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WHY? Our Journey Into Homeschooling
Thursday, January 18, 2007
New in 2007...
A.J. has a new baby sister to start the new year with. Lily was born November 5, two days after our last blog entry. So, someday she'll probably be added to this blog or maybe she'll even have her own 
In the meantime, we've been getting more structured homeschooling done on this end, believe it or not. The reason is probably less Lily's birth than the effects of it. We stay home most of the time now just because it's hard to drive around with a baby who wants mommy in the backseat with her. Once she gets a little older, we'll probably go out more again.
A.J. is still a bit resistant to the structure, but it's really not much structure. We spend anywhere between 10 minutes and an hour on a Mommy-picked topic, and the rest of the day, he pretty much has to himself except for having to do one math worksheet a day (we're working on division now). Somedays, however, he decides to do more than one (Monday, we did science, math, social studies, and language!).
With his free time, A.J. has been spending a lot of time with his new computer games and some older ones. He is learning from those as well. The games include Zoo Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon 2, Oregon Trail, Catz 5, and Dogz 5. I like most of these myself, so sometimes he watches me play.
With our structured time, we've been doing a variety of things. We've been studying the pioneers with the Moo Cow Fan Club, a great children's magazine I recently discovered through the homeschool community. We've played Oregon Trail 5 and pretended to be the pioneers ourselves. A.J. hardly ever finishes the trail, though, because shopping for and packing the wagon and fishing is too much fun!
We've also started Latin with Minimus: Starting Out in Latin, which is a cool little book. I've yet to buy the teacher's manual because it costs so much (almost $70!), but I have plans to when the budget allows. Good thing we have Daddy's Latin dictionaries and things around. The student manual doesn't cover everything, so it's great to have these resources. A.J. seems to enjoy his Latin lessons; perhaps it's the kid-friendly comic strip form that makes it fun for him.
We've also been doing a lot of cooking. Emeril's There's a Chef in My World and There's a Chef in My Soup are big hits with him, so we usually make one or two recipes from those books every week.
We're enjoying this time in our lives, even if A.J. is full of attitude a lot of the time. Once we actually get working, he's having fun. He doesn't realize that getting to spend 90% of his time doing just what he wants is pretty cool because he's never known otherwise.
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About Me
Learning to homeschool and homeschooling to learn.
Links
Home
Archives
My Blog's RSS
Interesting Homeschool Links
Kids Do Ecology
Enchanted Learning
Minimus Latin Web Site
Kinetic City science games and activities
iknowthat.com
Good Books We've Used
Math
G Is for Googol by David Schwartz
Science
Usborne First Nature: Fishes by Alwyne Wheeler
Usborne Discovery: Sharks by Jonathan Sheikh-Miller
Usborne Discovery: Whales and Dolphins by Susanna Davidson
The Nature Company EcoXplorer Series: Under the Sea by Priscilla Wrubel et al.
Questions and Answers: Mighty Machines by Stephen Angel
Cooking
Emeril's There's a Chef in My World by Emeril Lagasse
Emeril's There's a Chef in My Soup by Emeril Lagasse
Languages
Minimus Pupil's Book: Starting Out in Latin by Barbara Bell and Helen Forte
Sign With Your Baby by Joseph Garcia
Sign Language for Kids by Lora Heller
Good Magazines We've Read
Moo Cow Fan Club
NG Kids
My Big Backyard
Which Way USA?
Zoobooks
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