homeschooling

Lately, God has been laying homeschooling on my heart. I'm not sure how this came about for us. Tim and I started talking about it one day. We want our kids to be raised with morals and Godly values. I am very nervous and excited at the same time. I talked to Makayla about it and she is very receptive.
I talked to a lady at my church who is homeschooling her boys. She is going to connect me with other homeschooling mom's who have children around Makayla's age, and send me some links of the local homeschool co-op. I also went to my state's web site to find out their guidelines and rules for homeschooling.
In the mean time, I am staying with Lori (my sister-in-law) for a few days so we could go to the big homeshooling convention in our area. Last night we went to the book fair. Wow! So much to take in. There is curriculum for all the different teaching and learning styles. You can follow an outlined schedule on a day to day basis from a teacher's manual, come up with your own lesson plans or anywhere in between by combining text book lessons and your own lessons. I found that Makayla is a little behind 1st grade homeschool material so I am going to work with her on reading and math this summer and start 1st grade lessons in the fall. I purchased "Scaredy Cat" materials. This teaches your child to read through making up stories for the letters of the alphabet and catchy sayings in different situations they are used. I like this because I think my children will actually learn to read better than just memorizing words. I am going to use workbooks from Walmart for her math this summer. Makayla looked through her new workbook when we got home last night and she is excited to get started. I think this program is reasonably priced. Go to http://www.joyceherzog.com/scaredy.html to get all the details.
If you are planning to homeschool or even already started, I would highly recommend go to a conference to help you along your way. The vendors will help you to understand their curriculum or what level your child should be at. I would still be lost if we didn't go. Go to Homeschool Convention 2007 to find a convention near you.