I won!

I can't believe it! I actually won something. This is a rare occurrence, so I wanted to share it. A few days ago I received an email from Jill Craft of Blessed Beyond a Doubt that I had won a huge homeschool curriculum giveaway. I was a little worried it might be a spammy/advertising thing. It wasn't. :)

I was SO excited. We are looking into doing our own thing for DS in 2nd grade and have nothing right now. This prize couldn't have come at a better time. Now we have a chance to get our hands on actual material without breaking the bank. It's a good opportunity to try out some of these materials too.

I received the e-books from Map Trek/Knowledge Quest today. They look very thorough and have a lot of information. I am excited to go through them. I love e-books for the cost, especially; but I also love the ease of use and that fact that they save a lot of shelf space! :)

I cannot wait for the rest of the materials to arrive. Before this all happened I was really dragging my feet on researching curriculum and dreading getting started. This gave me the boost I needed to begin this new journey!

Thanks to Jill and all the sponsors of this amazing giveaway!!

Our homeschool journey

Long before we had our son, we discussed schooling options for our future children. From the very beginning my husband and I both agreed that homeschooling would be best for our family. When the time came we decided to start with K12 OHVA. This worked well for Kindergarten. It was a little tough to keep up while trying to focus on things that my DS needed extra help with. I figured it would get better in first grade. Unfortunately it only got worse. We have struggled this year to keep up with all the work and requirements. The worst part is that I feel like we have to rush past things that my DS really needs extra time with. This has led to me looking into building my own curriculum and leaving OHVA. I loved having all the free resources, but in the long run I think my DS will do so much better if we can build a curriculum around him.

The biggest problem I am facing right now is the overwhelming amount of information and resources to filter through. We aren't able to spend hundreds (even thousands!) of dollars on materials, but we want to give our DS the best education we can. Praise the Lord for the dedicated and hardworking homeschool bloggers. I have found so much through them! Of course the challenge is going through it all and putting it to use.

My Pinterest page has exploded with all the homeschooling information!

Some of the best bloggers and sites I have found are:

Free Homeschool Deals

Teachers Pay Teachers (Plenty of free and cheap resources)

CurrClick (Some free resources)

These are only a few of the sites I use. I wouldn't have enough room to list them all. I tend to use these three the most.

I am overwhelmed, but hopeful. I need to start reading, sorting, planning, and most importantly; praying. It is going to be a long summer!