Homeschooling

Well, Brian and I have decided to homeschool next year. One of the first questions is why. Well, it really has little to do with our unhappiness with the school, though that is what lead us to choose this. Our main priority as parents, we feel, is to make them responsible and high functioning adults with a strong relationship with Christ. Our boys get on the school bus at 8am and get back home at 4pm. Austin, who is usually behind, usually has about 45 minutes of homework (that sometimes takes up to an hour and a half). Wyatt usually gets his done in about 25 minutes. Then we have soccer, scouts or church. Add dinner and baths and it's bedtime!! We have NO time as a family and not nearly enough time to influence our kids the way we want to. So, we started looking into it. Homeschooling is not what it used to be. It's not just for the religous freaks. The kids are not poor shy unsolcialized kids. The parents arn't parents who just can't bare to be away from their kids. Their are still some obnoxious people out there who homeschool. I know of one child who is especially obnoxious who tells kids who are in public how their parents don't love them!! LOL We are not such a family, we do not think that this is the BEST or ONLY way to educate your kids. It just seems to work out for us. The second question is always what do the boys think about it, which amuses me. If your kid didn't want to go to school, wouldn't you still send them? So what does it matter if my kids don't want to do it? We are the parents, and WE make the decisions for the family!! That being said, Austin has been thrilled from the get go and Wyatt is pretty excited now too :) Both are excited to learn from Christian curriculum, have shorter days and go on field trips. We also found a great co op program (more on that later) to go to once once a week and they have some friends in it already, so they're excited for that too :) Third question? What are you going to use? Well, my close friends are sick of hearing about this since I'm so excited so I'm kinda excited to type it all out!! LOL I had planned on using all one curriculum so it would be easier but after going to the homeschool conference and looking around I realized there was no program I liked ALL of, so it's all miss matched :) For math (the only subject they'll be seperated for) they'll be using HORIZON'S 3rd and 4th grade. I liked it because it had color on the pages :) Also, this and everything else very plainly splits the lessons and days up. For Language arts and reading I'm using Christian Light Publications. I like the seperate workbooks and the that the stories have character lessons in them. They'll both be doing 4th grade since Wyatt is so advanced in reading. For spelling though we are using the Charlotte Mason method, which is they learn verses and quotes and must learn to spell all the words and use correct puncuation in them. I think it'll be much more interesting than a list of words. Austin may struggle with it at first, but I'm hoping the one on one will have a huge impact on him. History I am very excited about!! We are using Mystery of History which puts Bible stories in chronological order with "secular" history. I can't wait to read this!! Science we will be doing Apologia's Astronomy. We will also be throwing in some health lessons. We'll be doing Daily Geography from Timberdoodle for geography. A couple good friends from church attend a program at Gilead Christian for homeschoolers that we have decided to join. We'll go on Weds and the boys will get to have art, music, gym, library and lunch and recess with kids their age! I think this is perfect!! They'll also have testing there at the end f the year. I'll meet with director once a month for her to look over the boys work to make sure they are progressing correctly and help me with any areas we are struggling with. So, there you go, our plans for next year!! We can't wait!! Only 7 more weeks of school!!!!!!