Homeschooling on the Go

Although both of my children are currently enrolled in preschool five mornings a week, I have been flirting with the idea of homeschooling for quite some time. Last spring, after a lot of research, I purchased a math program and a reading program to try with the children over the summer. I wanted to get a taste of what homeschooling might be like in our home.

Ava had just turned three and it was just a little too soon. We were having fun, but it felt early and a little too much work for children so young. So I put it aside for a while. When I realized that Michael and I would be spending 50 minutes in a waiting room twice a week this fall while Ava is in her speech group I decided to pull the materials back out.

For the first six weeks I've been winging it preparing for each lesson during the hour before I had to leave the house to pick up the children. Last week I got organized. Everything fits into a small bag along with Ava's speech binder. I keep the bag hanging in the coat closet in between uses and grab it on my way out the door.

Inside the bag I keep Ava's speech binder and Michael's Homeschooling binder. There's also our abacus, the books we are working on, and our pencil bag of accessories. Inside the binder I have a math section which includes the reinforcement chart I made and the next several RightStart Math lesson plans. A handwriting section contains the first several pages I copied from our HWT workbook. The reading section contains the free worksheets you can download from the Usborne Very First Reading website. I also keep the flashcards I made from their free downloadable word bank in the accessories case. All of the math manipulatives are also kept in the pencil bag. In one bag I have everything I need to do a math, reading, and handwriting lesson on the go.

Michael and I really have a lot of fun during our 45 minute homeschooling lessons. I have to say, so far I'm still leaning towards homeschooling next fall, but I won't be making a final decision until the end of the school year (or possibly the end of next summer).