Introduction - Kara

Welcome to the Hop Skip Jump Kids blog! In this space, Melinda and I will be documenting our adventures in writing and publishing a book containing the detailed curriculum we used last year in homeschooling our three two-year-old children.

First, we decided to homeschool our kids last year for three simple reasons: availability, cost, and COST! There are few programs in our area which cater to the two-year-old crowd and those that do tend to be expensive. Since the two of us planned on sending our children to a preschool when they are three- and four-years-old, we all figured it would be best to save the cash when they were two-years-old and do it ourselves (not that we won't have to buy supplies, but we'll be able to get use out of those supplies for years to come). Then, we decided to come up with our own curriculum and lesson plans because we just didn't find anything publically available that fit our needs. Plus, its was a way for us to again exercise skills that have gone dormant since the kids came along!

We spent the summer of 2006 coming up with the basic schedule for each class and with a general outline for the topics we would cover over the course of the year. We also came up with the curriculum for the first 4 weeks of classes and a name for our school - "Two School" (a brainstorm by our friend Ellen), so it seemed "official" to the kids. We even enlisted 3 other moms and their kids to join our class. When we started school on Tuesday, September 5, 2006, the theme for the week was "Eyes" and we had 6 students total. We met twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and rotated class between the different moms' homes. As the year went along, we tweaked the structure & content of the class and completed the rest of the curriculum. The last day of class was held on May 25, 2007. We held around 30 weeks of classes.

Early on, we thought about publishing our curriculum simply because we couldn't find anything else like it out there. And we assumed there were other moms out there that felt the same way that we did - that they wanted to get a head-start on educating their child, getting them used to a classroom schedule, getting them used to listening to other adults, giving them opporntities to practice sharing and manners with other children, and giving them additional opportunities to socialize. Plus, we learned so much over the course of the year about a variety of educational topics that we wanted to share with other moms, like music, toys, & literature. We think we have such a wealth of information to share & we're so excited to get started on writing the book!

I'll let Melinda introduce herself and give you more information about her background. As for me, I'm the math and science geek of the two of us. I had no previous experience with teaching children - I'm even the youngest in my family (so I had no younger siblings to take care of) and I avoided babysitting like the plague when I was in high school. I didn't even change a diaper until my daughter was born! I'm type A, so I will be the one to help keep us organized and on schedule as we undertake this project. What's nice is that since Melinda and I come from different backgrounds, we bring different things to this project.

We hope that you join us as we document our thoughts, ideas, and feelings while writing our book!

Thanks, Kara