My name is Cindy and I’m a curriculum junkie! Yup, it’s true. In my
homeschooling journey, which began in 2000, I have purchased many
different types of curriculum for my four children (ages 19, 17, 15 and
13) in our quest to learn at home. You see, what I didn’t realize when
we began formal school instruction at home was that each child has
their own learning style and what works for one child may not work for
another. In trying to make my round pegs fit into square holes, I
discovered that what I had purchased wasn’t working and that my children
didn’t enjoy their homeschooling as much as I did. After several
thousands of dollars (gasp!) spent and countless tears, I finally broke
away from the cookie cutter mentality that I had developed and realized
that what Mom likes may not work for what my dear blessings needed.
A little about us… My oldest daughter (I’ll call her “EC”, age 19)
graduated from our home high school in June of 2011. She is now
entering her 2nd year of college (as of this writing) and is doing
excellently in a lecture hall setting. My son (he likes his nickname,
Luigi, age 17) was my first clue that what EC loved in school wasn’t
necessarily what he would enjoy. Luigi has OCD/Anxiety disorder and has
dyslexia and dyscalcula. He was misdiagnosed by a well-meaning
preschool teacher as having ADHD but he wasn’t formally tested until
2009. He’s a very visual learner who thrives when he can draw and be
creative too. My next son (who likes his nickname, Mario, age 15) has
been riding his older brother’s bandwagon since they’re both close in
age. Although he’s two years younger they do a lot of the same work
and share a lot of activities. While Luigi excels at video games and
computing, Mario is the one with a knack for statistics and
justice. He’s harder to teach at home because he often thinks he knows
it all already (yeah, me!). Finally, my youngest is Princess. She’s 13
and has a public school skill level of around 2nd grade due to severe
dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalcula, visual and auditory processing
disorders. She has been my biggest challenge and my biggest source of
frustration when it comes to the homeschooling experience and community.
She has a wonderful imagination and is very sensitive to others, but
she also battles with insecurity and has to fight daily to keep up with her peers in the neighborhood.
However, I know that she was a gift to us and I look forward to seeing
her blossom into everything she was created to be.
Why Mosaic? When you look at a mosaic piece from a distance you
simply see a beautiful picture. However, as you step closer to the art you come to realize that the artist used many different sizes,
shapes and colors of tiles or glass to create his finished masterpiece.
Homeschooling is much like a mosaic at times. From a distance it seems
like it’s as simple as doing “school at home” or that everyone has the
same end results in mind. However, when you step closer in you can see
that each child is unique, even "flawed", and has his or her own set of
needs, learning styles and calling in life. This blog was created with
the hopes that maybe, just maybe, some other mom or family can avoid
some of the pitfalls that I’ve been trapped in while educating my
children. Thanks for stopping by and for taking the time to look
around. Please feel free to message me or leave a comment and please
check back often or join my RSS feed or email list.
Join the "Back to School Bash" with me! Back to school in our 'hood usually means lots of kids ringing the doorbell at 3:05pm, just after the bus drops off the neighborhood kiddos and they're anxious to blow off some steam. However, as a homeschooling family, we often start our day much later than the PS kids and are still working at 3:05. To, hopefully, alleviate some of our interruptions and stress this year I found these cool magnetic sheets (used to cover air vents in the house) and printed up signs to attach to them. They are paintable too, but I used my publishing program so that I can manipulate them and reuse the magnets later on for other signage we may need. I'll post again later to let you know about the progress of our little sign experiment. 
Here's a photo of the printout before I adhered them to the magnet paper (which you can probably get in 8x11 sheets at a craft store too). It's just an 8.5X11 piece of card-stock that I divided down the middle and made two signs. It took me about 30 minutes to get them done and put onto the magnet. I'd love your feedback - what do you think?
My name is Cindy and I’m a curriculum junkie! Yup, it’s true. In my
homeschooling journey, which began in 2000, I have purchased many
different types of curriculum for my four children (ages 19, 17, 15 and
13) in our quest to learn at home. You see, what I didn’t realize when
we began formal school instruction at home was that each child has
their own learning style and what works for one child may not work for
another. In trying to make my round pegs fit into square holes, I
discovered that what I had purchased wasn’t working and that my children
didn’t enjoy their homeschooling as much as I did. After several
thousands of dollars (gasp!) spent and countless tears, I finally broke
away from the cookie cutter mentality that I had developed and realized
that what Mom likes may not work for what my dear blessings needed.
