Help…new homeschooling mom…

Hi Everyone,

My name is Karli. We live in the Western Cape, South Africa. We have not officially started homeschooling (meaning we are not registered as a homeschooling family or bought a curriculum anywhere). My eldest is only supposed to start “school” next year when he turns 7, but I have done some preschool activities with them. I have two boys aged 4 & 6 years old. So far, the only thing I have done in preperation for their homeschooling, was to read parts of “Better late than Early” by Raymond Moore and had thus had my children lead the way in their learning capabilities, interests and styles.

I have to start working from home next year doing some photography and admin work to earn extra money specifically for our homeschooling outings, projects, material, educational tours etc., since our finances are VERY tight and limited with my husband working full time in a non-profit ministry.

My boys are both exceptionally eager learners. They love books and any opportunity to learn something wheather it be biblical, scientific or in nature. They have wonderful imaginations, especially after studying an animal on one of their educational dvd’s. After watching it, they go into the garden with their animal toys and reenact the nature scenes and habitat of the animal they just learnt about. I never have to ask them to watch and learn about the animals, they do it themselfs. Some days we even have a clash of will’s as my husband and I are not fond of the children watching dvd’s everyday, but they want to learn the whole time. It is exactly the same with their biblical dvd’s. They watch and go and reenact the bible story. Like I said, we are not pro children of their age watching too much dvd’s, so we have strict rules on that. We don’t own animations (Disney / Pixar or whatever) and we don’t have TV / Cable. We can only watch dvd’s, and they only have either bible or educational dvd’s.

What bothers me the most is that we have no structure in our days / weeks / months. At this stage I take one day at a time. Some days are consumed with helping my husband with admin / taxes, other days I (we) just do house chores and sort the washing out (the boys do help me with some chores, but they have no set routines or chores). Some days we do a little school work, some days they just want to play / swim.

I would like some input / suggestions / guidance on a few things:

1. How should I structure my days / weeks to balance work. school, house chores and social outings?
2. When, how and what do I need to start / implement the CM way of homeschooling?
3. What should it involve daily for boys their age regarding schooling?
4. Do I need to buy a curriculum?
5. Must i register with SCM to follow her homeschooling principles?

Any help, advice, guidance or suggestions will be very appreciated. If you think there is anything I might have left out / forgotten to add, please feel free to give me your opinion / suggestions. I need all the help I can get!

Blessings to you all!