We’ve begun a new journey. We’ve decided to homeschool. We’ve basically been doing just that since the children were born. The only difference now is that I will approach it more formally. This blog will serve as a place to share our daily endeavors with you (family, friends, fellow homeschoolers and others interested in knowing more).
We’ve been spending a little time getting things organized around the house… purging our craft supplies, taking inventory of what we have on hand already and making note of what we’ll need to purchase (book shelves!!), setting up our ‘classroom and library’ in the den, and discussing our goals for the year.
I sat down with DD yesterday afternoon and asked her what things she was curious about (I have an idea but wanted to hear her verbalize her thoughts)… what direction she might like to go. This was her response:
* scrapbooking
* painting
* knitting
* stitching (embroidery and quilting)
So cute! She just loves anything to do with arts & crafts and spends hours coloring, stitching, and creating scrapbook pages with the materials I’ve given her.
She recently discovered a caterpillar in our backyard that has since pupated. She enjoyed identifying it in a field guide and then creating a watercolor painting. So with a little prodding… we’ve decided to start this first year homeschooling experiment with butterflies and folktales. We’ll see where that takes us. 🙂
As I have browsed other homeschooling blogs, I discovered that many have official names for their school. I like this idea and opened a dialogue with my daughter to come up with a name of our own. As we’ve been talking about the school, I’ve explained that we would all be learning and that we would all be teaching – sharing in the adventure. With this, she came up with Family School.
I then read off a few names of preschools from our phone book and she locked onto one that she adored. I explained that we didn’t want to have the same name as another school, that we wanted to be different. I made a suggestion that kept the key word, stars, but was unique to us; Twinkling Stars Family School. She loved it!
7 comments
Backofpack
August 21, 2007 at 12:52 am
You are in for so much fun!
If you don’t already have it, one of the best things we bought when we started was a World Book Encyclopedia set. We chose World Book because it’s clear and easy for kids to use. I remembered looking at our set when I was a kid, sitting down to look something up, and spending hours paging through the book. I wanted the same for the boys – and it worked! I’d find them laying in a patch of sunlight in the living room, reading the articles, running to show the other or me. So cool. So that’s my big investment suggestion!
Donald
August 21, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Wow. This sounds overwhelming to me. Good luck to you, and enjoy the journey.
ROGERSBIZ
August 21, 2007 at 8:54 pm
NICE BLOG.
Kaboda
August 21, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Cool picture of the LG! Everytime I see her she changes so much. Well good luck in the School you’ll do great as you are a teacher at heart. Let me know if you need any help with anything I know I’m a ways a way but can always help on research or whatever. Once the BarCon trip is over I got to concentrate on finding a job but can still help out where I can if you need/want it.
Gina
August 22, 2007 at 1:40 am
What a wonderful school name! I was seriously considering homeschooling until I got pregnant again (baby will be about 6 months old when it would be time to start kindy with our first and I’m leery about being able to do that!) However, my husband wants me to think about it for 1st grade – when our 2nd child would be starting kindy.
I look forward to following your journey. I hope it goes wonderfully for you!
Mom2Amara
August 26, 2007 at 4:10 am
4 Twinkling Stars. What a fantastic name!
I could never do what you are doing — you should be commended!
Sniz
August 30, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Hi Makita,
Wow, you are starting on a fun, challenging, frustrating, rewarding journey! This will be my fourth year homeschooling. My son is 8th grade and my daughters are in 5-6th grade and 2-3rd grade. (They are higher in some areas and lower in others). It has been quite a journey and has had lots of ups and downs. This year is an up year so far. Anyway, you left a comment at my blog about the type of clay we used to make our model of the world. At the Indianapolis homeschool convention this year, I bought a new Science curriculum from Bright Ideas Press. It has the recipe for the play-dough modeling clay, so we made it from scratch and colored it ourselves. It was very time-consuming, but worth it! I have thought about starting a blog just for our homeschool like you have…I really like the idea. I think I’ll try it! Good luck and I’ll check back in with you guys frequently this year!
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