We have one more week of Ready-Made Preschool left and then we will be taking our first Summer Break! Dave and I attended the Homeschool Convention again this year and we had a fabulous time choosing what we will use for the 2014-2015 school year with our girls. I’m not kidding when I say we had a fabulous time choosing what we will use next year! I went prepared. I had the exhibit hall map color coded and marked so we could easily see where we needed to go to make a purchase, where we needed to go to look at the different options before making a final decision and where we wanted to go to look at future curriculum options.

Homeschool Curricula for the 2014-2015 school year for Little Bug & Sweet Pea:

I felt very blessed that Dave was so involved in this decision making process rather than telling me, “You are the teacher, pick what you want!”. Homeschooling is a family endeavor; it’s not just “my thing”. I was stumped on what math to choose for Little Bug’s Kindergarten year and Dave went with me to every vender I had marked as a possibility and, in the end, he helped me decide what would be best for Little Bug. He makes decisions easily because he has always been the type to know what he wants when he sees it. We didn’t even stop at one vender because he saw from afar that they us an abacus. As we approached the vendor Dave said, “Just keep walking. That is a definite NO!”. I said, “But don’t you want to look at it at least?!” He said, “Do you want Little Bug saying, ‘Let me get my abacus out to figure that out!’ when she is trying to do math in a store??”. It was a funny moment for us and confirmation to me that that particular math curriculum wasn’t the best option for us.

The Homeschool Convention is becoming a family tradition I do believe. It is uplifting to go and be surrounded by other homeschooling families and to get to hear speakers talk about why we are doing what we are doing. We got to meet Jim Weiss who feels like a family member because his voice can be heard in our home, and in our car, on most days! Jim Weiss is a story-teller and at last year’s Convention I was advised to buy one of his story-telling CDs. It was the BEST money I spent at the Convention! Little Bug LOVES to listen to his stories and now that she is older she will go to the playroom and put his CD in and get lost in his stories for an hour or more! Needless to say, we bought their special this year. Buy four CDs and the 5th is free. Best money we spent again as Little Bug will listen to the these stories at home, in the car driving around town and on road trips! I should write an entire post about these!

Jim Weiss signing a CD for Little Bug:

Going to the Homeschool Convention is also a great way to kick-off the beginning of Summer!

What do we plan to do this summer when we aren’t playing outside?!

We are going to row a few books from Before Five in a Row! Because my little girls can’t stand the thought of not doing school, I knew I had to find something that we could enjoy together this summer. I’ve had three rows prepped and ready to use now for almost a year and now is the perfect time to do this. We have several trips planned so BFIAR will be perfect for doing when we are home and putting it aside when we are on vacation. Plus, my girls love nothing more than to read books and then do fun activities so I know they are going to love this.

We will be rowing Blueberries for Sal first because June is blueberry picking season! If we have time we also have Corduroy and Jessie Bear What Will You Wear? to row this summer.

Little Bug is also very much into Read Alouds now. When I taught 4th grade I saved a bunch of my chapter books to one day read with my own children. I have pulled out 5 chapter books to read to her this next school year but we may start on those this summer. I can see many summer afternoons spent reading before her rest time. I will also finish up Sweet Pea’s ABC School with her.

Before I know it, it will be Little Bug’s first day of Kindergarten! She is already so excited to be a big Kindergartener!

- Elaine