Wednesday, September 14, 2011

The Homeschool Meme

I visited Kendra's blog this morning and was surprised to find myself tagged! If you haven't visited Kendra's blog before, you really need to!

1. One Homeschool Book You've Enjoyed

I've said it before, and I'll say it again--and again and again. My favorite homeschool book is Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home. Maybe I'll toss it back in my ever-growing reading pile soon.

2. One Resource You Wouldn't Be Without
Maybe it's cheating to count them all as one resource, but I'm going to have to go with my Peggy Kaye game books. (I need Games with Books!) These are wonderful because they have so many ideas for kids at so many levels. I'll probably keep these even when the kids are older in case I end up back in the classroom.

3. One Resource You Wish You'd Never Bought
Hmmm...There are quite a few things I have (mostly from my classroom days) that I don't know if I'll use much now, but I hate to get rid of them, just in case. I can't think of anything that's turned out really badly, though, maybe because I usually go off of recommendations of like-minded people--Heather, Rachel, Kendra, Amber to name a few.

4. One Resource You Enjoyed Last Year
Startwrite has been wonderful! I use it to make daily copywork pages for Jack using sentences from our current Five in a Row story. You can choose many different fonts and many different ways to show them--tracing, arrows, etc. It's also great for creating custom writing and drawing pages.

5. One Resource You Will Be Using Next Year
You'll find some people who know now what they're using next year. The only reason I am one of those people right now is that I plan on sticking with what we're doing for the most part: Five in a Row, Math on the Level, StartWrite. I'll likely add in some more writing resources, but since we just started this year I couldn't begin to tell you what we'll be using next year!

6. One Resource You Would Like To Buy
Books. Lots of them. I always want more books!

7. One Resource You Wish Existed
I wish there was a good co-op in the area. In a year or two I think it would be great to have a place where Jack could take a class or two and where I could teach some classes. Alas, there doesn't seem to be anything like this around here.

8. One Homeschool Catalog You Enjoy Reading
The only homeschool catalog I've ever gotten is the Rainbow Resource catalog, which is kind of like War and Peace. I don't think it's actually meant to be read through, but one evening Alice wanted me to sit with her while she watched something on the computer and there it was, sitting on the table. Having seen that episode of Bear in the Big Blue House more than a few times, I started flipping through page by page and found a lot of interesting stuff! I started circling things and tearing out pages and maybe some day I will finish the catalog (I've gotten maybe 10% into it) and order some things!

9. One Homeschooling Website you Use Regularly
Homeschool Share! And for one I haven't shared as much, Mathwire.com. For Alice, I like Making Learning Fun, which I used a lot when Jack was little.

Tag 6 Other Homeschoolers:
If you want to tag yourself, please do, and let me know! Alice is taking a rare nap, so I am ending this one here!

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