Welcome!

Hi There!

Let me introduce myself: My name is Anna and I have been homeschooling for 8 or 9 years (depending on how many years of preschool you count).  I have seven children ranging in age from 13 years old on down and I'm expecting Baby #8 in July.  I consider myself an eclectic homeschooler and have used many different types of curricula.  We reside in Washington State, so our homeschooling rules are not too rigorous.  I have participated in Parent Partnership Programs through the public school districts and have also homeschooled independently.

As you can imagine, homeschooling with seven (or eight) kids at home is challenging enough on the easy days.  I have always loved reading and really wanted to love using Sonlight's curriculum, but although we follow Christ's teachings, we are not legalistic and prefer to have a more tolerant view of other religions than many of our friends.  We also subscribe to an "Old Earth" viewpoint.  Our views plus our busy lives means Bookshark is an almost perfect fit for our family.

The goal of this blog is to document the ups and downs of our homeschooling journey with Bookshark (plus whatever I happen to toss in with it), plus any tips or tricks I come up with to keep our days running as smoothly as we can.  This next school year, I will have a newborn, a 1 1/2 year old (turning two in November), a three year old, a Kindergartener, and a 2nd, 4th, and 6/7th grader (he has a late August birthday, so he straddles a grade level).  We still haven't decided whether or not the 8th grader will be staying home or attending the local public school.

I came up with the name BookSharking Bunch because my kids love The Brady Bunch and like to point out that we have a bigger family than they do and we don't even have an Alice.  Oh, don't I know that!