I'm attending my first homeschool convention. There. are. so. MANY CURRICULA! I had no idea the sheer volume of resources I would need to sift through to find our gem. I'm overwhelmed. I am determined to start homeschooling 100% this fall. I've already declined the renewal of the school year paperwork. Now I have to choose a plan for the preK year. I don't want to jump into academics, but I also don't want to do nothing. I want for sure to introduce her to math (she loves counting and identifying numbers, I'll keep encouraging it), Bible, and art. This way, we start out playing up her strengths and save the things she dislikes for later when we are legally required to add in the other things (age 7) The thing is if I let her be in charge (child led learning), she won't want to do anything except play in the mud :lol: If I pick up a bunch of books with ideas for art crafts, etc, I know I won't follow through. I need a book to tell me "on day one, do this. on day two, do that." Just give her a lot of hands on activities like baking, coloring, clay models, etc. meant to improve her fine motor skills so that she's ready for next year when she will need to start pre-phonics and handwriting. I've read through Sonlight 4/5 samples, my father's world preschool samples, and winterpromise sample. I don't think my daughter needs science, history, etc yet. I'm just going to keep on letting her pick out her library books for the week and that's what we read. She hates phonics so I'm holding off until 1st grade. I don't want to scare her off before we even get started. I realize I could buy, say, Sonlight 4/5 and not do the history/science portions but why buy that expensive package if I don't even want to utilize it fully?
Fortunately the convention in my town is small but still it did give me more to consider! =/ But yes I was overwhelmed simply because I went from a public school mind set to a home school mind set as a teacher- still hard at times. Just learning about the different approaches and philosophies is overwhelming to me- still trying to figure this out! But it's good! =)
I know what you mean about there being so many curricula! I almost did my head in when we started. At first, I really wanted the comfort and security of a "day 1: do this, day 2: do this" type curriculum, but as I looked through all the millions of options that idea started to fade. There were so many good things, I didn't want it to be so restricted! And part of homeschooling is flexibility: being able to spend longer or shorter than originally planned on a topic, or even doing completely new topics at the request of your children. Hang in there! It is so overwhelming at first, but take your time and look through things carefully. Your mind will start to form ideas about what it is you exactly want to do, and then things will get easier for you to plan. At this stage, maybe look at "complete" curricula first, then look at the ones that are subject-specific, subject by subject, until you really know what looks best. As for Sonlight, I haven't used it, but there are others here who have. You might even be able to pick up a used copy cheaply.
LOL!!! They say you can tell the newbies at a convention because they're the ones wandering around with this glazed-over look on their faces! My first convention was CHEO in Columbus. I was going on Thursday night, when it's just the vendor's hall open. It was going on until 9, and my friend who was driving was planning on staying the whole time. I thought, "HOW could ANYONE just look at curriculum for TWO AND A HALF HOURS!?!?" I arrived, walked in, my jaw hit the floor, and I just wandered around with the above-mentioned dazed look for the first hour. Then I started looking at what they had, and tried to at least PRETEND I knew what I was doing. When it was time to go, I was barely beginning! The next year, I WAS READY! I had a list of what I wanted, and went around to the different vendors to price them, and marked down who had what for how much. The year after that, I not only had WHAT I wanted, but had a good idea of WHERE I wanted to buy it at (ie: made a bee-line for Rainbow Resources, lol!) So yeah, I've been there, done that! It will improve over time!
I'm right there with you! My son and I are doing a little Pre-K stuff this year. He's 4 but will not be 5 until end of October so is still over a year away from K age. I will be going to my first convention in July and I know I'll be overwhelmed because I already feel overwhelmed just looking online at stuff that is out there. No words of advice to offer, sorry. Just wanted you to know you aren't alone.
Thanks. So does companies generally set up their booths in the same spot year to year? I see that Jackie mentioned making a bee-line for a specific vendor.
Generally, they do, but it's not a guarantee. At CHEO, you can get a map of where each vendor is set up.
oh goody, it won't go away. *sarcasm* Seriously, it's relieving to know you all felt and still feel the same way. So, if my "uh oh! Her education is ALL on me!" feelings never dissipate, how do I at least alleviate them?
Oh, that one's easy! You just say, "At least she's doing better than if she were in public school!" and let it go at that!
We're in our 5th year of hsing and I will be attending my very first convention in two weeks. I have had my map printed out and my route highlighted for almost 2 months. My list is made, costs totaled, and I'm feeling very confident. I expect that feeling to last until the minute I walk in the doors.LOL
start with free stuff. then buy stuff to fill in the cracks. You can waste alot of $$ on curriculum before you know it. careful! www.xtramath.com http://www.progressivephonics.com/ www.mainlesson.com
Just read the news and stats about ps and remember there's no such thing as a perfect curriculum and there will always be gaps because nobody can know EVERY bit of information, even those with an I.Q over 200.
Um, yeah, I think we've all panicked. When we went to our first convention, I did the Jackie thing and walked around glazed-over and trying to look like I knew what I was doing. The thing that helped the best, though, was walking around looking and checking stuff out -- and collecting catalogs/brochures from all the various vendors. The convention gave us a "goodie bag" at registration, with tons of advertisements and catalogs and such, then with all that I collected while walking around, I had a reading-good-time at the hotel that night, then the next day I could go back and look at whatever I was especially interested in seeing more of.
We were blessed to have help when we first started homeschooling. While it didn't remove any false anticipation or uncertainty, the situation didn't seem overly consuming. Honestly, I think preparing Ems for high school is taking more of a toll on my brain than Kindergartend did. lol
Oh, YES!!! And Faythe is SO different from her sister, so "been there, done that!" is NO help at all!
I'm becoming more confident now that I've had a chance to quiz the salespeople (Er, whatever it is that we call them... is representative a better term?) about the different curricula. Now that I've looked at my top 5 choices, I was able to eliminate three off the bat because of them being phonics heavy for being only a 4 year old. That leaves two and I'm pretty sure we know which one we will choose for this fall. I feel at peace about it. I'm sure that feeling will go away when we get into the thick of it all, ha. Besides, I could always switch curricula.
I will be going to my first convention in July and I know I'll be overwhelmed because I already feel overwhelmed just looking online at stuff that is out there.
