Our Homeschool Journey

I started this post with the intention of sharing our planning methods for our homeschool after first providing a little background into our history and homeschool experience.  Well, it turned out a little longer than planned and I think now I'd like to let new (and not-so-new) homeschoolers know that no one starts out doing it all perfectly.  I've tried a lot of things in our homeschool and more than half of them didn't work.  But in the process of finding out what didn't work, I now have a much better idea of what does.

We started homeschooling our two oldest daughters in 2002.  Kjeri was 5, Emmy was 3, and Eli was about 3 months old.  I had decided to homeschool my kids long before they were born so the decision to start was easy.  It was how to do it that I had to figure out.  I found a website with a free curriculum guide (no longer free) that sounded good, so I ordered some books and got started.  Let me just say, if you are new to homeschooling, there is a huge learning curve for Mom.  I learned a lot that first year; I don't know if I can say the same for my girls.  The only things we are still using from that first year are Explode the Code, The 21 Rules of This House and Diane Hopkins' Language Arts program.

The second year I decided to try what they call a "canned" curriculum.  That means that you buy everything in one big package, all planned out for you.  I spent way more money than hubby thought I should and bought all of our books from Sonlight.  We didn't like some of the books and I didn't have enough experience to adapt the program to fit our needs.  I did, however, learn a lot about how I wanted to set up and plan our lessons.

Kjeri, Miri, and Emmy 2004

Kjeri was now in second grade and Emmy was ready to start kindergarten and I decided to try public school online for our third year.  I signed the girls up for the Utah virtual school using the K-12 curriculum.  I know a lot of people like it but it was way too structured and inflexible for us.  That was the year our fourth child, Miri, was born.

Miri and Kjeri 2005

For our fourth year of homeschooling, I had discovered that I really liked the Charlotte Mason method of teaching and in my research found a website called Ambleside Online.  It's a free curriculum that uses Charlotte Mason methods and a ton of public domain books that can all be found online.  I combined some of the stuff from that website and some of the things that I had liked from what we did in previous years.

During our fifth year, our fifth child, Josie, was born.

In our sixth year, Eli started kindergarten and I discovered Homeschool Tracker and Math-U-See.  Homeschool Tracker is a planning software.  It's a great program but it didn't work for us; I discovered I like to keep my records on paper.  Math-U-See, however, is awesome!

In our eighth year, Miri started kindergarten (now 4 kids in school), our sixth child, Sarah, was born.  I put just my oldest daughter back in K-12 (in Idaho this time).  It still didn't work for us.  

Sarah and Miri 2010

While planning for our ninth year of homeschooling, I got fed up with doing a halfway job of teaching history and science and that's when I decided to give in and fork over the money for two programs I had considered  in the past and decided we couldn't afford - Story of the World and Apologia Science.  I should have taken that leap years sooner.

Last year (number ten), Kjeri went to public school part-time and we kept using all of the curricula I had (finally) decided was going to work for us. We used the workbox method of organization.  And I found yet another method that wasn't a good fit for us.

This year, our eleventh(!) year of homeschooling, Josie started kindergarten (that makes 5 school-aged kids!) and child number seven, Will, was born.  I'm still struggling with finding a language arts program/method for the older girls but I spent a ton of time during the summer making planner pages, subject schedules, worksheets and activities.  I wanted the entire year planned out with as little paperwork required of me as possible while still keeping detailed records.

Eli and Josie 2012 - Yeah huh, the state fair is too educational!

So, that's where we are now.  I've created and collected a ton of resources, forms, schedules, and notes over the years and my intent is to share them here on this blog.  Hopefully, they will be of use to you in your own homeschool journey.

Next time I'll start sharing our planner pages...

Enjoy your journey!
Korrina