What Worked Well For US
A friend was using a curriculum called My Father’s World. And another friend had given me some 4th/5th grade ABeka materials —“…In case I decided to homeschool”. I was familiar with ABeka from being in a private Christian school during some of my elementary school years. However, since I was not planning to homeschool, I had not researched what options might be out there (which in retrospect might have been a helpful thing or good thing since it can be overwhelming to narrow down to just one…).
So, I looked up My Father’s World (and maybe a couple other things) to see what homeschooling with those materials might look like. Ultimately we chose to use My Father’s World. And I am glad we did because it was a great fit for us.
Was Homeschooling The Right Choice For Us?
Within the first few days of doing school with our oldest son, I knew this was worth it. I would get teary-eyed in the midst of teaching him simply reflecting on the privledge and the responsibility that was given to me.
So what was it that made it worthwhile? Well, to start with, Kindergarten is easy and so fun to teach. Three days a week, two hours a day, all kinds of fun ways to teach letters and sounds…as you watch your child absorb more and more of the world around them. So fun! And we maxed out our library card each week just enjoying finding books to read that started with the focus letter or the topic of the focus letter. (I was only beginning to realize/understand that there is so much we can learn and so little time to try to learn it all!!!)
My
Father’s World uses the creation story to begin to teach letters (starting
with “s” for “sun”). As you progress through the alphabet, the curriculum
incorporates books to read, activities to do, field trip ideas, and life long
lessons to be learned. For example, when learning “h”/”horse”, the phrase for
the week is “obey right away”. The lessons that week teach about a horse
needing a bit in order to direct its actions and our need to use God’s word to
obey right away. It was such an easy way
to begin directing our children toward God and the truths of His word.
While I supplemented some other items to use
based on our son’s interests (from places like the Dollar Tree store or off the
internet), the main source of learning stemmed from My Father’s World. And when it came time for our second son to
start Kindergarten, I still gravitated back to My Father’s World.
