Get Your Act In Gear - Homeschool Style!

 This is definitely a post of random pictures.  But it is Homeschool Conference season again!!!  The time of year where all young homeschooling moms nearly give themselves a coronary trying to navigate through the endless mountains of programs, books, curriculum, education philosophies.  Only a homeschool mom can make Kindergarten seem like the most momentous event in a child's life.  Talk about making a mountain out of a mole hill.  And no one is more guilty of this than me!  I admit it.

The first conference of the year is our hometown Catholic Homeschool Conference.  The CHAPLET conference is run by my local homeschool group at my parish, so it is always a favorite.  My husband's publishing company, Arx Publishing, is a vendor.  And this year Beatrice vended as well *achem* LOL

So, after several mini coronaries on my part I think I have finally wrapped my mind around our homeschool plans for the rest of the spring/summer and next Fall:

-26 Letters to Heaven: A really sweet PreK program new at Hillside Education.  Saints and virtues with fun crafty activities to tie in Math, Science, and Literature.
-Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons- Pretty self explanatory.  Ben is doing a great job with the reading so we are getting a head start on some Kindergarten work now.  I have heard good and bad reviews of this program.  So I figured we would use it for the spring and summer and we can reevaluate closer to fall if we want to continue with it our swap it out for a different program.  Plus I received it free from a friend so why not give it a shot.
-Bob Books, Set 1: Beginning Readers great little set of VERY beginner readers.  They are really cute and crack me up.  Highly recommend these
-Seton Workbooks: A friend recommended these to me and after looking through them seemed just right to help Ben with the writing skills he REALLY needs to work on.

Come Fall I am hoping the Seton workbooks will have Ben's writing skills caught up enough (and when I say caught up I mean he can proficiently hold a pencil...yeah it is that bad....can competently trace letters, numbers, shapes, and can basically write the letters and numbers on his own with some semblance of legibility.) that we can start Mother of Divine Grace Kindergarten Program.

In another one of my efforts to get our tiny, storage deficient home to be more functional I rearranged the dining room yesterday.  With moving the dining table to another wall (and yes we pathetically must keep the table against the wall for more room to you...ya know.....walk!) I was able to move an unused bookcase into the dining room to store the homeschool materials that didnt really have a home.  And this also meant our fish were able to have a new home in the dining room instead of the basement!  And in case you wonder why their water is so dark it is from the tannins in the piece of bark that is in the water.  Over time the water will lighten up.  Yes, the water is clean.

And last, but not least.  A bit of advice for you moms out there that either 1. are just starting homeschooling and are overwhelmed by the choices and not even sure where to start or what their child needs at what age or 2. are thinking, "I can't bare the thought of sending little Jimmy off to that school, but homeschooling seems IM-POSS-IBLE!!! Talk to as many homeschooling moms as you can (trust me they generally love to talk about what they do).  Eventually a plan will start to make sense and things will come together.  And if you think you can't homeschool, too hard, too weird, to fringe....go to a conference and check it out.  These are families just like yours just trying to do what is best for their kids.