Plans for Homeschooling

We still have much of summer left, but I have made my plans for Alex's Kindergarten year and I have even purchased most of what I need thanks to the awesome homeschool conference Celeste and I recently attended. It was so enjoyable flipping through the different curriculum books as well as the many other books, both educational and fun. There were also such neat teaching manipulatives available as well, and though I was tempted by many, I managed to steer away from them as most were certainly not inexpensive. I was so happy when I came home with most every book I needed for the subjects I plan to teach this next year (and then some!).

I have always loved the idea of the unit study. It just sounds like such a fun approach to learning, one that will hold my children's attention better and encourage their desire to learn. There are many unit studies out there, but I went with Five in a Row, as recommended to me in a recent homeschool consultation. I was a little hesitant at first because this unit study centers on lots of reading. Unlike many other children I know, my kids are not book lovers, though I pray that they someday will be. We do go the library every week where I let them choose books, and they are read to each evening before bed. But Alex is more interested in the children's Batman or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle books. I limit him to one per week as I do not feel that these are the greatest enrichment books. And of course, I choose several books, too, so that we have a few well written books to select from. But what I want is for my children to regularly grab a book off the book shelf and sit and look at the pictures, or better yet, asked to be read to, instead of their typical use for books, constructing houses. So I pray that Five in a Row will change their appreciation for books and the sweet stories contained within. My big fear, of course, is that Alex's lack of desire to read the books will make it hard for me to follow the plan of utilizing one book a week to teach all the basic subjects. If he does not like the book, he probably won't be too interested in reading it day after day and using it as the main subject for our daily lessons. But I'm going to give it a try. I am having some difficulty with the book selection, however. They are all classics and I'm sure, wonderful books. But many are no longer in print and are very hard to come by. Anybody got an extra copy of The Giraffe that Walked to Paris lying around that they are willing to part with for less than $75?!?

In addition to the unit study, I plan to use Horizons Mathematics to work on Alex's math skills. I've heard good things about this program, though one lady did inform me that it was a little advanced for her son when he was just starting out. She had to go to a different teaching tool to get him started and then she was able to go back to Horizons later on. Alex is a slow learner and therefore may also have trouble with the Horizons books. But we won't know until we try! Should we find he's struggling, we may move to the Math-U-See program as the visual aspect of this teaching tool may be easier for him to grasp.

I am also using the D'nealian Handwriting book to work on his handwriting. He's already done a lot with writing in preschool and I believe they used the traditional method. But he is still having trouble with his writing, so we're just going to start over with D'Nealian. Hopefully that won't confuse him too much!

Finally, I am using the Explode the Code curriculum for his phonics. This also came highly recommended. Alex has always had speech issues and will continue speech therapy at the local public school his kindergarten year. Hopefully, this phonics program will help him make better sense of letters and their sounds and thereby help with his difficulty with language and speech, in addition to preparing him for reading.

I still need to work out our schedule - when our school year will begin and when we will have our breaks, when we'll cover what topics, etc. But I am so excited that I at least know what curriculum we are using and that I have most of what I need to begin the first year of our homeschooling journey.