School Starts

I've decided, rather than post our homeschooling exploits on my personal blog, I'd just create a new one. That way, I can get into more details on what we're doing, what works for me, and just about homeschooling in general without worrying about my audience.

We officially started kindergarten this week for my oldest, Ethan. Sean, who is 4, participates in our lessons and gets almost as much out of them as Ethan does. I also have a two year old, and I'm expecting my fourth baby this September, so I thought I'd get a head start. Plus, I tend to work better when I'm not under pressure, so starting early will give me time to get creative and hammer out a workable schedule for our schooldays.

I am working out of the book "What your Kindergartner Needs to Know" from the Core Knowledge Series. I am planning on moving through the History/Geography and the Science sections, focusing on a new topic each week. I like that the book mostly gives just the information the kids need to know, and I can create activities that work to my kids' level of knowledge. I put books on hold from our local library pertaining to our subject for the week, and we will pick them up on Mondays.

For Math, we have the Saxon math for Kindergartners (which seems to be more on Sean's level), but I elaborate on it and make the activities a little more challenging. I also have the first grade curriculum, and since we do a lesson almost every day, I expect to get through a good portion of that before our school year is over.

Reading is less structured, but I try to weave it into all our subjects. We have "Bob Books" that we read occasionally, and they both do writing workbooks everyday. Both of my kids are on an advanced level for their age, but resist the sit down "reading lessons," so I think at this point, I'm going to let them dictate how much or little reading they want to do. I'm finding ways to work it in that they respond to--we have plenty of reading and phonics games.

More on our projects to come!