Homeschool, Here We Come!

File this under: posts I never thought I’d be writing. But here we are! Finishing up our oldest’s pre-K year at a local church preschool, eager to start Kindergarten, at home, together. It feels surreal to even say!

I started considering homeschool for our daughter (keeping an open mind for our boys, more on that later) a few years ago. So many things about it sounded like a great fit for our family, our beliefs, and our values, but of course I had so many questions and hesitations along the way. When I first brought it up to Andrew, I honestly expected a little more pushback, but his support from the get-go was so encouraging and gave me the nudge to keep pursuing the idea more seriously. I got the confidence I needed to finally say “ok, this is what we’re doing” when I *very nervously* told my mom (who has spent 40 years teaching and working in public education) about our plans and she had nothing but support and encouragement for our decision.

Why homeschool?

The main drivers behind our decision were freedom, faith, and family. Which sounds so cliché, but really, all of our reasons for homeschooling boiled down to these three things. We want the freedom and flexibility it will allow our family to structure our days like we want to, to learn about the things we want to, to get out and go places when we want to. We want the ability to incorporate our faith into our children’s education because our faith is at the core of who we are and everything we do as a family. And mostly, we want to preserve childhood for at least a little longer. We want to give our five year old time to be FIVE. To play with her brothers and friends (we’re lucky to have local friends who homeschool as well!), to spend hours outside, to not be woken up at the crack of dawn and hurried out the door five days a week or be beholden to a rigid schedule. I’m so incredibly excited and grateful for, if nothing else, one more year of slow mornings at home with my children. I don’t take for granted the privilege it is for our family to have this opportunity, and I’m going to try to steward this extra time we get to spend together well!

Our homeschool style + Priorities

Before I could even begin to narrow down curriculum choices, I had to articulate what our goals and priorities were for home education – essentially, what “style” or method would work best for us. There are several popular methods of homeschooling, and it looks like we’ll be blending aspects of a couple of them. I like the structure and predictability of a thorough open-and-go curriculum (Traditional), but at the same time, I want more for her than sitting in a chair completing workbooks and checklists. It’s important to us to emphasize reading, art, time in nature, and scripture (Charlotte Mason), and I’m excited that a lot of our curriculum has a common thread of foundational faith teachings. I want field trips, outings, cooking together, and camping and hunting with her daddy to all contribute to her overall education, too. There are learning opportunities everywhere!

Researching curriculum was incredibly intimidating for me. One of the main advantages to homeschooling is getting to tailor what we do to her strengths, abilities, personality, and interests, so I didn’t want to pick something that ended up feeling “wrong” for her, something that didn’t challenge her enough, something too rigid or not rigid enough. I set a goal to have our choices made by May, and started to familiarize myself with some of the more popular options several months prior, looking through scopes and sequences, reading reviews and sifting through comparison blogs. I knew at some point I just had to trust my own discernment, place my orders, and know that nothing is set in stone. If something ends up not working, we can always shift and try something else. I feel really confident in my curriculum choices for this year, really hopeful that everything will integrate well and not feel too disconnected, and overall, giddy to get started.

Our Kindergarten Curriculum Choices

CORE SUBJECTS:
The Good and The Beautiful Language Arts | We completed TGATB Kinder Prep this year at home, along with her doing Kinder Prep at MDO two days a week. We liked a lot about TGATB’s approach and although I think it might have some shortcomings, especially beyond the kinder level, we’re going to continue with it for another year at Level K and supplement where needed.
Handwriting Without Tears | I’m intrigued by this program’s approach and its foundations for cursive. We’re doing Level K Handwriting as well as Keys for Me, their beginner computer skills course.
Singapore Math | This is the one I’m most excited about – it truly blew every other math curriculum I looked at out of the water. It’s unique in so many ways! Steele has a strong grasp on lots of math concepts already and I know this will keep her engaged and strengthen her foundations with number sense, visualization, and mental math. We’re starting with KA/KB and also purchased their manipulatives set.
Answers Bible Lessons | Can’t wait to work through this one together, learning Biblical foundations, history, connections and applications. We got the K1 workbook and teacher’s guide (also on Amazon).

SUPPLEMENTAL:
The Good and The Beautiful Science | TGATB has four overarching science units for PK-2, all of which can be taught in any order and adapted for multiple ages, so the boys can participate too! We’re starting with Fields + Flowers and will save Bones + Stones, Wind + Waves, and Sparks + Stars for future years.
Beginning Geography | An intro to maps, landforms, bodies of water, continents and oceans – more here.
Exploring Nature | Easy activities we can do in the backyard, the park or the woods around us – more here.
Indescribable: Devotions About God + Science | More here!
The Ology Devotionals | More here!
Brighter Day Press Seasonal + Holiday Studies | We got the Labor Day, Autumn, and Thanksgiving studies to help fill our fall semester.

I haven’t given much thought yet to our daily/weekly rhythms and am giving myself grace to adjust as we go, especially in the beginning, but right now my plan is to do our Core Subjects 5 days a week, with our Supplemental lessons and activities rotating. We definitely aren’t trying to do every single thing every day.

I don’t follow many homeschool accounts (really, just one) because the overload of information and opinions can be way too much noise, but Francie Outlaw’s account has been one I’ve loved for years and I appreciate so many of her insights on parenting, family values, systems for the home, and homeschooling. Many of our curriculum choices were influenced by her, and I plan to use her Weekly Planner system to map out our lessons and keep us organized.

Keeping an open mind

As I mentioned, we’re going into this very open-minded and taking things one year at a time. I know I’m going to be learning right alongside Steele this coming year, figuring out what works best for us, adjusting as we go, and giving us both a lot of grace along the way. While I fully believe that a well-rounded education doesn’t require being in a classroom for 7 hours a day or learning at the pace/standards set by our state, we’re also not opposed to public school or private school options for the future, and we have two more years before we need to make a decision for our boys. So we’ll see how this year goes and go from there. Here’s to our first year of homeschooling!