BEFORE
AFTER
This is Teagan's workspace for homeschooling. Usually it's a little cleaner but I took this picture a few minutes ago so you get it as is. I'm not sure how much I've said about us homeschooling so far. I know I've mentioned that we would be homeschooling this year. We went with the K12 program. We had some friends that used it and loved it. I requested the information and talked it over with Teagan several times. He was all for it. I made sure he understood the realities of it. Your friends won't be there. We went over all the good and the bad of it and in the end he made the final decision.
It was hard. I had fears about homeschooling. The big one you always hear about...what about socialization? I had fears that he would hate having me as a teacher. I was afraid we would start it and then he would beg to go back to school. I was afraid it would be really hard and take all my time. All my worries were for nothing. So far Teagan loves it. He tells me I'm the best teacher and gives me a hug everyday. Do we have bad times? Yes. Do I have to get on him sometimes? Yes. I have days I'm afraidI'm going to damage him some how but I have those days anyway.
I've gotten plenty of opinions about homeschooling. That was a little frustrating at first but I'm over it. I know now the only reason I gave the naysayers a second thought was because of the fears I had. I find it funny that people have such strong opinions about how you educate your own children. Not only that but how much they think that you have strong opinions about how they educate their children. I'm not trying to change the world here. It's just homeschooling.
We have a teacher we work with. She checks in with us and is there if I need help with anything. This particular program is public school at home so we still have the attendance and state testing and such. She is great to work with. At first I felt a bit lost as far as a schedule. Sometimes I felt I would require Teagan to do too much in a sitting and sometimes too little. I decided he could make his own schedule. So I took a couple magnet boards and borrowed Ian's mother's laminater and we were off. Teagan loves having control over his day.
We are pretty happy with the curriculum except for music. It's pretty juvenile. I would say it is more of a preschool music program. Teagan feels embarrassed doing it. We just do what we gotta do with that subject. He enjoys reading the stories in Language Arts. He seems to really enjoy History and he learns a lot from it. Teagan was very impressed with the way Romans built roads way back in 500 B.C. and how it hasn't changed much over all those years. Teagan now knows why they say, "All roads lead to Rome.". Math is pretty easy which he likes. We will finish the Math book the first semester and get another.
Art is getting more fun for him. The bigger the Art project the better. Right now he is working on one where you cut out shapes and make a picture. He learned about Henri Matisse and is modeling his style of art later in life by making dinosaur scenes from shapes cut out of paper. Teagan always enjoys Science and learns a lot from it. Clay comes over every Tuesday. This last week Clay did Science with Teagan. That was so much fun for both of them that we are going to save Science until Clay comes over each week. I'm learning too. Perhaps my blog writing will get better as I review my second grade Language Arts. :)
