Homeschooling Update

So, as many know, I have entered the world of Homeschooling (well, Sierra has more than me). It is funny how many think of homeschooling and they automatically think of.....The Duggars.
I have known my own fair share of homeschoolers. Living in the state of Texas, it is hard NOT to know at least one family that home schools. I am fortunate to know several. I remember when Sierra was just 3 and 4 years old, she was in a ballet company that was Christian run. Almost every girl in these classes were homeschooled and I remember thinking, "wow, these girls are SO respectful and kind and mature". I have always been impressed with kids who were homeschooled...for the most part. As with anything, there is a right way and a wrong way to homeschool your kids. I just hope I fall in the right way....or even just the on the right track way.

We have been homeschooling since late October/early November. I was fortunate enough to pick a couple brains on curriculum as well as lean on my gift of research. There is a lot of pressure involved in picking the curriculum you are going to have your child learn from...especially when said child is in 6th grade. School is serious business at this age. I know in the earlier years, as long as you get some basic reading, writing and math skills in, your fine. When you are in these "later" years, there is much more to think about.

We have done some tweaking with the curriculum as we have moved forward. Let me lay it out by subject:

For Math, Sierra is doing a program called, Teaching Textbooks. This is all on cd and it is WONDERFUL!! There is not ONE thing I would change about her using this curriculum. It is so awesome. She has a textbook (which she rarely uses) and everything is done on the computer. She watches as problems are explained and than she does work on the problems. She is BLAZING through the program (she has almost completed Math 6 and will likely start Math 7 in March) and is averaging a high A. I would LOVE to have Teaching Textbooks do science or social studies. Sierra really enjoys it. (click on the picture to go that website)

For Social Studies she is doing a combo work. She is doing some World History and is using Bob Jones University's curriculum and she is also doing some Geography which is just a Usborne book. The World History has been pretty good. She has learned about early Samaria, Egypt, and she is just finishing up on Israel. Each chapter studies a different region. She finds it a bit dry and I am looking into different publishers for 7th grade. For Geography, she hates it, but I think it's good. What I do is she studies a chapter in her Social Studies book...Egypt, for instance. She then gets a "break" from history and studies a particular part of the world map. She has covered Canada, the US, and Central America. Next week she will study South America. She learns the different Provinces, States, Capitals, and Countries. After she is done with South America, she will go back to Social Studies and learn about India.

For Science, she is currently using Apologia. She is learning about under water creatures. She has not liked this at all and has asked to cease studying science. This is, of course, a NO. She finds it boring. I sympathize...I did too. She has learned about Whales and jellyfish and manatees and sea turtles and such. I am looking into different material for 7th grade...but may just move on to Life Science in the Apologia curriculum.

Language Arts has been a bit of a hurdle for me. I was using this curriculum that uses works of literature and pulls lessons for it...but I noticed that Sierra was weaker than I thought here. Oh, she can read better than many and can spell really well, but her knowledge of facts are fairly weak. I ceased the curriculum we were using and am making my own up a we go along. I pull a lot from some books I bought and the internet. We are currently looking at parts of speech...dissecting until she has it down cold...than moving on to the next part of speech.

And that's about it, as far as the curriculum goes. We have had ups and downs here and there. Sierra is lazy....plain and simple. I do not think she realized how much was involved in self study. She loves it, but she also hates it. She wants to continue, but she wants to be able to have more fun doing it. lol I am working on that.

She is desperate for socialization. I recently joined a homeschool group but was pretty disappointed with their lack of activities for Sierra's age group. I am searching in other avenues....other groups....anything. She needs involvement and to quote Anne Shirly (Anne of Green Gables), she needs a bosom friend. She has one, but she is currently living in Alaska....kinda makes it hard to get together with her. lol So...that has become priority numero uno, now that we have the swing of everything going.

Other than that, this was a great decision for Sierra. I have no doubts and neither does she. She did have a concern that she would miss out on dances, but I researched it and there are several dances for homeschoolers in the area...whew.

And no, Daniel does not want to be homeschooled. lol He would like to be able to stay home and cuddle with me all day, but he absolutely does not want to do schooling at home (I think he wants to be home, not to cuddle with me, but to play his video games...).

So...that's my story and I'm sticking to it!!