PDF-ready for home school year 2014
This home school year 2014 is different for us.
For one thing, Lukas is entering Kinder level and is already required by the Department of Education to enroll with a DepEd-approved umbrella school.
We’re home schooling him, of course, and though going independent has been a huge consideration for years, we’re putting our faith in God’s provision and enrolled him under Peniel Christian Academy along with our 9-year old, Pablo.
Late last year, Jay and I also agreed to move their Music, Arts and P.E. classes within our vicinity.
For years, we’ve been with our South-based co-op but it was no longer working out in terms of schedule. The best thing to do was to find M.A.P.E. classes here where I can manage to bring the kids even when Jay is out of town or has an event to take care of.
Fortunately for us, Homeschool @ the Fort opened this year!
Pablo is looking forward to his soccer classes which will start on the 17th. Lukas, on the other hand, will be joining him for the Arts class.
FREE books for us
This year, we’ll be using free online resources for our materials. I know that the internet is rich with free resources for home schooled kids but I didn’t expect them to be this good.
After hours spent on Google, I found links to complete sets of books and materials in PDF for almost all of our subjects. Here’s what we have:
English: Treasures by MacMillan/McGraw-Hill. This includes three books: Spelling, Grammar and a Practice book for Spelling & Grammar. (Original link no longer works)
Math: Saxon Math Intermediate 3 by Stephen Hake.
Update: The original link I posted no longer works. Sorry!
Science: California Science by MacMillan/McGraw-Hill. This includes a text book, a work book and a laboratory work book.
Computer: Robotics and Programming by Khan Academy.
To be honest with you, Pablo is so much more advanced than me here and I’m not even sure I can complete my programming classes with Coursera considering everything that I need to do but we’ll see. I do have a good track record of sticking it out with whatever I’ve committed to do.
I really want to support our son with his interest in programming and robots, so if it means learning how to program myself, then so be it. (gulp!)
I’ve also decided to learn Apologetics with Pablo this year using free books offered by Answers in Genesis. Learning along with my kids is one of the things I love about home schooling.
Lukas will be using the old Sonlight books our friends Nino and Gaylie passed on to us when Pablo was younger. He’s already taught himself to count, to add and to read (no kidding!) so I would really like to spend time reading books with him this year.
Focusing on priorities
I had the privilege to be featured by fellow mom blogger, Chris of Mommy Journey who asked me to share about home schooling and it was a wake-up call for me of some sort. It helped me trace back to our foundations- why we went into home schooling, why we’re still doing this.
Academics-wise, we did alright last year. In fact, I think we were able to accomplish more than what we needed to accomplish despite all the setbacks we encountered during the year.
But truth be told, I’ve gotten lost sometime in the year. Perhaps it’s the pressure from having to comply to requirements or maybe it was because I had to adjust to having a full time job but I wasn’t happy with how I conducted myself in many of our home school hours.
Embarrassing as it may be to admit, home schooling wasn’t always fun for my kids. They had to face monster-me a lot of times and it wasn’t pretty and I’m not proud of it. Not proud of it at all.
Then I came across something I wrote in an old blog on home schooling. Something I wrote when we were still starting out:
“Every child has a natural learning ability. What he needs are parents who sincerely believe that he is destined for greatness and will lovingly and patiently prepare him for it; not someone breathing down his neck on awards, stars, stickers, contests and other pointless external motivational factors.”
That was based on what I’ve learned from books written by home schooling parents who have gone ahead of us.
In home school, the one with most value is the child being taught. Not the materials, the curriculum, the lessons, the quizzes, the tuition fees or their soccer shoes. It’s them. I have to remember that this school year.
‘Teach children how they should live, and they will remember it all their lives” Proverbs 22:6.
18 Comments
The Vanilla Housewife
Wow, props to you mama! All ready for the school year! I have always been interested in home schooling my kids but it’s just not feasible this year since I am still working full time. When we do transition to it, I guess I know who to ask! 🙂
May De Jesus-Palacpac
Sure! I’m open to helping anyone out. 🙂 Thanks for dropping in Jhanis!
Michelle Solee (@michisolee)
When my son was 2yrs old, I read blogs about homeschool. I printed their free worksheet and I let my son answered those activities. But I still prefer the regular school so I enrolled him when he was 3yrs old. I think homeschooling is not for me because I also became monster mom. hehehe!
May De Jesus-Palacpac
I think all moms turn into monster moms at some point in home schooling. It’s really character-building, not just for my kids, but for me too. It can get frustrating though, so I understand so well why you decided to put your child in regular school. It’s better that we keep a good and peaceful relationship with our children. 🙂
Thanks Michelle!
Chris Amador
Wow, congratulations on being ready for another homeschool year! Thank for sharing all your resources too.
May De Jesus-Palacpac
Hi Chris! Thanks. I’m excited for this new season in our home schooling. 🙂
Janice / The Roller Coaster Ride
My girls are both in traditional school although at some point a few years ago I did think of homeschooling them instead. But by now they are already so used to the traditional school system and are already finishing grade school so I decided to just let them stay there. For our youngest though, since he’s only 3 years old, we decided to homeschool him first for the next couple of years. We’ll decided after that if we’ll continue homeschooling him or not. Really interested in finding more resources for him. 🙂
May De Jesus-Palacpac
I will share as much as I find. 🙂
TweenselMom
It’s great to know homeschooling really works for you. My daughters go to traditional school but I am often a monster mom myself. In fact, they now prefer their dad when it comes to review time, but after a while, they will go back to me 🙂 I must say though that awards, stars, stickers, contests should not be categorized as pointless motivational factors. They may not be the most accurate gauge of our child’s progress but surely, they serve as valuable challenges. The important thing is that both the child and the parent know how to deal with the failures and the achievements as well.
May De Jesus-Palacpac
Thank you for your thoughts, Lanie. One of my best friends shares your view on it and I respect that. Let’s agree that we have different ways of meeting our goals for our families. 🙂
patriciacuyugan
Good luck this school year! I have so much admiration for you moms who homeschool. It’s been trad school for us all the way, and so far Little MrC has been thriving in that environment. Thank goodness, too, because I don’t think I have enough patience to homeschool.
Que Sullano - Gavan
“Learning along with my kids is one of the things I love about home schooling.” – I agree! We are checking homeschooling providers towards the end of the year for our 3 year old. Gets me excited!
Kim Reyes | MomOnDuty.com
Wow, I really look up to parents who choose to homeschool their kids. I want to do this too, but my husband is not so open to it. Since I don’t want it to be just my decision, we just enrolled our eldest to a school. If it doesn’t work out, then maybe I can talk to my husband again about home schooling. I love the resources you shared!
Peachy @ The Peach Kitchen
I really admire mommies like you who are homeschooling your children. Galing!!!! I wish I can do the same.
thereyoujho
I have heard and known people who home school their children but I did not know how it really works. Thanks for the little introduction and Ill be reading your other posts. I have an 8 month old baby boy and maybe we can consider this for him too.
marie
So happy to find your article! Will start homeschooling grade 1 and would love to learn how and where to get free materials to make it easier for us budget wise☺. May i have the websites for the books posted above for grade 1? We are looking at available materials for grade 1 this year ☺.
May De Jesus-Palacpac
You’ll find them in the same links, Marie.
Aliyah
Hi. I am so grateful to have just read this article, because now I am in need of some information regarding homeschooling and how it works. We are currently living in Egypt and I have a 7 yr old daughter that I would want to do homeschooling with. I will check all the resources you have shared. Thank you for this article.