What about Me?

After coming home from the Expo yesterday and going through all our stuff, I quickly realized there were things for Lain that I had wanted to purchase but was too distracted and never did. Sooooo, after repeating several times yesterday that I would/could NEVER bring my children there, I loaded them up and brought them for round 2. I had not planned on going back since Eric had to work and I didn't think it was worth my headache to bring them. I'm glad I braved it because Logan enjoyed all the hands on stuff there was for him to check out and Lain was right there with him. I was even able to attend one of the workshops dealing with how to homeschool with a younger one in the house for 45 mins with very little distraction from them. Sometimes they really do come through.

My main focus on the second trip was for things for Lain and I opted for My Father's World Preschool/Toddler items:

Toddler Tote
Number Puzzleboard and Pegs
Lace and Link lowercase letters
Lacing Shapes
Fit A Space
Peg Board

I am really excited about using these with Lain. He played with them for a long time while I talked to some of the volunteer's that were at the booth. I am hopeful that I can spend 5-10 mins playing with him guiding him in what I would like him to do so I can spend the remaining part of the hour on a subject with Logan. As a side note, Logan also spent a good deal of time playing with the pegs and stacking them as high as he could before they toppled over. I think they will be a big hit.

Holy Expo Batman!

I attended my very first Homeschool Expo today, Southeast Homeschool Expo, and all I have to say is WOW! So many homeschool families, so many vendors, so many different curriculum's to look at! AHHH!!! I got there about 9:45 and I stayed until they kicked out us at 7. I do have to say that from about 4 on I was toast and it was hard to have a conversation with me :)

I really liked My Father's World curriculum even though I try to stick to secular curriculum's but honestly, that's really hard to do. Even still, if I had not already purchased a good portion of what I was going to use this year, I may have ended up buying the whole package. I didn't though.

I also really liked Dr. Nancy Larson's Science Program but my budget was spent by the time I got to this. I'm still not 100% satisfied with what I choose for science so if some extra money comes our way in the next couple weeks, I will probably end up buying this. I love all the hands on experiments and Dr. Nancy does an amazing job with her teacher manuals giving you step by step instructions on what to do and say. It is on my list for 2nd grade for sure!

My final curriculum for 1st Grade is as follows:

Language Arts - Go Phonics
Math - Right Start Level B
History - Story of the World the Ancient Times
Geography - Galloping the Globe
Science - We are attending a co-op this year where DS1 will be studying the solar system
Science - We are also going to study a different animal each week from the country we are studying in Geography. I still am tweaking this.
Science - We will be doing a 10 week study of My Human Body and learning about the 5 senses. Lots of fun experiments are planned for this.
Science - We will be doing a 10 week study on plants. Still tweaking.
Art - Also doing in co-op.
Music - Also doing in co-op.
Music - Weekly piano lessons.

Besides the curriculum to look at and buy, I also attended a couple of the workshops they had. Some were good, some I had to leave before falling asleep. All in all it was a very good day. Long but good!

Bring on the school year!

It's almost time!

So I haven't been blogging because I felt totally inadequate reading all these amazing homeschooler blogs that I didn't feel worthy! Then I remembered why I wanted to blog in the first place, I wanted a way to record and look back on all the fun stuff we have done. So.....

We are almost ready to start the 2010-2011 1st Grade school year! I'm so excited about this year's curriculum that I can't hardly wait to start next week, but I have to since I don't have my hands on all the curriculum yet. I am going to my first Homeschool Expo Friday and even though I'm a little overwhelmed at all that will be there, I'm really looking forward to being surround by 100's of people that are homeschooling! I hope to pick up the last few things that I need for our school year there.

I can not believe that I am going to be homeschooling my 1st grader! When I first pulled Logan from PreK4, it was just a way to save money since I was quitting my full time job and coming home to do part time work out of the house. I never imagined that I would fall onto this road but I'm so glad that we have.