Thoughts on homeschooling

I remember teaching my oldest his Alphabet, the sounds and how to write the letters. I remember thinking back then that the next step was impossible for me to do, I mean how do I teach him to read? That was 8 years ago and now I have my 2nd oldest daughter at home and last summer she expressed a desire to learn to read. She wasn't yet in Kindergarten but I figured that it was time since she was obviously ready. I looked around and that is when I found "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons". Now it sounds gimmicky but so many others I knew swore by it so I gave it a try. From my experience, the book works . . . very well.

As we went through the school year last year her reading seemed to take off at an incredible pace. It was as though this new found skill had an insatiable appetite and I sought desperately to keep pace. The library in town was our best friend but even they were no match as they couldn't keep up the pace of finding her reading level and books to suit. She was getting bored. Finally I decided last week to challenge her to read "The Little House in the Big woods". She hadn't had any chapter books at this point and she had been reading the "pick your own adventure" book that my oldest son had. It took about a week of on and off reading to get through the 13 chapters, but she really enjoyed it.

With her curiosity peaked she promptly began "Little house on the Prairie" book. It is practically 3 days later and she has read all 26 chapters and is desperately wanting more. This time she did little else but read, every spare moment she could be found with her head in that book. It was very interesting to watch as I was never a big reader and never understood how anyone becomes one. I cannot say I understand it much better but I guess it does help that my dh also loves to read, evidenced by the fact that he now belongs to 4 libraries and they are always looking for a book for him.

At this point I am going to need suggestions on where we go next, after all there are only so many books in this series . . . thought?

Co-operative living . . . maybe it's communal?

I'm a friendly person by nature, I'm sure you haven't noticed :), and since we bgan this homesteading journey 7 months ago I have come to realise that I really enjoy working with others. No, not like my job. I am referring to learning and working the different aspect of this homesteading life. I wish I knew others close to me that I could interact with but I chose to live in the country, where the big benefit is no neighbors and the big downside is no neighbors, darn that double edged sword. Anyway, I have decided to look far and wide for those that can help provide some of the wisdom and skill sets I lack. I responded to an ad on craigslist for example for some older farming books, and I am really enjoying chatting with the lady who owns them. She was a one-time homesteader moving to the city for various reasons and she has introduced me to books I'd never heard of or seen on any lists. Sure they're dated, they were published in the early part of the last century for crying out loud. But when you have a little farm like mine and you don't have any "high tech" toys like tractors and the like, those are the kinds of books that can help make this living a bit easier. Here is a good one she led me to that happens to be out of print but is available for download (pdf format) on google, it's called simply "How to do things", it was published in 1919.