The beginning of homeschooling

My educational history is...interesting. I am a kindergarten drop-out. (We moved across the country mid-year). I went to public school for 5th grade and half of 3rd grade. I was homeschooled the rest...including two years of 6th grade since we kind of didn't do anything one year. I went to private school 7th-12th and to college for 5 years, but still don't have a degree*. The one year of homeschooling when we ended up not doing much was largely due to my mom trying out a new curriculum...or lack of curriculum. It was the put-it-together-yourself type. The rest of my homeschooled years were done with Calvert which I loved! (Though I do remember hating Composition and crying over Arithmetic!) I always got in trouble for reading ahead in my history and storybooks...I didn't mean to. I just forgot to stop at the ends of chapters, ya know?

I've got a 3 year old and a 3 month old. I have trouble keeping up with my dishes and laundry, not to mention trying to pull together a homeschool curriculum! Even a preschool one. Back when I was doing Calvert, they didn't have a preschool curriculum, but they do now. And it'll be arriving at my house within a week! I'm so excited!

Miss M has been begging to "learn school" every day. She flies through preschool workbooks (even when I make her "review" pages she's already done so that she ends up doing everything two or three times). I was planning to order a curriculum for her this fall, but hubby and I decided not to wait just for the sake of waiting. She's got excellent fine motor skills for her age, so why not just get on with it? I don't know if we'll finish in a year...or more...or less. We'll go at our own pace, but at least I'll have something to keep her busy an hour or two during the day.

This is going to be fun!

*It's kind of hard to graduate when they require certain upper-level classes, then schedule them once every two years at the same day and time as each other! You'd almost think they don't want their students to graduate.

MFW ECC: What's different this time around?

I am so excited to go through Exploring Countries and Cultures again. The last time my kids were so little -- 3rd grade and Kindergarten. And now they are in 5th and 8th grades! They have grown so much over the past five years. As I began to think about our plan for this year, I realized two things: 1) my gifted eldest child remembers just about everything we covered in ECC the first time, and 2) my younger one hasn't had many of the basics that ECC covers. So I was faced with a dilemma -- how do I adjust ECC to suit the very different needs of both children? How do I shift the focus for my 8th grader to aspects of ECC that she hadn't spent time on before (such as types of governments, imports and exports, etc.) while also taking my younger child through the more foundational information that he missed when he was just a kindergartener? ECC is designed to be parent-led, family learning, with a supplement for 7th and 8th grade. But I came to the conclusion that I need to deco...

Pilcrow pajamas

I finally finished a sewing project...it's been a while, huh? Little Guy has outgrown most of his pajamas and bodysuits. He has several onesies, but they're mostly short sleeved which isn't really appropriate for this time of year without a cardigan. Ottobre to the rescue! I had traced off the "Naava coverall" (Ottobre 6/2009, #3) but it was already a size too small. I "remedied" that by simply cutting it out a little larger all around and keeping my original seam allowance...a bit sloppy perhaps, but time-saving! I actually cut out two at the same time from the same material. I was going for practicality (something for the kid to wear!) rather than fashion. The other one is nearly done - just the leg binding and snaps left to do. Still, I needed to do something fun to spruce 'em up a bit. The other one was voted by hubby to be video game themed, so I decided to make this one reflect my abject nerdiness personality....

Letter posters with memory verses

I have very fond memories of the cursive letter banner that was posted around the top of the walls in my fifth grade classroom. I thought it would be fun to make something similar for our homeschool classroom (a.k.a. our kitchen). I decided to include a Bible verse for each letter. At this point it's mostly for my own benefit since Miss M doesn't read yet. They serve as great reminders to help her memorize these important bits of Scripture while her little mind is still a sponge. (It saddens me that my memorization skills are not what they were when I was a kid!) The fun part is I saved my work in a pdf file for you to use too! Just click the image above to download the file. I laminated mine before sticking them around my kitchen walls with ticky tacky. (The laminator is a new toy!) Enjoy!

CHRISTEPHI

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