A Challenge

This is our first week of homeschool, I can tell you, it is challenging as well as fulfilling. I have been trying not to get myself so overwhelmed by every bit of information I come across. It is so hard not to want the best of everything for your children and yet work with a limited budget. That too is part of the challenge. I thank God though that there are so many helpful and wonderful people who have taken the time to reach out to the homeschool community. So many helpful blogs and sites, e-groups and communities.

The previous week was spent looking for a curriculum to follow and I was able to stumble upon some pre-owned copies of Alpha Omega Publications Lifepac Gold 500 series which were in very good condition. I decided to use this for my 4th Grader and supplement the materials with books his brother used in traditional school and materials garnered from the net. My 6th grader has the Lifepac Gold 600 series for Science. Right now, I am kind of at a loss as to which curricula to use, so I am trying out a few things and still researching. At the moment the basis for my lesson planning is the World Book Curriculum Standards for 6th Grade. I have been using countless resources from the internet, my bookmark page has gotten so full. It's amazing what you can find but there are instances it becomes frustrating because you can't find the exact thing you are looking for sometimes.

It was quite difficult going about the lessons without any concrete schedule and lesson plan to follow. So I set about looking for some forms to use, I came across Donna Young.org, she has got such a complete set of forms to use, there were quite a lot and in all honesty I haven't really used all the forms, I decided I needed badly right now a weekly planner - you can check it out here: Weekly Lesson Plan Forms.

Now that I have the forms, the tricky part is filling it up. I never realized how much work it is to be a teacher, determining your lessons for the day. I had to ask myself "What exercises do I use? Will I need manipulatives? Will I need to do experiments? What about books to read or web sites to visit?"...all that needs to be thought out properly and integrated into the weekly lessons. I thought that since my 4th grader had the complete set of Lifepac modules, all I needed was to portion out the pages for him to study per day. Whoa! Was I in for a surprise, first I realized that I may be giving him too many or too little pages to study - what may seem simple to me, may not be so simple to my child. They may take their time because of the questions they ask, they may want to look it up in reference books, or look it up in the internet. And you have to make sure that they do understand before you leave the topic.

Nevertheless, I have forged on, armed with what I have. Each day has become a learning day, not only for my kids but also for me. There are days when I stay awake late into the night browsing the web, reading and looking for material for the next days lessons. It is work to do this and yet, these past few days I have realized that I am also enjoying this and enjoying the time I spend with the kids.