Floundering

 That first year was a wild ride; and stressful to boot. At the last minute, the 11th hour, I was trying to figure out all the things: what should he be learning? what does he want to learn?

I had no idea, other than what I vaguely recall what I had learned in middle school. That was too many years ago. For many of those years that I had dreamed of being a homeschool mom, I had a certain curriculum in mind for the task. It was tried and true, I knew it well and that it was very good. There was just one challenge that had been put before me- to homeschool as cheaply as possible. Which to me, meant not buying the curriculum. And in my heard, that meant "for free". Now what.... 

Thank God for google and my local school district. In my foray into the jungle of what direction we should go, I looked at the website for school district we had just come out of, to see if they had any thing i could use as reference for the year. As it was, he was just going to be homeschooled for this one year- so I wanted to make sure he kept up with his peers, and didn't end up behind when he returned to attending school. And i was in luck, they had everything but links to the text books listed on their site. With my list of topics that he should be covering, I set out to find suitable lesson plans on the cheap. Some topics were easy to find, some were not. Many times, I could find a lesson plan that had been posted by a university, created by a student teacher, or teaching professor; which was so advantageous. For math, we started using a workbook, but quickly figured out that it was more for supplementation- not teaching or learning. Switching gears and having to go back to the drawing board on that one was an endeavor. We tried a few free apps on the ipad, but they were not advanced enough. I think it was about that time that I found education.com, and it was a bit of a life saver. Not only was there digital math exercises, worksheets and games he could play, but it also kept track of his progress. It wasn't free, mind you, but for $19 a year, it was so worth it. It helped so much. For math, we also used Khan Academy. It helped, but there were some holes in the effectiveness of it presentations, and it ended up just confusing the poor kid.

There were days that I felt lost, alone and totally clueless. Days when it felt like I was spending all of my time just trying to find suitable material. 

At the end of the year, though, he had improved on his multiplication tremendously. And learned a few things about the planets & outer space; improved his grammar, writing abilities and vocabulary. But I felt there had to be a better way...

Here's what we used..