We started our homeschooling journey in 2002. I didn't know a thing about homeschooling. My cousin had homeschooled her children for about four years and talked to me about it, but by the time I started her children were back in school.

Here is some background before we switched to Textbooks:

I had heard about Sonlight from one of the yahoo groups I joined about mothering. I did a search, found the Sonlight website and requested a catalog. I ended up ordering a Pre-K & a Kinder. Core. I didn't know you could combine back then. We used Sonlight Pre-k, K, Core-1 & 2. Josh was on the younger side of what Core-2 was recommended for so a lot of it was going over his head.

For his 3rd grade year we did a year of WinterPromise American Story 1 and combined it withMy Father's World Adventures. 4th grade we did half of Exploring Countries & Cultures with Children Around the World. Those were some crazy years. For various reasons I couldn't decide which to use. MFW or WinterPromise .  I also had the younger ones tagging along.

If combining wasn't enough throw in trying the Well Trained Mind & Charlotte Mason. I was a wreck by the time Joshua, my oldest was in 4th grade. Everything sounded so good and the people homeschooling that particular way considered it the 'right' way. I felt like I was being pulled in all  different directions.

A lot of homeschoolers recommend combining and that was really hard for me. It worked fine when the children were 8, 7, 6, 5, 3 & 2 but it was getting harder to round up my little brood.

As I was flip-flopping around here was what was going on in my mind

At about the time Josh was in 3rd grade I thought about switching to textbooks. Everywhere I turned forums, yahoo groups, homeschooling books & magazines, textbooks were spoken of negatively. That by using them we were trying to do school-at-home, In other words bring the classroom setting home, instead of homeschooling. I read that Textbooks are boring. You child won't learn how to think. Workbooks are mindless filling in the blanks and on and on. Having everyone at different levels would be too hard.

I continued on with a more Literature approach. By this time I new I was not disciplined enough to be a Classical, Trivium or Well Trained Mind homeschooler. I was leaning more to Charlotte Mason, but even then I felt we were not doing enough. At the end of the day, I wondered if we covered everything.

Fast forward to our 2008-2009 school year. Josh 5th, Annette 3rd, Caleb 2nd, Brent 1st, Ethan K & Lance

For our 2008-2009 school year I was already to start My Father's World Countries & Cultures. I was going to use everything that MFW but go with workbooks for Language Arts & Math. We got to week 11 but it just wasn't working. The program was wonderful but again some of it was over my younger ones head or it was hard getting everyone together and many days we didn't even get to history or science.

I finally gave in and went the textbook route. Since I already spent most of our homeschooling money I went with Rod & Staff for most of our subjects along with a few other publishers. I went against what is considered the homeschool norm and used a reading program and workbooks for all subjects.

I felt so free from the Literature Rich way homeschooling. I don't feel like I'm doing a disservice to my children. Our textbooks are not mindless or boring. My children have learned a lot. The joy of learning is still there. Textbooks have not stifled my children.

Just because we use Textbooks does not mean our children are not reading "Living' books. They can still have a timeline if we choose to and I, can still have read aloud time. Using texbooks doesn't mean we will never read a good book again

Previous Post

• Boring Textbooks
• How Do We School Our Children
• Our Textbook Side of Homeschooling

Our Year is Coming to an end

We started using all textbooks in Sept. 2008 and it has been a REALLY good year. The children have commented more than once that they like their school books,  like that they can do school on their own, not have to wait for me and they have learned A LOT this year.

As for me I don't regret switching to textbooks. We made a few textbook changes through out the year, but I really feel we found our groove. At least for this season.  I have peace about our school.  I no longer feel like we are not doing enough. I'm not exhausted like I was before and I see that my children taking charge of their school. They set timers for each subject, take breaks, have a snack and get back to work .

After a few months of using textbooks I needed to order something from the Maxwells' and noticed that they had a new book out "Managers of Their Homeschool" and guess what the Maxwell's ended up using? TEXTBOOKS! This was a real encouragement to me. It just kind of confirmed that we were going to be o.k.

If we continue to homeschool I would like to use MFW for High School when the children can do more on their own but that's another post ;)