It's that time again!! School is getting ready to start and so we are gearing up our plans for the new school year at home. Last year was our first year home schooling so it was a little strange due to all the changes within our family. Pregnancy and new baby... Made life just a little more difficult as we ventured into New Homeschooling territory. Thankfully the plus with home school is you can be very flexible, which came in handy for us last year. However this year I am looking forward to changing things up, as we learned what not to do, and what will work best for our family.
Since I only have one child that is school age, (my son is 10 yrs and his sister is 4 months) it has been a challenge to find other homeschool families in our position. Most families are homeschooling more then one child and so the kids have lots of company and don't get lonely. But this was not the case for us. Once soccer season was over it was hard to find people who were willing to do outings or get togthers due to busy schedules or other reasons. So this year we have had to try and figure out a better way to approach this issue. I talked with one Homeschooling Mom who has been teaching her kids at home for years and asked if she had some suggestions for us. She and her oldest daughter had a great idea and suggested Kaleb take a few enrichment classes with our Umbrella School.
After a little research we found some classes that will help Kaleb this year. It has been a challenge for me to get him excited about reading and writing, so he will be able to take a writing coarse and an (fun) art class with our Umbrella School! It works out great for us as the classes are on the same day, one right after the other. And thankfully our Umbrella School (Aaron Academy) is close by. He will be able to connect with some new people and also get help in areas where I can only take him so far. We are also changing up the curriculum a bit too. I was not a big fan of Light House/Alpha Omega Literature. It read a lot like stereo instructions. So my husband and I are off to the Teacher Store to check out some other options which will work better. We are going to continue with Horizons Math, although it is not my favorite. And for Science we are going to continue with Switched On School House. SOSH is a little old school for our up and coming computer age, but it gets the job done. I just wish they would update their software with the times. I also found a great book that has literature and history combined, so I hope to research that a little more to see if it will be a good fit or not.
The other thing I like about homeschooling is that my husband can be involved. So on days where the baby needs me more, he can help pick up the slack. Plus it nice to work as a parental team, because he knows things I don't and I know things he doesn't. At any rate I am very excited that my son is getting the attention he needed to get a better grasp on things the public school was letting slide!
After a little research we found some classes that will help Kaleb this year. It has been a challenge for me to get him excited about reading and writing, so he will be able to take a writing coarse and an (fun) art class with our Umbrella School! It works out great for us as the classes are on the same day, one right after the other. And thankfully our Umbrella School (Aaron Academy) is close by. He will be able to connect with some new people and also get help in areas where I can only take him so far. We are also changing up the curriculum a bit too. I was not a big fan of Light House/Alpha Omega Literature. It read a lot like stereo instructions. So my husband and I are off to the Teacher Store to check out some other options which will work better. We are going to continue with Horizons Math, although it is not my favorite. And for Science we are going to continue with Switched On School House. SOSH is a little old school for our up and coming computer age, but it gets the job done. I just wish they would update their software with the times. I also found a great book that has literature and history combined, so I hope to research that a little more to see if it will be a good fit or not.
The other thing I like about homeschooling is that my husband can be involved. So on days where the baby needs me more, he can help pick up the slack. Plus it nice to work as a parental team, because he knows things I don't and I know things he doesn't. At any rate I am very excited that my son is getting the attention he needed to get a better grasp on things the public school was letting slide!
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