Looking back the first year of homeschooling in 2008

It has been almost 3 years since DH and I made the decision to homeschool. I still remember in June, 2008, my head was buried by several how-to homeschool books. Among all, I was mostly impressed by the Well-Trained Mind and Core Knowledge. These two books are still our main reference for Euna's HS learning content.

Back then Lydie was still in my tummy. The first 6 months of learning how to homeschool was so much fun and exhilarating. Euna was already fluent and was reading some Chinese books and magazine, but just started phonic books(I delayed her English reading deliberately). So the first thing to HS was to teach Euna phonics. I used Phonic Pathway. Half way through she was reading reader 2 and quickly level 3 books. Long before I realized, she clearly did not need any more phonic drilling and was able to sail along on her own with real books(skipping Bob books and other phonic easy readers I bought for her). Spelling did not seem to be an issue for her. Until now she rarely gets confused with spelling rules except for words of other language origins.

Learning to teach Euna math was stressful for me since I never liked math(my music boarding school math teachers told me that I had no hope for it). But I had time and joyful energy to learn along with Euna rapid progress. That first year we chose to use Saxon 1. With its incremental sequence of progress, it was an easy start for me but occasionally boring for Euna.

That year I completely stopped teaching Euna cello. I just did not know how to deal with power struggling. She was still attending a piano group class with an old French teacher and she liked it very much.

Now that first year seems so easy, fun and merry. That was a never to return period of peaceful time before the chaos of juggling with two kids, homeschooling, and teaching cello part time at home.