Settling into a routine.

Now that we've gotten home schooling under way we've begun to settle into a routine.  Here's what it looks like so far:

Monday, Wednesday and Friday are our main school days at home, in mid September Nicole will be going to a home school co-op  in the morning and early afternoon so we aren't going to be doing anything except maybe some occasional special projects on those days.

On the tree school days at home we start in the morning with Singapore Math, one work book section each day,sometimes expanding a section to last a couple days if needed (so far not, but I'm sure it will be).  After a short break we do the Pre-Level 1 Physics from Gravitas, also one section each day, to be expanded if needed.  Each of these is about 15 minutes, which is more actual instruction time that wither subject gets in a public school classroom.

After a little longer break, doing something fun, we switch gears.  First is Power Spelling, quick and easy, and it seems very effective.  Then after another short break come English, we're using an older Houghton Mifflin text book such as might have been used in any school.  The spelling is 10 to 15 minutes maximum, and the English takes a little longer because it involves writing.  Sometimes for English it's just thinking of and writing a few sentences.

IN the Afternoon it will be the unit study Cantering the Country, which we haven't started yet.  We aren't sure how much time will go to this, but there is a lot of stuff in it that looks like fun and it covers many of the required areas so it will likely get more time than the other subjects.

So that's our day, roughly.  Maybe an hour instruction time in the morning spread out over a couple hours.  In the afternoon and a variable time in the afternoon.  Fit in with this is Ice Skating, (we will likely be doing some of the morning stuff at the Ice Rink), Tae Kwon Do, and Violin practice.  This still leave plenty of time for friends, adventures and playing, certainly more than most public school kids with extracurricular activities have.

Today we bought the math curriculum we'll be using, as well as all the school supplies we'll need.  The other curriculum stuff is being ordered and we should have it soon. 

The Singapore math curriculum is great of course, it has a world wide reputation both in both home schooling and in public/private schools.  Nicole did 1a in kindergarten and did well with it, we expect her to go through 1b fairly quickly because she's already done much of the stuff in it, but we feel doing 1b will improve her foundation and that's important.

The Singapore curriculum is very visual, which works well for Nicole, and of course for arithmetic in general.  It starts of with comparing numbers, doing subtraction, and includes doing addition/subtraction with two digit numbers, single digit multiplication up to 40, a brief introduction to division, and of course time and money problems.  I think a child should be very comfortable with single digit addition and subtraction without using fingers, and have a basic idea of what multiplication is is before using this curriculum, at least that's the point we made sure Nicole was at before starting this.

We bought the text book and the workbook, there is a teachers guide but that seemed superfluous.  After looking though all three it seemed all that we would need is in the two books we bought.

Our planned curricula.

The foundation of our first year (or more) of homeschooling Nicole will be based on Cantering the Country published by Geography Matters.  This unit study goes through all the states individually and includes all the required subjects except science and math.  It's easy at add in more detailed information if needed or wanted.  After looking at a lot of different systems this one seems to fit us best.  As we study the western states we will be able to visit many of the areas we discuss, incorporating travel and family visits.

Science and math are very important too us, we believe that they deserve their own separate attention as well as being incorporated into the unit study.  For science we will be using the Real Science 4-Kids Pre-Level 1 curricula by Gravitas Publications.  This system is divided into Physics, Chemistry and Biology at a level Nicole can understand and learn.  We'll likely be starting with Physics and working through all three over a couple years.  Earth and Space sciences are missing from this system, but I've read they are working on those.  These are both subjects that come up a lot in our travels and hobbies, so they are easy to incorporate into every day life.

For Math, to be the most important subject of all. we'll be using the well know Singapore Math system.  This is a great system for home schooled and traditionally schooled kids.  Nicole mastered the 1A level in kindergarten, so we'll be starting with 1B and moving at Nicole's pace.

We will also be adding in Spanish language.  I speak pretty poor Spanish, mostly geared toward use in medical situations, but we want the kids to grow up multilingual.  We'll be starting with Spanish using Rosetta Stone's home school version.  This is something the whole family will be studying together.  This is the most expensive part of the plan.

Reviews of these will follow, as we use these products and learn about them.

Washing Homeschool Organization Convention

Yesterday we went to the yearly Washington Homeschool Organization convention.  It was educational and very interesting.  We learned a lot about various curricula and were able to select what we'd be using and plan out our first year.  More later about what we'll be using.

I was amazed at the variety of curricula, and at the price and complexity of some of them.  Many were geared to follow state standards and no more.  They often had the expectation that you would pay hundreds, sometimes more than a thousand dollars for a system that would mimic what kids would learn in public school, taking the same amount of time.  Many systems were designed no to be adaptable to individual kids, which seems to defeat the purpose of homeschooling. 

What we decided on would retail for about $320, less at online sources, and even less if we can get parts of it used.  If we'd have want to we could have spent about 10 times that amount on the education of a 6 year old.  Some people must buy those things or the publishers couldn't stay in business, but the average cost according to the HSLDA is more like $500 to $600. 

Another surprising aspect was the variety of people.  There were folks there ranging from fundamentalist Christians to hippies.  There were folks looking at preparing their kids for engineering and sciences advanced educations, and people that just wanted to hang out with their kids, keep them out of the system and hope they would learn a little if they wanted to.

Off to work now, more later.

The Adventure Begins

We've decided to home school our daughters.  They are Jessica, 3 and Nicole, 6.  Mainly we will be working with Nicole and Jessica will be going the the same preschool and kindergarten her big sister went to before switching over to all home school.

We've decided to do this for many reasons.  Public schools here in Washington are atrocious, and those in our area are some of the worst.  They hardly teach math and science at all, and actually sound proud when stating statistics that almost half of their students meet standards in those areas.  For the price of $10,000 per student each year public schools almost completely fail to provide an education.  There are academic, safety, moral and political issues that remove public school as an option for us.

Private school was considered, but would cost us 10 times out of pocket what home schooling will.  There are some great private schools nearby, but having to both work full time and have the kids in after school daycare programs, only seeing them for a short time in the evenings and on the weekends we aren't working didn't seem like a good option for our family.

With home schooling we are getting a degree of freedom that most don't have.  Freedom to travel, to explore and to live on our own schedules.  Freedom for our kids to learn at whatever pace they can manage, and to vary their pace by subject.  For instance Nicole is at about mid first grade level in math, but at third grade level in reading, no public school around here would accommodate that.

Nicole is excited and nervous about it at the same time, and so are we.  She loves to learn, and we love to teach, so we're all confident it will work out, and that we'll enjoy this new adventure.