i need some pump-up music! or a big microphone: let's get ready to rumble!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wait, that's not right either...oh well, here we go!
last year i homeschooled the girls (ladybug was 4, and sugarbee was 3). for 26 weeks, we focused on letter of the week activities and reading lessons for ladybug. we used Confessions of a Homeschooler's preschool letter of the week curriculum and supplemented with various things from pinterest. we had a magnificent time and finished the year doing unit studies based on our upcoming (now previous) trip to Arizona and the Grand Canyon (e.g., erosion, Hopi Indians, petrification, deserts, etc.). it makes me happy to walk into our "reading room" and see all the alphabet magnets the girls made last school year that are hanging on the back of our front door.
but - that was preschool. we're up with the big dogs in Kindergarten now! this year we're following more of a schedule and we're not jumping around to JUST whatever meets our fancy. we've joined a local Classical Conversations group that were're uber excited about. the girls each have a mom tutor (not me) introducing new science, history, timeline, geography, english, latin, and math memory work each week. most of it is set to music - so fun! we met yesterday for the first time, and already the girls know 7 major history timeline events, the history sentence describing Charlemagne's coronation, and the 7 major biomes - all by memory! which means - i know it all, too. i'm getting my second education.
the rest of our curriculum is as follows:
Math - Singapore Essentials K, math workbooks - dot-to-dot, shapes, etc.
Reading - How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, Explode the Code, Beyond the Code, All About Spelling, and other phonics readers, etc.
Handwriting - Zaner-Bloser Printing Power and other handwriting workbooks
Bible - Devotions for Little Girls, Preschool Exploring God's Love activity book, The Storybook Bible (the girls are drawing a picture of each Biblical account and will have their own illustrated Bible when we finish!), and We Choose Virtues
so that's that. we're ready for the 2013-2014 school year! of course that list doesn't include the hundreds of books we're checking out from the library. have i mentioned how much i am in love with the library?
now, to address some of the serious stuff about homeschooling...
the question that many people want to ask, but don't is: why homeschool?
i haven't figured out a super intellectually fabulous response yet. every time i think about it, it boils down to this: because i love spending time with my children. their childhood is precious to me, and i want to enjoy it with them more than traditional schooling would allow. also, the spiritual and character development of our daughters is the most important education we want to share with them. the more i've read about it, the more conferences i have attended, the more homeschool families i connected with, the more i realized that this was a path that i wanted to pursue with our family.
it doesn't require more patience than the average parent. we all have a few ounces of it, and we're all tested many times daily (homeschooling or not). i still raise my voice every single day and i loose my cool and have to check myself before i respond to the girls. everybody's a work in progress!
and "socialization" isn't the issue everyone thinks it is. the crazy weird homeschooler kid idea is outdated, y'all. i know several "normal," precious, generous, intelligent, socially not awkward adults that were homeschooled. i know many more weird, unintelligent, socially awkward traditionally-schooled adults.
also, we're not trying to isolate ourselves from others, nor do i dislike private Christian schools or public schools. i graduated from public school and i've worked at a private Christian school; they were great. They had their "issues," of course, but so will our homeschool! and nothing's written in stone. we're doing Kinder and will continue to evaluate our family and our girls throughout the process...every school year.
i'm ready for this family adventure and the new things we get to enjoy together because of it. finished with school by noon? sounds good to me. lunch with dad at his office? cool deal. random weekly vacations during the school year? bring it, baby! not getting that subject? let's spend more time on it until we get 'er done! so many exciting possibilities!
toodles and God's blessing on your school year - wherever it may be!