So I meant to get on here at least weekly and update what I've been doing, but clearly THAT hasn't happened. Between homeschooling and putting our son on the Modified Atkins Diet (MAD) for his epilepsy, life has been quite busy.
I'm glad I read so much about homeschooling before we started because it has helped keep me calm. Homeschooling is as much a process as anything. Like most people, I started out gung-ho and have had to test the waters. The process is still evolving. Also, like most people, I bought WAY too much curriculum. That's okay, because some of it may get used in the future or it may get swapped with other homeschoolers....who knows? The most expensive thing I purchased was the Saxon Math program and that is used almost daily.
Speaking of the things I get the most use out of, it's surprisingly not what I expected. I thought we would be textbook heavy and do some worksheets. With a few exceptions, it's actually the opposite. The Spectrum workbooks (which I LOVE LOVE LOVE) are essentially a textbook unto themselves. I don't tear the sheets out because they provide so much reference material. That Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills workbook I got? It's INCREDIBLE! I use pages of it from each section every day. I align the subject matter from it whenever possible with the subject matter from the Spectrum workbooks to really bring home the lesson. There is always the internet if we need even more practice.
I mentioned the Saxon Math....I almost didn't do this one, but if you are going to splurge, math is the place to do it. I talked to a friend who had used Saxon before and highly recommended it. Math takes us about an hour each day, but I really feel like we are getting some crucial concepts and each lesson reviews the previous ones. Get the homeschool bundle if you do this one....it comes with the textbook, the worksheet & tests book, and the answer key. Shop around online for a good deal. We got ours for $60.
We are textbook reliant in science and social studies. I found a social studies book that goes with the textbook, and finding additional material for enhancement is easy. I'm still looking for ways to flesh out our science work. I want science to be inspiring and come alive....this is a struggle to do "on the fly." We started out reading from just the reading textbook and working in the matching workbook, but now I like to mix it up. He has short story magazines (Highlights, Cricket) as well as chapter books and I want him to read a variety of things. We do reading comprehension sheets and are working on writing skills as well. I found some really cool stuff at the Dollar Tree in the educational section that provides writing prompts as well. To me, the goal is to read a variety of things, enhancing both your knowledge and vocabulary. We can use the reading book sometimes, and we will because it offers a variety of age appropriate selections, but we aren't dependent on it.
I'm constantly revising the schedule, and here's what I've been doing. At first, I had no real schedule, I just wrote down in the planner what we did every day. Then I tried making a plan for every day and got frustrated when we fell behind. Now, I have given Mon-Thurs a schedule, and I keep a folder with all the worksheets in it that I want to do that week. As the week goes on, I cross out what we do daily. Anything that doesn't get done is made-up on Friday. Should we every find ourselves actually getting everything done, it will be easy to add something else, I just don't like the feeling of not accomplishing what we set out to do. I don't like meeting our math goal but not our science goal. I don't like not being able to move on to lesson 13 because we never made it to lesson 12.
Anyway, that's where we are it. Not a bad place to be, and I'm sure we'll be somewhere else a month from now, but I think we are doing okay. I just keep reminding myself that quality counts much more than quantity. I could sit him down at the table with a stack of easy work and tell him to get it done, but there is a satisfaction in working with him and knowing that he understands and is learning. That takes time.
