We began homeschooling when our oldest children were young. We had been through all sorts of trouble with the schools they had attended and decided to try teaching them ourselves. It worked for a year, then we moved, and tried a new curriculum. Unfortunately, they did not take to the Alpha Omega curriculum we bought them and started asking us to allow them to go back to the public school since we were in a new state. So we let them go back and of course the school in our new state was no better than the one in our old state. However the kids were now in Jr. and Sr. high school and making lots of friends and we butted heads when we asked them to go back to homeschool. So they remained and graduated, all but one who opted to return to homeschool because of problems with teachers and peers.

After our two youngest were born, we decided that we would try the homeschool thing again with them since they had never been in a school, so they couldn’t protest about the curriculum, or how we were teaching them different from the teachers in the "real school".

We have tried a number of curriculums over the past 5 years. We’ve tried Switched On Schoolhouse, which was nice, but the program had issues with our computers and the kids got frustrated. I’ve used a multitude of different curriculums for different subjects for a year, and that was okay, but a lot of work for mom and dad. Last year we found a new program, Time4learning.com. This program is just awesome. Not only is it done on the computer, but it is online learning.

Time4learning.com puts all you need into a simple program that you and your kids will love. They have fun games that help teach the children, and the children love it. Our son learned so much about planets last year through Time4Learning’s science curriculum, and is now very much into space and the planets. Our son had his 4th grade  finished in April and started on 5th grade and is about half way through 5th grade now.

The thing I really like about Time4learning.com, (See Lesson Demos) is they do all the grading and record keeping for you. All you do is go into the parents panel every day and you see the grade reports, work done for the day, and the time spent on each one. They also have a wealth of printable pages too.

If you are a Christian homeschooler like us, you’ll need to get your Bible curriculum for the kids, and of course you’ll need books for reading and you’ll need to have them do their writing daily, but you almost have to do that no matter what computer curriculum you choose.

That's about it as far as homeschol goes. If you want to know more about us and our family, you can visit the "about us" page on one of our other sites which are linked below.

http://www.thejoyofhope.com
http://www.everythingmakesscents.com
http://www/thegourdreserve.com
http://www.carmellasplace.com
http://www.affiliateresourcesrus.thegourdreserve.com
http://www.musicandthearts.com - Coming soon
http://www.carmellamaeoriginals.com
http://www.dailysalesonline.com
http://www.danosplace.com
http://www.mommyawards.com - Coming soon
http://www.everythingmakesscents.jerkydirect.com