Settling In To Homeschool

We've officially completed one full week of homeschool and, this being our first experience with homeschooling, I'd say we are doing pretty well. We're still figuring out how to best schedule our days and where chores and social time fits in, but we are making time for all of that and still finishing our assignments.

On our first day, I had the kids draw a self portrait. I plan on having them draw a new self portrait every month to see what changes and progress is made. Here is my son's:

We are also enjoying our curriculum materials. I purchased the Saxon Math 1 homeschool program through Houghton Mifflin. My first grader is a little ahead in math skills so the early lessons are proving to be very easy for him, but we are using it as an opportunity to review and see if there are any early skills that we need to work on. We also purchased the math manipulatives kit and we have a lot of fun using the linking cubes, rulers, balance, and other materials that it comes with. Here's a look at all that fun stuff!

We also purchased the Houghton Mifflin Science Fusion program for 1st grade and we really like it. It took some technological know-how to set up, but once I sat down and focused I was able to get our virtual classroom set up. There are still a few glitches that I need to address, but I can access all the materials so it hasn't become an issue yet. Our favorite part is the worktext that you can write in and the inquiry flipchart that offers tons of labs and experiments to go along with our reading.

I have the language arts workbooks, but I'm looking for a more instructional and informative language arts program, rather than just worksheets with short fill in the blank activities. Do you have a favorite language arts program? I'd love to hear about it!