Our first year homeschooling

Ever since I read The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, I have been intrigued by the idea of a classical education.  I felt like this was the kind of education I wish I had when I was growing up.  Then, a couple of years ago, when we were exploring the idea of homeschooling, Taylor and I got the opportunity to visit a Classical Conversations program and observe the way that it worked.  I was amazed at the things that these kids had memorized!  They remembered more about Latin than I did after three years of AP Latin in high school!  I knew this was something that I wanted to explore in more detail and seriously consider for our family.  We didn't jump into a CC community immediately because I was still working at the time and would not be able to homeschool exclusively until the following October. 

Fast forward to the present and we are finished with Kindergarten with Taylor, which was definitely an eye-opening experience.  I, like every newcomer I'm sure, was overwhelmed with curriculum choices, and I ended up going with a few different ones that were recommended by fellow homeschooling moms.  We had success with some and others didn't fit our family very well, but I now have a little bit more knowledge about what to look for next year. 

We took a VERY relaxed approach this year because I was still working until October and then in December we found out we were expecting Paisley and then the horrid morning sickness began and I was in and out of the hospital a couple of times.  In January, we decided that we wanted to move to Boise to be near family and from that point forward, it has been a whirlwind of looking for jobs and selling our house(s) and taking care of ALL of the myriad of details that come with moving across the country.  We definitely practice reading with Tay and try and incorporate math wherever we can, but we stopped sitting around the dining room table with our workbooks a while ago.

Next year, however, Taylor will be in first grade and Hunter will be starting kindergarten, so I plan on a more focused approach.  During the school year, I actually looked forward to the days where we did our chores and then sat around the table with our lessons because it gave our days more structure.  On days we don't "do school" it seems like there is more whining, more complaining, and more asking to watch a movie or a TV show every 5 minutes., which is a surefire way to a cranky mommy by the end of the day.

So as we look forward to the upcoming year, I have decided to focus on the classical education that is offered in Classical Conversations, but we will be doing it at home.  I always tend to be overly ambitious, but I decided that trying to get to class every week with a newborn might be too much, too soon.  So we will work on the CC memory work at home and then jump in the following year with a CC community.  I am in the process of nailing down the rest of the curriculum that we'll be using next year because somehow I have a hunch that if I wait until August to get everything figured out, a certain little girl might make things a bit difficult on me! ;-)