How have I been homeschooling?
Well, to be honest, mostly for free. Pinterest has led me to some incredible and generous homeschool communities, and honestly there’s enough out there to do the whole thing for free.
The trade-off is time (and for me, sanity).
Hello, my name is Kellan, and I love resources. Having to take the time to find free resources for each subject or unit for each grade—it was like shopping. I hate it. I LOVE seeing the design and all, but the sheer hours I’ve spent piecemealing a curriculum together could’ve been better spent. Uh, maybe teaching?
So, this fall, not only are we in a homeschool co-op to relieve a bit of pressure and enjoy a social life again, but I want to *gasp* buy the curriculum this year.
This is one area where, especially if you plan to homeschool AND homestead AND sleep, self-sufficiency is NOT efficient. Something has gotta give, and momma (or poppa) it canNOT be you 100% of the time!
Note: Easy-Peasy is actually free. I like to have most of the day off the computer, so I opted into buying the workbooks and printables we needed–I’m looking forward to just grabbin’ and goin’ (as opposed to literally crying over crappy wifi and an old printer)!
Obviously my husband I CHOSE all children’s birthdays, and so we decided to have them at the weirdest times of the year based on the school year. January, March, and May.
Swannie (7) is 1st/2nd grade, and decided to add on to her home school themes in homeschool co-op we’re attending. She chose anatomy and physiology, a nutrition and cooking class, as well as a sort of life lessons class (Tuttle Twins, anyone? Bueler?)
Ninja is 4, and has a couple hours prek with the group, as well as using Easy Peasys Getting Ready 1 series (he’s very close to kinder level, so we imagine we will hit level 2 quickly and be ready for 5 in fall 2021).
Squeak is a year and a half, and will do morning nursery. while the homeschool group is a co op (meaning parent participation runs it), I’m looking forward to at least a couple hours of everyone doin’ their thang.
Preschool? Easily done for free, I think, go for it. Tons of resources, not a lot of structure needed, and it is a wonderful time to focus on your child’s learning style! Kinder is more complex with reading, an adapting more kinetic activities for usually “boring” subjects like memorization and handwriting.
Pinterest has been a great boon because it has SO many different families trying stuff out! It definitely helped me tailor lessons in preschool classes and well as homeschool.
Update: Our homeschool group got postponed.
No one agrees (board and participants) with our inability to waive liability and conduct classes in a normal maskless setting (do whatever you want, I’m not making my kids wear a mask for an already-endemic virus in an outbreak area in which they survived from Dec-April with no mask).
As they cannot align our values with the mandate, they have postponed til January. It’s pretty depressing and reapplies a bit of pressure.
I hope we meet in January but I a have (not to brag) been horribly correct since January predicting government reactions to covid. I’ll write a post about how we are preparing.
