Homeschooling

So you are thinking about homeschooling? Curious whether or not it’s for you and your family? When I first thought about homeschooling my kiddos I had so many questions, concerns, anxieties and insecurities. I had heard so many positive and negative things and felt a bit overwhelmed with all the information, opinions and styles out there. Was there a way to homeschool my kids without having a homeschool room? Having the fanciest of homeschool areas? Without having a teaching degree? What if I barely made it out of Pre-Algebra?

Rest assured, if I can do it, so can you my friend! I am probably one of the least patient human beings on the planet and although I do have a couple college degrees (yes, I am a professional student) I do not consider myself the best “teacher.” The greatest thing about all of this is that there are SO MANY resources out there and curriculum to fit the needs of you and your children. I am going to try to lay out what we use, how we use it, and why we chose it. We have changed this a few times and even have a hybrid style of learning that combines unschooling and workbooks style curriculum. More on that later.

Here goes:

The first year that we began homeschooling I heard many great things about a curriculum called The Good and the Beautiful. It is relatively inexpensive and very comprehensive, one catch is that it has a religious foundation. Now that I have used it for several years, I will say that there are many ways to omit this part of the work should you want to do so. This is especially true for the younger years when they are not reading yet. However, we decided that instead of spending the money we were going to try some free options to begin with.

The first few months we actually used an online curriculum called Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool. I had two children, Kindergarten and 6th grade using it at the time. My oldest couldn’t stay focused because there were several different pages that he had to navigate around to in order to complete his assignments. In the end, it wasn’t a good fit for him. My youngest did ok with it, but really wanted to have more worksheet style assignments. After all, homeschooling didn’t look the same as the TV shows and she really wanted to mimic the style of learning in an actual school. I still use this from time to time when we are traveling, on the go, or the kids need something different. It has GREAT resources for learning languages and you can order some of the workbooks on Amazon. She used McGuffy Primer to teach children how to read and it didn’t fit the style that we were looking for. Lastly, EP goes all the way through High School and offers a wide variety of subjects and is very comprehensive.

The Here and Now:

Currently we use The Good and The Beautiful (TGATB) for the core of our studies. This includes: Language Arts, Math, History, Science, Nature Studies and Handwriting/Cursive. The Language Arts Curriculum can be downloaded in PDF form for Free if you want to go that route, or to take a peek at it. I personally choose to buy the spiral-bound books and order the kits to come with it. The Language Arts curriculum is very comprehensive and it includes art, art history and other activities. I have found that it was MUCH easier for Isabel to learn how to read using her method. I believe the method is learning to read phonetically and there are tons of videos and posts about why that’s so effective if you want to research it. We tried several ways to teach her how to read and in the end we should’ve just started with TGATB. My youngest starts Kindergarten this year and has been using the K Primer book from TGATB and she can read words like CAT, HAT & PAT.

For Math we have used a lot of different stuff. For my 1st grader I find that TGATB curriculum is perfect for her. It is not a simple worksheet, there are several activities that you do each day with the kids. When we are on the go we print off worksheets, use online programs as well as other books. Some of those are:

Math Lessons for a Living : This is a Charlotte Mason approach and my kids don’t like how slow it can seem at times. My daughter likes to be challenged so I may need to just skip a grade with her. But my oldest used this for 6th grade and I found it to be very helpful. The story approach was helpful because he needed to work on practically applying the math in a real world situation. Which brings me to the next book….

Real World Math: This was a great book for practically applying math skills for grades 5-8.

180 Days of Math: This book is a great tool for simple everyday math lessons. It is comprehensive and is something that the kids can do each day. It was easy to follow along as a parent and the kids enjoyed it as well.

For Science we use the TGATB and have enjoyed it. She has science lessons complete with what you need, how to do it and what to say to the children while you teach it to them. One of the things I love about her curriculum is that she doesn’t make the parents guess and tells them exactly how to teach it. This is great for a Momma like myself that figured out she’s not a Pinterest Homeschool Momma, but a Momma that needs direct guidance so she doesn’t mess things up. We have also used the following and absolutely love those too!

180 Days of Science: My kids actually enjoy this curriculum and I find that we tend to use it more than the TGATB. This is because we allow the kids and their interests to navigate subjects like Science and History.

For History we use a combination of TGATB and traveling to determine what we learn about. This is where unschooling comes into play. This is another post entirely, but to save some time we basically allow the kids, their interests and questions determine where we go with this. When we travel we learn as much as we can about the local history while we are there and explore with field trips.

Lastly, I will say before you choose your curriculum you should figure out what style of homeschooling you want in your home. Are you trying to recreate school in the home? Are you wanting to do your own lessons plans or have a curriculum that does that for you? How much are you willing to spend? And how much time are you wanting to spend teaching your children each day/week? It should be noted that I homeschooled 3 kids out of these Latchmate Storage Boxes for two years at the kitchen table. They have a tray for supplies and all of their books fit right in the tray. Also, Mommas are you more of a Pinteresty Momma that wants to go all out or would you rather keep it simple and get back to living life? I am not a Pinteresty Momma so I needed someone to literally tell me how to do this and TGATB did just that.

I know that this was a ton of information and there is so much that I left out. If you have any questions please feel free to reach out via email or on social media. I will help anyway I can. During these times of uncertainty we need to stick together and create community.