Welcome Back!!

With all of the choices in homeschool curriculum today, it is so easy to get bogged down in deciding what method to use. We began our homeschool using textbooks for one reason, because that's all I knew. And very quickly, we became bored and many times found ourselves venturing off, taking more time in learning things in a more enjoyable/hands-on way. So this year, I have decided to baby-step with Unit Studies. Maximus (and his teacher!) are very visual, and unit studies allow for lots of activities, and arts of all kinds.
Most of us have grown up with textbooks and workbooks, memorization and techniques encouraging us to test well. Not that these things don't work, but they don't accommodate all learning styles. The idea of workbooks in our home works, because when a page/lesson is complete, we see progress and seem to have a feeling of accomplishment, but I think such structure is not good for the "real world".

So what exactly is a Unit Study, you ask...
A Unit Study is one topic that covers History, Science and Art, and can include Language Arts and Math. Unit studies encourages lots of activity and my favorite, the love of learning.
We are still using textbooks/workbooks for both Language Arts and Math. However, in our unit studies, I plan to incorporate these two subjects so that I can teach why you need to know math and why you need to know language arts and how to apply it to real-life experiences.

After choosing to do unit studies, my next choice was which ones, when, what, where and how??!!?? After long hours of research, I decided to go with Five In A Row by Jane Claire Lambert. I have been taught that if you want to be a millionaire, you have to do what millionaires do, so I asked a very seasoned homeschool mom, whose son graduated last year with honors and has a full ride scholarship in college, and she recommended FIAR.
Five in a Row provides a unit study approach based on children's literature.

I am very excited about our busy school year! Stay tuned to see some of the things we do!