Homeschool Order for 2015-2016 School Year

After much prayer and consideration, our family has decided to continue homeschooling for the 2015-2016 school year.

We are slated to finish formal school for this year on May 22 and we will break for Owen's arrival/the summer and return to formal school in early August.

This year we have been using Alpha Omega Publications Horizons Preschool for Threes as our base. I love the easy to follow teacher's guide and Annabeth has responded very well to the mix of colorful workbook pages as well as the real life applications. I love that each lesson provides me with phonics, reading, math, science, social skills, and social studies as well as a mix of ideas for art, music, and P.E.

I  have ordered AOP's Horizons Pre-K for next year. I have really enjoyed using their curriculum and I felt like it would be best to continue with a program that both Annabeth and I have responded to well. I also feel like our summer will bring big changes, Owen's arrival in early June, and it will be a huge change to do school with a newborn in tow. I am looking forward to having a familiar set of books to follow.

I have also added AOP's Weaver 123 Read program to our year. After looking at other phonics/reading resources, I found that I really like this one best. We will begin with it a few weeks into school and see how Annabeth does with it. As she will still be three for the first two months of school, this may be too advanced or too formal, in which case we will put it off until later in the school year.

My third order was to Keepers of the Faith. I ordered the Little Keepers of the Home handbook. It is a handbook for young ladies ages 4-6 to begin learning basic lifestyle and homemaking skills. We will use this handbook over the next few years and then when she is seven we will move on to the second book. There is also a Little Contenders program for young men and we plan to do that with Owen when he turns four.

Those who know how school schedules work in Indiana may be wondering why we are starting Pre-K next fall when Annabeth is not eligible age/birthday wise for Kindergarten until the 2017-2018 school year. We have decided to do Pre-K next year and then a year from now we will evaluate where she is academically. It may be that she will need the additional year of Pre-K or it may be that she will indeed be ready for Kindergarten "early." With her early fall birthday, she narrowly misses the cutoff date and as she is already putting letter sounds together to read words and working some basic addition and subtraction problems it is difficult to imagine putting off Kindergarten for another two years. We will just have to see how she progresses.

I feel incredibly blessed that the Lord has placed homeschooling on our hearts. I feel so incredibly honored to have our Miracle Girl and the great joy of educating her at home. I pray that the Lord will allow me to follow this calling as long as He sees fit. May He give me the patience and strength to teach Annabeth, and later Owen, all she/they will need to know about life and love. I thank and praise the Lord for Mark's financial support of our homeschool and for his willingness to look at Annabeth's work and to teach her in the evenings and on the weekends. I am also so thankful for his love and support in me as the teacher.

We love homeschool because we love the Lord. We feel that this is how the Lord is calling our family to serve Him and each other. We know that we are blessed, undeservedly so, to be His children and to serve the One who created it all. It is incredibly humbling to know that the One who placed the stars in the sky, who made our universe, who gave Himself up for us, HE knitted us together in our mothers' wombs, HE called us by name, and HE died that we might have the Life Eternal. We pray that our lives would be a testimony to the Good News of Jesus Christ our Lord.

May His Will Be Done.