Memory Monday :: Homeschooling Year One

We started homeschooling in the summer of 2005. We had a few different reasons why we started and it would be a long post if I explained all of them here. The main one was that we were not satisfied with the education and the attitude in the public school system. The system didn't work for my reserved quiet daughter and it didn't work for my very curious boy either.

After I spent months researching, reading books and also meeting other homeschool families, we decided to take the summer and try out homeschooling. After a month, we were confident that this would be the best for our family. We notified the school board and started our adventure.

For this Memory Monday, I wanted to share with you a few photos from that first year of homeschooling 2005-2006. The first year, we followed pretty closely the Well Trained Mind philosophy and also added many hands-on experiences.

When we started homeschooling, Adrienne was 8 years old, Andre was 6, and Celeste was 1!  

Adrienne working on language arts

Adrienne reading aloud

Andre working on his Math with Saxon 2 (which I am using this year with Celeste!).

Both Adrienne and Andre learned how to sew that year, by hand and with the machine.

Andre was fascinated with dinosaurs at the time and had an excavation kit.
He is holding the tiny head of the dinosaur in this photo.

Shelling green peas together. I always tried to include my kids in everything!

Adrienne and Celeste making a lemon cake. Their interest in baking and cooking came early!

More workbooks! Celeste always wanted to do what her big sister was doing (she still does now!).
They are both in their PJs. We discovered how nice it was that we could "do school" in our PJs!

Homeschooling was always fun with a silly toddler around!
She wanted to be part of everything we did.

I really enjoyed looking at these photos again. We all learned a lot during the first year of homeschooling! I think the biggest lesson I learned that year was to enjoy every moment and pay attention to what works and continue doing that!