Why We Homeschool

When I tell someone we homeschool our 10 year old son they always ask why and for some reason it's always been a hard question for me to answer. That bothered me. We made this big decision to homeschool, pulled our child out of public school after 2nd grade and changed our lives to do it. Yet, I couldn't pin point a reason when someone asked me why. There seemed at first to be so many reasons and yet it also felt like we did it just because we wanted to.

So, I spent some time really thinking about it. Why do we homeschool?  Freedom. That's the one reason it comes down to.

Freedom from the 8am to 3pm September through May schedule.

Freedom from a room of 20 or more of kids all the same age and one poor exhausted teacher trying her hardest to get them to all do the same thing at the same time and do it quietly.

Freedom from sitting in a desk, standing in a line, asking before moving, not talking, bad lunch food and in a lot of cases, bullying and teasing.

Freedom from equipment that is usually below standard because not enough money is put into our public school systems.

Freedom from curriculum that is that is rushed through and only taught if it is on some test that the government says all children have to be measured by.

Freedom to do what is best for my child when and where it is best for him.

Freedom from the stress of having to deal with above ll of the above.

That's why we homeschool. Freedom. I wouldn't have it any other way!

Why do you homeschool? 

Journalism Co-Op Class

This semester I am teaching a Journalism/Yearbook class at our co-op. Our co-op meets once a week and offers classes ranging in everything from preschool to gemstones and minerals. Classes are taught by volunteers and they teach whatever they are interested in so we have a wonderful variety; Sign Language, Music, Art, Book Illustration, Cooking, Architecture, History, Felicity's World. There is something for everyone!

For my class I am using High Five Media Literacy units. It is three unit program that includes journalism, reading, writing and grammar. I had to pick and chose from the lessons because there are more lessons than weeks in our co-op, and shorten some of them for some of my younger students, but it is working wonderfully. The kids are really enjoying it!

I have 8 kids from 4th-8th grade in the class so our paper has 8 sections: Local News, World News, Feature, Editorial, Comic/Puzzle, Sports, Advice/How To and Review. We publish a paper each week and the students rotate through the different sections so that everyone gets to write once for each section.

Do you participate in a homeschool co-op? What kinds of classes do you offer?

2015-2016 Curriculum Plan

 2015-2016 Curriculum

I think I have finally got our schedule and curriculum down for the 2015-2016 school year. This will be our 3rd year homeschooling and I feel like I am just now starting to find a rhythm. Of course, every time I think that, something changes!

Here is the curriculum I am planning on doing for CJ, 10 years old and my only homeschooler:

History
Bookshark History, Readers and Read Alouds, 4th grade level, year 2 American History.

 

Even though CJ will technically be in 5th grade, I am going with the 4th grade level because this year we did Sonlight Core D, which is year 1 American History. I want to finish out American History by doing year 2 this coming year. I'm looking forward to trying Bookshark. See my post here for reasons why I am switching. 

Hard to believe I know but we have changed curriculum choices.... we are going to try History Odyssey Level 2 Ancients. Honestly the reason we are switching is because CJ was really not looking forward to all the reading that comes with BookShark. He loves to read.... as long as it is Dr. Who or Star Wars related. So, I started looking at some other options. I was torn between sticking with BookShark anyway or trying History Odyssey or Oak Meadow. After giving myself a headache trying to decide, I had an idea. I printed off sample lesson plans of each curriculum, showed them to CJ and talked to him about each one and the differences between them. Then I asked him which he would like to do. He impressed me by really thinking about it and asking me some questions. He chose History Odyssey. So, that was that. We will try it. He said he "liked that is was part reading and part research and part book work". He also liked that it was very student led. He likes to be able to do his work without me hoovering over him. I'm excited about it! I think it will be a good fit for us.

Language Arts

Spelling - We are going to try Spelling Workout E. We have tried All About Spelling and Sequential Spelling, neither worked very well for us. They were both great programs. I think the problem is just that spelling is not our favorite subject and seems to always get pu

t on the back burner so we don't seem to ever get into a good routine with spelling. So, we'll try Spelling Workout and see what happens.

Grammar - For grammar we are going with Jr. Analytical Grammar. This year we used Shurley English and I really like it. CJ has learned so much with it. It is quick (we do the grammar only, not the writing) and the question and answer flow to classify sentences is easy to follow. The only problem I have with it is it does not

Memorize Multiplication Facts

CJ was overwhelmed at the thought of having to memorize all the multiplication facts. But he watched this video I found on YouTube and the light bulb went off! He said, "Cool. I already knew most of them all and just didn't know it."

Anything that made multiplication that easy, I have to share! Now he doesn't get so stressed out over math. It's still not his favorite, but realizing multiplication wasn't as hard as he thought helps a lot.

Check it out!

Do you have any favorite math resources?

Our Homeschool Shedule

When I tell people we homeschool they are always curious about what exactly we do all day. And families that are considering homeschooling are always looking for ideas and examples of how other families structure their days, so I thought I would share our schedule.

I have one child, a 10 year old boy, and we are currently using the following curriculum:

Sonlgiht Core D - history, readers and read alouds
Apologia - Zoology 2 (we do this with a live online class through Currclick)
Shurley English 5
Teaching Textbooks 5
IEW Fun and Fasinating
Wordly Wise 4
Trail Guide to US Geography
Live Classes from Currclick
Engineering 4 Kids Robotics and Homeschool Engineering Club

Monday

This is co-op day, so we usually just finish up any homework we have for co-op classes before it starts at 12:30. In fall CJ had LEGO We-Do, Photography and Native Americans. This semester he takes US History Revolution through Lewis and Clark, Newspaper/Yearbook and Gemstones and Minerals.

Tuesday
We have Engineering 4 Kids Homeschool Engineering Club from 10:00 - 11:30. After lunch we  work on homework for our co-op history class, Sonlight history, readers and read alouds and math. If we have time we also do english. We have a live class with Currclick at 3:00 for Zoology.

Eating Our Way Through the States

This is our favorite part of our state studies! We use Geography Matters Trail Guide to U.S. Geography.

Geography Matters

I love this curriculum! There are questions to answer, mapping, topics to research and projects to do. Everything is laid out so that it is easy to follow. Most importantly, my son loves it! It's his favorite thing to work on and he always wants to start the day with 'the states'. 

A few weeks ago we decided to add something fun to our study of the states by adding Eating Our Way Through the States. 

I have not received my cookbook yet, but we decided to start this week. I let CJ choose a state, he picked Hawaii. Then I let him look up so Hawaiian inspired foods and drinks.

He picked Hawaiian Pizza (not sure how authentic Hawaiian that is, but that's what he wanted!) with pineapple, chicken and Canadian bacon. We had pineapple cake and a drink with pineapple juice, lemon juice, club soda and simple syrup. Everything was so yummy!

CJ had so much fun finding the recipes, shopping for ingredients and cooking the meal. It's going to be a great addition to our study of the states and I can't wait to see what we get to eat next!

What food comes to mind when you think about the state you live in? Got any good recipes we should try?

Why I am Switching from Sonlight to Bookshark

BookShark is a relativity new program from Sonlight. It comes with the same service and quality thousands of homeschoolers have come to expect from Sonlight. There are only some minor differences, but it is those differences that have made me switch from Sonlight to BookShark.

1. All program components are sold separately. I mean - all components. I like that Sonlight has programs divided by ages as well as grade levels. Each Core has several different ages and grade levels that it is recommend for. That's great, but my son uses a different grade level for almost every subject! With Sonlight, it is not easy to separate the subjects. If you order just Core D History, you don't get the instructors guide because the instructors guide covers bible, history and language arts. So if you want the guide, you can't separate those subjects.

With Bookshark I can order the perfect package for my son: 4th grade History, 5th grade Language Arts and Science, 6th grade Teaching Textbooks. I simply scroll through the complete list of products and chose exactly what I want. Each subject has it's own instructors guide so that I can order what I want and still get the guide.

2. BookShark is not faith based. For me, this is a plus because I did not use Sonlgiht's Bible Curriculum. So when  I ordered a complete core I was paying for curriculum that I did not use.

Thats it. There's really not much difference between BookShark and Sonlight, but the differences that are there are what convinced me to change. We will start our new BookShark curriculum in the fall and I look forward to letting you know how it turns out! 

Will you be trying a new curriculum in the fall?