Classifying game

Our orchard visit sparked the interest of spiders and insects. What is the difference? They are both arthropods, meaning they have an exoskeleton and a segmented body. But a spider has eight legs, while an insect has six legs.

This fits into our animal unit nicely. We started off the unit by watching this free movie from brainpopjr.
http://www.brainpopjr.com/science/animals/classifyinganimals/



Mimi is a kinesthetic learner. So lots of manipulations, movement and actions helps her retain what she has learned.



The object of the game was to pretend to be an animal and hop to the group.



Are you a vertebrate or invertebrate? Warm blooded or cold blooded? Bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian, or arthropod? If it was an arthropod, are you a spider or an insect?

Field trips

We had the opportunity to visit an orchard. We were lucky to catch them before the closed.

The people who run the orchard were great. The people who run it are great. The kids got to see the steps of making a blanket from cottonbud to weaving.







They learned about bees.



Did you know that bees have a straw-like tongue?



After the demonstrations, they took the tour of the orchard. They learned about worm composting. They also learned which insects were good and which insects were bad for the garden.

Look a huge spider!


They visited several areas of the gardens and learned about "raincoats" or pods.

Yummy, black eyed pea


At the end of the tour, the kids got to pick an apple. They were very careful to twist until the apple fell off, so it won't break.


Look at huge apple washer!

Kindness Co-op

One of the most common arguments against homeschooling is that the kids won't get enough socialization. On the contrary, most homeschooled children have more opportunities to interact with their peers along with other age groups older and younger. They learn to be gentle with the little ones and sometimes it can lead to them mentoring. They get to speak to adults on the same level, while still being respectful.

There are so many opportunities to "socialize". Besides going to the park or museum, we joined a couple of co-ops. You should check to see what co-ops are in your area.

One co-op we joined is called The Kindness Co-op. We meet every other Thursday. Every week there is an activity geared towards nurturing the kindness.

This last week, we made bird feeders with pipe cleaners and cheerios. This is also good for helping with fine motor skills.




They also played the "Pass the Mouse" game. They get in a circle and take turns handing the "mouse" (beanbag) to the next person.

The kids get very excited about waiting the turn. It has taken a new creative twist, where they will pretend the mouse is telling them how she wants to be passed (slowly, fast, up in the air!).

The age range for this particular group is infant to seven. They all play very well together. My kids come home with new creative ideas for playtime.

Muzzy giveaway

I believe that teaching the kids to be multilingual is very important. Because we live in Texas, I would love to teach the kids Spanish. I would also like to them Vietnamese. Fortunately, my parents speak Vietnamese so they will have the exposure.

For Vietnamese I would like to use Rosetta Stone. It will freshen up my Vietnamese and my children and husband can understand when my parents talk about them. ;)

For Spanish, I plan on using Muzzy. And guess what? A homeschool blogger (she's vegan too!) is doing a giveaway! So go and check her out and enter to win! The drawing will be on her son's birthday, October 26th, so you have a couple weeks left!

How it all began

History is one of my weaker subjects. After reading many reviews, we decided to get A Child's History of the World . It presents history in a more secular point of view compared to the other history curriculum for homeschoolers. According to the reviewes, God is mentioned, and it is assumed that the reader believes in God, but it is not totally biased. You can also purchase a workbook to go along with it. I don't know if I will get the workbook or not.

The first chapter of the book is, "How it All Began." It talks about the theory of the beginning of the world coming from stars (it does have one sentence saying thaat God created the stars, and because of our beliefs, I omitted that while reading). From the stars came the sun, the sun emitted sparks and one became a rock, which became our Earth. It goes on until humans are created. The kids enjoyed this lesson. There is a little timeline:

Stars,
Sun,
Spark,
World,
Steam,
Rain,
Oceans,
Plants,


Animals,
Jellyfish
Insects
Fish,
Amphibians,
Reptiles,
Birds,
Mammals,


People

For our activity, I cut and pasted images from the internet onto one page. The kids cut and pasted the images in the order according to the timeline.



I think it was a wonderful way to introduce history. Tomorrow we will probably read about the Big Bang Theory.

Teaching the Three R's

I am still trying to find our groove. I have found it hard to implement the Three R's (reading, writing, and arithmetic) with our units. We work on these separately and start off the day with it when the children are most alert and willing to learn.

Every morning we journal. MiMi will draw a picture about something she did the night before or even something she would like to do. She will write a couple of sentences. Bobo will just draw something that he enjoys doing. We also subscribe to Hilights magazine. They have several pictures that they can cut out and make into a story.

Currently, we are learning about the parts of speech.

I just wrote the words on note cards and stuck magnetic tape to the back. Eventually, MiMi will have fun with Adlibs. Anyone remember those?

For Math, I'm simply following Right Start curriculum. I do veer of sometimes. I try to make Friday game time. Last week, we played Bingo.


We did our numbers from 1 to 10 using tally marks, sums, and colored dots. Tomorrow we will play again.

MiMi is into cooking. She loves following a recipe. Before she helps, we do fractions.


I draw out shapes and write the ingredients. She has to divide the shape and fill in the squares to match the amount. She really enjoys doing it and even tries to teach BoBo.

We are slowly, but surely setting our own schedule. Some days we are done with the basics by 11. Other days (like today) we don't even start until 11. That's the beauty of learning at home!

We're off to see the wizard

We are currently reading The Wizard of Oz. We are trying to read at least one chapter a day. Listening to MiMi read, I realize that we need to work on sentence syntax. She will put pauses or emphasis where there shouldn't be or just read a flow of words when she should have stopped.

The kids painted tornadoes yesterday. They learned how lines can make show movement.



Here's my tip of the day:
If you don't have paper plates or an art palette wrap a regular plate with saran wrap. Clean up is easy.


After the paint dried the kids drew a swirling pattern with gray marker over the lines.
MiMi's:

Bobo's:


Yesterday we read the tornado books and today we reviewed the important aspects from the book. We divided a manila piece of paper into three columns: Warning signs of a tornado (For Bobo I drew eyes since he can't read), Safety Dos (checkmark) Safety dont's). I wrote out phrases from the book (drew pictures for BoBo) and they kids categorized them.




We all know that Dorthy kills the Wicked Witch of the East. We used that as a stepping stone to learn compass points. This is something that we will continue to work on as we slowly learn about the US states. So far the kids only know Kansas, Texas and New Hampshire. I was only able to ask a few questions such as, "Kansas is _______ of Texas."


I think the kids enjoyed making the scarecrows the most.

We just used paper sacks and filled it up with paper to be recycled. We then tied the top with a terry band. The kids added the features.
Here is a good book to introduce brain functions:


Over all a productive two days with still a lot to cover. The kids aren't bored yet! I just feel like I'm lacking on the brain still. I don't want to be too elaborate, but I still feel like I can still do more.

Wizard of Oz

What child does not love this story?

In this unit we will study rainbows, tornadoes, the heart, and the brain. This unit will probably last two to three weeks as we explore the characters and climate of the book.

We will kick off our lesson with tornadoes.
Library books:






We will be creating a tornado in a bottle and watching the movie Tornado Alley

Unit 1, Dinosaurs

After we got our Oriental Trading Company order, the girls decided to abandon Harry Potter, and learn about Dinosaurs. I sorta knew that was going to happen! 

Okay, I'll be updating this post as we go, not creating new posts, so once we're done all the info will be in one easy post. 

Today is our pre-start. We're jumping in tomorrow, but we're dipping our toe in today. So I booted up Netflix, and got them watching Walking With Dinosaurs from BBC. They are watching with their sketch pads, in case they feel like drawing what they see. Poor Pia is upset that she "can't" draw dinos. I can't wait until she discovers she can :)

Our letter for this unit is M, and our vocabulary list:

herbivore

carnivore

omnivore

scale

reptile

bones

extinct

plates

Jurassic
Triassic 
Cretaceous

Note, I changed up the vocabulary list.

I'm blogging as we go right now!

Ok, to start, we labelled all the dinos we got from our OTC order. Then we picked one that we liked the most, which is the Triceratops. While I was googling for info on these, Nana was writing out her vocabulary words, and Pia was doing Mm tracing/writing sheets, and early writing exercises. I got those here - really adorable, free print sheets. We also used Mm sheets from here.

While googling, I found another awesome site for all things Dino - here. They have information sheets, coloring pages, math sheets, etc. I printed out a few different ones, in preparation for our posters - we will be creating posters for each dino for information retention. 

After we finished up our letters/vocabulary, we moved onto math for Nana, and more Mm work for Pia. Pia did an M letter search, from the first school site, and some M coloring. Nana did some simple dino addition (numbers, no pics) from the learning page site. After we successfully completed those, I printed out coloring pages of a Triceratops for our posters. We colored and cut those out and set them aside. Next, we headed outside with our dino fact sheet - we talked about how much space a Triceratops would take up, and counted off their length together. They especially loved this part! 

Once back inside, I had Nana work in her phonics workbook, doing a few word searches/writing practices. Pia worked on some more early writing exercises. Now we're breaking for lunch!

Sight Words (and more pics)

In addition to our vocabulary words, we're also doing sight words. I borrowed a list from here, and I bought some "word strips" which are just heavy duty, lined paper strips. I've written about three words on each, and I cut them out and hung them around our room for easy access/visibility. There are 42 words total, so I'll do two words per unit, and then we'll have reinforcement/review for the additional 10 units.

 

 This is our letter/number/word wall. The very bottom has the alphabet upper and lower case, just above that are numbers 1-10, and on top, our sight words for the year.

Crappy close up :)

This is our "sharing" wall. Within units, the girls can pick things they are proud of, or their favorite part of the lessons, and we'll hang them here. It's an easy way to share with Daddy. I'll feature them on the blog, too.

And finally, the girls! They requested that I take their pic.

Our Day

We don't always start at the same time, and I'm still trying to find our groove. I find that the kids and I are much happier and productive if I create a schedule.

M starts off the day with reading. While she reads, I work with Bobo on phonics. M joins in later. Next we work on handwriting. For M, she just writes random words and phrases on handwriting paper and B traces his letters. Spelling and vocabulary is next. I introduce the words with just a blind pretest. I dictate the words, while M tries to write them out. After I correct the words, she rewrites them in her composition notebook and practices. Throughout the week, we use those words in dictation sentences, fill in the blank, crosswords, or just another test. I do these subjects everyday. We haven't started math yet, but I plan to do this every day as well.

For the other subjects, I touch a few days a week. I would love to get a group together to do science projects.

Ancient Egypt

We started by reading Ms. Frizzle's Adventure's Ancient Egypt and The Best Book of Mummies.
It lead to so many subjects. We identified it on our map and pinned the Egyptian flag (I have mini magnet flags), and since it's in Northern Africa, I introduced the continents of the world. 

Because the Egyptians' beliefs in many gods and goddesses, we discussed the difference between facts, opinions and beliefs

Vocab/Spelling words for this unit:
Egypt
Africa
Nile River
scribe
mummy
tomb
pharaoh
god
goddess
Cairo

I still have many activities to do. The kids are excited about making a pyramid. You can make it with sugar cubes, but I'm going the easy way and just the template on the Crayola provided. I also plan on having the kids decode hieroglyphics.

Our space (pics!)

Finally! My sister has been asking for pictures of our "space" and I'm delivering :) To illustrate how huge this is, I still had Christmas pictures on my card. Most of them are probably only interesting to me.

Most of our storage space is in our playroom. The majority of actual teaching will likely be in the dining room for comfort. But these are pics of our playroom.

 This is our map area - North and South America. The rest is yet to come!

 Storage area.

 Drawer 1 - glue and sticky tape.

 Drawer 2 is sorta sad. Erasers and pencil sharpeners.

 Holy scissors, right? A lot of them are from my scrapbooking days.

 Markers, other markers and colored pencils.

 Paint! Watercolors, glitter paint and more.

 Mamas drawer. Tape, thumb tacks, stickys and stuff.

 Paper. We have heavy duty sketch paper, random colored paper, old scrapbooking paper, regular construction paper.

 Craft junk. Ribbons, beads, glitter and so much more.

 This is the organized corner. Those folders you see are our units. Each unit has a folder, with the vocab list and pertinent ideas/information. The piles are the workbooks that don't "go" with any particular unit. The right is Nana's, the left is Pia's.

 Our US map.

 This is Pia's pile - her sketch book, drawing tablet, etc.

Nana's pile.

That's it! Once we get more fun stuff, I'll take more pics!

Materials

I know this varies so much from family to family. I wanted to share what we got, in case anyone was looking for ideas.

The basics, of course - paint, paint brushes, markers, colored pencils, crayons, construction paper, printer ink, clipboards, printer paper, erasers, pencil sharpeners, paint cups, google eyes, jewels, scissors, feathers, glue, tape and little puff balls. Then I got some more things specific to our units. I'm going to link them up.

Alphabet/Number books
Apple Fraction Game
Magnetic Calendar
Break Your Own Geodes (squee!)
Make your own telescopes
Mini Dino Skeletons
Dino Dig Kit
Life Cycle Charts
Bug Learning Charts
Fruit and Veggie Poster Set
Human Body Flip Chart

None of this stuff is necessary. It's all just extra fun. I really can't wait to get our order! There are a few other things I've got my eye on, but they were out of stock.

I also got the girls each:

A sketch pad, for when we're out and about.
A story book - which has writing paper on the bottom and a sketch area on top.
A writing tablet.
A journal.

Each day will we have 30 minutes or so of journaling. That's time for them to just be creative. And I get to keep the journal for memories.

We also stopped by Lakeshore Learning and I picked up a few things. A Preschool skills book - which is mostly cutting/gluing/numbers/etc - things for Pia that we need to concentrate on this year. I also got her a Language Journal, which has all our letters and numbers, and words/pictures she can refer to. For Nana I picked up a State standard test prep for grade 1. It's really for me, to make sure we're on track. I have a visual now for what she *needs* to know, and it helps me. We also picked up a daily language practice journal for her. Its purpose is really comprehension, sentence structure, and things like that.

Last week I popped in the Dollar Tree and holy supplies!! They have a TON of resources for homeschooling, and cheap! I got each of the girls three workbooks: Subtraction, Phonics and Long Vowels for Nana, and The Alphabet, Sequencing and Colors/Shapes for Pia. For $1 each! I also picked up a map of North and South America and the US, to go along with our globe.

The dollar spot at Target is also a great place to look for things to supplement your teaching. We found workbooks on Dinosaurs, Space, Fire Safety, and Science experiments, again for a dollar.

None of this "stuff" is necessary to be successful with homeschooling. Things don't make the journey - but I'm still excited about them!

Great Resources!

These are things we either currently use, or will use in the future.

CIA World Factbook - this is updated weekly, and has all the information you could possibly want on every country in the world.

Lesson Pathways - this is free curriculum and links to support different concepts.

Homeschool Math - Awesome math worksheets you can easily print. The first grade section has addition, subtraction, money, time, etc.

1+1+1 - Tons of great resources here. It's called "tot school" but it has things that you can easily apply to bigger kids, too. Lots of great ideas and printables.

Two Teaching Mommies - these ladies do unit based learning, too. I grabbed their dino pack for our unit on Dinosaurs - some really cute stuff!

Free Reading - a completely free reading curriculum. I haven't played with it a whole lot yet, but it looks awesome.

Progressive Phonics - I love this program and I can't believe it's free!

Kid Zone - lots of great printables, and some really awesome science experiments!

Starfall - of course :)

More Starfall - this is a *paid* portion of Starfall that's new - it's pretty awesome with a good Kinder skill set.

Mr. Q's Lab - really great science support for homeschoolers. They have a monthly news letter with science experiment ideas, and their Classic Science curriculum is free (and awesome).

I will be adding to this post as I find new, fun resources!

Check in!

I know we've been absent lately, but it's summer, and we're enjoying it!!

But, school time is looming, so I've been doing a lot of prep work for us, and I'm set to begin next week.

After a lot of thought/research, this is our plan:

I sat down with my girls, and we chose 26 topics that interest them. I then tied a letter into each "unit" - because we're also doing Pre-K for my 4 year old. And letter learning can't hurt the 1st grader. I honestly don't know how long each unit will last - it depends on how it goes and if we veer off in other directions. I imagine if they are super interested in something within a unit, I can write a new unit on that topic. I'm going into this with the promise to myself to be flexible. And which unit we work on is completely up to the girls.

I like workbooks. I know a lot of hsers don't, but I do. I'm using them in my own way, as a follow up to what I teach, but I'm still going to use them.

Here are the units/letters we're doing. Some of the letters tie in nicely, some only make sense to me. As I complete each unit, I'll post the details with links/books/printables/tips/crafts. I will also link them up on the sidebar for easy navigation.

For now, here's our list:

Apple – A

Dinosaurs – M

Food Groups – N

Public Service Workers – R

Zoo Animals – D

Farming – C

Harry Potter - P

Royalty – Q

Butterflies - U

Space – S

Oceans - I

Flowers/Plants – K

Water - H

Machines - Z

Bodies - B

Earth - L

Cooking - F

Pirates - J

USA - O

Bugs - G

Birds - X

Christmas - W

Valentines - V

Thanksgiving - Y

Weather – E

Travel – T

Within each unit we will touch on several things, relevant to the girls ages. Colors, shapes, letters and early phonics for Pia (age 4), reading, spelling, phonics, geography, math, science for Nana (age 6). Each unit will have a vocabulary sheet with 9 words. These are *not* the sight words that we will be using throughout the year, but additional, more challenging words to learn and recognize.

So, that's our plan. I'm sure it will change 100 times over the school year, and I'm sure we'll hit some bumps in the road. It's ok though, I can't wait!

Handwriting for Toddlers

My son has shown an interest to writing his letters. At first I was taking the time to draw out in letters using dotted lines. He is an excellent tracer! I realized that I would safe much more time if I go to the store and pick up some tracing paper and write the letters with Sharpie on another piece of paper. If I can figure out how to use the copy machine, I plan on using handwriting paper as a template to print out the lines on the tracing paper.

Excited to be joining Jen

Well I am timidly, but enthusiastically joining in the homeschooling community. My name is Cyn. I have been toying with the idea of homeschooling for a long time. Kindergarten was suppose to be a trial run. It was my daughter's choice to attend school. With the end of the year approaching, we are now accessing whether we should continue putting her in school or continue her education at home.

I figured that I would use summer as a trial period to see whether or not I could handle schooling her or not. I also decided that my son will be joining us as well. I have written a couple lesson plans already, changing the content to suit both kids.

I look forward to this summer. I see it as an adventure. We used to geocache when we lived in Hew Hampshire. There was so much to explore. We will intricate geocaching within our lessons. I hope to see more of Texas while educating my children.

Units in progress

These are ongoing units I'm working on.

Princess/Castles - incorporating real castles, and princesses, their history.

Space - planets, astronauts, stars, etc.

Harry Potter - my kids both love this, so we're going to use it as a base to explore England.

Presidents - our past and present. Incorporate money in here.

Food Groups - not only what they are, but nutrition, and where our food comes from.

Zoo Animals - this will likely be broken up into several units, focusing on animals by country.

Farming - farm animals and crops. Incorporating a visit to either a farm or farmers market.

Dinosaurs - roar! I'm almost done with this one, and will post soon.

Public Service - touch a bit on how government is set up, but focus on Public servants - firefighters, policemen, sanitation, construction, etc. Try to visit one of these places.

Our Earth - this will come after the space unit. Focus on what the earth is made of, how we treat our earth, different eco systems of the earth. Want to incorporate the program Life in here, at least part of it.

Seasons - I'm unsure if we'll break this up by season, or talk about all at once.

This page will change a lot - I'll add as I come up with new ideas, and delete as I post lesson plans.

Apple Unit (Updated)

This is the first one I've put together, and it's still very much a work in progress.

First, we're going to head to the library and pick out a book about apples (maybe focus on Johnny Appleseed). After we've read the book together, we'll talk about our unit words, and what the book means, find the author and illustrator.

Apple unit words: Apple, Red, Stem, Seed, Sour, Fruit, Tree, Yellow, Green

Before heading out, we're going to create a budget for our apple purchases. Then we'll head to the store and look at all the different kinds of apples, and choose several different kinds within our budget. We'll weigh them together, and write the names down together. Nana will pay for them, staying in budget. (Lesson: Life Skills)

Alternatively, depending on the time of year, we'll find an apple picking farm. We'll visit, and pick our own apples. Talk to the proprietor about planting apple trees, what sort of climate apples like, what sort of bugs/animals like apples, and the different stages of an apples life. Also planning and remaining in the budget. (Lessons: Science, Life Skills)

Once we get home, we're going to practice writing the names of the apples, and finding our unit words in a word search (I have this file, if anyone wants it). For Pia, I have Aa writing sheets and a letter book. We'll also do a craft with apples, cutting out the stem, leaves and apple, and gluing them together. (Lesson: Writing, Spelling)

Then we're going to list the apples, and hop on the computer, to find out where they originally came from. We'll find those places on a map, and talk about what those places are like. (Lesson: Geography)

We'll pick our favorite place of those locations, and research how the apple seed got there, and the history of the area. (Lesson: History)

Next, we'll sort the apples by color, or stem length. We'll count, sort and categorize them. We'll create different patterns and write about our favorite attributes of an apple. (Lesson: Writing, Sorting, Counting, Patterns)

Next, we'll print out charts for the life of an apple seed, and review it (I still can't find what I need - maybe a book). Along with this will be coloring pages and an alphabet connect the dots for apples. Once we've completed learning about the life stages of an apple seed, we'll cut open our first apple and (attempt to) dissect a seed. (Lesson: Science)

Then, we'll take the cut apple, and work on fractions. We'll cut an apple in half, then in quarters, discussing different fractions and combinations. (Lesson: Math)

We'll leave one apple out, and check on it every hour to see what happens when an apple is left out. We'll write about what we see, using descriptive language. We'll record what we think will happen, and later review to see if it's correct. We'll hop back on the internet, to figure out why apples turn brown. (Lesson: Science, Writing, Critical Thinking)

With the remaining apples, we'll get into the kitchen, and create apple sauce. We'll work on measuring, reading a recipe and kitchen safety. We'll also wash all our dirty dishes and enjoy our product! While our sauce is cooking, we'll work on some Apple Math sheets I've created (if you want a copy, let me know!). (Lessons: Math, Life Skills, Reading)

TEKS, Grade 1

I'm going to post the TEKS goals for grade 1, for my reference. These are the basic skills we need to reach by the end of our school year.

It's 33 pages long, so bear with me. I'm summarizing.

Identify upper and lowercase letters
Sequence the letters of the alphabet
Recognize sentence structure - end punctuation, capitalization,
Properly read text - left to right, top to bottom
Identify different parts of a book -  title, author, illustrator, TOC

Rhyming
Long and short vowels
Recognize change in a spoken word (blow to glow)
Blend spoken phonemes to form one and two syllable words
Isolate initial, medial, and final sounds in one syllable words
Segment one syllable words of three to five phonemes into individual phonemes

Decode words that use letters that have different sounds - c/s, c/k
Short and long vowels
Consonant blends

Consonant digraphs
Vowel digraphs
Vowel diphthongs

Ok yeah, I'm already bored. I'll add more later ;)

Unit Based Learning

There are many, many, many different ways to home school. We've decided on unit based learning and teaching. For now, I anticipate that each unit will take two weeks. I'm planning out many different units, and Nana will be choosing which unit she wants to do.

My plan is to take the basic principles from TEKS, and work them into each unit. So we'll cover writing, spelling, reading, math, science, history, geography and the like on a level she can understand in a fun way. I'll be posting each of my units here, and once we complete them, I'll post again with my comments and evaluations. You can use anything you like from the blog and adapt it to work with your family. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them as best as I can. I'm still very new at this.

An Intro

This blog is pretty much for me, to keep track of what we're doing. But in case anyone wanders in, I thought I'd explain why I'm homeschooling, and the approach we're taking.

We're in the middle of our first year in Kinder. My daughter Nana (not her real name, folks) loves school. A lot. So it seems crazy and cruel I'd yank her out to home school.

Before she started Kinder, I toyed with the idea of HSing. My biggest reason for not doing so is my lack of patience. I'm not a patient mother. Nana and I are like two peas in a pod - exactly alike. That means we get on each others nerves pretty frequently. So Kinder was our "test run".

My biggest reason for home school is this: I'm not involved enough in her education. I'm on the Executive board of the PTA. I'm the room mom. I've been to all her events. But I still don't feel like it's enough. I want a hand in what she's learning. I want to be there when she reads, or learns about plants. I want to re-learn these things with her. 

Nothing extraordinary happened in Kinder. She was sick - a lot. We had bully issues, and parental involvement issues. But overall it's been a decent experience. I love her teacher, and so does she.

So, why homeschool? Everyone you meet will have different motivators. Mine are pretty simple, I think. We're not religious. We don't hate Public School. We aren't doing this out of a place of frustration or anger (not that if those are your motivators, they are wrong). We're doing it out of love. I feel that I can give her a better education at home, simply because it'll be two on one instruction. I can tailor her lessons to her - learning style, interests, and dreams. I can take simple addition and make it magical, so she can really connect with it. Well, I hope I can. I am a bit disgruntled at how PC the school systems are now. No parties, no dressing up, no birthdays. Those are some of my best memories of school - and now she can't even experience them!

We're not immediately pulling her out of school. She's finishing Kinder where she's at - and we're doing a "trial" run of HSing this summer.

The way we're approaching schooling is unit based learning (will give more info and details), touching on all the TEKS for first grade. If she ever decides she wants to go back to public school (and her opinion in this does matter very much), I want to make sure she's on track.

If you're in Texas like we are, you can find the TEKS here. It's a good thing to keep in mind when you're planning your teaching/learning.

I'm both terrified and excited. I know there are many hurdles in our future, bad days and maybe some tears. But those emotions have applied for public school too.