Homeschool World Forum

Hi. My name is Shaunalynn. I'm new to this board. My husband and I decided before our daughter was born that we would definitely be homeschooling. I'm excited and committed to the challenge.

I have almost completed a degree in secondary education and have all of the information necessary to know what my state requires, both legally and academicly.

I have a few text books for Math and English, but I do not really plan to use a packaged curricullum. My niece is 15 and will begin a HS program with me after her 9th grade year is completed. I have no trouble with her HS plan. My training is for the High School level.

I have a daughter who will be 2 in September. I plan to begin establishing a routine for her schooling in the Fall. My question is focused on her HS plan.

How do I plan a topic for this age? I intend to begin with letters and then numbers. I plan her exposure to be very casual and involve lots of coloring and such for a while. As it is, we already have lessons about animals and the sounds they make. I'm having trouble coming up with a system of organizing my thoughts and her activities. I want to put together plans that I will be able to keep and use for the next child instead of having to recreate my lessons each time I teach the topic to a child.

Any advice???

One thing I wish my parents would have done with me at an early age is beginning language. I highly recommend some kind of basic spanish and/or French lessons. These usually come in the form of videos (mostly cartoons) that teach spanish and english words. Dora the Explorer is a great start because she integrates spanish words along the way.

Thank you. We had planned on teaching Spanish due to the wide usage in the area. I hadn't really thought about when to start that.

I don't have cable (or dish) but I can always buy, rent or borrow Dora videos. I have heard that is a pretty good show.

There's also Muzzy Spanish (on both DVD and video now), or you could just get Spanish audio tapes or CD's of some sort and have your children play them while in the bathroom. They don't have to even pay attention - a few years of listening to the language will give them proper language patterns and most of the vocabulary. The formal part of learning the language (reading, writing, filling in whatever gaps in vocabulary are left) will then be far easier.