Great book!

I've been reading a new homeschool book, "100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum" by Cathy Duffy. It came highly recommended to me by my superb homeschool mentor. Last summer, I checked just about every homeschool book out at the library. That was an invaluable tool. The more reading I did, the more I realized I had no idea just what homeschooling really meant and how exactly it was implemented in a family's life. But the more I read, the more I fell in love with homeschooling.

Only time will tell and as we consider each child, but right now our plan is to homeschool for the primary years only...so we predict somewhere around age 10, we would like to send our kids to public school. I'll have to use another post to share just why we homeschool and why, specifically, only the primary years.

I want to share more about this book, though. She takes you through many personal exercises in a workbook format. It's an amazing tool! She asks you to sort out your heart toward your kids and homeschooling, which concludes with having your very own philosophy of education, values you want in your children, understanding your teaching style, each of your child's learning styles & finally through looking at charts, she helps you narrow down what type of homeschool curriculums fit you and your kids the best.

One challenge was to list "What I think is most important for my child to learn?" This was crazy hard. Here's the list I came up with (unedited):
  • Have self-awareness of their thoughts, feelings, strengths, and giftings.
  • Memorize scripture and use it in everyday life.
  • Be self-directed learners who love to discover!
  • Be active and confident in their community, around all people.
  • A strong foundation of college prep academics.
  • Read literature of all genre.
  • Have a value for physical fitness & healthy eating habits.
  • Explore artistic expression.
  • Have a basic knowledge of music.
  • Acquire basic life skills: manners, grooming, hospitality, chores, etc.

Thankfully, our oldest is only 3 1/2 years old. I don't need to be ready to choose curriculum for some time still. But this book has brought such good visioning for me. Even once were done homeschooling, almost all of these values will be things we hope to continue to establish in the hearts and character of our kids. That's one thing I love about homeschooling the primary years, it's not only a foundation for our kids; it makes me be intentional about what I'm doing actively to steward the hearts and spirits God has entrusted to us.

Comments

  1. that does sound like a great book! caleb and i have talked about homeschooling, but just as something tossed out into the idea box. it hasn't been discussed really, so this is nice.

    in reply to what you asked, owen is almost 14 months (tomorrow) and #2 is due march 20th.

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  2. Thank you so much for this! I think I'm gonnna look for that book and, I love your goals list. I'll be showing that to my honey this weekend when we talk about our goals!

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