How We're Homeschooling this Year

It's time again! We are heading back to school! Technically, I did have a math class over the summer so I really just got a few weeks break before the fall semester. Good thing I love school.

This year I'm taking Art History. It will be so much fun after almost two years of math classes(you can read more about why it took so long here). I only have two more general education classes to go before I start my interior design classes next year.

This is also the first school year of officially homeschooling our little kindergartener!

Last year we enrolled him in a program called Classical Conversations and we are still doing that this year, but this is the first year we are required to notify the state of our intent to homeschool. Last year, we were just trying out new things. This year, it's for real.

So what exactly are we doing schoolwise?

Classical Conversations is a Christian, classical education program. Little Man's age group is called Foundations as it is memorizing facts to lay a foundation to build upon as they get older. You can see some of what Little Man will be memorizing this year in the above photo.

Classical Conversations covers several subjects, as well as art and music. While there is a lot of material, it doesn't include formal math and language arts so for that we are using other curriculums.

For math, we are using Math-U-See. I already love it because you can get a teacher manual, workbook, teaching DVD, and awesome counting blocks. It's designed to teach to all three learning styles: visual, audio, and kinetic. The boys already love playing with the blocks so I'm hoping that having these will help keep math fun for them.

For language arts we are keeping it simple and simply working on basic handwriting skills and reading. We are starting with this worn Alphaphonics book.

My mom used it to teach me and my siblings how to read. It went through six kids and fell apart over the years. We all love to read and read well aloud so I figure it must work pretty well!

So that's our school year plan. I'm excited to see how it goes!

I'd love to hear other moms or teachers that have any teaching tips they want to share! Feel free to leave any questions or comments below. I'm even open to healthy debates!