hello all! my name is Alina, i live in Oregon and i just became the new home schooling mom of my 2 munchkins, William (4) and Ivy (2). to be honest, i feel a bit overwhelmed by the vast amounts of info and resources that are out there! and have spent countless hours and sleepless nights sifting through all the curriculum's, books and what-nots, worrying if i am doing it right! i was drawn to the homeschooling idea, out of the lack of substantial preschool curriculum for my son, and as he already knows most all the things they teach in kindergarten, i figured, why hold him back? any ways~ i am really hoping for a positive experience with the whole thing, so i need/appreciate all the help and support i can get! and thought this group looked right up my ally!
Welcome. We live in NC and have seven kids. Three are married, two are 19 and we homeschool the youngest two. One of them turned 16 today and the baby is 10. Glad you joined us. Beth
I have to ask, do you like Charlotte's Web? Your greeting jumped out at me I don't think I have seen that used here before. Very original, good for you. My dh and I live in wyo with three girls 9, 7, and 3. You will find a wealth of information here so dive right in.
my son is going through a Charlotte's web phase! lol thought i would make the best of it! thank you all for your warm welcomes. i have found many great resources already through this group. and hope to add to the "flavor" of all the wonderful people here.
Hello and welcome! Our kids are the same age. Skylar (4) and Zachary (2) I went to college in Oregon and I miss it dearly.
hi skyecamp, so are you doing an actual curriculum with your kids or just doing the explore/play learning right now? i am doing a little of both. but i would love to get ideas and hear what other people are doing/ planning on doing with kids this age. i always find it a bit shocking when i hear people say they miss/love Oregon! LOL but i have always considered myself more of a desert rose, then a water lily! what school did you go too?
I went to Oregon State. Sometimes the rain would get to me, but after being back in Massachusetts with the freezing cold weather and one snow storm after another....I think I would take the rain anyday! I actually consider myself more of a beach bum and am trying to get dh to agree to move somewhere warm! But I would probably move back to Oregon again if the opportunity come up. I don't do any kind of formal curriculum at the moment and probably won't for at least a few years, maybe not at all....there doesn't seem to be any need for one yet for us. We read A LOT and go to the library often. My daughter has been reading since before she turned 3 and is always full of questions....and we just go with it. I try to surround her with fun educational things and see what sparks her interest. I am often surprised at what she wants to know. For example...she insisted I teach her who the Supreme Court Justices are (there is a picture of them in an Olivia book) and she knows the entire United States because I showed her where Ohio was because we were going there and she HAD to learn all the other states too. And my son is starting to get excited about topics too which has been fun. Recently at the library he walked in and yelled 'I want a book about sharks!" (well I'm probably the only one who actually understood what he said. lol) He's been very excited about sharks since our last trip to the aquarium. DH usually takes the kids to the Aquarium (we have a family membership) or Science Museum (he gets in free through his work) on the weekends to give me a break, but sometimes I go too. I got my daughter a few Kumon books for Christmas, a math one and a writing one, because I thought she would like them...she's been practicing her writing (she even has a hs penpal now) and we play math games in the car (she loves to see how many different combos can add up to the same number....like 1+9 =10, 2+8=10 etc...) But whenever I tried to get her to actually use one of the books...she gets bored within minutes and doesn't want to do it, so I haven't pushed it. I want it to be fun for her, at least for now. We do a lot of crafts too. Our big thing right now is cutting pieces of magazines out and gluing them together to make animals (actually Skylar recreated the Backyardigans) and then putting goggly eyes on them. They are so frickin cute and its what she gave everyone for Christmas this year. We have sign language movies (Signing Times) that the kids have been watching since they were babies and they both know a lot of vocabulary signs. I tried a hs sign langauge class with Skylar hoping it would help her learn to 'speak' it but after 2 classes she cried and didn't want to go anymore so I didn't make her. I really want them to learn an additional language though so I am trying to figure out what I'm going to do about that. I want to at least expose them to it while they're young but I don't speak another language myself or really have the money for classes, so I am hoping to get creative somehow. I only decided I wanted to homeschool recently so its all new to me. I'd like to think I won't need any kind of specific curriculum but I am open to it.
wow! i am very impressed! how did you teach her to read so young? we have been using "teach your child to read in 20 lessons" book, and ds really seems to be catching on. but my dd (2) is not interested in learning yet. so i am open to new ideas. sounds like our kids have a lot in common tho! my son has been watching signing time since he was born lol! and although he is not fluent in ASL he knows a lot of signs and i really believe they are why he talked so early, backyardigans is a family favorite so are trips to OMSI and the children's museum. we do crafts galore, (as art it is my passion.) we also go to the library several times a week as my kids love reading/being read to. my son has really fallen in love with the magic tree house books! and since they also talk about different places and time periods we use them as a fun jumping off point to explore our world and history. William also loves math and i was laughing because just last week he figured out number combos as well. and got really excited about finding all the ways he can add up to 10. (its fun to see their "ah-ha" moments!) anyways, he just turned 4 so we have a few years to figure out what curriculum to use. but as for now i am teaching him the basics and then cater to what his interests are. and it seems to work out. but we should defiantly share notes!
I never set out with the intention of teaching my daughter to read. I simply love books myself and enjoyed reading to her. We would read for at least 30 minutes before naptime and then again at bedtime (often times it would be longer.) Our pile of books would always include a few of her favorites that I didn't mind reading over and over (I saved the Dr Seuss books for her dad to read cuz they were too much for me. lol) and also a variety of other books to keep things interesting. Some books I would just read, others we would pore over every page and talk about the different pictures and what was going on, asking questions. Like many kids, she started memorizing books to the point where she would know exactly what words were on each page and eventually she started recognizing some of the words written other places besides her books. I was surprised the first time she was like 'hey mom that spells love' We also have alphabet letters everywhere....magnetic letters for the fridge, foam letters for the bathtub, alphabet blocks. I'd make games out of playing with the letters whenever the opportunity came up. I'd spell out simple words on the fridge like dog, cat, mom, dad...and sometimes we'd try to match those words in a book. It was interesting to see her do things like point out the word 'doing' as being the same as 'dog' because they are both spelled with a d, o, and a g. It was always fun and if she didn't seem interested we'd move on. I think thats key...cuz if its fun they'll want to keep doing it, if its forced then they don't. And I think seeing me read all the time increased her desire to be able to read on her own too. I need to look into the Magic Treehouse books. For some reason, I've never come across them at the library but I've heard about them a few times now on this site.
Alina, Hi there! Glad you made it!! I don't know if this will set your mind at ease but you've got little ones and I wouldn't worry too much about the 2yo. The 4yo, if not yet ready, will soon be ready to learn to read. My favorite book and I recommend it to all new homeschoolers, is The Well-Trained Mind. Yes, I know it's classical and that can be really overwhelming but it is chock full of resources and planning suggestions that could work for almost any approach. So grab your favorite cup and beverage, kick your shoes off, and join in the adventure!
