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triplets we won’t have to report until they’re almost 7, 2nd grade, since their birthday is after December 1st}. For now, homeschooling is about fun, finding out what works for us, and how we want to function as a homeschooling family.
Over the past few years I’ve collected quite a few things for homeschooling via the internet, most of them free. Now, I don’t know if you could legitimately managed to homeschool for free through high school, as I haven’t researched it, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve managed to get some great e-sources for only a few dollars, from other moms who have put together curriculums, and I have found a plethora of things that were free.
There is one great blog site that I HIGHLY recommend called, 1 + 1 + 1= 1 {that is a link} written by Carisa. I had the privilege to hear her speak last year at Allume, where she discussed being a homeschooling mommy blogger {got all that ?} She has a vast multitude of information on her blog about how to beginning “schooling” with the under 5 group. Also check out the blog Confessions of a Homeschooler: Another great resource of materials!
There were several preschool and kindergarten curriculums as part of the Ultimate Homemaking Ebook Bundle that I had promoted in May. The whole bundle was just under $30, but it had 2 full homeschool curriculums in it, and a ton of other homeschooling materials….definitely something to keep in mind for next year’s sale.
What we went with…
My sister was homeschooled and one of the curriculums my parents used with her in Kindergarten was Sing, Spell, Read, and Write…which had this really catchy song for the phonetic pronunciations of the alphabet. Put it this way, it’s been 16 years since my sister was in Kindergarten and the song is still in my head. It must be good. However it was backordered. Thus why I didn’t share a homeschool post in September.
We soldiered on.
I pulled together a bunch of things myself: From an alphabet to hang on the wall with bible verses, a selection of books from Sonlight's preschool curriculum {I love their literature selections, and will most likely be using them for English, Writing, and History when we get into the higher grades}, as well as something I found online, ABCMouse.com. They had a free one month trial and we figured we’d give it a shot.
I was impressed, but realized that Ave wasn’t. She was frustrated. She was used to an iPad, that she had to touch the screen to use, not a mouse. I figured after the free trial we definitely wouldn’t be signing up, because she never wanted to play on it, despite how fun it was. Then it “clicked” {pun intended}.
After a few weeks she figured out the mouse, and away she went. She loves the music videos for each letter of the alphabet, she loves the puzzles, she loves the games, she loves that she gets to have a pet hamster and that playing all these “games” gives her tickets to “buy” things for her hamster.
ABCMouse.com ran a promo in September, that you basically got 2 years membership for the price of 14 months, which made the cost a bit more reasonable. At that point we had to move the computer into the kitchen, because she LOVES, LOVES playing her ABCMouse.com.
I figured she was having fun with it, but how much learning was actually going on: Umm more than I realized. Ave went from not knowing ANY of the letters in the alphabet by sight, to knowing almost HALF of them after just a few weeks, including what sounds they make. She’s now able to right her nickname {Ave} as well as about a 1/3 of the alphabet. I was impressed.
One thing I do realize with Ave is that unless she wants to do it, she’s not going to, which is absolutely going to be an issue when she gets older and HAS to do certain things. I just know that I will have to think outside of the box and about how Ave will be interested. She’s not going to be the kid who at 8 years old picks up an encyclopedia {never mind the fact that they don’t exist anymore} and looks up “Donatello, Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo” because they want to know why the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were named that {yes, that was me…I even proceeded to write a 2 page report on each of those people…I was weird, I know. And yes, I did that for fun.}
For right now we’re doing a mix of her ABCMouse.com program {when she asks…sometimes she doesn’t want to}, reading quality literature and science books {from our own collection and from Sonlight’s Reading List, as well as doing lots of hands on activities. Most people wouldn’t even see the “schooling” that is going on, because it’s not sitting at a desk for an hour and doing paperwork, it’s reading together and playing games, answering her questions {“Mommy, how do you spell ______?”, “Why does ______ happen?”}, and doing our own research about the why and how of things. Which, in my opinion, is how learning should be.
*I’ll be sure to post a follow up on how our homeschool room is setup. This post was just getting too long to include it.
*If you’re thinking of homeschooling, I highly recommend checking out the Home School Legal Defense Association…they have an incredibly amount of information on their website. Also seek out reputable homeschooling groups in your area, fortunately for me, I’m familiar with a lot of them, because my parents homeschooled
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