Well today is the day, we officially start homeschooling this morning! I am far more excited than Genius is. We decided we like the year round approach, and we plan to take most of December off since we are taking a trip at the beginning and then with Christmas and all, one of the beautiful things about homeschooling! And besides that, Genius already has had one month of vacation since public school ended May 16th. That has been more than enough time for the brain cells to become slothful as she has spent most of that time doing what she likes most, playing video games. That's all fine and good for a month, but now it's back to school!

Since this is our first time doing this I have picked a mish mash of curriculum, with the hopes that all of it will be good, and that we will be able to order some of it again, or at least find what works for us.

For Social Studies we are using the Bob Jones World Studies, along with a book I picked up at Sam's The Complete Book of Presidents and States (we are Canadians, and so don't know a lot of American history, with the election impending thought this would be a good place to start), and we will use parts of a lap book that I found online about Presidential Elections.

For Science we chose A Reason For Science, and will also use the Library of Science Animal World by Usborne books. (which I won in a bloggy carnival giveaway...ooh that's coming in July I can't wait....visit my blog again to find another giveaway here!)

For Language Arts we will use; Do Hard Things book (which I also won in a bloggy carnival giveaway from Sassyfrazz.) We will use Sequential Spelling starting with book 3 (Genius is a horrible speller), The Write Stuff Adventure, Painless Grammar, Complete English Smart, Crispin the Cross of Lead, Shiloh, The Giver and Frindle (a little below her level, but such a fun book, and she has never read it before!).

For Math where she is so far ahead of her actual grade level, we will review 7th and 8th grade math concepts using Complete Math 7 & 8, then use the Teaching Textbooks Algebra I, and since I know Genius will fly through all of that I also got the first book in the set of Key to Geometry to take us to the end of the year.

Whew! It seems like a lot, but really when I divided the curriculum around the 180 days of schooling accounting for co-op days, and field trips, well it still isn't a lot of work everyday, it still makes me wonder what these kids did in a classroom for 6 hours!

So for anyone who actually took the time to read this....Thanks. And pray for us, we'll need it!