Progress

Christian and I did lesson 60 in Saxon Math 3 and I think we may be a little ahead of ourselves. I read a little further in the materials and I think it would be best if we went all the way back to the beginning with lesson 1 and start working our way forward. It is the multiplication that gets him more than anything else and I really believe we need to give him a stronger base there before pushing forward. Based on what I know now, I believe he will be just fine for next year if we work our way from the beginning. Actually, I am thinking I will put off purchasing a math program for Christian until this one is complete. He is learning stuff and it is fun.

Planning

After looking at how much work it would be to put a program together from scratch and further discussion with Al and Michele Rizos, we have decided to look at the Sonlight program and Singapore Math before going a whole lot further. The day to day administration of a program of study that is not already well laid out might be more than we can effectively handle. On Al and Michele’s recommendation, I am going to investigate these new programs a little more carefully and if they appear to meet the same goals as they are set out by The Well Trained Mind then I will probably go with them.

When I got to work, a guy named Bruce Smith with whom I work talked a little about he and his wife’s homeschooling program for their children. He told me that they had looked at going from scratch with The Well Trained Mind, but after investigating a little further they thought it would be a better investment of their time to spend it teaching their children instead of planning the teaching of their children. They had looked at a lot of plans and had settled on Sonlight because it provided a great plan that reduced the prepartion time greatly. They have been using it for three or four months and just love it. It sounds like they had just about the same experience as Al and Michele’s friends Paul and Heidi Renteria are having with their children.

Bruce told me that it is a reading intensive program. There is no television in their home and they read to their children regularly. This has turned their children into avid readers. His wife does most of the teaching and he said she feels the great reading materials provided as part of the Sonlight program are perfect for their family. That kind of environment is very similar to the environment in our home (no television – avid readers) as well as that of Al and Michele. I am looking forward to looking more closely at the Sonlight program over the next few days.

Infrastructure

We were initially planning to do our homeschooling upstairs in the bonus room. If we do that, the kids will be up there by themselves whenever Lorena is working in the kitchen or doing laundry. We have decided to convert the lighted closet under the stairway to a “homeschool materials” closet and set up our homeschool on the breakfast nook table and in the familyroom beside the kitchen. That will serve a couple of purposes. The kids can get into the habit of cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast so they can do their homeschool and Lorena can cook, sew, or do laundry downstairs while being only a couple of steps from the kids.

This Saturday, we are planning to run down to Lowes in Salem (we like it much better than Home Depot) and get the shelving that we need to hold all of the homeschool materials. I will keep records here on our actual costs for all of this. I am going to start making additional lists here of the things we think we need to buy to get started and then add a webpage to the site that has a table of our expenses with timing and descriptions.
||After looking at how much work it would be to put a program together from scratch and further discussion with Al and Michele Rizos, we have decided to look at the Sonlight program and Singapore Math before going a whole lot further.