First Tot School Post in a Long Time!

Joshua turned 3 in June. Because of him being non verbal and no resources available to him, I figured it would be forever before we ever started him with school.

In July he had 5 occasionally used words. But the end of August he blew up with over 200 words, used every day. It's like a light switch flipped and suddenly he won't shut up! He's still approximately a year "behind" in speech so will be continuing with speech therapy as it's available.

In this word explosion, we discovered that he's freaking smart. Like advanced smart. Like possibly gifted smart.

Some of his first clear "words" were identifying (correctly) the letters on the fridge. 

Then he started counting everything. Ok. This isn't simply a tot school start. I need to do an assessment to see what he knows. I got a simple preschool assessment from 1+1+1=1. I knew he probably couldn't do the line tracing and cutting, but I knew he could do some of the letters.

At 3 yrs, 2 mths he can:
- recite the alphabet and identify all 26 capital letters (we haven't tried low case yet) out of order
- count objects to 13 and identify all numbers 0-10 except 8 and 9
- identifies circle, square, heart and star
- identifies blue, yellow, green and red

We are shocked. He was classed as non-verbal 2 months ago. Because of this we never bothered doing any of the beginning learning with him that we did with the other kids (we did "Shoe!" with him instead of "One, two. Two red shoes" that we did with the older kids). Yet he just assessed at a higher level than a lot of Kindergarteners. Um. Crap.

I pulled out my tot school/preschool stuff from Olivia. I pulled out a few items to introduce it to him. He is in love. He sees the bin of laminated printables on the kitchen table and begs for school. He's not really interested in any writing/coloring activities but males are typically slower to pick up that fine motor stuff than females so I'm not worried. The girls think it's awesome that he has school now too.

Anything with cars makes Joshua happy

He loves the Magic School Bus books and videos

He did this farm animal matching game several times this week

More cars! And he gets to count them! Two of his favorite things!

Linking up with 1+1+1=1 and Homeschool Creations.

 

Weekly Wrap Up - 9/9/16

We school year round but this was our first week back on full schedule. This was also Joshua's first week of school ever!

I started using a paper agenda for Brianna this summer. It's really benefited her. Olivia insisted on having a paper schedule too. There aren't agendas meant for lower elementary, so I just bought her a plain notebook and hand wrote her agenda.

We had a bit of a rough time with Olivia. A lot more writing work is expected of her this year and she is not a fan.

Brianna has started Time4Learning and she loves it! We are using it as her full math curriculum in place of Math Mammoth as she is struggling hard. I am hoping that something new will kick start her brain a bit. We're also using the English, Science and Social Studies parts of it, but more as a supplement to the stuff we already do.

Olivia started Brownies this week and absolutely loves it! She can't wait to get her uniform and go back every week.

Learning her Brownie Promise

Joshua had a good week. I'll have a full Tot School blog post in a couple days, but it's safe to say he's enjoying himself!

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Hip Homeschool Moms

 

6 Tips for the Budget Conscious Homeschooler

I don't hide it, I'm poor. According to the Canadian Government, my family lives below the poverty line. Honestly, I'm ok with this. Suuuuure, it would make life easier to have more money, but I make do with what we've got to work with.

Of course, being poor translates into cheap frugal homeschooling. You can homeschool with loads of money to spend or zero money to spend. I could easily (well easily in my opinion cause I'm a little nuts about my love of researching stuff) homeschool all of my kids without spending anything more than ink, paper and pencils. Some people don't even do the ink and paper part! But, while I'm poor, I like to shop. I am cheap frugal though. I look for free stuff, awesome sales and used curriculum.

There's a zillion ideas for homeschoolers to save money, but here's my top 6 that I used most frequently.

1. Don't buy a several items of a new curriculum choice.

When I first started homeschooling Brianna, I went with Complete Canadian Curriculum books that I purchased from the book store. I figured they'd be perfect for us! As it turned out, I didn't like these, Brianna didn't like these, and it ended up being a waste of money. Now these books were only around the $20 mark each, but when we had several of them, it adds up.The Complete *individual subject* Smart books were better as we could use whatever grade level we needed and they were more in depth. We still didn't enjoy them a lot. They went into too much busy work but not enough detail for the stuff Brianna wanted to learn or do. Again, only $15 books, but when you have several.... (if you're just looking at a cheap supplement though, they can work)

2. The library is your best friend.

The library, provided it has a good children's department, will provide you and your kid(s) with oodles of books on a gazillion topics. Sure the internet can provide you with a lot of the same research material, but there's just something about laying out the table with a fat stack of books.

Some libraries also have free (and sometimes cheap pay) programs which you can use to your homeschool's advantage. Brianna does a Read to Ride program each summer which gives children a free bus pass for the summer in exchange for giving oral book reports to the librarians. Brianna's also done a yoga program and a movie program at the library.

3. Look for used curriculum sales.

They can be found online (facebook is my "dealer" of choice), they can be found at homeschool conventions. You can find stuff that's super cheap and even "free for shipping" and you can find more expensive stuff for a heck of a lot less than the company sells them for new. Some stuff people list are brand new (curriculum hoarders lol this will be me once all 3 kids are out of the lower grades).

4. Curriculum co-ops or just co-ops in general.

Homeschool Buyers Coop is fantastic. They offer a HUGE variety of curriculum at great discounts. I've gotten deals as high as 80% off. They also offer some free gems for members. My favorite is the Homeschooler ID cards. We're cheap so we print out the free ones and laminate our own, but for a small fee HBC will mail you hard laminated ID cards.

Local homeschool co-ops can be a great source as well. Chances are, *someone* is going to have kids older than yours. Maybe they used a re-usable curriculum that they are done with and are happy to give you or sell to you for cheap. Ya never know unless you ask! These are also great people to ask for reviews on curriculum you are considering. If they still use it/own it, you could even ask to get a hands-on look through (something I prefer over seeing a "preview" online).

5. Find and bookmark great free sites.

As is pretty obvious in my blog, 1+1+1=1 is hands down my favorite preschool/Kindergarten printables site. While she does have some printables that cost money, they are all very reasonable costs and majority of her content is completely free.

Khan Academy is a glorious free site. It mostly focuses on math, but also has some science, arts, economics and test prep. We love it because I can assign topics to Brianna and every one of them has a teaching video (or several) to go with it.

6. Don't be afraid to make your own curriculum.

With a little research and effort, you can make a lot of your own curriculum out of your own imagination. Before we settled on Math Mammoth we used a variety of math curriculum. They either didn't come with year end tests or I didn't like them. So I made my own. Going through the book, I gathered all of the main topics learned and made up my own math problems.

Another (that I'm in the middle of working on right now) is how to effectively grocery shop to get the best bang for your buck. I constantly see people saying they spend many hundreds of dollars on groceries in a month. I spend roughly $400-450 a month for a family of 6 in Canada (where our grocery prices can be double what they are n the US). I want to teach Brianna how I do it in great detail. I want her to put what I teach her into practice shopping for the family. No such curriculum for that exists. I make my own.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Real Life at Home.

6 Reasons I Homeschool

People often ask homeschoolers why they homeschool, here's my top reasons, for my family. This is an incomplete list as the reasons are endless, but it's a good start for me!

1. Better education. I am not a public school or teacher hater. I am a system hater. I know loads of GREAT teachers and Brianna used to go to a GREAT public school. But the system has failed those teachers and schools. Teachers can't actually teach any more. Bullying is rampant because teachers aren't allowed to discipline any more. Grades are sky high, which seems like a good thing, but it's not because kids are doing awesome in their schoolwork, it's because the current grading system does not allow zeros. If you don't do your work, it just doesn't get graded. Another niece of mine thought she'd need an out of province drivers license if she moved to Toronto (some of my readers may not know the sadness of that, we live in Ontario, this niece lives in Ottawa, Ontario, the capital of Canada, Toronto is the capital of Ontario, 7 hrs away from Ottawa). I believe much more geography is needed, but at least some basic your-own-province geography would be nice!

2. Brianna actually ASKS to learn new things. School isn't a thing to be hated. Sure we learn the stuff she needs to know to succeed as an adult, but she also learns about the things that interest her, like when we spend about a month doing almost nothing but the Titanic.

3. Our lives don't revolve around the school schedule. If we want to take a week off in May for no flipping reason, we can! If the baby kept everyone up last night, it's no big deal if we don't start school til noon!

4. Homeschooling in Ontario is really easy. In a nut shell, we live in a no-reporting area and I don't have to keep a mound of paperwork to keep some politician happy.

5. Two words: Common Core. That crap is scary and I can't figure out math for the life of me, using it!

6. Public school does not teach even 1/4 of the life skills kids need. Most of the basic ones they used to teach, have been cut. Way too many teens can not count change as cashiers. A lot have no clue how to prepare inexpensive simple meals. Kids are often truly amazed when they discover how much what they considered "needs" costs. Ask the average just-out-of-high-schooler to unclog a toilet, how to balance a budget, how to mow a lawn, how to re-set a water heater, how to use a sewing machine, how to make a simple piece out of wood. Too many of them would have no clue. Yes, of course, I agree, it's a parent's job to teach this stuff, but a lot of it used to be taught in school.

Public school works for some families, but I'm beyond grateful that homeschooling is an option for my family.

Linked up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Real Life at Home and Hip Homeschool Moms

Starting Preschool

What do I mean "Starting Preschool"?? I've been doing assorted Tot School posts for quite some time!

I have started the letter of the week program with Olivia so often, she's probably got most of the first half of the alphabet's worksheets memorized lol Then I get lazy and forget to do them. However, she's now firmly 3 years old now (3 years 4 mths to be exact!), it's time to actually get through the WHOLE alphabet. A through J we're going to double up on (A&B, C&D, ect...), these are letters we've already done at least twice. Then we'll go back to doing one letter a week.

The sites I use most often are 1+1+1=1 and Confessions of a Homeschooler. I do use several others, but these 2 are the most common.

I set up a school notebook for her which she just loves! It's got a bunch of sheet protectors (which she can use dry erase markers on) with pages like her name, our phone number, our address, her birthday, a sheet each of letters and numbers and shapes. I don't know how often I'll switch them out, but she's pretty happy with what's in there for now.

I also have a whole pile of preschool workbooks that we've collected over the years. For one child, I probably won't even go through half of them, but it's nice to have a variety!

 Thus far, Olivia is loving to get official "school time." She even skipped on a favorite tv show earlier because as she told us she "had to finish her school work" LOL!

Bacon loves to "supervise" Olivia's school work (Photo credit to Brianna)

Homeschooling in Ontario

I was asked by The Canadian Homeschooler to write a blog post about starting homeschooling in my province.

Here in Ontario we're pretty lucky to live in a no reporting area. We need to provide a letter of intent to homeschool to our local school board and that's about it!

If you are pulling your child from public school, you must do this so your child isn't considered truant. You do not need to send a copy of the letter to your child's principal, but it is generally considered to be a common courtesy. If you are homeschooling from the start, it's not completely necessary to do this unless you are "discovered" by the local board, but people often do file the letter of intent just to cover all bases. In my case, I pulled my daughter Brianna from public school, so send a letter of intent each year. For my younger daughter Olivia, who will never be in the public school system, I will just add her to Brianna's letter of intent when the time comes (6 years old in Ontario).

Some school boards will try to tell you that you have to inform them of curriculum plans or do testing. This is not true. In Ontario there are no laws for homeschoolers that require you to submit curriculum plans, text book lists or reading lists. There are also no required testings in Ontario. You do not need to have approval to teach what you wish to you child.

You do have the legal option for your children to take the EQAO in grades 3, 6 and 9 and the Literacy test in Gr. 10, but they are not required. If you choose to have your children take these tests simply notify your child's old school (or in the case of homeschooling from the beginning or due to school closure, a nearby school) the year your child will need to take the test (the earlier the better) and the school is required to provide your child with space to take the test. The results will be returned to the school the test was taken at and the school is then to forward the results to you.

If you'd like, the Ministry of Education has the general Ontario curriculum on their website, Elementary and Secondary and also the French Language Education. You can closely or loosely follow this curriculum. Some parents choose to do this so their children will stay at the same level as their classmates in the case that they would have to be re-integrated into the public system.

Other parents choose other methods of homeschooling that have nothing to do with the Ministry of Education's planned curriculum. These are all perfectly legal for parents to do. If there was a point in time that you had no choice but to place you child back in public school, the school would simply administer a placement test to verify learning levels.

 The Ontario Federation of Teaching Parents is the best resource for parents new to homeschooling. It give a breakdown of the laws and provides parents with blank letters of intent that they can fill out and mail to provided school board addresses. The site also provides a list of homeschooling groups by area. You can use the information on their site for free and/or become a member of the OFPT for a small fee.

Some people will make out homeschooling to be difficult. In some ways it is, but at least in Ontario you don't have the added problems of cutting through miles of red tape from the government.

ETA - Here is the link for the post on The Canadian Homeschooler

Weekly Wrap Up

Linking up with Kris on Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers

This was Brianna and Olivia's first week back to scheduled school since November and my niece Tanya's first week ever!

Monday - Today was a lot of explaining how the girls' Daily Binders worked and explaining a lot of general homeschool stuff to Tanya. Other than distracting each other a little too much for my liking, they seem to be working well together! Tanya so far shows extra work needed in multiplying decimals and money.

Tuesday - Today we finally got to get all the data for all 10 Mystery Locations in our Journey North class. Most of the times were within a few hours of one another, but Location #6 had a sun set after midnight and the girls are quite excited about learning where this location it!

Wednesday - Today we played a fun money game. The girls each started out with $5 and either gained or paid out money according to the cards they drew. Both girls begged to play again and again so I guess I'll be laminating the cards!

Thursday - Thursday was a slow day as Tanya did school at home today. Tanya brought home work for today with her on Wednesday and Brianna did some more review.

Friday - We got our 2nd set of clues for Mystery Class and graphed them out. One of the side things this course teaches that I like is military or 24 hr time. They get a little side lesson on learning how to tell military time into a 12 hr clock since I'm mean and give them the sunset data in 12 hr time but the pre-written graphs are in military time.

Now I've got to do marking and get prepped for next week!

Homeschooling Tanya

Background: Tanya is my niece-by-choice. Her mother, Lisa, is actually not my sister, but one of my best friends. We choose to be family.

Last summer, Tanya did some summer schooling with us as she felt she needed some extra help in math. Boy did she ever. She was supposed to be going into Gr. 6 that September, but was struggling with grade 3 and 4 math. She decided right then and there that she wanted to BE homeschooled. My sister wanted Tanya to pass some expectations first and sent her back to school. I told Lisa that I would support whatever she chose, but if any time she wanted to pull Tanya, I only needed a few days to get together some assessing work.

Over the last 5 mths, Tanya continued to complain about not being helped in her problem areas and made to stay behind in areas that she excelled. When her bullying situation got worse, my sister went to the principal. However, Tanya's teacher insisted that the bully in question "would never do something like that" *roll eyes*

This progressed to the point that by Christmas, now even the TEACHER was bullying Tanya. Lisa decided, enough was enough, Tanya was going to be homeschooled. Tanya asked to go back for January in order to say goodbye to her friends.

The last week of January was the worst as the teacher was now constantly harassing Tanya about the fact that my sister "wouldn't be allowed" to homeschool. Now we live in a "no reporting" area, where the only thing we need to do is send a letter of intent each year. We reassured Tanya that she *would* be homeschooled no matter what her teacher said.

That week my sister got a phone call from the school requesting a case conference. Legally, we don't need to meet with the school, but wanted to for humour's sake and out of courtesy to the principal, whom Lisa gets along with. The day of the meeting we were informed that the school requested that CAS (Child Services/CPS) be involved. While normally this is a scare tactic pulled by the schools, thankfully in our situation, CAS was already involved in helping out with my nephew's issues and knew of and supported Lisa's choice to homeschool.

So the meeting was a bunch of "you have to do this" from the school board lady and a bunch of "here's what the LAW says" from Lisa and I. The board asked about socialization *roll eyes* and I explained that even in a town as small as ours, we have a fairly large homeschool group with many children to socialize with. When asked how we're going to stay with the curriculum for "when" she's put into public school (cause of course it's going to fail) we explained that first she needs to be assessed to see what blocks she's missing and "catch up". The board then, ever so nicely *sarcasm*, said that she could remain in school until the school board got (around to processing) the letter of intent and she could do assessment there. Um, no. This is the same school who has been giving a struggling child almost straight As.

Speaking of, I asked about how Tanya herself could complain about not understanding this and that and yet get good grades. How every report card she got said that she "needs improvement" on homework completion and independent work, yet still get good grades. The principal explained (while trying very hard not to roll his own eyes) that with the current grading system, grades are only given on completed work. Translation: a child can do really good on whatever work they actually complete and get good grades, even if they are only completing 1 of 10 pieces of work through-out the year! What great work ethics!

So we walked out of there knowing that they can't do anything to stop us from homeschooling Tanya. We even went so far as to hand deliver a 2nd letter of intent to the local branch of the school board. On Feb 8th we got word that (they finally got around to looking at the damn paper and) we're official!

Here's to a long and successful homeschooling career!

First Day Back!

Today was our first official day for the year! Brianna has been mostly unschooling since she finished up her Gr. 3 work in November and it's Tanya's first day of homeschool ever.

First off I did a reading assessment on both of them and while I expected them to be "ahead" as they're both big on reading, I was surprised to find out that they are both 3 "grade levels" ahead of where they "should" be! Very impressive girls!

Then we moved onto the "Daily Binders" I made up for them. Each day they have Penmanship and Handwriting Practice, penmanship because they are both sloppy writers, handwriting to learn cursive properly. Next is a math drill to focus on speed. Right now we're doing 5 minute drills with addition and subtraction. After that they're doing Boggle Spelling. I've made up blank Boggle boards, filled them in with random letters and they have to come up with as many 3+ letter words as they can that are both real words AND spelled correctly. The more letters each word has, the more points. Who ever has the most points at the end of the week, wins a prize - this week they're working towards a glow in the dark science experiment. Then they also have vocabulary work and journal work with writing prompts. I may add more to the Daily Binder as we go.

We had a totally relaxed, slow day. We'll focus on review for Brianna and assessment with Tanya for a few weeks and slowly add in more actual curriculum. We are doing the Mystery North geography program (more in another post) as well.

One Week

I have one week left before starting Brianna and Olivia back with homeschool and have Tanya start homeschooling! I still have soooo much to do. I still haven't even finished unpacking/organizing out school stuff since the move. I'm pretty well done with Olivia, and I've got all Brianna's review and Tanya's placement stuff together, but I need to get the general planning in gear. Plus, I'd really like my kitchen table back... I hope to have an up to date curriculum list later this week.

Hiatus Ending Soon!

Ok, so the last month has been nuts and I've been neglecting blog-land. I haven't even been reading my blogroll! I totally miss talking to myself everyday lol

Few things... As I posted before, Brianna was training for a triathlon. Then my niece Tanya joined her. So I was working with both girls. Then Tanya joined our homeschool on a part time (possibly full time later) basis. She's 2 yrs older than Brianna so there's a whole whack of new research. First of all finding her actual grade level (which not surprisingly was lower than PS has her in grrrr), but then finding the work she needs to catch up.

Well, the triathlon is done (the girls did awesome!) and we've settled into having an extra homeschooler (though I have totally slacked off with Olivia's tot school stuff). The girls have a 5K on Labour Day, but then training will be over til spring (well their hard core stuff). Labour Day also starts Brianna back up on her full time schedule rather than the lighter summer ones. I'll also be actually doing tot school with Olivia everyday.

Hopefully settlement will mean I can get back to blogging! I miss Wilderness Wednesdays and reading everyone's blogs.

Reading Back

I was going through my old posts to add tags to them and came across one about meeting with Brianna's old principal. In it, I mentioned that the school would want me to fill out some paperwork, which I had assumed would be removing the school from liability if Brianna were to participate in any activities the school provided.

I never got any such paperwork! Not that it really bothers me since I haven't had the inclination to do anything with the school. I was also told they'd send me the school newsletter each month so I could stay up to date. I got December's. It's now almost February. I don't think I'm getting one for January lol Again, it doesn't really bother me. I mean, I wouldn't mind knowing when the book fairs are cause they're open to anyone, but I'm sure I can find out without a newsletter

Ahhhhh...

Today was SUCH a nice change from yesterday! Other than a little snaffu over her math work, Brianna totally cooperated in getting schoolwork done. The movie I had planned for the day didn't work out cause the tv's on a fritz, but even with the delays we were completely done school before 1pm and that included breaking for lunch and a 20 min break in the morning! YAY! And I finally got our first day of homeschool pic loaded... great day all around :)

Holy Busy!

I've totally slacked in the blogging department with the start of homeschooling. We're now just over a week into homeschooling. We've had some rough days, today being one of them, but we're making it through. It's testing my patience a LOT to work through the school mentality Brianna has and try to get it out of her. Right now, the school mentality pissing me off is working. I get very frustrated. I'm pretty good about walking away when it gets to me but sometimes I blow up before the walk away part *blush*

I KNOW it will get better with time, it's just a matter of getting through this rough start. She IS doing really good with our daily stuff, weather tracking, writing a descriptive story about a picture and her math speed challenge (flash cards). It's just some of the other stuff. 

I am proud to say she is a zillion times better at telling time now!!! I found great blank clock sheets at donnayoung.org and we worked on them pretty well every day. She's almost done her time unit and I'm pretty confident she'll ace her test for it.

I also got her a French workbook. I got Gr. 1 level because we have to find out where she is. Can't remember if I blogged about this before... because she was in Immersion she's not in Gr. 3 for French. There's no such thing as Immersion workbooks so we have a choice between workbooks made for a French child doing their regular work in each grade or workbooks for an English child who is starting to learn French. Well Brianna's not JUST learning French, she's been in 1/2 day French since she was 4! Brianna seems to think there's something wrong with doing Gr. 1 workbooks, but I've assured her that if she thinks it's too easy, we'll move to Gr. 2 and so on.

I have a picture of our first day that I wanted to add but Blogger is being a PITA tonight!

No More School!

It's soooo nice to not have to be walking to the school right now. It's a PA day for the school board today so I wouldn't have to anyways, but now I don't have to walk to the school on Monday! 

Yesterday was Brianna's last day. She brought home her backpack FULL of school stuff. Her French teacher even gave me a folder full of French worksheets which I thought was very nice of her since I won't be able to get a French workbook til next weekend. 


Today we have homeschool soccer and I told Brianna she's a full member of the homeschool group now cause she's not just missing a day of school. She's pretty excited about that. She was worried last night about Rebecca not being her friend anymore cause she's not in school, so I see a playdate in the near future.

Teacher Talks

Stopped in after school to talk to Brianna's teachers about homeschooling. I wouldn't say they were thrilled with the idea, but neither balked at it either. 

Her English teacher said that because her time there was over the same day as Brianna (the other teacher is coming back from maternity leave), that all projects hope to be done by then. But she has no problem gathering Brianna's work and such for next Thursday. She even said that I can have the math text she's working in since otherwise it'll just be garbaged (they work with in the book so it's not like it can be reused by another student). She's also going to send home her English workbook so I can see what Brianna has already done this year.

Her French teacher was a great help in the area that troubles me the most. She said that she'd get together a list of websites and workbooks that she recommends so I can continue in Brianna's French. She will also gather together any finished or in the middle of work that Brianna's done.


Now all I have left is to count down the days until we're officially homeschooling! Only 12 more days!

Letters of Intent

Mailed out the letter of intent to the school board. Apparently they don't always respond, but I can request it if I need it. 

Also met with Brianna's principal today. First to bring up the bullying again and second to give him my other letter of intent. He was surprisingly very open to HSing. He wants my name on the school list to be mailed school newsletters so I can stay in the loop and mentioned that at one of his old schools that they invited HSers to field trips and such. He also has no problem with Brianna coming back to the school to visit her old teachers and such (obviously out of school time)

I am very surprised by the show of support. From what I hear it's quite rare. He did mention some paperwork, which I assume is to relieve the school of any liability to Brianna while doing school stuff once she's no longer registered, but I'll be going through the paperwork with a fine toothed comb to make sure there's nothing else in there. 

In Ontario, we're lucky enough to have zero regulations on HSing other than providing a letter of intent, so I know the schools can't "make" me do reports or testing. I *can* have Brianna tested during the EQAOs if I chose, but I don't have to. I also know that I don't have to let anyone from the school/board look over Brianna's work or my plans. Hopefully the paperwork is solely what I assume... removing liability from the school (which I have no problem with).

Busy, Busy!

I finished cleaning out Isaac's room. Holy a lot of garbage!!! I still have to sort through the assorted toys, you know, the ones that don't belong to a certain set, ect... But all the sets, books, and craft supplies are sorted and organized. 

I still wish I had paint for the toy room. I have paint for Isaac's room, but want to do the toy room first while it's still relatively empty. All that's in there is the book shelves, the desk and the vacuum. Easy to move around and put back. Where as Isaac's room has the mattresses, all the toys, most of Brianna's story books, all the craft stuff and several pieces of furniture. Waaaay easier to do the toy room first. However, I don't have paint for that.

Brianna's almost done the last of her workbooks from our part time homeschooling. She just has the last of her Gr. 2/3 math book to do and has been working on it all day. She has only about a dozen pages or so left so it'll be no problem to finish them before we start full time homeschooling in 2 weeks. 2 Weeks!!! So excited!!!

On Monday I have a meeting with her principal to discuss homeschooling and pulling her. I have his copy of my letter of intent ready. I'm kinda nervous about it since he's a great principal and I don't want him to think I'm insulting him or his school. I've also got to send out my letter of intent to the school board.

Making the decision

I'm still not 100% certain that we are going the homeschool route, but I wanted to start this blog in the event that we do so that I can keep track right from the start.

My daughter Brianna is 8 and in Grade 3. I have been toying with the idea of homeschooling since before my son Isaac started school. He lives with his father so won't be being homeschooled if that's the route we take. Brianna loves school. Why would I pull her out then? I personally hate the system. I love her school and her teachers, but I hate the system they are forced to follow. I think 90% of High School is useless. We've also had problems with Brianna not paying attention in class and not completing work. I believe this is due to boredom.

So, I've spent the last 2 weeks (since school started) researching homeschooling. It appears in my province, Ontario, that homeschooling is as simple as notifying the school board that I will be homeschooling. No approved curriculum, no testing, no one to answer to. I've read the policies and laws from the Ministry of Education and have read dozens of websites that put the policies and laws into layman's terms.

This week I started preparing. Right now I am looking at the possibility of pulling Brianna out of school after the Christmas break. I've gotten my "curriculum/planning binder" started. As I come across interesting things I'm putting it in there so I don't have 35,615,465 bookmarked web sites to go through.

I've also started picking up materials we'd need. The normal workbooks that I normally buy her, but now paying more attention to content rather than just grade level. There's soooo much I'd like to buy, but I don't want to get too ahead of myself either in case we don't go this route then I'd have too much material for my usual part time homeschooling.