My oldest son is starting the 8th grade this schoolyear. We began homeschooling halfway through his 4th grade year. In these few short years of homeschooling, we have tried many types of curriculum. We have tried the complete boxed curriculums. FAIL! We have tried the online software curriculums. FAIL! We have tried many different publishers of workbook style curriculums. FAIL! As you can see, I could sit here and say that our homeschool experience has been one big failure, but that's just not true at all. See, these failures with the different curriculums just was proof to me that those particular "styles" of learning were not the direction we needed to continue in order to have a successful education. I have found that my children respond better to the unit study approach. Unit Studies are a theme or topic chosen to study and then all subject areas revolve around that topic.
When I first started homeschooling, I didn't know anything about curriculum. I didn't know about learning styles of students. I didn't know how to homeschool. I was clueless on how and where to begin. This blog isn't going to teach you that at all. A simple Google search listing some of the wording I used above will be enough to get you headed in the right direction in those areas so I won't repeat that information here. (Sorry if you think the title was a little misleading but I think we will see why I chose that title by the end of this blog.) Luckily, I was able to locate a small homeschool support group in my county. I made sure to attend the very next meeting and warned them ahead of time that I was coming with LOTS of questions. (I highly recommend anyone beginning the homeschool process to find a local group of homeschoolers for support--even if its just a group of people on a social media site.) This group of ladies was my "go to" when I had questions, and I am so glad I took the time to search this group out in the beginning of the homeschool process.
The support group met just once a month. After several months of meetings, a "show and tell time" was scheduled. Each person was to bring some of their curriculum, make a quick presentation about that curriculum, and then we had the chance to look through any of the curriculum at the end of the meeting. Now here I was still fresh into homeschooling an upper elementary aged child and this lady presents a high school curriculum entitled Blessed Is The Man, She mentioned how her son built a fort as a special project for one of the unit studies. It was intriguing to say the least. Here I was suppose to be looking for the perfect elementary curriculum and I am drooling over a high school curriculum. Then I find out there is a girl's version of the curriculum entitled Far Above Rubies. Double drooling now! That moment has stuck out in our homeschooling journey. I knew right then what we would be using for our high school curriculum. The odd thing is that of all the used curriculum sales I have attended and all the online used curriculum sites I have searched, these curriculums are rare to come by (in a "used book" sort of way.) Personally, I think it's because it's so good that no one wants to give up their copy of the curriculum. Don't fear, my homeschooling friends....these curriculum are still available in a CD format. You can check out the curriculum HERE.
We have begun the curriculum and so far we are absolutely in love with it. It allows us the flexibity to pick and chose our assignments in every subject. So far our experience has resulted in very enjoyable homeschool days. We truly feel we are homeschooling and not schooling at home (ya' know what I mean....textbooks, boring instructional videos, etc.)
So now do you see why I titled this blog the way I did? Who else would have a 4th grader, know NOTHING about homeschooling, and feel insecure about my abilities to teach my child yet have already picked out our high school curriculum? I look back at it now and just smile. God had my back all along! I know that it was He who gave me this desire for a particular curriculum. So there you have it. My advice to you is when you are new at homeschooling and you have young children, start by picking out their high school curriculum! LOL Okay, that's NOT real advice but I will conclude with this. If you are new to homeschooling or maybe you feel you need a change within your homeschool--PRAY! God will give you the desires of your heart. God knew all along the desires in my heart for where I was trying to go in my homeschool journey with my children even if I felt overwhelmed with all the choices.
(If you choose to use this curriculum, feel free to use the links available on the Homeschool Links page of this blog. New links will be added when we study the topic. And by the way, we are following the chronological history plan in case you think we are jumping around in the units.)
No comments:
Post a Comment