The End of our first year: Homeschooling

It is time to wipe our brow, and jump in the pool. We made it through our first year of homeschooling, and my little man did great. There were the normal adjustments; mom being the teacher and not having so much structure. I'm not sure how many times I heard, "Teacher didn't do it like that last year." Do I need to mention the whining....no, ok. Anyway, test scores were better than I expected, and except for a few more gray ones I have all my hair.  Time to celebrate!

I'm already looking to next year. I decided to incorporate Sue Patrick's workboxes. The particular method with the milk crate and files might work best for us. We used a three-ring binder system that held a weeks worth of worksheets, so this is not such a big change. Of course I was the one with the major disorganization issues this year.  Hopefully workboxes will help eliminate that problem.

We will be using K12 curriculum again. I love how comprehensive it is, but also that I can tweak the lessons to suit our needs and beliefs. They have up to three or four ways to teach a lesson. It's simple for me to add a "What does the Bible say" in each lesson. For the schedule strips, I will be using Donna Young's Science Planner. I cut the strips for the week (one for each subject), then staple them in order.

Putting together a Bible Study lesson plan has been exciting and exhausting. There are some tremendous resources to choose from. I have decided to use the site Garden of Praise. At this age it is a good combination of reading, interaction, and testing. Of course we will continue to have family devotion at breakfast with Keys for Kids.

All in all, homeschooling is the best thing that ever happened to our little family. We are all learning and growing together in the Lord.
 

photo credit: tom@hk | 湯米tomhk