Our school.

Last October we ended up pulling the kids out of school and deciding to teach them ourselves. Since then we've tried undoing some of the things we had problems with. So far it's going well. The hardest part I think was that one day they were in public school and the next they weren't. I didn't really have time to pick out a curriculum that would work for us. We were worried about meeting the state requirements and making sure that everything was legal. Of coarse it goes without saying that we (mostly my hubby, lol) wondered if I had lost my mind. Surprisingly we found the stress had lowered considerably. NowI think I've found what we're going to use as our curriculum permanently (at least till we've found if it's going to work for us or not). It was passed to me and now I'm passing it on to you. "The Well-Trained Mind" by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer is the book that was recommended as reading to me. In it the classical education or trivium is explained and how they used it. They have a number of other books that can help but it's not needed. In the book they show you how they've done things that work for them. I'm going to be using a lot of their recommendations. As with anything my advice is use what works for you and leave the rest. There is so much information out there that your head can spin. Try something if it sounds like something you like, if it works great, if not be willing to put it aside and move on.

I added some sites that we use at different times with our homeschooling. I use all of them as supplements to what I use. They are all free for me to use. I will continue to add things. The Discovery Streaming may not be free for you in your state. And here soon it may not be for home schools in SC either. They are considering if it is a viable service for schools. I encourage anyone who enjoys using it to write in and let them know how you use it and that you do use it. If you have children in the school systems find out if your child's teacher, or school uses it and write in about that too. With times being what they are budgets are being looked over again for pennies. This is one service that I really think helps in many ways and I hope that it stays around.