With God by my side..: We choose ..Homeschooling.

When I was little and dreamed of being a mom and running a home that vision included our children going to a regular school when they reached the appropriate age. In the past year or so my eyes have been opened to the other possibilities that are out there regarding schooling our children.

Our oldest daughter attends a public elementary school not far from here. Due to circumstances out of my control at the moment she is going to continue to attend that same school. Mackenzie is almost finished with 1st grade. I can tell that she is not happy and thriving. She is a very smart girl just not excited about learning anymore.

There are so many negative influences that kids come across these days and when they go out into the public school system the influences are 10 times worse. As a mom I hate sending our daughter, Mackenzie, to school each day knowing that I can't control what is going to happen to her. Worse yet, I can't be there to teach her how to process the day to day happenings.

Scott and I have decided that our 2 youngest girls will be homeschooled. I know it may seem a little early to be thinking about these things. Kennedy is only 4 and Lexi is 2 1/2. However, I am the type of person who likes to have a plan. I have been a stay-at-home mom for 4+ years now. I can't even imagine sending them off to school and being apart from them for hours at a time every single day.

Kennedy has started what she likes to call pretty-school. I am taking a very relaxed approach at this time. Our main focus is how she interacts with the people around her. I feel that it is important for our children to know how to conduct themselves first before they know their ABC's and 123's. I want to know how our daughters operate before we try and teach them the things that are going to take them far in life.

That doesn't mean we don't do any learning of the basics. We do. Just not on a regular constructive basis. We are working on letter recognition, learning the more complex shapes (diamonds, hexagon etc.) and numbers.

Homemade letter signs.

Drawing line. We hang any finished worksheets and pictures from scripture learning.

Our learning materials. Kennedy got the preschool book from Grandma for her birthday. And the dry erase board from Grandpa for Christmas. I did find some write and erase books at a garage sale for 50 cents a piece.

I have also ordered a book called Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons by Siegfried Engelmann.

This book comes highly recommended by my dear friend Cherie who has homeschooled her 5 children who are all now teenagers and reading just fine.