What this blog is about

The last post was just an introduction to our family. This post is intended to be a kind of mission statement, to let you know what I am trying to do in this blog and why, before diving in. I want to make sure that people are interested before I get too far along. This is a long post; I will normally try to be less wordy.

Firstly, why the name "Homeschool Bright and Early"? It's probably obvious that this doesn't just refer to the time of day when our kids wake us up! It also refers to the goals many of us have: Bright children who can start enjoying the joys of learning as soon as possible. Beyond this basic idea, I'm hoping to see a lot of variation in our approaches to homeschooling and our specific goals for our families.

Secondly, what is my goal for this blog? My goal is to provide resources, information, and community to other preschool homeschooling parents so that they can make informed, well-supported decisions about how to approach the education of their young children. I want to keep this blog organized and very structured - not because I like structure (I'm generally quite messy), but because I want parents to be able to find the type of information they are interested in easily.

Thirdly, where am I coming from? I don't come in to this project with a lot of preset ideas about the best way to homeschool preschoolers. In fact, about the only idea I clearly have is that there are a lot of ways to approach homeschooling for toddlers, and different families will flourish with different pacing, goals, and levels of structure. We'll probably be moving around between different approaches for a while ourselves, until we find something we like.
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Finally, here is the tentative schedule for the type of information I will be posting:

Big Picture Mondays: 'Big Picture' articles will deal with subjects like homeschooling philosophy, information about child development, current homeschooling news, and other abstract information. Often, this post will set a "theme" for the week.

Resource Tuesdays: Here, I will be picking one useful resource or a small group of related resources for parents and looking at it in-depth, sort of like a review. This could be any kind of resource that I think homeschooling parents might appreciate.

Wordless Wednesdays: A photo from my family's daily life during the last week, usually related to homeschooling, that speaks for itself - although I might include an occasional caption. These might be low-quality at first, as we currently don't have a good camera and will be using our cell phone.

Lotsa Links Thursdays: Collections of links, usually related to a specific theme but occasionally just miscellaneous stuff for homeschooling preschoolers, for your browsing enjoyment. Anywhere from a few to dozens of posts, depending on topic.

Lesson Plan Fridays: I will post my own family's lesson plans for the next week every Friday. Keep in mind that much of our homeschooling is still "unschooling" and our lesson plans are not intended to be comprehensive. Even the small amount of structure we have is just an experiment right now.

Family Life Saturdays: This is where FatherBear and I reflect on how our homeschooling week went, what the girls learned, and life in general. This is likely to include photos, and we're discussing some video ideas as well.

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My hope is that this structure will let those of you who just want the facts or resources get what you need without too much work by going to the tags for Big Picture Monday, Resource Tuesday, or Lotsa Links Thursday. Those of you who want to get to know my family and join us in our homeschooling journey can subscribe to an RSS feed or visit the site daily and get to know us on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.

What do you think of this structure? Also, do you have a specific topic that you would like me to cover in the blog? Maybe something about homeschooling or preschoolers that you've been meaning to research? Please mention it in the comments. I want this blog to be useful for YOU, so tell me what you want to know.