Where was I?  Oh, yes.  The curriculum we chose.   (You can read Part 1 of Homeschool here.)

I read and researched, read and researched.  I asked endless questions of friends in real life and online who I knew homeschool.  I called friends who lived far away, and if I met or heard of friends at church who homeschool I said, “Hi, I’m Tara, I hear you homeschool, I have some questions!”  I was fearless and determined.  If I overheard conversations about homeschooling, I approached and boldly offered my services to continue to listen in.  Everyone was so friendly and ready to offer information and advice.  I loved it!

There are so many excellent curriculums out there for so many subjects that it was hard to choose.  There are even books published on how to homeschool for free!  Entirely possible with your public library and some footwork and the internet, I am sure.  The trick to all of it is figuring out what is right for my family. What are my educational priorities?  How much time can I put into preparation?  What about my teaching/learning style and G’s learning style?  And lesson planning?  I have zero experience in lesson planning on this level!  Piano lesson planning, sure, but this?  Nope.

I had two options:  put together some curriculums for all the needed subjects and then put together lessons plans each day from those subjects or buy an all-in-one type of curriculum that does it for me.  I was leaning heavily toward the latter for this first year especially because of my lack of experience – to ease any frustration level, and to give us the best possible advantage as we get started.

That said, we chose Sonlight.  Sonlight is a literature-based Christian homeschool curriculum that lays out the lessons plans for you (yea!!) for all your chosen subjects.  You can read about it on their website, rather than me detailing their selling points here.  I was very impressed with everything I read about them and heard about them.  Any negative comments came from families who said that Sonlight just didn’t work for their family, but that it was a great program.  This was very encouraging.  And we have 18 weeks to decide if it works for our family and if it doesn’t – full refund!  Can’t beat that!  They even have an article on their site detailing 27 reasons why Sonlight might not work for us.  Did you read that?  Might NOT work for us.  Very interesting reading and honest.  I was impressed.  Yes, it’s pricey, but we believe it’s worth it for us at this time.

One thing I am going to change is the math program.  We are going to opt out of their math program and instead choose one called Math-U-See.  This program was developed by a homeschool dad and I have heard nothing but rave reviews about it.  It uses math manipulatives for a very hands on approach and we think G will really enjoy that.   Not to mention Dad.  And Mom.

So what about art, music, PE?  No worries, G is very artistic, and we’ll get that covered.  I have great artist friends and there are art courses in the homeschooling world I can take advantage of, even classes I can enroll him in.  Don’t forget I am a piano teacher, and we have soccer, swimming, and lots of sports options.  These children will not be neglected in any way!  :)

I hope you won’t tire of reading about my homeschooling thoughts…this topic isn’t going away anytime soon!  It’s going to be a very big part of our lives in the next year!