Whirlwind!!

So this past month has been such a whirlwind adventure!  In the beginning of the month I began thinking about homeschooling.  So that brought me to a whole months worth of researching, asking friends who homeschool questions, observing some friends styles and so on!

Our conclusion is that we will be homeschooling next year!!  I am so excited, nervous, anxious....!  After doing a TON of research on learning styles, teaching styles, homeschooling styles, I think we have it narrowed down to our final choices!  I am so amazed at the free resources that are out there.  I am finding tons of web sites, and books that offer lists of websites with free resources.

Although I am finding lots of free resources or nearly free online I still feel that a formal curriculum for Big E will be the best since he is used to being in school and does really well.  For Little N I am going to go for a more relaxed teaching and allowing him lots of free play along with the basic pre school knowledge stuff!  He is struggling with some little things like writing, coloring, tracing, mostly because he has never liked doing those things so we never made him.  So for Little N I am coming up with manipulative games for him to play, he will also be doing some writing workbooks, and basic coloring/following directions type of activities.

Little N with one of the games I found at Confessions of a Homeschooler!

In the beginning I was strongly leaning towards a formal curriculum for Little N, mostly because Big E would have one so why not.  Then the more we narrowed down and found what we would be using for Big E, I realized that we would be doing some subjects together so instead of wasting money on a curriculum that we would only use half of, why not just get a few workbooks for him to go through and use those.  Subjects that we will be doing together, hopefully, are Bible, Science and maybe History/Geography.

I am ready for this homeschool conference that is coming up in a few weeks, I am ready to actually see the stuff we have only been able to look at online!  I am such a planner that I am getting antsy not knowing for a positive what will be taking place next year!!  I know CRAZY!!  I think I am driving my dear hubby nuts!!

Here are all the books I have accumulated in the last month!  Most I found on Amazon, some at Goodwill!

We are also needing to buy a bookcase, and we are struggling to find a good quality one that doesn't cost a ton.  The one we found is at IKEA, and that is a 3 hour drive for us, plus we can't take our children with us or we wouldn't be able to get the bookcase home.  So then we need to find someone willing to watch our children for an entire day!  Hopefully over the summer we will find time to get up there.  In the meantime we are scouring second hand store, craigslist, and now garage sales are starting!! :)