This is my second year homeschooling and I feel as if I am starting all over again.  For my 4th and 6th grade (back when I used to categorize by grades) boys I began homeschooling using Seton Home Study, a Catholic program.  We are Catholic and, having no experience in homeschooling, I wanted to use a pre-packaged curriculum so that I wouldn't make any mistakes.  Of course, after two years I now think continuing to use a pre-packaged curriculum for our family is a mistake.  It was a good way to get started and I don't regret it.  The boys, after all, did learn and that was the point. 

     When they entered 5th and 7th grade this last fall, however, we began to have problems.  My 7th grader went back to private school and my 5th grader became extremely bored with Seton.  Come to think of  it, so did I.  So, I began to search for another curriculum.  That is when I found K12.  It looked much more exciting than Seton and I knew I could easily continue to teach Catholicism on my own.  So, we switched program mid-year in February.  Switching curriculum mid-year is difficult and I was getting panicky thinking of the time we were losing starting over and trying to figure out a new program.  During the three months that we have used the program I have been exploring other ideas for homeschooling.  I started by looking for another history program because the K12 history relied on the books A History of US by Joy Hakim which were too liberal for us.  I found the Sonlight history of the US (we are doing the two years condensed into one) to be a much better fit for us.  I have always gone back and forth between a Charlotte Mason and a Classical approach.  Then I found that the Easy Grammar books worked much better for us than the K12 and we began using them.  After that I discovered notebooking and added that to our K12 Science.  And on and on it went.  Suddenly I realized that I was creating my own curriculum based completely on Tyler's (that's my 11 year old) abilities and learning style.  We are now enjoying our school days and I feel completely competent to break away from pre-packaged curriculum. 

     In another year I will be starting to school my oldest daughter (4 years in June) and I am so excited.  Now I have about 3 years to figure out how to homeschool high school.