Dear New Homeschooler

(or) 

If You Were To Ask Me 

Not sure that is the correct way to begin this (it sounds so pretentious!).

Let me explain.

As my daughter left our house today with her two young boys in tow, I half-heartedly offered her a few educational items that I am getting rid of. I say half-heartedly because I really did not want her to take them.

Stuff can be a homeschoolers enemy- stuff is my enemy.

To me, the best way to have an effective and enjoyable homeschool is to keep it simple (note the title of my blog). Especially during the younger years. These years are a great time for our "students" to explore. Lots of time can be spent building Legos, painting, climbing, swinging, inventing, exploding, creating, sewing, investigating, digging in the dirt... and most of these things don't require much stuff.

The times that learning was at its best in our young family (aside from when my children were free to explore and learn on their own) was when we had consistency or a routine.

An example of that is the year we purchased a zoo pass-

One of my older daughters had a sewing class near a local petting zoo. While she was in class each week, rain or shine, my three boys and I went to the zoo. By the end of that year, my boys all knew the country each animal was from, its diet, what predators would hunt each animal in the wild... the zoo keepers came to recognize my boys and were always prepared to field the questions that they knew were coming.

Another routine, reading, was the cornerstone of learning in our home.

This was our plan:

Breakfast Reading- children's bible stories or other faith filled reading

Mid-Morning Reading- A few toddler books for the youngest in the house and/or our current FIAR book

Lunch Reading- Either our FIAR (see grade K-3 recommendation below if your not sure what FIAR is) book or a book that was themed to go with our FIAR studies.

Afternoon Reading- Another book tied to our FIAR studies

Evening/Bedtime Reading- A chapter book sometimes themed to go with FIAR, but often just for fun.

There were variations on this throughout the years, but for the most part, we stuck with this. At first, getting three little boys all sitting and listening at the same time took practice, but keeping the routine made this successful.

You will see several lapbooks/notebooks on this blog- please note that the majority of our FIAR studies went undocumented and unblogged.

There can be tendency to think that if I can't do it all, why bother. I actually remember our less documented studies far more affectionately. Simple is key!

If you are looking for homeschooling brass tacks here- you're thinking that is all well and good, but what do you do for school?

For grades K-3:

Five in a Row- it has it all. And, if you have a child with any sort of reading or writing delays, it is still an effective way for a child to learn and to learn to love learning.

A Phonics Program- We did not have much luck with my boys until All About Spelling. They have an awesome line of resources. I used Dolores Hiskes books with my girls.

Mathematics- my boys and I enjoyed these books (http://www.mathstart.net/) My absolute favorite math resource is Peggy Kaye's Games for Math. I just pinned 10 ideas for applied math, so I can just let you read that rather than going off about cooking and other great math opportunities there are every day.

I blog about the things that we do, so it may seem like I am contradicting myself.  But when my boys were younger (all under 10), much of their time was spent pursuing the activities I mentioned at the top of this post.

Homeschool blessings to you in this New Year!