Hello!

I'm so excited to have found this site.  I've tried my hand at blogging before on other sites, but I love it that there is one dedicated exclusively to home schoolers.  On previous blog sites, I always found it to be a tough balance between entering updates about my personal life vs. updates about our home schooling life. 

I am a hs'ing mother of 4 beautiful children (Peter - age 7 9/10, Jillian - age 4 1/2, Miranda - age 3, and Isabella - age 3).  We live in Rockville, Maryland (near Washington D.C. and all of the wonderful Smithsonian museums).  This is our first year of hs'ing and so far it has completely exceeded all of my expectations.  My son was in a private Christian school for K & 1st, and we had a good experience, but we just weren't sure that we wanted to pay private school tuition for all 4 children when our girls got older.  Luckily, we had some friends who were home schoolers and they spent many patient hours answering all of our stupid questions (like "what about socialization?").  Now, as our first home schooling year comes to a close, I can proudly say that not only are my kids getting a better education, but we have reclaimed our family life, destressed, and grown closer.  We've been using the Classical approach, espcially The Well Trained Mind, which I am particularly fond of.  Being an English major, and a lawyer, writing well is very important to me, so I found I really connected with the Classical emphasis on humanities in general and writing in particular. 

Here's what we're using this year:

• History - Story of the World I
• Spelling - A Beka Spelling 2
• Grammar - First Language Lessons
• Math - Singapore Math (2A, 2B & 3A)
• Science - no set curriculum, we having mainly just been reading whatever books from the library's science section interest my son, plus field trips to science museums.  We have done some focused work on anatomy too.
• Writing - no set curriculum.  My son was a very reluctant writer at the beginning of the school year, so I took it easy for most of the year, just focusing on teaching the mechanics of writing and penmanship, basic grammar, copy work and dictation, etc.  And now, miraculously, he loves to write!  He picked up a journal last week and has been writing in it non stop!  Hooray!

My son is standing next to me now, which means he has finished his History coloring page (I told him he was allowed to make the gladiators in the picture all bloody, which he was happy with).   So we're off to continue our school work before karate class.

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