homeschooling

We are coming up on our 5th year teaching our children at home and although there are many days I whisper under my breath that I wish I could send them all to school...ok, there have been years we have actually enrolled in school and they have even attended public school before. For eight weeks. We do truly enjoy teaching at home and all of the many benefits that come with it. Hello, weekly beach field trips and no alarm clocks.

I like to think that we are a mix between the extreme un-schooling community (some families do not use books/any structured curriculum) and traditional homeschooling- learning at home while following a curriculum. Education is important to us, and I personally love the structure and "security" that lesson plans bring. But we are also laid back in the way that if we didn't get out the books today it is ok, and like to focus more on getting outside and learning through activities/experiences.

This year is the first year we will be participating in Classical Conversations. All 7 of our kids (4+) will be participating and Piper will be in nursery. We are starting with Cycle 2, Medieval History. We chose CC for a variety of reasons which I will blog about soon, but we are so excited to begin after visiting our local CC community in the Spring! We will have 7 in foundations, and 1 in essentials.

Here is a line up of our favorite books that we use yearly:

All About Reading: 

Rod & Staff English & Reading:

Teaching Textbooks:

BOB Books:

Our favorite boxed Curriculum:

Random books we use/love: