We're Homeschooling!

Okay, I'm going to try this again. We'll see how well I do this time. I've had good intentions, but the lack in motivation, and once I get behind in blogging I get overwhelmed and just quit. We'll it's a new beginning.

After much prayer and consideration, crying and praying and talking things through, we decided to homeschool. I am more than thrilled! Rebekah always changed her mind as to whether she would prefer staying home or going to school, and even after we made the decision she wanted to go to school with her friends. However, since I bought her a mommy and me scrapbook to do for her handicraft she is very excited to be home, and she can't wait to decorate with the stickers and papers. It will be a fun project for us to do together.

So, what will we be doing? I'm glad you asked! Two years ago I attended the local curriculum fair. A friend told me about the Charlotte Mason workshops. I had never heard of CM, so due to this friend's recommendation I attended the first one explaining Mason and her philosophy of education. There are many websites that can explain it better than I, but what intrigued me was that Mason believed in teaching the whole child, not just filling the mind with a bunch of facts. Children learn using living books, books that grab the reader and make the pages come to life. Dry facts and textbooks are not used. (No wonder kids hate school! They are having to learn dry facts.) I also love that the arts are important in a Charlotte Mason philosophy. As a musician that is important to me. One thing that is a stretch to me is doing nature study, but I have found some great resources for that, and I will get to learn along with the kids.

So, our plans this year are to learn world and Bible history from creation to ancient Egypt - Genesis through Deuteronomy - as well as the geographical region, Math-U-See - a math curriculum that is hands-on and uses manipulatives, penmanship and some copywork, art, music, poetry, science about creation, and various literature books by E.B. White and others, and scrapbooking. Rebekah will also do some reading herself, and we may add Spanish. It is going to be a fun year!

In addition, we are part of a support group, which consists of mostly families from our church. It is a big group! They do field trips together, have play dates and holiday parties, and the moms meet regularly without the kids. Even some of the dads get together if they can. Rebekah's age group at church is at least half homeschoolers, so she will get to see these kids quite a bit, and some of them will even be at Bible study on Wednesday mornings while the moms are in their Bible study, so Rebekah won't be lacking in seeing friends this year.

Joshua is asking to stay home this year, and right now we are unsure. For now we have plans to send him to preschool two days each week. The main concern is pick-up time. If I pick him up at noon it doesn't give me much time in the morning for teaching Rebekah, but if I wait until 2:00 I run into Micah's naptime. We will probably try both times, and if neither work I may keep Joshua home as well. Some things he can learn right along with Rebekah too, and I don't want him to miss out on the great activities we do with the support group should they fall on one of his preschool days.

I'm excited to see what this year holds for us and our family and to experience new adventures as we delve into the world of homeschooling.