Homeschool Your Child for Free

This week is my first week actually attempting Theme Weeks here at my house. Let me give you a little background about me before I tell you why I bought this book and what I think of it.

As you know, I have three children. Preschool through 2nd grade. My first two children attended preschool for three years each. My youngest attended preschool for two years. With my husband's blessing, I decided to keep my youngest child at home with me this year instead of sending him to preschool twice a week. I have nothing against preschool - my kids loved it when they were enrolled. However, with one child getting on the bus at 7:30 am, preschool beginning at 9:30 am, my kindergartener getting on the bus at 11:10 am, preschool pick up at 1:30 pm and the bus dropping off the older two at 2:50 pm, I didn't really feel like spending my days racing around. Additionally, it'd be nice to save the money from preschool. But the very most important reason of all - this is one of the few chances I have to spend one-on-one time with my youngest child. If he heads off to kindergarten next year to begin his career in public school, this is my last chance to do this. Part of me would rather spend a lot of time focusing on my business (www.achallphotography.com) but realistically, I can focus on the business at any point. If I miss this opportunity this year, I can never have it again. After making this decision, I spent less than one month's preschool tuition to purchase a preschool curriculum recommended to me by a friend. Little Hands to Heaven from http://www.heartofdakota.com/index.php. I actually found mine for less at Amazon.com.

Another thing you should know about me is that I've had a leaning toward homeschooling since my first child was a baby. However, I'm also nervous about the responsibility of having their entire education on my shoulders. I love the idea of bonding with my children and watching them grow and learn. I love the ideas about helping them make educational crafts, science experiments, art, family reading time, family bible studies... all of that. Even though I live in the homeschool capital of the world (Homeschool Legal Defense is literally across the street from my house) with a lot of friends who homeschool quite successfully, I'm still nervous.

So, I decided to Supplemental School. Basically, I do the parts I think are fun and let public school do the rest. Ha! My most recent inspiration came from a blog I visit often. Katherine Marie Photography (http://katherinemariephotography.com/blog/) often posts pictures of her theme weeks that she does with her kids. It looks like so much fun, I had to try it myself!

We started this week with the theme of Long A. I can't believe how much FUN we've been having! In my search to come up with suitable theme ideas for the Long A theme of the week, I was running across a lot of sites that offer ideas but cost money to join or subscribe to. I knew there had to be free options out there but I just wasn't looking in the right spots. My search led me to Amazon to see if I could supplement the few ideas I had found. There I came across this book and downloaded it to my Kindle. What a fantastic resource! Since my kindle is fairly new, I'm not sure yet if I wish I'd purchased this in traditional print format but I also didn't want to wait for Amazon to send the book since we'd already begun our theme.

For week one, here is our daily schedule....

Ashlee gets on the bus for school.
Mom has some coffee and the boys have free play.
We do a little "school" according to our theme.
We eat lunch and then Case gets on the bus for Kindergarten.
Mason and I spend some time doing some fun things associated with our theme and a few items from the Little Hands to Heaven curriculum.
The bus brings my two older kids home, we have snack and everyone plays. Free play.
Then it's homework time. Any homework from the teachers is done now. Then we all pull back together to do more theme items among the four of us.
Then dinner, reading, free play, baths or whatever for the evening.

As week one is coming to a close, I'm loving this! The TV and Wii system are on less. We are all spending more time together. I'm sharing their world more effectively and I'm teaching things that I think are important - like bible verses and bible stories. Most of all, it's been FUN! I'm delighted to have the FUN back in motherhood.

So, as usual, a blog that was starting out about our love of Legos is turning into a blog about my kids, how we learn, how I mother, things I'm learning and any information I can share to help someone else.

Thanks again for stopping by!
Cheers!