2013-2014. What will this school year hold? Will my light-dyslexic child learn to read all the way? Will we fly high in Science? What will be our stumbling block? Coming soon we will be fully into our school year. Since we teach at home, our school vacations (or holidays) are limited. We take off time for sickness, new babies, trips, and a short break around special days.
This past school year was disastrous!!! I don't know if we learned anything! The winter here was atrocious at -40° to -50° Fahrenheit. Our little one we were to welcome in late December died a few short days before his due date. My ability to concentrate on anything but my own grieving was diminished. Looking back, we learned a lot, just not from books.
This school year, we have to play catch up. This summer was intense with working on the land. We learned about plants, animals, bears, and how to sort everything. So, again, this school year is all about the catch up. I have found some great websites about all sorts of free stuff.
http://allinonehomeschool.com/ This site gives free curriculum for Preschool (Kindergarten in the UK) through 8th grade.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ Absolutely fantastic site for free (copyright free) books. I absolutely love finding the classics that are not in print any more!
http://librivox.org/ and http://www.openculture.com/freeaudiobooks These have many free audio books. With 5 children who love to hear a book read aloud, my voice doesn't hold up long!
And http://www.homeschoolfreebie.wholesomechildhood.com/ One of my favorite places for free stuff on the web. They require an email sign up, have most of everything free to download and have very minimal advertising for their ebooks and such that are very well-priced, especially for teaching-at-home families.
We begin schooling September 3, the day after Labor Day. I plan to take it easy my last weekend of freedom from school planning!
Yours truly,
Sasha Jean
