I’m curious about my readership, especially as the number of daily visitors slowly increases. I’ve always assumed that the majority of my readers are people who know me (in real life or from other online settings), who are interested in my family but not in homeschooling in general. Or are you mostly homeschoolers, here for ideas and curriculum reviews and so forth?
Hence, my first poll:
(Argh, homeschooljournal.net’s software helpfully strips out any script you try to put in a post. Are you willing to answer my poll? It’s here. Or just leave a response in comments.)
?
Just a lurker from the WTM boards.
I think I originally stumbled upon your blog almost a year ago. I was thinking about homeschooling, checked out a FIAR manual from the local library, and decided to give it a try with my 4-year-old emergent reader. I was looking online for more FIAR ideas, and found your blog. We are now committed to homeschooling this next year instead of full-day kindergarten down the road. Hopefully it works for all of us and we stick with it. My daughter is about 2 years younger than Alex, and my son (also Colin) is about a year younger than yours. So I guess I am also interested in your family, in that it resembles mine, and you are a few steps ahead of us on the homeschooling road.
We did FIAR for Kindergarten last year and your website always came up in Google searches. It has been a very helpful resource! We use a lot of the same curriculum as you guys – WTM language arts and history, REAL Science, All About Spelling, and we’re just getting into MEP. Also, Creekside Julie is a good friend of mine.
I’m a wannabe homeschooler. My oldest is 3 and I originally stumbled here from WTM when I noticed you used FIAR.
I’ve been reading you (on and off — life fafiates me from obsessive internet reading occasionally) since Respectful of Otters, and then your lj, and you’ve always been worth my time.
Besides, we were due date twins until Colin came out weeks before Beka, so I feel warmfuzzy about him.
UK teacher who is in love with the idea of homeschooling
Friend of yours, you write well and interestingly, I’m interested in how people, including children, learn stuff and enjoy learning stuff.
Didn’t we add the Polldaddy plugin?
Andrea, I don’t see it, but I’m not very knowledgeable about WordPress and/or plug-ins. It would be a lot of fun to be able to have polls, though!
I followed you over from your blog. I’ve been lurking both there and here for a while. I am a SFF fan and I think I originally got linked to some book reviews on your blog? I am a UU and a family physician, and I found a lot on your blog that I enjoyed reading.
I don’t have kids, but I read this blog because it is interesting, because it is professionally relevant, and because my sister has two children almost the same ages as yours. Sofia just turned 6 this month; Anton turned three in January. I’ve used your blog as a christmas gift guide on occasion.
I’m in the first category.
I know you! Also, I dither about whether or not I can handle homeschooling, occasionally, though I think my verdict is “I’m glad we got a house in a region with well-reputed schools. Also I am glad that my medical situation is improving. One of these things will probably suffice.”
The poll didn’t offer quite the right answer for me so I’m adding mine here. I followed a link from WTM forum regarding FIAR and then there was some morsel of information that made me wonder as to your physical location because it might not be far away and a little bit of further reading (beyond the great FIAR posts) showed that we are basically neighbors in the broader statewide sense. I am thinking about starting FIAR with my oldest this fall in a very laid-back fun kind of way since she’ll just be 4 and we’re not looking to start schooling but would like something to help fill our time.
Hi Karen!
Feel free to PM me on WTM if there is anything at all I can do to help you get started, in terms of state-specific info, resources, curriculum show-and-tell, etc.
So, ages and ages ago, Jo Walton wrote a poem about unusual chameleons, and that was how I found your blog, and I was so charmed that I just kept reading, and very occasionally commenting (like when you asked for recs for books for Alex).
I like children’s books, and education, and reading about how you plan things, and how they work — thank you for making it a public record! And for portraying what happens so vividly. (I kind of want to get Beast Academy for myself now, but I have a dissertation to finish…)
I’m a UK homeschooler who first got to know about you and your blog from the WTM Forums. I visit here quite regularly because I feel that it’s one of the better quality homeschool blogs, ie you have genuinely interesting things to say! I’m also tentatively starting my own blog, so I find reading yours quite inspiring.
found you via a google search for a FIAR book. Love all you do. Wish you had an email subscriber button though!
My partner is on a board where you’ve sometimes been active and pointed me to your sermon (of a few years back) and then I read all your old blog and followed on to this one because I got hooked on the saga of learning. And also, your family is way cool.