Even if you’re not homeschooling I would suggest this program for summer learning

Hey lovelies! So I titled this post the way that I did because as a new school year approaches and most know my intent to homeschool, this is the question I’m being asked on a regular, if not frequent basis. While I know most of those people are genuinely interested it’s funny that the rest seem to be looking for me to say, “I have given up, he’s going to school in the fall”. So while that decision could always be made at some point or another, my decision to homeschool Spider for his Kindergarten year still stands.

So far things have been well. I’m getting a routine established, my planning is making sense (finally), and the kids are even enjoying it. I was reminded of the flexibility that comes with homeschooling and it made everything else fall into place. The biggest mistake for me as a new homeschooler was trying to recreate school. While the structure of traditional school is okay, trying to have a school at home only makes the process more difficult for everyone involved. So I made sure to plan my day in terms of our lessons but have decided not to designate particular times for each. As a dual-business owner, wife, and Mom it’s just impossible to stay “on schedule”- so I don’t!

Our routine is pretty simple. It consists of the morning routine of breakfast, getting dressed, etc. Then we start with what I call our “Dailies” which is a review of shapes, colors, counting, lesson subject reviews, and calendar work. Next we have story time then they have their media time on the computer. From there is art, science, and social studies depending on the day of the week. Recess (outside or Wii play depending on the weather), lunch, snack (my kids prefer their snack after lunch- greedy munchkins!), then we finish with independent work. I still have some tweaking to do but this schedule is working for them so far. I tried to tailor it to their interests and attention spans, giving them something new and interesting before and after the “not-so-fun stuff”, as Spider says.

As far as the media, my daughter Rainbow uses various online learning programs. Spider has been using Time4Learning. The curriculum is used by many homeschoolers in my state of NC as a supplement, and others even use it as a full curriculum. I chose to use it as a supplement for Spider. He’s tried other programs and none of them interested him and were far too easy. What I loved about Time4Learning is that it caters to his level of learning. Because no child is the same, Time4Learning allows the child to have access to a grade level above and below in all subjects. So Spider is able to sharpen some of his pre-k concepts like math while moving ahead at the kindergarten level for others such as language arts.

The site is very user friendly for us both which is definitely a plus! It is very interactive which is great for Spider because he is very visual and hands on with his learning. I would say that the best thing about Time4Learning is that he is ACTUALLY learning. There was a unit on books that taught about the parts of a book. One day he decided to share what he had learned with the kids at the daycare that I work at, “This is the title, but this one doesn’t have a table of contents”. He’s excited about the program and I ❤ it! I will continue to include this as a part of our curriculum.

Even if you’re not homeschooling I would suggest this program for summer learning as a way to keep your children refreshed on what they learned and will come to learn in their upcoming year. You won’t regret it!

“Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prorate for it today” – Malcolm X