Where do I begin . . .

Well, I finally decided to start my own blog for a number of reasons. I have been reading a lot of other people's blogs to get ideas for homeschooling, faith formation, and basic organization and now I think I am ready to mash together what I have learned and make it my own. Also, I feel like I need a new way to keep my brain organized and I thought if I write stuff down it might help. And what better time to start getting it together than during this Lenten season.

I think I will begin with some homeschooling stuff:

Shannon's Kindergarten Curriculum

Language Arts

• Time4Learning (finished in December)
  
• Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (should be done by end of June)
  
• Stories read aloud to him at bedtime
• Handwriting Without Tears (finished in December)
• Mead Writing Fundamentals: Capital Letter Stories (should be finished in 7 weeks)
• Mead Writing Fundamentals: Lowercase Letter Stories (begin in 7 weeks, finish by end of June)
  
• Poetry Memorization from Harp and Laurel Wreath

Math

• Modern Curriculum Press - K (we started with Book A (1st grade) but the pace and amount of writing was a bit overwhelming so after the chapter on addition, I went back to Book K. It moves pretty slow but then Chloe can follow along so that's handy)

Religion

• Image of God Series: Who Am I? Kindergarten
  
• God's Love Story
  
• Hand's On Projects from A Year With God and Big Book of Catholic Customs
• Prayer Memorization

Other

• Soccer (fall and spring) and Gymnastics (winter)
• Nature walks
• Trips to the Library
• Field trips with our home school group

It took me FOREVER to actually pair it all down to that list. When we first made up our minds to home school, I think I spent exactly one boat load of money on books about home schooling and every piece of home schooling material that caught my eye. I have it all still stashed away to maybe use for summer. If I don't end up using it in the next year or so I might sell some of it. It takes a lot of trial and error to figure out how your kids learn best and how you teach best and what materials work.

I also finally sat down about a month ago and wrote down what my goals are for Shannon this year, which helped me in working out a better schedule. So, basically, I did a lot of stuff backwards but I learned a lot in the process.

Well, I think that's pretty good for a first entry. I have a feeling I will be blogging a lot in the next couple of weeks while I clear out the backed up contents of my brain.