eclectic

Our 2nd Grade Homeschool Schedule and Curriculum (with Pre-K too!)

~ shelli ~ 15 Comments

 

I love new school years! It’s an accomplishment to close out the previous year and plan a new one, and in the beginning of the year, everything feels so tidy and structured. I like structure, but I try to remain flexible about our schedule as the year goes on. It’s inevitable that new priorities will pop up, and some of what we do will fall to the wayside. But I think that is what is awesome about homeschooling – you get to be flexible. You get to follow your instincts about what is best for your kids on any given day. Just do that, and you’ll do great.

The five-year-old joins us.

My boys just turned eight and five! I am considering them in 2nd grade and Pre-K. This is the first time I’ve attempted to do any formal work with my five-year-old, and that’s because I can tell he’s ready for it. Earlier last year he would play while my older son did his lessons, but later in the year I noticed he would hang out at the table and watch/listen as his brother would practice reading. So earlier this summer I offered him a little ABC workbook, and he gleefully cheered “yes! yes!” After that he demanded what he termed his “reading lesson” everyday, even when I wasn’t planning to do it. Now he’s happy to take a day off, but he still likes doing his reading lessons alongside his brother.

What has changed since last year.

I have a popular post from last year about our first grade schedule and curriculum, and I always worry when a post becomes popular because we remain in flux, and while I try to write the truth of any given moment, the next month we might change what we’re doing! But I’m relieved that as I look back over last year’s schedule, not too much changed. But a little did:

  • I nixed the stretching fairly quickly. My boys just hated it. It felt useless to keep trying even though I still think they could use it.
  • When I wrote that post, we had a Friday morning bi-weekly class, and I thought we might have the occasional play date then too. Well, the class didn’t go, and neither did the play date, but later we enrolled my son in his pottery class, which was on Friday mornings for eight weeks, so the schedule didn’t really change after all.
  • Other than this, we kept that schedule fairly well, although we definitely had days when we didn’t do our lessons because other things took priority. I used it as a compass to get back into a routine when I felt we needed it. (Mostly I need it to stay sane. The boys would be fine with just playing everyday.)

So below is our weekly plan this year. It’s not too different from last year.

2nd grade MOL Weekly HS Schedule copy

What this doesn’t reflect: It doesn’t reflect all the little things that pop up like play dates that I don’t have a regular date for on my calendar and all the outings we do as a family, which could be considered field trips. We like to go hiking and to museums and other places of interest whenever we get the chance. Some days we may just go shopping. It also does not reflect my son’s project time.

Project Time

Last year our lessons were shorter, so we had an hour or more for projects in the mornings before lunch. This year, our lessons are taking us right up until lunch, so here is what I’m going to experiment with this year:

Since I want my son’s projects to have priority, every Monday morning I get our project notebook and go over what he’s told me he wants to do. He gets a lot of ideas that he doesn’t follow through with, and that’s okay. He’s in charge of his education. He knows that if he wants to build something or learn about something, we will make time for it. I’ve told him I’m willing to skip our lessons completely, if needed. So far this year, however, he hasn’t been doing anything that he needs me for, or either he seems to make small inquires at other times of the day. He does have one thing he wants to make that we don’t have the materials for yet, so when we get everything, we’ll do that. I’m also wondering how I can spur him on to dig deeper into his latest interest – Star Wars. I’ll write about how all this goes in the future.

Curriculum

Our curriculum is very eclectic. I choose our curriculum based on 1) what I think my kids will actually like and 2) what we have on hand or can find conveniently and/or cheap. I get a lot of resources from teacher-friends, though I don’t use a lot of that stuff. I have bought little workbooks and things on sale over the years and saved them. I have bought some things full price because I thought they were perfect for my boys. Buying a full curriculum that would cover everything has never seemed prudent when each subject requires its own strategy for my boys’ particular needs.

The weekly plan.

I have told my eight-year-old that he has to learn reading, writing, math, etc. The law requires them, and he understands that. But I also tell him we’ll go slow, at his pace, and we’ll try to use books and resources that he likes. This is not always easy, and I’m always wondering when I should nudge or pull back. This is just an ongoing part of homeschooling, I think, and I try to use my good instincts, though they fail me at times.

I am still not completely comfortable with unschooling my eight-year-old or using project-based homeschooling as our sole means of education, though a big part of me wants to do just that. I have opted instead to require him to do just one page in a workbook (to help build his handwriting and reading skills) and read just one or two pages in a book. If it gets hard for him, I usually make him finish at least part of what we’re working on, and then I take a break from it the next day or use a different resource. As I said before, I am willing to take long breaks from our lessons and work on his projects too. But I feel a slow progression in the fundamentals is important, and he is progressing, and I’m happy with that.

This is my order of things that happens between breakfast and lunch unless we have an appointment outside the house or a project to work on. Sometimes we don’t finish before lunch, but we usually do.

Read aloud – This is new. I have sorely missed book time, which is what I did when my son was little. Now we don’t have time in the a.m. for everyone to pick one or more books of their choice, so I’ve decided this is the time I get to pick one book of my choice. I can cover a lot of different subjects this way. (In the evenings before bed, my husband and I read to the boys, and they get to pick the books they want.)

1 Page Workbook – I have purchased simple workbooks (the kind you can get at Walmart or Target or teacher’s stores), and this year I’m having them each do one page each in a workbook. My eight-year-old hates the physical act of writing, so this is kind of an experiment, but also a slow way to build up his muscles and just get him used to writing a little bit. Below are listed the workbooks my boys have completed or are working on. (We started this during the summer, btw!)

The eight-year-old

–I started him out in an easy kindergarten workbook in which he only had to trace and write letters. This is because, as I said, he hates the physical act of writing, and I just wanted him to get used to having to write a little.

–I was not in the market to buy more workbooks, but we were in Barnes and Noble one day, and I happened to find Brainquest’s Star Wars workbooks. I picked them up because both my sons love Star Wars. I’m not so dumb as to think my eight-year-old will also love the workbooks, but if I can make doing what he dislikes a little more fun, I’ll try it. And the reading workbook happened to cover just the things I want him to work on. So we’re just now starting Star Wars 2nd Grade Reading. This is already proving to be difficult, and he’s in tears over it. It’s not that he’s not smart enough to complete the work, he just hates doing it. I may have him do only 1/2 a page at a time or pick and choose the pages. Part of me would like to nix it. Not sure what to do yet.

The five-year-old is my easy kid! He likes doing these workbooks! (I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that he loves drawing too.)

–Stick Kids Workbooks: Amazing Mazes

–A+ Alphabet Workbook

–A+ Numbers 1-12 (He’s almost finished with this.)

After this, I’m going to have him start:

—Brainquest’s Star Wars Workbooks: Kindergarten Writing & ABCS

—Brainquest’s Star Wars Workbooks: Preschool Number Fun

Reading Lesson – This is for the eight-year-old, but the five-year-old usually listens. I have him read 1-2 pages in a book. We have worked through most of the follow-up books recommended at the end of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We have two more to go on that list, and I’m hoping he’ll be willing to finish those books, but I’m not going to push him. I’ve had great success at letting him read books about the things he loves most, which are Legos’ characters and Superheros. We just finished Scholastic’s Super Heroes Save the Day! It makes a huge difference when he can read something like this versus any other book. I will probably alternate this will the workbook because doing both in one day proves to be too difficult.

Starfall – This is for both boys, although I didn’t tell my eight-year-old that. I asked him if he would sit with his younger brother and go over all the phonic reading lessons, games, books, and videos on Starfall.com.  They do about two rows every time they sit down to do this. I knew my five-year-old could benefit from it, but I wanted my eight-year-old to get the review as well as gain confidence in his reading ability. It’s working well, and my eight-year-old is shining as “teacher.” They don’t do this everyday, but they are almost finished with all fifteen rows on the website. I’m not sure if we’ll continue this, or go to other sections on that site.

Math – This is for the eight-year-old, but the five-year-old usually listens. We started right in on the next Life of Fred book this year! We are working on Life of Fred: Dogs, which is the fourth book in the series. I have considered changing our math curriculum in the past, but now I feel confident that the quirky story format of Life of Fred is perfect for my eight-year-old. (We are story lovers around here, after all.) I think Life of Fred does a great job teaching him what he needs to know, and when I feel it’s getting a little above his level, we just stop and practice math in other ways until I feel he’s ready to move on. Doing math twice a week still feels just right. If this book starts to get too hard, we’ll pause it awhile and practice math with other resources for awhile.

Science – This is new, although science has always been a huge part of our homeschool. I’ve never made time for it during our lesson time because my son’s projects, the homeschool science classes, the books he picks to read, and all the documentaries we watch daily have skyrocketed him well beyond 2nd grade science! Despite all this, I have a goal to study science in a more systematic way, especially when he gets older. And, this year, his pottery class conflicts with homeschool science, so we’ll have to miss out on those for the first time. (I’m really sad about that, although a little relieved to have a lighter class schedule.) Each year, I seem to be able to weave one more thing into our homeschool. Last year, it was art. This year, it’s science. (I hope by next year, I’ll find a way to take our Spanish lessons to a higher level.) We’re starting with something simple. I happened to have DK’s 101 Great Science Experiments, so we are working through this book and doing 1~2 science experiments a week. By the way, the first time I asked my son if he had a project he wanted to work on, he said, “Can’t we just do the experiments?” So, in a way, this is still his project.

Spanish – I wanted to find a better program to work on, but in some ways, I think watching Salsa is still the best bet for my boys so that they don’t lose interest in Spanish. I still write down the vocabulary, and I watch every episode with them – because I want to learn Spanish too!

Art – Last year at this time, I felt like we didn’t have enough art in our homeschool (despite all the craft and building projects that my son initiated on his own). I wanted to be able to teach a little bit about different artists and techniques. It’s also a part of project-based homeschooling to introduce children to new tools and techniques so that they’ll have a variety of mediums they can choose from when working on their own projects. I’m proud of myself for working in several art lessons last year and establishing a sketchbook habit with my younger son, who loves to draw. This year, we’re going to make Fridays our art days, and I’m using Amy Hood’s fun Art Together e-zines as my guide. Right now we’re learning about printmaking techniques and the artist Hokusai. When my son begins his pottery class, I’m planning to use that time for sketch booking with my five-year-old.

This is probably the longest post I’ve ever written, and it may seem like a lot on the page, but it only encompasses about 1~2 hours of our day. If you have been following my blog, you know that we do a lot of other things, and we have certain priorities for our boys that haven’t change. In brief:

  • We want them to have time to move, play and explore the things they love. In the afternoons and early evenings, they have lots of time to do the things they love the best, including playing with Legos and a variety of other toys, playing games on their tablets, and watching T.V. Sometimes we go to play dates, sometimes we cook together, and sometimes we play games together. But this is also the time I have to work and get my chores done. I feel grateful for homeschooling because I feel it is creating a strong bond between my boys, and they are learning to be independent doers!
  • We want them to love nature, and they do. But we make a point of getting out into nature a lot by visiting parks and going hiking. My son will slowly be working toward earning the third junior ranger badge this year too.
  • We also keep a garden, and in the evenings after dinner, you might find the boys and me outside watering it and picking ripe tomatoes. I find that by late August and September, the boys are less interested in this though. But I don’t mind having a few minutes alone outside!

Our 1st Grade Homeschool Schedule and Curriculum

~ shelli ~ 35 Comments
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***

Whenever I come up with a “schedule” and “curriculum,” I find it’s best to think to myself we’ll just see how this goes. While I love to have some plans and predictability, in this family I need to go with the flow.  (That’s easier said than done sometimes.)

I consider my plans to be like a compass that can point me back to our main path if we get lost, but if we find a better way, we’ll continue our course. There are also times when it feels prudent to do something else with the boys, or maybe I just need to get some cleaning done. The biggest benefit of homeschooling is its flexibility. I never want to get too rigid with a schedule, or I may miss some valuable teaching moments!

First day of school.

With that said, I came up with a class schedule before we started our official 1st grade year on September 3rd. You can see it below. Surprisingly, this has held up well, though we missed one week due to illness. My main goal this year is to help my seven-year-old gain better reading skills, though I’m going at his pace. I have made a point of getting these lessons out of the way first thing in the morning because otherwise I don’t think they’d get done. The reading lesson + math or Spanish lesson usually takes only 60-75 minutes to complete.

You may think I’m unwise to teach academic lessons only four days a week, and math only two days a week. Drilling my son is not what I want for our homeschool. I have found he has progressed just fine on a schedule like this. This is because we take it at his pace, we go over a concept again and again until he gets it, and going slowly has prevented me from having to hear too many moans and groans from him. He doesn’t like the formal lessons, but he knows they are necessary. He also knows we have time to do what is important to him.

(He will complain that we don’t have enough time to do all his projects, though! It’s hard to explain to a seven-year-old why we can’t do all the DNA kit experiments in one day! It’s hard to explain why mama can’t keep going all day or why I can’t jump up at every request for my help. I’m working on teaching him time management and how we have all the time in the world if we spread his projects out over the course of days or weeks. And hey – I’d love to hear from some of you, if you have any advice in this area.)

You can click this image to view it larger, if you want. It’s a two-week schedule because most of our classes and play dates are bi-weekly.

MOL Weekly HS Schedule

One more note about the schedule before I move on to our curriculum. Even though it looks very manageable with lots of free time, it’s amazing how stuff creeps in. Add a day camp, going to grandpa’s house or the library, shopping, cooking, cleaning, or going on a family field trip, and we stay very busy! Living 30 minutes from town makes our lives more complicated because it’s too tiring to go one place in the morning and then go shopping later. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel like we’re that free.

One of our current projects: DNA

Now for the nitty-gritty…

Curriculum

Stretch Time – This is new and experimental. For many reasons, I have started a short stretching, quasi-yoga time with the boys in the morning for about 15 minutes before lessons. I do simple stretches that I learned in grade school as well as some simple yoga poses, and we make up animal names for them. My four-year-old came up with the “sperm whale” pose! My aversion-to-any-physical-activity seven-year-old does not like this at all. So I’m thinking hard about how I can make it more appealing, or if I’ll ditch it altogether. If we continue this practice, I will be sure to write about it in the future. For a good beginners guide on yoga for adults, I have been enjoying eckhartyoga.com.

Reading – Teach a Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Yes, we have returned to this book, and we have started at Lesson 50. You can read our previous experience with it here. (You can read 1st Grade Homeschool Reading and Finished 100 Easy Lessons!)

Math – I have not returned to Life of Fred yet. I felt like we needed some more time on certain concepts, so I’ve been using workbooks that I picked up at Target and a teachers’s store. The boys are also enjoying the game Sum Swamp. I highly recommend it! (UPDATES: You can read 1st Homeschool Math and Teaching Children About Money as follow-ups. Later, we finished Life of Fred: Cats! You can see how this year panned out in Our First Grade End of Year Review and Progress Report.)

Spanish – My son has said several times he wants to learn Spanish, but I know I have to be careful about how I approach this, or he will change his mind. I feel very fortunate to have found the show Salsa, which is available online for free from Georgia Public Broadcasting. He loves it. We are keeping a Spanish journal and writing down the key words that each episode focuses on, and we read over all the words before we watch. (I do the writing here – at this point I want learning Spanish to be fun, and I don’t care if he doesn’t remember the words.) My son also requests for me to read the synopsis and a page or two of the English transcript of the show before we watch just to give him an idea of what’s happening. This has been a fun, slow-paced way to introduce him to the Spanish language, and now he knows a handful of Spanish words! I’m planning to make some Spanish labels of household items to put up around the house in order to remind me to use a little Spanish throughout the day.

Project time – THIS IS THE MAIN FOCUS OF OUR HOME EDUCATION, and if you don’t already know what this is, you need to read What is Project-based Homeschooling. This is the time I have set aside for my son’s projects, and unless we sleep very late in the morning, it usually works out to be about two hours before lunch. But this doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes work on his projects on the weekends or in the afternoons. Projects also weave their way into our book time and family outings. To see a list of my son’s projects, look at my page Project-based Homeschooling projects page. You’ll see his projects have covered most other requirements in a Typical Course of Study, particularly science. My son is a little biologist!

Art – My son does a lot of art on his own, so I thought he would benefit from and enjoy some formal lessons. I would love to do this everyday, but I don’t want to discourage him from making his own art and creations, so I put it on the schedule for Friday mornings when we are at home. (Most Fridays we are not. We have one bi-weekly class (which may or may not continue), a once-a-month class, and an occasional play date on Fridays.) However, I am not bound to this schedule. Last Saturday we did our first art activity! I may try to continue using the weekends, if the boys want something to do. (UPDATE: MARCH 2014 – I just posted Homeschooling: 1st Grade Art Explorations, which goes deeper into this subject.) Here are my resources:

(NOTE: You can find out how well this schedule and curriculum held up in my post about our 2nd grade homeschool schedule and curriculum.)

The seven-year-old’s painting with homemade egg tempura paint.

But There’s Not Enough Time for Everything

Unfortunately, there’s not enough time for everything! There are so many things I want to do with the boys, but there aren’t enough hours in the day to do it all. However, I know we’ll fit in the following things whenever we can!

  • Book time – There are still days when we sit on the sofa for a long book time, but I miss doing this everyday. Once the kids are solid in their reading skills, perhaps our reading lesson time can turn into a book time when everyone takes turns reading.  However, we do read books every evening. It’s part of our evening routine. Currently, my husband is reading the Magic Tree House series to my seven-year-old. They are on book #25! (Good history lessons!) I look at storybooks with the four-year-old.
  • Nature Exploration, Nature Journal and the Junior Ranger Program – These are on-going activities that get done when they get done.  Fortunately, we’re a nature-loving family, so getting out into nature is part of our lifestyle, but sometimes I feel like we don’t do it enough.
  • Diary – Last year I began a diary with my seven-year-old by letting him dictate to me what he wanted to write. I have been greatly inspired by Patricia Zaballos and her blog, Wonder Farm, for strategies on teaching kids how to write. The diary was a huge success, but unfortunately, it was too much of a success! I started by letting my son dictate to me in the evenings. Well, he wanted to dictate every. detail. of. his. day. Argh! There was no way I could write so much. We could have spent over an hour on it every night in addition to our other evening rituals! So unfortunately this came to a halt, and I haven’t found a good way to get started again. He is less willing to dictate now too! I think I ruined it by putting time restraints in it! 😦 Back to the drawing board on this one…
  • Puppet Shows – If you have been reading my blog for a long time, you may remember how puppet shows were a integral part of our day during my son’s Pre-K year. Unfortunately, we don’t do them anymore, although the boys will play with the puppets sometimes. I have been wondering how I can get us back into this, even one day a week. Hmmm.

Don’t homeschool if you want a neat house.

What we do find time for…

  • Watching lots of educational television – As I’ve written before, I don’t mind that my children watch a lot of television as long as it’s quality T.V. and as long as they’re balancing T.V. time with plenty of other activities. Before getting married, I wasn’t a T.V. watcher, but I’ve been sucked in, and I have to admit, I like the shows we watch together, and my sons watch mostly educational kids shows on their own. (And a few purely entertaining ones.) I have a pinterest board where I pin some of these shows, if you’re interested.
  • Storytelling – I still tell my seven-year-old a story every night before bed. My husband tells the four-year-old stories.
  • Down time – Down time usually means digital device or T.V. time for my boys. Fighting against this has done nothing but cause stress for me, so I’ve learned to just go with it, which I wrote about in my series about T.V. For me the ideal down time is sitting on my front porch enjoying some beautiful weather.
  • Play time – Fortunately, my kids always seem to be in ‘play mode,’ but I want to make sure they have time to play by themselves. Sometimes they play with friends. Sometimes they play together. Sometimes they want to play with their dad or me. I hope they’ll remember a childhood full of playtime.
  • Outside time – I used to have no problem getting my kids outside. Now we’ve gone through a spell where I’ve had to be more intentional about getting them outside, but we do like the outdoors as a family, so I know it’ll always be part of what we do.
  • Cooking – And believe it or not, I’ve started cooking more and having the boys help me in the kitchen! You can read more about this in My Menu Planning Resolution.

Wow! When I write it all down, I wonder how we manage all that! But somehow we do…one step at a time.

If you have actually read all the way down to this, I want to thank you for reading this monster post! See a list of the rest of my posts about 1st grade and how I’m approaching it differently with my younger son here. 

Recording A Homeschool Student’s Progress: The Homeschool Portfolio, Part 1

~ shelli ~ 15 Comments

{Homeschooling without a curriculum} {Eclectic Homeschooling} {Free print outs for your record keeping.}

Though I have seen countless blogs on the Internet offering advice on how to keep track of your child’s homeschool, I knew that I would have to come up with my own system or I wouldn’t stick to it.  So I write this post with a grain of salt and encourage you to do the same.  There’s no right or wrong here.

This past year was my “practice year” as I explained in my last post.  I’m really glad I took the effort to keep track of what we did because it has helped me create a system that I think I’ll stick with.

First of all, I don’t use a packaged curriculum.  I drew on different resources for my son’s “pre-kindergarten” year (which was actually kindergarten, and I’ll explain about that in my next post.)  Most people call this eclectic homeschooling.

I consulted a preschool and kindergarten “course of study” that used to be on the World Book Encyclopedia website.  I’m very disappointed they removed this page because it was very thorough, and upon reading whom they consulted to put it all together, I felt it was a good source.  Fortunately, Beverly Hernandez got permission to put this list on About.com before they took it down!  (Thank you, Beverly!)  You have to click on a lot of links to read all of it, but I’m grateful it’s there.  It’s comprehensive through the 12th grade.

I did not worry about covering everything on these lists, and I don’t think you should be either.  I was only intentional about teaching a few choice subjects: reading, math, the solar system, and the weather.  Everything else we covered through my son’s own interests!  Yes, that’s right!  (And I should note that after introducing him to the solar system and the weather, he took an interest in these subjects and we’ve done much more than I was planning.  Yay “mostly child-led”!) (Okay, so I’m intentional about storytelling too, but that doesn’t feel like work!)  Recently I went over these lists carefully, and I was able to check off every point except for one.  (Estimation, which is under math, so I’m doing that now.)

This is what I did this past year to keep track of our homeschool. To download these forms for free, see my printables page.

  • I created a Homeschool Chart that I kept on my desk at all times.  Across the top were all the subjects that I have to cover by law and other subjects important to me.  Since I walk by my desk several times a day, it was no problem checking off what we did and writing notes to help myself remember.
  • At the end of each week, I typed up a brief summery or Homeschool Journal.  I would list any books we read, chapters we covered, projects we worked on, outings, and classes.  Anything I thought was noteworthy. I knew I probably would not need all of these details, but I also felt it made a nice keepsake.
  • Last March I started an Excel spreadsheet for our Reading List.  I figured out that I can go online to my library account and copy and paste the list of book titles we checked out along with the author’s name and date we checked it out!  Then I put a checkmark next to them when we read them, or I deleted the row if we didn’t read it.  I keep another spreadsheet where I list books we own.  I’m adding to it as we read the books.
    • My strategy here was to take the stacks of books we read during “book time” and place them on my desk.  Then at some point during the day – or in the evening – I would update the spreadsheet.
  • Homeschool Portfolio:  I used a 3-ring binder to store the charts, the Homeschool Journal (which I printed out at the end of the year), some of my son’s work, the spreadsheets, pamphlets to places we’ve been, receipts for his classes and anything I bought for homeschooling. I plan to keep one binder for each year for each child. (I may just keep the past three years for our records, or I may consolidate them and keep some of it for a keepsake.)
    • I asked two facilitators from classes my son took to write up a brief report about him, and they were more than happy to do so.  I added these to the binder as well.

This sounds like a lot of work, but it didn’t feel like it because I came up with a strategy that worked for me.  I took the effort to make the chart and summary a habit, and I didn’t stress over fine details.

Last month (May 2012) I wrapped up the school year, and I wanted to commemorate it with a “pre-kindergarten” graduation.  To prepare for it, I wrote up a progress report as is required by Georgia law.  I’ll write more about that in the third part of this series, and I’ll share which parts of this record keeping I used and which parts I realized were not needed, and I’m debating whether or not to nix some of it.

I hope you’ll stay tuned by subscribing to my blog in the right-hand margin, and I hope you’ll share with me your record-keeping strategies!

My Practice Homeschooling Year Is Over…

~ shelli ~ 9 Comments

What Did I Learn?

Note: This column was printed in the Barrow Journal on June 6, 2012.

Last week I wrote about the changes in the Georgia homeschooling law, which will go into effect during the 2012/2013 school year. This news was pertinent for my household since we’ll be filing the Declaration of Intent to Homeschool for the first time at the end of August when my son turns six-years-old.

I considered this past year my “practice year,” and I tried to set up a schedule for learning and a system for recording what my son accomplishes each day.  I’m happy to say I achieved these goals, so I feel confident as we file our Intent form and begin our official homeschooling journey.

For me, the purpose of homeschooling is so that I can tailor my son’s education to meet his needs and to create an environment where he won’t lose his love of learning.  For these reasons, I call our homeschool “mostly child-led,” for lack of a better term. 

Earlier in the year, I sorted out what I felt were the priorities for my children at their current ages of five and two.  At this age, I feel that fostering their imaginations, letting them play, move and explore nature is most important. They also need to be steeped in literature and storytelling and taught how to find answers to their questions.

With these things in mind, I set up a schedule when we spent time reading, storytelling, especially through puppet shows, and we also spent time on the computer researching snakes because my five-year-old loves snakes.  Creating a snake book is an on-going project, and it also helped teach him about writing, phonics, and measurement.

I did formal reading and math lessons with my five-year-old, but since his attention span is short, they were short lessons during his younger brother’s naptime. I also considered time with friends important for their socialization, and my son took several science classes at the Sandy Creek Nature Center in Athens.

I kept tabs on what we did in a variety of ways, and by the end of the year, I have learned what works for me.*   The most helpful tool I created was a chart that listed subjects across the top.  I included the subjects required by Georgia law (reading, language arts, math, science and social studies) as well as some additional subjects that are important to me.

The left-hand column listed the date, and every day I checked off what my son worked on that day and notes for myself.  At the end of the week, I typed up a journal-like summary of the work. I consulted a typical course of study for a kindergartener to get ideas on what to teach, though our library books and my son’s interests lead us through much of that naturally.

At the end of May, I decided that I wanted to do an informal graduation* for my son for two reasons.  First, I wanted him to understand what his “homeschooling” consisted of and why, and I wanted him to feel a sense of accomplishment.  I hoped this would also encourage him when we begin our new year.  Second, my mother-in-law was visiting, and I hoped that showcasing his work might help ease any discomfort with the idea of homeschooling.

I put together a 15-minute slideshow of all the photos I took through the year of my son’s work, projects and field trips.  Though it was a lot of work, it made me feel happy and satisfied that we’re on the right track.  I had not realized how much he had actually done until I created the slideshow!

The Georgia law requires that we write an annual progress report, and though I didn’t have to do it this year, I decided I’d try for the sake of my son’s grandmother and the rest of our family.  By doing this I realized that I will never consult that long, weekly journal I keep.  Instead, I used the photographs and my blog’s table of contents….two items I had not realized would be so helpful.

Because my son’s birthday is so close to the cut-off date, he would be entering Kindergarten this coming fall.  Because of that, I’ll still consider him a Kindergartener at home, though he may be learning at a higher level.*  Like all children, I expect he’ll do better in some subjects than others. What I love about homeschooling is that we can teach to his own level, and as evident in this past year, I see he is moving ahead through his own love of learning.

**Stay tuned for follow-up posts with more details and a print-out for you to use!