our schooling

My reasons for homeschooling are varied. I'll probably touch on that at some point in the future. Here's a little history of what's been going on though, for anyone who might be interested. I know when I was just starting out, and even now, I enjoyed seeing what other people were doing.

Kindergarten we started in the fall when she was 5 years old. I don't recall exactly when, but it was around the time the public schools started. We did this for no more significant reason than thinking that if we started in the fall we could stock up on back to school supplies when everybody else did. At the time I didn't realize that you can still buy new stuff in the fall no matter where you were in the school year, and that nothing would collapse if you started the school year without a brand new box of unsharpened pencils. Live and learn.
Our "curriculum" for Kindergarten was nothing too involved. Only some basic stuff to acclimate her to the process of "doing school". We had the Saxon K program for math, which we bought with all the manipulatives to carry us through third grade. We used the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading for reading instruction. This is a core phonics program (program? it's only one book with no games or other erroneous thing) that has no pictures and no silly Dick and jane stories but is VERY thorough and definately a solid start for reading. In the year that we took to go through the book she went from letter sounds to reading multi-syllabic words on maybe a fourth grade level. FANTASTIC book. I kind of made it sound boring there, but really it isn't. it's perfectly reasonable to expect a 5 year old to be able to stay focused for the short lessons. And since there is no time wasted on games or sight words or other such silliness, the time spent is just learning phonics. Simple and to the point. Highly recommended. Plus, you can buy games or flashcards or whatever you like to go with it. We never had to.
She LOVED the Saxon K math program so much that we whizzed through the entire thing in only 4 months, so, while we were still working on reading, we called that the end of kindergarted and just went right into first grade, even though she was a little younger than her peers.

i just realized it will be far too long to go into each program by itself, so i'll do that in future posts. For now, just the rundown.

In First Grade we added several things to our day. We bought the next Saxon level. We started History using the Story of the World program. We began science with a Life Science curriculum. When we were halfway through the phonics book we began spelling with a very basic spelling program. We also began English grammar with an intensive program that really amazed me with a child's capacity to learn things that normally aren't taught until MUCH later, if ever. I realize that was a terrible sentence and I realize that it's hilarious that it was about grammar itself. Penmanship was also begun in first grade, using Zoner Blaser workbooks. I tried the Zoner Blaser school set (made for classrooms) and just found it to be too cumbersome to bother with. She's always had good control of her hands, and has been able to draw very well, so learning to make letters came prety naturally, which made things easier.

Second Grade was pretty much a continuation of first, using all the same programs one level higher. Science went from Life Science to Earth and Space science. We began cursive writing but we didn't really put much effort into it. Seemed like we frequently ran out of time and I didn't really treat it as a priority. We made up for that this year though, and the wait hasn't hurt anything. She really wasn't up for the added writing and I wasn't interested in making it a chore. this year she's just physically capable of doing more.
First grade took 42 weeks (plus vacation weeks thrown in whenever we needed them) due to the history book being oddly divided into 42 chapters, unlike everything else which is gneverally a uniform 36 weeks. In second grade, however, we adapted the history program to fit into 36 weeks and the year was a bit shorter. so while first grade took about a solid year, with vacations added, second took only 42 weeks or so TOTAL. So we finished up at the end of February of this year, months before her peers. Since we don't take an uneccecarily lengthy summer vacation between grades, we are several weeks into third long before her peers even think about finishing second. so far this has been nothing but good, but if our short years ever cause her to be too young to handle her work, we'll have to slow down a bit. For now you'd never know she was a little young for her grade, so we push on.

Third Grade so far has been great. We added one very important class, and that has been Latin. It's always been the plan to start Latin in third grade, but neither I nor my husband has ANY background in it. Fortunately that hasn't been a problem and I've just been learning it too. It's easily her favorite class, even if it is the most mentally demanding.
We switched to a different science curriculum, since the publisher we had been using didn't yet have the level we needed. That's a good thing though because we like this one MUCh better, even if it is a bit pricey. Its worth it.
I'll go into history more in depth another time, but we sort of changed up what we do for that class and I'm not really sure if it was a good choice. We may go back to doing it the old way next year.
Grammar. We are on the third year of this program and I would describe it as HARDCORE grammar, yet the foundation layed in the beginning years are really paying off now. What I think is probably at least highschool level grammar is easy for her to grasp. This is a level of grammar most people don't receive in school. I know I didn't. But me learning with her hasn't held us back in the least. Just goes to show that those people who think homeschoolers will fail because they don't have a masters degree in every subject are wrong, wrong, wrong. Here's a tip though, most teachers in schools aren't experts in their subjects either.
Spelling in the same, though we are using a higher level book now. We have picked up a writing program, which begins teaching creative and effective writing. Some of it is redundant though, as she has learned levels of grammar that the writing program doesn't assume.
We just recently made it through the cursive alphabet. We'll continue to have daily penmanship, as well as her doing the vast majority of her own writing in other subjects. In past grades she would dictate some or much of it to me, since the goal was learning the subject rather than have it be a drudgery of writing, which can hurt the little hand if done too much. Not worth sacrificing the subject!

That's pretty much it for our history of schooling. I'll go through in future posts and go into the actual programs we've used. it would just be too much to put in here.
Also, I apologize for what must be a hideous number of typos. My typing skills are not the greatest, and I can't touch type very well. Sorry!

beginning

Welcome to this blog. I'm setting this here so anyone interested can see what my life is like. Family, or whoever. A bit about us...
I am a 20-something person of the female persuasion. Married. I have a daughter who will be eight years old soon and who is in the third grade. I homeschool her for a variety of reasons, none of which are due to being a religeous conservative uber-Christian.
I am involved somewhat in the Free State Project, which is, basically, a movement of people to New Hampshire to escape states with more intrusive governments and higher taxes. The goal is to take NH, which is about the most liberty minded state in the union, and keep it a safe-haven for people interested in individual freedoms. Hopefully to even improve it.
We currently live in New Jersey, in a tiny house on a small, dussused farm, but will be moving to New Hampshire soon. We're just waiting for finances to allow it.

So that's me in a small nutshell. If that makes you want to follow this blog then, by all means, do so. My daughter is set up as a contributor so she'll be writing in here as well. I promise it will be more interesting than this introduction.