard part is choosing the right stuff to teach, right?

This year I am trying something new and different for me. I am trying a more "Well Trained Mind" plan with lots of 'living books'. I have pulled alot of books off the Ambleside Online site and I'm hoping to use a lot of the resources that are there for the first and second grade student. My son loves to be read to and is starting to read decently so I'm wanting to do a lot of reading and have him read alot this year, so that takes care of the "reading" requirement!

For Language Arts (grammar) I am using a combination of Critical Thinking, Language Smarts and First Language Lessons-Levels 1 & 2 from the Well Trained Mind Company. I think my son will do well with both of these curriculums as long as I make sure I don't overwhelm him with "the boring stuff".

For Spelling I am using "All About Spelling". I bought it back in February but never got around to actually using it since we were so busy with just the basics of learning to read and phonics. I think he will breeze through the first level since he has a really good grasp of words and letters, thanks to Hooked on Phonics and then we will move on to level 2, hopefully by October or November.

Math is his favorite and by far his best subject. At the age of 4 he could count to 100 by ones, just because. By 5 he could count to 600 by ones, just because. He understands time, money, fractions, addition and subtraction and can do it all in his head - all instictively! I'm shocked daily at his ability to do math! It also scares me! I'm not very good with math so I know that I will definitely be sending him to classes or co-ops for math in a few short years. BUT...for now I am teaching him 2nd grade ABeka math. It is advanced, colorful and easy enough for me to teach (for now)!

We are going to be using Story of the World for history this year. This one is new for me, and honestly I am scared! I know it's going to take time and consistent dedication from me to sit down and do the lessons with him but I love history and so does he so it should be fun as long as I do it!!

For Geography we are doing a mish-mash of Cantering the Country by Geography Matters, and a book The Star-Spangled State Book by Bramley Books and whatever else I pick up along the way! Geography is the funnest subject to play around with and I know we could spend more time with geography than I have allotted for a school day if I let it happen that way!

For Science I will take him to a couple of bi-weekly classes. I'm not a sciencey person and there are classes in the area that are inexpensive and really good at teaching what I don't want to and what he loves to learn...so it's a win-win situation for me! Not to mention I get to hang out with friends while he is in class!

For our Fine Arts I have purchased Handle on the Arts and Maestro Classics and I am excited to use both of these this year. My son also loves to draw and create so there will be times this year when I just let him draw and create whatever is in his heart to do. This will be a first for me to use fine arts as part of our regular curriculum, and I regret that I didn't make the decision to do more fine arts study with my older son, so I'm not making that mistake again.

For his PE and socialization (since everyone is always concerned that homeschoolers don't socialize and get enough PE) we go to the park at LEAST once a week from late September to May (even through a lot of winter since it doesn't get that cold in TX usually) and he also takes a karate class that meets twice a week throughout the year. We also get together with friends throughout the school year when the weather is nice out and do field trips and excursions to do and see things that we wouldn't normally do if he was in a traditional school setting.

The only thing that I was wanting to work on this year that I don't think we are going to do is a foreign language. Although I want to do study several foreign languages with him I know that with the schedule we have this year I won't get to it, so I didn't even look at it.

Ok...so that is our curriculum choices for the upcoming year with a brief description of what our year will look like. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you won't be a stranger and will come back. Please leave a comment so I know who stopped by and so I can see your curriculum choices for this year. Homeschooling is an adventure of a lifetime!!