First Year at Homeschooling Using the Robinson Curriculum

We made the move again.  In my eight year old's short little life, she has went from Indiana to New Jersey back to Indiana to Hawaii to Georgia and now we reside in Texas.  We are military and that is the life of what is so charmingly deemed a military brat. I'm sure it's purely an endearing adjective because all military children I've met seem to be pretty good kids.  Not only does being in the military present it's challenges to children with the endless number of moves adapting to new schools, new culture and new friends, but it's also just plain difficult at times especially when you have children with chronic medical conditions.  Of course that is not a cop out for taking them out of the school systems rather it just might be easier on them.

Tuesday was the first day of home schooling my eight year old while making attempts at educating my four year old at the same time.  I perused through many blogger sites trying to find the ideal curriculum as we just don't have the money to pay a monthly fee to one of those online schools.  I know there is one free site available here but I opted to try it on my own.  I chose the Robinson Curriculum.  It's cost effective and versatile.  It was created by a family who home schooled their children and each of the five children are successful in their pursuits of higher education.  Their mother passed away suddenly and science based dad stepped in and perfected the curriculum.  It's based on three fundamental learning subjects:  reading, writing and arithmetic.

The curriculum from the reading and writing perspective is secured from hundreds of old books in print that perform the basis for so much.  The notion of reading and writing provides the cornerstones for other subjects is spot on to me.  The math component is by Saxon.  Her Georgia school must have been high caliber or Saxon is behind because she won't learn anything until the second workbook is used.  However, the concepts are good reviews for her as her neurologist stated she has a listening disability so repeating the knowledge will only help to reinforce it.  I also chose this curriculum because it's based on the old school philosophy and from what I've seen of my father and prior generations are an abundance of men who barely graduated from high school to move forward with remarkable inventions, abilities and careers.

I'm only touching on a few basics of the Robinson Curriculum and some might feel my thought process is flawed by it's what I'm going with for my first year.  Extra curricular activities will be forthcoming along with subjects such as art and history but for now, I want to focus on getting them acclimated to a different learning environment as me, the teacher and them, the pupils.