Home Schooling

It's a great privilege to be able to home school my kids.  I love everything about it.....the bonding, the comfort of home, being in control of the education my kids receive, making the Word of God a major focus of our lives, etc.  Having six kids still at home, it hasn't been easy homeschooling all of them, and the older ones have gone to public school for a couple of years.  But now, five of the six are home, and the oldest two are almost completely independent.  My 9th grade daughter uses the online program, Monarch, by Alpha and Omega, and my 17 year old son is working both online and with curriculum I set up specifically for his needs.  We've also had some help from Veritas Classical Schools one day a week for our two youngest boys.   

Working with Josiah and Benjamin (Both from Bulgaria) brings so much happiness to my heart because I saw where they once  were cognitively...... there were times I thought there might not be hope for them learning at all.  But I get to watch their brains develop week after week,  and I see them making leaps and bounds in their reading and logic and overall education.  Just four years ago, Benjamin, at 10, couldn't even write his own name in his Bulgarian language....he didn't even know any letters of his alphabet.  And now, he is reading on a second-grade level. He LOVES learning and would homeschool all weekend if it were up to him.  To think that, three years ago, when I had him tested at the public school, they were going to place him in a class in which students had moderate cognitive disabilities.  Benjamin does have a moderate cognitive disability, BUT he performs at a much higher level.    

COMING SOON:  There will soon be a link for you to purchase the memory songs which I write for our kids year after year.  They are an incredible way for kids and adults to memorize scripture, as well as science, history, and math concepts.  The songs I have so far are:
**Scripture Memory Songs
**Ancient History Songs (To go with Story of the World and Mystery of History)
**Medieval History Songs (To go with Story of the World and Mystery of History)
**Early Modern History Songs (To go with Story of the World and Mystery of History)
**Flying Creatures Songs (To accompany Apologia Science)
**Swimming Creatures Songs (To accompany Apologia Science)
**Land Animals Songs (To accompany Apologia Science)
**Spanish Memory Songs
**Math Memory Songs

Some of Our Favorite Curriculum:

Math

**Math Mammoth workbooks—my absolute FAVORITE math program—teaches students to think mathematically!!
**RightStart Math (for struggling learners)

**ReflexMath--fun games to practice math facts

**Mathbuddy.com—problem of the day

**Dreambox.com--Games that help manipulate numbers in your brain
**Memory Songs 

History 
**Story of the World--chronological history curriculum
 (Mystery of History when kids are older)
**Supplemental library books and videos

**Memory Songs 

Bible 

**Day By Day Kids Bible
**What's In the Bible series
**The Storybook Bible

**The Tree of Life (my book that I wrote!)

**Scripture Memory Songs 

Science 

**Apologia Exploring Creation Science Series 

**Supplemental library books and DVDs

**Science Memory Songs 

Reading 

**Chapter Books (Lots of reading aloud)
** Library books
**Phonics based readers (for struggling learners)
**Pathway Readers

**RAZ Kids/Headsprout.com

Spelling

**ClickNSpell
**Spelling Workout

Phonics

**Explode the Code 
**Handbook for Reading
** ClickNRead

English

**Climbing to Good English
**Simply Grammar

Handwriting

**Cursive Workbook
**Draw, Write, Now

Writing/Composition

**Narration and Dictation
**IEW

Geography 

**Map of the Month

Spanish 

**Memory Songs/ Memory Phrases 
**Risas Y Sonrisas curriculum
**Foreign Language for Kids by Kids videos

**Fun Spanish, by Study Cat (Kindle App)

**Spanish children’s books

Critical Thinking

**Analogies
**Mindbenders

**Dr. Dooriddles

Art 

**Discovering Great Artists
**Draw3D.com

Music 

**Composers and their music
**Ukulele practice
**Piano practice

Cooking

**Raddish

My Thoughts on Latin:

Teaching children Latin (and sometimes Greek) is popular in the home school community, but I haven't heard a good argument as to why Latin is more beneficial to students than learning Spanish or another foreign language. In my opinion, you don't need to teach your children Latin or Greek in order to follow a Classical education model.  The original Greeks from whom we get our "classical" model, spoke Greek.  They didn't have to learn an ancient language so that they could read "classics" in that language.  To copy their style of learning doesn't mean we have to speak the same language and read the same literature that they read.  English is full of excellent literature, and if you want to read The Iliad or The Odyssey or the Vulgate, there are good English translations.  I'm not saying that it isn't valuable to study Latin and/or Greek if one so chooses, but I believe that learning languages in which one can actually communicate has far more merit than that found in studying the ancient languages.  And particularly, in the US, it's valuable to have a good handle on Spanish.  The fact that students who take Latin perform a little bit better on SAT's than students who take Spanish doesn't sway me. Students who take Latin were probably going to do better on the SAT's to begin with. One argument for learning Latin is that by studying Latin you can contrast it with English and better learn the rules of English.  But the very same thing is easily done with Spanish.