Still Homeschooling

Homeschooling has been keeping us very busy lately. My blog posts have dropped off considerably as homeschooling time has increased. I find that on most days, we have time to either do things or write about them; but, not both. We're still using Five in a Row as our main resource and we've just about finished up volume 1.

Since my last posting about Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, we have covered the books Madeline, How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, Storm in the Night, The Rag Coat, Papa Piccolo, A Pair of Red Clogs, Lentil, Cranberry Thanksgiving, Another Celebrated Dancing Bear, Grandfather's Journey, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and Katy and the Big Snow. Most have been great, a few have not. We've done a ton of fun activities and found a way to relate just about any subject matter on earth to gears and machinery, our nod to a custom-made education. We've had some great museum trips, performed some cool science experiments and crafted some awesome art projects. Math and Science still seem to be the favorite subjects.

After Christmas, we started using daily workbooks to help with simple math, handwriting and phonics. We're in our second semester of Music Together and both kids seem to really enjoy that time, as well. Our second volume of Five in a Row is on order and we're patiently awaiting it's arrival.

This week's story, The Glorious Flight, seems to be a hit. We've crafted our own little books with a map of the English Channel, practiced some descriptive writing (or in our case, descriptive talking) and made paper airplanes. Tomorrow, we plan to head to The Henry Ford Museum to study some early aircraft. Friday, the guys are discussing the science of flight and doing their own experiment. This weekend, a trip to the Auto Show will round out a discussion on the "process of invention". We're also working on some very simple math and handwriting practice.

I'm still happy we decided to homeschool and starting to make plans for next year. There are literally hundreds of options and the choices are definitely overwhelming. I'm trying to narrow down my choices for next year so that I will be prepared when all of the homeschooling book fairs and conferences come around. At last year's conference, I found myself sitting in a corner with a three foot tall stack of catalogues, a cold hot dog and a can of Mt. Dew, trying to navigate my way through the endless options.