New Tactics

OK, I'm changing my approach, something that I'm sure will happen more than once throughout this year. Instead of haphazardly doing math, reading and science lessons, I've started to write a curriculum for the year. I'm OK with making kindergarten less formal than the other grades, but I've decided that since I consider this a practice year, I'd better practice.
So I've been writing up a curriculum for each subject the last week or so. Reading, Math, Social Studies, Science, Art and Music. It's pretty time consuming, but most of the time has been figuring out how to format it so that it will be a valuable tool for me throughout the year. I think writing a first grade curriculum will be a lot easier once I've gone through the steps for kindergarten, and seen how it plays out. Once again, I'm so thankful I have the time to experiment and figure out what works before I feel the pressure of doing things "just right." In fact, I already feel so much better about what we're going to accomplish, that I'm tempted to write a preschool curriculum for Sean. We'll see how much mental energy I have left when I'm done. I feel like I'm working harder on this than on any college paper I've done. Not that it's difficult, it just takes some real thought, research, and time.
The benefit of having a curriculum laid out is that I have goals and milestones to reach for and teach to. I'm not writing lesson plans, those will still be fairly spontaneous, but I can teach to each goal. When I check something off, we move to the next thing. And at the end of the year, if Ethan has reached most of the larger goals, then I will feel successful, regardless of where he is compared to other kids his age.