I think I wrote last year that I was going to keep a record and blog often about our homeschool adventure. And I think that turned out to be about 3 posts. Maybe. So no such promises this year.
Nonetheless as you can guess it must have went well if we are crazy enough to be doing it again this year right? Right. We really enjoyed the family learning and the time we got to spend together. Not everything was candy and roses, far from it, but it was the right fit for our family last year and looking at this year we believe that it will be the right fit this year again.
Keeping some things and changing some things this year. Still going with Sonlight for History/Language Arts and Singapore Math for math. Leighton actually went all the way through kindergarten A&B and 1st grade A and all but the last chapter of B with Singapore Math last year. We decided to switch to Apologia for Science. I wasn’t a big fan of Sonlight for science, it skipped around, the “experiments” didn’t necessarily have anything to do with whatever we were reading about that week and it just wasn’t a good fit. Apologia seems to be a better fit. Leighton loves space so we will spend the entire year studying space. He couldn’t be more excited. Also going to do Rosetta Stone for language this year (Korean). We had some videos and flash cards last year and that just didn’t work. I’ve also added in Write Source both the textbook and the wookbook this year for added writing practice. I know writing is a weakness for most boys and so the more practice and angles that we can approach it by the better. I did do Explode the Code last year as a phonics optional resource and going to continue that this year (it’s great by the way) and adding some weekly vocab lesson s in as well.
The other big change this yea r is that we are going to be doing a homeschool enrichment program 1 day a week. It is offered through one of the local school districts and they have a site about a 20 minute drive away. For first grade it is set up like most traditional 1st grade classes, but much smaller number of students and more one on one focus. Plus art and music and PE. Starting in 2nd grade Leighton will take electives during the day including everything from cooking, foreign language, intro to robotics, computing, music theater, stringed instruments, as well as optional math/science/creative writing courses and just about anything that you could imagine. No matter how hard I tried, choir is just something that I’m never going to be able to teach the boys, and now they’ve got that option. Same with intro to robotics. It goes from K-12th and by the upper grades they can take classes through the community college for college credit or learn a trade. Awesome option and Leighton is super excited about it.
And Caedmon will start preschool this year. He is going to the same little preschool that Leighton went to, only there are all new teachers and director there. He’s also super excited about it.
And so we start this year. And I’ll try and keep you posted, but no promises!
Hiking Mommy 