Me and my beautiful family at Nasa in Houston. We had so much fun! I can’t wait to go back. Nasa also has a great website that is full of awesome pictures and reading material: http://www.nasa.gov/ They also have a website for teachers that offers DVD downloads for educational purposes. http://www.journeytothestars.org/
The main reason that I decided to take my son out of the public school was simply because he wasn’t happy. I have never been very impressed with the education that he was receiving there, but I made sure that I worked with him at home. He has always loved to learn and this was time together that we both enjoyed. We studied spelling on trips to the grocery store and had many science discussions while eating a burger. I watched my overachieving son go from loving the idea of school to hating it. He was making A’s and coming home crying. When I talked to his teacher she bragged on his intelligence and smiled at him. I was told by my son that she was never like that during school hours. My sweet little boy who seemed to love everyone couldn’t stand this person. I have to admit, she was probably the worst teacher he had, but none of them impressed me. In addition, I don’t think that I have ever been comfortable with dropping my child off for 7 hours of the day and trusting a complete stranger with him. Homeschooling seemed like a really good fit for us. I have since been learning more and more about what is going on in the public school and it is scary. I have always believed that happiness was extremely important and I have been thinking very deeply about what that means in regard to education. The public schools have pushed the idea that their goal was to prepare students for college and career readiness. Now, I have always said that you can be a whole lot happier if you are able to pay your bills. Is that really the sole purpose of education? I believe that it is a byproduct of education, not the purpose. Truth, knowledge, beauty and most importantly happiness are essential aims of education.
“Knowledge is power. Rather, knowledge is happiness. To have knowledge, deep broad knowledge, is to know truth from false and lofty things from low. To know the thoughts and deeds that have marked men’s progress, is to feel the heartthrob of humanity through the centuries; and if one does not feel in these pulsations a heavenward striving, one must indeed be deaf to the harmonies of life.”
—Helen Keller
I have been using the free thinkwave gradebook for a long time now. https://www.thinkwave.com/secure/login/?next=/free/gradebook/. It is great for keeping up with grades, report cards, and transcripts. However, most of my lesson plans for the week ended up scribbled on a piece of paper. I found a new website that I think I am going to love. It is very user friendly and allows you to set it up to fit your needs. The older Kyler gets the more I think that I will love this. However, it is set up in a way that lets you keep it simple for younger students like my 4 year old, Kellen, who is still in pre-k. http://www.commoncurriculum.com/ . I have seen other sites that offer free lesson plan organization, but I just didn’t find them as user friendly. I don’t want to spend more time figuring out a site than I do planning their lessons.
For the last two years I have been homeschooling my son. I have recently started working with his younger brother who just turned four years old. There is very little time for me to spend on myself, but I have started several free online courses through Coursera. https://www.coursera.org/courses They have several courses that you can choose from. You can take them for free or pay for a certificate. It has video lectures and a few questions to answer from the videos. It is something that I can do while my kids are working independently and it gives me an opportunity to keep my brain working on something past an elementary level. There are several websites available that provide free online adult continuing education such as http://oyc.yale.edu/courses, http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm, and https://www.edx.org/.
Free-Range Freeschoolers 