The things my child taught me…

(This is part of the Friday meme at the Heart of the Matter – to read more responses, click here…)

We have not been homeschooling for very long, so I am sure this is a list that will get longer in coming years.  For now, I would say the most important thing I am learning is that it’s not about me.  I have all these great ideas and long term plans, but sometimes I need to just take a step back a realize that Madison and I are not the same person.  Things that work for me don’t always work for her.  So learning to be flexible and work with Madison’s learning style is probably one of the hardest things I am having to do, but is also probably so important for the future success of our homeschool.

My Favorite Homeschool Products

This Friday’s meme from The Heart of the Matter is about our favorite homeschool product. This post was this was harder than I expected. Almost all of my ideas were office supplies (binders, notecards, smencils, my laminator, art supplies – how do I choose??) or brand new things that I don’t know if we are going to love or not. But I finally narrowed it down to the three that are my favorite – for this week at least…

1) My Pencil Sharpener. I didn’t realize how much I would enjoy one, but I love having a sharp pencil. I need a sharp pencil to function in a healthy manner. Right now, we only have a manual one – I am putting off buying an electric one until we get to Japan because of our extremely limited weight allowance, but that is the number one thing on my Wish List for next year. That is also the reason I love Madison’s Crayola Twistables so much right now.

2) The Alpha Bakery Cookbook, which was free (only pay shipping), and full of recipes that are actually pretty good! There is a recipe for each letter of the alphabet, plus some more just for fun in the back, like play-doh and trail mix.

3) Our number line, which we use pretty much everyday. (I also really enjoy the Bible timeline you can see in this picture.)

Runners up include my Well Trained Mind book, our new nature journal, Headsprout Readers, and our memory CD… and I am sure I will think of more that I can’t live without!