Homeschooling

Our first official week of homeschooling was last week.

We had to snap a "first day of school" photo:

Or two :)

I admit, I was very nervous. Not about teaching, or juggling three kids on different levels, but nervous that I would find excuses to skip school for a day, and just play. And then that would turn into skipping school for two days... a week... you get the idea. I'm not so structured in our day... And school? well... that's a lot more structure than I'm use to. More than I like.

Monday was rough. How do you balance a toddler who wants to do everything? I tried. I failed. And I ended up with 3 miserable kids... Nathan was overly tired because I let him skip naps. Ruth was frustrated because she couldn't do everything. And Faith was stuck in the middle. But Tuesday was a new day.

We had plans Tuesday morning, so we didn't get to do "school" till after lunch. It was perfect! We did story time and a craft, then Ruth went down for naps. Faith & Nathan stayed up to work on reading, math & other things. Then they went down for naps late. And I let Nathan have just 45 minutes of quiet time and then get up early to play while his sisters finished their naps. It was a perfect schedule! So we've stuck to it since:

Morning - playtime, or MOPS/BSF/Playdate/etc
11:30 - Bible Story, music & craft or science project
12:00 - Lunch
12:30 - Playtime
1:45 - Clean Up
2:00 - Ruth naps, big kids work on reading, writing & math
2:30 - Faith goes down for naps & Nathan does what Faith doesn't have the attention span for
2:45 - Nathan & Mommy's quiet times
3:30 - Nathan plays quietly
4:30 - Girls wake up

This schedule is working great so far and gives us plenty of flexibility to do anything we want in the mornings! Which is good, because this Momma's brain doesn't turn on in the mornings very easily... ;)  And yes, I realize that's only 1 hour for actual "school". But it's Preschool & Kindergarten stuff, people! The curriculum recommends 30-90 minutes a day. And you have to know that things get repeated many times a day, during playtime, or a meal, or bedtime, too. So it's working out just fine!

Plus, the curriculum starts off really basic. Things will start to get added to it around week 6, when enough letters have been introduced to start learning words. So I keep reminding myself that soon it'll take more time. And patience. Lots of patience ;)

My biggest surprise so far? How easy this is. There's not much different about the curriculum than what we were already doing on our own. Except the structure, which is good. The kids need it, even if I don't like it. And they'll learn better that way, too.

My goal this year is to get Nathan to learn to count to 100 by 1's, 5's and 10's, and gain basic math skills of addition and subtraction. Get him to be able to write all the letters. And help him begin to read. We've been warned that with Apraxia of Speech (what he quite possibly has), learning to read & write will be his last two obstacles. Hence we plan to do Kindergarten for 2 years. Although My Father's World curriculum is pretty basic stuff... it assumes a child cannot recognize or sound out any letters of the alphabet. Nathan has that down pat. So he's already a bit ahead. And he's still ok with taking it slow, since we go over it with Faith, and he's using the time to start learning to write his letters - he's taken on a bit of a big brother/tutor role, too. It's sweet.

For Faith, my goal is to help her be able to recognize all the letters of the alphabet and sound them out. I also want her to be able to learn to count to 20. I've realized that these are things Nathan has known longer than a year and I just haven't spent any time teaching them to Faith! I've just assumed she had been catching on. But she hasn't... Mommy fail! I also hope that this year Faith starts to learn to observe and pay attention more, and comprehend what she sees & hears better. If she starts to learn to read, too, bonus! But it's not expected.

We're also learning some new songs, a weekly Scripture verse and doing some fun crafts & science experiments throughout the year. If things keep up like they have so far, it'll be a fun year. And I'll learn some things too :)

We've turned the loft into our school room. I'll post pictures when we finish organizing it. We even got a great little desk for Nathan (Thank you, neighboring yard-sale-hosting homeschool mom!). I'd love to get a second one for Faith, but right now, they're content to be sharing.

We also signed Nathan up to do some Art & PE classes at the YMCA with other homeschool kids ages 5-10. I'll let you know how that goes, he starts next Friday :)

So far, so good. I hope this keeps up!