ThadenPierce School

Just ordered two books from www.half.com and they came in – “Circling the Globe: A Young People’s Guide to Countries and Cultures of the World” and “My First Book of Biographies.” Both look great but deeply impressed by the globe book. Kit said we could probably get a couple years worth of world history & geography out of it. That, combined with the map sets we just bought, and I think we’re honestly set through at least elementary level. We’ll just need to add whatever extra things we come across to incorporate papers, art projects & portfolio stuff. Good pictures so it’s catching Christopher’s interest now. Maps, facts, location on globe, history. Very excited about it!

My policy has been I try to review any book suggested by a trusted source (friends, homeschooling sites I like or other books that review books, Amazon reviews.) I’m keeping a list under our subject pages. I try to price out the books now and if I can find them and their material will still be relevant in a few years (math doesn’t change much!) then I pick them up if I can find the book for around $2 on half or amazon. Then with shipping I’m getting these books for about $5 – and some are list price of $35+ so I figure that’s a discount I’m happy to take, even if it means storing books for a few years. Plus I like knowing we have stuff in place for down the road and I’m noticing Christopher often shows he’s ready for these materials before I expected – something I wouldn’t know if I didn’t expose him to it early.

So, we’re homeschooling. I can’t remember even when we decided, I think it was 2002? 2003? Christopher was a year old when Kit brought it up and I took awhile to overcome my sense of panic/inadequacy/concern… he assured me it would be a joint venture, he would be just as involved as me, and that he just wanted me to seriously consider it. So we did, and we both reached the same conclusion that this is the right choice for our family. We don’t presume that this is the right choice for ALL families, we claim no inspiration for anyone beyond our little gang. But for us, it feels right.

At first we said we would take it year by year and child by child, though I KNOW when we first talked about it we by no means imagined we would have another THREE children before Christopher even hit kindergarden age! We’ll still adapt as we go, assess each child’s needs and desires, and of course determine what is going to best suit their needs.

But homeschooling has now become very much a part of our identity as a family. It fits. We’re excited, and we’ve had years to adjust and prepare and though we’ve had a few unexpected twists (Mo’s dyspraxia, Bennett’s vision issues) we have confidence that there are resources in place to help us leap any hurdles and prepare our kids to face their challenges.

I’ll post a FAQ later, but for now if you are curious you can browse the links & pages to the right to see some of what we’ll be using. We are not purchasing a curriculum set, we’re creating our own as we go.