Homeschool Open House 2007

I am following along with Momma Roar's example and having an open house of my own....


This school year I am not only homeschooling our three older children but am adding in the two younger children. I am honestly not sure how we are going to be managing/scheduling things and I pray that by the end of the school year I will still have a full head of hair, some sort of sanity, and 5 children (LOL).

Tyler begins High School this year. We have used Weaver from the very beginning of our homeschool journey in the fall of 2000 after I pulled Tyler out of public school. This year will not be any different-only in that we are going to be using the Supplement for Weaver for the very first time. Am I a little bit nervous about homeschooling a high school student. You bet ya. Can I do it? You bet ya. I can because God WILL enable me to do it. He has from the day I began homeschooling...He's NEVER failed me yet. Do I think this is going to be easy...nope. But we will do it...

SO here goes the Open House:


A short intro about you, how many blessings?

My name is Tara, mother to five blessings:

Tyler age 14 beginning 9th grade
Garret age 12 beginning 7th grade
Courtney age 10 beginning 5th grade
Seth age 4(5 in a month) beginning Preschool
Emily age 2 a tag along scholar

Your Homeschool Day, what does it look like?


As I have said we are using Weaver as our Core Curricula. We begin our days with prayer and the Bible Lesson. From that point on we "weave" in the Social Studies or Science and Language Arts. These items we do together as a family unit. After these studies are completed the kids break away into their own grade levels for math, reading, spelling, phonics, etc.....

This year since I am beginning pre-school instruction for Seth and Emily three days per week, I will be working with them while the big kids are doing their morning chores. Interlock, which is Weaver's Pre-school curriculum, is meant to be used three days per week. I have never used it before so it's new to me this year as well.

After the older three kids are finished with their chores, I will have "something" for the two little ones to do while we begin our day. We will break for lunch with most days being almost completely finished with our Weaver Studies. After lunch, the older kids will complete their other assignments while I exercise and shower. The littles will be napping.

What curriculum will you be using?

As I have already said, I am using Weaver for our core curriculum. We also will be using Winston Grammar, SOS Math, Dr. Aardsma's Spelling Drill, English from the Roots up, among other things...


Do you schedule your day to the minute or go with the flow with no real structure?

I am a planner by nature...and like to be on schedule. Over the past few years I have developed a loose schedule that goes in a certain order each day but has built-in "go with the flow" moments as well. I do have a daily and weekly goal that I like to meet and get rather cross if we don't.

Do you homeschool in a homeschool room, at the kitchen table, at a desk, in the park on the grass?

Our days are typically at the dining room table. We had a school room or school area off and on over the last two years but it just didn't work well...the kids couldn't keep it clean. This new house has a small room off the side of the dining room where I had planned on doing school but it was too small and made me claustrophobic to THINK about sitting in there. I have since given away our school table and we are using the dining room table officially this year.

We have been known to do school in other areas of the house too...reading in the living room, art outside in the yard....wherever the objective of the day needs us to be.

Do you have any “must share” tips?

It's almost 3:30 in the morning...and my brain is frazzled with worry about a Design Team project for ScrapGoods so no I don't have any real tips other than to start your days out with God. He's the most important part of your homeschool. You can have the best curricula in the whole world but without Him in your school...it's just a book with meaningless knowledge.