How many homeschooling methods can you think of? The options are overwhelming. As I am learning more about the different types, the more eclectic I am becoming, trying to incorporate the things I like most about each method and the things I know my son will enjoy. At the beginning of this process I was into the Montessori method mainly, I still am, but I also am starting to incorporate other ways as well. I have realized that for homeschooling to work it needs to fit not only your child’s style but yours as well or you will never be able to keep up with it. In my life, I am VERY eclectic, just ask my husband and he will tell you I have a wide variety of interests and when I do something I have to learn everything I can about that subject in order to move on. How this works into our schooling is I need variety. So our main style I would definitely say is Montessori but I am starting to include a few more traditional things. But even the more traditional items are still very similar to Montessori and have manipulatives which wingnut needs or he looses interest fast. I am also at the same time drawn to unschooling in a way. I feel children can learn a lot by doing everyday things and will try to learn things in order to do activities they are interested in. Basically, I  really feel that I will do best if I follow wingnuts interests and build units around that interest incorporating most if not all subjects; math, history, reading and so forth. I can only do that to a certain degree right now since his knowledge base is limited at the moment.

Some new things I am including in our homeschooling is All About Spelling, Rightstart Math, and a folder system based after the workbox system. I started looking into these items for various reasons mainly to fill in gaps in my sons learning style or ways that just seemed to click more to me. I will update as we progress and how it is working for us and maybe it might help others who are considering other ways of doing things.

I picked All About Spelling because it was similar to the Montessori method of learning to read and I have noticed that working with individual letter sounds is ultimately helping his speech. The more confident he gets in the individual sounds the more I think he will try to talk. One difference between Montessori and All About Spelling is that Montessori only starts with the basic 26 sounds and All About Spelling starts with the first 32 phonograms which I think wingnut needs right now. Oh and don’t let the name deceive you it is not just a spelling program but a reading program as well.  I will admit he does not quite enjoy doing it yet, so I found a letter of the week kit from confessions of a homeschooler and am doing that with wingnut. I then am constantly emphasising the letter sounds as he works through the activities. He is really liking this. To keep the letter of the week program organized I started a folder system where he matches number tags to the activity he wants to do. It is a bit hard to explain without words so I will take some pictures and share that latter.

I stumbled across Rightstart math and basically fell in love with the concept. I just purchase level A and am waiting for it to arrive so we will see what wingnut thinks. The program was designed by a Montessori trained teacher so there are a lot of similarities. I am still going to use the traditional Montessori methods as well.

A little update on the Montessori activities, I think he is either taking a break from them because he does not choose to do them much lately or he is ready for the next level of stuff. I seem to think it is he is ready to move on. Sometime in January or February I will be ordering the next round of Montessori things.

Now I would like to mention our ever evolving homeschooling schedule. I officially try to do homeschooling three days a week but it usually ends up being more because wingnut initiates it. When I first started homeschooling with wingnut I felt I had to do it in the morning like almost every other family I read about. This never worked for us. I am not a morning person and need some time to wake up and clean the house first. Yep, I seem to not be able to homeschool unless I have cleaned the house first, lol. So we started to do our school work in the afternoon which is working really well for us. I am really comfortable with what we are doing right now and it seems like wingnut is too. But I also realize that things will continue to change as we progress I hope this was not too boring for the non homeschooling readers I have.