...And We Are OFF!

I finally chose the curriculum for our year. 

What a process!!

Every time I settled on something- I second guessed myself. (I am glad I have learned to listen to that little nagging feeling inside of me!) In utter despair, we ended up traveling an hour to a store that specializes in home school materials. The ladies there saved the day!! We were walked through the store, subject-by-subject, brand-by-brand.

The last thing we came to happens to be the system we bought. It is called Sonlight. The name suggests that it is a Christian based curriculum but it is very much secular. There is a bible lesson for every day and you can choose to use that or not.

Let me tell you what I love about this particular system:

1) You can choose to buy single grades OR spans of grades. This option is favorable if you are teaching kids that are close in age- like I am. We thought it would be easier for me to teach the same lesson to both girls and allow the older one to do the "advanced" work that comes with the kit. Our particular kit covers grades 3,4,5  (or ages 8,9,10,11) so it is perfect for us.

2) You get to customize what subjects your kit includes. For us, we bought American History which also bridges into Language Arts (killing two birds with one stone) and Science. There is a lot of other things to choose from- Music, Art, Math (we decided to go with a different company for math), Religion, Geography, Foreign Language, Spelling and Handwriting.

3) Everything is organized into binders, with tabs- by week.

(insert angelic music here)

There is a teachers guide, student worksheets, study guides (to expand on the lesson) and a lesson plan that is already filled out! They give you both a four day and five day guide. Each day is spelled out for me; what chapters to read, what worksheets to do, ect.

(not all families want this much structure.... I crave it)

My kids love to organize things like I do- so I gave them each a binder for each subject and dividers so they can keep track of their worksheets. keeps my load light, gives them some control and makes it feel a little more like the traditional school they are used to.

4) Supplements can be ordered. We needed an extra packet of science worksheets, so we ordered them. We opted to purchase the science experiment kit so I would have the items on hand when they are called for.

5) All of the small chapter books used in the curriculum can be bought from Sonlight (you can also borrow them from the library- but buying them is not crazy expensive) and they give a listing of supplemental books that you can use to further study if your kids want more.

6) this system is not nearly as expensive as we had been fearing. I think we spent around $600 total, with half of it being used from the specialty store and the other half being ordered online directly from Sonlight. We were expecting to spend that amount on EACH child, not both combined!

7) if you order early, they allow you to make monthly payments and they ship your kit to you in smaller spurts. I like this option for two reasons: the first being that it isn't hundreds of dollars at once, and the second is controlling the influx of new books, binders, papers, ect.

There you have it!

Not every system or company will work for everyone, but so far this one is just right for us! I am very excited to have found a resale store; with human help, where I can see and touch the books before committing to them! Equally exciting is finding a curriculum that is exactly what I was looking for!

To learn more about Sonlight, visit their site!

To learn more about the resale store we found, visit Moore Expressions!

Choosing to Home School is Easy, Choosing Curriculum is Not!

School traditionally starts in our neck of the woods the day after Labor Day. The kids are trained to expect it and typically get antsy around this time of year. But this year it is not the kids who are getting nervous and anxious- it is MOM!

I am very excited, don't get me wrong... but I am finally feeling the panic of not being adequate that I have heard and read about! I have not yet ordered curriculum! It is not for a lack of funds or knowledge- it is because I am scared to death of ordering the wrong one. The Hubster and I narrowed the vast offering down to three companies (which is astounding) but taking that three down to just one is kind of dizzying to me.

The Hubster keeps telling me it will be fine- especially given that this is our first year and there will be time to figure it all out. But it's not really a comfort to me- will he be so calm is I select a set that does not work well for us and we have to rebuy new curriculum?? (the answer to that is no- he will likely be disgruntled for a little while!)

So my goal for this week is to narrow our three top pick to just one pick.

The contestants in our game of life are Alpha- Omega, Spectrum and Saxon.

One is religious and offers different levels in each grade for the different subjects, one is all workbooks, streamlined and simple and the other is a company that makes school textbooks- so it is a familiar format. There is something I like about each one!

-OR-

I can choose a prepackaged kit from an online curriculum site. They are grouped by grade and are pretty generalized but include a years worth of stuff.

Hmmmmm.....

And it is Wednesday.... so I really need to buckle down and choose one.

It may come a fierce round of eenie-meenie-miney-mo.

Despite my angst- the girls are doing very well!! Ains has morphed from being somewhat secluded and keeping things bottled in to sharing her thoughts and feelings freely! She has told me she loves me more this week then probably the entire year! Quite remarkable really. That alone is pulling me through this process!