**I know I said I’d talk about homeschooling myths first, but my posts about curricula are ready first! Myths will be up next once I get a chance to write about it.**

I am a teacher.

It’s what I got my degree in and what I did with my life for four years before entering motherhood.

Since my babies were born, I have looked forward to the season of life when I can teach them. And while I have been teaching my children since the day they were born (we all have – whether we realize it or not, we are ALL teaching our children something!), I have always looked forward to the days when I can teach them reading, writing and arithmetic. (Ok, not so much arithmetic as I hate math).

Those days are just around the corner and I am so excited. Except we are not there yet. But almost!

Little Bug is a smart girl. Sometimes, she is too smart for her own good. When Little Bug is with another caregiver at church or preschool I usually hear, “She is so smart.” multiple times.

I was very tempted to jump into Kindergarten curriculum with Little Bug this year. Very tempted. I am so ready to start teaching again beyond colors, shapes, ABCs and the numbers 1-10.

I went to the Homeschool Convention with several Reading and Math curricula in mind that I wanted to check out.

I also went with this nagging feeling that Little Bug isn’t quite ready for true Kinder curricula. I’ve been told she has mastered preschool skills and I know she is probably academically ready to handle Kinder skills, but developmentally?

Little Bug is just four. JUST turned four. She is a wiggle worm. She still has the attention span of a worm and when I took all that into consideration, choosing a Kinder Reading and Math curriculum for her just didn’t feel right.

That first day of convention I walked through the exhibit hall full of booths with curriculum for everything you could ever think of. I had been warned that it would be overwhelming, but I had two very good friends walking me through it (both of which have homeschooled for a number of years!) and I found myself loving walking through and seeing everything. I had made a list of potential curricula to check out and I found all the booths, marked them on my map and kept going from one to another trying to decide what would be best for Little Bug.

But every time I had time to walk the exhibit hall nothing really grabbed me as a perfect fit for my Little Bug. I just felt like to choose one of the options I was looking at would push a very active child too early to do “school work” and that is not what I have in mind for us for our first official year of homeschool.

So I prayed that God would help me decide and know what was best for my Little Bug.

I have no idea how I came across what I found, but when I found it, I immediately knew THIS IS IT and I was so excited because I KNEW it would be the perfect fit for us this year. The main thing, academically, that I want to teach Little Bug this year is letter sounds and a continued love for learning. This curriculum teaches letter sounds in a very hands-on approach using real literature that Little Bug will absolutely love!

I will write about what I found next!

- Elaine