Homeschooling Has Officially Started

I guess I never posted this when I actually wrote it, over a month ago!  Perhaps I thought I needed to add something, but here goes:
We attempted some Preschool last year with Sam (then 3-3.5) and it just sort of overwhelmed me.  We had some really great days, they were very encouraging that I was making a good decision to start, and we had some less “good” days that made me question if I could actually do this.  So, I did what any good parent would do, I took a break.  I stepped back from the idea and practice of homeschooling to see what I wanted to do.  I still want to home school, I just needed a better plan.
I knew from the beginning that I did not want to plan my own curriculum.  As a work-from-home-parent I know my limits and creating a curriculum was way beyond what I knew I could handle.  Let’s be honest, I am constantly trying to get organized, but since I know that this is something I am constantly working on, I knew I just wouldn’t be able to focus enough on organizing and sticking with the entire process.  So I started looking at blogs and internet resources to find some ideas on what I wanted to use.
First of all, I don’t know that I would have even considered this home school adventure if it wasn’t for my amazing cousin Sarah, mother of SIX adorable munchkins!  Check out her blog Amongst Lovely Things where she talks about homeschooling, faith, family, food, photography, and so much more!  I’ll tell you, I thought she had to have the patience of a saint back when she only had three kids!  Her approach to learning with your children, teaching from the heart and loving every moment of your day refreshes me and inspires me.  I know, I know, we’re related, I must have some hidden agenda, but seriously, she’s amazing!
Along my journey I have added a Pinterest board (thanks Sarah!) to help me keep track of great ideas for learning at home.  You can find those ideas here.  Feel free to follow me, the board, or just pin what you like!  There are some great ideas in there!
One program I truly loved was from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  I seriously cannot go to her site without downloading something!  Although she does offer a crazy amount of free downloads, be sure to check out some of the curriculum packages, study units and e-books she has for sale in her shop.  Our trial with Preschool started with Letter of the Week and we fully intend to integrate LOTW into our continued Pre-K plan.  I know that I will come back for the Kindergarten curriculum as well as many of the study units.  Sam loves LOTW.  In fact, when I tried to switch to a different curriculum she was specifically asking for activities from LOTW.  I will be honest, there is a lot of time (and a bit of money) spent on making copies, cutting out activities and prep work, and I was also adding in extra printables each week, not to mention my regular 9-5 job.
This time around we are using a pre-packaged program from Seton Home Study School and filling in with Letter of the Week.  There were a lot of factors that brought me to chose Seton, but I feel the most important is that they print their own materials.  Yes, my husband is Catholic, so the curriculum being based on and around religion is a positive, but with Common Core standards being what they currently are, I know that the Seton materials will be closer to what I want my kids to learn.  Their website is very helpful, giving samples of curriculum and planners, there are parent groups and they recently added some online learning for all age groups.  I love that everything is included in one reasonably-priced package, that they offer oodles of support and that they include the lesson planner with instructions for each lesson.  The crafts they incorporate mostly include items that you already have at home and they even include a PE section that gives tips and examples of indoor and outdoor play!  My day job tends to have me tethered to a computer with internet, so play dates at the park don’t really happen, with the tips Seton provides, on days that I just can’t leave the office, I can still encourage activities to develop certain motor skills!
Other things we have tried?  From a very early age Sam watched Your Baby Can Read.  I read the parent book and watched the parent video, and after reading reviews and talking to friends and family, I gave the program a try.  Sam was actually reading words by two years old and sentences well by three.  Yes, it is mostly memorization, but even in today’s school system we have “sight word” which do not fit within the rules of phonics.  Evie didn’t like the videos as much, but we still watch them from time-to-time.  I feel if nothing else, they encourage word association with verbal and picture images.  What people have to remember is that although my four-year-old can read a book written for a first grader, she doesn’t have the same comprehension as the first grade child, but I think that encouraging a love of reading will help later on when her comprehension catches up.
My main focus in our daily lessons is to simply encourage a love of learning.  Some days I feel like homeschool is more for me than for Sam.  At this age, she isn’t doing much more than the basics, letter association/recognition, phonetic sounds, number recognition, we are learning about basic values with math, and both Seton and Letters of the Week incorporate religion on a basic level.