It's That Time Again

I've missed a few self-imposed blogging deadlines this week on behalf of a worthy cause, or rather, three worthy causes.  I've been doing "school work".  Two or three days ago you could have located me under a large stack of curriculum catalogues.

These are just a few of the catalogues from which I select what we will study this year in school.  The catalogues are such a large part of our existence as home schoolers and such prominent citizens of our bookshelves, that it often surprises me that non-home schoolers are often unaware of their existence evidenced by the popular question: "Where do you get what you teach?" It is the number one question about school that I am asked.  

It would probably also surprise you to learn that my sister, who also home schools her children, uses a completely different set of catalogues from which to order her materials.  There are hundreds of curriculum catalogues sporting hundreds or curriculum choices each.  If, for some reason I can find nothing to suit my little class from the massive numbers of options listed on the various catalogue pages, I can visit the local board of education which will provide me with text books free of charge from the public school system. 

The most difficult task isn't finding things to teach the children, it is instead narrowing down all of the wonderful choices.  

 

This year I'm stepping a toe or two off my usual beaten path of curriculum choice which has my older students a bit curious and we're adding a kindergarten student which has the teacher a bit nervous.

Nevertheless, the task is done and the textbooks and readers and poetry books are trickling in from this company and that.  We still await a 24-pound box from Washington state where one of our favorite home educating companies, Timberdoodle, is based and I may have one more Amazon.com order to place if my teaching assistant thinks we need the extra material...

While she makes up her mind, I'm busy getting pumped up for the year by reading...

The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education, which is causing me to look differently at a few things we've been doing in our school and a few things we've not been doing.  This book has been my textbook which is super because one of my favorite things about teaching our kids at home (a question no one ever asks, for some reason...) is that I get to be a student too.  I've learned so much in the last five years that this time through school I actually have a chance to graduate fourth or fifth in my class!!