Writing (Homeschool)

It's taken awhile for our current homeschool year to get up and running, and just when I think I have everything all figured out, I change my mind or find holes that need filling.  Thanks to my new (but now approaching one year) job, I can help support my own homeschool material needs.  I did go back and look at my posts that I tagged as "homeschool" since September and I saw I haven't posted anything but the fun things!  What a way to skew what we are doing everyday!

Christmas Came Early (or maybe September is late)

Since September, when we dug into savings and started homeschooling without the public school's assistance, we've done math, history, and literature.  I tried to patch together some science (this is our chemistry year) but what I had wasn't working for who I was trying to work with.  We were also seriously lacking in the writing department.  Writing is the subject that I feel least qualified to teach.

In years past, when I had plenty of school district money, I would buy all the "daily" workbooks and just set my kids loose on them.  The writing books were not appreciated by myself or my kids.  I do not understand why the schools start introducing non fiction writing to kids who can barely form their letters correctly, but they do and when I was using the school district, I needed to as well.  Now that I'm independent, I can work on letter formation, narration, dictation, and copywork and not worry about formal paper writing until middle school. 

My two middle schoolers will be starting on Susan Wise Bauer's Writing With Skill, which is an incredibly intensive writing program.  In the General Instructions, it states, "Ultimately, writing is a self-guided activity. This course will continue to develop the student's ability to plan and carry out a piece of writing independently."  She had me at self-guided.  As my homeschool has become less top heavy and more bottom heavy with regards to ages in the house, I've had to pull back on my direct teaching time with the older kids so I can keep the younger kids from destroying the house and developing bad habits.  The older three have become incredible self-teachers, so I'm thankful that this writing program encourages this.

If and when these kids end up in a brick and mortar school, if they can read well, write effectively, and understand mathematics, I will feel like I've successfully homeschooled.